Campfire FHE

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Yesterday was Memorial Day.
In all our horribleness, we don't really do much to remember the dead on our family.
It has mostly become a day off where we BBQ and play outside.
Seeing that Memorial Day was going to be cloudy, rainy and cold we took a rain check on the date.
Instead of having off, Jake worked, and the kids and I did our normal chores and such around the house. We decided to save our day off for better weather.

It was still family night however, and Jake proposed we go to my parents campfire pit and make a fire. We had two campers excited and dressed in layers after dinner.
It was not too cold, though they were more into the rocks than the fire or marshmallows.
Grandpa, Grandma and Uncle Bryan even joined in.

Spaceships and Astronauts

Funny moments with my kids.


We went to the park this afternoon.
Yeah!
It was finally sunny and warm to go out.

At the park we saw an airplane flying overhead.
It was ascending quickly and leaving a smoke trail behind it that was very thick.

Kate is excited
"look mom, a spaceship"

I play along.
"wow what luck, you never get to see spaceships"

The "spaceship" flies over our heads, and is within about 5 minutes out of sight, its smoke trail quickly fading.

Sam chases after the spaceship, calling for Buzz Lightyear. He pouts and yells for Buzz to come back. He runs away from me and after the spaceship. He gives me his sad face when he is retrieved.

Kate asks me if she can be an astronaut when she grows up.
When I tell her she can she spends the rest of the afternoon trying to convince Sam he should be an astronaut when he grows up too.
"don't you want to go up in space when you get bigger", "we could share a spaceship and be together."

My kids are best friends, and it makes our house the best!

Slivers and Pirates

Our days around here get funnier and funnier.
Today the kids headed out to play outside. They found an old piece of fence wood and some garden stakes I had put by the trash to get thrown out. I told them not to play with them several times. They continued. They were "building something" and they were playing nice. Kate came inside with a cut. I put a bandage on it fast and let her go back outside. Then I put them both in the bath after lunch. I noticed the cut was really a splinter. And after the bath I recruited Jake to help me get it out. The minute she saw the tweezers and needles coming out she started crying. Crying, Screaming, yelling, bargaining. She kept saying she was really scared, that she didn't like "that pokey thing", then would say things like "Let me just ask you something first." " Wait a minute, just one minute" We ended up pinning her down and trying but she was fighting us both so hard we couldn't get it out.
Sam was watching this whole ordeal. He seemed concerned and worried. I thought he feared for his sister. While we were chasing Kate down we noticed him look at his own hand. The worried look he was giving us, was that he realized he had the same problem- a sliver in his hand- but her wasn't saying a word about it. He didn't want us to see. We did though, and gave Kate a break for her complete melt down, and held Sam down. He freaked out and screamed and tried to run, but only because Kate had. His sliver was out in about 20 seconds.
Then it was back to Kate. Jake eventually held her down long enough for me to dig it out.
It was traumatic, and took more than a half an hour of fighting and chasing. And although it was sad, Jake and I both laughed a little over all the drama.

Later we went for family night to the Pirate Island in Orem. The kids were excited about the Pirates and games. Each time Kate won some tickets she would hold them up, count each one and proclaim "look I won" Kate and Sam both got a pirate patch with their tickets in the end, and some candy. Sam wore his pirate patch though he could hardly see for most the night until he went to bed and was thrilled to be a pirate for the night. The kids love pirates. I think Kate has decided the entire family should be pirates for Halloween. I hope she keeps thinking this.

If only it were Sunday every day.

My kids take hilarious pictures.

This weekend was a fast one. Jake was camping with the Boy Scouts which meant I attempted to be extra fun for the kids. We went on a picnic at Sundance on Friday night. Sadly only after our picnic did I see a sign 5 feet away that said "no picnicking". Kate was sure to tell me exactly how to go on a picnic, and how Dad was camping. Somehow she knows everything about everything lately despite the fact she has no experience doing something. For example she has never been real camping, but she informed me that Dad needed a tent, a marshmallow, a stick, and a firecracker to start a fire. Yup that is about all the camping essentials. She also was sure we were in the wrong place for a picnic, and that the forest (Sundance) was were you camped not picnicked.

Saturday Jake and I saw each other long enough to trade off kids. I did chores in the yard and house all morning with the kids, then he did chores in the yard all afternoon with the kids. I had a photo shoot scheduled with a family, who canceled last minute. Happily we planned a date last minute. Sadly the family called and wanted to be back on last last minute. I headed up Provo Canyon. We did pictures. We were interrupted by.... SNOW! I raced home and we still managed to have a date last last last minute. it consisted of going to dinner- and the grocery store. I observed that we always run to the grocery store on our dates. And I was not complaining, we usually buy things like milk, light bulbs and Ben and Jerry's.

Then it was Sunday.
I kind of love Sunday. Except for the waking up early part.
Today I awoke to children eating blueberry pancakes that had been prepared for them by their loving father. It is funny. But if I had to tell you what a happy home smells like... I'd tell you blueberry pancakes. We all know how bad my morning sickness is and has been this pregnancy. Which is why the smell of blueberry pancakes is really the smell of love. It means Jake got up with the kids, I slept through the worst few hours of my sickness, and not only are they being watched, he has made them a wholesome breakfast that they will eat. And despite Kate's claim this morning that Dad always forgets to save some for me, there are always some set aside for me even if I have to reheat them because I slept in that long.

Today we were only 10 minutes late for church. We try, we really do. And I'm kind of early to everything, so you know we are trying. Generally our lateness is due to me trying to get ready but having to take breaks to puke, not the kids. But we make it before the sacrament, and usually nobody even sits in "our pew". Plus even I am surprised how well my kids clean up. Getting the dirt from the backyard off their faces, actually brushing their hair and making them wear clothes that don't have hole in the knees is a great start. Then I dress them in matching blue and white gingham and it gets a ridiculously adorable.

We returned home with a few church responsibilities to take care of, then it was naps for everyone but Jake. We played a bit in the backyard, discovered we have peas, onions, radishes, peppers, squash and tomatoes all beginning to grow.

We ate a very Sunday dinner of roast and artichokes.
Lately I prepare a meal for my family, and realize I could easily devour the whole thing myself. Especially when the dinner smells as good as my roast and artichokes did. Why are there never artichokes on menus at restaurants? I would order them. I would order them often and pay way to much for them. Kind of like I do when a dish says it has avocados.

Currently Jake is off sand bagging to prevent flooding for some neighbors again. I hope they finish soon, because he took off after dinner and didn't take a sweatshirt and it is now dark and cold. This is the 2nd time they sandbagged this week, and I think my man looks really cute headed out the door with a shovel, holey jeans and work gloves. Jake away means the kids are up in my bed eating popcorn, ice, and watching "Fireman Sam" a new favorite cartoon in our house for obvious reasons. Not only is our Sam watching the show, he is dressed in a fireman costume to do so.

Jake and I have talked over the years about the Sunday night dread. That is how we both have felt sometimes knowing the weekend is over and you have to go to a job you don't love in the morning. More recently we have talked about how having jobs we love makes the Sunday dread go away, making Sundays that much better. How blessed we are.

Also I don't feel obligated to clean one inch of my house on Sunday.

Thanks Sunday.

Spring Finally Came

A lot of people make fun of our dog. She looks pretty ridiculous in the winter. We make her live outside, so we don't shave her at all and she looks like some kind of hairy black snow creature. When the weather warms up, we have her winter coat shaved and groomed and she looks like she lost 30 lbs. What a great dog she has been. She lets the kids tease and tackle her. Also she just started liking dog toys- though she never has in the last years. The kids have been picking out new toys and playing fetch for hours in the yard with her.
Sam shows off his hair I just put gel in. And the Batman shirt he loves.
Kate's swim suit may look familiar. Like she is wearing the same swim suit she wore last year, and the year before that. She may not grow much, but she is not wearing the same swim suit for the 3rd year running. I just let her pick our her swim suit at the store.... and she again picked out almost the same one.

The kids haul every yard toy into the pool to play with only to realize there is no room for them.
Sam reads himself a book and looks adorable as always.

We've finally been enjoying a few days of warm weather around here.
At least enough to put the garden in, mow the lawn, BBQ once, let the kids play in their pool (though I had to fill it with warm water from the kitchen) and do some digging in the dirt.

It feels like Spring around our house too with all the Spring cleaning.
Less cleaning, more like major home improvements. We finally finished the family room in the basement, then re-carpeted most of the house. That is like moving. Just instead of a new house you unload everything back to the same house. With the addition of the basement, we've had to reorganize the house, so we've been cleaning out all our storage areas and garage. And have really only begun. Thankfully I can send the kids outside to play and get something done.

Day at the Beach

We decided while we were in California we would take our kids to the beach for the day.
Partly because we wanted more to do on our vacation.
Partly because our kids have never really experienced the beach.
And partly because Kate pretends to make sand castles all the time, and talks about making sandcastles all the time. I wanted to show her what it was really about.
So after leaving Disney we headed to Pismo.
Lets start by saying we had no idea where we were going and decided to rely completely on our phones map directions to get there.
It was not perfectly clear or accurate and when we arrived, we simply couldn't find the beach.
Almost giving up, Jake was persistant and found us some sandy shore, a pier and some quaint seaside shops.
After parking, and layering up for the wind, discovering Sam had no shoes he could wear, we found a little restaurant where we ordered fish and chips and clam chowder.
Next we walked along the shops, and purchased an $8 bag of salt water taffy. Thinking we would eat some, and share some with Jake's dad who we remembered liking the stuff.
Then we walked down to the shore line, laid out our towels, grabbed our buckets and got to work on that sand castle.
While I showed Kate what an actual sand castle was and found a few shells, Jake and Sam went to dip their feet in.
A few minutes later I went to see them, and as I approached I saw Sam fall in the ocean.
Soaking wet we wrapped him in towels and tried to keep him warm then the boys built a sandcastle along side ours.
We decided to all venture back down to the shore to dip our toes in. We did. Nobody fell in this time.
Then we headed back.
Jake started running back to our stuff.
The kids started chasing after him. I thought it was cute so I took a picture.
Oblivious.
Soon I saw that Jake was really trying to scare the 30 or so seagulls.
They had found the taffy.
The taffy that was wrapped, in a grocery sack, in my purse.
They drug it out, and scattered it all along the shore. We had eaten about 6 pieces or it.
Those birds would not leave. They made the kids mad. They kept yelling "shoot" copying Jake's "shoooo" as in go away. Though "Shoot" seemed an appropriate exclamation. They also kept re-telling the story about "those birds they ate all our candy"
At this point, we came to grips with our mostly hilarious, somewhat tragic, surely memorable trip to the coast and packed our things and drove to Fresno.
Though the trip wasn't perfect, I'm glad we went.

Fresno was a nice, relaxing, warm two days. I took naps, the kids played outside, and ate their weight in farm grown strawberries.

Home again.
Back to our house that still is needing to be put back together after the new carpet came.

Dinseyland Vacation... Yes Again!

We went to California again.
I know that sounds a little crazy seeing as how we just went 6 months ago, and I am 6 months pregnant. But we couldn't pass up the chance to be together with half my family in Disneyland.
This time we met up with both my parents, my sister Amy and her little family for two days at the magical kingdom. I typed up notes on my computer about the trip at the end of it in the car- which I will insert here later. Enjoy the pictures for now.