Thursday, July 30, 2009

Nocturnal visitor

Luckily our little friend didn't manage to get the lid open. The kids thought this was the coolest thing they'd ever seen. The next day they went to see if the prints were still there. They were. (Even through much rain, they didn't wash off.) Josh couldn't believe it, "I think the racoon came back again last night!!"

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Happy Birthday, Lauren -or- Emma's getting craftier and craftier

Emma picked out all of the fabric, positioned the 'L', and sewed at least 50% of this one:
And she finished one of the cross-stitches that Grammy gave her and put in it a frame for her room. I'm already starting to fill her head with ideas that she ought to get busy making all of her siblings and grandmothers some Christmas gifts with her growing pool of talents to pull from.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Bonnets

Pioneer babies are extra cute.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Hobbit Door

I realize Lord of the Rings is so 6 or 8 years ago, but I haven't seen the new Harry Potter (yet!) and I thought this Etsy offering was cute.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

In the van

Lydia likes to make up songs. Often when we're in the van she can be heard singing about various topics on her mind (like, "My best friend Maya moved to Arizona" or "I'm shy of Brad but that's okay"). For a long time I've wanted to capture one of these ballads before she loses the habit. Finally on the 4th of July I: a) had the camera with me and b) was not driving and c) remembered. This is a snippet of her musical contemplation of the parade we were on our way to. Usually her songs are longer (like a five minute long run-on sentence) and kind of flow between topics, but she was in more of a la-la-la mood this day. So this clip is not actually the most accurate representation of her normal car songs, but I wanted to document at least something, since I may never catch it again.

I thought it would be nice to include also another common/favorite van occurance. Josh always begs to hear Pork and Beans by Weezer over and over again while we're driving. I usually say, "Okay, but only if you rock out."

Monday, July 20, 2009

Have I ever mentioned my brother is a filmaker?

And a darn good one too. Last week he found out he's been nominated for an Emmy for his editing work on the documentary, Resolved. Yes, an Emmy. Whenever you talk about him now, be sure to precede his name with "Emmy nominated". Then run on over to Netflix and put Resolved in your queue so you can appreciate his awesome talent.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Telling footage

This video clip demonstrates a number of things:

1. Emma's proficiency on the recorder (thank you very much, third grade music teacher)

2. Afton's amusement when Emma plays (she usually laughs longer than this clip, actually)

3. Afton can sit up

4. Afton can crawl

5. Josh likes to bounce around

6. Not many people around here see a need for getting dressed

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Sisters

Emma loves being a big sister. She loves to take care of Lydia; read to her, play with her, or give her a makeover... ...complete with nail polish and bows.Lydia puzzles over how they will get the extra-tight lid off of the purple polish:

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Monday, July 13, 2009

Three new bags...

...coming to an art gallery gift shop near you!



(if you happen to live near 1506 Mission Street, South Pasadena)

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Austin and Katina

Tied the knot this morning in the Mt. Timpanogas Temple. Congrats guys!
This scoop brought to you by the wonder of technology that is Scott's iphone.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Strange strangers...

Meet my new associates, On Easly and Arry Otter. I don't know where they came from, but they showed up at my house one day and they're willing to help with the cleaning so I let them stay.
P.S. They want me to be quite clear that they are wearing disguises, not costumes.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Another 4th of July

The parade:
We started out the morning by parking ourselves on the side of a usually-busy street. As we anxiously waited for something to happen we were entertained by a pair of helicopters which went up and down the parade route. The big one would occasionally hover right above us. This was simultaneously scary and wonderful. It was hovering very low. The rotors gave us the most fantastic, strong, cooling wind (it was a sweaty day), but it was so low I couldn't help playing out the worst-case scenario in my head and trying to figure out if we'd have time to grab all of our children and fling them to safety if the huge whilrlybird should suddenly drop from the sky.
We enjoyed an endless stream of slow-moving trucks often pulling boats full of elected officials, church congregation members, business owners, swim teams, collections of classic corvettes, clowns, horses, marching bands, and of course the Andy Griffith Rerun Watcher's Club (almost all of them handed out candy too...our favorite float was the one that handed out bottled waters).Lunch and games:
After the parade we headed over to Grammy and Grandpa's for a lunch of roasted hot dogs and tons of fixin's followed by a roasted marshmallows dessert. We played some 20 questions with the kids and Grammy had some patriotic and fun little gift bags for the kids which included colorful sunglasses...Josh kept his on most of the day.

The intermission:

We crashed at home for a few hours to regroup and watch The Sound of Music (Emma and Ben: loved it, Josh: kind of really boring (except for the doe-a-deer part), Lydia: MIA).

The dinner and show:

Then the fun day continued as we grabbed our good friends from the ward, the Stoners, and headed up to the Cruze Compound. There we met the Conan and Callys, the Rachel and Terrys, and a family the C&Cs brought (I don't remember their names, but their one-year-old threw up at the end of the night...how's that for first impressions? Now any time we happen to see them again we'll say, 'Oh yeah, you're Pukey's mom and dad.'). Here we first had a delicious picnic dinner,then started our fireworks fun in the waning twilight. First the snap dragons and smoke bombs:Next came sparklers, then it got dark enough for the heavy artillery. No photos of this portion of the fun except for this one of Lydia enjoying the privilege of staying up way past her bedtime and eating tons of candy.The show was spectacular, but the minor burn injury of one member of the audience (I'll leave the particulars to his parents to tell) due to a rogue firework shooting sideways left us feeling like maybe it's time to hang up our pyrotechnics hat and try something like this next year instead.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Birthday Gift


My birthday was awhile ago, I finally remembered to take a photo of my wonderful gift from my wonderful husband (gush, gush). How I love it!