Pennies and Bread - Flashback Friday

So, I don't know how many of these I will actually remember to do, but every once in a while I think of something and how I really should document it. Like yesterday. I heard a train whistle about 3 or 4 times yesterday. We live in town, but don't often have trains come through. It reminded me, though, of Grandma Bake's house. They lived a few blocks from the tracks. We would hear trains going through quite a few times a day. Sometimes we would spend some time setting our pennies on the tracks and coming back later to see if they'd been flattened. We could never find them again. Even just a few years ago, at a family reunion there, Ben was nowhere to be found. He had joined a bunch of other "cousins" on the sidewalk to watch the train go by. He also pointed out the train whistle yesterday.
Another remembrance I had yesterday occurred when I was mixing bread dough. Sarah joined me on her stool. I hate the part where you actually have to get your hands dirty, but she was more than ready to join in. I was a meany and said no. But, as I mixed she kept asking me if she could eat the dough off my fingers. My mom baked bread every week. I envied those kids who had boughten white bread. She would bake at least 6 loaves a week (I'm not sure that was enough as we got older - she may have had to bake more than once. But, she did it when we were out.) I remember eating bread for our snack after school. And on the days she baked, we'd often eat a whole loaf! Anyway, when we were younger I also remember eating the dough off her fingers. Later, I asked her if that was gross - having us suck on her fingers. She said she didn't really think about it. And yesterday, as Sarah bit dough off my fingers, I realized that even if it is kind of gross, it's also an act of love. So, thanks mom, for all the bread!

I'm being domestic mamma today. I've got the washer and dryer going, bread rising, son doing schoolwork, dishes done, door hung, and sewing on my list! (BUT - I'm not dressed, and don't look at my living room!) Here are some other things we've been up to lately.

We've had some spring-like weather lately. So, the other day, when I'd been painting and ignoring the kids, I set up a picnic lunch for them. I even joined them for a minute while I ate my sandwich.

I think this was the same day. Ben was in the house, Sarah outside. I decided to check on her. I found her like this:
She had taken all of her clothes off - at least she kept the diaper on! She said she had a "pokey" on her shirt. Why the rest of the clothes had to come off too, I don't know. But, ever since we spent half a day with her cousins she has been doing the strip-down thing. Her cousin, Quade, is just a few months older than her and has always been adverse to wearing his clothes. Sarah has that problem only after being around him! We found them that day in just their diapers/unders. Now, I find her this way quite often. I think I'll start using the naughty spot for this behavior.

Last week we had a family game night with some friends, went to the temple, and had game night with my extended family. We also got our taxes finished - woohoo! On Monday we had the missionaries scheduled for dinner. Sunday we found out that one of them, Elder S., was leaving on Tuesday. He talked to one of his favorite sisters in the ward and demanded that she make stir-fry for him before he left. She didn't think she could fit it in. So, she asked me if I'd make it for him. Well, I was nervous - what if I'm not a good stir-fry cook? I had planned on making baked chow mein, and decided to make them both. So, I made a special trip to the store to get what I would need. I only needed 4 things from that store. It was one of the worst kids-in-the-store experiences. Sarah kept running away. And she wasn't afraid at all. At least it wasn't Wal-mart. But, from now on, I go alone or she's in the cart THE WHOLE TIME! Anyway, I made dinner - they were both going to be ready right on time - I wasn't stressed. About 20 minutes before they were to come, Elder T. called and asked if they could bring an extra missionary. Sure - good thing I made so much food. He then went on to explain that he would be bringing the 2 spanish missionaries and Elder S. would not be coming. What?! Needless to say, I was ticked. I hope they told Elder S. how good my stir-fry was and that he really missed out! He had even told his companion to bring him home some stir-fry if I had made some. Kannon said no way. Other than that, we enjoyed having them in our home. Sarah must have still been hungry, because as I was doing the dishes later, she was eating the leftover rice with her fingers. Even took it in the living room to watch the boys play Mario Kart.

It's really fun to watch Ben play Mario Kart. Check out his video. One day, as he was playing, Sarah was standing next to him mimicking his moves. On Tuesday evening we had a visit from Kannon's grandpa and uncle. They had been golfing, so I had Ben show them how he golfs on the wii. That's a funny one to watch, too, because he swings backwards. He's also backwards on baseball and tennis. It works! He gets better scores than I do sometimes, but I worry about how he'll play the REAL games!

Loose Tooth

Benjamin had a funny evening yesterday. He was really cranky come evening, so I told him he should go to bed. Well, he did. I found him asleep in his bed around 5:00 pm. I tried to wake him up at 6 and 6:30, then decided I'd just let him sleep for the rest of the night. Only he didn't stay asleep - I should have known. He woke up at 8:15, just as I was sending Sarah off to bed. He asked me why she was in her pajamas and if she had already eaten. He didn't realize it was already bedtime. A few minutes later he told me his tooth hurt. I asked him if it was loose. A bit later he said it was! He showed me, and it was very loose. I was excited for him. He was scared. He ate, took a shower and was still bothered about it being loose. He was really worried about it hurting. It was kind of a tender evening, as he cuddled up to me and cried. Then cuddled up on Dad's lap, too. My little big boy. It was a little after nine when he was still pretty upset and teary about the tooth. I asked him if he'd like a prayer, or a blessing. He said, "a prayer...a blessing." So, we called Dad who came in and gave him a blessing. He cried throughout the blessing then jumped up and went straight to bed. These kind of tears are special to me. He seems to suppress them. He cries mostly when he's frustrated, not so much even when he gets hurt. So, it touches my heart when he cries over a fear, and I can really know how much it means to him. One of the first things he said to me this morning was that it was still loose. And not just loose, but that it hurt when it wiggled. So, even though he was hungry, he didn't want to eat because it would hurt. I told him to just yank it out, he tried. Then I offered to do it for him. We got it on the second try. Such a little thing! And it did bleed and it did hurt, but he was fine - didn't eat for another hour, though. Now he is excited about the tooth fairy coming tonight - he told Sarah he was going to stay up all night. My little boy is growing up - and I'm already missing the days when he was little.

Just some random videos

Ben and his friend Luke - we made "nice new noses" for the letter N.

Sarah being a Guitar Hero expert!

And again with the Guitar Hero - this time as the singer! Her yell-singing is funny, but the dancing is my favorite part. Who taught her those moves?! Also, you can see the new haircut here.

Sand Mountain

Sarah's been into sorting things, lately. She did her hair bands one day and I found her sorting these candy hearts from the neighbor. She had a pile for everyone in the family, grandma's and grandpa's, too.

It's been a few weeks since we went to Sand Mountain, but Kannon's been waiting for me to blog about it. I had planned on going to Reno by myself for that Saturday. But, when I got home from my Relief Society meeting, that morning, Kannon informed me we'd been invited to go play at Sand Mountain. I was still going to go to Reno, even though all I wanted to do was take a nap. Kannon seemed to really want me to go with them, so I gave in.

He was able to take both kids for a ride - Sarah's only lasted a few seconds, when she decided she'd had enough.

Here you see Kannon, my bro Nathan, his wife Jackie, and my cousin James. James is the owner of all the toys we played with that day. Thank you, James! (and he's single, ladies!)

I told Kannon I'd probably just be the babysitter the whole time - which I was most of the time. But, I finally got brave enough to try out one 4-wheeler. They told me I didn't even have to go out of first gear - I ended up going at least to 4th. I took Ben for a little ride on the smaller dunes. He often heard me say, "oh, oh, oh, I'm scared". Silly, now that I think about it, but I WAS scared a few times when I went too fast, or over a dune, or thought I was going to roll us.

Kannon took me for a ride later and crazily enough, made me pee my pants! Combine pregnancy, lots of water and a flying leap over a dune that scared even him, and that's what you get! During that same ride he almost caught me on fire, too. In this picture below, we had ridden from left to right to just above the trailer on the right (the top of that hill/dune). Then the 4-wheeler stopped and as he tried to start it flames were shooting out the back. It was a bit before I noticed. We made it down (straight down!) safely. I had a good time and would even go again if asked. Maybe someday we'll even get our own.

Changes

So, they didn't have any work for Kannon ALL week. That causes a little stress for me. Gratefully, his boss really likes him and offered to put him in the service area of the company. He starts again on Monday, but doing some welding for a big job. Hopefully they will be able to keep us employed, or we'll be looking elsewhere. Well, with the days off we ended up doing some projects around the house. It started with Kannon mentioning that he should screw the shelf we built to the wall. I suggested that we make the outlet a part of the shelf - instead of just a hole in the shelf that passes through to the outlet on the wall. This suggestion led to the rewiring of the dining room and kitchen (partial). We had a few days without lights. But, it's mostly done now and I'm so happy with it.

These are the wallpapers we found under one of the old switches. Our house is 90 years old. It's gone through a lot of changes. We've found pink floors, orange and black stairs to the cellar, green ceilings, orange wallpaper, and now this!

This is not about the house, but I cut Sarah's hair last week. AAAAHHHH! I had talked to Kannon about taking her to the "beauty parlor" and getting it trimmed. He said I could do it just as well. After her bath I started her "trim". Well, I don't know exactly how it happened but her hair is really short now. Kannon chewed me out, "how could you not know what you were doing? - why didn't you just cut a little bit and see before cutting it all?" You get the picture. But, I didn't want her to have trauma, so I decided it was cute and have told her so often. She hasn't had a problem with it - she wanted a haircut like Ben's! I think I have a picture in my next post.

In this picture you can see the side of the fridge - it's on the left-side of the photo - next to the washer and dryer. You go through a doorway there to get to it.


Well, part of the wiring job was adding a plug just for the fridge in the actual kitchen. So, what started out as a simple suggestion turned into these large holes in my kitchen wall. We're not too stressed about it - we plan on remodeling the whole kitchen within the next year. The house is so old that we had push button switches for some of the lights. They are connected to old black wires, that wrap around porcelain things in the walls. We couldn't fish the new wires down through the old wire parts because, as we found out, there was a large board going horizontally through here (the upper hole) that the old wires must have been stuck to. Thus, the need for the upper hole. (Again, you can see the fridge on the right side of this picture)

So, this was the first night without lights. I was making a late dinner and didn't think about the plug-in lights til Kannon brought one out the next night. I was using this battery operated camp lantern. We set up a table in the living room and enjoyed our dinner of chicken roll-ups with gravy, peas and smoothies.

This is what I did with the fridge space. We've been moving this wooden desk-type unit around in all of our housing since our marriage. It's been used as a computer desk, school desk, hobby desk, and now as a storage piece. It was in the dining room and we feel like there is a ton of room, now that we've moved it out.

And here is where the refrigerator is now. Every time I walk in the kitchen my mind goes happy and I think how great it is to have the fridge IN the kitchen. We keep trying to find it where it used to be - It will take us awhile to adjust, I'm sure. You can still see the hole in the top part of the wall, but that's okay for now.

Temple Trip

Last weekend was our trip to Utah for the Draper Temple open house. We left Thursday afternoon - Kannon got off early that day. We stayed in Elko that night - got to see brother Kreg for the first time since he came home from his mission. We ended up leaving at 8 am - taking brother Brock with us. We had a pleasant drive, nice small rain showers along the way. It wasn't exactly warm when Sarah asked to put her window down, but she loved it!

Here, Ben and Brock try out the new ipod. We were at Sand Mountain a few weeks ago and Sarah pulled the ipod out of the sand. It didn't belong to anyone we were with and we were excited to find that it worked. There was an extra charger at the Elko Polish's that they let us have. So, the boys were checking out the music. We haven't decided if we are going to keep it, or try to sell it on ebay. It was fun having Brock with us. I think he might have gotten more out of the temple visit than any of us. We passed him on, later, to his friend who brought him home on Sunday.


We went straight to the temple, or rather a nearby chapel, where we were bussed to the temple. It was a nice tour, quiet, peaceful. We had a few minutes of explanation and thought in one of the sealing rooms. Ben enjoyed looking in the mirrors. Then we stopped in the stake center for cookies and water, and Ben left a comment card - "IT WAS COOL".

We stopped at Chuck-A-Rama afterwards for a late lunch, early dinner. Many other temple goers had the same idea, as most of the patrons there were dressed as we were. This is where we gave Brock away! and headed to the Salt Lake area to meet my sister. We dropped off the last of their stuff from the storage unit we'd been sharing and visited for about an hour.

Then on to Sandy, to visit one of my cousins. Both of the kids were asleep when we got there, so Kannon stayed in the car with them and I had a nice visit. Next stop, was in Provo to stay the night at another cousins' house. We really enjoyed our short stay there. Ben got to play with one of their boys his age (they've kind of stayed in touch over the last year or so - Ben likes to send mail). And Sarah found a new love - doll houses! Last year we'd bought the kids these mattress/sleeping bags - and discovered, that night, that they are super squeeky! Rough sleeping. Not to mention that all of our queen mattresses have died in the last year, so Kannon brought just a single mattress. He galantly slept on the floor, but I was concerned for him all night. He didn't seem to mind it or feel sore in the morning, so that was good. We wish we could have stayed longer.

Saturday morning we stopped in Payson for another short visit - this time to a friend I'd met when we lived in Fernley. I'm glad we've been able to stay in touch, and we have a girls night out schedule in the next month or two - her ex-husband is in our town right now.

We called my sis, Janet, and met her and Levi at the mall where he works, for a lunch at the food court. The kids were really excited to see the carousel there. Ben loved it - Sarah, not so much. I rode with her and she was clinging to me the whole time. Which was a little awkward for me - you know the horses move up and down, so I was moving up and down, too - kind of like aerobics!

We spent the rest of the day with Janet, running around town. We even took the kids to a place called Fat Cats - it was okay, but not as good as Boondocks. Then dinner out and off for Elko again. That afternoon/evening I was driving and smelled a burning smell. We couldn't see anything wrong, but when we were dropping Janet off the headlights flickered. I was a little nervous about driving home for 3 hours in the dark, with the possibility of losing our lights. But, we were blessed and made it safely.

Kannon found out before we'd left that he didn't have any work for Monday, so we stayed for an extra day. As he drove our burb in to town that morning, smoke started coming from the light switch. Gratefully, the auto parts store had the part we needed, it was changed and we had no more problems. I still feel like that was a little miracle for us - that we were in the right place, right time to be able to fix it without any danger.

It was a snowy day. Kannon's sister and her family drove up from Winnemucca to pick up some stuff. They let us know that it was rough going over the pass. After Kannon found out he didn't have to work on Tuesday either, I wanted to stay another day - travel when there wasn't a storm. He wanted to travel back with his sisters family. That's what we ended up doing. It WAS really rough going over the pass, but the rest of our drive was fine. We even got home in time for baths and Family Home Evening. This was one of my most comfortable trips. I'm not sure why. I just felt, after we got home, that I'd really enjoyed myself, and wouldn't have had a problem staying longer.

Upcoming Utah visit

We will be going to Utah this weekend - main reason: to see the Draper Utah Temple - open house. We thought it would be a good time to share a little more of what the temple is about with our children. This is a quick trip and we want to visit so many of our friends and family there. But....how do we visit everyone, and if not everyone, then who do we miss? So, our solution is to be available to anyone that wants to visit (and can). We will be at a certain place on Saturday from 12:30 - 2:30 pm (this is the 7th). So, if you are interested, let me know and I will give you more details free from the prying eyes of weird people who shouldn't know exactly where we are!!! Leave a comment, email, call, whatever! Thanks!

Pay it Forward

Okay, so I'm kind of nervous about this - not sure what crafty/yummy thing I'll send, but I hope it turns out fun for anyone involved!!!

{The Rules}
1. Be one of the first THREE bloggers to leave a comment on this post, which then entitles you to a handmade item from me - something crafty or yummy, who knows?!
2. Winners must post this challenge on your blog, meaning that you will Pay It Forward, creating a handmade gift -anything!- for the first THREE bloggers who leave a comment on YOUR post about this giveaway!
3. The gift that you send to your 3 Friends can be from any price range and you have 365 days to make/ship your item. This means you should be willing to maintain your blog at least until you receive your gift and have shipped your gifts. And, remember: It’s the Spirit and the Thought That Count!
4. When you receive your gift, please feel free to blog about it, sharing appropriate Linky Love! If you are not one of the Top Three Commenters on this post, you can still play along. Go ahead and start your own Pay It Forward chain, and encourage your blogging friends to do the same!

SO, REMEMBER...Pay it forward