Fruits of our labors

Last Summer we were very disappointed at how our garden turned out. We have pretty lousy soil in our garden. This Spring we splurged a bit on our soil and in putting in a drip system and are very pleased with the results and wanted to share a few pictures of our harvest.

Ethan is standing between a few of our tomato plants. We trained them to grow up a trellis.

Here are a few things we picked today. We have several varieties of tomatoes, green, red, banana, and jalapeño peppers, cucumbers, green and yellow beans, strawberries, lettuce, squash, and carrots.
A lady in our ward is really big into growing heirloom tomatoes. She gave us a few plants to try out.

We are still finishing up painting some of the trim and our fireplace mantle. We should have everything cleaned up and put back together in the next few days. Ethan has been such a good helper. We tried to get a picture of him helping me sand the mantle, but he wouldn't pose for us. He loves to copy whatever we are working on.We took Ethan to Nursery for the first time today. We were going to wait another week, but Kyle got a new calling this week that made it more difficult to watch Ethan. As we expected, Ethan did great. He loves toys, especially ones that are new to him. The Nursery leaders said that he didn't make a peep the whole time and just played. Hopefully he'll go so easily in the future. With Ethan in Nursery it was nice to get more from the lessons again. During Relief Society and Sunday School Jen saw the other moms and babies and missed having a baby to play with. Good thing her arms will be full again soon!

This week our baby weighs about 2 1/2 lbs (like a butternut squash) and is a little over 15 inches long.

Big Brother

Lately I've been thinking about how it is kind of sad that Ethan doesn't really know that he is going to be a big brother soon. He'll be 18 months next week and hasn't seemed to understand when I tell him that he is going to have a little sister or that Mommy has a baby in her tummy.

Just the other day Kyle and I were talking to him and asked him where Mama's baby was. He lifted my shirt and eagerly pointed to my belly. Then he kissed it repeatedly after we prompted him to kiss the baby. I am often surprised at how much he picks up and understands when I don't think he does. It really made my day. I know he is going to be a great big brother, though I'm sure it will take some adjustment. He is such a tender and sweet natured boy. I can't wait to see the love he will have for his sister.

Work in Progress

Kyle and I have been planning on repainting our interiors for quite a while. Last winter I removed lots of nasty wallpaper that had been painted over in our hallway and bedroom. It is probably more of a nesting thing, but I wanted to take advantage of the little time Kyle has before he starts school again to get most of our painting done. We worked each evening this week prepping our walls and painted all day Friday and Saturday. Kyle spent last weekend painting our storage room which seemed to be more work than we anticipated (especially since one of us has to keep Ethan away) so we were grateful that Kyle's mom was so willing to come help us paint our entire upstairs (excluding bedrooms and bathrooms). We couldn't have done it without you, Lynne!! The whole process took about twice as long as we thought it would, and took about twice the paint we anticipated (1-1/2 gallons of primer and 5-1/2 gallons of paint). We still have to paint all of our baseboards and around our doors and do some touch ups so I don't have any after pictures yet, but here are a few we took during the process.

This green covered about 1/3 of the area we painted.
Kyle priming the green walls
We have vaulted ceilings in our house making some places a bit difficult to paint. For anyone interested, we went with Kwal's color called "plant stand." It is kind of a taupe but more greenish yellow. It is funny how different it looks under different lighting, but we love it already.
Ethan had a great time seeing his grandma Morrey over the last few days. He even had a little sleepover in her room one of the nights. We were glad he was as good as he was during the process.

Baby weighs about 2-1/4 lbs this week (like a Chinese cabbage) and is just under 15 inches in length. Although I feel huge and find it hard to imagine nearly 3 more months of pregnancy, I can still see my feet so I guess I mustn't be quite as large as I feel.

Parade of Homes

The last two weekends we have been going to the Parade of Homes in Salt Lake. We went last year and got lots of fun ideas and won an LCD TV so we thought it would be fun to go again this year. There are some amazingly huge homes out there! Ethan had a lot of fun going around to the different homes and exploring the nooks and crannies while clinging to his toy cars. We took too many pictures to post them all, but here are a few fun ones.

Here, Kyle and Ethan couldn't resist trying out the trampoline.
This was a playroom in one of the houses. Ethan didn't want to get off of the swing. We liked the painting on the walls. It might be a fun idea for a kid's room.
Some people are so creative with the space under their stairs. We've seen many turned into playrooms. This one was awesome! It looked like an old English storefront including a few light poles and a sign that read "toy shoppe." It had all sorts of fun things inside.
This same house had a play area built like a pirate's ship complete with a crow's nest, hot tub, slide and a rope bridge.


We thought this was a fun idea for a decorative pillow.Baby weighs about 2 pounds this week (about the weight of a head of cauliflower), and is about 14 1/2 inches long. This week she has gotten much more active and started kicking a lot stronger. Today marks 3 months until her due date.

Pregnant moment: Last night Jen decided to quickly throw a load of laundry in the washer before bed. While lying in bed, she wondered where her brand-new cell phone was and remembered that she left it in the pocket of her jeans she just put in the washing machine 20 min earlier. We thought it was toast for sure, but after letting it dry out, it seems to work fine!! What a miracle!! It is amazing what affect pregnancy has on the mind!

Pioneer Day

The Taylor family has a tradition of having everyone sleep over at Grandma and Grandpa's house for the 24th of July celebration. The year, they had a lot of fun things planned out, and it was a blast. Earlier this year, they bought this fun water slide (in the front), and some of their friends provided the other blow-up toys (behind).

Ethan had fun in the water and had a lot of fun with his cousins.




Ethan got to see lots of fireworks this weekend, with varied responses. On Thursday, we went to the North Logan fireworks, which Ethan was really looking forward to. We'd ask if he wanted to see the fireworks, and he'd get really excited. When he actually watched them, he was very nervous and was on the verge of crying throughout the show.
On Saturday, Mendon put on a good show, and Ethan was really funny. He was so tired from the week, that he just laid on the blanket staring at the fireworks through half-closed eyes. We asked him if he was ready to go to sleep, and he fervently shook his head no. We continued to ask him through the show, and his response was always no, but with less and less enthusiasm each time. We were certain he was finally asleep, but asked him if he was ready to go to sleep one last time, expecting no response, but he very subtly shook his head. Silly boy. After that, he stopped responding.

On Saturday morning, everyone went clay pigeon shooting, and it was Jen's first time shooting a shotgun. She was pretty good at almost hitting what she was aiming at. Kyle only did a little better.
Finally, out little girl is this big (approx a pound and a half, and 13 and a half inches).
In other news, Kyle is done with school for the month of August, and Jen is ready to put him to work. There's a lot of work around the house to get done before Baby gets here, and we want to get most of it done before school starts again.

Ka-Chow!!

Ethan hasn't ever been too interested in watching TV or any cartoons whatsoever for more than a few minutes at a time, but just this last week he became absolutely obsessed with the Disney movie "Cars." He wants to watch it all the time. He doesn't always watch it all in one sitting, but there have been a few days he's watched it twice in a day. It makes him happier than anything we've ever seen. He just about went crazy when I showed him this picture of Lightning McQueen. Because he saw this picture I had to let him watch the movie again. At first he would get upset if I wasn't watching it with him, but he is getting better at letting me do my own thing. I can't express how much it has annoyed me having all the songs stuck in my head over the past week and the "Cars" related dreams I've had from watching it so many times. If only he would let us watch something else. We've tried several other movies, but so far he very earnestly and clearly communicates that he wants more Lightning. He doesn't say the word "car" yet, but will say "downstairs" because that is where the TV is. We've tried to get him to say Ka-Chow, but he hasn't gotten that one down yet either.
When he isn't downstairs watching "Cars" or playing with his toys he is pulling things out of drawers. Unfortunately he is becoming tall enough to reach the top drawers now.
Monday was Ethan's Uncle John's birthday. We met Grandma and Grandpa Morrey, John, and his girlfriend for dinner at Happy Sumo at the Gateway. We all enjoyed the food and Ethan was our entertainment. He really loved the fountain there, but we didn't get any really good pictures.

Just for Fun

You Are Belle!

Intelligent and kind. Your beauty goes much further than your apperance. Also, you make judgements of people based on their personality and not their looks. Attaining all the knowledge that you can is one of your major goals in life, but you are also a person who can make things happen.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Maybe I should start calling Kyle "Beast!" This is a fun little quiz a few friends have posted on their blogs. To take it, follow the link above.