Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam

The kids found little gourds that looked like microphones. Emmie, Madelyn and Morgan did a show for us and sang Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam. Clay was off to the side using his as a hammer instead.

What Do You Do When the Glue Clogs?

What do you do when the glue is clogged? Whatever you do don't just squeeze it as hard as you can. The whole thing explodes. The lid shot 12 feet across the room and hit the wall. It was like a grenade. Glue on clothes. Glue on hair. Glue on table. Glue on floor. Glue on wall. Glue on everything. Unfortunately it was the quick drying kind. There are still splatters of glue on everything but minutes later they were all dried. Won't it be fun to pick all this off of EVERYTHING! Good thing it was me and not the kids. I wouldn't have believed it was an accident.

Pioneer Halloween Carnival

The kids had so much fun at the Halloween carnival this year at Pioneer Elementary. They spent 4 hours running from jump house to jump house. There were several different kinds to climb on, jump on, and slide down . There were lots of games to win candy and toys and even trick or treating but they had little time for these with so many neat bouncy places. At 8 o'clock the carnival closed. It was heartbreaking to watch the kids run from house to house trying to get in one more good bounce as they deflated to the ground. As sad as it was to watch, I was relieved. We would otherwise be stuck there late into the night pleading for the kids to get in the car to go home. Thanks for pulling the plug.

Clay's Perfect Disguise

Clay was the evil black Spiderman at the Pioneer Halloween carnival. He had a great time and really played the part. I tried to take the red eye out of this picture but couldn't quite get it for some reason.

This was a reversible costume. Inside is the good red and blue Spiderman. He's been wearing it all month. He likes to switch it around based on his moods. If he starts acting too naughty I make him change it back to the good Spiderman and he starts behaving better. Now if we could only let him wear the good Spiderman costume to church it might be a lot more pleasant.

Emmie and Her Bestest Friends

Emmie, Chloe, Alexis and Madelyn

Emmie was thrilled to pieces that her best friends all went to the carnival at Pioneer School. Chloe is her best friend in kindergarten. Alexis and Madelyn are her best friends from church and also from preschool last year. What a treat to be surrounded by the ones you love the most!

How Tall are You Today?

We met our friends at the pumpkin patch and had such a great time. We actually closed the place down. Who would have thought you could spend 3 hours in a patch of pumpkins? Madelyn and Clay are both 4. They are measuring themselves here with the scarecrow's stick. They both come in just under 3 1/2 feet. Clay's height dramatically changes with his hair-do. Usually he is much taller. At the top of the measuring stick there is a sign that reads, "How tall are you this year?" For Clay it should be,"How tall are you today?" We go to the pumpkin patch as often as we can in October. Clay measures himself each time we visit.

These were from the week before. Emmie only let us measure her this once. Here, Clay is a bit taller with his jaunty lifeguard hat. The hat is from when he was not even one yet so the only way he can wear it is jauntily.

This is from 2007. The kids only reach 3 and 1/4 feet here.

This is from 2006 at the same patch but the kids had refused to stand near the measuring scarecrow, too scary. Weren't they cute? We'll have to remember to do this every year to watch them grow.

Olive Harvest

We had our first olive harvest. We don't actually know how to tell if they are ripe but they turned black so that seemed sort of telling.
We have a dozen Lucca trees that we pulled out of an 8 year old orchard in Valley Springs almost 2 years ago. Digging the holes in our rocky hard pan soil was the hardest part. Pulling the trees up was really very easy. We thank the Buy and Sell for our $25 per tree orchard. The first winter a couple of them blew down. They suffered quite a bit. Then the drip system failed the next year. The 2 that had fallen down looked as if they were goners for sure. This year they all look great. They are so hardy it's no wonder how some olive trees have been able to live more than 2000 years. The orchard we got them from brought the trees back from an old orchard in Lucca, Italy. They are good olive oil trees and are especially good at blocking the view beyond our property line.
We grabbed a much too large bucket and a small bowl for each of us to collect the olives. It's about as fun as picking grapes one orb at a time. Thank goodness we really didn't have more than 10 pounds. Emmie ran the giant bucket back and forth to us only dumping its contents out once. We were able to recover most of them from the mulch layer. Clay drove the electric Jeep right up under the trees to stand on to reach the higher ones. He'd pick a small kid sized handful and jump back in the Jeep. He'd peel out and drive around the row to find another tree from which to pick. He was very serious about his job and yelled at us to move out of the way as he tore through the trees.
It was a great way to spend a warm fall evening. The kids were rather disappointed with the bitterness of the olives. They looked like the ones from the can so they were thrilled to help us pick. How sad they were when they couldn't put them on their fingers and bite them.
Grandma Dora is going to leach the olives with lye first. Then she will put them in a bucket outside for 10 days with water slowly dripping into it. She's the true Italian in the family and has done this many times before with her mother. We're crossing our fingers the olives will be edible and her labors will not be wasted. We hate to take advantage of her, she is going to be 94 this November 10Th after all.

First Offense

Emmie brought me these two bears and excitedly told me her teacher had given them to her. I could tell they were from the math kit at school. I told her I knew she had taken them. She insisted her teacher really did give them to her. I knew I could debate this with her for days and eventually accuse her of stealing them. I decided to change my tactic. I told her that was really nice for her teacher to give them to her and, well, she ought to write her a really nice thank you note. Not a moment passed and Emmie suddenly changed her story. "Actually I found these in my pocket and I accidentally brought them home." Then a split second later she obviously realized she could still potentially be in trouble for this act also she added, "Esperanza put them in my pocket and I found them now." I had a careful discussion with her not wanting to scold her too harshly. She never really did cop to the truth but it's her first offense and I don't want her to harbor the guilt forever. She knows Jesus wouldn't be happy and it would make her teacher sad. She can't wait to return them. Oh please let this be the first and last problem of this kind.

Clay's House

Clay built this log cabin with Lincoln Logs. He did it all by himself. Maybe he'll go into engineering when he grows up. We drove by the new bridge in Folsom that spans the river and he asked me, "Can I build one of those when I get bigger?" Well this is a good start.

Deeee-Lish!

The Hershey's Bliss with Raspberry Meltaway Centers are heavenly. I found them at Target. mmmmmm!

Emmie Can Read!

We got this free map of the world in the mail this morning. I hung it up on the counter so the kids could see it. Emmie was over there saying, "There's China, and Japanese and Iceland and Greenland." I thought she was just naming off countries we had talked about since the Olympics. I went over to show her where the countries really were and she showed me! In fact she found them faster than I did. I asked her how she knew where the countries were and she said she just read them.

She was surprised to know there was an actual Greenland. The kids have a place they call Greenland behind the house Scott stays in when he is working at Marshall Hospital. It's a fairly small patch of mossy turf some trees grow out of.

I corrected her and told her the country was called Japan and she laughed and was so embarrassed she had called it Japanese.

I received a note home last week telling me Emmie's kindergarten class was "...having fun learning about the letter C!" I may have to have a talk with the teacher. Emmie is obviously ready to move on.

Amador Flower Farm and Pumpkin Patch

I took the kids to the Amador Flower Farm. They have a great pumpkin patch and maze every year. There were 5 hidden scarecrows in the corn maze. It took us 2 separate tries with a break in between to find all of them. The maze was pretty good this year. Emmie was tired and stomped off in one direction and Clay ran off in another. Emmie came back and the 2 of us ran after Clay. We could hear his feet but there were so many paths we lost him. It was really windy so the corn made a lot of rustling noises. It wasn't long before we could not hear Clay at all. All I could hear were people talking and a child crying and the wind in the corn. We called for Clay and ran back and forth. After about 10 minutes of running in circles and passing the same blue scarecrow we had had so much trouble finding the first time half a dozen times we ran into a patch of corn that was very short. The crying child ran past and it was Clay! He was so hysterical I hadn't recognized his voice. He was shaking and held tight to me all the way out of the maze. It took another 5 minutes to find the exit but we did find the blue scarecrow once more! We had really gotten ourselves turned around. So that would be a sign of a good maze I think. We'll definitely go back again and hopefully Clay will have had some sense scared into him. I have my doubts however. Maybe we'll use the blue scarecrow as our emergency meeting point since it seems to attract us like the bermuda triangle.

The Nerf War of 2008

The kids built a tower out of little cups and couldn't wait to knock them down. After they obliterated the tower with the Nerf machine gun we all donned goggles and sunglasses and had an all out Nerf war. We shot each other as fast as we could. We had no rules other than - inflict as much pain as possible on mom and dad. At one point Mom said she tasted blood. Dad took that as a threat and a warning so he took aim. Mom said, "No. I really taste blood!" Her lip was split. Mom kept trying to aim at Dad's chest but was instinctly drawn to aim for his face. Unfortunately Dad was a better shot. Clay was the scariest. He had no fear and walked within inches of Mom or Dad before pulling the trigger. Emmie mostly wanted to be shot. It was so much fun and we all rolled around laughing. What a great way to spend the morning! I'm sure we will have to re-educate the kids about the importance of safety and caution in play. We've probably done irreparable damage that we'll be sorry for later. But it was worth it!

Harvey the Party Animal

Emmie insisted Harvey wanted to have a party. He is a party animal afterall. Shockingly he didn't bite her when she put the hat on him so maybe she was right. Then she left the hat on the cats' food tray in case one of them decided to wear it later.

Sparring Bucks

The deer come out in herds on our lawn in morning. Today 4 you bucks were grazing. Two were putting on a show for us and sparring with their antlers.

Clay Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family history - Vintage photos

Emmie Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Geneology - Roots

Hello Everyone!

I am finally giving in to peer pressure and creating a family blog. I will add pictures and videos as we go along. Hopefully this will help us keep in touch with far away family and friends. Or it will give me a dreadful headache and a new chore to keep up on. I'll give it my best and we'll see how it goes.

Fishing at Bear River Reservoir

Emmie and Clay insisted on casting for themselves. Everyone needed to stand back a good 10 feet to keep from getting hooked. They don't let the lines rest for more than a second or two before they are reeling them back in. Dad was very busy jumping from one line to the next freeing snags and re-baiting as the bait flew off with each wild cast. The big ones all got away that day.