We're scratchin' in the dirt....

This may be hard to believe if you live outside of Florida but planting season is here!!! We have planted our 2nd garden. The plants are about 5 inches tall. We have beans, peas, tomatoes, squash, and cantelope. Hopefully, we learned a few things from last year, like how not to over fertilize in our sandy soil. We didn't have a very high yield last year, because of the overfertilization. (The plants expended their energy on becoming huge and not productive). Not thinking about political correctness, Weston compared it to infertile over-fed Americans and fertile under-fed Africans. We also had a problem with mold that we never saw in Utah. It is amazing how different gardening can be depending on where you live. We are looking forward to having some yummy vegetables. Weston wants to plant strawberries in the fall. I hear they require quite a bit of upkeep, that I'm not sure he's up to. We read on an email that one of you sent about putting wet newspapers down to control the weed growth. I'm looking forward to trying it out. We saw a black snake out there that slithered between my legs while we were preparing the dirt for planting. We haven't seen him again, I don't know if the newspapers would be a deterent or invitation for him to come back. I hope it is a deterent, or I may not be back out to the garden for awhile. We're not too fond of snakes. I hope he doesn't like tomatoes!!!!

My Space?!!!!

So, I've been freaked out with myspace lately. I'm going to sound really old, but as a young women president I've become curious to see what our youth are faced with. It really scared me to see how much garbage is on there. There are so many of our LDS youth who use it. It really impressed the importance of teaching values and standards, especially at home. I think about Laurel and shudder at what she will face as the world becomes increasingly more wicked. How grateful I am for the gospel and the teachings of our prophets "to guide us in these latter-days!"

Getting Bigger!!!

I crawl, I climb stairs, and can walk with help. Watch out mommy, you never know what I will get into next. I was freaked out the other day when I saw Laurel had climbed 3 steps. She crawled off the bed on Valentines day. It gave me a big scare. She "unearthed" a tooth and a half that weren't visible before and took her first trip to the dentist at 7 months of age. She just started to clap her hands today for the first time and has started to say "bababa and dadada"in the past week.

Yum, Cookies!

We had a 3 year old little boy and his family come over to play games and eat chocolate chip cookies. The little guy felt like sharing his cookie and fed Laurel 1/4 of it when we weren't watching. Laurel wasn't quite sure what to think of it. I had to capture this picture of her first taste of chocolate. It was pretty comical.

Donkey Riding!!!!

Heather's brothers convinced us to take a donkey ride before leaving Utah. Heather's stepdad owns 3 donkeys. "I can't imagine how Mary must have felt riding all those miles 9 months pregnant on a donkey. Thank goodness for cars and modern medicine."-- Heather.
Heather's brother Nathan wanted to dress up in a robe on Christmas Eve and go knocking door to door looking for room in the inn. We're not sure he would have made it home that evening. Someone would have felt sorry for him. We got caught in a snow storm on the way home from the family Christmas Eve party and it was cold out.

All the friends BIG and small

Weston's childhood friends get together every year for a Christmas party. Most of them live in Cedar City. This is most of the gang and their small children. Hopefully, we will see a few more kids added to the group next year.

Christmas with the Johnson Family

Laurel and Isabella who is Weston's brother's baby. She is 3 months older than Laurel and was an expert crawler. It was fun to see what we could look forward to seeing Laurel do shortly.

We enjoyed seeing Grandma and Grandpa "J" at their house this time. It was nice to be home in Panguitch.