Friday, October 30, 2009

Clara's Buddy


Meet Jaden, our next door neighbor. He and Clara have developed quite a bond, and she asks to play with him almost every day. Usually Jaden comes walking over in his UGG's with his stroller, and his diaper bag, and his purse, and two or three babies. Clara absolutely loves it!
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It's coming...



Pulling out the halloween box has never been so exciting! We can't wait for Halloween!
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Yellowstone



I was fortunate enough to go to Yellowstone National Park with my mother-in-law Diane, and my two sisters-in-law Michelle and Heather. It was Michelle's 30th b-day bash and it was a blast! We saw 8 bears and a bunch of other wildlife too. I think the weather was perfect, and the changing leaves were beautiful!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Sandy City Triathalon

Bri competed in the Sandy City Triathlon for the second year in a row, and did a great job!

The weather was absolutely gorgeous...

And he made it look effortless!
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Sunday, October 18, 2009

First Day of School


Chase was thrilled to start school again this year. He has a wonderful teacher and has made some great friends already. The most exciting part of his first day was 'Frederico', a little boy in his class who didn't speak English. No matter what else I asked him about, he always came back to Frederico. Chase was absolutely fascinated with him! And almost every day since then Chase comes home and reports on the new words Frederico is learning. His favorite part of school is recess, where he plays freeze tag almost every day.
As for me, I have quite a sweet set-up now that school has started again. I hang out with the kids in the morning doing our morning routine which consits of breakfast, our daily devotional, chores and play time or running errands. Then we eat lunch and take Chase to school. After dropping him off Clara and I come home, I put her down for a nap and I have two and a half hours to do whatever I need or want to do before Clara wakes up and Chase comes home. It's a dream! I'm also Chase's room mom this year and am surprised to see how excited he is to have me there. I love it.
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Primary Talent Show!


Watch out world! Our ever-talented son performed his 'Robot' dance moves at the primary talent show, with precision that would have made the silver painted street performers in San Francisco green with envy! I have no idea where Chase actually picked up these skills, but he's been entertaining us with them (along with a couple other break dance moves) for a couple years now. I'm proud that he did it in front of such a large group!
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Sunday, October 11, 2009

Harvest

One of my favorite parts of the summer was the debut of our first ever garden! It took a lot of preparation; attending gardening classes, reading up on the subject, getting our garden area ready, the grow boxes built and divided, etc. so we were a little late planting. I have to admit I was overwhelmed at times (did you know a zucchini isn't called a zucchini on the seed packet, it's called a summer squash and there are a gazillion varieties?) and I was very skeptical that anything would really grow. But come what may I was thrilled to be giving it a try. Just like the book promised, we started to see little sprouts in about a week! We had so much fun checking on the progress every day, but the real excitement came when we actually saw fruits and vegetables growing! Now I must confess that we made some mistakes (we seriously underestimated the actual size of a tomato bush for example, and how many tomatoes it would produce. And aparently you can't pull a radish out to check it's progress and then stick it back in the ground) but everything we harvested tasted delicious. The convenience of getting fresh lettuce and tomatoes out of the back yard for my sandwiches never got old. We learned SO much from our little garden this year and can't wait to make some modifications and do it again next year!
Although we didn't grow these apples, we also attempted our first ever apple pie this summer. I guess the garden got us in the mood to try new things! Thanks to our handy dandy apple corer/slicer/peeler and the pre-made pie crusts from Pillsbury, it was a breeze! And oh so delicious.