ROCKS, ROCKS, and more ROCKS!!!

Some people grow vegetable gardens, some flower gardens, well Todd and I always want to do things a little different, so we have decided to grow a rock garden! The best thing about it, is we don't have to do anything to it to keep it healthy and thriving. I know you all are jealous and wish that you too could be so blessed!

Mona soil seems to have it's own supply of rocks, because of this we do have our own gravel pit, such a great claim to fame! Even when people are laying sod, and bring in top soil, if you wait to long and there is rain, you will be raking rocks out, so as to be able to lay your sod. Todd and I have decided to look at our plentiful supply of rocks as a blessing and not a trial. If you are willing to harvest your rock, you don't have to buy rocks from outside sources for things that you need gravel for. So I have posted a few picture. First of what our dirt looks like, then a few of what we are using are blessing for.

EXHIBIT #1

EXHIBIT #2

EXHIBIT #3

Our gravel pathway and pad for the future home of our bike shed.

EXHIBIT #4

The start of the pad for the bikes.

EXHIBIT #5

The start of the dry river beds that will be running through our what will someday be our beautiful forest in our front yard.

EXHIBIT#6

Another view.

EXHIBIT #7

Hopefully from this picture you will be able to get a vision of what we are trying to do, and if you enlarge this picture you will see that we have several twigs now planted. It is a combination, of Maple, Birch, evergreen, a golden chain, and many bushes. Next year we will be planting some annuals to give it life as our baby twigs start growing.

EXHIBIT # 8 -10
These of course have nothing to do with rocks or the yard, but I love these pics of TJ especially the first one showing off her after bath hair.

"Feeling Guilty"

OK, I feel to guilty to keep going with my last blog. I wish I could say that I look that good, but I can't. We orignally did that picture for fun and for me to have a picture of something to work towards. The body that my head is on is my sisters. She has never been heavy in her life so we thought it would be fun to have our heads switched. It was really weird to see my sister a little heavy, but it was fun to see myself fit and trim. After the picture was done, it looked pretty good, so Todd and I thought it would be fun to see if anyone believed the picture. The message that I put up, if you know the program I used is Adobe Photoshop, none of it is actually a lie, and it really does give the results that you see in the picture. Adobe really is one of the world's greatest lies, as one of the titles to a clip on youtube says. You can decieve many and make people be anything they want to be. Those celebrities that are always looking fabulous, or look completely terrible over night, have all probably had some work done with photoshop. It is an amazing program.

I started feeling way to guilty after recieving very wonderful compliments from friends and family, so I couldn't let my deception go on further, but I am very glad to know that when I do get the rest of the weight off, people will have nice things to say. That is if anyone will believe me the next time around. I do hope by next time this year I will look like that, or maybe a little sooner if I get my butt in gear. I have lost a lot already, and I know I can get the rest off. And I do wish it was as easy as a few clicks of a computer program, but it's never that easy. (Oh, the length of time that I put that it took me to lose the weight, that is about the time that slowly but surely Todd and I have been learning more about the program.)

Thanks again for the compliments, and for those who want my secret, well now you have and It would be fun to help you out, and give you a picture of you looking fabulous. Not that you aren't already fabulous!!!

This is my sister's head on my body.

This is Mindy with her own body, but with weight added on. It is a lot harder to add the weight on instead of just switching heads, but I don't think we did to bad. We still have a long way, before we are as good as some of the people out there.

"Weight loss Diet Scams"

So, most of you know that I am always struggling to lose weight, or at least wanting to lose weight. After having TJ last year and being finished with my family,I decided I had no more excuses. So after the first of the year, I started gungho, and after about 5 months had lost 45 pounds. That was great and I felt better then I had in a while, but I still had about that much more to lose. I kept trying, but with no luck, I hit a plateau. Over the many years of struggling with my weight I have been sucked into many weight loss diet scams. Pretty much knowing that they wouldn't work when I bought them, but being desperate, tried them anyway, hoping that this one might be different. That this one might be the one. I have been pretty sad about my plateau over the summer, and was trying to come up with something that would work to help me kick it. So, I am always trying to look up new information on the Internet. Finally came across a site that gave me the answers that I think I have been looking for. It wasn't so much a diet pill, but more of a program to sculpt a new you. It is a program that has been used by of course celebrities and many others throughout the world, with unbelievable results. So yep, you guessed it I got sucked in, and decided to give yet, another one of these things a try. I was going to give it my all and see if it was everything it was cracked up to be. Well, I had great success, and learned many new things that I think I can use to help others out. After exercising my newly learned skills, sticking with it, not giving up, I know this is something that I will be able to integrate into my life and I will always have the body I've dreamed of. 6 weeks is all it took me to transform myself. So if anyone is interested, drop me a line and I can give you the information .

So weight loss scams aren't always scams are they?

I am proof!!!

I lost a little over 35 pounds in 6 weeks, cool huh?

"Yes, my kids are just in diapers"

I really do apologize to anyone who may not like to see little kids or big kids for that matter half naked. But for me, a person who hates to do laundry, having them in only diapers, except when they are out in public, saves me a lot of time and some money on not having to do extra laundry. Plus, skin is much more washable then fabric.

So, these next few pictures are of knightin's new favorite past time. TJ doesn't always have quite as much enjoyment from this past time as he does, though this round wasn't so bad!!

This week was a little crazy as always, since Todd is doing his week of nights right now, but we got to have a little extra craziness added. When you live close to family,you never know what might come knocking at your door. My niece KaChele is her Freshman class president. This week is Homecoming, and down here in Juab County they do a Homecoming Parade(something that I haven't seen since moving from CA, after my freshman year). So each class is to do a float and that puts KC in charge of making sue it gets done. She finds out the theme of the parade Tues. It has to be done by Thurs. evening, but KC has other commitments that day. So, yes that leaves us with tues. evening and Wed. Yippee!!! So, first thing my sister does is calls me and ask "Kristy, do you think we can pull this off to help KC out, her float committee is not going to be much help". Dumb me says, "sure". So 27 hours later (and crazy kids), this is what we came up with. Nothing grand, but not to bad for such a short time frame.

The parade Theme was "Can you dig it!"

So, their float read "Freshman Can dig it!"

"Bury the Eagles"

They, had some football players, and some spirit team members on the float shoveling more dirt on the grave.

We did the 3 items out of paper mac he, so we had to tear up newspaper. TJ and Knightin thought they were in HEAVEN!!

"WARNING" Lots of new pictures!!!

" Anyone got a extra set of arms I could borrow"

OUR FAMILY

Our Sweet Girls

Our Crazy Boys

Kristy and the girls

Kristy and the boys

Todd and his Girls

Todd and his Boys

We haven't had a picture of the 2 of us for awhile, so we decided to get one this year.

I Love this smile!!!

"Oh no, did I do something wrong?"

TJ started out a little timid and proper with her cake, taking just a tiny taste.

Decided it was good, so next came the hand full. Go for it TJ!!

No holding back anymore, one hand full after another was her plan. Knightin didn't want to be left out of the fun!!

The finished product, one mutilated cake.

TJ wasn't much into the unwrapping of the presents, but we did get her to open a couple. The rest Knightin gladly helped her with.

She loves her blocks, and spent several minute tossing them through the air, as her brothers and sister laughed and laughed.

My little cheese ball!

I love these looks!

TJ treated us with standing up in the middle of the floor for the first time.

Almost up!

And she's UP!!

And pretty proud of herself, by that smile she's showing off!

Walking with her new walker, and loving it!

A couple of you wanted to see our fence all done. Well, we finally finished it, except for the staining which we will do in the spring after it has had a chance to get a bit weathered, also all the post will have post tops, some of which will be solor lites. We are staining it a dark brown, and then will have vines growing up it. That with a ton of trees, we will eventually create the forest sancturary that Todd and I are after.

The cement buckets and wire, is a temporary fence to keep the kids and dog in, until our garage is built. It's pretty, don't you think?

Another angle, I didn't think a half acre was very big until we started fencing and figuring out all we had to landscape. It's HUGE!!

Todd and I have a lot of time, but not a lot of money. So we found a site online that sells a lot of their trees and plants for $1-$3. We like the price and figure we have the time to let them grow. Plus without the extra shock that bigger trees go through, in a few years these smaller trees catch up to trees that you plant bigger. So, yesterday we recieved some of our little trees and bushes. Here is our Firethorn Bush all snug in the ground.

"Happy Birthday TJ"

Today is TJ's birthday, though we won't be celebrating it until this weekend, we did get her 1 year old pictures done. Todd has been waiting for these pictures for 9 years now. Some of you may know the story of the red boots, but for those who haven't heard, I'll fill you in on it. When Taylar was born, we saw a pair of shiny red Dr. Martin boots at "Mom and Me", it was love at first sight for Todd. Well, being young poor maried couple, we certainly couldn't afford to buy Dr. Martins for a child that wouldn't wear them more then a few months, if we were lucky. So, they went unbought, figuring we would never get to have our little girl wear shiny red boots. When we were pregnant with Kelten, before we new it was a boy we happened to come across a pair of shiny red boots, and decided to buy them just in case. They aren't always around, and weren't very expensive, so what the heck. Well, Kelten was born, then Knightin, and I wasn't sure at the time he was born that I was going to have another, but one more chance did arise to get a little girl, and of course Todd got his wish and TJ was born, and now we would get to use the red boots. We just had to wait now until her 1st birthday. To are dismay, after all the wait, we tried the boots on her about 7-8 weeks ago, and for all who have seen her or seen pictures of her, know that she is quite the chunk. We tried and pushed, and pushed again, but we could not fit her fat little feet in those boots. So the thing that we had waited 6 years for, was not going to happen. So, I got on the Internet and search for hours trying to find a different pair of red boot, to no avail. So the boots were put on the pile destined for baby Gwen. TJ was crawling and a few weeks ago we noticed her legs look trimmer, so the day before Louise got the bag of clothes we gave it another shot, and sure enough her legs were smaller and the boots slipped on, YEAH!!!!

So there you have it, our story of the red boots. I hope you enjoy the pictures, of course we think they are adorable. They rocking horse in the pictures is a b-day present from my my Dad. I told him a few years ago when he made some others, that he would have to make one for us, and we thought it made for a great prop in TJ's pictures.

Look at those legs, I can't wait 'til she is toddling around on those cute little chunky things!



TJ getting ready for pictures

TJ smiling her cheesey squinty eyed smile.

Red Boots, what a great toy!

This Teddy Bear is a B-day gift from Grandma Bassett.

Anyone for an Onion?

Now that's a big onion!! Onions are not my favorite things, I like them as onion rings, but that is about it. Todd likes them better then me, but still not top on his list either. I know that there are people out there that can eat them like apples, for instance Todd says his Dad can eat at least some types of onions that way, but a kid liking them is just something I haven't seen, until now.

I was over at my sisters house and she was cutting up onions for her dinner, TJ wanted them so bad, because you know, she sees food and that's all that matters to her. So, I give her a piece so that she can see that she doesn't really want it. Well, to are suprise we got the reverse effect and now she wanted it even more. What the heck, I let her crawl over there to see what she would do. She loved it, she kept chewing and sucking on the juices until she had eatin about 1/3 of it. I just kept watching in amazment, a little like when Ki would eat lemon wedges, at about 1 1/2 years old without making pucker faces. Well, to my great delight she smelt like onion therest of the day, the smell just doesn't wash away easily, YUMMY!!!

Shrek: Ogres are like onions.

Donkey: They stink?

Shrek: Yes. No.

Donkey: Oh, they make you cry.

Shrek: No.

Donkey: Oh, you leave em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sproutin' little white hairs.

Shrek: NO. Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers. [sighs]

Donkey: Oh, you both have layers. Oh. You know, not everybody like onions.

The little tear in her eye isn't even from the onion, amazing!