Welcome Home!

Last night we got to go to the airport and pick up my little brother. He has finally completed his mission to the Dominican Republic. After our wait at the airport for the arrival of his plane...

We finally saw this skinny...no not skinny....emaciated missionary walk through the gates. It was amazing to see him, he was completely unrecognizable. I felt like I was hugging a sack of bones.
It was a great reunion though. He has definitely grown up since he left.
It was also a great experience to get to hear him bear his testimony as a missionary one last time before he was released. The stake president met us at my parents house as soon as we got home from the airport and released him. I'm sure it was a bitter sweet moment for Michael. I wish his plane would have gotten in earlier in the day so that we could have spent more time with him. (Our kids didn't get to bed until after 11:00 as it was last night.) But, I'm sure there will a lot of catching up over the next couple of weeks before he heads off for his fall semester of school. Welcome home Michael!

WAR

I am currently at war. I have been doing battle for over a week now. And while I have won small battles (I think) I have yet to win the war completely. Who am I so desperately fighting? Squash bugs. Yes, sad I know. I am desperately trying to save my zucchini plant from the bugs that decided to make it their home. My life has reached a pathetic level in the gardening department. So pathetic, that I have had multiple dreams about my zucchini plant. I think my obsession has reached extremes because the war has gone on for too long. When I first saw the bugs and the little rows of eggs a few of the leaves, I immediately saturated the plant with poison(seriously I dumped a ton of on, and I dumped it right on the bugs that dared to show themselves). I also took the leaves from the plant that had eggs on them and threw them away. I would have thought that that would have done the trick.

But every day I am devastated when I go outside and find another leaf or two with eggs on it! I have since sprayed the plant with bug and egg killer, and yet every day...more eggs! ( I seriously think that there would be hundreds of bugs in my zucchini plant if I wasn't killing off their young.) My poor zucchini plant will be out of leaves soon at this rate. Today I applied another round of powder poison. I don't know how any bug could survive the torture that I've given it. I'm determined to win. We're still getting zucchini, and I've heard that these bugs can destroy a plant in a few days...so I'm hoping I'm close to winning my war.

Owen can put himself to bed now.

Cute Picture

I wish I had the skills to photo shop this face...
onto this shot of awesome hair!

Memories

I've seen this on a few people's blog now and thought it sounded kind of interresting. I'ts always funny to hear what other people remember about you, so I thought I'd give it a try.

1. As a comment on my blog, leave a memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see what people remember about you!

Please be sure to only leave comments that make me look good! Just kidding, I don't care what you write...I just want to hear it!

Jam

Yesterday I finally got my freezer jam made. I've had a ton of strawberries in the freezer just waiting for me to do something with them. Ains has been really sick and slept or watched movies ALL DAY yesterday, which allowed me time to make jam (and fiddle around with my blog settings). So today we have been eating our fair share of bread and jam. I was outside and Owen came up to me looking so proud holding up a piece of bread that he had spread jam on all by himself.
He looked so cute, but I was a little worried about the condition of my kitchen. I went in and my little helper had "jammed" several slices of bread. (I've been finding jam on random pieces of bread in the bag all day too.) He was very responsible with his work and even pushed the chair that he had been using to reach the counter back over to the table. I knew which chiar he had used based on the incredible amounts of jam that were on one particular chair.
Poor Ains though has missed all of the fun again today. Her stomach is really bothering her. She's had some nasty symptoms that I won't go into detail about here. She insists on carrying around a throw-up bowl even though she isn't throwing up. She woke up for a while this morning and then was out until 1:00. Every time she wakes up she tries to tell me that she wants to go swimming or to the park. Not likely. She was supposed to get to play with her friend yesterday and her play date just continues to get postponed, she's so sad about it. I just hope she's better soon. I think we're all getting a little stir crazy.

Zucchini

We have a plethora of zucchini at this house. Seriously, we are being over run (this might be partly due to the fact that I pick my zucchini when they are about the size of Kansas). We have given a few away and yesterday I shredded what we haven't been able to eat and ended up with about a gallon and a half of frozen zucchini. I still have a massive zucchini in my fridge. And it's not like we haven't been eating the stuff. I put it in everything. Here are some of the things we have had since our zucchini plant went haywire...

Zucchini bread (several loaves)

Shish-ka-bobs

Zucchini fajitas (surprisingly good)

Pasta with roasted veggies (Shelly's recipe, this was so good we've had it twice and I cooked some for dinner for another family as well)

Regular old fried Zucchini

Grilled zucchini

And last but not least...Zucchini brownies. These were amazing! I made them last night when we had some friends over for dinner and no one could even tell there was zucchini in them. I also took out most of the oil in the recipe so they were nearly fat free brownies. And they were yummy! They do need frosting though...anyone have a good recipe for fat free chocolate frosting. If so, I'm sure we could combine our efforts and make millions with our fat free brownie concoction. So here's the recipe for the best 'healthy' brownies you will ever eat.

1/2 cup vegetable oil (I took out most of the oil and substituted applesauce, next time I think I will take out all the oil)
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 - 1 1/4 cups pureed zucchini (be sure to shred the zucchini and then puree it for better disguising...this way there will be no zucchini chunks in your brownies)


6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup margarine
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F . Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan (flour pan with cocoa).
In a large bowl, mix together the oil, sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla until well blended. Combine the flour, 1/2 cup cocoa, baking soda and salt; stir into the sugar mixture. Fold in the zucchini and walnuts. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until brownies spring back when gently touched. To make the frosting, melt together the 6 tablespoons of cocoa and margarine; set aside to cool. In a medium bowl, blend together the confectioners' sugar, milk and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Stir in the cocoa mixture. Spread over cooled brownies before cutting into squares.

I wish you all lived nearby so that I could supply the zucchini for you to try these out. If you live by me....come on over, if not, go get a zucchini and give these a try!

BTW: I happened upon this recipe today and I'm pretty sure we will be trying it out for dinner tonight. Anyone have any other recipes we should try?

Before and After's

Well, the "remodel" is now complete. John surprised me and installed our new sink this week while I was at Enrichment. Isn't he full of surprises lately? So now I can finally post before and after pictures. Unfortunately my before pictures don't capture the true grossness of my old things. So I'll try to explain.
The sink had several chips in it...although only the big one I gave it is visible. It also had permanent black streaks all over it, and the bottom was stained yellow from our hard water because the finish was completely gone.

I love my new faucet. I've wanted a pullout faucet for a long time, and although I wasn't able to get one of the cool $500 faucets, I am still loving mine!

Here is the kids old bathroom shot. Their linoleum was actually in the best condition. The only problem with theirs was that there was a bubble in the flooring next to the tub. Oh, and there was ton's of little tiny flecks of red paint on it due to sloppy painters in the past.

This is the old shot of the laundry room. I wish you could see all the scuffs and dings in the floor, there were lots. But, apparently my camera needs higher mega pixels in order to get a shot of that.

And here is the before of the master bath. It might just look ugly because of the green diamonds, but if you could look at it up close you would see that is was truly disgusting. By far the grossest in the house. There was black grime in the little creases that grossed me out. I'm just grateful that it is gone and I never have to look at that layer of grime again. It's kind of weird that I have lived in some crummy places and I've never had linoleum as gross as this.

So now I have nice clean, and updated floors and a new sink. (Thanks for doing it all John!) I wish that I had some 'during' shots. But I just didn't think to take out my camera while we were busy taking out toilets!

My list of things to do in this house is slowly disappearing. I love the way that everything turned out, and I have decided that based on the small amount of choosing I had to do for these repairs, I think I might not ever be able to build a house. I get way to stressed out over little things.

Camping

On Monday we headed out for our first "family" trip. We have never gone on a trip with just our family. We have either gone with family or to visit family. So, a few months ago I decided that we needed to get out and do something with just the four of us. Camping was the vacation that fit the budget, so camping we went. We went to Silver Creek Plunge and ended up having a great time. Silver Creek is only 65 miles away, but the drive took just over 2 hours. The last 20 miles are dirt roads and the last 8 miles are ROUGH dirt roads. But it was well worth it. My dad let us borrow his truck and a ton of his camping supplies so we were well equipped for our little adventure.
I haven't been camping in a while and I've missed it. I really do like camping, so I was sure that we did all of the things you're supposed to do when you camp. John got to do his fair share of work. But I'm sure he didn't mind.
I'm sure that chopping wood is a lot more fun than sitting at a desk!
We explored the area and took lots of little walks with the kids.

We played in the river that ran through the camp ground.
The water was freezing but the kids didn't seem to mind. The cold water was refreshing, I think our toes even got a little numb.
We collected lots of rocks, Owen stored his in his shoes, and Ainsley came home with a baggie full of her special treasures.
Every time we got back from the river the kids were soaking wet. This is a picture taken after Owen had fallen in the river and had to get his clothes taken off. He refused to put on new ones, so he got to hang out like this for a while.
Owen also loved the dirt. I caught him on the little road by our camp spot one night picking up dirt and dumping it on his head. He seriously looked like pig pen and when I tried to brush the dirt out of his head there was a full on dust cloud surrounding him.

Luckily there is a hot springs at Silver Creek. At least it was a semi-bath for the kids two times during the trip. The water felt great in the morning, but down right HOT in the afternoon. I think the water was about 100 degrees. I was just like a hot bath.
We also took the kids on a very short nature walk.
We were sure to include s'mores. I was a bit disappointed in Owen however, he preferred the marshmallows raw and not cooked...he just might not be my son.
We also became great friends with the local wild life. Upon arriving back at camp one day we found that our garbage had served as a meal for some creature. I've never really thought about storing our food away during the day.
We should have learned our lesson the first time. But the next night we left a box with some of our food out on the table. When we got home we found that a lot of our food had been tampered with. We were the most disappointed that they ate most of our hamburger buns that we were supposed to be having for dinner that night.
I think this might have been one of our little dinner guests.
The only rough part of the trip was when Ains woke up the second morning and threw up. She was sick and throwing up for a few hours. She just sat in front of the fire and eventually fell asleep. Luckily her little bug (or too much junk food) passed quickly, and within a few hours she was completely back to normal.

We had a ton of fun, although I must admit that it's nice to be clean, and I won't miss the walk to the outhouse!

Called to Serve

The kids in our primary have been learning the song, "Called to Serve." Ains was sitting singing it today after church and her version went a little something like this...

"Awkward, awkward, awkward, as we glory in his name

Awkward, awkward, awkward, as a song we sing."

I think it's cute enough that I won't tell her the real words just yet. I'll wait it out and see how long until she figures out the words for herself!

Surprise!

John surprised with the greatest suprise ever (for someone obsessed with home repairs). He called and got an appointment for our new linoleum to be put in, and it is being installed as I type! Yesterday was a bit hectic. We had to get our toilets removed and our washer and dryer out so that it could be installed today. We stayed at my parents last night, but everything will be ready for us to go home to tonight! I'm so excited.

And the best part is that just due to timing, I also get a new kitchen sink and faucet installed in the next week or so too. Our sink was in really bad shape when we moved in to our house and our faucet was slowly falling apart. A bout a month ago I dropped a glass pan on the edge of it and chipped off a big piece, and for me that was the last straw. It just so happened that my parents had taken their old (just a couple years old and in great shape) sink out of their kitchen for their remodel. So I got a nice 'new to me' sink for a GREAT price. And since I didn't know that John was scheduling for new linoleum I went a head and bought a new faucet so that we could get the sink installed and out of our garage.

So now I get 2 things replaced at the same time. Awesome! Or maybe I'm wierd and most people don't get excited about things like sinks, faucets, and linoleum. None the less...I'm going to be posting all the before and after pictures when it's all done!

Okay, so that totally backfired!

Last night Owen was being a bit of a stinker again. So after 30 minutes of crying John went to check on him. Owen started freaking out more when John tried to leave so John offered the option of sleeping on the floor again. Of course he chose the floor, but surprisingly HE FELL ASLEEP there! Either John doesn't have my touch, or Owen is really out to get us. The good news is that he was asleep last night by about 8:45. He hasn't been to be that early in over a month! And he's still asleep this morning as of 8:25. I wonder if my plan will continue to backfire and we will now have a little boy that insists on sleeping on the floor?

A battle won

Lately Owen has been very opinionated about his bedtime. He feels that an appropriate time for a nearly 2 year old to go to bed is between 9:30 and 10:00. Unfortunately his parents disagree and feel that 8:00 would be a more appropriate time. It seems like we have been dealing with this issue all summer. Part of me doesn't mind it so much because I like to be free to stay out later during the summer since it doesn't cool off until after 8:00 anyways, but mostly I hate bed time because I know that it means a battle with Owen.

We have let him cry it out several times, but usually get sick of the screaming after an hour or so and 'rescue' him from his bed for a short time. We tried putting up a dark blanket over his window hoping that he would go to bed if his bedroom wasn't light. No such luck. The battles got particularly tricky when Owen learned how to take off his pj's and his diaper. Often times we would go check on him during the screaming only to find him naked and sobbing. This in turn would make me feel guilty and I would give in and let him stay up for a while longer...thus enabling the vicious circle we were in.

But on Saturday I went into the bedtime battle ready for war and the several rounds I knew were ahead.
Round 1: Owen gets put to bed and cries for an hour (Really, it was a full hour. We watched a full episode of Smallville). John goes to check on Owen and finds him naked and perched up on top of the side bar of his crib. I'm not sure how long he had been stuck like this but it made me feel sorry for him and I let him sit with me for a while. One point for Owen.

Round 2: Owen gets put back in his crib and the crying continues. He is worked up to a full rage this time. I go check on him during the screaming (I can't let him get stuck again...I'm not that mean) and find him clothed, but stuck on the side of his crib again. I make him get back in his bed. One point for mom!!!

Round 3: Owen still screaming has thrown all of his things out of his crib. In a moment of desperation I give Owen the option of sleeping in his crib or on the floor. I'm still not sure what my plan was...but I was desperate. Owen chooses the floor. I lay him on the floor and leave the room. One point for Owen.

Round 4: Owen comes to the door crying and I give him the option again. This time he chooses his bed. I lay him in his bed. One point for mom!

Round 5: The bed doesn't last for long. Soon there are more screams and I go check on him to make sure there is no trouble. Owen says (and by says I mean he points to his pillow on the ground and makes a grunting sound) that he wants to sleep on the floor. I give in and put him on the floor. One point for Owen.

Round 6: A few minutes later (I was sweatin' the "choose where you want to sleep" option at this point) Owen comes to the door and 'says' he wants to sleep in his crib. Owen is so pooped at this point that he lays right down and goes to sleep. 10 points for mom because I WON!

Let's just hope Owen will be rational at this point and realize that his mother will always win...I really hate long nights like that, and I'm not so sure I'm ready for another one anytime soon!

The Fourth

What a fun Fourth we had. I'll apologize in advance for the ridiculous amount of pictures...but it's my blog, so I can bore you with as many as I want! Our morning started out with the annual breakfast at my parents house. This year there were about 30 people there. We all get to eat a great breakfast and then we all hop in the pool to cool off.

Here are the kids at their little tables enjoying their breakfast.

Ainsley doing some smooth moves in the pool.
Here is a lovely shot of Ains and me. I was trying to stay nice and dry on the side of the pool in an attempt to avoid showering later in the day. However...my attempt was pointless since a certain husband of mine insisted on spraying me with water guns and dunking me in the water, and a certain daughter of mine insisted on jumping in the pool right next to me repeatedly. So while I did get cooled off, I looked a little ragged the rest of the day.
After spending the afternoon home and letting the kids have a rest, we headed down town to the park to watch the fireworks there. We had time to kill so we played cards...

Played catch
and did some sparkler with the kids. (The pictures are blurry because we took them using the night setting, so sorry, but again, my blog :)
Ains loved the sparklers, and Owen loved them until one sparked him a little.
But after some coaxing he was right back in the game and crying when they were all gone.
This year they passed out 3-D glasses for the fire works show. The glasses did put a new twist on the fireworks and made them look cool and magnified, but I think I still preferred watching them with just my own eyes. The kids liked wearing them though.
Here is one of many shots of Owen crying. We gave him a nice long nap in the afternoon but for some reason he was just plain grumpy from about 7:00 on. Which is weird because lately he refuses to go to bed until around 10:00 anyways. So I really was a bit surprised when he spent so much of the night crying and throwing tantrums. My favorite grumpy moment was when Owen was dead set on eating a sucker and was so angry with my dad for offering him carmel popcorn that he hit my dad on the leg with all of his might. Not that I condone what he did, but it was just so unexpected (he hits a ton, but usually only immediate family) that I couldn't help but laugh.

The fireworks were great and even Owen was amazed at the beauty of the show. The kids didn't get into bed until after 11:30, but I guess that's what the fourth is all about. We are, however, spending time resting up today!