Laughing

Calvin and Lily were in the silliest mood last night. They were laughing hysterically to this book that says "oops".

Good experience

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.

AllPro Closes

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.

Trampoline fun

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.

Drying apples

We got a bunch of apples from Santaquin and so we decided to dry some. Calvin had a blast with the apple slicer-corer- peeler thing.

Could it be strawberry jam?

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.

Funny kids

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.

Riding