Marji's New Do

Marji used to have the habit of twirling her hair. She would only do it on the left side of her head. She has largely stopped this, but the habit left her with an interesting hairdo. The twisting created knots in her hair that I would often have to cut out. Sometimes, if I didn't take care of the knots quick enough, Marji would take care of the problem herself by just yanking the hair out of her head (She does have a very tough head). I would find piles of hair on the floor throughout the house. This habit didn't cause too much of a problem until she got sick around Christmas. As she lay miserably on the couch, she would worry her hair constantly. By the time she was better, the length of her hair on the right was below her shoulder, and the length on the left was level with her ear! I didn't dare try cutting the right side to match the left because I knew I didn't have the skills to make that look nice, but I did give her a chin length bob in an attempt to lesson the difference between the lengths.

Her hair still looked odd, but I made sure to just keep a bow clip on the right side.

I obviously wasn't completely satisfied even with a bow in her hair because now I notice that I only took pictures of her at this angle:)

This was all well and good until a couple weeks ago when I finally got fed up. The bow would inevitably fall out which would reveal her unique hairstyle that honestly looked like I had made a terrible mistake

while cutting her hair. I decided it was time to take her to a hair salon and have them even it up. I am

 much happier with these results!

Before:

After:

First Bites

Looks like he's not so sure about that Avacado:)

I guess it's ok afterall!

Ezra Smiles

Ezra is my smiliest baby so far. He has a smile ready for anyone who takes the time to look his way. He's actually getting a reputation at church for his smiles and content disposition. We love him!

 In other Ezra news, he started rolling over last week. At 4 1/2 months he weighs 15.12 lbs and is 25 inches long.

Trek

Our Stake put on a Pioneer Handcart Trek in Central Oregon for all the youth this year. It was a big deal! I can't imagine all the planning that went into it. There were 225 youth who attended! I was on one of the committees to figure out evening activities and particularly the music. Since I have a small baby, I didn't get to be there for the whole thing, but we did go as a family up to where they were camping on the last night. I played the fiddle along with a guitarist for their dance. They learned a couple circle type dances and it turned out to be so fun for everyone!

Here are a few pictures I took while we were there:

 This is how Margie preferred to wear her bonnet:)

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We camped out that night and were also able to go to the lake nearby for a bit.

Joseph can't resist putting his pole in the water. See his trophy catch?

Blackberry Picking

Garden 2014

Here's a picture of just a few of the things we are raising this year:

We take pride in being able to put together meals where everything in the meal is something we raised. In the following picture of our Sunday dinner, we have roasted Red Potatoes with Yellow Squash and Zucchini, Broccoli, and Beets from our garden. The steak was from a cow we raised a couple years ago (not on our own property obviously), and the grape juice is from the grapes we harvested from our backyard last fall.

We have been eating lots of salads, but in the last week, the lettuce got a little scorched and tough which is sad. We do have tomatoes and green beans coming on now though which is exciting!

We fed the missionaries some purple cauliflower as part of dinner last week. They seemed a little wierded out by it. It does look sort of gross after you steam it because it turns kind of grey. I put a white sauce over it so it would hopefully look more appetizing. One elder said he would be writing home about eating purple cauliflower.

We love gardening. I have to admit though, that it's mostly all thanks to Joseph that we have one. He does a great job with it. The only credit I can take for it this year is for watering and pulling a weed every now and then.
It's possibly close to not being cost effective with how much it costs to water it, but it's a hobby as well as a food source. We like to feel as self sufficient as possible and it feels good and wholesome to raise our own food.

7 Years!

This year we celebrated our anniversary by going out for ice cream as a family and then heading to Mary's River to play in the water. Romantic huh? It was hot hot that day, so that is what sounded like fun to us.

Our family always has this glow about us. We are just such angelic people.