Easter

Here is the only picture I have right now from Easter. The others are on Ben's phone. I curled Josi's hair in ringlets and I was also able to curl her bangs a little. She looks so cute. I will add the pictures of the kids in their Easter outfits when I can get the pictures from Ben's phone (have to remember to when he is at home).

Future hair stylist?

I really hope not! Every once in a while, Josi likes to play with my hair. I had laid down to rest, while Hyrum was napping, and dozed off. When I had woken a little Josi was all equipped with her choice of hair dressing tools. They consisted of these velcro rollers, a hair pick and hairspray. It is really relaxing to have her little hands play with my hair, and I almost fell asleep again. Fortunately, she didn't ever use the hairspray. They were really fun to take out!

Memory

It's not too bad and even probably common when you go to another part of your house and forget why you went there, but to open a file on your computer and forget why in the same instance is just plain demoralizing.

Finishing touches

I put a few finishing touches on Hyrum's room. I finally cut the curtain into two pieces. I need to get some sort of backing for it now. I also sewed the grass skirt onto a piece of fabric so that it will stay put better.
And then I put his flowers back on the wall. He is so funny, he was super excited that I was putting it all back up.

All he needs now is a collage of surf shop stickers. Hmm, there aren't any surf shops in Arizona... Hint, hint Nana and Papa:)

Sprinklers addendum

I have to add a few things. I had a few set-backs during the whole process. Nothing big. The first I mentioned in my first sprinkler post; I stepped on and cracked the sprinkler line. The next was while I was testing them the first time. One sprinkler lost the top while I was adjusting it. I barely touched it and the top just shot off and it must have landed in a neighbor's yard because I still haven't found it. We had a geyser for a few minutes. The kids were so excited about it. Hyrum and Josi were both on the trampoline jumping around yelling, "Yay, fireworks!" Hyrum kept asking for fireworks the rest of the day. It wasn't a big deal, I just unscrewed it and took it back to Lowes to exchange it. It is a good thing Lowes is on the corner by us. I have made so many trips to return extra parts because of miscalculations and get something I had forgotten to get, had to repair, or because I changed my mind on where I wanted the garden line to come up at (I think I changed my mind 3 times). My last setback was when I tried to put a hole in the "funny pipe" for the drip line with a pocket knife. I had to put a little extra pressure to start it and ended up making too big of a hole. I just had to cut the pipe all of the way and put a coupling in there. A 97 cent fix. The next time I used a nail to make the hole. My final thing I need to do is get a couple of threaded pieces so that I can take the garden line apart when I need to, then glue the rest of the pieces together. I have it so that I can unscrew it where it comes out of the ground. But the rest is all slip joints that will need to be glued together because the water pressure is too strong right now and it blows the whole line apart when I turn it on. I was hoping that wouldn't be the case, but alas. No biggy, just a couple more parts and I still have my blue glue.

Sprinklers finished!

Yeah! I completely finished my sprinklers yesterday. The trench is all filled in and everything. Here is are three pictures put together so you can see the whole yard. That patch of green in the middle is grass from seed I planted this winter. I need to dig up the first few inches of the dirt in the whole yard so that the grass will spread. I figure since our front yard went from no grass to totally filled-in in just a year without me planting anything, we could do the same to the back yard. I will take a few plugs of the bermuda grass from the front yard and plant them around the back yard and water it and see how it goes. In the fall I will overseed again with the winter grass(fescue).

Josi is pretty excited because she is one step closer to getting a swimming pool. Everytime we go to Target or the grocery store she tells me she needs one of those hard plastic pools they have. She knows now that she has to wait for grass and sprinklers.

Here are the sprinklers for the garden. I decided to leave them above ground so I can till it if I ever get a tiller. I decided I needed to put the garden sprinklers on the timer too, so that I can go out of town this summer and not have to rely on Ben to water it. You can see my corn against the wall. It is about a foot tall now. I am going to have to "cheat" and buy some plants next month. I planted tomatoes and peppers and a few melons, but I only had one little tomato plant that came up. I don't know why. It was down on the side of the row, not on top of it either.
Here is my most recent harvest. I picked them this morning. The carrots are about 5 or 6 inches long. And my beets should be ready in a couple of weeks. I pulled up a few a couple of weeks ago, but they weren't as big as they seemed.

Sprinklers

Finally, since I got married, I have actually really been able to use the knowlege I went to college for. I have used it a little here and there, for house plants and pruning and what-not, but nothing this extensive. Since early March I have been working a little here and there on putting in a sprinkler system for our back yard. Just digging the trench for it. 2 weeks ago I was able to go and buy all of the pipe and fittings and a trenching spade to get the job done right. This week on Tuesday, Wednesday and today I worked from about 8 or 9 in the morning each day until 3 in the afternoon and about 6pm on Tuesday to get it done. I still have a little more digging to do to get the wiring hooked up to the timer (on the opposite side of the house as the water; DUMB!!) and I have a little more piping to get together for the garden sprinklers, which will be above ground, and then of course I have to bury it all in the backyard.

Here are a few pictures of what I totally completed today. The really white pipe is what I put in and the black/green box with 3 new valves. When I put the T in off of the main line I accidentally stepped on the existing sprinkler line and broke it right at the joint to the valve. It turned out to be a good thing though. I had to put a filter on the new line for the drip irrigation and it wouldn't have fit in the new box, so I just rerouted the existing line to the new box and hooked the new drip line and filter up to the old valve in the old box, where it fit. Yeah! you can kind of see the white pipe going left to right.I wanted to get a box the same tan color as the other one, but I could't find one anywhere that was the right size, I even looked online. I will just have to get one of those cool fake rocks that you can put over them to hide it or paint it someday.



Here is after I buried the part that was in the front yard. In the shadow you can see the pipe in the open trench.

Now you can't even tell I had that part all dug up, can you?! I wanted to get that all back to normal so we didn't get in any trouble by the HOA for having the visible yard torn up for too long. They are pretty picky.

And this is what I look like after a day of playing in the dirt. Josi took it for me. My face, arms and legs from the knee down are sunburnt; my lips, forearms, and shins are chapped and I am sore from my shoulders to the bottoms of my feet, but I love doing it.

Now I am in my jammies for the rest of the day and, yes, it is not even 4 yet! I think I deserve it :)

More Painting

This year for my birthday, Karin gave me service. She said she would help me paint stripes in Hyrum's room. All I had to do was choose the colors and she would take care of the rest of it. Today we were finally able to do it. She came over after she took the boys to school and stopped to buy the paint at Lowes. Then we taped it and started painting. It was pretty fun. It took us about 41/2 hours to do it all. And it was perfect weather for it. Nice and cool, but sunny so we could have the window open for ventilation. After she left I put up the wall decals I had gotten when we first moved here. I had used some of the surf boards on Hyrums fan almost a year ago.



Above his door I put "Hawaii" and a surf board. Tomorrow when the paint is totally dry, I will put his surfboard clock back up right in the middle of those stripes to the left of the door and I have a hibiscus flower table runner I found at Target (love that store) that I had in the middle of the wall on the right side of the door.
Here, above his closet door, I put a palm tree and two surf boards. That wall on the right side is the same one in the picture above that the clock goes on (for orientation purposes).
There is a window on the left from this picture that will have curtains made from red and yellow hawaiian print fabric, courtesy of Aunt Nae. It is still one piece, but I am going to cut it in half and put a backing on it to help keep the light out when they are closed.




And above his bed I put "Surf's Up" and the smaller palm trees and surf board decals. This wall is opposite his closet. Some day I will get some cute fabric that matches the surf motif to make him some sheets for his bed and maybe find a cute lamp that goes along.
I think it all turned out so awesome. Thank you so much Karin, I love it! It wouldn't have gotten done for a long time if you hadn't given me this thoughtful gift. And now I am excited to do Josi's when some of my other projects are finished. Maybe for her birthday when it has cooled off again.

Niagra Falls

I finally figured out how to get the pictures off of my phone. Here are the few I took when we went to Niagra Falls (I forgot the battery for my camera).

Us right before the ferry ride, waiting to board. We were pretty soaked afterward.


The falls as we approached.

Here we are in the middle of the horseshoe. The rainbows were amazing.

Future engineer?

Here is our clever little Josi Sunday morning while we watched conference. Those are little boardbooks that are only 3/4 inch thick. She figured out that she just needed to fan each one out a little so that they would stack. She added a few more after the picture was taken. Can you tell she has engineer Grandpas on both sides of the family? She kept telling us it was the temple. Then Hyrum would run over and knock it down. He is such a brother! But, she was a patient big sister and would just stack them up again.

It figures, you buy them legos for Christmas and they stack books :)