Missionaries, Weeds, and Bedwetting

 We have a huge garden.  I may have planned for too big of one.  We also have all sorts of root rot happening since we have such a humid climate, but spent a good amount of time this morning trimming out the bottom of the plants so the sun could reach them and hopefully dry them up.  Last year we lost all of our tomato plants pretty quickly to it. This year, we have already lost all of our cucumber plants. :(  Maybe I can plant them again?

The kids have been troopers.  Lily has been the corn weeder (a HUGE portion of the garden).  Piper has knocked out the sections with cucumbers, butternut squash and canteloupe and they look amazing.  Havala has been taking care of the tomato plants very well, Maia the peas and lettuce, Hyrum the super hard onions and carrots and Xai the peppers. I have been helping here and there and it's wonderful to come back later and see no weeds growing where I weeded.  Yay for in depth weeding! I still have kiddos who don't bother to get the root out and we have to weed and weed and weed some more.  I think they are starting to see the benefit now.

After we took care of some weeding and culling, we straightened up the barn for Mirabel, our pregnant cow, to have a place to lie down out of the rain. Elijah used the push lawn mower for the first time and did awesome!  Maia took up the push mower and finished up the area and also did awesome!  Hava, Liesl, Penelope and Xai helped me weed the strawberry plants and then we put a net over it. We are finishing all these projects that I've just been putting off.  

Maia is mastering her math facts!  She knocked out addition, subtraction and multiplication very quickly! She is super frustrated with not being a genius in 10 minutes, but I KNOW her genius just takes a little time and love to manifest itself. She read all seven Harry Potter books in about a week of reading.   I think her favorite character is Snape. Or Moody, actually, even though he dies. She loves fashion, ice cream, friends and Oreos.  She had a great time at camp, and made several friends in the Stake.

Havala and Maia are currently taking voice lessons and love it! Their teacher, Gracious Pack, struggles emotionally and mentally, but they enjoy when they can meet. :D Maia is singing a French song and Havala an Italian one.

Xai is super sweet. I just love him.  He is a pretty good worker, loves math and science still and is learning how to not exact perfection from everyone around him :D.  He and Piper did VERY well on their end of year scholastic tests.  All the other kids rocked their tests, with strengths and weaknesses in different areas.  Those two just seem to take tests better than the others.

Maia has been fun trying to help our new little kitten. We have a strange situation where our mamma cat had another little kitten before her other two kittens were full grown. Now they are nursing from her, too!  It's really weird.  Hyrum found the little baby mewing from the back of the trailer that is full of wood. I trust that the momma knows what she is doing.

Lily is starting the online MTC next week. Drew is still in Provo, leaving next Tuesday, which is a week before Lily arrives. SO fun. I am actually missing him a whole bunch and am trying not to think about missing Lily so much :S.  Hyrum has also started his mission papers...so much fun!  And so sad, all at the same time.

We have a new treadmill. Piper told Quinn that if he would purchase a treadmill, then she would tell him her deep dark secret from Medina, NY.  $200 later Quinn got himself a secret and Piper had a treadmill! Well, we all do, but she is super excited about it!  

Hyrum is trying to help save Federal Hocking football so he can play his senior year.  We went to a school board meeting to support any action the district could take to make it happen.  We'll see!

I love snuggling with Eli and Liesl before they go to sleep at night. And Penelope still goes to sleep with Quinn and I and then we move her to her port-a-crib where she is happier. Eli and Liesl still struggle to not wet the bed at night. We lost the previous two devices that alerted them when they wet the bed so I just ordered two more. Liesl is going to be super sad (and maybe Lily too) when Lily leaves to sleep on her own soon.