April 30th - Again

I actually got Joshua to stand still and talk for the camera. Sorry, it's not the greatest quality, it's just a video camera on my digital camera and it doesn't come across very well. But you can hear him and laugh with him.

Oh, and by the way, every time he hears the video he repeats everything. I've been cracking up laughing for the past 30 minutes at him!

Monday, April 30th

Wow! Where did April go?!

I've got another cleaning marathon going on this morning. It's so nice to get the heavy house work done each Monday morning . . . ie. vacuuming, dusting, dejunking and cleaning the bathrooms. All I have to do the rest of the week is pick up (and vacuum again when Joshua makes his little messes).

I've got to go out visiting this morning with a friend. In our church the ladies have a thing called Visiting Teaching. We are assigned as companionships and then we have other ladies we visit each month and we share a religious message that comes from the leaders of our church. My friend and I visit 4 ladies, but they aren't active participants in church, so we just do a quick little visit to make sure they and their families are doing okay and leave a copy of the message with them. It's pretty bad that we've waited until the last day of the month to do this.

Well, guess my break has been long enough, on to the living room and bathrooms.

Saturday, April 28th

Yeterday, Chuck and the girls mixed bedding for the worm beds. I took a few pictures to share of Shayla helping him out. At this point, the other two girls had disappeared to jump on the trampoline. Shayla was excited I'd make her a "star" on my blog hehe.

If you scroll to the bottom of the screen, you can view a short video of Chuck and Shayla mixing bedding.




This morning Chuck's gone off to the foothills with the scouts. Next Saturday is a big scouting extravaganza and his troop has made really cool reflectors. They will take them up on the mountain and at the appropriate time, they will signal a receiving troop at the extravaganza. Today is a practice run. We are glad it is sunny outside and hope it stays that way next Saturday too!


Last night we watched "Night at the Museum." Oh my gosh was it fantastic. The girls loved it, I loved it, Chuck loved it. We've had it on again this morning.



I found out this morning that I've been accepted on the Creative Team at Digi Scrap Shak. I am soooo excited I can hardly contain myself hehe.

Thursday, April 26th

Hey all, been a quiet day around here . .well, until this evening. Chuck spent the better part of the day repairing our dishwasher. Thank goodness, when he pulled out the pump (that drains the water) we found it plugged with crud. When he put it all back together again, it works! We didn't have to spend any money to repair it!

This evening I am tending a friend's two kids while she is at a meeting and my dh and her dh are at another meeting. I took her two kids and my four kids over to the high school track. Stacia is participating in track and field training for a track meet in May. She's not the fastest, but she is absolutely loving it. The other kids played out on the lawn while we waited.

When Stacia got back in the car and we headed home she was having difficulty breathing and had a funny dry cough. I'm thinking exercise induced asthma, but I'll talk to the doctor on Tuesday while I'm there for an appointment for Makiya. If he thinks it's the same, I'll take her in. We'll see how she does next time.

Did a bit more scrapping today. I've applied to be on the creative team for DigiScrap Shak. I think it would be great. I'd be required to put together 1-2 layouts a week and a few other assignments. Here are the pages I did today.

(Credits: LaChic by Sara Van Dyke)

(Credits: Elegant Blooms - DigiScrapShak.com - recieved as a free kit for participating in their April Challenges)

Tuesday, April 24 - More

Spent the better part of the day scrapbooking. Here's a couple of layouts I did.

(Credits: Michelle Squires - free kit can be downloads from this blog)

(Credits: Spring Romance which can be found in the store at www.scrapbook-bytes.com)

Tuesday, April 24

As promised here are a few pictures from the Natural Resource Fair. It was a lot of fun. Some kids loved playing in the worms, others, would say, eww and wrinkle up their noses. We will be doing it again next year.

Stacia is home sick this morning, but wants to try to go this afternoon when Chuck heads into town to tune a piano.

We watched Charlotte's Web last night for Family Home Evening. It was a really fun movie. We've always enjoyed the cartoon version, but this "live" version was wonderfully done. The silly little jokes throughout really kept us laughing.



Here is Shayla climbing the rock wall that was outside. The other girls climbed too, but I wasn't around with the camera to get their pictures.

Monday, April 23

Well, today was another cleaning marathon with my LDS friends. I had everything done by 10:00 am, it was so nice! I spent some time downloading some scrapbook kits from Scrapbook-bytes.com. They used one of my layouts in their monthly magazine, so I received a free copy of the magazine and a $5 gift certificate. There were a lot of fun things to download. I also spent some time scrapping this page. I scraplifted the idea from www.dejaviews.com It uses the paper and elements from my free kit.

I still need to get the pictues downloaded from my camera from the Natural Resource Fair. That is on my to-do list tomorrow.

Saturday, April 21

It's been a busy few days with the Natural Resource Fair going on. I did get a few pictures. I'll post them on Monday. Along with the Fair, I've been busy working on this digi-kit. I hope you enjoy it

Enjoy!

http://www.4shared.com/file/21832703/2814f9b5/Little_Boy_Kit.html

Thursday, April 19th

Spent the morning over at the Natural Resource Fair with Chuck and Joshua. Joshua was such a trooper. He loved wandering around and looking at the different exhibits. He really, really liked the Hogle Zoo exhibit with a big picture of an elephant and the exhibit right across from us had two Utah Prairie Dogs in a cage and he kept wanting to look at those. One of the exhibits kept demonstrating duck/goose call whistles and everytime he heard one of those he'd get so excited and start "quacking."


I stayed until about 11:15 am and then went and picked up lunch for Chuck. Joshua was so tired by then that I ran the couple of other errands I needed to take care of and brought him home. He's down for a nap.


I had a lot of fun explaining how the worms turn newspaper into castings to all the students that came through the fair. I think I did more talking than Chuck, but he wandered with Joshua, plus he has the afternoon by himself.


I think we'll sit over there again tomorrow for awhile. I'll have to take the camera and get a few pictures to post.


Last night I had to stay up late and print flyers. So, while the printer was running I decided to scrap a layout. I tried to post it last night but couldn't get it to work, so here it is.

Wednesday, April 18 (I think)

Is today the 18th? I haven't looked at a calendar today. So, it's going to be a busy day. I've managed to straighten up the house. I've also had a customer stop by and purchase some of our great Worm Tea. She said she used it two years ago on her Daisys and they were beautiful, and then last year she didn't use it and they never did grow, so she needed her fix of tea.

Chuck is over helping out in Stacia's class this morning. Stacia has a summer birthday, so they will also celebrate her birthday this morning while he is there.

This afternoon Chuck and I are going over to the college to set up for the Natural Resource Fair that is Thursday through Saturday. The girls are excited because their school classes will be going and they want to show their friends the worms. I did get 2 pounds of worms for Chuck to take so the kids can play in them.

I am also dragging Chuck along while I grocery shop. Yeah, he's pretty thrilled about that. (can you hear the sarcasim) We are hoping we don't blow away while we are out and about.

Oh, and my house is still clean after my cleaning marathon on Monday.

Tuesday, April 16 - Worm Pictures

I was out getting worms for Chuck to take to a Natural Resouce Fair this weekend, so I decided to take some pictures to show everyone.

Picture #1 - our little guy helping mom with picking worms. . .actually I was quite suprised he put his hand into the bedding. He'd been shying away from it until I brought out the camera.



Picture #2 - Red Wiggler Worms - our worm of choice for composting.

Picture #3 are two worms mating. Very rare to find mating worms out in your yard.

Picture #4 - our small worm beds.

Picture #5 - Egg Capsules. Green ones are new, reddish brown are about ready to hatch. Capsules will have 2 to 20 baby worms in each one.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed looking at the pictures.

Tuesday, April 16 - MORE

OUR CAT IS HOME. I came walking down the hall to the living room and there she was all sprawled out on the coffee table. No idea where she's been and she seems a bit jumpy. The only thing I can think is that she was locked in somebody's garage or shed and when they opened it up this morning she got out. Who knows . .I'm sure we will never know where she's been, but we are very grateful for her safe return.

Tuesday, April 16

Wow, it was great to get up to a clean house this morning! I've managed to exercise and file our state taxes this morning. Joshua is getting anxious to get out of his high chair, but so far Curious George is keeping him entertained.

Chuck and Stacia have gone to post a few "lost cat" signs. Last night when Stacia went to bed, her cat didn't follow her. It dawned on me that I hadn't seen her all day. We searched high and low in the house and Chuck went out driving around this morning to see if he could find her. I'll call the shelter when they open here in a little bit. Stacia stayed home from school today because she is sad about her cat, but mostly, she didn't finish reading a book she was suppose to have done today . . . and since it's pretty much my fault she didn't get done, I let her stay home so she can finish it.

Say a prayer for us that Kitty shows up.

Monday, April 16 - More

Well, the cleaning marathon is over. I got everything done that I wanted too, other than a load of laundry still drying. Here are some before and after pictures of my kitchen. It was actually the worse room. It feels good to be back in control of the house. Thanks to my cleaning buddies for pushing me along!

Monday, April 16

Cleaning marathon in progress. Several ladies from a message board I post on are having a cleaning marathon this morning. I have quite a list of things I need to take care of. The house is a mess! I've gotten a good start this morning. Only 8:00 am and the laundry room is nice and clean and the laundry is started.

Sunday, April 15

Sunday, early evening and the kids are all going a bit crazy. Stacia is suppose to be finishing up some homework, and can't seem to stay on track. Shayla is trying to entertain a crying baby, but not succeeding very well. Earlier I was taking Joshua in to see his sister's pet chicks and I smashed two of his little fingers in the door. I think I felt just about as bad as he did. We did some quick first aid and thank goodness, nothing swelled up, so nothing broken?

We did make it to church this morning. A couple in our ward are going to Navuoo to work in the Temple there for 6 months. Sister Dastrup had asked my girls to help sing a primary song at the beginning of her talk. I always love hearing the primary kids sing.

The weather is a bit blah this evening, but I think I just heard thunder. . .I love thunderstorms! I am glad though I'm not on the East Coast today.

Ohhhh, our new grass is coming in out in the backyard. We weren't sure if it would after finding a huge flock of little birds feasting on the seed the first few days. I was scaring them off about every 15 minutes. The kids are anxious for it be thick enough to be able to play out there. Dad built them a playhouse last fall, but so far they haven't had a chance to even play in it.

Well, gotta go, Stacia's wanting to challenge me to a game of air hockey. Most likely she'll beat me AGAIN.

Saturday, April 14

It's been a long day. We made an impromptu trip up to my parent's house and my husband went up to SLC to pick up some parts for a piano he is repairing (besides raising worms he tunes pianos). We had a very nice visit with my parents. The best part of the visit was setting up my mom's email account and showing her how to actually access it. I also put my blog in her list of favorites . . . so HI MOM!

Well, it's late and we have church in the morning. Nite!

It's Friday

Random Thoughts:

On Friday's the girls get home from school about 2 hours earlier than normal. Hopefully the weather will be nice enough for them to play outside this afternoon. They love riding their bikes and jumping on the trampoline.

I have a bucket of worms I need to dump out on a bed and worms need to eat, so I'll be putting pumpkin on their beds and watering them. We go out to a farmer's pumpkin patch November 1st each year and gather pumpkins to store for worm food. We also feed them Worm Chow, made by Purina.

Out in our front yard we have a pretty pond, full of Koi and Goldfish. In our back yard we have worms and all day long I have a 20 month old little boy that loves being outside. So, two days ago when we actually had some sunshine and no rain, I made Joshua a little fishing pole and we "went fishing." The fish love those worms. My husband keeps telling me I'm throwing profits down the drain, but who can resist a little boy with a pole sitting at the edge of the water. Mostly, he just splashed the end of the pole, but hey . . .he's gotta learn somehow right?!

Well, here is a flower to download. I hope you can put it to good use. http://www.bestsharing.com/files/SUSYI261983/hand%20drawn%20full%20sunflower.png.html (Any one know how to just make a small two words . . .like CLICK HERE and have that be my link?) It looks ugly having this great big link sprawled on my blog.)

Well, I've managed to set up a blog!

Hummm, now what do I do haha.

I've named my blog "The Rott'n Apple" after the business my husband, Chuck, and I own. It's called Rott'n Apple Worm Farm. What is a Rott'n Apple Worm Farm? Well, for us, we are hoping it will become our main source of income over the next few years.

We raise compost worms, and yes, I get in and help right along side my husband. Our three daughters have also started their own little worm bins.

I am also very much into digital scrapbooking. I don't do it "professionally" and sell anything, but I do enjoy giving away things ocassionally. My big project each year is a calendar I make for my mother for Christmas. So, any suggestions for a theme would be greatly appreciated. She has 10 grandchildren and I use pictures from the previous year on her calendar.

Well, I guess that is a good start. Hopefully, I'll remember to update this frequently.