Football + Bugs

Summit Academy JV Football team won their first ever homecoming game.

 
 Dallin was awesome - and sweaty!

 

Jovie will make a joke about anything. This is how she delievered a diaper to me when I asked nicely. She's so helpful!

We went to Little Chickadee Society at the Natural History Museum of Utah.



Ikey was excited to hold a stink bug.



Until he wasn't excited to hold it anymore.

Happy Birthday Nikki + Halloween

Happy Birthday Nikki! You're such a good aunt and sister. Why didn't you invite any tall people to your birthday party?

 We decorated for Halloween in September. We're committed to celebrating Halloween through the end of October, so it's 6 weeks of scary stuff for us!

Are you wondering why we haven't gone on any of "Aimee's crazy adventures" lately? Because TB said that September is his favorite month and he likes to spend it at home. So  we turned off the A/C and the furnace and I'm giving him one month "off" which he is spending on the roof and on ladders painting the outside of the house and generally just "lounging" like that. October will be back to nutty activities, so no one (but me!) is looking forward to that.

Cute train story...

Aunt Doris told us about this cute train story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoMN-zg7r3M&feature=colike

It finally happened to us...

...and it was gross, but it could have been worse.
Ikey has not been a big trouble-maker in our house, and I mean that only in that he doesn't get into dangerous or destructive stuff very much. Ice cream and brownies? Yeah, all the time. We had to wait for Jovie to come along to get markers on the walls, dog poop wiped on me, and now...foreign objects stuck in a nose.

Jovie came to me yesterday and said, "I'm coughing because I have stars in my nose." That doesn't make sense does it, unless you just finished a Halloween craft project where you put little foam stars and bat stickers on a foam tree.  I looked in her nose and saw a little yellow star stuffed up there. I laid her down in the forced toothbrushing position. (She lies on the floor on her back, and I sit by her head with my legs over her arms. It's not fun, but you only have to do it once, then you can just threaten if they don't let you help brush. I saw it on a parenting show by a dentist so it's totally legit!) I used the tweezers to pull a star out, then had her blow her nose. She was still kind of coughing, so I checked again and found two more stars! I said, "How many did you put in there?" She said, "Just three". Apparently her counting skills aren't much better than her decision-making skills, because I pulled a total of FIVE star stickers out of her nose yesterday. I've checked her a million times today and that seems to be it for this episode. We now have a family rule that you don't stick things in your nose.

Choose a color...

It's time to paint the big garage doors and the man-door. Which do you prefer? Smoke Tree is the higher one that's kind of grey and Pepperidge is the lower one that's brown.

 

Please vote. This is serious business.

Update Sept 25: This little exercise reminded us that we hate brown and we shouldn't try to match the worst shade of brown on our house. So now we are in the middle of painting that ugly faded brown stucco stripe (around the door and at the bottom of the second-story bumpout) a beautiful shade of Urbane Bronze  . The garage doors will be something awesome like Parakeet  or Armagnac  or something kind of boring (but way better than the old pinky brown) like Sandy Ridge  OR anything from the Urban Organic Sherwin Williams color scheme http://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/hgtv-home-by-sherwin-williams/color-palettes/urban-organic/ .

PS. These colors are more exciting in real paint chips or in samples than on my computer screen.

PPS. Have you ever tried to paint stucco? The surface area is like four times what you'd guess because it's so bumpy. We'll be going back to the paint store a few times.

Surprise!

Jovie just came to tell me, "I tried to get the Otter Pop that's being squished, but I can't get it!" Otter Pops are not on the menu for 10 am on a chilly-ish morning, so I went down to check out the scene in the kitchen. The freezer was wide open and a three-year-old boy in a rocket costume was leaned over a jar of ice cream with a spoon, a sword, and a snake. Surprise!

 

 

We all dug in and had ice cream for brunch. Good idea Ikey!

Utah State Fair

We went on the very last day and most of the sheep and cows had already gone home. We didn't get too close to the pigs because they were STINKY! The goat Taj Mahal was awesome. http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54751980-78/state-project-quinn-sept.html.csp

The kids pet a one-week-old calf.

We always find the butter cow. This year it was the Hunger Games crew.

 
We like to check out the big pumpkins and the bumbe bees, get a treat, look at the amazing 4-H projects and living and fine arts buidings. We never ride the rides, buy stuff,  or eat too much. The highlight this year was a haunted house that was about three feet tall and filled with spooky stuff. It really got us in the mood for Halloween so we are on it in a very early way this year.

Back at home

We're back to doing regular old stuff: swimming lessons, getting a jump start for the SUV from Grandma Rainey since I left the key turned on for a week, fixing bikes. Ikey's singing medley during naptime is: Firework (Katy Perry), Celebrate the World (Lorax soundtrack), That's Amore...

This one is gross: Ikey: Why do my poops sometimes look like a deer's?
Mom: Because maybe you eat the same thing as a deer?
Ikey: No, reindeer eat carrots. I try not to eat too many carrots.

Ikey: Can I have some of that cake with white frosting?
Mom: No, it's gone.
Ikey: Where did all of that go?
Mom: I ate it.
Ikey: It's not healthy to eat that much cake.
(I didn't really eat it. I threw half of it away because it's not healthy to eat that much cake.)

When I told the kids that we were staying in a teepee, Ikey predicted that it would be decorated with trains and Jovie thought it would have ballerinas. They had a little argument about it. A few days later while I was folding laundry, Jovie said: Are you packing my clothes for camping? Let's go camping in a tent or teepee. I know! A teepee with trains with ballerina engineers. The engineers could have regular shirts and ballerina skirts!

Jovie squirted Todd with a water bottle. She said, "I'm just making a water feature."

Ikey said, "Let's watch this Thomas (the train) movie."
I said, "How about if you do something else with your brain?"
Ikey said, "No. I am not going to change my brain. I am going to think about watching this movie the whole time."

For two days, Ikey has been tearing around the house with Jovie's plastic toy stroller. He told me that he's "pushing my baby dragons in a motor stroller."

Todd left a message on my phone: I tried to fix the blower, so we need a new blower.

Uintah Mountains - Wall Lake

It was Jovie's first time to the Uintahs. She wanted to dress like "Dorothy" to celebrate the occasion.

 

 

 

 

The hardest part about this hike is finding space in the parking lot. It was a beautiful day and there were lots of families and dogs out. 

Colorado National Monument & Parachute



We ate at Munchie's in Fruita.

Rim Rock Drive in Colorado National Monument is so dramatic! It's a sheer drop-off on one side with three tunnels and lots of geologic wonders to get distracted by.

How many balanced rocks have you seen? This is at least our third. They're all awesome.

Can you see the big horned sheep?

We did three hikes at the Monument. I like to mix up the natural attractions with some historical stuff. This area had a very cool character named Josie who lived alone in a very remote canyon by herself until she was 89 years old. She was a cattle rustler in her 60s.  Her cabin and homestead was fun to visit, but the kids refused photos, so you'll have to go see it in person. You'll be impressed.

 

Jovie really wanted a picture of her hand.



We met up with Uncle Tim and Aunt Jo in Parachute where we swam in the pool, ate a lot of Mexican food and played at the playground. It was so nice of them to come out to the Wild West!

Dinosaur National Monument and Vernal

The Utah Fieldhouse of Natural History in Vernal was new and cool.

 At Dinosaur National Monument, Ikey engaged a park ranger in a long conversation about bones and dinosaur and trains. He was so friendly and funny.

We even got to touch these dinosaur bones. We're showing you how much longer a dinosaur femur is than ours.

This is the hike from the fossil gallery to the visitor center. The kids were so excited about riding a bus (kind of looked like a train!) as a shuttle from the visitor center. There were dinosaur bones sticking out of the rocks just above Todd. It was crazy!

Jovie picks up almost every rock or stick on the trail.

Split Mountain

Indian writings

We stayed in a teepee at a bed and breakfast in Jensen. It was rustic, with a dirt floor, crickets, a visiting cat and all. Next time, we're camping at the National Monument!

We didn't get to see everything we wanted to the first day, so we came back after our visit to Parachute and Colorado National Monument. We hiked to Harper's Corner where the Green River meets the Colorado River. It was really amazing. The hike had drop-offs on both sides and TB and I were pretty nervous. We held the kids' hands pretty tight!