Summer craziness

It's been a while since I posted since we have been very busy in the garden. Everything is in full gear and now the work begins. Please check out my other blog and let me know if you want anything. (If you have any suggestions for the blog let me know. It is still pretty new.)

www.haystackfarm.blogspot.com

Once again, I am way behind on blogging. I wonder if starting a blog was a good thing, because now I just feel guilty that I don't update it enough. Oh well, I'll just add it to the list of things that are undone in our house. I thought I would post a few pictures from the last few months that I think are fun.

These pictures were taken at the Nature Conservancy park in West Layton. It had just rained and we had a great time. Notice the rainbow in the background. It was a beautiful day.



These pictures were at Nate's cousin's home in Layton. She has a beautiful spring yard and we try to take pictures here every year. We even had our engagement pictures taken here. This year, we couldn't find anyone to take our pictures or to come help with the kids, so we tried to do it ourselves. It didn't work. The kids were like wild Indians and never held still, but I guess it is a good representation of our true lives.

Oops, I just realized I have already posted these on facebook. Oh well, I guess you have to look at them again because I am not changing it.

I know that I haven't blogged in a long time, but I've been busy. As many of you know, I have started a small business with my garden veggies. I am glad to report that things are going well and we actually have veggies!! We have been eating them for a while, but now are ready to start selling!! I have created a blog to let everyone know what is currently ready to eat!!

I know that this is slightly silly, but I gotta start somewhere!! Thanks for reading and please pass this on if you know anyone looking to eat healthy.

www.haystackfarm.blogspot.com

Thanks,

Delaney

I can't laugh about it yet, but maybe you can

Last week, I got a great deal on 40 pounds of frozen chicken breasts packed in 10 pound bags. I put a bag in the fridge to thaw. Being the food scientist that I am and after teaching too many food safety classes, I really hate dealing with raw meat. I always imagine the germs everywhere. Anyway, I double bagged it and put it on a plate while I went to my parents' house overnight. We woke up Sunday morning to a huge mess. Raw chicken juice had leaked down the bottom 4 shelves/drawers of the fridge and had settled into a sticky, frozen mess. I spent hours cleaning it up and used up 1/2 a bottle of Lysol disinfectant, but at least the bottom part of the fridge was clean.

You may think that all was well with the world after that, but there is more. I brought some frozen hamburger back from my parents and accidentally left it in the car overnight, but it was still partially frozen so I put it on the top shelf of the fridge. Just as I was feeding the a kids lunch, which is like feeding time at the zoo, I opened the fridge to get ketchup and found the hamburger had leaked too!!!! This time it was from the top shelf and all down the sides and every shelf/drawer. AHHHHHH!! I thought I few choice words. (ok, maybe a lot of choice words) I yelled at the kids to hurry and get out of the kitchen, which I do feel bad about since it wasn't their fault and spent the next hour cleaning up dried blood with McKay attached to my leg.

Good thing I still had the other 1/2 of the bottle of Lysol. I hope you can laugh at this. Maybe I'll join you tomorrow. I also have a really clean fridge.

Do you need a smile today!

My friend Emily has put together a really good blog with really funny stories. I would suggest anyone to check it out.

The link is http://sharingthelaughter.blogspot.com/

I just posted an Youtube video that I found. I think it is really inspirational. I'll add the link here just for fun. See if it brings a tear to your eye and a smile to your face!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Happy 2nd Birthday Twins!!

M & M just had their 2nd birthday and are officially 2, even though they have been acting like it for a while. We had a birthday party with most of our family to celebrate. As usual, it was CRAZY!!!
My family room started out clean and is now just as messy as before, but now we have more toys to get out. The hit of the party is a train table that we got them that is a lot bigger than I thought. It now takes up half our family room. I can't wait for the excitement to wear off so it can go downstairs.


Nate and I are kind of dumb because we got them cool presents, but we should have realized that they don't really care and that their favorite thing that they still play with from Christmas is this box. The best game is "3 kids in a box."

Here is M & M with their cupcakes. We didn't put all the cupcakes out because the blowing out of the candles tends to be really "spitty."
Overall, it was a great party with lots of fun. Again, the offer still stands if you want to come hang out with a 3 year old and two 2 year olds. It is FUN!!


I also wanted to add another funny picture of the kids right after a bath. Aren't they cute?

Natalie, I feel your pain!!

This post is for my friend Natalie who is 38 weeks pregnant. This picture was of me the day before I was induced at 38 1/2 weeks pregnant with twins who weighed 6 lbs 8 oz and 6 lbs 7 oz.

Natalie, hang in there. Your almost through!!

More Random and Hilarious Pictures

I don't really have anything specific to write about, but we have some recent hilarious pictures.

Below is Maisey with her first hair-do. Poor girl is almost 2 years old and barely has enough hair to fit in a tiny "pony tail".

Below are pictures of Maisey and McKay. They found our headlamps and loved chasing each around in the dark. They were amazed by the light.


Here is Elias, Maisey and McKay after a trip to King's in which I bribed them to be good all day. Elias and McKay have the same monster trucks so they can't fight over them, I thought so I thought, but it backfired on me because now they both want them all. Maisey is wearing her princess tiara, earrings and carrying her wand, which all got broken in the first 5 minutes. At least the bribing worked a little bit and they were good for the first part of the day.



The final picture is of Maisey getting ready to go outside. Notice her boots. She has one pink cowboy boot and one black irrigating boot. She also is still in her PJs. She really has as much fashion sense as her mom.

Why living in a 100 year old house sometimes isn't that great

I usually love living in our old house, but sometimes it isn't that great. Nathan had the week between Christmas and New Year's off so I decided it was time we finish the remodeling of the upstairs bathroom we started last spring. Nathan was starting school on the 5th so I figured it was now or never. I started to rip the wallpaper down last spring and the walls underneath were a mess. We needed to replaster most spots were the wallpaper took off the wall and left big holes. That took 3 different mudding and sanding tries to get it right. Then the window casing was the next project. There was thick white glossy paint on it that was chipping in lots of places. We knew that there was lead paint at least one time on there, so comes our problem. If you research on the internet, lead paint is very bad and so is removing it. To sand it, you are not supposed to have kids in the house and are supposed to pay a professional lots of money which we don't have. That left us with chemical strippers. It took Nate 3 days and 3 different applications of stripper to get it off. See below for the intermediate phase.

See below for the final phase before we gave up and get ready to repaint it. We didn't leave the wood color because it wouldn't have matched the rest of the new trim in the room. It is beautiful wood though.



So we finally finished stripping it and are in the process of repainting it WHITE, the same color it was before we started!!! At least you can see the detail and we didn't have to sand the chipped spots and cause brain damaged children.

We still didn't finish the bathroom! It is primed and the trim painted. I will post finished pictures when we get it finished (in another year.) If anyone has a miracle stripper for lead paint, please let us know.