Anna's Photo Blog

L's Seed and Garden

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 21:05:08 -0600

We have a local store called Anderson's Seed and Garden. It is a fabulous place, where you can buy seeds by weight and just about anything else you need for a garden.

L decided she would have her own seed store, and she has been collecting seeds all summer-from the food we eat as well as from the weeds and flowers around here.

M made a sign for her too:

She hired M to help her run the store, and she paid M half the revenue. Here is L's Seed and Garden, under our apple tree in the back yard. Notice the piggy bank on the bucket, and there is a stick behind it, which is for scanning bar codes.

They have great customer service and were very helpful when I made my purchase. On this particular day, they were selling potted plants. L, as a self-proclaimed "botanist of wild edible plants," dug up edible weeds and potted them in yogurt containers to sell.

On this day they were selling seeds.

Here is a close up of what was for sale that day: moss, peas collected and dried from our garden, yellow columbine seeds gathered from the front yard, apricot pits, dandelion seeds, and cherry pits.

Random Garden Photos

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 20:52:45 -0600

Here are some peas we picked.

L planted a moss garden.

And here is Sparkles. He is so beautiful!

Here is Baby A after helping me weed the garden. She LOVED it! (That's some raspberry mixed with the mud on her face.)

Here is L with her pumpkin that she grew. It weighed 16 pounds, and she was so proud of it!! (M's pumpkin is still growing, we'll have a picture of that one eventually.) Shortly after we planted the seeds, L found a recipe for pumpkin cookies in the Friend magazine. Ever since then, she has been looking forward to harvesting her pumpkin so that we could make pumpkin cookies from it and give them to our neighbors. We did, and it was so much fun.

I found the most beautiful garden spider living in our tomato plants. I had actually been hoping and looking for one since I planted a garden last year. We took a bunch of pictures and then threw him a grasshopper to eat. It was fascinating to the girls (and me) to see him wrap the grasshopper up.

Flowers From Our Garden

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 20:47:42 -0600

More Summer Pictures

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 21:06:30 -0600

Family Reunion Camping Trip

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 20:28:01 -0600

Wow, what cute kids! :-)

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 14:55:18 -0600

I am trying to catch up, so forgive me for lumping two months worth of pictures into an entry, AGAIN. As I am looking over all the pictures to post, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for our children and our family. We have three of the VERY best kids ever! (I am allowed to say that because this blog is mostly for their grandparents. ) And not only are they so cute, they have kind hearts and they are sweet and good and so very enjoyable! It is a privilege to be their mother! It is impossible for me to put into words the great joy that I have in my family. Nothing beats that feeling that comes in those moments when everything is going perfectly in our family as we work, play, and love together. It is no wonder that the family is ordained of God. The family is where we have our greatest joy, our greatest blessings, and our best opportunities for learning and growth of all kinds. And, I have come to understand so much more about God and His nature and His relationship with us through being a parent. What blessings!

(Wow, I just wrote a real paragraph on this blog. Just don't get used to it. )

And now, onto the pictures:

L lost her first tooth!

Goofball M wearing the ears she colored from Primary. (They are on a string tied around her head.)

This is the train at the American West Heritage Center.

Their favorite part was riding the ponies. There weren't many people there so they got an extra long turn.

Kittens

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 22:21:25 -0600

We got some kittens this spring. They are so incredibly friendly and sweet.

The gray one is named Sparkles. He is a boy, but the name was picked out months in advance, so he is stuck with it. He is very cuddly and loving.

Tiger is a girl. She is also very loving.

They both are very gentle and put up with anything. I think they really truly love every minute with L and M, even being carried around like this:

L and M are very gentle and good with them, but Baby A gets a little too excited and wants to grab them. She has managed to grab them a couple of times, but they do not retaliate at all. They both will just sit patiently while I work A's hand open. (Even the time Baby A grabbed Tiger's face with both hands!) And then they will scurry two feet away so that they are just out of reach. Over the months, Baby A has gotten pretty good at petting them softly, so as long as A is on my lap, Tiger and Sparkles love to rub up against her and be with her. They are smart and know that if Baby A is by herself, it is best to stay just out of reach.

March and April Pictures

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:05:12 -0600

More Pictures of Baby A

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 21:41:37 -0600

Our New Baby

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:57:15 -0700

Some of the Better Parts of Our Garden

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 22:00:00 -0600

Goats

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 23:10:25 -0600

10 days ago, we got three goats. They are Nigerian dwarfs, which are quite small. Goats are extremely social, and can be as friendly as a little puppy dog who follows you around. Ours came from a herd of 100+ goats, so they did not start out that tame, but they are quickly becoming so. They are also very gentle, other than accidentally stepping on someone's foot every once in a while. Both L and M love them so very much. L spends lots of time out in the pasture with them. Her time is now split pretty evenly between her bike and the goats. L helps take care of them, and in some ways, she has kind of taken charge. It has been incredible to see a whole new confidence in L as she works with them.

This is Jasmine. She is a year old, and she is a mini-nubian, which is part Nigerian Dwarf and part Nubian.

This is Daisy, who is purebred Nigerian Dwarf. She is about 3 ½ months old.

This is Brownie, also a purebred Nigerian Dwarf. She is about 7 weeks old. (And small enough to fit through the fencing. It's a good thing she would rather stay with her friends.)

All these pictures were taken within the first 24 hours of having them, and the goats were too shy to get any good pictures with people. Too bad you'll have to wait until the next time I can download pictures onto my computer to see how friendly they are with the girls now.

L said, “I have three goats. We have a chocolate one, her name is Brownie. All of our goats are girls. We have two baby goats. When you come to our house to see Daisy, you would think she is 4 years old, but really she is a baby. The mommy goat is Jasmine, she is black and white just like Daisy. I tamed them, in about two days. I like to chase them, and they like that, especially little Brownie. We are getting ready to show the goats in the fair. We have to clean them so that they look pretty so that we can go to the fair. The fair has a little maze to bring your goat through. I'm sure I'll get lost in that maze. (She says with a grin.) Brownie is my favorite, because she follows me around.”

Other Fun Things Around Here

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 23:08:30 -0600

M has helped me tons in the garden. I am sure L would too, but she is always gone riding her bike. M planted two rows of beans with me (she put all the seeds in the ground), and she helps me pull weeds, and turn the water on and off. She loves to use all the tools, like rakes and hoes. Sometimes she just stands there with me and rubs my back and talks to me while I pull weeds up and down the rows.

This picture is from our first cookout over the fire pit. Here is M eating her first s'more ever. She pulled all kinds of faces because of the mess-the strings of melted marshmallow from her mouth to her hands, and the chocolate squishing out onto her fingers. It was really funny to watch, and I was laughing so hard that she started pulling faces at me too. She only ate about 2/3 of the s'more before she decided that the mess just wasn't worth it.

Here are a few of our neighbors.

Oh, and L turned 5 in June. Hard to believe, I know. I feel like they have both grown tons in the last little while!

Birds

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 23:07:37 -0600

We had some robins build their nest above the light outside the garage. The girls loved watching them grow up and then fly around the yard for a few weeks while their parents taught them all about life. The robins especially like hunting for worms in our garden.

We had a couple of black-capped chickadees build their nest inside the trunk of our plum tree. Here is one of the babies poking his head out of the hole. The next morning after taking this picture, David and the girls were sleeping outside in a tent, and something crashed into the tent and made a log of commotion. We think it was probably the babies flying out of the nest for the first time and crashing into the tent, which was not too far away.

We have really enjoyed all the colorful birds. L got a bird identification book and binnoculars for her birthday, and we have all put them to good use, but especially her. She has been really interested in all the birds up here from the beginning. She and I both discovered a new bird that we hadn't seen before, on the same day, but independently. It turned out to be this black-headed grosbeak.

She can even tell you the differences between the males and females. Here is a picture David took of a western tanager.

This is what L wanted to tell all her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins:
“I have a new friend, who is Jackson, and he has a bike that doesn't have training wheels, just like me. And I have a friend Markelle, who has a two wheeler bike just like me and Jackson. And I also like my friend Kenzie. I like my new net, so I can catch lots of butterflies. There are lots of butterflies up here. My friends are 5, 9 and 12 years old. We have new birds that we have never heard about, like one is the tanagers, red-winged black birds, and the grosbeak, and the black-capped chickadee, which is the who-who bird. The who-who bird is my favorite, and it talks to me and talks to me and talks to me every day. And I just go who-who back to it. And I learned that robins have white kind of by their wings. Oh, and there is one more bird that I love, it has a white head and the rest of it is light brown, but we couldn't find out what kind of a bird it is yet.”

L's Bike

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 23:02:35 -0600

Shortly before moving, L was given a bike from a very kind neighbor. She had a lot of fun with it, but there wasn't a whole lot of space to ride it around. And I wasn't available to watch her as often as she would have liked. After we moved, she was suddenly FREE! She spent hours and hours on her bike, and two months later, she still hasn't gotten bored of it. I think she is on her bike more often than not!

We have a nice private lane that we share with just one other house, so we don't have to worry about cars at all. L wakes up really early and here, she can go out and ride her bike before I am even awake. I love, love, LOVE not having to worry about her!!

I think I am going to start including things in L's and M's own words on the blog. So here is what M wanted to say: “I like my car. I like to go clear to the main street and then I go back to our home. And I like going on bike rides.” (Riding in the trailer behind Mom's bike.)

In June, L learned how to ride without training wheels, and wow, is she good! I can't put videos directly on this blog, but you can go here to watch a cute 3-minute video of L riding her bike just minutes after her Dad took the training wheels off. (Let me know if the video doesn't work for you.)