September 26, 2012

  Fall in Amarillo has taken some getting used to.  Especially coming from Michigan, a state that takes autumntime very seriously. The orchards, cider mills, and changing leaves are picture-perfect.  But I discovered a delightful piece of the season here in town last year.  One of the local nurseries has a pumpkin vendor set up shop in the parking lot.  Rows and rows of pumpkins and gourds.  We filled up our truck to bring Fall to our house.
  While we were picking our pumpkins, we noticed some of the workers were spraying a few select pumpkins with a clear glossy spray paint.  They put those pumpkins aside, charging more for them because they were nice and shiny.  So I bought my pumpkins at regular price and sprayed them myself.  It does make them look pretty...

September 25, 2012

 
  Someday this room with have nice, plush carpet.  I'm not sure who thought it was a good idea to put tile in a family room.  There's nothing cozy about it.  Now that we've taken up the tile around the fireplace, there's no turning back. We've given ourselves a deadline of having it done by Christmas.  But it will be a shame to lose this playing area.  Ryan uses it daily for floor puzzles, train tracks, blocks, or race tracks.  The hard surface is ideal for setting these things up, while the rug makes it so he can sit on the floor semi-comfortably.  I suppose I can keep the rug and roll it out in the dining room for him.

September 24, 2012

   I couldn't resist taking a picture of Ryan giving us a lesson on Samuel the Lamanite for FHE.  He was all business and so cute.

September 23, 2012

Today at church I helped out in the nursery for a while.  Mostly because I feel so bad leaving another crying baby (Bailey) with the nursery workers.  One little boy in particular was having the hardest time, clinging to the door and wailing for his "papa."  He had the nicest round cheeks and strawberry blonde hair.  I couldn't help but think of this:



Erik, June 2008

 

  

September 22, 2012

  This may not be terribly exciting to you, the reader, but I'm thrilled.  We bought four new trees last fall and sprung for the "insurance" in case they die.  Well, one tree didn't make it this year.  Today the guys from the nursery came and planted our new tree.  Isn't it pretty? 

September 21, 2012

  Don't worry.  If Erik doesn't finish his dinner, the food doesn't go to waste.

September 20, 2012

  Remember when you were little and your mom would make cupcakes or cookies and then hand over the beater for you to lick clean?  It was always a little awkward to get your tongue around to lick off every bit of chocolate (or whatever it was), but always a joy.

September 19, 2012

  Tonight the girls took part in their church class talent show.  Sydney decided to do a comedy skit with a friend.  She wouldn't tell me anything about it beforehand, but asked me for some duct tape.  I gave her some masking tape instead.  I'm sure she was glad that the tape wasn't any stickier when it came to the part of the skit where her friend rips the tape from Syd's mouth.  As it was, she had pink cheeks all evening.

 

  A couple of weeks ago Shelbi told me that she wanted to play the flute for her talent.  I told her that I wasn't sure she would be ready, as she hadn't even learned to play a note yet.  But she has loved learning to play and taught herself to play a few songs.  Who was I to tell her she couldn't play the flute for the show?

September 18, 2012

  Ryan, Bailey, and I met some friends at the part this morning.  It was 9:30, so it was a little chilly still.  As my friend and I were talking and chasing the babies, Ryan and his buddy found a Batman toy on the grass and decided to watch him swim down this ditch.  It wasn't long before they were in the water with him.  I guess I'm that parent that lets her kid play in the ditch at the park.  Go figure.

September 17, 2012

  Shelbi is a walking disco ball.  She's wearing a shirt covered in sequin-type things and this is what happens when the sun reflects off of them.  Pretty cool.  But apparently it was a little distracting at school.

September 16, 2012

  I'm starting to have Fall fever around here.  And since the temperature is still in the 90s, (and since I forgot to take a picture today) I'll have to enjoy it through pictures from the past.  This is from 2006.  The girls were having a contest to see whose pumpkin would be the spookiest.  Jeff helped Syd carve her's and when he was done with the face he asked if there was anything else she wanted.  She said, "Feet."  Can you see them poking out from under her jack-o-lantern?

(I'm having a strange feeling that maybe I've already posted this picture on another day that I forgot a photo.  But I'm too lazy to go back and check.  So if I did, just pretend I didn't.  Thanks.)

September 15, 2012

  I didn't take this picture to put in on this blog.  I just though the boys would think it looked funny.  But sometimes this is all you'll get.   A dog driving.

September 14, 2012

  Shelbi went on an overnight "camping" trip with all the fifth graders from her school.  (They were in cabins.)  She came home proudly sporting this painted flower.  She says her favorite part was "climbing up the HUGE rock wall and zip-lining down.  It was awesome."  I went to a fifth grade overnighter when I was 10 too.  Only we didn't get to do things like zip-lining.  We had to classify leaves.

September 13, 2012

I buy two boxes of vanilla wafers every week.  Without fail, Ryan with have a bowl of "lots of vanilla wafers" and a cup of water to dunk them in for his snack, twice a day.  And now Bailey must do whatever Ryan does.  Except I refuse to give her an open cup of water to dip the wafers in.

September 12, 2012

A Story Without Words, Volume 2, September 2008

 

 

 

September 11, 2012

  One of the great things about having a kindergartener is seeing what he brings home in his backpack every day.  Today he had a whole stack of papers with drawings of him of varying degree of artistic talent.  He told me that in school they had to draw a picture of each of their classmates.  Then the teacher compiled them into a book of all the picture of Erik, drawn by his fellow students.  This one I thought was particularly cute, with teeth and fingers and everything.

September 10, 2012

Jeff won.

September 9, 2012

  Look who's brave enough to go back outside after the tarantual incident.  And I'm not talking about the kids.  They haven't thought twice about going outside.  I'm talking about myself, walking all the way across the lawn to take pictures.  You better believe I had shoes on and watched every step I took.

September 8, 2012

  Not broom hockey.  Curling.  Erik rolled the ball and Shelbi and Ryan brushed the floor to make it go farther.  Not sure what brought this on today.

September 7, 2012

   Today while shopping Jeff sent me about the worst text ever.  It looked like this:

 
In case you can't quite see what that's a picture of, here's another shot Jeff took:

From the text I couldn't tell exactly how big this thing was.  But the baseball picture says it all.  When I arrived back home, Jeff had the spider trapped inside a plastic bin with a lid on it.  I have never seen a tarantula in the "wild."  I was shocked.  The kids, however, seem completely unfazed. 
  I named it Harry.  After dinner Jeff released Harry in an empty lot a few houses away.  The kids were asking about Harry all night. 

September 6, 2012

  Huh, another post about food.  We had this chocolate cheesecake for dessert on Sunday and I may or may not have had a piece of it every night since.  I don't regret a single bite.

September 5, 2012

  Perhaps this doesn't look too appetizing, but it was delicious.  You should get yourself a pizza stone.  Then you too can have pizza like this for lunch.

September 4, 2012

Today was a day that I had nearly every minute scheduled.  Between shuttling kids to and from school, PTA meetings, piano lessons, dropping off a forgotten flute (Shelbi), Primary responsibilities, middle school open house, and Relief Society night, I barely had time to say hello to my husband, who gratefully had the day off.  Laundry wouldn't have gotten done without him today.  Don't get me wrong, my days are not typically this busy.   But it sure was easy to complain about it.  Wouldn't it be nice to just have like 6 months off?  No extra-curricular activities, no church responsibilities, just living simply.  Oh well.  Here's a picture that makes me happy and reminds me of a simpler time:

  Two little girls playing together, no worries except what's for snacks and when's Dora on. 

September 3, 2012

  Erik's first homework assignment was to make a poster of things about him.  Here are some random facts about Erik:  He loves the show Wipeout, he wants to learn how to skateboard, his favorite food is Shells and Cheese, he'll play the Wii game Stars Wars as often as we'll let him, and his favorite movie (today, anyway) is Kung Fu Panda 2.  Just in case you wanted to know.

September 2, 2012

Sunday's artwork:

Septemer 1, 2012

  You want to know what's awesome about having an almost 11 year old daughter?  You can be eating tacos for dinner at 6:30, decide you want to go to a movie with  your husband, and be sitting in a theater at 7:00.  We saw this tonight:

 Yeah, we're a little behind.

August 31, 2012

  The girls decided to play a guitar/flute duet today.  You know how common those are.  Considering neither of them have had any lessons on these instruments, you can imagine how good it sounded.

August 30, 2012

  Here's my attempt to say organized this school year.  Each of the kids in school have their own clipboard where I'll keep the papers that need to be signed or general information I need to remember.  Hopefully this year I won't have a stack of papers on my countertop that I don't really remember to do anything about.

August 29, 2012

  Isn't it funny that I actually thought my house would be clean once the kids were back in school?

August 28, 2012

   I've had to clean marker off this baby a lot lately.  More than I ever had to with my other kids.  I think it has something to do with Sydney always wanting to put makeup on Bailey.  Bailey just thinks she's doing it by herself.  She could at least have the decency to act like she cares that she's in trouble.