Breaking in Shoes

I recently bought some new shoes. My feet are not the same size and shape they were last year, so I needed new shoes my feet did not slosh around in. One particular pair of shoes rubbed my heel in a painful way, and I thought about the phrase "breaking in new shoes." I wondered why we talk about breaking in shoes when sometimes we have to toughen up, or "break in," our feet in order to where the new shoes. The shoes don't really change, but our body adapts to be able to wear them.

The Haunted Forrest

Six years ago I went to a haunted house with Michael and confirmed I don't really like them. This year, I thought I would test my memory and went to a haunted forest with Michael on a date. Yep, still don't like haunted houses or anything like it. However, I do have to admit the Haunted Forest was really well done. The actors were good even if they were super creepy, the costumes were really intricate, and when people jumped out from dark corners it really got the best of both of us. The whole thing was well done, but I still don't like it.

On the other hand, it was fabulous to go on a date with my husband. We finally hired a baby-sitter and went on a date that did not consist of eating out or watching a movie. Our first experience with a hired baby-sitter was very nice. It was very comforting knowing our kiddos were being looked after by someone careful, conscientious, and patient. Hopefully this will be the beginning of more date nights for us.

Flashback Friday - Benjamin

I started going through pictures this week so I can start building our children's history from when Benjamin was born to when I started this blog. I discovered we do not have a lot of pictures from when Benjamin was brand new because we were still using a film camera for half or more of our picture taking. I will have to go dig out the actual pictures and do some scanning, but here is my first post from just after Benjamin was born.

Mistakes & Choices

Found this quote online and I wanted to remember it so I am posting it here.

Aging Gracefully

Today I saw pictures of one of the little girls I used to baby-sit as Homecoming Queen of the high school I graduated from. It made me think of other things that make me realize I am getting older. Things like

• one of the beehive girls I taught getting married
• little boys I used to baby-sit going on missions or graduating from high school
• realizing I have been married for almost 8 years
• thinking about my oldest getting baptized at the age of 8 in 18 months
• watching the girls I baby-sat before they started school graduating from high school and going off to college
• remembering it has been 10 years since I was a senior in high school
• watching my one year old learning to master the stairs in our house and remembering his sister was just about this age when we moved in over three years ago
• contemplating the fact I have been in my current occupation longer than I attended any one school (6 1/2 years)

Life is full of changes and sometimes it just flies by way too fast, but it continues to provide new experiences and opportunities at the same time.

1st Birthdays

Looking back at our children on their first birthdays I am reminded of how different each of them are. I love them in all of their individuality and I am amazed that while they follow similar developmental patterns their speed of development is very different, just like their personalities. However, they are all very similar in that they are determined to do things their way, in their own time, and not even Mom and Dad can convince them to move to the next stage of development until they are ready.

A lot of people tell me our children look alike. While there is much truth in that, I look at these pictures of each of my children at the age of one I can see how different they are from each other. Sometimes their baby pictures are hard to tell apart, but definitely not their one year old pictures. Wow!

Splish, Splash, Ryan's Taking a Bath

Ryan is our little fish. This morning while I was giving him a bath, he was splashing and swishing until he discovered he could drum on the tub and hear a nice hollow sound. I started to mimic his drumming to see if he would drum some more to see if I would drum again. Sure enough, he would drum and wait for me and then drum some more. We were having a regular drumming party until he decided he had enough and stood up to climb out of the tub.

Applesauce Made Easy

Today I had the opportunity to use this nifty tool (picture found online because my kitchen gets very messy when I can, and I don't want to share pictures of that) to make applesauce. It only took me about three hours to process 30+ pints of applesauce (we ate some and put some leftovers in the fridge when I ran out of jars) from start to finish and clean up my mess. When I made 12 pints a few months ago, i didn't have this tool and it took me at least three to four hours without including clean up. I love the way this simplifies the process by doing the coring, peeling, and pureeing all at the same time after I quartered and boiled the apples to soften them. Now, we have plenty of applesauce for eating and making cookies and sweet breads. Yum!

Secret Note Friday

With Benjamin in school all day now, he has the privilege of eating at school which means packing him a lunch every day. We have been working on finding creative things for him to eat at school so he still gets the variety he would at home as well as finding fun things to surprise him with in his lunch box. One of those fun surprises is notes on his napkin every Friday. We have nicknamed our little game "Secret Note Friday." Benjamin has been enjoying it so much that he reminds me on Thursday night about the note for Friday's lunch. The other day Michael made his lunch on a Thursday and included a note. Benjamin had to inform Michael he was not playing the game correctly because notes were for Fridays only. His insistence was so serious we conceded that while it was okay for him to have notes other days, we will do our best to remember to only send notes on Fridays unless we let him no about a change beforehand.

Things that Make Me Smile

Perhaps a better title would be "funny things I have read or seen on Pinterest that make smile," but that seemed a bit long. I have included links to the original sources for all of the pictures I post to give proper credit to the creators and original sources while not drawing on their bandwidth.

Pumpkinland

Our playgroup went to Pumpkinland this week. They had a mini, kid-friendly corn maze, a small village of play houses, a playground, and a "light" alley. We had fun and even picked out a pumpkin to take home with us as we left.