Traditions

Every year we do a gingerbread house for Halloween. I did it growing up and we have had a fun time continuing the tradition. I make the house from scratch so each year the house has its uniqueness in it's shape. (lol) this year part of the roof broke but the hole was easily fixed with a spider. :) One year I forgot windows and the door, but who says it has to be perfect? We usually tend to eat as much candy as we put on it, which is half the fun!

This is the side that Erin did...it is nice that now she can do it all herself!

Bailey did the back of the house (with the HUGE garden). And I did the side with the spider web.

And Josh did the front. :)

And we each picked our own pumpkins, and the girls decorated theirs. Josh and I are saving our until next week and we'll carve them. :) I think Erin picked the largest pumpkin she could find at the pumpkin stand.

Canning at its best!

Every year I can a lot of tomatoes-into spaghetti sauce or cut up tomatoes for soups, etc. And every year it takes me FOREVER to do it because you've got to blanch them, skin them, take out the seeds, squeeze out excess water, chop, and then actually make the sauce. Well, this year I decided to use my applesauce maker to see if it would be easier. And it was SO MUCH better! It took about 1/4 of the time and the girls even did a lot of the work because they love helping with the strainer. Bailey turned the crank while Erin pushed the tomatoes through and I washed and cut them in half-that's it! No skinning, chopping, etc.! It is a bit watery at the moment, but it is boiling down nicely on the stove and then I'll add the spices. I'll be doing it this way for now on-especially since the girls love to help me in the kitchen. :) I love free labor. lol

Plus I think it is great to get the girls learning how to work in the kitchen and can foods-such a great thing to know how to do!

Busy, hence the slacker

Well, I realized last week that it has been forever since I've posted anything on my blog. I have been busy so that will be my excuse. :) A lot has been going on so I'll fill you in. The last week my time has been busy with 2 things, staining the fence and making greeting cards. I finally have the fence and swingset stained and if I see another paintbrush anytime soon I think my arm will automatically start to hurt again. And I am making a bunch of greeting cards-I am up to 208 so far and I still have a bunch to make (I am making a lot for my ward to give out and I need a bunch for other things as well). I enjoy making cards so I don't mind! I've also been busy canning this month. My friend, Wendy and I canned 60 quarts of peaches and 20 quarts of applesauce. And this weekend I'm going to be canning tomatoes and spaghetti sauce. My water bath canner has definitely been used a lot!
So here is an assortment of pictures to show what we've been up to:

Bailey LOVES having her hair curled still. She will swing her head so her curls bounce when she walks. She is growing up too fast. This morning she came down super excited after brushing her teeth and said: "Mom! I have a pregnant tooth!" lol She meant permanent, but she keeps forgetting and says pregnant. I never knew that teeth could have babies...

Erin I think is talking more now than ever-if that is possible. That girl talks more than any other little thing that I've known. She's a goof and lively but cute too. She is getting excited for winter time I think. Yesterday she went outside wearing snow pants, gloves, a scarf, hat, and Bailey's coat. But then she realzed that she got hot fast and she slowly shed her layers. lol

These 2 pictures are from when we went up to a cabin at Bear Lake with Londa and her family and Londa's birth mom (Gaye). We had such a great time up there eating so much junk food and playing cards all night long. Bailey and Erin had a blast with their cousins and were up really late. We went up there because Ray was going to be running the Top of Utah Marathon the next day. While we were at the cabin we celebrated Londa's birthday (her oldest switched the candles to say 73 instead of 37). I am lucky to have such a wonderful sister and friend.

Ray did such a great job with the marathon. I could never do it. You could tell he was completely beat and in some pain when he got to the finish line but he did it and it was wonderful to cheer him on. The sign above that says "Where is Ray?" has a funny story behind it. Ray had to leave the cabin really early to get to the starting line so we didn't see him go. Marissa (one of his daughters) sat at the table eating breakfast and she asked: where is dad?? lol We all looked at her and wondered if she was serious and if she had totally forgotten what we were all doing. :)

I have the most BEAUTIFUL daughters in the whole world. This picture of Bailey was taken before she left for school on picture day. I took the curlers out of her hair and stood back to see a beautiful little lady. I am so lucky to be the mom of these two precious girls.

This is a picture of Erin that I thought was super cute. She came down one morning and said that she had 'decorated' herself. lol She loves to dress up!

We went to the Ringling Brother's Circus this last weekend and the girls had a blast! Their favorities were the animals and the clowns. Erin thought the animals stunk though lol when we went to look at them before it started. I'm glad we went. Afterwards we had a nice dinner with my mom at Dairy Queen.

You are NOT 16 yet!

So today after school, Bailey came in the house saying that she wanted to play with a friend that lives around on the other side of the block. I said that she couldn't today because she had homework and then we had to leave. I told her that she could play tomorrow, but needless to say she was still upset that she couldn't play today. She said: "But Mom he is coming to pick me up!" And wouldn't you know, about 5 minutes later he pulls up in our driveway on his little battery powered, motorized jeep! LOL I had a look into her future: her going on dates when she is 16, and guys coming over to pick her up! ahhh!! I know I have less than 10 years to prepare for that, but I don't think I'll ever be ready for that day. :) I let her go out for a ride with him around the block in his 'jeep' before we had to leave. I found the whole situation VERY funny, but also made me realize she is growing up!

Labor Day Activities

Well, we had a pretty busy labor day today. My mom came up to hang out with us and then head up Logan Canyon for a picnic. It was such a beautiful day-wonderful weather, nice breeze. We tried to feed some ducks but they were in the middle of the river so that didn't work out well, but we did have a nice lunch and nice little walk around the area.

Mom and the Girls...

Playing Schulbach (I know that isn't how you spell it, but it's late and I can't call Josh's parents to get the right spelling right now). A fun dutch game that the girls love to play and they are pretty good at. :)

Then we went to our friends, the Jasper's, for dinner. We had a yummy BBQ there and the girls had fun playing with their little girl, Makenna. :)

lol I love this face Makenna has--she is always giving me this squinty eyes/concentrating look, it's hilarious! :)

Curlers!

The Girls LOVE having their hair curled but it takes forever to do and then about 10 minutes it it is gone so I don't like to do it. So, I bought some foam curlers and Saturday night I put their hair up for them to sleep on. They were pretty excited to get it done and I was pretty curious as to how their hair would look the next day...especially since it had been years since I had used those curlers.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

So, I used several different sizes of curlers, which made parts of their hair go crazy and some parts of their hair go Super curly. :) It was great. They both loved their hair how it was, but I think that next time I'll stick with one size curler and not wrap them quite so tight.

Bailey and Erin are both gettting big fast, I loved their hair all curly. Super cute. At church they got a lot of compliments. At church they were nicknamed: Shirley Temple, Annie, and Fancy Nancy. My Beautiful Babes!

City of Rocks

This weekend we went on a camping trip with a bunch of our neighbors to City of Rocks (in Idaho). There was 8 families that went and we had a great time. The area was beautiful and full of rocks and cliffs and things for the kids to climb on. The girls had a blast with their friends. We didn't sleep well, but that is to be expected while camping I guess. I couldn't sleep because of all the animals I kept hearing--there were tons of racoons and I could hear around our tent and one actually hit the tent (or tripped on the pole or something) and I just about jumped out of my sleeping bag when it happened. In the middle of the night I had to go to the bathroom (the only disadvantage of the place we were at was that the bathrooms were really far away), so I was going to go visit the bushes, but I was scared to leave the tent. lol I know it sounds funny but there were so many little critters and I didn't want a racoon attacking me! I also could hear a deer munching on some plants right outside our tent too-such a disturbing noise to hear its teeth chomping away. Less than a minute after I turned off my flashlight and got back in the tent the raccoons were back! I am silly I know but sounds are amplified while camping and I felt surrounded! :)

There were fun holes to climb in on the rocks too-we saw this one on our hike today.

If you look closely you'll see Erin and Bailey on the top of this huge rock. I am taking this picture from our campsite, they had so much fun exploring.

The girls love making their smores too. And for those of you who like peanut butter, try adding it to your smores--DELICIOUS! Peanut Butter is now going to be a staple when we go camping.

Poor Bailey!! About an hour after we got there she fell into a cactus-there were lots around. She came back to camp screaming and she easily had a hundred or so little teeny cactus spines in her hand/wrist. They kept breaking off at the skin so some were really tricky to get out. We managed to get most out and put some gel on it to stop the pain. I also found some in her pants too. Then while we were hiking around today she fell backwards into another cactus. Luckily there were only a couple in her side, and they were bigger spines so easy to pull out. She seemed to attract those plants, poor girl! But she perked up a little later and didn't let it spoil her good time.