Wintertime's Fun! Follow Me!

Our magic hat this year was provided by Geneva Rock.

He's worried because he knows his fate. (Yes, he melted that day.)

We took the train one weekend to SLC. We had lots of fun together seeing the lights and listening to choirs singing.

Liz loved the train rides.

This is shot that was the least blurry from Benson's baby blessing. This little one kept going back for more and more cookies. Before we left, she had started to feel what it was like to eat too many cookies. Poor mom and dad.

Thanksgiving at our house

Here are a few pictures of the holiday.

Josh and I were working on getting parts of the house painted before Thanksgiving. I asked him to read Liz a story before naptime. Half an hour later, I went upstairs to see what had happened and this is what I saw. I guess Josh fell asleep first.

Snowball fights happen when the snow isn't of good enough quality for snowmen or when the silliness strikes. This is post snowball fight with a few volleys yet that didn't make it to the release.

Happy grandma.

Our thespians showed off their acting talents in their own rendition of Rapunzel. It was received well and critics agreed that they would return for another performance.

I'm not sure who he is... he just showed up.

This is Don getting mauled by strangers in disguise. A pirate, a butterfly, and an afro.

I didn't get any pictures of the yummy food. I was too busy eating.

Halloween 2010

A typical sunset near our house. Let the door knocking begin!

Liz in her costume. I think she wanted to show off her spider ring rather than her costume. We got her wings and wand from a dollar store, and Josh had found the princess dress at one of the many garage sales he and his brother went to this summer. I just had to fix the hem a bit and the dress was good. (She's wearing a green jacket underneath the dress.)

This was waiting in line at a Halloween/we finished a two year road construction project! party. Note the construction cones. The costumes that we saw were great and Josh got to race a riding lawn mower. (For never driving one before, he did pretty good.)

Then we went to a library party where Liz met her friend. Liz was a butterfly princess. She wore that dress the next day for church too.

Perry the Platypus came home for Halloween this year. Oh, and yes, that is Barney the Dinosaur in the background. Josh entered a pumpkin carving contest under the category, "Most likely to get smashed". Unfortunately, someone was more clever and made their pumpkin a pinata with a sign that said, "Candy Inside". It was fun anyway.

This was my first pumpkin that wasn't a generic face. I'm kinda proud of the way it turned out.

This is Liz's Cool Awesome Pumpkin. She used paint and cotton balls.

Learn something new...

You can learn something new every day.

During our weekly shopping trips, I try to encourage Liz to choose something in the produce eisles that she sees that looks interesting. It gets me to learn how to cook something new and we always come away with a different experience. Well, she choose purple cabbage this week. I thought that I could cook up a Russian dish that we like called (forgive my spelling) Galupsie. It's basically a cabbage roll. I stuck the cabbage in the pot and boiled it like usual, and then found to my horror that it had changed to a weird blue color. I thought, oh no! I ruined another dinner! I asked Josh about it and after a quick Wikipedia search he found that it's actually a normal thing. When purple cabbage is exposed to alkaline, or basic solutions, it will turn a white or blue color. When it is exposed to acid, it will turn red. A homemade litmus test! This is thanks to a chemical called anthocyanin. It's a really cool chemical that's also good for you. Well, it was a good dinner and I learned something new.

This could also be used as a science fair project with household acids and bases to turn the lettuce color. (i.e. vinegar)

Here's some pictures, but it's kind of hard to tell.

The No Posting Debacle

So...

Hi again! I haven't posted since May. Summer happened and we did some things.
We went camping in strange places.
Ate corn on the cob.
We sort of tried gardening and got lots of tomatoes.

Eh, what am I kidding. For the most part I've been sitting on my duff wishing the heat away so that I could go skiing again.

Can anyone else sense ennui?

Mother's Day Hike to the Wind Caves

Liz didn't want to get out of the hiking backpack, because she was trying to sleep in it. (First picture of me on my blog by the way.)

The view from the top was spectacular. The trail ends on top of the caves, so you have to climb down the limestone to see them. I thought the view was much better than the caves. All in all, it was the best Mother's Day present of all because I got to spend time with the people I love, doing something I love.

Easter

Before

After

The animals didn't want to eat, but preferred to stare wildly at Liz.

(We had a dress up party using Great Grandma Larson's party plates. It was a big hit.)

Liz

"Where's the Green Sheep?" (Liz quoting her newest favorite book.)

Chocolate face

Can you spot the troublemaker?

Right there.

Messes are deliberately left in view of camera so you will know that I haven't changed one little bit.

Lint and wrinkles

So...
I've been doing an... experiment I guess you could say. When we lived in Logan we had a gas dryer. When we moved to Riverdale, there were no gas hookups anywhere. Only electric. So, about eight months later, we still didn't have a dryer. We saw one on Freecycle and went for it. A 20 dollar cord and an online repair manual was all it took. I've found out a lot about laundry. Here goes.

1. Lint is an awful enemy.
2. Cold days just tend to freeze wet underwear.
3. Planning ahead is vital if you want to wear that favorite shirt.
4. Letting a toddler help hang up wet socks is fine... if your floor is clean enough.
5. You can save tons on gas bills, but if you don't hang the clothes up fast enough, you'll have to waste energy ironing them anyway.
6. Don't overload the washer.
7. Softener doesn't really help that much with the lint problem.
8. Washing machines get dirty fast.
9. Walmart curtain rods don't hold as much laundry as Lowes curtain rods.
10. I'm grateful that I have a washer.

I'll still be hanging up most of my wash.


Sorry about the boring post. The next one will be thrilling and nail-biting and you won't get much sleep afterwards.