Christmas Time

Well, we made the most of our unplanned Christmas as home. We had lots of snow, so we sledded and had snowball fights. We decorated gingerbread houses. The kids all got new pj's and lots of other fun stuff ( a lot of which is broaken or lost already!) Does everyone like my conehead?

Johanna's dance recital

This isn't a good picture but it's all I got! Johanna did great at her recital. Her group danced to "Go Speedracer" and I have to say, I thought Johanna was the best! She looked pretty with all her stage makeup on. She's always very precise in her movements and knows all her steps well. Her friend (pictured) is quitting, but Johanna loves it. Unfortunately for me...no more carpool! Here is another picture I took of Johanna today. She looked pretty in her nice dress.

I'll be home for Chrismas......not!

My plans have been changed this week, and I'm trying to keep a good attitude about it!
Snow, snow everywhere! All the roads to Oregon are closed, so we'll probably be staying here this week. Some things sound good, like skipping the long drive, not worrying about bad road conditions, enjoying the snow here, relaxing with my family, having Blake off work but at home-that never happens! However, I feel sad for Mom and Dad, who will be alone now. I will miss the "home" feelings you get when you visit for a holiday-the flood of memories that come back on Christmas morning-sharing the excited atmostphere our children bring to the holiday. Also, we had a program for Grandma and Grandpa. Johanna and Logan were going to sing "The Friendly Beasts" while Camden held up pictures I made depicting the savior's birth and the animals that were there. I bought "the Best Christmas Pageant Ever" to show on Christmas eve. I've been making mom freezer meals all week for her gift and have a box of canning ready to go for Dad. I also saved Dad some of the chocolates and caramels I made. I was looking forward to visiting with friends too.
Enough ranting...this blog is about good things! The good things are that we won't die, so Jennifer won't inherit another three boys and that we all have the opportunity to make this our very own Best Christmas Ever!
I knew I should have had Jen send her package here!!

Stampede!

We were driving home from the cabin when all these cows appeared on the road. We thought they were stray or something until we saw two cowboys on horses-they had cowboy hats, chaps and everything! They were actually driving the cows down the road for some miles. That's what I call hoofin' it!

I had no idea my last blog entry was so long ago! well, here's our huge tree. I think it's going to survive until we go to Oregon. I wasn't so sure, since we chopped it down over a month ago! It's pretty though and we get lots of complements. Logan just finished counting their gifts. He says that he and Cam have 13 and Johanna only has 2.

It snowed today! The kids loved playing in it, though it was no good for snowmen. I'm just glad it's mostly melted off the roads already. I don't like snow that much. It's going to be a busy week!

Halloween

Here are the kids in their costumes Halloween night. They all looked pretty cute and had a great time. Cam shredded the bottom of his tail and lost the "fire" on the end of it, but he loved that a few people recognized him as "Charmander" (he's not wearing the hat in the pic). Johanna went off with her friends. Her costume was cute, but it was a little big for her and it's not the same effect with the shirt under it (it was sleeveless). My favorite part of her costume was Fabio (what she named the snake on her headpiece). He was pretty cute with his gleaming red sequin eyes. Ed took the prize for cuteness though, as have all my kids when they've worn this costume. He had so much fun running from house to house. He would say thank you and then wave and say bye-bye. It was hilarious after awhile when he got tired-he could barely carry his pumpkin full of candy, but he trudged on and didn't want to quit. Finally I had to carry him and then he was ready to go home. Here's a picture too of the kids trading candy-remember doing that?

I had to post this one....This is how Cam was sleeping one night! Does this look comfortable to you?

Fall memories

We enjoyed a glorious Fall day last Saturday. We spent the afternoon at a large park in Boise. The place was packed with families in costume going to the zoo. We played for free in the leaves! All four kids had so much fun, though we were pretty much covered in goose droppings by the time we were done (it's mostly grass). Ed had a great time "catching" the falling leaves when the wind would blow. What Fall afternoons are supposed to be.

Marathon Man

Blake ran an awesome race this past weekend-the "Top of Utah" race in Logan, Utah. He came in 100 out of around 1000, and beat his time by about two minutes. He was feeling a bit queasy for awhile afterwards, and enjoyed a shower and nap before we drove home, but he said that he felt pretty good, altogether. Here's a picture of him near the finish line and just after he finished.

Nothin' much goin' on

I'm going to make this entry a fun color because I don't really have anything interesting to say. This is the first week in several months that I haven't had much going on. I'd like to say that I accomplished a lot. My hopes were high on Monday. I was going to organize my linen closet and the boys's toy shelf and update Ed's scrapbook up to one year. Well, tomorrow's Friday and here's what I've done....um....NOTHING! Okay, not nothing, but not much either. Oh well, I'm just not used to no deadlines. I guess I should enjoy it-it never lasts!

FYI.....Saturday is Blake's marathon-I hope he does well!

Gladys

Many of you have heard me talk of my neighbor, Gladys. I always have lots of funny stories to tell about her-like how she calls me to go "work out" and shows up in flip flops. She is from Peru, and though she's been in the states for a long time now, I still have a hard time understanding her sometimes. She's very generous though. We get lots of powerbars from her (her husband works there) and the day before Ed was born, she brought us an unexpected dinner. She brought food over to another neighbor and friend of ours after the neighbor's husband died, even though Gladys didn't know her. She likes Camden for some reason and invites him over to cook with her occasionally. Here's a picture of Gladys and Camden, husking corn the other day.

20 quarts of peaches, 3 pies and 3 bananna breads later....I'm ready for bed! I'm happy that the peaches I bought are almost taken care of though-whew! I'll just freeze the rest and make one batch of jam. Here's a pic of my lovely quarts!

Johanna got her early birthday gift tonight-a girl's night out to the mall to get her ears pierced. It was pretty cute. She picked out her birthstone and sat in the chair. BANG! Ouch, tears, suffering. Nothing that a trip to See's candy can't fix though. We also shared cheescake at the CC Factory. She loves her new look and the new earrings I let her pick out, though I don't remember when ear piercing became so expensive!

Softball and Peaches....Late summer fun

I got 4 RBI's tonight at our co-ed softball game. WhooHOO! However, I never did make it to home tonight...oh well, it was a beautiful sunset.
I picked lots of peaches at an orchard yesterday. It was fun climbing up into the tree and picking peach after gorgeous peach. I did get pokey peach fuzz all over me however. I think there's nothing better then seeing nature's bounty first hand and harvesting it yourself. I plan on canning the peaches tomorrow, then making a pie and some peach melba jam...peach heaven!

Silly Squash

I cut into my "pattypan" squash today (it looks like a pie whole) and the shape it made reminded me of a cat-it's so cute! It tastes good too. I cooked it up with broccoli, onion, mushrooms and baby corn in a delicious stir fry. I just had to share this picture with you.

Jet ski

We had a fun, unplanned weekend! We were invited last minute by some friends in our ward to spend the weekend in Donnely (a lake in the mountains about 2 hours away) at their cabin. We happily accepted and had a great time at the lake. It was a beautiful day-warm, pretty lake, pine trees, sandy beach. I got to ride a jet ski for the first time. Love it! I was on a pretty fast machine and felt a little out of control at times, but it was great fun zipping along in the water at high speeds. Johanna loved it and even little Ed went out and had a good time. Unfortunately, our host hurt himself his first time out doing some fancy tricks. I hope he's okay, they were going to stop in at the ER today on the way home to see what was wrong. I'll put in some pix of our weekend tomorrow.

Wyoming

We just had our Thurman reunion in Wyoming at the cabin. It was fun! Everyone was there. Brooke and Shane from Kentucky, Trevin from Boston (he's now moving to Seattle), Bart and Gunnar from Colorado, Kim and Chris from Utah, and Lindsay from North Carolina. My favorite activity was river rafting, of course. I had rafted the same route as a teen, so it was fun to go again to the "lunch counter" and "Big Kahuna". The only thing I lamented was my scary white legs out there on the river with all those tans! I brought two crafts to make and that would explain the dreamcatcher hanging from my car mirror (normally, I'm not the dreamcatcher type). We made these cute fish with empty water bottles, paint, sequins and tissue paper.
We ate a lot of good food, naturally. I was actually looking forward to eating just plain old cereal for breakfast by the time we got home! Mmmmm....that turkey! We had a "Thanksgiving" like meal one night-so good!
My niece is here with us now, so we are trying to do some fun things. We hit the drive in last night for Kung Fu Panda-it was pretty good!

I'm using red because that was the color I had dripped all over my carpet last week.
It was a crazy morning-we were going on vacation that night and Blake wanted me to pick and can the raspberries...hah! I was packing up the kid's suitcases and heard crying. Usually I just ignore that unless someone sounds really hurt. It was Ed, and he sounded pretty sad. As I got up to go downstairs, I heard him coming up. I rounded the corner so see Ed with his finger dripping blood and a grisley red trail behind him-yes, there was blood on every stair! I hauled him in the bathroom-you know how fingers bleed! There was blood all over the toliet, all over Ed's clothes, and my white bathroom rug too. I finally got the bleeding stopped and a bandaid applied. I made Logan help me clean up all the blood since it was he who caused the bleeding (scissors). Not fun. I think there's still some on my carpet. Needless to say, the raspberries did not get canned that day. However, we took them with us on our vacation and I made 3 raspberry pies...delicious!

NOT cheerios for dinner

We didn't do much today and it's been so nice-just swimming lessons. I finished making my Hogwarts puppets-including my personal favorite-Voldemort with a tray of cookies..(I'll have to post a picture later).
I'm making Jen's flatbread for dinner-yum! She's making my breakfast casserole-dinner trade!
I was watching a little girl in Cam's swim class swim under the water like a fish today-only, she can't really swim. So, minutes later...everyone out of the pool! She vomited. Out comes the mesh net and garbage can-it looks like she ate cheerios for lunch. Anyway, after that, Cam's class spends the rest of the time having "safety instruction" with lifevests....out of the pool.

We went to Eagle Island with my friend, Michelle, and her kids today. We couldn't stay very long because Cam and Log still have swim lessons this week. Too Bad! We were having such a good time. It's a great place because it's close, has swimming, a beautiful setting, a playground and a beach-all five minutes away from home! We went there last week and Logan was actually complaining that we had to go again so soon-how spoiled!
Tonight we all practiced our skit for the family reunions. I think it will be fun, but Cam is a little too young...he couldn't quite get the timing of it all...Well, I'm off to make puppets!

Hmmmm...nothing interesting, just being the mom taxi today. Johanna and Logan had a fun time at their respective camps today. Logan looked so funny at swim lessons doing the crawl stroke...he was moving his arms like one of those goose lawn ornaments that blows in the wind and his feet weren't up at all-almost at the bottom of the pool. Consequently, he wasn't moving at all. I just had to laugh. Camden managed to keep most of his hair dry during his lesson-not a good thing-he's still pretty afraid. Hopefully by the end of next week, he'll be more comfortable.
We're going downtown tonight-the kids and I and our funny neighbor, Gladys. Hopefully it's fun. She's from Peru and sometimes I don't really understand what she's saying-I just nod or say "really?"

Busy summer

Where has this summer gone already? I was hoping for more down times, but since this blog is entitled "good things", I will be positive = ).
Today I went swimming in the Bridge tower pool with the kids. I was invited by a friend. Lots of my other friends were there too, which is always fun. Eddy got stuck under the water for awhile, but after I pulled him out and he choked for a while, he was fine and went right back to playing.
Johanna's and my guitar arrived courtesy ebay yesterday. Now we just have to learn to play the darn thing. I'm excited to get the hang of it though, and I hope Johanna will really like it. She's been asking to play for ever!