"Evil"

Today I was making waffles and Kent said to the kids, "You have the most beautiful mom, you know?"

The rest of the conversation followed like this:

Emilia: She's amazing
Elise: She's pretty
Emilia: She's wonderful
Ian: She's evil
Elise: She's awesome
Ian: She's really evil

What have I done to deserve the distinction of evil? :0

"I Be Trouble"

Adele is definitely in the "terrible twos". I have never really believed in the terrible twos because all my other kids were worse at age one. Elise got bad again at 3, but they were all pretty good at 2. Adele is a different kid. She has been 2 for 2 months and she must know it. Suddenly everything has to be her way, at her timing or forget it! The main thing we fight about is clothing. She has definite opinions about what she is going to wear, and usually it involves pajamas. On Friday she refused to get any clothes on so I took her out to the car in her diaper and she rode to the store that way. Finally when we got there she agreed to put on her clothes. It took about 5 more minutes to convince her to get the shoes on. Yesterday Kent was trying to get her dressed and she wouldn't cooperate so he told her she was in trouble and put her on a stool in the middle of the the kitchen. She was buck naked. He waited 'til she was ready to get dressed. Finally she got dressed. Today she did the funniest thing. She grabbed a stool, moved it to the middle of the floor and sat on it. She said, "I be trouble". We all laughed at that of course, so then she said, "I be funny". I had to take a picture. This one is gonna give me a run for my money.

One more for November

Well I gotta squeeze in one more post for November before the month ends. I just have a couple of things today:

• I am SO glad that school is starting back up tomorrow. My kids just fight and fight and fight when they are together. They play a little and then fight a lot. They are constantly chasing, wrestling, poking, touching and bugging each other. I am glad they'll be back at school and not bored at home. It has been nice to be lazy in the mornings though. We have been getting up late so it's going to be hard to get back on schedule.
  
  
• My kids' new favorite thing in the world is Harry Potter. I hear "expelliarmous" and "It's not wingardium levio-suh, it's wingardium levio-SAH" all day long. They all want wands for Christmas. Why do the stores think they can charge 8 bucks for a plastic wand anyway? Let me know if anyone sees wands at the dollar store. And did you know there's a wikipedia page with all the Harry Potter spells? I just learned this. Check it out.
  
  
• I have got to get on the ball with Christmas shopping! I am usually done by now, but this year I am behind. I can't believe that Christmas is in less than a month.
  
  
• We put up our tree and Christmas decorations on Friday. It looks like I may have permanently won the colored vs. white light battle. Last January I bought a pre-lit tree for 75% off. It has white lights. So, until the white lights die I think they are staying. I am in the clear minority at my house since Kent and all the kids want colored lights, but when you are the shopper you get to buy what you want. (The white lights look really pretty by the way.)

Do you like Ian's pink socks? I bought these fuzzy socks for myself for Christmas and then gave them to myself for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately all my kids love them so much that they all keep stealing them. Emilia wore them to bed last night.

Adele thought this plastic candy cane was a real candy cane and kept trying to bite it. We have already broken about 4 or 5 ornaments and our tree has been up for 2 days. We don't have any presents under the tree yet but I am sure I can predict how that will go.

Happy Birthday To My BOY!

On November 12 Ian turned 5! He has been so excited about turning 5 because in our family 5 is the magical age when you are officially allowed to chew gum. I made that rule when Emilia was little because in my opinion toddlers and gum just don't go together. For Ian's birthday we took the kids to Funtime Inflatables. Unfortunately the camera's batteries were dead so I couldn't take pictures. My kids loved that place. And it totally wiped them out.

The "Happy Birthday Grapefruit"

We love our Ian Dude! Happy Birthday Bud!

Update

Time to change the blog colors again. The orange has got to go. It's hard to believe November is here. So, here's the update:

I have been such a blog slacker in October that I must do better this month. (Not hard to do, I already have 2 posts this month and only had 3 all of October.) I have not only been a slacker on updating my blog but reading others' blogs too. I caught up on a bunch today and I have to admit that I can't help but feeling a little bit bad because it seems my life is nowhere near as fun as the lives of all my friends and family. I guess that could mean two things: I need to WRITE about all the amazing things I do, or I need to do more amazing things. I think I need to do more amazing things and take my camera. Mostly we just do the daily things like go to the park and the library. Nothing too exciting. I also need to do a better job at listening to my IBV which has started whispering to me just a little bit.

• Adele is following in the footsteps of her older sisters regarding naps. Something in their little brains tells them they are 2 now and that means they no longer need a nap. I put her to bed every day. She sleeps about 1 day in 3. The other days she completely destroys her room. She takes all the clothes out of the drawers, pulls any wipes she finds out of the wipe box and pretty much makes a huge mess. Here's what we found today. Only she was buck naked when Kent went in to get her. And there were wipes everywhere.
  
  
• Adele has also learned that she can take the garbage can/diaper pail from her room, move it to any location in the house and use it to reach things that are normally not in her reach. This is very bad.
  
• I have been helping out in Elise's class every week. I really enjoy seeing her interact with her friends and her teacher. And I know who she is talking about when she says that "Denim did this" or "Denim did that". In fact, "Denim" is so often doing something interesting that Ian almost always asks Elise what "Denim did today". This is the first year that I have really been able to help in Elise's class so it has been really fun.

Halloween

We love carving pumpkins!

Kent's very cool Valley Forge George Washington pumpkin.

And here's one of the kiddos post trick-or-treating, as you can see. Adele was going to be a pumpkin for Halloween but she screamed BLOODY MURDER when we tried to put the costume on her. She wouldn't even wear fairy wings or a princess dress. NOTHING. She did enjoy the "begging for candy" routine once she figured it out.

My Baby is Two!

How did the time fly so fast?

(a nice gluten-free cupcake, following a great gluten-free pizza dinner)

We gave Adele a new bike a few weeks ago "for her birthday". We wanted to give it to her early so she could have more time to use it. Grandma A gave her a gift a couple of weekends ago when she visited so there weren't very many presents to open. Grandma V sent some money and we haven't spent that yet.


We are so glad this little girly is part of our family!


We'll also be glad when this little girly decides that she wants to use the potty. Then we'll be diaper free. HOORAY! Maybe in a few months we'll try.

A New Record

I have officially beaten my old record of not posting for 2 weeks. This time it is 2 and a half. Frankly I haven't had much to say that didn't involve moaning and groaning so I haven't said anything at all. So here's the update:

I went to Park City with 3 of my sisters. My sis Linda has 2 condos there and we did a little impromptu trip there a couple of weekends ago. It was fun to hang out with the sisters. We did some shopping, some eating, some movie-watching and lots of talking. We especially loved Karen's homemade garden salsa. Unfortunately we never took advantage of the hot tub.

Here we are! 3 of my 5 sisters and me!

Making Butter

As you know we have been buying milk at a local farm. The milk has cream on the top and we have been using the cream to make butter. We have all been building up our arm muscles with all that shaking!

After we strain it we use the buttermilk in our pancakes. It has been really fun for our family to do some of these "pioneery" things.

Peaches

GLUE Stick

Not CHAP Stick. There IS a difference.

As you can see at OUR house chapstick (or glue stick in this case) is applied to the area around the lips instead of the lips.

The Farm

There's a place not too far from me that sells fresh milk. I saw a flyer at the health food store that advertised milk so I decided to check them out. As I was driving up there it really made me want to live on a farm. I have a friend who has chickens and have been thinking for awhile that I would really like to get some chickens too. We just don't have the space in our backyard, so it isn't really possible for us. (I don't really want to deal with chicken poo all over my yard and we don't really have space for a big enough coop.) So, as I was driving up to this farm and visiting it I really wished I could move up there and get some chickens. And maybe a cow. It made me laugh at myself for how crazy that sounded and how much different I am than I was just a few years ago. Kent grew up in a tiny town in Idaho where the hills roll on and on and the potatoes grow. I grew up in a suburb of Denver and always considered myself more of a "city girl". I never wanted to live in the middle of nowhere. Now I guess I do. I guess I kind of live in the "country" now only I don't get the benefits of having land. I just live in a place with no stores but Wal-mart and I still have a tiny yard and neighbors all around me. In my head I picture a nice house with a big landscaped yard and lots of fruit trees. I'd have a cow (that Kent would faithfully milk every day) and chickens and a huge garden. I am sure it would be tons of work and maybe I don't really want all that, but at the time it sure sounded nice.

The cows (Thanks for the milk girls! Moo.)

"Fred" taking a nip at Ian's leg. Fred is a mostly domesticated crow that lives at this farm. He's kind of a troublemaker, as you can see. The lady I bought the milk from said that once he took one of her kid's socks and put it up on the roof of the house.

Fred and me

The cute little farm puppies (that are for sale.... No, I still am not THAT crazy yet.)

Sick and Bored

Last week we were busy. This week we are sick and bored. Well, the kids are sick and I am bored. Don't get me wrong, I LIKE to be at home, but after barely leaving the house for 2 days I start to go a bit stir crazy. Having to stay home all day kind of throws me off my schedule. I did can another 7 quarts of applesauce yesterday and had quite an adventure trying not to kill myself while picking apples. I did some pretty tricky climbing maneuvers. Elise would have been proud. Especially since I did not get stuck in the tree like she always does. I did scrape up my arms pretty nicely though. And, I only saw about 1 and 1/2 worms this time. They must have changed from their larval state into whatever creature they become, and crawled out. (Whew)

Here's a cute pic of the sick kiddos watching movies on the couch bed. Elise has missed 2 days of school so far. Emilia only missed 1. Ian came down with the sickness today and had a fever of almost 103. Maybe it is the swine flu. I am waiting to hear back from a friend of mine who has a kid in Elise's class. She took her son to the Dr. today and I think they were going to test him for the "evil" H1N1 virus. So far Adele has been spared and I haven't gotten it yet. Let's hope we won't get it.

Busy

Now that school has started once again things are busier than ever. Here's the update:

• The girls just started piano lessons again. I used to teach them but they were averaging about 2 piano lessons per year and that just wasn't going to cut it. A gal in my ward is their new teacher. They have only had 1 lesson so far but I think it will be good. It is hard to remember to practice. We need to get into the habit.
  
  
• My girls are also taking art lessons this year from my good friend Kirsten. I trade piano lessons for her 9 year old. In not too long she'll get too good for me to teach and then she'll have to get a "real" teacher.


• Ian started preschool (which reminds me, I need to take some pictures of him on his, um, 7th day of school and post them... I guess I dropped the ball on that one didn't I? It is true what they say you know about the first kids getting everything and the last kids not getting anything.) He loves his new teacher and seems to be really happy to have a place to go. He gets bored being at home with me all the time. I have been enjoying a little quiet time as well.


• Adele is speaking in sentences now and she says things like, "I want some milk" and "Go play with Ian". When she wants a drink she asks for a "drinky winky" (Too much teletubbies perhaps?) and she calls noodles "nonies" (rhymes with phonies). I love this age because they are so cute and funny and you can FINALLY start to figure out what is going on inside their little brains.


• I decided to trim Adele's hair the other day because it was getting all scraggly at the ends and looking bad. I was only going to cut a little bit....but she moved, and I cut more than I meant to. So of course I had to cut all of it that short... and well, it just looks bad. It isn't TOO terribly short, but it IS too terribly uneven and crooked. I am not a great haircutter to begin with and trying to cut a wiggly 1 year old's hair is just really difficult. I think tomorrow I will have to take her somewhere for a little hair repair. Maybe I'll post a picture, maybe not. I feel really bad for making my baby look like a freak. (Ok, not a freak, just making my baby have freaky hair.) Let this be a lesson to me to never take scissors to my girls' hair. I do better with the boy.
  
  
• I gave my kids pedicures today. I had my first pedicure about a year ago and it was so much fun that I decided to do it for my kids too. They loved it too and so now we do them every once and awhile. Of course, even Ian gets one. I wasn't going to paint his nails for obvious reasons but he was so sad about missing out on it that I painted his blue. He will be wearing shoes and socks to school from now on and in public, but at least he doesn't have to be left out. I think it is hard for him to be the only boy.


• After a 6 month sewing hiatus I finally got the ol' machine out and made a bag for a friend. I am excited to be sewing again. I am considering making some aprons for a Christmas boutique but I am not sure if I want to do that or not. I have a bunch of stuff I need to catch up on first, but it does sound fun.

"Expect the Gospel"

Last week was Fast Sunday. There were a bunch of kids getting up to bear their testimonies and I casually asked Ian if he wanted to get up too. He said "YES!" and then I realized that he wasn't really ready for that. I kind of tried to stall and see if he'd forget about it but he didn't. So I kind of "briefed" him a little bit and we talked about what he could say. He was completely ready to go up there, so he marched right up there and said very loudly into the microphone, "Expect the Gospel". And then he sat down. We were all pretty mortified. He was cute, but it was, er, a bit distracting to the spirit of the meeting. Later a few people commented to us about his profound comments of, "Accept the Gospel" and "Respect the Gospel". We asked Ian what he had said. It was just as I had thought, "Expect the Gospel". He said that when he got up there he was scared and didn't know what to say. I think we'll be having some FHE lessons about what to say when we bear our testimonies. Maybe he'll get up again soon and be a little more prepared. It was really cute though and we were proud of him for being brave enough to do it.

Applesauce Impulsivity

We have an apple tree. I think they are Macintosh apples. They have never been very good (because they are really sour) and they always have lots of worms in them *shudder*. I haven't really done much with my apples for these reasons. I had just kind of planned on not doing anything with these ones either and I hoped to get some free golden delicious apples from some neighbors. Well, I was picking up some fallen apples off the ground today and I was thinking that there were actually a lot of pretty decent looking apples at the top of the tree. I decided to pick some. Then I decided I should be frugal and domestic and not let my free (wormy) apples go to waste. I decided to can some applesauce.

At first I was cutting the apples in quarters and then cutting all the wormy cores out. I decided that I'd distract myself from all the gross worminess by counting how many worms I saw so I could blog about it. (My IBV has finally been speaking again.) After about about 5 mintues and 3 and 1/2ish worms I decided I didn't want to count anymore. I didn't even want to LOOK anymore. So I started just cutting off the sides that looked worm-free and not even going into the core. Much better plan.

This one got away. I am not sure how. It did have to die of course after I discovered it.

The finished product. Not all of them are pictured but I canned 12 quarts of applesauce. It only took me 5 hours. (What was I thinking???) My house is now a complete disaster. It was messy before but after letting the kids run free and wild (plus the extra kids I had over this morning) it was even more trashed. But at least now I know that when the end of the world comes (which could be sooner than later with the way things are going), I will have 12 quarts of applesauce for my family to eat. And it was free (well, it only cost me 5 hours). My goal this fall is to fill up all my empty canning jars with food.


I also got a few pears from a neighbor this afternoon to add to my applesauce. I found Adele eating a pear and I took it away from her. I turned it over in my hand and look! Ewwwww!

Killing Two Birds...

Erm, I mean destroying 2 things with one careless act.

Last night I decided to go to yoga. I haven't been all summer because the teacher had a baby and had a couple of months off. After dinner I hurried to get things cleaned up while Kent took a short break. I was running a bit late and I jumped in my van and backed out about 2 seconds before the garage door finished opening. After I backed out of the garage I tried to shut the door but it wouldn't close. I figured I might as well go to yoga and then worry about the door later. I got to the gym 5 mintues late and there was a sub who was going to do some "yoga stretches and some pilates". I decided to just do some treadmilling instead. I didn't really get to enjoy my little break because I was thinking about the whole garaged door incident.

The damages:

I was surprised and happy to find out that it only cost $45 to fix the garage door. Certainly not the most fun way to spend almost 50 bucks, but it could have been worse.

I used to have a very fancy spoiler on the back of my van (because spoilers make mini-vans cooler, you know?). It is gone now. I need to take the van into the body shop (sometime) and find out how much it will cost for them to take out the screws and cover up the holes. At least that isn't something urgent. I am just glad more damage wasn't done, and I didn't hurt anybody with my stupidity.

Birthday Pie

Look at me GO! I can't believe the crazy-blogging-mania that is going on here! I guess I am making up for all the time I didn't blog this summer!

So, as you all know (because you faithfully and daily read my blog), it was Kent's birthday yesterday. We don't do too many birthday cakes around here because pie is so much better. I made Kent a (fabulous g-free) strawberry/peach/blueberry pie for his b-day.

I am not sure if this is an "ow" moment or a playing moment. It sure looks like several of the people in that picture could or should be saying "ow!". Emilia looks like she could have some spinal damage from that tight embrace.

3 candles. That stands for 33.

First Day of School

I am a little late posting this but here goes:

Usually my kids want to ride the bus on the first day but this year they wanted me to drive them. I think they are getting smarter. They realize that they will be riding the bus everyday and this is their only chance for a car-ride to school. Last year we planned to have them ride the bus but they missed it on the first day.

Elise came home the first day and said she had a great day.

Emilia came home in tears and said it was the worst first day of school ever. She lost her lunch bag at school, she couldn't remember her mulitplication facts and didn't finish the test. She didn't get to do anything fun. Sounds like a bummer of a first day. The second day of school was much better. Her very best friend (Tamara) is in her class again this year. I think that makes the last 3 years. She is really excited about that. (Oh, and she found her lunchbag on the second day of school.) It is a big change going from summer vacation to full-day school. I have to hand it to these kids for hanging in there.

Ian was completely bouncing off the walls at home on the first day of school. He had to stay home with boring mom all day. He is used to playing with (read: pestering) his big sisters during the day. Well, since they were gone, who is left to play with? MOM of course! Today we had a friend come over for a playdate. I think we might do that a lot, at least until preschool starts.

Zion

My in-laws made the long trek to come visit us last weekend. The kids had a great time playing with Grandma and Grandpa. On Saturday we went to Zion. Here are a few pics from that trip.

Grandpa and Grandma