Canning, Cross-dressing and Cookie Cutters!

I am going with a "C" theme today as you can see from the title of this post. Let's start with canning.

Mither would be proud!!! I remember mom doing spotlights on me for young women activities several times while I was growing up. Each time I remember her bringing up the time that I canned peaches all day long with her at 8 years of age. I suppose it must have been such an incredible experience that I did not do it again for 21 years. :) So, the day after my 29th birthday I decided to try my hand at it again, with a little help of course.

Jenn and I each had a small box of peaches and I had a box of pears. We started with the peaches last Saturday. Tamara was kind enough to let us use her steam canner and teach us what to do. She was very helpful and the tips and tricks she gave us were invaluable. Finally about 3 hours after we began, we had 18 quarts of lovely peaches and a very messy kitchen. It was GREAT! It was so great in fact that we did it again last night and ended up with 15 quarts of pears and 4 more quarts of peaches. I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it. Not that I loved pealing the slimy fruit or working over a hot stove, but I loved looking at the bottles all lined up and filled with beautiful fruit and knowing that I had accomplished something. It was awesome!

The second of my "C's" is cross-dressing. Not that I have taken up the habit, but my son certainly has. For the last several months he has wanted me to put the sparkly lip gloss on his lips like I do for Emma. Likewise, whenever he finds a hair clip he won't rest until I put it in his hair for him. He had donned both of these very manly things this morning, so of course he had to have a shirt to go with it. We were going through some clothes a friend of Janice's gave us and he saw a pink shirt with a kitty on it and had to wear it. That wass it, his cross-dressing career had officially started. I suppose however, the outfit would have been somewhat more complete had he been wearing his sister's sparkly pink shoes as he was in the previous post. Fortunately those were put away, so he didn't have the option. At any rate, here are some pictures. I love his hair falling in his eyes.

Speaking of hair falling in eyes, that brings me to my last "C" for this post, Cookie Cutters. This is a child's hair cutting place. After looking at the pictures above of Matthew's long hair, I decided to call and get an appointment to have both him and Emma get their hair cut. Emma's hair turned out about the same, just a little trim for her. However, I have not often had the opportunity of explaining what I want done with Matthew's hair. I told him I wanted the sides very short and that I liked to comb the top over. Here are some pictures of what we ended up with.

Here is Emma's "cheese" smile again! Her hair looks pretty standard.

Here she is showing her pink balloon that she got from Cookie Cutters.

Matthew on the other hand had his hair butchered! When I went to tell the lady what I wanted done with Emma's hair, I cam back and the gentleman cutting Matthew's hair had cut the top so short! It was not a good length, so he asked if I wanted it shorter. NO!!! I did not want it shorter, but it looked dumb the way it was, so I told him to go ahead and cut it shorter.

Matthew ended up with basically the same haircut that the guy who cut it had as did the little boy who had his hair cut before Matthew. Maybe that guy just liked this particular hair cut. Or maybe I just didn't communicate what my preference was very well. At any rate, his hair is quite short now. Oh well, at least it grows fast. :)

Preschool and random pics!

It's been a while, so I decided to just throw a bunch of random pictures all together in one post. Here goes!

First off, Emma started preschool last Wednesday. She was so excited to start school again this year. She was especially excited that she would be doing karate this year, which is interesting since she has no idea what karate is.

I totally spaced things for her first day of school. We were all ready to go to get there early and I suddenly realized that I hadn't purchased a single piece of school supplies, nor had I put anything in her "All about me" bag for show and tell. Don't ask me where my brain was, but it definitely was not anywhere near at the time. I ran frantically around gathering things for show and tell and we ended up in her classroom 5 minutes late. I was glad that at least I had remembered the camera until I went to take a picture and realized I had not remembered to put the memory card back in the camera. So, these pictures were taken after her first class.

Emma was lucky enough to get a pink pencil with her name on it. Pink is her favorite color! And here she is with her "cheese" smile. It's a little difficult at this point to get a normal smile out of her. :)

Here she is at her table. Unlike her shyness last year, she was quite excited and not the least bit sad to see me go this year! *sigh* I guess that's a good thing!

Here she is at home after school. She had a great first day!

Here's a picture of Emma throwing a fit! She gets in these moods sometimes where she is so bugged, but she doesn't want to loose a privilege by yelling at us, so this time, she ran and buried her head in the chair. I couldn't help but snap a picture of her cute little bummie in the air! :)

Oh what a manly little guy! He's got footballs on his PJs and he's playing with a train, both very boyish things. However, take a look at his choice in footwear. He loves to wear Emma's pink sparkly shoes. At least he is secure in his manhood.

Here's another shot of the fancy shoes. He also loves to say "cheese" when anyone points the camera at him, and this is the face he makes.

I don't know if it's the bows, the sparkles or the color of the shoes, but they sure do get him in touch with his feminine side. Or perhaps it is just his sweet little personality and lovingness. Either way, he loves his teddy. Here he is at the breakfast table giving his teddy "loves."

He also loves his "baby." His little spotted kitty that he originally called "kitty," but changed the name to "baby" when he heard Emma calling her kitty, "baby." His spotted kitty has been "baby" ever since. He enjoys giving loves to "baby" at the breakfast table as well.

I don't have a picture, but he has recently started asking for "bacon" as well. He started asking for bacon every time I got him up in the morning, an odd request since he didn't like bacon very much. It took me about a week to realize that "bacon" was his word for "blankie." Now we all refer to it as "bacon" because he is just so cute when he asks for it!

Summer Vacation...a little late!

Or maybe a lot late!!

We went on a little vacation July 29th to August 1st this year. We went up to a cabin near Yellowstone with Dave, Melissa, Annika, Mieka and Jan & Jen. We had 1 day of travel there and 1 day back which left 2 full days there. It was a lot of fun and the traveling wasn't even too bad for the kids. Matthew did get a little bugged towards the end of each driving day, but he did pretty well.

Here are some pictures of our breakfast times. I took my blender and made smoothies so I could still be a little bit healthy. The picture in the bottom right corner is showing the first day making a smoothie. The berries had melted and refrozen so were stuck together. However, I did finally get them blended up and a smoothie made out of them. The kids enjoyed waking up and having their cousins right there to play with and have breakfast with. They were nice leisurely mornings with plenty of time to get everyone ready. That was very nice since I'm always late. :)

There was a small backyard at the cabin that basically melted into the golf course behind. We really enjoyed playing back there and enjoying the nice temperature. There was a little wild flower patch with trees growing around on one side and the kids loved to go in there. There were always birds there and Matthew wanted to hold one so bad. He would walk in there and very earnestly say "brty, brty, BRTY!" while pointing up at the little chirping birds. He got rather bugged a couple of times because he could not hold them. I think ever since we got to go and feed some birds and they landed on our hands, he thinks all birds are supposed to do that.

On the last night there, we had little races. It started out with the girls who raced around and around. They would start with their hand on Dave's hand as he said, "On your mark, get set, go!" They would race off and around the trees and come back and start all over again. After a while, Jan, Jenn and I raced at which point I got a beating from Janice. She elbowed me in the nose as we rounded the last corner and I was out. Never realized she was so competitive. We sure had a good laugh about that one. After that, Daniel challenged Janice to a race and totally whipped her. Then he ran backwards and still beat her by a fair amount. That was pretty funny. By that time, Mieka and Matthew decided they wanted in, so we did a couple with them while holding their hands. They were so cute waddling along as fast as they could. After all was said and done, we were pretty tired.

For one of the days we walked to the park in the morning and the kids really enjoyed themselves. Matthew especially loved the tire swing. It sure made me sick pretty quick though.

Later that day we rented ATVs and went out riding. The only picture we got was one with Matthew and Daniel while they were on it for about 1 minute together. Then Jan, Daniel, Emma and I went out. It was fun and the scenery was beautiful. We didn't go very fast because we had Emma. After that Dave, Melissa, Annika and Jenn went. I think they must have gone a little faster because they got back with about 1 hour before we had to return the ATVs so Daniel and I went by ourselves It was awesome. We were able to go really fast and it was so fun! I think next time though, I will invest in some goggles. I had so much sand in my eyes by the time we were done! It sure was a good time though.

The last day there, we went to Yellowstone. (According to Emma however, it was called "Yellowstones" and we were staying in a "cavin" not a cabin. :) Unfortunately Matthew had a blowout while we were driving there so we had to find some new pants for him. At the gift shop the only thing they had that was his size were these funny brown pajamas, so he looks a little silly in the pictures. Looking on the bright side, at least we were able to sit down and have some lunch at the gift shop and then see a really cool dog outside. I think the dog was Matthew's favorite thing that day!

Emma was really excited about seeing the geysers and had fun doing their Young Ranger program. She was able to fill out a booklet (with help from mommy) about the things that we saw as we walked around. Then when she was done, we showed it to the ranger and he gave her a keychain with a Young Ranger picture on it. She seemed to like it.

Matthew on the other hand was less than excited about it. He wanted to climb down off the walkway into the water and didn't really care when we told him that he would get an owie because the water was hot. :) Needless to say, he was a bit of a handful!

We went to a bear and wolf exhibit next. Fortunately, Matthew loved it and was much easier to handle since he couldn't climb the fence to get in and see touch the animals. It was pretty cool to see them close up and the children really loved it.

We had a great time on our little vacation!

Thanksgiving Point Farm

Sorry, I thought I had already posted this, so this is pretty old. Oh well, that's pretty normal for me. :)

For another Summer field trip we went to the farm at Thanksgiving Point on July 22 and had a wonderful time! The kids loved the animals and we even got to feed them this time, which both of them, but especially Matthew loved. We saw them washing a cow and they also brought a little pony out for the kids to pet. It was so cute!

Petting/feeding the pony, looking at the ducks and feeding the goats. Matthew kept trying to feed the pony's side. I don't think he understood that it had to go in the mouth.

Here are the pony rides. Emma was so excited and loved the whole thing. Matthew was less than excited and I basically had to hold him on the pony. I didn't think he really liked it, but then when I took him off he said "gin" (again) so I guess he must have liked it some. Or else he just doesn't ever want to do what I want him to do which is really quite likely.

We had a great time! Thanks Melis for planning all of these wonderful Summer field trips!

Some Serious Catching Up!

Okay, I am way behind and there are a few things I really wanted to post about, so here goes...

Independence Day

We had an awesome time on the 4th of July again this year. We always used to get together with my family and have a BBQ, swimming for the kids and then watch fireworks. It was always fun, but there was time between dinner and fireworks, so last year Daniel and I came up with the "Southern, Not So Special, Olympics." It was so much fun last year that we decided to do it again this year. The events were: Potato Sack Races (we actually used garbage bags because we didn't have potato sacks), 3 Legged Races, Wheel Barrow Races, Water Balloon Toss, Pie Eating Contest and the Obstacle Course. Each family was a team and we all competed against each other with Mike and Janelle's family and our family tying for first place. We were able to get the large inflatable slide this year and that made it even more fun. We had a blast and I can't wait to do it again next year! Unfortunately I was really busy keeping things going for the Olympics, so I don't have any pictures of that part, but at least I have some of the rest of it.

The bottom pictures are during the water fight with Grandpa. Emma loved it, but Matthew was not very excited about getting wet, hence his bugged expression while he was sitting in the little car. :)

Summer Field Trips

On Wednesday, July 15th we went to Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake for our Summer Field Trip that week. We had such a good time. They had a deal where you could buy a ticket to feed some of the birds. We decided to do it and had a wonderful time. Matthew loved the birds and kept wanting to touch them which of course he couldn't. Fortunately he didn't get too bugged about it.

Emma really loved feeding the birds and wasn't scared at all. The lady there gave us apple pieces stuck on popsicle sticks. Then she told us to hold our hands out and the birds would come and sit on our hand and eat the apple. Emma did just what she said and sure enough she got a bird to land on her hand, then another on the other hand. She was so good and obedient and didn't try to pet them. Then after a couple of minutes she had a bird land on her head. It was so darling and she thought it was awesome! she started to feed the bird on her head, but then another bird came and sat on her hand. So then Annika decided to feed the bird on Emma's head. It was so darling and Emma was so cute about it. The bird sat on her head for about 5 minutes and she was calm about it the whole time. We had a great time.

Then we went to the bird show and got to see some big birds up close. Emma was really excited about the Eagle. There is an Eagle in one of the videos she watches and was excited to see one in real life. They also did a demonstration about eggs. They put weights on an egg to show how strong they are. They got up to 70 pounds before the egg broke and the girl who was doing it said that she has seen them hold up to something like 115 pounds or something like that. I was blown away, I didn't know eggs were so strong!

Emma's Party

Emma had a water slide party for her 4th birthday. She LOVED it! We got our inflatable water slide and the canopy from the rental center and did it outside. I made a cake that looked like the slide and then had squirt guns, goggles and bubbles on the table for them to play with. There were also water balloons that lasted for about 5 minutes but the kids liked the inflatable slide the best! They played and played on it and Emma was worn out by the time we put her to bed that night. She had such a good time at the party. She was so excited about the presents and played with them all evening while Daniel and I cleaned up. It was supposed to be an easy party and it was pretty easy until it came time to clean up. Daniel and I spent between 3 and 4 hours putting the slide and canopy away and cleaning everything up. We were beat by the end, but we had an awesome time playing, and it was so great to see Emma so excited. It was definitely worth all the work. Here are some pictures:

4 Years Ago Today...

Our sweet little Emma was born. My labor was induced and it took 14 hours for her to get here, so we sure were happy when she came!

This was the picture we sent out with her birth announcement.

Emma looked a lot like Daniel's side of the family when she was born. Now that she has grown some she has some traits from me as well. Either way, we think she is darling.

Emma is such a wonderful big sister! She tries very hard to be nice to her little brother, even when he is not being the easiest brother to get along with. She is learning how to share with him and often does very well.

Emma likes to dress up. Or is it, mommy likes to dress Emma up. Either way, she has fun. These pictures are from Halloween and Christmas the last 3 years.

These are some of my favorite pictures of Emma. She has such a sweet personality. She was incredibly shy up until about the last year. She is still shy, but has come out of her shell a lot this year. She loves to play with her cousins and has even started to warm up to grandma and grandpa Southern. I love the picture in the top left corner. We had put her hair up in pin curls the night before, and her hair exploded when we took them out. I had to keep walking out of the bathroom and laughing so she wouldn't think I was laughing at her. She is such a doll.

These are some of the things Emma loves. However, one of the things she loves the most is the gospel. She loves scripture stories. If you notice the picture of her reading with grandpa, she is showing him the story about Satan tempting Adam and Eve. She is a very spiritual little girl. She loves to sing church songs and can often be found singing about anything gospel oriented. She has lately started singing her testimony about how she knows Jesus loves her and the Book of Mormon is true and that she is grateful for the prophet. It is so cute to hear her. She brings the spirit into our home so often and I am so grateful for it!

We are so grateful that Emma is part of our family. We are so blessed to have been able to be her parents for the last 4 years. We love you sweet little Emma and hope that you will always remain as sweet and wonderful as you are today!

Moyle Park

Okay, so I am way behind. We actually went to Moyle Park about 2 and a half weeks ago, but I guess it's better late then never.

For those of you who don't know, if you click on the picture it will come up much larger so you can see each individual picture. I just learned that and thought I would pass it on for those who don't know! :)

My sister-in-law put together a summer field trip schedule that has us going and doing something fun each wednesday morning. On July 1st we went to Moyle Park and had a great time! Moyle Park was the home of the man who walked from Alpine up to the Salt Lake Temple and carved "Holiness to the Lord, The House of the Lord" on the temple. As if it is not enough that he walked all that way, he did so even after an accident that required the amputation of his leg. He carved himself a wooden leg and kept on going. Now they have a historic site where his house was and on Tuesdays they have people who volunteer there. These people are descendants of John Moyle and they dress up in pioneer clothes (even the little kids) and they show how life would have been back then. It was really neat and was our favorite field trip this summer.

Emma (starting at the top left and going clockwise) got to try roping a steer, playing the stick pull, beating the rug, making a candle, washing clothes and making butter all the way the pioneers did. Her favorite parts seemed to be making the candle and churning the butter. She did not like the stick pull, I think because Annika won and she does NOT like to lose. :)

Bugsy (from top left going clockwise) waiting for Emma to finish her candle, playing in the rocks in the barn while Emma finished her candle, excited about watching the kids clean the laundry, wanted to ride the steer instead of rope it, and loved churning the butter. He didn't get to do everything because he was a little too small. Unfortunately letting him play in the rocks while Emma finished her candle was a mistake as his hair and everything smelled awful the rest of the day.

We had a great time, even Bugs who couldn't do everything had fun.

Thanks to Janelle and Karla for sending the pics to me.