This Is Us

  This year for New Year's Eve we went to Jeff and Abbie's house. We had yummy food, played games, watched movies, and our kids played with Jeff's and Alex's light sabers. I also made a sourdough loaf with a snowflake cut in it.

At our Niece's wedding they had a photo booth.  All of our kids were able to get in it together and the pictures are the cutest!  I sure love my kids!

We built the bathroom in the basement several years ago.  It leaked and we could never figure out why, so we decided to re-do it.  A couple days ago Nick took off the glass door and ripped out the old tile.  Today he started installing the new tile.  We picked a lighter glossy tile because that bathroom doesn't have a window and I thought it would help make the room brighter. It looks so good so far and I'm excited to have it finished.

  Our first gardening beds weren't tall because we didn't have to fill them up with much.  However, it was hard to pick the fruits/veggies, pull weeds, and made my back sore. So Nick has added metal to some of the boxes and built some new boxes taller.  We put cinder blocks and branches in them, then we filled them with dirt.  We moved the strawberries over and planted other stuff in the other new beds..  This will make it so much easier to garden out of. Hopefully we can get the rest of the garden boxes adjusted to taller ones and get other things growing in them.  It's so nice to have them taller... I love them so much!

It's starting to get warmer!  I am so excited for the warm weather.  It was so nice today that we spent some time out in our front yard! For Mother's Day last year, I got  This Patio Set .  I wanted one so we could sit in the front yard and have some shade. It was so nice to be able to sit in the front yard and watch my kids play.

  We went to Nick’s parent’s for dinner and an Easter egg hunt. It was so fun and so nice to be with his siblings and their families. Every year Dieter and Colleen put money in the eggs they hide. 

  This year (and last year) the Easter Bunny just came to four of our children, because Brichette is an adult! Xander sometimes has a hard time getting up, so we ended up letting the kids go through their “baskets” without him. Usually we have everyone up and go through together, but with this year and Xander being an adult (but not graduated) we just went ahead without him. They always get a new outfit, some candy, books and a few “toys”. The Easter Bunny doesn’t bring much “stuff”. Here are their “baskets” and a little bit of them showing me what they got.

  Tyler was baptized today. It makes my heart happy when our kids love the gospel and want to do the things Heavenly Father has asked us to do. He was so happy today! We didn’t have a luncheon afterwards because I had Allie’s Bridal Shower that I was doing. I wanted to make sure that Brichette could be off work, so that’s why I had it on the same day as Tyler’s baptism. Here are the two photos I got of his baptism.

Water is wonderful! It brings life to everything. It can also be devastating and destroy things. Here are some fun facts… Adults need to drink about 16 cups of water a day. Drinking more water than your kidneys can handle (about 27 to 34 oz. per hour) could cause hyponatremia, water intoxication. It can cause seizures, brain damage, coma, and even death.  Since 1991 there have been an average of 14 hurricanes per year. They cause an average of $148.4 billion a year in damages. All plants need water. Some more than others but on average they need 1 inch per week. Double that in the summer. Tap water has calcium, magnesium, and potassium. The oceans, seas, and bays make up 96.54% of the earths water. They cover 321,000,000 cubic miles on the earth.  We have a pond in our front yard and are seriously considering making it bigger. Did you know that having a pond is actually beneficial? You can read about the benefits in  This Blog Post .  What do you love about water?