Snap, Crackle, Pop tree branch and Happy Birthday Greg!

Last week started out really nice.  The highs were in the high 60s and maybe even a couple of days in the 70s.  Monday we watched the kids that usually come.  We walked down to get Lauren and Jared.  We also spent most of the afternoon outside...until it got dark.  Adjusting to the time change has been hard for a few of us.  For the most part though we do get to bed earlier than before since it gets dark earlier.  Monday night for family home evening we did silly walks for our game.  It was super fun.

Tuesday Bradley had preschool and it was another really nice day.  We played in the leaves again and just enjoyed the warmer outdoors.  In the evening we went to juggling club.

Wednesday Connor went to the doctor in the morning.  He is healthy, but a little on the small side.  He is 27 1/2 inches long which puts him about the 25th percentile and his head circumference is right above the 50th percentile.  His weight on the other hand is 16 lbs 4 oz.  He isn't even on the chart...below the 5th percentile.  He is pretty active so the doctor just said to boost his calorie intake.  He is still gaining weight (he was 15 lbs 5 oz at 6 months)...just not fast enough.  He seems healthy and happy though.  That night Alan and I made 4 quarts of apple sauce.  (I was able to borrow a water bath canner)  We will be making more really soon!

Thursday Jared and Lauren got to have early release for SEP (student Educator Parent) conferences.  We watched a little boy in the morning so his mom could go and then she watched Bradley and Connor in the afternoon so I could go.  Jared and Lauren are both doing great.  Thursday was starting to be just a little cooler, but still a really nice day.  That night we tried to can some apple pie filling.  It went pretty well, but of the 7 jars only 4 sealed.  We just put the other 3 in bags in the freezer and we'll use some for Thanksgiving.

Friday it was a little wet and rain mixed with snow when we got up...and a lot cooler.  I went and helped in Jared's class and it started snowing while I was there (around 10:30) and it just snowed all day.  We did go out and play a little but only lasted about half an hour.  Greg stopped by in the afternoon...right when Jared was getting home (1:30) and we cleaned up a bit.  In the evening we went to a GSS (grad student society) activity.  They had minute to win it games...about 8 or so...and ice cream.  You got a ticket for each game that you played and 2 tickets if you won it.  Then you could trade your tickets in for ice cream toppings.  It was a really fun evening.  Our power went out at about 10:45 that night and came back on around 1:30 and all night we could hear cracking  and branches breaking and falling and the falling snow with it.  The fire alarm was also making a loud whining sound.  (Jeff and Elizabeth lost power too...they said theirs went off around 9 and didn't come back on until 6:45 in the morning.  We are glad that ours wasn't off for very long)


the snow is just getting started

Connor and I conveniently watched from the cover of the stairwell

Jared made this snowman with his friend.

Saturday morning we woke up to beautiful snow outside.  We had opened the blinds on all the windows to let in a little light and Jared had opened his all the way to look out his window at the snow.  The first thing I saw was a branch that was bending so low that it was touching the hood of a car.  I thought wow they are lucky it didn't break on them.  Then Alan said I should look out the window at our car.  Well the branches did break on our car.  We had 2 different branches from 2 different trees down on our car.  One was about 3 inches in diameter at the break spot and that one went right across the windshield and rolled down the front of the car and probably was the one that broke the antenna.  The other branch was about 10 inches in diameter at the break spot.  It was a really big branch.  By the time it got to our car it wasn't that thick.  It took 5 guys to move it off the car and out of the way.  Our windshield has a nice spider web crack in it, the antenna broke and there are a couple dents in the hood.  There was some glass on the inside of the car and Alan tried to vacuum it out more just fell down.  We are still working on getting the windshield replaced.  There were tons and tons of branches down all over wymount (and I would guess everywhere I just didn't go anywhere else)  The snow was really heavy and most of the trees still had  most of their leaves on them.  Alan tagged along to the store with Jeff and Elizabeth.  We had planned on doing a few other things yesterday too, but we didn't end up doing any of them...except celebrating Greg's birthday with him.  We did play outside and enjoy the beautiful surroundings here.  We had planned on going to the volleyball with Greg...and we thought about walking down, but it was so cold...and we didn't end up going.  Greg came up here and spent the afternoon with us and Jeff and Elizabeth too.  After playing outside and getting frozen most people went over to Jeff and Elizabeth's for hot chocolate and warming up.  Alan stayed home with Connor and me while I finished Greg's cake and made dinner.  I will be a little inconvenient to go without a car for a few days, but it was nice to not have to go out and do anything yesterday and just enjoy our day at home.  The BYU game was a late one.  I watched as I worked on Bradley's stocking.  Hopefully Greg had an ok birthday.  I think the rest of us had a pretty great day.


view out the bedroom window...our car is the one you can't see

coming around the corner of the building..still can't see the car

getting closer...it's under there

oh there it is

from the other side

inside before the branches were off

inside after the branches were removed

playing...wait for mmmeeeeeeee

Yummy!

Connor's first ride

Lets go again!!

Getting pulled home

out again later in the afternoon

Greg said he wanted a Y like Y-Mountain...maybe he didn't want the whole mountain, but that's what he got...our a hidden Mickey, or a disguised cougar head with cute ears, or a crazy rectangle hat with two pompoms on top...poppy seed cake with almond butter cream frosting...at least it tasted good (and you should always keep a 7 year old around to tell you how awesome it is and a 5 year old to tell you she wants the same exact cake but with flowers all over it because there are flowers on mountains too...and she is going to have a flower party next year...and miss I only like chocolate liked the flavor too)

Today we practiced the primary program at church (it is next week).  All the kids know the songs super well.  We were just in the primary room, but for the first songs they were yelling at the top of their lungs.  Then for the rest they still sang out, but had nice singing voices.  Some of the kids that never sing were giving it their all.  It was a fun day to see them all be so confident in their singing.  One of my favorites from the day was singing the wise man and and foolish man.  One of the little boys while singing the rain came down and the floods came up (with hand motions) had his eye closed, singing at the top of his lungs, and kind of swaying to the music.  I think they will all do great next week.  (I ready to get to sing something else!)  Today was also fast sunday for us since we had stake conference last week.  This morning we decided to make dinner in a pumpkin for dinner.  Jeff, Elizabeth, and Greg all came over for dinner again.  We ate kind of late, but it was fun to have everyone over again.

Yum!

Ow he's got me!  Connor pulled out the tub and just started playing.  He is really good about playing on his own.  I called his name and he turned and smiled for the picture.  Then he crawled over right after that and wanted to see the camera.

Have A Wonderful Orange-Pineapple week...We will just have to be dreaming of tropical here.

Halloween and more fun!!!

Monday morning we had a chance to clean up around here...which was good we really needed it.  In the afternoon there was a Wymount trunk or treat...which turned out to be not much.  The office had a car, we took candy, and about 3 others from our quad took candy and that's it.  There were about 80 kids there though.  Later that evening Jared was really upset that we hadn't gone and I told him we did go there just wasn't anything there.  After the trunk or treat we went over on the softball field to play in a big pile of leaves.  A grounds crew dump truck came and dumped them right in the middle of the field.  It was really fun to have it there...and we didn't even have to rake it ourselves.

Tuesday Bradley, Connor and I got to go to the pumpkin patch for his preschool.  We had a great time at Pumpkinland.  There is a short corn maze and a few animals and a fun playground and a lights alley...which is just blow up things and halloween lights in a barn.  Brad was excited to pick a pumpkin from the pile there.  We made it back just in time to pick Lauren up from school.  In the afternoon we played in the big leaf pile some more and then  in the evening we carved our pumpkins.

Jared did his whole pumpkin by himself except for cutting the top.  Lauren and Bradley had a little help, but both had parts of the face they did by themselves. They're making jack-o-lantern faces themselves.

Wednesday was Halloween.  Lauren got to wear her costume to school and Jared got to put his on after lunch.  I think really he just wore it for the costume parade.  They do a whole school costume parade at 1:30 and we went down to watch.  It was pretty fun.  When it was over we were able to come home for a short time.  Then we picked Jared up and went trick or treating along center street.  I had originally told these guys that we wouldn't go trick or treating on halloween...just to a couple of parties.  I thought that they would have gotten their fill of it from going to the Riverwoods and the trunk or treat, but since the one was a major flop we went some more.  Most of the businesses along center street and part of university avenue give out candy.  We went for about an hour and they got a pretty good amount of candy.  Then we hurried up and pick up Alan and Greg and went to the recycle maze.  BYU Recycles makes a maze out of bailed cardboard, copy paper, plastic bottles, milk jugs...whatever they have.  It was fun to go through.  Some went several times.  The last time they all ran though...Greg was the last one in and the first one out.  I asked him if he had to plow anyone over and he said no they just kept making wrong turns.  After the recycle maze we went to the Spooktacular (it is a party for children of faculty, staff, and students) in the terrace of the WSC.  We were surprised that it wasn't so crowded...in the past few years it hasn't been on Halloween, so I think more people went...whereas this year most people must have opted to go trick or treating.  We played all the games and jumped on the bouncy things then headed down to the field house for a party there.  The athletic teams and a few campus clubs had candy to hand out and games to play.  There weren't a ton of people there either.  Everyone got their fill of candy and prizes.  Everyone went bobbing for apples except for me and Connor...and Brad used his hands.  Jared and Lauren both just got stems, but Alan and Greg went all the way!!!  We had fun there.  It was almost 8 and we were all tired, but Lauren really wanted to stop by her primary teacher's house so we did.  We went to a few other houses of friends and then home.  Jeff and Elizabeth stopped by after their party got over.  It was fun to see their costumes and it was fun to have Greg hang out with us all evening!  We ate some dinner (southwest stew) and went to bed!

Instead of candy one restaurant had marshmallows to roast and graham crackers

One of the wider places in the maze

Greg juggled with the juggling club at the Spooktacular.

Cosmo the quick change artist

Thursday Lauren and Jared had early release....I kind of wish it had been late start, but we were able to get some more good cleaning done.  We picked up all over again and then cleaned their room....it was a big job since we couldn't see the floor in there.  In the morning Lauren had a really hard time picking a pair of pants to put on.  The pink ones were a little too small and she didn't want to wear them and couldn't fine a different pair.  I went and got a pair of overalls and said put these on and she freaked out and ended up wearing the pink ones (she was tired from a Halloween hangover)  When Jared got home from school and changed his clothes he came out doing a little shimmy into a pair of pants that was obviously too small.  He wiggled them all the way up and I just had to laugh.  I told him they weren't his and he had to take them off and change.  He said they fit and they were in my drawer.  I said they do not fit!  He had to shimmy to get them back off.  I looked in the tag...they were Connor's! (Connor wore them yesterday.)  At least it was  one of his 9-12 month pairs :)  Then we went outside...we had been outside for probably an hour when Lauren came up to me (she had to put long pants on to go outside and I hadn't paid attention to which ones she was wearing)  She had on a pair of Brad's pants!  She didn't get them out of her drawer...just off the floor.  But after seeing Jared in Connor's and the big fuss she had made in the morning about her own pants being too small all I could do was laugh when I saw her in Brad's.

Friday morning we hurried everyone out the door and dropped Alan off after the other guys at school.  Then went we got back I changed Connor's diaper.  Bradley is a great helper.  He always brings a diaper, changing pad, wipes and then either vaseline, desitin, or bag balm.  Friday he brought vaseline.  I changed Connor and went to the bathroom and washed my hands.  When I got back to the front room Connor had the lid off and a big fist full of vaseline headed for his mouth, some all over his tummy and legs and a big clump coming off his nose.  I put him in the bath tub with lots of bubbles, but that stuff doesn't just wash off.  I got him clean the best I could.  After he was out of the tub I called poison control (first time) because that's what the jar said to do if it was ingested and since I didn't know I figured I better call.  They said it wouldn't go to his blood stream and he would be fine...unless he ate a lot..then he might have some stomach cramping and diarrhea.  Then it was time to go help in Jared's class so when I dropped Bradley and Connor off I just said have fun.  They were both fine.  I helped with a reading center in Jared's class.  Lauren got done at her normal time and Jared got done at his normal Friday time. We got more stuff done around here and I watched 2 boys for a couple of hours. They are 4 and 2..the 2 year old is a dumper...dumps everything, plays with nothing.  In the evening we went to Alan's lab party.  They had a curry party at the Wymount multipurpose building.  Everyone brought a different kind of curry...Alan wanted to make naan, so that's what we took.  There were 4 different types of curry there ( not many people from his lab went) We had our favorite.  It was a fun party.

Saturday we had a nice slow morning.  Then we went to a builder workshop at home depot, got the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets book from the library, dropped some stuff of at DI, went to winco, did a little work around here, went swimming, had dinner and watched the BYU basketball game and made apple sauce...and probably a few other things too.

swimming is hard work!

As I type this Brad is laying on the front room floor ( Lauren is on his bed) singing Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam and I Love to See the Temple at the top of his 3 year old lungs.  The other guys are reading Harry Potter. Today we had stake conference and Elder Tad R. Callister (from the Presidency of the seventy) and his wife were the visiting authority at our conference.   It was a really good meeting.  We went to the new really big building along 9th East.  It is a huge building and really nice.  We mostly just played in the morning and the afternoon.  We did go get a few more apples from Alan's coworker..I also returned the dryers so I guess we'll be making more apple sauce.

It was a fun week.  I can hardly believe it is November.  I know it is going to go fast too...although I'm not thrilled about it getting dark so much earlier. Connor definitely crawls everywhere now, and can pull up on everything toom He was using a big dump truck like a walker today.  We have been super blessed and we are loving life.