The dress I made for April

I made this dress over 20 years ago for April and entered it into the fair and won a Judge's special recognition ribbon. I was soooo excited about that.

I saved it all these years in anticipation that one of April's little girls would wear it.

Here is April wearing the dress when she was 2 1/2.

Now I have some pictures of Jovie wearing the dress. She reminds me of someone from like Little House on the Prairie. I think she looks adorable in the dress. But alas the collar looks to much like the 80's I hear to my disappointment so I put the dress on her just to take pictures of her in it. But as you can tell she LOVED the dress and I had to bribe her with something to get it off her. So pretty!

She is posing for me. It's so cute!

Run, run you catch can't me I'm the Ginger Bread man. The cookie and Jovie have that little fact in common.

Gotta love it!

Chicken house beginnings

We are going to get chickens in the near future. We wanted a chicken coop that was going to last. Larry decided to have a concrete floor and make it big enough that we could have a garden shed on one side and a chicken coop on the other side. Dad asked Joshua to help us out since he knows so much about pouring concrete and does such a nice job. Joshua in turn asked Jake to come and help him. Jake is a friend of ours that we met through the YSA branch at church. What great work!

Larry even got in on the action.

Smoothing it all out. If anyone doesn't know this Joshua is a perfectionist. It shows in his work.

Ethan and I watching his daddy work. Go daddy!

We have lasting footprints of Jessica, Jovie, Ethan, Ainsley and even April got in on the action.

Joshua and Shannon helped to make sure no one fell in the cement. Whew!

Timeless and precious for always. I just wish all my grandchildren were here so I could have all 10 of their footprints. The next day Jovie was out there trying to put her hands in the cement too. So I will be getting those craft cement stepping stones and everyone's hands will be set in stone and hung on my patio wall to join Aria's and Nathan's that are already there. Nathan years ago asked the same thing Jovie did when he saw our hand prints in the sidewalk so his momma made the hand stepping stones for me. I've been waiting for the rest of the kids to make some of their kids hands but wait no more I shall:)

April, Jessica, Jovie, Ethan and Ainsley

Eeeewww what"s that?

Ethan is not to sure about that green stuff that is growing out of the ground.

Somebody help!

Oh OK I guess it's not going to hurt me.

I wonder what he thinks of all the sand he gets to play in now?

Joshua decked out

Joshua is starting lineman school very soon. He got all his gear on and I wanted to see him use it to climb. We didn't have a pole to climb so he climbed a tree. Looking good ! I'm so excited for him and his family!

Go Joshua!!!

It's a good thing he's not afraid of heights.

Jovie feeding Ainsley

I was watching the girls while April was at school. Jovie wanted to help me feed Ainsley.

The love on Jovie's face is priceless.

The look on Ainsley's face is... Really grandma???

Bambi came to visit

Bambi came to visit and his mom was with him. So that means Bambi's momma didn't die in the movie. Yay!

Ainsley's blessing weekend

I love it when their is a reason to have the family get together. This time it was because Ainsley was being given her blessing at church. She wore the same blessing dress that her momma wore when she was blessed.
                                                                              April

Ainsley

We brought in a professional photographer for the event. The best one in the business of course. I love watching Misty work.

There was a BBQ up at our house after church for the family that was here in town. It's a good thing Joshua and dad made the concrete patio huge. It got filled up and not even close to everyone in the family was there.

4 Generation picture

Great Grandpa LaVerne, Larry, Joshua and Ethan. You can tell they are related. Great looking bunch if I do say so myself.

2010 Garden

I use my blog as one of the ways that I journal.  I know if any of you are reading this you knew that I blogged last years garden. Well I'm going to blog this years garden too. So bear with me. It's hard work and I want to record my success or failures but mainly my success:)
So here goes... We have a very productive Strawberry patch this year. As of todays date we have picked 95 pounds of strawberries. I have made jam, gave a bunch away to my girls, ate alot, made desserts, a couple of different fruit leather recipes, dried some and froze some. We are still picking strawberries.

This next picture is a corner shot that shows the strawberry patch. Larry, Jessica and I (yes, Larry helped me plant this year) had just got through planting. 

 

We have Tomato plants and some type of squash or pumpkin vine growing up out of our compost pile. Larry transplanted some and some are still growing in the compost. I'm going to let them grow just to see what happens. I hope there will be some tomato takers.