October 2011

We did cookies with the cousins while the men went to priesthood conference.  The kids always have fun together, and I think I was cleaning up sprinkles for a week.

 Then later in the month we carved pumpkins with the other side of the family.  We managed to make some pretty cool pumpkins!

 Grandma Joy is the coolest!

 We had a little family dinner for my birthday.  Dad always makes me my favorite pasta and shrimp dinner and Shelly made me a cheesecake.  I'm pretty sure there were enough calories for a week in that one meal, but it sure was good!

Sunflower Seeds

Back when the boys were in preschool they did an activity where they planted a sunflower seed in a cup.  When it started to grow they were supposed to transplant it somewhere with enough room for it to grow up, apparently they can grow to 12 feet high.  I'll be honest, I didn't have high hopes that this little experiment would actually work, but with the TLC of Grandma it actually grew, and got really big!

  The plant got huge, and heavy.  We had to tie it to a steak towards the end.  Since we had such good luck we decided to try and harvest the sunflower seeds.   We started by picking the flowers...

 Then Spencer and Carter pulled out all of the seeds and soaked them in a bucket of water.

 After they had soaked for a while they had to dry off.

 Then we put them on a baking sheet and baked them, and finally we ate them!  It was a fun learning experience for the boys to see how sunflower seeds are grown and harvested, and best of all it was really hands on for them.  They were there every step of the way, from planting, to eating.  

September 2011

We went to Wheeler Farm with Amanda and her kids.  I haven't been there in so long, it brought back memories from elementary school field trips for me.  It also renewed an interest in farm animals for the boys.  They had fun feeding the ducks and petting the animals, but I think the most memorable thing for them was learning what an outhouse was - they thought it was hysterical!

 Matt and I hiked Ensign Peak with the boys.  They thought it was so cool to climb to the top of the mountain.  It was more difficult then I remembered, but we were able to take some breaks along the way - for the boys of course.

 Carter decided he wanted to try riding his bike without training wheels as well.  He did a great job!  Of course my camera was out of batteries so I had to plug it in on the porch in order to take some pictures.  I was very proud of him!

First Day of Kindergarten

The boys first day of kindergarten was fun, we were all way excited. They have afternoon kindergarten, half days, so they don’t go until 12:45. That made for a long first part of the day. As we were finally getting ready to go I asked Carter if he was going to miss me and he very matter-of-factly said, "No." (sad, right??). Then Spencer tried to make me feel better by telling me not to be sad because I would have Mario Kart all to myself while they were gone (I guess he thought that since that would cheer him up it would work for me too). When we got to the school they had all of the kids and parents meet in one room first to have a ‘cookies and kleenex’ meeting. They had all of the kids give their parents hugs and then they left the room and we had to stay and listen to the rules about drop off, pick up, PTA etc. I did get a little teary eyed as I watched them leave the room waiting to see if they would turn around for one last wave, but they didn’t even look back - little stinkers are too grown up!!  I didn't think I would be so sad, but I kinda was.  I was glad that Matt was there with me and was able to be home for the rest of the afternoon so I didn't have to face an empty house alone on my first day.  He even bought me lunch, so that was a nice bonus!

July 2011

Spencer likes to sneak out of his bed and fall asleep in random spots around the house, so I wasn't too surprised when I went to check on him one night and he wasn't where he was supposed to be.  I was surprised though when I found him asleep like this in the spare bedroom. Crazy kid!

 Amanda and I took our kids to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point.  I had never been, and I wasn't sure how the boys would feel about looking at dinosaur bones, but it turned out that the museum was having a birthday party for itself and they had a pirate theme going on with games and crafts for the kids.  It turned out to be a lot of fun!

 I was super excited for Matt to FINALLY and officially turn 30.  I usually don't mind that I am a little older then him, but I'll admit that the fact that I was in my 30's while he was still riding out his 20's was giving me a bit of a complex!  The boys made him a fabulous cake and made some super cute cards and we celebrated Matt Speirs style.

 Another trip to the Children's Museum with Amanda and her kids.  There is so much to do there that we usually don't end up making it through the whole thing.