Temple Square

We decided to go see the lights at Temple Square this year. We don't do this every year but I think maybe we should. Although, I'd like to go on a day that isn't quite so busy, but there might not be such a thing.

We parked at the Planetarium since we're very familiar with that parking garage and have a bunch of validations and took the train the rest of the way.


As we waited for the train the full moon was just rising and it looked cool passing behind the buildings. I'm glad we had this to occupy us since the wait was long and it was super cold. When the train arrived it was already packed. We were standing by the door holding on to each other. At the next stop even more people got on. So many people.

It was nice once we got to the square though. We had a quick stop in the tabernacle to warm up a bit.


I haven't been in there since the renovation and I have to say it looks good. Not quite as tight a fit as before.


The lights were beautiful and I even ran into an old friend from Orem who was there for a concert. Good times.

It was very crowded though, and I think we would have stayed longer had that not been the case.


The boys had fun, although I wonder if Brigham's hand hurt from me holding onto him so tightly.


The train ride back was much better and some of us even got to sit down.

I would like to do this every year, but I think I'm going to have to do some research and find out the least busy day of the season.

Gingerbread Houses

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving we decorated gingerbread houses at Grandma Bonnie's house. This is the third year in a row we've done it. It's been a lot of fun. The amazing thing is that my mom makes them all by hand!


We were a little late but the boys all managed to get seats next to each other.



Nathaniel and Jonathan did great with no help from me.


Brigham needed a little incentive to pay attention so I helped him draw Saturn with the frosting on one side and a Sun on the other. It did the trick and I'm happy with how my - I mean, Brigham's - gingerbread house turned out.

The boys had a lot of fun and it's almost hard to want to eat all the candies and gingerbread, but somehow we manage.

Thankful Turkeys

For our Thanksgiving activity for FHE I took a page from my friend Emily's blog again. She always has great ideas. At first I was worried that I hadn't planned ahead far enough to get enough toilet paper tubes for all five of us. I ended up getting them from the garbage in our bathroom(is that bad?), it was all paper products so I think we're okay. I cut out enough feathers for each of us to have six and we all wrote what we're thankful for on them.


It was a lot of fun and I think it was good for the boys. It's always good to remember what we're thankful for. I love how Jaaromy's turkey looks worried. It's his favorite expression.


I'm glad I was able to pull it off, I think I underestimated just a little bit how long it would take to cut out the feathers, beaks, and feet.


I've decided I want to leave them up all year to remind us of our blessings. Although I did move them to another shelf to make room for Christmas decorations.

One of the things I'm thankful for that I wrote on a feather is Technology. I'm thankful for all the many ways we can preserve and share our memories.

A few things about Jonathan

Jonathan will be turning eight in a few weeks. He's very excited, it's a fun age. Jonathan is very sweet and he has an infectious enthusiasm for life. For example: I've been working on a quilt for him for at least three years. I think I probably started it after I finished Nathaniel's quilt while we were living in Pleasant Grove. I had finally cut up all the squares and stitched them together and the only thing left to do was tie it all together. Grandma Bonnie was nice enough to let us use a frame from her Relief Society closet. Being the president, she has amazing power. Jonathan was so excited for me to finish. He kept asking me if I was done/when will I be done. It filled our whole family room but it didn't take long before it was all finished.


He was so excited when it was all finished, he couldn't wait to go put it on his bed. Such a sweetheart.

Another favorite thing of Jonathan's is the water towers. There are three water towers that are relatively close to our house. The closest and best water tower is the red and white water tower. Every once in a while when we don't have anywhere in particular to go we'll drive by so Jonathan can see it. If it's really good day, we'll drive by the red and white one plus the other two white ones. If it's a really really good day, we'll drive to South Salt Lake to see the silver water tower. There is also a green one on the way to the Bingham Copper Mine, one at the Gateway by the old Rio Grande train station, and there is the "pretend" one at Thanksgiving Point. Yes, we know where all the water towers are around here.

As we were taking a quick trip to see the red and white water tower I decided to get out and take a picture of Jonathan in front of it. It's too big to take a picture up close so I took three and stitched them together with my handy photo stitching software. Apparently, stacking pictures vertically is trickier than stitching horizontally and it took a lot of learning and adjusting to get it right. In the end I'm super pleased with how it turned out.


What a fun picture of one of Jonathan's favorite places! I love it.

Jonathan explains the solar system

So, my boys love to watch videos on YouTube about the Solar System. There are many to choose from and they never get tired of watching them. A lot of them have really cool music that goes a long with it. Unfortunately, Brigham doesn't care and will start the video over before it's done so the music gets cut off. Oh well.

Some of Jonathan's favorite videos are of kids explaining the relative distances between the planets. He loved it so much that he wanted to make his own video and put it on YouTube. He was so excited and could hardly wait to do the actual filming. He had to wait, though, because there was a lot of work to do to figure out the distances.

Using the distances in the Magic School Bus: Lost in the Solar System book, we quickly converted millions of kilometers to inches. But even that was too big. Pluto would have been farther away from the sun than our house is long. It was dark and cold outside, and Jonathan couldn't wait. So, we divided the inches in half, and with the feet to inches conversion on top of that, my head was starting to hurt.

It was a small project but we did it and Jonathan was super excited to record it and put it on YouTube. We didn't really talk about what he would say so it's kind of Authentic Jonathan here. Take a look:



I love it. So does Brigham. Maybe we'll have to do one that is outside and bigger. I had better get started on the math.

Halloween Night

Halloween day worked out pretty well. Jaaromy ended up getting off work a little early so we decided to go see the Grandparents before Trick-or-Treating instead of after. We were able to stop by my parents' house but Jaaromy's parents weren't home yet. Then we picked up a pizza(I'm so thankful for Little Caesar's Hot 'n Ready pizza!). After we ate we went out Trick-or-Treating.


I decided to take them out again this year while Jaaromy stayed home and passed out candy. We both like this arrangement. For some reason handing out candy stresses me out.


Nathaniel has officially grown out of every costume we have so we had to come up with something new for him this year. He decided on Wario and we were lucky enough to find one at the second Wal-mart we went to to find it.


Jonathan wanted to be Luigi again. This worked because he still fit into the larger of the two pairs of overalls I bought for their costumes a couple of years ago. But we had to find him a new green shirt. He really wanted to have a mustache for his costume but I couldn't find one at Wal-mart(although if anyone needs fake eyelashes they've got enough stock to last for years). I was all set to make one myself when Nathaniel decided he didn't want to wear the one that came with his costume and Jonathan was happy to use it instead.


I was so happy to find that the astronaut costume still fit Brigham. It's my favorite costume that I've ever made. Plus, it's really warm which is great for October weather, but not so great if he's inside. Brigham did great Trick-or-Treating too. He had a lot of fun, although he got tired at the end and just sat down in the middle of the sidewalk.

When we got home and had taken off our costumes Jaaromy's parents came over to give the boys a Halloween treat. Perfect timing. Then it was time for bed. In the past, I've always been happy to keep our lights on and continue to hand out candy. This year I had no problem shutting off the lights at bedtime. More leftover candy for me, I guess.

Pumpkin Day

A week before Halloween is always Pumpkin Day. The boys look forward to it with great excitement, naturally. This year the boys all decided to paint, again. I really missed having a lit up pumpkin last year so I decided to carve mine. I'm glad I did. Nathaniel noticed that we had some pumpkin outlines and he thought maybe he could try one next year. I hope so, that way I won't be the only carver.


Brigham was sick last year so I was happy to see him get into it this year. I tried to get him to smile but apparently smiling and looking at the camera at the same time was an impossibility that day.


Jonathan decorated his pumpkin with the planets. A favorite motif of his.


Nathaniel always does a good job, and as I mentioned, he's excited to try carving a design next year.


Jaaromy's pumpkin provides a window into his soul with his usual scarred and angry face.


I carved a traditional pumpkin face with triangle eyes and toothy grin. But I decided to outline it will some black paint and I'm glad I did, I think it looks cool.


The boys were very proud of their work. I didn't finish my pumpkin until after Brigham was in bed because I carved mine and also because I was helping everyone else with their pumpkin. So that's why Brigham isn't in the picture.


So after all the boys were in bed I went back out to experiment with my camera. I'm really happy with these pictures I took. I have a small tripod that I mounted my camera on and then left the shutter open for 15 seconds. I think it looks awesome.


So, painting is fun and easy and all, but I don't think it compares to carving and lighting up pumpkins. I don't think I can ever go back.

Another New Holiday Tradition

So for several holidays the last year or so I've been buying pre-cut sugar cookies from Macey's that come with frosting pouches and sprinkles. The boys have had fun doing them and it makes a great family activity. Unfortunately, they're not super tasty. So, last Easter I tried a form pan that had Easter shapes and I just put cookie dough into it. They were a little too thick, so that wasn't going to work either. I like to use the Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix and after that last attempt I noticed that they had separate instructions for cut out cookies. So, this Halloween I bought some Halloween cookie cutters and made some cookies using the cut out recipe. They turned out great.

I bought some vanilla frosting and divided a small amount into three bowls and colored them Halloween-ish colors. The frosting was really good. I also got some frosting cans in black and white for borders and things. That frosting wasn't very good, but it wasn't used as much as the other frosting so it was okay.


The boys would decorate a cookie and then immediately eat it. So after one or two cookies they started to wander away. Once they realized that they didn't have to eat them all now and that we could save them for later they got into it and had fun.


I think they turned out great and they were so tasty!

The Pumpkin Patch

So this is the second year in a row that we have gone to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins. Already I can't believe that we ever did it any other way. It's such a fun tradition. It's also easy, quick, and low key which makes it even better. There's no planning involved other than Step 1: Go to pumpkin patch. Step 2: Pick out pumpkins. That's the kind of simplicity that I love.

We went a little later in the month than I would have liked but that's okay, it all worked out.


We managed to get a wheel barrow from another departing family. I let Brigham hop in since he wasn't feeling well. Seeing him getting rolled around reminded me of getting rides in my dad's wheel barrow growing up. Good times!


Nathaniel found his pumpkin first. He liked that it had some green marks on it. He thought he could make something scary with it when we paint them.


Jonathan picked a huge pumpkin. He had trouble carrying it and we had to help him. I was a little worried that one wrong move would shatter his hopes and dreams of a happy halloween.


I love this picture of everyone running down the lane trying to find the perfect pumpkin for Jaaromy and Brigham. I had already found my perfect pumpkin but I never think to get a picture of myself.


Here is Jaaromy's perfect pumpkin. It's even bigger than Jonathan's!


Here is Brigham's perfect pumpkin. Bigger than Nathaniel's but smaller than everyone else's. We couldn't get him to look at the camera. Like I mentioned, he isn't feeling well. Although he wasn't as down as he looks in this picture. Also, this is the closest I am to being in a picture. Woo Hoo!


Going to the pumpkin patch is becoming one of our favorite traditions. It's a great way to spend an Autumn evening.


Here are our awesome pumpkins all lined up in front of our house. Also pictured: my new spooky cat stake since my witch was stolen last year. I love it.


The pumpkin patch also had these adorable little pumpkins and I was too weak to resist them. The larger pumpkin is Jonathan's. He brought it home from school earlier that week.

Apparently, I love pumpkins. I didn't take a picture, but my house was all decorated with pumpkins on the outside. Other than my spooky cat stake, all pumpkins. They're just so cute!

Jonathan gets stapled

So a little over a month ago there was an incident at our house. We were going through our usual bedtime ritual which, of course, involves Jaaromy chasing Jonathan and Brigham down the hallway to me in Brigham's room several times. Things were going fine until on one of the trips down the hall I hear a horrible smack and Jonathan yell "OW! OW!". So when he reached me in Brigham's room I gave him a hug to help him feel better and I felt something wet on my had but didn't really look closely. Jaaromy came in to make sure he was okay and took a look at his head and said "Oh my Gosh, OH MY GOSH!" He had smacked his head on a wall corner and now blood was dripping all down the side of his head. We cleaned him up and by then the bleeding had stopped but we could tell that it was too deep to just leave alone so we decided to take him to the emergency room.

Unfortunately, Nathaniel was still at Kyuki Do and in our usual routine we put Jonathan and Brigham to bed first and then Jaaromy picks up Nathaniel. So we had to adjust a little. Jaaromy took Jonathan to the emergency room and I took Brigham with me to pick up Nathaniel. Brigham seemed fine with it but when we got home he went right up to bed to pick up where we left off in our routine.

Nathaniel was upset when I told him about Jonathan. He totally imagined the worst and his imagination was allowed to continue to get worse because Jaaromy and Jonathan were gone for a long time. I think they were gone for at least an hour and a half.

Jaaromy called me when they were finishing up and told me that they were going to put in two staples to hold it together. Weird. I told Nathaniel and he thought that sounded terrible and was really nervous to see them when Jonathan got home.


This is what he looked like when he got home. He was in really good spirits and he loved his bandage. In fact he wanted to wear it to bed and he even wore it to the Primary activity the next day. He wore it the day after that too, until bath time. I managed to convince him to leave it off until after church the next day. By then the novelty had worn off and he didn't really wear it again. Whew!

It was weird seeing the staples coming out of his head. Nathaniel had built it up in his mind to something so terrible that he couldn't even look at Jonathan and we had to force him to look at the staples to show him that it wasn't as bad as he had feared. He was happy to discover that it wasn't as bad as he thought and he was able to look at Jonathan again.

I'm a little sorry I didn't take a picture but at the time it seemed a little too gross. He wore the staples for a week and then Jaaromy took him back to the ER to have them removed. It's healing up pretty well although I'm sure he'll always have a scar.

He took it so well. He's a brave boy, my Jonathan.

Random Moments

I totally forgot to post last week. With Halloween coming I have to make sure I'm all caught up. I will try and be better.

I just have some random pictures to share that I thought were kind of cool.


I was experimenting with my camera again and I was trying to get a long exposure picture of the moon and use a flashlight to light up the trees. It didn't work, the flashlight just wasn't bright enough. But I did manage to catch a car driving by.

Since I had my camera out, I caught some of Brigham's exploits.



I'm not sure Jaaromy would approve of what's being done to his sunglasses.


Jonathan and I decided to spell Brigham's name with blocks. Unfortunately, it was bedtime, but the creative spirit must be free.


Another picture of the moon. It came up so big and yellow that night that I couldn't resist.


I don't think I need to explain why I wanted to post this picture. I love my boys! And my boys love Wendy's.

Thanks for watching!

Jared did not come marching home, having never left in the first place.

So my brother Jared is not going to be deployed to Iraq so what was supposed to be his farewell party turned into his sticking around party. Jared has thrown Labor Day parties before and had a Slip'n'Slide. Since this was the same time of year, he kept with that tradition.


Jaaromy gave in to.....something and decided to take a trip down the slide despite not being dressed for it.


His clothes kept him from slipping as advertised and on his first head-first run he barely made it halfway down.


He pushed himself to the limit on his next try and got better results.


Good fun was had by all. I actually grabbed these pictures from the video. I think they capture the moment pretty well. Unfortunately, you can't hear my hysterical laughter in the pictures. I guess you'll just have to imagine it.

Later in the afternoon Brigham got bold and wanted to step in the water. Aunt Kristy was nice enough to help him.


After he got comfortable, he decided to take it to the next level:


Thanks Kristy!

If you're wondering why we didn't come prepared for a water party, notice that it's not sunny. It wasn't terribly warm and it even rained a little bit. I didn't think anyone would want to get in the water. Apparently I underestimated a little bit.

Everyone had a good time at the party. Sydney, as usual, had Nathaniel wrapped around her little finger.



We're so glad that Jared will be able to stick around. It looks like he'll be able to put up my Christmas lights after all.