Yosemite, Third Week of July

The boys and I went with my parents and my sister Laurie and her Family on a trip to Yosemite. Is it ever a good sign when you brake your baby on the first day of a trip? Well, I did. B fell off of a merry go round at a park in Winnemucca Nevada, a trip to the ER confirmed that he had a broken collar bone. Poor, poor baby B.

He was the cutest broken boy at Yosemite though.

This was the second time I've been to Yosemite, it's beautiful, I would love to go back again and do some hiking. It was fun to be there with my boys.

J is all about climbing, he climbed anything that he could get close too. 

Laurie and her family spent 2 days in Yosemite, but Grandma and Grandpa Turner and the boys and I went back to the Wheeler Cabin after our day in the park. 

The next day the boys and both sets of Grandparents headed over to Cover's Apple Ranch.

At the Ranch we rode the train. It was fantastic.

This should be proof of just how fantastic the train ride was!

When I woke up on Wednesday morning this is what I saw out  my window, I thought it was beautiful and tried to capture the moment. I might blow it up and display it, what do you think?

We returned home to our Daddy safe and sound. It was lots of fun for my boys to have both sets of their Grandparents in one location- fun and only slightly confusing.

Home, Second Week of July

The day after we got home from Colorado J had his final Soccer game.....but wait, that's not J you say? You are right, that is B. Ken got tired of J standing there not doing anything during the game and so he put J's shirt on B and let him have a go at it. If my memory serves me correctly B did chase the ball around the field.

After the Game our neighborhood had a Fourth of July Brunch and the ever industrious B found the coolest snacks around.

Later in the week I was making some bread and J wanted to "Play" with me. He didn't understand that I wasn't exactly playing. So he started to ask for things, first it was his own stove, then a microwave, then a sink and an oven and a refrigerator. It was fun to watch him in his kitchen, he is quite the chef.

There just weren't enough pictures of J in this post....I don't quite know why he is sitting on my flour bucket, but he's a cutie, so there you go.

And that was the second week of July

Colorado! First Week of July

At the very begging of July we went to Colorado. We went to visit Becky in Pueblo first and since that is at least a 10 hour trip we decided to cut it in half. I got a room at the Holiday Inn in Grand Junction- for $40! The boys had a blast, they got to ride on the luggage rack and jump on hotel beds and B even got to sleep in a swank hotel crib! Unfortunately some soccer playing zombies attacked the men in the room next to ours from about 1 AM to 4 AM so Ken and I didn't sleep to well. Other than that we had a pretty good experience at the Holiday Inn.

The next morning we piled back in the car and took off for Pueblo, where we found Becky- she needed lots of love and our boys were very willing to provide her with cuddles. 

We discovered Children's literature has fallen on hard times, good thing there is such a thing as censorship. I don't even want to know what the original title of this book was :)

We left Pueblo and headed for Fort Collins where we got to celebrate the first birthday of our little cousin Micheal. We had fun with Tim and Liz and their entire family.

We also climbed trees while we......

waited for a city bus.....

and then rode the bus.....

along its entire route.

As you can see from the smiles, it was lots of fun.

We visited the Swetsville Zoo

Run from the Dinosaurs B, RUN!!!!! all the animals at the Swetsville Zoo are made of Car Parts. 

We also visited living animals at the Denver Zoo.

Who needs hair gel when your Mom has sunscreen.....I like the new do, don't you?

We saw Elephants.....

and.....

became elephants.

J practiced for when he is on Season 55 of the Amazing Race....it will still be on in 20 or so years, right.....

And the kids played in the best place in the house- the crawl space, of course!

Ken and went for a walk with none other than Captain America!

And on our way home we stopped off at the Evanston  McDonald's because they have the coolest seats in the entire world. Seriously, where else can you sit on a saddle while you eat Micky Dee's Delicacy's

And that was our Colorado Trip :)

Proud Mom of a Big Boy

Yesterday was the first day of school around here. That means buses! We were out having fun yesterday but this morning the boys and I took a trip down to the local bus stop to watch the elementary school kids board their bus. We were having a lazy Wednesday morning and were still in our pajamas. I walked and the boys rode their respective little tikes cars down to the bus stop. My oldest, J, got there first, his brother B lagging about 50 yards behind. I stood on a corner where I could see both of them. My little J found enough room right at the front of the line for him and his car. He sat there happily, chatting up the school kids. And then I heard him proudly proclaim "I wear Underpants!!!!!!!" I don't know what prompted it, but it made me laugh. My boy, he wears underpants and in just over a year he will be standing in that school bus line, ready for his first day of kindergarten.

The middle of the muddle

The past few weeks have been the best of times and the worst of times. I've spent more time resting than I expected to. I am still finding that I can over do it very easily. And my boys test my limits every day. Little B has discovered the water in the door of the fridge- he has caused a not so small flood in the kitchen twice over the past 3  weeks. I moved the fridge both times in order to clean it up. Not too long after moving the fridge I understood why moving the fridge was not an appropriate thing for me to be doing. Poor B also doesn't understand why I can't carry him EVERYWHERE, he is sick and he just wants to be catered too, and it makes me sad that I can't give him love in the way he wants it- but REALLY kid, you weigh 32 pounds and you know how to walk! Isn't holding my hand while you walk enough?

Recently one of my sisters was given a car load of kids costumes, a few of them were much to small for her children- like these little pirate pants (see how they are all tattered on the bottom)- they go along with a black pirate vest which B did wear for a while, but he eventually decided that he was the shirtless type of pirate. On the day I took this picture I had done as much as I could and even though it wasn't a lot, I was tired. And when I am tired I do silly things, so I dressed my child as a pirate- who wouldn't?!?! Baby Pirates are the best for lifting your spirits. :) I'm lucky to have such a cute baby pirate at my beck and call. (I may have mentioned this day in a previous post, close to heaven I think) 

In between surgeries we were able to plant our garden. For the last few years our gardens have been less than bountiful. I decided that we needed to add something to the soil. We have never done anything more than add a little plant food, but I figured that we needed to add some fertilizer or something. Usually we try to get our garden in the week after Mother's day, but this year  we were a little busy that week. There was also a church activity that was all about Square Foot Gardening in the 3rd week of  May, so we waited. I figured I would learn something good about soil additives, and what I learned was that I wanted to try our own version of Square Foot Gardening. We don't have room for raised beds, but I felt the beds we did have were appropriately sized. Ken and I dug out 6 or more inches of the not so great soil in our beds and bought some specially mixed raised bed garden soil and several plants from the IFA and we got down to work.

Here's what we planted, two tomatoes in the hanging topsy turvey things. Butternut Squash, Yellow Squash and a Watermelon (wow, I need to go check what plants we got, I'm having a hard time remembering) I think an Acorn Squash too. We have Onions, an Anaheim pepper and a Bell pepper. 3 more tomato plants and a Fennel. Fennel makes me happy, it reminds me of San Diego where it grows WILD in the canyons. We got some square tomato cages, opened them up and placed them flat against the fence so that the climbing things could climb up them. So far the garden seems happy. Hopefully we will have a bountiful harvest, with lots of Salsa for Ken (and me, I must admit I like our salsa) and lots of squash for little B and me. Yuuuuuummmmm, Squaaaash.

So, for a week or more after the second surgery I suffered from a lack of sleep. For a while it seemed like I had my days and nights confused. I napped on and off all day and had a really hard time sleeping at night. I know I am amazingly lucky because Ken was there for me during this time (in fact after one particularly horrible night, when I just couldn't handle it the next day, Ken came home from work at Noon and took care of me, that man is a SAINT, just saying) and we had so many good friends and neighbors who were helping out with meals that we had plenty of food easily available for me to feed the kids when Ken had to go back to work. There was a Jello Salad that the boys LOVED (strawberry jello with fruit, cottage cheese and cool whip, I think) yes, I think the boys would tell you that those few days, while the jello salad lasted, were wonderful.

One thing I have been able to do quite easily is read with the boys. As part of our bedtime routine we read scripture stories and one or two books. The boys really like it and Ken and I do too. Ken took this picture because of the book I was reading, Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Ken doesn't often request books for the boys from the library, but he got this one, and its sequel. Some day we will own those books. 

So, the past few weeks have not been the best, I'm tired, I hurt, I'm bloated and at times I have wondered if there is something severely wrong with me. Luckily, the Internet can sometimes calm fears. (I know from experience that if you go online and enter your symptoms you are likely to discover that you have cancer, turns out just about any symptom you have could be a sign of cancer- who knew?) So, last week I had several days where I felt fine for an hour or two in the morning, then tired, then sore, then gassy and bloated. At this point I feel like I look about 4 months pregnant. By bedtime I was very sore, it hurt to move, to climb in to bed. The only thing I could compare that feeling too was being days away from delivering a very active baby, the feeling of being bruised inside. I wanted to know if this was normal so I googled. I google a lot. I asked the googleverse (I may have just created that by the way, the googlverse! Get it? Like Universe only with Google on the front! Ha, the things I come up with early in the morning when I can't sleep) so, anyway, I typed in "recovery after exploratory laparotomy" and I found that my symptoms were very normal and that I should expect them for a few more weeks......yay? Well, one of the things recommended was to continue to take it easy, apparently just because I feel good in the morning doesn't mean I should jump right in to my daily routine. Unfortunately my daily routine still has to be done. 


So I muddle along, doing the bare minimum, once again lucky I have Ken who picks up as much slack as he can. I've started to realize that it is not a sign of weakness to ask for help- and if there should ever be another kitchen flood I've promised myself that I will go find a neighbor to move my fridge, no matter how embarrassing I find the current state of my home. I even reached out recently, asking for help cleaning (the morning after moving the fridge after the last flood, I couldn't more without pain). It didn't work, people are really busy on Fridays I guess, but I was proud that I gave up my pride long enough to ask for help (pretty funny huh, proud of being less prideful). Oh well, someday this whole experience will be a memory. Hopefully I will have learned some good lessons and I will remember that I need to be kind to my body when it is healing. It seems to be a hard lesson for me to learn. I'm sure I am not the only one who has a hard time with this type of lesson. 


I feel like I must sound a little bit like Eeyore, and if so, Thanks for listening. I do want to express that yes, it has been hard, harder than I expected, but I've had so many moments when I've been blessed beyond measure that I really can't complain, too much. I hope you have a Happy Sunday! Let's make this next week a great one!

Father's day and More

Ken and I sing in our church choir, it is a somewhat well known fact that if you want to get people out to choir practice you should have treats. Well, since they were holding choir practice on Father's Day I offered to bring Cinnamon Rolls- hoping this would help people want to come to choir. I made a mistake when I was making them, I used a 3/4 cup instead of a 1 cup when I was putting the flour in- I didn't realize this until the next morning when I was making a second batch to prove to my self that I COULD make fabulous cinnamon rolls. The nicknamed the first batch Cinnamon Globs, I made them on Saturday night and let rise in the fridge overnight, the dough seemed a little sticky, but it accepted plenty of cinnamon sugar filling and it rolled with the usual amount of coaxing. Then I turned my back and it became a big flat mess....I cut it and it flattened even more. So I picked it up and tossed the clumps down onto the baking sheet and stuck them in the fridge. They ended up tasting quite good the next morning and no one at choir complained about eating Cinnamon Globs. As I said, I made a second batch on father's day morning, this time recognizing what I had done wrong, I was able to make my most perfect cinnamon rolls to date. :)

My day lilies bloomed just in time for Father's day :)

Little B had a 104 degree fever on Father's Day, so he and I stayed home from the first part of church and Ken and J went to church because J and all the other children were going to serenade their fathers. Here they are- dressed alike and everything, my two big boys!

B's fever lasted for 2 days and then he got a rash, it wasn't on his palms or the soles of his feet it was all over his legs, I took him to the doctor because it was an itchy rash and I just didn't know what it was. Hand Foot and Mouth! His poor little throat was so covered in rash that it was bleeding. His legs were also covered in rash, the doctor said he had only seen that kind of presentation of Hand, Foot and Mouth 5 of 6 times before. The next day B had the rash on his arms and ears. He enjoyed eating Popsicles.

lots and lots of Popsicles, B lost his appetite for about 4 days- Don't worry, he still weighs over 30 pounds, he survived his painful fast quite well. J didn't mind the Popsicles either.

J likes to help his Daddy water the Tomatoes. I got a couple Topsy Turvey Planters at a local store for $2.99 and we decided to try them out. We pretty much killed the tomatoes. The instructions say that you should give each plant 1 gallon of water right when you plant them, but it didn't say you needed to give them 1 gallon per day, so we just gave them a few cups of water...........they got brown and shriveled up and we decided they needed more water. One plant has started to grow again, nice green leaves. There is no hope for the second plant. We do have a nice garden this year, more on that in another post.

AND to top off the week of Father's day, We are dog sitting. This is Tilly, She loves me and tolerates the men in the house. Her people had a death in the family and had to leave quickly to be with their Sister/Aunt in Texas, so we have taken Tilly in. She doesn't smell, who knows, maybe we will get a dog. P.S. Ken didn't know we were dog sitting until he got home from work on Thursday Night. It was one of those "Don't Kill me.....but we have a dog for a few days" kind of moments. The good news is, he didn't kill me!

Preparing for the Future

J has been OBSESSED with the Sacrament for a while now. At church he used to get every hymn book he could find, put them in a line and call it his Sacrament Table, then when it was time for the Priesthood to bless and pass the Sacrament to the congregation, he would copy them, pretending to prepare it, bless it and then pass his imaginary bread and water to anyone who happened to be sitting near by. 

A few weeks ago he played Sacrament at home. pulling my piano bench into the kitchen, preparing cups of water and tearing a few pieces of bread into tiny little pieces.

Then he called his brother over to participate, covered it all up......

knelt down and blessed it.....(I hope B is this happy the first time he actually gets to pass the Sacrament at church, I just love the look of delight on his face)

Then he continued on, mimicking every detail he could remember.

So I try to remember, he may have his moments when he is loud and boisterous during church, BUT he is paying attention and he seems to know what the most important thing we do there is. I am grateful for these boys of mine. They are good boys.