Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! We have been celebrating in style around here. Some of our fun October activities include carving/painting pumpkins, miniature golfing at Scary Hill, making pumpkin and ghost sugar cookies, eating mummy pizzas and ...

Trick or Treating at Mickey's Halloween party!

Mischief

A New Skill

Our garden this year has been successful. I won't say amazing but I will say successful. We had a good crop of peas. The zucchini has been iffy but is actually starting to come on strong now. Only one of my raspberry plants has produced and every time there is a new berry on it Brockston plucks it right off and eats it. He LOVES raspberries. My peppers have actually done better this year than they ever have. In the past they have been really small but, like the one pictured below, this year they have been fairly good sized.




My tomatoes have taken over my garden. We have about exhausted every tomato recipe that we have. So I decided it was time to learn a new skill - canning. I was lucky enough to get a bunch of jars from Grandpa Morley's house to get me started. And when I say a bunch I mean 100+ jars and I didn't even make a dent in what was still in the storage room. I started with whole tomatoes and did 14 quarts. Then took on the task of salsa - which thus far I have done 9 pints and intend on doing more. I've found that the canning itself really isn't that difficult. It is keeping a rambunctious 20 month old entertained while you can which is the challenge. Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Everything I tried only lasted about 5 minutes and then he was tugging at my leg wanting to get into the middle of things. I let him help a bit but it would usually end in someone getting hurt or a huge mess.

I am excited to have a new skill and to not have to waste the fresh tomatoes from my garden. And hopefully build up our food storage bit by bit.

Here is the finished salsa. Mmmmm...

New Bathtub?

Our Tent

Brockston LOVES tents. He likes regular tents but prefers blanket tents. Somedays we literally spend hours and I mean hours under a blanket in a tent. His personal favorite is making a tent under a fitted sheet using a fan to blow air into the tent. Never a dull moment around here!

Five Years

Nate and I celebrated our five year anniversary this year. My how time flies! It feels like just yesterday we were kneeling across the alter. To celebrate we took a much needed vacation to Jackson, WY.

We did a lot of driving especially the day we went to Yellowstone. It was definitely a gorgeous drive though. Nate had never been to Yellowstone (or was too young to remember) and I haven't been for about 20 years.

Nate watching Old Faithful.

We played a lot with our camera and got some really pretty scenery pictures but I won't bore you with them all - just a couple of highlights.

The Tetons at night - the reflection is off of the top of our car

Of course we saw all sorts of wild life- bison, deer, moose... but no bears. It's kind of one of those things it would be fun to see a bear in the wild but I'm glad we didn't because I don't want to be too close to one.

A bison right off the side of the road - We were smart enough to stay in the car and take a picture out the window.

Our favorite day was probably when we went hiking in Grand Teton National Park. We ended up taking a boat across Jenny Lake and did a couple of short hikes up the mountain. Then we did a couple of other hikes to Taggart Lake and around Jackson Lake. The leaves and foliage were gorgeous colors and it was perfect weather.

Jenny Lake

I am so lucky to be married to my best friend. We had a great time with just the two of us. We missed the B-man but it was nice to not have to worry about him for a couple of days. Thanks to my parents and Nate's for taking him off our hands for the long weekend.

Happy Anniversary Nate! I love you!

Black Eye???

So while I get ready I put Brockston up on the counter and let him go through my makeup bag. In the beginning he would just take things out and put them back in. As he has gotten older he has begun to get into more and more things. I usually have to make a pile of things I don't want him to get into and then let him have at the rest of the bag. Well I didn't realize that he had figured out how to open the mascara. I caught him right as he was putting it up to his eye. There was just a dot of mascara on his eye until he rubbed it and made it black all over. Needless to say he no longer goes through my makeup bag.

New Fashion Statement

I'm pretty sure Brockston is ahead of his time with this fashion statement. He insisted that he try his new shoes on over his pajamas. I'm sure in no time toddlers around the country will be trying this one out!

100

Well this is post number 100! Can you believe it? I'm actually disappointed in myself that it is just now 100 posts but oh well. However, I will try my best to make it up to you with a super post about some of our summer happenings.

I guess one of the biggest things that happened is that Brockston is now 18 months old (almost 19 now). He has suddenly become a little boy. He must be going through a growth spurt because the kid is eating like crazy. He is as smart and fun as ever. Being 18 months old means he gets to go to nursery now. He loves playing toys but it is right in the middle of nap time so he's missed it or parts of it because he has fallen asleep. He likes it when he goes and I have actually been able to go to Relief Society and listen to the lessons a couple of times! Yeah!

A few weeks ago Brockston and I rode the train to Salt Lake with Grandma, Hannah and Autumn and we met Tori, Macy and Sylvia at the Children's Museum Discovery Zone at the Gateway. The kids all had lots of fun but there were a lot of people there. If I were to do it again I would pick a day when all the older kids are in school.

Playing in the water...

Driving the Jeep with Tori...

Working in the construction zone with all of the tractors...

This summer was special because it was Brockston's first trip to Paris (Idaho)!!! Brockston had fun exploring a new place. We slept in our tent which was a first for him as well. He had so much fun but didn't do a whole lot of sleeping. At about one in the morning he was still pretty awake, but had this priceless look on his face because he was so excited to be in the tent. Uncle Jared brought up some toys for us to play on which were a lot of fun. Good times!

Going for a ride with Dad put him right to sleep...

This one is just a cute picture of B playing toys in his jammies....

My cousin Jenny got married this summer and I was lucky enough to help out with the flowers. I can't take credit for picking them out but I did put her bouquet together. Even though the lilies didn't open I still like how it turned out. It made me wish I could do flowers more often...


Summer just wouldn't be complete without a trip to the zoo. The highlight was, of course, seeing the baby elephant. I was disappointed with how many animals they didn't have because of some remodeling but we still had fun. Brockston loved going up to the animals and making the sounds they make. At one point we were moving on from looking at the monkeys and he walked up to grassy area with a fence around it where people were eating their lunches and he started making monkey noises. It was pretty funny.

Brockston watching the monkeys....

Tori and Brockston had lots of fun together...

Watching the elephants...

Every summer we take a trip with Nate's family to Solitude. There is good food and fun to be had by all. Every year there is a marshmallow gun war and Daddy had to show Brockston the ropes - which he thought was pretty fun. He mostly enjoyed eating the marshmallows though.

This year there was a super hero theme - here are my two Incredible Guys...

Here's Brockston swinging at my mom's - he has decided he's a big boy now and he thinks he needs to swing in the big boy swing...

We've had a lot of fun this summer going on walks, going to parks, swimming and just having fun. We hope you've had a great summer too!

We're still alive...

Man I'm horrible at this blogging thing. I apologize to any of you out there that actually read this. We've been super busy with projects around the house, the garden, work, work, work, weekend getaways, birthdays and having fun in the sun. So you'd think I'd take the time to blog about all the fun happenings at our house...


Well here's some pictures to help you get by until I actually take the time to blog for real.


These are some pictures taken at the Temple Quarry at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon.

The following pictures are after I gave him some pureed bananas to eat while I worked on something in the kitchen. I don't think he actually ate much of the bananas...

Sharing a drink with Dad

How does your garden grow?

We've been doing a lot of yard work these days. My main focus has been in the garden spot -prepping the soil, weeding and getting our plants in the ground. We had the spot all raked out and looking great and then some small creature walked right down the middle. See if you can figure out who the culprit is...




Yep, you guessed Brockston had to be the first to walk through the freshly plowed dirt. On a side note we did have a deer come through our garden. I didn't get a picture of his hoof prints. We're pretty sure he spent the night under our deck because the grass/weeds were smashed down. Also we found some droppings along the side of our house.

This is our first "real" attempt at a garden at our house. Last year we planted tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini but we didn't get it planted until the middle of June, we didn't plow at all and it just didn't get the care it needed. The tomatoes had blossom end rot - a big black spot on the bottom of the fruit. I'm determined that this year will be different! We planted much earlier. We've got a much wider variety of plants. We mixed in some garden soil with our regular dirt. And hopefully with a little help of some Green Hill Fertilizer (I had to through that in there - it's a brand of fertilizer that my grandpa started that we sell at the family farm supply store) we'll be enjoying the fruits of our labor in no time!

The tomatillos already have blossoms!

itty bitty raspberries!

zucchini

a row of carrots - pretend it's a straight row!

Here's the whole thing in all its glory! Just don't look too close or you'll see all the weeds!

We've planted peas, bell peppers (green, yellow, orange and chocolate), jalapenos, watermelon, carrots, tomatoes (3 different varieties - Roma, Big Boy, and Beefsteak), tomatillos, zucchini, crook neck squash, green onion, cilantro and raspberries. Let's hope it all grows!

Chatter B

I'm a little late in posting this but Brockston had his 15 month check up. He is 22lbs 13 oz (25%) and 30.5" tall (30%). He is growing and learning so much so quickly. He is such a smart little boy. He has turned into such a chatterbox. Most of the time it's just gibberish but he is saying quite a few words. This list is mostly for me because I need to document all the words he is saying up to this point.

Dad

Mom

ball

no

fish

shoe

juice

cheese

off

on

light

Papa (grandpa)

Mama (grandma)

blue

yellow (more like wellwo)

balloon

bubble

bath

hot dog (for the hot dog dance on Mickey)

up

down

apple

banana

duck

Tori

swing (weee)

tractor

side (for outside)

spoon

moon

thank you

Pooh

Tig (for Tigger)

He also knows a lot of the animal sounds and other sounds:

moos for cow

woof woof for dog

meow for cat

e-e for monkey

roar for lion

roar for bear

bah for sheep

baulk for chicken

neigh for horse

quack for duck

tweet tweet for bird

cuckoo for cuckoo bird

clicks his tongue for clocks

sniffs for flowers

broom-broom for cars

I'm sure there's some that I've forgotten but you get the idea. He's a talker! He's also trying to repeat words that we say to him. He will try to say other names but the list has the ones that he'll say on his own. It's so fun to interact with him and to be able to know more and more what's going on in his little mind.

Listening to some tunes

Silly Boys!

Brockston loves his daddy. They have so much fun together being silly and playing. I love both of their smiles in this picture.