It just wouldn't be Halloween...

without the traditional bath by the light of the jack-o-lantern. Kevin started this years ago and we thought it was such a great idea, we've done it ever since.

Bracing for the future

This morning Oliver told me, "When Dad leaves I'm gonna have to replace him."
Me: "What do you mean?"
Oliver: "I'm gonna have to do all the things he usually does like give Tuck Tuck hugs and tell the girls their room is a mess."

Don't worry, Tyler. Oliver's got the "Daddy Duties" under control =)

So I guess you don't love swimming?

Today I ran a race with the girls. It was just little, for a boy in our ward's Eagle Scout Project. Emmaline took off quickly at the start, with Megan. After only about 3/4 of a mile she really started slowing down and eventually walked (she blamed it on Megan- it's true, that dog is out of shape since I haven't been taking her running).

Anyway, Savannah struggled to run the whole 3 miles with me (she focuses so much on sprinting and speed and agility that she usually only runs 1.5 miles). As we ran together, we talked to try to keep her mind off of what she was doing. In the middle of our conversation, she said, "Let's not do swim team next year." What? Where did that come from? So I guess, although they got much better, neither of the girls learned to love swimming laps this summer.

(Emmaline is second from the bottom- far left. Savannah is third from the bottom- far right.)

Too bad. Oh, you're wondering about my New Year's Resolution of learning to swim? Well, I was all set to take an adult's swimming class at the beginning of the year. A lady in our ward took it and LOVED it. She said just going helps you realize how much farther along you are (some people are still afraid of water). Anyway, turns out we didn't have any money in January so that idea was out. I didn't think much about it until we went to Mexico. One day, while no one was watching, I went out to the pool and started swimming laps. I don't know how I looked, but guess what? I remember how to swim! Guess in all the years I've spent on the side of the pool watching my kids learn, I've picked up a few things. I think when Tyler leaves for Cebu (in 2 weeks- for 3 MONTHS!!!) I'll start incorporating that into my non-existent exercise routine. I can't go to the gym during the day because they won't keep screaming kids like Tucker in the nursery and I have trouble waking up early when I am up late helping Tyler (yes- I'm blaming that ALL on him). Wish me luck, I'm gonna need it!
Oh, and by the way. Savannah did finish the race with me. (Please excuse the hopelessly hideous picture of me.)

It was fun.

Like a fish takes to water

I've noticed something interesting about Tucker lately. All of my kids love to go to Tyler's studio. It's filled with all kinds of things and ways to get messy- every kid's dream, right? Usually, when we get there, they all go about doing things like opening paint cans, dumping things and just generally getting dirty. Tucker, however is different. He definitely knows how to get dirty, but he is much more deliberate. He immediately goes to the brush can and begins rummaging through the brushes and then begins to paint. Sometimes, if we don't catch him quickly enough, he even "helps" Tyler fix his paintings. =)

Sleepover at the studio

Tyler often stays at the studio overnight to finish paintings. I guess the fact that he is painting, something the kids see as "fun," makes it seem like a big clubhouse to them. Oliver has been begging to have a sleepover there. Since the weather is kind of cool (necessary since there is no climate control in the studio) and he had some kind of crazy holiday, we finally obliged. He had a whole list of things he wanted to do.

Shooting BB guns.

Making a painting.

And watching a movie.

While they were sleeping, Tyler found that Oliver still laughs in his sleep. He also told Tyler, "We shouldn't have sold the big, big van. That was our best car." (We used to have a huge step-van for carrying equipment that he LOVED to use as a playhouse.) I think it was everything he hoped it would be. The girls are so jealous!

Determination

The other day while we were at Emmaline's soccer game, Tucker spotted the beginnings of a hole in the fence and determined that he MUST crawl through! I don't know what about it caught his attention, but he couldn't leave it alone. First he tried to crawl through on his belly, but his shirt got caught. Then he tried backing through it. He would leave it for a little while, only to come back a few minutes later. After about 30 minutes...

Success!!

What a little monkey.

Is it just me?

I had one of those days today. You know, the kind where everything is a mess and everything is broken. My washing machine got a sock stuck in it and broke the hose, so I was off to the laundry mat. The hinge on the dishwasher broke because Tucker kept standing on it. My laminator broke because Emmaline had the brilliant idea to use it to press leaves.

So I finally feel like I have a handle on things... I've done the laundry, cleaned everything up and scrubbed the kitchen floor. Then it's Emmaline's turn to choose an activity for Family Night. Okay, so it's always Emmaline's turn. The rest of us would just as soon play cards, but she always wants to do something different. And what does she choose? Making goo from cornstarch and water. I could say "no," but I get sick of being the mom who "never lets us do fun stuff 'cuz it's too messy." Instead, I spend another hour scrubbing that darn slate floor again. Uhhh! I'm off to bed!!

Babies and more babies!

Since my brothers, Jeff and John were in town after their 10 day arctic adventure to Wyoming hunting elk... we decided to have a little get together. We've got so many babies in our family these days, it's always fun.
Tucker's so big now... we can hardly call him a "baby," but he enjoyed walking around, eating any cake leftover on plates.

Simon wished we had started the party a little earlier! =)

Issac and Aaron have such easy smiles, Uncle Jeff had fun making them giggle.

And Papa John kept his arms full for most of the night.

By the end, we all felt about like Baby Chloe (Ryan and Kristine's Newfoundland puppy) and Johnny.

It was fun... let's do it again soon!

She didn't get my teeth...

When you look at Savannah and Emmaline's teeth, it looks like Savannah got Tyler's teeth and Emmaline got mine. Apparently not so! Emmaline recently had to have 2 teeth pulled and 1 filled.

The teeth were pulled because they have already been filled twice. She grinds her teeth so much at night, the fillings fall out and cause her a lot of pain. Often kids that grind their baby teeth stop the habit when permanent ones grow in. Hopefully that will be the case for her and the permanent ones are so close to the surface, it made sense to pull them out. At least, that's what Emmaline thought. She didn't expect it to hurt quite so much. She named the teeth "Bits" (because it was pretty much in bits by the time it came out) and "George". She spent some time complaining to them on the way home about how much they hurt. What a funny girl!

Our front porch

We put tile on our front porch.

Tucker loves it... and so do we!

Random Things

As I was cleaning out some paperwork today, I found a couple of things that the kids did this summer that I loved. First of all, Emmaline's list/drawings of her trials and blessings.
First, her blessings:

And now for her trials:

The most notable being swim team (she never learned to love that), food coloring (she is always using that when I tell her not to and it gets EVERYWHERE), and swear words. I also love that money is on both the trials and the blessings list. Interesting that she already has that figured out.
Then, while we were in Arkansas, Emmaline caught an anole lizard. Oliver spent some time on the trip drawing some pictures of her.


I think the little dead guy was supposed to be a cricket, but it also turned out to be an omen of things to come as she met her unfortunate demise while we were in Mexico.

Autumn Pickings

Yesterday we decided to welcome in autumn with a "pick your own" extravaganza with our friend Shukri and his boys- Adam and Alex.
We began the day picking raspberries.

It's been pretty cold the last week, so we definitely got the last of the crop. As Tyler said, it felt more like gleaning than harvesting.

There was a great little farm next door with ducks, deer, and turkeys. Oliver loved collecting feathers.

I was worried that we wouldn't get enough to do any canning, but we ended up with 17 lbs! Hooray!
Then we went to Cracker Barrel for some breakfast.
I always love the rocking chairs there!

Tucker wants to be a big kid so bad.

Then it was off to the pumpkin patch. One of my friend's cousins has a huge farm. It is always so exciting when we pull up and see so many pumpkins! The kids just race right out to look at all the variety.

Oliver had a hard time deciding which pumpkin to get.

Emmaline almost decided to get this squash, she thought it was so unique.

Have to take a picture with the hay rake!

It was a great day even though it makes the autumn seem REAL, and thus winter is just around the corner- bleh.

Canning Peaches

Earlier this week I got a call from an old friend asking if I wanted to can some peaches this year. She has this crazy tree in her front yard that has "white" peaches. They actually look pretty green, but are totally ripe. They don't last long, though and needed to be picked and put up quickly. We planned to go on Wednesday, after Emmaline finished soccer. Unlucky for us, it was pouring freezing cold rain! I wanted to call it off, but Emmaline wouldn't hear of it. We picked quickly, dodging as much rain as possible. At one point, my friend told the kids they might want to slow down since their mom might not want to can that much fruit. Emmaline gave her an "are you kidding me- you must not know my mom" look.

She's right. I LOVE to can things. As I got out my supplies, I thought of Mama. Many of my "tools" also belonged to her and we spent lots of time together canning everything imaginable. I know lots of people thought it was crazy that we spent so much time canning when I visited her on weekends after she got sick, but it felt totally natural to us. Of course it helped us avoid conversations about the future, but it was also a great way to reminisce about the past and spend time together.

Remember mayhaw jelly? I never even picked mayhaws and don't know what they look like growing. Mama did it while I was at school because she said it was too dangerous with so many snakes in the swamp. She usually picked them at the Day's house and we would come home to cheesecloth bags, dripping juice from every cupboard door.

Or how about strawberries in Kansas? By far my favorite thing to can. Anyway, it is really fun to pass this along to my own girls. Emmaline was asking me if I thought Zoe, the daughter of my friend, helped her mom to can. I told her I didn't think so because Zoe didn't mention it when we were at her house. Emmaline answered, "And probably they didn't do it at 9 o'clock at night." Just like Emmaline- when I'm in the midst of thinking we're having a great bonding experience, she brings me back to earth. But when else am I going to can anything? Oh well, it was fun for me anyway.

Earlier this summer we went with Molly to her friend's house to pick raspberries. Tucker ate them almost as quickly as I could pick.

The funny thing is, he figured out which ones were ripe and only ate those. It was great fun and I only wish I had picked more! Oliver was a great helper.

I made a couple of cobblers and we had the rest in smoothies. Guess now I need to start on the millions of tomatoes I have in the backyard garden.