WHAT!?!

I really thought I would be older, A LOT OLDER, before I ever heard my husband say, "Oh my gosh! Look at all of those gray hairs on your head!"

And then he finishes by reminding me that he is five years older than me and that he doesn't have ANY gray hairs yet!

How Cool Is That!?!

A couple of my friends got together and made this cool arrangement for my birthday yesterday! This is by far one of the best gifts ever!!!

Thank you Stephanie and Opal!
It looks and smells and tastes amazing!

Duffy Reunion 2010

We had our first ever Duffy Family Reunion. We went camping on Cedar mountain at Duck Creek for four days. My sister and both of my brothers were able to come with their families. I was so happy to see them!

We played horseshoes. We went fishing. We ate dutch oven cooking. We made smores. We got to know everybody a little bit better. We got to play with cousins. The kids got to play in the dirt without fear of having to take a bath, and believe me they were DIRTY!!! We had such a great time, it was so nice to be able to spend that much uninterrupted time together. We all decided we need to get together more often.

Visiting Home

While we were in Utah for vacation, we drove by the two houses in Washington that I lived in growing up. The first one here I only have a few memories. We lived in the basement around back. I remember the staircase, it seemed really big to me. I bet it doesn't anymore though. I also vividly remember getting my head stuck in the railing on the front porch. I remember Tracy and Lisa coming to my rescue. They lived in the upstairs.

How is it that you can get your head in somewhere, and then it won't come out!?!?

This is the house I grew up in. We didn't live in the red brick basement for very long. We moved to this house that is about two blocks away from the other one. It looks different and familiar. When we first moved there, a large tree was growing right smack in the middle of the yard. You couldn't really even see the house when the tree had leaves. It was supposed to be a fruitless mulberry, but it fruited at least every other year. It was a great climbing tree! There was also another tree in front of the bottom right window. It had red leaves, and I think cherries or plums on it. There were two tall Italian Cypress trees on either side of the front door. Some of the changes in this picture were made while I was living there.

I don't know if you can tell, but the house is on a hill. A pretty steep one. 1/2 block up the road and across the main street was the city pool and baseball fields, there were tennis courts to the right of the pool. A block north of that was the elementary school.

It amazes me to see how the neighborhood has changed. Things that used to seem so large, aren't anymore. The city pool is no longer there. It is a parking lot for the baseball fields. The elementary school is so different now! The corner that used to be dirt hills to climb is now the city library! Behind the elementary school they built a new community center with an indoor pool and lots of other sports rooms.

The house is in a great location for a family with children, so many things so close by! I loved to go back and see what my old neighborhood looks like now! You know, memory lane!

We Love Swimming

We went swimming at the community center in Washington, UT. Most of my pictures ended up being blurry, but this shot of Allie and Michael is so cute!

St. George Temple

We visited the St. George Temple visitor's center while on vacation in southern Utah. It is a cool place to visit. The kids enjoyed walking around the place that Michael and I got married. It was SO hot though! Our temperature is usually close to St. Georges'. I think they are at least 10 degrees hotter!

11 in the bed and the little one said.....

Allie's first sleep over

Today's Harvest

OK, so this isn't actually from today. It is all from one day though about two weeks ago. I am really enjoying having a garden! The sugar snap peas are done - we had about 3 lbs. total. We have had several good sized zucchini. We have had at least 5lbs. of cherry tomatoes so far and the bushes are still growing!!! They are SOOOO yummy! We have harvested about 2lbs. of green beans, but we still have a bunch more growing. They are so good steamed!

We have 10 or 11 ears of corn growing right now. We took one off and cooked it to see if it was ready and it was really good. We have 29 watermelons growing. 15 or so cantaloupes. Tons of carrots and radishes. A couple of pumpkins and cucumbers. The onions are doing well, but won't be ready for harvest until September. I also planted basil, parsley, common chives and garlic chives, which are all doing really well. I love to pull off fresh basil leaves, they smell so good! We planted oregano, but it never came up. I think we planted it too deep.

Our bell peppers were a big flop. Some small peppers grew but turned brown and started shriveling up. Next year we are going to try seeds instead of starters. We have had a couple of small summer squash, but not very big. They start shriveling up before we can really use them.

I think one of my big problems is that when things sprouted I didn't thin them out. I forgot about that until everything was two feet tall! So I think overcrowding is hurting some things, they just don't have enough room to grow well.

One night for dinner I made stir-fry. It was so cool to go to the garden and pick sugar snap peas to put in it! I felt very Little House on the Prarie. Cooking from my garden and hanging clothes on the clothes line make me feel more domestic than anything else!

Honey Farm

Michael heard about this place from a friend at
work. It was on the way to the beach so we decided
to stop and check it out.

You can see the bees here doing their thing.



The queen bee is in this picture. Can YOU find her?


It was cool to see the beehive, with all the worker bees.

They also have honey tasting here. I had no idea there are different flavors of honey. I always thought the honey you buy at the grocery store(which by the way is Clover) was it. Well I was wrong!(not shocking, I know) There are several kinds of honey.

Clover
Orange
Wildflower
Tropical Wildflower
Eucalyptus
Sage
Avacado
Buckwheat
Cactus

You can really taste the difference.

FYI our favorites are:
Kristi, Tropical Wildflower - Michael, Eucalyptus - Emma, Wildflower - I think Michael's mom liked Orange
(the others don't like honey at all)

We learned some fascinating facts about bees. The kids liked tasting the honey and watching the bees work. If you are in the area of a honey farm, I highly recommend visiting! click on the link below to see where we went

Bennett Honey Farm

1st Beach Trip 2010

We took Michael's parents to the beach while they were here. It was overcast and they both decided it looked just like Seattle! It was not too hot or too cold, it was really nice. The water was freezing, but I have been told that I am the only one who thought that! Oh well, I guess I am a wimp!

Happy 4th of July

Michael's parents and his brother Chris came for the 4th of July this year. We had a BBQ and did some small fireworks in the front yard, it was a nice relaxing holiday!

Tye-Dye Fun

Another fun summer activity! You might think that I am crazy, but I thought the kids would love this, and I was right! They each picked out the design they wanted to make and we used the rubber bands to hold it in place(except for Allie's, her's was scrunched). We each used the dye to make the color scheme we wanted and here are the end results!


Was it hard? No.
Was it a headache? No.
Was it messy? A little bit!
Was it fun? YES, YES, YES!!!

We were all excited to wash our
shirts and see how they turned out!

Sanity Investment

We decided to invest in a pool for our backyard this summer. At the pool across the street, we aren't allowed to use any type of flotation device for the kids. That means that I can't take my kids by myself, because I can't hold Jacob and Allie both. This pool has been a lifesaver this summer! The kids have had a blast and it isn't as hard to keep up as I thought it would be!

Happy Birthday Allie!

June 12, 2010




Allie had to have the star piece!!!

My baby is 3 now! Where does the time go!?! We spent Allie's birthday at Uncle Mike and Aunt Joyce's house. Six hours of swimming and lots of running. You can probably see how tired Allie is from her eyes!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Grandma and Grandpa Stevulak came to visit over the 4th of July. We celebrated Grandma's birthday while they were here - aren't they cute!?!

More Garden Work

BEFORE


AFTER


We laid weed cloth all around the garden boxes and then covered it with crushed rock. It looks really good if I do say so myself! Hopefully it will help control the weeds!!! See how big our garden is now!?!

Check it Out!

Our first zucchini. It is bigger and prettier than the one I just bought from WinCo! I am so excited! We just found it too, we didn't even know it was there!

Woggles

This is Allie wearing her woggles :)

Tired Kids

I swear Jacob could sleep anywhere in any position! Notice the girls in the background!?! This was driving home from Anaheim after spending the day swimming with some friends from Washington State. It was SO much fun! We miss you already!

Backyard Visitors

This creepy looking thing is a type of funnel web spider. I found the funnel web and was looking closely when this thing suddenly came out! I swear it could be a relative of Hagrid's spider Aragog! The video is creepy, and not very steady, you may want to take a dramamine! I hope you don't get motion sickness!!!


This tiny little hummingbird keeps landing on our clothesline. It is really cute! You can tell how small he is looking at the clothespin next to him!!! We don't mind him staying for as long as he wants!


We have been having problems with squirrels eating our garden. Or so we thought. It turns out this little guy has been living under our shed! He is kinda cute, but he is eating our garden!!! He has gone for dinner with the coyotes, if you get my drift!

Handsome

Jacob doesn't like this outfit. In fact, he hates the vest.
I took a picture of him right before he decided to go change.
I think he looks adorable, handsome, and just plain cute!

Happy Father's Day!

"Dad, I love you. I like to play games with you. I like to go camping with you. I love to go swimming with you. I like it when you read me books and sing to me at bedtime. I like to go bye-bye with you. Thank you for taking me to the store to get light savers! Thank you for coming with me to church." Love Jacob.

"I like to go swimming with you. I like to go to the park with you. I like how you make my burritos for lunch. I like to go to Chuck-E-Cheese with you. Thank you for the lotion you gave me for Christmas, I love it." Love Gracie.

"Hey Dad I love you and really like spending time with you and I hope to be able to spend more time with you before school starts again. I love you and hope you have a great Father's Day!" Love Emma.

"I like your brown eyes like mine. I like to cuddle with you. I like your smile. I like to go swimming with you. I like to help you. I love to sing songs with you." Love Allie.

"Michael, Happy Father's Day! We all love you so much! You are a fantastic father. The kids love to be with you and so do I. You are loving and kind and mostly patient. I know that you aren't a perfect father, but you are perfect for us! We appreciate your hard work supporting us, and the sacrifices you make for us. I love you." Love Kristi.

Sunday

Jacob has been against Sunday's for a while now. He will ask what day it is until Saturday. He knows that Sunday is after Saturday and he doesn't like Sunday. He is difficult to get dressed, he doesn't want his hair combed and most of all he doesn't want to go to church.

This morning I asked him to go get dressed for church fully expecting a fight. 30 minutes later he came in to my bathroom completely dressed for church. Shirt tucked in, belt and shoes on, hair combed and said:

"Mom, when I was a little kid I didn't like Sunday. But now that I am big I like Sunday. I like to get dressed for church and I can't wait to see Sister Manning (his teacher). I combed my hair and put gel in it to make it handsome. I didn't like gel when I was a little kid, but now I do. Now I like to look handsome!"

He told me that I am beautiful. He told each one of his sisters that they are beautiful. He told us all 5 times in the car on the way to church that he loves us!

He has the sweetest disposition (when he wants to). He really is a sweet boy!

Yard Work

Jacob is a very good helper in the yard!
He loves to push the wheelbarrow all over the place!

Progress

Here are some progressive pictures of our garden boxes. Once they hit week 3 they all just took off!

We are very excited that our garden is growing! I think everything we planted has sprouted now. It is amazing to see how fast they grow once they sprout! The kids love it! Every day they go out and look for baby sprouts.

We have 9 large tomato plants and 8 cherry tomato plants! They all have 15-20 tomatoes so far and tons of blossoms!

We are going to have a ton (possibly literally) of tomatoes. Anyone have any good recipes for fresh tomatoes!?!



The big bushes in the back are tomatoes

Laundry Helper

Jacob's idea of helping with the laundry.

Imitating

It is amazing to watch younger siblings imitate an older one. Gracie was outside watching Jacob play basket ball when Allie had to join her. I love it!

Fat Lip

Jacob went to the dentist to have a cavity filled. He did fantastic through the whole thing. No laughing gas or anything like it. After the filling was finished, they wanted Jacob to bite on a cotton roll to prevent him biting his cheek. Well that lasted about 6 minutes before it fell out on to the ground. I didn't worry too much about it, I just kept reminding him not to bite down. We stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up some popscicles. As we are getting ready to pay I notice Jacob has blood running down his chin. Yeah, he bit it good. Well, then it got infected and swelled up really big. It took almost two weeks to fully clear up.

He bit the inside of his cheek, he didn't even bite his lip!!!

Goodbye Mrs. Grimes

Gracie's teacher retired this year after 30 years of teaching. Michael thought it would be nice to do something for her. She is a very patriotic woman. All of their performances this year had to do with the flag, and our freedom. Michael thought it would be cool to make her a rag quilt that looked like a flag on one side and had spaces on the back for the students and staff to sign. So, I cut all the fabric and Michael took the squares to the school with the room mother to get them signed.



She was very excited about it! I think it turned out pretty good for a three day quilt! She was a good teacher for Gracie this year!



A great compliment from Mrs. Grimes:

During the awards she was presenting to the students in her class, when she got to student of the year (Gracie) she gave a very nice compliment. She said that in 25 years of teaching Gracie was her top student ever!!!

End of Year

Gracie ended the year with the following awards:
Perfect attendance for the 4th quarter
Perfect attendance for the year
Excellence in all academic areas and behavior
2nd place AR (reading)
Top student for the year


Emma ended the year with the following awards:
Perfect attendance for the 4th quarter
1st place AR (reading)
Superintendent's Honor Roll for 4th quarter
(all A's and perfect citizenship)
Presidents Education Award - Gold
(Superintendent's Honor Roll all year)
Top student for the year

Once again we had a fantastic school year! The girls have worked so hard and done an incredible job with their school work. We are incredibly proud of them for all of their efforts!

Human Temperature

105.3 is a VERY bad # to see on an EAR thermometer!

105.3

105.3 is a VERY bad # to see on a thermometer!

Dora and Boots

For any of you that have seen Dora, this will make perfect sense!
This is a real episode of Dora the Explorer. Dora is played by Allie and Boots is played by Jacob. They made this up by themselves, I just tried to capture it without being noticed. It was the best episode of Dora I have ever seen! They even sang all the songs in the appropriate place! Too cute!

Total Concentration

Must be a good movie!

Lips

This is a better picture of the
lip thing that Allie does!

Although it still doesn't quite capture the eyes!
Maybe I will get it next time!

Big, Messy, Eater

Yes, she really ate all of that by herself!