This week has been a lot of fun with all of the Halloween events going on. We carved pumpkins using power tools. It was a lot messier than using a knife, but it was a lot more fun. We had a Halloween party with some friends and got to wrap Jon up as a mummy. Calvin got to be in his preschool Halloween parade. I won the costume contest at Jon's work party today. We went trick or treating in our neighborhood and got to see a lot of cool decorations. Some of our neighbors go all out, making their yards extra spooky. We got a ton of candy. The kids had a blast and so did we, we love Halloween.
We all had fun using Jon's tools to carve the pumpkins. Even Calvin and Lily had their own little drills.
Here is Calvin at his preschool parade. He loves school.
Jon and Calvin were both Zorro. I was Daphne (from Scooby Doo) and Lily was Scooby Doo. We switched Lily's costume for Halloween night to this cute lion because it was warmer, even though the weather was so perfect that she really didn't need a warmer costume. Thanks neighbor Jen for letting us borrow these awesome costumes!
Our ward's primary program was on Sunday. After quite a crazy practice last week, I was worried for Sunday. But of course it turned out to be a wonderful program. The music was beautiful and the spirit was strong. It was a good experience for me. It was hard writing the program and organizing the parts but it was all worth it when I got to sit by the microphone and help the little kids with their parts. They were all so cute and they did such a great job. It was really neat.
As a lot of you probably know from watching the news, AllPro closed down last week. They were the largest real estate company in Utah with (from what I hear) at one point 1100 agents. So my chances of getting paid now are slim to none. I have talked to several lawyers and several more people who got screwed out of their commissions and there are not a lot of choices. I guess we can hope and pray that I might get paid some day. I could sue but lawyers are so dang expensive. I could take them to small claims and get $7500, which doesn't even touch what they owe me. I would win hands down, they wouldn't even put up a fight, there is nothing to fight about. But if the company is broke, there is no money to give. I might try the small claims thing anyways, I don't know.
We were fortunate enough to get the trampoline that Jon played on when he was a kid passed on to our kids. The kids have a blast on it. It kind of scares me because we all know the tramp isn't exactly the safest thing to play on. I think we will have to buy one of those cage things for it next year, or bury it. Most of the pictures are of Lily because Calvin wouldn't hold still. It is kind of funny, Lily just lays there and gets bounced around because as soon as she tries to jump Calvin bounces her back down. Good thing he is little and his jumps aren't too big for Lily to handle. She just laughs, she even likes to wrestle with him.
This is mock strawberry jam made out of......GREEN TOMATOES! It tastes just like the real thing and it was a great way to use up all of our green tomatoes. Jon and I are really enjoying canning together, it is pretty relaxing (if the kids are asleep). We also canned red tomatoes tonight. Here is the recipe for the jam if you are interested. 5 cups pureed green tomatoes 4 cups sugar 1/4 cup lemon juice 1 large strawberry jello packet
Combine first three ingredients in very large pot and boil for 15 minutes. Add the jello and boil for 3 more minutes. Ladle into hot jars and hot water bath for 10 minutes.
Calvin and Lily have both been doing some pretty cute things lately that I want to blog about because this is my journal.
Lily decides to make the biggest mess possible when feeding herself. She insists on feeding herself and then gets frustrated with the spoon or fork and goes to town with her hands. And then she proceeds to stick her hands in her hair and make herself look like she has a crazy lions mane. It is pretty funny, it's just not very fun to clean up the chili thrown all over and the beans stuck in places you can't imagine.
She has also started saying a few more words. Her favorite word lately is banana. She finds her book that has a page full of bananas and continues to point and say nana, nana, nana until Jon comes around and then she goes mute because she refuses to say nana for Jon. She loves reading books lately, which is fun for me because I love reading to my kids, and before she would just throw the book on the floor.
Calvin loves organizing and putting things where they go. Unlike Lily, Calvin has always been a very neat eater and does not like things to get on his clothes or hands. He will wash his hands 10 times a day, just like me. Sunday morning I could hear him bustling about in his room. He came to me and said " Mom, come and look what I did." I walked in his room half asleep and was pleasantly surprised to see that his room was spotless. His bed was made, books on shelf, clothes in drawers, shoes in closet. He was so proud of himself and so was I.
Last night we were teaching the kids about the word of wisdom with a FHE packet. The good foods got put on the plate and the bad foods got put in the garbage. We got to coffee and we told Calvin what it was. A couple minutes later Calvin coughs and says "hey, I'm the coughee." It isn't good for me.
Tonight Calvin told me, "we all care for Lily, I care for Lily, I really love her and that makes you and me and her happy."
Last night on our family walk Calvin saw the temple and started singing as loud as he could "I love to see the temple, I'm going there someday." He knew the whole song and he is still in nursery. Jon thought that was so cool. Those Childrens Songbook CDs really work.
I am the worst when it comes to keeping presents from people. As soon as I buy a present I am so excited that I have to give it to the person right away. I bought Calvin another tool set, which he doesn't need, but it had a drill kind of like the one he lost a year ago. He has asked me to help him find his lost drill at least 100 times in the last 6 months. And I bought Lily a little doll stroller. I also bought the family a game called Jumping Monkeys. All of these things were suppose to be for Christmas but with the cold weather lately and all of the staying inside boredom I would breakdown and bring out one of the presents at a time. We will also go to the DI occasionally to get used toys because they are such great deals. Jon and I took the kids there last week and came home with a battery powered ATV, a tool bench for Calvin and a mega block race track. This is really not like us, I guess we just got the toy bug or something. To make up for all the new junk, we hauled some old stuff off to DI. I think I better buy presents on Christmas Eve so we have something to open on Christmas morning ;)
Lily never ever sits still when I try to do her hair, it is a nightmare. And then she just pulls it out 5 minutes later, she loves having crazy hair. But for some odd reason she sat still the other day and let me do this. I think it turned out cute.
I have been extremely tired for months. It drives me crazy, so I decided to go to the doctor and get some tests done to see if I was anemic or something. They told me to come back the next morning and so they could take my blood while I was fasting. I immediately knew this was not a good idea, but I agreed. The next morning I got up and got dressed to go to the temple. Jon and I had a babysitter for the kids and we were ready to go right after I got my blood drawn. I ran to the lab and told the girl I needed to lay down because I do not feel so good getting my blood drawn. I laid back in the reclining chair, she stabbed me and said "okay, you're good to go." I said, "that wasn't so bad" followed by "oh no, I don't feel good" and the next thing I know I see someone standing above me in a white coat saying, "Christina, are you awake?" I had passed out again. This has happened to me several times and is not any fun. This is one of the many reasons I hate getting my blood drawn. They had to call Jon to come and get me while they soaked my head with water and tried to get me to drink juice. I was so exhausted afterward I had to come home and take a nap. We went to the temple a few hours later and I got sick kneeling at the alter and I had to come home and take another nap. It ruined my whole day. And all of the tests came back normal. They told me I am just stressed and that is why I am tired. I guess this could be true with all of my worries and responsibilities. The primary program is coming up, I have been working hard at real estate just to have people back out of deals, I feel like I have worked this whole year for FREE! Oh wait, I have worked this whole year for free, AllPro still hasn't paid me! Sorry, I had to vent a little bit. Anybody have any good advice on dealing with stress?
1. A peculiarity of behavior; an idiosyncrasy: "Every man had his own quirks and twists"Harriet Beecher Stowe.
RULES: -Link the person who tagged you (thanks Jeri!) -List 6 of your quirks -Tag 6 other bloggers by linking them -List the rules on your blog
1. I can't stand to feel crumbs beneath my feet so I end up wearing slippers or socks or shoes whenever I am in the kitchen or I end up sweeping 8 times a day.
2. I really, really do not like to blow dry or straighten my hair, hence the reason 9 out of ten times you see me my hair is wet or in a pony tail or in a wet ponytail. I will occasionally curl it because of church or work or something and curling is easier than trying to straighten the kink out from the ponytail. I like the way it looks when it is done, I just do not like to spend the time blow drying it just so I can pull it back in a pony tail anyways, because Lily is pulling on it or I am cooking or something it always gets pulled back.
3. I don't like being alone because I get scared easily. Usually if I am alone I am on the phone, even if I don't want to talk on the phone I still call someone just out of habit.
4. I have funny nose quirks. I blow my nose every time I go to the bathroom, even if there is no reason to. I sniffle all the time, even if my nose isn't running. And I am always saying, "what is that smell", I have an enhanced smeller and it drives Jon crazy! I am feeling pretty wierd now and I am only on #4.
5. I make noises when I drive like, vroom (when speeding up), urrrr (when turning a corner or stopping), whoosh (when passing someone). This started as soon as I got my learners permit and it always makes Jon and my friends from High school laugh.
6. And now I have gotten Jon started on my quirks and the list goes on and on, I can't pay full price for anything, I can get just about anything for free, I am scared of water, I wash only my fingertips 20 times a day, I procrastinate until I am so under pressure I have to do the task, I pass out when I get my blood drawn, but the #6 winner is, according to Jon- I slurp when I wash my face at night. He says that while I am washing my face I make slurping noises, I don't believe him and I promise I am not drinking the soapy water.
This is how I kept the kids entertained for the second session of conference today. Calvin called it "mine and Nilly's tent" and they stayed in it for almost the whole 2 hours. I love conference weekend. It almost always seems to rain and make the perfect excuse to stay inside and listen to great counsel. Jon and Josh were both working today, so BreAnna came over and we made cinnamon rolls and stayed in our pajamas all day, it was a nice change of the high speed pace I have been running lately.
I love my husband for so many reasons. He is smart, kind, handsome and he can built just about anything with his hands. We have really been trying to built up our food storage supply and use our space wisely and so Jon decided to built us can rollers. I love the ones in the stores but they are way expensive and really big. We don't have the space or money to store our food on those things. So Jon built his own first in first out system for the canned goods that we use the most often. We found some space on the back wall of our storage room and Jon built slanted shelves. We put the food in one end and get it out the other. This picture doesn't show the slant very well but it works great and it doesn't take up unnecessary space. Thanks Jon!
Yesterday we decided to say goodbye to the garden for this year. The temperatures are dropping and we wanted to save as much fruit as we could before it got too cold. It was kind of sad and fun to go out and pull everything up and pick the fruits and vegis. We got several green peppers, anaheims, and fooled you peppers. We got some squash and a few onions. But we picked over 200 green tomatoes. We were told that if you pick all of your green tomatoes and put them in paper bags in a single layer and fold the top down, they will ripen. So we picked all that we could find. I would still like to bottle tomatoes if they all get ripe around the same time. It was a blast having a garden and I can't wait to do it again next year.
We don't use this shower and so Wendy Sudar gave us the great idea of storing the tomatoes in there and checking on them every few days.
Here is the huge pile we pulled up. Now we just need to haul it off and till up the dirt in the boxes and we will be good to go next year. The garden box, weed trap and gravel idea worked wonderfully, we didn't weed our garden once and everything except the watermelon grew beautifully.
Somehow we got really lucky and acquired a lot of free, delicious peaches this last month. We decided to try our hand at making freezer jam and bottling peaches. When I read that the freezer jam recipe called for twice as much sugar as fruit I was a little freaked out, so I skimped a little on the sugar. The jam is a little runny but still delicious and you will not get a sugar high off of it. Jon and I spent one morning bottling the peaches. It took us about 3 hours to bottle 21 jars. And they turned out great. And a big thanks to Grandma Stevens for all of the canning supplies!
I was so happy to have Jon's help. We had a blast doing this project together.
We all had fun using Jon's tools to carve the pumpkins. Even Calvin and Lily had their own little drills.
Here is Calvin at his preschool parade. He loves school.
Jon and Calvin were both Zorro. I was Daphne (from Scooby Doo) and Lily was Scooby Doo.
