This & That

Around Here This Week

Around here this week began last Sunday. Usually Sundays are pretty routine. I go to choir practice, then church, then come home and have my mother over for Sunday dinner, group video chat with the kids and the grands and then email my daughter on her mission. This week, I spent some time over at the Methodist church last Sunday after a panicked phone call the night before from their choir director.

 Her accompanist had a family emergency and couldn't play for the number their 7-person choir was singing and she was desperately looking for a sub. It's always a really interesting to have different experiences like this and I realized a couple of things.

First, I was way over-dressed in my skirt and sweater, and second, I was a little sad that this very historic church (built in 1906) that used to have a thriving congregation is dwindling. All but one of the choir members is over 60 and there were only 40 or so people in the huge sanctuary, that includes a balcony.

Moving on, I love being up before the sun comes up for a couple of reasons. I've always been an early riser. Years of early morning seminary and working the 7-3 shift at the hospital trained me that way, I suppose. I love feeling like I have a head-start on the day by being up before the sun. It makes me feel like I accomplish more for some reason. I'm also treated to views like this on occasion.

My daughter checked in this week with this picture and this question, "Did anyone else know that Marc is on The District videos that literally every single missionary watches? I took a double take and Sister Kang didn't believe me when I said "THAT'S MY BROTHER!?" We spent like 10 minutes trying to get the best picture. haha" Yes, that is my Marc and the missionary training videos that all missionaries watch during their mission preparation were filmed in his mission while he was there. He literally appears on the screen for maybe 2 seconds as the camera pans a room. We knew this, of course, since he told us it was happening while he was in San Diego, but apparently that information didn't transfer to my daughter and she had a light bulb moment this week.

I did an actual layout this week. I have a goal of trying to do one a week, since I am feeling a pull to tell more stories. I'm also going to handle my Project Life documentation a little differently, so we'll see how that goes. I loved the camo overload of this picture when I took it, plus the fact that it was all my boys and their dad together, which is a tremendously rare happening these days. The design comes from the Cocoa Daisy January sketch.

I also had a leg check with the dermatologist. He's pleased with the progress that's been made since the vein guy did my surgery last fall. He also has an abundance of interesting and kind of gross reading material in his office.

We had some of the youth from the ward here on Wednesday to listen to my husband talk about his mission to Japan a little bit. We gave them the taste treat of some sushi at the end, and all 4 of them were pretty adventurous eaters. This sushi, however, is something you would never see in Japan, according to my husband. This stuff is very Americanized, which is probably why I will eat it and not the "real" stuff he prefers that has raw and wriggling things on it.

On the grandchild front, I got these pictures of James...so cute. 

 

And as I documented on Thursday, Isaac celebrated his first birthday. His parents shared this video of him walking with one of his new toys. They are just getting so big, so fast.

Wanted

I have five sons, but you know that. Love them, right down to their amazing preoccupation with facial hair which has been well-documented here,  here, here and oh, here. And while there are occasional finite time periods of facial hair growing, most of the time it's here and then gone in fairly short order. Well, of all the pictures I've taken and shown on the blog here recently, you may have noticed that I have a boy who has been experimenting with longer-term beard growth.

This is my eldest boy. I told him he needed to send me a picture of his beard now that he's gotten it where he wants it. I told him it was definitely blog-worthy. He began the venture in response to the fact that several of the men he works with have some kind of permanent facial hair, and have been giving his clean-shaven self a hard time. So during his Christmas break  he started this project.

He has taken the standard amount of ribbing from his brothers, and even I have said I wasn't sure it was him under all that hair. I'm wondering if perhaps this face looks like it belongs on a Wanted poster, especially with that very serious expression, but my DIL thinks he looks pretty dashing. Definitely blog-worthy, and we'll have to see how long it sticks around now that it's apparently past the itchy stage. :)

At the End of Nowhere

First, a happy, happy, FIRST birthday to Isaac!

Happy Birthday, Sweetie! Gramma misses you!

From James' blessing, we loaded back into cars and drove another couple of hours south, and for those of you familiar with central Utah geography, we went past Nephi, past Levan, past Fayette which is basically just a wide spot in the road, and drove on to the end of nowhere to a pheasant lodge. The purpose of this was a post-Christmas visit with my husband's family...three of his 4 siblings were there with their families, oh...and so those who wanted could hunt pheasants the next day.

I had never been there before and quite frankly, I was a little worried about the accommodations, but I was pleasantly surprised.

My husband and I shared this room with my eldest, Evan, and his boy. 

The next morning I went back to civilization to visit with my sisters, but there was some pretty good, if cold, pheasant hunting. 

Since marrying Collin, Alison has taken hunter's safety and the two of them took turns staying in with James and going hunting. Notice how they've decked him out in camo and blaze orange. If you're an Allan it's never too early.

One of my sons took this with their phone. I really liked this view of the boys just being together doing something they really enjoy....and there are no dead things yet to mess up the picture. And THAT's what we did on our Christmas vacation.

 

James' Baby Blessing

While we had all the guys in the same place at the same time, Collin and Alison decided it would be a good time for James' baby blessing. This took place in Utah so her 96 year old grandfather could participate.

Alison's aunt and uncle generously donated the use of their beautiful home in Holladay for the event, which was really nice of them...letting my horde descend.

James wore the outfit his daddy wore some 28+ years ago. My boy with his boy. Such a Mommy Moment.

My husband and I with the cute family.

Alison's parents are on a church mission right now in Puerto Rico. They Face-timed the event with us.

The Brothers. This is another Mommy Moment for me...having all my boys together. It hardly ever happens, so it's special when it does.

4 generations.

Roger was feeling much better.

Isaac and his daddy.

A special boy on his special day.

Sitting Pretty

After the horse trough ice skating adventure, we took a little time to take some pictures of my cute granddaughters. 

We started with Caroline, who generally doesn't like to sit still a whole lot. She loves to jump and run and generally be really active.

But she also really loves the movie "Frozen" and Gramma asked her to sing, "Let It Go."

Which she did.

It was really cute.

But then Caroline's fun, active nature kicked in.

And that was the end of sitting for pictures.

So it was Gwen's turn.

We had exhausted the "Let It Go" ploy, but she was pretty cooperative anyway.

Then we realized that she'd forgotten to put her fun necklace on. It has a critter in resin.

She's taking ballet lessons. 

Then we had a picture crasher.

Who needed to do a little posing.

And this cute boy, who took his first steps this weekend.

 

 

Around Here This Week

Around here this week, it's been a photo-heavy week as I have waded my way through the post-Christmas pictures when my family was here.

I updated the photo board in my dining room.

And my photo table in the living room...please excuse the extremely bad phone photo.

I was a little distracted by these that came from my husband. He's very nice like that and sends me flowers off and on just because.  

I have also, for the first time in a really long time, had some concentrated blocks of time to play with paper. I wanted mostly instant gratification, so that meant cards.

I had started using this kit in early October and the rest of it has just been sitting waiting to be used up. I ended up with nearly 30 cards between my 2 sessions and the design inspiration came from several websites that turned up when I googled the name of the kit.

My favorite was this shaker card. The design idea comes from the Lucy Abrams site.

I also really felt the need to get some Valentine's done, so I pulled out another Simon Says Stamp card kit and did the same thing with it, googling the name of the kit and finding designs I liked.

 This one went a little faster because I settled on making multiples of some designs that I liked. 

On the grandchild front, pictures sharing has been a little sparse this week, although I've had some Face Time sessions with some of them.

 I can tell you that Edward won the 2nd grade spelling bee at his school. This photo came to me with the text, "Guess who won the 2nd grade spelling bee?" My boys...being my boys... sent back texts like, "Wow, Roger won the spelling bee??" and "Jan, aren't you a little old to be competing in the 2nd grade spelling bee?" 

 

Gwen lost her 7th tooth this week. Emmett is eating solids and loving them and James has apparently found his voice. Collin says that it's his morning routine to lie on the floor and yodel like this. 

 

Ever Ice Skate in a Horse Water Trough?

You can absolutely do that when you have the imagination of these two.

After making it out of the mountains, we had a day at home before the next adventure. It was a day full of laundry and re-packing everything before we headed south to Utah. 

Caroline and Cleo acquainted themselves with each other. For all her rubbing against the windows begging to play, I'm not sure Cleo knew what she was getting herself into when she met Caroline, who wanted nothing more than to cuddle her nice and tight. She managed to wiggle her way away soon after this.

Now THIS......this is one of those Mommy Moments that just makes a grandma laugh. This is my son Evan, and he's standing over a pile of his boy's coats, hats, boots and gloves...that were sort of dropped right inside the door. I can't tell you how many times this happened when my boys were growing up...how many times I had to call my boys back to pick up their stuff. Ah yes, sometimes it's just good to be a grandma so you can see the full circle of things. :)

The Rhino Dilemma

Transporting a group of this size has to be done in shifts, because we just don't have enough vehicles to do it in one fell swoop. Evan's family went out a day before everyone else because they were heading to Utah to spend some time with my DIL's family.

On the way out, they were treated to this. Can you tell what it is?

It's a moose on the hillside right above the road. Yep, we are in the woods.

On the day the rest of us left, we ran into a bit of a snag. The temperature had dropped into the basement during the night. When we got up, it was -11 outside. As a result, the engine oil in the rhino was so cold that it wouldn't start. How were we going to get 14 people out without it? Well the brain trust that is my husband and sons started throwing out ideas.  We came up with a plan that involved multiple trips with the pod. There was talk of taking coals from the wood stoves and putting them in one of my cast iron skillets and sliding that under the rhino to warm things up, but my husband was concerned about it being too hot and melting the rhino's wiring.

There were other suggestions, but what ended up happening was this. We had hauled in several 5-gallon rectangular containers of water in case we had a recurrence of the no-water problem we had last year. My sons emptied those out and filled them with hot water from the tub faucet. They then slid them under the rhino and put one on top of the engine, then wrapped the whole thing in a tarp and left it for an hour while they had lunch. Started right up the next time they tried and we made our way home without any problems.

This is me decked out in my snowmobile gear on the way out. You can see the sled behind one of the other snowmobiles hauling out stuff. I keep thinking that I need to take more pictures of the process of going in and out during the winter, plus the amazing scenery along the way. We made it out in one trip, which was pretty amazing, but every time we do this I sort of hold my breath waiting for the next interesting thing we have to figure out.

The Bo-Day-Gers

The most involved activity we did with the kids had an inside and an outside component. I dug back into my Cub Scout archives and remember something I had done during my many years as a cub leader.

 I brought up some pinecones picked up from the messy ponderosa pine trees in my yard. You remember...those trees that drop their long needles at the drop of a hat and clog up my rain gutters.

The kids spread peanut butter on them.

And then we rolled them in bird seed.

The idea was that we would hang them in the trees around the cabin and see if any birds might like them.

While this was all happening, and for some unknown reason, my boys started calling the peanut butter-bird seeded pinecones, "bodaygers." I have no idea where this came from, but they thought this was hilarious, repeating it over and over again. (You see what I mean when I sometimes wonder how they can be all grown up?) 

Anyway, the next step was to dress everybody up and wander around outside until we could find suitable trees in which to hang them, which was project in and of itself.

We didn't see a lot of activity on them during the rest of our stay, but I'm anxious to go up this weekend and see what they look like so I can take pictures to send to the grandkids.

 

The Outside with the Grands

So we established yesterday that amid all the brotherly bonding horseplay, some trails were established that made walking in the deep snow a little easier for the kids.

We ventured out a couple of different afternoons with them to give them a change of pace and to work off some energy.

Even Emmett wanted to join in the fun, but his participation didn't last too long. It was cold outside.

Interestingly enough, the kids seemed more intent on going off-road, so to speak. 

And naturally, this resulted in snow getting into gloves and down necks. At one point, Caroline took off her had and just plunged head first into the snow...and then cried because she had snow all over her head.

And that necessesitated Grandpa doing a little rescuing.

No rescuing needed here.

Gwen was fascinated with the icicles that hung on the trees. And lest you think I can't take a focused picture to save my life, which may or may not be true these days, I really was trying to focus on the icicle and not her face.

When it got too cold for everyone, we headed back home. Eric took this picture with his phone. He was bringing up the rear with Gwen and her icicle. You can maybe see little different colored coats making their way back to the cabin.