Our First Garden

So we have lived quite a few places since we have been married and this is our first home that has the potential for a garden.  We decided to take advantage of it and try our hand at gardening.

This is our garden space in our backyard.  It doesn't look like much, but we are going to make it great.

We started digging out all the weeds and rocks.  It really isn't the best place for a garden.  Our neighbors said that it used to be a rock garden, so there really were lots of rocks that made it much harder to dig.  But it became a good family project.

Will bought little shovels for Rachel and Whitney to use.  Rachel could only handle using the shovel for a couple minutes and then she would just start throwing dirt around - quite entertaining.

Continuing to dig and making it bigger.

Will has some work gloves that have been great for all the rocks and thorny weeds, so Whitney wanted gloves too.  She doesn't have any work gloves, but insisted on using her winter ones.  It didn't take long before she decided the gloves were too dirty and not useful.

This is our final garden space.

My mom gave us some seeds that we could use for our garden.  We planted two kinds of lettuce, corn, pumpkin, cantaloupe, onion, and sunflowers.  I hope that something grows with all the work we have put into it so far.  We will keep you posted on what happens.

Thanks for all the gardening advice from our parents who have a lot more experience with growing vegetables.  I hope we will get some fresh veggies in a couple of months.

Oh What a Mess...

...That a toddler can make in a short time.  This post is dedicated to the amazing way toddlers can make messes when you aren't paying attention.

We had a veggie side tray for dinner and Rachel was not content with just eating the veggies - not when everyone else was dipping them into ranch dressing.  I don't know how much carrot made it into her mouth, but she did get a lot of dressing.

Rachel wants to feed herself and I know it is an important skill, so I, sometimes, let her go at it with a spoon and a mostly empty yogurt container.  And what good would yogurt be without a magazine to go with it.

Apples and peanut butter.

Need I say more.  If you look closely, you can see a peanut butter moustache and very peanut buttery hands.

The girls both had a fever one day this last week.  I am not sure what could have caused it, but they both felt miserable.  So I let them watch lots of Full House and eat popsicles.  The red one for Rachel was a bad choice because it dripped all over her legs and I kept thinking her lips were bleeding because they were stained red for the rest of the day.

There managed to be a crayon and block explosion while I was otherwise occupied.  She doesn't look too guilty though.

We were working outside and ended up talking to our neighbors for a little while.  That left Rachel to her own devices, which consisted of throwing dirt in the air and giggling when it landed on her leg.  She was a mess when we got to her.

So those are some of our messes of the last couple weeks.  Now if our toddlers could only do more cleaning up.

the happenings

We took a quick trip up to Pasco again this weekend to see one of Courtney's Friends from School. Micah was down with her family and we got to see her new baby Adalicia

the next day a new Pasco Library Branch was opening, and so they were having a party, so we showed up and go to see some of the sights. here we are eating snacks

Here are singers that were performing from the local music school

A visit from Dora the Explorer , and the kids almost looked at her!!

There was a lady doing balloon animals and, and she was giving out some really fancy ones, just as we got to the front of a long and slow moving line, she saw that her line was long, and she started going out very simple balloons to all the kids. so we were one person away from being able to get a Elmo balloon, so instead the girls got flower ones

Inside the library in the kids section there was a big mushroom to sit next to, and then several little mushroom stools for kids to sit on

Rachel started being very excited to wear her shoes wile we were there, but would start wearing them on her hands. she was very proud of herself, but did not like walking around with her feet up in the air.  

Courtney was enjoying some animal crackers in peanut butter until the kids decided that looked good, so they Courtney had to make sure they did not touch anything after that. but they did all have fun dipping animal crackers and getting their hands all peanutbutteriffic.  

And not to be out done, Will decided to make a "tent" out of Whitney's blanket, at first we told stories, but then we needed to play break the ice, and Rachel had to play with us.  As much as we like Courtney, we are glad she did not join us in the tent, because it would have been very crowded in there

Visiting the McNary Dam

There doesn't seem to be a lot to do in Umatilla, but we do have the McNary Dam really close to where we live.  We decided to go visit it yesterday just to see.

Here we are at the top of the mountain.  You can see the dam in the background.  Everyone was happy to be out of the house for a little while.

There was a sign on top of the trail with a map and told of some information of things to look at in the area.

While we were looking at the sign, Whitney took off running down the trail.  It isn't very steep or dangerous, but we didn't want her getting lost or anything.  So Will had to run to chase her down.  You have to look hard to see them down the trail.  Rachel and I went partly down the trail while we waited.

Going down is much easier than coming back up the hill.  Whitney got a ride on Will's shoulders back up the mountain.

We drove down to the Oregon Fish View Room.  Whitney was really excited to see some fish.

Here everyone peers into the windows waiting for fish to come by.

I guess April really isn't the best month to see lots of fish - the chart says May is a lot better.  But we did see two fish in like the fifteen minutes we were there.  This one little fish got stuck in the corner, so Whitney got to watch him for awhile and she even gave him a name.

Anyway, we missed seeing the visitor center since it had just barely closed.  But that just means we will have to go back another day.  It was a fun little visit.

A Happy Easter and a Happy Move

Wow, it has been insane these past two weeks with the packing and the cleaning and then the unpacking.  But we are officially moved into our new house in Umatilla.  And so far we like it pretty well.  We also celebrated Easter in between all the craziness; it was good for the girls to be able to relax a little bit.  I feel like they have been a little ignored lately.  But no more now that the move is done.  Here are some pictures from the move and from our Easter in Pasco.

Look at this handsome man I had packing boxes - what a guy.  He always was willing to pack boxes, or the equally important job of distracting children so I could pack boxes, after coming home from work.

Our living room became the storage for all our boxes.  We were pretty cramped in there those last couple of days before the move.

And, look, you can see the floor.  We spent several hours cleaning Thursday evening and Friday morning.  It is amazing how much dirt and dust can settle without even knowing it until everything is taken out.

And this is our new house in Umatilla.  It has three bedrooms, so we are using one to hold extra children clothes and food storage.

And we have a backyard.  I am so happy that we have a fenced backyard that the children can play in.  Umatilla has nicer weather than Cheney, so we go outside to play pretty much everyday.  It seems like a decent house in a decent neighborhood.

We came back to Pasco for Easter to spend time with family.  Rachel spent a little time dying Easter eggs, but she doesn't like getting her hands dirty.  So she actually spent most of her time just playing in a cup full of water.

Whitney was the egg dying queen.  She, by far, did more than the rest of us.  She never wanted to keep the eggs in the dye for longer or color on any of them, so she managed to crank out quite a few.

We all made resurrection cookies for Family Home Evening before Easter.  Whitney is a good cookie helper.

And here we are on Easter Sunday.  I tried to get a family picture, but there was just too much grumpiness.  Oh well.  Rachel was very good at collecting candy.  She would try to fit all the pieces into her hands, and would end up dropping a lot of them, so it was entertaining to watch her.  Most candy did make it into the candy bowl.

Whitney also did a good job collecting candy.  You can kind of see her full bucket in the picture.  I think only a couple of pieces were eaten during the finding.  

Anyway, now things are more settled.  We are still exploring Umatilla to see what is out there.  It's a pretty small town.  But Will really likes his new job so far, so that is really good.