I have a love/hate relationship with food preservation. I've spent the last couple weeks canning peaches, dehydrating apples, and processing tomatoes. Peaches are ok, although I got some free ones this year that had a ton of bad spots, so it took awhile; but they were free, so I won't complain. Dehydrating apples are ok, although I'm surprised by how much they shrink. I've also learned the important lesson of not eating too many of them once they are dehydrated. Just trust me on that one! My awesome aunt gave us two very large boxes of tomatoes to can. I decided I wanted to try to make salsa and spaghetti sauce. It was kind of fun. . .for the first hour. After two days of trying to balance canning and kids, it was not so much fun. I love the idea of canning, especially if the food is free (you know how I love free things!) and homemade/canned goods are always better than what you buy in the store. Plus, no preservatives. But in the end I probably spent about 8 hours plus cleanup time and only got 6 quarts of spaghetti sauce and 7 pints of salsa, . . . which I could buy at the store for about $1.50 each. Hmmmm. . .
I love preschool! Initially we decided that we didn't want to put Alex in two years of preschool, but after coming home from our trip to Maine, he was bugging me constantly to play with him. There aren't a whole lot of little friends his age in our neighborhood, so in the end we decided to enroll him in preschool, just to give him something to do. I was skeptical at first - it sounded like a lot of driving back and forth three days a week, and how on earth was I supposed to get the kids ready and out the door that early? But I LOVE it! I drop Alex off at 9, come home to put Caleb to bed, enjoy 1.5 hours to myself, then go and pick Alex up at 11. I am so much more efficient on the mornings he has school, Alex gets social interaction, we still have plenty of time to go to the park and things afterwards. It's great! It's hard to tell if Alex really likes it or not, he mainly only tells us what they had for a snack. But he seems pretty happy to go, so I assume he likes it.
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| Alex will NEVER look at the camera these days, so this "first day of school" pic is as good as it gets. |
Going on the opening night of the State Fair is the best, but somehow still expensive. The past couple years we've gone to the State Fair on the first night. It's great! Tickets are discounted, not all the animals are there (but come on, how many sheep do you really want to see?), the barns aren't as smelly yet, and it's not nearly as crowded. This time we bought dinner there, which was fun, but somehow by the time you pay for parking, and the tickets, and dinner, and a few rides, it's a rather expensive night out. Or maybe I'm just way too cheap. Yeah, that might be part of it. It was still fun though, and the boys had a grand time hanging out with Meme and Pepe.
Hormones suck. (Sorry, TMI) My Dr. has had to change my birth control prescription a couple times. I now look like I'm going through puberty again. But I suppose acne is better than having a period every other week. Either way, I'm kind of over all of it. Hopefully next month things will be more normal. Being a girl is so much fun at times. . .
I really like painting. Not that I'm any good at it, but we can pretend. Growing up I always loved drawing and painting. In 5th grade my grandpa would pick me up from school, take me to the mall and buy us some Cinnabons, then take me back to their house for a watercolor lesson. I haven't touched a brush much since then (well, other than brushes to paint the house, but that sort of painting doesn't count). I've felt rather stressed and grouchy lately (yay for hormones!), so I've started to break out the paints more. It's been rather therapeutic. I've forgotten how much I enjoy painting.
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| Alex and I painted together. |
Day trips up to the mountains are awesome, but PLEASE smack me if I ever again suggest going camping with little people. I love the mountains. Every year at the beginning of summer I start itching to go camping, go hiking, go up with friends for dinner, etc. And somehow every year we never make it up as much as I'd like; so around this time of year it begins to dawn on me that summer is over and I frantically start planning as many trips up the canyon as possible. We took the boys up Big Cottonwood Canyon twice a couple weeks ago to roast hot dogs and go fishing, which was so much fun! The boys seemed to really like being out in the wilderness, having a fire, fishing, playing in the dirt, etc.
Two weeks later I convinced Matt to borrow his parents tent trailer and go camping. Some friends joined us for dinner, which was fun, except Caleb was getting a tooth and Alex was so excited that he didn't take a nap that afternoon and was complaining that he wanted to go to bed by 5:30. That night ended up being a lot colder than we had expected, the heater in the trailer kept making a rattling noise that everyone else seemed to sleep through but me, Caleb kept waking up crying until I finally brought him into bed with me, which lasted about 2 hours before I was going to lose my mind (I cannot cosleep!) and I finally strongly hinted to Matt that he should take over. I'm also the type that can't function very well without sleep, so the next day I felt like crap. The kids were still whiny and wanted to be held while we were trying to pack everything up. Then I had another brilliant idea that we should go on a little hike before heading home. Once we got moving, the kids would be happy, right?. . .Sort of. We really were having a grand time walking along, looking at the leaves, an old wasp nest, a little waterfall, a squirrel eating some berries, etc. when after about half a mile Alex decided he was too tired to possibly take one more step. He's way to heavy to carry these days, so he moaned the entire way back to the car. It was awesome. At least Caleb fell asleep in the hiking backpack on the way back. Please remind me to read this blog post next summer when I forget the whole experience and get it into my head again that camping with our children would be a fabulous idea.
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| At least the boys are dang cute when they aren't crying |
I love thrift store shopping. Ok, this is something I've known for a very long time. But seriously, it's great! Alex's pants were all too short, so I've spent the last couple weeks going to all the nearby thrift stores. I've found 6 good looking pants, a brand new pair of shoes, a slightly used pair of snow boots, and some snow pants for Alex, plus 3 pants and 1 shirt for next year. I got Caleb a couple pairs of pants as well. I bought Matt some brand new snow pants. I found me a new pair of boots. AND the best thing of all? A large area rug for the living room, brand new from Target but half the price since it came from Goodwill. Yay!!
