The Annual Family Photo Shoot

A couple of years ago I decided I was no longer paying to buy the school pictures.  They cost a ridiculous amount of money, I always had to buy a bigger package than I wanted just to get an 8 by 10, and even with my very basic knowledge of Photoshop, I can get the pictures I take to look better than the ones taken at school.  My kids don't really swap photos yet, and I may have to rethink this once they want wallets to trade with friends (do boys even do that?), but for now it's working to only buy the class picture and take my own individuals.

Sunday afternoon, while on our drive to see the fall foliage, we stopped by The Crags trailhead to take some photos in a gorgeous mountain setting.  Thanks to a tripod and some cooperative kiddos who had been promised post-photo-session treats, I think the pictures turned out pretty good!  By the time we went home I was the only one who did not have sopping wet shoes.  Which means fun was had!  Now I have to decide on which pictures to print of the family ones and the ones of all the boys together.  Advice??? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mutant Carrots

We have had SO much fun with our garden this year!  We are already planning our planting for next year.  We ended up having to let three quarters of the lettuce go to seed because we couldn't keep up our consumption with its production.  The beans burst forth about a month ago and are as good off the vine as they are cooked up in a dish, as long as we catch them before they get too big which makes them tough and chewy.  The zucchini and yellow crookneck squash are still going strong.  Our cukes, after a small effort followed by mass suicide, are making a comeback.  I think we could sell tomatoes at the farmer's market, we have so many of them.  I've used fresh herbs in almost every recipe all summer long.  We have two rogue pumpkin plants that blossomed from last year's Halloween carving compost, and two little bitty pumpkins on those plants making an attempt at growth before the first frost.  And now, as we say goodbye to summer and embrace fall, our carrots are ready to harvest!

I planted a bunch of seeds together and didn't get a chance to thin them before we left for Washington, so we've had some, um, interesting growth from them.  They are MUTANT!  The three most common "mutant" varieties we pull up we call "octopus" carrots, "carrots-in-love" and "beet-carrots," which are a lovely purplish color on the outside but still orange inside.  A very intelligent friend told me that this is the natural color of carrots, orange carrots have been "bred" to be that color.  Cool.  We also get some super fat ones and then some very tiny thin ones that have a nice looooooong root.  It doesn't matter what they look like though...they sure are tasty!  Our little rabbit Josh especially loves him some mutant carrots. 

We {Heart} Fall

Autumn kind of snuck (sneaked?) up on me this year!  I didn't get any of the fall decorations up to mark its arrival (shock!), and I unwittingly scheduled plans for both Friday and Saturday evenings so we couldn't have our feast either on the night that fall officially began (boo!) nor the first full day of fall (say what??!!).  I know.  I was disappointed in me too!  :)  Fortunately, I did get it together enough to buy the things I needed for our annual Fall Feast when I did my grocery shopping on Friday after deciding that Fall Feast would be just as nice on Sunday, even if it was a little belated.  In addition, we had a special meeting at church in the morning, which left Sunday afternoon wide open for a fall drive over the mountains to catch the aspens in all their autumnal glory. 

With the crockpot happily cooking our dinner, we loaded up the car, grabbed the camera and set out in the direction of Pike's Peak.  It was a beautiful day and the aspens were bursting with gold and yellow.  I had to force my eyes to stay on the road as I drove!  The scenery was breathtaking and glorious.  Yeah, I live in this gorgeous place.  We listened to a spooky story on my iPod, The Seer of Shadows by Avi, and pulled over regularly to take scenic photos (along with many many other drivers!).  We passed Muller State Park, drove up the mountain a little further, turning around before Victor and making a stop at The Crags trailhead to take some family photos (which will get their own post).  It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon! 

Our Fall Feast awaited us upon our return.  It was delicious as always, even Luke gobbled it down this year, and even with the lack of fall decor on the table, our annual tradition was happy and appreciated by all.  We toasted with cider and savored pot roast cooked with potatoes and home-grown carrots, chatting away about how good the food was and how beautiful the mountains had been.  Fall Feast is so much more than a meal to us.  It is a symbol of us.  A tradition that bonds us.  Creates something uniquely ours.  We all love it.  We completed the evening with delicious homemade pumpkin pie topped with fresh whipped cream.  Boy, oh boy!  As far as days go, this one was pretty perfect!

Two-and-a-Half

Time is flying quickly, and it's killing me just a little bit.  Tommy will be three in a little less than a month and, while I love watching him grow and witnessing all those precious childhood milestones, I also want my baby to stay a baby forever.  I thought, since I can't have my way in those regards, I should capture some two-and-a-half Tommyisms, so I at least can have his two-and-a-half captured virtually forever.

Tommy loves story time.  It's one of our favorite times, or many times, of the day.  We read a lot of books!  His favorite books are Eric Carle's Brown Bear, Brown Bear and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  He can recite Brown Bear, Brown Bear by heart and can nearly recite The Very Hungry Caterpillar, with a few cute parts made up of his own. Sometimes he just sits down with his books and "reads" them to himself; it is my favorite thing to watch out of the corner of my eye, because of course, if he notices me watching, he stops.  Sometimes when we read the books together he will recite the story along with me, or at least some of the parts, but every now and then he just wants to hear it, so when I encourage him to recite with me he says, "No, you got it, Mom.  You got it."  He also loves, Make Way for Manatees, which he tells me every time is a book Nana gave to him, and our 26-book Sesame Street alphabet set.

In spite of his speech therapist's best efforts, Tommy still clicks away those K's and sometimes hard G's.  I can't say I am sad at his stubborn refusal to properly use his throat to make the K sound.  It delights me to no end when he "reads" his favorite story and says "Black sheep, black sheep."  I not only get to hear his awesome click, but also his adorable hard consonant-L blend because he kind of flicks his tongue on the L so it is extra emphasised, "bLac(click) sheep, bLac(click) sheep."  When he says "egg" when we read the Very Hungry Caterpillar he says, "E(click)."  And when we read about how the caterpillar ate plums he says, "pLum."  Joy!  We're thinking he's being prepared for a mission call to Eastern Africa somewhere. 

Tommy's favorite song is "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam."  When I try to sing him any other song at nap or bedtime, he stops me and says, "Not that one, the Sunbeam song."  Because we are singing it as a lullaby, I try to keep it quiet and restful, but I can't help giving him an extra little squeeze on the "beam" parts, which always gets me a little giggle.

Tommy has picked up on some phrases used often in the family that are totally humorous coming from a 2-year-old.  My favorites include: "Darn it." (That one's all me)  "Awwwwww!" (said in that disappointed kid tone that kind of falls in pitch in the middle and then rises again right at the end, I'm pretty sure he gets this from Ben).  "So, Mom..." (this one from Zac, who starts almost every conversation this way).  "_________'s not being nice! (Luke...all the way.)  "Ki 'ave someping else?"  (said when he wants a snack or more to eat, gleaned from Josh, who I think is always hungry).  And my favorite, "Wuv you too, Mama." (that one is all his own).

Tommy can be so picky about certain foods.  He's not a huge fan of pasta, although he will eat it most of the time still.  He will happily eat half of something and then all of a sudden declare, "I not like that."  He loves many typically shunned picky-kid foods like tomatoes and green beans off the garden vines, raw broccoli and zucchini, spicy crackers and cheeses, but he won't eat kid-friendly foods like applesauce and regularly eats out the middles of sandwiches, leaving only the bread.  He loves to snack and snack and snack.  So I just make sure he has a lot of variety in his snacks throughout the day and let him eat small snack-size portions at our meals.

Tommy is a total mama's boy.  I don't know how long it's going to last, so I am soaking it all up!  He is so sad when I leave, which makes it hard to go, and always wants to come if I am going anywhere.  I don't mind!  If he can come, I will bring him!  And when I get home he excitedly says, "Mom's home!  You home, Mama?!  I missed you!"  Right now I am the only one who is allowed to read stories and tuck him in at bedtime, unless I am not home.   I am cherishing every moment!

Tommy is most "two" with Luke.  It's rare when I have to encourage him to share or make him give back something he took...unless he's playing with Luke.  Then it happens a lot.  In Tommy's defense, I think Luke sometimes baits him a bit, but Tommy is no innocent in their little clashes.  I don't think Tommy has ever hit or pushed anyone but Luke.  We're working on that.  

Tommy's current best friend, other than Mom, is Josh's Puff the Magic Dragon stuffed toy.  He HAS to have it to sleep.  He is well aware that the dragon belongs to Josh, he points it out pretty regularly, but will not relinquish the dragon back to his owner.  Thankfully, Josh doesn't mind Tommy using Puff.

When Tommy wakes up in the morning or from nap time he will ask, "Are the guys home?  Is Lukey home?"  I love how he refers to his brothers as "the guys" and I love that he separates Luke, his closest brother and friend from "the guys."  I hope these little two continue to develop that special bond.  He sees Luke as his playmate, not just a big brother. 

Tommy STILL loves playing with the perler beads, dang those little things which are all over the floor all the time, and he loves building towers with our Magna-tiles.  He builds "the tempo." (temple)  It is really impressive that he has already mastered the 3D hollow tower.  I remember when my first preschool class, 3-4's, discovered those building blocks.  It took the group awhile to not just stack them one on top of the other to make the towers, only one child figured out how to use them to build a hollow prism without me showing them.  Tommy is sure a smartie!

When Tommy gets hurt all he needs is a band-aid.  Once that band-aid is on, he's good.  

Tommy has a joy and zeal for life that is infectious.  Whether he is rejoicing over the found perler bead butterfly as he exclaims, "I found it!" and holds it tight against his cheek, twisting back and forth with glee, or dutifully wearing his helmet, shouting, "I doing it!" as he pushes his little bike down the road, he does it all with a smile and a verve that warms me from within. 

As we've hinted to him about potty training, making no commitments to ACTUALLY jump into it, but also getting Tommy excited to do it, we've discovered that he can hold and hold and hold.  But when it comes time to let loose when the time and place are right, he hasn't figured out how to let go yet.  So we will see.  I'd love to get it done, mostly because I REALLY need to get our carpets cleaned and I don't want to do that until after the potty training is done, but I also don't know for sure if his inability to let go when he needs to means that he's not yet ready, ready always means quicker success, and I also just don't feel committed to the process myself quite yet!  Diapers are just so easy.  I guess there will be a point where I just have to bite the bullet and go for it and see what comes. 

I can see why there is a "baby of the family" type!  It is so easy to cater to Tommy's needs because there is no one behind him requiring my attention.  He is so easy-going and mellow that when he actually has an opinion about something, it's hard to say "no" because it's so rare that he really cares.  He usually just goes with it.  He knows he is loved deeply and that his big brothers are there to help him should he need it, which he NEVER thinks he does but appreciates when it's there!  He's just as eager for a cuddle as he is eager to spread his wings and be the big boy.  And I am happy to let him fly, because to me, he will always be my baby!

The 24-Hour Roadshow

This weekend I had my first taste of The Youth Roadshow experience.  I remember friends, and maybe even Adam, talking about it when I was in high school.  I think I may have watched a video of a roadshow performance or something like that.  Very vague memories.  So I had no concept of what was going to happen or expectations of a certain kind of presentation at all this weekend when our stake put on their first-ever 24-Hour Roadshow.  Which was good, because from what I heard the 24-hour roadshow was like a distant cousin of the regular roadshow.

It was a new format that none of us had ever done before.  Rather than give the kids a theme and months to work on the production, we received our topic on Friday night at 4pm, and had to have our skit and song/dance ready for viewing Saturday at 3pm.  Clearly imperfections and improv were welcome!  It was a little stressful and time consuming, but it was a very good time!  About 2/3 of our youth participated, with about half of them actually in the performance.  We were only home overnight for sleep and then about 1 other hour between Friday afternoon and Saturday evening. (After which, it was my turn to chaperone the night's youth dance, so I was home for only a couple of hours on Saturday.  I missed my kiddos!)  There were some cons to the shorter style: it's a little disappointing to devote your time working on something, giving it your energy and your heart, and then have it not come out polished.  But there were pros too: it was so fun for the youth to have so much time together, to see them cooperating under pressure, and I loved that we did not have to devote months of activities to a road show.

My favorite part of all of it was Friday night after we received our topic.  The theme for the roadshows was "Fairytales."  Each ward was assigned a fairytale and a standard from the For The Strength of Youth booklet.  Our story was The Three Little Pigs, and our standard was Agency and Accountability.  A small group of  youth and leaders met together earlier in the day to just hash out some ideas before bringing them to the larger group for finalizing.  The ideas were so-so, and I was a little worried about how this was all going to go down.  But once the ideas were taken to the larger group, they really blossomed!  I loved watching these simple ideas bloom into amazing sets, a funny and clever skit, cute choreography and imaginative and hilarious songs.  It was so cool.  Our youth are amazing!!!  The long title of our play was: The Story of a Boy Who Forms a Gang that Won't Brush Their Teeth or Tie Their Shoes, Has Three Dreams Wherein He is A Pig, Becomes a Male Model, Gets Eaten By Wolves, Decides To Be A Dentist and All Is Well. 

After one night to get the script and sets all down, the kids had the morning and early afternoon of the next day to practice.  They kept it casual, had fun, but still worked hard to get it all down as best as they possibly could.  Mid-afternoon they had their first of two performances.  It was a little rough around the edges, there were missed lines and forgotten lyrics, but that was true of all the wards' performances.  The important thing was that everyone was having a good time, and considering that they had only had 24 hours to work on it, the show was fantastic!  Some of the kinks were ironed out by the second performance, so it was even better.

All the wards did a great job, especially considering how much was done in such a short period of time.  I think everyone wished we had had just a few more hours to really nail the lines and lyrics, but otherwise, it was a fun, busy, crazy, entertaining two days with a lot of opportunities for bonding and laughter, and definitely some opportunities for learning about teamwork, cooperation and hard work.

A Man, A Can, A Plan

I could have also named this post "Zen Cans."  Organizing our canned goods/food storage has been on the to-do list for a LONG. TIME.  Adam's family had a great can rack at their home as he grew up, and we've been eager to build something similar for awhile, but we've just put it off and put it off and put it off.  One of the things Adam loves about my parent's Labor Day weekend visit is that my dad loves projects and has done enough of them himself that he has a lot of good pieces of advice to share.  Plus, even though it's always before Adam's birthday when they come, he almost always ends up getting a new birthday power tool from them over the course of the visit to help in whatever the project of the weekend happens to be.  This year it was a power sander.  :)

About 4 days before they arrived, I saw a pin that a friend had just pinned on Pinterest that looked just like what we wanted for our can rack, and we took it as a sign to get started!  I wanted to move our cans from the garage, which is baking-oven hot in the summer and frigid as Antarctica in the winter, to our climate-controlled basement storage area, which required some shifting of items and building of shelves in the basement bedroom closet so we could use the space more efficiently.

Supplies were purchased and Adam and my dad got to work.  Help from everyone was enlisted.  Ben especially got into it.  He loves this kind of stuff!  We weren't able to finish before my parents left, but a big chunk of the work had been done and what was left was mostly assembly.  We finalized the project after Alea and Nicolle left, and the boys helped move all the cans downstairs and organized them so we could determine how we wanted them on the shelves.  All that was left was labeling...man I love a task that requires using the labeler!

We all love our can rack, and I am so happy that all our food storage is now in one area that maintains the temperature of the cans.  The bigger items were moved down to the basement as well, like the bags of wheat and rice, and stacked on another set of shelves, so I don't have to feel concerned about mice getting into things.  No hot/cold problems, no vermin, but best of all total organization!  I love organization!

Getting ready!

Before

Before

Measure twice...One...

Two...

Cut once.

Ben fancies himself quite the handyman!

Getting rid of the splinters with the new birthday gift!

Painting the new closet shelves.

They came out great!

Ready to put the can shelves up!

Everyone chipped in to help.

Organizing the cans

Gorgeous!  It makes me peaceful.

There are even a few shorter runs with side entry.  Now to buy more cans and fill this 880 can rack up!

Ahhhh...labels.  Happy!

A Little Family Time

Let's face reality here.  We live far away from our families.  Twenty-two hours by car and too expensive by plane far.  It kind of stinks, and we get pretty homesick from time to time.  We LOVE living here, but being away from the people we love best can be difficult at times.  However, visits make being so far away a little easier to bear, so we've loved the past couple of weeks of back-to-back visits!  First some quality time with Nana and Papa and then with Grandma Nic, Titi, Cami and Parker!  It's been like a little bit of family paradise!

This time of year is really busy for our family, so we didn't plan anything big to do during their visit.  We spent as much time just being together as we possibly could between school, soccer practices and running club.  The boys adored the time they spent playing with their cousins, the bigger boys think Cami and Parker are so cute and fun, and the little boys play with them like they are old friends.  And for Adam and I it was so nice to get to love on our sweet, funny, adorable niece and nephew who are growing up way too fast!

And of course we all love the time we get with Mom and Alea.  Their friendship and advice is priceless to Adam and I.  We adore them!  I swear we spend half the time together laughing over one funny thing or the other and the other half chatting away about this and that and that and this.  The boys love their Grandma and Auntie so much, and we are grateful for the love and care the boys are shown whenever we are all together.  It means so much to our family to be part of something bigger than just our little clan, and it feels amazing to be treated as an important part of the family even though we live far away.  That is what these visits really mean to us, they tell us miles don't matter when it comes to family love.  We may not be close in location, but we know we are close in heart.

I say it after every visit, but once again, it was a wonderful and too-short visit! 

Sharing some down time watching Wild Kratts

Grandma always has fun games to share!

No one can resist the temptation of the water table!

Trampoline: definitely the favorite activity of the visit!

Parker is a dog man.  He loved playing with Ruby, especially tossing the ball for her, and Ruby wasn't too unhappy about it. :)

Zac had a blast being the fun big cousin: wrestles and tickle torture galore!

Cami is an artist!  And oh my!  The static on the girl hair!

Didn't I say the trampoline was the favorite activity?  It sure was!  Josh was happy to show Parker some of our favorite trampoline games.

Gathering beans for dinner!  Parker had to have his own little collection bucket.

Ben loved reading to Parker; he's my snuggler!

Yo Yogurt yumminess!

Pick!

On the last night of their visit, the boys had Cami "over to" the bunk room for a sleepover.