Bread is the king of the table

Summer is giving us a nice send off by giving us some decent weather lately. Sadly summer has to end so let the fall fun begin. We decided to get apples this past week so I could make apple sauce with Vanessa this week. My parents came into town on Saturday to end their mini vacation with us. We all went and picked apples at North View orchards. It's a huge place and we've enjoyed the fruit we've gotten there so far. We happily tasted the many varieties of apples they have on right now and picked a few boxes full of apples to buy.
My parents joined us for our ward harvest dinner on Saturday night.  Lots of soup, lots of little kids running around. I made a bunch of rolls to take and kept some to enjoy at home (I kept 2 dozen to savor the rest of the weekend.) To end our night Kendal convinced Grandpa to watch Frozen and he couldn't refuse such a cute little blond. Sunday morning I turned on Church music to start the day with. Kendal convinced Casey and my Dad to dance with her around the living room. She was overjoyed to have dancing partners and get twirled around. My parents joined us for church and we spent the afternoon relaxing and enjoying some down time.

This week I took our car to get worked on. I was hoping for a quick alignment and maybe a new tire. However many hours later and 700+ dollars out of our pocket; the shocks and struts, alignment, new tire, and a trip service were done. The brakes weren't the best either but we'll work on those in the spring. I lasted a little over an hour and a half at the Tire place with the kids (Thanks to snacks and a tablet). Luckily Vanessa was my hero and rescued us from spending three more hours there.
Vanessa and I had planned to make apple sauce Tuesday so we spent the afternoon at her house making apple sauce while the kids watched a show and had fun outside time together. I'm grateful for Vanessa's knowledge and willingness to help me with canning. Doing it together is so much more fun than canning alone. While I'm not a major apple sauce eater. I do bake with it often and the kids enjoy it a lot!


I stumbled across the following quote that made me smile and had to preserve it here. If you know me you know I love bread; I crave it more than sweets. (I even have a top five list of bread's / rolls i adore - yep I'm that odd ; )
"Bread is the king of the table and all else is merely the court that surrounds the king. The countries are the soup, the meat, the vegetables, the salad but bread is king."  - Louis Bromfield

Kendal and Peter updates

Kendal
We were finally able to find a preschool option for Kendal this school year. After so many preschools being full, others too expensive, and being put on a waiting lists we finally found a Mommy preschool group in our ward. I'm perfectly fine doing a preschool group my only reserve is that Kendal is in a group with three other kids and they are all three. Their moms want them learning abc's while Kendal has the basics well covered. Even though a preschool with kids one to almost two years younger than Kendal was not our ideal we decided to go with it. Kendal craves the social aspect of preschool and kids learn best by playing with each other and interacting. I had started doing preschool with Kendal at home and I will continue to supplement throughout this year with things I feel Kendal wants to learn / needs to learn.
We have started using tech tokens with Kendal. She's given three tokes a week to use for the computer or tablet time. One token is for free play she uses this on daddies tablet, video games, or fun kids websites. The other two tokens are for educational based tech time. Casey and I pick websites or tablet games that teach skills and knowledge. We're working more on reading lately and Kendal is doing very well reading beginner books. We've been borrowing ABC books from the library and she has read each one. We are on O, P, and Q this week. Kendal is a smarty pants ( I attribute it to her constantly asking questions). She's always more than willing to share anything and everything with everyone around her.
Kendal is our busy bee. She can talk your ear off like no other. Her day is full of constant questions and comments. Casey took her to a football game the other week and said she didn't stop talking for the whole two hours they were gone. (No surprise there.) Kendal has a love of singing. She knows and sings many primary songs. She has also taught her self the snowman song from Frozen and has a good 80% of Let if Go memorized. Kendal's imagination is expanding every day. It's funny / amusing to hear her play with her doll's or toys. Kendal also likes to help around the house, which is nice and helpful (to a point; i.e. bossing her brother around, and making the mess bigger).
Kendal is super excited for fall to come because it means her birthday is fast approaching. She's very set on having a Frozen birthday. She has a lot of ideas for her birthday on cake / gifts / happenings. I just hope I can deliver.

Peter
Peter is still as mischievous as ever. This past month as you saw in a previous post he has learned to scale our cupboards. He then found an easier rout by opening the oven door and climbing up to get food / make messes. I can definitely say he is testing his limits and pushing boundaries lately.  He will pull Kendal's hair, or try to break into our room while looking at us with an "I dare you to get me" look. He also tries to break out of his room when he should be napping and sleeping. We had a nice one to three a.m. put Pete back to bed session the other night that was frustrating. He is still waking up too early and then gets grumpy around ten in the morning. His naps are getting more difficult. While he definitely still needs naps he's been fighting them lately. He takes a while to go down, tries to escape numerous times, and doesn't sleep for long because he has chosen to sleep by the door lately so any noise he hears or when he rolls over into the door he is up.
Peter has picked up the questions mode from his sister. "What's dat?" and "whatcha doin?" are heard throughout the day at our house. Peter is very curious and likes to take apart and rebuild things. He's finally branching out with his Legos and no longer is obsessed with building the train every day. Now he'll build airplanes, and crazy looking houses. He still loves cars. He has his favorites and loves to drive them around the room and sometimes take them to bed. Peter and Kendal are still my play dough kids. They can create, imagine, and play with play dough for long periods of time.
Peter can peddle and steer very well on his tricycle now.  He loves peddling around our neighborhood. I now have to take turns about who leads on bikes because both Kendal and Peter want to take the front and be in charge. (Lots of power struggles with these two.) Peter has a bucket on the back of his trike that he's been collecting rocks, twigs, and leafs in. He's also into putting rocks and toys in his pockets which is fun in the moment, but adds a few minutes to laundry day so i don't have rocks banging around my machines.
Peter is enjoying story time lately. He'll sit on my lap and enjoy the book. He likes to point and ask over and over for me to name the character's / objects in the book. His favorite books to read lately are tracker books. I think we've exhausted the library's picture books on tractors. He has me read them daily when we get a tractor book, and if we don't find one he pulls out his truck / vehicle books for me to read.
With Casey being in back to work and coaching the kids love any daddy time they can get. I'm grateful the football season isn't too demanding so they get to see daddy most every day. (FYI Casey's team won their first game of the season last week against his old school Declo!) 
With naps dwindling and becoming more difficult I'm loosing the beloved hour or so of free time (aka mommy needs a break for sanity reasons; time to chill out or clean). But I have to move with the times and that means two active kids, lots of questions, lots of play, and a plethora of good times. 
I wish I could add some cute pictures of the kids but I left my camera in Logan on our last visit, and my phone can't transfer pictures.

Simple yet powerful

"Think of the purest love you can imagine. Now multiply that love by an infinite amount - that is the measure of God's love for you.
God does not look on the outward apperance. I believe that He doesn't care one bit if we live in a castle or a cottage, if we are handsome or homely, if we are famous or forgotten. Though we are incomplete, God loves us completly. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost, God's love encompasses us completely.
He loves us because He is filled with an infinite amount of holy, pure, and indescribable love. We are important to God because we are His children. He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed or awkward. God's love is so great that He loves even the proud, the selfish, the arrogant, and the wicked.
What this means is that, no matter our mistakes, our infinetly compassionate Heavenly father desires that we draw near to Him so that He can draw near to us.
I testify that God is in His heaven. He lives, He knows and loves you. He is mindful of you. He hears your prayers and knows the desires of your heart. He is filled with infinite love for you."
- Pres. Uchtorf (Friend Sept. 2014)

I love it when messages like this come along.  It is a reminder to me that my Heavenly Father is listening, and through messages like this I can find peace, guidance, and love. They are simple, yet powerful.
I am in my third year of being apart of primary. The lessons I teach, the songs we sing, and the sharing time messages are all things I've heard and know. I have been trying to glean more from the simple messages that primary can offer. There have been many times during singing time that I've had to stop singing and let the words sink in. They share such wonderful messages and lessons. I'm grateful to have the opportunity for my spirit to be touched in these small moments. I am grateful my Heavenly Father is reaching me through my primary calling right now, and other simple ways like the children's Friend magazine. I am grateful to be apart of this Gospel. It is true. It is wonderful. It is powerful.
 Don't let the simple things pass you by; sometimes they are important and quite powerful.

Back to school

Casey had training/prep all last week plus football started so it's felt like school has started but today was his official first day with students. Last week prepped the kids for seeing daddy less. They asked every day where he was and we thrilled when he popped in for lunch a couple of days. Football and basketball season takes out some more daddy time for the kids. Casey gets smothered when he's home and we are always happy for the weekend to come. We did our second annual back to school cookies and gave Casey updated pictures of us and the kids for his classroom, plus a small bag of sweets for those days when he just needs something sweet amongst some sour students. Casey's looking forward to this year; he's going into this year knowing what he's teaching and how he wants to manage his students and school load.
We headed to raft river Friday and spent all of Saturday picking, husking, blanching, cutting, and bagging corn to freeze. We ended up with over two hundred bags of corn (each bag had 2-3 cups of corn). It was a lot of work and the kids happily went crazy playing around us all day. We were all exhausted and grateful when the job was done but the heaping pile of corn, along with a newly cleaned deep freeze was awesome.
For labor day we went and had a picnic lunch at a park in Twin to end our summer.
Casey got up early this morning. I lay there half asleep trying to ignore the other door slams and car starts of our departing neighbors (which starts at 5:40 in the morning ending at 7:45 when the flock of tweens thunders down the stairs to school.), and listening for the unmistakable door being cracked open by Peter (no crib means earlier mornings for Peter and we're not loving it). Casey got a sleepy kiss goodbye and my day started with the kids.
Today was also Kendal's kind of sort of start to preschool. We were told last week that we're still on a waiting list for preschool so I decided to just start doing preschool with Kendal. If she gets into the preschool great, if not I'll continue what I'm doing and try to add a playgroup in our week on top of preschool library time we already do. It's sad to see our summer slipping away but that's what happens.
 Bring on school, football, apple cider, pumpkins, and leaves!
My attempt of a picture of the kids during our preschool time today. 

Little things

 We went to Dirkies lake on Monday for FHE. We hit mid afternoon so the beach wasn't to busy and the sun was in and out of the clouds making for a nice time. We worked on swim skills with Kendal and she impressed us. She and is improving a lot and is floating on her own for longer periods of time. Peter freaks out when we try floating so we just watched Kendal with Casey and played in the shallow parts. We made sand castles and dug big holes on the shore. We went for a walk around the boardwalk and spotted dozens of fish swimming around. We went to Shoshone falls on our way out. I expected a decent amount of water with all of the rain fall we've had this month but the falls were really low. On our way out Kendal grabbed a stranger and pulled her to the edge to see the cliff full of pennies and point out the island in the water. (Kendal surprises us sometimes with how open she is with people in general.)

I gave haircuts this week. Casey needed one before school started, and Peter's was long. Kendal wanted me to cut her hair so she could be like Dad and Peter. I gave in but only cut an inch or so off to appease her and not loose a lot of lovely locks like last fall.
Kendal and Peter got imaginative this week with the diaper boxes. At different times during the week they were boats, trains, and airplanes. It's nice to see them play together cohesively. It doesn't happen often around here because sharing toys and not trying to control our siblings is near impossible.
 For the third week in a row we've had a wave of storms hit the area. The cool down has been a nice welcome for it being August.Casey returned to work this past week. Peter had a hard time for the first couple of days understanding that Daddy was gone for longer than a few hours.
 We finally decided to give up on our garden this week. Peter went out and plucked our growing peppers this week. The other tiny shrivel of a thing in my hand is supposed to be a carrot and our tomato plants have been starved, wind beaten, and drenched this summer so they are looking pitiful with no hope of producing anything.

Just Peachy

 Since our vacations have ended for the summer we've gotten back into our routine these past couple of weeks. We make homemade popsicle's, have library time, go to the park, and enjoy our leisurely days at home.  We've had a lot of rain the past couple of weeks also. We had a nice 6 inch pond going on in front of our driveway last week and again this week for a bit. We've enjoyed the rain and the cool it's brought the area. (Our plants are probably drowning since we've practically starved them all summer.)

On Tuesday of this past week Casey went on an overnight fishing trip with Brett to Hailey. Thankfully they avoided the major rain storms and got to fish.  Casey wasn't lucky enough to catch any fish and Brett only caught two; they also popped a tire during their trip on the rocky roads in the mountains.

 While Casey was gone the kids and I had a movie night together Tuesday night. We popped some popcorn and enjoyed the movie Toy Story. Wednesday's are my laundry days and unfortunately our laundry is downstairs in the garage. The kids usually do well when I leave for a couple of minutes to change loads and I do my best to make sure their occupied during those few minutes.  Well I went out to change a load and as I'm exiting the garage I hear footsteps coming down the stairs. Kendal had rushed to put her and her brothers shoes on to come out. I ushered them back up the stairs because the basket I was carrying needed to be folded and we were heading out soon to go to the library. I reach the door only to find it locked. It's usual for us to lock the door upon leaving the house so Kendal made no second thought about it; however I did not have my key and my husband was three hours away out of cell phone range. I ended up having to bug my neighbor for our landlords phone number and wait around with the kids to be saved. (luckily we were only locked out less than an hour.)
On Thursday I took the kids to the dollar movies. We watched puss n boots. Kendal loves the movie but always wants to know what's happening next or has to cling to you at "scary parts". Peter does well enough for a two year old. With a baggy of goldfish in his lap he lasted for a good part of the movie until his seat started to swallow him and his fish were gone, then he was climbing around and on and off my lap the rest of the show. 
On Friday we went and picked peaches at a local orchard. The kids loved stuffing their faces with peaches. Peter had a peach in each hand and devoured about four while we were picking. Kendal would take bites loose her peach or get distracted and find more to take bites out of. We intended on getting apples too, but the ones we want won't be on for a few weeks so we'll return then. We took our bounty home and decided to freeze, can, and jam our peaches. After the kids went to bed Friday Casey and I had a date night of making freezer jam and freezer peaches. On Saturday I canned the remaining peaches. I'm super grateful for the wisdom and skills that have been taught to me about freezing, and canning. I'm looking forward to these delicious peaches in the winter months!

 

Peter is starting to scale my cupboards to get up to things. The other day we were in one room with Kendal then we hear the water running in the kitchen. The below picture is what we walked in to find. (Love this mischievous little bug : )

Casey starts teacher training this next week, football starts on the twenty fifth and school begins on the second of September. This summer has flown by and we spent a month of it away from home (no joke I counted the days). We're hoping to squeeze in another trip to dirkies and maybe a date night before school starts. Sad to see our summer holiday wrapping up but that's how it goes.

Darrington Reunion and more

Our last big summer getaway was this past weekend. We headed down to Utah for the Darrington reunion at the Heber Valley Girls Camp.

We stayed at Casey’s parents on Thursday so we could set out early Friday morning and visit the Hogle Zoo before the reunion started. Casey’s parents along with Nicole and her kids joined us for our visit to the zoo. The kids enjoyed the animals. Kendal’s favorite animal was the sea lions because we got to see them dive off of the rocks and swim around in the tank. Peter enjoyed everything, he liked the monkeys most of all. We passed one cage where one monkey was swinging and doing tricks off of the ropes which fascinated Peter. It was fun to visit the zoo. Kendal doesn’t remember when we went three years ago so it was nice to visit again. (Peter has been looking at our pictures with me and making animal noises to them. : )

 After we ate lunch in SLC we headed to the girls camp in Heber. Casey and I look forward to this reunion. He’s got some wonderful family that we enjoy seeing and catching up with every year. Friday afternoon some of the group decided to do a challenge course at the camp. We went and watched parts of it and let the kids play in the sand box that was near. The kids had fun running around the pavilion with their cousins. They found the dolly’s and table carts to roll each other around on and had a blast with those. They also enjoyed going around and playing in the grass nearby. At on point the kids found a bush full of butterflies. One landed and stayed on Kendal’s head so the older kids piled butterflies onto her hair until she had at least a dozen butterflies. Kendal loved every second of it and was chasing / catching butterflies the rest of the reunion. Peter quickly warmed up to our extended family. He became everyone’s buddy (especially if they had food to give him.). He would go up to random family and sit on their lap and pull their finger to lead them somewhere fun. Casey’s cousin brought up a screen / projector for a movie after dinner. We had a group watching the movie, one at a fire pit, and the older kids were playing night games. Peter got grumpy (lack of nap) so we headed to the yurt we were sharing with some family and called it a night.  Kendal enjoyed sleeping on the top bunk. Peter woke up during the night with another scream fit (like Yellowstone). Once I got him to open his eyes and realize where he was and that I had him he calmed down and slept the rest of  the night.

 

 Saturday morning we ate breakfast and the kids played some more in the surrounding woods / pavilion. I joined Casey and his brothers in a horseshoe game. I played a very pathetic game of horseshoe, and lost both times, but no one was injured so I feel good about that.  We joined a bunch of family and went for a hike. The camp missionary we talked to said it was an easy hike. We didn’t consider an uphill hike with kids easy, but we all made it and the kids did well. Kendal made a boon companion with her second cousin Lilly during the reunion. They spent all of our stay Saturday playing together and enjoying each others company. After lunch the kids played musical chairs, just dance and had fun again on the table carts and the surrounding woods.  We cleaned up camp said our goodbyes. (Which for Kendal meant hugging the entire group that was still there, and crying as we headed to the car because she was going to miss her new best friend Lilly.)

After camp we headed towards draper to see my brother Andy, Carly and their sweet kids. They were awesome and took us to the new aquarium. We enjoyed the aquarium and the animals. Kendal loved the otter’s that were wrestling and the sharks. Peter was happy to see everything and wanted to climb and be everywhere. Andy and Carly fed us a delicious dinner and then we went and spent the night at Vanessa’s parents house.

 Sunday morning we went back to Andy’s house. They fed us a yummy breakfast, the kids played and we watched the choir broadcast. Kendal loves temples and we’ve had fun spotting temples on our trips this summer. We decided to visit temple square on our way home. We went to the North visitors center and watched part of a Joseph Smith movie. We showed the kids the art about Jesus’ life and the Christ statue. We walked around the temple and then headed over to the Conference Center for a tour. Peter was being grumpy so we asked the nice missionary to give us a simplified tour. He took us to the roof and  talked about the building and the pioneer connections.  It was a nice visit to the Temple and it made for a good end to a wonderful weekend. After we headed home, visited with Casey’s parents for a bit, stole some of their garden happiness, and finally made it home to our beds and home comforts.
We feel like we’ve been away from home for half of this summer break. (Our plants are definitely stressed out and not loving being watered then neglected for days and even weeks on end.) We’re looking forward to a few more weeks of summer together before Casey starts football and school.