Gardner Village

We of course had to go to Garnder Village a few times to see the witches.  I went once with just Finley and then again with the whole family.  

I think sidewalk chalk is one of the best things ever.  Finley is really into drawing these days too.  So our driveway is always covered with her artwork.  :)  This is a little pumpkin patch Sadie and I drew.  

I had Rob take this picture.  He took a really long time getting it just right and there was a crowd of people gathering to take their picture.  It made me really uncomfortable.  I hate having attention on me.  

This pumpkin wall was the inspiration for the chalk art at the beginning of this post.  

These two...they love making silly faces.  

Rob and the kids.  

Finley with the huge pumpkin.  

Finley and her friend Ada.  We chose to go on a really cold rainy day so it was empty!

This is one of my favorite witches.  They moved them all around this year and had new witches.  It was fun to see.

This was a new one.  The weightlifters.

And we always have to take a picture in front of the big flag.

Last year Finley wouldn't sit next to this witch.  But she was brave this year.  She kept telling me that the witches weren't real.  All of them were fake except the sleeping one.  (It was just a bed and the blanket would go up and down like it was sleeping.)  haha.  She kept wanting to go back and stare at that one.  

They replaced the baseball witches with some playing pickle ball.  Love it!  I've been wanting to try pickle ball.  

I must say looking at the witches with only one child, who is not in a stroller is a much different experience than having the whole family there.  She zipped around and we saw them all a few times in no time at all!  

 

Learning how to braid hair

I figured since I have 4 girls, I should really learn how to braid their hair.  I knew how to do normal braids, but that's about it.  Most of the time I call it a victory if they have their hair brushed for school.  hah!  But I made it a goal to practice and learn how to do some cooler things to their hair.  I've watched some youtube tutorials and I've practiced a bit.  I still have a long way to go, but it's already looking 100 times better!  Here are some of the braids I've done lately.

This is a small section french braided with a ponytail.  Also, real life messes in the background.  :)

Double French braids for Emery.  Her hair is probably the thickest so it's the easiest to hold onto when braiding.  A lot of times I will braid it in the evening and they will sleep in it and wear it to school the next day.

From the front.

Double French braids in Finley's hair.  

I need to work on keeping the bottom pieces tight, but it's getting better.

The first time I tried it, we only got through one braid because I was so slow!  

 So she rocked this hairstyle all day.  She pulled it off well I think!  

Halloween 2021

We had a great Halloween this year.  One of the things that was great about it was that Sadie was so helpful.  She helped get Finley ready and she helped get the other girls ready and she even helped Zac put together a full costume last minute.  What did I even do?!  Ha ha.  I curled Sadie's hair and put some makeup on the girls.  They chose their costumes because we recently Sadie and I recently watched  the movie Miss Congeniality.  :)  

On Friday Sadie starts school at 10 so she got to come with me to the Elementary school Halloween parade.  It was fun to have someone to stand and cheer with me!

Then that night, we had Crys, Alan and Junie over for dinner.  It's always fun hanging out with those guys!  They were drawing chalk in the backyard and I loved their drawings.  Finley drew the girl with a ponytail (herself) jumping on the trampoline.  I'm just so amazed at her creativity!

She said this one was a picture of Belle and Junie started telling me about how when they went to Disneyland, she didn't get to see the "beast" because he was taking a nap.  :)

Finley said these guys were elves.  Look at their pointy ears!  I love it!

 

The next morning we had our ward Trunk or Treat activity.  It was really fun and I actually got to decorate our trunk this year because I wasn't in charge of the activity!  We got 2nd place.  We lost to a giant white truck decorated like a dalmation.  It was pretty cool looking.  

We went with a Harry Potter theme and had ping pong balls for them to throw through the rings for a quidditch game.  

I literally had to force these boys to take a picture before they ran off to go trick or treating.  

I stayed home and handed out candy, but I got to be in the picture before they headed out!  We were happy that Junie and Crys and Alan came back and joined us for trick or treating.

Finley with her candy at the end of the night.

I left to go to the bathroom and came back to this.  Sorting and trading.  This will go on for days!

I think this is Sadie's pile.  Pretty good!

It's kind of fun to live in Utah where they just change Halloween to Saturday if it lands on a Sunday.  I'm sure we will get a few trick or treaters tonight, but most everybody went last night.

 

Garden Success this year

Our garden was pretty successful this year.  We ended up with lots of tomatoes, TONS of jalapenos, and yummy raspberries, plums and so many peaches.  Rob wants to do garden boxes next year.  So we might have a smaller garden while we work on those.  

Here I am in my pjs picking things from the garden. Sadie snapped this picture without me knowing.  But It shows just how crazy big the tomato plants were.  

We harvested all of our jalapenos before it froze outside, and we had a contest to see who could guess how many there were.  Finley guessed 400 and we all thought that was a crazy guess.  But she was the closest because we counted 387!  

We planted sweet potatoes that my mom gave us.  They had sprouted on her counter and then I asked her to bring them up to Utah on her next trip.  They grew in our house until we planted them in our little dirt patch in the corner of our driveway.  They were really successful!

It's like a treasure hunt digging potatoes out of the ground.  Finley loved it.  These grew really big compared to our regular potatoes.  

It was a family affair.  I didn't want to get dirty so my job was to throw the plants into the big dumpster after they pulled them out.

All of our sweet potatoes.  They are yummy.

Check out the size of this one!

We actually invited our neighbor's little boys to come help too.  They had a blast.  There were so many spiders!

Sadie hated the spiders but managed to pick lots of potatoes.

This was our first year growing melons.  The cantaloupe was delicious.  

The watermelons weren't as tasty.  But they were ok.  We got about 6 watermelons and 6 or 7 cantaloupe. 

I was able to preserve a lot of things this year.  I always have good intentions, but usually don't have the energy.  But this year I did pretty good.  Here's peach plum jam that is delightful.

I got tired of canning peaches after about 50 or 60 quarts so I borrowed a friend's juicer and juiced a bunch of them.  This was after we gave away hundreds!

Emery found a Katy-did (leaf bug) which was fun because they were learning about them that week in class.

So many peaches!  This was just one of the harvests.  We got over 600 pounds this year!  

Pretty rainbow.

Finley was very helpful with keeping me company while I picked in the garden.  Here she is with her broken arm.  So cute.

Grandma was here when we harvested our peaches.

Sadly one of our big branches split because the peaches were too heavy.  We fixed it with zip ties and hopefully it will be ok next year.

  

Rob with his harvested potatoes.  We did red, yukon gold and purple potatoes.  I think.

Riley helped with the potatoes.

 Here's a picture of just how many peaches we had.  Rob thinned so many peaches off of this tree.  Like more than 50 percent he pulled off.  Maybe even 75 percent.  But we still had so many.  And now we have lots of jars of peaches and lots of frozen peaches to use until next year!  

Finley's 4th birthday

Our sweet Finley is 4 years old.  She has been telling me everything she wants for her birthday all year long.  The list had thousands of items on it.  Usually when we would go shopping, she would ask for something, and when I said no, she would say "ok...maybe for my birthday."  :)  It really doesn't take much to make her happy.  She spent the day going to the park, opening her presents and chatting with grandma on Facetime.  All of her favorite things!  

The older kids just love Finley.  They showered her with gifts and attention for days after her birthday.  

She blew out all of her candles in one breath. 

Sadie took this picture of her at the canal.  

Grandma gave her this really soft penguin sleeping bag.  She keeps it in her bed and has slept in it every night since she got it.  

This was her last night as a 3 year old.  I still can't believe that our youngest child is 4!  I'm glad I still have a couple of years with her at home before she goes to school.  She is my little cleaning buddy, preschool buddy and playmate during the day.  Her favorite games to play right now are Aladdin and Doggy.  :)