Oh how I love him

After years of hair and dolls and hair and drama (which I love- I am not complaining- just stating a fact), the change to little boy is so fun.  Maybe because he is our baby and maybe because of his eyes (have you seen them?), but this little man is a delight every day.  He is very high energy, very much in love with dinosaurs, very much in love with tractors.  Frequently, he has his Hi-Yah (sword built out of legos) stuck down the back of his shirt.  Last Sunday he obviously needed a wrench also.  Because you never know when you might need a wrench. 

When Paul was little

He had nightmares that the mountains just east of his house were volcanic.  We joke that he should have been more worried that they would crumble in an earthquake.  Today as I watch this out my window, I am wondering if perhaps his dreams are coming true.

I watched the first drift of smoke and thought "oh, no- not our beautiful American Fork canyon" * (Paul proposed to me up that canyon!).  Now the drift is a scary plume and it doesn't look good.  Cross your fingers that there are some trees left when this fire is done!

This picture was taken 5 minutes after the one above- the change in the smoke plume gives you an idea how fast the fire is growing.

*PS Paul just got home and informed me I had my canyons wrong- the fire is burning up the canyon behind alpine- so American Fork is safe for now!

Zions

 I will be the first to admit that I am terrible at taking pictures- not that I take poor quality pictures, but that I forget to actually take pictures! 

So for your viewing pleasure here is one of the three pictures I took on our recent trip to Zions:

Playing in the dirt.  Why else do we drive several hours and camp?

I guess it is a good thing that I actually keep a journal since our pictures are hit and miss!  Our trip was lovely.  It was an adventure: Paul went backpacking with Joseph and Rachel along the West Rim ending up with a climb to Angel's Landing and I camped solo with four kids.  We met up after the backpacking requirement was fulfilled (15 miles, 2 nights, etc) and enjoyed a perfect week hiking the Narrows,visiting weeping rock, kayaking at Posey Lake and camping in Capitol Reef. 

In no particular order, here are my top eleven favorite memories from this vacation:
1) Listening to Bananaphone by Raffi about 50 million times
2) Picking apricots in the beautiful orchards in Capitol Reef
3) Kids loving the dirt and gravel so much that they literally rolled in it
4) Discovering the Zion movie playing in the old visitor center which had AIR CONDITIONING, as opposed to the new visitor center which has environmentally friendly "air cooling towers."  We watched the movie twice and considered bringing our sleeping bags down and sleeping there
5) Katie, on her back, hands behind her head and her legs crossed, floating down the green pools of the Narrows
6) Rachel telling me that the first part of their backpacking trip was more spectacular than Angel's Landing
7) Naughty squirrels in Zions that chewed holes in our tent twice.  grrr.  The animals in the national parks have no fear of humans ps we caught them in the tent once which was rather hilarious except now we have to disinfect everything for hantavirus;-)
8) Eating fresh fruit pies and homemade ice cream from the pioneer home in Capitol Reef- for breakfast! (will the kids remember that? I hope)
9) Perfectly beautiful restrooms in all the campgrounds, need I say more?
10) A rock that weeps despite the lack of rain and terrible fires
11) A peaceful ride on the Zion bus after we hiked the narrows.  Everyone was exhausted and 6/6 kids were asleep.  Small sweaty heads leaning against me and beautiful Zion out the window= Zion indeed

Only two children would smile for this picture.  Three were too cross to even get in the picture and one would not look at the camera.  And what had we done to deserve such joy? Forced the children to hike (less than a mile) through a totally flat wash to see the pioneer names inscribed on the wall of the canyon!

Two happy kids!

Summer

We are enjoying a bumper crop of cherries (thanks to a neighbor who trains falcons- we find that having a falcon live next door keeps the birds from stripping our tree)! 

Katie loves cherries as her shirt certainly testifies!

How is your summer going?

Delay

Sometimes a little idea makes a nice difference in your life.  Every Tuesday I face the laundry.  It is a like a marathon- most weeks I am just hoping to finish.  Some weeks I pull out the all the stops and get all the socks sorted, shirts and skirts ironed and everything PUT AWAY (or my kids do;-) in one day (is this the equivalent to running a 2 hour marathon?!).  I have heard many different theories of laundry (do one load a day- make your kids do it) but for me right now it works to do it all in one day.  I chose Tuesday because my Mom did laundry on Tuesday.  Also, I can't seem to face laundry on Monday and by Wednesday I feel like I am losing momentum in my week!  So Tuesday it is. 

This week I was admiring my sister's beautiful new red washing machine and dryer.  She was showing me all the whistles and bells and mentioned that she could set her washer to start the next morning.  This way, she throws a load in at night, delays the start for 7 hours and when she gets up in the morning she is already a load ahead in her day.  Brilliant.  As soon as I got home I went and looked at my washer and lo and behold, it has a delay button!!  

I vaguely remember when I got my washer I saw the Delay button and thought "Why in the world would I ever delay a load of laundry?!"  However, if you don't think of it as a delay- but as getting ahead- the button makes sense.  Maybe the manufactures should rename the button!

So last night I loaded my first batch of laundry and set the delay button.  I crossed my fingers and went to bed.  When I woke up, my first load was just finishing!  It was fabulous. 

PS  I know it may seem like I have a small life when I get excited about laundry- however, I prefer to see it as finding joy in the everyday;-)
PPS I actually enjoy doing laundry- it is strangely satisfying to take a whole lot of chaos and turn it into order (for a few hours at least!).
PPPS A big apology to Paul who woke up in a panic when he heard water turn on in the middle of the night!

Happy Spring

Spring is my favorite season.  OK, summer and spring are tied for first place, but when spring finally comes after a long winter, I always think it is my favorite.  This year our winter was so mild (understatement of the year) that I was almost shocked when we slid into spring without much change.  It almost feels like we don't deserve spring because we didn't suffer enough during the winter;-)  Not that I am complaining!  I think despite my shock that spring is here, my kids can definitely feel the change in the weather:

A little note of explanation: Due to a certain girl suddenly opposed to pink Easter baskets (she claimed Joseph's green basket), Joseph was thrilled to carry a fuzzy pink Easter basket this year.  I was trying to get a nice picture of him and said something like "show me how happy you are and how much you love your pink Easter basket."  This is what I got. 

We Call Her Kate the Great

Five reasons I love this sunshine:
1) She calls giraffes: bjraffes.
2) She plays quiet creative games by herself for hours (which usually includes using tissue to make dresses for her little figurines).
3) She can burp the alphabet (which is not something we generally do in our family, but one day at dinner she said "I can burp the alphabet" and then she did and then we sat there in stunned silence and then we started laughing).
4) She has the best laugh in the world- a deep belly chuckle!
5) She learned to ride a bike in 30 seconds.  She definitely holds the family record (and she saved my back hours of running behind a bike bent over).