Puyallup Fair 2009

I'm playing a little catch up from this month.

The Puyallup Fair. Last year we went with my parents (Wade was still MIA) and we had a blast. When I told Gage why he was getting out of school early one day and what the ticket was that his teacher gave him he was so set to go! (Yes, it is GREAT all the kids get out early on "fair day" and get a free ticket...that also has a dollar off coupon! Can't argue with that!) We decided we better make it a tradition and got my parents in on the fun this year as well.




I love all the animals, the bunnies and birds were my favorite this year. Gage and Noah were pretty excited to go to the petting zoo and once we got inside they went so fast I could hardly get a picture. It was funny.

We ate lots of good fair food. Elephant Ears - YUM-O! Avery even loved it!

The boys were fascinated with the lego displays. Last year they enjoyed it but this year they have been a little obsessed with legos and they spent a long time looking through the room full of displays. It's really fun looking at what even the little kids can come up with!

I have to say my favorite part of the whole fair are the granges. These are so cool - I don't know how to pick a favorite one!

Look at my little carrots grow...

Of course we stopped at the fire station...

And then after riding a few rides we had to leave with a baker's dozen of these babies...fair scones. I know they aren't anything special, but they taste so much better when they come from the fair.

Avery Crawling

She moves especially fast for paper and when we got the grocery adds in the mail yesterday I thought it was a great time for a video. She is really interested in getting in the "playroom" (aka the garage) and I'm not sure I want to let her out there. (I'm such a bad mom I turned my head once and she fell down the 2 stairs into the room, thank goodness she landed on the pile of stuffed animals the boys didn't clean up!!!) We have carpet in there but it's not really soft and it's really still a garage and not the cleanest place for babies who put everything in their mouths. I guess it's time to baby proof. I can't keep her out of stuff - this little girl has determination!

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Feeling a little reminiscence? Watch this - I especially love the babbery part!

Happy First Day of Fall!

To celebrate the first day of fall we headed off on a leaf hunt this morning. It was perfect weather and the kids had a fun time.

We live by a wetland buffer boundary. There are these little blue signs along the fence - maybe every 100 feet or so. Noah asks me every time we go on a walk (almost daily) and every time he sees the sign what it says. Then he repeats it. He thinks it's great and says "Wetland Buffer" every time he sees it. It really cracks me up. I should have made a video, but here is the picture of him saying it.

Typical. Crazy Gage, Eric's eyes are closed and Noah looks like he is picking his nose...and is the one closest to the wetland buffer sign.

Little Avery had to get in the photo shoot. She had a good time riding along.

We gathered lots of good leaves and sticks.

I had this genius idea to try and take a couple good pictures of each boy. No one wanted to sit on the log because they were scared of spiders. Eric's turned out blurry because he said there were also monsters in this woods (uh, if you look close enough there are houses in the background...pretty sure there aren't monsters!)

Gage looks like he has go go to the potty. SO funny!

After we walked we came home and made leaf art pictures.

I love fall!

Bench~Comb Over

We bought a bench for our table this weekend at Ikea. It's nice to have more seating and make all those little tushies scrunch up together. Every weekday I have 3 little boy tushies that sit there for lunch and to play Lego's and so far so good. Now their mess can be contained to one side of the dining area.

Wade thinks that this makes Avery look like she has a comb over but I thought it was a nice simple change from a big bow. It just makes me nervous that she will grab it and swallow it. I have to watch this crazy girl. I haven't got a good video yet, but she is crawling EVERYWHERE!

I need some feed back - comb over or cute?

Color Week!

It's C week at our little home preschool. Since Gage has afternoon K. I can't decide who likes school time the best, Gage, Eric or Noah. They all love it. Gage remembered that we made crayons last year and that one year I let him take pictures with the camera. So be it! No need to reinvent the wheel. Today we finished the week off by making crayons. You can see last years (almost to the day) post about crayons HERE.

If I had YAY's and BOO's (like Erica) I would have to say mine for this project are:

YAY: I got crayons on sale at Fred Meyer for 4-24 packs for $1!!!! That is almost a penny a crayon and you can't beat that. We totally stocked up for a while so this was a good project to get rid of broken and old crayons.
BOO: I really don't like doing all the unwrapping. The boys tried to help me and kept saying it was hard. I kept telling them that "We can do hard things!" and they would chant that while trying their little best.

We sorted the crayons first by color just for fun and to talk about color families.

Then I dumped them all out assigned them each two places and let them go to town filling!

After cooling I popped these babies out and they loved it!

Crayon Eyes:

The other project we did every day this week was with the camera. Since we lost our good camera and are still saving for a new one I don't mind handing over our crappy camera for 4 and 5 year olds to use. They had a blast each day finding colors. Some were easier than others and I felt bad but sometimes they were limited to where they could go in the house because of little Avery sleeping. It was a fun activity. I'm going to print these out so we can make a fun scrapbook next week.

RED

PURPLE

GREEN
BLUE

Yesterday was our church's Stake Conference. For those of you who might not know, since our church is a world wide church we meet in smaller congregations divided by geographic boundaries (wards). Stake Conference typically is a larger group of (wards) congregations that meet together, yesterday was a special conference because the entire states of Washington and Alaska met together in different meeting houses and watched a televised conference from our leaders in Salt Lake City. It was awesome!

This meeting is usually two hours and a little hard for kids, but yesterday was great. We were privileged to hear from Elder Russell M. Nelson who is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (our church is set up just like the church in Christ's time) and our latter day prophet President Thomas S. Monson.

I'm sharing all of this because of what happened during Elder Nelsons talk. He was talking to the little ones in the congregation and telling them about his own family. He has 10 children! He had 10 of his many grandchildren there and had them come up as he introduced them and then he invited all the children in the congregation - all of the children in Washington and Alaska to stand with his grandchildren and sing the song Follow the Prophet. Gage was loving this and being the enthusiastic 5 year old he is, he stood up on his chair so he could see the broadcast a little better. That is when Wade leaned over and told him, "Gage we can't stand on the chairs in the church." At that very moment Elder Nelson looked at the camera and told the children, "Stand up children, even if you have to stand on a chair to see better, all stand up!" Gage looked at Wade and said...."See, I can!"

I was standing in the back of the room with Avery and could see Noah, Gage and then their little friend Eric who's family we were sitting by all standing in a row singing their hearts out. It was one of those awesome spiritual moments I hope to never forget!

7 Months

This weekend Avery Ann turned 7 months old! Didn't I just post that she was 6 months?

Avery is such a joy. She is a smiley girl and loves to be held and talked to. She loves to talk and laugh and growl like a bear. When she gets upset with me she cries for mama. She now has two bottom teeth. She got them both on Sundays this past month. She loves wrestling with and body slamming her brothers (with our help) and giggles so much when her brothers play with her. She loves Elmo. She really loves paper and chewing all the paper she can get her hands on. She will crawl for two things, her mom and paper. She is outgrowing her clothes like crazy and I had to give away half my box of size two diapers this past month so I could buy size three, which are already too small on her! She can take a bottle but still loves nursing every three hours, although I know she can and has done a four hour schedule a few times. She still isn't too fond of baby food but loves to try and eat our big people food. She loves singing. When we sing in church she starts singing with us - really loud and while we think it's sometimes embarrassing because of how loud she is most of the grandma's in our ward love it and comment on it. She loves singing in Relief Society when it's just the girls and a smaller group. When we are shopping and she rides in a Snugli pack she thinks we are chasing Noah in the cart. It makes them both giggle with is the best! She loves to eat my hair (she seemed a little disappointed after I cut it short last week). She loves to touch and feel your face and give slobbery kisses.

People comment all the time about how happy of a baby she seems. She really is a good girl and love love it! Everything is fun and new to her. We love Miss Avery Ann.

Catching Fire

The Hunger Games - I read this last spring and loved it. You can read my thoughts on it and a little about the storyline by clicking HERE. The next book in the series Catching Fire came out on the 1st and after finishing it my sister sent me her copy and I was able to start it yesterday - and finish it this morning

I want to know if anyone else has read these books and finished Catching Fire. I will post my review of the book tonight. I think if you loved Twilight, Uglies, The Great and Terrible Beauty then you will really enjoy this series.

Salmon

For about the past month the Puyallup River by our house has been crazy busy full of fisherman. I say crazy busy and I mean, CRAZY busy! Every day that we drive by it there are hundreds and hundreds of fisherman standing in or sitting on the edge of that river. It is so fun to watch!

The reason for all this crazy business is that the salmon are spawning. This year there are 700,000 pink salmon expected to come up this river - and they only come every other year.

After witnessing this activity for a few days (ok, maybe after 5 minutes and seeing the size of fish these guys are carrying out of the water) Wade decided that his 4 year dry spell of outdoorsman type conduct ...called medical school...must come to and end. He tried patiently to wait until he was off call and had the time and then this magic weekend finally came!



The fish today (above) was 22 inches. He tried to hold it next to Noah so we could see the size. The fish last week (below) was 18 inches. I'm a little sad we don't have a scale to weigh these bad boys.

If he had a net we could have had SO much more. Saturday morning he he went and they were just jumping all around his feet! He caught 6 fish and they all ended up getting away because they weigh so much and he didn't have a net....he can't even find a net to buy because every store is sold out! The limit is 4 of these big bad babies a day. We would seriously need to buy a deep freezer if he caught his limit! Since the river is within walking distance of our house he really could spent all his time there.

I've been putting off this post because I wanted a good picture of all the fisherman standing in the river, but with our old sad camera this might be as good as it gets. If you click on the picture to enlarge it you see little black specks all the way down the river....those are all people standing and fishing. This is was taken at a light time of day too on weekends there are so many cars and people all over the place. Wade comes home with all kinds of stories...most people are friendly and will try to fish next to you which is fine, but there are some people that will just walk right out in front of you and cast. Or stand behind you and cast over your head.

(I got this picture off this news story - it shows how they all stand there lined up)

I can't wait until he can go later this week and hopefully bring home some more great salmon! I found a salmon chowder recipe I can't wait to try!

Salsa!

I hosted a Salsa making class for the women's organization at my church last week. It was a fun class, we made a cooked salsa you can bottle and everyone got to take home two two-pint jars. We also had a taste testing party of a few other kinds of salsa. It was a great party and everyone was busy chatting, cooking, tasting and having a good time. Next month we are going to learn about freezer meals and make the 10 Freezer Meals I posted about last year.

I wanted more of the canned salsa so I had to make myself another batch this week. I thought I would post the recipe and the others that we tried for journaling and to keep in my blog book.

Cooked Salsa6 lbs roma tomatoes
2 T. garlic powder
¼ c. lemon juice
1 ½ T. salt
1 t. ground cayenne pepper
1 ½ t. ground cumin
1 red onion, chopped
1 white onion, chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 lb jalapeno pepper, chopped
1/3 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped

Bring a large saucepan of water to boil. Briefly place 6 lbs of tomatoes into the water to loosen skins and set color. Drain, peel, and crush the tomatoes.

Mix chopped tomatoes, garlic powder, lemon juice, salt, cayenne pepper and cumin into the saucepan with crushed tomatoes. Whip to desired thickness. Bring to a boil. Mix in red onion, white onion, yellow onion, jalapeno peppers and cilantro. Continue boiling until vegetables are soft and mixture has reached the desired consistency. (I boiled my salsa for about 20 minute) Remove from heat. Refrigerate until serving, or can by processing 45 minutes.



I put my salsa in two small jars for the fridge and then the rest in freezer bags and froze it. I read while researching this class that it's safer to freeze tomatoes and salsa for two reasons, when you bottle it, you have to get the acids just right or bottled tomatoes and salsa can make you sick, and two if you freeze it you don't have to worry about the bacteria and you can drain off any extra water as it defrosts.
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Everyone voted and agreed that the cooked salsa above was our favorite, second place going to the fresh salsa, then the bean and then roasted. It just depends on what you expect and like out of a salsa. The salsa recipes that we tasted during the class were:
Roasted Tomato Salsa
12 roma (plum) tomatos
2 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1 small onion, quartered
1 jalapeno chile pepper
1 ½ T. olive oil
1 t. ground cumin
¼ t. salt
3 T. fresh lime juice
¼ c. chopped fresh cilantro
Broil tomatoes, garlic, onion & jalapeno under broiler for 5 – 10 minutes, or until outsides of vegetables are charred. Remove from heat. Remove and discard cores, tops, and garlic skins.
In food processor, coarsely chop the veggies. Transfer into a medium bowl and mix with cumin, salt, lime juice, and cilantro.
Spicy Bean Salsa
15 oz can black eyed peas, drained
15 oz can black beans, rinsed & drained
15 oz can whole kernel corn, drained
½ c. chopped onion
½ c. chopped green bell pepper
4 oz. can diced jalapeno pepper
14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, drained
1 c. Italian salad dressing
½ t. garlic salt
Combine ingredients & refrigerate overnight to blend flavors.

Basic Fresh Salsa
chopped tomato, red onions, jalapeno pepper,cilantro,sea salt and lime juice
I should have snapped pictures before the big event of all the fun salsas. I have a few other recipes that I can't wait to try - a green tomato salsa, blueberry salsa and fresh peach salsa. They all sound so good!


(Can you tell I must really love my new kitchen? Maybe it's because before we moved in I didn't have my own space for 4 months and before that I really didn't like the small kitchen the flea apartment had to offer. I tell Wade the island is it, I love having an island. I can bake and cook and watch the kids. They can sit and help measure and stir. Whatever the reason, I've really enjoyed new things this summer, so I apologize for the abundance of recipe blogs.)

Gage's First Day of School!

Gage has been so excited all week to start school. Monday we had a family home evening lesson on our family theme for this year "I can BE..." Each month we are going to discuss one of President Hinkley's Be's. Gage was also given a father's blessing by Wade.

Today he was so excited to get up and get dressed. I have given in this year and almost everything he owns has a character on it. I promised him that if he did certain jobs every day when it came time to buy new school clothes he could pick them out. I had to follow through. I really can think of nicer looking outfits for him to wear to school, but he picked it - so he had on G.I. Joe shoes, a Spider Man shirt and a Transformer backpack.

Gage has PM kindergarten this year. At first I wanted him in AM, but now I'm pretty excited about PM. He was able to play around the house, run some errands with me and then eat a big healthy lunch before heading off to school. We saw a couple people we know at the store this morning and he was so excited to share his news with them....he lost another tooth this week and he was going to start school.

Since it was lunch time Wade was able to take the time go with us to take Gage to school. Gage was really happy that Daddy was able to come home and help take him to school the first time. Everyone was happy in this picture, it was just really sunny and hot too.

His teacher comes out and meets all the students (and get the bus students) outside the school every day, then they line up and head inside! It was super cute and Noah and Wade stood up on the sidelines cheering Gage on.

After everyone came home and took naps we headed back to pick Gage up from school. Coming out the door he was all smiles! Then there was a little confusion and his teacher didn't see me and thought he was getting on a bus with all the big kids and he really started to look worried. Once I got it straighted we headed home. He was so excited. Tidbits about the school experience have slowly leaked out over the rest of the day - some of the highlights he told me about are:

-When he got in the van the first thing he did was give Avery a big kiss and tell her that he missed her and Noah. He said that Avery and Noah were his best friends. (OH, I wanted to cry it was so nice!!!)

-He showed me the sign that he has to make when he needs to use the restroom. He said he went AND he washed his hands in the little sink. (good to know!)

-He said he first sat on the green colored block on the mat but then he sat on orange. I asked him why he moved and he said, "well someone took my place"

-He told me that some boys were not obeying, but he didn't act like them

-He told me that his pencils and scissors have to stay at school

-At one point this evening he asked me what he was going to do tomorrow. I told him he gets to go back to school...he was so excited. He kept asking, and after that I get to go back? and after that? And after that?

-I asked if they went over rules, he said they didn't talk about rules at all. hmm....

-He has decided he doesn't want to ride the bus. I was going to let him ride the one way that only kindergartners ride it, but it would take so much more time than if I just take him. Then he got a little confused with all the big school kids today so he doesn't want to. I don't mind.

-He said it was someones birthday and that they had cupcakes and juice boxes. He said that everyone got a cupcake but only the girl who had the birthday got to take the first bite.

-He told me that after school he would need to watch a little tv and eat a snack. He said that is what the big kids did when we lived in the "flea apartment" (When we lived in Tacoma last year he would see the kids get off the bus and get so excited that they would come play and then so sad when they would just come inside. Apparently I must have told him that they go inside and watch tv and eat a snack. He thinks this is a must. And yes, that is what he calls that apartment - the flea apartment. It's all rather funny.)

We finished the day off with a dinner of his choice. He requested a big bowl of noodles and meatballs. Then we had root beer floats, a tradition in our family we've had for Wade each first day of school since we've been married. I remember my first day of first grade I came home and my mom made us root beer floats. We never got soda or ice cream so this was a BIG deal! Gage isn't really an ice cream fan so his was just root beer. The rest of us enjoyed the whole shabang...meaning ice cream IN our root beer.

I'm so happy Gage loved his first day and had a great time - however, now it's official, I have a school kid and this makes me feel old.