All tuckered out

For some reason, this post never got posted. The first two pictures were taken in the late summer, early Fall of 2009. The last one was taken in December of 2009. They are so beautiful, and peaceful when they sleep. Unfortunately for us, it is a rare occurrence.

Everest is in the process of phasing out nap time. He has been a little crankier than usual, because some days he still needs a nap, (or he needs to sleep in- haha!)

Everest will come home from school some days and sit in the sunroom on the floor and read. The next thing I know, he is zonked.
Asleep in the trailer. They were both so hot, they only slept a few more minutes once we stopped riding.

Asleep at Nonnie and Papa's house in December 2009.

 

Cooking- Kitchen Fun

Wow! This was taken when we first moved into our house in August 2009! Everest looks so little!. He and Leaf still love playing in the kitchen. Everest is getting old enough that he helps in some real cooking. He still loves to be helpful.

He wanted to cook, like me. We had a discussion about ONLY playing like this if 1. he asks and I am right there, 2. the oven is not in use or does not feel warm. He is very good about staying away from the oven when it is warm. Even now, that we have torn the kitchen apart and the oven has been in the middle of the floor so we can do the drywall and windows.

Look how long his hair was. He looks so different now with short hair. He still wears his apron often.

Making sure dinner is done. When Leaf got a kitchen from my parents, I ordered kid size oven mitts. I got them from Montessori Services, kids can really use them for hot things. They are so cute.

I can barely remember the kitchen like this. It has been almost a year since we tore down the walls. I do not miss them AT ALL! I love my new kitchen, even though it is not done yet. We are getting there. Slowly, but we are doing it ourselves. Although we are exhausted from staying up working until 1 or 2 am, we both enjoy doing the work and working together.

Melissa and Doug products

I really like Mellisa and Doug products. They are very colorful, sturdy, and often wooden. All things I like. I have a few issues with them though.

1. They are made in China.

2. They usually come in a wonderful wooden box...WITH NO TOP!

3. For some, Joey for example, there is no imagination. Take a look at Joey.

This is a great toy for kids and a wonderful toy to play in the car or on an airplane. Joey is wooden and comes with a variety of outfits that are magnetic so they so not fall off of him.

The problem is that, you can only make them in their specific outfits.

Everest loves to mix things up. The other day he was a lifeguard fairy, and today he was Aloft (from cars) with his lion costume, swim suit, sunglasses, and backpack. So when he tries to be creative with Joey, this is what happens.....it is hard to tell, but they are overlapping so they do not stay on.

A few can go together, but still do not fit well.

Here is the wonderful wooden box, with organizing compartments...and NO TOP. It is hard to store these and hard for Everest to put them away, he always ends up dumping it. I put them in plastic bags. It keeps the pieces together, but not organized.
What happened to raising creative kids? I love the idea, but hate that there is only 1 right way to put things together.

Cabinet fun

Hmmmmmm....does anyone know where Everest and Leaf might be?????????
I think I see some fingers.....

...and some toes.

There they are.

Funny things kids say

Here are a few "classic" moments in our life from Everest's point of view....

On a warm Spring day, Nathan was cleaning out the garage. I was in the house doing some Spring cleaning, and Everest was outside playing. We told Everest we would play in a little bit, but he started to get bored. The neighbor kids were out playing across the street. Everest kept yelling "hellllloooo" to them. After a while of this, the little boy (about 2nd grade) yelled back "hello damn it." Everest ran into the garage and said to Nathan (who had heard the whole thing), I don't know why he said "hello Janet, I didn't even ask his name". Classic 4 year old.

When we play a game or get something new that has to be put together, Everest insists that we first read the "constructions".

When we told Everest we were having another baby, he was very excited. He told us he wanted two more babies. We told him this was the last baby we would have, that we would have 3 babies altogether. He has been telling people I am having 3 babies. We have gotten a lot of surprised looks.

Late in the summer, the boys and I biked to the local library. It is a block away from Nathan's building at Purdue. We decided to get some lunch and meet daddy outside to eat. There were a lot of college students hanging out, since the semester had just started. While I was getting Leaf out of the trailer, Everest said "Mama look, that boy's hair looks like a dragon!". As I turned around, sure enough there was a college student dressed in goth, with a long, blue mohawk. As he passed us, Everest turned and watched him, then he turned to me and said "Mama, can I get my hair like that?". He was in complete awe of this student. While Everest was saying this to me, the kid flipped off Everest. I was so mad, I almost went after him and said something. Here is a 3 year old, who thinks this is totally cool, but this kid took it the wrong way and flipped off a 3 year old. A 3 year old!!!! Who does that? I realize there are probably a lot of people who make comments about someone dressed like this, but if you can't handle the comments, DON'T dress like that!
When we met Nathan for lunch the first thing Everest told him about was this cool kid that looked like a dragon. After lunch Everest played on the lawn a little and I told Nathan what happened. I didn't realize how mad Nathan was, until the next day, when he said he saw a guy with a blue mohawk on campus and almost said something to him.

Everest likes to play with calculators. He pretends they are phones, computers, garage door openers, etc. He calls it his cockulator. =)

Making Beer

I have had this post in the works for over two years. I don't always remember to take pictures while Nathan is making beer. The boys love to help, so Nathan has made the process as kid friendly as he can. When Nathan started making beer, his first 4 beers were made from a can of supplies (they were all very good). -There are 3 types of brewing: from a can, dry malt extract, and all grain. As far as levels of brewing the can is the easiest. Dry malt extract brewing takes a little more skill, but is more expensive. All grain brewing is the most skillful but can be the cheapest. Nathan, of course, has found a way to make all grain as inexpensive as he can.- For his fifth attempt at brewing, Nathan wanted to try dry malt extract. He and a friend went to the brew store, he came back with ingredients to make an all grain batch. He said he had no idea what he was doing, but the owner JT assured him, he would be just fine. Turns out JT was right and Nathan has been doing all grain since.

Nathan buys large bags of grain to make it less expensive. Leaf was still crawling when I took this picture. (I know, it has been a while)

Nathan got an old grain mill from his mom. Everest loves to run the grain mill. At first it was a little hard and Everest would get tired after awhile. Nathan has since improved the operation and uses an electric drill to crank and he has mounted a plastic yogurt container on the top as a funnel, so we can put more grain in at one time. (He does this in the garage because it still makes a little bit of a mess.)

 The boys helping daddy boil the grains.

The beer fermenting in a carboy. If you look carefully enough, (and have been to our house in UT) you can see this picture was taken in Logan.

Nathan has been grumbling for a year that he doesn't have a spoon long enough to reach the bottom of his 10 gallon kettle. The ones at the brew stores are $40 or more. Nathan finally made his own "paddle" for $4. Can you tell how proud he is?

Getting ready to transfer the beer to the secondary fermentation. The carboy needs to be cleaned first. Leaf and Everest were both eager to help out with this. You can see the beer sitting in the bottling bucket, on the stool, on my washer.

Leaf loved helping wash the fermenter. He loves anything that involves water.

Everest wanted in on the action too. We have been working hard on sharing and "my turn, your turn" with the boys. They each got a few minutes to wash, and I think they each got 3 turns. It was definitely clean by the end.

Leaf says "Isheee" I can never resist, this beautiful blue eyed boys who is full of life. I have more pictures of him looking up at me and grabbing at the camera. I love all of them, and he is cute, so I thought I would share.

Fixing owees

I forgot about this post. I wrote it up almost a year ago........look how little Leaf is. It really is amazing how quickly they grow.

May 2010
Everest has been into helping everyone and everything that is hurt. He fixes things with stickers. If Leaf has an “ouwee” he puts stickers on it, or if the wall or cabinet has a scratch or mark, he fixes it with stickers. This has lead to many arguments about where stickers can and CAN NOT go (like affixed to the hardwood floors, I am still trying to get some of them off).

Everest “doctored up” Leaf and then himself.

He even put stickers on the bottom of their feet.

Everest was tickled about Leaf participating too. Later this day he added more stickers..one he put in a sensitive area. He cried when he tried to take it off. We had to give him a bath to loosen it up. This is one lesson he learned on his own.

Happy Girl

Aurora is such a happy baby. She has been playing with her mouth and tongue making noises, blowing bubbles, chewing and licking everything with in reach. 

She is saying Mamamamaaa.

Her eyes and smile are beautiful!

I am 7 months old today. (this picture is about a month old)

kitchen

We have been busy in the kitchen...but not cooking. We started remodeling our kitchen last May. Almost a year later we have settled on a plan and started working on it. We knew this would be a year long project, mostly because we are doing the work ourselves, but also because we wanted to "live with it" to make sure it was what we wanted. I am so glad we did. Over the past 6 months our plan has changed many times. We cut the old cabinets and counter top apart and made an island with them. We changed the spacing of the island and the size, then we decided we wanted the oven in a different place. And then we changed again and decided on a cooktop and built in oven. 

Our plan looks different than it did last May, but I am very happy with our decisions. Nathan and our neighbor Brad, put down Hardibacker getting ready to do the tile work. Leaf supervised the project.

Almost done. Thank you Brad for helping and Jeaneen for entertaining the kids and I for the day.

Here is what the finished kitchen will look like, in terms of space. We have ordered our cabinets, they will be in in 5 weeks. We are doing a lot over Spring Break, I will upload picture when I get time.

You are Special!

While I was looking for ideas of things to do for the 25 days of Christmas, I came across a wonderful idea. The Tipjunkie had a gift idea for friends. She had a red plate (a charger- a plate that goes under the plate you are eating off of to accent it) and put vinyl letter on it that said "You are special". She said to use the plate on special occasions- birthday, first day of school, etc. I love this idea, but I wanted to make it more personal for the kids so here what we came up with.

All Fired Up is a local paint your own pottery store and they teamed up with MSGL (Everest's preschool) for the month of February. They donated 15% of their proceeds to the school. We took the kids on a Saturday afternoon.

Each of the boys picked out a plate. Everest wanted a square one and Leaf chose round.

The boys picked their paints (which start out looking pale and chalky) and went to work.

Leaf LOVED the sponge brush, he more or less stamped a gallon of paint onto his plate.

Everest was very proud of his plate and couldn't wait to "cook" it.

Leaf's plate before it got fired.

We are hanging the plates on the wall and using them for special occasions. We thought the plates would have more meaning if they painted them themselves, and they are dishwasher safe!

Building blocks

Blocks are something I think all kids like and every family needs. There are so many different styles, but any blocks will do. We got these blocks from a friend when we lived in Logan and Everest was a baby. They have been used on a weekly basis since we got them.

Leaf and his tower. He was very proud!

Everest decided to build steps.

Leaf trying out a new style tower.....this one didn't stand alone very long.

Everest's steps tower stood well, but he wanted to add support to it. He built columns on both sides. (plus a Lego column)

Then he wanted to add an elevator bigger than he was. He made it taller than me, but didn't have enough blocks to support it. This is the more economical and durable model.

But wait there is more. He decided to add stores and a connecting sky walk. If you look closely you can see the Lego house he built and an airplane. The boys had such a good time building.
Did you notice Aurora on the side lines? She happily sat and watched her brothers build. She chewed on a few blocks the whole time.

Sewing

A few things my kids like to do while I sew.

Everest discovered he can touch his toes to his head.

Leaf and Everest love to play on the balance board. Not only to they practice their balance, but it has been an island, a ship, a car, a trampoline, and many many more things. Thank you so much Grami.

I have been making banners. I am having fun with them. Everest picked Purdue material, anyone surprised?

Leaf picked redbue his favorite colors as he says.

I made this for my friend Heather for their new home!

I made these for my nieces. I was afraid all the pink was going to be too much, but I think they turned out really cute.