Monday, September 27, 2010

Another Day in the Life...

This weekend two big things happened. My babies got really sick and I discovered the black and white setting on my camera. This is a very dramatic look at our weekend.






















Hannah woke up Friday morning not feeling well. She threw up for the first time Friday evening and from then until around 8 on Saturday evening she couldn't even keep crackers and water down. Devan gave her a blessing and she didn't vomit anymore after that and Sunday morning she seemed to feel much better. She only ate a banana and a few grapes, but she was able to keep everything down and got lots of fluids in her. Ben didn't have any outward symptoms except for crying inconsolably anytime we put him down all weekend. My poor poor little ones. I think tomorrow will be a much better day for all of us.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Fall is upon us

I'm having a hard time accepting that the summer is over, it went by so fast, but I'm excited to greet fall. This summer I made three very simple goals. I wanted to have a natural childbirth, I wanted to walk a ton to be able to do the Sound of Narrows in June (7.5 miles) and I wanted to learn how to make jam. The childbirth was a wonderful experience, I feel pretty good about how I did walking and I exceeded my jam expectations. We made 80-something pints of jam and learned how to can other things. We made strawberry, peach, blueberry, mango, peach-mango, blueberry-peach, grape, and pear jams. In addition, we canned pears, peaches, grapefruit, tomatoes, (a lot of this was just stuff that was leftover in our produce basket for the week) applesauce, spaghetti sauce and salsa. Many weeks this summer we'd use a Saturday or an evening and spend about 6 hours canning. Devan really got into it with me and it was a great time for us to spend together talking while Hannah watched movie after movie.






Since I was actually successful in accomplishing my summer goals, I've decided to be brave and announce my fall goals ahead of time. 1) To be to be more consistent about cleaning the kitchen before bed and reading the scriptures as a family every evening (or in other words, lose the nightime TV) 2) To do more crafts and messy fun things with Hannah and 3) To be able to run 5 miles. (My last jog was 4.5 miles but I only ran about half the time, so I hope this isn't too unrealistic.) I know that goals are supposed to be more specific and measurable, but I'm a fragile creature, so I just need to be able to look back and think I've improved a little. Putting this out here scares me and makes me feel very inadequate, but I'm hoping it will make me more accountable and make it easier to accomplish my goals. I'm excited for all the fun (and hopefully improvement) that fall will bring.

Painting

I'd been thinking for months that I needed to teach Hannah how to paint with watercolors, but I was too much of a wimp to try. I was afraid of the mess and the time commitment. (Looking back this seems silly. They're watercolors for crying out loud!) So one day about 2 weeks ago Ben was having a day like this:


I was frazzled and Hannah was bored and attention-starved so I decided we needed something productive to keep us occupied. It turned out to be a great experience. I got to sit at the table and rock Ben and she painted for a whole hour and a half. We were able to talk and sing and a horrible afternoon was turned into a great one. She painted so carefully and enjoyed herself so much.
















Hannah has also enjoyed taking pictures lately. We got a lot of these... 


But we've been working on making sure she can see her subject in the camera before she takes the picture and last week, this is one of a few good ones she got.




And I took this one. I could just eat him up!


We're still here

These are from our trip to the Thanksgiving Point Children's Garden over 3 weeks ago. We'd never been before, but they had $2 Tuesdays in the month of August. We had fun, but not $10 regular adult admission fun, so if we ever go again it will definitely be on another $2 day.

We were pleasantly surprised to find this cool Noah's Ark water area...
 


but we certainly didn't dress appropriately.





She had to stop and pet the cute duckling statues


My Mommy loves me... but not enough to stop laying me down in strange flower beds all the time!


This lighthouse was Hannah's favorite part, after the water, of course.









It was a lovely day.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Visit from Grandma, Renne, and Kory


A couple of weeks ago Mom, Renee and Kory came to meet little Ben. They got here on Saturday, August 21st.

That night we ate nachos and roasted giant marshmallows over the stove.


The next day was Ben's blessing at church.



It was a busy day and I didn't get many pictures, but we did manage to get our very first family picture.



Monday we took a drive out to the Salt Flats. I'd only ever been there in the evening time, so I didn't anticipate how hot and bright it would be. We only stayed long enough for Kory to make sure it was real salt.





The next day Devan took off work and we all went to the jumping place. We enjoyed ourselves.




The next day we did the Doughnut Falls hike.











Hannah is getting a little too big for her backpack.


But that's okay because she wanted to wear it herself.


That night we went to the Rodizio for dinner. I was shocked that the babies were both very good the whole time. I didn't have to spend any time at all walking the halls with them. It was a very nice dinner.




We greatly enjoyed their wonderful visit and were sad to see everyone go back home.