Week in review: gardening and a virtual tour of China

It is so fun to see things growing in our garden! The boys had fun designing cute little signs for our vegetable garden. Our lettuce, spinach and kale are looking just beautiful and our peas, carrots, tomatoes and peppers are looking awesome too. 

Nature Study- fun with ants

We have a little park a couple blocks behind our house that the boys love to play at. We went the other day and saw hundreds of huge ants crawling everywhere. We decided to do an experiment to see what ants really like to eat and if natural repellent really works.

Winter Wonderland

We've been having lots of great snow lately! I took the boys sledding through the woods behind our house (hoping to induce labor) and even took a *little* sled ride myself.

Let it snow

We have had snow the last two days and the boys couldn't be happier. Ethan went out back and built a snowman all by himself. Grant and Joshua trudged around outside for hours catching snowflakes on their tongues and throwing snowballs. Snow was made for little boys!

 



Simple things: lilacs & snails

I was sitting on the grass of my in-law's backyard talking with my husband on skype when I noticed these beautiful lilac trees in bloom. I had to grab my camera and take a few shots. 

It's so nice to see everything start to bloom and turn green again!

The boys enjoyed playing with snail shells. I took them to see the Lorax last week, so Ethan ran up excited and said "I found the shell of a great-grandfather snail!" The other one had a live snail inside and they watched it slowly creep along the patio but were really sad when they came to check on him a while later and he'd disappeared.

Let it snow...

We woke up to a little white stuff this morning! The boys were so excited. And it was perfect snow for building a snowman!

Simple things...beauty of the earth

I was going through my pictures today and found an entire folder that was still in raw. When I opened them in Lightroom I was pleasantly surprised to see they were the autumn pictures I'd taken at Thanksgiving Point! I completely forgot about them. We brought our schoolwork and climbed to the top of one of the pavillions and camped out all day. The boys jumped in the leaves and rolled down the hills and just had a fabulous day.

They also have an amazing new exhibit on Jesus Christ and I was excited to see it was finally open. Simple pleasures that make my heart smile : )

link up your simple pleasures...

Oh deer!

Meet our new "pets". We have six deer that come to visit us every morning and evening. They are brave little guys and come right up next to the house. They love to eat all the apples that fall from the trees and one even gets up on his hind legs to pick his favorites right off the tree. The boys just love deer watching!

I had to sneak these pictures through the window...

P.S. Here are a couple more pictures of Grant on his birthday!

Climb every mountain...

I think that must be my husband's motto... He hiked and camped almost nonstop from the moment we arrived in Utah. One of the more memorable trips was our week at Spirit Lake near the Wyoming-Utah border. We camped right next to this beautiful lake. It was freezing cold and rained almost every day, but it sure was beautiful.

The boys got to go fishing for the first time and caught a bunch of fish. Ethan caught three fish and Joshua caught one, they caught a total of 15 during our week there.

Daddy gave a fish anatomy lesson and the boys thoroughly enjoyed dissecting them. What better way to do nature study then to spend a week in nature?

We had an Osborne family reunion at Cecret Lake, a family favorite hike. I just have to say Joshua is the best little hiker I've ever seen. He is only three but he outlasts Ethan by far and keeps up with my walking pace the entire time. He never complains and is usually in the lead the entire time. I am amazed by his stamina, he is definitely his daddy's boy when it comes to hiking.

Anthony took Ethan and Joshua on their first backpacking trip. I had met my three day camping limit, so I stayed home with Grant.

He did manage to drag me out on an overnight backpacking trip to Upper Silver Lake though. The boys did great on the 2 mile hike and we identified lots of wildflowers as part of school that day. It was pretty cold once we got up to the lake and there were still a few snow patches but the little bear cubs wrestled around to keep warm.

This last weekend we went to see my family in Cedar City and went for a little hike in Zion's (no angel's landing for me!)

Anthony summited a few other mountains too- he actually spent 16 hours hiking one day and made is own trail across several mountain peaks, hiked Mount Bora in Idaho in record time, and his childhood favorite hike- Lone Peak.