Museum Mondays

Mondays are early out days for the kids. Rather than sit around home whining about watching TV, we decided to take that extra time on Mondays and go and do something fun. We call it Museum Mondays (although we don't always go to a museum).

Today, was a Minimal Monday, meaning the kids got out of school even earlier (think 12:30). Kate and I picked up the boys and went to Subway to get some sandwiches. We took our lunch up to the canyon.

It was such a beautiful day. I brought jackets for all the kids, but we didn't need them. After eating, the kids went exploring. They found a rock slide, a fuzzy caterpillar, a huge rock to climb on and, of course, threw rocks in the river. It was such a fun afternoon.

Scattered Thoughts on Enoch

1. Enoch has really great Primary teachers, Brother and Sister Larsen. Enoch really likes them. Probably too much (although my gut feeling is he would be super chatty with any teacher). Brother Larsen has learned not to make direct eye contact with Enoch during Sharing Time or class time unless he wants Enoch to talk non-stop about random topics for the next ten minutes. Brother Larsen looks straight forward while Enoch turns in his chair and stares directly at Brother Larsen without blinking. As soon as Brother Larsen makes any eye contact, Enoch is talking.

2. The other day Enoch walked up to me and said, "Do you know what would be really cool? If there were two of me!" I shiver at the thought.

3. On the way to church today Enoch was talking about organs - not church organs, but body organs. He is really into anatomy these days and how his body functions and all organs work together. He can never decide which organ is most important - his brain or heart. Today, he decided the most important part of his body was his Spirit. Oh, my sweet boy. He then said, "But, if my Spirit stops working and leaves my body, my body would be really squishy. Maybe when we make a bad choice, Heavenly Father should take away one of our bones. Then lots of people would be very squishy." Heathen. We had a short chat about free agency and repentance on the way into the chapel.

4. Tucking Enoch into bed is always a process. He likes to talk. I usually plan on about 10-15 minutes of chatting before he winds down. But I don't mind. He usually likes to talk about church stuff. Today he asked me if I knew everything. "No," I replied, "but who does?" He quickly answered Heavenly Father. Enoch then said, "I know a lot of things." "What do you know?", I asked (curious to hear his answer). "I know not to poop in the lawn." Yep Enoch, you do know a lot.

5. I'm pretty sure the pooping in the lawn comment came from the fact that Enoch is earning a potential dog. He made a deal with Mom and Dad. Every time he walks or plays with the neighbors dog he earns a point. When he gets six points, then Mom and Dad talk about getting Enoch a dog. When he earns six more points, Mom and Dad will talk again. I know, not very fair to Enoch, but he is having a lot of fun with Koda, the neighbor dog.

What the???

What is going on with my blog? Has anyone else had this playsushi show up on their blog uninvited? How do I get rid of it? Stupid.

Canning

This year our fruit trees produced really well. We had plenty of peaches and apples to eat fresh and then bottle the rest. We ended up with 30 quarts of peaches and 45 quarts of applesauce. Good thing the kids like both of those. I was also hoping to do some tomatoes, but they didn't grow as well this year.

Greg and Gavin were a huge help with the applesauce. I ordered a pressure canner from Amazon and also had my food mill from Christmas last year that made the job quite easy. It still took us two days, but it always feels so good to get it done. Thanks for the help, boys!

Discovery Museum

This was our family's first visit to the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum. We had a wonderful time. The kids would just run from thing to thing, never slowing down. Kate had a great time with everything. Enoch absolutely loved the medivac helicopter and Gavin and friend, Kayden, loved making stop motion animation movies and figuring out all the engineering tasks.

Summer Rain

Summer rain is wonderful. It's warm and wet and so much fun. The kids had a great time playing in the rain and then snuggling in blankets when they came inside.

Enoch's Lost Tooth

Enoch has always had a lot of teeth in his little mouth. They are squished in there pretty tight. So, imagine my surprise when he informed me that he was growing a second row of teeth - shark teeth he told me proudly. Yep, Enoch had permanent teeth coming in behind his baby teeth.

Greg and I encouraged him to start wiggling his baby teeth as often as he could. It wasn't too long before he lost one tooth and then about a week later another tooth.


He was so excited to put his tooth in his Tooth Fairy Pouch. The tooth fairy usually leaves a really fun toy for your first tooth lost (each tooth after that is worth about $.50). Enoch received a really cool set of Alien Invaders Legos. He was super excited!

We will see what the Tooth Fairy leaves for the teeth that Enoch is getting pulled in a couple of weeks. Maybe something special since that is going to hurt!

PS - Enoch and Kate have both lost the same tooth. The difference is that Enoch's permanent tooth was coming in before his baby tooth fell out and Kate's permanent tooth is most likely not coming in for a few more years.

PSS - I forget about this experience. I wanted to remember it so I copied my mom's comments:
"I'm still remembering that first tooth that he lost at our house that came out and he didn't even know it. It was a really "lost" tooth and I wasn't sure how to find it. Enoch knew what to do, however. He went downstairs, said a prayer and when he opened his eyes again, there was his tooth sitting on the bed with all white bedding. Only divine intervention could have helped with that one! "And a little child shall lead them . . ."

Painting

Labor Day weekend was spent painting - a lot of painting.
We have lived in our house for 13 years. It needed a face lift. The purple and green scheme is out. After 13 years of looking at it, we are tired of it. We enjoyed it while we had it, but are ready for something different and new. And wow! Are we getting different! We are getting new living room and family room furniture soon and it is definitely not purple and green! By the way, if you know anyone who would like a purple couch and chair, let me know!
We decided to go back to neutral walls (they were a sagey/gray green). We now have cream/peachy walls. I really like the clean, warm look. It is a change. I got up the next morning and thought, "What have we done? Am I ready for this?" After about 10 minutes, I thought, "Yep, I am. Very ready."
My parents were incredible and took Enoch and Kate for the weekend. Greg, Gavin and I stayed home and painted as much as we could. My sister, Michelle, and her husband, Dave, came and helped Friday night. We owe them big time! They were such a huge help. Gavin was put on Marcus babysitting duty for a bit while the adults painted. We got a lot done with their help.

We painted Friday night and all day Saturday. We slowed down during the BYU game, but went until Saturday night. We almost got it done. We had to put 4 coats over the green paint to get a good coverage. Geesh! That took a long time. We borrowed some scaffolding from Steenecks and that saved us! It was so handy.



We are slowly finishing. We still have baseboards. Greg is seriously considering replacing the baseboards and then he can spray them outside. That won't happen until we get our new carpet (in a few months). I'm excited for the changes. Now, I need to figure out what to put on the walls (besides new paint!).