House tour

Finally, right?? Let the tour begin!

Welcome to my new home!

Here is my living room: From the hallway...

 From the kitchen...

 From the corner by the piano...

 We really viewed this move as a fresh start, a new place to set down some roots and establish some good family traditions. The first thing we wanted to do was make sure that our home was a place where the Spirit was felt. We also wanted no doubt to be had about who we were and who we worship. So we decided that we'd like reminders of Christ to be in every room of our home. Lucky for us Deseret Book was having an AMAZING sale, where all of the prints for pictures we wanted were under $3. Add to that the coupon I found for 15% off and free shipping and we were set! The first picture we found was this one:

 It resides on the wall next to our computer. I love this picture. I'm not sure about the rest of my family, but it has made me bite my tongue several times when I was getting frustrated!

Now on to the kitchen! The living room has a wide entry into the kitchen, which is so roomy! For the first time in my marriage I have been able to put everything that belongs in the kitchen THERE in the kitchen! And there was space leftover. After a month in the house I opened the drawer next to the silverware drawer because I couldn't remember what I'd put in there... It was empty! Ha! I remedied that pretty quickly by moving my oven mitts to that drawer. But there is all sorts of empty space in the cupboards. It is amazing.

From the hall...

From the basement door...

 From the kitchen sink...

 Now on to the bedrooms. First the hallway...

 The bathroom...

David's bedroom...

 The picture of Christ he picked for his room:

 He says the little boy looks like him.

Littles' room!
From the door...

 From the crib...

 The picture of Christ Andi picked:

I'm sure you can see why she picked this one. She likes to say, "Mom! It is the picture of Jesus with me!"

Our room:
From the door...

From the opposite corner:

Standing in front of the guitar:

Next to the window:

I'll take more extensive pictures of my hutch later, right now it is full of fabric I need to sort through. I received TWO GIANT BOXES of fabric and patterns from a friend. Much appreciated, but I need to find a home for all of it.

And I'll get pictures of the basement as soon as I find my camera again so I can take decent pictures in less than ideal lighting. :)

Daily dos

What do we do every day?

We wait for the bus

We blow bubbles

We eat popcorn

Lots of popcorn

We get fancy (just like Nancy!)

 We go for walks

That particular walk we took some cans and bottles that David collected to the bottle return at Kroger. He got $5.70 of spending money. He's excited for the games and concerts to start at the ball fields and parks around the corner from our house. He has a plan to collect the returnables and save money all summer. I'm not sure what he wants to save for but he says he won't spend any of it because he wants to buy special things and it is too hard for him to get money to spend it on silly stuff. Very wise of him.

Other things we do regularly:

Ride bikes around the neighborhood
Walk to the library
Walk to the park
Walk down Main Street

With the weather getting warmer I'm sure we will really start exploring and adding to this list. I'm so glad the snow has finally melted!!

Skills of the father

A couple weeks ago Jonathan came in one day and said, "Don't move those sticks on the front porch. I'm going to use them to teach David how to use a knife."

*gulp*

The day finally came. David received a very thorough lesson on how to hold a knife, how to treat it with respect, and basic whittling strokes. Under a very careful eye he sharpened a stick.

These pictures still make me nervous....

He did very well, and paid very close attention to his father as he was taught to use the knife. And he isn't allowed to use one if Dad is not there. That was a little comforting.

David has been asking for a while if he could have a pocket knife. We're not going to get one for him. He will have to earn his Whittling Chip first, then save his own money to buy one. Now that I know he can save money to buy his own things when his mind is set (his mice... ugh) I have no doubt he will have that knife before he knows it. Good thing the Whittling Chip is only available to Bears and Webelos, so he's got a couple years...

Maple Tapping

Our local metropark offers a lot of education opportunities during the year. Last weekend we decided we'd go to their sugar bush and watch them tap the maples and make syrup.

It was pretty cold and humid, so we were pretty chilled most of the time. In fact, Peter lasted 30 minutes before he was so cold he couldn't handle it and Jonathan ran him to the car to warm up. David and I endured the cold.

David got to be the honored "Tap Holder".

I managed to take this picture right before my phone died from the cold.... And right before Peter just could no longer take the frigid temps. (We try to keep mittens on the kid, but he sucks those two fingers of his and refuses to leave them on.)

When we went into the sugar bush (a grove of maple trees) we found a tree that didn't have a tin bucket already tapped into place, then our guide drilled a small hole into the tree. Already sap poured from the tree! It was really quite easy! Then David hammered the tap into the hole and we all got a taste of little drops of sap. It is actually like water with a tiny bit of sugar added to it, nothing special. We learned that the American Indians used to drink the sap straight as an immunity booster before the spring weather set in.

Maple sap can only be collected during those few weeks before spring weather really starts. Night temperatures need to be below freezing with day temperatures getting up into the 40's consistently. This starts the trees sucking nutrients and sap up into their limbs in preparation for budding and sprouting leaves. After the tree gets buds you will not be able to get any more sap. We went right at the end of the season, so they were still collecting lots of sap but probably will not be able to collect anything much longer.

After tapping our tree we walked around checking under the tin-tents that are set on top of the sap pails. David found a very full one, one that had been overlooked during the collection that morning. It was as clear as water. I'm not sure why I was so surprised.

Then we paid a visit to the sugar shack where we saw how they boiled down their sap into the syrup. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. In a good season a single tree will produce 10 gallons... Now I understand why maple syrup is so dang expensive!

After that David and I went and watched a demonstration on how the American Indians boiled down syrup and made maple sugar cakes. Turns out that the process of making syrup and sugar that we currently used was developed by the Indians and the colonials modified the process of extraction with their European system. It was a fascinating trip!

After we stopped by their barns and saw sheep and lambs, goats and kids, pigs and piglets, mules, cows, and chickens. Peter had never seen such creatures! He was most impressed with the piglets and chickens. And piglets have very dry, rubbery noses that feel like silly putty. For some reason I always imagined pigs as having wet noses...

With next week being spring break I believe we'll make a trek back to Kensington to see the animals again. A sow was set to have her piglets this week some time. Even smaller piglets than the ones we saw would be fun to see. :)

Poopy Peter

WARNING: This is a poop story. And parenting at its best. And no pictures for this post.

At the end of February/early March David came home sick with the runs. It was the pits for a couple days, especially as the rest of us cycled through it. Andi avoided it, Jonathan avoided it. Peter got it BAD. And diapers and diarrhea do not mix. We gave him tons of fluids, kept him hydrated, and we figured he'd clear up like everyone else did within a day.

Well, four weeks later, and countless diaper-explosions and blown outfits later, we finally had had enough and exhausted all of our tricks we knew to do. Time for a trip to the doctor.

Doctor took in all of his symptoms and complaints, and then looked at a rash that we thought was just eczema. He believes they are related and asked us to eliminate gluten and dairy from Peter's diet.

So I give up. My kids are just weird and can't tolerate a lot of the things most others can. Means I just need to give up all of the processed stuff and just make things for myself and my family from scratch.

Whatever. More work is totally fine, I can handle it.

The last couple days Peter actually had NOT had any diaper explosions. But he'd only had wet diapers. And then today he had another explosion. It was so bad. Squished like mud between his toes in his footie pajamas, up past his belly button, and everywhere in between. It was bad enough I didn't even want to take him to the bath, it would have spread too much on the carpet between the living room and bathroom. It was crazy. And I really hope that changing Peter's diet will help. *sigh*

Pinewood Derby

Last night was our pack's Pinewood Derby. The boys were beyond excited about the event, and David was no exception! We actually checked the car in Wednesday night and got to check out all of the other nifty cars. There were some amazing cars there (including a fantastic, sparkly, pink Hello Kitty car for the open class race)! We have some really creative kids in this pack. :)

Yesterday I realized I hadn't seen a sign up for snacks, so I asked if I'd missed them. Turns out we hadn't even discussed them! Oops. So I volunteered for the snack committee.

  Root beer floats, rice krispies, fruit trays, and popcorn to the rescue! Someone added their kids' fruit snacks and we were all set. We had just enough for all of the guests there.

Then the races began! Tiger den was up first. Just two boys...

 And David came in second. Next year I think Jonathan will put the wheels in...

 But David still got a medal and was happy. :)

We only have one more meeting before we switch to our new pack and we sure are sad to go. We've really enjoyed being a member of this pack! I won't miss the hour drive to and from pack meetings, but I will miss the friends we've made there.

Saint Patrick's Day

David made a new friend on the bus and then discovered that his new friend was also a member of our ward! Turns out he lives on the next street over, and getting to his house will be very simple this summer. While at the ward's Pinewood Derby we learned that this same family, along with David's new friend, are students at the Irish Dance school I'm so very interested in! They invited us to go watch them perform at a nearby library, and thus began our Saint Patrick's Day celebrations!

 Andi, of course, loved the sparkly dresses. She kept asking if she could be one of them for Halloween and if I would make her one of those dresses (ha).

 Peter loved the dancing, too. He sat through the entire 30-minute performance and didn't get squirmy until the last five! He also decided he needed to go stomp his feet on the board they laid down for the hard shoes. It was pretty adorable.

 David's new buddy is the fuzzy boy on the front row. Turns out there is an entire class of six to seven year old BOYS at this school. David is pretty interested now. :)


Saint Patrick's Day itself was pretty low key. We wore green. I made a fun lunch for everyone. David's got packed up:

I made GF Smac n' cheese for dinner and boiled the noodles in green water. Kids loved it!

We read a little from Saint Patrick's Confessions and recapped his story before going to bed. We listened to a lot of pennywhistle and accordion music during the day and the kids hopped and skipped around the living room. I really like simple days like that. :)