Zoe Goes Back to School

Zoe started another year of COW Bus. Since she will be entering Kindergarten next fall, she is eligible to go two afternoons a week. I am enjoying the freedom and flexibility that brings. Not to mention the quietness around my house. Usually after dropping her off I can come home, put Jack down for his afternoon nap, and then enjoy 2 whole hours to myself. I can catch up on my favorite TV shows, read a magazine, read a book, or update my blog. I'd be lying if I said I never used those 2 hours to take a nap myself. I've also been known to do a little hassle free shopping at Walmart, while Jack slept in his car seat. She is happy to be back in school, I just wish she could go a couple more days a week. I think she is ready for more.

In case you are wondering, she does have a black eye. I'm not sure exactly what happened all I know is it involves Noah in some way. I've heard several different stories and I wasn't even around when it happened.

Happy 1st Birthday!

Can you believe baby Jack is now a year old? This past year has been full of many ups and downs. We have enjoyed every minute we've spent with him and all the excitement he has added to our lives. However, we could have lived without his trip to the ER or his hospital stay.

He has added 2 more teeth to his mouth. Yes, we do things in pairs around here. His top left front (when looking at him) as well as the one to the left of it. His top right front is just now breaking through his gums.

His vocabulary includes: Dada, daddy, hi, want that, oah (Noah), and once in awhile mama.

His favorite person is Daddy. Yep, he is the first one of my kids to prefer his Dad over me. I'm loving it. That means Daddy gets to do some of the harder things like bath time and putting him to sleep. It also means it is easier for me to leave him, when I go to meetings and outing with my friends. However, it does make sacrament meeting a little tricky, especially when Daddy is conducting.

His favorite foods are: cheerios, crackers, ice cream, french fries, pancakes, and cheese.

His favorite toy is anything with wheels. He loves playing with cars and pushing cars around. However, he is a well rounded child and also loves hugging his sisters baby dolls. When those aren't readily available, he loves emptying the cups and plates out of the drawer and playing with them.

At a year old he is sort of walking. He will take a few steps here and there, but prefers to crawl. If you spot him walking and get all excited and start cheering for him, he will quickly stop in his tracks and start crawling. However, he is really good at walking on his knees. I call him my little Meerkat.

He loves, loves, loves music and is the cutest little dancer I know. He constantly points at the TV and flaps his hands, while rocking back and forth until we turn on the music. He even grabs the remote and points and waves it at the TV until someone will take pity on him and turns on some tunes.

He also loves taking our daily trips to the bus stop. When he sees me pick up my keys he quickly crawls towards the door. He starts waving as soon as he sees the bus coming down the road.

We are keeping our fingers crossed that when we go in to the doctor in a few weeks he has put on some weight and that his iron level is better.

Here are a few highlights from his birthday week:

He was so proud of the box he received a few days before his birthday from Grandpa Kyle and Grandma Mona.
He had so much fun playing with the box. Here he decided to put it on the bottom shelf.Proud of his accomplishment...He changed his mind. He'd rather hold the box, then look at it.How do you celebrate a 1 year old's birthday? With a few of his favorite, or what appears to be his favorite things. For Jack that included Pear Pancakes for Breakfast...
Noodles for lunch...And French Fries at McDonald's for dinner. We also discovered he loves Chicken Nuggets.
Did you know that it takes a lot of concentration to eat french fries? You also must have one in each hand.
Then it was time for presents.
He had more fun playing with the bag. Pulling it around and peeking inside then he did opening it. I knew this would be the case, so we had the kids pick out one of their old toys to wrap up for him.
Zoe finally helped him pull out part of the toy. At first he still didn't care what was inside. He had a huge bag to play with.He quickly caught on when he saw how much fun Noah and Zoe were having playing with the animals. He got even more excited when he realized they were the perfect size for his tiny hands.Proof that Noah and Zoe have had more fun playing with the re-discovered toy. Here they are the next morning playing before church.The following day (Sunday) we had Jack's Birthday cake. We figured he was too young to notice or care that it was a day late. I came up with the cake idea all on my own. However, in the end it really became a team collaboration. It was Dan's idea to make Jack Jack's head 3-D. Noah came up with adding a balloon in his had with the number 1 on it. It was fun to get all my food coloring and cake decorating tips out again. I need to do it more often.

Jack loved the attention of everyone singing to him.
I also think the lit candle mesmerized him a bit.He knew exactly what to do with the cake. He didn't hesitate one minute before taking a bite. He then quickly picked it up and started shoveling it into his mouth.
We are all looking forward to another year full of firsts for Jack and the various other milestones that come with turning into a toddler.

Hanging at the Park

What do you do when you promise your child you are finally going back to story time at the library, only to find out once you get there that it is cancelled do to staffing issues? You grab your friends that also decided to go that day and head to a local park for some running around.

Zoe has been begging to go back to story time at the library. I had been boycotting it for awhile, since the librarian in charge had been so rude and offensive. She basically told me in a not so nice way that I had to do something about Jack and remove him from the library, since she had people trying to work on the computers. He was a little fussy, not screaming like she made it seem, and her so called people working on the computer were checking their email, looking at Facebook, and playing video games. She also snapped at Noah 2 seconds later for not putting a movie back where she thought it should go. The horrible day at the library didn't end there, but that isn't the purpose of this post. Any way, I learned that she no longer worked at our branch and there was someone new in charge of story time. I also learned that story time was now on the 1st and 3rd Friday of the month. So I agreed to give it another try. But when the library opened that day she informed all of the waiting parents that there wouldn't be story time that day. Of course there were many unhappy children and I knew that going back home wasn't a good option for Zoe. She had gotten dressed and was ready to be out of the house doing something. So we grabbed our friends, the Guistis, that had also shown up for story time and headed to the Green Valley Park.

The kids ran around and played well with one another for hours. We had to drag them away kicking and screaming for lunch. I didn't manage to take any pictures of the older kids, but here are a few of Jackson and Parker hanging out.They both sat there for almost an hour playing with the gravel before they decided to try putting it in their mouths.

Can you believe that my little Jack Jack will be 1 years old tomorrow?
Where has the time gone?

2011 Canning Adventures

We have been busy canning at our house. However, I must admit that Dan has done the bulk of it. At the beginning of September it was time be creative with Peaches. I stayed out of this, since Dan's mom was in town to help. That weekend they canned peach salsa and tomato salsa. They also made peach freezer jam. After spending an afternoon in Fallon they came back with rhubarb. Dan paired this with the strawberries that his mom and dad brought with them and canned strawberry rhubarb jam. They used the left over strawberries to make strawberry freezer jam.

After they left, he continued to work his magic with peaches and canned Peach BBQ Sauce, Peach Pineapple jam, and Peach Cobbler Preserves. I think my favorite is the Peach Cobbler Preserves. Noah was Dan's big helper and managed to slip all the skins off the peaches.

Dan had a little bit of rhubarb left so he made a rhubarb crisp for dessert. He had told the kids that the leaves were poisonous and not to eat them. However, somehow this got translated into the green parts were poisonous, at least in Noah's mind. Noah had to go to bed before it was ready so Dan promised he could have some with Ice Cream for breakfast the next morning. I came out and noticed that Noah had picked over it a bit and only ate the reddish parts of the stalks as well as the crumb topping and ice cream. I asked him if he liked it and he replied, "Yes, but Dad said the green parts were poisonous so I didn't eat them." I had a good laugh. My son actually thought his Dad would put poisonous food on his plate.

A couple weeks later it was time to work magic with Pears. We canned some Pears in cinnamon syrup, pear honey, pear butter, and Pear Cranberry Jam. We also made some pear chips and pear fruit roll ups. I was able to find a nice size dehydrator in very good shape at the local thrift store. It has been worth the $6.50 investment. This time I was the big helper. We stayed up one night after the kids had gone to bed peeling pears and stirring the pear butter so it wouldn't burn. I am also the one who made pear chips. I was too excited about my find, that I had to put it to work before Dan got home. Another yummy treat we made with pears this year were Pear Pancakes. I think we were all very happy when the drawer in the fridge was finally empty. It didn't help that the pears were much smaller this year, so there were a lot more of them to peel.

Dan also put the dehydrator to use drying our tomatoes. He made me a few jars of Sun Dried Tomatoes. They have been so good mixed with cream cheese, spread on bagels.
Soon it will be time to do some pickled beets, jalapeno jelly, and green tomato goodies.

A Funny Thing About Bald Eagles

We recently received a few free animal fact sheets in the mail. You know one of those mailers that are trying to get you to subscribe to future mailings and build a collection. The kids have had a lot of fun looking them over and I actually think it would be fun to get more of them, since they are so interested in animals. It would probably come in handy some day with school reports, but you can just as easily find the information on the Internet these days. However, that's not the point of this post.

We were having one of those evening around the McDonald household. The ones where the kids just can't seem to get along. The fighting was driving both Dan and I crazy. We were trying our best to get them in bed for the evening and things just weren't going according to plan. We had had it with the name calling and hitting, so an early bedtime was set in motion. We were very frustrated and on the verge of loosing our cool. We were quickly turning into those parents that yell and scream at their kids.

Lucky for us, Noah pulled us out of this downward spiral. It wasn't in the most conventional way and it was probably one of those things you shouldn't laugh at, or endorse. But it was exactly what we needed. I am so thankful for comic relief at time like this.

So, Noah grabbed the information card on the Bald Eagle and sat in the recliner. He quickly announced to Zoe that, "I'm going to study about the Bald Eagle. I need to learn what sounds it makes, so I can call one to come take you away."

Where does he come up with this stuff? Needless to say Dan and I couldn't contain our laughter. We had to explain that that wasn't a nice thing to say. I know he really loves his sister and was just really frustrated with her at the time.

Little did he know that I wish that were possible, but I'd have the eagle take him away too. Not permanently, just temporarily. More like just have the eagle carry them off to bed.

Kysha's Tea Party

Zoe was invited to a Tea Party. The cause for celebration was her friend Kysha was turning 4 years old. The invite specifically said to dress for Tea. After digging and digging through her dress up box we came up with this pretty pink outfit.Doesn't she look adorable? At this party they had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the shape of butterflies and flowers. Cheese and Crackers in the shape of bunnies. They had sparkly pink lemonade to drink. All followed by pretty pink cupcakes with pink frosting and pink sprinkles.

During the party they made fancy hats, I forgot to get a picture of hers. Now all Zoe can talk about is planning her own Birthday Party. Too bad it is over 4 months away.

Rainbow Seeds

Over the Summer, Zoe participated in another session of COW Bus. One of their lessons over the summer was on planting seeds and how they grow. One day she brought home a clear plastic cup full of dirt and labeled "Rainbow Flowers". We left them inside for a few days and noticed how well they were growing. They very quickly out grew the little cup, so Daddy helped her transfer them into one of the garden boxes. We were surprised to see how big they grew over the summer and how pretty the flowers turned out to be.As you can see they grew taller than our Zoe. We decided to take a picture to show her teacher, Mrs. Natasha, how successful her project turned out to be. We liked them so well that Dan decided to use them in a bouquet and bring them inside along with a few other flowers for our yard. They were very nice to look at, but our house quickly became filled with bees. I guess a ton of them had stowed away on the Russian Sage. In reality we only killed 10, but at the time it seemed like an infestation.