garden talks in the park

My Mom is a missionary for the church and as part of her service she organizes the "Garden Talks In The Park" each year. She has been doing it for 7 or 8 years. Hercules and I have gone to a couple and have LOVED it so I wanted to post the information just in case any of you are interested.

The "Garden Talks" are free one-hour talks given by expert horticulturists, each Wednesday evening at the beautiful Brigham Young Historic Park. I wish I would have posted about it a few weeks ago so that you could have gone to the others ("Backyard Gardens", "Raised Bed and Square-Foot Gardens", and "Plants and Long-Term Total Cost".) The talks begin at 8:00 pm in June and July and at 7:30 pm in August. No tickets are required. All ages are welcome. Here are the dates:

June 24: Herbs, Herbs, Herbs
Spice up your garden and kitchen with herbs. (By Judy Arnold)
July 1: Irrigation in Your Backyard Gardens
Learn the best way to irrigate your garden and what you can still plant for a fall harvest. (By Duane Hatch)
July 8: Attracting Birds to Your Gardens
Learn how to attract birds to your yard. (By Darren Hall)
July 15: Roses - Queens of the Garden
Learn important information about roses, including how and when to prune them. (By Brooke Howland)
July 22: Trees
Choose the right trees for your landscape. (By Jay Dee Gunnell)
July 29: Tasty Berries and Grapes
Find out which grapes and berries flourish in Utah. (By Larry Sagers)
August 5: Bulbs
Learn how to create wonderful spring gardens by planting bulbs. (By Peter Lassig)
August 12: Shade Gardens for a Woodland Look
Learn more about ferns and other exotic shade plants. (By Jim Horrocks)
August 19: Garden Seeds
Learn how to collect and preserve seeds. (By Bart Anderson)
August 26: Fruits and Melons
Decide which fruits grow best in Utah gardens. (By Jerry Goodspeed)

Brigham Young Historic Park is on the southeast corner of State Street and North Temple. In case of rain, Garden Talks will be held at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on the 10th floor.

Let me know if you have questions!!

our little man

We can't believe how much Little J is growing up. He will be ONE soon!! It is so crazy how fast the time has gone and how much he has changed lately. He is SO CUTE and we are having SO MUCH FUN with him!! Here he is playing with some of his cousins. He LOVES to be with other kids and gets so excited to play with them.



Little J is so social! He loves to be with, watch, talk to, and wave at people. He has been so cute and has been waving at us (and everyone else) a lot lately. He waves when we say hello or good-bye, or he'll wave when someone comes over. It is so sweet. The cutest thing happened at Church today. We started to sing the opening hymn when Little J started waving at Brother Wadsworth, who conducts the music. It was so cute! J kept waving at him during the whole first hymn and was giving him the biggest smile! I'm sure Brother Wadsworth didn't even see him because we were on the back row of the benches but that didn't stop J from waving at him. We sang 3 more hymns during sacrament meeting and Little J waved at Brother Wadsworth each time. It was adorable!

J hates getting his diaper changed. And he hates getting his clothes changed too. We have to hold him down to change him and have learned to be really fast. (Hercules is WAY faster than me!) Little J loves his dirty diapers. We change him and then throw the diaper by the door so that we can take it out. (Immediately after, don't worry!) J crawls over to the diaper really fast and wants to bite it or open it or simply play with it. We always take it from him and throw it in the outside garbage. Hopefully this will stop soon!

J pulls himself up next to EVERYTHING these days! Here he is in the fridge.

He will pull himself up and then try to climb and pull himself higher. Sometimes he will push away from the couch and stand alone for a few seconds, or he'll walk from one chair to the next, but he's not really taking any steps yet.


He still loves climbing the stairs. It is his favorite thing to do. We would hang out all day on the stairs if I would let him. He also loves the cabinets - the ones in the kitchen and the bathrooms. (We still need to baby-proof the cabinets.) He loves to climb up the stairs into our kitchen, then crawls really fast to the cabinet under the kitchen sink. Then he goes straight for the Comet. Of course! He is so funny and thinks we are chasing him every time he crawls up the stairs - when really we are there so that he doesn't fall back. So, as he starts to crawl up he looks back at us and has this mischievous little smile and laugh. It's fun! He loves the blinds too! He always crawls over to the window and grabs the blinds. We pull them up half-way and then he just looks out the window, watching the birds and patting the window sill. He also thinks it's a game to bite. He loves to chase after my toes and tries to bite them. I thought it was the pink polish but he tries to bite us everywhere now. We are trying to teach him to give kisses instead!

Little J is such a Daddy's boy! It's adorable! I love seeing them together.

J loves to say "daddy" or "da-da" or just "dad". He says it ALL THE TIME!! He loves talking to Hercules on the phone and has a huge smile on his face each time I'm on the phone because he thinks it is his Dad.

He still loves music! He loves it when we sing and dances when he hears music. He always claps his hands for us to do patty-cake. He is starting to mimmick us too and is saying a lot more words lately. He says "da-da" (we're still working on him saying "ma-ma" other than when he cries), he says "moo" when he sees a picture of a cow, "tweet-tweet" for the birds, and "thank you", "turtle", and "hello" or "hi". I think he is saying more than that but we just haven't figured it out yet!

Here are some pics that Tennisa took of Little J's vampire teeth! His 2 side teeth came in before his middle teeth so he looked like a little vampire for a while. It was adorable and always made us laugh. These are the only pics we have of it. You can see that his middle teeth are starting to come in but you can tell the others came in first. (THANKS for the pics, Tennisa!)

memorial day weekend

Each year we go with Hercules' family to Richfield, Utah for Memorial Day Weekend. It is always SO FUN and something we look forward to all year long. We missed Hercules' 2 sisters and their families this year but were glad that his aunt and her family were able to come. It was a GREAT trip! I am sitting here laughing just thinking about it! So many funny things happened that I don't even know where to begin ... or how to explain it. Those who were there know exactly what I'm talking about! :)

One of the things we were most excited about was taking Little J swimming. He LOVES the water. He loves bath time, getting wet from the sprinklers by accident, water falls, and he even loves being outside and getting sprinkled on from the rain. We hope this love for the water lasts! Here he is with Daddy, all ready to go to the pool in our hotel.

Little J loved swimming! Hercules and I had fun too! We want to go swimming again soon.




On Sunday we drove to Fishlake Lodge for Church. They only have sacrament meeting there and it's mostly visitors who attend. It's cool to go to Church in a lodge! (Last year a couple bats flew in and were flying around!) It is also such a beautiful area. It was a little cold and it was sprinkling off and on.

I really wish I would have taken off the blanket for this picture. Oh well!

It was raining on Sunday night so instead of going to the park for dinner we went downstairs to the hotel's breakfast room. That is where all the craziness and fun happened!!! We played games, TRIED to cook a dutch-oven dinner, and laughed A LOT! The rolls and chicken & rice were amazing ... it was the dessert (that we tried TWICE) that didn't really work out so well. Unfortunately, these are the only pictures I took of the craziness that night. And they turned out blurry .... or was it just the smoke??? :)



Because of the rainy weekend, we only rode ATV's on Monday. It was PERFECT weather for riding though, so that was fine with us! I was a little nervous about it but we decided to take Little J on a ride. Here we are getting ready.

LITTLE J LOVED IT!!!! We were driving along and he would just start laughing out loud. Hercules turned around to look at his face and said he had the biggest smile! Then a minute later he turned around again and J was asleep. It was so sweet!

We took turns taking J for rides. Grandpa and Grandma watched J for us while we went on a longer ride too. It was so fun!



Just like every year, we had a fabulous time and didn't want to leave. Thanks to everyone for the fun and the memories!!!

my birthday

So ... I'm a year older. We celebrated my birthday a couple weekends ago. It was the PERFECT birthday!!!!!!!! I loved it so much. THANKS to my man, Hercules! He totally took care of me and spoiled me. Also, thanks to my family and friends who also made it wonderful! I've always loved my birthday. My parents did a fabulous job at making our birthdays fun! I always felt like a queen and like it was MY very own special day. I have so many great birthday memories from growing up! :) Hercules has carried that on and does such a great job at making it the best day for me. We love birthdays at our house! I guess Little J was excited too because he woke us up at 5:45 am that day! No sleeping in for us. I probably shouldn't post this picture because it was taken at about 6:15 am and I totally have sleepy-hair, sleepy-face, sleepy-everything. But look at how cute Little J is. We just can't get enough of that kid! (He even has sleepy-hair a little bit!)

We decided to hike to "Lisa Falls" since we were all awake and could tell J wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon. It is just a short little hike but it was perfect for us. Not too short, not too long. We LOVED it! Little J loved it too. He was smiling so much. He loves being outside! Here are a few pictures from the hike. This first one shows "Lisa Falls". It was pretty wet where we were standing and J absolutely LOVED feeling the water on his face.

It looks like J is giving the "thumbs up" in this one!



Okay, now honestly, how cute are these two?????? I just love them!!!!!!! :)