By Popular Demand - Apple Picking Pictures!

Here are our Apple Picking Pictures.


This is a Cortland apple. I decided it was the single most beautiful apple in the whole orchard. Too bad it was mealy.

And here are pictures of Harvey, Simon (Joe West's son), and me making chocolate chip cookies.


A fun new autumn activity

Where are the pictures of the apple picking?

All of you who took pictures of the apple picking, how about posting a few pictures? It was so fun to have Kari and all of you here for the big event. They have started working on the bathroom in the basement and yesterday they jack hammered the floor to put in the plumbing. Now I have piles of dirt in my basement and dust everywhere. We'll keep you informed as to how it goes.

New Bed!

Besides the recent developments of being able to count from one to nine, and being able to sing most of the alphabet song, Harvey has taken another big step. Last night we took down his crib and set up his toddler bed!


Heather caught this great picture when he was climbing down. It's just the right height for him.


Pretending to sleep. His head is actually at the foot of the bed here.


Here he is rolling around in it.


And I couldn't resist sneaking in after he fell asleep to get a picture of his first night in his new bed. Yes, this is taken with a flash. We don't make him sleep with a light on.

He did pretty well. He cried a couple times, once for a tissue (he has a runny nose), and the other time Heather said he was standing in the middle of the room crying. We think maybe he was just a little thrown off by the new setup. Other than that, he slept remarkably well and didn't seem to get out of bed to play or anything. This morning he was even waiting for me to come get him, sitting in the corner of the bed like he did in his crib.

Christmas Consensus

What was the consensus on Christmas?

cute hat. cute girl. 'nuf said.

I meant to post this a long time ago. Mom made this hate for Adelyn and it's adorable. I thought everyone should see it and be proud that our mother is so crafty. She also made one for Macie, but it's still pretty big. I'm sort of trying to make one, but I doubt it will be this cute. I'm sure Kari's will be fantastic, too!

Family Pictures

I sent you all a note about family pictures at Thanksgiving suggesting that the adults wear sweatshirts from one of the colleges that they have attended. I should have put the info here, because Hillary wants some calcification and we can vote on it better here. Let's take a vote as to whether we should wear sweatshirts or t shirts for the picture. My vote is for sweatshirts, I think they will look better than a t shirt. Also it will be in November after all. Then we can just wear jeans with it. Now it's your turn to weigh in on this important matter.

No surgery

As a general notification-and for those of you who've I've talked to about this-I am NOT going to be having jaw surgery. Not now, and probably not ever. If you look at the picture to your right, you will notice that there is a large yellow nerve coming out from what seems to be the ear. The incision for the surgery to correct my jaw problem (problem=no cartilage between my left jaw bones) would be made right by the ear and thus right by the nerve. And if you go down to the second picture...

...you can see why this is one of the riskiest surgeries to have. All of those nerves control your face in one way or another. The yellow and orange ones control motion and the green and blue ones have to do with senses. And I am sure that there are other smaller ones that are not pictured. I visited with an ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) doctor yesterday and he told me that the only people really qualified to do this surgery are those doctors that specialize in them. He told me not to trust this surgery to anyone else-because of the risk. Any nick or mess up could leave me paralyzed on the left side of my face.

So I am saying, "no thank you" to that and we will just figure something out. The pain is bad, but only sometimes, and it does seem to be relieved using anti-inflammatory pain killers like Aleve, Motrin and Advil. He also told me I can try hot and cold compresses, jaw stretches (which he did on me while I was there and that is something else I will say "no thank you" to), and if it gets really bad, they can inject the area with a pain killer to numb it-but it would only be temporary and the injection itself would hurt.

What does this mean for my head and my meds? Well, we are still discussing our options, but since I can't get rid of the jaw pain like my brain doctor wanted before we decreased the meds, we might just do the easing off of meds ourselves and see how it goes. Don't worry, I'm not stupid and if I go off of them and see an adverse difference, I will go right back on. My health is number one and I know that. I had a blessing a couple of nights ago and I know that this trial will soon be over ("soon" being the Lord's term, so we'll see how long it really is since His timing is different from ours). So my new mantra is: "Hold on they way...Fear not...,for God shall be with you forever and ever" (D&C 122:9).

New entry way -- new bathroom

Well, after a couple of weeks of work, not steady of course, the entry way is at last complete (or at least 96.75% complete). I still need to put the door back on the coat closet and wash one tile that I didn't get the grout sealer off; but other than that, it is complete. I didn't think to take pictures for a before and after but you've all seen the ugly tile that was there before. I do have a middle picture (after I did the grout) and the after picture. I'm sure you'll love it as much as we do (please don't read any pride into that comment -- although I'm sure it's there). Any way, here they are.



Also, another piece of good news. After so many complaints about the lack of bathroom space in the house, we have decided to have the downstairs bathroom remodeled and put in a real toilet, real shower, and new vanity and lighting. We're hoping it will make staying here much more comfortable when we have a full house. I have taken a picture of the bathroom as it stands today so that you can remember what a wonderful place it was (I'm sure some of you have fond memories of it.) It is supposed to be completed before Thanksgiving but we can't have it started until after we return from Utah. You'll be impressed with how it turns out.

Balloon sighting

So we're sitting at dinner last night and Mom heard this blow-torch-like sound and ran outside to see what it was. It was a hot-air balloon right over Mollie's house. It was very close and looked like it was coming down in Taylor's backyard. I think it made it over into the field by Theiser John Deere but we don't know. At any rate, I took three pictures of it and thought you might enjoy them. Isn't Michigan fun!!

Thank You

Thank you Hillary and Kurt, all of those pictures were great! I should complain more often.

Funny spoof

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMzv_rnU5l0

Charlie and I were watching the news the other day and they spotlighted a guy who makes literal music videos. He has some really funny ones. This is a spoof he also did of the product called the "Snuggie." I thought it was so funny I just had to share it.

Lots o' Pics

Mom wanted some pictures, and I just happened to have some new ones. Here they are! I apologize to Hillary for pushing her massive set of photo-posts down.

This first set is when we went to the Toledo Zoo. We went with our friends Rourke, Heather, and Archer. Harvey and Archer are great friends. He looks forward to seeing him all day whenever we mention that we'll be visiting them or vice versa.


Heather shows Harvey how to make "bear hands" at the polar bear exhibit. He does this any time he sees a bear, now.


Sleeping bear


Riding a tiger!


And kissing a tiger.


This is part of the Toledo Zoo's new children's area. This indoor place has live animals to look at, stuff to climb on, and things to explore. It's really neat.


Another part of the indoor area. This is modelled after a bee hive. They had bee costumes, too, but we couldn't get Harvey into one.


We obviously had to get this picture. Harvey's got a ways to go.

Now we move on to a couple "firsts" Harvey had this past weekend.

First time eating corn on the cob by himself.


Of course, he loves it. (Don't mind the bruise on his chin.)


First ice cream cone!


First bite of the first ice cream cone!



More funny faces.

Our garden so far...

Here are some more things from our garden. We have had a plentious load this year. Our tomatoes are just starting to come on and ripen. We have some kind of bug attacking them though. They are eating the tomatoes from the inside out. We don't know what it is or what to do about it.

This is a super weird looking cucumber that came out of the garden. Makayla got to eat it. She thought it was delicious.

These are the jars of pickles we did. It's our first pickling experience and we haven't tried them yet to see how they turned out. We'll keep you posted.

More fair

These pictures were on another camera...

This is Makayla during the Cloverbud showmanship class.

This is Chelsea during the Cloverbud showmanship class.

This is Chelsea as a Christmas tree and Brunch as a reindeer for the costume class.

This is Makayla the babysitter and Breakfast the baby for the costume class.

Harvey on the trampoline

At the beginning of summer, we got to have Harvey come stay with us for a couple of days. We had lots of fun with him. While he was here, he jumped on the trampoline for the first time. He was very sure of it, but warmed up to it a little. Here he is...

Nauvoo

We just got back from visiting Kari, Eric and Noah. We had lots of fun with them. Thanks, guys, for letting us come and crash at your pad. One of the highlights of our trip was going to Nauvoo. We went Thursday afternoon and then stopped again on our way home on Saturday. Even though we went twice, we still didn't get to see everything. It really has me wanting to go again. Thank goodness we will have the chance to go next summer for the reunion.

On our way to Nauvoo there were many hills to drive over. Charlie gave the kids a thrilling ride by speeding up and down them, just like a roller coaster. My kids started to put their hands up and say "Weeee." Noah started to do it too but he stopped just as Kari tried to take this clip.

Elder Walker showed us how to make rope and then he made Makayla into our very own "Rope Angel."

We got to see a bread demonstration with a bussel oven and then got to taste bread samples.

We saw a candle making demonstration and then each of the kids got their own candles, made at Nauvoo.

We played school and saw some words that some of the early LDS men spelled, phonetically. They were spelled in really weird ways and some of them were pretty funny.

This is how our family would have looked if we had lived in Nauvoo, back in the 1840s.

This is one of the many pioneer games you can play at the Living Center in Nauvoo.

This is another pioneer game at the Living Center.

My kids loved playing pioneer with the dress-up clothes. They were so cute too.

Fair

So the Genesee County Fair was where our kids took their goats this year. It was the third week in August. It was the longest week of my life! I'm so glad it's over. It was a great learning experience and I REALLY hope many things are different (better) next year or we might have to go back to the Livingston County Fair.

This is Merrit's goat, Breakfast and Lexi's goat, Brunch.

These are all the goodies the kids made for fair entries. Lexi made Sundae Brownies, Merrit made Refrigerator Rolls, Makayla made Banana Muffins and Chelsea made Oatmeal Carmal Bar Cookies. They were all very delicious. I haven't got their other entries back yet, but I'll post pictures of those as soon as I do.