First Snow Fall

We woke to our first real snowfall of the season.  

It was beautiful.

The children couldn't wait to get outside. 

It took much effort to get them both appropriately clothed, and as we walked out, I said to Kent,

"I hope this outing lasts longer than it took to get their snowsuits on."

It did.  

Both Brandt and Blythe loved being in the snow.

Loved it!

They shoveled, they made snow angels, they crawled and rolled around in the snow.

It was wonderful to be outside in the crisp air, tromping through the snow, and helping our neighbors by shoveling their sidewalks and driveways.

Tomorrow we need to go buy both children new snow boots, and then we'll likely go sledding.

 

Shoveling--walks, driveways, the road, the grass.

 

 

Brandt worked right alongside Kent.
He carried snow from one side of the road to the other so Kent would have plenty to shovel.

Making snowballs.

 

And snow angels.

  

 

Blythe crawled across the street and into a snowbank where she began digging a hole.

 

Covered in snow and loving it!

 

They really stuck with the work for a long time.

Anything to be outside in the snow.

It took many, many, many requests to get the children to actually sit still for a moment so I could take their picture. 

I'm pleased with the result.

A Conversation

I am decorating today (pictures to come!).  I have Christmas decor all over the place, and the children are finding it irresistible.  Most tempting seems to be three year old candy canes I have been using strictly as decoration, but which they keep eating.  I have asked and asked them to leave them alone, without feeling that anyone is paying any attention.

So I asked, "Do you two ever listen to me, or am I just talking to myself most of the time?"

Without missing a beat, Brandt replied, "You are just talking to yourself."
Blythe concurred with a, "Talking to self."

At least I got an honest answer.

Pre-Thanksgiving Madness

We gathered on Wednesday with all the DeMartini cousins for a sort of Thanksgiving party.  We wanted to be together, we wanted to do something fun, and we wanted to be celebrating Thanksgiving somehow.  So we did several crafts with the children and then had a lovely meal.

It is always so much fun when all the children are together, and it is always chaotic madness.  There are so many of them, they are mostly still very young, and they are all noisy.  All of them.  Pandemonium ensued.  But it was fun.  We colored letters and made a "Give Thanks" table decoration, we assembled cupcake turkeys that hardly looked like turkeys at all, and we made pilgrim hats.  Dinner afterward was very tasty: surf and turf (steak and crab), salad, fruit, rolls.  We ate the sort-of turkey cupcakes for dessert.  It was a delightful afternoon and evening.

Brandt is doing a daring trick on the wooden motorcycle.

Isn't our sign so cute?  I love it!

Blythe and Brandt decorating their turkeys.

 

The end result.

Not so turkey looking.

Practically all the children in their pilgrim hats.  

Luke refused to be in the picture; he was hiding behind a chair.

Lyla (floating in mid-air), Griffin, Crew, Makenna, Ava, Blythe, Brandt, Blake holding Collin

Blythe loves Lyla.  She always wants to hold her.

I'm pretty sure Lyla doesn't feel the same way.

My boys in pilgrim hats.  

Knuffle Bunny

On Monday, Kent and I took Brandt to see the play

Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Musical.

It was delightful!

I wish we could have taken Blythe, but she wasn't old enough.

It was bright, funny, full of snappy tunes, and lots of thrown laundry.

We love the book Knuffle Bunny, and we were not disappointed by this stage production.

Nice way to end K week too.

Thanksgiving

"I am glad for many things, many things, many things.

I am glad for many thing that are mine today.

Thank you, thank you my heart sings, my heart sings, my heart sings.

Thank you for the many things that are mine today."

This is a short Primary song I taught the children last year when I was the Primary chorister.  I have sung it in my head off and on during the month and am glad for all the things that are mine.  Here is a grossly incomplete list of things that make my heart sing.

A sensitive and patient husband who is kind to others and to me.

Two smart, funny, beautiful, interesting, healthy children who run me ragged.

A testimony of the love of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

Being an eternal family.

A loving and supportive extended family.

My bike (and trainer).

The musical sound of Brandt and Blythe laughing.

Good books to read and good TV to watch.

Good friends and neighbors.

Blanca, my cleaning lady, who makes my house look beautiful once a week.

When the children manage to be tidy for at least thirty minutes after Blanca has left so I can enjoy 

      the cleanliness for a moment or two.

Having the financial resources to have Blanca come once a week.

Story time at the library.

Singing, reading, and cooking with the children.

Having people over for dinner.

Cheese.

Playing outside with the children.

Working in Primary with my most excellent counselors (and dear friends).

Creme brulee.

Crunchy bread with butter (or cheese).

Having a sharp mind and keen intellect I occasionally get to put to good use.

Living in a place with four seasons.

Our family blog.

Snuggling with and reading out loud to the children.

Nakie bodies just out of the tub.

Food, glorious food.

Book group.

Opportunities for continued learning.

Introducing the children to new experiences.

Helping Brandt learn to read.

Rocking Blythe at night and have her tell me secrets in my ear.

Life is good, so, so good, and I am blessed beyond measure.

Meatloaf, Beetloaf

Some years ago, in book group, we read The Five Love Languages.  Towards the end, the author councils the reader to have an honest talk with his or her partner to try and determine their level of happiness and what you, as their partner, might do to increase that level.  I had a frank conversation with Kent.  It went something like this.

Me: "On a scale from one to ten, how full is your love bucket?" (or some other liquid hauling container, I don't remember exactly what the author called it.)
Kent: "I would say about a nine."
Me: (Thinking to myself that nine out of ten is not so bad.  I was making my husband happy!) "Nine is a pretty high score.  What could I do to completely fill your love bucket?  Bring you up to a ten?"
Kent: "I really like meatloaf.  You could make meatloaf more often."
Meatloaf!  I was only falling short in not preparing this simple meal.  So I asked,
"How often would you like meatloaf?  Once a week?  Every other week?  Once a month?"
Kent: "You don't have to make it very often.  How about once every other month?"
I was going to get off with making meatloaf only six times in the whole year and I would filling Kent's love bucket.  How easy is that?!

I think I have been pretty good about making meatloaf, especially when the weather turns cold.  Meatloaf is sort of an autumn/winter food.  In addition, as I have been working on food storage, I have had the thought that I should can some meatloaf so that when the zombie apocalypse occurs, I can still fill my husband's love bucket.  While looking through canning recipes recently, I found an instruction that said, in essence, make your favorite meatloaf recipe, put it in the jars, and then pressure can them for 90 minutes.  I waited for ground beef to go on sale, and then I made meatloaf.

As it was cooking, it smelled delicious.  This was encouraging to me.  When it was all finished, however, it looked weird.  I know we eat with our eyes first, then with our taste buds, so then I was bit discouraged.  But I put the jars on the shelves downstairs and told myself the next time we were going to have meatloaf, we would try a jar.

This week was the week.  On Friday, after a busy day, I decided we would have meatloaf, so I went downstairs and brought up a jar.  It really did look weird.  When I popped open the car, it smelled fine, but then I couldn't get it out.  Although I had made it in a wide mouth jar, the meatloaf was wedged in and would not come out.  I eventually had to cut the meatloaf in half and sort of pry out half of it, breaking it up as I went.  It looked and sounded like dog food being forced out of a can.  Then, after I had plopped it on the baking sheet to put it in the oven, I tasted a little bit and commented that it tasted like dog food too.  Brandt was in the kitchen when I said all this, and although I was joking, when it came time to eat our dinner, Brandt would not have any meatloaf on his plate.  Not a slice, not a morsel, not the tiniest bit.  He screamed, "I don't want dog food for dinner!"  We removed the meatloaf, washed the plate, and reminded ourselves to watch what we say around the children.

While the heated up version was not bad and did not taste like dog food, the appearance was still a little off-putting.  And while it might keep us from starving or being attacked by zombies, I'm not sure how full it is going to keep Kent's love bucket.  I suppose I'll have to keep making fresh.

K Crafts

I pulled out a number of books this week whose titles begin with a K word, or have something to do with K words.  Several of them were about kissing.  One I pulled out to read to Blythe, Alice the Fairy, has an illustration of a crown that Alice made for her father.  I decided that we should make king's crowns for our K week craft.

A day or so later I read Kiss Me, I'm Perfect about a girl who gets a goofy t-shirt from her grandmother that says, "Kiss me.  I'm perfect."  She gets kissed by a cat, a dog, an eagle, a moose, and a bear.  She thinks that is great!  Knowing that it probably wouldn't take long to make crowns, I asked Brandt if he wanted his own, "Kiss me, I'm perfect" t-shirt, and he said yes, although he doesn't want a lot of kisses.

So we did two crafts this week.  Crowns were super easy.  I cut out a crown shape from gold poster paper (what a find!) and had the children affix sticky backed gems.  They were able to do it themselves, arranging the gems were they wanted them, and all I had to do was measure around their heads and tape them together.
 

 

 Blythe and Brandt in their bejeweled "King's crowns."

The shirts were a bit trickier.  I had to peel the letters off sheets, then iron them onto the t-shirts.  The children wanted to help pull off (which is harder than it sounds because you can't let them rip), and they wanted to help iron (an effort which was fraught with peril).  When letters were ironed on, I then let the children draw on them with fabric markers.  I do realize the danger in letting my children do something on one t-shirt I would never want done on another, but what can you do?  They may very likely ruin a shirt or two before the end.  Blythe would not put her shirt on, so here is Brandt in his.  

Kickball

As our preschool activities continue, I find that I am having to come up with creative activities to fulfill the requirements (artificial, I know, and set by myself so adaptable to my every whim, I know).  So for K week I thought we would fly kites.  Problem was, there wasn't much wind on days when it was nice, and when there was wind, it was too cold to be outside.  

So, I opted for kickball instead.  The weather last Friday was agreeable, so Tysen and Shaley came over with the kids and we all went across the street to the park.  With our group, we certainly were not going to have an organized game of kickball, we were just going to run around and kick the ball.  It was great to be outside, the air was crisp and fresh, and everyone managed to share the two balls we had.

 

The children ran themselves into the soccer goal nets.

Brandt looks so happy and full of life.

A fabulous action shot.

And a fabulous inaction shot.

Brandt and Crew crawled around acting like cows.  

They mooed and ate grass.

Look at our cute Lyla!  

She has ears on her jacket.

Brandt is falling off his ball.

Leaves Are Falling All Around

After several days of cold, rainy weather, it was sunny today.

Warm too--like 60 degrees.  

So we spent the whole afternoon outside in the yard.  

I cleaned out the flower beds and raked leaves.

The children rode their bikes and played in the leaves.

It was an agreeable autumn afternoon.

With a sentence like that you would think it was A week.

 

Khaos (I know I spelled it wrong!)

For K week I thought it would be fun to make Kiss cookies.  Yummy chocolate and peanut butter.  We had cousins Ava, Crew, and Griffin come over for a bit this morning, and so we all made cookies.  It is difficult to have two children "helping" me prepare food in our tiny kitchen and I wasn't sure I would be able to handle five of them.  It went remarkably well, all things considered.

I first had all the children unwrapped a package of Kisses.  Most made it into the bowl though unsurprisingly some went into mouths.  Then I had the children each take turns putting ingredients into the mixer.  When it called for 3/4 cups brown sugar and 3/4 cups white sugar, I divided measurements up so each child could put in something and Brandt got to turn the mixer on and off.  We did have a bit of mess to clean up when Griffin took the mixer out of the batter while still running, flinging cookie dough on himself, Ava, Brandt, Crew, the counter, two chairs, and the floor.  All in all though, out cookie making went well.  And the end result was very tasty!

So here they are--kids making Kiss cookies.

 

Look at that concentration as they unwrap Kisses.

Happy helpers.

The tasty result.  

Kiss anyone?