Harvest Time

This summer went so fast, I feel like I had no time to really enjoy the garden. It came and went before I even knew it. Last week, or maybe a couple of weeks ago (see, I really have no concept of time anymore), we went out to harvest the remains of our garden before a freeze. Here are a few choice photos-

No shortage of tomatoes here. Too bad I didn't have more time to bottle everything.
Anyone know a good recipe for green tomatoes?


A honeydew melon. It didn't taste so good.


An orange fleshed watermelon. It actually wasn't too bad. The kids devoured it in no time.


A giant bell pepper. Too bad it wasn't around at the same time as our county fair. I'm sure we would have taken home a prize for that.




Ben still loves eating tomatoes. Below, are a some pictures from the last few years. We have to get at least one picture a year of him stuffing his face full of tomato. Weston would rather eat dirt than a tomato, which it appears, is exactly what he was doing.

Alien Sighting

We caught an alien on tape. Strangely enough, it looked very similar to Spencer in his underwear, wearing the alien mask Ben got for his birthday.

Ben's 4th Birthday

Ben turned 4 last Sunday. He wanted a Black Spiderman cake, or rather, I talked him into a Black Spiderman cake. His first choice would have been a Green Goblin cake, but I thought the Black Spiderman would be easier to make. I made it after he was in bed on Saturday night, so it would be ready for him on Sunday. He was so excited Sunday morning, he spent most of the morning sitting on the counter just looking at the cake. Every once in a while he'd sigh and say "I love you, mommy".



We just had a small party after church with our family, plus Joe and Kacy. The Spiderman Pinata was first. After demolishing that, it was time for cake. Everyone's shirts had to come off, except for adults, of course. Black frosting is the one drawback of the Black Spiderman cake.


All Ben wanted for a present was a "scary" costume. Again, his preference would have been the Green Goblin, but as they don't carry those at Wal-mart, this was the next best thing. He seemed to be pleased with it anyway.

I say this every year at every birthday, I just can't believe another year has passed. Seriously, these kids are growing up so fast. It's kind of sad.
Ben's such a little mama's boy. He wants to be at my side or cuddling with me all day long. It's probably a good thing that I'm his main lady right now because he's very much a lady's man. He loves to raise and lower his eyebrows and wink at girls. He also has some mean dance moves, so ladies, WATCH OUT! He'll be grown before we know it.

Summer

I really cannot believe summer is over. And I can't believe that I didn't blog all summer long. So, if you haven't given up on my blog by now, here's a quick rundown of the last few months.

The first thing that kept me so busy? Our garden. Below is a picture of about half of it at the first of the summer.


We had an infestation of earwigs in the garden this year, due to the chicken coop, I think, and they were eating everything. I didn't want to put down any dangerous chemicals to kill them because my slaves kids spend a lot of time in the garden, weeding. So, I would go out every night around 11 or 12 (they only come out at night), and spray them with soapy water. It takes about 10 seconds for them to die, and I must say, I found much pleasure in watching them die. I really, really hate earwigs.
In the end, it paid off. Our tomato plants are all taller than me and packed with tomatoes. We had one plant that was at least 10 feet tall. Look at this monster roma. All of our romas are about this size.


The next thing keeping me busy was The Pizza Cart. We opened a wood fired pizza business this summer, and it was SO much more work than I anticipated. Last summer I posted about Jason selling pizza at the fair. This year we decided to try and make everything legal so that we could sell on the street. After all the licenses, bonds, inspections, and a million other details, we were finally legal to sell. In the beginning, we figured Jason would just run it himself, but after our first day in business, it was obvious that it was a 2 person job. We sold out in 4 hours, about 50 pizzas! It has continued to grow and become more successful, so far, then we ever dreamed. We sell on Monday, Friday, and Saturday, and Jason is going to school on Tuesday-Thursday.





That pretty much sums up my summer. We did do one camping trip to Manti to watch the pageant. It was the first time camping as a whole family since Ben was a baby, and it was a success.
We also spent almost 2 weeks up at my mom's. I think it was the highlight of the summer for the boys. My mom took us to Lagoon, Thanksgiving Point, movies, The Lion King at Capitol Theater, swimming, and many other fun thing. They were also able to spend plenty of time with their cousins and see some old friends. I told my mom we wouldn't visit for another year so that she could recover from the financial loss of having us visit. Thanks, mom, it was a great time. She took lots of pictures, but I haven't go them from her yet.
Here's a few other random pictures -

There's nothing like playing naked in the gutter during a rain storm.


When Uncle Chris comes to visit, he always buys the kids some Henry Weinhard's root beer and cream soda, and boy, do they live it up!


Here's 3 out of the 4. Aren't they a good looking bunch?


And Spencer. He's still a new person every day. Here's one of his latest- Mission Impossible.

Yosemite

We had the opportunity to go to Yosemite with our friends, Joe and Kacy, a few weeks ago. My wonderful mom came and stayed with the kids, so it was just the 4 of us for 5 days. A ten hour car trip seems like nothing without kids.
We stayed in a motel the first night about an hour out of the park so that we could get to our camping spot bright and early the next morning. There are no reservations at Camp 4, so you have to arrive early to get in line and hope for a spot. The guys really wanted to camp at Camp 4 because of the climbing history. Many famous climbers pretty much lived there back in the day.
Anyway, we did get a spot, luckily. Because if we'd of had to drive in and out of that park every day, I may have gone home. It's a beautiful drive, but it's about an hour of tight winding roads. I was SO sick on the way in and the way home.


We were all blown away by the beauty of Yosemite. Huge granite walls, huge waterfalls from the spring runoff. It really is so amazing.
We spent most of the time hiking or climbing. Too bad I wasn't in better shape. I could have got a lot more hikes in. The hike up to Upper Yosemite Falls about killed me.

Here I am hiking up one of the five million (give or take) switchbacks. It was like climbing a granite staircase for 3 hours straight.

Here's the view of Yosemite valley from the top of the falls.


Here's a view of the upper falls from halfway up the hike. Two and a half million switchbacks down, two and a half million to go.
The falls sounded like a jet plane from here. It was amazing.


Finally at the top. Such an amazing hike, but I was pretty much ready to collapse.



Jason and Joe after one of the climbs. They did most of the climbing, but even I did a few.


Here's a bear we spotted. She had 2 cubs with her. We had to get out of the car and get a picture. Apparently there are a lot of bears and they're not too shy. In our camp we had bear lockers to keep all of our food in. The rule is-if your food is out, it must be within arms reach of you at all times. The bears aren't interested in us, just our food. Jason chased one out of the camp parking lot early one morning. Another morning we could hear one sniffing around right outside our tent and our car had paw and lick marks all over the windows. I guess we should have taken them seriously when they told us not to leave food in the car, not even grocery bags or wrappers.


Here's some safer wildlife. I found him on the rock that the guys were climbing up. He didn't even try to run from me. Cute little guy, I probably would've taken him home if I thought we could keep him alive.

Well, it was an amazing trip. Well worth it. We'd like to come back with the kids someday.
I even missed the kids, though they didn't miss me too much. Grandma is much funner than I am. Thanks mom, for coming to stay with the kids. I think I'll plan a trip for next month if you're up for it.

Weston 's Birthday

We celebrated Weston's Birthday on Friday. It turned out to be a beautiful day, which has been rare this season, so we celebrated at the park. Good weather, good food, and good friends. It was a great time.

Below is a clip of Weston blowing out a candle for about the twentieth time.


Here in this video, below, was the best present of all. Spencer turned an old rag into a spectacular gift with just a needle and thread. It was all his own idea, and he was quite proud of his creation. I don't think Weston shared his excitement.



Here's the Birthday cupcakes. The kids thought they were awesome. You can find the recipe HERE on my recipe blog.

Okay...FINE.

Everyone wanted to see a picture of "the haircut", so here it is. Sorry for the blur, I'm not very good at taking pictures of myself. Keep in mind, my hair is not done, because...well, you know, it never is. Especially not now, because there's nothing to do.
Don't be fooled by the smile on my face. I'm still not happy about it. But enough of my complaining...

Locks of Love?

I was in need of a haircut, which I almost never get because I'm lazy. Lazy about hair. I hate doing my hair. Hate it. But I don't hate it when it is done, which is almost never. I wear it back all week, and I fix it for church on Sunday. Because I'm so lazy about it , it had grown as long as it's ever been, almost to my waist, which is way too long. Time for a cut. But I'm not only lazy about my hair, I'm cheap. So I had to wait for $3 Thursday at the beauty school, which is where I always get my hair trimmed. Now, you may be getting the idea that I don't care much about my hair, which is true. Or at least I thought it was true.
I had decided on 3 or 4 inches. Nothing dramatic, nothing different. Then, while combing through my hair, the stylist commented on how, if I cut a little more, I could donate it to Locks of Love. I asked her to show me how short it would be, and she pointed to a spot about half way down my back. She kept telling me that my hair would still be plenty long, nothing to worry about.
So now I'm kind of in a hard place. Inside I was screaming, No don't do it! Don't trust her!, but I didn't want to look like a jerk who doesn't care about kids with cancer who can't afford wigs. I tried to act casual as I said "Yeah sure, I can do that. No big deal". In reality, I wanted to get up and run away from her and her scissor happy hands as fast as I could.
Now that it's all said and done, was it a big deal? Yeah, it was. By the time she finished chopping, my hair was to my shoulders. Was I happy about it? Not at all. Did I say anything to her? No, because again, I didn't want to look like an unfeeling jerk. I'm still furious every time I do my hair, even if it is only once a week. And, I guess I am a jerk after all, because charity or not, I still regret it. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now. I suppose I'll get over it- THREE YEARS from now- when it grows back out.
Moral of the story? I think Jason summed it up pretty well when he shrugged and said, "That's what you get when pay $3 for a haircut".

Thank You

Yesterday in church I asked Spencer to write a thank you note to the person that gave a talk on the Holy Ghost at his baptism. It was so good I had to share it-

Eight is Great

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Spencer turned eight last month and was baptized this last Saturday. Like most kids, he was super excited about his eighth birthday and all that comes with it. He was easy on me this year and decided not to have a friend party. Instead, he wanted to go to a movie with me and Jason. He chose the new Alice in Wonderland in 3D. Much better than putting on a party. He didn't even want a decorated cake. He wanted a fruit cocktail cake, which is the easiest cake ever.

We had lots of family down for the baptism. Jason's parents decided last minute to drive down from Washington and surprise Jason (thankfully I knew about it ahead of time). They brought with them Jason's sister and her two daughters. Jason's other brother and his family came from Springville, and my parents came as well. The kids just LOVED having all that family around. It was a busy but fun weekend.

We're so grateful to have Spencer in our family. He's so full of drama (quite literally), and is always keeping us either entertained or exercising our patience . He's always got a new book he's written or a "play" or a song and dance to share with us. And he's always dressing up as something. It doesn't matter it we don't have a costume for it, he'll make his own for every occasion. Yesterday at dinnertime, he was all decked out in army gear and insisted on putting his dinner in Ziploc bags so that he could take it out to the park and "survive". He's got more imagination than I've ever seen, and we love having him around.
Happy Birthday Spence! We love you!

RIP Snape

Sadly, Snape died while we were out of town a week ago. Even sadder, I think we killed him. I checked his water before we left and thought he had enough to get him by until we got back, but apparently not. My kids were crushed, and I felt horrible. Really horrible. I don't know if I was just having an emotional day, or if I was more attached to the little guy than I thought, but I cried. A lot. I had to leave my kids so they wouldn't see me. It's pitiful, really, but I couldn't help it.
Spencer made the headstone, and they buried him out front. Poor Snape. Maybe down the road, after we've forgiven ourselves, we'll get a new snake. Until then, you can all feel safer about coming to visit again.

Computer Problems

No, I haven't been neglecting my blog. My computer has been down, for over 2 weeks. Some kind of spyware or something. Who knows? Stupid computer. I will hopefully have it back and working next week. So until then, here's some random pictures from my mom's computer of the kids at the Children's Museum.

That Bugs

Jason made some new friends while climbing in Zion a few days ago.

Tons of Boxelder bugs, if you can't tell.

Angel's Landing

On President's Day we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went south to Zion to hike Angel's landing.

Our friends Joe and Kacy came with us. Thankfully, Joe volunteered (or maybe I volunteered him) to carry Weston on his back. I'm not so sure I'd of made it if I'd of been packing him. Sad, what a winter of inactivity can do. I'm so glad it's almost over.

After all of my lecturing, Spencer was certain he would fall to his death if he so much as put a toe out of line (notice the look on his face, above). Oh well, better to be cautious, I always say.

Regan, enjoying the view.

Joe and Weston.

You can see the last climb was still covered in snow. We didn't dare attempt it with the kids.

Cooling off on the way back down.