Kim's Scentsy Giveaway

Hey everyone Kim is having a neat giveaway. Her scentsy blogsite is http://kimsgotscents.blogspot.com/ I don't know if you have smelled the bubblegum scent they are featuring this month but YUM! I wanted to eat it. There are some easy things you can do to be entered to win some free stuff. This is one of them. So check it out. Tell her you saw it here first! :)

Crayons In The Dryer

The picture just does not do justice to how bad this situation was. For one Ian took the picture after he already started cleaning. Hence the dead fly in the back of the dryer. Ian sweetly switched the laundry for me and found that a blue crayon made it into the dryer with our whites. Now when I washed the clothes I did find a crayon but apparently only half of it.

Ian went to work cleaning it out. I didn't even ask him too. He took some cleaners and a scrubber to it. Then came in and researched it online. We knew this had to be something that happened to a lot of people. Sure enough he found running the dryer for 15 minutes then scrubbing it with Comet would do the trick. It sure did.

Can you imagine what yucky work that is to do in Blythe in the summer in the garage? I can't express how sweet this guy is. After some washing and some bleach most of our clothes are crayon free. Of course two weeks later I washed and dried a pack of Big Red gum that was in Teagan's pocket. Would you believe there were some whites in that load I was still trying to get blue crayon out of? Namely a favorite pair of Ian's shorts. Yeah they are garbage now.

From now on I'll be shaking out clothes and checking pockets more closely.

Kindergarten Graduation

Teagan was so excited for Kindergarten Graduation. He swore the day he got his little certificate he was in first grade. I had no idea they had put together a couple dances to entertain us with. They were so cute. I have some of them on video that I'll try to put up. Jade loved the dancing too. She was one the sidelines dancing along with the kids.



Here is Teagan getting his certificate from Ms. Smith and Mr. James.


Ms. Smith with her class. I had a hard time this year keeping straight who was in Teagan's class because they were often combined with Ms. Louriero's.


Ms. Smith and Teagan. We got her some pink roses. Teagan was excited to give them to her.


Teagan with his certificate. He was very happy to pose with it. He didn't mind posing for both Grandma John and me to snap some pictures.


Teagan and Mommy! I love these pictures we take ourselves. They turn out so cute. After Graduation we went with the Reid's to Carl's Jr. to play. After that Clay came home with us and they played some more.


Teagan got his grades that day too. They were perfect again with glowing comments from his teacher. We are so proud of you Teagan! Not only did you learn so much this year but you were just a great kid while you did. I'm especially proud of how nice he is to his friends and his honesty. What an awesome boy!

3 AM

Too many times a week I wake up at 3am. It doesn't matter what time I went to bed or if I had a nap that day or not. It just happens. When I wake up at 3am I can almost never get back to sleep. I alternate between laying in bed awake (for an hour at a time) and browsing around on the computer. The above is not a picture at 3am it's much later. Pretty time of morning huh? This morning I decided to do something different. Instead of staying in bed feeling sorry for myself that I can't sleep I got up and got to work. Here is what happened.

Put in a load of laundry
Put my mp3 player on to charge
Got out the iron
Make the mix for German Pancakes
Did the dishes
Did some ironing
Got butter, string cheese and bacon out of the deep freeze
Switched the laundry
Put the pancake in the oven
Cooked some bacon
Started the dough for rolls
Sat the pancake out to cool


Picked up
Cooked some sausage
Cut some melons
Finished the ironing
Set the table
Checked out the sunrise


By this time Teagan woke up. Shortly after that Ian got home from his morning meeting and Jade woke up. So we all had a nice breakfast together. After that it was time to clean up and get ready. Teagan got on the bus and I got to sit around for a bit before I went down for his school's morning assembly. I'm glad it wasn't a normal Wednesday because I'm afraid I would have been a terrible babysitter that day.

I went to Teagan's morning assembly I was presented with a plant in a terracotta pot that all the kids signed. I'll have to get a picture of it. I love it and the best part was Teagan came up and gave it to me. Teagan had on swim trunks for water fun day and asked me about dry clothes that morning but he didn't actually put them in his backpack. Of course I didn't even think of it. So he didn't have his towel, dry clothes or sunblock.

I was so irritated that I completely forgot and we live so far from the school. Luckily I just happened to have an extra pair of trunks, sunblock and a towel in my car that I didn't take out last time we went swimming. Yeah for laziness. I stayed for a bit to see the kids play in the water. Walking out to the pools Teagan fell down (flip flops are not his friend). So he started out hurt which was really sad but he got over it pretty quickly and joined his friends.

We went to pick up Teagan from school but he was invited to Clay's house. That worked out great because I took a really nice nap while Jade did. It was a good Wednesday!

Waterslide Fun

Okay this has to be one of the best toys we have invested in. We got it before Jade was born. It's on it's third summer. It would actually be in better shape except the first summer we left it out in the sun a lot. After that we learned to put it away. The kids LOVE it! Teagan and Jade both have had friends over to play on it. Jade can't get up the steps yet but she climbs up the slide. They even play on it dry. So much fun.

Our Garden In June

I thought it was time to do an update about the garden. I was going to start a whole different blog for it to keep track of what worked and what didn't as we were growing things but I don't see that happening. Kelsey posted a picture with our garden in the background that was taken about a month ago and I can't believe the jungle it's become since. So I snapped some pictures yesterday.
What I've done is stopped gardening for the past month. We were planting things at the wrong time. We can't use even the warmest zone on the seed packages because it gets just too hot. So I found a zone 13 planting guide for Yuma. According to the planting guide June is pretty much a dead month. The only thing to plant in June is some type of bean I've never heard of. So I thought let's just stop. That is what we've done.


Here is what is left. We have cherry tomatoes and two varieties of beefsteak. They went in really late because that is just when we got around to it. So while everyone else is picking tomatoes ours are just putting on. Between the tomatoes I have basil that is growing like a weed. You need basil just come and get it. I keep topping it off to make it bush and it just grows back in two days. We also have garlic in there. I bought two cloves at the grocery store and now we have 17 cloves growing.



We have summer squash and zucchini. One plant of each. I'm definitely planting more next year. We have green beans here and there. They were planted at the wrong time so they didn't come up well except in the first bed. We have voluntary peas. I did not plant them. They came up under the ones that Ian killed with the flair. We have carrots, jalapenos, leeks and onions. In our last bed (the newest one) I had two cucumber plants going but Jade picked one. The one we have left is growing like crazy so maybe she just knew we only needed one. The romaine I planted way late in the summer is just thriving.



I have two more beds planned for August. These will be 8'x4' each. I already have written in detail what will be planted where and when. I'm looking forward to a really successful garden this coming season. I knew all along that this first planting was going to be a learning experience but it was hard not to get much or anything from a lot of the things we planted. It was harder watching a gopher eat most of it before we could. With this new planting guide and the success we've had lately I'm feeling very confident we will have a good year with our garden.

Oh and don't let me forget the watering system Ian put in. He did such a good job with it and everything is growing so much better now that it's getting a good deep watering. Thank you sweetie. I can't say he was really excited about all this at first but he has really come through. He comes in and tells me about the new tomatoes he has found and he checks for bugs, moves plants around and prunes things. I think he is hooked now. He is not excited about building the new beds but I told him I didn't need them until July. Some how that made him feel better.



Last but not least our chicks. They are getting big and ugly. Wow are they ugly. They look like little raptors when they walk. We lost two of the bardrock chicks for no apparent reason. All I can think is maybe it was the heat or something they ate because two died at the same time. They looks pecked but that may have happened after they died. So we have six left which is actually a better number anyway. Our big coup was going to be crowded when these guys start laying. Now we should be good. I can't wait. Grow chickens grow.

I'm caught!

So I think you can guess what I do in my free time. Apparently Jade has seen me do too much of it. I was in the kitchen cleaning or cooking. I can't remember which and when I came back to check on her she was very seriously reading a book upside down. By the time I got pictures she was being silly. Cutie!

New Favorite Rolls

The are my very favorite rolls right now. I make them 2 or 3 times a week and we (especially the kids) just eat them for snacks. Yummy! I especially love that I get to use my food storage milk for them. I've made rolls (duh!), cinnamon rolls, hamburger buns and donuts with this recipe. Again Yum!

I got this one from Allrecipes:

Sweet Dinner Rolls

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1/2 cup warm milk
1 egg
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1/4 cup butter, softened

DIRECTIONS
Place water, milk, egg, 1/3 cup butter, sugar, salt, flour and yeast in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select Dough/Knead and First Rise Cycle; press Start.

When cycle finishes, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide dough in half. Roll each half into a 12 inch circle, spread 1/4 cup softened butter over entire round. Cut each circle into 8 wedges. Roll wedges starting at wide end; roll gently but tightly. Place point side down on ungreased cookie sheet. Cover with clean kitchen towel and put in a warm place, let rise 1 hour. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden.

Note from Mande: I just pinch the dough of and make little rolls shapes. The wedge thing gets you crescent rolls. I don't know about ungreased. I always use the spray for baking and I put mine in a cake pan. Lastly 400 is too hot. 375 is perfect. Let me know if you make these. :)

The Kids

It's been a while since I've done any kind of update on the kids. Or any kind of blog period. I miss blogging. I really want to stay consistent with this so we have these memories forever. Soon I'm trying my hand at the Blurb book so we will have this in print(hence the forever comment). Should be fun. About the kids...

About two weeks ago Jade was left at the table to enjoy her chocolate pudding. This happens to be the same chocolate pudding she strung all over the kitchen floor a long time ago. I made some today. Anyway I left her with her snack while I went out with Ian to check on the baby chickens. Ian went in the house and I stayed outside for a while. He came in to find Jade covered in pudding with her arms out standing on the table. When I came in I could hear the bath running. Judging by the mess on the table I didn't have to ask questions. I cleaned up the table and chairs while Ian cleaned up Jade.

That night Teagan prayed that we would all get rest and be healthy and that we would live. Two of our chicks died for no apparent reason so I think that part of the prayer was for the other chicks still living. After prayer he said he didn't want to hear about them dying anymore because it just made him sadder and sadder every time he thought about it.

Jade can now open the fridge by herself. So far she only gets strawberries out but this really could be a big mess waiting to happen. I'm praying she just sticks to fruit until we get a latch. Perhaps it would be smart of me to have some fruit chopped up within easy reach.

Teagan lost another tooth while eating steak at the pool. This time the tooth fairy brought him four quarters and he was very happy. You know because four quarters are way more valuable than a dollar and as Teagan says, "They are still cents.".

Jade has to have her diapers duct taped. Otherwise she will take them off when soiled. A wet diaper is not a problem but the other kind can be. She would take them off every time she went to bed for nap or for the night. Each morning we would wake up to a naked girl and most likely a wet bed. Her beloved blanket would also get wet and had to be forcefully taken to wash it. After I would give it back to her she would smell it. So you know it didn't smell great before.

Teagan is looking forward to summer break. I've promised him swim lessons. I know we are way behind but we got a pool membership this year. In the past we haven't had consistent access to a pool when he was ready to learn. He is nervous and excited to learn. I think once he gets pretty good we will take him to a water park this summer.

I don't know if I've already mentioned this one. This happened about a month ago. We were getting ready to go somewhere with Ian. Ian was switching car seats and Jade was walking around outside. She look really cute in her white top and denim capris. I turned my back for a second and when I looked back I found her in a muddy puddle on her belly attempting to swim. Lovely!

Teagan is so excited to be in first grade. He says after Friday (his Kindergarten graduation) he will be in first grade but he has to take the summer off. I'm so glad he enjoys school. I still don't. I'm so excited for summer and to have him home.

Poor Jade. All her little memories are things she has done. Oh here is one that was done to her. We were in the yard playing one evening last week. I always try to get out the pool cause it's still a little hot. Ian and I were looking at the garden and Teagan yells that Raider took Jade's diaper. Sure enough we look back and she is naked. The dog pulled it off of her. She could care less. She just played in the pool and sandbox naked.

Teagan has started tying his shoes. He says if his teacher wants to do it at school that he will say no and do it himself. One goal for the summer already done.

Here is another one that seems like something Jade did wrong but it was an accident and really funny. Teagan and Jade sit next to each other at the table. They were both having cereal. Jade said something and motioned with her hands with a spoon in her hand full of milk. The milk in the spoon went right into Teagan's ear. Teagan sat there shocked and Ian started laughing. Then they all laughed. What are the odds that it would land right in his ear?

There are a few things for now. I have tons of stuff to catch up on but I need to go through my pictures. More to come.