Hi, This is Greg.
Gavin and I went to Camp Floyd last weekend. We stayed the night in some authentic tents.

It was a great time. We were issued uniforms, that we had to wear all the time.

But they were nice to have during the cold morning. We got to make some cartridges for some muzzle loader muskets and then shoot them.

We also watched some movies about the civil war.


Greg Fowler

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!).