Do you like to stand in your food while you eat?

Thinking Spot

This is Isabelle’s new retreat. She likes to come to this spot in the yard to think about world peace, famine, and how to stop people from fighting. No not really, she just likes to come here and pick flowers. You would think that with all the flower picking going on, there were be no more flowers, but no they keep coming back. I’m not really sure if it is a weed or an actual plant that is meant to be there. I just though that the picture was cute so I wanted to share.

Happy Earth Day 2008

Did you remember that today is earth day? If you did what did you do to help out our planet? Did you walk to one or more of your destinations today? Did you teach the kids about earth day and do a fun activity? How can you incorporate earth day into your everyday lives, if you do not already do so?

To celebrate Earth Day I talked to kids about what Earth Day is and had them help me come up with an activity that we could do together that was fun and easy. Since our yard has quite a few trees I thought we could make some simple bird feeders. I happened to have some empty toilet paper rolls lying around so I picked them up along with some peanut butter, and yard and we made bird feeders. The kids had fun spreading the peanut butter on the rolls and then rolling the roll through some bird seed. After that I ran some yard down the middle and we hung them on a tree. We can watch the birds eat from the kitchen window. They had tons of fun doing this simple activity and even got a tasty treat themselves.

Once we were done with that we collected trash from the yard. Being right across the street from Waste Management means we have random paper products flying into our yard on a pretty regular basis. I must say though it could be a lot worse. They do a pretty good job to “contain” the waste. I think that the plant that is close to us is a recycling plant for paper products. You can check out their web site for more information on the ways that Waste Management is going green. We read on the side of one truck that they fuel the trucks with trash. Pretty exciting, since I’m sure the cost of operation has dramatically increased with the recent rise in the price of oil.

Remember to think about the earth everyday, whether that means, recycling, using less water when you shower, or using an alternative means of travel. So far we only have one planet earth and we really need to start taking better care if we want the plant to be around for our grandchildren.

Oma's Visit

We just had a wonderful visit with Oma. The kids had so much fun visiting, playing, and talking with Oma, that I was sure they would not want to see her go. Oma came in on Thursday and surprised Isabelle by being in the car when we came to pick her up from school; she was so excited to see Oma. The kids had fun, waking up Oma up early in the morning to play and lasting all day long. We went to the scrapbook expo all together, while that was more for me and Oma, the kids did really well and both feel asleep, while we walked around. We even went to the zoo for Ariana’s birthday and checked out all the animals, with our friends. They had so much fun making signs and sounds and talking about the animals that they saw. Bear really liked the penguins, we happened to walk by right when they were feeding them, which he thought was great. Of course it was a beautiful day and the zoo became to get very crowed, which does not mean anything really, since it is not that big. Overall we had a wonderful time with Oma and the kids.

Honorable Mention

Here are the results of the photography contest. I recieved and Honorable Mention for "Looking at Ducks." The girls came throuhg in fabulous fashion to help one of my pictures become recognized. I had so much fun taking pictures and using my camera for something other than the usual everyday stuff, that I can hardly wait to go and just take some more. I feel that for my first offical contest I did pretty good. Next time will be better and even more fun. Now if I can just learn how to use my camera to the fullest extent. And I might need to get some photo softwear to change and edit my pictures. We'll see how that all goes, but for now I think will just keep shooting and looking for the best avalible shot.

Thank you to all my friends and family who voted for their favorite picture. Your help was much needed. Until next time.

What Mountians?

There is a storm coming into town today and look what the wind is stirring up for us. We no longer have a view of the mountains; there is so much “stuff” in the air. Of course we spent quality time out in our lovely air today while we were at the park, trying not to blow away. This “spring” weather here has been crazy!

Photo Contest

West Jordan, the city were we live, is having a photography contest, and I want your help. I am going to post ten of my favorite pictures that I took for it and I want you to vote on the ones that you like the best, you can vote for more than one. The top three will win. I can submit up to three pictures. Be honest and if you do not think any of them are good be sure to keep it to yourself, I'm just kidding I really want to know what you think. You only have one day to vote since I need to get them developed soon.

Big Green Spring Clean

Every year you hear about people all over the place doing their “spring cleaning.” As the days slowly start to draw nearer to spring I want to know if you will be participating in the annual ritual of a Spring Clean. Now I do not normally do this because I tend to find it a little tedious. Last year I did “spring clean” and finally finished I think in October. Now why did it take so long you ask? Well mostly because I really was not sure what to do and well there was just so much to do. I wanted to make sure the house was extra clean for when family and friends came over for the holidays so I set about cleaning. Window blinds, fan blades, the non-carpeted part of the stairs and the base boards. There were other parts of the house I tried to clean, like the crayon on the walls, except for the basement; I figure I can clean that when we move out. The basement is really a free for all in the art on the walls department. While I do try to discourage the coloring on the walls, I find that I do not really harp on them to not color down in the basement. Mostly just upstairs where more people would see it. I think I even took the magic eraser to the tile grout in a few choice places.

Now this year I think I will actually try to spring clean, but possible try to get it done in the spring instead of early fall. We have so many boxes in the garage that I think we might just need to have a yard sale. Why keep moving the stuff around if you do not see it at every stop. Now I will say that some of the stuff is in boxes because we just do not have the room to put it all away. Another sad fact that leads me to think that maybe, just maybe we have accumulated too much crap. Now the idea here is to be more green and clean with products that will not harm the environment, but where should I start? I’m pretty sure that I should drop the magic eraser and opt for a different type of product. The only bad thing about that is they work so well on the crayon. My current cleaner is supposed to be environmentally friendly, such as biodegradable, but I’m not sure how well I trust it.

With that in mind how will you or will you do any spring cleaning? What would be your target cleaning locations, or do you just plan to be more organized and open those last few boxes that you have not touched since you moved in?