We have been doing lots of fun stuff.....we have been to the "river" splash pad, hiked up to red cliffs and played in the pools made from the run off rain. Yesterday Sarah and I worked on painting some dolls and today the kids painted their name plaques they got from Grandma and Grandpa Merrill for Christmas. Fun fun fun!

Red Cliffs runoff

 middle doll is pre-paint

Sarah's doll- Liz's doll

 We went to the splash pad yesterday for a few hours to kick off our summer fun bucket list. Today is our first official day of summer though. We pulled out our "bead bucket" and the kids went to town picking out beads to make a "lava lamp". They turned out really cute! Here are some pic.s

My new project is organization organization organization!!! This summer is hopefully going to be lots of fun, however fun with lots of kids can become a huge mess in no time at all! We will have our 4 kids + 1 on a full time basis (yes a foster) and then an extra 2 or 3 daycare kids coming and going throughout the day. Breath deep....in through the nose......out through the mouth.....ok. So I have been working up job charts and it came to me that I needed a job chart too! I get overwhelmed at times and when that happens I tend to do nothing. So I made me a job chart too. Nothing crazy, just a little something to remind me of stuff I need do to daily so I don't get to the "do nothing" stage. Then I stumbled across this cool little thing called a "home management binder". So now I am putting together one of those too! It has our emergency contact info. Our ward/neighborhood directory with close neighbors highlighted. It has a calendar. A job chart completion tracker page. A weekly menu and shopping list.....I have had fun putting this together..like how weird is that! But I like that I have everything in one place and organized. It must be linked somehow to my odd obsession with small boxes and new purses....not really sure though. I am also making a summer bucket list for us and I am sooo excited about this! I have found lots of fun stuff to do around town and also a really neat book that has crafts you can make from stuff you find in nature. Hopefully the kids will humor me and just go along with it.

OREO

    Summer is almost here. The kids only have 14 school days left this year! I can hardly believe it. We have two new bunnies......one is a Holland lop and the other is a mini rex/ netherland dwarf mix. They are so friendly and cute! Both are males. And my NZ white is due any day now. We sold all of the babies she had last time for Easter. I was really surprised at how many calls I had. I probably could have sold 10 more babies!!! I plan on being more prepared next spring. I want to get a female mini rex and breed her to my mini R/ ND cross. Not really sure what I plan on doing with the Holland lop. I got both males for free so I may just try to sell him.    

MIDNIGHT

    We are going to come up to SLC this weekend and take Alexis to the zoo Saturday, then Sunday we will be in Manti for a baby blessing. It will be nice to get out of the heat for a few days. 

    Troy has been super busy lately. He has been building the boys a really awesome bunk bed. I will get pictures up when it's done.....and their room is clean.....he also is working on another project truck to flip. This one is pretty darn nice to start with. It's a 2002 Avalanche. We are crossing our finger it will bring us some big $$$$ :)
 

MAMA

     I have been helping the YW in our ward make a camp flag. It is turning out pretty cute and has been lots of fun to make.....again.....I will post pictures of it when it`s done :)

     I almost forgot to mention daisy`s puppy. She only had one. We have been calling him Earl. He is so stinking cute! We will be bringing him to SLC with us to deliver him to his new home.

Life is busy but good! I  loved reading Nathans blog

post for the other day about JOY if you haven`t read it yet then you should. I can`t believe how grown up and just amazingly spiritual he is. I still picture him as a little boy crawling up the stairs with his sister to come visit me in my room and poke his little fingers into my fish bowl :) Ahhhh good times...good times.

    We have new additions to our urban farm. My bunny had eight babies (kits)! They have changed so much is such a little time. I told the kids I would take a picture of them every day so they could see them without disturbing them. So far so good. She had a good size litter for her first time and has been a great mom. She covers the kits in the evening and will uncover them during the day. It has been cool to watch. The mom (doe) is realy friendly and will come to the door when I bring her food out. The male (buck) is not as friendly unless we bribe him with a treat. Theses guys are New Zeland Whites......so yes they are meat rabbits. However, I am going to list them for sale as pets at like 3-4 weeks and what doesn't sale will go in my freezer. :) I also want to learn how to preserve the pelt and make stuff with it.   

One day old

2 days old

3 days old

4 days old

6 days

 We had a great Christmas. The kids got a trampoline this year and luckily it came with a net :) No injuries so far :) Alot has been going on since we got back from SLC. Poor Sarah had one of her new baby rats die. Sadness. But life goes on...we got a stud for Daisy and Penny. Daisy I am 100% sure she will have puppies but Penny on the other hand is a little brat and she was totally not interested in the boy dog. He tried but didn't have any luck (that I saw anyway) so we will be expecting some doxie-poo puppies some time the end of February. Also our bunny who I thought was breed apparently wasn't. She should have had kits on Christmas Eve. So we got her re-breed and she should have kits towards the end of January. As always we have extra kids at our house. Yesterday I made wafflers for lunch and I had to take pictures of them all! It was pretty cute.

Butter, Cameron, Sarah and Mari

Cameron, Sarah and Mari

Logan and Dustin



Butter and Cameron



I got a new turbo strength waffle maker from Dave and Lynda. It was super cool and fast. I was able to keep up with these little bottomless pits and was even able to sit down and eat with the stragglers!

There is so much more on my mind but I will just leave this post as it is. Maybe tomorrow I will be able to find time to do another post.

Merry Christmas!!!!

I am going to be picking my pomegranates this weekend and hopefully making some jelly :) I have only made pomegranate jelly once but the kids call it my "famous pomegranate jelly".