New grass

We finally got around to cleaning up the front yard. I made the front flower garden smaller and we planted new grass, in sections. The first section grew in great. Today, I planted the second section and Ben helped me plant some flowers and transplant some from around the front tree and other areas of the old flower bed. It looks better already. I also cleaned out the area around our front tree. We are getting rid of the rocks and planting grass all the way up to the tree. I still have the corner flower bed to clean up. We also have the side tree that is threatening to take out our fence. It is partially cut down and looks bad, but David hasn't had time for much. We still haven't got our shed up. Still a work in progress.

New baby in the family

My brother and Sister-in-law had their baby on June 25th. They had a boy, 7lb, 14oz, 20 1/2 in. His name is Lucas. The pictures are kind of late, but here they are. This is my parents holding Elijah and Lucas, with Justin and Ben not wanting to be left out.

Izzy

This is our new dog, Izzy. We got her on Saturday. She is purebred Beagle, 14months old. She knows how to "sit, come, shake, and speak". We are teaching her "go home" whenever we go into the house, and I am taking her on morning and evening walks to teach her how to "heel", and it is giving me the exercise that I REALLY need. I am going to take her for morning walks inbetween changing the water on the lawn (we do not have automatic sprinklers) and with the kids in the evening while David is at school. I am hoping that I will keep it up and not get out of the habit. She is still getting settled in and whines whenever she is left alone, that includes when we shut the door to the bedroom or bathroom. But she is getting better. She used to whine when we put her outside alone. We are keeping the name given to her by her previous owner because it is a nice name for a dog and she is already trained and responds to Izzy. When she gets out the front door, she will come when called. We plan on going to dog training/obedience classes when she gets settled into our family. We want Izzy to be happy and obedient, even when not on a leash or in the fence. I am starting on "roll over" as well, to keep her learning and occupied. Beagles will dig and run away if they are not given enough attention. So far Izzy is a good dog and we have had no problems, but we do not expect it to be a smooth ride, she is still a young dog. The boys love her and they wear each other out.

Still here

We are still here. We have been so busy these past few weeks. Eli's blessing was fun. We had family come down from CDA, Idaho and all my family here in Utah came to enjoy the afternoon with us. We had over 40 people in our little home, eating cookies and having lemonade. The morning started out with a rain storm when we found out that the roof leaked. My dad and David had to get on the roof in the poring rain and tar the leak around the swamp cooler. later that day, the rain stopped and it turned into a beautiful day. The Thunderbirds were at HAFB that weekend. We watched their show from our front yard. David had finals for school the next week. He got two A's and an A-. I am so proud of him. We started potty training with Scott. He is getting the hang of it. My brother and his wife had their first child. They had a boy 7lb 14oz, 20.5 inches long and named him Lucas. We finally tried putting the 10X12 shed together that we bought the week after we closed on the house. We didn't get too far. We are planning on finishing it this Saturday. David has two papers to write for school before the weekend. He just turned in two 3-page papers on Monday and Wednesday. It is the second week of this semester and he will have written four papers already, and he has just two classes. We are renting a wood-chipper to get rid of a pile of dried wood on the side of our house. There was a big tree on the side of the house that was lifting the sidewalk and looked like it was infested and going to fall on the house at any time. We are going to use the wood chips in my front flower garden. My birthday was Sunday. Last Monday, David got me a 6 week old border collie/Australian shepherd puppy. We named her Lexie. I wanted a dog for the boys and me, since our sweet dog died in April. But I could not handle a puppy with my five boys. David couldn't understand at first. I wanted a dog that was house trained and good with kids and already mostly trained. I didn't have time to train a puppy. The week that we had Lexie, my post-pardum depression reared its ugly head and I broke down in tears twice a day. David realized that the puppy was too much for me to handle at this point and I couldn't give the puppy the time she needed and the boys the time that they needed (and Myself the time I needed!). He tried to help me as much as possible that week by helping with the boys and making dinner, but he had to work and go to school full time and I knew that I couldn't train a puppy, nurse a 2-month old, potty train a 2-year old and get our new house organized and the yard cleaned up the way we wanted it. We put her on ksl.com and sold her to a nice women just a few streets over. We are planning on getting another dog, 1-5 years old, around August or September. I want to have the backyard cleaned up, our gate completed and maybe the older boys in school too so I will have the time to give a new addition to our family. So it has been a busy month and we are looking forward to the 4Th of July.