Farm and Family

Happy 8 years!! This year for our anniversary we went out to a nice restaurant called Vito's and saw the new mission impossible movie at the local theater. Molly was so nice to stay with all 4 of the kiddos. It was nice to get to spend time together and eat yummy food. Best 8 years ever!!

 Ready for our night out

 It must be love!!

Piggies: We got our pigs for this year the day before Zeyta's blessing. We are letting Nate's friends keep their pig with our pig so ours won't be so lonely and so they have a place to grow theirs. It should be a pretty good arrangement because they are gonna help with the butchering process and then we will split the cost of the two pigs. They are called Dorothy (the one with the white stripe) and Chubs. Bet you can't guess which one my kiddos named ;)

Me holding Chubs - they are 5 weeks in this picture and about 15 lbs

Chubs and Dorothy - they like to bury themselves in the hay to sleep. After their multiple escapes I'm paranoid that they get out, so I go in to see if they are really in there or not. But Nate has since added boards to the bottom of the fence and chicken wire surrounding the pen area because they can fit through the concrete wires. It's nice to keep the chickens out too because we are using a medicated feed for the next week or so.

Chloe catching the pigs - all the babies like to go in and try to pet the pigs when we feed them their scraps.

Garden: We have been eating out of the garden and it makes me so happy! We have picked about 10-15 strawberries twice now! They are so sweet and delicious! The netting is working well against birds (aka Siri) but some of them have tiny bug bites so that's no fun.

Yummy Strawberries!

I also have about 5 zucchini in the fridge waiting to be made into something delicious and just gave away 3 loaves of zucchini bread and kept 2 for ourselves. I am so glad I am finally getting zucchini - everyone says its so easy to grow but this is my first time actually getting an abundant amount! I hope to pressure can some (maybe :/ ) for pasta sauce and freeze some shredded for zucchini bread down the road :) We still are picking beets for salad and the babies ate the first 3 red tomatoes! I have a spaghetti squash that is getting big and I've seen 2 pumpkins. There are quite a few cucumbers but they are all small still. The garden is going pretty well this year, I just need to fertilize the soil really good this fall so we can have another good garden next year because the soil was pretty depleted this time around.

We also picked our first HOME GROWN PEACHES!!! They are delicious and juicy even if they are a little small. The Reliance peach tree has about 20 peaches on it and I think they are all ready (or just about) to pick. The Contender ones are getting some color but are still really hard.

Blain picked the biggest beet!

Chickies: We are still waiting for eggs, except from Siri who has been laying every day like a good chicken :) I've heard 2 attempts at crowing from the roosters ( I think we have 3). The new addition is finished and they are enjoying the new space.

Avenlea in with the chickens - one of her favorite things to do

Finished coop expansion! Love the little chicken door that the bigger animals can't access - keeps their feed safe and just looks cute!

First Time Fishing: When Melissa and her family were staying with us for a week we took the kids fishing in hopes that Darius could get his fishing badge for scouts. Well nobody caught anything but they sure had fun doing it! Melissa bought the three older kiddos their own poles and they did good practicing their cast and were pretty patient waiting for fish to bite.

Chloe "trying really hard to be the first one to catch a fish" - that's what she told Nate when he was setting up her pole.

Avenlea mostly walked around making mischief and keeping me on my toes to keep her safe from hooks, falling in the water and eating the bait

Cute Blain reeling in his worm - he asks if we can go fishing just about every other day. I hope we can go again before it gets too cold

Pioneer Day: Em's ward does a really nice pioneer day breakfast that she invites us to and of course we said yes! They have yummy pancake breakfast, a kids parade, and a brass band playing pioneer songs. My goal for next year is to make them little pioneer outfits to wear in the parade. The kids that have pioneer clothes look SO cute.

Damian pulling Chloe and Marie

Kiya pushing Blain and Avenlea

The line up :)

Splash Pad: The week before Nate went back to work we went to the splash pad with Em down in Orem. They had lots of fun keeping cool and playing with their cousins.

Avenlea barely got wet but loved putting her hands in the fountains

Half way through Blain and Marie abandoned the water to play with their towels, but he still had fun covering the holes and getting sprayed

Chloe is my little water baby, she stayed in the whole time with (of course) a toy or two in tow

Happy Birthday Summer:  Back in July Em had Summer's birthday party. She was so cute eating her cake and playing the tissue game. It's so funny what makes a one year old happy. Love you Summer Bummer!

opening her presents

The personal cake destined for baby destruction

Blain burying Summer in fluff

Nothing better than a pool full of tissues to occupy a bunch of kids

Just a sweet picture of Avenlea laying with Zeyta - there was a whole sequence of pictures where she gets the binky and gives it to her but I opted for this cute one where Zeyta is still happy. Avenlea is so aware of little Zeyta and when she fusses Avenlea is always the first one to let me know, usually with a very concerned face. What a sweet heart. Zeyta is lucky to have such good big sisters.