Baking with Aunt Megan!

Brecken woke up the other morning and wanted to bake cookies. He found these really cool cookie cutters that he wanted to make into cookies. Karsten had been sick and I was going to be really busy with my online school class, I told him to ask his Aunt Megan. Of course Megan said she would bake cookies with him. What a nice Aunt! Brecken even got to have Zo over to help in with the fun. Brecken picked out a long neck dinosaur, T-Rex, a bus, a tennis racket, bear, and reindeer cookie cutters. Zo picked out a heart, flower and an X.

Here is Brecken is his apron. Megan had this really cool robot apron he could use. He is pretending to be a robot.

Zo was a great cookie decorator!

Brecken was a little frustrated with his decorating.Here is the Before. Here is the After. Brecken wanted black and green frosting. Zo wanted blue and yellow.
Brecken had so much fun decorating his cookies. Thanks Aunt Megan!!!

On a different note, this is what happens when you let your kids get dressed all by themselves. Brecken is great at putting his own clothes on. Today he wanted to wear his beani, vest, and snow hat. Of course little brother had to join in in the fun.
Isn't he so cute!!
Here is Brecken with his outfit. Do you notice anything? He has his shorts on backwards! We have been learning that the tag goes in back. I thought he had it down but we all make mistakes. As Tom was helping him fix his pants, he noticed there were two tags. One in the front and one in the back. No wonder why he got them on wrong. I would be a little confused too.

The healing power of Love

This picture is of last time Dad came home from the hospital.

For anyone who doesn't know, my dad suffered a severe stroke Wednesday morning. He is still in the ICU at Scottsdale Osborn and is doing okay. He has little to no movement on the entire right side of his body and is not able to communicate verbally. He is able to listen and understands and can respond to yes-or-no questions. He will probably be in the hospital for quite a while.

On Wednesday morning, Reuben and I drove Mom to the hospital. Dad had already been flown via helicopter. Reuben and I gave Dad a priesthood blessing and as it took place, I was overcome with the feeling that having so many people around Dad that love him is one of the most powerful healing tools and that as his friends and family show him how much he means to us, that he will continue to improve. Now, I'm not making any promises of miracles, but please do what you can to let Dad know what impact he has had on your life and how much he means to each of us. If you can visit, visit. If you can send pictures or a card, do that. If all you can do is pray, then do that. Everything is appreciated.

Also, for those who might not know, Dad can by kind of rowdy and beligerent in the hospital, so Mom pretty much has to stay there 24/7, so she can use some support and visitors too. Thank you to those who have helped the family thus far and visited. Just keep this idea in your mind for a while. Love is the most powerful force in the world. Why can't it heal people?

click it

I don't want to overshadow Natalie's awesome post, but just check out this link when you get a chance.

Bogle Family Farms

Fun in Spring

Here is our family picture from Easter. We have had a great time in the wonderful weather. Nothing is really new but we are enjoying the out doors. This morning the boys and I walked around Fulton Ranch. The lake was beautiful. The wind was blowing and glistening off the water. At the end of our walk we went to the park. Brecken enjoyed watching the little boys play baseball. He was really sad that he did not get to play. We went home and played a fun game of baseball in Nana B's huge yard. Brecken bats left handed. He even can hit the ball. Karsten loved hitting the ball too. Daddy helped him. Addy did a great job hitting the ball also. Tom of course hit the ball on the roof! Nana B even got out to play with us. It was a fun Spring baseball game. Here is a picture of all my handsome boys!
Tom's farm is going good. Tom and Reuben went to a farmers market with the left overs of the winter crop. They did not make much money but their self-esteem was boosted. They realized that they could do it! We are patiently waiting till the summer corn and watermelon come in.

Here is a picture of Tom's first Preschool tour of the farm back in March.
The kids really enjoyed seeing all the food that was growing. They also enjoyed the carrots!
Tom and Reuben are working hard to get the farm going. Once the food is ready to harvest I will let everyone know. We are all doing well and enjoying the spring time weather.

Easter and Family Fun

Brecken loved decorating Easter eggs. Can you tell what his favorite color?
The boys had a hard time figuring out what went in the buckets! I think this picture is so funny.
On our Easter egg hunt Karsten found one egg and proceded to eat all the candy. Needless to say he only got one egg because he was to slow. The boys were lucky to go to two easter egg hunts. At the second easter egg hunt Karsten found a orange and was so proud of himself. Brecken was a trooper and found enough eggs for him and Karsten.
We got to spend this week with Merilee's family (Tom's sister). Here is Boston, Mason and Brecken. Boston was Brecken's best friend this whole week. Boston is such a good cousin and let Brecken tag along with him all week. You rock Boston!
Karsten got this new, youth size, hat (my kids have big heads) for Easter. He loves wearing hats. I have never met an 18mth old that loves to wear hats and keeps them on.

We had a great easter and a fun time with family.

Baseball

Tom, Brecken, Karsten, and I ventured out to a Cubs spring training baseball game yesterday. (I am so mad because I forgot my camera.) The boys were so cute they both wore their little baseball caps. We had great seats. We were right behind the Cub's dugout. We could put our feet on the dugout.

Karsten was asleep until we got to the game and sat down to watch the game. He woke up immediately and loved watching the game. The boys were so impressed with all the baseball players. Brecken kept waving to the players to say hi. One of the coaches, Billy Williams(pictured above in his early days), threw Brecken a ball. He was in heaven. He hugged and kissed the ball the whole game.

Brecken was really intent on what each player was doing. During the game a batter got hit by a pitch and another batter on deck got hit with a ball. Brecken then started bonking his head with his ball. I asked what he was doing and he said, "That is what baseball players do. They get hit with balls!!" Tom and I were dying laughing. We didn't realize that is what baseball players do!

The boys lasted through the whole game. It might of helped that we had peanuts, cotton candy, and ice cream half way through the game. We can't wait to go again next year.

I can't wait to see my boys grow up and play sports. It will be so fun to see their interests and their talents.

Farm Camp

So Reuben and I are trying our hand at farming. Even though I quit my job almost a month ago, I am still working ten hour days. However, this time I am loving it. I get tired and want to see my kids, I go inside the house and see my kids. Or sometimes, they come out and ride on the tractor with me. It is awesome! I come in at night dead tired, but I love this kind of work. Now we just have to figure out how make money at it. Here is the general plan: we farm the area in the Bogle compound immediately behind my folks house and on the opposite side of the barn. We start a farmer's market across the street from Snedigar on Saturday mornings, and grill corn and sell watermelon every night during baseball season. We will also try to get in with some of the independent restaurants in the area and grow produce for them. Reuben and I will do most of the work, along with other family members, but we are open to service projects from scouts and singles wards. Sounds awesome, right? Now here are some of the problems that we face to make it all happen. We do not own the land that we want to farm. The family does, but we do not. So far, no one has said anything, but I figure once we start plowing the other fields, they will start asking questions. Anyway, we need to acquire a portion of the land to make sure the family doesn't sell it to anyone else. The land costs way more than is really reasonable to farm, so if anyone wants to buy land and let me farm it, you got my number... The other thing is housing. That a different story altogether. I'll save that one. Anyway, right now we are picking peas and carrots (even some purple ones), broccoli, cauliflower, 2 different kinds of lettuce, radishes and more swiss chard than we know what to do with. If you have any recipes that use chard, send them my way. Reuben and I just planted our summer crop with basil, a couple of different dry beans, 3 kinds of tomatoes, 4 kinds of cucumbers, 3 kinds of watermelon, bell peppers, and 3 kinds of corn (2 ornamentals and one sweet corn). Also, our artichoke plants are looking pretty healthy and our purple cabbage is starting to head. We have plans to plant several varieties of pumpkin on the south end and having a U-pick pumpkin patch since that side is easily accessible from the park. We will plant those in early june to have some ripe by mid-october. We will have a couple regular orange varieties and a white one with 3 or 4 heirloom varieties of various colors. Right now, we really need to sit down and actually put a business plan together. We will have to schedule plantings and harvestings around markets and then take special orders and plan the layout of crops... at that point it gets to be a lot of the actual work and less of the play-in-the-dirt fun, but that is how you make the money. If anyone has anything special they would like us to grow, we'd be more than happy to do it. Just give me at least 4 - 5 months notice. This ain't fast food. Reuben and I seem to work well together, and even though neither one of us really knows exactly what we are doing, we sure get a lot of it done. We took an old trailer and got it fixed so we can use it. Reuben put up a gate to keep dogs and playful children out. Our current project involves a stainless steel sink and counter top that we put wheels on to make it portable. That way we can move it around and clean the produce right at the point of picking. We will just hook it up to a hose and have a drain hose that runs the water right back into the garden. That way none is wasted. We have several more projects in mind that will turn the garden into a more permanent farm, including a greenhouse and workshop, but they are all on hold until we figure out if we can buy the land or not. We have seen some pretty awesome land deals up by Snowflake that make a lot more sense to farm, but one of the reasons we want to do this is to preserve the history of the area where we grew up and to remind people who it was they made it possible for them to live in Arizona. No one here knows anything about the history of this area, because they are all from somewhere else. I remember as a young kid riding my bike through the Basha's complex to Dad's office to play games on his computer. He had this sign hanging on the wall that said "Don't knock farmers with your mouth full." I never understood it, thinking it meant to knock, like on a door. Anyway, now I understand. I guess this farming project is also a way for me to spit in the eye of all these jerks out here who think the old Goodyear water tower is just an eyesore. If you're not grateful for the farmers and ranchers who made this place what it is, at least recognize their contribution and respect the fact they they did something you were unable or unwilling to do. Okay, so all you english teachers out there, get off my back. I'm to tired to hit "Enter - Tab" to start a new paragraph. So, we are trying to find a name for our farm. My original idea was to do Bogle Family Farms or Bogle Bros. Farms, and try to ride a little bit of the Bogle Farms coattails, but I'm not sure Reuben is to keen on that idea. He suggested a name that his mom always wanted to use: Belly Acres. Funny, but not the best for a produce farm. Reuben then suggested Fleur de Lis Farms, but there is already a Fleur de Lis Farms in Gilbert. So, right now we are nameless and open to suggestions. In the meantime, I just call it farm camp, since it is kind of like summer camp for retarded 20-somethings who think they are farmers. Pictures coming soon, or just check the team Craghead blog.