Fun with Zucchini

When we got back from St. George, we had four giant zucchinis in our garden. We picked them, not sure what to do with them.
One half was turned into zucchini bread. Yum!

One half was turned into stuffed zucchini. Thumbs down from most of the family.

Three were turned into zucchini boats - or battleships due to their size.

The kids had so much fun carving their ships. Zucchinis are easier to carve than pumpkins so the carving and shaping went together quickly.


Enoch planted some seeds hoping to get more zucchinis. Great.



We floated them in the tub. They are quite sturdy, even with Tsunami Enoch and Tidal Wave Kate playing along.

Call the Fashion Police!

I've never been accused of being in the know when it comes to fashion, but I'm pretty sure we are breaking about ten different rules here.
When Greg and I gathered the kids for our Sunday morning walk, this is how Enoch and Kate were dressed. Oh well. Not too many people are out at 8:30 am today.


Enoch is wearing shorts and a shirt that don't match, along with his Junior Ranger sash (that he insisted he get so he can be like Gavin and have his patches sewn onto a Scout sash). Enoch and Kate are also wearing their new Crocs boots. These were supposed to be saved for school when it rained or snowed, but the kids love them so much they couldn't wait. I think they are great!

I guess when you are six and three, you can get away with this!

Potter Party

Happy Birthday, Harry Potter (tomorrow actually).
I know, I know - we are nerds. We celebrate a fictional character's birthday. But, it is so fun.
For the birthday party, we ate pizza for dinner and watched Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone. Gavin wanted to watch Harry Potter 7, but since Enoch and Kate were watching with us, obviously we couldn't watch anything too scary. We stuck with the first movie and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was so fun to go back to the beginning after seeing the end.
After the movie, we had our Harry Potter snacks - golden snitch cake balls and pumpkin juice.


I've never made cake balls before. They were easy and fun to make. I'm no expert at dipping chocolate (it shows), but who cares when they taste so good. The pumpkin juice was Stephen's pumpkin spice cider. I found it last fall and have hid it in the storage room until today.
Gavin playing seeker.

Kate, playing Harry Potter, and 'eating' her golden snitch while playing Quidditch.

It was a fun night. We have completely loved the Harry Potter ride. We enjoyed the last movie. When the opening credits started, I got quite sad knowing that this was the end. Greg and Gavin are seeing the last movie right now. Even though the books and movies are over, we will still celebrate Harry's birthday.

Junior Rangers

Every Saturday morning this summer that we've been home we have attended the Junior Ranger Program at Timpanogos Cave Visitor Center. The kids love it, we have learned a lot and we get to be in the canyon every week. It has been great!
Our family has learned about a bunch of different things. We made cookie and candy soil when we learned about dirt, erosion and weathering. We learned about recycling and made inventions using recycled products. We made proboscis out of straws when we learned about butterflies and moths. Our teacher, Ranger Roberta, is wonderful. The kids just gravitate toward her. She knows Enoch and Kate by name and calls us her Junior Ranger family because we have been so often.

Today we learned about predators and preys. We talked about examples, read some books and sang some songs. The kids acted out different ways animals protect themselves from predators, like potato bugs rolling into a ball.

We finished the class by making cookie dough snakes and adding candy scales. This kids thought it was so fun. Gavin joined us today (he usually stays home) and he even had fun making his snake.



A few of the Saturdays, they have done some additional shows. When Greg and I were in St. George, my mom took the kids to the Birds of Prey show. The kids really enjoyed it. Enoch still talks about the owls and Peregrine falcons. Today they had a snake show. Yikes! However, it was quite interesting. We saw, learned and touched. Enoch and Kate had front row seats. As you can see, Kate and Enoch were completely enthralled. But, Enoch was quite concerned about the rattlesnakes.




Today, Enoch and Kate earned their Junior Ranger badges. We have been working on the booklet all summer. They were so excited to take the pledge and get their badges.


Now, we just need to hike to the cave!

Greg and Tresa's Weekend Getaway

Greg and I have been trying to have a weekend away for quite awhile now. We finally coordinated schedules with my parents and found that this weekend was the only one for the entire summer that worked for both of us. We took it!
We debated about where we should go, what we should do. We thought about San Fransisco or Seattle. Greg didn't have a lot of vacation time because of other trips and future trips, so we decided to stay close to home. Plus, I really wanted this to be a vacation where we did nothing - literally nothing. We have been running at full speed for so long that we really needed a few days of doing nothing. Knowing myself, if we went somewhere like San Fransisco or Seattle (and we have been there before), I would feel like we needed to see and do everything and then I would feel bad that the kids weren't there to see it. That didn't sound like a relaxing vacation.
We chose to go to St. George because we knew we could relax there. We've been there so much and seen everything that we didn't feel the need to rush around and be tourist. Plus, it was so hot that we just wanted to stay inside anyway. We did some school shopping at the Outlets, saw Harry Potter 7, went for a few late night walks and did nothing. It was heavenly!
The kids also had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa Randall. They rode the 4-wheelers, made s'mores, painted t-shirts, watch movies and went for ice cream. A huge thanks to Grandpa and Grandma for making this weekend possible.

PS - A little tidbit of wisdom I learned a few years ago from my sister-in-law, Annette, which has completely changed the way I look at vacations and made me a happier mom on trips. When you take your kids somewhere you are not on vacation, you are on a trip. You still have to be the mom. You can still have a lot of fun, but you don't get to take a break from motherhood. When you go somewhere with your husband or girlfriends, you are on a vacation, and you can act like it. Wow - so simple, but really changed my attitude for the better about taking trips and realizing that they are not a vacation for me.

Pack Meeting Water Slides

July is the time of year for our annual Cub Scout Pack Meeting Water Slide party at Classic in Sandy. Our family has missed it the last few years because I was out of Primary and we didn't have a Cub - so we were happy to be back.
After a struggle to get to Sandy (a Foreigner concert at Rio Tinto caused a lot of traffic), Gavin and I finally made it. We were given wrist bands to hand out to our Pack members and Gavin took his job very seriously - until friends started to arrive and then he went sliding. Greg arrived a bit later with Enoch and Kate. Pack members straggled in due to traffic so our Award Ceremony started a little late. Brother Lambert whizzed through the awards, we served our hot dog and chips dinner and people slid until 9 pm.
Once the sun went down, it cooled off and Enoch and Kate were done. Greg took them home and Gavin stayed with me until 9:30 to help clean up. We ran into construction traffic on the way home and didn't get in until about 10:30 pm. Thanks, Gavin!





It was so fun to see families and friends having such a great time. We have a terrific pack with incredible families and leaders.

Days of '47 Floats

A few years ago we started the tradition of attending the float preview party for the Days of '47 parade. It is held the week before July 24 at the South Towne Expo Center in Sandy. It is fantastic!
We never go to the parade because it is crowded, hot and is so much easier to watch it on TV. But, you often can't get the full effect on TV. That is why we love the parade party - you can see all the floats up close. The trickiest part is making sure your kids don't touch! If only they would have a high school band marching around (or not, that would get very loud and echoy in that building).
We voted on our favorite floats. Kate like the one with flowers - which was almost every one (I randomly choose one for her ballot). Enoch liked the one with the rocket that blasted off. I liked the one that depicted Hole in the Rock. All the floats were great. Although the BYU float wasn't as colorful, funny or cute as some of the others, we still liked it!


We didn't stay long, but had a great time and can't wait until next year.

Humanitarian FHE

At the beginning of the year, our stake started a project to make quilts for the Humanitarian Center. I knew this was something I wanted to help with, so I didn't do a thing about it until now. Isn't that how life goes? Anyway, I picked up some fabric that was donated and started putting it together into a quilt. I finally finished piecing it and it was ready to be tied.
I mentioned to my friend, Cathleen, that I was almost finished with this quilt, but didn't know what to do next. I don't tie my quilts, so I really don't have a lot of experience with that. She suggested that we have a quilting bee for FHE. I loved that idea!
The quilt was smaller so it went together quickly. Gavin was a great help and did a wonderful job. I bound the quilt using the envelope style, so once we had it tied, it was done. I had a good time tying the quilt and now I'm ready to learn how to hand quilt.


Cathleen, who is super amazing, also got the supplies together for the little boys to work on sanding toy blocks. Such a simple project, but what kids doesn't like blocks? While the older people quilted, the boys (some big and some small) sanded blocks and rubbed them with mineral oil.


For treats we had homemade lemonade and chocolate zucchini cupcakes.

It was a great night. We had so much fun, accomplished a lot and went home feeling great. I think this is going to be a monthly tradition in our family.

Kate and the Tooth Fairy

Kate has had a lot of teeth issues - remember this? I hate to put the blame on anyone, but I have a feeling once Enoch is in school for most of the day, Kate will have a lot fewer mishaps. Enoch isn't the problem, but Kate trying to keep up with Enoch does create some dangerous situations for her.
A few days before our trip to Disneyland in June, Kate was eating a tuna fish sandwich. She was biting it funny and I asked her what was wrong. She calmly told me she had a loose tooth. I really didn't believe her until Enoch said that she fell and bonked her mouth on mom and dad's foot board and her tooth was loose. What?! Why does nobody tell me these things?
I told her to leave it alone and maybe it would be fine (that is what happened with her other tooth). Nope. Her tooth fell out in the bathroom in Costco in Victorville, CA. Poor thing. She looked up at me with big eyes and said, "Mom, my tooth came out." We hadn't really talked to her about loosing teeth and she was terrified. Her eyes got teary. I gave her a big hug and picked her up. She wouldn't let me set her down for about ten minutes. After we explained to her that a new tooth would grow in (eventually), she seemed a bit better. Enoch excitedly told her about the tooth fairy and then things seemed really okay.
So, Kate lost her tooth the beginning of June. It is now mid-July. Umm, the tooth fairy is very forgetful and exhausted at our house right now. I wanted to do something special since this was a scary experience for Kate. I whipped up a little tooth fairy pouch (or something, I really don't know what to call it). It has a small pocket for a tooth and a bigger pocket for a surprise. Kate really liked it and was so excited that it matched her quilt.
She hung it on the side of her bed, and then around her neck, and then back on her bed. She carefully put her tooth in there and then went straight to bed so the tooth fairy could come.





And guess what she got - fingernail polish. She was so excited.

I'm hoping we can put the tooth fairy pouch away for another four or five years - I'm hoping!

Summer Sewing

When I started my crafty blog a year ago I had great hopes of documenting every project I completed. Yeah, right. After kids, house, church callings, car pooling, etc, etc, etc, my list of completed projects is quite quickly dwindling to almost nothing. I have plenty of great ideas in my head, but nothing to show for it. I'm trying to get signed up for Pinterest to organize all my 'someday projects' so they don't have to be floating around in my head, but I'm running into some snags. You have to have a Facebook account. To most people that would be no big deal. But, I have shunned Facebook - determined never to join because I don't need one more computer thing to do. (And, I don't need everyone telling me I need to do it and how great it is. I believe you, I just don't have the time for it. When I finally get it working and actually do start using it, you can all tell me, "I told you so.") Well, I did join Facebook and I must not be as intelligent as the average five year old who can figure it out, because I'm having issues getting it to work. And to top it off, Pinterest isn't recognizing my Facebook account. All of that for nothing! Do you see why I'm not getting anything done - stupid computer! And, last night I found out that Blurb lost my almost completed 2008 Fowler Family Fun blog book. Not happy.
Wow - I'm more frustrated than I thought! Any way, back to summer sewing. Rather than post this on my now defunct DONE blog, I'll be posting my projects here because it is a major accomplishment to actually finish something in the chaos of my life.
I don't sew all my kids clothes, but I do like to do something for them every season. Boys clothes are hard. I'm not sewing jeans or t-shirts, so that leaves me with jammies. Enoch still (barely) fits into his summer jammies from last year, so that was done. When we pulled out the hand-me-downs from Gavin I realized that the t-shirts were fine, but the shorts were literally falling off of Enoch. He is just really skinny. He needs the length of a size six shorts, but his waist fits a 2T-3T short. After searching every store I could think of and still coming up with nothing, I tackled the project of making him shorts. I found a really great, free pattern on line and went to work.
Enoch had fun helping me pick out some of the fabric. He hates plaid (which is what is really in right now) so we had to be creative. I think they turned out great. After the third pair I was on a roll and they go together very easily. I think Enoch will be getting some pants out of the same pattern in the fall.



I decided to make some tags for the kid's clothes this year(maybe they won't look so homemade then?). I let the kids pick out their own design and then transferred it onto bias tape. Kate picked out a pretty pink flower. Enoch picked out a tornado design. Yep, this is the NASA warning for tornadoes. I think it's hilarious - and very Enoch.

Kate is easier to sew for because they are so many patterns out there for little girls. I wanted to do something that wasn't all pink because Greg is, "sick of seeing her in pink. Can't she wear some other color?" She looks great in blues and yellows so I did some clothes in those colors.

I made this shirt out of an old shirt of mine and the yoga skirt from a clearance XL t-shirt from Wal-Mart. The skirt really isn't that snug, it's just the way she is standing.

I really like this shirt, but she doesn't wear it much because it is white. I love the pattern and will make more using different fabric next time. The capris were shorts I made for Enoch and reduced the hip a bit too much. Since Enoch and Kate have the same waist size, they became capris for Kate.

And a pink dress, just because.