My First Book Recommendation

Since I love reading and know what a challenge it can be to find good clean books, I thought I would share some of my favorites with you. I am in a Book Club with several ladies in the neighborhood and I love it. First of all I love to read. I also like to socialize. And eat yummy food. Book Club gives me all three at once--Bonus! Several of my favorite books are ones we have read. Here is the first:

"A Sweetness to the Soul," by Jane Kirkpatrick We read this about 3 years ago and it is still one of my all time favorites. I liked it so much that I actually purchased it. It is about a pioneer woman Jane Sherar and her husband Joseph. The book is fiction but the Sherars are a real pioneer couple that lived in Oregon. Jane overcomes many hardships and trials with the help of a loving husband and her strong faith. This book is so uplifting, I just can't say enough good about it!

Note: I also read "Love to Water My Soul" which is the story of one of the characters in this book, and I loved it too.

Football Fanatic

Spencer just finished up his flag football season. He had a blast! They started the season earlier this year which was a little stressful because it overlapped with the end of soccer season. But man it is sure nice to be done before the weather gets nasty. In years past we went to games in the snow and it was downright miserable. Call me crazy, but I prefer not to become a human popsicle.

Anyway, I didn't get many good pictures, but here are a few:
Spencer is a total sports fanatic so now that football is over, he has moved right on to basketball. He and Brandon are waking up at 5:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays to play ball at the church with Wes and a few of the other totally crazy dedicated boys and dads in our ward.

Pumpkin Carving

Carving pumpkins is one of our favorite Halloween traditions. The boys love searching through patterns to find the perfect jack-o-lantern to carve. This year was no exception. Because Wes still has his hand in a cast, I got the fun job of scooping out all the slimy guts this year. I think the smell actually bothers me more than the sliminess though. Peeeuuu!

I thought all of you would like to see a few pictures of our completed pumpkins.

Tyler carved a spider (with the help of Wes.)

Spencer carved a pirate skull (with a little help from mom.)

Justin poked the holes for the dinosaur pattern and mom did the actual carving:

Brandon carved a witch using a crystal ball. Sorry, I didn't get the best picture of this one.

Now we just need to get some candles so we can actually light them on Halloween night. If they last that is. It was so hot today that they are already looking kind of shriveled up. Not that I'm complaining, I am loving this wonderful weather!

Do You Need a Ride?

Wes likes playing basketball. A lot. He likes it so much in fact, that he gets up at 5:20 so that he can be at the church at 5:30 to play with a group of other crazy basketball fanatics guys. Yes, you read that right, 5:30! There is nothing in this world that I enjoy enough to get up that early for. But he's been doing it 2-3 times a week for years. That is some serious devotion!

But alas, a few weeks ago his basketball excursions came to a crashing halt. Apparently as he went up to block a shot his thumb encountered someone's elbow. And not in a good way. He tore the ligaments and chipped a bone. The hand orthopedist told him there's a 25% chance that wearing this cast

will fix the problem. If not, he has to have surgery and 6 more months of cast wearing and physical therapy.

We are really hoping that the cast will work and he won't need surgery. He has an appointment on Tuesday, so we are praying that all goes well.


But if he has to keep the cast on, at least he has a ready made Halloween costume. He can go as a hitch-hiker!

A Boy and a Snake

Our next door neighbor found this in his yard on Friday night:

He brought it over because he thought my boys would like it; which they did. Especially Spencer. He really wanted to keep him, so he found a bucket to put him in. He put a bunch of grass and leaves in it, with a big rock so the snake could climb on it. He even asked me to research on the Internet and find out what garter snakes eat. Apparently, in captivity, fish is their meal of choice, but they will also eat earthworms. But not crickets. Or grapes. Spencer tried both of those.

He took such good care of his snake, checking on him, taking him out and holding him, feeding him, giving him water, etc.

It was fun to see how excited he was about his new "pet". But after a couple of days, he realized that a snake can't really be all that happy living in a bucket. So he let him go:

He is such a good kid!
And just in case any of you are wondering. Yes, I did hold the snake. Twice. Snakes don't bother me. Now earwigs-that is another story. Those things totally give me the heebie jeebies!

The boys were out of school Thursday and Friday, so in keeping with our usual UEA tradition, we did nothing spectacular. We are pretty boring that way. Thursday they had a few friends over and watched the BYU game. They lost, what a bummer!

Yesterday some of my cousins came up from Southern Utah for a ladies day out, and they invited me along. We had a great time shopping, visiting, and going out to lunch. It was wonderful to see everyone again, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself! I did feel a little guilty though, because Wes and the boys stayed home and worked in the yard. But I don't feel too guilty because at least I got some shopping done and they didn't have to go through the torture. They all hate shopping, so technically I was doing them a favor. Right?

Today we spent some time getting our yard ready for winter. Times like these, having four boys really comes in handy. We put them to work leveling the side of the basketball court. We are going to be transplanting some bushes there. Ah, slave labor. Isn't it great! After all that work, we did manage to have some fun tonight. We played a game of croquet in the backyard, went out to dinner, then came home and watched a movie. Here are some of the pictures I took of our rousing game of croquet:

And just in case any of you were wondering, I absolutely didn't win. Let's just leave it at that.

WARNING: If you are one of those people with a heightened sense of fashion, you will probably find the following photos highly offensive. Please leave the room, close your eyes, or look away from your computer screen. ***I cannot be held responsible for the consequences if you fail to heed my warning.*** Okay, now that I've got all that legal stuff taken care of. . .

Four year old boys are very independent. Mine likes to dress himself. Usually he does a great job. Sometimes, however, he is just in a hurry. I think it might have something to do with a certain show on television that he doesn't want to miss a minute of. Especially for something as unimportant as clothing for heaven's sakes. On these occasions, he may come downstairs in something like this:


What? What's wrong with this outfit mom?!? It looks perfectly fine to me.
Come on mom, I'm missing my show. And besides, you know I'm stinkin' cute no matter what I'm wearing. Right mom?

Finally Getting Around to It

There have been several projects that I have been putting off because I have just been too busy. I finally got some of them started! Yeah for me.
The first one deals with garden produce. I have been putting off having the boys go out and pick, because I didn't want to have to deal with the results. I mean, we are just barely free of the fruit fly colony that has existed in our kitchen because of all the pears. And my counter was all nice and clean and free from piles of produce.
But the weatherman predicted snow for today, so I knew I couldn't procrastinate any longer. I sent Wes and Brandon out to harvest the remaining vegetables. I thought there would just be a few left, but they came in with these:
So I spent the afternoon chopping and freezing green peppers. We now have more that what we will ever need for the upcoming year. But I am so glad they are done! Anybody have any great recipes using green peppers?

My second project has been sitting in my craft room for four years. It was leftover from a Super Saturday class that I taught. (You all have one of those projects lurking somewhere, don't you? I thought so.) I finally dug it out and got it finished:

It is made out of . . . don't laugh. . .toilet paper. It is really easy and super cute (at least in my opinion.) If you would like to make one, I posted the instructions on my other blog.

My last project is re-arranging my craft room. I am moving around all of the tables and desks to try and make more efficient use of my space. I have needed to do it for a few months now. However, in order to do this, I had to move lots of storage totes, tables, and miscellaneous items into the family room. It took much longer than I thought it would, so I didn't have time to put everything back where it goes.

As a result, both my craft room and my family room look like a tornado in a trailer park. I thought about posting a picture, but some of you clean freaks organized folks might not be able to handle it. And I don't want to jeopardize our friendship or anything. So I am sparing you the horrific details. You can thank me later.

I Did it All By Myself! (but I didn't like it)

No, this isn't a post about Justin, although he does get pretty excited when he does something by himself. I actually tried not one, but two new things last week.

The first was bottling pears. By myself. I've canned fruit with my mom and sisters more times than I can count, but I've never actually done it flying solo. I have always gone up to my parent's house and we've done it there. But this year I just didn't have time to make the trip. My dad was nice enough to bring a box of pears down to Wes's office. Thanks for the pears mom and dad!

Anyway, I got really specific instructions from my mom, so I was pretty confident in my ability to do the pears. And I did. I peeled, and sterilized, and peeled, and chopped, and boiled, and did I mention peeled? Oh my goodness. Pears are so much work! The only fun part about canning them is spending the day talking and laughing with my mom and sisters. Without that, it was endless mind numbing torture quite a tedious chore. I think in the future I will stick to canning pears only if I have some female companionship to make the time go by faster.

So, the pears are done, and I took a photo of them lined up on my counter top. Don't they look pretty? The thing is, it was such a long process getting them to this point, that I don't think I can actually let anyone eat them.

Oh yes, the second thing I did by myself. Used the brand new gas stove in our basement. I have never used a gas stove before, and I was actually a little terrified and freaked out nervous, but it all worked out. I didn't even burn the house down or asphyxiate myself with gas fumes. What a day!

Being a Brother

My boys are like most male siblings. On a typical day they wrestle, tease each other, compete, and blame each other for the trail of popcorn leading from the kitchen to the television downstairs messes around the house. But deep down I know they love each other. So it always warms my heart to come across scenes like this: Brandon was playing a game of chess with Tyler. And he wasn't trying to beat him. He could have of course, he is six years older and has much more chess playing under his belt. But he wasn't. He was just playing a friendly game and showing his brother the ropes. If he could see that Tyler was about to make a wrong move, he would start shaking his head, and Tyler would re-think it. You could just see the confidence building on his little seven year old face. I don't know who ended up winning the game, I don't know if there even was a winner. But for 30 minutes, a seven year old felt like he was holding his own against his thirteen year old brother. And that's what being a brother is all about.