Daisy Girl Scout

Pearl is a Daisy Girl Scout! She had her second meeting and her pinning ceremony today. It was fun, especially for me to get to know some other moms. What a great little community we have:) They painted pumpkins for their craft, and now
I get to sew her badges on. They were especially cute when they said the pledge of allegiance and when they did the girl scout promise - which Pearl already had memorized, of course:)

Warg Bathwater

Is that how you spell Warg? I don't even know. The Wargs are a family of well, wargs that live in the attic at Grandpa Hulbert's house. Apparently, their names are Nancy and Albert, and even though they are Wargs (I guess they're supposed to be kind of monsterish), they are nice. (Nancy Warg once left the door open at our house though, not very polite:) Well, Grandpa Hulbert loves to tease Pearl about the wargs, and one day we were over for dinner and I asked him to get them something to drink. He pulled out this Green Plant food from Trader Joes and asked if anyone wanted some Warg Bathwater. Well, Sam thought that was a great idea, and Pearl kept fussing at Grandpa that no, it's GREEN PLANT JUICE (she can read green and plant now...). So, we call this our warg bathwater now. The funny part was, I had a jar on the floor (on the way in from the grocery store) and Sam went over to it and said "I have some bathwater, mom?" If a normal person heard that, they would think we were crazy, or worse! Three cheers to Grandpa and Pearl's rampant imaginations!

Halloween Fun

We have had a lot of Halloween Fun this week. On Friday night, the school had it's annual Harvest Festival, and I volunteered to work the games. It was fun for the kids to see their friends in costume, and it was fun for me to meet some of the other moms at the school. Then, Saturday night, our neighborhood had it's annual hay ride trick or treat. It was really fun. In our neighborhood, the lots are all 10 acres, so you can imagine trying to walk it. So, we got about 5 trailers loaded with hay and families and took off around the neighborhood. It was fun for the kids - I don't think we have to worry that they won't get enough candy this year! It was also fun to get to know our neighbors better, especially now that Pearl is in school.

In preparation for the neighborhood outing, we carved pumpkins. Well, actually, Jared carved pumkins with the kids while I was at the school setting up on Friday afternoon. He's great to do activities like that with the kids. He pushes them harder than I do, so they end up doing more by themselves - often more that I think they could. They had a great time and made a BIG mess!

Primary Program

We had our ward primary program today. I always make Pearl memorize her parts, which entails lots of repetition in the bathtub, car, etc. I always cheer her on big time, and we practiced so much this year, that I think Sam could have said the parts too! Well, she did a fabulous job today, one of the few kids to know their parts so well. After her first part, Sam (whom I had been holding up high to watch her) let out a big round of applause - in the silent chapel. The whole ward had a giggle at that. It was pretty cute:)

Funny Pearl

Pearl is always worrying about ridiculous things. One of her favorite worries is that I will leave for the bus stop without her in the morning, which is of course, ridiculous. What's the point without her? She fails to see the humor, and every morning when I send her to brush her teeth and tell her I'm putting Sam in the car, she yells, "but don't leave without me, ok, Mom?!" Saturday night, she topped the ridiculous worry list - I had a hard time not laughing out loud. I send her to go potty one more time before bed, it was after our story, and we decided it would be a good idea to go before I tucked her in. As she ran to the bathroom, she yelled "ok Mom, don't put me to bed without me!" Jared and I did have a good laugh about that one later!

We go a venture walk?

Jared likes to call our hikes around the property "adventure walks." So, when we came home from church today, we told the kids we could go for a walk. Sam likes to ask, in his sweet little voice, "we go a venture walk?" Yes, Sam, we go a venture walk. Today our walk incuded checking out one of the old buildings that we might enclose when we expand the orchard, that I can use as a potting room. I tried to convince Pearl that it would be an awesome playhouse, she I think, was nervous about the snake warning I gave her before we ventured in. We also learned about how the fence wires got into the middle of the trees, pretended to be a woodpecker, and found a very large fungus. Lots of fun for little boys and girls!

I'm on this quest to get Jared to buy me a fancy camera for christmas, so in an effort to prove how much I will use it, I brought our camera along. These are a few of my favorite pictures. I must say, I just got lucky and took 112 to get 3 good ones:) We actually have an awesome property for taking pictures, maybe we'll just Sara take a hike with us at Christmas!

Halloween Cookies

We love that Lizzie lives close enough to come and play frequently. Today, I had nothing planned in the afternoon (which never happens) so we decided to have Lizze come up and make halloween cookies. Here are some of my favorite pics!

Apple Hill with Dad

We talked our Dad into taking us to Apple Hill for breakfast last saturday. Fall isn't fall for me anymore until I have gone to Apple Hill early in the morning on a saturday and eaten apple doughnuts and hot cider for breakfast! Sam and Pearl were especially happy to get their winter hats on - Sam's was a present from Maryann last christmas. I think you've started a tradition, Maryann! The kids, I think, highly approved of our Apple Hill advenure!

Winter Garden

I think I'm crazy. Then, I realized that it must run in the family - after all, my mother has remodeled two houses in this calendar year. One monday morning this week, I didn't really have anything to do, so I decided to start a winter garden. You are looking at broccoli, napa cabbage, multicolored beets, radishes, and orange and purple carrots. We'll see how it lasts...Sam liked helping me spread the vermiculite:)

Pretend

Sam is cracking me up with his pretend play lately. He came home from visiting the nursery with Grandma on Friday, and while bobbing up and down, he said "look at me. I a plant. I growing!" Later that day, in the car, I hear "Look at me, I a crocodile." I turn to glance back at him in the car and he had his head back and his mouth as wide open as it would go. I had to laugh out loud at that one. Where does he get it from?!?

Our House

McKenzie Ranch collage, which I now have proudly displayed in the hallway

We live in a house that was built in 1897. I just got a collage together today to hang in the hallway (over the old newspaper, from 1897, that wallpapers the hallway and closet) of pictures brought to us by the granddaughter of the original homesteader. This is our house in the 1920's. We are the thrid family to own it. It was homesteaded in 1876 by William McKenzie. It was then bought by another family, I don't remember their names. This is what our house looked like when we got it:

Actually, this looks a lot better than when we got it, because all of the broken cars and beer bottles had been removed, as well as the sorry excuse for landscaping that we had to buldoze over. Not only that I think this was after the new foundation was put in - lots of work. IT still displays the rusty tin roof nicely, though. Needless to say, the city girl from Granite Bay had a hard time moving here...

This is our house now. Much better, if I do say so myself. Still, it is cool to see the history. I definetly didn't have that perspective when we started the project, but now I'm happy to live in a house with such character. Hopefully, it will stand for another 100 years!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! The scariest part was when Auntie Annie painted Pearl's face green (pic on the way, I promise). She took one look in the mirror and said that halloween is too scary and she wanted to be a fairy or a nice witch. Well, I've been saving this costume for 2 years (clearance at PBK) so she HAS to wear it...we convinced her that if we washed her face and put on pink lipstick, she could be a nice witch. Sam was so wired, with no nap, so getting him to sit still for more than 2 seconds was quite a feat - we were seriously lucky to get this picture! We took one of all the cousins, too...well, they are all sitting still, that's about as much as could be said for it....

Pearl is really getting into the spirit, insisting that we decorate on October 1, and she and Sam constanly walk aroud and re-arrange and talk about the decorations. I guess holidays are just that much more fun when you're a kid!

Nightmare

Sam's been having nightmares lately. It's kind of funny, becuase I'll find him standing next to his bed crying while still asleep. A few days ago, it was "I just want to be in the house" - and no amount of convincing assured him that he was. Last night, it was "I just want to ride in the Jeep." Do you get that from Brian too, Maryann?