Jump In The Drink: October 2011

Birthday, Anniversary, and Fall Harvest

So a couple of weeks ago I had my birthday. I turned 31! Young - Old who knows. All I know is I had no problem turning 30 last year, but then for the rest of the year it hit me that I wasn't getting any younger. I am still young but realized that I really am going to age and hit middle age and old age someday. I think when you are a kid it takes so long to grow up you wonder if you really are and that is how I feel about growing older too.

Aside from that string of random thoughts I got to go up to my Grandparents house in Mackey for my birthday. It was so great. They have only seen Aria once over Easter, and it was good to see them again. I hadn't been up to their house for a couple of years. Justin came up, Candice lives there, and Rochelle came up with her family for the day too. Of course my parents came. It was a great time. I loved watching and hearing my kids do the things that I used to do when I would visit my Grandparents Ranch. There was hay jumping, horse riding, kitten hunting, bbqing, treats - always lots of treats, and unlimited cousin playing. Justin thought we should always go up that weekend every year - and I think it sounds like a great idea too. Plus you can't beat that my Grandpa's birthday is the day before mine and my mom always makes me a treat - I always seem to request Mississippi Mud too.

Exactly two weeks after my birthday is my Anniversary. We celebrated 11 years this year!!! Go us. I was able to get my niece up here and babysit my kids. Marcus and I were able to go out to eat and then do some shopping. It was so much fun. She said that the kids were great. And they were so excited to have their cousin come over and play with them. Now I just need to figure out how to get another date soon.

At the beginning of the growing season we just bought our house. So we didn't have much time to plant anything in our garden. I was given 8 tomato plants so I thought I better do salsa. I got some pepper plants and onions. Then because they are easy and I was low on time we got three different pumpkins and planted those. Now it is harvest time and boy have we harvested and worked hard. We ended up with a ginormous pumpkin patch. The kids were so excited. I had 4 huge pumpkins that the seed could have gotten up to 100lbs. They didn't but were big. Then we got 25 jack o lantern sized pumpkins and grow well over 100 small mini pumpkins for decoration. I picked one of the medium size pumpkins and baked it and made pumpkin butter, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cream cheese, pumpkin bread and even froze extra pumpkin. Then since we had so many we set up a table and had the kids sell pumpkins. We sold the huge ones for $2 the regular ones for $1 and the mini's for $.50. I told the kids that they could use the money for Christmas presents and if there was any left they could just split it. They earned $34!! I was very impressed. We still have over 100 mini ones left though.

Then I have had tons of tomatoes and have done several batches of salsa. I have made over 80 pints of salsa. I made 28 pints of spaghetti sauce (and need to do another batch). We had so many tomatoes that last week we decided to pick all the red/orange ones, all the white ones, and even tons of the green ones. We picked so many we filled up our entire wheel barrel full of tomatoes. I even heard if you hang a plant upside down in a cool place that the tomatoes will turn red well. So we even have a plant hanging in our garage. We still have green tomatoes out in the garden. And tomatoes strung across my shelves in the kitchen.

Just this last week I have been doing gobs of canning. I bought 60 lbs of grapes down in Brigham City and made 10 gallons of grape juice and grape cocktail. 7 Cups of grape jelly, 11 pints of applesauce, 44 pints of salsa, about 8 dozen chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, and 4 gallons of potato soup that I freeze. It has been tons of work, but I love looking at the bottles and seeing all my hard work. Fall really is my favorite season, and you can see why.

Just the Two of Us

Sometimes when it is just you two you must find something to entertain yourselves with. So you sit here and I will push you around.

We have gotten into a great routine around here. Tannen and Aria have really started playing together. I still get a lot of Tannen sitting on Aria too, but maybe I always will. Somedays they seem to get tired of it, and Tannen doesn't know what to do. But then school gets out and if we are lucky Kylie will take him in her room, or upstairs and play with him until bed time. I love days like that. Especially since Tannen has really gotten more naughty since he doesn't have bigger playmates for most of the day.

Meet My Newest Niece

Here is Jayna Faith and the rag flannel blanket I made for her. Aren't they both adorable!!

And the little burp cloth I made to go with it.

Hollie got to FINALLY adopt her little girl that she had been waiting FOREVER to get. It was an emotional journey for her. And I enjoyed following along with the parts that she shared with me. Jayna came along in August and about two weeks later I got to meet her over Labor Day. She was so teeny tiney!! Of course the Aunties stole her and we let our inner Anne Geddes free. Jayna is adorable. We tried putting her in a bowl and taking pictures. But the bowl was too big because we could fit a pillow, and the blanket I made for her. So we were on the hunt and got the bowl my sister in law keeps her keys in. It was perfect. We fit her little 6 lbs (she started out 5lbs 5 oz) into the bowl.

School Starts

Landon and Kylie all ready for their first day of school. And Tannen really wanted to be with them too.

Landon starts 3rd Grade

Kylie starts 1st Grade. Someday Tannen will go too - but not too soon

All ready - lets go already

Landon and Kylie started a new school since we moved this summer. They were nervous about it. But we were able to tour the school the day before and check everything out, and even meet their teachers. Then that evening they had back to school night and we did it again. Kylie got to have lunch at school and was so excited. We walked the mile to school and when I picked them up they chatted and talked so much they kept telling each other that it was their turn to talk.

I have been very impressed with the new school. I really do think it matters where you live. We only looked at houses that the school had high ratings on. This is a new school it is only their second year, but we checked out the schools around and where the neighborhood used to go and they all checked out high. When I dropped the kids off 5 minutes early just about all the students were already in their class and the halls were empty. That would have never happened at our old school even on the first day. Go Heritage Huskies. And so far two months later into the school year the kids have been doing fabulous.

Aria's 1

I haven't blogged for awhile, so I thought I would steal away some time and get updated on the main events that have happened since August. The main event was Aria's Birthday! She turned one and we finally have a summer birthday to celebrate. We were all so delighted about it that we went swimming for the day. We went to the aquatic center and the kids had a blast. I even got Landon to jump of the diving board. After we went swimming we took the kids to eat at the Center Street Grill. Then it was getting late so we actually ended up just going home and putting the kids to bed. The next day was Saturday so we woke up and did presents with Aria. She had a great time opening, and had lots of helpers too. Then we had cake. In someways I couldn't believe that a year had past. And yet it was a very difficult year having a baby when my other baby was only 18 months old. I was excited to reach the milestone and tell myself that I did it, and looking back things did get easier. We love you our beautiful little YaYa.