Some of our happenings

She's shopping. In a pull-up and boots. Priceless.

A likes to climb. We've gone through this with every child. It means for the next few months our chairs will be backward at the table. Eventually this will pass.

Awwww....

I actually had to borrow tooth fairy money from this guy the other day!

Cannery Carrot Cake

I made this for an Elder's Quorum activity. It was centered on being prepared. Roy was supposed to bring food and demonstrate an alternative cooking method. He made chicken in the dutch oven and I made this cake using dehydrated carrots from the cannery.
I adapted it from a recipe I found here as follows:
4 eggs
3/4 cups vegetable oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 1/2 - 3 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 cups dehydrated carrots
1 1/2 cups cold water
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Frosting
1/2 cup butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese, softened
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Prepare carrots by pulsing in food processor to grind into a course powder. Add 1 1/2 cups cold water. Set aside. (These need about 20 minutes to reconstitute. If needed add another 1/2 cup cold water.)
In large bowl, beat eggs, oil, applesauce, sugars and vanilla. In seperate bowl mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg. Mix two mixtures together. Fold in 3 cups of carrot mixture and pecans.
Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Bake in 350* oven for 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool. If desired, turn out onto cooling rack after 10 minutes and cool completely.
To make frosting: Whip butter, cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth and creamy. Stir in pecans and frost the cooled cake.

Kindergarten Entrepreneur

D started school a week and a half ago. So far we've had school pictures, a skate night, a PTA fundraiser, a PTA meeting, 2 back-to-school night type meetings and another one planned for next week. (Really. "Back to School night", "parent meet and greet night" [which was not a meet and greet] and "Curriculum Night".) And D is LOVING IT. Every single thing is a cause for excitement. The skate night was a cause of excitement for 3 days straight!

The one that is really getting me right now is the PTA fundraiser though. D came home with this big FAT coupon book called a Payback Book (because its the book that pays you back!). He is super excited about selling these things. He will get a colored eraser if he sells one. He will get a spy watch if he sells 5. And, if he sells 10 he will get night vision binoculars. So, he's got a plan. Tonight, he was literally bouncing off the couch as he was describing his brilliant strategy to his dad which mainly consisted of this selling 15 books so he can get both the spy watch and the binoculars. He is planning to set up a stand on the corner, much like a lemonade stand, only he will be selling Payback Books.

Watching him bounce around with such confidence in his ability to sell books and earn prizes made a little piece of my mommy-heart break. He's a 6 year old living in a neighborhood full of children that all go to the same school. He can't sell to the neighbors whose son sold me cookie dough for football because they have 2 kids at his school. He can't sell to the neighbors whose son sold me vegetable plants for my garden because they have 1 child at his school. He can't sell to his extended family because not a single one of them live within 500 miles of the Payback book's coupon sites. The likely hood of him owning a spy watch and nightvision binoculars is not looking good.

On the flip side, he did manage to sell one to his father so at least he'll get to pick a colored eraser!

Skate Night

After 3 days of excited anticipation, this night did not turn out exactly how I'd envisioned. Still, we managed to have fun.

Earlier today I called a friend to come too. I knew Roy would be working late and wasn't sure he would make it at all and I didn't want to go alone. So my friend and her four kids came too. It was great. Her youngest daughter is D's age and they are good friends from primary. They go to a different school though.

We got there (after about 2 hours of "Is it time to go yet? How about now? How much longer?") about 20 minutes after the doors had opened. The rink wasn't too crowded. It never did get very crowded. Good for us, bad for business. When we walked in it was just like every other skating rink I have ever been to. Why do they always smell funny? Is it the skates? And why are they always older than dirt? These are things I wonder....

We spent 15 minutes getting D's skates on only to realize they didn't tighten the wheels so the wheels are spinning waaaay too easily for my kid. Unfortunately they can't tighten the wheels without him taking the skates off. of course.

Finally, everyone is skated up. D, K and I all have wheels strapped to our feet and off we go to the wood floor. I'm sure we looked a sight-- me with one kid in each hand. I think we did okay though.

K ended up going around a few times before being "done". D went around once and became very upset. He spent much of the night crying because he felt he wasn't skating. He was just walking with wheels on. ?!? That's basically what skating is! Especially when you're 6 and you haven't skated at all in the last 2 years!!

So. That was frustrating. I finally was able to talk him down from that. Naturally there was about 2 songs left at that point.

Roy was able to make it about 1/2 way through the evening. That was fun.

Oh yeah. When we got there, some ladies from the PTA were tallying how many came from each class. The class who had the most attendence will recieve a party. Because of the friends who came with us, D's class totally won! We had 9 skaters. I think his class gets ice cream or something like that.

"Please, somebody, let me out of this thing. I want to skate too."

When K saw I wanted to take her picture she tried to cross her legs. Because her skate was so heavy, she had to lift her leg with her hands to get it over her other knee. I wish I had that on video!

The first day of school

I kind of feel like we already did this because of Jump Start but here we go again!

Here we are getting ready for school. He is quite excited, as you can see.

Now we're waiting for the bus. D will ride the bus everyday. He couldn't be happier with the arrangement. After literally years of pointing out school buses on the road he is finally going to ride in one.

The school bus may have taken D to school but the van took the rest of us. That's right. We totally drove to the school to watch him get off the bus. His reaction when he saw us, "How did you guys get here?!" He was okay with us being there but he'd have been fine without us there too. Jump Start really did help D alot. He had absolutely NO trepidations about heading off the Kindergarten. Me? I may have teared up a bit. maybe.

Getting off the bus after an exciting 2 1/2 hours of kindergarten. He has just jumped off the last step and is landing in this picture. I was trying to video and get a still photo at the same time so naturally neither one turned out well.

There may not have been a trip to Burgerville after his first day of school. But check it out! He got to come home to this awesome after school snack. Seriously, who is the best mother in the world? Oh yea.

September 11

Our stake participated in a community day of service to commemorate the events of September 11, 2001. As a family we picked carrots at a local food bank farm. The kids had a great time.

K was very serious about her carrots as you can see!

A really just wanted to get out of the stroller and play in the mud.

I took a picture of the carrots just to give you an idea of how many there were. This is maybe half of what was picked. I'm not sure because they had already loaded one van full of boxes and there were several boxes worth at the carrot washer. Basically, there were a lot of carrots.

9/11 is a day none of us should ever forget. I took some time to look at some of the photos from the day and remember. We were going to talk to D about it but it didn't really happen. That's probably okay for now. He'll have plenty of time to find out about the evil in the world. For now, it's enough that we went to pick carrots for people who don't have food and did so in memory of people who died at the hands of very wicked men.

Slug season is coming...

I think ice cream would be a better pay off.

But I guess I'll have to be satisfied with future potential embarrassment.
After my last post detailing K's ...uh... issues, she voluntarily used the toilet. Without any prompting. I didn't think we were done with messes, but I had hopes that we were moving in the right direction. Tonight she was obviously holding things in so I took her to the bathroom, set her on the toilet and walked out. This has been done at least 235 times before. Usually, it end in her peeing, putting on pants and finishing the job. Tonight it ended in a poop mural. She used the floor as her pallet of choice and the wall as her canvas. The words "shipping charges" and "grandma" came to mind. As did the word "adoption". I'm joking, of course. Not about the words, but about actually going through with it.

It's a good thing I'm so cute......

A day in the life....

I'm the 'ward specialist' for the UHaul claim. (This UHaul, remember...) This means I am the stake go-to person for our ward. It also means I am in charge of putting the claim for our ward together.
Also, we are supposed to be having an awards night for camp. (All the certificates were destroyed in the UHaul so we've been waiting to get them redone.) I am responsible to create and print the 'fun' certificates. You know, the "sleepless beauty" award and such.
This is the girls camp that will never end.

In other news, D starts school today. He is meeting the bus outside our house in a couple of hours. We are all very excited. VERY EXCITED.
A has started walking. She does at least 50% of her getting around on her feet now. If she wants to go fast she still crawls, but she's getting better and better at upright.
As A gets bigger, K and A fight more and more. THEY ARE MAKING ME CRAZY!!
K isn't pooping in the toilet again. Yesterday we were at a friend's house working on YW stuff when K relieved herself in her pants. Even worse: no underwear. I didn't know there was no underwear. I told her to put some on but she didn't. Someday, I hope K is really embarassed that I've posted about this because there MUST be some justice somewhere in the universe. If not in the future embarassment of the offending child then where?

Friday Photo

I did yard work, and K harvested vegetables.

D's Birthday Party

Today was the BIG day. BIRTHDAY PARTY DAY!! Let me just say that I am worn out. It is so good that birthdays only happen once a year so I can forget how much work it is to do a party.

This morning started out fine enough with me dismantling the bathtub drain to clear it of the fecal matter deposited by the baby while trying not to burn the cake. I think there is a Parent's Law of Physics that states: "When in a rush, a minimum of one child will poop in an inappropriate place". It's right up there next to Murphy's Law.

We got past that into the run-around-crazy-occasionally-shrieking-like-a-banshee-at-the-messymessymessy-children stage. Thankfully, that only lasted until my young woman helper arrived to relieve some of the stress. (And the toy room was finally picked up!)

Somehow, things came together and I was able to leave. I took K to a friend's house so I could concentrate on the party. Don't worry, she was totally excited to go play with her friend. Justifiably too. They fingerpainted and went to a park today. Doesn't get much better when you're 3!

So, friends started arriving. We had a scientist party. I made some "lab coats" for the kids to wear along with some Dr. ____ name tags. We started with decorating some bags to hold all the science tools we collected today.

First experiement: making colors. There were cups of water dyed with the primary colors. The kids each had a little "test tube" and "sucker-upper thingy"(technical science name) that they used to make purple, green, orange, brown, etc. They finished by making their favorite color to take home in their test tubes.

Note my two helpers. Defintely necessary and totally appreciated!!

Then we made waves in a box. This is achieved by filling a container half full with colored water then topping off with oil. We hot glued the lids on and watched the magic of oil and water not mixing. This was cool, but not as cool as experiment number 3....Cornstarch Goo!

If you have never made this, you should try it. It really is cool. It is simply cornstarch and water. Mix water into cornstarch with your hands until you reach a good goo consistancy. When you pick it up you can squeeze it and it feels solid but as soon as you open your hand it runs out like a liquid. Amazing. And a big hit.
The last great experiment involved baking soda and vinegar. Possibly the coolest kitchen science of all. We attemped the blow up balloons. The bottles we had for this didn't work too well, but well enough. Incidentally, baking soda and vinegar is not good for grass. That would have been good to know, say.....yesterday.
D's birthday was actually Cakey Creations. What is Cakey Creations you ask? This is Cakey Creations:It involves sheet cake cut into small cubes and lots of different toppings to add to your bowl. It is basically cake, candy and cookies all in one great bowl. Instead of frosting, I made pudding in bags for the kids to pipe on their creations.

I accidentally got way too much pudding in D's bowl. He just rolled with it though.

There was singing and presents. We had about 10 minutes left so we put a blindfold on one of the kids and started playing games; Where's the Sound Coming From and Marco Polo.
Finally, their parents came. Sweet, blessed parents!


All in all, the party seemed to be a big hit. The kids were all really great and we'll probably do it again next year. Hopefully the grass has recovered by then!