A Polish Home

My birthday

2012-01-05T10:38:00.000-08:00

So here I am....36.
I struggled a little at 35 because for some reason I had it in my head that that was middle age. That we all die at 70 or something. Anyway, that leaves me thinking that I'm over the hill now, at 36. Oh, well. What can ya do about it?!
Here's a little about the day I was born. I found this information at http://www.kakophone.com/ where you can input a date and find some crazy info.

It was a Monday (I always liked the poem "Monday's child is fair of face.....")
Number one song on this day 1976:
US - Saturday Night by Bay City Rollers
UK - Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
Diane Keaton shares my birthday.
Eggs cost 84 cents/doz.

Info about the year from http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/
In 1976:
The movie Rocky won the Oscar for Best Picture.
A gallon of gas cost 59 cents.
The United States celebrates 200th birthday of independence from British Rule.
The $2.00 bill Issued
Apple Computer Company is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
United States Presidential Election 1976 Jimmy Carter (Democratic) Defeats Gerald Ford (Republican)
Colin Farrel and Reese Witherspoon both born
Popular musicians: Queen, ABBA, Diana Ross, Barry Manilow, The Four Seasons
Popular Films: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, All the President's Men, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Rocky (that's the only one I've actually seen from their list)

So, yeah. Things have changed over the years. Funny thing, though, I still feel 21. Like that's where my brained stop maturing. That makes it hard to grasp the thought that I graduated from high school almost 18 years ago! Or that I've been married for 10 years. It really is true that time flies when you get older. The days, weeks and years just speed by and we're left with the memories. Although, the older I get the less I can remember. No wonder I get on my 8-year-old to write in his journal. It's just too easy to forget the little experiences. I started a new thing this year - one I found on my favorite go-to place, Pinterest. I have a 3x5 box with notecards in it. At the top of the notecard I write the day (January 5). On the first line I wrote 2012 - (and will add something done today). Every year I will write down the year and something done on that day, or a memory, or whatever! I think it will be a fun way to keep track of some of those little things that get lost in life. Find the original here: (would somebody PLEASE teach me how to make the link invisible so you would only see the "here" to link to!)

http://www.designsponge.com/2010/12/diy-project-vintage-postcard-calendar-journal.html

Christmas 2011

2012-01-02T14:54:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures that were on my phone that should have gone

on the last post about December.

Sarah had her ballet dance for the family to watch. Kannon was off that day so we all got to see her in her dance. She is the 3rd from the left.

I had been hoping that this year would be the one in which we could sign her up for every session and grow in skills. But, now we've taken on the Total Money Makeover and I don't feel like there's room for that right now.
Here's another pic from our duck pond visit. It doesn't look as icy and cold as it was that day. Half of the water you can see here was frozen. (not like these last few days of 60-70 temps.)

Now, on to CHRISTMAS!!

The night of the 23rd we let the kids open one present from Grandma Polish. We knew they were getting quilts and pillows from her and wanted that to be enjoyed separately from the toys.

It was almost comical to watch Ben open his package. Grandma told him that there was surprise in one of the corners of his gift. She had put tags saying "made by Grandma" on one corner of each quilt. He thought he was looking for something on the package itself. He was so careful checking each corner of the wrapping paper.

"Holy red eyes, Batman!"

Ben and Sarah actually slept out in the living room that night, but it was all we could do to get Joshua to lay still for this picture. He slept in his bed. He's a funny kid. He loves the little blanket that Grandma Polish made him when he was a baby. It's red on one side with bees, and the other side is black with white polka dots. It's the only blanket he will sleep under.

So, in this picture he was basically throwing a fit that we wanted him to lay down on his pillow with the new quilt. I had also made him a new Cars fleece blanket, but he's having none of that either - which is surprising with his love of Cars. I've even had to put a different pillowcase on his special pillow because he kept throwing it on the floor.

We took Christmas Eve nice and slow. I was in charge of dinner at my parents house. So, I made potluck meatballs, yum! I had them cooked early and then just put them in the crockpot for warm keeping. I also made up fruit and vegetable trays. Then we headed out to their house.

Ben and Sarah on the computer. I don't remember what they were playing but I think it's so cute when Sarah sits behind Ben like this. He never complains and it's just nice to see them doing something together.

Grammy playing with the kids. She kept all of her little people and the kids love to play with them when they come over. Sarah is on the floor to the left. Natalie in the pink and Joshua.

After our yummy dinner we had a little devotional. I sang an impromptu song with my mom. Sarah sang a few songs by herself (holding my hand). Ben played a song on the piano as did Jackie. Ben also read us The Night Before Christmas. Then my dad read the story of Christ's birth from the book of Luke. Sarah played with the nativity scene that my parents made when I was a little one. She was acting it out as he read.

Then we headed home. We had decided to do a homemade Christmas exchange this year. We drew names back in October and we had to make something for that person. Some of us knew what to do right away. Others (me!) took awhile to figure it out and made our gifts a few days before Christmas! We chose to open them on Christmas Eve so that they wouldn't get tossed aside as sometimes gifts do in the excitement of presents on Christmas morning.

Sarah made a Cars book for Joshua. We used a thrift store board book and glued on our own pages of pictures she designed and drew herself. (Except for this page in the picture. She wanted 10 friends but didn't feel like she could draw this one. So I did it for her.) Her ideas were great.

This was Sarah's look when she said, "that's a stupid present." Kannon had wrapped it in an old lotion container. ( I think she had thought it was going to be a slinky.) When we said, "oh look, lotion" she was less than excited.

Now check out her face as she unrolls the belt that her dad made just for her. It has her name on it and stars, flowers, hearts and it's pink and purple. She was pretty happy. He also made her her own belt buckle with pretty jewels on it.

This is what I ended up making for Ben. Marshmallow shooters and bags to carry extra marshmallows. It was just hard for me to pick what to make that he would actually like and that I could actually do by myself. And this I did do by myself. All Kannon did for me was get the tools out of the garage. I made 2 guns so he could play with his friends. I used leftover spray paint to make them red and blue. The bags are matching with red and blue ribbons. He said it was the best Christmas present ever. (After he saw what Santa brought him it became the second best present ever!)

Ben had me. His dad helped him make me a keychain and a checkbook holder out of leather. Kannon helped but from what I understand Ben really did the work himself. I love them!

Joshua had Kannon's name and so I pretty much had to do that one myself. I chose this shirt because I felt it was a gift that Joshua could keep giving. I found the idea on pinterest (yay!). On the front we put Joshua's handprint and the quote, "I'm as lucky as can be, the best daddy in the world belongs to me." And I let Joshua draw on it with a fabric marker.

Ben had been following Santa's path all afternoon/evening on Norad. He was in bed when we noticed this, and took a picture for him.

Aw! Christmas morning. Since it was Sunday and we had church at 9am (and choir at 8am!) We decided to only see what Santa brought us and save the rest of the presents for after church. (We were home by 10 so it wasn't a big deal.)

We woke up the kids at 6:30. Joshua didn't want to wake up. But these two were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!

Joshua perked up a bit when he started to see that there were gifts involved.

Ben got a Nintendo 3DS. Sarah got 5 Disney Princess Barbies. Joshua got a Cars 2 Wheelie track. They were all very happy with their gifts. Good job Santa!

Joshua always liked the singamajigs in the store. We'd let him play with it while we were shopping or looking then put it away when it was time to leave. Well, he finally got his own and it was a hit. He also got a little Lightning McQueen, a puzzle block. (This is after church).

Most of Sarah's gifts were Barbie. She got this little pocket learner, a Ken, some clothes, a little pet shop coloring book and markers.

Ben was really happy with all the legos he got.

We like to take turns opening presents to stretch it out and make the love and excitement last. But, Joshua didn't know how to stop. He opened all of his and then helped daddy open his. It was all I could do to get to open my own presents by myself!

We went out to my parents house again after a short nap. Joshua played pirate and rode stick horses with cousin Natalie. We all just hung out visiting and being happy.

Sarah read to Uncle Stephen.

We had a yummy dinner of ham, potatoes, sweet potatoes and jello salads. There were lots of goodies around for the eating, too.

We all got together again on Monday for visiting. My sister Nancy came with her family joining us, Nathan and family, and Susan and Stephen. Four out of six kids home for Christmas wasn't too bad. More visiting. Played a game of Rage. Yummy spaghetti, bread and salad for dinner.

Uncle Stephen is always a hit! (Or should I say hoot?!) He was swinging the little kids around his body. They were lined up for their turn. This is Ben. It was so hard to get a good picture because they were moving so fast.

And Sarah. Uncle Nathan even got a little turn. So frustrated that my camera batteries decided to die right then!

All in all we had a very pleasant weekend. We loved being able to take things slow and spend time with our family. I didn't feel like we went overboard on the gifts either. It was a good time. Can't wait to do it again. Which part? Why, all of it, of course!

November December 2011

2011-12-25T21:35:00.000-08:00

Hmm, can't seem to find many November pictures. What did we do?

A Tea Party!

I know I got to go shopping with my mom for a day. I bought clothes for me for Christmas.

Our weekend in Elko for Thanksgiving was really fun.

We got to play and do projects, shop and swim.

Let's Make a Deal was a super fun family game!

Decorating gingerbread cookies at Grandma's house.

And hanging them on Grandma's tree.

December 1st we met Tiddly - the Polish Family Elf on a Shelf.

Sarah was afraid of him, at first. She was really worried about him coming into her room at night. So, she whispered to him, with Ben close by for comfort, that she didn't want him in her room, and things went well after that. I think he played it safe this year, only moving to different spots, so as not to scare her. Maybe next year he'll be more active in our home!

The ward Christmas party. Our ward has shrunk considerably in the last 6 months, but that meant all of the primary kids had a special part in the program.

Ben is the purple wise man. Sarah, the brown "horse".

A visit with Santa.

Ben was the last kid to see Santa and I think Santa had been overworked as evidenced by his drooping beard. He was a great Santa with a sweet elf helper.

The theme was Christmas around the world and there were 2 pinatas! Sarah got a little trampled picking up candy.

We also got to decorate graham cracker houses.

Me too!

I just saw the pistachios in that last picture and remembered that I had made baklava for our ward party. That was tedious but it turned out pretty good. I don't think we loved it enough to want to make it again, but it is a family dessert from Kannon's Albanian family.

Sarah's kindergarten class got to help with the 4th

grade "A Christmas Carol" play. They were the prelude music and the carolers in the play. I think the class loves to sing. They did a great job. Here she is with Macray, Raegan, and Hunter.

I made goodies. I started making them on a Saturday night, mid-month. Got doughs made and a few cookies done. Then everyone in the family got sick and I tossed everything in the freezer. I was disappointed that I didn't get to finish what I started and that I spent the whole week caring for sick kids even though I didn't feel great, either. But, then we were all well again, I sent the kids back to school, and got back on the baking train. The kids helped me sprinkle the spritz cookies. It was the only thing I let them help with.

We got to have cousins over for a day. We decorated stockings and I was reminded that glitter should only be for 8 and ups!

We went to the pond to feed the ducks. I had a lot of bread in the freezer to use. The pond was frozen except for a few spots where the water was cycled through. The ducks liked the bread and then we saw the sign that said, "do not feed the wildlife". Ooops! Our little hands were freezing from the frozen bread and the 30 degree temperature. I took the 2 littlest ones back to the car while the older 4 played on the slide, etc.

Somebody's friendly dog showed up and the kids freaked out! After a little bit I got out of the car to find the owner. He was in his car watching the kids and his dog. He came over apologizing and I told him that these kids all get nervous around big dogs. Then he got mad at me and said I shouldn't have brought them to the dog park. I reminded him of the fenced area for dogs. He pointed out the big field for dogs, too. Then I said, "but THIS area is not for dogs." He left and I packed up the kids and we went back home. I was pretty upset about that for a while.

October 2011

2011-11-21T15:21:00.000-08:00

I took the kids to Lattin Farms for a ward activity. Kannon was teaching a welding class in Reno all month. That meant he was gone all day on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I wasn't thrilled to go on my own. The 3 kids are a handful by myself. Well, it's Joshua, actually. He requires constant supervision and then there isn't an adult left to keep on eye on the other two. But, it all worked out okay.

The dinner part was kind of a mess. I'm on a strict diet and it being a "harvest" dinner, I thought there'd be plenty to choose from. I didn't count on the potatoes being drowned in sauces. So, I ate very little. The kids nibbled and were anxious to run and play. We went first to the cow train. Joshua looked fine, until the train got going faster, then I could tell he was nervous. He didn't move. No sounds, no facial expressions. Just held on for dear life!

Yeah, this is the before shot.Then, Ben and Sarah were desperate to go through the corn maze. We went. But, we couldn't find our way out. I know we were close. Somebody finally put us out of our misery and led us out. I was so ready to go home. All in all, a good time.

The beginning of October always brings us General Conference. A time to listen to the Prophet and Apostles and be given some spiritual feasting. We chose to watch it from our computer, again, this year. So, for two days we hung out on mom and dad's bed enjoying conference.

Playing Bingo.
I'm loving Pinterest. I find all kinds of things to do or make. I put together a conference basket. Each time one of the 12 Apostles of the First Presidency spoke the kids got to get a bag from the basket. I printed out photos of the brethren and put one on each baggie. Inside the baggies were treats or things to do (like the bingo game).

Blowing bubbles with bubble gum.

We each got a pair of conference socks (I picked them up from the dollar bins at Target).

We made toilet paper roll puppets of the First Presidency.

Our internet connection is goofy. We have wireless internet and when we had it set up we were using our little laptop. The big computer wasn't working then. Now that the big computer is working it has a hard time detecting the wireless internet. We always have to do the "diagnose" deal when we turn it on and sometimes it just shuts down when we are already on. So, we had the laptop going sometimes, too.

Kannon brought in his special Ikea chair to lounge in. He kept falling asleep in it, so I ended up kicking him out of it!

When we opened up a baggie we would tape the picture up on the closet door. Then we put up sticky notes of what the talk was about. It kept us focused.

Most of October was really mild in the weather area. Joshua still spent a lot of every day outside. He loves the dirt and sometimes I would look out the window to see how he's doing and he'd be face down in the dirt. Sometimes licking the dirt, but lots of times just looking at it. Maybe smelling it?

The garden lasted through most of the month, too. We mostly got tomatoes this year. They went wild. We had a few watermelon, too. Kannon and I took one day toward the end of the month to clean up the space and pull out all the plants. We used 8 big garbage bags! We ended up getting a lot of salsa out of the garden and I still have a bag of tomatoes, that we picked green, that are now ready to be taken care of. I think I'll make pizza sauce.

For some reason Sarah likes to dress up in Mommy's shoes instead of her own play heels. So, of course, little brother has to do the same. You can see them both wearing my heels in this picture. I laugh because he's going to be so embarrassed by this picture someday!

Kannon turned 33 in October! We went and had family pictures taken that day. He got a new shirt and pants out of that deal. We gave him some money to spend. He added that to the money he got from his mom and my mom and bought himself a new exhaust and muffler for his car. (It's loud. I finally drove it and it gave me a headache!) Must be a guy thing!

Then comes Halloween. Here is Joshua in one of the pairs of jammies we have for him. (They come with capes, too!) He's doing the kachow thing that he does with his hands. Ready for a friendly fight.

At our ward party. We went as Alice in Wonderland and Crew again this year. Last year we were in Elko, so I figured it would be good to get more use out of these costumes that had a lot of effort put into. Joshua's costume was new, though. I didn't think it would be a good idea to make him be a pink cat again.

The kids had fun running around. Kannon made the chili. I didn't get to eat much, because chili isn't exactly on my meal plan. Neither is cornbread. I ate when we got home. They got lots of candy at the trunk-or-treat.

We spent one evening out at my mom and dad's. We wanted to use the firepit before the weather got too cold. So, we roasted hotdogs. Ben and Sarah also got to spend the night there.

I guess I got some goofy looking pictures here, because everyone was busy eating.

We also did Kannon's birthday cake out there, so that we could share it. Here's me doing my best pirate imitation and showing off the awesome Super-duper chocolate cake that I made (with help from pinterest, again.) Two layers of chocolate cake, a brownie layer and a layer of cheesecake. Once again, not something I can eat, but I snuck a few bites anyway and it was yummy and very rich. There's still more than half a cake frozen at my parents house. We'll have to pull it out and share it again soon.

Our town did trick-or-treating a few days early. It was a little weird but also okay. Sarah was a flapper, Joshua was Superman and Ben had decided he was going to be Harry Potter back in the summer when we read the book. This is with their friends Lily and Reed Mortensen.

Joshua loved running up to the doors and being given candy. At one house he was standing behind the man on his porch as he handed out the candy. He missed Joshua, and when he put the bowl down, Josh just helped himself!

He and Sarah both got tired before the rest of the kids so I headed back with them. I realized that I didn't have a key, Kannon did, so we stopped at the Mortensen's house to wait for the boys. It was nice to just hang out with my friend Donna.

The kids got to dress up for school on the 31st. I help out in the lunch room and at recess on Mondays so I got to see the kids in their costumes. It was fun to see all the different ideas out there. I saw twin mermaids, lots of witches, about 6 ninjas chasing an Incredible Hulk, and only about 3 kids that didn't dress up. I'm glad their school lets them dress up for Halloween. I'm glad that I got to dress up like that when I was a kid. Dressing up was a big part of my youth. We had costumes galore. We dressed up anytime the cousins came over and anytime we were at my grandma's house. It was great fun. I got to show some of those pictures to my kids last month, too.

The Funny Farm

2011-10-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

I think I'm going crazy.

Joshua is making me crazy.

I know something is not "right" with him, but I don't know exactly what

or what to do about it.

We don't have a doctor, we go to the Urgent Care 30 minutes away since none of the doctors in Fallon are covered on our insurance.

So, I don't have one to ask about the issues I'm having with Joshua.

This kid is something else. He's wild. He makes people cry.

He doesn't stop moving (except when he's watching Cars). Helping him get to sleep at nap time and bedtime is terribly hard.

I fall asleep at nap time and by bedtime I'm worn to a pulp, I can't really function anymore.

Tonight I put him down. He sleeps with Ben on the bottom bunk. He had his sippy of milk and his special blankie. He seemed to be sleepy enough, but about 10 minutes (okay maybe only 5, I only got some of my dishes done) later I hear a smack and then he cries. I went to the bedroom and apparently Joshua hit Ben in the nose. For no reason. It's what he does. So, I had to try and lay with him, but he wouldn't lay down and kept touching both me and

Ben. Every time I tried to leave he would sit up and call, "mommy?" From the time I put him in his bed, until the time he finally fell asleep was about 45 minutes. Not terrible, but hard when I'm the "single" mom for the night and he and I have been together since wake-up.

I was kicked in the face, by him, at least twice today, once when changing his diaper and also when helping him sleep. He made my mom cry yesterday. He didn't want his poopy diaper changed. He threw his tantrum and it was enough to upset her. Plus, when that was over, he continued to return to her to show his anger by hitting at her or throwing things. That is 100% typical. And it makes me sad.

I used to judge people who had children that were a little more difficult. I didn't even like their children. Now that I have one of those children I feel guilty for my judgements and so much more understanding. That being said, I figure everyone that doesn't have a difficult child is judging me and doesn't like Joshua. I know, I know, not everyone is as bad as me. I don't like to ask anyone to watch him. But, I also don't like to take him anywhere.

So, my latest desire is to take my family and live in a bubble. A place where we can all work together to figure this out. A bigger house would be nice, too.

I cry often about all of this. I pray often, too. I "weary" the Lord with my pleas. I'm learning that I need to be proactive. I need to do my part, not just ask. But, I guess I'm still a bit clueless as to what my part is.

As he fell asleep tonight, I tried to picture him as a spirit child of Heavenly Father. I look forward to the day when we can be friends and I hope that can happen in this earth life.

For now, I'm working on loving him, being patient but firm, and trying desperately to remain sane.

2011-10-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

Hello,this is Ben speaking here last night me and dad went to a UNR football game at the Mackay stadium. Here is the first part of the story,one day the phone rang ,it was dad he said that he bought 2 tickets to a football game. He asked me if I wanted to go i said YES! He also said that if I didn't want to go he would ask Sarah if she wanted to go. Well here I am waiting the day we were going it took a while but I still cared. On the way dad showed me the tickets,they looked cool. It said Nevada VS Las Vegas. When we got there (to Reno) we had to find a parking space,it took a while (a long time). The parking space was a long ways away from the stadium so we had to walk there a long ways away. It took us not that long to get there,but when we got there we figured out that we had seats in the sun. so we took turns using dad's hat.
It finally got dark and we were in the lead but, sadly, Las Vegas had nothing. The first three shots of the cannon i figured out that the cannon not only shot smoke but confetti.

At the end (almost the end)of the game we had 36 points and Las Vegas had 0,on one of the plays we got a TOUCHDOWN! the board said NEVADA:37 Las Vegas:0 and the game was almost over there were 23 more sec. in the 4th qr. we were about half way to getting a touchdown the sec. were gone and everyone who was at the sides of the field where the field goals were started jumping off the side line and crowding the wolf pack cheering there was a huge crowd on the big screen.

Now to finish the story when we got back to the car dad said ''Ben's about to taste the best chicken,biscuits,onion rings,ranch and fries in the whole world'' I said ''where is that'' he said its at Popeye's I said ''we going there'' he said ''yes''.When we got there we ordered the you know what.Dad and I were stuffed. we finally got home with our confetti. Now we've caught up to the future.

THE END

A ringing phone

2011-10-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

The phone just rang. Whoever was calling hung up before I got to it. We don’t have caller I.D. and I will be wondering , for the rest of the night, “who called”? I don’t know why I have that kind of obsession. If you know me at all, you know that I’m not a huge phone-talking kind of gal. I hate making phone calls of my own, but when you call me that’s a different story. I remember racing to answer the phone as a youth. Wanting to be the first to pick up the phone and sometimes knocking down a sibling in the effort. I was appalled that things didn’t run the same in my husbands family. The phone would ring. . . .. . And nobody moved. What?! Don’t you want to know who’s calling?
And can you imagine my feelings as a college student when the phone would ring? I’m sure it wasn’t often for me, but there was still a thrill in the answering of it. I went on my mission to Oklahoma and have some very fond phone memories. Calls from the district leader -for numbers, zone leader -to encourage me, mission president, even his wife -inviting us to a sleepover and play day. Or the call from a less-active telling us her husband was ready to get baptized.
Then there were the days of dating and engagement. I remember a long late-night conversation with Kannon during a thunderstorm. Our phone calls were truly how we became acquainted and fell in love. Our long-distance engagement of 16 months wouldn’t have been the same without the nightly phone calls.
Two weeks before our wedding I moved out of my apartment and into what would be our first home together. We had finished putting the house together and were chatting on the couch when the phone rang. The phone was down the hall and I jumped up and onto the coffee table, fully intending to land gracefully on the other side, in order to be the one to answer the first phone call in our new home. Things didn’t go as planned and I slipped coming off the table and landed on the side of my foot, tearing a ligament off the top of it. Lying on the floor in agonizing pain, the first words out of my mouth were, “go get the phone!” It was imperative that Kannon answer the phone and find out who was calling. (If you care, it was my mother-in-law, who promptly came over to help and called the stake president who was a podiatrist.) I was in a boot and on crutches till the day before our wedding.

Just today, I yelled at my sweet daughter to come and answer the phone
(my hands were covered in the process of bottling pears). Because heaven forbid the answering machine should pick up!
Benjamin and another boy had some trouble at school a few weeks ago. They had a substitute teacher and as she was busy reading to the class, her cell phone was ringing in her purse. One of the boys in the class must have issues like mine, because his first instinct was to answer her phone for her. Ben wanted to find out what was going on and went to check it out. These actions caused the two boys to lose recess for the next week. What a traumatic experience that was for the boy who just wanted to answer the phone for his teacher. I feel his pain!
I don’t know why I have this strange fixation. You’d think it would be enough to prompt the purchase of a phone plan with caller I.D. But, it’s rare that I don’t get to the phone when I’m home and if it rings when I’m gone and no one leaves a message, well, then I didn’t even know they called, right? So, for now, we’ll shelve this problem and save it for the psychiatrist I will never be able to afford. Until then, happy ringing!

The Kids' Room

2011-09-27T07:38:00.000-07:00

Labor Day was on it's way and we didn't have any plans. I was freaking out, not dealing well with all of my responsibilities. Kannon could tell and offered to take the kids and go to Elko for the whole 4 days. They left Friday morning and then I headed out to Reno. I finished buying the items I needed to complete the projects I planned for the kids' bedroom.

So, you will find below before and after pictures of the items and set up of the kids room.

I painted the bedroom and stayed up late every night spray-painting furniture, making my owls, and planning. I watched the entire 2 seasons of Jericho and all of the Anne of Green Gables and Avonlea movies. I even fit in a visit from some lovely sisters in my ward who brought over lunch on Monday and helped me iron some curtains. I finished putting the last book on the shelf just as the kids walked in the house. They say they love it. I know I do.

This nightstand was beige and gold. Matched the bookshelf,

desk, and dresser (which is still in storage). I painted it white with the one blue drawer

and a fancy knob. Well, you can obviously see that.

This is the bedroom before. This was the first room we remodeled. We painted it this tan color because we thought we'd be selling soon and wanted a neutral color. The curtains have been hanging in Ben's room since he was 6 months old. It was sure time for a change. The dresser and little dresser in this corner are now in the closet and next to the closet at the foot of the bed. All the clothes now in one corner.

Here's the same corner after my redecoration. Don't those
colors just relax and invigorate at the same time?!

Bed before:

And after. I really like the turquoise curtain. It makes for some fun color changes throughout the day. Sarah got her pink bed and the boys have a blue one. I went with all white sheet sets. You can see the cute owls on the walls by their beds, although Joshua already knocked off theirs and bent the nail, so I've got to come up with a new place for those owls.

Then there is this crazy corner. Check out those books! And the

clock hasn't even worked for a few years.

I decided to store some of our books. Again. I probably have 6 boxes of books in storage now. Or more. I took the bookshelf off the desk for

now, so that it would be easier to do homework at the desk.

And see the new clock? It ticks. And tocks. I bought the storage unit for the kids toys. I think it's been good. We can just put the toys quickly into the basket and shove it on a shelf.

This is the revamped desk. I painted the fronts of the drawers yellow and used the same blue as the nightstand to paint the knobs and pulls. I thought about buying new knobs, but couldn't afford it and am actually happy about the way it turned out. I loved picking out a material to match it all. And I modpodged it to the top of the desk. Awesome!!

Earlier this year I bought this side table at the thrift store. It had ridges down the middle that weren't nice for writing. I filled those in with putty, sanded, and spray-painted the legs white. Then I pulled out the chalkboard paint for the top of the table. I paired it with a shiny red chair!

My boy owls! I spent hours Sunday night trying to get the patterns just right. I love them all. Mod Podged some scrapbook papers that I made from my own patterns drawn from ideas I found on Pinterest. Yes, I spend a lot of time there, but it actually came into good use this time.

And my girl owl. I love this one, too!

A few things are still undone. I have some paint a shade darker than the walls to paint vertical stripes on the wall with the bed. I still need to finish painting in the closet and the door. I have super cool material to make a clothes hamper that I found on Pinterest, too. I'll get to them eventually. (I hope. The trim in the closet never did get finished when we totally remodeled 5 years ago!) It's nice to have a change once in awhile. Now, I'm wondering when I'll get to do my own room?!

A New School

2011-09-27T00:52:00.001-07:00

We started school on August 15th. Very exciting and very nervous. Our first day at a new school. We worked so hard to get into the Charter School and we (okay, I) was anxious about how it would all work out. I really wanted to spend the day there with them. So, now it's been a month and things are going well.

Ben is a 3rd grader. He is in a class of 15 boys, 5 girls. His teacher quit 2 days before school started. The class started with a semi-substitute, but they got a new teacher hired very quickly, Mrs. Koontz. Ben's been in trouble a few times already. He's going to have to learn that there's a law to follow. Apparently the whole group of boys is like this. They are all smart and mischievous. I realized at one point, that he was not really doing his math homework. It was requiring him to think more than he normally does and, therefore, it was too hard.

Blueberry pancakes with a "3" for 3rd grade.

Sarah has loved every day of school. No complaints and she comes home smiling every day. She loves the poems she is learning about colors. I help out on lunch duty every Monday. She's excited to see me, but then she is off with her friends. She has an incredible teacher and I'm really excited that she's a kindergartner.
Curlers and the letter "K"!
The traditional first day of school children's picture. Check out those uniforms. I do miss them being able to pick out their own clothes, but these make it quick and easy to get dressed each morning. And they look so nice, too.

Those curls calmed down by the end of the day!

Standing in the Kindergarten line. With the kids all in their uniforms, it's hard to tell them apart. When I'm at lunch duty, all the little blond girls or 8-year-old boys look like my kids!

Benjamin walking in on the first day of school. He didn't even

notice that I was standing right there!

Or that I followed him in to take a picture of him at his desk!

Joshua and I enjoy the routine of our days. We do drop off in the morning - we take Serenity (an almost cousin, the kids share Aunt Susan and Uncle Stephen) to school and they bring Sarah home from school. After drop-off, Josh and I head to the gym. When we get home he watches Cars -everyday- and I take a shower. He then plays while I work, then it's lunch and nap time. I get to spend some quiet time with Sarah when she gets home at 2. Then Josh wakes up and Kannon and Ben both get home around 4. I've had to spend a lot of time getting things organized and scheduled so that our lives run smoothly without too much stress. I'm almost there!

End of Summer Party

2011-09-26T15:23:00.001-07:00

We had our 2nd annual So-Long-Summer party a few days after

our Oregon trip and a few days before the kids went back to school.

The mommies staying cool in the shade with cute fans!

There were yummy cookies, popsicles, and my ice cream sandwiches which were literally a flop! I hadn't ever actually made my own ice cream sandwiches before, but I really wanted to do something fun and Ben helped me come up with, what I thought, would be a great idea. We made our orange dreamsicle cookies and then smashed vanilla ice cream in the middle. But, I thought I needed to soften the ice cream first. That was my first mistake. They ended up rather messy, but still tasted delish!

The kids played with squirt guns, water balloons and sprinklers and left with a swirly sucker.

Crater Lake

2011-09-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

We were sad to leave the coast, but I totally loved the drive back across Oregon. It was beautiful and more than once I wondered if I could happily live there.

At lunch time we stopped at Crater Lake and ate a picnic lunch. (Okay, really, I stood at the back of the suburban and slapped together some sandwiches.

Everyone ate them sitting in their seats.) Then we drove around the loop a bit and took a short hike to get a different view of the lake.

Throwing a snowball at mom. It was fun to see a bit of snow still

hanging out, dirty as it may have been. From Crater Lake, the rest of the drive was kind of rough for me. You know when you are almost there, but not quite there? And you just want to be there? Well, that's how it was. Some of the drive was really pretty, but mostly I was ready to be done. Especially when I had to stop for a potty break and there were bear warning signs on the doors. Or the next stop, which was in the bushes! The kids were out off and on and for sure during the last hour. Although, that meant that when we got home at 10 pm they were wide awake!

I think this trip was amazing. We had so much fun as a family and I think we'll have these memories forever. It was a great way to reconnect. And we have plans to go again in 5 years when the boys can go play in the sand and us girls can do some beauty and shopping stuff.

Aug 2011 - Oregon coast day 2

2011-09-26T13:54:00.000-07:00

We headed back to Cape Arago and the lighthouse viewpoint

on Tuesday morning. We really wanted to spot a whale,

but we settled for a bunch of seals!

Our plan was to head north on hwy. 101 for the day.

Our first stop was the Umpqua Lighthouse. We didn't feel like we had

enough time to wait for the tour so we just snapped this

picture and looked for a whale or two (which we never saw!)

We stopped at Old town Florence. We loved doing a little window shopping.

It was relaxing and we all picked up some little souvenirs.

We ended our visit with some yummy ice cream for the kids and a bag of taffy for Kannon.

Kannon couldn't leave without this photo op.

And we made it all the way up to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport.

We loved the beauty of the fish

and getting to touch anemone's and starfish.

We toured the zoo-like outdoors and Sarah flirted with this otter.

A few more photo ops at the end and then we headed south, back to our campsite.

Heceta Head Lighthouse. We were too late for the tours, but I enjoyed a

quiet walk to the lighthouse and then made it back down in time for the sunset.

Aug 2011 - Oregon coast day 1

2011-09-26T12:55:00.000-07:00

When we got to Crescent City the night before, we could hear seals barking. So, our first order of business was to go find them. They were at this dock across the street from The Curly Redwood Lodge, where we stayed. It was a bit chilly.

We continued north into Oregon!
I think our first stop was at Harris Beach (it's been long enough, and we stopped at so many beaches, I just can't be positive.).

There was a lot of digging, looking for starfish (Kannon was determined to find one in a tidepool along the way - we didn't ever accomplish that), climbing rocks, and running from waves.

I don't remember stopping much on our way to Coos Bay. We had a campspot at William M. Tugman State Park. Once we got our tent set up, we headed back to Coos Bay to try and make it to Sunset Bay for the actual sunset. We missed it by about 10-15 minutes. We enjoyed a short hike and the ocean at this time of day.

You can see the Cape Arago lighthouse from this pullout on the road.

The Pacific Ocean.

We met some other lookers, who said a whale was seen nearby all day.

We could also hear the seals barking, but it was too dark to really make them out. So, we decided we'd come back in the morning.

We had a nice night. The sites at this campground were a LOT closer together. But, it didn't seem to matter, since we spent only our sleeping hours there.

Aug 2011 - the Redwoods

2011-09-25T17:17:00.000-07:00

We attended church in Fort Bragg where it was misty and cool. We stopped at Mac Kerricher State Park. We ate a picnic lunch (defending it from the sea gulls - we actually took cover in the Suburban) and walked the boardwalk.

We were headed to the Redwood National Park and a hotel in Crescent City. There was a lot of napping and even more driving!

There were 2 drive-thru trees and we only stopped at one. We paid $5 to take this picture, our car was too big to fit!

We stopped a few times while driving through the Redwoods. It felt like night-time because the trees made it dark.

We loved the root ends of the fallen trees!

This root end may not have been huge, but the tree itself is the longest fallen tree on record.

This one is the Founder's Tree. We came upon it at the end of a short hike we took. We ended up a ways away from the suburban, almost thought we were lost.

The rest of the day was the worst part of the trip, for me. I drove and it got dark and misty. Our wipers weren't really working and I was on an unfamiliar, very twisty road. It was late when we finally got to our hotel - 10 pm. We hadn't eaten yet and I'd brought hot pockets to heat and eat. Well, this particular "suite" didn't have a microwave. We improvised with sandwiches. And then we slept like the dead.

August 2011 - Fort Bragg and Hendy Woods

2011-09-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

We started off our August in a most amazing way. We got our trip to the coast. Kannon and I had originally wanted to do that for our honeymoon, but money said "no" and we've been waiting for the right time. We started planning this trip a year ago and invited our Bake family to join in on the fun, making it a little reunion.

We left early on Friday morning, I think I was probably up really late on Thursday, slept for a few hours and we hit the road while it was still dark. It was a long drive to Fort Bragg. We had some motion sickness -thank goodness no one actually threw up, but there were headaches and yucky tummies. I enjoyed the sights of places we'd never seen before. We had a moment of panic when the suburban wouldn't start after a potty break. Thankfully it was just a loose wire. When we got to Fort Bragg, CA it was still a bit foggy - around noon. We stopped at a pizza place for some lunch and then headed to the beach. We wanted to stop at the glass beach. We weren't there too long before my mom, dad, sister Susan and her husband Stephen and sister Janet came. We enjoyed the ocean and looking for the glass pieces that have been weathered soft (although I was disappointed that it wasn't what I'd imagined - no sand, just round pieces of colored glass - yeah, not so much. We found a few pieces of flat glass, that just wasn't sharp anymore).

The girls - Mom, Susan, Me and little Sarah - Janet was taking the picture.

We tried to get a family picture. This was the best of the bunch. Kannon was making that face in every picture, was that for real? Or, and this seems more likely, he was just being goofy?

We then headed up the coast to a more sandy beach -

By the way - these first pictures are the ones from my sisters' camera. We'll backtrack to the ones I took in a bit.

We headed south and a bit inland to our campsite at Hendy Woods. We loved how much space was allotted for each site. We met up there with my other sister Nancy and her family of boys -Dave, Tyler, Colby and Evan. It was fun to share our meals and work together. We loved staying up for some around the fire chit-chat. I loved that we were at a campground with showers! On Saturday, we enjoyed the area of Hendy Woods by taking a few different hikes. Along with all the exploration of the area, Ben picked up a tick! We were able to get it off with the use of fingernail polish, tweezers and WD-40. Ugh. I was worried about ticks for a long time after that.

Sarah made this pine cone creation with stuff she found around the campsite.

Hiking Hendy Woods. There are younger Redwood trees here. Joshua inside a redwood tree.

So I tried to move these pictures around, but I'm just not that talented. These are the pics I took at the Glass Beach, etc.

Uncle Stephen and Joshua

Ben got knocked down by the waves more than once, but loved every minute of it!
(He says his "mouth got a little salty - I guess that's why they call it salt water.")

This is Joshua's "get ready-get set-go" stance.

Daddy dug a sand hole that Joshua got a kick out of climbing in. When Kannon tried to bury him, though, he got a bit upset and Kannon had to redig the hole.

Here are the cousins on our Hendy Woods hike.

Eating watermelon. That was the best melon I had all summer!

We spent 2 nights at this campground and on Sunday morning we went our separate ways. Our little family headed back to Fort Bragg for church and the rest of the Bake's went back to Sacramento.

The Haunted House

2011-09-07T21:08:00.001-07:00

By Ben Polish and Toby Anderson
Chapter 1 Robots
Today we went inside the storeroom (aka the old Wal-Mart.) When we went inside, we saw a bunch of jails. Then we saw a rocket ship and 10 armies of robots. They were just standing there ready to march into war.
Chapter 2 Blood Stains
We found a bunch of fast cash tickets. There was a little pharmacy place we went into. There were little black spots that looked like blood stains. Then, we sat down to write a story.
Chapter 3 Hearts
We went into the restrooms and they still worked!!! Next, we saw some robot hearts that were out of their bodies waiting to be fixed.
Chapter 4 Ghost- Spider- Snake
We saw a ghost and spiders. There were snakes. I felt claustrophobic. There were shadows and claw marks everywhere.
Chapter 5 Voldamort!
Zombies and goblins were attacking us. We saw Voldamort from Harry Potter. He threatened us saying we had to be his servants or he would kill us. We started to panic. We said no, so he used a spell on us. It was the wrong spell and we turned into students from Gryffindor.
He said, “Ahhhh man.”
Chapter 6 Hufflepuff
Then we used our wands and turned him into a Hufflepuff student. So, the war for Hogwarts was on.
Chapter 7 Narnia
Next, some evil Narnia creatures came. They started attacking us, but we turned them to the good side.
Chapter 8 Harry Potter
The Narnia creatures started attacking Voldamort. Harry Potter joined them and destroyed Voldamort.
Chapter 9 Bloody Barren
Then the Bloody Barren passed us and we quickly evaporated him.
Chapter 10 Wasps
A few minutes later wasps started attacking us. We turned into Bionicles and finally defeated Master Dora.
Chapter 11 Danger
We found that we were surrounded by spiders and snakes. Then George of the Jungle came swinging in on a vine and chopped off their heads. Then he swung into a tree. Ouch.
Chapter 12 Robot War
After that, Stitch, the leader of the 10 armies of robots, wanted to have a big honkin’ war.
Chapter 13 Halo
We hired 50 armies of Spartan dudes and 50 armies of Elite dudes. That began the War of Halo.
Chapter 14 War again?
Eighty-two chapters away, another war began. Autobots vs. Decepticons.
Chapter 96 Autobots Win
We turned ourselves into Transformers. Luckily, we did that at the right time because we saw some Autobots defeating Decepticons and we were able to help them win.
Chapter 97 Ook and Gluk
We finally defeated the Decepticons. Then we saw Ook and Gluk karate chopping one of our Autobot guys so we defeated them too.
Chapter 98 The end?
We heard a big explosion. Then we saw fire and smoke coming towards us so we started running.
Chapter 99 Harry Potter to the Rescue
Then Harry Potter came on his broomstick and picked us up but professor Quirrell was controlling Harry’s broomstick and that made us fall.
Chapter 100!!! Hospital
We woke up in pain at the hospital. We thought we saw a wizard’s chessboard, wizard crackers, chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans. After two weeks, we went back to school and we had a lot of make-up work to do.
THE END

July 2011

2011-08-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

Phew! July was a super-busy but fun month. Lots of pictures here!

I've wanted hollyhocks at this house since we bought it. I've tried planting them a few times, with no results. Last fall, this plant just popped up next to the sidewalk in our yard. I was so excited to have hollyhocks this summer! I plan on gathering the seeds (something I should go do right now!) and planting them for next year.

Joshua has spent so much of his time outside this summer. Often coming back in muddy, wet, or half naked!

The first weekend in July we headed toward Ely to go camping. Kannon grew up camping in that area and when he made a list of his top 10 camping sites, more than half were near Ely, NV. So, we figured we'd better make the most of one of our free summer weekends and go camping there. We left right after work and made it to Ely about 8 pm. By the time we got to where we had planned on camping, Camp Success, it was dark. By the light of the headlights we discovered that Camp Success is a by-reservation-only campground and it was inaccessible. We had driven over rocky, twisty roads, in the dark to get here. The kids were nervous and we were stressed. We decided to keep going on this dirt road to the next campground. By the time we got there the kids were all asleep and it was about 10 pm. We found an empty spot and quickly set up our tent and beds and ate a bit of taco salad I had brought for our dinner. We were right next to a creek. It was fun to hear it running all night. This was Timber Creek campground. We will definitely keep it on our list of favorites. It was cool, but not cold. Quiet and beautiful. We were close to the outhouse and had running water, too. We spent the next day (Saturday) hiking up the mountain, playing in the trickle pool, napping and exploring.

Ready to hike - Ben is awfully good at finding a walking stick everywhere we go.
Taking a break.

Sarah had injured her ankle and foot earlier in the week. I still don't know what she did, but she'd been walking on her toes and when we started hiking it started hurting. So, here is Daddy wrapping her ankle. Mom's feet had been pretty sore lately, too, so we didn't hike as much as the boys wanted to.

I love the look of joy on Joshua's face!

We headed off the beaten path a few times and, because the snow was still melting on the mountain, we had a few streams to try and cross. We got to place where we couldn't get past the water anymore and we turned back.

Joshua fell asleep on his Daddy's lap in the afternoon. He wouldn't lay down with me in the tent. We ended up propping Kannon's arm up with a pillow. It was a normal 2-hour nap!

We warmed our camp showers on the cement all day and gave the kids showers before it got too dark and cool. We saved some water for us to use when it got a bit darker out. By the time we took our showers the water was still fairly warm, but there was a cool breeze. Still, it felt good to be clean.

We had a good fire. Whoever had been at the campsite before us, had left a lot of wood. We roasted hot dogs over the fire and later we did s'mores. Sarah fell sleep in her chair. The boys had a good time with their glow sticks, until Joshua started getting too violent and hitting everyone. Then it was off to bed.

On Sunday, we packed up and left to attend church in McGill. Then we had lunch with Kannon's extended family. Aunt Karen and her family were at their Ely house for the weekend. Kannon's parents and sister were also there. We went over to see Grandpa Polish, too.

We always struggle a bit at his house. The kids are so busy and his house isn't exactly child-proof. But, we had a nice visit despite the chasings.
We stayed at aunt Karen's that night. They had a houseful, but were kind enough to let us camp in the living room. Once the kids were in bed, we sat out on the front porch and visited, playing with the people on the streets and Kannon's laser lights.

On Monday, after a fantastic breakfast, Kannon and I went to a local store where all their Sketchers were on sale. 75% off. We stocked up on shoes for the kids for a few years to come. We got back just in time to meet the family at the parade. And also just in time for a downpour. The rain came down for a good long time. We had just an umbrella or two between us. My back got soaked trying to keep everyone dry under this one umbrella. (After our 5-hour trip home I was still a bit damp.)

Uncle Nick, Kannon, and cousin Matthew. A lot of people left, but we stayed. It looked like it was about over, but just kept going. It was as if the cloud was going around in a circle. We could see the blue sky so close. It was cold and wet. It even hailed on us for a bit. Finally it stopped and we enjoyed a really great parade.

On our way out of town, to go home, we stopped at the Garnet Hill. A place where anyone can come and look for garnets. We thought we would be more likely to find them after the hard rain, but it hadn't poured out there, yet. Still, we found quite a few rocks containing garnets. That's my birthstone and I'd love to find a way to make one of our findings into a jewelry piece someday.

About half way home we stopped for a little movement. There was a small rest stop and campground with a small hikes to see the petroglyphs. It was a good break from our long drive. And Kannon found a squirrel living in the bathroom! Just something random.

We got back to Fallon just in time for the fireworks. We watched from the Numa Elementary parking lot. With blankets on the grass, good friends around us and free root beer floats from some really nice people, we ended our 4th of July Weekend.

This month Ben discovered the show iCarly. He enjoys watching it on netflix. Then came the day that he discovered he owned the same shirt that Freddy wore on the show when he had a double. So, we had to take this picture!

In the middle of July we met with the rest of the Polish family at Lagoon, in Utah, for a family reunion. We had a very enjoyable day there. Lots of riding and playing and eating!

Joshua and Dristen

Gaby and Sarah

On the train.

Kannon and I weren't as brave as we once were. I took Joshua and Gaby on the sky tram and really struggled with it. It used to be my favorite ride. I was so worried the whole time. I wonder if that had anything to do with the fact that I had Joshua with me. I felt like he was just going to slip right out and fall to his death. Scary. Kannon took the kids on the Rattlesnake Rapids and all but Sarah went on the Ferris Wheel. Kannon even got to do the giant swing thing with his brothers. He was so nervous, but ended up loving it. He's trying to get me to say I'll do it next time, but that is so not me!

The next weekend was Cub Scout day camp. I had had a horrible time getting all the forms together to be turned in on time. Somehow I didn't get the information until it was almost too late. But, we had a great time and as far as I know, everyone came that wanted to. It was a hot day and we spent a good chunk of it outside. I was exhausted by the end of it and will definitely be more prepared for the next time.

Ben, loading his bb gun.

Building teepees.

We had a family competition night. It was just a fun deal. This is the football kick.

And relaying balls from one bucket to the other.

Can you see the look of joy and excitement on his face?!

We spent the last weekend in July, again, in Utah. We had the opportunity to attend a mission reunion there. It was fun to see so many of the old missionaries and especially our mission president and his wife. Ben stayed in Elko to attend his cousin Mikale's baptism. But, Sarah and Joshua had a fabulous time playing in President Engebretsen's yard. There was even a giant blow-up slide. But, it was another really hot July day and we tried to stay in the shade as much as possible.

Most of the sisters are now married, but I don't know them by their married names. So, here are

Julianna Strunk, me, and Jennifer Hardman. I never served with the other sister and can't remember her name. Can anyone help me out? Sister Munns?

Jenna Werbelow and me

There were so many more missionaries I wish we could have seen. It's been 12 and a half years since I came home from my mission. That's plenty of time to make a busy life for each of us. Of course not everyone can come to an event like this. But, I was hoping. At least I have facebook to keep me in touch with so many of my missionary friends. We'll have to catch up at the next reunion! And see YOU soon for an August update!

Our summer birthdays!

2011-08-27T21:41:00.000-07:00

Sarah turns 5. I love how she used her hands on her cheeks to help her blow out the candles. All 5 of them. Just wait until there are 10!

This year I finally realized how close together my kids birthdays are. I know they aren't as close as same day or only days apart, but 2 weeks is still pretty close when there are only 5 birthdays in the family. We celebrated Sarah's birthday at teh end of June. A big 5-year-old girl. I can tell she's my middle child. She goes back and forth from acting like a baby, to trying to be all grown up. I love that she loves to wear dresses or skirts everyday and that pink is her favorite color. She plays well alone but also enjoys playing with either or both of her brothers. She's still a sensitive child, letting us know, with tears in her eyes, when we've hurt her feelings.

She had a great birthday. They sang to her at church. Grammy and Papa came over to celebrate. She got lots of fun presents. I made her a cake, a unicorn cake. Well, I did my best anyway. It was a pony cake but she wanted a unicorn. A few days ago she let me know that I put its' horn in the wrong spot. No wonder it looked so goofy!

She's right, this looks more like a Rhino. It's supposed to go up by the ears. Whoops!
I got the plan from a Family Fun magazine awhile back. I'm pretty sure you can still find it on the web site.

Joshua turned 2 at the beginning of July. 2 already? Yep, 2-years-old. He's been quite the handful. Unless we are at home I'm chasing him around. And even at home we've had a few scares and more than our share of messes.

Joshua got a little basketball hoop. He loves balls and loves playing with them. Ball is one of his favorite words. He has only a small repertoire of words. Mommy, Daddy -he's been calling me this lately, ball, blue, side -which can be either outside or slide, Darah (for Sarah). Yeah that's about it.

I was debating between a monkey or Blue for his cake. Blue is what Sarah really wanted and Joshua was totally on board with it, too.

Joshua really likes it when we sing. As a family we sing some of his favorite primary songs most nights. Book of Mormon Stories is his favorite. Obviously he doesn't sing, but is really good at the hand movements.
He got a kick out of us singing to him for his birthday. And did a perfect job of blowing out his candles.

Happy birthday to both of my babies! I love them both so much!

June 2011

2011-08-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

For the summer, I signed up for free bowling for our kids. The alley in Fernley offered it and I thought that would be a great idea for us to do this summer. I also bought the adult family pass for $25. We went one time and paid an extra $8 for shoes. So, for our one trip to the alley we spent $33 plus gas. Pathetic, huh? Unless the Fallon bowling alley offers it, we won't do it again. Our summer was just too busy this time around to make a trip to Fernley more often.

These pictures were taken on my cell phone. Not the best, but they'll do.

Sarah bowling!!

We took a special anniversary trip to Salt Lake City. 10 Years!! Woo hoo!
I wanted to stop at the Lake. I'd never done that and thought it might be nice to actually go to Salt Lake when visiting Salt Lake City. Meh. It was just okay. There were dead birds all over the beach. So, we didn't stay long.

Our first stop in Utah was to the Shane Company - to have our rings cleaned and sized. We decided to go one better, and bought me a 10 year anniversary band. That's what we'd planned from the day we bought my engagement ring. I didn't think it would actually happen. We traded in my gold wedding band for a white gold one and bought the matching band for the other side of my set. I'm so in love with my ring now. And it fits. I kept saying I was going to lose weight and be able to wear it again. But, I love that I can wear it every day now. It makes me feel important.

We stayed our first night at the Anniversary Inn. In the same room we occupied the day we got married. It was fun to reminisce. We did have a funny little fiasco there. We wanted to use the jetted tub. We didn't use it the first time we stayed there. Well, Kannon, being the pipe man that he is, knew that the water in a jetted tub stays in the pipes. So, he wanted to clean out the pipes from the last use. What he didn't know was that if you didn't have water over the jets, the water would shoot out and all over the place! We had a bit of a mess since we also couldn't get it to shut off! We used most of the towels cleaning the floors and walls. Yeah. Embarrassing. But, shhhh, you're the only ones that know!

We were in that little corner window and the row of 5 windows at the top left. When we first stayed there, my family had been driving behind us and Kannon was really worried that they were going to come decorate our car in the night. He kept checking out of that little window. I think we might have both been a little disappointed when they didn't.

The next day we went did an endowment session at the Salt Lake Temple, where we were married 10 years ago. That was really special. I kind of wish we'd added in a sealing session, too. We walked around temple square a bit and stopped in at the new church Library. That was fun to find books, biographies and such, about our own ancestors.

We got to eat at Tucano's - a Brazilian grill. And, oh my, was it delicious. It made me wish I had a bigger stomach! (You know, not fatter, just able to hold more delicious food!)

We stayed in a king suite at some hotel. Honestly I wasn't very impressed. The pool was under renovation, so that was disappointing. I wanted to go play mini-golf, but the place had just closed. So, we watched some TV and went to bed. (I should mention that we were having a good time shopping - I think we'd been to two different malls and a handful of other stores by this point.)

We spent our next day traversing our old haunts. We stopped at my "Anne-of-Green-Gables" bridge, where Kannon proposed for the 3rd time. And where I finally said, "yes!" We walked the mall and stopped on University Avenue to buy our sno-cones. There's this little shop by the Scera Theater that makes the best ones. We don't have sno-cone places like that in this part of Nevada (Vegas might).

Then we went to my stay the night with my sister, Janet, and her hubby, Levi. We went to a mall, again. We got some incredible frozen yogurt and bought Kannon a hat. We stopped at the store for chips and s'more stuff and sat around a fire at their house. We enjoyed staying with them, without kids. I have to say that was one of my favorite parts about our vacation. We didn't have children with us!

When we dropped them off that first day at my sister-in-laws house, I felt a physical relief. I instantly felt lighter. And when we headed back to pick them up I felt the physical weight of responsibility. We were all excited to see each other, and I love my children dearly, but there was a kind of vacation withdrawal that happened for a while when we got back.

But, it was a good time. I kind of hope it's not a whole 10 years before we do that again.

Toward the end of the month, the kids got to go on a Grandma Vacation. Grandma Polish came down from Elko with 5 of the kids' cousins. She took them in groups. The 4 oldest kids went to Virginia City the first day. The second day she took the 3 younger kids. They had so much fun with her and the cousins. We ended the trip with a visit to Lake Lahontan. It was our first time out this summer. It was so FULL! I haven't seen it like that since I was a young girl.

We played in the windy water and ate some goodies.

This is Quade -5, Sarah -5, and Kate -10.

The boys! Stetson -7, Ben -8, Mikale -8

My mother-in-law had to head home through Fernley. There had been a big train accident on the other road to I-80. A semi didn't stop at the train crossing and plowed right into the passenger train. There were some deaths and they didn't know what had happened with the driver (he was one of the deaths.) Guess I should follow-up on that story and see if they've ever reported anything more about it.

Let the summer start!!!

2011-08-14T15:10:00.000-07:00

The day after school let out we headed to the mountains. We hadn't had a chance to go sledding in the winter, so we decided to take advantage of the late spring and try to find some snow. It wasn't very hard.

We started with a stop at the mall. We needed to buy Kannon some new church pants. It was Saturday and he realized he'd left his church clothes in Elko the week before. Luckily I had some shirts I could return to JCPenney and so we got the new pants (2 pairs) for free!! (I know that's not the kind of 'free' some people are able to do, but we were happy to not have to spend money that day.)

We drove up to my sister Susan's new apartment in Incline Village. It started sprinkling snow on us up there. We checked out their new place and made a lunch. Then we went back to the sledding hill. It was snowing on us the whole time. We had a ton of fun. Lots of climbing, screaming and getting wet. Kannon and I really need to invest in our own snow pants.

This is Ben, in the orange coat. Remember my camera was still broken here. So, I couldn't see what the pictures looked like.

That strip of gray is a road. You can see the cars there. I was so scared I was going to sled off the edge and onto the road. But, the tube always stopped before the edge. Phew!

Sarah making a snow angel. (Later in the summer she made a sand angel, too!)

Joshua waiting for someone to haul him up the hill.

We always seem to meet interesting people when we go sledding. This time we loaned a sled to a family who were seeing snow for the first time. Their little girl cried on the way down.

May 2011

2011-08-14T15:01:00.000-07:00

Never have I been so long getting back to my blog. 3 months. How embarrassing. The thing about being so far behind is that I don't want to catch up. But, I'll give it a go.

Here's our 3-generation picture from Mother's Day.
Not too shabby - Sarah, Me and Mom/Grammy

This little guy is such a handful. I've often said, "If he wasn't so cute he might be harder to love." Seriously! He is always smiling like this and that makes it easier to look past all the screaming, hitting, throwing, spilling, muddy messes.
See, I took too long and I don't remember when this was exactly. But, our spring lasted a long time. I'm totally good with that. I like the cooler weather and really enjoyed all the rain we got, too. This was a snowy day. In May. Kind of rare for our part of the country. But it's been awesome to see how much the extra moisture has added to our lake this year. Check out July's blog post!

Once again, we participated in the library's Teddy Bear Tea. They have prizes for the winner in each category. Sarah picked the princess bear. She won first prize and got to take home a princess bead set and a crown. (Some of my pictures might be off a bit. I was using my camera that has a broken screen, so I couldn't see what the picture was until I viewed them on the computer. Right now I'm using my old camera and hoping to save up for a really good and fancy one.)

Benjamin decided, at the last minute, that he wanted to do the race car driver bear. I thought it turned out really good. He even had a cardboard race track to go with his bear. He didn't win, but he should have. The winner had a teddy bear with race car slippers on. That's it. Oh well. It's good for him to lose sometimes. We have to learn how to be good losers and good winners.

Joshua won first prize for his sports bear (thanks Daddy, for loaning the nike headband!) He got to bring home a basketball and a football.

(This particular teddy bear has been mine since I was a teenager. His name is Precious. When we were engaged and apart, Kannon slept with my teddy bear - he missed me. So sweet!)

And because I'm competitive I entered my own bear. (I like to help the library out, too, and by bringing in our bears and paying the fee to enter them, we help fund the summer reading program.) I did the glamour bear and was excited to win first prize. The prize for this one was a free family portrait from a studio in town. I'm excited to use that!

Sarah graduated from ABC School. That was a super happy day for me. I was really excited to have a break from it. I'd been teaching with my kids since Ben was 4! I'm taking a year or two off, until Joshua starts his group.

Rayanne/Braden, Me/Sarah, Kim/Wyatt, Heather/Jacob, Cherilee/James

On to Kindergarten!

(Which, as I'm typing this, starts tomorrow!)

April endings

2011-05-04T17:28:00.000-07:00

Spring Break began with Ben's birthday party. During that week we also went to the Children's Museum of Northern Nevada with my friend Amy and her boys Aaron, Kale and Declan. The kids had a good time playing for a few hours. It's like one giant gym room full of different activities. Ben's favorite was the conveyor rock wall and Sarah liked the store and kitchen. It was a really windy day so I was just glad we were indoors. We stopped at Baskin Robbins before heading home. One of our vacation days we went to the indoor pool for a swim. It was so cold! I think they must be trying to conserve money and don't heat it as high as they used to. Joshua was so cold that he wouldn't leave me and was quick to get out and into his towel where he sat for a good 45 minutes. But, then, all of a sudden he was ready to get in and what a daredevil he was. No fear in this boy! He was jumping off the steps not worried at all about where he'd land or if I'd catch him. The pool threw a few Easter eggs in and for each egg the kids got they could trade it in for a piece of candy. Like we all need more candy! But, I was glad we went and did something fun together during the break. I never did feel like, "oh please go back to school." It was just nice to be together.

I really wanted to spend some time with my sister in Utah. I don't get to see Janet very often and it'd been 2 years since I went there. So we decided to take a last minute trip to Elko. We got there Friday night. On Saturday I left early to go to Salt Lake and spend the day with my sister. We got to visit and go shopping and eat! What more could you want from a day with your sister (and her husband). While I was gone, Kannon went to yard sales with his dad, took the kids over to their cousins house for an Easter egg hunt. They tried to dye eggs but it got out of hand (probably because mom wasn't there!) and Kannon took them instead to watch motorcycles. They also went out for a ride on the 4-wheeler. They had such a busy day that they were all asleep when I got back (which wasn't really too late).

On Easter morning I was feeling super sick. One of those don't eat and don't leave the bathroom deals. I was able to make it (barely) through church and got a good nap before we headed back to Fallon. Here is our family in our Easter finery. Don't you just love the purples and pinks?! (oh, yeah, and the fluorescent soccer ball in my hand!)

The last week of April was a busy one for me. I had shopping, cleaning, baking, organizing. Plus all the regular stuff of running Sarah to and from preschool and cub scouts. Ben's baptism was on Saturday. So, I was preparing for that and for the company that would be in town, too. Adding to the stress was the enrollment for the Charter School that is starting this fall. I've been going to the meetings for this from the very beginning. I was excited about the kind of close education my children could get with smaller classes and the project -based learning. I felt like this was a better compromise between home school and public school. This was what I wanted. So, I had planned on camping out Friday night to be at the beginning of the line on Saturday morning. Imagine my surprise when I found out that people had started camping out on Tuesday night! With all I had to do for the weekend Friday was as early as I could go. My friend, Amy, and I decided to go on Friday morning. We were numbers 73 and 74. The day went okay. It was a bit chilly, so the kids and Amy with 2 of her boys, spent a chunk of the day in the suburban. When we were able to hand the kids off to their dad's we played games, ate Chinese take-out, visited and tried to watch a movie. By then we were tired and we went to sleep in our vehicles. We got up at 5 to get in line. It was a cold 4 hours before I got in and handed over my children's enrollment papers. Completely anticlimactic! Then I left, cleaned out my car and got ready for lunch with my extended family, the baptism, and a dessert bar!

I wanted all white desserts and came pretty close. I had chocolate chip cheesecakes (so the cherries were red), dreamsicle oreos (they weren't as flavorful as I'd hoped), muddy buddies, an 8-shaped butter cake, a snowball cake, caramel nut bon bons (that cooked a tad too long), yogurt-covered raisins ,and silver chocolate kisses and blue cookies and creme kisses. Yes, it was alot. But, it was totally me. I love to bake and love having a reason for it. We'd ordered sub sandwiches for lunch so that nobody had to cook or prepare. Kannon's parents came with Marisha and Kreg. Sister Sasha and her family, brother JJ and his kids, aunt Pam, uncle Mike and great-grandpa Polish. My mom had a houseful, too, with my sister Nancy and family , brother Nathan and family and Susan and Stephen. They all came to the church with us and we were joined by some other aunts and uncles of mine and our good friends the Mortensen's. Our sweet bishop conducted from his wheelchair and Ben was baptized and confirmed by his Dad. We were so grateful for all those who participated and took the stress of his parents. Ben got a lot of neat notes from everyone that were written while he got changed. Then everyone came over for the desserts and a good visit.

I was so worn out after all that week. On Monday I did almost nothing. I made meals, took a shower, went to Walmart, and checked the charter school list. Sarah got in. Ben was number 21 for the 3rd grade class. So, if any of the other 20 drop out before school starts, then Ben will be in, too. I'm praying that it will all work out. And having faith that whatever happens is the Lord's will. I started getting a cold on Monday and it's made it hard to function. Joshua and Sarah are a bit congested, too, so I haven't even tried the gym this week.

This was Sarah's cute good morning outfit!

Ben's been anxiously awaiting his turn to join cub scouts. He got to go to his first den meeting last week. We went to the Stillwater Wildlife Refuge. That's a pretty cool place. We spent a lot of time for our meeting but, I felt like we didn't get to see much at all - a lot of time was driving. Then we had pack meeting last night. Ben has already earned his Bobcat badge. His Grammy and Papa gave him his Wolf book for his birthday and he got right on the memorizing parts for his badge. It's fun to see him and Kannon trying to work on it together. They built a little box garden for Ben so he could complete an elective. Scouting for us right now, will be a family affair!

Ben receiving his award from the Cub Master, Brandon Bird.

Avatar Birthday

2011-04-23T11:59:00.000-07:00

I always have fun planning my kids birthday parties, but I'm glad we only do them every 4 years. That was the tradition in my family and I like it. At 16 there's dating/driving. 12 is priesthood and becoming a young woman. 8 is the big one with baptism. And so we start at 4. (Hopefully my kids aren't still hanging around at 20!)

So this is Ben's year for the big 8-year party. We chose the theme of Avatar: the Last Airbender. Our whole family enjoys watching the cartoon on Netflix. There wasn't a whole lot on the internet for party ideas, but we came up with enough to make for a cool birthday party.

His invitations said: "Are you Game for a Good Time? Then leap, jump or run on over to Ben's 8th Birthday Party!!" I used a tea bag to age the torn edges of paper and then rolled them into a scroll. We drove around to deliver some and the rest he took to school. We invited 11 boys and had 8 of them come to the party. We did it from 4-7 on his birthday (a friday).

My mom was so kind to help me out and made Ben's birthday cake. He requested a carrot cake and she made 3 layers for us. I frosted them. Remind me to use a recipe next time. It was not so great. Way too much powdered sugar, not enough butter. So, it was like the cornstarch water stuff. Runny, but thick at the same time. I tried to make waves but they wouldn't hold up. The Avatar has to master his bending skills: air, water, earth and fire. So the cake was made up of each element. Water = frosting. Earth = chocolate rocks. Fire = sparkler candles. And the Avatar was an air-bender, so he is in the middle. I can't take credit for the idea, I found it on the here http://lechateaudesfleurs.blogspot.com/2010/07/avatar-last-air-bender-party.html and hers looked so much nicer.

I made cake-balls for Ben to take to school for his class. He was so excited about this birthday. He'd been talking about it, to anyone who would listen, for about a month! I took the kids with me on some last minute errands: picking up balloons, candy for the party and ice cream.

At home, Joshua played with the balloons. He was pulling them behind him, but kind of scared to have such a big thing following him, that he started running and getting more scared. I thought it was funny. (Now if he had cried it wouldn't have been so funny!)

We got everything ready and the streamers up just before Ben got home. He was happy to see it decorated and then counted the minutes til his party.

We shaved his head and used washable markers to make an Avatar arrow on his head.

We had it set up so that the boys would do an activity for each of the 4 elements. Some turned out well, the others could have used some tweaking. We started with a fire obstacle course. They were supposed to maneuver around the fires and hold a flame on their hand. We ditched the flame holding. It was too hard with the breeze. I had made tissue paper flames for our water activity. But they kept blowing off the boys hands. When it wasn't their turn, the boys were off playing elsewhere. But they seemed to enjoy it saying of the 4 it was their favorite. Next we did a rock hunt. I had made treasure stones and hidden them around the yard. I had issues with the treasure stones. First, they are made with used coffee grounds. I put off finding some until a few days before the party. I didn't have enough to make a double batch, so I added cocoa powder. It made them very chocolate looking, like cookies more than rocks. But then they blended into the yard really well. The boys found them and broke them open and inside each rock was an Avatar ring.

We were airbenders next. I had two strings stretched between the club house and the garage. On each string was a straw. The boys had to blow up a balloon and, without tying it, we taped them to the straw and raced them to the other side. The boys learned that the bigger balloons didn't go as quick as the smaller ones. And that if it was too small it also went slow. We taught them how to screech their balloons, too.

Then we headed out front with some squirt guns and my tissue paper flames. As water-benders they were supposed to use the water in their guns to "put out" the flames. AKA spray the tissue paper until it fell over! That one was a flop - pun intended. The boys didn't want to take turns (guess I should have bought them all their own guns, but knew it wasn't really "get-wet" weather). And some of the boys couldn't pull the trigger hard enough to get the stream of water to the flame. I had wanted to use real flames on little candles, but the breeze was just enough to keep the fires out.

Reed, Britten, Gabe, Sterling, Marcus, and Matthew

We then opened presents. Ben was thoroughly spoiled. He received one gift from a friend that was above and beyond what I felt was normal. So much of a gift that I wondered if we were supposed to give it back. But, we didn't and Ben was able to buy a new bike! So, yeah, happy birthday Ben!

Then we ate pizza, yum! I just bought a bunch of frozen pizzas. It's yummy and what I could afford. The boys ate their fill and we went straight to the cake and ice cream because some of the boys had to leave early.

Then it was out to the yard for a game of soccer with Ben's new soccer ball. I had to referee! I thought they'd just be able to go out and kick the ball. But, our world is so competitive that all these boys knew was rules and "he's cheating!" Can't you just kick the ball and if it goes in the goal it's a point? No, the boys were worried about "hands" and fouls and practically fighting to tears. I think overall they had a good time, though.

Ben's been waiting for this birthday for another reason. He got to have his first sleepover. I think I'm okay with one at a time. But, not sure how I feel about him sleeping somewhere else. We let him have 2 friends spend the night. They watched "Tron" and ate more pizza and ice cream. Then it was "boys go to sleep" for a few hours and threats at 5 am when they woke up again. But, all in all it was fun. I was completely ready for them to go home the next day and get back to regular life. And I don't have to do another birthday party for 2 years when Joshua turns 4!

Britten, Reed and Ben

2011-04-19T15:58:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, Kannon brought in a load of sand. He just left it in a pile for the kids to play in for a bit. I'm sick of the sand already! I made everyone shake off and undress at the back door. Then I swept the house while the took showers. Painful showers for Josh and Sarah. They spent most of the day in shorts/skirt in the sand. A combination of sunburn, sandburn, and for Joshua a raw bum from diahreah. On Sunday I told them over and over again, "NO sand today!" They didn't listen for long. And I found them all in the sand again. I can't wait for it to be spread out. I don't like having sand all over my floors.

Thought I'd throw on a couple pics of the bathroom the way it looks right now. The paint we used for the tub was white. Pure white. But, it's turned kind of yellow. Must be from the metal. I wonder if one more coat of paint would solve the problem?

Not sure how this video will be for viewing, but we've really enjoyed watching Joshua's responses to music. He dances and bobs his head and claps his hands. He's pretty good at matching the beat. Maybe I've got a musician. This video was taken the day we brought in the tub. We had moved our bed up and out of the way, and Josh and Sarah were dancing on the food storage boxes.

Money Matters and Family time.

2011-04-19T11:43:00.000-07:00

So, Kannon was laid off again for a few weeks. We didn't feel too much worry. I think, for me, it's a showing of my faith. I'm trusting the Lord more, that He will take care of us at all times. The day after his lay-off, he got a call from his old company. They let him know that they wanted to hire him in 2-3 weeks. It was only a few days later that he got the call to come in. So, he was off for about a week and a half. Money has been tight. My biggest worry was that we had $900 in medical bills due right then. $500 from Kannon's ER visit in November and $100 for each of the rest of us for a visit to the urgent care in February. We have struggled with the medical stuff. Just the fact that we don't really have a doctor. None of the Fallon doctors are covered by our insurance. The ER is covered, but the doctor who sees you is not. And the Urgent Care in Fernley (30 mins. away) is covered. We could get a doctor in Reno, but that's 60 miles away and doesn't seem like the best idea, but one we're probably going to have to choose. Anyway, I was worried about what to do with those bills and Kannon was anxious to get our bathroom done. He chose to sell his gold coin. We got almost $1300 for it. We were able to pay those bills and have enough to buy our vanity and sink. We had a fun time finding the right stuff. We thought the vanity we wanted was at Home Depot. We had some stuff to return there and stopped in Carson City to do just that. We found the vanity, but weren't quite sure. We weren't impressed with the sinks, so we went to Lowe's to check there. We found the sink top we wanted for $108, but they didn't have any in stock. They were a clearance item (from $220) and they weren't going to get any more, but the store in Reno had 6 of them. So, we drove around to Reno and got our sink top......for $57!!! That was awesome, plus we had a coupon for $5 off. Then we ran across the street to Home Depot and picked up the vanity. We already had the fixtures, from a Lowe's clearance, too. $25 from original price of $99. I bought different handles and knobs for the vanity to match what we have in the bathroom.

Kannon was a busy bee the days he was off. He got up to take care of the kids in the morning and let me sleep in a couple of times. Ben and Kannon made pancakes. . . . . .

Dug out weeds and tilled the garden area. Also mowed down the weed/grasses growing on the side of the house. . . . . .

I loved how Josh got in on the action. It was fun to watch him copy his daddy.

We enjoyed the nicer weather. We were actually a bit cold right here and shortly went in. We went out for ice cream at DQ. Joshua did pretty well with his first ice cream cone.

Back to the bathroom. We had already purchased the wainscoting and trim so we got that put up while Kannon was still off. That was a tough job for us. Kannon doesn't do well with imperfection and, since this was new to us, it was far from perfect. But, it's done and mostly looks pretty nice. The rest of the caulking and touch-ups will leave it looking pretty grand.

Kannon also wire-brushed and painted the claw foot tub that has been sitting on our deck for 4 years. We had a couple (okay 5) of our male friends come over and help move it into the bathroom. It's not hooked up yet because that fixture is not cheap! Hopefully soon. I can't wait to have some relaxing baths there. In a room that I can lock! We can do that now, lock doors. We also bought a new toilet and Kannon got that installed. If you come over to check out the bathroom, Sarah will flush it for you! I think we're all a bit proud of the new bathroom. And it's nice to know that I can lock the doors now that we have 2 toilets.

We didn't get to go to the fundraiser dinner for Ben's school (because of money) but I did make cinnamon rolls for the auction. We, of course, ate our share of them, too.

We enjoyed the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A time to listen to the words of the prophet and other leaders of the church. We watched from the comfort of our .... bed!! We don't get the BYU channel, but we do have the internet, in our room. So, we all piled in there and were able to get something out of most of it! We did go out to my parents house for the last session.

Our computer and President Monson.

And I gave Joshua his first haircut with the clippers. He thought it tickled, but did really well to sit for me. He's now a toddler and not my baby anymore. It's sort of sad. I started thinking about what I'd do when he goes to school and had the (gasp) thought that maybe I'd better have another one. We'll see! Not in the works yet. And not really in my plans yet. I'm just not sure I can do another one. Elder Holland talked about Parenting 505, the class that parents-with-difficult-children take (vs. Parenting 101!). We've had that class 3 times now and you'd think I'd be an expert, right. Well, I'm not an expert and I'm not sure I want to try to be one by having another 505 child.

Smarties

2011-03-20T19:50:00.000-07:00

Tonight was fun. We've had a good Sunday. The kids have made me smile more than they've made me mad. At dinner I asked Ben to get me my camera. He asked me why, then answered his own question. "Oh, I know you're going to blog. You're going to brag on your blog. They should call it bragging not blogging." Kannon and I had a good chuckle over that one. He's pretty smart, my boy.

Sarah was looking out the window with us. We were watching it snow. She just randomly said, "I'm just going to sit right here and watch the world go by." Where did that come from?!

And Joshua was given a helium balloon today. It was in his room and the string's just that much too short for him to reach it on his own. Well, he grabbed his box of blocks, plopped it down on the floor and used it as a stool to reach his balloon. No prompting necessary when it comes to stools. I had to confiscate all of ours (2 from the kitchen, 1 from the bathroom and a myriad of other stool-like containers) but he always finds a way around that. I have a box in the kitchen of scrapbook stuff. It doesn't have a lid, but that doesn't bother him. He slides it around and steps on the corner of the box to give him a boost up.

On a side note, he's finally starting to try to speak. He's been jabbering forever. And we never know what he's talking about. He's been able to say mama, daddy, hot and ball. That's it. At 20 months we're used to a lot more than that. I think Ben was just a bit older than that when he could say the alphabet, numbers and colors (with prompting of course). I think Joshua is just too busy to slow down long enough to try. But, now he looks at me for a second and usually repeats at least the first sound of a word. Yay!

So, then our Sunday ended with a group hug. What a special, nothing extraordinary day!

Bathroom Update

2011-03-20T13:47:00.001-07:00

On Friday, Kannon and I took the youngest 2 with us to Carson City to the Home Depot. We were picking up the shingles to put on the outside of our new bathroom and the wainscoting for the inside. We asked, too, if our flooring had come in and they told us 3 more days. When we got home there was a message telling us that our flooring was in. Kannon was pretty annoyed and did a second trip to Carson City to pick it up. He traveled 4 hours that day. Well, we jumped right in on Saturday and got some of our projects done. These are the windows with the trim. There is some touch-up to do, but between us we were able to get it done without too much frustration.

Wow, you can really see how crooked this house is. Basically the space in between the windows is where the joint is for the old house and the extension on the porch (which is now our bathroom). It's pretty bowed right there. You can also see the paint color. Right now it looks pretty gray, which is the color I picked out. When the sun is shining it takes on a purplish hue. That's okay with me, because it matches the towels I bought about 2 years ago!

We put down our flooring. It's called "resilient flooring". This is Traffic Master by Allure. It is vinyl stick flooring and is a blond maple look. It was so easy to install. My knees are sore today, though. It's a floating floor and the pieces stick together with pre-glue strips. It becomes like an epoxy and doesn't come apart after a bit. To cut them to fit we only had to use a pencil, ruler and razor blade. It was actually kind of fun and I'm glad it was something I could help with.

Ben, with help from Dad, made supper for us. A lasagna hamburger helper. We told him we would start asking him to make dinner all the time now. He said he'd just make pizza all the time. Then mentioned that he'd need money and a car, too!

And this is the finished floor. I matches in color to the rest of our wood floors. I'm so excited to have this bathroom done!

Like Mother Like Son

2011-03-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago, Joshua was getting ready for a bath. He had his pants off and I remembered a picture of me as a little 2-year-old. I asked him to show me his belly button and got this picture.

I was wearing my brother Johnny's socks and shoes. He's eating popcorn behind me. The good old days, eh?

March 2011

2011-03-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

This month has been pretty much a do what needs to be done kind of month. We had the inspection on our finished sheet rock, giving us the go-ahead to finish our bathroom. We went to the cub scout Blue and Gold Banquet and enjoyed the many cakes that were decorated. I'm finding joy and excitement as the boys complete their achievements. It's still a super hard calling but it's getting better. Ben's our next boy to come in and then I get about 2 more each month this year! We'll have to figure something out to divided them up. I can't do much more than the 9 I have right now! But, I'm so grateful to have 2 capable assistants.

We enjoyed the school's book fair family night. We had dinner there of pizza from Papa Murphy's and took pictures with the Cat in the Hat. The kids each got a book and we did a few crafts. Joshua had a bumpy day. Sarah accidentally got him on the top of his head with a hoe. He came in crying with blood dripping down his forehead. I think he was most upset when I washed his head with cold water, though. It was only a little cut and didn't continue to bleed at all. Then at the book fair, he was running up and down a ramp. When Sarah joined him he ended up tripping and skinned his forehead. The next day he did something outside and has a little cut under his eye. I always knew he'd be our crazy accident kid.

Last Saturday was such a nice spring day -not like yesterday or today with the wind blowing so chilly! We (Kannon, because he's good like that) decided to go to the park for a picnic. We rode our bikes over and enjoyed an hour at the park.

Ben made our sandwiches and they were yummy. We got pretty bothered by a bee that wanted our food. I even thought it was stinging me in my pants at one point, but it wasn't and I never did figure out what was poking me.

We played on all the equipment and tossed the Frisbee around a bit, too.

On Saint Patrick's Day, Ben and I looked at each other and said, "oh, it's St. Patrick's Day" and went back to our rooms to put on some green. To my amazement I didn't have any green. If you asked me for my favorite color I'd tell you green. So, it surprises me that I don't have any clothes that color. (I did remember a shirt that has some green on it - it was tucked in the back of the closet so I missed it. I wore it the next day instead.)

Here's Ben sporting the socks I bought him. He also tucked a sticker on his shirt so he wouldn't get pinched. I told him I thought that when I was a kid, if you were wearing green and someone pinched you anyway you got to do something back. We always had to be careful with my dad who tried to be sneaky about it. What was the "something?" Extra pinches? A punch in the arm? I can't remember!

Now, Sarah wore green like only a little girl can get a way with! She wanted pony tales AND a bow on the top. So, this is what we came up with.

I made her skirt the day before. I really like the choice of ribbon, kind of like a rainbow. Speaking of rainbows, I wish I'd had my camera available earlier in the week. We put a rainbow across the top of her head with little pony holders. She kept it in for 3 days. It was so cute, hopefully she'll let me do it again.

And Joshua. He wore this adorable shirt I picked up at Target a month ago. "Totally Charming" with the Lucky Charm guy on it. (and you can see his owie on his forehead)

So the only thing I found of my own that was green was a bracelet. Not even my favorite crayola color green. It was that bright lime green color. About halfway through the day I spotted a piece of fabric I'd cut off of Sarah's skirt and tied that on my wrist, too. At least I didn't get pinched!

We spent a good few days researching, planning and building a Leprechaun trap. This was a school family assignment. And we all pitched in. It was fun to do together. I didn't get a picture of it until he brought it home from school. In the wind coming home some of it blew away. Then Joshua attacked it, but you can get the idea.

The top here is missing the slide. We built a slide out of pipe insulation by cutting it in half and using toothpicks to make a ladder. So the Leprechaun would climb up the ladder and slide down, then follow the glittery path to the gold. But just before he reaches the gold the "ground" would slip out beneath him. We cut a square out of the box top and stuck it on with toothpicks so that it would flip over when stepped on, dropping the Leprechaun into the big box.

When Ben first got started he had a bunch of toothpicks poking up for the Leprechaun to land on. I had to remind him a few times that if he kills the Leprechaun he won't be able to get his gold! So we settled for this.

The Leprechaun lands in the bowl and can't get away because of all the toothpicks! We had a good time doing this, but didn't catch a Leprechaun. Maybe next year!

Kiddie fun!

2011-03-10T11:58:00.000-08:00

For my turn at ABC School in March we were doing the letter 'P' - I decided to have a 'P' party! The kids got to wear their pajamas. Sarah and I almost forgot. We were all dressed for the day and remembered a few minutes before. I was glad to hear how excited the boys were about the day and how they'd looked forward to it. I hope it measured up!

We played hot potato and musical pillows. We had a p-word treasured hunt following clues like, pillow, picnic, pickle and pear. For snacks we had pretzels, popcorn, peanuts, pineapple and punch. We made a paper plate pizza for our p-page.

We colored princess and pirate masks and received a present of playdough, punch-balloons, and pop rocks. I had a good time, too!

Our other 'P' day was right after President's day so we did some fun activities with pennies and made popsicle stick puzzles. The kids got to have a new name for the day and they really had a good time coming up with them. We had Pepper, Patrick, Peach, and Panda. We also read, "If You Give a Pig a Pancake" and had pancakes for snack.

I'm in charge of the letter T and number 6 in a few weeks and haven't figured out what to do yet! Any ideas?

Benjamin and I remembered about the school's twin day the night before. Again. He called a few friends and was excited to be able to be twins with his friend Kale. They dressed as Salt and Pepper. It was an easy last minute shirt to make and then Kale got to come over and play for a bit after school.

Ben's been trying new things with his hair. He wants "cool" hair. I don't know how to cut cool hair. The night before school pictures (the spring ones) I remembered I'd wanted to take him to a salon and get his hair cut. But, by then it was too late. I cut it like I normally do. But, do you have any "cool" hairstyles for boys?

WET!!

2011-02-24T19:18:00.000-08:00

About a week and a half ago I bought 12 new rolls of toilet paper. Aaaaawwwww. All stocked up. Good for awhile. No? Well, my drawer of toilet paper is now empty. We didn't use it all up in some crazy toilet-loving illness. My son, Joshua, has some kind of fetish with toilet paper in the toilet. Some kids unroll the toilet paper, making a lovely, snowy-white mess. Not mine. No, he loves to stick in whole rolls! There's no saving it.

This is one roll of toilet paper from this morning, and because he couldn't see the other one hiding under a towel he threw in a new scrubby.

I was good about keeping the bathroom door shut for most of the day. Then it was bath time. He always goes first, right after dinner. Then it was Sarah's turn. He snuck in before I shut the door and, of course, made a big stink about being taken out and shut out. I didn't care. My bathroom (and toilet paper) was safe for the time being. Then it was time for Sarah to get out and she called for me to get her robe off the hook. As I got Sarah her robe and towel Joshua quickly ran in and tossed a handful of brand new Kleenex into the tub. I said, "Josh, what is it with you putting paper products in the water?" I was out of the bathroom for about one minute. Max. When I came back in Joshua was standing by the draining tub. He had tossed in Sarah's towel and the towel that was on the floor for drying our wet feet. I went out to get the camera - already composing this post!- and when I came back in he had tossed Sarah's clothes on the pile, too. My blood was seriously starting to boil. Really. My face was getting hot and my breathing was becoming rapid. So, I took the picture, rung out the towels, and started the washer.

This is Joshua pointing to his mess and "saying", "it's not just paper mom, I like to put anything in water!"

As I returned to the bathroom I heard a splash and yelled, "NO!" Yep, you guessed it. He'd found the last roll of toilet paper and plopped it in the toilet.

By now I'd had it, and he was going straight to bed. I picked him up and carried him to the kitchen. Set him down and proceeded to fill his sippy cup with milk. As I put the milk back in the fridge I noticed his medicine that he needed to take. So, I was getting that when he reached up to grab the sippy cup - minus the lid. No, I was quick, and this time it didn't spill. I put the lid on and went back to the medicine and heard a splash and a cry. You have to understand that he was on one side of the sink and I was on the other. Pretty close, but not enough to notice that instead of reaching for his sippy cup that now had a lid he was reaching for (and got) Sarah's cup of water. It spilled all down his front and all over the floor. I gave him his medicine, grabbed him and his milk and we set off for bed. Is it wrong to want to build him a cage?

February 2011

2011-02-22T14:17:00.000-08:00

I know the month isn't over yet, but thought I'd get this going anyway. We've had the ups and downs of weather, so the kids got to go out and play a bit more this month. Ben's been digging a hole in the backyard in which to put a time capsule. Joshua thinks it's a great place to play!

I love it when the kids play nice together. It really doesn't happen much these days and I feel like a crazy, incompetent mother most of the time because they aren't getting along or behaving. Dad was busy working on the plumbing for our new bathroom. The kids enjoyed helping him on this Saturday, wearing their carhartt's and all.

Thus far, we have the plumbing and electrical in and inspected (the first time). We now have a floor in and half the insulation. We got our tax return, a nice friendly sum, and have decided to put most of it towards a debt. So, the bathroom will be a little longer project.

At the beginning of the month, Sarah and I wanted some flowers. We bought some red roses. They were on my bookshelf for less than a day when Joshua started touching them. He pulled a few out now and then and I would just put them back. Then one day he pulled them all out and tore up a few. There were some with the heads torn off and some with the petals torn off. There were enough salvageable ones that I re-cut and put in different vases. I wasn't smart enough, though, and put them right back on the bookshelf. He decided he needed to get a drink from the new vase. This time I was done. I took what was left, put them all in one vase and put it up on the entertainment center. Then I had to clean up all the water. It was only about 1/4 cup but we're discovering how far that can really go!

I stayed up late one Saturday night to make Sarah's Valentine skirt. My mom had bought some cute material and given me enough to make her a skirt. I planned on doing it after they went to bed so that I wouldn't be disturbed. This pattern only takes about 15 minutes, start to finish. But, Kannon was at our friends' house helping them hook their wii up to netflix. He came home a few times looking for cords and what-not. I started the skirt around 8, but realized I didn't have ribbon for the bottom. I couldn't go to the store because Kannon wasn't home to stay with our sleeping children. It was 11 before he was back long enough for me to go. So, I finished her skirt late, but was rewarded by her joy in finding it in the morning. I made a few cute hair bows to go with it and wish I had taken a picture that day. This one was taken a few days later on our way to ABC school. She was posing! You should see the first picture with her legs crossed as if she had to pee or something!

I made this shirt, too. Well, the shirt came from the thrift store, put I added the applique from the same material as the skirt. Looking at it now, the heart should have been a tad smaller.

I had my craft on this month. I found a pattern at Skip To My Lou for these cute shoes a few years ago. They were shown as a Halloween heel. I kept the pattern for a long time and finally pulled it out to make these cute Valentine shoes for some ladies I visit each month. I added these delicious raspberry yogurt-covered pretzels as a treat that wasn't too sugary-sweet. I think it would be nice to not have every holiday surrounded by sweet goodies. The sugar consumption in our country sure contributes to all the bellies out there. Mine included. I had an epiphany the other day: if sugar prices were to double or triple then the obesity rate would probably fall. If we couldn't afford to buy the sugary foods, we'd eat less of them and it would be better for us all, eh?!

One Saturday, the weather was nice enough for us to set up our new camping tent. This is what Santa brought Kannon and I for Christmas. It's an 8x14 canvas tent, with a 5-7 foot ceiling. Very roomy, doors on both sides. We're looking forward to using it a lot as a family.

We also spent one Saturday visiting family. We went to Reno and the kids stayed with Susan and Stephen while Kannon and I went to the church cannery. We helped can a bunch of stuff and came home with 36 cans of food storage. We brought Subway back for lunch and a short visit before heading out to Dayton to see Kannon's Uncle and Grandpa.

I didn't get to do all the things I've been wanting to do for February. I made a countdown last year

http://polishfam.blogspot.com/2010/03/catch-up.html and put it out this year, too. The kids were excited about it, but we just haven't been able to do much of it. With life (scouts, basketball, homework, dinner, baths, etc.) we just haven't found time to do it all. They did get their fancy baths, a lovey-movie, a story, mail. But, I'm sad I didn't get them cards or make cookies with them. We also, had our week and a half of sick right in the middle of the month.

Ben got sick first, staying home from school for 2 days. He just had a slight fever and didn't feel real super. Then Sarah and Joshua had fevers for a night. Sarah was better after that but Josh just kept getting worse. Well, he went back and forth. He had 2 days with a fever and a day when he felt better. (That was Sunday. I started getting a head cold on Saturday, but we were giving talks on Sunday. After Sacrament meeting I took Joshua home and we took long naps.) He had the high fever again on Monday (the 14th) and Tuesday, and that's when I finally took us all to the Urgent care.

sick kids

The doctor said that was a first. What? No one brings in all of their children to be seen at once? Yes, I know it's not a technical doctor's office but let me tell you about our situation! There is only one doctor's office in Fallon that takes our insurance. The last time I called them they were not taking new patients. The ER at the hospital is covered, but not the doctor who sees you there. (We have a huge bill from when Kannon had his eye done in November.) Plus, there is always a huge wait in the ER. The next closest doctor's office is in Reno - an hour away. OR....I can go to the Urgent Care in Fernley, just 1/2 an hour away. We were there for a total of 2 hours, but that was with filling out paperwork for all 4 of us and all 4 of us being seen! He gave all kinds of prescriptions, but we only filled the ones for Joshua's ear infections. He's doing so much better now. In fact, we're all doing well, now. It's nice to not be sick.

It snowed last Friday morning. It started snowing late Thursday night (about midnight) and snowed until about 10 am. It was heavy and wet. Ben was disappointed that they didn't cancel school. He had a great time building giant snow balls at recess, though. Sarah and Joshua went out to play. Sarah got out first and Joshua wasn't very patient with all the dressing. He threw a fit - nothing new - and fell on the table. He was able to get up, but it reminded me of Ralphie on 'A Christmas Story.'

I undid the Velcro around his chin and that seemed to help some.

This isn't the best picture but I wanted to remember that he did have a good time out there. I put on my boots and coat, too and took out my cameras. Sarah made a snow angel and they really enjoyed tromping in the snow.

I pulled out the snow shovel and shoveled our sidewalk and they neighbors sidewalk. We have a lot of sidewalk since we are on the corner. Before I got the neighbor's walk done Joshua had fallen down enough times that his hands were cold. He just followed me around hollering. So I finished up as quick as I could and got him inside to warm up. We had some hot chocolate, too, at Sarah's insistence.

The snow-day aftermath!

We went to Elko for the weekend. Kannon's brother was blessing his new baby girl. We didn't know if we'd get to go because of the weather, but when Kannon got off early on Friday and the roads were clear, we decided to make it happen. He spent a few hours putting down our bathroom floor, while I packed.
We got there at a decent hour and spent a great weekend with the family. Saturday night included Sasha and the cousins. They all slept on the living room floor. Grandma held them captive with her bedtime stories. I thought it neat to see where they all placed themselves. You've got Ben on the outside edge - the oldest boy, the protector. Little Lillie next to him, the Stetson, Kate and Sarah next to the couch. Sarah clung to Kate all weekend, whom she idolizes. She wanted to dress like her and behave like her and do her hair the same. In fact, she was pretty upset with me when I told her I was doing her hair for church, not Kate. Kate just turned 10. And you can just glimpse Quade on the left. He slept on the couch with his mom.

Marisha and I. We stayed up late on Friday night with a bunch of girl talk and I got to be her adult driver when she went out to hang with some friends. She IS a good driver. I didn't worry at all. It was as if she was just one of my friends driving.

And this is baby Valis (pronounced Va-lees). The picture is blurry because I still had my camera set on the snow setting. Woops! I can totally see both her mom and dad in her features. She seemed to be a good baby and I enjoyed holding her for an hour at church.

January 2011

2011-02-22T14:09:00.000-08:00

I don't know what to say about January. I was coming out of a depression. I have to say I'm not all the way out, but definitely doing much better. I entered a weight-loss competition at the gym. I regret to say that a month in and I still weigh the same. I've been going regularly, (except the week we were all so sick in Feb.) but I have a food addiction. I was talking to Kannon about it one night. I told him he doesn't understand, he's never craved food like that. After telling me he craves food I asked, "do you think about it all the time? Do you think about how you're going to get it, what it will taste like, when and where you will eat it?" No. That's pretty much reserved for us addicts. If everything goes as planned I will be going to the addiction recovery program that the church has. I just don't know what else to do. I am proud of myself for exercising, though. It's a hard thing to get out and to have to take my kids to the kids club at the gym, too.

Also, in January, we cleaned the church one Saturday, Kannon worked overtime and also a few days in Mammoth, and Benjamin started Fallon Youth Basketball. I'm glad it's only for a few months. These youth sports stress me out. Each coach is different, so when you get to the games they are always a bit chaotic and frustrating. These basketball games, for this age group, are reffed by the coaches. Ben mostly enjoys it and I keep hoping his maturity in playing with others will increase.

Ben, with the ball.

The other big deal in January was the change of Ben's class. He was transferred to a different class. One day, out of the blue (it was a Thursday) Ben's principal called me. He let me know that the teacher had pulled Ben's hair on Tuesday. One of Ben's friends/classmates had told the principal. He had been sitting on the floor near the teacher, with other classmates. He doesn't know why, but she pulled his hair hard enough to make his head yank over and bump the table where she was sitting. And that was it. He said some of his friends giggled, but nothing was ever said. Not to him, not to me. I talked to the principal again on Friday and requested that he be moved to a different class. He's doing okay in this new class. For him it's almost like starting a new school year. He's already had some issues with his temper and being responsible. His new teacher called me just last week because he was having such a poor attitude. It made me cry. I don't know why he's like that and I don't know what to do about it? And it's embarrassing. My children's behavior is a direct reference to my parenting and apparently I'm not doing the right things with them. He ended up missing his Valentine's party and was grounded from the wii and all other games for the week. He had a good report on Friday and hopefully it will just get better. She's a great teacher. As for his old teacher, I'm a little surprised that she never told me about it, talked to him or me about it, and never apologized. I'm waiting to hear the results of what happened. I know that there was to be a meeting with her, the principal, and her union rep. The Child Protective Services are also involved and came by to a get a detailed report from Ben, too. I don't know what the result was of all that, yet.

December to the New Year!

2011-01-18T12:16:00.000-08:00

We filled our Christmas month with a lot of fun family activities, plus all the normal stuff like scouts, school, church, etc.

We went swimming at the indoor pool. It was a lot colder than we would have liked and we only stayed for an hour. The kids got to talk to Santa there. Then we drove across the parking lot to the fairgrounds and watched the Swing Dancers and looked at the Christmas trees there. We all picked our favorites. Would you be surprised that Sarah liked the pink one and Ben picked the Blue one from his school?

We went to the High School to watch Ben's Christmas music program. They only do the 1st-3rd grade that night, but it's still too much. We got there 1/2 an hour early and the seats were all filled! There wasn't even much standing room. I found a seat for my mom, with Sarah on her lap. One seat for me in the next row. And Kannon chose to stand in the back with Joshua. We waited through the 1st graders and then enjoyed Ben's class and all the other 2nd graders as they sang "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" and a couple other songs.

On Saturday, the 11th, Kannon left early to help the Elder's quorum cut wood. While there our Bishop had a large part of a tree fall on him. He broke his back in 2 places, broke ribs, punctured a lung (I think) and lost his spleen. Miracles have occurred. He is doing so well. He's still at the hospital, in rehab. He's able to sit and is working on standing and I walking (I believe.) Sorry to anyone that knows more about all this than I do, I apologize if I've gotten any facts wrong. But, I do know that the prayers and fasting of his family and friends and our ward have helped in his recovery and we can't wait to have him back!

We left later that morning to find our Christmas tree. We drove east of here to pick out a pinon pine. The weather was nice, only partly cloudy, not too cold. No snow. But the dirt road was so muddy! When we got to the first big puddle and the burb started sliding I got nervous. I'm so glad that Kannon can maneuver through that kind of stuff. I finally calmed down. It was smoother driving back - less stressful for me. Maybe I just trusted him more by then. We found a good spot to start looking. We found one for our friends right away. They wanted a bigger one than us and it was easy to find. But, because we have such a small space for the tree we needed to find a smaller one. We found too small ones and ones that were missing chunks out of their sides. We found a few good ones and finally agreed on one.

Ben loved exploring. He was wishing we had a backyard like that. Even wondered if we could move out there. After we cut the trees we set up for a small picnic. I'd brought salami, cheese and crackers, clementine oranges and hot chocolate. Yum! and we were really hungry, too.

We kicked off our mud and headed back. We saw our last view of the shoe tree as somebody, in the last month, cut it down. =(

When we got home we set up our tree and got ready for our ward Christmas party. It was all it should be with children singing, good eats and Santa Claus.

For a few months I spent every Sunday evening at choir practice. We worked on a Christmas cantata that we performed as a fireside. We had small numbers so I felt like I had to be there. I really enjoyed the music (except the one song that felt very sing-songy - during practice we'd even sway back and forth!) and I got to sing a very small solo part.

After the cantata with my new friends Amy and Michelle.

We went to Reno on one Monday night for family home evening. We went up to watch the movie "Tangled". We all loved it. My favorite part was that I was able to watch the whole movie even with Joshua there! There were about 6 other people in the room. We sat at the top/back. Joshua spent the movie walking down the stairs across the front and back up the other side. He was quiet and wasn't a bother. Hurray! The kids had each saved up their tickets (earned for doing chores) to be able to go to the movie.

We got Ben signed up for basketball and he did the skills test to be placed on a team. I spent an evening learning about the new charter school scheduled to open this next school year. I'm so excited about it and am prayerful that the kids will get in (it's first come first served on the sign-ups in April).

It snowed a few times, not a lot but enough to play a bit in. We went out after one snowfall to build a large snowman. That snow didn't last the day and Ben and Sarah knocked down our snowman, so it didn't last much longer!

I'm not sure why this picture is so dark it was about 11a.m. and sunny! My favorite part is that our snowmen always have leaves stuck to them!

I took the kids to see the Nutcracker that afternoon. They've watched "Barbie in the Nutcracker" and liked it. When I offered to take them to the ballet they were both excited. By the time we got half through, they were ready to go home. Sarah really liked seeing her ballet teacher - he's the only male around to do the parts! Both kids had friends in the ballet, too. And we got to sit with our friends Kiersten, Ezra and Eliza. That made it all bearable for them. It might be a few years before I take them again. We'll see how they feel next year.

We did a large service project for a friend. She'd had someone tear out her carpets and throw the old ones in the backyard. She also had some couches, chairs and mattresses out there. We put on our boots and gloves and hauled it all out to the alley for her. Then, as we were leaving the city guy that picks up that kind of garbage came by and we helped him load it on his truck. It was hard work, but worth the effort. It felt good knowing she now had that out of her yard. And I think Ben enjoyed serving someone else, too.

We enjoyed singing songs and hearing stories at my Uncle John's house for our annual Christmas Home Evening. We ate some goodies and then left early because the kids were ready for bed. Joshua gets wild and crazy when he's tired and that's extra hard to deal with when we aren't at home. Kannon had already left to play basketball that night.

My parents went to visit some of my siblings for Christmas, so it was just us. Our friends invited us over for Christmas Eve dinner. It was nice, good food, good friends. Looking back I think I would have been okay just staying home. I'd been concerned about being alone. This was the first time without anyone! Just our little family. I really wanted to do things with others. I wouldn't change the way things went this year, but I also wouldn't mind being just us either.

Kannon worked on our bathroom. Our floor is still open like this!

He's got all the plumbing done now. It's taken awhile. He decided that while he was down there he should just run the copper for all the plumbing in the house. He says it will be done by the end of January - the inspection part of it. Then we can put down the flooring and insulate and sheet rock the walls. That should improve the cold issues we've been having in our room!

Christmas Day was nice. We got the kids up about 7. Ben was already awake but we made them wait for us. I wanted it to be that way, that's how we did it growing up. Kannon's family, and others I've talked to, let their kids get up and see their Santa stuff and then open presents together. But, I like to see the initial reaction to the Santa stuff. That's important to me.

Joshua was more excited about opening presents this time. He had fun, and still had plenty of help from lil sis.

They all got things they asked for. It's always a bit of a let down for me. That they don't seem to appreciate or enjoy their gifts as much as I think they should. Ben even lost one of his already!

Joshua and Daddy playing with the Whoppair gloves that Kannon got for Christmas.

We had a super enjoyable weekend for New Years. We spent it in Elko with Kannon's family. We got 3 days there. Lots of playing with cousins, eating really good food, playing games and a little shopping. The kids got out Uncle Kreg's fighting gear and had a few turns pushing each other around. Sarah was funny. She and Gaby were playing and as soon as Gaby hit her she came to me crying that Gaby had hit her! I thought she understood that that was what they'd be doing. AND that came after Sarah had hit her a few times already. I know, some of you have your jaws dropped right now. Nobody was hitting hard. It wasn't really fighting. It was all fun. And no, I don't think they will turn out to be bully's from this one experience, or even ultimate fighters or mania wrestlers. We don't allow hitting in anger. Anyway, I don't judge you and the way you parent, so don't judge me either! Thanks!

We grabbed a few photo opps and got a good family one. I took this one of my "boys"!

Look at Kannon! He'd grown his beard for a little over 2 months. I hated it! I hate facial hair. He was doing it with a bunch of guys from work. They were supposed to go til New Years but they ended it a few weeks early. I was one happy wife!

November 2010

2010-12-06T14:02:00.000-08:00

In November we FINALLY finished painting our house. We worked on it all summer and it just took that long to get it completed. Kannon really spurred that on. I don't like to paint. I spent over a month painting the garage, a bit at a time. He went out with a spray gun and finished the major parts of the house in a few hours!

Before - I love the Anne of Green Gables deal, but I was ready for something different.

I researched color schemes from the 1920's - our house was built in 1919 - and these were the ones I picked for our house. I felt like the were still a bit modern, too. What do you think?
I took a walking field trip with Benjamin's class to the the Museum. It was a super chilly day, the wind was cold enough to hurt my ears. I led the whole group (2 first grade classes, teachers and parents) to the Museum. We did a quick 1-hour tour. The kids didn't enjoy it as much as they do when they can explore on their own. This was my group.
Taylor, Ben, Skyler and Kale

Some more fun scouting adventures. We built wooden coin banks. It's interesting, the things I learn as we go along. What works, what I can do better next time.

We also began another remodel project. We are turning a portion of our back porch into a second bathroom. Hallelujah! I can't wait til the day when I don't have to worry about getting kicked off the toilet because someone else needs to go. Or when I can lock the door during a shower. We will be taking this project a bit slower than others because we've already run out of money for it!

before

We've walled off this wall of windows. The ones on the right side are in on this picture. We are doing small ones that are just at the top. The bottom half is walled. This day was chilly and the house got pretty cold.

Today (Dec 7th ) we've got the walls up, a closet built, all the electrical run, and a sliding door installed. Next is the plumbing and floor. We have already purchase the supplies to get that far. We should be able to get the tub in, too. We bought an old claw foot tub about 4 years ago, with the plan of using it for a 2nd bathroom. We will finally get to use it, and get it off our deck!

Sarah playing school.

Thanksgiving weekend was so much fun. I had really looked forward to spending time with my family. All of my brothers and sisters were able to come. We were only missing one sister-in-law. We ate, played games, visited, ate, put together a puzzle, worked, ate, chased children, built fires, and did I mention ate? I really love my family. I'm so glad that we are more than just family, but friends, too. And that we aren't too far away from each other, that we can at least get together about once a year.

Nathan with baby Natalie and Benjamin - playing football. Well, we really just tossed the ball around a bit.

Joshua and Natalie. They enjoyed playing in the tub more than once.

Joshua would often lay down on the blanket with his new cousin, Evan. He just loves babies. He wants to love and touch them all the time. He's really very gentle with them. Creating the puzzle. We picked this one out and then stressed about it for a bit. It was one of those photomosaics. But, really we were able to get it done in about 6 hours. Levi, David and Susan.

We took a quick trip out to the flats to shoot some guns. It was very cold. We couldn't shoot too long before our fingers got really cold. Kannon, Janet, David or Nathan, Levi and Stephen.

It started spitting on us, too. Some hail, a little rain, lots of wind.

Ben got to shoot his little 22 and cousin Tyler tried it, too, for his first time.

Ben and Kannon Kannon had a rough time over Thanksgiving. He got something in his eye on Tuesday. It didn't bother him until he was sleeping that night. He worked on Wednesday, but by Thursday he could barely open his eye and both eyes were really sensitive to light. He wore his sunglasses all weekend. We went from thinking something was in it, to thinking it was scratched, and back to having something in there. So, finally by Saturday he decided to go to the ER to get it checked out. They basically did a little surgery - cutting out the tiny piece of something that was in his cornea. He felt so much better by that evening. I wish he could have enjoyed it all a bit more.

October 2010

2010-12-06T13:29:00.001-08:00

Fallon got a lot of rain in October, the most it's seen in years for a single month. It was fun, exciting, and wet. AND I didn't have to watch for leaks in the back porch roof because Kannon and our friend, Dave, had built a slanted roof over the flat roof right before the rains came. With the rain came, moss!, new weeds, and lots of puddles. Joshua is our outdoor man. He would spend all day, every day outside if we let him. He discovered this "pool" - Twice! Needless to say, the pool got dumped and put away for the winter.

Ya know how there is a list of super-stressful life-changing events? Like a new baby, buying a house, changing jobs? Well, I'd definitely add scout leader to that list. At least for me. We've had some really fun activities, but they are so hard for me to organize and I'm still not a "fan" of boys. (I know! I've got two of them!) I am just so "girl" that I don't get them. I don't understand the joys of being rambunctious. I'm still waiting for the day when I love scouting. Everyone tells me it was one of their favorite callings.

We went bowling and that isn't stressful. But, getting the boys from the church to the alley was. And trying to quiz them all on the rules of bowling and first aid was. And then there's the getting reimbursed part. We have 3 wards combined, so I have to divide it all up and find each person in charge to give the request to.

Of course, October is the month for costumes and the kids kicked it off with a trip to the school for the Magic Night of Books. Ben was Napoleon Dynamite. Sarah was a ladybug and Joshua was a pioneer. We had fun listening to stories, eating popcorn, and buying new books.

I went to a PTO meeting and volunteered to make these picture boards. It took a lot of time and the time organization was a stress. But, they turned out great and people really enjoyed them.

Ben

Sarah

One of our ABC school days was a trip to the Pumpkin Patch. We rode the hay wagon to the patch where all the kids picked out a pumpkin from the still green field. Usually the vines are brown and the pumpkins so bright. It still hadn't frozen and the pumpkins were still connected to their vines. My keys came in handy as a makeshift pocket knife.

We then ate donuts and apple juice, all the while trying to avoid the thirsty bees. Then a quick trip over to see the chickens and goats. Joshua was in awe. He's quite the animal lover - didn't get that from us!

Sarah and her friend Lacey.

I got to finally take Sarah "school" shopping. We had a good time and only went to 2 stores. I love Target for girls clothes. We were able to do a lot of mixing and got a lot of different outfit choices. We also did a quick run into Carters. They were closing in just minutes, but had some great sales we were able to take advantage of.

Modeling for me. We didn't harvest the last of the tomatoes until November, but we had them in abundance. Joshua would eat his fill every time he went out. I'm curious to see if he is colorblind (or just a kid thing) because he would eat green tomatoes as often as the red.

Soccer ended this month. We enjoyed it to an extent. I didn't enjoy chasing Joshua. That's just a part of our life right now, but ugh, it gets old. Ben did really well. He's still improving his patience and sharing skills as well as dribbling and passing skills. He enjoyed it, and that's what is most important. He was good at waiting by the goal for his teammates to pass him the ball and then kicking it in for a goal. That's what he was best at. (giggle and wink!)

One day, coming home from school, the kids got excited about a bunch of leaves at the neighbors house. They asked the neighbor if they could rake the leaves and jump in them. Our trees don't give good jumping leaves.

Scout activity - dusting for fingerprints. We had a detective and a lady from the police station come and help with our mock crime scene - who stole the cookies? It was fun, but chaotic and, of course, a bit stressful.

We spent Halloween weekend in Elko. We went to the Nevada Day parade. It was a bit cool.

But, that didn't stop us from enjoying the outdoors. We took rides on Uncle Kreg's 4-wheeler. Went for a walk with Grandma and played in the yard with the cousins.

We dressed up. We did Alice in Wonderland. I had the idea when we were watching the Disney movie and the queen was yelling and out of control. I thought and said to the kids, "I'm just like that queen." Ben told me I wasn't exactly because I don't force them to play croquet! But, that began the idea for Halloween. We have Sarah as Alice. Adorable, I know!

Ben chose to be a card. None of the other characters appealed to him. But at least he was a trooper with the "plan".

Then we have Kannon as the Mad Hatter (and as we left for the party, and he got mad about something, Ben said, "NOW, you're the mad hatter."). And Joshua as the Cheshire Cat. I used non-washable crayola markers. But, just because they don't wash off furniture doesn't mean they will be steadfast on material. Kannon's shirt and hands were very pink by the end of the night! And since we were visiting a different ward, everyone thought he was a girl.

I was the red queen. I forgot my crown. And my scepter. I was so busy working on all the other costumes. My mom made mine - so cool. Since we wore these out of town, we can do the same costumes next year in our hometown! I'll come up with a new costume for Josh - maybe the white rabbit.

We had to leave on Sunday morning so that we could be back in time to go to our own ward. It was the kids primary program. As we were getting out of Elko (about 10 minutes in the car already) I noticed that the air in the car was getting colder. I told Kannon and he noticed that the temperature gauge was all the way in the red! We turned around at the last exit and headed over to a gas station. As soon as he turned off the burb it started smoking - which turned out to be steaming. He had meant to add some antifreeze at the homestead, but couldn't find any. Turns out he forgot to put the cap back on, so it all boiled out. We ended up adding about 2 and a half gallons of it. And we made it home without further problems.

September 2010

2010-10-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

September, for us, was busy and fun and, for me, a lot chaotic.

We started it off with a trip to Las Vegas and Boulder City over Labor Day weekend. This is the trip that we didn't get to take on New Years because of our illnesses. We'd been looking forward to it all summer. I'm so glad that nothing kept us home this time.

We got to take Kannon's brother, Brock, and Brock's girlfriend, Emily, with us. They kept the kids entertained, well Joshua. The other 2 were in the back and did pretty good entertaining themselves. Sarah got car sick on the way down there. Uck.

We spent our first midday at Circus Circus Adventurdome. That's such a fun place for the kids. They rode all the rides, Kannon rode a few. I bought a ticket for one ride and picked the crazy roller coaster. It knocked my head around way too much and I had a good headache after that. I think I'm done with roller coasters.

Brock and Kannon competed at the strong-man contest. Brock went first and got 148. The highest, strongest, is 150. Kannon walked up, took one swing and ......Bam! He got 150 - he's the strongest man ever! I was proud to be his. He won this cool hamburger pillow. And the rights to call his brother a wimp.

Brock, who is young, single and apparently wealthy, bought us lunch (which is sooo expensive inside the Adventuredome) and paid for the kids to get their faces painted.

Brock got a Super Mario Bros. mushroom, so Ben wanted a Super Mario Bros. block with a question mark on it. "It was so cool."

After Circus Circus we stopped at the M&M store. Well, getting there was more of an ordeal than just stopping. The store is on the strip. So, there isn't any parking. You have to park somewhere else and walk. Joshua was asleep, Kannon was mad that he didn't know where to go, and it was so hot (around 108 that day). He finally stopped and he offered to stay in the car with the baby. We walked and walked. But, the store was the highlight of Brock and Emily's visit. They were pretty impressed. We all picked up some souvenirs and when we came out, Yellow was waiting for us.

It was a long hot walk back to the car and a quick drive out to Boulder City. We stayed with Kannon's aunt and the kids headed straight out to the pool. On their way back in to get their swim stuff, Sarah fell (somehow?) and cracked open the back of her head. This was a first for me as a mother. We both stayed very calm, though, and aunt Karen was very reassuring and helpful. It wasn't a big cut and it quit bleeding soon, so we didn't have to take her in. She still (a month later) tells me to be careful with her sore head. She actually hit it again a week ago. She was on the tricycle, leaning back, and it broke. She hit her head on the garage cement floor and got a good-sized goose egg.

Anyway, we enjoyed the weekend playing in the pool.

Joshua had no fear. He would just get in anywhere he wanted. Good thing we kept an eye on him. He was also very mad when we wouldn't let him out there. His sleeping was touch and go. Some nights were good, others awful. He was teething - all four molars - and had been having sleeping issues at home, too.

Ben and Sarah just had the best time.

We also got to visit Kannon's grandpa and great-grandma (she's 101!). He and Brock did some good service projects for both of them, too. We love going down there and our drive home wasn't too bad either.

Oh, so we had a week of illness after that. Joshua got sick that first night back, along with Kannon's mother who was visiting for the night. She ended up crashing on the couch all day Monday. Sarah got sick after that, and Ben had one morning of not being well. Kannon and I did okay.

Since Sarah was sick, I took Ben and his friend Reed to the Lattin Farms Family Night. We'd already bought the tickets. The boys had a great time running around, playing on the bounce house, taking a hay ride, riding the cow train, feeding the goats, . . . . .

After being couped up all week with sick kids I was looking forward to visiting my sisters family in Sacramento. Everyone had been healthy for at least 36 hours, so she and I both thought it would be okay. Apparently I was infected, though, and even though I didn't get sick, it was enough to pass the bug on to her kids after we'd left. So sorry, Nancy!

But, we enjoyed the weekend there. We left super early on Saturday morning. We stopped in Reno to catch some of the Reno Balloon Races. Here's Joshua at the beginning of that adventure.

They did some really cool early morning shows. If you live around here I highly recommend it for next year.

And here's Joshua by the time we were about to leave. Good times!

We spent the day mostly just visiting. My parents and other sister and her husband had come, too. Nancy was having her newest baby blessed on Sunday. The kids enjoyed playing together. We took them to the park that evening and then we stayed up late talking. It was pretty enjoyable. EXCEPT.....Joshua broke my camera! I had the camera in my lap when he walked up and whapped at me with a toy. The toy hit the lcd screen just right and cracked it. Since then, I bought a new screen on ebay and my brother-in-law installed it for me. So, not too many pictures available from October.

ABC School started in September, right after Labor Day. I had the A day and we did some fun stuff with apples. I made these cute cupcakes, the idea coming from a Family Fun magazine. The kids didn't care for the tootsie roll stem and leaves. Oh well.

Here are the kids balancing their apple balloons on their heads. I filled the balloons with rice (idea from Family Fun, too) and a small amount of air. They had foam leaves. But, not sure the rice was a good idea, since they all got holes and lost their air.

Sarah started ballet again, we got our teeth cleaned, and I canned peaches. Then they called me to be a cub scout den leader. Aagh! I thought I had at least 6 more months (til Ben turns 8). It's been a struggle for me. Just trying to get it organized and figure out how to run the meetings. I've got both bears and wolves in the den, so I have to try and help both groups with their achievements. Chasing after my own kids during the meetings didn't help much. My mom has volunteered to babysit for me. I also am missing my assistant. She is unavailable until football season is over, so that's been a stress, too. I'm hoping it will get easier and be more enjoyable and less stressful.

ON TIME!

2010-10-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

So, this blog is actually getting a brand-new, look-at-what-just-happened update! WOO-HOO!

Joshua discovered the joys of apples. He's always wanted to eat them and I will cut them up and skin them, etc. This day, at soccer, he found the apple I'd packed for my breakfast. It was a new apple I wanted to try and was huge! Almost as big as his head. Needless to say, I didn't eat breakfast that day.

We celebrated the first day of Halloween, or in native terms, October 1st. All the Halloween decorations are up, and the kids wore their clothes. The temperature rose to 94 degrees, and here's Ben in his head-to-toe black. PE was hot!
We're looking forward to celebrating all month!

And just so you know, I'm half way through a post for September. It was started a few weeks ago, and I just can't get it done with all my family around here! Oh, yeah, I don't have the internet at home, either.

August 2010

2010-08-24T12:08:00.001-07:00

Well, for some reason I don't have my July pictures available to do the July blog, so we'll just skip into August. It's kind of been a busy month, but I foresee that September will be even more so! Joshua has grown and become more of a challenge. People often comment that he's a lot to chase after, and I usually reply that it's not so bad at home. I guess I forgot all the dishes he keeps breaking! I had put our dishes and bowls in a place that would make it easier for the kids to set the table. It took 2 broken bowls and a broken glass for me to realize that Joshua can get into them, also! I finally moved them. I'm really grateful that he didn't get hurt.

We did a lot of water days. Finally bought a little blow-up pool for the backyard. It's made the kids happy.

Benjamin won $100 at the Country fair. That was really fun. I entered a couple of pictures. Ben entered a picture he'd taken of baby Joshua, and got 3rd place = $10. He also entered the recipe in a jar. I found a cool recipe for orange dreamsicle cookies. And Ben put it together and made up the recipe by himself. Oh, they are good! And the judges agreed! Ben won 1st in his division = $15 and also Grand Champion = $75. They had to submit 6 cookies. He only had 2 left on his plate, all the others had 5 left. Obviously a hit. (Although we gave some to our neighbors and Ben's friend didn't like them.) I will put the recipe on my baking blog asap!

(Joshua also gets into the cereal boxes if we leave the pantry door open. He's always bringing out a box and digging in. He's dumped a few of them on the floor, too.)

Ben found out how to climb up the tree. He uses the garage and leans against it with his back while climbing his legs up the tree. Dad also hung a rope in the tree and Ben added a ladder for climbing onto the roof of the garage. The day he broke off a large limb from the tree was the day he got grounded from the roof for a LONG time!

The next couch will NOT be mostly comprised of pillows.

We got brave and had a water party at our house the week before school started. We had some problems though. I'd promised a water slide, water balloons, kiddie pool and squirt guns. The water slide ended up with a big hole and so we had to hook up our own sprinkler. I tried to hook up our cool ball sprinkler, but it had a hole, too. One more - a kiddie sprinkler, which also had a hole! I mean, REALLY!! Then there were the water balloons. I think we bought them last year, but I guess it could have been even longer than that. Well, I filled up the bottom of the cooler and when I came back a bit later they had all popped. I didn't have time to get more, so that was out. The kids liked the big water blasters we had, we'll need more of those for next year. So, it was a wet and wild mess. We had popsicles and frosted cupcakes. (At the beginning of the summer we'd planned on having an unbirthday party. By the time we got to the end of the summer, we just decided to combine the 2 parties. This was an Unbirthday Water Party.) We also had each guest bring a $1 gift and we did a little exchange. I thought it was fun, the kids did too. We had 25 kids there and 5 moms. I plan on doing this each summer. And next year I'll be more prepared. It seems like you have to have the goofs to do it better the next time.

Sarah, Marcus and Ben enjoying cupcakes.

Ben and some of the girls had this little synchronized water-blast thing going!

Ben and Josh playing in the water cooler the next day.

Our final hoo-rah before school started, was a trip to Wild Island. I didn't want to go, then I said I would, then the month caught up with me and it was better for me not to go! So, Kannon took the 2 older kids. I dropped them off and took Joshua with me to do some shopping. My phone died as I dropped them off and I spent the majority of my time trying to get a charger. The ones I found at Target and Walmart didn't work. I tried a few more stores and found nothing. I'm not sure why the cheap ones wouldn't charge my prepay phone. I still need to go to the service store and see what they have to say about it. But, since I didn't have a way to contact Kannon I came back to the water park and hung out. Ugh, I would have had a more productive day if I'd stayed home. Oh well. THEY had fun!

When I got there I had a 10-minute pass to find them. I stayed with Sarah while Kannon rode a ride with Ben.

(Kannon's behind that big yellow tube!)

Sarah decided she wasn't done, so Kannon took her back to the kiddie area. She finally came out and the boys stayed to ride 2 more slides. They had a great time and are still talking about it. Ben wants to buy a season pass next year. We'll see. I don't think we had enough available Saturdays to warrant that.

This is a normal Sunday morning sight. Joshua comes in to our room, climbs on the bed and cuddles up with dad while drinking his milk. He just sits there leaning against daddy. It's sweet.

The first day of school. We finally found out who Ben's teacher would be a week before school started. We met Mrs. Heser a few days before school started. She seems like a no-nonsense lady. Ben hasn't had any complaints yet. That must mean he's behaving! This morning he did tell me that, "school is boring. I should be in 3rd grade. I already know everything." Aargh. Humility, boy.

We signed Ben up for soccer and had his first game on Saturday. He scored the first goal! Pretty good for not being at the practices and just being placed on a team that morning. We'll have practices twice a week and games each Saturday until mid-October. We also signed Sarah up for ballet again. She starts on Friday. I'm excited for both of them.

On Saturday I jumped in the shower at 7:45 knowing that Kannon had to leave at 8:00 to set up chairs for a stake conference at the church. I thought about the kids eating their cereal and Joshua's knew-found ability to climb and debated whether to say something to Kannon about cleaning up before he left. Well, I didn't. And this is what I found after my shower. This was Sarah's bowl. She's not a huge breakfast fan and had left a lot of cereal and milk in her bowl. Joshua was enjoying it, patting the milk and banging the spoon. (and if you look really closely at the shelves in the background you can see the plates - the bowls used to be next to them, they are now on the shelf above.)

Saturday was all busy. We went to the soccer game and caught the end of my cousins' triathlon. Signed Sarah up for ballet. Ate lunch, painted the house and garage. Let me pause here to say that I've been painting the garage for 2 months. It's been a long process and I only could get an hour here and there. Often I'd get up and get my paint clothes on and never make it out before it got too hot. So, Kannon borrows a paint sprayer and does the whole house in 2 hours - AND finishes the garage. Aargh, again! This is the new green we painted. The bottom will be a creamy color and the trim will be a dark bluish gray (called sailboat blue). The white 2x4's will be the blue, so what should I do around the windows? The blue or the cream?

We quickly cleaned up to attend a baptism then Kannon went to leadership meeting and I hauled the kids to Walmart for a few things. We got a babysitter for the evening meeting and we all enjoyed that. It was a busy day and I was exhausted by the end of it.

So, I will try to get July done soon - we had a 1st birthday - and we'll have a lot to say about September.

June

2010-07-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

Sarah "graduated" from ABC school. (In quotes because she didn't really graduate since she's doing it again this next year. But, her class was all older and they were graduating.) Anyway, it was an occasion with caps, diplomas, clapping, popsicles and playing at the park.

Sarah and friend Madison.

Dad and Ben went to the Father and Son's outing. They went with our good friends, the Mortensen's. It was eventful. From what I know of the campout Ben fell in the creek - twice, they went on a hike and found this huge mushroom, and Ben threw up in the night - probably all those hotdogs!

They got back about 4 pm on that Saturday and Kannon left to help a friend with some plumbing issues. That was about the same time that our friends lost their son. The Mortensen's son Rex was riding behind his brother's car on his skateboard when he fell and hit his head. It was a tragic accident and my heart still hurts for them. They have the gospel and are doing so well. Rex was living his life the way he should have been. The funeral was the next week. We helped out by donating to the car wash and I led the music at the funeral. That was tough. I'm glad we got to know Rex and that he was a good example for Benjamin.

Sarah's birthday was the big item for the month. We've been thinking about it for the past 6 months! In our family we celebrate with a big party every 4 years. So this was Sarah's 4th birthday bash. She started out wanting a ballerina party and changed her mind about a month before her day - to a ladybug party. It was fun to find ideas for this and maybe a little change from the usual pink or princess parties for little girls her age.

This was our invite:

This little ladybug is at your door to tell you that Sarah is turning four!

(date)

infestation time:

fly on over to:

buzz us at:

We hope to spot you there.

Since Kannon was out of work, I did as much as I could on my own and made the cute invites myself. Sarah put on the spots. I also made a pinata. Ugh. I know you're supposed to let the paper machie dry in between layers, but my balloon shrunk and so we had a cave in on one end of it. Oh, well, it lasted only a few minutes of hitting anyway!

When the girls arrived they got to pick out a skirt. I had made these cute skirts out of a ladybug print in purple, pink and green. Then to the table to make their own lady bug bracelets. I bought the kits from the Oriental Trading Co.

After that we sent them on a treasure hunt with clues that Ben and Grammy drew and hid. That went pretty quick, but was the trick to getting some of the shyer girls involved. The prize at the end of the hunt were ladybug wings and antenna. I found the wings at the dollar store (yay!) and made the antenna with headbands, pipe cleaners and pom poms.

Then the girls really wanted to do presents so we went there. That was quick, too, but I was really pleased that Sarah remembered her manners and didn't need to be reminded to thank each girl.

I guess next was the cupcakes and ice cream. The ice cream was really soft (our freezer hasn't been working real well lately) and got pretty soupy. But, they ate what they wanted and then we headed outside again for the pinata.

I think the bat might have been too heavy for these little girls especially with the pinata as high as it was. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the pinata before it was destroyed. We let each girl have a few turns and then handed it over to Ben, who opened it in a few "whacks".

Here are all the girls in their finery. They got to take home their skirts, wings, and antenna along with a spotted bag full of candy, stickers and bubbles. We heard that some of the girls talked about it for days and even wore their skirts to church! I'm glad they came and made it such a special day for Sarah.

That evening we went out to Grammy and Papa's for a family birthday and presents. This is the cake I made for us.

I think she might have gotten spoiled this year. I bought all of her gifts at yard sales and thrift stores, but that meant I could get her so many things! She had a good time and fell asleep on the way home that night.

We did a few picnics. I'm trying to do stuff with them to make the summer more fun. Also, Kannon got a job again, only this one has him working 12 hour days EVERY day of the week. He's been working for 2 weeks straight now, hopefully ending that schedule this coming week.

Before church last week - Sarah let me curl her hair and was wearing her new dress that Grammy made for her.

Swimming lessons. They both moved up to the next level from last year, but will need to do that level one more time - need a little more experience and Sarah needs more guts. She wouldn't even jump in to someone waiting to catch her.

Ben had guts, but needs a little more practice with some of his strokes. I don't know, look at that form!

We spent a big day in Reno this last Friday - oh wait, that's not June! Oh, well. It was Joshua's 1st birthday. I know. Can you believe it? He's one! Well, because of Kannon's schedule we will wait to celebrate with him when he's home. I had to go to Reno to get a new mouth guard and then we had the rest of the day to wait. Aunt Susan and Uncle Stephen were taking Sarah and Ben to see Toy Story 3. We went to the park to eat, across the street to a thrift store to shop and use the bathroom. Then back to the park (after a quick stop for slurpee's and water) to play on the toys.

Then we went to another store, then the mall. We stopped at Bath and Body Works to get hand sanitizer and then we made an impromptu stop at the Build-a-Bear Workshop. We all enjoyed creating a bear for Joshua's birthday. You can see it in the last picture. Then it was off to KFC for dinner, where mashed potatoes were spilled and Joshua dropped his glass baby food jar on the floor - guess the result! We went over to Susan and Stephen's to drop off the kids. It was almost 7:00, so I texted Kannon and I got to trade cars with him - he took Joshua home and I had a few hours to myself where I ended up buying clothes for the kids - got some really good deals! I was super tired by the time we were driving home. And I still haven't caught up on my sleep. Late nights and early mornings, lately.

Somebody sleeps well! Yes, there is a baby in this picture. The funniest part, to me, is that Ben still sleeps like this! With his body all wrapped up in a blanket and just his face poking out and of course his legs. I worry about his breathing, though! I did uncover his face after I took the picture. He still doesn't say much, but is running everywhere and still eating everything (and I don't mean food!) He loves to be outside, where he promptly eats dirt and twigs. He's also been more accident prone than the other kids. He often has an owie on his face of some sort, or a bloody nose or lip! I love him so much. He's definitely more cuddly at this age than the other 2 were. He also likes to be chased, especially when his brother and sister play with him like that.

May

2010-07-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

We had a yard sale in May - we didn't want it to be too hot, plus we needed to get the stuff gone! Ya know, after storing and saving it for a year, you're just ready to get it out. Grandma P. had the cousins for a whole week and came over to spend Saturday with us. These are the kids from oldest to youngest. We also took the picture tallest to shortest. My kids are both taller than their older cousins. Although, Kate and Ben are 2 years apart and Quade and Sarah are only 4 months apart.

I'm pretty sure Daddy was trying to dress Joshua, when he escaped.

We had a "girls' day out"! We were able to fly Janet out for a weekend and Nancy met us at Susan's in Reno. It was a fun time! We visited for a bit before heading out for lunch at . . . .

Claim Jumper.

I got this club sandwich. It was huge. I wasn't too thrilled with it - for some reason I was expecting a warm sandwich. I definitely couldn't eat it all. But, we all had delicious food and I totally recommend that restaurant - it's yummy. (but, don't wait more than 30 minutes for a table.)

We went back to Susan's and gave ourselves pedicures. I did Nancy's for her - it would have been kind of hard to bend over, etc. (she's about due).

More visiting and fondue. We had chocolate with marshmallows, strawberries, pineapple, and pound cake. And cheese sauce with broccoli, chicken and bread. So yum.

I ended my night with a movie back at my mom's with her and Janet. I was tired, but had such a good time with the girls. Glad we can do that every once in awhile.

A few days later I took Sarah to my hairdresser for her first "real" haircut. She had this sour face the whole time. Then when Liz finished her hair, she didn't want to get down. She said she wasn't done. So Liz curled her hair, too. So cute!

And a much better attitude!

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Elko with all the family.

Joshua playing keyboard with Grandpa.

Gabby and Sarah riding the train at the neighbors bbq.

Kannon (in black) playing basketball with brother Brock. I do believe Brock won this round.

Hanging out with all the cousins! (the 3 little boys and 1 little girl were probably inside)

And there was definitely shopping to be done. I always enjoy the clothing sales we can find in Elko. And Kannon took Ben to yard sales. And wouldn't you know it, Kannon got laid off again that Friday before we left. So, June was a bit of a tight month, money-wise.

April

2010-06-23T21:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I took a little break for a few months - not really on purpose, just too hard to make the time to blog when I can't just do it at home. So, last blog was about Easter. Following right behind we had Ben's birthday - HE'S 7! We celebrated by sending homemade mini cinnamon rolls to school for snack time. That morning I had kids over for ABC school, so worked on the cake the rest of the day. As you can see, it was a detailed one - more than I usually do. He got to have 2 friends over to play after school, Malcolm and Britten. They all had a grand time.

We had cake, ice cream and presents after dinner with Grammy and Papa over. He got a new scooter, aqua sand, recorder, a bike helmet and bell.

At school they had twin day and this is what we came up with for Ben and Malcolm. They were Thing 1 and Thing 2 - on the back of their shirts was a picture of the "Things".

We did the annual Teddy Bear Tea at the Library. Sarah did the sleepiest bear.

Ben did the Papa Bear. He got first place, taking home a Hot Wheels track set.

Some time in there was Arbor day. I told Ben and he ran out to hug the tree. But, stopped here when he saw the camera!

Easter

2010-04-11T18:23:00.000-07:00

Drat! I put all these pictures on to update my blog over a week ago and here I am (April 20) just getting it finished. Here is one of the projects I worked on, now that I have so much more "free" time - no internet and tv, remember. I removed the stained white curtains in my kitchen and put up these. I sewed them myself with fabric I bought on ebay forever ago! It's brought a lot of color and pop to my kitchen. I also added some color with some new bowls I got through my AtHome America party. Just have to say that I got almost $300 of free product! Hooray!

We did doughnuts one Saturday morning because Kannon didn't get to do the "doughnuts for dad" thing at the elementary school. Joshua wanted some too!
Easter! We did our egg decorating earlier in the week - maybe Thursday evening. On Saturday we enjoyed being together as a family. Kannon and I took turns going to General Conference. When Kannon was gone that afternoon, I hid the plastic eggs for the kids - more than once! They loved looking for them.

We went out to my parents house and had our Easter dinner with them and my sister, Susan, hubby Stephen, and their niece, Serenity. We hid the eggs again that night for my kids, for me and Grammy, for the kids and Serenity. Good time, good times.

This little guy keeps getting more teeth! He's now 9 months old and has 8 teeth. He could walk if he'd get over his fear. He holds my finger to walk now - that's it, just a finger. He drops as soon as I let go, even though he could stand up. He's a chicken, and that's okay with me. After all, he is still a baby! He's so good these days. Loves just playing around the house. Adores his brother and Daddy. Sarah's just okay right now. I think she still picks on him too much. He's sleeping better. Sometimes I can just give him his milk and leave him to go back to sleep. He's done nursing. I'm glad he's doing okay with the formula, I was worried because he just wouldn't drink from a bottle for forever. But, anyway he's healthy and happy and I love him. I love my family. I think I've come a long way in the last year to be able to say that. I've had a lot of ups and downs emotionally. Probably some depression. I think staying busy helps me.

Sacramento

2010-04-11T18:12:00.001-07:00

We took a few days trip down to Sacramento to visit my sister and the boys, Tyler and Colby. Ben was on spring break and we haven't been to visit them in a few years - ack! We left Kannon at home so he could work and spent a total of 2 days and 2 nights with them. We went to the park for a picnic after Tyler's preschool. The kids really like the scooters.

We also spent some time making an obstacle course that they did over and over again.

We went to the Sacramento Temple and walked the temple grounds a few times. (Until these HUGE flying bugs started landing in my hair and the kids got out of my control!) The baby was teething - again - and had a fever. He wasn't so happy.

I loved how this bush matched Sarah's shirt perfectly -one of my new favorite pictures.

We also went to the Sacramento Zoo. I think the kids really enjoyed it. We hadn't been since just before Sarah was born, but you'd think I'd remember that it wasn't that fun. They didn't have as many animals as I think of when I think "zoo." No elephants, bears, tigers. The few larger animals were sleeping - the lion, leopard. We saw some monkeys, giraffes - they have tons of birds. And Sarah is still talking about the snakes.

They did have a fun children's play place that we stopped at toward the end. Nancy and I were really ready to be done, I think.

We really had a good time, a busy time. I'm so glad I live close enough to have been able to visit them. The kids loved being with Tyler and Colby - we don't get to see them as often as I'd like. It's different than it was for us as kids, living so close to our cousins.

Anyway, it was good as you can tell from this closing video. Happy times, happy memories!

Family Fun Day

2010-04-11T17:58:00.000-07:00

We've been trying a new reward system at our house. If a family rule is broken their clip gets moved down to warning/ time out/ and then chore. If they are caught doing good things they get to move their clip up and earn tickets. When they have enough tickets they can spend them at our family store. Ben's been saving his tickets and Sarah just does what Ben does, so they finally had enough to turn them in for the Fun Center in Fernley.
We went over on Saturday afternoon. They started out in the playland. They were the only kids there, which was kind of fun, although I know Ben would have loved playing with other kids, too. They have foam balls all over and quite a few machines that shoot them around. I enjoyed helping Ben gather balls and load them. Sarah didn't like the noise of the machines, but finally got brave enough to explore the whole area.

Then we decided to take a turn at bowling. It was fun. We all did things our own way. Sarah used the bumpers and the roller-helper thing. (Sorry, I don't know the technical term!) Ben used the bumpers, but mostly rolled his own balls. I won - woo-hoo!

We also went out to eat at Wendy's and grabbed some ice cream to finish off our day. Kannon and Ben earned that by planting the grass seeds. I really enjoy our family time, the things we all do together, when no one is fighting. Then we have Sundays. Haven't figured out how to make those work better.

March madness

2010-03-25T11:23:00.000-07:00

We've kept pretty busy over the last few weeks. Kannon had another lay-off. I wish they could make up their minds. This time they told him to put his name on the books. We were about to look into finding work in another part of the country or going up north to the mines when they called him and wanted him back. Who knows how long it will last this time. It's kind of a constant worry for me now. We were blessed to have just gotten our tax return. That, with unemployment kept us okay for the time. And Kannon's mom sent us home, from a weekend up there, with a bunch of food. We also made the leap to change our communications. We eliminated the internet and cable and changed our cell service to work better with our needs. That opens up about $120 each month. The hardest part about him being off was wanting to do improvements on the house, but not being able to spend the money on the items we would need. We did get the bathroom all done. (Well, there's a little trim painting I need to do today, and we still need a new window.)

Sarah, Kannon and I all got our teeth cleaned and all got good reports! Ben will have his done over spring break.
Lots of wet smiles. Joshua is doing so much better. Hopefully that will last more than just this week! He got a new tooth, making 6 and I'm pretty sure he's still working on one or two more. This little guy loves his dad - yay! He gets really excited when Daddy comes into the room and makes a beeline for him. He's done okay since Kannon went back to work, but is really happy to see him at the end of the day. I even got to spend a whole day in Reno with my mom. Baby did just fine with his daddy. That's also because he's quit nursing in the day. He still wakes up at night to nurse. And we've done okay with the formula. I've had some issues giving that up and keep trying. Some days he's better at it than others, but it's nice to know that he can be left for awhile now.

Making bristle block babies.

We had a really fun surprise party for Kannon's mom. She turned 50 this month and we got all but one son, daughter-in-law and grandson out to Winnemucca for a party. She thought she was coming to babysit for Sasha. When we all showed up at the door 15 minutes later she was really surprised. We just visited and ate and had a nice day together. Her brother and his wife came down, too.

We celebrated St. Patricks Day. I saw this on someone's blog. I think it was the Love Actually one. Wish I could remember for sure. So, surprised the family with this one.

I also made matching clothes for my kiddos (courtesy of another blog from a blog-hopping day!) Sarah has a skirt (Kannon took the picture and didn't know I wanted the skirt to show. =(

The baby has a tie on his onesie and Ben got the 4-leaf clover. It was fun to do and I think they liked it too. Well, the baby probably didn't care!

We've really been enjoying the spring weather. The kids sat outside one day while I worked on a project. They discovered the Napoleon Dynamite wig and took turns with it. The baby looked pretty cool too.

And just last night Joshua dumped the box of whales. I'm pretty sure we have a picture like this from Sarah, too, when she was little.

Catch-Up

2010-03-03T11:34:00.000-08:00

I guess I haven't been in a blogging mood. It seems when I come to the computer these days it's been to blog-hop. Lots of fun ideas out there and I actually did some of them this month. But, now I've got some pictures on from February, so I'll tell you what we've been up to.

Every month the school has a fun dress-up day. Last month was pajama day and since we'd missed crazy hair day, we decided to combine them. So, Ben got his first mohawk. He loved it, but mom and dad insisted it get cut off before church on Sunday! In this picture you can also see the snowflake he made for school. He cut, painted and glittered it all by himself. I still enjoy walking him to school each morning. It's only a few minutes, but it's just the two of us and that's kind of nice.

Sarah is enjoying her ballet. Although, there have been a few times I've tried to use it as an incentive, "you won't get to go to ballet unless you clean up your room/take your nap/put away your clothes/be a good girl." You get the picture. Well, she says, "fine, I won't go to ballet then." Doesn't seem to work with her. Not sure if she just doesn't care about ballet or if she knows I won't follow through on that one! Here she is showing me her bow (that's ow, not oh).

I found this magnetic puzzle of the United States on clearance and, as you can see, the whole family has enjoyed putting it together. I'm hoping Ben will learn his states better than his mom.

So, I missed the perfect picture here. I came in to get Joshua, who'd been crying for a bit. He was sitting down with his legs stuck out between the slats. I picked him up before realizing how jail-like that was. I grabbed a few pictures, but the effect isn't the same as him looking through the "bars" of his cell!

During the month of February, Joshua learned to crawl, pull himself up, sit, (in that order!). He also acquired 3 new teeth, causing him a lot of pain, and many cranky days and nights. He would much prefer to walk. If we hold his fingers and walk him around he has a path he follows from one end of the house to the other. When our backs get tired, and we put him down, he hollers! We tried a walker this past weekend, but he couldn't get past the fact that we'd "stuck" him in something and learn to move himself. I think he'll be walking soon. He's been able to stand for a few seconds, too. Now that he is mobile, we've had to take the necessary baby precautions. I'm constantly reminding the other two to pick up their paper and garbage. More than once he's stuck his hands in Sarah's leftover mush. (Yes, I know I shouldn't let the kids eat in the living room in front of the TV, but it's just so cold in the dining room in the winter time!) We've pulled paper, wrapper garbage, ear plugs, even gum and it's wrapper from his mouth. We had a miraculous moment a few weeks ago. We've done our best to block off entrance to the wood stove - because it's hot. Well, one day I heard him crying in the living room and it was the I'm really hurt cry. I came running and found him on the tile surround bumping his head on the little lip in front of the stove door. I grabbed him and ran to the bathroom, immediately putting his hands under cold water. His hands were fine, he kept crying because the water was cold. I checked his head and he had two spots that were red. I thought they couldn't be more than first degree burns, but they disappeared before the end of the day - in just a few hours really. I went back to the stove and touched the legs to see how hot they were. They were hot enough that I wasn't willing to test the lip. I can't believe he wasn't hurt more, but am so grateful. We really haven't come to any other decisions about how to keep him out so I really watch him when he's on the floor and there's a fire. At least it will be warmer soon and we won't have to worry about it until next winter. Maybe he'll be old enough then to understand "HOT". (that was one of Ben's first words!)

I made some fun countdowns for Valentine's Day. I got the ideas elsewhere and just kind of went with it. I bought the heart box for $3 at Walmart and promptly emptied the chocolates, yes, into my mouth. I think it took 2 days. I modpodged the papers on the front and added some ribbon and embellishments. I wrote the ideas directly on my decorative paper and modpodged them to the glass rocks. I actually had only little ones and used them. But, they were just too small, so I bought bigger ones and redid that part. The kids loved taking turns each day, picking out the next surprise.

This one can be found herehttp://www.somewhatsimple.com/2010/01/countdown-to-valentines-day.html

In my "research" I came across the Love Actually blog and just love it!

http://www.loveactually-blog.blogspot.com/

It has so many ideas for romantic things to do for cheap! I thought it would be fun to make a countdown jar with her ideas and put this together for Kannon and I. It included stuff like 2-minute massages and emails to each other. I think we both enjoyed it enough to use it again next year.

For our craft (one of the countdown items) we made crayon stained-glass hearts.

We did homemade pizza a few times this month. One time I made a heart-shaped one.

We spent a whole Saturday in Yerington watching basketball with some friends. Kannon became friends with RA at work quite a few years ago. Turned out he is the younger brother to a childhood friend of mine. We all went to church together when we were kids! They have 2 boys that are 6 and 7, just right for Ben. We see them every so often and these boys have always gotten along real well. The boys are in a basketball league and Kannon wanted to take Ben to watch. I told him I wanted to go, too, so we all piled in and spent the day with them.

Thomas and Ben

The week before Valentine's Day I let Ben invite a few friends over to decorate cookies. They had a good time playing and frosting the cookies. It was a fiasco in my opinion. I thought they would want to cut out the cookies, too. But, they didn't. So Sarah and I did that while they played. Then when they were baked and cooled I called them in. The cookies were crumbly - that makes frosting them kind of hard. I made 2 different kinds of frosting and everything was just a general mess. I was so tired by the end of the day with all the cookie and frosting making, so Kannon cleaned up for me. He's so good about that. He does a lot of cleaning up for me and after me.

I ended up baking bread and cinnamon rolls that week, too, and Kannon cleaned up each time. I volunteered to help out in Ben's class for their party. They got to decorate cookies, make a heart bear, and check out their valentines. Plus, there were some snacks. I was glad it was veggies, fruit and chips with dip instead of a ton of sugary stuff.

That night, the 12th, Kannon and I went on a date - WITHOUT the baby! That was fun. We went to the schools' auction fundraising dinner. It was good food and we enjoyed watching everyone bid outrageous prices for everything. Kannon was laid off that week, so we didn't spend anything other than the tickets we had bought in advance. I take that back. I had a $20 I needed to break to pay the babysitter, so I bought some raffle tickets. And guess, what!? I won. Well, one prize, anyway. As they went down the list and called numbers, I said, "I'll probably win this one" - it was for a tour of the winery with wine tasting. And it was the one I won. Crazy, eh? At least they combined 2 prizes. I also won a basket of goodies from Raley's. I told them to pick a new winner for the wine deal. But, I enjoyed most of the basket. It had Dove chocolates, a box of chocolates, a bath pouf, some red kitchen items, and a few things I thought I'd save and give as gifts as needed.

I know I've mentioned before about Ben playing basketball. This month consisted of a game or two each week. I was glad this was a short sport. The team won their last 2 games (out of 6 total). I guess that says they improved. Ben did okay. He loved to have the ball passed to him, but then immediately got rid of it - either passed it to someone else or took a shot. All of his shots were too far away. I think he could really improve if he continues to play and practice.

In this pic he is the blue player facing the camera.

I mentioned the lay-off thing. It was only for a week, then they found a job to place him on. But, now he is off again. This time they said, go find a new job, we don't have anything else. It's bad all over the state for his kind of work. There are only jobs for tig welders, which is not a type he is used to doing, or feels like he can do a good job on. I told him to take a few weeks and go to Reno each day to practice so that he can get a new job. We are trying to be faithful, that we will be given the opportunity for work to continue to meet our needs and obligations.
I stay pretty busy. I also go crazy fairly regularly. Just ask my family. I think it shows most at night when I'm up - again - with the baby. He just doesn't sleep well. He wakes up so much, sometimes every hour or two. He eats and falls asleep, but often cries as soon as I put him down, or even better, waits until I've just gotten back in bed! Last night I just let him cry. I was so tired and didn't want to hurt him. I also really stress about weight loss or lack of. I really want to get healthy again, but don't think it will happen until I can figure out WHY I eat.

Anyway, that's our life for the month of February. This year is already flying by.

IF I HAD A HUNDRED.....

2010-02-24T15:46:00.000-08:00

Ben's school had they're 100th day a few weeks ago. This week he brought home an "IF I HAD A HUNDRED..." sheet. Kannon and I both got a kick out of his thought process. 7-10 he got to fill in the 100 ________. We just love our Benjamin!

1. If I had 100 dollars, I would ... Spend it on a merbership card.
2. If I had 100 pencils, I would ... Sell them
3. If I had 100 mosquito bites, I would .., Diiiiieeee!!!
4. If I had 100 friends, I would ... Play with them
5. If I had 100 legs, I would ... cut off 98 of them
6. If I had 100 eyes, I would ... keep them
7. If I had 100 ARMYS, I would ... Make them fight Englind
8. If I had 100 PAINTBALLS, I would ... throw them
9. If I had 100 GRAVEYARDS, I would ... faint
10 If I had 100 ROCKETS, I would ... bust through the school

I love you because......

2010-02-09T16:07:00.001-08:00

We had a fun Family Home Evening last night. Kannon was in charge and found this lesson.
http://www.ldssplash.com/fhe/fhe_lessons/valen/velentines.htm
Sorry I'm no good at the link thing.

One of the hearts said, "Tell what you love about a family member."

Me: I love it when Sarah helps me make things in the kitchen. She's a great helper. - followed by a most sincere hug from said Sarah.

Kannon: I love Benjamin because he likes to do stuff with me - camping, basketball.

Sarah: I love you, Mom, because you help me pick up my toys.

At the end of the lesson Ben was disappointed that he didn't get a turn to say one. (There were only 3 of them to pick.) So, I asked him to say one.

Ben: I love Joshua because he always smiles at me.

It was sweet. And for once I actually DID feel the love at FHE!

Ben's post about Trifle

2010-01-25T19:02:00.000-08:00

We made this trifle about 5 days ago.

directions Add chocolate cake

in a bowl then chocolate pudding

then add chopped strawberries

then put in whipped cream.

This is me and Mom
with our trifle.

This is Mr. J it's Sunday
Dad and I stayed home because we were sick
Mom and Sarah went to church.

Sarah Firsts

2010-01-09T22:16:00.000-08:00

I hadn't planned on starting Sarah in ABC School yet, but when a friend wanted to get one going and couldn't find more people I agreed to do it. We are doing a condensed version. Just once a week from now til the end of the school year. There are 4 kids altogether. So, here is Sarah on the first day of school.

She's the youngest in the group. All the others will be kindergarten age next fall. She's got one more year to go. But, I don't think it will be hard for her to keep up, and it's not like I'm worried about her being behind since we have another year. But, I felt like she would really enjoy the activities and even maybe make some friends.
Writing in her journal, she drew a picture of her favorite weather. Sunny!

We also started ballet this week. I still think I may have started her too young. She is only 3 1/2! She has so much time to learn all these things. But, on the other hand, she loves to dance and she LOVED her first class with Mr. Jef.

She was upset about her slippers. We bought some last fall that were more like a slipper than for ballet use. And that's exactly what her teacher said. So, he had some used ones for her to use. She's still mad about them, "I'm not wearing those dirty slippers!" Tough.