Beloved Blanket

Oh how I miss you. I loved the way you could comfort my daughter, and turn her from a screaming, crying mess into completely content in a matter of milliseconds. You put her right to sleep with your soft minky fabric. You didn't care if you were filthier than the dirt, even though I did. But, you decided to leave us somewhere in the vicinity of the Phoenix Zoo. Let me tell you, that car ride home was not fun! Having to endure a 9 hour car ride with a tired, crying, tear-streaked toddler is not something I want to do again. So, although you decided to leave your best friend, you can and WILL be replaced.

Just as soon as I get the fabric in the mail. :)

This is when Natalie first received the blanket. It was a gift from her grandpa for her first Christmas, and it hasn't left her side since.

This was this past summer. I try to make her leave it in bed, so it doesn't get as dirty, but she sneaks it out most days. :)

No more APPLES!!!

I would not shed a single tear if I never saw another apple again. Honestly. The last week in October, one of our neighbors organized to get some Fuji apples from Washington. When they arrived, he emailed everyone that was interested, and he was selling them for $0.45/lb.! I couldn't pass that up, and since my kids LOVE the homemade applesauce that we made before, I decided to go and get some. I came home with 100 lbs of apples. That was a Friday, and all day Saturday was spent peeling, coring, cooking, blending and bottling these apples. I managed to get 68 pint jars of applesauce. Wow. They still had some apples left on Monday, so I decided to go get just a few more, so we could eat them, and I could try and make some apple pies. I just couldn't pass up the 45 cents a pound price tag. I knew Jared was going to be gone all week for work, so I didn't want to get too many. On Monday, I came home with another 100 pounds of apples!!! What was I thinking?!?! I did go and buy an apple peeler this time though. Those things are so cool! With this 100 pounds, I made apple butter, apple juice, and 1 lonely apple pie. I am pleased to announce, that all of the apples are finally out of our house. Well, except for the 20 or so that are in the fridge for the kids to eat. I am so over apples......until next year at least. ;)

My Heritage

I did this with all 3 of my kids, and Natalie's and Jacob's said the same thing, but Cody looked 19% more like Jared. I can tell, but I thought Natalie had a little more of me in her. Guess not.

My first tutorial :) Doll Cradle

I don't know if anyone would be interested in learning how to do this simple doll cradle, but I made it anyway. First, you need an oatmeal canister, or mashed potato canister. I chose mashed potatoes, because that one was bigger for our family. :) Make sure it is clean and dry. Glue the lid closed on it.



Then, leaving both ends intact, cut half of the canister away. Lines don't have to be perfectly straight.

Lay it on it's side, to make sure it rocks okay. Straighten up the edges if you are a perfectionist. ;)

Decorate any way you want. You can cover it with paper, or scrap fabric, or leave it plain. I haven't decorated this yet. Natalie saw it, and wanted it immediately. Add a "mattress" which for us was just some rolled up scrap fleece. Make a little pillow if you want. I used the same scrap fleece. Add a baby and a blanket, and give it to your little one. Our blanket was the same scrap of fleece. :) Natalie plays with this all day long, and has for a little more than 2 weeks now. I should decorate it more, but eh..she likes it plain, and I am being craft-lazy.

Crafty Moms

You might have noticed I added a button to my blog. You might not have noticed. You might not even care. But, go take a look at this blog. It is awesome! They have a ton of cute stuff, that moms make, and sell to try to get a little more cash in their wallets. I absolutely love their tote bags. I am saving up for one. They have cute bows, hats, headbands, diaper/wipes cases, binky clips, tutu's and a ton more! Nice ladies to work with too. Go check it out! By the way, they are also having a giveaway too. ;) Just don't enter, so I have a better chance of winning. Just kidding. You have every right to enter and win, so go. Go. Go.

Apples

Last weekend, we were trying to come up with something to do with the kids, that was pretty much free. I had just come back from my provident living meeting earlier that day, where we happened to be talking about apples. Did you know, there is a TON of stuff you can do with apples? I didn't. You can make applesauce, apple butter, apple jelly, apple syrup, apple pies, or just plain bottled apples. So, I decided we would take a drive up to Zoin National Park. Right before Zion, is a little town called Springdale. They have an apple orchard there. You can pick your own apples, and then pay for them. We ended up picking almost 60 lbs of apples! I don't have any pics of us picking, because I forgot the camera, but I do have a picture of what I did with them. For the next 2 days, Jared and I sat at the table, and peeled and cored all of those apples! I made and bottled applesauce and apple butter. They are sooooo much better than the store bought kind. I think I have spoiled Natalie a bit, and now she won't even eat the store bought kind. So, you are probably wondering how much applesauce you can make with 60 lbs of apples. Well, I will tell you.


All of this is applesauce. There are 24 pint jars, and almost 9 quart jars. I did end up using 4 of the quart jars to make the apple butter. I don't have a picture of that though. Jared keeps joking about us going back and getting more apples. I think he has forgotten how much work goes into it. :) I think he is suffering from a case of apple-picking amnesia. Don't they look pretty though? They are different colors, because I added cinnamon to the first 2 rows, the next 2 are natural, and some of the big ones, I added apple pie spice to. We all like the natural ones the best. The cinnamon is okay, but I think it kind of dulls the sweetness of the natural apples.

Patriot's Day

In celebration of Patriot's Day, Cody's school did a little flag ceremony. They had one student from each class stand in a line between some police officers, firemen, and military personnel. Cody was the student that was picked in his class. His teacher called me the night before, and told me that she picked him, because his behavior has been so excellent in class, and he is just doing great! I was very glad to hear that, since we have been struggling with his behavior at home a bit. Anyway, here is Cody standing in his place in line. He is close to the flag pole end of the line.

They started passing down a folded flag, and as the flag was passed down the line, they would salute to the next person in line. Here is Cody recieving the flag from a police officer. I didn't get a picture of him saluting to the next one in line, because my camera is too slow. :( After the flag reached the flag pole, they had the kindergardeners help raise the flag, and then the ceremony started. I thought it was pretty cool, and an honor to be picked. I am glad for Cody, and I hope he remembers this for a little bit. At least I have pictures for when he does forget. :)

Movies

I am not an anal person by nature. I am not a neat freak. I do not enjoy cleaning in the slightest degree. I let my house get way beyond the point of needing to be cleaned, in hopes of someone else stepping up to the plate, so I don't have to. But this....

Drives me completely batty!!! This is Natalie's latest obsession. She likes to take the DVD's off the shelf, and stack them either on the couch, floor, or a near by stool. She will spend up to 30 minutes stacking and putting back these DVD's. And in toddler time....30 minutes is like hours!

Now here is where my anal, obsessive-compulsive tendencies seep through. I have every single one of those dvd's in alphabetical order. The top 2 shelves are parent movies, and the middle 2 shelves are the kids movies. All 4 of those shelves are usually full. Every evening, Jared tries to help clean them up with me, but it just irritates me more. He doesn't put them back where they go, he just shoves them in, so then I have to go back, and redo it. I do this every day. I really hope this phase doesn't last too long. I am getting really tired of it. Maybe I should try and find a way to turn off that "anal about movie location" attitude. But then, you look at that sweet face, and how can you get mad at it? That is her saying 'cheese' by the way. Isn't she adorable? I think so. :) Just don't mind the messy hair. She pulled it out during nap time. *grr*

First day of School

Well, technically it was Cody's 4th day of school, but that is only because I am a major scatterbrained slacker, and kept forgetting to take his picture. And, did you notice....no pink shoes!! Actually I am pretty sure he would have been wearing his bright pink shoes if he didn't happen to lose them 2 weeks before at his grandma's house. I honestly have no idea how a pair of shoes can get up and walk off all by themselves, but they did. Seriously, we spent 45 minutes looking for those dang shoes, and they were NOWHERE! Even now, we still can't find them. So, he had to settle for his army shoes.

It was however, Jacob's first day of preschool. :) WAHOO!!! I promise that shirt was clean when he put it on about 5 minutes before I took this picture. That kid can't keep anything clean for more than a few seconds.

Here is the duo. Don't they look so excited to go to school? Jacob was terrified. He was hugging my arm as tightly as his little arms could grab. I walked him to the door, and went inside with him. He got teary-eyed when he found out I was leaving him there, and I wouldn't be staying. Made me a little sad, but not sad enough to stay. :) I told him I had to go get milk at the store, and I would be back for him in a little bit. Since he was only there for an hour the first day, it wasn't too bad. I went to walmart, and grabbed some milk, and some christmas presents for him, and went back to pick him up. He was so excited to see me, and finally admitted that he had lots of fun at school.

Since I took the boys school shopping for backpacks, little miss copycat wanted a 'pack-pack' too. So, I did what any doting mother would do, and went to the thrift store and found her this little cute purse for $0.25. She carries this thing around with her constantly! She has her little cell phone in there, and a bag of cereal, and usually you can find her trying to stuff her sippy cup in there as well. When she can't fit something in there, she will usually yell as loud as she can and eventually throw it across the room if you don't help her quick enough. I don't know where she got her temper. ;)

Sun Oven

I have a new toy. Being of the LDS faith, we are encouraged to have some food storage for those "what if.." moments in life. Of course, we have been taking our sweet time getting there, but we are trying. We get a little bit each month, and our storage is growing nicely. One day, Jared happened to mention to me, that if we had no power, we wouldn't be able to cook very many things before our propane tank on the BBQ grill was empty. We really don't want to have to store a year's supply of propane or charcoal for many different reasons, so we were trying to come up with something else. We have watched numerous food storage videos, and presentations, and kept coming in contact with the Global Sun Oven. We did our own research, and when our church congregation put a group order together, and this was on there, we jumped at the opportunity to save some money on it.

Of course, just like any child, as soon as it came, I openend the box to "play" with my new toy. This is what I made:


These happen to be extremely yummy whole wheat cinnamon rolls. I got the recipe from my grandmother this summer while up at her house for her 60th wedding anniversary. I adapted it a bit, since the recpie calls for white bread flour. I wanted to make them a little healthier, and my wheat bucket is just staring at me to be put to use. I got out my wheat grinder, and ground up the necessary amount of flour that I would need, and put everything into the bread maker. I really should try the conventional way sometime, since if we were without power, I wouldn't be able to use my bread machine....oh well. One step at a time. :)

I then situated the sun oven out on my driveway, and got to baking. This is what it looked like after they were done. I forgot to take a picture of them outside, so I reenacted the scene on the table, out of reach of little grabby hands.

I have to say, these were sooooo good! I have never glazed these cinnamon rolls, because to me, they are plenty sweet without them, and my kids and I don't need the extra sugar. ;) If you would like to have this recipe, just leave me a comment, and I will email it to you. Even if you don't like wheat bread and things, you can still make these with white flour. They are just as good. I promise. I have made them both ways.

Favorite shirt

I know everyone has a favorite shirt. Well, mine was recently retired with a little nudging from my sister. :( I had that shirt for 12 years. It was thin, had some little holes, and oh so comfy. It was a sad, sad day when I finally got up the courage to throw it in the trash. I got a little teary eyed as I watched the garbage truck take it away. I know it is only a shirt, but the memories from that shirt, those are what I felt I was throwing away. Silly me didn't even take a picture of the shirt to remember it by. Oh well....life goes on right?

Here is my shirt on my birthday last year. You can kinda see it. I think I wore this shirt home from the hospital for every one of my births.

Pioneer Day

When: July 24th, 2009
Where: Telegraph street and the park
Temperature: 100*
Activities: parade down Telegraph and games and booths at the park.

Participants:

The cutest darn pioneer you have ever seen. (minus the bonnett. she wouldn't keep it on.) Don't mind the messy shirt...she had a cupcake at the park, and I forgot to take a pic before we left..

stylish

I let Natalie pick what she wanted to wear the other day. This is what she came up with. A bright green and white striped tank with pink trim, and a purple and white tutu I made for her birthday. I think we need to have a little lesson on matching, and color coordination.

Mopping

I hate mopping my floors. Absolutely hate it. I wait until the last possible moment to mop my kitchen floors. My sister always asks why my floor is always dirty. Well, it is because every time I DO mop, this happens:

This was about 20 minutes after I mopped the floor. Oooohhhhh. I was so livid! The culprit:

Jacob had found a bottle of kelly green puffy paint between the fridge and the wall, and decided it would be fun to paint all over the floor, his feet, his hands, and my carpet. I wanted to kill that child. This happened about a week ago, and although the green paint is mostly off the kitchen floor, I still haven't re-mopped it. Karma....I am destined to have dirty floors until the kids are gone. Well...at least Jacob.

Sleepy baby

This is what happens when Natalie doesn't get a nap before church, and I can't get her to fall asleep during church. Poor thing fell asleep trying to eat dinner. This was maybe 20 minutes after we got home.

Fireworks

Well, since it is a week after the 4th, I thought it was time to blog about it. Now that Natalie is old enough to actually do some things, we decided to let her have some fun with sparklers. She was completely entranced by the whole thing. As soon as it was lit, she would just stare at it until it burned all the way down. Then she would hand it to Jared, and ask for another one. It was really cute. She didn't quite stay awake long enough to enjoy the little fireworks that we set off in the street, but the boys had a blast with it. There were 3 other people on our street that were doing fireworks too, so our measly pile didn't really matter this year. The boys loved being able to stay up a little later (like 11:00!) and watch all of the fireworks going off down the street.

Fruits of our Labors

We planted a garden this year, just to see what we could grow. I planted corn, carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, watermelon, pumpkins, and beans. Our corn is doing good. Our tomato plant has 9 tomatoes on it. Both the watermelon and pumpkin plants are just little plants still. They aren't very big, and they only have a few leaves. Our carrots are going great though. I have never planted carrots before, so I have no clue how long it takes for them to be fully "grown". I decided to pick one, just to see how far along it was. They are supposed to get up to 7 inches long. Here is our first carrot.

Jacob was so excited to eat it. We washed it right away, and I cut it into 3 tiny pieces, so Cody, Jacob and I could each have some, and we ate it. I have to say, for only being about an inch long, it was still mighty tasty. :) I can't wait for our other ones to be ready to pick. I think next year I will have to plant more than 5 carrots. :)

Hair

I was reading all of the blogs that I follow, and I saw the cutest hairstyle that Faith did on her girls. I kept telling myself that Natalie didn't have enough hair to do that, but after I got her hair into real pigtails, I decided to try it. I had to make a few adjustments, since her hair wasn't quite long enough still in some spots, but I still think it came out pretty darn cute. :) What do you think?

Vacation

We had so much fun on our vacation this year. It was an extremeley long drive, but we had a good time. We started our journey on Saturday, June 6. We got the car all loaded up, and headed to my mom's house. We spent a few nights there, and the kids really enjoyed playing in her pool. We then headed to Phoenix on Monday. While we were in Phoenix, Jared decided to look up one if his old missionary companions, and we met up with their family. The boys went swimming, and us girls chilled inside and played.



We spent a few days in Phoenix before we headed east to a little town called Mayhill, NM. We were in Mayhill, because it was my Grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. Wow....60 years! The kids had a blast. We took little stops along the way from Phoenix to Mayhill, to let the kids out of the car, and run off some energy. One of the places we stopped had teeter-totters. They don't have any here in St. George, so it was fun to play on.


My grandparents live pretty much in the middle of nowhere with a lot of mountains to climb, and a ton of dirt to play in. Cody and Jacob had so much fun exploring the area. They were outside pretty much all day, every day, unless they had to go to the bathroom, or eat. Here we are at my grandparent's home in Mayhill.


We headed back to Phoenix, and Jared had to get back to work, so he got a flight back, and I stayed for another week in Phoenix. I got to hang out with a lot of my family, and it was really fun. I spent a ton of time with my sister. One of the days, my dad suggested going to a splash pad at the mall, so we went there. Natalie loved sticking her feet in the water as it was splashing up.


Here is a pic of the boys with thier cousin, Cayden, at the Phx Zoo. We were waiting for the animal show to start, and the boys were dancing to the music. It was so funny.

We finally got back home on Father's Day. It was a long trip in the car by myself with the kids, but it was totally worth it. I don't get to see my family very often, so it was fun to be around them for a whole 2 weeks. Both my sister and my sister in law took way better pictures than I did, so I will have to see if I can get some of them from them.

House Rules

I am taking advice from Supernanny. My boys are extremely disrespectful, and I am getting so tired of it. They do practically nothing around the house, and that is going to change. I printed up some house rules, and hung it on the wall. Supernanny said to keep the same number of rules as their age. Well, I have a 3 year old, and a 6 year old. I have 5 basic rules. Once these ones are mastered, I will add more.

Recent pictures

Sorry I am such a slacker. We have been so busy this past month, that the blog has taken a back burner. Here are some recent pics of the kiddos. Playing on Mommy's new laptop doing "school", and the kids having a snack on our new kid size picnic table.

Hairbow Holder

I made a hairbow holder for Natalie the other day. I wasn't about to pay the $20+ for a professionally made one, when I knew I could make one for about $6. I think it came out rather cute. What do you think?



It was simple to do. I bought a wooden letter at the craft store, and a piece of purple sparkle scrapbook paper. I traced the letter onto the paper, and cut it out. Then I mod podged it onto the letter. Got some ribbon, and used a staple gun to attatch it to the back. Added the hairbows, and voila! I think I need to make the ribbons a little longer though. I have been getting into making hairbows, and I am running out of room already on the holder.

Chocolate pudding

I was trying to get dinner on the table, and I was using the oven. Natalie was being a little cling-on, spider monkey baby, and wouldn't let me put her down. I finally go so fed up, and I needed to get the dinner out of the oven, that I put her in her high chair, and gave her a chocolate snack pack. I think she had fun. What do you think? She is only in a diaper, since she was playing out in the pool earlier that afternoon.

When we were done eating, she was so mad when I threw the empty container in the trash. I then proceeded to give her a bath in the kitchen sink. I didn't want to walk all the way to the bathroom. She was filthy. She had pudding from her hairline, all the way down into her diaper. gross.

Soooo sick!

Jacob was so sick this past week. He started out with croup, and it just went downhill from there. Poor kiddo. One night about a week into his sickness marathon, he woke up screaming with an ear infection. It took forever to get him to calm down, and get comfortable enough to go back to sleep. He was just not a happy camper. Finally he had ran off, and was crying, and wouldn't let anyone touch him. Jared had gone back to bed, since he had to work in the morning. I tried to console Jacob, but he wanted nothing to do with anyone. He has one little corner of the house where he likes to hide, and he went to his corner. After about 5 minutes or so, his crying stopped. I was sitting on the couch trying to doze, and I thought I would go check on him. This is what I found.

Poor kiddo was so tired, that he fell asleep sitting up in the corner of the wall and fridge. The next day I took him into the dr, and found out that he had a massively brutal double ear infection, and was on the brink of pneumonia. The dr was really surprised that his ear drums hadn't ruptured yet. They were bulging so much, he said the ear drum was extremely thin in a few spots, and to be prepared for a ruptured drum in the next few hours. He was put on an extremely strong abx, according to my sister. Poor kiddo. Luckily, 10 days later, he is his old mischevious, monkey boy self. :)

Ponytail

Natalie finally has enough hair to pull back into a ponytail. These pictures aren't the best. Natalie doesn't stay still for very long anymore, now that she is walking. :(

I love her face in this picture. This is her "cheese" face.

I finally got the cutest video of natalie shaking her head. She does this all the time, it is soooo funny. I am surprised she doesn't fall over when she is walking and shaking her head. Oh wait....she does. :)

Soccer and easter eggs

I know I am a slacker, but it seems that whenever I get life somewhat organized, it falls apart again. And this blog, seems to take the back burner a lot.

Soccer

Cody wanted to play soccer this year. Fine by me. I made sure to ask him several times whether he wanted to play or not. Every time was a "yes". I told him that if I signed him up and bought all of the stuff, then he had to finish the season. He couldn't quit in the middle. He said okay, and I signed him up. Bought all of the stuff, and we went to our first practice. He did okay. Being in kindergarden, they don't keep scores in the games, so they are really just learning how to play the game, and the rules and stuff. After his first game, he decided he didn't want to play anymore, because he didn't get to kick the ball, and he doesn't like running. I told him too bad, and he will finish the season. Luckily there are only 3 games left. He is in the red socks. Doesn't he look so enthused...


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EASTER EGGS

We colored easter eggs today. Some of them came out really cool. Some of them....not so much. :)




See the pretty one in the front that is 4 different colors? Yeah....I did that. :) Cody did the top row of eggs. Jacob had the middle row, and I had the 4 in the bottom row.


Can you tell where Jacob was sitting?

Spring Break

I know this is a little late, but I am just now getting back into the groove of things after being on vacation for 11 days. It was nice to get away. I loaded the car, picked Cody up early from school, and headed out of town. We drove to Vegas, and had a little pit stop, so the boys could get out of the car a bit and stretch their legs. We then got back into the car and headed to Lake Havasu City. We stayed with my mom for 2 nights. We went to the beach and played in the sand. Natalie wasn't too sure about it at first, but after a few seconds, she didn't mind it, and was putting the sand on her own feet. It was cute.

We then headed to Phoenix. Our final destination for the week. We got to my dad's house, and unloaded the car a bit, and off to Cayden's birthday party we went. The kids had fun playing, and I enjoyed catching up with my brothers and SIL's and my aunt and sister.

We did so much stuff while we were there. We went to different parks, and we went to the zoo twice. The boys and I got to pet some sting rays. That was sooooo cool. They are really rubbery, but in a soft way. Really hard to explain. They had almost like that craft foam feel to them.

We went on a "train" ride. It was actually the Lightrail system in Phoenix, but the boys thought it was a train since it was on tracks. They didn't care what the real name was.

And, my wonderful, talented SIL took GORGEOUS pictures of my kids. *Andrea Whittle Photography*

I am trying so hard to get my hubby to move to Phoenix. At the moment, he just won't budge. :( Oh well. I guess I will be spending money driving down there then. The trip back was very long, and I did it all in one day. It wouldn't have been possible without the DVD player though. That thing is sooooo handy. I really want to get one installed in my car, but.....it will take a lot of convincing to spend that much money.