FRUITA PARADE

CC said she had never been in the Fruita Fall Festival Parade.

She really wanted to be in it.

She begged me.

We got ready this morning and went down to be in the parade.

Luckily we went with friends or it would have been a long boring walk for both of us.

 I love that CC's hair is now long enough to braid.

A few months more and we may be back into pig tails.

Oh, the absolute joy.

 Wyatt is such a fun kid.

Sierra didn't leave his side the whole parade.

They are good friends.

 Luke, Wyatts older brother mowed my lawn yesterday.

I was out mowing it and he came over and said, "Let me do it for you."

He did a really great job. He is such a sweet kid.

 Some really fabulous young women from our ward.

They are so sweet and all of them have babysat my kids at one time.

My children love all three of them.



THE CAT DIS-DAPPEARED and RE-APPEARED

This little girl's cat disappeared for the evening the other night.

She yelled and yelled for it.

She kept running off down the street in search of Edison.

She made me nervous, because you know how I am.

 I told her to stay in the backyard and that eventually he would be back.

She wasn't listening very good. She was desperate to find her cat.

She drew a picture of her cat in sidewalk chalk and wrote.

"If you see this cat

please call, xxx-xxxx."

It may have been effective if the cat hadn't resembled every cat you had ever seen or if she hadn't drawn it on the back porch.

This little girl cracks me up.

She moped and whinnied for her cat.

Later that night, while they were in their pajamas, they made their last sweep of the backyard before bed time.

They called the cat's name a few dozen time.

"Edison!"

"Edison!"

Edison leaped over the fence from the back alleyway.

Madison squealed and screamed, "Edison's back. Edison's back!"

Her joy was priceless.

 

On another note:

 

I love listening to Sierra indoctrinate Madison. She said, "Madison, of course you haven't seen our stuffed animals and and dolls come to life, it is because they are nocturnal. Do you know what that means? They are active at night." Hilarious.

 

And yet another note:

 

Sierra came home from school the other day and said, "Mom, you played a trick on me."

I said, "What are you talking about?"

She said, "I took my lunch to school and opened it up and there was a half eaten sandwich, some brown pears, an empty yogurt, a half eaten cookie and no drink."

I thought, "Why did mom pack me this disgusting lunch?"

I ate a little and then went to recess.

I just remembered right now that I left my lunch box at school yesterday. 

You packed me a new lunch today and it is still in my backpack."

She giggled.

Sorry kid.

I didn't trick you.

You tricked yourself.

BUT, you make me laugh my mommy head off.

HALLOWEEN IDEA BOARD

 

Idea Board for Halloween.

Vintage 1980's Strawberry and Lemon Meringue outfits.

I am super excited.

I will be headed to the Thrift Store this afternoon.

Wish me luck.

I will let you know what I find.

Luckily, Strawberry's hat has been past down.

It use to be my sister Jennifer's.

CC adopted it.

I found a big strawberry button the other day.

It was destiny.

The tights are my biggest concern.

I found some I can order on line.... but it is no good.

I am thrifting everything.

Maybe craft paint and white tights?

We will search pinterest for something on painting tights.

GET EXCITED.

Halloween is my favorite holiday!

BATH TIME

 There is nothing I love better than clean smelling babies.

It seems more and more of a hassle to get these two little ones to want to take a bath.

Though once their in the water. It is party time.

There are more bubbles, splashing, and giggling than should ever be allowed in one bathtub.

ONE of those STORIES that breaks my HEART

This is my friend's cousin's daughter.
She is fighting cancer. They just found out.

My friend Kadee has been working so tirelessly to earn funds to offset her medical bills.
If you can give, click here.
Isn't she precious?


RAINING

 It has been raining for two days.
I love the rain.
I don't like mud.
I went to Lily's Garden for some fresh veggies.
My little MJ followed me to the garden.
She wasn't wearing her boots.
Her bare toes were all squishy in the mud.
She exclaimed with a huge smile on her face, "Mom, look at my muddy toes."
She's been wearing her rainboots since.
I like it better.
But muddy toes are awfully cute.

LOVE HARVEST

Sierra made dinner tonight.

I told her she had to pick a meat out of the fridge.

She picked ground pork.

I said she had to pick onions or garlic.

She wanted both.

Then I said she could put any vegetable she wanted from Lily's or Sister Kay's garden.

She put in zucchini, beans, tomatoes, and a variety of peppers.

She chopped all the vegetables herself and cooked the meat.

Then I added a pound of pasta and some chicken broth and little salt and pepper.

Cooked it for six minutes in our electric pressure cooker and dinner was served.

It was really yummy with fresh grated parmesan cheese and a little pepper.

Thanks Sierra for making dinner. You are a little culinary genius.



HEXAGON's and VINTAGE SCRAPS

I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am!!!

Story...

About a year ago I was at Sister Trevenan's house.

We were looking at all of the her old fabric in storage.

She has some from her mother and her mother's sister.

It was beautiful.

I said, "I would give anything to own this fabric."

It may have been a subtle, or not so subtle implication that really meant, "Please! please! please! can I have this fabric."

Obviously picking up on my not so subtle implication, she said, "I am going to pass this fabric onto my grandchildren."

I was a little heart broken and have thought about the beautiful vintage fabric scraps from time to time.

Then out of the blue I got a call this week it was from Sister Trevenan. She said, "One of the boxes of fabric was actually my mother's sister's and I don't think my grandchildren really care about it, so if you want it??"

I practically screamed into the phone... YES!

She brought it over two days ago. I have been touching every piece and loving it.

Yesterday, I got this crazy hair to make a quilt for my king size bed out of one inch hexagons. My goal to get it done by Christmas.

Hexagons have to be hand pieced. I am using an English paper piecing method my friend Shelly taught me Pittsburgh, which is fun.

 I am pretty sure I won't make my goal, but I have to have a goal or it may just never get it done and that would make me really sad.

So, wish me luck!

I will picture my project here from time to time.

LOVE MY LITTLE SISTERS

 I had a few seconds before church started and so I took the girls out in the garage and got these few shots.

I love these little girls.

They sometimes drive me crazy but at the end of the day I am so glad they are mine.

Yesterday, Madison was cracking me up.

I recited the Dragon Tales poem. The one they say to go to Dragon Land. Any PBS junky will know what I am talking about.

Madison said, "Mom, don't say that poem, cause then you will dis-dappear to Dragon Land.

I said, "Maybe I want to go to Dragon Land."

She said, Well, if you go to Dragon Land then I will be alone."

Then I will have to get on my Diego Bike.

And then I will have to go to Sister Kay's house.

And then I will have to wait for sister to come home.

And then sister will have to clean the house.

And then daddy will have to make dinner.

And then sister will have to make peaches in the jar.

And then Sister Kay will have to read me stories and tuck me into bed.

And then we will be sad.

And then we will have to remind ourselves to feed Edison.

And then we will have to vacuum the floor all the time.

And then we will have make our lunch.

And then we will have to wash our clothes.

And then dad will have to take sister to school.

Andt hen we will have to take care of each other.

And then....

And then...

And then...

She must have spoken for twenty minutes straight.

And she convinced me, I won't be going to Dragon Land.

Especially because I have a little girl that is very observant and realizes how much her mommy does.

More especially because she would be sad.

 

I did like that if anything happened to me she had a back-up-plan.

It tickled me that Sister Kay was her back-up-plan.

She really is a second Grandma to my little girls and we love her so much.

 

EDISON, the CAT

 I  can't believe that this cat will let them carry him around half the day like a little baby.

He loves it.

They love him to pieces.

The first thing Sierra does when does she wakes up is run to the back door and call for Edison.

She sits out and holds him until I pester her to get ready for school.

The last thing Sierra does every night is say good night to Edison by flowering him with kisses and holding him for a few moments before bed.

My girls play outside all afternoon with Edison

For that reason, and a plethora of others, I am glad he is and outdoor cat.



SUNDAY, is GOOD

I love seeing my little girls all dressed up for church.

I love that we are always there every week.

I love that they learn about the Savior and that through him they can overcome anything.

I love that they learn that they are children of our Heavenly Father.

I love that they get to be around good kids that share their same values.

I am grateful for the Sabath and that my parents taught me to honor it, because it brings a sense of peace into my life when this day is spent honoring my Father-in-Heaven and his son.

Happy Good Sunday.

LITTLE MISS BROWN COW

 Kay got a Dexter Cow and it's calf, yesterday.

Isn't little Miss Brown Cow the cutest thing.

She got the Dexter Cow to milk, but she is so mean and onery that we don't think it is going to be possible to milk her.

Bitter, Sweet.

Cause I was hoping for fresh milk and cream once a week.

However, I am not going to miss milking her.

 

Dexter Cow's are really small and very cute.

This calf is so sweet and tiny.

The kids tried to bottle feed her but she didn't want to have anything to do with it.

Then they fed her corn stalk leaves. She loved it.

We will have to go feed her more tomorrow.

Sierra just loved her and wanted to keep her.

She asked Sister Kay, "What are you going to do with the baby calf when it get's to be winter?"

Kay said, "I am going to put him in your bedroom."

Sierra said, "Then it will poop and pee all over my room."

Kay said, "Well, I guess you will have to clean it up."

Sierra said, "What about the goats?"

Kay said, "I think they can fit in your room too."

Sierra said, "What about the chickens?"

Kay said, "Hmmm. Your dad's room."

Sierra said, "Be serious."

Kay laughed.

We picked more tomatoes and found some turkey eggs.

I asked Kay if she had every tried eating turkey eggs.

She said, "No, go home and try them."

I do not want to be the guniea pig.

Anyone want to come over and try a turkey egg omlet tomorrow? Anyone?

HAPPY DAYS

Sierra had the day off of school and we had to do something fun.

 Another favorite thing to do when our funds are low is to go to the Fruita Thrift Store.

We take a few quarters and find some treasures.

Madison and Sierra found a Zhu Zhu Pet game.

All of the pieces were there and it was a quarter, so we bought it.

We brought it home. It is a cross between Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land.

They wanted to play it over and over again on a blanket in the backyard.

We played until the mosquito's started to bite and then we moved our fun inside on the kitchen table.

Another note about bread that maybe a bit boring..... 

...but I feel so blessed I have to share.

I haven't been able to make whole wheat bread since moving to Fruita.

I have had a few times where it has turned out and I get really excited and then I try to make it again and something goes wrong.

I have never been able to make the same batch of bread twice.

Typically, it is flat on the top and dense.

It is pig food.

Then I have to wait a whole other month to get up the courage to try again.

Honestly, I have been so destroyed inside over the fact that something I use to consider a talent was just taken from me.

 

We had a lesson on Food Storage a few Sunday's ago.

Two years ago Nate and I talked about building a years supply.

The church recommends 25 pounds of grain and 5 pounds of beans per person per month.

We felt that was doable.

We bought a lot of wheat and a lot of rice and a lot of beans.

My wheat has just sat there for two years and has hardly been touched.

Anyway back to the lesson that was given.

The person giving the lesson gave a really complicated year supply plan.

I raised my hand and said, "The church had given us a really simple plan. It is simply 25 pounds of grain and 5 pounds of beans per person per month. You may not be giddy about what's for dinner and the food won't be all that yummy, but you will live. You can add all the other fancy things as you get the money. I stored wheat or rice." (Although the church says any grain, even corn.)"

The lady looked me in the eyes kind of fierce and said, "But do you know how to use your wheat."

She sounded like a Baptist Preacher crying down from the pulpit.

I felt small.

I was sad because all of my bad bread days rushed in on me.

I had to concede that..... I didn't anymore

.

Funny enough my sister and I have had the same problem.

We both have had this bread funk at the same time.

Anyway, she called me really excited because she had found this recipe on line.

She said it had cured her whole wheat bread ills.

I was really skeptical.

It was the same recipe we had been using, but the process was a little bit different.

I tried it.

It worked.

I tried it again today.

It worked again.

Can you see the smile on my face!

I can't tell you how happy I am.

No words can describe it.

When you have struggled and struggled and struggled to do something you know deep inside you can do but just can't and then two years later this miracle happens there are no words to describe the joy.

Thank you sister, Michelle.

Thank you Mel's Kitchen Cafe for posting such a detailed step-by-step process, that anyone can follow, for making wheat bread .

Thank you Heavenly-Father for answering my simple, but ridiculously not simple and important to me, prayer.

I am grateful to turn the bad bread chapter of my life.

Sigh....

One happy girl tonight!

CARNIVAL

 Well, Sierra wanted to go to the carnival at school, really bad.

We couldn't go.

To be honest it had a lot to do with our current budget.

It wasn't like we couldn't have gone, all it would have taken was one phone call to anyone.

I have very generous friends and an extremely generous family.

However, starting a new business requires sacrifice and my children can sacrifice too.

She has been to the carnival the last two years and she will go again next year.

 

She was upset.

I told her it broke my heart to see her sad but we can do hard thing together as a family to help Daddy.

I suggested she make her own carnival in the backyard.

She did.

She was so happy.

She spent all evening making her little carnival.

She made a pin-the-tail on the My Little Pony.

A ring toss.

A ball toss.

A fishing bucket.

And a sack race.

When Dad came home we all as a family went out and played together.

It was such a sweet beautiful evening.

I love my little family so much.

 

(You can thank me for not including pictures of the sack race. Nate couldn't participate because of his knee and so I had to. Bouncing around with a pregnant belly isn't fun. My feet broke through me sack, which was actually a plastic bag. By the time I was half way into the race, it looked like I was wearing an oversized diaper. Both of my girls were rolling on the ground laughing their little heads off. 

 

Sierra said it was the best day of her life.

 

I have to include the funny thing Sierra said today at dinner....

Sierra: Mom, how do you spell her?
Me: H-E-R
(She covers her face shocked.) Sierra: I spelt it H-R.
Me: That is okay.
(Sierra confident) Sierra: Yeah, I am sure my teacher won't notice.
(Nate suppressing a laugh) Nate: Yeah, I am sure.

 

Funny, that she missed the word her.

She worked really hard this week studying.

She got every other word on her spelling test right including the challenge words, which were...

September, August, forces, motion, and problem.

 

I also have to say in case our situation sounds more dire than it is. Nate is doing really well, really well. We are both in awe at how the Lord has blessed him in his new venture. We have only had our doors open about two month and yet we can see that he is going to be very, very successful.

He is crazy good at what he does and I am so proud of him.