The Parkers

CTR

2012-02-09T23:08:00.000-08:00

Ahem... So it turns out that I'm falling behind on blogging all the posts that I was behind on in the first place. Vicious cycle! BUT.. I am determined to finish my "Best of the Unmentioned" series, even if it is quite untimely.

And there is a good explanation for my falling behind... but I can't really talk about that just yet because it is a surprise for a certain someone who frequents this untimely blog of mine.

(No, we're not expecting, if that's what you were thinking when you read that last sentence. That's a story for another day.)

I just couldn't let this week pass me by without posting this...

On Sunday Logan got his first ever CTR ring (since he's a CTR 4 now in Primary), and WOW has it changed our lives around here these past 5 days. I swear this little CTR ring has super powers! Why didn't I know about this until now? I think I've been reminded by Mr. CTR, at least 12 times each day to choose the right.

The kid wears it proud and is constantly doing little helpful things here and there because he wants to "choose the right." He has become an extreme helper around the house. It is quite nice.

And not only that, but my ability to get him to make good choices has increased exponentially. Amazing! If he doesn't listen the first time I ask him to do something, all I have to say is, "Logan - remember? Choose the right..." and he obeys! Just like that!

Too bad it's already turning his finger green... good thing they're so cheap.
I think I'll keep a secret stash of these on hand - I love his eager little attitude right now. It's too sweet.

Anniversary in Zions

2012-01-31T00:47:00.000-08:00

In August Ben and I celebrated our 9th anniversary. 9! That's just crazy to me. I wasn't expecting anything big since 9's not so much of a special number. But a couple weeks before our anniversary Ben made me open my present...

a detailed 3-day itinerary for a trip to Zions to hike The Narrows.

I panicked because I knew that would mean putting somebody out (namely my sister, Andy) for 2 full days while we were off having a grand child-less time. After a bit of persuasion and reassurance from Ben and Andy I decided to accept the gift and started getting prepped and excited! Ben had gone a few times before with Heritage kids who had earned the privilege and he had raved about his experiences so I was super excited to be going now too.

I have honestly procrastinated doing this post because of how many pictures we captured and because of the amazing time we had. So much pressure to get the post just right - It just felt like anything I showed or said in the post wouldn't capture my feelings.

But alas I'm going to try, so I have something to reflect back on and bring back so many fun memories of sweating, blisters, burning leg muscles, complete exhaustion, camera paranoia around water, expensive almonds, gift shop visors, Ben rescuing my sun glasses, beautiful, beautiful nature, total appreciation for God's creations and my handsome husband and tour guide, Ben.

**Note - there are many pics in this post... most of which will mean nothing to everyone else but us and probably all look the same. Hiking and more hiking. :)

Day1

Ben got off a little early from work and we dropped the boys off and all their gear for a 2-night overnighter at Andy and Gav's house.

Drove down to Hurricane around 8 pm and checked into our motel. Made some last-minute purchases at the grocery store and Walgreen's and of course made the essential stop at DQ for a much needed Peanut Buster Parfait.

Went back to motel to pack food and gear for the next day and decided between two pairs of quick-dry shorts that I had bought. :)

Day 2

Woke up early, ate continental breakfast and drove up to Springdale.

Parked at the outfitters to rent the special water hiking boots neoprene socks and hiking sticks (SO worth the $40).

Walked to the bus stop and rode the bus up to the gate of Zions.

Made a quick stop in the gift shop for a visor which I swore I would needed and never actually used.

And since we were just hiking The Narrows bottom up and back (instead of top down... an all day excursion) we took the Zion Park shuttle all the way up to the Temple of Sinawava.

From there we booked it up the Riverside Walk.

Hanging gardens and half of an arch along the Riverside Walk. There was no good angle to fit it all in.

The end of Riverside Walk is where The Narrows hike begins. That's where the paved tail ends and the water hiking begins.

We sat at the beginning of The Narrows to snack and get on our shoes before hitting the water.

After just a minute of sitting down these lovely little pests approached us. Cute right? Wrong. They were so annoying and started chewing through our bags to get at our food.

Here you can see the head of The Narrows trail. It's a popular hike and actually quite crowded at first. But the crowds thin out as you get further up. The water is super cold, so some people who are wearing regular hiking shoes, etc turn back.

This is shortly after we started and there was a huge crowd that we were behind for a while.

This is a slot canyon so we were walking in water most of the time, essentially hiking up the Virgin River.

...hence the reason I was so paranoid about the cameras. :) Can you blame me after this experience?

The water was knee to thigh - high majority of the time. There was only one section where I was wading up to my chest in water, and we had to hold our packs over our heads.

We were super careful any time we passed the camera back and forth. But the tricky part wasn't the deep water - it was while was while we were hiking. It was so gorgeous and I was constantly wanting to take pictures. It was annoying constantly getting in and out of my pack for the camera, so I'd hike with the camera around my neck, but then I had to be super cautious about footing in the water, etc, so I wouldn't slip and fall, plunging the camera in the water. Ooh it makes me cringe just thinking about it. The hiking sticks were a huge help, though.

an ode to our Canon Rebel making it in and out without any mishaps

Luckily Ben wore the pack with all our food, shoes, water bladder etc in it. And I got to carry a small hip pack with water bottles. Thanks dear. :)

Loved the bubbly rock formations here and how high the canyon walls shot up.

It was kind of odd seeing a butterfly since we were surrounded by so much water.

I loved being surrounded by two extremely high walls with nothing but water and rocks in between. So very cool.

See the line of people behind me? Luckily it wasn't this crowded the whole time.

This is showing the cool curvy rocks to Ben's right.

Amazing roof with bright blue water (not captured well in the photo)

This is a section we had to climb up, but I took a pic of Ben before I walked up to his level

Lunch time - wohoo! I was a bit hungry by this point. We packed in PBJ fixins and cheez its, nuts, grapes and I can't even remember what else. I just remember it tasted good...except for the generic peanut butter.

Cool little inlet that Ben climbed up. No, he didn't pee. It just looks like it.

I was actually the one who had to constantly pee because I was drinking so much. I think I had to go at least 5 times while we were in the canyon. Which, might I add, is NOT an easy feat considering there aren't very many hiding places around.

more walking and sloshing around in water.

love the canyon walls here

Another AMAZING roof. I think this was one of my favorite parts of the hike.

We named this cool rock "Couch Rock"

Other rocks were named so why not this one? See the need for quick-day clothing? We were constantly wet but it didn't take long to dry off if we were out of the water for any length of time.

This is where I lead a bunch of people astray :)

There was a group of people walking behind us. Ben crossed the river and I decided to cross just a little bit later, but apparently I waited too long. I got stuck on this rock because it got super deep just beyond it. So when I turned around to back track I realized everyone behind us had followed me and had to back track as well. Oops.

Life lesson: Never assume the person in front of you knows where they're going. :)

This is the ONLY pic we got of both me and Ben. Thanks fellow hiker!

Once again... amazing rock walls

I think these were the tops of the canyon walls that are above Ben in the pic just above

We hiked up 3 miles to Orderville Canyon and went a little ways into it before deciding to turn around. We also hiked up Wall Street a little ways before hiking the 3 miles out.

Aw, cute little slimy tadpole. I love being married to a biologist.

This is Orderville Canyon and this is probably the narrowest point we hiked through.

Wall Street before we turned around to head back. If you've seen Wall Street in NYC then the name makes complete sense.

Right after this picture I almost lost my glasses! I bent over and they slipped off and once they hit the water they were instantly camouflaged because they're green, brown and clear. Awesome.

Luckily (because Ben is practically a fish... well he's at least a fish whisperer) he has mad skills for seeing things in the water. :) He was able to make a mad dash down stream to catch up to them and rescue them. Thanks love!

Hiking on the way out the sun was finally shining directly on us at parts. But even then it was perfect temperature. I think the high that day at Zions was 104 degrees. But we NEVER felt that heat in the canyon. If anything it was almost chilly.

I think this is coming out of Wall Street

There is a huge rock called "House Rock" that is somewhat of a road block. You can either hike up and around or swim through. We decided to hike around it on the way up and to swim through on the way down.

Well Ben stuck to the plan - I chickened out because the water was freaking cold!

Later on there was another deep section that I chose to swim through because I was hot enough by then. Much better.

I think we spent 5 or 6 hours hiking The Narrows up and back. We took our sweet time on the way in stopping for pictures. A LOT. But then we booked it on the way out, hoping to get other hikes in before dark.

The crazy thing was that because the lighting had changed so much in the canyon I hardly recognized the hike on the way out.

After hiking out of The Narrows we jogged (my feet felt light as feathers walking on dry land again) back down the Riverside Walk to the shuttle stop so we could go to Weeping Rock next before returning our rentals. Man it felt so good to sit at the shuttle stop and strip off our wet boots and socks. I swear I was carrying around puddles inside my neoprene socks. Warm, warm puddles of water. Ew.

Ben standing under Weeping Rock - gorgeous

Facing out from Weeping Rock, looking down the canyon

We took the shuttle back down to Springdale to return our rentals.

We were about to call it a day because afternoon rain hit the park on our way out and plus I was wasted! I actually fell asleep in the 30 minute shuttle ride back down to the park entrance. But once we had returned our gear the rain stopped and somehow I caught a second wind and thought I had enough left in me to hike Angels Landing before dark. So back into the park we went.

Here's Ben at the bus stop snacking, waiting to go back into the park. I think it was about 5 or 6 by this point. I think?

Our goal was to hike as much of the West Rim Trail (which leads to Scout Lookout and Angels Landing) as we could before sunset, so we were bookin' it.

The hike to Angels landing is a pretty steep hike that is exposed at parts.

This is a pic of a crazy tree root that grew out and around that rock and back down into the soil. Nature is amazing. And those junipers smelled heavenly the whole way up the hike.

We made it up the 2 miles to Scout Lookout and our hike ended there. Scout Lookout is half a mile from the top - Angels Landing. BUT the trail from Scout Lookout to the top is very exposed with steep drop offs... 1500 ft drop offs.

Ben wanted so badly to hike that last leg to Angels Landing, but then I went into hysteria, literally. It was not a pretty sight, and luckily no one else was on the trail to witness it because of the afternoon rain that hit earlier. I was sobbing, freaking out, begging Ben not to go the rest of the way and physically pulling him away from the edge of the lookout. I was a mess.

But to defend myself let me paint the picture:

-we were racing against the dark

-my heart was racing because of my fear of heights

-who knew how slick the rock was from the earlier rain

-no one was around if anything happened to him

-there is a warning sign at Scout Lookout informing hikers of the 6 deaths that have occurred on that leg of the hike. Or maybe it was 4 deaths in the past 6 years? Either way - death people. Death! About one per year.

-Growing panic and fear of being a widow

-And I'm sure my exhaustion played a role in my panic attack too

Have tons of people safely done that leg of the hike? Yes. But there was no talking sense into me at that point.

And because Ben loves me he didn't go. I feel very guilty now that I held him back, but on the flip side I sure am glad I still have him around :)

But 4 miles round trip and almost 1500 vertical feet still made for a good hike, right babe? Right? (nudge, nudge)

These pics (obviously) aren't ours, but here's a view of the exposed trail between Scout Lookout and Angels Landing... no thanks.

If you want to see amazing photography from the whole hike, go to this guy's website. Amazing.

As far as he got...

Looking out from Scout Lookout

And me after my hysterical breakdown

Checkout those switchbacks - just a tad steep

On our way back down the West Rim Trail. This is just below Scouts Lookout.

Another tree root that found its way over and around the rock and back into a tiny little crevice at the bottom.

Cool little pockets from erosion right next to the trail

This is maybe half way up to Scouts Lookout. You can see the trail going all the way down to the Grotto (the shuttle stop where the trail head is).

My favorite pic of the whole trip

We ended up running down the last .5 mile of the trail because we could see the shuttle coming down the road and we didn't want to have to sit and wait for the next one to come by. It was dark by the time we got to the shuttle. Perfect timing.

This was by far the most tiring day I've experienced in a LONG time. And by far the best anniversary yet.

It was late when we got back down to Springdale. We found a mexican restaurant to eat dinner at and man did it hit the spot. We were fammished by then, so chips and salsa never tasted so good. We drove back to Hurricane and passed out for the night.

Day 3

Ben took the truck into a local auto shop to get it checked out. I can't even remember what the trouble was, I think something with the tranny. But luckily we were able to drive it back to Provo so we weren't stuck in Hurricane for another day.

Drove home and picked up the boys from Andy and Gav. In case you thought otherwise, I do have the best sister in the world. Thanks again Andy.

Wow, this turned out to be a novel. Give yourself a high-5 if you're actually still reading.

Happy Anniversary Ben - and try as we might, I don't think 10 will be able to beat this.

Zoo Time

2012-01-25T22:29:00.000-08:00

Back in August we got to go to the Hogle Zoo. I thought I took a lot more pictures than I did, but for once I scaled back my picture taking. I'll pat myself on the back, thanks.

Logan thought the black giraffe tongues were pretty cool

What has two legs, runs fast, eats meat, has snagly teeth and can be ultra scary? Logan!

Oh wait... I mean a T Rex :)

We went to the zoo during dinosaur days and this made the whole trip complete. Logan loved finding all of them and getting to listen to and examine them.

Logan loved looking at this turtle and pointed out that his shell looked like it had white spiders on it.

Standing like the little flamingo bird in the tree behind him

There's just something about the Pakers and a carousel... we see one and we have to ride it. It's practically bad luck to pass one up now. I guess that this is probably at least the 13th time Lo's ridden on a carousel and loves it every time.

But of course he had to pick the most interesting (and by most interesting I mean "ugliest") creature to ride. A praying mantis? Really? Oh well. Happy is the boy who gets to pick whatever he wants to ride on the carousel.

By this point the heat was amazingly, um... hot. I suppose a trip to the zoo wouldn't be complete without headaches and buying expensive gift shop medicine. So worth it though.

Here's Lincoln with a stegosaurus

And here's a video of Logan inspecting a spraying dino.

Every so often he would spray water from him mouth on unsuspecting passers-by. He went completely out of the way to avoid this creature, and it's not on this video but I eventually convinced him to stand with the other children and get sprayed. Either he was disgusted or disappointed because his reaction was a bit mediocre. :)

Elephants

awe... what a sweet little ape... or gorilla?

I love Linc's skinny long white legs in this pic. Like mentioned previously... it was blasted hot.

After that we headed into Heber for a cousin's birthday party.

This was Logan finishing up his zoo book that I made him. It was actually quite wonderful at keeping him going, searching, coloring, and on task the whole day.

one page was zoo bingo

This trip really was all about Logan since Linc was so young, but I'm excited to go again this year because I know Lincoln would love it now. Especially since he knows more animal sounds (even if they do all sound the same ;)

Beat the August Heat - Week of the Unmentioned 2011

2012-01-24T23:38:00.000-08:00

Well I was in a really happy mood to be posting these fun, warm, summery pics, but then I went ahead and decided to try the new Blogger interface....

IT'S DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!

So let's see if I can compose myself again. And let's see if I can complete this post without it turning out all whacky. I mean wacky. Two totally different things. :)

There. I just ate a mini Mickey Mouse sugar cookie. All is right in the world again. Moving on...

August was a whirlwind for us and my whole August picture file was left in a cloud of dust, so there are a few different things included in this "Unmentioned in 2011" post.

Not only was August a whirlwind, but it was HOT. Somehow that is hard to remember as my fingers are like icicles right now as I type in the middle of January.

What does HOT feel like again? I can't remember.

But all these sunny pictures do give me a small slice of joy right now.

We made a visit to Bridalveil Falls. Always fun and always bitter cold water too.

funny side note.. turned out I recognized and knew the girl in the purple shirt from Spokane, Amy Larsen I think. Her sister, Artie, was one of my YW leaders.

Logan has a wooden boat that Pa made for him to use in the ditches in Ellensburg, so he tied a string to it to sail it down the stream here.

Then there's Lincoln and his ball... also tied to a string (the ball... not Lincoln, although sometimes I wish I could tie him up. Kidding. Kind of. :)

And bless Ben and his bug catching efforts - He finally caught a dragon fly for Lo to see. Hey that's one more bug than me and my slow feet would have caught.

In August we also hit up all the Thanksgiving Point venues on $2 Tuesdays - wohoo. One of those Tuesdays we met Megan and her kiddos at the children's garden. Always a fun, hot, tiring adventure!

Megan and Miss Ruby

Sol and Lo... and Megan in the background trying to drown her child. Kidding, Don't call DCFS.

This little splash area is a huge Noah's Arc and is so adorable and perfect for little folk.

Then after Megan went running down the huge amphitheater hill to usher one of the children away from the edge of the waterfall lake (it was probably Logan, I just can't remember) and then hiked back up, we were spent. We bought all the kids orange popsicles and called it a day.

And last but not least... the slip n' slide!

Andy (after much effort, perspiration and probably a swear word or two) set up their billboard slip n' slide at the park one hot day.

You can't tell in this pic, but there are sprinklers set up at the top, and the billboards run down a gentle slope which is perfect for the little kids.

Me & Linc sliding down with Logan

Andy and Finn after he hit his head on the cement

Lots of moms came, including Knowltons and Tiffany and Megan also came too

Babies playing in the sprinklers at the top of the slide

The big kids were so good to play and watch out for the smaller ones

Tiff and Hailey

I miss those warm days! And days where the boys would totally zonk during nap time out of utter exhaustion from playing so hard.

More 2011 to come tomorrow or the next day!

The Best of the Unmentioned - July 4th & 24th

2012-01-23T20:16:00.000-08:00

My goal this year? Well one of them at least? To stay current on the blog!

We'll see about this. A girl can keep track of only so many goals, and from my list of goals that will make me a better person, this isn't really high-ranking. BUT, I sure am going to try.

I'm constantly posting things WAY after they happened because I take way too many pictures, then I have to upload all 50 pics into one post, then I get overwhelmed and I get behind, but I can't leave anything behind, so it all backs up. Then I get all anxious and burdened about it, bob lob law... (Arrested Development anyone?).

And I checked the calendar today and it turns out January is almost over. Who knew?

So it's now or never (and now is way better than last week when Ben was gone all week in CA for work. On the scale of sanity I'm sitting at a whole 85% now rather than 40% last week. And just thinking of Maegan - really, how did you stay sane last year?)

Anyway, back on track... my last chance... I'm setting a deadline for myself here... because "current" has to start sometime here...

I'll post a week of the unmentioned, most memorable things from 2012. Scratch that. From 2011. :)

Fun right? It'll be a little walk down memory lane since last summer seems like ages ago.

So first up is July 4th and 24th festivities!!!

We were lucky to see so much family last July. Lo was thoroughly cousin-ated.
Maegs and her kiddos and Jera came into town for the 4th.

The cousins were so happy to run around together again like ol' times. Matching outfits courtesy of Marm.

This was the first night that Maeg & co got into town and Logan was SO EXCITED. They were all hyper running around, oozing with pure joy to see each other again. That, and probably oozing with sugar too.

Wizard of Oz-ing at Grandma Kaye's

Morning of July 4th we did our tradition of seeing the hot air balloons go up in Provo. The balloons didn't end up lifting off that morning due to the wind, but a few of them went through the hot air fill so people could at least see them up.

I don't think Lo even knew who Darth Vader was at this point.

Then we chose family time over our traditional Provo parade. We went up to a little parade in Sugar House that was so cute and fun to be with family for.

The kids we so excited to actually be in the parade, being pulled by this sweet tractor.

The girls. And Parker who decided he wanted to watch instead of ride.

After the parade the local firetruck hooked up to one of the hydrants and sprayed water the length of the block so kids could cool off and splash and play. It was SO FUN.
The kids got right in with the help of Marmie.

Water was flooding the streets and there were puddles everywhere.

After the parade the Stake hosted a little community carnival completely with snow cones and cotton candy.

The girl who showed me all about Bieber-fever... (which I'm actually currently listening to as I type :)

Afterwards we went back to D &T's for lunch and hang out time.

These were the best two pictures I got of my guys together the whole day.

Cousins in matching outfits that Marm made. Darling.

This was the Summer of fishing in Nielsen's Grove Pond. It is perfect for going with little kids. it's catch and release, but that's all Ben does anyway.

Touching fish eyeballs...

Lo's catch... and sporting his fishing vest that matches Ben's. Thanks White Elephant!

Fireworks lasted about 5 minutes due to rain and wind.

And now for July 24th celebrations!
We had a Sam & Janie reunion that my parents came down for and it was so fun to get to see them and some of my cousins.

We had a picnic at Nielsen's Grove one night and Ben was able to help Merc with fishing for Cub Scouts.

Nana and Linc going for a stroll

Cousins!

Swimming at one day of the reunion.

Well that wasn't very painful... now I just have a few more days to catch up and I'll be "current". Yea for July 2011!

Washington Part Three

2012-01-12T22:26:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes, these are pics from the third and final part of our Washington trip that we took back in June. I can't have just part of our trip documented in our blog book, so I had to share this trip before 2012 slips any further between my fingers.

While we were in Ellensburg visiting Grammy and Pa, we took a day trip over to Seattle. We usually do a day trip like this, but usually head right into down town Seattle to visit Pike's Market, the Aquarium, etc. This time we changed it up and we're so glad we did. It was so fun to explore something new.

We headed a little further up north to Mukilteo to catch a ferry to go to Whidbey Island... one of my top 10 places I've ever visited. (Don't ask me what the other 9 are... I don't really know. ) But Whidbey Island would have to be on that theoretical list, for sure.

I have gone on ferries before as a child, but it has been a while. And neither Ben nor the boys had gone before so it was super fun for everyone.

(Minus the panicky fear I had about accidentally dropping one of my boys over the edge into the ocean. How demented is that? I don't know where these thoughts come from. It's the same fear I had at the top of the Rockefeller. :)

Our ferry was The Kittitas

And 20 minutes later we were driving off the ferry and onto Whidbey Island to find a grocery store to pick up chicken for a picnic at Double Bluff Beach. Yum!

The weather was PERFECT the whole day for us. Not a drop, and it was warm enough to wade and run around on the beach without jackets. We planned to be at the beach during low tide so it was great for exploring.

The boys had a blast digging their fingers and toes into the wet sand, searching for seashells and trying their darnedest to build a sand castle.

The final product. I think my knees were beautifully exfoliated after helping Lo with his grueling construction job.

I took Lincoln way out in the water and he just bawled his eyes out. Cry baby ;)

He was finally content after going on a seashell hunt with Ben.
(He was so little 6 months ago!)

A little soccer time

Haha - Poor Logan... this what you get with me as your mother.

As we were leaving the beach I saw a sign at the edge of the beach and thought it would be perfect to have a picture of Logan next to the name of the beach we had just visited.... but did I actually read the sign? Nope.

Therefore, here you have a photo of Logan standing on what is clearly a "hazardous bluff".

But just to give myself a little credit, the only reason I laugh about this is because we had just walked up this "hazardous bluff" which was not really hazardous at all, thank you very much.

I could have stayed for another 2 hours at the beach, but we were trying to see as much of the island as we could, so we headed north to see Admiralty Lighthouse. It was a smaller lighthouse, but still fun to explore.

And right next to the lighthouse is Fort Casey which is now just a state park. It is made up of a bunch of really cool bunkers and tunnels and inlets to climb and crawl around in.

This is the same gun as the picture above, except Lo and Ben are on the top ground level. To the right is the bluff and the ocean, and to the left is the fort and a huge lower field open area. The bunkers were all in front of and behind Ben and Lo.

The boys and I are on that same level here as Ben and Logan in the pic above, just further behind them.

Some of the tunnels were sealed up, but lots of them were still open for walking through. The funnest part was going down in one hole and seeing where you would come out.

Here's Ben and Lo going down ...

And a few minutes later they came out over here... See that dark cement in the background of the picture? That's where they went down. Crazy!

There were also lots of paths to walk on to the side of the fort. Here was a sweet little covered pathway that we went on. It reminded me of something out of Anne of Green Gables.

After Fort Casey we decided to go on a long drive to let the boys sleep in the car for a bit and we drove on a scenic road to see this amazing bluff.

We ended driving all the way north to the top of the island where it's connected at Deception Pass bridge.

From there we headed back to catch the ferry, stopping at Coupeville along the way. Once back in Mukilteo we ate at Ivar's before heading back to Ellensburg.

The best part of our excursion? Seeing all new things. The worst? We later found out that we have good friends that actually live in Mukilteo and we didn't even know it. Boo. Sorry Haupts! Next time eh?

After staying in Ellesburg for a couple more days, we drove back to Spokane on our way back to Utah.

This picture exhibits two wonderful things so I had to share:
1.Proof of the value of the dvd player we had installed in the van right before this trip.
2. Proof that little boys and their belief in superheroes is so... (for lack of a better word) Magical? Sweet? Action-packed? Yes.

(We found that Superman for just a few dollars at the Thorpe Antique/Fruit stand. What a gem of a find it was.)

And we just stayed in Spokane for one or two more days.
While there I couldn't resist trying on my wedding dress again. Lucky for me, it actually still fit
(alright, alright... I suppose the honest phrase would be, "I could actually still squeeze into it)".

And Logan had to try on a wedding dress as well. Classy.

And then my sister came over and hopped on into her dress as well. We were a bit giddy at this point. Ha.

Pa J and Linc-o

Flying kites in the field behind the house.

Me and Linc spectating

And a shot of the temple we were married in - isn't it wonderful? Ok... I'm biased.

And just think... in only a short 6 months we'll be back in Washington! Can't wait!

Mothers Who Know

2011-12-13T22:06:00.000-08:00

Sunday morning as I was saying my prayers I prayed specifically that Lincoln and Logan would be content and happy during church so I could listen to part of the talks.

One of the sisters who spoke is one of the women that I admire and look up to the most in my ward. And amazingly, I was able to pay attention to portions of her talk in between books, baby wipes, snacks, blocks, farm animals and coloring with the little folk.

Anyway, during her talk she referenced an address given by Julie Beck titled "Mothers Who Know." It piqued my interest so I read sister Beck's talk the next day and it was just what I needed to hear. I love it when that happens.

My favorite quote from her talk:

"Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world’s goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all."

I'm so grateful for the powerful examples of amazing women I have all around me, including firstly my own mom.

According to Logan

2011-12-09T17:13:00.000-08:00

I was on the computer looking at movie times just now while Logan was around the corner playing with Lego guys at the kitchen table. All of a sudden I tuned in to his conversation he was creating amongst his Lego men and I just started typing what I heard. He had no idea I was taking notes. :)

It sounded like an intense battle between two people. At least. Each line is a different voice:

"I have a super saw. Oh look at you.

I can use a vacuum to get you.

Hurry get that saw before he did!

I’ll vacuum up you! This will vacuum up you!

Oh not it won’t!

[now singing star wars theme]

I’m the master of the 'Univorse'! (Yes, he does watch Heman...)

You. Can’t. Stop. Me! Brah brah brah brah jaw jaw jaw

Grinch Grinch grinchy.

[Lots of sound effects]

This is a gun.

Now I”ll try to stop you!

Oh no you can’t.

[Machine gun sound.] (This part was intense...)

Shoot left! Shoot right! Shoot left!

Go Logan! Go logan! Go logan! You’re doing it You’re doing it! Go Logan! Go Logan!

YEA LOGAN!!!!! You did it boy. You did, it, buoooy. And I’m soo proud of that.

I have nothing left.

You 'Octomus Prime.' You have to go in time-out.

I have nothing left. Well you can, sort of.

Because I have the problem gun. (What's a "problem gun"? Sounds a bit dangerous...)

No! You can’t have mine… because... saw fight!!

You have an awfully terrified ballick."

The battle is still going... I have to make dinner now. And Lincoln spilled the whole box of Lego guys/accessories.

Lincoln's Words

2011-12-05T20:41:00.000-08:00

I'm waiting for pictures of Thanksgiving that are on Ben's lap top (hint, hint honey). And I also have a fun trip to Zions and a trip to Disneyland waiting too. But until then here's Lincoln!

We've been enrolled in the PEIP program (Provo Early Intervention Program) since September and it has been so fascinating to me. I'd never imagined all that goes into the process of little ones learning to speak. We've had a child development specialist coming to our home twice per month, teaching us different techniques to get Lincoln involved and engaged. It really has been a whole family process, not just focused on Linc. Shay is SO great with the boys and they love it when she comes.

I also just finished a series of 12 child development classes, and we're enrolled in a floor-time model class right now. Then at the beginning of the new year we're taking a Hanen: It Takes Two to Talk class which will be wonderful.

He's been communicating a lot more lately and has a couple more words. He's really latched onto signing lately and it has been a life saver being able to know what he needs. He's now bringing toys to us to try to engage us and also for help. He will stay engaged in activities for longer now and tonight I was actually able to read a book to him... mostly. His attention span is getting a bit longer and I love it. He actually has more desire to interact with us. And the boys are actually able to play side by side in the same room (without us present) for a little bit now without crying and shouting ensuing. Overall, he has been a much happier boy these past 3 months.

Anyway, I was able to capture most of Linc's latest words on video. I posted two videos here, they have some of the same things, but are different. This is mostly for the grandmas :)

He Is His Father's Child...

2011-11-18T22:57:00.000-08:00

This has Ben written all over it.

This is Logan's dinner-time box (a recommendation from Linc's PEIP worker - they're just toys the boys play side-by-side with, and they only get them while I'm making dinner).
Ben walked in the room to find Logan not only cleaning up the boxes, but he wouldn't stop until they were completely organized and color coded.

I can't deny this does give me an itch to get up and start organizing :)

And as soon as I can choose some of my favorites (because I can't post all 83 on here) I'll post our family photos and also some pics of our new roof! Wahoo!

Halloween

2011-11-08T22:26:00.000-08:00

We try to make the month of October fun around here, filled with fun and spooky window clings, a basket full of Halloween books that come out only for the month of October, a few Halloween movies, lots of candy corn eating and plenty of Halloween songs at nap and bed time. And this year there was a lot of "Arrrgghh Matey!" and "Yo-ho! Yo-ho! A pirate's life for me" going on.

(Except it sounded more like "Ho-ho, Ho-ho! A pirate's life for me" ha ha.)

Logan decided fairly early on that he wanted to be a pirate for Halloween this year. I was thrilled when I went to DI one day at the beginning of October and found both a piratey shirt and pants for Logan in one shot. Beautiful!
The shirt just needed a little altering - no biggy. I made a little vest out of left over black felt, tore a rectangle from left over red fabric, snagged a pirate hat at a party store, found a gun and do-rag at the dollar store. I made a gun sling for him from left over fabric and heaven knows those boots are glued to his feet already. Voila, one crazed pirate ready for his preschool Halloween par-tay.
Oh, and the bag. He kept requesting a loot bag with skull and crossbones on it and I couldn't resist making one. And the patch has been hanging around ever since Monkey lost his eyeball.

And Lincoln. Well, he just didn't even have a say in his costume. When I saw a photo of a little candy corn costume a year ago I knew that's what Linc would be this year. His costume was a bit trickier, but not bad. I just got some yellow, orange and white fleece at JoAnns and created a little pull-over for him with matching pants. And I couldn't resist a little matching bag for him too.

On Saturday before Halloween we went to Gardner Village to hunt for witches (this is our tradition every year)

(we found a live witch wandering around and Logan was TERRIFIED of her - ha ha)

according to Logan the best part about being a pirate is having a gun
Lincoln is obsessed with dogs and cats

gobbling up their cookies from the bakery (prize for doing their witch scavenger hunt)

Then Halloween. One of our favorite days of the year!
Started the day out with pumpkin pancakes with chocolate chip faces, of course.

Logan had a Halloween party at preschool and came home with a brown bag full of loot.
After preschool the boys went trick-or-treating at Ben's work.

Then for dinner we had mummy dogs, banana ghosts, cheesy worm skins, vampire mouth apple and vampire blood jello.

And that night our ward had a quick trunk-or-treat. Lincoln caught on quickly :)

And then I took the boys to a few select homes in the ward - Logan LOVED this part of knocking on the doors and didn't want to stop.

Trick-or-treating at Grandma Kaye's
Almost everything in Lincoln's bag was half gnawed on because every time something new got put in his bag he'd fish it out right away and shove it in his mouth, wrapper and all. :)

The day was wonderfully magic and fun for the boys and Lo's already planning for next year.

Leading Up To Halloween

2011-11-06T23:08:00.000-08:00

We love Halloween at our house. It's one of our favorite holidays of the year and we love having Halloween traditions. Here are some things we did this year to gear up for Halloween.

Logan took his first field trip with his preschool to the Vineyard Pumpkin Land. He was SO excited all month long for this field trip. He had so much fun with his buddies looking at pumpkins in the patch, looking for ghosts, witches, "square crows" and all things spooky and playing in their play ground.

I was in charge of watching Logan and Tobias.

This little climb on jungle gym thing was by far the favorite of the kiddos since they could climb on, around, under and through all of it.

and lastly they got to pick out a pumpkin to take home

It was funny to see all the kids struggling to hold up all the pumpkins they got to show them in the picture.

Earlier in the month we actually went to this same Vineyard Gardens to pick out our pumpkins for the season.

Linco loved the wagon ride

there were way too many pumpkins to choose from

the boys (big boy included) had so much fun trying to roll all the HUGE pumpkins over

The weekend of Halloween we decorated their pumpkins with cute little push-in face parts. Wonderful!

Linc didn't really love this part. He actually didn't want to have anything to do with his pumpkin. See? The pumpkin is air born here because he kept throwing it and rolling it away from him.
Logan, on the other hand, is completely proud of his creation.

After Lincoln went to bed Logan got down and dirty and carved his second pumpkin with Ben.

And last but not least we made Halloween cupcakes using pumpkin picks that I found at the dollar store - wonderful!

Logan sprinkled and poked all of cupcakes himself and licked plenty of fingers along the way. Don't worry, he also washed his hands plenty too :)

Church and Twister

2011-10-30T22:32:00.000-07:00

The title pretty much says it all.

The newest in church news:

Logan participated in his first primary program a few weeks ago and it was so sweet. He had a long-ish part to memorize but he rocked it - I was so proud of him and I love how proud of himself he is at the end of the video.

Also, last Sunday was Lincoln's first Sunday in nursery! It was so wonderful to be hands-free in Relief Society and Sunday School. He walked right into the nursery and sat right down at the table to do puzzles. No problem, didn't even look back. And today he had just woken up from morning nap so he cried just a bit when we left but got right over it.

And I love that my great friend, Jackie King, happens to be his nursery leader. She is so good with the kids. We actually went to High School together and she was one of my bride's maids. And now she is attending the Spanish branch that happens to be combined with our ward (the youth and Primary are combined). And Linc knows her a bit, or at least she knows Linc, so that's made the transition easier.

Then last week for FHE we broke out a game of twister that I don't think we've even played before in our 9 years of marriage. Logan LOVED it and keeps asking to play it. It has been good practice for learning his lefts and rights, too.

And then Linc decided to join in too by tackling me. (If you're confused by the random cowboy boot in the picture, it's not on Logan's foot - it's on Lincoln's hand :)

And speaking of Lincoln, he has become constant trouble lately.
About a month ago he learned how to push a chair over and climb up to get what he wants.... and yes, that is a knife he's reaching toward in the pic below. Time to Lincoln-proof my counters.

The Roof Day 2

2011-10-20T22:57:00.001-07:00

Today was exhausting and eventful... and I wasn't even the one up on the roof working, slaving and sweating.

Ben started this morning at 7:15 with a trip to Home Depot with Conner Johnson (young man in our ward who's spending his weekend off of school earning money helping us out). They came back for a quick breakfast of egg croissant sandwiches and then got to work.

Here's all the ply wood for the front half of the house - more than we hoped we'd have to replace.

Here's what the house looked like early off this morning.

I came out this morning to find Matt Brockbank also on our roof helping out (another young man earning money).

They worked all day on tear off from the east side of the roof.

Ben, Ashley Gosselin, Conner and Matt

Conner and Matt mid shoveling nasty, old shingles off onto the ground.

I took the 3 kiddos to the store to get lunch items for everyone (I'm watching Owen, Ashley's little guy, while Ashley helps us out) and while I was putting lunch together Conner started tearing off the old sheeting.

Our roof in shambles on the ground. Clean up is going to be loads of fun (literally, loads...)

Shortly after lunch Ben's progress came to a halt when he measured and realized how incredibly warped our main beam and all of the tresses are. Ugh.
(Note to self: Buy a newer house next time around... wait that sounds vaguely familiar. Isn't that what I say every time we embark on a home improvement project? Yes, I believe so.)

This was definitely the low point of the day. But thanks to help and advice from Chris Kelly, Jon Lanier and Jeremy McSpadden (my bro-in-law who just so happens to be a roofing contractor in WA) Ben found a solution!

I don't understand the grand plan completely, but it's something about propping and bringing old tresses into alignment and scabbing 1x6's onto the old tresses.

The good: We won't have to invest thousand more in all new tresses.
The bad: More money needed to buy the 1x6's
More good: It will only put us back another day, pushing us into next week.
Even more good: The weather has been gorgeous and is supposed to be gorgeous even next week.

Ben and Jon brainstorming

Then after this I put the boys to nap (amazingly enough the boys ARE sleeping through all the pounding, slamming, falling debris, etc). I decided to head out to see what I could help with for an hour or so and thought I'd start on some clean up and I started stacking wood out of the way. I thought, "maybe I should jog back and forth so I can get more done in my hour," then a little voice said, "No, you'll probably step on a nail if you get in a hurry." So I kept walking and started watching where I was going, avoiding stepping on any wood (most of which had nails poking through).

Well not even 5 minutes later I happened to step on a little shingle (imagine that.. it's everywhere) and I actually felt a nail go through my shoe and just poke my foot, luckily I caught this before I stepped down all the way on it. No damage done. Phew!

Then I really started watching where I was going. And not even 5 minutes after that... I stepped on another nail that was stuck to another shingle. duh. And this time I could feel that it was in my foot. I panicked! Luckily Ben was off the roof already and helped me right away. He pulled it out from the bottom of my shoe and that part didn't hurt at all. It didn't penetrate too deep, thank goodness, and didn't really bleed much. It has only hurt slightly the rest of tonight.

Needless to say I was done after that. I came inside and Lincoln was awake anyway. After cleaning up my foot, I gave Linc a hair cut (he's a trooper). And Owen came back over to play while his parents (Ashley and Peter) climbed on the roof to help more. And Devin Tidwell came over about that time to help too.

The boys and I went to pick up pizza for dinner for everyone. Then we just played (inside) the rest of the night. I was sure to show Logan the hole in my shoe and my poke in order to scare him so he won't wander outside without me. And when I told him what happened, he just got a cringed and appalled looked on his face and said, "Mom! That is not safe! You need to be careful! That is not safety!"

It gets dark at 7:30, but Ben started on some clean up and Richard Bird came over to help. Finally Ben came in at about 8:30. What a day for him.

The great news is the old 4 layers of shingles are all off now! And work resumes at 8 am tomorrow morning with putting drip edge and paper down on the back half of the house and shingles get delivered (to the roof) in the afternoon. They'll start to shingle the back half then Saturday Ben, Jon and Richard will start repairs on the front half. Yay!

The unexpected part of this for me, is that every single time I go outside, it seems there is someone new out there helping us . It's been humbling to remember what it feels like to be in need of so much help and to have people step up and drop what they're doing to help us. We are both so grateful. In fact, that was my Happy Ramble for today.

The Roof Day 1

2011-10-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

We started on our roof today (and by "we" I mean Ben)! We have waited 6 LONG years to get this nasty thing replaced and the day has finally come!

Ben actually started a few days ago trimming the trees that were in the way, tearing down the awning, buying supplies, etc. But first thing this morning the dumpster arrived and kicked off our weekend of roofing.

Before

Ben working of taking the awning down. My heart felt pure joy to finally see that nasty, ugly thing come down!

(Side note: that crumbly stuff that Ben pulled down at the end of the video was 2 layers of rotted shingles. Ew.)

8 am this morning our dumpster was delivered! (ps - if you need a dumpster rental these guys are super nice and were the best deal we could find).

Ben got off early from work and got an early start on tear-off.
We were signed up to have the missionaries over for dinner tonight and I thought Ben would be the only one working up on the roof, so I thought it'd be fine for him to take a short break to come down and eat for a few minutes. So the missionaries came and dinner was ready so I went out to tell Ben and lo and behold, there were actually 6 people working on our roof! See?

I was so filled with gratitude that all these friends and neighbors volunteered offered their help for the afternoon!

(Curtis Thacker, Warren Smith, Peter & Ashley Gosselin, and Tyson Wyatt and Jon Lanier, not pictured, helped earlier too).

Ashley - she's a bit masochistic and is totally excited to help us roof the whole weekend. So anyway, I ordered pizza for the roofing crew that we had all of a sudden and the little boys and I ate our fried chicken with the missionaries outside with everyone else. It was interesting but it worked!

The good: almost half of the roof was stripped today

The bad: There were more layers of shingles than Ben originally thought - 4 freaking layers (come on people... sometimes I wonder about the people who worked on this house before us)!

The ugly: Our roof. Now that it's exposed, we can see the sheeting is in worse condition than we thought and all the sheeting needs to be replaced over the front half of the house.

The good: Ben is taking Thursday and Friday off from work to do the extra work - love my hard worker!

October Thus Far

2011-10-15T00:14:00.000-07:00

Here's our October! My goal? To be done with this post in 10 minutes. Here we go (and in no particular order - because putting pictures in order takes way too long on blogger :)

Last Sunday Lincoln fell asleep while we were walking home from church. That says just how wiped out he must have been because it takes all of 3 minutes to walk to church from our house.

We tried waking him up (he still had to eat lunch), but to no avail. So we just plopped him down on the living room floor assuming the noise, etc. would naturally wake him up. Wrong.

So Logan, being a good brother he is, got a pillow for his head and a blanket to cover him with - and Lincoln was still out cold.

Heritage holds a gala every year as a fundraiser for scholarships for Heritage alumni. Anyway, this year the centerpiece on every table was a character from the Wizard of Oz... made out of balloons. Amazing huh? I would call that art.

Anyway, they were selling them as part of the fundraiser, and since our silent auction got out-bid, we brought home the tin man for Logan. We got him out of bed to show him because we knew he'd love it so much.

He was almost as tall as Logan. He even came with a small oil can... so clever!

I love play time with Logan while Lincoln takes his morning nap. My goal is to have as much fun in one year as we can before Logan is gone to kindergarten every day next year.

Anyway, we made a fort one day and read our Halloween books in it.

Linc cracks himself up any time something sticks to his finger (usually pieces of his food that he smashes). This was a lego piece.
Logan got two sticky eyeballs from preschool last week ("S" is for sticky...) and taught me how to throw them on the ceiling and count how many second before they fell down. I didn't realize this was an actual game they played in preschool until later. ha ha. Miss Morgan said they all had a bad case of the giggles trying to play the game.
We've all been sick around here and Lincoln was the first to get it. The morning after he had been throwing up all night, Logan didn't want to get sick and so he made a mask for himself and taped it to his face. haha.
And last but not least, we kicked off October with General Conference weekend.
I woke up to Ben making ebelskivers or "clams n' jam" as Logan has termed them. Yum!

Then a quick job of mowing the lawn with copy cat boy.

Then Logan started working on his conference packet that I made him as soon as conference came on. (By the way.. I'm so grateful we get to sit and watch all sessions of conference in the comfort of our home and jammies. I remember growing up when we'd get dressed up and go watch one session at our stake center where it was broadcast).
And of course we had to make conference popcorn (it's just caramel popcorn).
Last year or the year before, the Friend had a fun recipe called General Conference Popcorn and I made it with Logan. It was a bad recipe, so the next conference time, I didn't plan on making it, assuming Logan forgot about it. But of course he remembered and insisted that we had to have it because we were watching General Conference. So it's become a tradition now - Caramel "Conference" popcorn (with a new recipe, though, thank goodness).

Then not pictured is our tradition of having mini pizzas between sessions on Sunday at the Nelsons and staying to watch the afternoon session while babies sleep. So fun! This year we also explored outside in the Nelson's yard, Logan got to smash eggshells in the garden (don't ask.. this all started from Abby, Logan's cousin), and Ben taught us all how to whistle using your thumbs and an acorn top. My husband is so talented... I know.

And on Sunday, Logan insisted on dressing up in church clothes (his western-cut white church shirt, might I add) even though we were staying home for conference. I caught him running and sliding into the kitchen just like this and I laughed so hard because he totally reminded me of Tom Cruise.

See?
And just as a PS: I don't even like Tom Cruise and I've never even seen this movie.
PPS: It actually took me 30 minutes to write this post... hey a girl can try, right?

Date with Lo

2011-10-07T23:24:00.000-07:00

(Note: I wasn't supposed to publish this post until tomorrow (duh), so it covered up my Washington Trip post that I just did. )

See HERE for a recap of our trip to Ellensburg! :)

Now back to this post...

I got to take Lo on a date a couple weeks ago. I kept it as a complete surprise and he loved it (he is the KING of "presizes").

I took him to see The Lion King while it was in theaters for two weeks. It was so fun to remember what it's like with just one and so fun to be able to hold conversations with him without being interrupted by Linc. I love the little guy but he can be a bit distracting at times. :)

I totally meant to take a pic by the movie sign but totally spaced it. But here he is excited and full of anticipation on the ride to the theater.

Then afterward I took him to use one of his library coupons to get frozen yogurt. Of course I forgot to take a picture while we were eating there.

But here's Logan finishing his treat at home. I love how he could get a smattering of every topping possible on his yogurt and think it's delicious, even when it all melts into a nasty gray color.
The happy duo afterward. And a happy Logan because he got to stay up late for this date.
Love you buddy!

Washington Part Two

2011-10-02T20:26:00.000-07:00

After being in Spokane for 4 days, we drove over to Ellensburg to visit Grammy and Pa.

The day before we went to Ellensburg my sister told me about a local store that actually carries little spurs for kiddos. So on the way out of town we stopped by to pick up some spurs for Logan (a dream come true ever since he saw them in a library book).

So naturally after he got the spurs put on, a conversation about cowboys went on and on.

Once in Ellensburg, we got settled then went on a jeep ride. In the land of Grammy and Pa some things just have high priority and jeep rides are one of them.

'42 Willys
We're bundled up because once you get going up in the canyon it gets cold.

And what was so funny about this ride is that half way up to the top of Robinson Canyon Lincoln fell asleep. Who falls asleep on a jeep ride with a jeep that has no shocks, loose steering and where your brain is being rattled out? (see video below to see what I'm talking about.)

Reading "The Story of Ferdinand" with Pa which would not be complete without Pa's original Ferdinand toy (on the foot stool).
Ellensburg is a special place for Ben and has become a special place for me too since going first in 2002.
This is where Ben learned how to fish and since my dad got into fly fishing a couple years ago, Ben wanted him to see his own most memorable places to fish. Grammy and Pa were generous enough to allow them to come over for a couple of days and stay out in the barn apartment. It was so fun to have them there for just a bit to show them around.

Fishing at Naneum creek

Not too many fish caught but my dad had a great time

Lunch break with Pa and my dad

We showed my parents the Thorp Grist Mill

Lincoln and Nana bundled up

One day we did some work around the property.
Of course Logan helped in his own way.

Wood chipping
Logan gathered a small pile of pine cones on his own and insisted that Ben drive the mower and cart over to the pile to pick them up.

Tractor rides with Pa

Picking up rocks. Lot of them.

Logan's first fishing trip in Ellensburg!

Pa, Ben and Logan all went fishing at Stafford creek.
Pa first started teaching Ben to fish in Ellensburg when he was 4 year old, so this was fun for Ben to take Logan out now that he's 4.
Here he is with the 4' 4" bamboo rod that Ben built him. Someday Logan will appreciate what he has. I hope.
Logan loves playing with these trucks every time he visits Grammy and Pa's.
And what would we do without the play house? Logan loves it out there in his own little world.

And Lincoln decided to take off walking while we were there! Until that time, he had been taking a few steps here and there, but something clicked while we were there and he was a walking fool.

See?

Eating honey sticks on the porch. We walked away from the Ellensburg Farmer's Market with honey sticks and a cowboy vest.

Pa on the porch

Walkin' at Grammy and Pa's.
They have 8 acres and it's fun to walk with the boys through all the different parts to explore.

Love the flowers - these are California Poppies

Eating clover flowers
While we were on our walk around the property, the lighting in the back pasture was perfect at 7 pm and I couldn't stop myself from snapping away.
The rock piles in the pasture.
Swingin' on the porch swing
Grammy in her wicker chair
More playing!
Logan loved riding his blue bike down the long sidewalk. He'd start at the top and pick up his feet about half way through and coast down.
Playing with Grammy
Lincoln LOVED pushing these trucks around
He even got to swim a little bit. But really he just drank the pool water the whole time.

It was so fun getting to see Grammy and Pa and spend time with them. Wish we lived closer! We took a day trip over to Whidbey Island but that will be the next post.

Gratitude

2011-09-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

I'm a Fall kind of a person - I love everything about it: all the new school supplies, the structure that back-to-school brings, the colors, the smell of leaves on the ground, the cooler weather, the pumpkin patches, the new menu that comes with the change in crops, putting extra blankets on the bed at night, fuzzy footed jammies and I especially love the Fall holidays.

(from last Fall... I don't have any cute fall pics yet.)

I love the season of gratitude. Our family tradition for 6 or 7 years now is to put up a Wall of Thanksgiving each year that we and anyone who comes into our home can add to everyday.

And this year I've started something new and will continue this past the season. It's an online gratitude journal called Happy Rambles.

Once signed up, they automatically send you an e-mail at the end of each day and ask you the question, "What are you grateful for today?" All you do is reply to the e-mail (can be text and/or pic) and send. Then it's stored and you can go in at any time and look at your journal, and I even think it's printable.

I've tried doing a gratitude journal before but it never lasts long. I love this because of the constant reminder and how easy it is. I've been doing it for 10 days now and it's been neat to see how my perspective has changed thus far.

"We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have."

-Frederick Keonig

I'm thankful for my boys and I'm thankful for my new find that reminds me to recognize what I already have around me.

Happy Autumn and happy season of gratitude!

Missionaries

2011-09-27T23:53:00.001-07:00

Back in August we finally got the chance to feed the missionaries! We used to share missionaries with 6 stakes. The mission just changed it so our stake has it's own set of missionaries now, so we get the chance to feed them more often.

Logan was so excited to eat with the missionaries (his idols). When you ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, he says, "a missionary."

Dinner time was crazy as usual between a boy who won't stop talking and a boy who just yells a lot. At one point Logan left the table to go to the bathroom. I noticed he was taking a long time but I didn't question it because it was a welcomed silence at the dinner table so we could actually have a conversation with the missionaries.

He came out a while later in completely different clothes. He said he wanted to be a missionary too. He missed a lot of the meal because of this... I can't imagine how long those buttons must have taken him.

Once he noticed that the missionaries had backpacks, he ran back to his room to put his on too.

The missionaries were good sports about getting a shot with Logan. Somehow I think this day will come all too soon when Logan's the taller one in this picture.

Preschool

2011-09-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

Another Logan post.

"Too bad all the people on Earth aren't made out of words like on Word World the show. I want to be made out of words."

Logan started preschool 2 weeks ago. He was so cute that day. He was SO SO excited, especially because we had gone to an open house the night before. He loves going to preschool and I love it too. I love the extra one-on-one time it gives me with Linc, but I also love the preschool and Miss Morgan.

Here are some (ahem... ok a lot) of shots that I captured that morning.

We started out the morning with a hair cut and a father's blessing.

He was so excited for his super heroes back pack. I tried to make the cute little Toy Story back pack the obvious choice (I want him to be little as long as possible :) but despite my best effort, he went with the big-boy-choice.

The first day was show & tell. Of course he chose to take his boots to show.

Brother hugs before leaving

While Ben was putting him to bed the night before, he said he wanted Ben to take him to preschool, not Mommy. Ouch.
So Ben went in late to work that day so he could take Logan. (But of course I went too... I couldn't not go). Lo was so excited to ride in the truck with Dad. We were 5 minutes too early so they waited in the truck for a bit.

Gathering activity... Lo drew a dinosaur.
Miss Morgan

And here are the school photos they just had done last week.

3 girls and 9 boys... I think this class will keep Morgan on her toes
Logan is in the yellow class and this is his class roster.
He's only had preschool for 5 days now so I was surprised to see that Logan already knew everyone's names except 2 of the boys.

Lo and Miss Morgan

According to Logan

2011-09-21T18:58:00.000-07:00

So glad to know everyone has talent...

(Tonight while Logan was brushing his teeth)

"Mom, you're the best reader in the world.
Lincoln is the best page-skipper. And the best growler in the world.
Daddy's the best sick guy and biker guy in the world.
Logan's the best Flash guy in the world."

According to Logan...

Jacks
(He wanted jacks to go with his bouncy ball so he drew some. :)

Party invitations for a non-existent party

I woke up to find 11 invitations to Nana's birthday party (Mom, I bet you didn't know you had a birthday party, did you?) One of every color, all written on.

Fire station/Playground with a dance platform

Green slide and red fire pole.

Lincoln throwing up
A comb

Lo wanted a guitar like Ben's so he made one.
Another play ground

According to Logan, he is his father.

And according to Logan he is Spiderman

Our Christmas tree that sits on our porch.

Instruction manual for Lincoln's new booster seat.

(I took all the straps off of it and couldn't figure out how to put it back together, so I was looking for an instruction manual online and Logan brought these "instructions" to me, declaring that I didn't need to find the manual after all)

A barn

pizza

Airplane

A flag (that Linc's obsessed with)

apple and a truck with he and Ben driving to the hardware store

self explanatory

cell phones for everyone in the family

Activity sticks
(I made a jar of activity sticks for him a couple weeks ago and so I woke up a few mornings ago to find that he had created some activity sticks for me in return. Thoughtful guy.)

Dinosaur

This kid makes everything out of paper.

He told Ben the other night, "The next time you go to a bike race maybe you can bring me back real keys and a real cell phone. I don't want to have to make paper keys anymore. And I don't want to have to make a paper cell phone anymore. I want real metal keys that actually work."

Washington Part One

2011-09-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

At the very end of June we made the trek up to Washington to visit our families.

Don't let the delay of this post fool you... we loved every minute in Washington. In fact, we loved it so much we took a plethora of photos (big surprise). So I have been putting off weeding through them and having to deciding which ones I want to remember the most.

We left straight from Midway (on Father's Day) and drove 13 hours to Spokane. One of the first days we were in Spokane, we went to Riverfront Park like we usually do when we're in Spokane.

Ben had never seen the falls in the Spring when they're full and waters actually gets misted up onto the walk.

The Looff Carousel.  We love riding carousels, but especially this one - it's the best out of all the carousels I've ridden on.

The garbage goat. Push a button and he sucks garbage out of your hand.
We actually remembered to have garbage with us this time around... usually we go into he carousel to pick up a brochure, just so we can rip it into pieces to feed the goat.

Radio Flyer slide (climb up the back and slide down the handle)

Logan preferred the blocks over the slide

They had just been trying to catch bugs with no success.

And feeding the ducks, of course. 

By this point the boys were hot and there's a splash pad at the park that I have never seen before so we let the boys get in and play around. Luckily we had an extra change of clothes in the van.

Ben took this shot... nice Ben.
The main reason we went to Spokane when we did was so we could see my nephew one more time before leaving for the MTC. He was called to serve in Brazil but is currently serving in Detroit, MI waiting for his Visa.
The second day we were in Spokane we got to have lunch and dinner with him. For dinner we went to the closest churrascaria which was in Coeur d'Alene. Yum!
Me and Cory. He'll be a wonderful missionary.

After dinner some of us walked around the board walk since it was only a few blocks away. It's the World's longest floating boardwalk and usually a classic "to-do" when we visit. 
The first day we went to the Japanese Gardens on the South Hill. Ben had never been before so I was so excited to show him how beautiful they are!

Love how curious Logan is

Ben's science lesson #243: How to identify a Japanese Maple. :)
Just kidding, Ben. Logan loves learning from you.

Logan was OBSESSED with a sick coy (that was actually dead). He was starting to decompose a bit I think and he was missing an eye, which Lo couldn't NOT get over. He couldn't take his eyes off that fish.

The Lilaa Garden was right next to the Japanese Gardens so we strolled through since they're my favorite flower.
I couldn't stop smelling them... mmm...
More pics from Spokane to come. Lots more :)

The Latest on Lincoln

2011-09-10T22:35:00.001-07:00

Lincoln is 16 1/2 mo. old now, but had his 15 month check up a month ago and he has changed a lot in the last little bit. I was just waiting to post anything because

1. I'm backed up (wait, clarification - the BLOG is backed up... NOT me :) and
2. We were waiting to find out more from some screenings that we had done for his speech before posting anything.

Long story short - we're a little concerned with Lincoln's speech development.

We addressed the concern with our Ped and she screened him and he qualified for a referral to Provo Early Intervention Program (PEIP, pronounced "peep").

PEIP has come out 4 times now and through further screening Lincoln has qualified for speech help. The program's not free for us, but based on income and family size we're paying $30 per month for assistance, which is a tremendous blessing.

In order to qualify for the program, a child's area of development has to be in the lowest 7% in any major area (gross motor, fine motor, cognitive, self-help, speech, etc). Lincoln tested in the 1% for expressive speech and in the bottom 7% in three other areas, which is most likely due to his lag in communication. They're hoping those scores will improve once communication improves.

For now we're trying not to focus on finding and speculating the "why" of the situation but just trying to get him talking and communicating more consistently.

We've met our speech lady, Shay, and she's super and we're excited to start working with her this next week. Focused on our concerns, she and our program facilitator have written some great goals that we're excited to work towards with Lincoln and our family as a whole.

Shay will come out 2 times each month for now to work with us and really teach Ben and me specifics and techniques that we can use all the time with Linc. Also available to us as part of this qualification are two separate classes that we (I) can attend weekly for the next 10 weeks. I was going to do another tri at the end of this month but decided to pass on it to have more one-on-one time working with Lincoln (where Id' otherwise be training). Now hearing about the classes available I'm so glad I chose against the tri. It will be busy but I am so excited to make progress with Linc.

Here are some fun details about Lincoln:

I forgot to post anything about this, but he's officially done with the helmet. He only ended up wearing it for 2 1/2 months. And he's had two hair cuts since then and is ready for another.

Here Jackie just gave Lincoln and me a hair cut.

Love this picture - he got this toy for his birthday and figured out one day that he could hide under it. Then he'd start crawling and it looked like the toy was just moving by itself. It was pretty funny to watch.
He's getting so independent - he loves eating with a fork.

I love clean little boys in their jammies.
He loves getting into the bottom drawer where the kid plates, cups and bowls are stored. He loves setting the table.

This kid climbs on EVERYTHING. And fast. This was the first time I saw him climb on the couch by himself. I left the room and when I came back he was just chillin' there by himself.

He has become really attached to his Woofy(stuffed animal dog) and for comfort he will find Woofy's fave and mush his face into Woofy's and nuzzle with him. It's really cute to watch.

He thinks Logan's toys are much cooler than his own. Cars and tools especially.

He's tall and skinny - duh. But he did move up from the 8th percentile to the 11th in weight. He finally weighs over 20 lbs! He's been in his infant seat this whole time (and actually loves it there).

Hates sitting for longer than 10 seconds. If we want to sing a song to him before bed then we have to stand and hold him, and even then, we barely make it through one song.

Recently obsessed with books.

Just tonight he made a monkey sound for the second time and he can sign "more," "all done," and "please" but doesn't understand their context yet.

He's a BIG mama's boy. All. The. Time.

He still passes out sometimes but it's not nearly as frequent.

Only 5 more Sundays until Nursery!

Nothing says Labor Day like Hiking and Mustaches

2011-09-05T22:08:00.000-07:00

Ben got home a day early from his fishing trip to Ellensburg, WA so we got to spend the holiday together as a family and it was heavenly!

We spent the morning working around the house, I went for a run, then came back and took Logan for a run (he asks to go, I swear). Then we packed up and drove up the right fork of Hobble Creek and hiked up the Wardsworth trail.

Ben packed Linc on the way in

It was so green and gorgeous but I bet it will all turn soon - my favorite!

And of course Logan had to throw every stick and rock he could find into the creek

Ben has a geocache up there and that was our stopping point. It's always fun to look and see who has signed his register lately and what treasures they've left.

The boys took a break and got to snack and play around.
Of course they spent most of the time sitting and throwing rocks in the water.

Especially Lincoln.
He loved picking up every rock around him and tossing it in. And he always went for the big ones, not the nice little Lincoln-sized ones.
See here I am trying to get a nice little one for him, but no... he had to have the biggest one he could pick up with one hand.
Ben fished (Lo's rod)

And Lo fished
And Ben fished some more

And a bit more on the way down
We ran into some nice ladies who offered to take a group shot of us

Then later I got out 18 mo clothes for Lincoln and it was so fun coming across these jammies that Lo used to wear all the time.
We always used to joke about how Logan reminded us of a Gondola driver when he wore them...

See?

So Ben suggested painting a mustache on Linc to complete the outfit and naturally I went along with the idea.
I love the tummy sticking out

Then of course it was Logan's turn.
He, however, didn't seem like a little Italian man to us.
He was more in the Western realm, so we settled on the Tom Selick 'stache.

Man I love this boy
Ending the day with stories and a mustache, of course.

Good Day

2011-09-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

Today was a wonderful day with my boys, filled with

Provo bakery doughnuts, garage sale, farmer's market (which I'm happy to report has improved a lot since I was there two years ago), slides, swings, flying airplanes, covered wagon rides, cowboys, a birthday party, lawn mowing, cleaning, naps for all,tidal wave bath time,and finally a stay-up-late movie with Lo.

Plus it was a Goldilocks day for weather: Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right.

The day was just right all the way around.

Too bad Ben was busy catching 30+ fish in Washington today with a bamboo fly rod that he made himself... because we had a blast here. :)

PS - I haven't mentioned it before, but with the help of a book and the internet Ben learned how to make bamboo fly rods last summer. His first one was for his grandpa and he's made five more since then. The guy is amazing.

waiting for brown paper bag popcorn before movie night

Father's Day Weekend

2011-08-29T23:27:00.000-07:00

This is going to be quick and dirty because I have taken 1500 other photos this summer that still need a bit of attention. :)

We took a two week excursion to Washington at the beginning of this summer and it started off on Father's Day weekend with a stay up in Midway, UT.

Ben had a director's retreat for work that was held up at the Zermatt Resort in Midway. Friday he was in meetings all day, then they held a dinner that spouses were invited to and then the company extended a two-night stay to all the directors. Awesome!

So I dropped the boys off with Kaye and Riley (who were gracious enough to take the boys for the night) on my way up to meet Ben for dinner Friday night.

I have no picture to document it, but the dinner was delicious (of course Ben and I hadn't even stopped talking about the last dinner we had up there 3 years ago with smoked salmon...).

We left the resort early the next morning - Saturday - to come back to Provo to pick up the boys from Grandma Kaye's house.

Naturally, we made our Saturday morning trek to Provo Bakery for doughnuts while Logan raved about how much fun he'd had with Grandma Kaye and Grandpa Riley.

Then we went back home and packed everything that we'd need for the next two weeks into the van and headed back up to the Zermatt.

We spent the afternoon and evening at the resort with the boys and all stayed there together the second night.

Walking around the grounds - SO beautiful. Of course the boys were checking out the fish here.

There were goats along the back line of the property and you can tell they get frequent attention back there. They all knew right where to hang out to get loved and poked.

Riding the carousel there

Setting up the boys' beds. Logan loved his little nook in the corner.

Dinner at one of the restaurants in the resort. Lincoln loves lemons but this time he was making great faces.

Of course Logan had to take his turn at throwing coins in the fountain.

At the front of the resort

Ben and I played a fast-ish and only slightly-interrupted game of big checkers where I almost won. Haha.

The boys loved playing with the huge chess pieces.

Right about now Lincoln tripped and fell and bit right through his tongue. After a quick consult with Ben's cousin who's a doctor we decided he'd be fine and nothing could be done.

Me and Lo at dinner

And we swam too. Twice. It's a really fun pool that has a tunnel so you can swim to the outdoor pool, and a great hot tub too. You can see the outdoor pool behind the boys.

This kid LOVES the water. Or more like he loves drinking the water. And he loves his floaty toy here, but he spent most of the summer swimming in his life jacket because it's just easier.

This was the last time we swam and was right before the boys went to bed. The hot tub was more like bath water so the boys got in with us. Lincoln LOVED it. He was so wiped out by this point that he was just floating on his back forever. He was floating right in front of Ben, but Ben wasn't even holding him because Linc was so still and relaxed.

Caoursel round #2. Who knows why Logan chose the bore... weirdo.

Despite Logan's waking up sick in the middle of the night, we had so much fun with the boys up there. It was fabulous having a little family vacation and I'm so glad there was enough to keep the boys entertained at the resort and so grateful that Heritage was generous enough to offer that for the families this year.

We left early the next morning (Sunday - Father's Day) straight from the resort to go up to Spokane. That's two other future posts though.

More Four

2011-08-27T00:42:00.000-07:00

The old Kristi would have just skipped this post. Why? Because it should have been done 3 months ago!

But the new Kristi doesn't care. Logan absolutely LOVED his party and it was just too cute to skip. So without further adieu...

Logan's 4th Birthday Party Roundup!

Logan is a real cowboy at heart so he asked for a Cowboy/Toy Story 3 Party (or as he would say, " Stoy Story Two Free Cowboy Party"). And because we needed room for all the shenanigans that would ensue, we had his party at the church building.

Step #1 to becoming a cowboy: Look Like a Cowboy (or girl)

Upon arrival, the cowpokes hit the "Cowboy Up" station where they received a hat and a sheriff star to wear.

Logan and Adalee

(And I must take the time to note here that Logan had a plaid shirt that was deemed his "cowboy shirt" that he grew out of, so Jera made a new cowboy shirt for him just on time for his big bash. He LOVES his new shirt. We joke that he looks like Temple Grandin because the shirt is so authentically western.)

After gearing up, the wee ones headed over to the crafting station where they got to fashion themselves a real nice cowboy vest just like Woody's.

Abigail

Mercer, Logan and Abigail

Jera, the hot glue hand

Finn, Merc and Lo

And of course a cowboy isn't a cowboy without a face painting

Kyler chose a cowboy boot 

Logan too

Tyler opted for a tattoo on the arm

Step #2: Act Like A Cowboy

First the cowhands learned to jump over a snake without getting bit

Logan making the leap 

Owen giving it a try 

Then it was time to learn to ride a horse.

Object: Ride your horse as fast as you can down to Buzz Lightyear, hit him on the head and circle back to hand off the horse to your teammate next in line.

This is very serious business of course

Team leaders (Jera, Ben and Jackie) all lined up and ready to demonstrate

The unsuspecting victim

Breanna

Owen (this guy was in love with Big Buzz...)

The Cowpokes interpreted, "Tap Buzz on the head," to mean, "smack Buzz as hard as you can with your horse."

Adalee

Bored Dads 

Gavan, Ben and Danny

Kyler and Logan

Then the Cowboys and girls gathered around the campfire for present time

Andy and Finn

Step #3: Eat Like a Cowboy

This is where I held back. There were SO many cute ideas out there for cowboy food, but I opted for easy when it came to the chuck wagon.

Rainbow cupcakes (because Lo loved them so much at his 3rd b-day party)

Topped with Toy Story 3 stickers

and trail mix

Birthday Cowboy digging in

Janie-bo-banie

Tyler

Sol

Abigail

And of course Logan's Round Up wouldn't be complete without his favorite stuffed friends

And his cousinsFinn and Merc

Jane

And his boots

And his best friends!Haily, Logan, Addy and Sol

Much thanks to all the help!Linc (not so helpful) and Gav

{Insert picture of Andy the photographer here - thanks Andy!}

Marmie and Benj

Gamps

Logan had so much fun with his friends and seeing all his friends doing what he loves best... acting like a cowboy!

And a little side note... on his actual birthday two days later I made him a special Cookie Monster (like the kind we used to get at Craigos).

Happy Birthday Cowboy!

Good Week

2011-08-19T23:34:00.000-07:00

It has been a great week.
Actually scratch that.
Great just doesn't do it justice. Other synonyms? Perhaps delightful, heavenly, wonderful, tremendous, eye-opening, smooth or even superb?

Here's why: (in no particular order)

1. I got a new pair of shoes that I have wanted since last Fall.

2. I got beautiful flowers from a thoughtful friend (thanks Kristy!) that totally made my day.

3. I'm currently working on a craft project tonight. Not just working on... but finishing a project. Hi-fives for me. And it's a Christmas present. More hi-fives.

4. I got most of my pictures from the past year backed up (and I'm a picture-aholic, so that's a feat).

5. My mom was in town and I got to spend lots of time with her because...

5. Ben offered to stay home with the boys every night this week so I could go to evening classes at Education Week!

Now, I love my boys. A LOT. But I'm not gonna lie, I don't love the chaos that almost always accompanies dinner time. So, to not only have Ben give me a break from that chaos for a few days but be able to totally fill my reservoir at the same time was AMAZING. I loved every class and it was just the cup of tea my crazy mind needed.

My knowledge of the atonement grew by leaps and bounds, I learned more about parenting, marriage, organizing, communication and food storage. It was heavenly and I am walking away more revived, with new ideas to conquer the everyday struggles and more energy to buoy up my little, huggable family.

And on top of that, it really made me grateful for my season of life right now. The first day I was on campus going to classes this week, I was flooded with emotions of how I felt while going to school there.

I missed that season of my life for a moment.... the season where I was married, without children and I had all day to attend classes and learn. And I even missed (for a split-second) the craziness that came with that time: cramming for tests, lunch on the go, taking the bus to campus, late nights, running across campus to make my next class, etc. But mostly I missed learning new things everyday from other brilliant minds, and being in awe of, and humbled by, how limited and small my little mortal brain is and how much I really don't know.

But it didn't take me long to remember (and be grateful) that that season in my life has passed and that I'm now able to devote all my energy and time to raising my little boys. It's like life just slowly shifted seasons on me and I didn't even see it. I didn't realize how much different of a person I have become until I was on campus again, having flashbacks of my memories from my senior year in 2005.

And while I am so thankful for this new "mommy"season in my life that I get to experience, I am also so, so grateful for all the knowledge I gained in my Home and Family Living classes and the testimony of "the family" that I gained through my studies. I use that information everyday of my life. It's just funny how things work out and how slowly the things right in front of us change without even noticing it.

Anyway, words can't describe how much of an aha-moment it was for me. And speaking of change, this post has now morphed from a brief, 5 sentence post into another rambling novel, void of cute pictures. Ciao.

Camping!

2011-08-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

In July we got to go camping with our friends, the Cooks, down at Diamond Fork, and for the most part we had a good time.

What I DON'T want to remember:

-the heat
-the diarrhea blow-outs (Lincoln... not Ben :)
-the diarrhea accidents (Logan)
-the heat exhaustion
-the throwing up
-the crying babies
-the waking up in the middle of the night
-the throwing up in the tent in the middle of the night
-the (obviously) large pile of dirty little boy clothes
-Oh and don't forget the camper that ran its generator for what? 5? 6 hours? It really made it sound like nature out there :)

Needless to say we were all a little whooped the next morning and pretty much just packed up and left. Forget fishing and hiking.

Ok, Ok, I know that all sounds really negative. Despite all of that there were great times too.

Here's what I DO want to remember:

The Cooks!

Cute babies

The awesome Camp Chef stove that Ben picked up for free on the side of the road the day before. Old but awesome.
And then there's clingy boy... someday I'll miss that I'm sure. Chili was for dinner and Megan and Dave made the best wheat pancakes ever. And bacon. And eggs. And potatoes. Yum.

Boys playing in the hot tents... and then Sol keeping Logan company while he was recovering and cooling off
Sorry - pic won't turn for me. But cute boys, eh?

Ella

Sweet watermelon - thanks Megan!
Relaxing by the camp fire once babies were contained in the tents at bed time.

Best buds at the campfire.
Playing endlessly with the fire wood.
And I can't leave out the great late chats by the fire until midnight.

Meg's invention: the SMOREO. That's why I keep her around... she's brilliant!
(my bad... I forgot the chocolate. )
Nature walk

Picking flowers and holding hands. I love that it's still cool for them to hold hands. :)

Thanks for the good times Cooks... so sorry about the transfer of sickness in the end though. Maybe we should revisit camping as empty-nesters?