The Garden

When we bought our house it had been vacant for who knows how long.  The yard was a disaster.  We've put a lot of hard work into it and every year it's gotten better.  This was our fourth summer and the best year yet for the garden, lawn, and flower beds.  It still isn't perfect (and probably never will be) but it's nice to see hard work pay off.  Here are the yard/garden pictures I took throughout the season. 
May:
We love alliums.  This one was our favorite because it has a baby on top.  

I had to plant these peppers because YOLO. 

Spinach and strawberries make the perfect salad. 

Our poppies on Memorial Day.  They were beautiful... for like a week. 

The baby garden on Memorial Day.  The third bed hadn't even been planted yet. 

June:

July:
Big difference between Memorial Day and the 4th of July!

These zucchini told Berkley their names were John Lee and Kesta. 

These sunflowers grew spontaneously because we fed sunflower seeds to the birds. 

Thinning the carrots made me sad.  It felt like a waste.  This was actually our first successful year with carrots as well as a few other vegetables. 

We started harvesting weekly.  Then every few days.  We gave away a lot because we just couldn't eat it all.  (And we spent quite a bit less on groceries!)

August:
The tomatoes came in full force.  We ate a lot of fresh salsa and canned a lot too. 

We usually ate the raspberries immediately but we did have enough to make some delicious syrup. 

September:
Potatoes and peaches were ready in September.  Our little peach tree still didn't give us a ton of peaches but the ones we got were delicious. 

Spaghetti squash anyone? 

In September I ran out of steam (which is a record because that usually happens in July.)  I stopped watering every morning, stopped weeding and just let everything go wild.  Regardless, we had a great year of produce (and flowers!) and hopefully we can keep it up. 

Preschool

Berkley started her second year of preschool in September.  She loves it.  I thought it would be easier this time around but I still cried after I dropped her off.  I blame pregnancy hormones.  Here are some pictures on her first day.  She said she wants to be a teacher when she grows up. 

Here's her self-portrait.  She went through a small phase that she drew blue eyes on herself to be like me. 

 This wasn't from preschool but it's pretty adorable.  Berkley is on the left and Jesus is on the right. 

Their first field trip was to the park to feed ducks.  I love this picture of the Morby/Stoddard girls all holding hands.  Soon there will be two more!

Berkley and Dani are in the back making silly faces. 

We went to the fire station the beginning of October. 

This was probably the girls' favorite part.  Peyton waited for all the preschool kids to go.  When it was her turn she wouldn't let go and then she cried when she had to stop. 

Here's the fire truck song Berkley learned at school.  (Or maybe made up, I'm not sure.)

Also in October every paper in our house looked like this.  She loves practicing her letters.  In addition to normal preschool this year she's been doing an online preschool through the state called upstart.  It goes at her pace and I think it's really great.  Her reading skills have been improving so fast!

After one month of preschool she had memorized the alphabet backwards thanks to Miss Kimi.  She was the first in her class to have it memorized. 

Videos

It's been a really long time since I posted our random videos so I have quite a few from the past year-ish that haven't fit into other posts. 

Starting November 2013, Berkley singing the new primary song she learned.  

December 2013, the girls had a blast with the perfection game they got for Christmas (even if they didn't quite play according to the rules.)

January 2014, we had a little party at the Merrill's where we played a fun dancing game.  My parents really busted out their moves (which is normal for my Mom but not for my Dad.)

The kids had to play too.  Peyton was really into it. 

March 2014, some typical singing at the lunch table. 

Another primary song. 

May 2014, singing the Mother's Day song that the primary sang in church (but throwing in a couple surprises.) 

June 2014, dance party in the kitchen. 

September 2014, playing in the rain. 

Summer

Here are all the pictures from June-August that didn't fit into other posts.

"Fluffy Peyton."

We went to free summer movies in Kaysville almost every week. 

In-N-Out

Picnic

Park days. 

We found Dad's lost hat. 

Hanging out and playing baseball  while we wait for the Weber State fireworks. 

The best part of making your own pizza. 

This is what happens when Grandma takes you to Costco. 

Happy to have a kid-free shopping day. 

We went to Boondock's for my summer work party.  Since my Mom and Misty both work at the same place I do, it turned into a family party. 

Misty brought Devin and Berkley wouldn't leave his side. 

I went and saw Bill Cosby perform with these people. 

This happened.  They were being tigers/Indians. 

Our Stake hosted a mother-daughter campout and I brought Berkley.  She was looking forward to it all summer.  When we were there she kept saying, "Just me and you Mom!" and giving me fist bumps and high fives. 

I brought our 2-man backpacking tent because there were only two of us and it's easy to set up and take down.  It looked so small compared to all the other ones.  People would even comment, "Look at that tiny tent." as they walked by. 

In the evening they had dinner, a program, a movie on a big screen (Brave) with popcorn, and smores.  The next day they had breakfast, bounce houses, crafts, a giant waterslide, and lunch.  Berkley had so much fun. 

Sometimes you can't quite make it. 

Rub-a-dub

Berkley likes to take selfies. 

And sometimes they request that I take their picture just because. 

This girl is a raspberry lover.  It's a wonder we had any berries make it into the house.