Here's What we've been up to!

Braxton tried out for the Western Harnett Middle School's football team this year and made it.  His team came in second in the district and he had a blast. He practiced about two hours every night after school.  The kid worked very hard.  We are so proud of him.  He was #57 and played a new position than he has tried before.  He was the tight end.  We had so much fun watching Braxton and his team play.

Isaiah just had a piano recital.  He just keeps getting better and better.  We are so proud of him and his hard work.  He is going to be trying out for an all boys basketball team tomorrow morning.  Way to go boys.

Garden update

This is how the garden looks right now!  The cherry tomato plant on the right is taller than me.  I have cherry tomato plants in the back by the corn and they were getting so heavy that the branches have broken off. 

Our one baby pumpkin.  It is outside of our garden fence area was a cast off of last years pumpkins.

These will eventually be orange bell peppers

 

 

My grape vine.  We won't see grapes for a few years.

 

Isaiah's favorite past time.  Finding the tomatoes ready to eat. 

Cucumbers and more cucumbers.

 

Attempting watermelon

Sunflower

The start of the zucchini.

Corn is about 2 feet tall now!
 

Piano Guy

 Isaiah had his first piano concert this past week.   I have been having trouble downloading this video of him playing.  Way to to Mozart, you did a fantastic job!  We are so proud of you.

Scouting

This was Braxton's new troops first Court of Honor.  Braxton was awarded his first merit badges.  Fishing, Robotics and Eletronics.  He is currently about 95% completed with his 4th on Reptiles and Amphibians.  He also receives both his Boy Scout and Tenderfoot badges and is now more than 50% finished with his Second Class Badge.

 

He was also voted in as the new Patrol Leader of the newest recruits  of his troop.  He is loving the opportunity to be a leader. 

 

 

 

Scout Master Gabe.  He is one amazing guy. He runs the wolves in cub scouts and does boys scouts and I think he mentioned that he does high adventure as well.

 

 



 

Braxton's new patrol are the boys who don't have sashes yet.  They have only been boy scouts for a few weeks.  And since February since Braxton joined the troop has doubled in size.  This is the entire troop.  They still haven't decided what neckerchiefs they want to wear and are considering on getting hats like Braxton's.  He loves his hat!  That is what they gave the new Boy scouts in Korea, along with the Far East Counsel neckerchief that he loves.



Isaiah with Cub Master Joe.  He was receiving his basketball, wildlife conservation, geology, and hiking belt loops.  He earned his Bear badge, a gold arrow and a few silver arrows a few months ago during basketball season that we weren't able to attend.

Garden

Here is the latest on my garden.  I took these pictures a week ago and my tomatoes are now quite a bit bigger they also have a few blossoms, along with many of my plants. 

Salsa garden plus one giant cabbage plant. 

This is now a quarter of a size bigger and flowers are starting to form.

Cherry tomatoes to the rear.  My friend gave me one of her zucchini plants and it is doing well, but it is now looking like my cucumber plant.  So I think it is a cucumber.  Off to the right is one of my watermelon plants.  I hope it works.  I never could get watermelons to grow in Utah.

I can't forget my sunflowers up in a corner.

The boys are anxiously awaiting this strawberry to form.

Peas in the making

Baby grapes

My peas are bigger then I have ever gotten peas to grow.  These are my second plantings of radishes.




 

So fine... We are now nine!!!!

Isaiah had his ninth birthday. I can't believe that he is nine.  It seems like it was not so long ago that he was just a baby.  He has brought us so much fun and love we don't know what we would ever do without him.  He is such a sweet little guy and is so giving.  He is talented with his music and loves to sing and dance. He definitely has matured over the years and is getting to become more responsible.  We love you more than you know big guy!    Last weekend we celebrated his birthday.  It was so fun.  He had his friends over for lunch and the party.  They played and played and weren't ready to go home when the party was over.  They played Pokémon games and had a piñata. 

He wanted a Pokemon party and this is his Pokeball cake. 

This was the best picture that we were able to get of him blowing out the candles.  He had them blown out before we even finished singing to him. 

Most of his gifts were Pokémon cards.  They were the best gift ever. 

Excitement on his face with one of his gifts from a friend. 

Garden time!

It is garden planting time at the Jenkins house.  We are well underway.  The cold plants have gone in the ground and are sprouting and we are ready for the weather to become a little warmer for the salsa garden and the other plants to be planted.  We threw out some of our pumpkin seeds from last year into the garden area and they are sprouting up as well.  I wasn't planning on having them come up at all.  We have become farmers.  Yes we have.  So hopefully we will have some fun things to eat this year.

This planter is going on an old wooden chair that I have on my front porch.  It is currently now in my garage because of the threat of frost this weekend.

Baby Raspberries.  Lets hope they do well.

Proof that I am a farmer.  Peas are coming along.  Radishes are sprouting.  Carrots soon to follow. 

grapes planted and hoping to have a great time with them next year!  We're not expecting much this year.

I have become a bag lady.  I found these drawers on the curb of someone in our neighborhood and decided that I could do something fun with them.  I grabbed them painted them and added some old looking pulls.   They aren't completely filled in with flowers yet.  But I am liking how they turned out.

My tire strawberry beds.  Notice all of the dirt all dug into?  That would be our cute little baby.  She has already been going to town in all of my planters and so now we (Brandon and Braxton) have had to build a fence around my garden. 
 

Remember This cute little girl "Sally?"

This is what she loves to do.  No, it's not just a cute small hole.  She isn't so cute any more is she?  She has made many so big that half of her body was able to go inside of them.  This is a reason why we have to have a fence around my garden.  This is what she looks like as she is getting in trouble for digging the hole in the first place.  Yes we have made her, her own sandbox  to dig.  But she loves to dig everywhere else.  We hope this is a phase and will only last a year.  Fingers crossed.  We love her so much but she can be a big pain in the butt.

Derby time

This morning was Isaiah's official first pinewood derby.  He has been working on his car for a little while now and was very excited to get to the races.  Isaiah's cub scout troop worked very hard to put on a cute derby experience for the kids.  They had car revving sounds happening right before the cars dropped.  They even had smoke happening at the end of the race.  The cub masters had camera gear set up on a projector so that everyone could see the race from where they were sitting. Isaiah's car was unbeatable.  He won every heat!  Way to go big guy.  Now we get to go compete in district in a few weeks. 

Isaiah's car in a blue and yellow blur at the finish line.  He finished this way every time.  But he also had both hands with fingers crossed which we are thinking  is what helped to push him over the edge above his compitition. 

The official standing on the winner of the Bears.

This was as good as Isaiah would smile.

My favorite picture of the derby.  He sure loves his brother.

Holding the winning car.

There is "Blue Lighting"

The winning boys. 

Weekend fun!

Last weekend we decided to have a non-electronic weekend.  This is what happened.  We had a home camping experience.  Braxton pretty much put the tent up in the backyard by himself.  Isaiah helped set up camp by putting up the chairs and being the errand boy.  Brandon racked up the leaves and pine needles away from fire pit.  I spray painted tires (project will be posted at a later time).  It was well worth it and we really enjoyed each others company.  We hiked behind our house and got some ideas for a way to make a trail for the boys to explore the woods easier. 

Here are the boys sitting at the fire getting ready for hotdogs.  By this time the weather was starting to be cooler.  It was going to be 35 degrees that night.  Yikes!  We only had 2 mummy bags.  So two of us were going to be getting cold.  After dinner we got ready for bed and played uno.  When we woke up Brandon made breakfast and took us to the beach.  No pictures sorry.  It was pretty cold, but the boys managed to still get wet and be content. 

This is what Sally did while we worked.  She made a nest out of the newly piled needles and leaves.  By Monday she did have a tick.  Yay.  The bugs are back.