Creative Baby Solutions...A Man's Touch

Here's the latest and greatest baby fix-it-yourself from Jared. Ashley's pants always fall down...she's just so petite around the waist, but smaller size pants are too short. So....Jared conjured up a belt out of some twine we had in the garden supply pile. Hey, it did the trick.
You think that's good...here's a recap picture of last May when the little tab broke off Ashley's diaper as Jared was putting it on. That's right...duct tape does the trick! We are getting our 20 cents worth out of every diaper! Waste not, want not, eh?

All In a Day's (or two) Work

We had a great visit from my parents a few weeks ago. They came out with the sole purpose of helping us get our garden...functional. We knew they were experts in this area, but what we witnessed that weekend was amazing! They came with plans, sketches, ideas, materials all ready to go. I kid you not -- they brought shovels and saws in their suitcases. But, I'm not too surprised since these are my parents. They are the hardest workers I know. If it weren't for the sun going down, they probably would've worked all night, too. They put in an underground irrigation and drain system that has bubblers come up in each garden bed. They also built six garden beds and left us the plans for four more and a compost bin. They dug trenches, laid down weed cloth, shoveled dirt, and more! (Luckily we had A&W root beer on hand.) Mom gave me great tips on fun ways to grow vegetables (a bean/pea teepee...hopefully I'll have a picture in about two months) and other little touches that make a garden special. Amazingly, we also had time to squeeze in a number of racquetball games as well as lots of family games around the table...oh, and of course some nutella crepes for dessert. After they left, we went out of town as well, so we haven't had a chance to put the other beds in place. But, we hope to finish that up in the next few days and have everything planted by this weekend. Here are some pics from those few days.

1. Saturday Morning - They arrived around 4am and were up and ready to play racquetball at 7:00am! (Just another example of how we know Ashley's need for sleep did NOT come from my side of the family)
2. Tuesday Morning - They worked right up until they could barely make it to the airport in time. With General Conference sessions on Saturday and the day of rest on Sunday...this was all accomplished in about two days. WOW!

3. Ashley loved being outside spooning dirt around, playing in the mud puddles, and collecting rocks.