Desert Blooms as a .......Puncher Burr?

Thick nice grass? Lush Green Garden? Colt's promise to make it green for me for moving down to the desert? This lovely plant goes by several names: Tire Poppers, BullHeads, PuncherBurrs, Stickers, OUCHERS!

My shoes after walking around the yard. You can literally walk on the puncherburrs poking into the soles of your shoes.

We tried SO hard to get rid of them too. Spray seemed to only fertilize them. We were on-top of pulling them during the spring and early summer. We even hired a neighbor kid to help us. There wasn't one single plant in our yard. Then came a hot spell with a lot of rain. We weren't able to get to the yard for around 2 weeks. The result: Top photo.

Each plant makes thousands of seeds that sprout over the course of multiple years.

Poor River, she can't play in the dirt in our yard, there are always stickers poking her!!

But we're enjoying the journey, loving our yard and doing the best we can!!

If you give a pig a pancake: Housework Revisited

Our Beautiful Kitchen - Yup, we took out the cupboards above this countertop between the kitchen and the dining room. It's SO nice, it opens up the countertop and River will sit at the counter and color and I'll do a lot of food prep there. We put in a skylight too - what looks like a light is a skylight.

I've been wanting to put clean house pics on my blog, this is our living/dining/kitchen areas taken today. I LOVE A CLEAN HOUSE!! I've thought a lot about housework, especially because it takes up a large portion of my day to take care of a family. Yes, it is difficult with young children, but I actually think it's easier to take care of a home when it's clean than when it's cluttered.

It makes me feel so good to be in a clean environment and if the dishes are clean every night there's not the big project to clean them always looming overhead. An hour and things are straightened instead of entire Saturday projects.

We borrowed a book recently from the library that sums up me to a T:
If You Give a Pig a Pancake.
To Summarize:
If you give a pig a pancake,
She’ll want some syrup to go with it
The syrup will get her sticky and she’ll want to take a bath
You’ll give her some bubbles and she’ll ask for a rubber ducky
The rubber ducky will remind her of her barnyard and she’ll feel homesick and want to visit her family
She’ll want you to come too and you’ll look for a suitcase
Looking for your suitcase, she’ll find tap shoes
She’ll want to dance and have you take pictures of her to send to all her family and friends
You’ll gather up the stamps and envelopes
On the way to the mailbox she’ll see a tree and want to make a tree house
After the treehouse is built she’ll want to decorate it
Putting up the wallpaper will get her sticky
Being sticky will remind her of maple syrup and she’ll ask for a pancake.

Isn’t that great? That’s how I feel much of the time.
I get going on one project and then get sucked into another and then be pulled in another, and after the days gone I’ll look around at 20 unfinished projects (dishes, laundry, cleaning the fridge, etc) and wonder where my day has gone.

I’ve talked about Flylady before, but it’s helped me so much.
Flylady says you can do anything for 15 minutes. So I set my timer for 15 minutes and say: “I’m gonna wash my dishes for the next 15 minutes” Yes, this is pretty unrealistic with kids, my dishwashing is interrupted 20 times before they’re done, but it focuses me on one thing instead of dishes and then laundry and then…..it helps me get one done before I go to the next.

Now the next is going to seem totally over-the-top, but it’s what I need to do for myself to stay on-top of everything: My Daily routine:

Morning
**Get out of Bed & Hit Ground Flying
**Make bed as soon as get out of it
SMILE: Make up mind to be happy and you will be
*Shower
*Get dressed & shoes
*Fix hair and face
*Prayer
*Scriptures
Morning Meditation
GIFT: God, Imagination, Focus, Thanks
*Swish and Swipe
*Check Washer & Laundry Status
KITCHEN:
Empty Dishwasher and Drainer
Start Breakfast
Clean Dishes as you go
Hot Soapy water in Sink
Eat Breakfast & Vitamins
Breakfast Dishes/Clean Table
Check Calendar for Appointments
Make To Do List
ONE JOB AT A TIME
Thaw Something for Dinner
Laundry Status?
Pick up after yourself, get out: put away!
Don’t get sidetracked by the computer!
Drink Water!
HOT SPOTS!
Lunch!
Lunch Dishes/Clean Table
Keep Sink clean and Shiny
Dinner
Dinner Dishes
Dinner Table

Before Bed Routine:
*Clean up house before bed (20 Min. Tops!)
Living Room: Pick up put away
Kitchen, Clean, Shine Sink,
Lay out Clean Dishcloths, run dishwasher
Hot Spots!
*Think about tomorrow
Check calendar for appts
Start a to do list for tomorrow
What can I do tonight to make tomorrow easier.
Things to not forget where you can see them.
Check Washer
What are you cooking for Breakfast?
Lay out clothes for tomorrow
**Clean Face
**Vitamins?
**Put away clothes from today
**Prayer (& scriptures if not in morning time)
****Get to bed at a good time

My Weekly Routine:
MONDAY: ORDER
Weekly home Blessing Hour
*Chuck out clutter
*Change Sheets
*Empty Trash
*Vacuum
M Bedroom
Kids Bedroom
Front Room
*Sweep
Dining
Kitchen
Entry
M Bath
Kid Bath
*Clean bathroom mirrors
*Dust
*Water Grass
*****FHE*****
TUESDAY: HAPPINESS
*Water Flowerbeds
*Zone Cleaning
*Sweep Porch
*Clean Microwave
*Scrub Bathrooms
*Desk

WEDNESDAY: BEAUTY
Partial Desk Time
*Zone Cleaning
*Clean Fridge
*Menus / Grocery List for next week
*Synchronize schedules to plan meals
*Finances
*Pay Bills
*Taxes
*Water Grass
THURSDAY: ABUNDANCE
*Grocery and Errands Day
*Library
*Grocery
*Water Flowerbeds
*Mop
Kitchen
Dining
M Bath
Kid Bath
Entry
*Desk
FRIDAY: PEACE
**STORY TIME LIBRARY 10:30 AZ
*Paperwork
*File Papers
*Clean out Purse
*Sewing/Mending/Polish Shoes
*Clean out car and check fluids
*Clean Laundry Room
*Water Grass
****DATE NIGHT******
SATURDAY: HEALTH
FAMILY FUN DAY!
SUNDAY: LOVE
Renew Your Spirit

This helps me feel like I’ve accomplished something during the day. I am totally a check-mark person! I love checking things off when they’re done. If I didn’t get to something that day I say I’ll get it later in the week, and it helps me focus on the things I did do rather than what I didn’t. As I look around and think what did I do, it’s right there on my list.

It also helps me have 2 days off. When I do the work in the week, I don't have to spend Saturday and Sunday cleaning.

Another thing that’s helped me is to get River into bed earlier. I have dinner by 6 cleanup is then done by 7 Family time, wind-down time with stories and songs until 8. Having dinner earlier has helped a lot!

I have learned if you pray for specifics, you get answered in specifics, if you pray in generalities, you are answered in generalities. This helps me be specific. Please help me get my list done today, and I seem to be more focused.

The Rest that Follows is out of the Ensign:
Another thing that has helped me a lot is the June 2009 Ensign article Our Refined Heavenly Home by Elder Douglas Callister
Here's an excerpt:
Would this be true of the environment in which you live? Is it a house of order? Need you dust, clean, and rearrange before you invite the Spirit of the Lord into your home? President Lorenzo Snow (1814–1901) said: “The Lord does not intend that the Saints shall live always in dens and caves of the earth, but that they shall build fine houses. When the Lord comes he will not expect to meet a dirty people, but a people of refinement.”
David Starr Jordan, former president of Stanford University, wrote: “To be vulgar is to do that which is not the best of its kind. It is to do poor things in poor ways, and to be satisfied with that. … It is vulgar to wear dirty linen when one is not engaged in dirty work. It is vulgar to like poor music, to read weak books, to feed on sensational newspapers, … to find amusement in trashy novels, to enjoy vulgar theatres, to find pleasure in cheap jokes."
Your Father in Heaven has sent you away from His presence to have experiences you would not have had in your heavenly home—all in preparation for the conferral of a kingdom. He doesn’t want you to lose your vision. You are children of an exalted being. You are foreordained to preside as kings and queens. You will live in a home and environment of infinite refinement and beauty, as reflected in the language, literature, music, art, and order of heaven.
I close with the words of President Young: “Let us … show to the world that we have talent and taste, and prove to the heavens that our minds are set on beauty and true excellence, so that we can become worthy to enjoy the society of angels."
Even more, may we become worthy to enjoy the refined society of heavenly parentage, for we are of the race of the Gods, being “children of the most High” (Psalm 82:6).

Also in the same June 2009 Ensign, in the Question and Answer Section:
As parents, we are responsible for providing our children with proper teachings and guidance beginning in their early years. As we see it, our responsibility is not only to provide the necessities of life but also to prepare them for the necessities of eternity.
One of the ways we try to do this is through consistent family prayer. No matter how late or hurried we are, we have morning and evening family prayer to invite the Spirit into our lives. Then, at bedtime, we help each child with his or her individual prayers. This is often a great opportunity to talk briefly about the gospel. It gives our children a chance to ask questions. In answering them, we sometimes open the scriptures, but most of the time, these shared moments are informal chats.
Our hope is that by helping our children develop righteous patterns in their lives and by helping them understand gospel principles in their youth, we will help them build the foundation they need to navigate successfully through life’s challenges and to ultimately return to live with their Heavenly Father.
When I am feeling overwhelmed with the meals to be cooked and clothes to be washed, I take comfort in knowing that when we do for others what they cannot do for themselves, we become more Christlike. Young children need a great deal of temporal care. When we recognize that nurturing our children is a spiritual endeavor, finding joy in our everyday labors becomes easier.

Summer Quote Board

Colt says to Karin "You are a freak of nature"The situation: I can swallow a handful of pills at once (this morning 5 pills were gracefully put down with one swallow) Colt on the other hand has to take one pill at a time and use the momentum of his head whiplashing backwards to make the pill that has been strategically placed in the very back of his mouth attempt to go down the windpipe. It is not uncommon to have to try a couple of times to get the pill down and then it usually gets stuck. It is the funniest thing EVER to watch!

BUT MOMMMMM, It was just an Ask-in-it (Accident)

Colt and I were on a date last night - over dinner after a temple trip we were reminiscing about our girls. We like to say "remember when?" One of our remember when moments was when River used to say ALL the time "WHAT???" (said either really fast or slowly: Wwwwhhhhat?) and then "What you saaaaayyy?"She was really into finding out what everything meant and if she didn't understand a word she would ask about it. Oohhh, our sweet, smart little girl!

River tells us stories all the time. In her story she said "Princess River was in the highest room in the tallest tower of the castle and the dragon was flying this way. Oh no! So Princess River opened her backpack and there was her parachute! She jumped out the window and flew down. Whew!"

Silver got her shots today. River watched with wide eyes as the nurse gave Silver her shots. She counted "One, two - It's okay Silver. Oh No!!! You have to have another shot!! Three! Ooooohhhh, It's a ROUGH DAY!!!"

River just got a big girl bed. She LOVES being a big girl. She fell out of her bed last night and came in to me in the middle of the night crying: "Mommy......(sob)......my bed just squashed me....flat.....like a Pan-Cake!!!"

Moment in Time

Our world right now (current happenings)!
Colt is going to move offices again - it will be a step up from the office he is in now. Currently he is in a very professional office, but it is on the 2nd floor with really high rent. This one he is going to remodel - like major project! and make it his own layout and what he wants. He'll share the space with 2 accountants. It will also be very professional, in the same parking lot as a grocery store and other stores, and considerably less rent, so we're getting ready to tear out most of the walls that are there and add our own!

Speaking of walls: When we were in Home Depot picking out stuff for the office, River noticed wall stencils and says "Ohhh, Mom, What are These?" I explained that they go on your wall. "Mom, she asks, can I have a Princess room?" So below is our princess room for River and Silver:

The top is light pink, the bottom is a darker pink. To make the blue stars, I mixed the paint by hand, so the effect is some are lighter and some are darker. Then I went back over and painted sparkles (the glue with sparkles in it) over the top of the stars, so they actually twinkle.

We will put up vinyl lettering on the wall that says "Princess, Daughter of a Heavenly King" I also have some sparkly butterflies to put on the wall too - more pictures to follow of the completed room!

River LOVES to help!

The roller is just River's size!

Great Memories!

Here is our current snapshot:

River:

29 lbs and 38 inches tall. We've started marking her height on the door jam outside her bedroom door, in the last 4 months, she's grown a whole inch!

*River LOVES reading!! She reads and reads. Sometimes she memorizes the book, and reads it to herself pretty much word for word. Other times she makes up stories to go along with the pictures. She loves bringing me a stack of books and reading them. The library has a story hour every week that she just loves!

River also follows a story or movie really well. Colt tells her made-up stories in the evening. She then will recap the story for me and remembers the details really well. She can also do this with movies!
River LOVES to dance! She loves music with a beat and turned up! We have dancing times regularly.

River loves fixing owies. She enjoys being the nurse and making it all better. She enjoys putting band aids and cream on anything that might cause any type of pain. She is very sympathetic to people in pain, or if she thinks it might hurt you, her face screws up and she says "oooohhhh, does that owie hurt?" She also says "I'll make it all better"
River loves candy, popsicles, hot dogs and eggs.
River loves helping and being part of things....Mom can I do it too?
River enjoys cleaning things - wiping things off with wipes or her special squeegee and water for the sliding glass door.
River and Silver love family walks. If it's just me walking them, I put them both in the big stroller and Silver sits on River's lap. If Colt goes too, then he takes one stroller and I take the other. They really enjoy being outside.

Silver: 17 1/2 lbs
The differences between our two babies:
*Silver has a darker complexion than River - River is really lite and burns quite easily. Silver is quite a bit darker.

*When River was a baby she would always cross her ankles - especially in the car seat.

Classic River Ankles (about 1 year)

*River never took a bottle, she went straight to a sippy at around 12 months. She only nursed and never took formula. She also would only eat around 2 - 3 bites at a sitting - not much has changed there - we believe she grows on photosynthesis!

*Silver on the other hand is Totally in to food! The day of my surgery and the next day she had to have formula, after that she didn't want to nurse very much any more. She enjoyed just looking around and being part of everything with her bottle. She also LOVES food! The other day I gave her 5 or 6 bowls of food and 3 bottles - she loves eating!!

*River scooted on her bum everywhere she went and only got around to crawling about 2 days before she walked.

*Silver is 7 months old and is crawling!! She loves being part of everything.

*River was contented to sit in mom's lap and observe. Silver can't wait to get going and be into everything.

*River rarely put things into her mouth.

*Silver explores her world by putting everything into her mouth.

*River cried a lot and was very sensitive with her feelings

*Silver is much more calm most times, but she does have a temper!! If she gets mad, she'll scream and scream, especially with a sitter. I've only left her with a sitter a handful of times and about half of those times she's just screamed until she fell asleep exhausted a while later.

*River only took a nuk at nap and bed times, and at 6 months, she decided she didn't want any more of that! It was very nice that we didn't have to wean her from the pacifier :)

*Silver LOVES her nuk! She packs it around with her, and when she wakes up, she'll look for it, put it back in her mouth and check out again contented. One time she didn't have it when I was visiting family, she cried and cried for quite a while, once she gets upset, she has a hard time calming herself down. She is good about going down for bed without being asleep, I can put her down and she'll play for a bit before checking out.

Silver loves being outside - she enjoys being out and watching everything.

Colt:

Colt pulls late hours in the office most days. He works really hard for our family and does his best to build his business.

Colt just drew out for the bow hunt this year, he is SO excited to go hunting!

Colt is becoming a manager now in the company and working at recruiting/hiring new agents. He travels quite a bit now to Salt Lake and Vegas.

Karin:

I do newsletters for 3 different insurance agencies and 1 for the whole Western Region. It's nice to have some extra money, and nice to be recognized for a professional product. (But I have to tell myself, their praise is not more important than a "Thank you mommy" from my 3 year old.) I do the newsletters mostly when the girls are asleep - so it's most of my free time with 2 hands. * Sigh * to do something is to trade off doing something else.

My days are filled with playing with the girls (we love to go swimming and to the park) and cleaning, laundry and cooking.

It seems like no matter how much I do, the house is most often a wreck. It's a rollercoaster ride with trying to get it clean and being frustrated because it's not. It is one of my major struggles, especially now having two helpers and most often not two hands. I have talked with others that are also struggling and overwhelmed about housework.

I have to remind myself that we take one day at a time and do the best we can. I can have the house completely cleaned and visitor-ready for Sunday dinner and have it wrecked a couple of days later. I am convinced that I could keep a clean spotless house if that was all that I ever did, moping the floors 5 times a day, but I choose to spend time with my girls.

Well, if you were to stop by our home tonight, this is what you would find: (These pictures are to help those of you out there who also struggle with keeping a clean house realize that you are not alone - especially with small kids!) For those of you who don't struggle with this, it is your talent and definitely an amazing ability!

Posting these pictures is motivation to have it orderly I'll tell you what!

I do enjoy it when it is clean so much better! I love the spirit that is here when it is picked up. I'll share picked-up pictures when it's under control. I thought that it would be a simple thing to keep the house clean when I became a stay-at-home mom. hhhhmmm, not exactly.
But, you know, if you stopped by my house tonight, I'd welcome you in and be glad for the visit without stressing about the house.

I remember growing up in a very clean home....but at what cost???
Now, don't get me wrong....there is definitely room for improvement here! But I choose to enjoy the journey, and part of that journey is to realize that this time of my life is dang busy with small kids, Young Women activities, Finances for the business, Newsletters, and playing with my girls.

We have to realize that there is an opportunity cost in everything you do (Colt would be proud - see economics really do have a part in everyday life :) Everything has a cost (money, time, energy) and we have limited resources, especially with time. Not everything is going to fit into my day. By choosing one thing (cleaning, YW, dinner prep) sometimes another by default is squeezed out.

I do want an orderly home and this is very important to Colt. I am improving and I feel more productive and happy in a clean space where the spirit can dwell.

I notice that I feel better and act better in a clean home. I'd like to have mine be more orderly. When it is cleaned up, it's easier to keep it that way than always be fighting the piles.

I found a website a while ago that is fabulous: flylady.net

These are some of my housecleaning tips (As seen above, I obviously need to believe in them a little more)

Less is more: Part of the reason I have clutter is I have too much stuff!

Start with one area: Bathroom, Kitchen, Bedroom, etc. I tend to work on everything together and then feel like nothing really gets accomplished.

You can do anything for 15 minutes, set the timer for 15 minutes, and it's amazing what you can get done in that time.

Pick up what you pull out - This is a huge thing I need to work on, only get out as much as I can put back away in a timely manner.

Zero Tolerance - I find that if I have something out or something messy, it's not a big deal to add a little to it, and then it gets out of control! We call them fires - if there is a little, it will multiply quickly. My best method is to have nothing on the desk, nothing on the table, nothing on the counter, etc.

We have different seasons in our lives : The season of small kids will go all too quickly, are we taking the time to enjoy it. The season of empty nester should be much easier to keep the house clean - are we comparing ourselves to those people in that season of their life?

I also think it's easy to keep an area clean that you enjoy being in. Make it your own (River's Princess Walls - I enjoy the area so much, the room is cleaned up every day. Surround yourself with things that make you smile.

This is one of my most favorite things in our home: Our wedding picture is by the sliding glass back door. You can see it from sitting at the computer or on the couch. It's a very nice thing to have in our home.

Pictures in the home are powerful! They tell so much about what is important to you and make a lasting impact on your children.

My things just for me: This blog, Water Aerobics and violin/piano. These are my rewards - if the house isn't clean, I can't go swimming, believe me, it's a great motivator!

Colt and I were talking about the joys of having kids. They make us laugh every day! They are such a joy to be around!

We're enjoying the journey!

This is So Fabulous! Food Storage

So Food Storage....boring huh? Or more like OVERWHELMING!! Where do you start? How do you know how much you have? How much you need? How to Rotate? When does everything go bad? Wheat and Beans for a year??? Wow!! So many questions and so hard to get started!

I've been feeling pretty strongly lately that we need to get this going and how important it is. I've felt that it's also my responsibility as the main food preparer in our home.

Colt's Aunt Jill is an inspiration with food storage - she helps the family get excited about it and do it. She shared with me this recently and I am hooked!

Check out this blog!

http://homeproductionandstorage.blogspot.com/2009/04/part-1.html

Wendy DeWitt has a church calling to get people excited and doing their food storage. She has designed a system that will work for our family and helps me not feel so overwhelmed. It's all here in her blog! How to put it together, how to eat yummy food, how to rotate it, everything!

There are YouTube videos of her seminars on there too with her going through all the written things. The very top left link has her system to be able to print with recipes.

Her system summarized:

Why/When would we need food storage? Worse case senario - some kind of quarantine to homes with no electricity or water. Now hopefully we will have electricity and water, and it would be a huge blessing if we did, but if not.....With the swine/avian flu, people are quarantined to homes. If a nasty strain breaks out, there would be lots of people quarantined, and to keep your family safe, you wouldn't want to go in public. There is a possiblity that some kind of swine/avian flu may be coming and may be horrendous. This is not to feel scared or panicked, just to be prepared if it comes. Her basis was that we may be hungry/starving and watching our children starve - at that point we would do ANYTHING to keep our children alive: Steal, lie, even kill. Get your food storage so you don't go to such desperate measures and put your spiritual life on the line. Even Lehi "Murmured against God" when the bow was broken and there wasn't any food. We will not be able to withstand such pressures when we are starving.

Hopefully we never have to use it - but in case, it is there. Kind of like life insurance.

*How much food do you need?

You will make one week menu - Write down 7 Breakfasts and 7 dinners. For your years food storage you'll have each of these meals 52 times. Times every ingredient in the meal by 52 and you have your years supply for that meal. Now you know how much salt and rice you'll need because it's in the recipes. She also has what you would need to do one loaf of bread a day.

She cans meat! Yes, this was all very new to me, but last night I did my first batch of pressure-canned beef. Today I am trying chicken and hamburger. How to do it is all in her blog.

Now to rotate - I don't want all that money that I spent on the food to be wasted - I don't want everything to go bad just sitting there. You write down everything you need for your year (based off your recipes) then you have a list of what you need and a column of what you have, so how much you'll have to buy. You also write down the expiration date next to everything and then you only need to look at that paper once a year (New Years Day) to see if anything is going to expire in that year. You pull it out of food storage, and work it into your pantry because it is stuff that your family eats anyway (I would always wonder how am I ever going to go through that many pounds of wheat when we don't eat it regularly). Most things have at least a 3 year shelf life and some have many more years of life left.

Back to the meat I'm bottling - They say it is so tender and moist that it will be no problem rotating because it will be so convenient and yummy to use. I bought my meat yesterday on a great deal $1.69 a lb. I usually buy meat at a good deal and then freeze it, but then you have to thaw it before you cook it.....this way you just pop the can open and enjoy cooked meat in your dish. I'm all for it!

Recipe for Instant Cats

Last Sunday while we were outside enjoying the evening, we noticed a cat that River started packing around. She told me a couple of times that it was hungry and could she feed it some dinner. I told her no for about an hour. This cat was cute, behaved really well with River and was obviously hungry.

So how much harm could one left over piece of chicken do?

The next morning we had 7 cats on our doorstep: Yes, she has 6 kittens.

Well, I didn't feed them for the next several days hoping that they would go back where they came from. She got skinnier and skinnier and hungrier and hungrier. I figured she probably was hanging around for more hand-outs and missed the meals where she came from. So we finally broke down and fed them.

Yikes, so now we have 7 cats - I don't feel like they were getting enough food before they moved to our house.

Disclaimer: I don't like cats. So this is interesting, I didn't want pets (at this point of our life with babies and small kids) and now all of a sudden we find ourselves with 7. When we do get pets, I'd like to be able to pick them out which ones we want. And, this neighborhood has TONS of cats, so it's just a matter of time before the roamers find we have food at our house. Oh My!

So here's my recipe for cats:

One Piece of leftover chicken.

Beef, Pork, or Fish may substituted.

And there you have it: Instant Cats!

Enjoy!

Sweet Baby and Adorable girl!

Wow, June flew by and it's already July! Before we know it our girls will be all grown up!
Here are a couple of highlights of our month in review:

These are the most amazing photos! River's friend from Nursery Ali had a birthday party at the park. We got there after Silver had shots at her Doctor visit, so was having a rough morning. Michelle Federkiel took these pictures of Silver. How Amazing!! I love the colors! True Talent.
Tonight a cat visited us and River fed her new hungry friend dinner. Ah-lobber is her name :)

River LOVES computer games. For a 3 year old she is really good with the mouse and clicking to get around the different sites and games.

I had surgery last week and everything went well. The doctor says that my left ovary is looking just fine. The right ovary is looking pretty much gone - it was the one with both cysts, so we're not counting on that one. I've been so grateful through the whole process - I saw Dr Lunt, he was a fabulous doctor that answered ALL of my questions, was very respectful, made me feel comfortable and has called me at home for follow up and always asks my opinion and how I feel about things. I couldn't have asked for anything better. I feel very grateful and blessed.

My Dad sent me these beautiful "wishing a speedy recovery" lillies. I love lillies and orange, so this was tailored just for me! They bloomed their hearts out.

River enjoyed in her lady-bug preschool painting with glue and then sprinkling glitter on it.

We bid farewell to Celery and Apple after much fun with our chicks!

Colt has hosted a couple of BBQs as the insurance office and co-sponsered them with the Chiropractor in town. Speaking of chiropractic - the wierd thing about the anesthesia is that it settled in my right shoulder and neck - Very Painful! I also was clenching my jaw (which already has issues) as I was coming out of anesthesia. Our neighbor does chiropractics and with a couple of adjustments, the pain was Gone! It was also really helpful while I was pregnant, as my back would get pinched.

Silver and River are the Best of Friends! Silver is getting around now, turning and getting up on her knees. Going from sitting to all fours. She loves to be active and explore her world! She was pretty much exclusively nursed up until my surgery earlier this week, and now she doesn't hold still long enough to nurse very long. She is REALLY into food, has 3 big portions of fruit/veggies/cereal a day.

River really enjoyed her Birthday party. We had quite a few neighbor/nursery friends/cousins over for her party. We enjoyed playing with the parachute, playing some of River's favorite games: Ring around the Rosy, silly songs sung together, and enjoying cake with whipped cream! River still talks about her party and what she wants to do for her next one!

River LOVES to play with blocks and make things. We make animals quite often, with deer being her favorite - the bigger the better on the horns! LOTS of cheaters :)

River has enjoyed going to the Kanab pool. Last year she only dipped her toes in the water. This year she didn't want to get her suit wet on the first outing to the pool. She walked in the water daintily until a little boy ran past splashing her suit. She looked utterly disgusted with him and complained that her suit got wet but that she wasn't going to get it more wet. A while later another excited kid ran past and she toppled over completely into the water. Well, once she was completely wet she decided it wasn't so bad and has been in to her neck every since! She loves splashing and having a good time in the water.

River has also been really obedient lately. Right when the whistles blow to come out of the water, she pops out! Time outs work really well for her. For behavior that needs to be worked on, (being whiny, continuing to do things after being told no, etc) she has really been well behaved.
It was a fun 4th of July - we went to the parade in the morning and then the fireworks last night. River at first wanted to go home with the bangs being so loud, but after Colt covered her ears, she enjoyed them. I covered Silver's ears and she was completely still with big wide eyes the entire time enjoying the show!

Enjoying our blessings and freedom!