Botanical Gardens

Freckles by Gene Stratton Porter is my favorite book we read together this year.

 I highly recommend it.

I love this quote I found at the back of the book.

End of the school year photos:

This year for Graduation the kids got to pick out any cereal they wanted and this is quite the novelty at our house since we have cereal about once a year. Jacob picked Grape Nuts and the others chose Life, Mini Wheats and Chocolate Cheerios.

Ezra got a cool new bike this summer.

St. Albert has an awesome botanical garden. It's free and all the plants and trees are labelled so it can help you plan your own landscaping. I put together a scavenger hunt for the kids so they ran all over identifying the different flowers and trees.

 Charlie took some pics of his favorites:

Life Is Good

 I do love this little "Naytriss" girl! She just loves the garden.

 The Legislature tour is fantastic. We thoroughly enjoyed it. 

 I found this old bedroom set on Kijiji. I love it because it reminds me of the one I had as a girl. 

Scarlet's summer project has been opening a flower shop in the sunroom. She even has a delivery man with a mustache :)

 Scarlet with Grammy's new puppy Marigold.

Her defence elbow move means get out of my space!

Holy poofy hair! Ezra named his pet beetle "Biggletree"

Calvin and Hobbes addicts.

 We had a fun night making salad rolls- one of my favorites. We were inspired by the Voravong's.

Grammy came over to do some juicing with us.

Finally some park days.

Scarlet's flower shop encouraged some money learning. We made some containers to learn the worth of coins. Ezra especially liked this.

Scarlet and I went on a date to the tea shop. She picked out a bubble gum pink teapot as her prize for finishing her school work this year.

I love that Jane does her math by a candlelight. Such a romantic...

Simplicity Parenting, p. 92 "Consider the different levels and varieties of light in your home… I have found it wonderfully powerful to have at least one point in a child’s day that includes the light of a candle. It may be just before bedtime, an interlude between day and night. Children love the light of a candle and the magical circle of its glow."

Rexburg Trip

We journey to Rexburg, Id for a little BYU I visit. Tim watched some religion classes while me and the kids explored Rexburg. We stopped in Cardston to visit our pals which is always a highlight for us. We will love the Holland's forever and ever. It's fun to see how all the kids are changing and growing up. We also got to stay with the Boyson's who always feel like family.

 The sand dunes are pretty neat- just piles and piles of sand mountains.

 We stayed in this cute suite we rented.

Our friends the Wade's invited us out to their acreage to ride horses.

We got to visit Elder Kinghorn, one of our favorite missionaries.