Enoch Reading to Kate

I don't dare take a picture because I know it will ruin the moment. I'll describe the scene to you. Kate and Enoch are sitting in our big 'reading' chair in the family room (we call it our reading chair because that is where Mom sits when she reads to you). Kate brought Enoch a big stack of her favorite books and Enoch sat down next to her and is 'reading' the books to Kate. He really can't read yet, but he has the books memorized almost word for word. Kate is mesmerized. Enoch lets her turn the pages, feel the different textures in her touch and feel books, and does different voices for the different characters. They are both loving it!
Enoch is an amazing brother. Kate loves him so much. They are the best of friends (most of the time!).

Public vs. Private Update

Thanks for your great advice (especially Ariana!). I have taken a few steps to make our blog less public, but still accessible. I changed the setting so we won't be on any search engines or blog listings. I also changed my profile to private for this blog. However, Greg had a great idea of creating a 'fake blog'. This is the blog that comes up on search engines and my personal profile. I know my email address is out there, but I'd rather that than my kids. It will still take a few weeks for Google to update their pages, but I'm feeling better. Thanks for all the help!

Public vs. Private

A few weeks ago for FHE we talked about internet safety. We read an article in the Friend and then discussed ways to be safe while online: don't give out your name or personal information, don't send pictures, etc. I knew this before, but this lesson really hit it home: I'm doing all these things on our blog.
So, the last few weeks I've been debating going private with our blog. I really don't want to, but I feel like I need to for safety reasons. I have reconnected with friends and keep up better with current friends through our blog, but am I compromising my children's safety? What do you think?

Apples

Tonight for our FHE activity we had an apple picking party. Our apple tree was loaded this year. The apples were starting to rot and the birds were having a feast. We picked our tree clean and had a great time doing it. We had been enjoying fresh apples all summer (almost every time I went outside there was an half-eaten apple in the lawn or on the trampoline). I had also used about 80 apples for my Caramel Apple Butter earlier this month.



For dessert I made Caramel Apple Dumplings. They were amazing; very sweet. Try them out!

Hold Still!

Enoch was running around in the backyard; Gavin had the camera. I love the pictures of Enoch. It shows so much of his happy personality.

From That to This

Here is Greg wearing his favorite shirt. It has a hole in the elbow and is threadbare on the collar and cuffs. Even still, he was having a hard time parting with it. I was also having a hard time letting it go as I really liked this shirt, too.

So, I turned it into this.....


We have nicknamed it Kate's BYU dress (obviously because of the colors). I saw a few tutorials online of how to make girl's dresses from men's shirts and the idea was planted. I made up my own pattern and added to it as needed. I added the ribbon elasitic at the waist because it looked too much like a sack and I added the cream trim at the bottom because it was a bit short after all the cutting and squaring up. I don't love the neckline, so next time I'll do something different.

If any of you have any unwanted men's shirts (even t-shirts) laying around, I'd be happy to take them. I've decided that converting clothes is a great way to stretch their life (and stretch my dollar!).

Our First Peaches

WOW! Our peaches are so beautiful and big. This is the first year our peach tree has produced and it was worth the wait. In the spring, I thinned out our fruit trees and probably pulled off a little too many peaches. But, the 15 peaches we do have are so big and juicy. It is like eating candy. Yummy!
We have been enjoying fresh peaches every day, peach crisp and peach cobbler. I'll admit, I like them more than anyone else, but Gavin and Enoch will eat a few. Greg doesn't like peaches and Kate is being a bit picky about them too (sometimes she will eat them and sometimes not).
PS - Our apple tree is producing like crazy. Good thing we love apples!

Enoch really needs a pet!

Today Enoch found a new pet. Scary, I know (since his last pet was a worm). This is even better. His new pet - a lizard, a DEAD lizard. He found this mini lizard (2 inches long) in the backyard. He cried for 20 minutes when I absolutely refused to let him keep it as his pet. What am I going to do with this kid?
We are actually (Enoch's new favorite word) thinking about getting a chinchilla. We have read that if you get them at babies, they domesticate fairly well. Let us know what you know about these little guys. They are super cute, but we want to be able to play with it. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Labor Day: Suitably Named

Today is Labor Day and, in our family, it has been a day of labor. Wow! I feel like I haven't sat down all day. By 9 am, I had picked 8 cups of raspberries, picked 50 apples and had a quadruple batch of apple butter cooking. The day just kept getting busier.

*I put together some bridal shower invitations for Greg's niece, Rachel Fowler.

*We finally went on our family bike ride on the Jordan Parkway (that we earned from our house cup). We had a great time, even if Enoch and Kate were both squashed in the bike trailer. By the end of the ride the trailer was rocking back and forth from the helmet bashing, biting and hitting.



*I went through Kate's winter clothes. I was thinking I was well prepared with the warm clothes I bought on clearance in the spring. Little Miss Shrimpy decided not to grow and now I'm stuck with a bunch of 2T clothes that are completely falling off of her. I made a list of what I need and I'm headed to the fabric store tomorrow. I'm thinking Kate is going to be wearing a bunch of leggings and skirts this winter.

*I made my annual raspberry pie. It was delicious!

*Kate received her first American Girl magazine. I'm not sure where it came from (Greg doesn't believe me; he thinks I ordered it). Kate had a great time looking through it and fell in love with the Bitty baby dolls and the bunny slippers.

*My apple butter is still cooking. I'm hoping I'm not processing it at midnight!

I Take It Back

I completely, totally, unequivocally take back my comment in the previous post about Oklahoma kicking our fannies. Was that not a great game? Oh my goodness, we are so thrilled. Here's to a great season! Go Cougars!

Scattered Thoughts

I'm feeling a bit scattered-brained. My family would tell you it's more than a feeling (isn't that a song?), but that I really am scattered-brained. To clear my brain of junk (yeah, right!), I'm blogging about the randomness of our family this week.

yahoo
Notice this title is all in lower-case, meaning I'm really not that excited about this. Kate can now climb up the slide by herself. Yes, climb up it whenever she wants, no matter if anyone is watching out for her. After scrambling up, she chants "YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!", with her little fists pumping in the air. She then will hang off the side of the play tower and look around, completely unaware of any danger. When she finally does decide to go down the slide, she is a little missile. She shoots off the bottom of the slide and flies 3-4 feet in the air before landing. I'm cleaning a lot of grass stains off the pockets of her pants. As a side note, you have to be careful around Kate and the slide. If you are taking too long going down and Kate is waiting, she is not afraid to give you a big shove.


Enoch Starts Preschool
Yes, I know, I get mother of the year award for forgetting to take the-first-day-of-school picture of Enoch and blogging about it. Sorry, E! Needless to say, Enoch started preschool, is doing great, is loving Mrs. Skousen and is having a great time carpooling with his bud, Jimmy. He is the funniest kid and you get him and Jimmy together and they keep me laughing our entire walk home.

Go Cougars!
Football season is now upon us and even though we will, in all likelihood, get our fannies kicked tonight, we are still EXCITED!

Kate's 1st Haircut
All of you moms out there who have babies with actual hair, go ahead and laugh. I am well aware that my kids are bald. Really, my kids do have hair, it's just so fine and blond that it might as well be non-existent.
Well, we finally cut off Kate's tail this morning. I was giving Enoch a haircut and decided that it was time to shape up the baby-mullet. I was so sad to cut off her curl, but her hair really does look better.
I know you can't see the curl very well in either picture (trust me, it's there); Enoch is on the left and Kate is on the right. Of course, they both had a lone curl at the base of their hairline. Do I really need another reason to believe that they are identical twins (separated by three years and gender)?

How Can She Sleep There?

Kate is in the process of cutting down to one nap (or sometimes I get really lucky and she won't nap at all!). The funny thing is that she still wants to take her one nap at 10am. So, by dinnertime she is a bear - a really, really grumpy bear.
Tonight, I finally had enough whining and crying and sent her outside after dinner. Greg was mowing the lawn (with our neighbors riding mower since ours is in the shop). Kate was fascinated with the riding mower and demanded a ride. It didn't take long before she was completely asleep. I couldn't believe she could sleep with all the jostling and noise.
When I laid her down in her crib, she immediately flipped onto her stomach and pulled her knees up to her stomach so her cute bum was sticking in the air. That is a sure sign for Kate that she is exhausted. Here's to hoping she'll sleep through the night!

The fruits of our labors

For the second year, our family participated in the Neighborhood Garden. We have had a great year with more than enough produce for our family.

In the spring, Greg put together the watering system. He did a great job. Unfortuntely, the water pressure isn't great and so watering the garden is a bit of a pain. Every family takes two turns a season and it takes most of the day to water half of the garden. Greg took care of our family watering turns and did most of the weeding. What a guy! We had the melon row and it consistently looked the best of all the rows. Greg really stepped up and did a great job with the garden.
We had picking days on Tuesdays at 6:30 pm and Saturdays at 7:30 am. The kids loved picking days because they could play with their friends at the garden. We always had enough babysitters for Kate (all the girls love playing with her). This night, Kate found some mud and had lots of fun.
We have had corn, beans, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, onions, canteloupe, and Crenshaw melon. Everything was so delicious. Enoch loves corn on the cob and the Crenshaw melon was amazing.
I froze 15 quarts of corn and 8 cups of blended squash. I also canned 7 pints of tomatoes for salsa and 30 1/2 pints of pizza sauce.