Journal Post and Garden Stuff

I've always wanted to have my own garden and I've waited several years to finally do this. It's still weird to think that we own our own house and have our own yard and can do whatever we want with it. Starting a vegetable garden was a must. We are starting small this year to learn how and get the hang of things. In our final backyard landscape design, we have a garden space as big as our house. We've made room for a large greenhouse and space for outside plants and berry bushes. This year I tried to start seedlings inside using the Aerogarden starter kit. I can't say that it was successful. It really didn't work well for plants that get big fast or for seeds that are big to begin with like beans. When I moved them outside to start hardening off they snapped and withered. Next year, I may only try tomatoes because they are the only plant that really needs to be started early. And use a fan everyday to help them be more sturdy. Any suggestions are welcome.

Our other goal this year is to get our front yard landscaped. We've drawn up a design for that and can't wait to get started. We like the look of lawn and flowers and tree's, but are trying to keep it fairly low maintenance. Most of our neighbors have mainly gravel front yards and it suits the look of their modern homes. We've tried to stick to a country-cottage look and may stand out, but I hope that it adds beauty to the neighborhood. It's been fun to spend evenings outside with the family working on projects.

Jared and Kendi have been going to the pool everyday for about a week and half now. Jared is teaching her to swim. I've gone with them a few times and I'm very surprised at how well Kendi does. She can swim faster than me. hahaha. Kendi used to hold her breath and dunk her head until her nose touched the water and that was all she would do. Now, she will dive under and kick her feet so fast and comes up grinning. They only spend about 45 minutes and she wears herself completely out. I'm so proud of her and the progress she's made.

Aydri has been potty training for more than a week now. I'm not sure I can say that its going well, but it's not going bad either. As long as I tell her to go she does fine, but she never goes on her own. She has to go every hour or she wets in her pants. This is so different from when Kendi potty trained that I don't know what to do next to get her to progress. I've been pretty relaxed about the whole thing. I feel like maybe she needs a consequence that will make her stop wetting in her pants and going to the potty herself. Making her practice ten times by going from the place she has an accident to the potty is like a game to her. Time-out isn't going to do it and I can't bring myself to give her a cold shower. What kind of punishment is appropriate for a two year old? For the time being, I'm just setting a timer for every hour and hoping she'll catch on.

New Niece and Nephew

Yes, another niece on the Barnes' side!! Can you believe it? That makes eight girls and zero boys. hahaha. Little Kollete was born more than a month and half ago. She is just as precious as her sisters. Congrats Greg and Jaelyn on three beautiful girls!!

Tammy and Adrian just had their baby this week. A little Boy!!! That is big news on the Bulloch side. We don't even know what to do with him. Actually, with all the adventure that we're used to I'm sure he'll be just fine.
I think I see some Tammy in there. . . .maybe. I haven't seen him in person yet. Congrats Tammy and Adrian!!
His name is Levi and he shares his birthday with another niece of ours, the oldest pictured above.

And here is a semi-updated picture of the Barnes Family. It's missing Jerika and Kollete. Pictures are outdated before we can even get them on here. hahahaha

Leaf to Leaf Home-School

I've been working on setting up our home-school and it has been exciting. We really like the Thomas Jefferson Education style of teaching. You can learn more about it at tjed.org. Basically, it focuses on mentoring kids to become leaders through reading the classics the way that George Wythe mentored Thomas Jefferson. I don't necessarily want my kids to be political leaders, I just want them learn "how" to think not just "what" to think. I want them to be leaders of themselves.

I also like Diane Hopkins way of home-schooling. She is a mother who home-schooled her seven kids. I love the patriotic and religious curriculum that she uses and sells. I follow her blog and you can tell her kids are happy in their "old-fashioned" sense of morals.

I've started a new blog to track our home-school. You can find it at leaftoleaf.blogspot.com. Right now it is still a work in progress. It's mostly a place for me to keep track of successes and failures. It helps me to have something to look at to see what we are and aren't doing and what needs improvement and to show how much we've accomplished. I hope you'll follow us and find some things that you can do with your kids too. Whether you home-school or not. It would be fun to have multiple people reading the classics along with us.

Picture Post

I don't have as many pictures as I usually do. I guess that's what happens when you're busy. I hate that.

Poor Aydri was in time-out. I was trying to get a picture of her scowl. It's so cute. Obviously, she wouldn't let me. Here you can see the carpet that Jared laid all by himself. Good job, babe.

This is how Jared finished up the gables of the house. I'm so glad that we went with the Shakes siding on the house. It makes all the difference. This is the last thing we've had to do. How should we celebrate?
Kendi's birthday was a couple of weeks ago. She got some curl formers for her hair. These have been fun. I guess I need to take a picture of the finished product.
She had a Bug/Barbie birthday party. hahaha. We tried to go with the Mariposa theme. It was fun. My friend made this cake for her and it was great! The barbie had wings, but we couldn't make them stay and not ruin the cake.
A lot of kids came dressed up. They were so cute. We had to hurry and paint Kendi's face so she wouldn't feel under dressed. Kendi has been really into mysteries lately so we did a mystery game. The kids had to find clues and solve riddles to save Bug City from the Cockroaches.

Journal Post

We've been stuck at home with a bad virus so now I finally have time to post. Getting sick really throws a wrench in a lot of things, but it's nice to just stay home, chill with the kids and catch up on reading and blogging.

We are literally within 24 hours of finishing our house. We've got occupancy so we've been busy moving in and unpacking. Our loan is already in the process of closing. Jared isn't feeling well, but wants to get the house done so he is working on it anyway. Hopefully I'll get to organizing my pictures and post some soon.

I am in the process of setting up our Home School. I've been doing some reading about the Thomas Jefferson Education. I've found some curriculum's that I like. We will probably be doing a mod-podge of different things. I am really, really excited to start this adventure with my kids. I hope that it turns out to be a great thing for us. I'm starting a home schooling blog where you can follow us. It will be a record of our successes and failures. I will probably be posting more on that blog than this one once we start the school year.

Kendi is adjusting to the new neighborhood. She had so many friends in Sunset Ridge that it was very hard for her to leave. She has made new friends here, but all of them are boys. They don't play princess or dress up or pretend like Kendi is used to. She comes home covered in mud and aching from being rough on the trampoline and doesn't seem to miss all the girliness. We have a dear, sweet elderly lady up the street that takes Kendi to the library and out for a treat now and then. She is a spunky lady and we love her to death. It still hasn't sunk in with me that Kendi is five now. I feel like my life has been on hold for the last eight months, but it has not been for the kids. It makes me sad.

I can't believe Aydri will be two years old next week. She has really taken off with speaking lately. She talks to us in sentences and helps with the prayers now. She is so sweet when she talks. Sometimes she tries to act mad and throw fits like her sister, but she just can't pull it off. We laugh and then she ends up laughing too. Kendi and Aydri play really well together now that we have our own home. They play hide and seek for hours. They are sharing a room until we finish the basement and they love it. It is working really well. They have spent a lot of time playing with toys they haven't seen in a long time.

We have a lot of projects planned for the summer and Jared and I can't wait to do them together. It will be fun to just go at our own pace. We've got a front yard to landscape and hopefully a vegetable garden to plant. We have room for a big one, but I think I'm going to start small until I know what I'm doing. If only we could get over this terrible cold.

Big Helpers

We've never done tile like this before and weren't very sure of ourselves as we were pouring the mold for the seat in the shower. The kids stopped by with gma to bring dinner to us. They marched right in and started helping like they knew what they were doing.

Mud doesn't scare off these girls.

Cabinets

Please pardon the dusty floors and the tools scattered everywhere. We finally finished installing the cabinets, but the counter tops are not on yet. If you notice the cabinets match the board and batten around the room.

I thought this bump in would be a good place to add extra cabinets since our kitchen isn't huge. Jared designed this nice desk layout. There are outlets inside them so we can keep electronics out of sight. I'm big on hiding clutter. It will be fun to find an antique chair to sit at this desk.

Here you can see the bar and the wall cabinets.

Here is the other side of the bar. The sink will go in the middle. You can see the laundry room through the doorway.

I wasn't sure what I wanted for a railing and we didn't have it in our budget. We loved this newel post when we saw it, but it was a lot more expensive than the others. After trying for an hour to pick everything out we came across this newel post that was all broken up. They let us buy it for half the price and we were able to fix it. We really like how it turned out and think that it ties into the board and batten.

Someone should pick up that broom and use it.

Paint Dilemma

These are not great pictures, but it shows some of our progress. The night of Valentines Day, Jared and I stayed up late to install our flooring. We weren't feeling like we had made any significant progress for a few days so we decided to burn the midnight oil. We had a lot of fun.

Here is my paint dilemma. I fell in love with this color sample. It is Martha Stewert's Morning Fog. The sample is a really, really light gray- blue with a hint of green. I loved it so much that I didn't think to get a sample and try it on the wall before I bought a whole gallon. As soon as I rolled the paint on I knew immediately that is was not what I had in mind. It turned baby blue on the wall. I was afraid they hadn't mixed the color right. Jared (the artist, who is an expert at mixing colors) told me that it was an exact match. I even put paint on the sample and let it dry and sure enough it was a match. I want to close on the house sooner rather than later so I'm trying not the think about it right now, but it's driving me crazy. It's such a small room that it would be no big deal to repaint it, but there are so many other things to finish right now. Lesson learned: try out paint samples on the walls before you buy it and then paint the whole room. You can see in the picture where the natural light hits it, it turns baby blue.

Journal Entry

Jared is still working hard on the house and his computer work. Working on the house is not as labor intensive as it used to be though. In the beginning, Jared's muscles had really filled out. It takes a lot of hard work for Jared to build muscle. I think he has to burn through all the excess energy first.

Jared has also added a new painting to his already full plate of things to do. We are really excited about this painting. It will be a special one with Christ in it. I love how Jared works hard to make something unique, but sticks to the truth of the scriptures in his paintings. I can't wait to show you the work in progress.

I have been working on the house more now that we are down to the finishing touches. Getting the paint on the walls was the last big hurdle for me. I'm so glad that is out of the way. Jared and I took a whole day and worked into the night to get it sprayed in one day. Often, Kendi will come with me and help, which is so much fun, but I hate being away from Aydri so much. It will be nice when this is done. It's getting more and more exciting and a lot less drudgery.

Kendi had a proud moment today when she had to give a scripture in primary. She worked hard all week so that she could half recite and half read John 3:16. Everyone was so impressed that she did so well on her own. Her love for learning excites me to start homeschooling this year.

Aydri was being really whiny one morning and I was ignoring her negative behavior. Kendi got annoyed and finally told her, "Aydri, mommy doesn't listen to whining, go try Grandma."

Aydri is approaching the "terrible two's" and I don't know how to deal with it. Kendi was the sweetest two year old. I think she was making up for her terrible first year. Aydri seems to think she is in charge all the time. To me it is funny, but to her four year old sister it is not funny. We often have days where Kendi is always asking me to put Aydri to bed. Fortunately, Kendi is figuring out ways to play with Aydri more and occasionally when it's time for Aydri's nap Kendi will ask if she can stay up longer to finish playing whatever game she has made up for the two of them.

Aydri is loving her glasses now. She started to run off without them after a bath one day and came running back and asked for them. Her eye's still aren't tracking together so we are taking her back to the eye doctor in a couple weeks. He doesn't think it's anything to worry about, but wants to keep checking on her. I can't say enough good things about this eye doctor.

My mom was watching Aydri while I worked at the house one day. My mom had gotten out of the shower and got dressed. Aydri started rubbing grandma's behind and my mom thought she was just feeling the soft fabric. She turned around and realized that Aydri had found the lotion and was rubbing lotion all over her clothes. Aydri has eczema really bad so we've made a routine where she lays on a towel after her bath and we lather thick lotion all over her. Apparently, it was Grandma's turn.

House Update

Here is a sneak peak of a few finishing touches. It is getting exciting to see how it will finally look. Hopefully it will be ready to move in in a few weeks.

Kendi loves to help. We sprayed on most of the paint, but I wanted one bathroom a different color so we had to roll it on.
Kitchen cabinets will be delivered on tuesday. We are excited.

Just an Update

I'd like to start making more journal-type entries instead of just posting pictures with captions. Especially, since I've had a hard time getting around to loading pictures lately. Sorry if this is boring to the rest of you, but I don't want to quit blogging all together just because I don't have pictures to post.

We have been busy lately, especially Jared. He goes to work on the house every morning until dark and then works on his computer until really late at night. Sometimes four in the morning. Then he does it all over again. We are getting so close to finishing our house, thank heavens. This is no way to live. You should never be so busy that you don't have time for FHE, scripture study, daily prayer with your family and the basic things we should be doing everyday. We've never felt so much stress, but we see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Jared is also really close to finishing a big project he's been working on for a few years. It's an Internet based program he's been developing with another person. It's been getting exciting to actually "see" this big project that has mostly been pages and pages of Internet code.

Kendi is really missing our old house. She had so many friends there. There was always something going and many things to do. She has gotten bored because we are too busy to do things as a family like we used to. After this house is done we will feel like we're on vacation because of all the time we will have together. Kendi is learning so fast right now. She isn't school-age yet so I haven't pushed her to learn anything, but she is really picking up on reading. She loves to write us messages and spends a lot of time creating drawings as well. She loves to learn which makes me feel so great. Teaching her to love learning has been my main goal for the time being. Lately, she has been on a "mystery" kick and tells people she wants to be an Investigator when she grows up. I love seeing the expressions on people faces when she says, "investigator" with perfect enunciation.

Aydri is growing up fast. She gets more and more personality every day. She makes us laugh almost nonstop. When I try to talk sternly to her, she just laughs at me. I love her to death. She has been doing very well with her glasses. She tries to avoid putting them on, but doesn't put up much of a fight. She wears them 99% of the time and almost never takes them off herself. She is a lot more coordinated with her glasses and loves to read more books. One day, we spent almost the entire day reading books with her. I love to just watch her. She comes up with funny little ways to entertain herself. She loves to sing. Her favorites songs to sing are Jingle Bells and the Clean Up song from nursery. One huge stress reliever was finding out that Aydri is tolerating eggs. We are still really careful, but don't have to worry about her dying from them anymore.

Jared and I have been called to be nursery leaders in our ward. I'm surprised at how much we both love this calling. It was an adjustment at first and there were days that I thought it would never be easy, but now I look forward to it every week. It is a testimony to me that if you magnify your calling you will be blessed.

Aydri's Glasses

Aydri's glasses came earlier than I thought they would. I was anxious when we went to go get them fitted. I was afraid she would hate them. So far it hasn't been even close to as bad as I thought it would be. Coming out of the dr's office she was grinning and giggling. I couldn't believe it. I was relieved and excited too. Then about half way home she decided that she wanted to play with them. She tore them off her face and started twisting them and sucking on them. What could I expect from a 1 1/2 year old. I had to pull over and take them from her and she cried the rest of the way home. I wondered if she was old enough to have explained to her why she needed to wear them. I could tell that she knew a difference already when she wore them. I convinced her to put them back on to show grandma. She put them back on and when we got in the house Kendi had a friend over that wears glasses too so that helped. You can see the lazy eye in the pictures. The doctor gave her 2/3 of her perscription so that her eyes would have to work a little to correct the lazy eye. Just to remember her perscription is 2.50.

I can't get a decent picture of her. I'm surprised at how cute they are on her. I was a little worried because after I got contacts everyone decided to tell me that I looked bad in glasses. haha.

She keeps touching them and making them really dirty. I only took them off twice to clean them because I had to fight her to put them back on. After getting her to put them back on we kept her busy with activities like coloring, reading books and eating finger foods. After about an hour of leaving them alone I decided to let her play and see what happens. So far she has kept them on. Wish us luck.

Disneyland at Christmas

Last week, we took a trip with Jared's family. Everyone, but Jerika, was able to go with us to Disneyland. This was our kids first trip to Disneyland and it was so much fun.

The drive was around 6 hours which was a lot shorter than I was anticipating. We stopped in Vegas for lunch at In-N-Out. The kids were feeding the pigeons and Aydri was calling them puppies. I had to pack all of Aydri's meals to bring with us because of her food allergies. I was stressed about it at first, but always having her food with us was a convenience.

After we got to L. A. we checked into our hotel and decided to take the kids to see the ocean. Kendi had never seen it before and had been asking about it. We managed to get lost and didn't get to the beach until the sun was setting. It looks really dark in these pictures, but it was still pretty light when we first got there.

The mist was picked up by the flash of the camera. Sometimes the waves would crash really loud and scare the kids. Aydri was shaking. Poor thing. Some of the adults wanted to walk on the pier. Going out on a pier in the dark with two young kids that don't know how to swim was terrifying to me. Jared found some Filipino's that were fishing and talked Tagalog with them.
The next day was a beautiful day. The kids were so excited to be there. I think the funnest way to experience Disneyland is through the eyes of your kids. This was the first time I've ever been able to forget everything else going on with life and just enjoy the vacation. I guess I can understand why people like to travel now. In fact, it could become addicting.
We mostly rode little kid rides the first day. The kids especially loved It's a Small World. When I went as a teenager we hated this ride and thought it was the dumbest one in the park. At Christmastime they completely decorate it and sing Christmas songs. Aydri was dancing.

Kendi and Hope sang their little hearts out. I didn't get to record it this time so we came back on the third day. The kids were a little worn out and not so enthusiastic about singing. It was funny to notice how the excitement wore off as we all got tired. I don't think I could have done it for more than three days. It was still a blast though.

Aydri was a little trooper. The only ride she didn't like was Dumbo and we didn't take her on the big rides. So many people told us it would be a waste and hassle to take a toddler, but I was glad we had her with us. We've been so busy lately building the house that we needed some family togetherness time.

It was nice to have Jen and Justin there as our personal guides. Their kids are close to ours in age and they have done this a few times already. They really know how to have a good time at Disneyland. I would have been lost without them. Kendi had so much more fun with her cousins being there too.

Jen and Justin knew about this Animation Studio place in California Adventure. We got a lesson in drawing (fun for Jared) and we got to see which Disney Character we most resemble. Kendi was Nala, I was Jane (from Tarzan), Jared was Jafar (haha), Jen was Mrs. Potts, Hope was Lady (Lady and the Tramp), Halle was Ariel and Justin was Scar.

Aydri was good to sleep in her stroller. The adults took turns sitting with the kids. Aydri and Sydney are close in age and probably won't remember any of this trip.
Two umbrella strollers and a backpack was all we needed. I carried the old point and shoot camera with me all the time and was able to leave everything else outside the rides. Aydri had to have her diaper changed while waiting in line a few times. It took a team of three of us, but it was a quick change. She was a good sport.

We had beautiful weather the first day. The second day we woke up to fog and moist cool air. It was still nice weather to us. I put on a jacket because I was tired of people asking if I was cold in my t-shirt. We anticipated the last day to be the coldest so I put double layers of clothes on my kids, but it ended up being better weather then the previous day. We were lucky to get such nice weather in December. As far as crowdedness went it wasn't too bad either. The first day was pretty slammed and we ended up getting stuck in a huge crowd after the fireworks ended. We were able to avoid that on the next two nights.

We saw "It's Tough to be a Bug" in 3D. It was a short 9 minute show. We got sprayed by stink bugs and poisonous bugs and stung by bees. I couldn't wait to get out of there. haha.

Kendi's favorite Princess is Jasmin. We happened upon her on Aladdin's little house thing. The wait was only a few minutes. Thank heavens for that. We waited in line for an hour on the last day to see three more princesses. Cinderella, Tiana and Ariel.

The castle was gorgeous. The whole park was decorated for Christmas. It was unseasonably warm though. Kendi asked me if they celebrated Christmas in California. When I told her that they did she was confused about there not being any snow. She wondered if Santa even came to California. It really doesn't feel like Christmas to us without the snow.
Aydri didn't like the Characters and I don't blame her. People in costume have always freaked me out.

Jared's mom waited and saved spots for the parade. Some people got nasty about it and I began to wonder if the parade was worth fighting for. It was fun and Kendi got excited about seeing more characters. They did a lot of Christmas dancing and even had Santa Claus.
We convinced Kendi to ride Splash Mountain with us. In the picture she was completely ducking in her seat. After the end of the ride she told Jared, "I don't think I should have done that." She rode Thunder Mountain with us, but didn't love it. The only ride she wasn't big enough to so was Indiana Jones. We didn't push her to go on any more fast rides. Kendi absolutely loved Pirates of the Caribbean. It was fun to see it all redone. Kendi has been watching the movies almost everyday since we got home.

This picture doesn't do the castle justice at night. I just took it as we were trying to fight the crowd. There is a tree blocking the middle and it is a view from the side. It's a Small World was light up really well too, but I didn't have time to take a picture. The whole place really was magical.
On the second night, Jared and I left the kids at the hotel with Gma and Gpa. We spent some time in California Adventure with Greg and Jaelyn. We rode the big rides and had dinner with them. It was nice to have some adult time.

I rode Tower of Terror three times and Screamin' California twice. I would have done it more, but we just didn't have time. The Fast Passes were the only way to go. I don't know why anyone would not do the fast passes. Sometimes the wait to use the fast pass was shorter than the wait in the regular line.

The first day that we were there was busy I think because of the nice weather. The next two days were cloudy, but not busy at all. Most of our waiting in line was 5 to 15 minutes even on the busy day thanks to the fast passes on the big rides. We waited forever for the princesses and for the new Toy Story ride in California Adventure though.

The night that we got back home Kendi came crying into our room. She was begging to go back to Disneyland. We told her that we would try to take her when Aydri is big enough to enjoy it too.

November Projects

And some random pictures from November.

We made my sister a birthday cake. I will never do this again.

Aydri is a little helper.
It got messy for both of us.

Aydri dressed herself in daddy's work stuff.

For my birthday, Kendi and I tried to make a giant ding dong. The ganache didn't spread quite right so we only got fudge coating on top.

Kendi won the star brusher contest at the dentist's office and got a gift card to wal-mart. She got herself a zhu zhu pet. We made a little bed for it.
Aydri will watch a movie with Kendi for about 10 seconds.
November was a blur. I hope we can enjoy December a little more.

Flash Back

I couldn't believe that Kendi was Aydri's age when we taught her this. Now she is teaching it to Aydri. Go HERE to see Kendi when she was about 20 months old.