Mango is gone

Toby's pet parakeet, Mango, died last night. She was a good bird. Banana (Toby's other parakeet) is a little lonely now. Toby's a little sad. I think this is the first time we've had to deal with a death. (goldfish and hermit crabs don't really count.)

Betsy's Diner

I really wanted to do a prank for April Fool's Day. But I'm not great at thinking up pranks. Instead, I created my own dinner menu for a mystery restaurant.
On the menu, there are only numbers. Circle 5 on the left, 8 on the right. No words, just numbers.Then you wait and see what you get. The numbers corresponded to my list of plates, cups, utensils, and food. I had my list in alphabetical order to mix it up. My geeky boys (and husband) picked their numbers by choosing a pattern: prime numbers, fibonacci numbers, or some other mathematical thing. Hazel circled everything.

Some diners got plates, some got cookie sheets, racks, or cutting boards, or some combination thereof.Some got a drinking glass, some measuring cups or jars.And some got utensils, others got oversized eating implements, or they nothing and had to use their fingers of just lean over and eat off the plate/cookie sheet!Then for the food:

Not everyone got all the parts of the dinner. Only a couple people got dessert. We had fajitas. Only 2 people got tortillas, some didn't get any chicken. Some people got 2 or 3 drinks, some got none.
Once the food was served, everyone came up with different solutions to their dining challenges: Nate got all the parts for a fajita, but no tortilla. So he made little fajita appetizers. Toby traded the food he didn't like for something he needed. Some just made do.
It was a lot of fun. Very silly. I think we might do this again.

Wait till your father gets home!

This is what Aspen brought home from school today:How did this happen? She's never behaved like this before. I could believe it from one of the boys. But Aspen?

Nate believed it too!!!

lions and tigers and BEARS

Our ward's cub pack had it's Blue and Gold Banquet last week. Isaac received his bear badge. I gave the mother's pin to Nate -because he is the one who did everything with Isaac this year (I did it all when he was a wolf). One of the traditions they do here for bears is to send the scout into a den (teepee) and he comes out a bear. Kind of cute. Only have one more year of cub scouting left! Where did all that time go? He'll be a Boy Scout before I know it.

Hail!!

We had a big hail storm come through town a couple days ago. Nate called to suggestion that I clean out the garage really fast so that I could get my car in the garage. So I gathered all of my lovely and obedient children and we moved stuff around until at least one car (mine) coud get inside. Nate's car has been through previous hailstorm/damage and so his was not a priority. Thankfully, he got home safe and without a cracked windsheild. There was the size of golfballs and tennis balls in some other areas. It's pretty loud. We finished right as it started to rain. Made sure to gather everyone away from the windows that were facing the storm. Only a few of our windows have been replace with safety tempured glass (due to real golf balls and bad golfers). But it was over fast. And even though the ward cancelled all activities for the night, we enjoyed a nice evening at home.

Sadly, the large hail decimated half of my tomato plants. I don't think they are going to be able to recover. So yesterday I replaced them.

Planting time

I love gardening. We have had a couple gardens in past houses that we've owned. But we have missed having one here at this house. So, after 5 years, we finally built one.

Because our house sits on a nice bed of clay, we opted for some raised beds to garden in.
Isaac helped me construct the bed frames. We made 5 frames: 3- 8'X12' beds, 2- 4'X4' beds. Isaac is pretty handy with the power tools.

I ordered some good garden mix and a couple bales of peat moss.

Then I put the kids to work shoveling and raking, while I pushed the very heavy wheelbarrow full of dirt to the back yard.

We mixed it with the peat moss and the planted our seeds.We started some pumpkins, cantaloupe, watermelon, cucumbers, beets, carrots, radishes, onions, broccoli, jalepeno, bell peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, beans, peas, lettuce, spinach, cilantro, dill, oregano, thyme, basil, chives, and tomatoes. We even squeezed in a few marigolds to protect the tomatoes.

We check every day to see what has popped up and sprouted over night. (The radishes were first, of course). Most of the other seeds have germinated and pushed up through the soil. Kind of waiting on the peppers and broccoli. Anyday now!

This experience has convinced me that I need more opportunities for my children to do manual labor (nothing beats it for convincing a kid that school is the place to be for a good future!) And nothing beats real work to wear the kids out. We all slept well that night.

Kids Say the Darndest Things - ART LINKLETTER

Get your chuckle for the day. I was laughing out loud.

37

Nate had a birthday a few weeks ago. (I've been a tad behind on the blogging.) He turned 37 this year. Of course, he's been saying he's 37 for more than a year, so this isn't that big a deal.
I guess the memory is the first thing to go for him.

Eat your vegetables

For Isaac's Blue and Gold Banquet, they help a cake auction to raise funds for the Friends of Scouting. So this is the cake that we made. It's a yellow cake baked in the roaster pan. Frosted with cool whip and sprinkled with green skittles "peas" and circles of starbursts "carrots". I'm just getting all warmed up for April Fool's Day! This kind of foolery is pretty fun!

PS I had to buy the gigantic 3 1/2 pound bags of skittles and starbursts (the ones with ziplock tops) just to have enough of the right colors.

PS2 I flattened the starbursts a bit with a rolling pin and cut them out with a small circle cutter.

Sister Make the Best of Friends

Last weekend, I journeyed to the zion to spend a few days with my sisters. We went to Park City for some fun in the snow. The snow was mostly gone, but we still had lots of fun. Hannah took us to a great cafe for (b)runch near her house. And played some badminton on the front lawn.

We rode the zip line down the ski jump slope at Olympic Park.
We did some shopping with Erika and her girls on Saturday. We played lots of games. Stayed up way too late (in typical Kerksiek fashion).
We did some ice skating. (Got beat in races by a bunch of kids at the rink.)
It was a fun weekend. I think we need to do it again. Maybe a warm locale next time? I'm thinking Hawaii? Anyone?