Sunday, June 29, 2008

Gardening
















I found this old baby picture of me. Hmmmm... I wonder where Ryleigh gets her looks from. She is way chubbier than I ever was, but you can see who my girls get their chubby cheeks from.



Our garden is coming along nicely. Thank goodness it has been getting hotter so my vegetables didn't die.

The big bush in the front is our one roma tomato plant that we inherited from our neighbor. She said they didn't have room to plant it and it was the saddest looking one out of the bunch. I think it is doing fine. We may even have to prune it. The flowers sticking out behind it are from the mustard we planted. Next to the tomato plant are lettuce and carrots.





Here we have our green onions and yellow onions. The green are in front and doing better than the yellow. Then we have two rows of corn.
I love planting corn. It is easy and grows tall really fast.











This is our pumpkin plant. McKenna started it from one of those kid's kits that you get at Lowe's or Home Depot. It came with a peat moss pot and 3 pumpkin seeds and the expanding dirt pellet. I recommend this for kids because it grows so fast and she loves watching it grow. When we started it indoors, McKenna was always saying "Mine's bigger than your plants." When it got too big for its pot, Dan planted it outside. It wasn't doing so well, but once the sun and heat decided to stay it is growing like crazy. Can't wait for Halloween!

Monday, June 23, 2008

Bountiful Trip

Friday after work, we packed up and drove to Salt Lake to visit Dan's parents and family. We stayed until Sunday so it was a really quick trip. We managed to cram in quite a bit in the two days. Saturday morning we went to Matt's Elders Quorum activity and Dan played softball. The turnout was kinda small with about 1/3 of the players being Pattons. McKenna had fun playing at the park with her Aunt Cami. They played on the swings and planted sticks in the ground. They found a stick that looked like a chicken foot. I should have taken a picture of it. Then we went over to Laurel's work, Kangaroo Zoo. It is a playground/mini golf place. The playground has about 6 inflatable playgrounds in the shape of dragons and snakes and other things I can't remember. I forgot the camera so had to take pictures with my cell phone. Now if only I could figure out how to convert them to the computer. Maybe I will have Dan do it sometime. For dinner, we went to John and Mandi's for an early birthday celebration for Spencer, McKenna and John. They set up a small pool and Spencer and McKenna had a blast. Ryleigh didn't know what to think of the cold water at first. Once I got in with her she was fine. Again, those pictures are on the cell phone. It was Ryleigh's first time in a pool. She wore McKenna's old bathing suit which McKenna fit in when she was almost 1 year old. Ryleigh is almost 5 months old. Just shows you the difference in size between my two babies. We had hotdogs and hamburgers then opened presents. McKenna received some pretty cool things. She got a Bratz doll from her great grandma Joan. She has been wanting one for a while but I have been putting it off. Why do companies make packaging for dolls so hard to open??? I have just spent 10 minutes trying to open a small cabbage patch doll. Sheesh! The Bratz package claimed it was easy open. It wasn't. That is my grip for today. McKenna specially requested a cake with purple frosting and pink flowers. Her Aunt Mandi is so nice. She made it for her. The party was really fun. Sunday, we met up with my dad for dim sum. We met his clients. They were nice and the women loved Ryleigh. They even took pictures with her. We went to church and then had Sunday dinner with Dan's family. Kenna slept for half the trip home and Ryleigh slept for almost all of it. She was tired. We got home about 11pm. I thought the girls would sleep in today. Fat chance. They were both up at 8am which is normal for them.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

"Tracie with 6 kids"

I don't know where McKenna got this idea. Really... She drew a picture of a mom with 6 kids. Then she told me that it is Aunt Tracie with 6 kids. If you look closely there are 5 girls and 1 boy. Sorry Tracie... I hope this doesn't freak you out too much. Mckenna even wrote on picture "Tracie with 6 kids." I had nothing to do with this. Honest.













I tried to feed Ryleigh a little rice cereal the other day. She got the idea of the spoon in her mouth pretty quick but she is still figuring out how to swallow the cereal. I have only tried it a couple of times. She did seem interested which is a good sign. I am tempted to add some baby food to it to give it some taste but I guess I will try it bland first.









Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Freezer jam

Today, Adrianne and I made strawberry freezer jam. We made 4 batches in under 2 hours. Last year it took us double the amount of time to make the same amount. We sped up the process by using an egg slicer to slice the strawberries and a hand blender to mash them up. It was really nice not having to hand mash the strawberries like last year. McKenna really likes the jam and will eat it out of the jar with a spoon.

I have a new calling at church. I am the CTR 7 teacher. I was released as the Enrichment leader last week. They were just waiting for me to stop working Sundays. I think I will forever be put in the primary. I was almost the Sunbeam teacher. I think I have taught Sunbeams three times already. This is a change for me. I have two boys in the class and 4 girls. The boys are a little hard to handle in Sunday School, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve for next week. The girls are angels.

Dan's calling is going well...I think. He is busy on Sundays and has to go to mutual on Wednesday nights. Sundays can be a little overwhelming for me, but we manage. Dan is taking care of Ryleigh during Sunday school and Primary so that helps. I think she pooped twice during church last Sunday just for her daddy.

McKenna finished gymnastics last week. She does a pretty good handstand now. She is taking a break for summer. We may look into getting her ready for competitive gymnastics instead of the Little Gym. McKenna is really excited for Kindergarten next month. She starts on the 23rd of July. She is going to year-round school.

Ryleigh rolled over for the babysitter last Friday... twice! Too bad Jodi didn't see it either time. She went from her stomach to her back. I can't get her to do it at home yet. She must only do it when no one is looking. Ryleigh really likes balloons. Mckenna was throwing one in the air and Ryleigh just laughed and laughed. Too bad she didn't laugh again when I was trying to show Dan.

Dan and I are trying to get into shape before our trip to the Oregon Coast in August. Yesterday, I did one hour of pilates, weeded in the backyard for 2 hours, and lifted weights at night. I am sore today. Dan is running every morning before work and lifting weights too. We will see how it goes. Sometimes it is hard to work out with everything else I have to do. Our garden is coming along. Hopefully the weather starts to cooperate and get warm so my plants can grow.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

"Dan in Real Life" - The first post.


Well, here it is... Dan's first post on the blog. I have had many requests to post something so that Rachel was not the only one to talk about our lives here on the blog. So here goes....


Indy and the classic brown hat are back. Rachel and I went to see the new Indiana Jones movie the other night. I was very excited to see the next movie in one of my favorite movie series. The movie was good, but very different from the first three. It was almost like Spielberg forgot why he made the first movies in the last 14 years. It was almost like he did it so that he could make some more money. (like he needs it) The movie actually reminded me of Star Wars... Well it was almost filmed in the same style as the new episodes were. Also not as historically fact oriented as the other movies either. He depended on computer animation too much. It was enjoyable and very entertaining though. Definitely better than that other movie that came out this weekend about some girls that live in New York City and that worry too much about how they look and can't commit to a relationship unless the men are OK with them seeing other men. I would much rather see Indy three or four times before I had to be dragged to see that one... I guess that it was a smash hit among extremely fashionable women, that can relate to these New Yorker girls. It is too bad that that is the way are culture is going these days. Sometimes I wish that we could all go back to the 1940's like Indiana and fight the Fascists instead of fighting the Fashion-ists of today.

It was nice to go out to the movies with Rachel though. Rachel's Mom is visiting, so she was able to watch the girls while we went out. We did take her to a pretty good Chinese restaurant before the movie, so she was very happy to have a full stomach and happy to be with her grand kids.