Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Annual Temple Trip

Before October General Conference I like to take my kids to the temple. We get dressed up, and although they aren't old enough to go inside (passed the recommend desk, I should says since.technically we did go inside this time to use the restrooms in the waiting room) they really enjoy seeing the fountains and waterfalls, the flowers, angel Moroni, walking around the entire temple, and just seeing the temple itself. They know that it is a special place and we make a big deal about going and how someday they can go inside and the things they can do there - like pray, find answers to questions, be comforted when we are sad, and feel the Spirit.

Here are our photos of this year's trip. It was a very nice experience for us all.

















And then we got donuts at the Provo Bakery - also part of our tradition!


Monday, September 10, 2012

Foil Dinners and other normal things

We had a fun family activity on Saturday night. Derek's parents gave him a portable fire pit they didn't need and we quickly put it to good use. I haven't made foil dinners in... a long time. Derek hadn't either so after we stuck them in the fire we had to call his dad and ask how long we were even supposed to cook the things.  They turned out great. This evening was just one of those evenings where everyone had fun, everyone did their part and helped out, and I think will be a memorable family activity for the kids. It just felt nice. Here are our photos.







Sorry I don't have any life/world changing news to report. Things here are just kind of going fine. Which is fantastic. I feel very very pregnant - although I've still got 2 months to go - and Joshua likes school, although the transition has been tricky for all of us - lack of naps and our normal routine - but everything is good and I have no complaints. The rest of the photos are just of normal things we've been doing lately.
Lukas in his new bed
 I made plum vea for the first time. very yummy!
 Play date with a lot of friends at our favorite park (no photos of the friends)





 Walking to school this afternoon to pick up Joshua - Abigail sporting her new "Tinkerbell" hairdo

 Working on homework with Joshua (I just photocopied his homework assignment so she could be a part of his school experience)
 Joshua's finished product
 Abigail's finished product (pretty good for a 3 year old!)
 Study session

Monday, September 3, 2012

Krumkaker revisited

I was successful in someone's else's kitchen. I thought I'd try to make them at home by myself without the moral support of someone who actually knew what they were doing.

I think they turned out really good. Next time I will add more milk to make them a little thinner. But next time probably wont be until December.






Saturday, September 1, 2012

A little bit of life

I haven't been blogging. But it's not because we haven't done anything. We maybe haven't done anything exceptionally "blogworthy" but that's up to interpretation anyway.  Mostly I haven't blogged because I haven't taken very many pictures. (As a general rule: me + pregnancy = lonely camera.) So I decided to take a few photos of just our every day less blogworthy material and post em up. Just for fun.

 Back in June we went on a little family trip to Moab. My camera ran out of batteries shortly after we arrived. I wrote a huge blog post about it (which blogger quickly deleted) and I was too ticked off about it to write another post. So here is all you get of our long weekend trip camping with no shade in the desert in 100 degree weather with 3 kids 4 and under and a pregnant lady.
I may have posted this photo before. I made pasta for dinner one night and my kids decided instead of noodles, they were little hot dogs and they roasted them in the steam from the pasta pot. (I know, we're real classy. Paper plates and silverware and eating out of a pot. At least I had a tablecloth.)
 Lukas enjoying a chocolate ice cream bar in the back yard.
 Then after I did make them hot dogs for real a couple nights later, they decided they were actually birthday cakes and used the macaroni as candles. so creative.

 They thought if they made their own "bunk bed" and pretended they were napping, I wouldn't actually put Abigail down for her afternoon nap. They were wrong, but this was cute.
 Sometime in July, I think, we went with cousins Maren and Hazel and Aunt Heidi and Grammy to Park City to check out their farmer's market. And at the same time we took up the gondola and had lunch up by one of the ski resorts.




Lukas brushing his teeth. He actually has some now.
 I'm not sure what this is that Joshua made, but he was extremely proud of it and Derek took his picture with it.
 I overcame my overwhelming feelings of ignorance about drapes (and realized I didn't want to take out a second mortgage on my house just to decorate ONE window) so I came up with this solution from Walmart.
 Cheese!
 I had an open house and invited my friends from Springville (where we lived 2 months ago) and from our other neighborhood in Spanish Fork (where we lived 3 years ago) These were our refreshments. Fruit, Nuts, Veggies, and Zuchinni chocolate chip bread. Yummmmmm..... I did take photos of the clean house, which maybe someday I'll post... maybe... but I didn't get photos of the actual open house because there were so many people (and twice as many little little kids) that I was kind of busy. It was awesome. Thanks for coming everyone. It was so fun to see you.
 Abigail fell asleep in the living room, but seeing as she brought up her pillow and a few blankets, it looks like it was pretty intentional.
 Joshua at one of our visits to his school before the school year began. He was testing out how deep his cubby was and trying to determine how much stuff he could shove back there.
 Lukas has fallen in love (again) with George (as in Curios) and his new attachment is "baby" who used to be Abigail's absolute favorite thing in the world. Here is Lukas taking very good care of his friends - notice the pretzels he's supplied them with in their stroller and the open and easily accessible costco pretzel bag in the back. In the last few weeks Lukas has eaten at least a third of that bag. He calls them Bo Bos.
 I'm starting my third trimester (7th month, 28th week) of pregnancy this upcoming Thursday and to prepare for it I decided it was time to stop lifting my 25 pound 18 month old as much as possible. Which means he had to graduate into Abigail's toddler bed and out of his crib and Abigail had to graduate to a Big big girl bed (minus the box springs so that if she fell off it wouldn't be so far to the ground). They both pretty much love it. Lukas very rarely gets out of bed, which is amazing to me. Sorry I don't have a photo of Lukas in his bed though. He looks so adorable. Abigail looks kind of like a dwarf in her bigger bed.
 This is an updated photo of the earlier one in which Lukas had chocolate ice cream all over his face. This time its a chocolate frosty from Wendy's. I wish the photo was better so you could see the ice cream running down both arms and legs and drenching his swim trunks. We took our last swim of the year this last week but got there a little early before the pool opened so Lukas took matters into his own hands and swam in his ice cream. (Don't you think he looks a ton older in this photo than the earlier one? It's only about a 6 week time lapse, but I think all those pretzels are really pushing his growth along... or vice versa.)
 On Friday we drove to school in the early afternoon instead of walking so Joshua insisted we walk home. Sounded perfect, except for the huge thunder and lightning storm that rolled in just in time for school to get out. We only really had hard rain for about 30 seconds as Joshua ran out of his classroom and I convinced him to put on his rain jacket. It isn't really raining in any of these photos, but they look cute anyway. (However, it has been raining and thundering almost ALL DAY LONG TODAY! Welcome September)





Today I went over to a new friend's house in our neighborhood and we made Krumkake together. Krumkake are Norwegian cookies that basically are like ice cream cone waffles and you make them on nifty Kramkake irons. I have my great grandmother's cast iron Krumkake iron  from Norway that, by the looks of it, she probably used of open coals at some point, but until now, I had only heard the horror stories of trying to make these little delicacies and had had a horrible time trying it out myself. My friend, Jan Sandbakken, makes them frequently so she showed me how to do it and I realized it was probably just my recipe that was junk, not my Krumkake skill. This is Lukas eating on of the Krumkake and loving it. I will definitely be making these for Christmas this year - maybe with some whip cream or powdered sugar. Great Grandma Sophie would be proud - or still think I was a weenie because I'm using an electric stove and not baking them over the coals.
Then End.