Just to catch up!

I know I haven't been blogging for awhile... and I'm sorry. Been really busy in the last month. Of course, the kids had their last month of school and that's always crazy with field trips and class parties. But it's always a great sign of summer coming. The summer has been great. We have been enjoying our place and been working really hard on our yard and the garden. We have put up a fence around our HUGE front yard and it's so nice not to have a little midget goat eating my little trees. He's so cute when he's on the outside of my fence :-)...
We adopted a little pony for Makenzie. She has been telling us forever that we were never going to get her a horse... the day we brought "Hemi" home she reached over and kissed her dad on the cheek and apologized to him for saying we'd never get her a horse. Now she has her own little "pet" and we all just love her. Abby (our oldest nanny goat) had two little kids! They are so dang cute and fun for my kids to take care of and play with.
We have been watching a robin's nest in the pine tree in front of the house. We watched her sit on the eggs, we saw them as soon as they hatched and we just watched them fly away the other day! I tried getting pictures but she was NOT happy with me at all! So I left her alone. I really didn't want her leaving her nest!
We got our garden planted. It took two full days of hard work. We included the kids and made sure that they are learning the importance of being self-reliant. It is extremely important to Mike and I and we work hard to be able to bottle enough for a year's worth of food. I have twice the garden I had last year and I'm slightly nervous about it considering how hard it was to keep up with last year's. But it'll all work out and I'm excited. I have 38 tomato plants. For those of you who know me, I HATE tomatoes, but I LOVE salsa! So I also have 16 green and jalapeno pepper plants and a whole great big row of onions to make fresh salsa!!!! YUMMY! And of course, everything for the dill pickles since I'm not sure what mom and dad would do without their years supply of pickles!
We only had to water our garden for a week then it started raining every day and we haven't had to worry about watering. But now it would be really nice to see the sun because my peppers are starting to go yellow from too much water! My strawberries are sure loving the water though!
Tonight I made mom her birthday dinner. Tomorrow is actually her birthday but I wanted Mike to be able to be here for something since he's always gone for everything (easter, birthdays, mother's day, etc). She asked for chicken parmigiana, fettucini alfredo, green salad, garlic bread, and a chocolate cake with parisian cream filling and whipped frosting. So ask and ye shall receive! It was a nice dinner and it was nice to have the family all together. Mom, Dad, Shawn, Brook & their kids and Mike & I and our kids all got together at my house and we ate and visited. It was great! I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did! Happy Birthday Mom!! I love you and I wish you many many many healthy birthdays to come!!!!
So now I am sitting here trying to keep kids quiet while Mike is trying to sleep, since Brenna and Cole stayed to play with the kids. They are being really good and they all play really well together. Mike will be leaving in about 4 hours and I have got all his meals ready to go so he won't starve!
Well, I hope to be able to post more than once in the next month and a half.... Have a great weekend!!!!