The Fruits (or veggies) of our labor...

Here's a reminder of how it started:

 

and now a month and a half later:

So far so good on our garden. Our 3 tomato plants are large with lots of blossoms

 

 and so far about 20 or so green tomatoes.

Our banana pepper is small, but has produce this guy! Now I need to figure out what to cook with it!

The jalapenos are still small as well, but one little pepper is coming along.

I'm not super hopeful on the squash, but we'll see. 

Still not quite as magnificent as my Grandma Fielding garden was growing up or my Mom's garden, but we're trying!

A morning ride...

 

About a month ago N8 and I decided it was finally time for us to get bikes. The kids had bikes, but neither he or I did. Since he is having to take a break from his running addiction while an ankle injury heals (no running for 4 weeks), he has taken up mountain biking. A friend from the ward had a bike that he was willing to sell N8 that was in good condition. They have been biking up in our hills several times a week, biking 10-15 miles each time up some pretty good hills.

I decided on a turquoise and white beach cruiser from Walmart (both the fun color and larger, comfier seat were an influence). We had some other friends that were in the market to sell their bike trailer, we tried it out, liked it and bought it from them.

Now we can all go out as a family on our bike. Also, Henry and I have been out several times while the kids are at school for a ride just the 2 of us.

This morning we had signed up to help clean the church building. I decided it would be nice to ride over to the church. N8 was running a little late from his morning ride so the kids and I headed over. They all did well. Mo has a harder time keeping up which meant I was riding really slow. It's hard to ride really slow pulling the trailer! But we made it and were only about 5 minutes late and the other 2 families cleaning with us hadn't got their yet either.

For the way home N8 took Henry in the trailer and I rode with Mo. It was a beautiful morning for a ride!

 

Silly gadgets...

Today while wandering around Walmart (which happens a little too often) I came across and gadget I decided I needed to try out. It is made to clean blinds. And boy are my blinds dirty and dusty. It was less that $3 and the verdict---positive! Simple and effective for cleaning the blinds. My only issue is it got dirty too fast and I only got one window done. Now i need to throw it in the wash and do another window!

Nerd Day...

Today was a "nerd" day at school. Emma made sure we had an outfit for her to wear. First she needed to know what a nerd was. I actually found it difficult to define for her:

Me:"It's a geeky smart person"

Emma: "What's geeky"

Me: "Well someone that's kinda dorky"

Emma: "What's dork"

Me: "It's someone that's smart that dresses silly"

Emma: "Oh ok!"

So here's what we came up with!!

Henry really wanted his picture taken too!

Happy Mom's day....

I have an amazing mom! She is handy, compassionate, loving, fun, happy, a fighter, and the best mom I could have ever asked for. As she has fought this terrible fight with cancer the last few years she has remained upbeat and optimistic in the face of difficult news over and over. I love you Mom and hope you have a fabulous Mother's day!!

Here are some of my favorite pictures of my Mom over the years:

 

Nails...

Emma has been a nail bitter for many years. One of my rules has been, no painting nails if you bite them. She finally broke the habit recently and today I painted her nails!! Woohoo, she was super excited!

RIP Escort

I've had my little Ford Escort since my Sophomore year at BYU (1999)!! Yesterday we said good-bye. It's been N8's work car since about 2004 or so and has served us well. But in the last few months we knew it was not going to pass smog and was going to cost more than worth it to us to fix. California has a program for recycling cars that don't pass smog, we applied, got denied, got reevaluated and got in!! Yesterday we drove it down to the dismantlers to turn it in to get smooshed and get a check (the program pays you $1000 for recycled vehicles).

Here I am saying good-bye!