The fruit of our labors :)

Meadow has enjoyed playing with our new "matos" all morning. Counting them, transferring them from one place to another, taking them to her play kitchen. We just might find one a week from now in a strange place. ;)

Apex Gymnastics on NBC

5 seconds of fame :)

Saturday Olympic Highlight

Alexander Artemev defying the laws of the universe :) and this was only half of the routine. It was awesome. Especially exciting because he fell during the Olympic trials.

Nature Walk

Such a pretty morning.




A Catfish!

Seeing who could say "poopy pants" the loudest (Parker's idea) Meadow thought this was HILARIOUS.




Natures Colors

Catfish leap in greenish splendor with
blue sky reflected from above
A light breeze stirs the swans white feathers
A soft brown squirrel skitters up a tree
But looking down, more beautiful to me
is to see them meet in your sweet eyes.

Party 'til the Break of Dawn - Get it?!?!

Happy Birthday Greg! - Update

On Wed. Greg turned 34 years young. We made his favorite breakfast, fried liver mush (Really liver pudding) but his family still calls it liver mush probably because his great grandparents raised and slaughtered their own pigs and made their own liver mush. According to the Wikipedia definition Liver MUSH contains other parts of the pig such as snout, head parts, etc. and liver pudding is just pig liver, pork, spices and cornmeal. Now you know more than you ever thought you could about Liver mush and Liver pudding. To Greg it must be served with eggs over easy, toast and "biscuits with sweet gravy" or to the rest of us, orange sweet rolls. :) But his favorite birthday present of all is finally having someone who can and WILL eat "livermush" with him :) The gift that keeps on giving!

Rejection

I was trying not to blog about Youth Conference chaperoning because it might not be that interesting for anyone to read but I had something very funny (to me at least) happen today. It was during two hours of instructional dance this morning and sometimes there were uneven numbers of boys and girls so the "chaperones" would participate if someone needed a partner. The instructors were good about switching partners pretty regularly so that the youth could meet alot of people and possibly so that no one would get stuck with a "chaperone" for too long. Anyway, I was standing near a boy who needed a partner. His parents were in my ward growing up, but he was like 5 or something then. He is slightly autistic and very honest. I said "Hi! I'll be your partner" and reached for his hands. He looked at me and said "How OLD are you?" Me: Laughing, "I know, I am old." Youth: "But how old ARE you?" Me: trying to decide if it was really necessary to add the three "I'm thirty.......three." Youth: "Can I dance with someone my own age?" Me: Trying to sound cheerful, "Sure, I'll go find someone." HAHAHAHA :)

Somebody come and play

This is a Summer 4 year old play group from our ward which happens to be mostly all boys. Today it was only boys and they were all about Star Wars and The Three Musketeers.




And while the boys are away, the girls will...eat all their snacks!

And then go play too. :)

My inebriated cheering section

Tonight after the kids were in bed and after I finished watching the continuation to the Anne of Green Gables series (which I just found out about, but was released in 2000 and it's about time to finally get some closure on the Anne and Gilbert love drama) I decided to go jogging because it is so nice out and I've been slack sooo...It was 10:00 and dark but I went anyway on my regular and well lit route. About a 1/4 mile from the house I started to hear what sounded like a loud party getting closer and as I rounded a corner I saw a house ahead on the opposite side of the street with about 40 people outside with lawn tents set up and everything and you could tell there was some drinking going on. Well, I kept my course and as I approached a woman started shrieking (yes she was) THERE is someone JOGGING!, she got louder and repeated it three times so by that time everyone's attention was on me so I raised my arms into the air like Rocky and kept running and they started cheering for me - "Woooo!" and "Forget about your health and come join us!" Well, I kept jogging and not 5 minutes later a police car passed which one of the other neighbors probably called because of the noise. I had a small glimmer of hope that maybe they wouldn't be outside when I had to pass them again but not so. On my way home they were still there (but not as loud) and of course I didn't escape unnoticed. So I yelled "Woooooo!" back at them." "Hey jogger! Way to be dedicated!" "Hey jogger, free beer!" I must say it made the run much more interesting and funny. Also I finished the BOM again recently and have restarted it and just happen to be on Lehi's dream - so of course some parallels came to mind there.

Especially for the Grandparents :)

Can kill two flies in one minute with his bare hands

Parker is the 4 year old fly killing champion of Apex. We found out about this talent after I kept finding dead flies on the window sill in the playroom. Then I heard banging on the windows and went in to witness him in action hand up in stealth mode ready to stike again. The first order of business was to tell him that flies are really dirty and to please tell me if he saw a fly and then we could use the fly swatter. Well, I kept finding dead flies now and then as they found their way into the house so I told him he definately had to wash his hands immediately if he killed a fly because they are DIRTY and carry GERMS. So now he shouts proudly "I got one and I washed my hands!" Hopefully he will get tired of being the human fly swatter soon. ;)

Parker and the giant squash

Here is our pay load squash and only squash so far. There were several smaller squash growing also, but they disappeared! We keep seeing two little bunnies in the yard so they probably ate them and couldn't carry off the giant squash? I need to put some chicken wire up I guess.


It tasted pretty good to us, but Parker spit it out and Meadow wouldn't touch it. I did read online that yellow squash is supposed to be tastier if you pick it younger which is why you probably never see giant yellow squash in the grocery store.




The Apex 4th of July festivities included some face painting, bouncy houses, train rides etc. Parker asked with the tears starting to please wipe off his tiger face 3 minutes after Greg's parents paid $7 to get it painted (see my gray hair?!) but Meadow liked her $2 flower.











Showing our patriotic spirit

Bike Parade at Noon that we have not made it to yet. We try to go early to beat the heat and the kids are done after an hour or two. We'll try for this next year, it looks fun.

Gotta rent this one

I recommend everyone check out "The Martian Child." We saw it tonight...awesome.

The Peak of Good Living

We love Apex. Saturday night we went to one of the Concerts at the Train Depot (where you never know what kind of band is going to play and the only advertisements are wooden signs on the corners of Salem Street and Laura Duncan reading "Free Concert Tonight"). It ended up being a Brass Band this time and the kids had a blast. There was even a little ballet performance at the very beginning, a section set up with sidewalk chalk for the kids, and a little cart selling snow cones to raise money for Apex High School Band. The weather was perfect and it was one of those quaint, peak of good living moments. Other highlights included some chalk face painting and showing of the bloomers by Meadow and a snow cone accident where Meadow squeezed her paper cone too hard and it pushed everything onto the ground. I tried to stop her which made her squeeze harder resulting in the loudest scream I have ever heard in my life (I am surprised the band didn't stop) and more donations to the snack cart. Also, I think over the course of the hour and a half Parker ran the mile between the chalk, the band dancing area and our blanket. :)

Fluffy Sugar Cookies

Our neighbor returned a plate of ours with sugar cookies on it (her rule is never return a plate empty...that's a nice rule don't you think?) Anyway, I think they were heavenly, melt in your mouth, fluffy sugar cookies. They were so good that I had to save Greg two to taste even though he was out of town. It was very hard to do with them staring at me on the counter for a day and a half but I resisted ;) Here is the recipe:

1 c. white granulated sugar
1 c. powdered sugar
1 c. oil (anything but peanut - I use canola)
1 c. butter, softened
1 t. salt
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla

Beat and mix above ingredients together using mixer. Then add 1 t. baking soda and 4 c. flour (all-purpose is fine; I have used half all purpose and half cake flour on occasion). Drop by rounded spoonfuls into granulated sugar to coat (it's normal for the dough to be very soft, almost like marshmallow creme). Transfer to ungreased baking sheet and flatten slightly (they expand minimally so you can put them rather close together).

Bake 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees until cookies look set. Cool on wire rack. Frost with vanilla cake frosting.