Feeling somewhat nostalgic

As fall has hit, the valley here has just gotten even more pretty. Looking at some of our pictures I couldn't just help but think about growing up here.

While growing up here, I totally hated living in a small town. I hated that the closest movie theater was 20 minutes away. I hated that I was related to almost everyone. I do in fact know who my 8th cousins are in some cases. I didn't really like that I went to high school with not 1, but 8 of my cousins- 6 on my Dad’s side and 2 on my Mom’s and lets be honest I’m probably forgetting someone. I hated that all we had to do was go bowling or light toilet paper on fire and kick it around (Seriously that really happened). I had a professor at BYU-I tell me he wanted to live here someday and I thought he was crazy!

It took me living outside the Mormon bubble that runs from lets say St. George to oh maybe somewhere in Southeast Idaho, to really appreciate where I grew up. Although everything in Reno seemed a lot closer it still took 20 minutes to get there.

But I love it now, well at least some things.

I love that we can go see my parents on a whim- I don’t know if they love that though. I love that I get to live in this gorgeous valley again. I even sometimes love running into old friends at the grocery store, sometimes. I love that I get to see some of my oldest and dearest friends if we can ever coordinate schedules right.

I love living here with Grandpa and that my kids love him and want to play with him. Seriously, Mooch was trying to wrestle him the other day and it made me think of all the times Grandpa did that with all of us grandkids when we were little. I love that Chad gets to see where I grew up for an extended period of time, yet again not sure if he loves it. This place made me who I am. The people here made me who I am. I’m grateful for it. I just thought I’d tell all of you that because, well I can.

Loving Fall

Oh how I love fall. It’s definitely at the top of my favorite four seasons of the year list.
Just looking at these pictures makes me love living here all the more. I wish I would have gotten more with the mountains in them. Oh well.

Anyways…

Grandpa has some excellent farming connections. Since we waited until the last weekend before Halloween we got our pumpkins for free. We were able to go out to one of Grandpa’s friend’s pumpkin patch and choose our pumpkins. Chad was like a little boy. Apparently he has never been able to pick a pumpkin out of a field for himself. So it was fun to take all my boys to pick their pumpkins. So here are they are out on the hunt.

Big Helpings

There are a number of reasons you shouldn't leave your child alone at the dinner table.

Here is one of them...

And another...

He decided he needed just a bit more spaghetti for dinner.

Apple Core...Baltimore

I feel like all I've blogged about is canning. Oh wait, that IS all I've blogged about! I promise this is the last one, I think. Yep we canned apples. We did some pie filling and just plain apples.

The whole summer Cowboy has wanted to help while we've canned everything. It wasn't until the apples that he actually got to help. He ran the apple core/peeler/slicer thingy for at least 3 hours on Tuesday. When he first started he needed help getting the apples on and off. An hour or so later he was doing it all by himself.

I just love it when he does stuff for himself. If only he wouldn't pour/spill himself juice....

My mom started at 10 AM with Andrea and me. She then proceeded to do all this...

Apparently when my Dad got home from work they started doing the applesauce. So basically she was canning for over 12 hours. Isn't she just Superwoman?

Mooch vs. the #10 can

Last week I was talking to my lovely sister Chelsie on the phone. Despite being in the same room as my children, I’m pretty much ignoring them. Usually they play pretty well together until Cowboy does something to tease or annoy Mooch. This time he chose for his weapon of annoyance, #10 can. For those of you who don't know what that is, its about the size a can of crisco only made entirely of metal.

Despite both of them banging on it like a drum I’m still choosing to ignore them. Suddenly Mooch starts crying and I’m thinking, “Come on Cowboy, and share the stinking toy. So I turn around at look at them and that when I see what’s really happened with the can. It’s hard to ignore your 19 month old when he’s crying and has a #10 can stuck on his head.

My aunt Janalee was up for the day visiting Grandpa. Since she is a RN I figured she’d be helpful. Both of us were trying unsuccessfully not to laugh at the kid. While I held him on my lap she proceeded to rub shampoo all over his little cranium. We finally got it to pop off. It was just a cheese stick, blanket, and a binkie later and he was smiling again.

I’m not sure if the can pinched him or scratched him but he’s had a red line across his forehead for the last week. In the heat of the moment I didn’t get a picture with it stuck on his head but I got a picture of the afterwards. Ahh poor Mooch!

Food Storage

So in an effort to reduce the mouse population in the basement, my mother and I have been cleaning out Grandpa's pantry which is a veritable buffet for mice. There were only a few things that they were actually eating in there. I've pretty much thrown away anything that wasn't mouse proof including a five gallon bucket of sugar that had collapsed. We rotated some food and water storage and voila! So why am I telling you about this?

We found some neat stuff (Yeah, I just said neat). Apparently back in the day you could buy gelatin in a 1 pound can. The directions to use the whole can are to mix it with a half a gallon of boiling water. Then add half a gallon of cool water. Yep we're talking about a gallon of jell-o. Who knows what one would do with a gallon of jell-o? But the cans are pretty sweet looking eh?

There was also a box of powdered starch. Yep the original starch! As in starch your husbands collar starch.

My favorite though is that apparently shortening lasts forever. No really it does. There were a few cans from the 70's that I was fully prepared to chuck. Mom told me to open it up and see if it had gone rancid. Oh it hadn't! Though, I'm not really excited for anyone to use it. Yeah if you can't read the lid is labeled 9/77 as in September 1977. I love it!

Mom, Ma-Mom, and Mike

So we've been busy canning more. I swear I'm incapable of doing anything else when we spend a couple of days canning. So instead of blogging I've been catching up on house work and all those other menial tasks.

Cowboy is in our own little version of Joyschool. There are 7 other moms in the group and we all take turns having school at our house on Tuesday and Thursdays. Its great and its fun getting to know some of the kids in the ward. Heis loving it and asks daily when we're going to school.

Mooch is gradually starting to talk. He's trying to say more words but they all sound the same. Like More, milk, and moo all sound like Moo.

Mom and Grandma and Mike all sound the same. seriosuly its "Ma, Ma-Ma, and Ma. Of all the aunt and uncle names he chooses, Mike, the most recent uncle addition to try and say. Yeah I don't get it either.

He's on the "no" kick. As of right now most of the "no" yelling is directed at Cowboy because he's being a mean brother. He yells "no" and rapidly ascends in both volume and tone. Its kind of cute, kind of. Even though the talking is a slow work in progress he's becoming more and more active. He's figured out how to jump and sort of shuffle skip. His favorite move is jumping in his crib while holding on the side rails.

Chad's work is going sweet. He's doing some engineering and some project mangagement. A part of his job is similar to what he was doing at his previous job. Chad's super tough and gets up at 4 AM every day to ride in the van pool. Which is awesome because its saved us over $200 a month in gas alone. Needless to say we try to go to bed before 9 at our house. Sad huh? But he has every other Friday off which is so nice to have an extra day to get things done. Then we can usually play or just relax on Saturday.

Little ummm... friends?

So Monday I had my mom watch the boys so I could go and finally register the van and get my Utah Drivers license. So I get in the van and think to myself "I better check and make sure the insurance card and registration are in the glove box." So then I opened the glove box and I see a small pile of shredded paper and what was formerly a maxi-pad. I thought to myself "huh that's weird. That almost looks like a nest." Thats when the mouse climbed out of the nest and on to the hand that I was holding the glove box with!!!!!!!!

Obviously I started screaming and had to get out of the van and dance around hysterically. No really I was hysterical. I was half laughing, half crying, half screaming, half gagging, and half cringing. Okay so really that would make me a fifth crying a fifth laughing and so on but you get the idea.

Just ask my sister I called her because Chad wouldn't pick up his phone. I'm driving down the road on my way to the DMV when my sister points out the fact that I have to open the glove box again and get the registration out. That's when I drove back to my parent's. So after a beating to the glove box to make sure the mouse crawled back into the engine compartment and numerous freak outs later I got it all out. As of right now there is a sticky trap in the glove box, but I'm not sure how effective that's going to be. At least I know it can't actually get into the car, just the glove box. ICK ICK ICK

P.S. It's dead! It got caught on the sticky trap. Chad, being the manly man that he is, got rid of it for me.