Hunter Boy

Okay, I know I've posted a lot today, but I just had to add these pictures because they make me laugh. The bottom pic is just another one of those random self portraits I found on my camera. Hunter LOVES to make faces and save them in my camera every chance he gets.

The top picture is one Marc took of Hunter yesterday. Notice he is holding some money next to his underwear. Hunter has discovered the ice cream man. Enough said if you've ever had kids of your own make the same discovery, but I'll continue nonetheless. . . .

Yesterday was VERY hot - 104 degrees to be exact. So Hunter was in just his underwear - which he would NEVER do otherwise! LOL!

He found some money in his sister's purse and immediately thought of ice cream. So he went out through the garage (because our front door is broken - which is a whole nother story in an of itself - let's just say this will be the 3rd front door knob we've been through in less than 4 years. That tells you how much traffic we have going through our house. Big inconvenience and safety issue, but alas - hopefully the replacement will arrive SOON! You can image how comical we look opening the garage anytime someone rings the doorbell.)

Okay, back to the story at hand. Marc and I have a policy that Sundays are our church and family day. So it is nice for us to have a day off from all the traffic going through our house, and it was especially nice yesterday because of the heat. We do not have AC, so we were trying to keep all doors CLOSED to conserve the coolness we had acheived. Hunter has absolutely no internal register for uncomfortable temperature levels and could have cared less about the thermostat reading - especially when there was ice cream to be had. He slipped out the garage door - because that is the only way out now, and Marc was not far behind him. Marc found him outside pacing and waiting for the ice cream man to come. Further investigation found that his money was safely stashed in his underwear. When Marc asked him about it, he stretched the front of his underwear WAY out and proudly presented his sister's 2 dollars. (She would SO cry if she read this!) Marc came in laughing! We both entertained the vision of him doing that for the ice cream man. Maybe we could have scored a spot on America's Funniest Home Videos if we would have let this one actually play out . . .

Hair High Lights!!!

Olivia BEFORE hi-lites
Add some of this . . .

. . . during hi-lites application . . . drumroll . . .

TAH-DAH! The AFTER!

Our neighbor friend, Justin gets some too.

Okay, so I did something TOTALLY not me. I played with hair.

Okay, I do cut my boys hair regularly (from the looks of the oldest lately, the "regularly" part is debateable, but I try), but I've never done anything adventurous. One day when I was working at the middle school, I was noticing some of the girls' highlights. I thought, I bet I could buy one of those cheap boxes of hair color and add some spunk to Olivia's hair.

She was VERY excited and onboard with the idea. WHEW! At least she's still young enough to not realize and fully process that this is my FIRST time!

We spent the whole Saturday morning doing haircuts: Hunter got a summer buzz - which he is SO proud of! Ammon got a trim much more than he bargained for - SORRY Ammon! Caleb FINALLY liked his trim - so at least one of us is happy with his hair. Marc got the usual - only slightly shorter for summer. Olivia got this fantastic do! Which I think turned out pretty nice (don't look too close Brittany :) ) considering I'm a total novice with girl's hair.

Then we did the hi-lites. I tried to talk one of my boys into letting me add some spice to their heads as well since there was plenty for 2 heads, but neither of them were brave enough. Of course, they had some friends over, and Justin took pity on me and was brave enough to make good use of the leftover chemicals.

Jumping, Jumping, Jumping

Hunter and Olivia jumping in one of those jump houses at the Vancouver "Relay for Life" fundraising event.

Marc's office helped raise money for "Relay for Life" this year. We stopped by briefly to turn in the money and make an appearance to our team. Of course Hunter and Liv wanted to enjoy the festivities a little too.

In the above pic, Olivia's shirt is dirty because Hunter threw mud on her earlier. She was NOT smiling then. These are the happy pictures while the jumping is still fun. A few minutes later, Olivia's elbow whacks Hunter's head, and the fun ends there.

. . . jumping, jumping, happy jumping . . .

Kitchen and Bath Done!

New Kitchen Floor
New Bathroom floor and wall color

New towels for the bath that helped decide the wall color.

Our house is FINALLY put back together. In May we had a toilet episode that decided to work its way into other parts of the house besides just the bathroom. Marc woke up on a Thursday morning to head off for his workout. When he reached the hallway to walk between the powder bath and the garage door, he was wading in water. He grabbed towels and the wet vac. The noise of the wet vac woke me up, so we were both frantically mopping up!

Time lapse - the damage went under the hardwood hallway and into the kitchen and family room. After many days of drying (with VERY noisy fans and dehumidifiers from "Disaster Recovery") and many more weeks of having our floor ripped up, we are finally put back together. We even got an "upgrade" on the flooring from what we had, and our insurance covered all expenses. So in the end, it was worth it!

Marc wanted to add some color to the bathroom, so we choose a brown that looked good with the new hand towels I'd just bought. We also put the same brown in the hall behind the bathroom. It's a suede brown, and we are just tickled with it.

Also, notice that my kitchen counter is clutter-free! And it's been that way for a month now, and will continue to be so. I decided to keep all my paperwork in my office from now on, since that's already messy anyway!

Day Camp Notes

Olivia enjoyed her first "Day Camp" experience this week!!! She was SO excited to go spend 2 days with her Activity Day friends from church. Since our employee was still sick, I had to work at the office, so I had to help Olivia get everything ready the night before. I asked her what she wanted me to pack in her lunch - thinking PBJ sandwich, crackers, juice - you know - FOOD. Well, she said, "Could you put a card or note telling me how much you love me?"

Long pause . . . what do you say to that? Then she lets me know how some of her friends at school get notes from their moms in their lunches. Sometimes it's on a napkin, sometimes on paper or a card. But she never gets one. Wow, am I a deadbeat mom or what? Didn't she notice the smilie face and heart on the lunch bags?

Okay, so later after we put the kids to bed, I mention to Marc what Olivia told me about her love note. So of course he couldn't resist adding his love too. Here are the cards/notes we made for her the first day. We followed up with more the next day. The lady bug card is one of my creations from a few years back that I just happened to have in my "stash." I love lady bugs!

Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the "meat" (have-to's) that I forget about the parsley (little extras.) Thanks for the reminder Liv!

A Midnight Movie

Where could you find me & my 2 oldest boys at midnight on Tuesday 7/14 (late) or Wednesday 7/15 (super early)?

You guessed it! The opening showing of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."

I read this book aloud with Caleb a few years back - whenever it first came out, and we've been looking forward to the movie ever since. About a year ago, I told my family - anyone that reads up through the 6th book by July 15 can see the movie with me in the theatre. Marc started reading them aloud to us as a family - which we LOVED, but then life happened, and he only got through to some of the 2nd book. Bummer! Maybe by the last movie, he'll have them read.

Ammon is my avid reader, and he has enjoyed the series this year! Of course, Caleb and I read the series together. Caleb hates to read, but a good book read is one of the few times he'll actually listen to me. :)

Anyway, when I made that bargain, I had no intentions of seeing a midnight showing. I'm getting too old to stay out that late! Plus, I'm frugal, and I try to get the matinee price whenever possible. Well, my boys REALLY wanted to go to the midnight show. And I really wanted to be a cool mom, so we did it! I stayed awake too. It was pretty good. The book is definitely better, but that's no surprise. HARRY! HARRY! HARRY!

We'll Go Fishin' in a Crawdad Hole . . .

Ammon poses with a crawdad for the camera
Yummy little critters - like lobster only smaller - much, much smaller
My boys eating their spoils
Jesse (a friend), Caleb, Hunter, Justin (a friend) and Ammon

It has been one of those super busy weeks! Make that 3 busy weeks!
We've had vacations, a kitchen & bathroom renovation, an anniversay, speaking assignment, family in town, and our employee has been very sick - which means I have to go work at the office.
So alas I have many posts in my head and not many on my BLOG. Here's a little "catch up" of some of our adventures. . .
Today is a SUPER hot day, so Marc took the kids to the river while I had a little R&R. They came home with a little bucket of crawdads and $10.
Where did they get $10 at the river? Apparently, a fellow at the river offered to buy their "bigger" crawdads and asked how much. Caleb said they'd sell 20 for $10. So the deal was done and the exchange made. They came home with this little handful of critters. They know the rule with their mom is - if you kill it, you have to eat it. So I told them they could either take them back to the river and let them go; or I'd cook them up for them, but they'd have to eat them. They were excited to eat them and swore they'd eat them ALL if I'd cook them.
I cooked and they ate!

Last week when we had family in town, their Uncle Nathan McCully took Caleb & Ammon and their 2 cousins Austin & Caden Sant to the river. Between the 5 of them, they caught about 150 crawdads. I wish I had a pic of Uncle Nathan because he deserves some credit in this as well, but I couldn't find one - so maybe I'll have to add a bit about him later. He's now the favorite uncle. :) He took them crawdad fishing, bought them hotdogs from "Dogszilla" and took them to Big Al's for arcade games. His wife's blog is cbmccully.blogspot.com for reference.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Strawberries
plus rhubarb

equals one of my FAVORITE pies!
Mmmmm! I LOVE mine with vanilla ice cream. How do you like yours?

I have fond memories of making "Rhubarb Crunch" as a young girl with my next-door-neighbor & Great Aunt Lenna's rhubarb. Strawberry Rhubarb Pie ala mode was my favorite to eat when I worked at the bakery at Frontier Pies in Provo, UT when I was a college student there many years ago. I made a whopping $4.75/hour!
I couple years ago I purchased a rhubarb plant for my own yard, and I LOVE what it can do!
Rhubarb plants are VERY hardy, but they need lots of shade. Which is very handy for me because I don't have a lot of sunny spots in my little yard. We also planted a couple of bins of strawberries. What sweet treats! Happiness you can't buy from a store.
I found this recipe at allrecipes.com . The one pictured online used the crumb topping option. I opted for a 2-crust version. We had some family (Sants and McCullys) over and shared it with them! We made homemade vanilla ice cream too. It was gone is seconds! I also made a sour cream version which was really good too. I preferred this one though.


Strawberry Rhubarb Pie III from allrecipes.com
Submitted by Joan Spinasanto

1 recipe pastry for a 9" double crust pie (or store bought)

1 t. orange zest

4 c. diced rhubarb

3 c. sliced fresh strawberries

1 1/2 c. white sugar

6 T. quick-cooking tapioca

1 T. milk

1 T. white sugar for decoration

For optional crumb topping:
1 c. all-purpose flour

1 c. white sugar

1 t. salt

1/2 c. butter

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a pie pan with bottom crust.

2. Mix together rhubarb, strawberries, orange zest, 1 1/2 c. sugar, and tapioca. Spoon into crust. Roll out second crust, and place over filling. Seal the edges. Brush with milk, and sprinkle with extra sugar for top.

3. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 35 minutes.

4. For a crumb topping, omit top pie crust. Combine flour, 1 c. sugar, and salt. Cut in butter or margarine until mixture is crumbly. Spoon over filling, and bake as directed above.

P.S. I actually HALVED this recipe for my shallow pie plate and because of the comments on the reviews at the site. This could actually make 2 9" pies (just add another recipe for crust) or a deep dish pie.

My Driveway Gets EGGED!

The guilty-looking boy above was wishing he had water balloons for a hot day. Since we didn't have any, he settled for something even better. 2 dozen eggs! From the picture, it doesn't look like much because he spread the 2 dozen eggs out really well - some are in the garage, on the sidewalk, on the street and from one side of the driveway to the other.

My house is always full of kids from the neighborhood. One of the neighbor boys came in and told me Hunter was throwing eggs. Of course I run out to save any that I could. I know how fast he can work. I see him with an egg in each hand and yell, "STOP!" He looks at me and quickly throws one and then the other. There is only one egg left in one carton. The other carton is empty.

Ahh, such a waste. Does he have any idea how much egg prices have increased?

Because he's the "baby," I generally laugh to myself at the naughty things he does. I think it's because I know I'm gonna miss all this someday soon. And each child is so creative and mischeivous in his own way.

I told him to stand by his mess so I could take a picture to show Daddy what he had done - and Daddy was NOT going to be happy when he got home. (I had to have a good reason for taking a picture so he wouldn't know I was really documenting and "journaling" it.)

I had to keep a straight face and put him in a "time out" so he wouldn't think Mom was okay with this action. But my insides were laughing. . .