Goodbye Kindergarten....Hello Summer

Kyler ended the Kindergarten year with the cutest little program.

He has really enjoyed school this year and had some great teachers that contributed to that. I think the decision to send him to a charter school has been a good one. Their style of teaching suited him well and he has had so many hands-on learning experiences. 

Mrs. Moyer and Ms Cori

 The past couple of months they have been learning how to be a backyard Entomologist. They have watched ants makes colonies and caterpillars hatch into butterflies.

They learned all about the parts of insects and their habitats. 

I couldn't get over how well all of the projects turned out. 

Couldn't be more proud of this little guy and all that he has learned.

It puts the pressure on mom to keep him going this summer and continue his curiosity for learning!!! 

May's Little Things

May was a busy month and I'm kind of excited for a slower paced month of June. In between the big things that happened during the month we kept busy with a lot of little things:)) 

One morning while waiting for the car to get fixed (ugh) we went and feed the ducks. I was surprised that Khloe wasn't afraid of them especially since the geese were really aggressive!!!

We wrapped up another year of TaVaci with Kyler's concert. 

It was darling as always and I LOVE watching his cute little facial expressions. 

There were a lot of rainy days during the month so we made sure to take advantage of the good days. 

Khloe is growing up so much and wants to do everything that Kyler does. She thinks she is too big for the baby swing and is getting really good at swinging on a big swing. 

I'm still REALLY struggling with my new church calling!!!

On the flip side, Kyler is LOVING it!!!!
I'm glad we were able to use our campground/fire pit area in our backyard to practise fire safety.
I'm thinking maybe we could just plan to use this as our camping destination, especially since as a women leader I'm not allowed to spend the night. 

Nothing like adding salt to the wound. One night after we had finished doing scouts, my cute laurels that I worked with showed up with this fun thank-you note. 

I MISS them!!!! 

Sunday Dinners at my parent's house are one of my

favorite things. 

Kyler had a follow up doctor's appointment to check out his leg. 

While waiting for over an hour to see the doctor he drew a pretty cool Minecraft picture. He was also given the go ahead to return to a normal lifestyle. He can run, jump, play sports, SKI, and he doesn't limp near as bad as he did a month ago:)) 

Jason was able to score cheap tickets to the monster truck show that was out at the fairgrounds a few weekends ago. 

He LOVED it and even got to right around the area in one of the trucks. 

Khloe is growing up so fast!!!

I tried letting her eat a bowl of cereal by herself for breakfast. 

She thought that was pretty fun and it only took her a half an hour to do it:)) 

Lagoon season is also in full swing. This year Khloe has her own pass and can ride most of the little kid rides. 

After 15+ years and a lot of good times (college graduation, 1st date, drove away on our wedding day, and many adventures) it was time to sell Jason's Jetta. 

During the last week of school Kyler got to go to the 

Treehouse Museum with his class. 

Another year of preschool came to and end.

I had the best group of kids this past year and wish that I could just repeat the year over. 

Celebrating Kyler's last day of school. 

We were gone over Memorial Day, but we made sure to stop by and visit grandpa Gary's grave. 

It makes me sad that my kids don't get to know their grandpa in this life, thank goodness for the next!!!

Gardening 101

The first few years of our marriage, Jason and I attended 

free gardening classes at a local nursery every Saturday morning during the Spring months. 

We learned a variety of topics ranging from trimming trees to lawn care and much more, but the one topic that I fell in love with was

FLOWERS!!!! 

I get asked questions all the time about what I do to make my flowers grow so well, so I thought I would pass along what I have learned over the years:)) 

1. I start with good healthy plants. I generally don't buy anything from commercial stores (Wal-mart). I have found that by shopping at local nursery's I get a better deal and the plants are healthier. 

Things can add up pretty quick so I have shopped around A LOT to find the best prices!!!

Here are a few of my favorite nursery's.

*Mt View Nursery in Elwood

This is my favorite place to get my plants and they have the best prices that I have found. As an added bonus my kids love to go here and play with the animals while I shop for flowers:))

He only sells annuals and the majority of them are the 4" Proven Winner plants. This is also the nursery that I get all of my hanging baskets and pots from. I go out during March and plant everything and then he takes care of them until I pick them up at the end of May. 

*Waltons Nursery in Tremonton

I've heard good things about this nursery so I decided to give it a try this year. It had a good selection of annuals and the prices were good. 

*Valley Nursery in Uintah

This nursery can be a little overwhelming because of it's size, but it have everything you would ever need. It's a great place to get trees, shrubs, and perennials. 

2. I usually spend a little bit more and buy the 4" Proven Winner rather than a pony pack. They are bigger plants and spread a lot further which means you don't need as many. 

My favorite it the Bubble Gum Petunia and they mound really well and bloom all summer. This year I decided to switch things up and I planted Raspberry Blast, which is a two toned petunia. 

3. If you are in need of shade flowers Inpatients are the way to go. 

They come in a flats and are a cost effective way to get a lot of color for a reasonable price. 

4. Deciding what looks best has been a trial and error process. 

I have decided that less variety is more. In years past I would pick out a bunch of different things that I liked, but once planted it always looked a little jumbled. 

The past couple of years I have tried to keep it simple, but to choose plants that make a big impact. 

5. Once you have invested the money and time you want them to last the entire season(sometimes through October). This is where I think a lot of people go astray. Here are a few of my favorite gardening products. 

The Hi-Yield Herbicide Granules is what I put down early Spring to help prevent weeds. This is comparable to Preen, but I think it works ten times better:)) We have millions of seeds that fall from the trees along the creek and this product does a really good job of preventing them from sprouting. 

I learned from the lady that does the courthouse flowers about this awesome product. 16-16-8 is a slow release fertilizer that feeds my flowers all season long.  I put a heavy application down when I plant mid-May and it does the job all summer. You do have to be careful that you don't it down too late in the season especially when the plants have started to fill in because it will burn the leaves. 

(Learned from experience) 

You can get this from Wal-mart for around $25.00 a bag. 

 For all my pots and hanging baskets I use 

Ferti-lome Blooming and Rooting Food. 

I add it to the watering can when watering and I usually feed them twice a week. 

I plant a ton of petunia in my yard and they have a tendency to get a bud worm usually in August. The flowers will be thriving one week and then the next week they will have no flowers. If you don't know what to look for it can be really frustrating because they look healthy, but they just stop blooming:(( The best product that I have found to take care of them is Hi-Yield Thuricide. 

 6 The last bit of advice is it takes a lot of work.

I've had people make comments that they wish their yards were low key and looked like mine. For me the key to keeping up on everything is to do a little bit each day. I LOVE spending my Summer mornings outdoors working in my yard. 

I try to spend at least an hour each day either feeding flowers, dead heading, pulling weeds, trimming trees, or mowing the lawn. 

Working in the yard is one of my hobbies

so I don't look at it as work. 

Mother's Day

Mother's Day weekend was full of my favorite things.

I look forward to this date circled on the calendar all year long. 

Not because I get to be the center of attention, something I don't like being, but because Mother Nature gives the green light for planting flowers outdoors!!!

Although this year she didn't cooperate too well and I ended up being caught in a crazy wind, hail, rainstorm. 

Jason was kind enough to take the day off of work on Friday so that I could go and get my hair done and pick out my flowers alone:)) 

On Saturday we enjoyed watching Kyler's Spring TaVaci concert

and going out to eat with Shirley to celebrate

 Mother's Day with her.

Sunday's favorites included:

Listening to Kyler sing in Sacrament meeting, receiving thoughtful cards and pictures from my family, taking an uninterrupted nap,  eating a wonderful dinner that my mom prepared, and spending time with my family!!!!