Paperwhites

This year I tried planting paperwhites.  They have been such a bright part of some cold and hazy days!  I think this will definitely need to be a winter tradition.  Maybe I will try amaryllis next?!

Happy Monday

I am excited for Thanksgiving this week! Aren't you?

Halloween

We had the most beautiful Halloween this year.  The weather was absolutely perfect. I had a great time taking Rachel, Skye, Adrie, Katie, and Nathan around our neighborhood.  We didn't have a trunk or treat and so we stayed out a bit longer than we have in past years.  I thought my children's costume choices were great. 

Rachel was a Mistborn.  I don't even know what that is (I know I should read the books!).  The highlight of our night was when our primary president saw her and said "Oh, Rachel, you are a mistborn."  Our president is apparently a big fan of the book. 

Skye was Hermione.  She is a perfect Hermione and she even borrowed our neighbor's kitten for a Crookshanks prop!

Adrie was Lucy from Narnia.  Although we couldn't match the hair color, she did get her hair cut to match Lucy's style!

Katie was an Indian princess and looks very authentic with her blond hair and tennis shoes;-)

Nathan was a very cute elephant.  He figured out trick r treating after the first house and was pretty serious about going to every possible house after that. 

And Joseph?  Joseph stayed home and passed out candy and had a few friends over to play the Wii!  I guess he is too old for trick r treating!

Miss A

Happy Birthday to my energetic Miss A.  Adrie has been counting down to her birthday for months!  She wanted a doll cake with balloons and thanks to a current obsession with watching Cake Boss while I run on the treadmill, I decided to attempt covering the cake with fondant.  It was easier than I thought, but we all quickly remembered that you don't eat fondant- it is nasty.

Adrie has so much energy for life.  She loves to play with friends and direct her younger siblings;-)  She has the most beautiful blue eyes.  We love our sweet A. 

Tears

Revelations 7: 14-17 

"These are they which came out of great tribulation 

they shall hunger no more, 

neither thirst any more 

and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

Allison, center in pink

It has been a year since my sweet niece died in an auto/bike accident.  It has been a year of tears. They catch me at unexpected times.  It has been a year of talking about things that you don't want to talk about (those sound like nice flowers for the cemetery, what are you going to do on her Birthday? etc). Because realistically, we would rather talk about how she is doing in school or how tall she is growing.  It has also been a year of tender mercies.  I feel even more strongly now than I did a year ago that even though our family is still hurting, Heavenly Father is aware of our pain and is blessing us through the love of family and friends.  

Revelation 21:4 4

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; 

and there shall be no more death, 

neither sorrow, nor crying, 

neither shall there be any more pain"

 

We Were Tired of Living in a House

We were tired of living in a house.

So we packed a bag with sweaters

and socks, with mittens and earmuffs.

And we moved to a tree.

We were tired of living in a house.

So we packed our bags.

And we moved to a castle.

This weekend Paul and I were able to take a little anniversary trip to the Seattle area.  We discovered some really amazing places to stay and visit.  Some of the highlights of our trip included watching the salmon spawning near our tree house, visiting Chihuly's hot shop in the museum of glass, planting bulbs with my cousin in the rain, visiting the Market (without children!), and driving the Five Mile Drive in Point Defiance Park.

 


We had a few interesting/funny things happen on our trip.  Years ago I bought a tree house book for Paul for Christmas.  We have always loved this book.  When we arrived at our tree house we discovered that it was built by the same man that wrote our much loved tree house book!  The tree house was fabulous!  It was like staying in a little luxury cabin 20 feet in the air.  In the morning the branches outside our window had a little (and a not so little) bird hopping around.  It was a very magical place. 

We stayed in the castle on a Thursday night and were almost the only guests.  The caretakers told us that we could explore the whole castle and we did, twice.  It was amazing to see all the different rooms.  I felt like Mary Lennox.  In the morning we ate breakfast down in the grand dining room.  There was a big long table and the two of us.  It was like dining in a big old house in England minus the trip to England!  One of the best parts of the castle was when we walked by the grand piano and there was a LDS hymn book sitting on top.  It made us feel right at home. 

It was so fun to come home.  Nathan kept jumping up and down and yelling "My Daddy, my Daddy!" even though he was talking about me!  It was nice to have a break, but equally nice to return to the busyness of our house. 

Possibly the cutest thing ever

I found this at the top of the stairs:

To Rebeca or Paul Seamons

Hogwarts

Yes, Paul and I just got our first owl.  The envelope had a very official Hogwarts seal.  The letter addressed the important issue of a Hermione costume for Skye.  How can I resist someone who asks so nicely?!  Now if I can figure out if I can get this owl to carry a howler to various children who may or may not have practiced their piano;-)

Speaking of Food

Italian Nut Balls

I am really excited about a new project my family recently started!  For years my sisters have compiled a "Tanner Family Cookbook."  It has many of our heritage recipes as well as new favorites.  We edit the cookbook every couple of years and it just keeps getting better.  My sister Tiffany had a great idea to create a blog featuring all the recipes in our cookbook.  It has been so fun to cook all my normal foods and get to share them on a blog! 

Mandarin Sauce

Family Heritage Recipes

A few weeks ago I was able to visit my parents for a weekend.  Several of my sisters were able to come and we had a great time talking talking talking, attending RS General Broadcast, laughing, cooking, sorting family pictures, and spending time together.  My family is spread out all over the United States and so I treasure any time we get to be together.  At one point I heard my Dad answer the phone and in response to someone asking what we were up to say something like "What do you think they are doing?  They have been talking about food for hours!"  We do love to cook and to talk about food.  Some of us are more gourmet than others, but we all can cook a mean pancake from scratch:-)  When my Grandma Beverly passed away several years ago, I was able to collect memories from all her Grandchildren.  I was amazing about how many memories centered around food.  Grandma was an amazing cook and I came to understand that her cooking was a reflection of her love and service to family.  So I feel talking about food is really an expression of love (besides being really fun!). 

Grandma Beverly 

Grandma made this Chocolate Mousse cake for a dinner she hosted the night before my wedding.  It not only tasted divine, but looked amazing.  She had painted chocolate on leaves to garnish the cake. 

New Friends

Meet Dimitri and Snow.  They are adding a lot of cheerful noise to our house.  They sing loudest when one of the kids is crying.  I worried they would escalate the noise level in our house, however I love the happy sound.  We are working on a different spot for their cage- this area is much to accessible to little hands (laugh laugh because Nathan can get to just about any area in our house that he sets his mind on). 

Priesthood Session Choir

We were so excited last Sunday morning when we discovered that Priesthood session was available for viewing online.  Besides some really great talks we were able to watch the music from this session.  Paul made it on the camera (along with 350 close friends)!  The best part was picking out people we know from the choir.  When Paul pointed out one good friend it took me more than a minute to recognize him because he was missing his goatee! 

Bittersweet

I find that so much of my life if bittersweet (although I don't like that the word starts out with a negative word!).  It is the best word I know to describe my feelings of watching my life pass by.  I love to see my children grow, I don't mind getting older, and I like change (mostly).  However, sometimes I want to just pause and tell my kids to stop growing taller, to stop needing new shoe sizes, to stop going to Jr High.  It is such a mixture of joy in the moment and the little squeeze on my heart when I see my babies grow.  This one is growing much too fast, yet he is so pleased with himself I can't help but love watching him:

Oh, What Do You Do in the Summertime?

Sweet Skye after her baptism

We had a great summer!  The first official day of summer was Skye's baptism.  It was so fun because she got to share her baptism with two other friends from our ward.

Skye starting a race

This summer we had four children in swim team.  I love swim team.  We got up early (6:00) almost everyday of the summer but the kids had a great time.  Adrie was the best to watch because a little 6 year old swimming across the pool is hilarious. 

Darth Vader balloon in the background

We made it to the balloon festival in Provo.  We wanted to take Nathan specifically because he loves balloons.  Whenever he sees a balloon he yells "BALLOON!!!" at the top of his voice (which we think is brilliant and much better than yelling "DOG" or something when he sees a balloon).  When we got to the field with all of the balloons he didn't even know what to do.  He went totally silent and looked like this the whole time:

Note the half eaten Krispy Creme donut in his hand- he couldn't even eat!

I think it was a bit overwhelming for him.  He didn't even smile!! 

It is magical to see the balloons take off- I think we will definitely make this a tradition!

My favorite was the German Chocolate.

In August we celebrated 14 years of marriage!  The best thing about having 6 kids is that you can totally justify buying 14 different cupcakes knowing that you won't need to eat them all! For our anniversary we went backpacking in the High Uintas with the kids.  Yes.  You did read that correctly.  It was an adventure that I will post about another time.  Let's just say that when we got home we looked at each other and said "OK, that doesn't even count for our anniversary this year."

Other highlights to our summer include:
Tennis lessons, golf lessons, piano, spending time with visiting family, Joseph's job at the Space Center, our trip to AZ (and my adventures driving on the Navajo Nation), Joseph and Rachel getting braces, 2 scout camps (Paul's first time not attending scout camp in 13 years) and randomly running into my parents at Granny's in Heber. Oh, and did I mention that Joseph earned a few merit badges this summer? (we are taking a month off from merit badges and can I say Hooray- I had merit badges on the brain this summer).

The summer was way too short.  I was sad to see it end, but I must admit I was happy to see this bunch walk out the door the first day of school. 

OK, maybe Nathan didn't head to school.  All the kids started new schools: Joseph in Jr High (sigh, gasp, shudder), Rachel, Skye, Adrie at a school in Cedar Hills (they changed our boundaries for our magnet ALL site which doesn't mean anything to most people but to us= new school).

This year we are trying to simplify.  We are doing limited extra classes and activities.  I am guarding my days (Katie learns to read this year and I am very very excited to focus on her during Nathan's nap time- because there is not much better than spending time with a four year old).

I realized that we took a lot of pictures with our phones this summer (ohhh look how techy we are!). But now I have to figure out how to get the pictures off our phones.  Sigh. 

Reluctant Blogger x6

I am a reluctant blogger.  Meaning I have a love/hate relationship with blogging.  I love following family and friend's blog- to see how their children grow and all the interesting things they do.  I love to see all the incredible things that people do.  I love improving my life because of something I read or see on a blog.  But I don't love the time commitment, the way my brain will take an experience and think "Oh, I can blog about that," and the feelings of inadequacy I have when I see the shiny happy pictures on blogs (you know what I mean- these pictures of beautiful homes, beautiful children, beautiful mothers- while I can personally count 21 things on the floor of my laundry room that don't belong;-).  And I won't even start in on the complexities of finding a voice to my blog (am I witty or profound or journaling- I know I think WAY to much about things like this). This summer I took a break from blogging- and it wasn't even a planned break- I just didn't blog and I was fine with that. 

Then a few weeks ago (maybe a month?!) I was talking to a dear Aunt at a family reunion and she mentioned that she loved reading all the family blogs and that she knew my children through my blog.  I have been thinking about our little conversation and I am ready to blog again.  My family is spread all over the United States and this is one way that we stay close.

Besides, so many things make me happy and I love to share:

Copy Cat

I am a copy cat. The benefit I see from being a copy cat is that you appear much more talented than you actually are!

We have two birthdays in May- Skye and Nathan. Skye wanted a chocolate, vanilla, strawberry cake this year.
I was excited to try out a cake that I had seen several times online. I saw it here originally, then my sister posted her beautiful cake here. Another sister showed me that color mist works wonders.

Skye's cake was fun to make and I learned a few things along the way. My flowers turned out better when the frosting was chilled (not too cold to work with, but still a little more set up). I also learned that the flowers are not as easy as they look. There is definitely a learning curve. Luckily I made so much cake that I had leftover batter that I made into cupcakes. The cupcakes were my trial run, but I was still learning when I started on the cake.

Happy 8th Birthday to my sweet Skye. What would we ever do without you?

For Mom

Three

I found a piece of paper with several poems on it and tracked down the author. Here are three poems from Joseph for your reading pleasure:

Communicating,
sharing thoughts and ideas,
a book is a jewel.

Heavy eyes fall down,
a long tunnel to the deep
sleep is great bliss.

Now walking forward
what is this? an iron bar?
Ouch! and then blackness.

I guess we have a family of poets. Maybe we should start monthly readings or a poetry club?!

Easter

I always want nice Easter pictures, but I usually end up with pictures like these. I hope these girls love each other this much their whole life.

We Made It!

In April we took a family vacation to FL. I must admit we had a lot of anxiety leading up to this trip. The thought of flying with six children and then driving all over FL and GA seemed a little scary. It was an amazing trip. We got to see so many beautiful and wonderful things. Paul got to show us a lot of his mission areas. We got to spend a long time with my brother and his family. I don't usually do travel log posts, but I wanted to share FL with you. We would go again in a heartbeat.

First an explanation- we tend to think a family vacation is not complete unless you drive at least 1000 miles. True to form, when we turned in our rental car, the attendant went to write down our mileage and then had to ask us if it was accurate. I guess most people don't consider driving over 1500 miles as a vacation!

So here is our itinerary:
Day 1: fly SLC to Orlando
Day 2: drive to St Augustine, spend time at Crescent Beach, Drive to Savannah
Day 3: Savannah, Fort Jackson, Tybee Island, Paul's mission, Drive to Waycross
Day 4: Okefenokee Swamp, drive to Gainesville, strawberry farms, Museum on UF campus
Day 5: Church in Gainesville, walk on campus to see alligators and bats
Day 6: Drive to Sanibel Island
Day 7: Fall in love with Sanibel Island
Day 8: Drive to Everglades, FL Keys
Day 9: Key Biscayne near Miami, Drive to Orlando
Day 10: Fly home

Brothers in the Atlantic Ocean (this was my first time seeing the Atlantic Ocean!)
I don't know why we didn't have the kids change into swimming suits! I said "Let's just go stick our feet in the ocean and we will only wade a little. Yeah right!
Walking over the moat to Fort Jackson.

Alligators and Okefenokee Swamp. This is the picture that our kids will hold against us when we are old- "Mom and Dad said- "go stand right there next to the alligator and we will take your picture!""

This cute boy thinks he is in Heaven!
Sunset on Sanibel Island

Sanibel Island is known for its shells. The kids were afraid we weren't going to find any shells.

We did.
Cleaning shells to ship home.
Nathan kept watching the ocean upside down. It was hilarious.
Pretty much how we spent our days on Sanibel.
Rachel with a new friend.
Joseph piloting the air boat through the Everglades. He thought he was cool until he saw our boat: