Friday, July 31, 2015

365 Joys- July 31st 2015

7/31/15

She climbs EVERYTHING.


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And here's my kids at home tonight playing Simpson's Clue.


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365 Joys- July 30th 2015

7/30/15

We cooked the squash with some onion, bell pepper, and the jalapeño.  Spicy!  But delicious.  We love squash.


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Here's cheeky Ginny with one of her favorite animals... er... many of that one kind.  She makes a great elephant noise.


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365 Joys- July 29th 2015

7/29/15

Garden produce!

GEDC0200 We love squash.


GEDC0202 We also got a little orange bell pepper (though we didn't plant orange, we planted yellow and red... hmmm.)  Oh, and a jalapeño.


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Oh, and farmer Samuel got sunburned weeding.  More sunscreen!

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

365 Joys- July 28th 2015

7/28/15

My oldest daughter Emilie is growing up.


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She is getting more beautiful every day, inside and out.  We did have fun dyeing her hair the other day... not a whole lot different but a little more red.


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The cookies are just fun... we still need to fix our Kitchenaid so she is making cookies by hand.  My pioneer girl, haha.


365 Joys- July 27th 2015

7/27/15

We love having pets.

Fish, while you can't play with them, at least give an opportunity to help care for an animal and watch them in their home.

Everyone has their own fish in our home, and yes, we've had some die, and we've bought more, but a cool thing is that our fish keep making more baby fish... and even though yes, a lot of the babies are gone before we even can see them, every now and then we find little survivors that just keep on going!  In face, most of our "individual" fish (we also have a school of neon tetras and a few danios, plus a snail and some otocinclus catfish that eat the algae) are starting to be homegrown...

Each of the kids have a fish that is identifiable and different from all the other fish (though all compatible... they are platys and mollies)  Every now and then they die... and we either get a new one or they get the next baby fish we find.  The "homegrown" ones are very hardy as they had to survive being eaten by much bigger fish.  So, by the time we can even see them, they are the strong survivors.

Right now we have two tiny ones.  They don't even have markings yet but Timothy and Liberty have claimed them.

My new camera has a "fish" setting to take pictures behind glass without reflection.  I keep playing with it to try and get a picture of the tiny fish... however, even with a "fish" setting, fish move really fast...


GEDC0183 Anyway.  A picture of Tom's neon tetras and a picture of one of the baby fish... kind of like a Where's Waldo, though, he looks just like the rocks except he has eyes!


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365 Joys- July 26th 2015

7/26/15

Some of the awesome missionaries who serve in our ward.

I help with the missionary meal calendar in our ward, and help keep them eating meals with members and investigators.  (no, not a calling, just something I seem to take over when no one is doing it.)

I've done this in many wards... I think when I started, I looked at all my little boys and thought, well, if I feed these boys, somebody will feed mine when they are serving the Lord on their missions.

Now I'm thinking even closer, as Michael gets older and making choices leading to his mission, friends have kids on missions, and my kids have friends on missions, I see how awesome it is to see the people in their missions share pictures and stories of their sons and daughters with the mothers and fathers and hope that will happen with our missionaries, too.

So I'm making more of an effort to take pictures of these great kids, and send those pictures home to families who want to see their missionaries.

Just be patient with me.  It's a long time from now that my youngest child will return from her mission, if she goes.  And NOT so long before my first will leave.  Lots of thoughts.



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365 Joys- July 25th 2015

7/25/15

Michael.  I love seeing him look this happy.

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Christopher showing me "the opposite of being ready for prayer..."


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Christopher lost that other front tooth that he hadn't lost yet in that picture of him being a little wild... and crazy...

So here's the full toothless effect.


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365 Joys- July 24th 2015

7/24/2015

My little princess just coloring away.  Nothing makes her happier.

She wants to be an artist like Michael.


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And my kids love my magnets... and I love my kids.

This is what I found on our fridge.

And I mean the We Believe in Family, not whatever is below it haha.


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365 Joys- July 23rd 2015

7/23/15

Christopher lost a front tooth!  I mean a top front tooth!  There's the first teeth, and then there's the BIG teeth, those top two that make you lisp when you lose them.

Yeth, Chrithopher is lithping.

SO proud!


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Wednesday, July 22, 2015

365 Joys- July 22nd 2015

7/22/15

Garden time!

We are still trying to weed this little plot of ours.

The weeds are growing better than the plants. It's a never ending battle.

However, we have our first harvest... yay!

GEDC0146 Some other fun things... our yellow pepper...

GEDC0141 Our jalapeño...

GEDC0138 Cucumber flowers...even though some animal ate the tops off our plants!

GEDC0143 Squash (or zucchini) flower... so exciting!  I just forget which plant is which.

GEDC0144 Random picture of Timothy.

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365 Joys- July 21st 2015

7/21/15

Nathanael playing the piano.

With help.


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365 Joys- July 20th 2015

7/20/15

Ginny, in her happy morning face.

I love how happy this girl usually is to wake up in the morning.  Usually.  :)

Note the baby doll squished into the seat with her... haha.


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Monday, July 20, 2015

365 Joys- July 19th 2015

7/19/15

Today was Joseph's birthday.  He would have been 14 but instead he is waiting for us beyond the veil.  We firmly believe in eternal families and that he is our son, brother, grandson, nephew, forever.  Family connections last beyond the grave because of the power of the priesthood and our loving Heavenly Father's plan of happiness.

For more about Joseph and his life, here is a link to a blog post where I talked about everything that happened.

For pictures of Joseph, click here.

And here is a picture of Virginia singing happy birthday to Joseph.  She is so excited whenever we sing as a family.

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This is our family tradition.  July usually ends up too hot for cake, so we get birthday cake ice cream.  Plus his birthday is the day before National Ice Cream day, so we can celebrate for 2 days haha.

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And here is Juliana posing for the camera...  sigh.

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365 Joys- July 18th 2015

7/18/15


The girls were doing girly things on Saturday night.

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Nail polish on fingers and toes...


GEDC0117 Taking selfies...


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Taking pictures... haha.


Saturday, July 18, 2015

365 Joys- July 17th 2015

7/17/15

Our garden is having ups and downs.  The weeds are growing like crazy because between extreme heat and extreme weather we haven't weeded as much as we should have.  Again.  We had a weeding session today and we'll try again.

It really looks better than it did.

GEDC0105 Deer, groundhogs, and squirrels of all things have eaten our sunflowers and the tops of the cucumber plants and bits of the green bean plants.  We are researching ways to deter (and get rid of) them here in Kansas City limits.

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We have lots of green, red and yellow peppers but I don't remember which plants are which and all the peppers are green at first!  We have 3 or 4 jalapeños.  Tiny ones.

We have ONE tomato but lots of tomato flowers.  We have lots of renegade radishes that we never planted (this year).

GEDC0110 It was good working with the kids.


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Thursday, July 16, 2015

365 Joys- July 16th 2015

7/16/15

Ginny being artistic.  Sometimes she just has to color.  Or draw.  Or see what she CAN draw on.

She's watched her siblings do the same thing HER WHOLE LIFE LONG.

So she needs to sometimes.


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365 Joys- July 15th 2015

7/15/15

Today was coming home day!  Nathanael came home from Scout camp and we were the last ones there picking him up, and then later we all drove up to Kearney (20 miles north or so) to get Tom, Michael, Benjamin, and Emilie from Youth Conference at Nauvoo.  Everyone was home under one roof for about 45 minutes and then Benjamin and I left to take him back to Scout Camp for the remaining 3 weeks.

It's been a crazy summer.

GEDC0092 Waiting for Juliana to join them.

GEDC0093 Silly kids.

GEDC0095 Then Ginny decided she had had enough.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

365 Joys- July 14th 2015- Cow Appreciation Day!

7/14/15

Today is the 7th time we celebrated "Cow Appreciation Day" where we dress up as a cow and get free food at Chick-Fil-A.

Sadly, we were missing 5 members of our family but 7 of us still participated.

Enjoy!

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Samuel and Ginny.

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Timothy.

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 Liberty.

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Christopher.

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Jules, with Liberty helping her with shoes.

GEDC0087 HOT day, and we somehow got the booth with no shade and I seriously got sunburned standing there helping the kids... and the two cow outfits came OFF the two hot little girls.

GEDC0089 We then hurried over to the church for Cub Scouts and got to see the temple, too.


365 Joys- July 13th 2015

7/13/15

We started singing the Family Home Evening song from the Primary songbook and Ginny brightened up, and RAN over to where we keep the hymnbooks and proceeded to cry for someone to get them out... she really knows how we do Family Home Evening, haha.  Here she is telling Timothy to get them FASTER.


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We only had half of us here, as Tom, Michael, Benjamin and Emilie are in Nauvoo for Youth Conference and Nathanael is at Scout Camp... so it's just me and the youngest 6 but we still had Family Home Evening!


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365 Joys- July 12th 2015

7/12/15

Juliana in her bumblebee dress.

I think she's gorgeous.

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She really is happy to have Benjamin home.

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REALLY.


GEDC0058 Emilie took a picture of me.

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So I took a picture of her.

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