"Someone taught your son to fib.."

As Mathew was backing away from Aaron with his hand behind his back.....

Aaron: Matthew, what are you doing?

Matthew: uuuuhhhhhhhhh, I'm not eating butter.

Gardening and Wormins

Last week I went to an organic gardening class and I am so excited to start gardening! I went straight home and the kids helped me plant Borage (an herb related to mint), basil, parsely, cilantro(coriander), pumpkins, acorn and butternut squashes, giant white radishes (they look like long fingers), canteloupe, bush beans, forget-me-nots (Megan calls them don't-forget-me's), shasta daisies, and sunflowers. I'll post pictures when all of these sprout. what fun! We are also Vermicomposting- which is composting with worms. You just feed them your left over greens and fruits and veggies and they turn it into the other "black gold" that's extremely good for your garden. They also love eggshells. Yummy yummy.

The kids are so excited about it and want to show everyone their wormies when they visit. Right now we have so few worms that they are in a little plastic container with holes poked through for air, but when they breed we'll have to move them to a large container. I chose to do mine inside under the kitchen sink in a sealed container, because I've seen outside ones that friends have done and it attracts all kinds of bugs.I went to Starbucks and got their free coffee grounds because they're really good for plants and the worms LOVE them (supposedly). If you want to learn more about vermicomposting, Martha Stewart did a cool tutorial on her show about it, although she doesn't do it exactly right, but the article that's with the video says the right way to do it. Here's the link

She doesn't really instruct you on how to harvest the compost, but all you have to do is bring the compost to the top of it and bring the container into the light. All the worms will go down away from the light and you just wait for them to get out of it and take it away to use as a fertilizer or plant starter. Use can also use the worm wee (urine) just make sure that you set your composting container on top of a collecting tray. Prop it on top of something so that the liquid can exit and collect. then you take it out and dilute it to use as miracle grow- the cheap and natural version. I know this sounds wierd, but it's so interesting to see how the planet works. What wonderful creations God has made!

binocular soccer

This video was so funny I had to post it....


I posted this expressly for my uncle Dave :o) I think that we should do this at the next family reunion...LOL!

The craziness never ends at the Shumway house.....

The other day I went in to see how the kids were doing in Megan's room and Matthew was walking out carrying Megan's ballet bar and wearing this: It's amazing the mass quantities of juicy blackmail material you rack up before the age of 4.....

The other day Megan asked, "Mom, what's an overlord?" he he he (It's from a silly song we like called Chiron Beta Prime by Jonathan Coulton) I said, "It's a person who makes you do things whether you want to or not." She thought a bit about that and she said, "s0, you're my overlord!" What a stinker.

Today I was getting the butter out of the fridge and Megan saw me and asked, "Can I have some butter?" I told her she couldn't have just plain butter, she had to have it ON something. She thought for a minute and asked, "May I have a buttered.... buttered... buttered plate?" Funny.

A fun family weekend!

On Friday I got to meet my 2 month old niece, Eve Elisabeth Harward. I couldn't get over how cute she is! My brother Rob, his wife Renee, and their precious Eve stopped by our house "on their way" to UT from LA and stayed until about 3 am this morning. Since we were all going to be together, my mom and dad came down from UT to join the fun(Dad hadn't met Eve either).
It was a fun mini family reunion. On Saturday we went to our ward talent show in the park and displayed a few of our "talents" such as keeping a straight face as you stuff it with banana set to music(Steph, Mom, and Rob), recite cute poems(Meg), and sing a duet while Ukulele-ing (Aaron and Steph). It was lots of fun. The rest of the weekend was filled with church, guitar hero, and various other games enjoyed by all.
Thanks for coming, guys! Come back any time! We love you!

SHE GOT IN!!

It's pretty difficult to get in to the Benjamin Franklin Charter School by us. Aaron and I called and got on the kindergarten list in January- We were probably the 5th people that got through once the lines were opened up. I called a month ago and they said that the kindergarten classes were completely filled up, but this morning they called and said that a space opened up and Megan is in! YAY!! I'm so excited for this! Megan and I were jumping around and squeeling after I hung up the phone. Kindergarten is actually K and 1st grade curriculums in one year, so 1st grade is actually 2nd grade curriculum and so forth. Megan loves to learn and I think she'll do great if she can stay focused. Here is the BFCS website in case you're interested: http://benjaminfranklincharterschool.com/index.htm

Silly Kids

My kids are pretty funny. This morning they were playing speed racer. Here's a video:





Megan has a newly discovered trick:





Matthew is totally in to Transformers. If you call them Transformers, however, he will say, "no, wohbot cahw" (robot car) and instead of his toys' names being Mega Tron and Optimus Prime, they are "Magic Tron" and "Awesomest Crime"