Little Sunrise continues to refuse to stay little, much to my dismay.
He is such a smiley little guy, and lights up the room. If you can catch his eye, he will smile at you.
He's sleeping about 7 hours most nights, and is still in our room, although his habit of waking up at 6:15 am (30 precious minutes before I need to wake up people!) may make me move him over to his own room soon.
He is 26" inches tall (75 %ile)...
14 lb. 14 oz. (50 %ile)....
and his head is only 40.5 cm (10 %ile)...
but his spot in our hearts is immeasurable!
We have just been enjoying and cherishing our time with our little buddy.
So if April showers bring May flowers, what do September showers bring?
Do they bring out the kid in all of us?
Or just an end to the gardening season? Things are certainly starting to die down. This year we grew big tomatoes ("Better Big Boy"), cherry tomatoes, broccoli, carrots, yellow onions, cucumbers, zucchini and cantaloupes. Next year, we'll dispense with the broccoli (bug infested) and try growing potatoes and pumpkins. Hopefully the strawberries will give us fruit too.
This was one day's harvest a couple weeks ago. We picked delicious fresh veggies every week. We had so many veggies we couldn't give them away fast enough...
...so we canned again this summer. No, I didn't grow peaches this year, but I got some at Allred's near BYU and canned about 30 quarts. I made 14 cups of freezer jam, and even tried making pickles this year with all of our cucumbers (thumbs up from Thunder!). I also tried my my hand at making Zucchini Salsa with a hint of Lime, which I found here (it's my old NY neighbor's fave).
And just like last year, I made spaghetti sauce this year. We love this stuff! I've made a couple big batches. One batch has ground beef added, the other has frozen meatballs.
These are some trusty tomatoes waiting in the sink to be skinned, after being blanched in boiling water for 1 minute. After
After squeezing the tomatoes over a strainer, simmer them over low heat for 2-3 hours. Add a few more things, then freeze in Ziplock bags, and that's about it! Here is our recipe for this year:
...That is to say, "Trial Lake." That is where we went for Labor Day and it was the exact opposite of that name! We enjoyed a lazy schedule and a tech-free existence for a few precious days (well, mostly tech-free, see below).
We headed up with some great friends who, thank goodness, are more experienced campers than us! As we went on, I found that I had forgotten several important camping staples (oh, like hot dogs and marshmallows!) and it was so nice to have them there too! Here we are making our foil dinners...
... with some fire-roasted cookies for dinner. Mmmmmmmmm, smokey.
We went on several walks and hikes. We were able to hike all the way around Trial Lake. Baby Sunrise did great and all the kids were troopers. This side of the lake had a parking lot, but the other side was filled with lush trees and tons of fallen trees and rocks to climb around.
Here are our camping buddies, they are the best!
Are here we all are, on the other side of the Lake.
And here was our lone connection to the outside world! Thunder's one requirement on this camping trip was that we find a way to watch the BYU-Oklahoma football game. As the time got closer for the trip, I too started getting excited for the start of football season. There were so many trees, it took a few HOURS to find the correct satellite signal, but right about game time, we got it! And it was an AWESOME game, go Cougs!
The Harmers were also kind enough to give everyone sail boat rides on the lake. So relaxing!
Good food, good friends and God's green earth. How can life get any better than this?
As Bishop, Thunder is sometimes in charge of hosting youth firesides at our home. A few weeks ago, he wanted to show the Legacy movie, and decided to rent a large movie screen to show it on. Then we thought... why not get it a day early and invite the neighborhood over? We tried to get the word out as much as we could and had quite a few families come over.
We showed the movie Cars and had treats. Everyone laid out blankets and had chairs and pillows. There was a little breeze, so the bugs weren't so bad either. Let me tell ya, we were able to bribe the kids to do a lot that week with this to look forward to!
The next night, the youth, their leaders and families came over again to watch "Legacy." Thunder popped about 30 bags of popcorn in the microwave and we dumped it in a huge plastic bin. It was so fun!
This is Allie, my beautiful and athletic younger sister. She is so goofy and finds humor in simple things, so that most of the time she looks like this:
... or sometimes like this. I think my kids wore her out!
We had fun hanging out and she was a good sport about tagging along to all the kids' crazy activities. We went to the Dinosaur museum one night...
where Allie made the dinosaurs and sharks fun...
... and Sunrise got to feel some dino-sand between his toes!
Cloudburst finished up a sports camp. It had 6 classes of different sports and this was baseball. Steal that base girl!
BYU also had a fun night for the beginning of the fall sports season. They had sports players there, and someone even asked Thunder for his autograph (still got it!). The kids ran in a race and it was a fun night.
And this is Thunder and I on our anniversary! We went to Cabella's and shopped around for handguns, although we didn't buy one that night. I would like to learn how to handle and shoot a gun. And no, there is not something grody on my face, people! A wasp flew right in front of my face as Allie took the pic... one second later and you would see my freaked out disgusted expression!
We now have a First-Grader! Cloudburst started school on Thursday. I asked her about her favorite part of the day: "Eating lunch at school and having three recesses!" Three recesses?!? Hopefully a first-day-of-school thing... worst thing? "We have to sit too long at our desks." Yeah... that's how school will be for the next 12 years, sorry!
And something wonderful for this year... carpooling! Charter schools are great, but driving the kids there can be a hassle. I'm so glad Cloudburst has a friend in our neighborhood! Now I just drive in the afternoons and can just wake Cloudburst and not the whole crew in the mornings. We've also decided to wake up 15 minutes earlier this year and set out clothes the night before and it's been smooth so far!
That same day was also Sunrise's 3 month birthday. He is smiling all the time and sleeping 7-8 hours a night.
And this is my big preschooler! Sunshine started a MWF school and loves his teacher. He really wants to learn how to read like his sister, and I don't doubt he will do it!
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