Exotic destinations, sort of

Well, it's time to upload pictures from my camera again, so here is what we've been up to:

No, we haven't been traveling, this is the local Krishna temple (yup , here in Utah!). Our ward's play group met to feed the llamas. Squeaker squeakin! That means "Demon Llama!" in squirrel. They also had little brahma bull calves, which was pretty cool, ok, I'm a farm nerd, but they were funny little things with their humps.

Seth loves animals so he was pretty happy squealing and kicking and trying to pat their noses. I don't think the llamas appreciated it. He did not want to leave.

We also went to our town's fall celebration, every year they have free kids activities in the park, art projects and balloon animals were the favorites this year. And the suckers, of course.
The concert this year was Nancy Hansen and Peter Brienholt, yea! Farris and I went to as many of their concerts as we could in Logan. It was fun seeing our kids dance to "You Wore Flowers" and "Birken Street" while we sang along. I loved hearing their music live again.

On Thursday, Caleb had his first ever Class Field Trip, with A Bus (yes, capitol letters are needed here, just talk to any kindergartner about a Ride in a School Bus, and their voices capitalize it). They went to an apple orchard and we decided to tag along.

Yum! Natalie and Caleb enjoying their Freshly Picked Apples (capitalized again).

Here's Abbie, I think she was a little surprised to see Sister Child, but hey, I came for the free apples.

Joseph and Hyrum enjoyed their apples, too. But the favorite part was the doughnuts, they even had SPRINKLES!

There wasn't any school on Friday so Farris stayed home from work and we decided to check out Strawberry Reservoir. So we did. And it was really cold and windy, so after eating sandwiches in the van, watching other people fish, we turned around and went down a couple thousand feet in elevation to another lake and then we played.
Seth loves water, even though when you crawl in water your belly gets wet before your bum does. And it did, and he was very!

I love pictures of feet in the water and his toes are very cute and little.

Before we took off, we rented a canoe from BYU, how much fun is that. The kids loved it, but Caleb did comment that daddy took them out faster than I did. But, hey, I didn't do too shabby, thank you Cindy and Julie =) We all got wet, Joseph got stripped down to his underwear, Caleb found lots of, ummm, cool rocks and sticks (you'd think he got enough of that in Arizona, but no), and Felicity formed a new Club (with Joseph and me as members) complete with a special tree to meet at. Fun was had by all.

#4

Seth said Momma!! I'm right behind uh-oh, ball, and Dadda. At least I'm better than "Ice Cream" or "chocolate," right?

A bad bug

So our computer got a really bad virus and shut down, and it took about a week and a half to fix it. Yikes, I really depend on the internet and Microsoft word to get so much stuff done. I couldn't even look up diseases of plants for my neighbor or a recipe for dinner or to see how everybody is doing (or how everybody is wasting time on Facebook =) ). But the great computer people fixed our computer up after gutting it out and doubled the RAM so now I can do more fun things, including upload pictures from y camera! Hurray! I'm still trying to figure the program out, but for my first picture, here's Seth attacking one of our garden tomatoes:

And here's a video I've been wanting to share for awhile:

Isn't that awesome! I'm not sure we could get him to do it in Sacrament meeting, or if it would even be a good idea, but it would be memorable!

Now, back to business, first I want to brag on Farris for a minute, 'cause after all this is my blog. He's amazing! On Saturday, he bottled beets, dried pears, froze tomatoes, and jammed strawberries. Wow! I did help a little, but he did by far the majority. Definitely a keeper. And the homemade strawberry jam is my favorite thing of all time. It balances out the pickled beets.

Let's see, what else have I missed...Seth has three teeth and he might wake up with two more that are coming in fast behind. He's also really fast now and is standing up and is just starting to cruise. He has also learned how to become a hall pass in church by being really loudand last week was nabbed in a daring escape during the closing hymn by Nikki. Thanks again! We thought we had blocked his path, but he's getting crafty. He's already 11 months, whew, it's time to start thinking birthday celebration.

Joseph is busy all the time still, today he filled my water bottle with lemon juice concentrate. Yeech. I think he's enjoying the time when Caleb and Felicity are in school and Seth is sleeping, he likes a little cuddle time. It's good for me, too, that means he's not doing something crazy!

Caleb loves school, will even do his homework (usually) without complaining. He's ridden his bike to the school a couple times and at home he's always zooming around. If any of you are walking past him, ,be careful, he's still not hte best at watching where he's going. His legs and elbows are bruised and scraped, thank heavens for helmets.

Felicity's newest thing is turning her room into a zoo. No she's not putting her brothers in cages. Yet. That I know of. But her stuffed animals get put into whatever cages she can make up and then she makes tickets to hand out. She was going to charge a penny a ticket, but she didn't get any takers. I guess we're all pretty cheap.

I'm not sure what else has gone on, some days are just blurs. Oh, but happy 19th wedding anniversary to Chad and Tarilynn! Chad, you are a very lucky guy =)

I was just reading through some of my friends' blogs when Felcity came up to me, packing Seth:
"Mom! Seth just ate one of my stickers and when I told him no, he laughed!" Don't worry he didn't actually eat it, just chewed on it. Felicity was not a happy camper about her soggy sticker. But I am a little worried, because he does think it's funny when people tell him no. He's been trying out his teeth lately, and those of you who go to my ward probably heard him doing his happy scream (it sound's like someone just stepped on him, but he really is happy when he does it) and he's constantly eating things that shouldn't go in a babies mouth, whenever he does those things and I tell him no, he giggles. Oh, I think I might be in for it with just him and Joseph at home now...

Felicity's Big 7

Happy Birthday Felicity! To my funny, giggly, great big sister, huge imagination, not so tidy (but we're trying!) and wonderful girl, I'm so glad you're our daughter. The jokes, songs and drawings you make everyday keep me laughing and I love seeing you play at the same things I loved when I was little (My Little Ponies, Strawberry Shortcake and making up silly songs, and well, yes, playing in the dirt, too). But you are very much an individual, too, and won't let anyone push you around. I'm glad that you've discovered books this year, I love finding you curled up on your bed reading. This year will be second grade for you and it will be exciting watching you grow. Happy Birthday our Joy!

Catch-up

We just got back from a week and a half in Idaho with parents (well, Farris went home in the middle so he could go to work for a few days), and as much fun as I had, awhhhhhhh, it's good to sleep in my own bed. We: yard saled in Ketchum/Sun Valley area (fun times), finished Felicity's quilt top (I'll post a picture...some time...), played with cousins, went to the Lincoln County Fair and Rodeo (haven't been for awhile, fun to reminisce, but I didn't recognize a single person in the rodeo, weird), only had one child throw up (Caleb got a little too hot during a long walk, poor guy), stayed up too late, went to an International Dance and Music Festival (I think I'm a fan of the Asian countries, the kids from Japan were incredible on the drums and the dancers from from Taiwan and South Korea were incredibly graceful), went to a small town Opera House in Oakley (anyone know where that is?), ate our way through my mother-in-laws raspberry bushes ('nuff said) and generally had good times.

ALSO, BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: Seth learned to crawl! He's been chasing people around. My dad was so excited when Seth followed him into the kitchen. That little kid has been growing and changing so much lately I'm wondering what he'll do next. And it's a lot harder to have four kids that are mobile than four kids with only three mobile. None of them stay put now!
On the way home last night I thought Felicity had finally figured out Knock Knock jokes. She said "Knock, Knock." "Who's there?" "Cold!" "Cold who?" "Cold you open the door?" Pretty good, I thought, it actually makes sense. But then she started putting everything in there instead of cold and it didn't work anymore "Temple you open the door?", "Thanksgiving point you open the door","Car seat you open the door," etc. She would even read things off the billboards to put in there. And you all thought it was annoying to have a kid read every sign out loud for an hour straight. Try answering knock knock jokes based on the billboards for an hour straight. But she also brought out her Book of Mormon and read the entire book of Enos (I know, it's not that long, but I was proud of her). On Sunday she read one of the scriptures from it in Primary, she really is growing up.
Caleb is all set for Kindergarten now, he's excited, but I'm a little afraid that he's not going to want to go in that door. He will have the same teacher Felicity had, though, and she's great at making kids feel comfortable and loved. We'll see how it goes. Oh, and those of you who heard about him swelling up with the hives, he's better, no more puffy face, but we still don't know what he's allergic to.
Joseph is a party animal. I mean, he has to be the center of attention. At our family reunion he kept a table full of adults mesmerized with his magic trick. OK, we we're exactly mesmerized, but we were all laughing pretty hard. One of his nursery leaders told me that she missed him last week while we were gone and that it's his face (and one of the little girls, too) that she pictures when she thinks about nursery. That's my boy, the Poster Child.

Felicity speaks...

Felicity has taught me something useful. Yesterday at the playground she informed me that if someone claims to be a superhero, just ask them if their mom can still put them in time-out. No superhero, apparently, can be put in timeout.

For those of you who have parents that try to guilt you into eating your vegetables, Felicity has found you a way out. We were trying to get her to eat the freshly picked green beans from our garden. Farris told her that millions of people would love to be able to eat green beans fresh from their garden. Felicity looked at her plate and said, "I'll just sell mine, then."