Fall!

Fall is almost here! Today it actually felt like it. The sun was shining and it was about 60 degrees and there was just that feeling in the air. I even saw a few (a very few) leaves starting to change already. So in honor of fall I thought I'd post one of my favorite fall pictures. This is of Ellen when she was about 15 months old.

Annie's Compassion

The other day I saw an earwig climbing up the side of the garbage can in the kitchen. So I got a paper towel and got rid of the earwig. Annie saw me do this and was upset.

Anne: "Mom, you shouldn't have done that. It wasn't doing anything."
Me: "But I don't want any earwigs in the house."
Anne: "It has to live it's life too. Next time you should just carefully take it outside and let it go."

First Day of School

It finally arrived and with mixed emotions. The first day of school is always exciting, and yet it means our summer of freedom and just being together is over. The house is quieter, and there is definitely less fighting going on, but I sure miss Stephen and Anne. It is so exciting to think of all they will be learning and doing, though. And as much as I want them to stay little forever, I do look forward to all the neat things that come as they get older. Anyway ...

Sorry this picture is a little fuzzy. They are cute though aren't they?

Today dawned cloudy and rainy. And I'm very proud to say that we did not drive to school! Stephen rode his bike with Jared and while Ellen and Naomi played at the Dixon's (yes my wonderful neighbors I'm always talking about) I put Noah in the stroller and walked Annie, Caroline, and Miriam to school. The girls got pretty good at walking home from school last year but not always very quickly. There are just too many things to look at and talk about. We really wanted them to be able to walk to school this year so hopefully after walking with an adult for a while they will be able to try it on their own and make it on time.

The Jets!

A couple of days ago, Annie told me that someone she knows has a crush on someone else. (Not her, just in case you're wondering) For some reason when she said that I immediately though of the Jets song Crush On You. So today I had to get out my Jets cd and play it for the kids. Anne is upstairs right now listening to it for the 3rd time and dancing like crazy. Yes, she is my daughter. Then I had to see what I could find out about them and found this website: http://www.mysistersmusic.com/ so I just thought I'd share it with all of you.

Here is the music video on you tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm_QilrHkh8

Adorable Annie

I was just looking at some old pictures and found this one of Annie when she was just barely three years old. It has always been one of my favorites of her.

Growing Up

Just a few random thoughts I've been having that I don't really want to forget, so sorry if they don't make much sense. They're just a bunch of feathers, Chica!

It's almost 8 o'clock and none of the kids are awake yet and I keep debating whether this is ok or not. School starts in 5 days and I keep thinking I should get the kids used to getting up earlier so it won't be such a shock next week. But then I think I don't want to take away the joys of summer! I guess I've already made my decision, I just have to wonder.

Noah's first tooth is coming through. He doesn't seem too bothered by it. It just seems so early to me. I know lots of babies get teeth as early as 4 months old, but all of mine have waited until 11 or 12 months old. Noah is almost nine months, but still. It's early!

Naomi was telling me the other day (complete with actions), "When I a mom I will mix. I will have BIG tights."

Anne got a letter from her new teacher, Miss Trojanowski, a few days ago. She is so excited to go back to school. She is most excited about being able to eat lunch at school and having 3 recesses. Life as a first grader will be great! Annie and Stephen have already made plans to build giant snowmen during recess this winter. They seem to actually get along at school which is very relieving to me.

Stephen seems to be on a growing up fast track or something. Maybe its just that so many things are happening all at once now. He went to his first Den Meeting for Cub Scouts last night and got to use his pocket knife. That was quite exciting. Stephen also discovered a mad lib in a magazine the other day and had a great time with it. Little did he know that he was actually learning grammer and spelling. He will be starting 3rd grade and is all excited to think that he will learn multiplication and cursive.

Ellen loves to cook. I think all little kids love to cook, but Ellen seems to be especially into it. She also looks forward to all the things she'll be able do do when she's a teenager. Things like cracking eggs, stirring hot things on the stove, and being able to use sharp knives to slice cheese, cut up carrots, etc. I have to remember these things so that when she is a teenager I can remind her of all the things she really wanted to do. Maybe she will still really like to cook. I hope so.

Happy Anniversary Sweetie!

I just realized that today is August 20th and since no one else is awake yet I thought I'd take some time to blog about this day. Nine years ago today James and I got married for time and all eternity in the Denver temple. What a beautiful day it was. I know there are always things that seem to go wrong on wedding days, but I can't remember any of them from our wedding. I just remember a perfect day. I remember driving to the temple and being so excited. I remember getting ready in the beautiful Bride's Room. Then because we had a few minutes to wait, James and I were able to go sit in the Celestial Room until it was time to be sealed. And then finally it was time! It seemed like we had waited and looked forward to that time for so long. Even if one of us (me) did get a little sidetracked now and then.

And now 9 years has just flown by. I always thought of 9 years as being kind of a long time. But not so much anymore. We've been married for 9 years and so much has happened that it almost feels like a long time. Really, when I think of these last years I just get excited for the next 9, and the next, and the next until all those 9's add up to eternity. When we were engaged a few people told us that the first year of marriage is the hardest. After we got through that first year we thought, "Those people are crazy!" Sure we were finishing school, and had no money, and were adjusting to married life, but it was a great year. Now when I look back I agree with those "crazy" people. Each year of our marriage has been better than the one before, so really the first one was the hardest it was just so good we could never really call it hard.

So what have I learned so far? I need to remind myself of these things now and then. Forgiveness! Marriage (any relationship really) just doesn't work without quick and sincere forgiveness. I've also learned that it is very important to put my husband first. Sometimes it isn't possible, and sometimes it's really hard to do, but if I think of him before the kids, before my family, and before myself our marriage is strengthened, and he is more likely to do the same for me. One other thing I've learned: marriage and life are so dependant on prayer. Even if I don't specifically pray about our marriage, things are just better when I regularly and frequently pray. What else? Marriage is not perfect. It cannot be. James and I are definitely not perfect. If I don't expect marriage to be beautiful, and blissful and perfect all the time, I don't get so frustrated or discouraged when its not.

James has been so good to me. So patient and loving and supportive and just wonderful. Life is very good with him and I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for helping me find James. Thank you, James, for a wonderful 9 years. I love you.

Chubby Cheeks

One of Naomi's favorite things to do is to come up to Noah, put a hand on each of his cheeks, squeeze just a little and say, "Chubby Cheeks!" Noah doesn't mind it at all, he just grins at her. Naomi laughs then has to do it a couple more times before moving on to something else. I don't know where she got the idea because I've never seen anyone else do this.

Baby Hands

I just love baby hands!

Swimming Lessons

We finished swimming lessons last night and now everyone keeps asking when we get to go swimming for fun.

That's Stephen floating in the middle. He has really had a great time in the water.

Naomi was so calm in the water. She wasn't dying to jump in, but she was not upset by any means. She had a smile on her face almost the whole time.

Annie and Ellen, the two girls in the middle, got much more comfortable in the water, and didn't freeze too much.

What I'm thankful for today.

Today I'm thankful for cooler temperatures that are soon to come. I'm thankful for the shade we were able to park in. I'm thankful for Brother and Sister Shumway and all they do to take care of us. I'm thankful for my wonderful family. I'm thankful for funny comics. I'm thankful for surprise packages in the mail! Thank you Gran!

Recipe Blog

So I started another blog. Maybe I'm crazy, but I am actually hoping this will help me be a little better organized!?! I guess we'll see. I'm slowly going to be putting my favorite and most used recipes on the blog where I can organize them by labels and hopefully find them quicker than having to dig through my crazy stack of cookbooks and loose papers. I'm always looking for new recipes so I'm hoping that other people could put their recipes on it too. I found out that I can invite up to 100 people to be authors on my blog, so if anyone wants to...

The link is www.sisterssharingrecipes.blogspot.com so everybody can at least look at my recipes and see what it is like. There isn't much there yet, but it will grow.

What have we been doing?

The last week has been a busy one. On Monday night we all started swimming lessons. Even James and I get to swim. We are doing the parent-toddler class with Naomi and Noah. Annie and Ellen are in the Tadpole class together. And Stephen was in the Turtle class but got moved up to the Frog class on Wednesday, he's so good. It is a lot of fun, and during the hot day we really look forward to getting in the pool. The water is quite cool, so after our 30 minute lesson it feels pretty good to get out and get dry and warm again.

Tuesday night after swimming lessons James picked rasberries and mulberries. We didn't know till last summer that we had a mulberry tree. It is still funny to me to see berries growing on a great big tree instead of a bush.

On Wednesday we had a bowl full of rasberries and mulberries sitting in our fridge, so I thought I'd go buy some strawberries and just make a bunch of jam. So the kids and I all went to Otto's Produce here in Moscow and I bought 2 flats of strawberries.

They were so delicious. Yes I do have a thing for strawberries, partly just because of the way they look (I love that color of red) but these were just perfect. Not too tart or too sweet and full of juicy, yummy, strawberry flavor. So the kids and I had to eat some. I did wonder how much more jam I could have made if we hadn't eaten so many, but that's all part of the fun, right?

Then I started making jam.

I washed and cut up till my hands were bright red. And yes I ate some more.

Then I mashed and mashed and used muscles I evidently hadn't used it a very long time. My triceps are still sore.

Then I stirred in the lemon juice and pectin.

Then I added a ton of sugar. I always forget how much sugar goes into jam. I went through almost 25 lbs. of sugar. It makes me want to rethink our almost daily jam intake, whether its on toast or in sandwiches.

And finally after stirring for what seemed like forever, even though it's only about 15-20 minutes all together, we have the finished product. We now have about 45 jars of mulberry, rasberry, and strawberry jam on our shelves. It is a beautiful sight.

This is where Noah spent some time during the two days it took to finish. Most of it I was able to do during his naps, but not all. And of course I chose to really heat up the house on the two hottest days of the summer. So Noah and Naomi got to enjoy some diaper only time.

Ok, just one more thing to add to this post, then I promise I'll quit. After two days of making jam we needed some time out of our really hot house. We went to the store and bought suckers, then went downtown to Friendship Square. Even though it was almost 90 that day it was really pleasant in the shade and the kids had a fun time on the playground and watching the fountain there.

Stephen's Baptism

Stephen was baptized on August 2 and it was wonderful. He is growing up and gaining a testimony. It was a very joyful, spiritual, and emotional experience.