Garden Update

As promised, I took some pictures of our garden on Saturday, one week after we planted it. Here is what it looks like now.

This is a bean plant This one is yellow squash

and then lettuce

and finally carrots. Sorry the picture is so blurry, but the carrots are so small I had to get really close.

I am excited that everything has sprouted and can't wait to see if we produce any produce! haha!

Molly "sharing"

Today in church, Molly was drawing a picture. After she finished, she walked over to Thomas and held the picture out. Here's how the conversation went.
Molly: Thomas, as i dis is fo yo...
Thomas: What Molly?
Molly: Thomas, ask me if this (the picture) is for you?
Thomas: Molly, is this picture for me??
Molly : NO!!! It's for Abby!!!!

Then, she turned away and took the picture to Abby, leaving Thomas speechless.

I got a new sink!!!

It all started last week when I noticed that a little rubber o-ring had come loose on the base of the faucet in the kitchen. It started to leak everytime I turned on the water, so I showed Toby and he took the faucet off to see what he could do. It was Sunday afternoon and he said "I am going to the store to get a new o-ring. I think this qualifies as an 'ox in the mire' situation." To which I reply "okay" but then the wheels start to turn in my head. We have talked about replacing the faucet ever since we moved in anyway. Hmmm. So I stop him and say, "maybe we should just wait until tomorrow and go to Lowe's and look for a whole new faucet." He agrees and for some reason the wheels are still turning in my head! So I go one step further and say "While we are at it, we could just replace the whole sink. This one is really shallow and I don't like it anyway". So we decided to go the next day and look at sinks and faucets just to get an idea of price. Toby had worked through the night on Sunday night so I went to Lowe's with Molly on Monday to look. I found some sinks I liked for about $230 and a faucet for about $90. When I came home and told Toby what I had found, we went back together to buy them. When we went back I noticed that there were two that were "package deals". They had the sink and faucet and drain kits all in one box. I really liked one of them and it was only $299. YAY! Sold! So we came home and started taking the old sink out and putting the new one in. When we came to the step where we needed to open the box and install the sink we noticed that there was a sink in the box but nothing else. Uh-oh. There was a 1-800 number to call if anything was wrong, so I called it and they said that we would just have to return it to the store. Molly was napping by now, so Toby took it back and got the last one they had on the shelf. Success!!!

Here is the old sink after Toby had taken the faucet off to check it.
Here is the hole after we took the old sink out.

Here is Toby working hard under the sink to disconnect all of the pipes and the garbage disposer. (we have a couch in the breakfast area because we got a new couch and haven't found anyone to take the old one)

My new sink and faucet! The old one was 6 in. deep and this one is 9 in. on the left and 7 in. on the right. And the end of the faucet comes out as the sprayer hose! I LOVE it!!

Of course, along the way, Toby injured himself several times. Here are two of the worst.

He did a great job and everything looks and works awesome!! It is great to have such a handy hubby!!

Our first Houston Garden

In our backyard we have these rock areas, which I personally hate, but we were trying to decide where to plant a garden and had a great idea!! We moved about half of the rocks in this area to the side and pulled up the weed barrier and dug up the rock hard clay ground. We mixed the clay with about 8 bags of potting soil and 6 bags of manure to try to make some better growing conditions. Toby also got a weeper hose and attached it to a timer, so it automatically waters the garden every morning at 6 am for about 20 minutes!! Here is what it looks like.

Here is Thomas being silly and the garden after we planted the seeds on Saturday. We planted carrots, lettuce, yellow squash, and green beans.Abby and Molly helping with the planting!So I am going to try to take pictures every Saturday and show you our progress. We were so excited when the first sprouts came up that we took some pictures this morning, so here is a preview!That big plant at the bottom of this picture is a bean plant that Abby grew at school and we transplanted into the garden. She is really excited to see what it becomes!

My Mother's Day "Experience"

First of all, Toby had worked all night until 6 am, so I did not expect him to be up at all this morning. I just had to make that disclaimer so that you don't wonder where he was during the whole morning (he was asleep!).
So I was awakened by my alarm clock at 7 am just like every other Sunday morning. I came out to the living room to see if any kids were up yet and I could hear someone playing up in the toyroom. So I called up the steps to see who was up. Abby answered and I told her to come down and have breakfast so we could get ready for church. When she got to the bottom of the steps, she stopped and said "oh, I just remembered what today is!" I said "What?" and she replied is a soft whisper (like I wasn't supposed to know) "Mother's Day". She then asked if she could make my breakfast and even told me what she wanted to make. I told her to go get Thomas and they could make it while I was in the shower. (It was just yogurt with granola, pretty easy) But I had made sure to tell them that they should have breakfast for themselves first and then make mine. I came out about 15 or 20 minutes later and found that they had made my breakfast first and not had anything for themselves yet. I knew that this meant that my granola would be soggy, but I ate it anyway to show them how much I appreciated their efforts. After eating as much soft granola and yogurt as I could, I got up to take my bowl in the kitchen and stepped in something crunchy on the floor. Hmmm, "Thomas what is all over the floor?" His reply "Oh, sorry, we tried to make breakfast for Daddy too, but the first bowl of Grape Nuts that we poured got spilled." Okay, "the first bowl". Hmmm. "Where is the second bowl?" "Oh, we put milk on it and it is on the counter." I realized that they were just trying to be as helpful as possible and I really love them for that. "Thanks, you guys, so much. You did a great job on breakfast."
It turned out to be more work for me, but they really tried to be nice, so I just smiled and cleaned up the scattered cereal on the floor and the bowl of mush that used to be Grape Nuts and milk. At least this year there were no fire hazards like paper towels in the toaster oven!

I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH! THANK YOU FOR A WONDERFUL MOTHER'S DAY!!!

Family Campout

On April 16-17 we went on a family camp-out with the ward. It was held in the Stephan F Austin state park, which was a really nice place. It so doesn't look like the tangled scrub trees and weedy grass that we see around Houston. But, it's only about 20 minutes from the house. It was fun, except for Molly being sick. She tossed and turned and whined all night long. Then, when Amy gave her some medicine, she got so worked up about how much she hated the medicine that she threw up.
Here's a picture of Molly from before I wanted to lock her in the van for some peace and quiet...


Thomas looks like he's not having so much fun...But he actually had a great time.

The Pullmans brought their new puppy, Daisy, to the campout. At first the kids were a little unsure of what to make of this little bundle of energy.

Then, Molly fell in love with Daisy.

And here she is explaining her policy on sharing the dog with Thomas. It looks like the policy is, "Let me play with Daisy or I hit you with a stick!!"
Abby had a great time as well. Here she is at the central camp fire.
And here's Thomas. He's actually checking to see if I'm watching him. You see, it's been over 20 minutes since he last threw something in the fire, and he's starting to get the shakes...
Here I am roasting marshmallows for the kids. This was an attempt to reduce the number of burned black or flaming marshmallows that happened when the kids did it.
And this is what the fire looks like with out a flash.