Weed Eaters

Now that the snow is officially gone, we've noticed that our lawn is in less than perfect condition, so this weekend we went to our neighborhood nursery, Heartland Nursery and Garden Center and sought out their expert advise.

They gave us a guide stating:

Optimum Times to Have a Hummert Lawn

March or April-Crabgrass control-Dimension

May or June-Long Lasting Dyna Green

June 1st thru July 15-Grub Control-Merit

September-Long Lasting Dyna Green

October-1st application of Winterizer

***4 Weeks Apart****

November-2nd application of Winterizer

Let me start off by saying, I don't know what a Hummert Lawn is, so I'm not sure if that is actually what we are going for or not.  Our second dilemma is that the month is April which means we are supposed to be doing the Crabgrass control-Dimension, but when we look at the picture on the sack which shows you what you are trying to get rid of...we don't have that.  We have the dandelions and the weeds showing on the May/June sack.  So what did we do?  We got the March/April sack, that way we wouldn't have this issue in 4 weeks of...do we reapply the May/June sack since it is May/June or do we move on to the June/July sack.  We're just going to keep it simple like that.

As I looked down at the dandelions on the May/June sack I couldn't help but think about one time when I was growing up, we lived on 5 acres and one year instead of trying to kill the dandelions, we picked them and made them into dandelion jelly.  We only did this one year, probably because it was a lot of work, but it made for a fun childhood memory.

Here is a recipe for Dandelion Jelly, so you can be a "Weed Eater" too :)

1 quart of dandelion flowers (just the yellow petals)

1 quart of water

1 teaspoon of lemon juice

1 box of Sure-Jell

4 1/2 cups of sugar

Cook the petals and water for 3 minutes. Strain and save the juice. Follow the instructions on the Sure-Jell box using the dandelion water. Bring to a boil.  Add the sugar and lemon juice.  

I can't remember exactly what it tasted like, except it reminded me of honey and was real sweet!

Dungeon to Dance Club

What Hailee wanted more than anything for her 13th birthday was to have a party with her guy friends and her girl friends.  A/K/A A boy-girl party.  This would be our first boy-girl party!  We decided on Sunday that her party should probably be on Friday or Saturday since Dustin and I would be in Las Vegas the weekend closest to her birthday.  On Sunday it was 78 degrees, so we started planning.  A hot dog roast and s'mores using our outdoor fire-pit, water balloon fights (clearly Hailee's idea, parents never think of water balloons!) and running through the neighborhood playing sardines and any other outside idea they could think of.  This was going to be a great way to kick-off the Spring Season!

 

She invited her friends via facebook since that was the quickest way!  Within 10 minutes after planning the party, we already knew everyone who would be coming!

By Tuesday/Wednesday, we were getting a little worried, the meteorologists were starting to predict snow on Saturday. Should we move the party to Friday?  That wouldn't give us much time, so instead we decided to move the party indoors to the only place that would hold nearly 20 kids...the basement.  To get a real good idea of what our basement looks like you can look at the previous blog (when you want to throw something at your husband). How were we going to turn this underground storage room, into a dance party environment in only 3 days?

First we moved everything to one side of the basement.

We swept the basement and then leaned the broom and dust pan up against the wall...like it belongs there (it doesn't :) )

We used tissue paper to make decorations and learned how to make puffy flowers from youtube!

My mom making a puffy flower.

Me making a puffy flower

Aubree making a puffy flower.

Felicity was at a friend's house on this night and Hailee was helping, but she didn't think she looked good, so she kept hiding from the camera!

Hailee didn't want a cake, she wanted a cookie. A big cookie, so I made 3 big cookies.

Chocolate Chip Cookie, made by me

Also Chocolate Chip Cookie, but with a ton of icing...also made by me.

These are actually the 2nd and 3rd cookies made.  The first one came out so hard that even though it was the size of a pizza pan, I could hold the whole thing up with one hand.  (I don't think it's supposed to be like that)  My mom was on stand-by on Saturday morning just in case I couldn't get the cookie-thing right.

I would include the recipe here but it's just the one off the back of the chocolate chip sack, but instead of butter, I use Crisco (I'm not sure which is worse!)

We still had the hot dogs, but they were steamed.

The music was rocking...literally had to turn it down from level 25 a couple of times (vibrating the whole house) and it always seemed to be someone else that turned it up, but never the person sitting right in front of it (who is probably deaf now). So we thought they might want help with the music, and when we tried to help everyone went outside.

So, we went outside too...

and as soon as we got outside...

They all went back inside!  Literally these pictures are in about a 3 minute time span.

They can't be trying to get away from Sadie...she is clearly in her party clothes!

They didn't even care they were in an unfinished basement.  After seeing 3 sodas spilled, I was glad they were in an unfinished basement too!

She waited until the boys left to open her presents because it was "too embarrassing to open presents in front of the guys"...but the Hello Kitty cookie was "So Awesome!"  :)  How fun to be 13!