Halloween Comes Early to the Scherbel House

I don't know if my kids think I'll give them candy if they dress up or what, but it seems like they always want to put on a costume. Josef scared Quincey pretty bad with that one.

Karl read my previous blog and told me where the camera was so here are the garden pictures as promised. Last year we got nothing. so this year I decided to plant two seeds in every hole. Well now we have two plants in every hole. As you can see, our peas are doing incredibly well. They are taller than the corn, they are even taller than I am! (I rotated the pictures like Holly said, but they still showed up like this. Sorry, I know it's hard to get the full effect sideways.)

Our squash and zucchini plants are growing like mad too. When they are all full grown, we'll be having squash three meals a day. For some reason our plants are growing half a squash before the flowers even open.

My favorite, by far, has been the pumpkins. They are taking over the whole garden. We have several pumpkin bumps, but only one pumpkin flower. Like the other squash plants, we're growing the fruit before the flower even opens. I took the first picture the other day and the second one today, you can see how fast they are growing. You can also see that Karl has been doing somw weeding.










We also have a yellow pear tomato plant that our friends gave us. We planted it by the peas and we weren't sure it would survive, but it's doing great.


Our cucumber plants were so small (you can see that they are dwarved by the squash plants )that we kind of gave up on them, but even they have flowers.

Ah the joys of gardening.

The Great Weight Loss Race and the Garden

I was so inspired by Holly's pics of their garden that I ambitiously went out and took beautiful pictures of our garden to post. Then I promptly lost our camera. It's somewhere around here... So when I find it, I'll show you some great pics of our gsrden.

After four kids, I am slightly overweight. I've been trying to lose it, but I go up and down and we all know I really like my treats. So I decided I need some motivation. I thought maybe those of us who could stand to lose a little weight could get together and have a contest. My purpose is not to exclude or embarrass anyone, it's just to have a little fun and give each other some support and encouragement. I figured we could use the percent of total weight lost as a basis for who wins (for example if you are 200lbs and you lose 20lbs - you've lost 10 percent of your total body weight.) That way it could be fair for those who only have a little to lose and those who have more to lose and no one has to reveal their actual weight. We could run this a number of ways. 1. We all put in a set amount of money and at the end of the month whoever has lost the highest percent gets all the money. 2. We could take turns buying a prize for the winner each month. or 3. We just give each other encouragement and support and the honor of winning (instead of a prize). Another way we could run this is for everyone to set a one month goal and whoever reaches their goal wins (it could be everyone) and buys themselves a prize. Anyway, anyone is welcome to join us. Please let me know by July 31st if you want to join in and which way you want to run it. We'll start on August 1st and go for one month. The way with the highest number of votes will win. For you lucky folks who don't need to lose any weight or even luckier folks who need to gain weight, we could still use your encouragement and support. (and if you gained a hundred pounds and looked terrible it would help too.) See you on the scales.

Slackers

Sorry it's been so long since we've blogged. I'd like to say we've been busy, but the truth is I've just been enjoying the summer. It's been an adjustment having Josef home again instead of in school. In fact, I've never had all four of them home all day until now. Josef has been a great help, he'll always play with Quincey and sometimes he even makes lunch for all of us. He's also been a great tease and can get all three kids screaming at once. We've been having a lot of fun this summer. The last week of June the kids and I went to Utah while Karl went on his high adventure. We went to Chuck E. Cheeses and the zoo. Zoey was terrified of Chuck E. Cheese. She took one look and ran screaming, "Mom I want to go home to my yellow house." It took awhile to calm her down. The zoo was really fun also and the kids loved seeing all their cousins. Quincey also got a haircut right before we left for Utah. Karl took one cut and I started bawling, "It's too much." He is much more comfortable though. This week we're heading to Camp New Fork to go camping. We'll let you know how it goes.