Death, Nature, and Superman

Odd title, I know, but my kids are fascinated with death (not sure if that is the right word...maybe obsessed). We live a couple blocks away from a cemetery and every time we pass they will make sure that we know we passed it and that when we die we are buried there. Just yesterday we watched "Up" and there's that part where the guys wife dies (it's not traumatic at all just in case you haven't seen it.) Anyway, Kember starts to cry (she's a little tender) and the whole movie she keeps asking why his mommy died (I kept telling her it was his wife, not mommy, but apparently that didn't sink in). We talked about it a lot, and when the movie was over Caden started asking why everyone died. He started to cry and he told me that didn't want to die. Well, it's not like I can promise him that he isn't going to die anytime soon (although, I would have liked too). I kept telling him that everyone dies, and that it's a good thing. We get to live with Heavenly Father again, and we get to see family and friends that have died. He just kept telling me that he didn't want to die and that he didn't want daddy to die (I don't know where that came from). It was an interesting conversation to say the least.
On to the nature part. All Fall I've been expecting our tree to shed it's leaves (it never changed colors...it's still green). Just yesterday I was thinking, "Well, maybe this kind of tree keeps most of it's leaves...or maybe it's just not really Fall yet (hey, don't mock me, the tempuratures are different here). Well, I was wrong (obviously) on both accounts. This morning all of a sudden the tree lost all of its leaves. ALL of them. Now instead of having a small pile that would be nice if we raked up, but not really a big deal, we have a huge pile that needs to be taken care of (but will have to wait for Christmas when Dan gets a leaf blower...it's on rocks, not grass so we can't rake it) Crazy. I've never seen anything like it. When Dan drove home for lunch today he did a double take at the tree too. He said that this morning the leaves were all still on the tree. I have thought before that raking leaves was a waste of time because they just keep falling off the tree. Well, I guess this is the tree for me! One time raking...alright :)
I've decided I know what it feels like to be Superman. I love to wear my fuzzy red robe around the house. It keeps me nice and toasty warm and is sooo comfortable. However, it is a little embarrasing to answer the door while wearing it, so when someone knocked on the door today and I was in the basement you should have seen how fast I moved to take off the robe and run upstairs. This must be what it feels like when Clark Kent becomes Supperman in a phone booth. It was awesome! Good times....it's all in the little things.
Oh, and just so you all know, here is a joke that Kember told me today (one of them, the others didn't make any sense at all...)
What happens when you cross a frog and a pog?
A FOG.
Not so funy, but she's putting words together and I think that's a good thing.

New ideas (for me anyway)

So for my brothers christmas present I'm printing his blog (don't worry, he already knows...he wouldn't give me his password to get into his blog so he made me a contributor instead, snazzy eh?). He writes every day. Some days all he writes is "Long day, no post" but still, he writes every day. While compiling all this and trying to put this together for him I've realized a couple things (most of which I'll tell you at Christmas Collin!) but one of them is that it's good to have a record of your life. . .even if you don't write much. One of the apostles, Eyring I think, talked about taking the time every day to see God's hand in our lives. I think Collin does this, and I think I need to do it better, so...I'm going to start blogging more. This is a big thing for me because I'm a sucker for comments, and I generally don't post another blog until I feel like my post has got it's due. However, I'm changing my mind. My blogs are for me, so I should write them when I feel like I should. That's goal number one. Which brings up another interesting topic. Setting goals. I don't like to do it. I generally avoid it at all costs. But mostly just the word. After all, goals is synonomys with perfection, and that's the point of life (not to be perfect, but to try...to better ourselves). So, goal number two: Set goals. Crazy eh? Yeah, I'm weird, but it works for me. Goal number three: This can be summed up with a primary song (gotta love 'em) "Early to bed, and early to rise...makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise..." are you singing it in your head too? This little ditty has been constantly in my head for the last week or so...So, I'm going to try to do better. Don't look at the time stamp for this blog because it's late. 11:25 isn't early, but I'm working on it. So, here we go. Time to start something new.

Never

We are never getting a cat. And not for the reasons you might think, or that I might have originally mentioned. I'm watching two kittens for a friend of mine. She's either finding new homes for the kittens, or a new place for her to live. Anyway, I thought it would be kind of fun for the kids since you know how I feel about animals belonging to me. It's a disaster. The kittens are fine and not a hassle at all, but boy, it's sure traumatic for Kember. They are just kittens so they startle at loud noises, and don't really like it when Kember tries to hold them. She has to chase them and it just scares them. Kember, right now, is crying hysterically for some reason. The kitty won't let her hold it, it ran away, it isn't ours...I believe all of those reason have caused quite a few tears today. She doesn't understand that she just needs to leave it alone and eventually it will warm up to her. Kember got a horsey toy for one of the cats to play with and the cat smelled it but wasn't interested and Kember started crying again. Lots of crying today...whole bunches. If this is what happens if we ever got a cat, never...not worth it at all.

Before/After

I've had requests for a blog about our new lawn (I love it...it makes me extremely happy) It's taken so long because so much else has been happening and I wanted to give it it's due. So, I'm expecting lots of comments all you people. Here is an overview of the process of our getting a new lawn. This is a picture of what it looked like when we bought the house.

Nice, eh. Mostly weeds, and the pokey kind too. The kids wouldn't play on the grass at all. What is the point of having a lawn if your kids won't play on it? Anyway...so the next project was to fix the extremely ugly tree in the front of our house. I don't love it, but we only chopped half of it off because that is the only shade we get so it needed to stay for a while. It looks loads better now that it's half it's size.Then we tackled ugly bushes lining our driveway. Granted, we haven't done anything with this area, but that is because we are going to extend our driveway to make a two-car garage. So, it's still ugly, but the ugly bushes are gone as well.Next, we killed our lawn. Yes, this was on purpose. I don't have a great picture of it, but we didn't need one. Dead brown grass is dead brown grass. Although it was surprisingly hard to kill. Even after we thought we killed it all it kept coming back. Never use Bermuda grass. It's actually a weed, and illegal to plant anywhere in Utah, except St George. Anyway, dead ugly grass. Rather pokey too.Next, we tilled and pulled up the dead ugly grass. This step would not have gotten done if it wasn't for Scott, Carol Lee, and G&G C. Whew...it helped us soooo much. Thanks.Dirt. The kids loved it. Really loved it. This stage lasted awhile because of time constraints. But after much raking, more killing of the noxious weed, leveling (which never really leveled), more raking (thanks Grandpa C), messing with, changing, and breaking multiple sprinklers, laying electrical lines for lighting, etc. it was time to lay the sod! Can I just tell you how wonderful it is to live on the street we do. The sod got delievered Friday afternoonish. Around 4:30 there is a knock on my door and it's my neighbor wondering if we are laying sod that night. I tell him that we are going to make a small start, but really hit it the next day when family gets there to help. He says that he and his family are ready to help and will be working on their yard until Dan gets home. Holy cow. He and his family come over, more neighbors come over and two hours later (quite possibly less) my front lawn is done. I would also like to take this time to mention what a whimp I am. His wife was hauling and dumping and laying sod and I felt rather foolish not helping (although in my defense I did have the kids, and I was making Cole's B-day cake) so I picked up some sod to take to Dan, and dropped it. Yep, couldn't even lift it. Muscles, I don't have. Anyway, it was awesome. I had planted flowers a day or two before, and it just looks great. My sister called after I planted the flowers and wondered why I was planting flowers in October. Well, it was 80 degrees. Why not? We just barely started the Fall season here. Plus the flowers were way cheap at Wal-Mart, and if I had new grass I wanted the rest to look nice as well. And so here (drum roll please) is the finished result.

And here is the finished result with the lighting that Dan worked really hard on.

A Stink, a Chomp, and a Twirl

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Explainations to come, pictures now.

And yes, I am proud of the skunk costume...I made it by myself...and the tutu, but I'm really proud of the skunk.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

*Warning. If you are a little bit squimish you might not want to look at the posted pictures. They aren't too bad, but if blood makes you go woozy I don't suggest looking. You have been warned!*

Okay, that was overblown and dramatic, but it makes me feel better. Today started out pretty well. I was being productive, you know, doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen so I could make a bigger mess and can some more applesauce, that kind of stuff. It was going really well until I sliced my finger. Actually, I had cut my hand previously, but it wasn't bad at all. You know...one of those cuts that don't actually bleed unless you push hard to make them. The finger was not so much like that. There was blood. Yuck. Just what I needed for my productive day to go down the tubes (mind you, this didn't make it an unpleasant day, just not productive). It's kind of hard to can applesauce while trying to keep a finger elevated. I thought I had cut it worse than I had. Here, see.

This was later that night when I took off my original bandaid. I think I ripped it open again taking it off. Oops. It sure hurt like the dickens though. That made me decide I was done canning applesauce. It was time to take a little break and get dinner ready anyway. Well, while taking my little break the kids were just playing around and I was talking to Dan on the phone. All of a sudden Caden starts screaming like there's no tomorrow and the lap top comes crashing to the floor. I had it on a counter thingy plugged in and charging, and he had pulled on the cord and down it came. I thought it had hit his face and smashed Cole's hand (they were both screaming). So I was trying to calm Caden down so I could get the baby. I was trying to figure out where on his face it hurt when I glanced at the baby and saw blood gushing from Caden's foot. "Oh!....Oh...Oh! Kember!.....Never mind!" This is what I said running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I've decided if an emergency (a real one) ever happens Dan has to be around to take care of it. I don't think clearly at all. None of what I do is logical for the situation, but seems logical at the time. For instance. I went and grabbed a rag to put over his toe, but then I thought, before i do this I have to clean up the blood on the floor so I can get to his toe. Excuse me? Really, that was important to do first? Apparently that is me functioning in a crisis. Kember was a huge help. She got me ice, and bandaides and cleaned up the blood. Everything I asked her to do she did, all while Caden was screaming. I have no idea what Cole was doing, so I'm assuming he was fine and it was the loud noise of the lap top hitting the ground that scared him.

I thought Caden was going to need stitches or glue or something, so I put three bandaides on to keep the blood semi-contained until Dan got home to look at it. When he saw it he decided we should probably go get it looked at. Here is what Caden's toe looked like at the doctors office.

Pretty, eh? It didn't need stitches, and we passed on the x-ray. If it's broken they don't do anything for it anyway, so why bother? Dan said we could x-ray it at his work tomorrow so maybe we'll do that. I doubt it's broken though. Caden wasn't too sure about this whole doctor thing.

But after they pulled out the dinosaurs and other animals it wasn't too bad. Expect for the cleaning of his toe. Ouch...that made me cringe. They were good and as nice as could be, but still...it hurts!So, after some blood, sweat, and lot's of tears, that is what our FHE looked like. Cole and Kember were at G&G's house while we went to the doctor, and G&G took us out to dinner after we got back. We really need to work on our FHE. But we did have a lesson about Jesus in the car. Kember and Caden gave it. And we all sang songs too.

What a day.

Happy Birthday Bubbers!

Yesterday my little Coley-Wooley turned one. Like the nickname? Kember gave it to him. She loves Teddy Ruxbin and there is a character named Wooley and she strung the two together. Around here he isn't Cole. He is Bubbers, Coley-wooley, the baby, or COLE (normally done when shouting because of some traumatic reason). Anyway, crazy eh. One year old. Wow.

Well, I'm not so into doing a lot of things for something he won't even remember, so he didn't really get a party...or presents. Well, I take that back. We had a sod laying party, and he got grass, a balloon, and a stuffed lizard from the dollar store. Crazy eh? Luckily grandparents donated to his cause :) I almost feel bad, but I felt worse seeing all these toys that were fun, but a lot of money and I knew he didn't care, we didn't need the toy, and why spend the money? That is a little scroogish I know, but I guess I have to be in the right frame of mind, and honestly, Cole's b-day wasn't at the top of my list. Getting my new lawn (see future post) and making his cake were higher priorities for me.
Here is a picture of his cake. Can you tell what it is?

I'll admit I got a little carried away with the orange 'fins'. I should have only done one layer wide instead of three, but whatever, too late now. I was pretty happy with the cake, especially since it was soo easy to do (except find those orange candies...that was a pain. Rite Aid if you are ever looking for them).

On to birthday boy pictures. Here is Cole with his one candle...and here he is burning himself on that one candle. He grabbed the flame. Not really what we all had in mind to put the candle out with, but the candle did go out.

Here is Cole screaming because he burned his finger. Ouchy.

And here he is happy as can be playing with the ice Daddy got him for his finger.

Did I also mention that he was sick for his birthday. Poor kid. All and all I think I need to do better next year. Thanks everyone who could come (and help lay sod). The kids loved playing with their cousins.

Here's my cute mom!

Here's my cute sisters!

Here's my cute husband!