Aspiring Photographer

This past week Elijah has discovered that he can take pictures with my camera. It started with having him try and take a picture off me for a bio. He discovered how easy and fun it was and decided he wanted to take more pictures. He is still figuring out how to get the camera steady and give it a chance to focus before he pushes the button all the way but some of his pictures turn out pretty good. It's lots of fun to see what he deems picture worthy. He's a pretty cute little boy. I just love the expression I was able to catch on camera. It captures him well- my silly cute little boy.

Here are some of Elijah's pictures from outside our apartment and also from our hike.

Impromptu Family Outing

Yesterday morning was a bit depressing. I had planned to go garage saleing but Josh at the last minute remembered that he was helping someone in the ward move and that ended up taking a lot longer than anticipated. I was left at home with two squabbling boys and a large, smelly, black puddle under our kitchen sink (ew sick!! and maintenance has yet to come about it). By the time Josh got home I was a bit frazzled and Josh still had to go into work to maintain his "fridge." I was at the end of my rope. That was when Josh stepped in and decided that we were all going into work and then out for a hike. I dragged my feet a bit but we all ended up going and despite already being sore from kickboxing the day before I did end up enjoying myself and being with my family.

It was a bit overcast and cool, perfect for being outdoors. We ended up hiking up behind Josh's lab. I guess they own a lot of the property up into the foothills. Elijah determined that we were going up to the top of a hill. He was a ball full of energy and practically ran up the hill. Sam on the otherhand was content to say "I tired" and ride on Josh's shoulders.

The view from the top of the hill was quite beautiful. Elijah and I had fun taking pictures of the wild flowers and mountains and Sam loved looking out for the birds and bunnies. It started to sprinkle while we were up there and the smell was heavenly. There's nothing like an afternoon out in nature with your family to brighten your mood. Thanks Josh!

Three Weeks and Counting...

until the Family History Expo in Loveland, Colorado! I've been reading the class schedule. I think I'm going to have a hard time deciding what classes to take. I'm hoping that the teachers all have a detailed sylabus so I learn something even if I can't make it to their class. You can drool over the schedule yourself on the expos website. There are classes for everyone, beginner to expert, US and International localities.

The Physics of Ice Cream

Last week Josh came home acting like a nine year old cub scout excited to get into trouble. He had brought home with him a container of liquid nitrogen which he uses at work to cool down his "fridge." He had actually buckled the container into one of the boys car seats to insure it's safe arrival home. The idea was to make ice cream with the liquid nitrogen and Josh was super excited.



He and the boys mixed all the ingredients in a bowl and then it was time for the exciting part... bring on the smoke!








I got most of it on video, it's a bit long but its pretty cool how fast you can do ice cream. The process probably took a total of 10 minutes. Yay for instant gratification! I was really surprised at how well the ice cream turned out. The next day it came out of the freezer and scooped out like store bought ice cream. Mmm Mmmm Good!

You're a bit crazy and a dare devil sometimes, Josh, but I will admit it was a fun and yummy idea. We even did a repeat of it at our friends house for FHE. Thanks Josh my scientist man!

***Okay so the video won't upload, ANNOYING! I'll try it in another post. Meanwhile you can see a video of our ice cream adventure for FHE at our friends house.

1st Annual Colorado Family History Expo

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

This Year's Garden

Our garden is in. I did starts inside again this year and I am beginning to think they are not worth the effort. But anyway, they are now in our garden boxes and things are going pretty well. We planted peas, cucumbers, basil, jalepenos, and bell peppers this year. The peas are doing really well. It's fun to see them curl their vines around our makeshift suport system. There will be more pictures to come as things grow. (We opted not to do squash this year after last years experience. They took over the world. We'll see how this year's goes.)



If you want information about our garden boxes and how we made them there are links on my post from last year. Also if you click on the label "Garden" you will get pictures from last years gardening effort.

For Mother's Day Josh got me a beautiful hanging pot of flowers to put out in our "garden." Our balcony is becoming quite an inviting place.

Finally Solved!

Josh has had this rubix cube like puzzle kicking around our house since we have been married. Apparently he has had it since he was sixteen or seventeen years old. The whole time it has been floating around my house it has been a mix of colors. Every once in awhile Josh would sit down and try and figure it out but would always give up long before it was solved. Josh even tried finding a solution online but was unable to follow the complex directions to solve it.



Then a couple weeks ago he comes and finds me with the biggest proudest grin on his face and the solved puzzle in his hand. He had finally solved the puzzle! He was so proud he even took pictures of it himself to prove that he had done it and then let me take a picture saying I should blog about it. He's sure silly and boy do I love him!



That man has a lot of patience and determination when it comes to puzzles and I am grateful that it carries over to his research. If it were otherwise he would have given up long ago on his project. His fridge is finally cold again and we're praying and crossing our fingers that his chips work this time.

Family History Blog Updated

For those of you that are interested I have posted some new finds on my family history blog. I have been playing around with the church's website lab.familysearch.org and have found images of original documents for my ancestors in the records search. CHECK IT OUT and do a search for your own ancestors! It always amazes me what new stuff is becoming availible at a click of a button.

Grateful for...

Park Days

• Sunny day with a cool breeze
• Sunscreen and sun hats (I learned my lesson last week)
• A couple hours spent with fellow mommies while the kids run rampant

Everybody needs a good laugh

Well, everyone needs a good laugh once in a while -a good side splitting, tear crying, wear you out laugh. Thanks to our friends Ashley and Quinn at our ward talent show last night I had my good laugh. Even better they posted a recording of it on their blog (Josh was the camera man and it's a good thing I wasn't, I was a blurry mess with tears from laughing so hard) so all can enjoy and I can visit whenever I'm in need of a good laugh.

Ashley and Quinn YOU ARE AMAZING! Thanks for sharing your talents!

Wheels on the Bus go WALK

He is a rare moment when Elijah and Sam are cooperating with the bus. There really are cute buddies.

Elijah's form of Recycling

There is a Curious George episode that talks about recycling that is on PBS a lot (the downside of Curious George is that they repeat the episodes A LOT). Elijah has caught onto the recycling bug but more in the way of reusing. He latches onto my container garbage and imagines things to make out of it. In particular he likes to reuse boxes, especially the ones that come from Costco. He is really rather creative but the downside is that I always have random boxes floating around my house. Here are three of the things he has recently come up with.

Box Robot

Elijah and Josh worked together to make this. Elijah colored it all himself and Dad helped cut out the holes. He had dreams of attaching other things to it like paper towels rolls, egg cartons, pop bottles, etc but he hasn't gotten them to work yet.

Sled/Hockey Table

This box was quickly claimed as a snow sled. Elijah wanted to get a string to tie to the front of it so he could pull it around in the snow. Well, I don't think there will be anymore snow for a LONG time (hallelujah!) so he has decided to draw trees on it. Sam wanted to color on the box too but his doodles weren't Elijah approved so Elijah drew a circle around them with a line through it. Elijah and Josh played a bit of table hockey on it. Josh started playing with a wood apple from the kitchen toys. That too was not Elijah approved so he had Josh draw a picture of an apple and then Elijah promptly drew a circle around it with a line through it. He's taken to noticing signs with the circle and line through it everywhere - no smoking, no parking, no dogs, etc. I think the plan for the box now is to cut out trees from paper and glue them on somehow. We'll see.

School Bus

I've been going through all the boys cloths which I keep in old diaper boxes and ended up with an extra box that surprise surprise Elijah latched onto. This time he had Sam in on it and the were walking around the house with the box on their heads pretending it was a bus. I jumped on that and together we created a school bus out of the box. The boys helped color the licence plates and Elijah wrote the number 42 on the side (4 for Elijah and 2 for Sam). They are quite fond of the bus, unfortunately there can only be one driver and they fight over it constantly. They will both get in the bus and try and drive different directions usually ending up in a fussy pile of legs and wheels. Needless to say the bus gets put in the "bus garage" frequently. They do have some pretty cute moments in the bus though.

Deep Thought

Elijah said this to me this evening:

Sometimes less is more and somtimes less is not.

Elijah's "Self in Blocks"

It seems to be feast of famine with me and blogging lately. Today is a feasting day!

Elijah dumped out his entire bag of wood pattern blocks this afternnon all over the living room rug. I asked him to clean them up while I threw dinner together. I peeked in on him and instead of cleaning up he was creating... a self portrait.

Here he is next to his creation being quite proud of himself. It is always interesting to see how little kids view themselves. Elijah is always sure to do curly hair whenever he does a picture of himself.

IKEA is my friend

I love IKEA! The store is AMAZING! They have anything you could possibly need for your home at reasonable prices and fairly good quality. There is a store in Draper, Utah that I visit whenever I get a chance. The store is massive and the layout is unique to any other store I have been in. The top floor is the showroom where they have intricately set up various rooms with all the items tagged as to where you can find them and what they cost. Downstairs is where you can find all the items from lights to furniture to curtains and vases. Unfortuantely there isn't a store here in Colorado, yet, and I don't have a big enough car to drag all the items I want home with me. Someday... (I'm sure Josh is rolling his eyes).

Anyway, I made my trek through Ikea with my list while I was in Utah and came home with some new items for my apartment that I am excited about.


My creative spurt that resulted in curtains for the boys room made me want curtains of my own in the master bedroom. I found some really cute simple ones at ikea for $15 a pair. I was going cheap and easy so I simply used upholstry tacks to pin the curtains up (an technique used in the Nesting Place's window mistreatments). What do you think?










Our apartment also has the lovely oddity of not having any over head lights in either of the bedrooms. There is one plug that is wired to a light switch and we have been using an up light in the boys room to provide light at night. The poor light has been through the wringer and no longer was standing on it's own (I actually had it tied to the foot of Elijah's bed to make it stand). I did a little surfing on Ikea's website and found some overhead lights that you plug into the wall and hang from the ceiling. Perfect! I managed to get one home in my suitcase and Josh's dad spent a couple hours poking holes in the ceiling looking for a stud to hang it from. Thank you Allan! I am very happy with the result!

I also got a set of black sheer curtains that I thought might work with my floral ones in my room but decided against using them together. I have temporarlly put them on either side of my vertical blinds in the living room. I'm still deciding if I like them. What do you think? The one down side is that the door opens on the right, which is already a tight squeeze with the couch position, I'm not sure how the curtain will complicate it.

One more plug for Ikea... I love their cheese grater. I hate the metal box graters but Ikea has a tub one, that they are currently selling in red and black, that makes grating cheese a breeze and it even seconds as a storage container for excess.

When planning a trip to Ikea, especially when it envolves long distance driving, plan ahead by browsing online. You can even check stock in specific stores around the world. This makes it easy to measure items or areas and compare them online.

Stake Family History Conference

I had the great opprotunity to participate in my stake's family history conference the Saturday before Easter. The conference consisted of classes as well as an open house of display tables in the cultral hall. They asked me to do a manned display on connecting through blogging. The idea really excited me and I really enjoyed getting ready for and presenting my display. I did a lot of my plotting while I was still in Utah. I really enjoyed bouncing ideas off my mother. I would even email her pictures and files of my ideas after I got home. She was a great help to me.

There were two focuses for my display... General Blogging and Family History Blogging. For some people blogs are a totally unknown thing and I introduced the benifits of blogging and how it can help you connect with family as well as build your personal history. But for those that might already blog I had information on using blogs to help with your family history research as well as sharing what information you have with family.

Overall, I was very pleased with how the day went. I had a lot of interest and think there were a few people who learned something new and left with a desire to start something of their own. If you are interested in information I have my handouts and blog link lists availible to email out.

Pulling together my display spurred me to finally copy and frame some pictures to go on my iron tree. I love the way it turned out and I even had people asking me where I got my cool tree (from my mother of course who was kind enough to pick it up for me from Rod Works in Utah. It was part of their Christmas decor and they had extras on clearance after Christmas.)

Another thing preparing for the conference spurred me to do was start my own family history blog (you may have noticed the new button on my sidebar). It is still a work in progress. Mostly all that is on there now has been pulled from this blog. I have big plans for it though. I'm hoping to use it as my research log (when I actually take/have the time to do family history). By putting my research log on a blog I can share what I am doing, what I have found, where I have found it, family stories, family photos, internet sourse links, etc... with my family and also with people who might be searching the same lines. The blog format also allows me to have multiple authors posting and allows for people to comment on my research --great for collaboration! So, that's the plan. I'm excited!

Boys Will Be Boys

The weather has finally hit a run of warm weather (after the blizzard that went thorugh Colorado that mostly ended up dumping rain on us). We have been enjoying the pleasant evenings outside together as a family. I took the opprotunity to get some pictures of my cute boys. They are sure full of personality.





I love the expressions on Josh's and Sam's faces. It captured a moment that happens often around here-- roughing it with the boys. I love watching the relationship Elijah and Sam have with their daddy.

And yes, Josh didn't like the fact that the picture taking was onesided. He grabbed the camera and made sure to get a shot of me too. There really is a reason he doesn't take pictures.

Silly Boys

We were watching a movie the other day and the couple on the movie kissed.

Josh piped in and said "Ewww, they're kissing!"

Elijah responded by saying "That's just what people do" and Sam then chimed in "Kissing... not eww."
----------------------

Later that day Sam was being too quiet so Josh went off to see what he was up to. He found Sam in our bedroom and Josh asked him "What are you doing, Sam?"

"P'aying cars."
"Are you having fun?"
"Yes"
"Are you being good?"
"Yes... Go away."

-----------------------

Sam loves to cook and Saturday when we asked what he wanted for lunch he promptly requested "Potza" aka pizza. He is a big potza lover and requests it often though Saturday he didn't actually eat much of it. Silly kid.

Cuddle Buddy

It isn't often (VERY rare) that Josh takes pictures so I was surprised to find this one on my camera this morning.

Living in Colorado we don't get General Conference on TV like you do in Utah. We watch it on the internet, which has gotten drastically better over the past five years we have lived here (mostly because our moniter and internet connections have improved). Anyway, our computer is located in the master bedroom which means we watch conference from our bed. The downside to this is that it make it very easy and comfortable to fall asleep while watching. Sam and I did just that on Saturday afternoon.

Sam is my little cuddle buddy. To get him to slow down long enough to feel tired for his afternoon nap we do a little cuddle time. He will get his binki and his blanket and come to me and ask "Cuddle Me?" I enjoy the quiet time together with my little buddy. It won't be long and I know that time won't happen anymore so I'm enjoying it while it does.

Givin them the Run Around

Uncle Brad and Aunt Kristen came to Grandma's house while we were visiting. They quickly got the boys wound up. It started with them chasing each other around the indoor track (ie. through the living room, hall, kitchen, and dining room). Then Brad started running in circles in the living room and Sam kept chasing him, around and around. They did it for 5-10 minutes until Brad fell down tired and dizzy. Sam was no where near tuckered out and tackled and pulled at Brad until he got up and started running again. Elijah joined in on the fun and they were doing it long enough that I caught it on video. Brad sure got his workout for the night and I'm not sure Sam was even winded.

Spring Cupcakes

We made spring inspired cupcakes while at Grammies house. I had noticed some cute chocolate bunny crackers in Walmart's cracker aisle made by Annie's and we grabbed them and some jelly beans to put ontop of some chocolate cupcakes. We added some coconut dyed green for grass. They were so simple. I frosted the cupcakes and Elijah, Sam and my little sisters decorated them all. I think they turned out pretty cute. They sure didn't last long though.

Tresh Box

I was getting the photos of my book off my camera and realized there were a few on there from my Utah trip that I haven't posted. Better late than never!


Sam claimed an old tool box that my mother had in her basement as his "Tresh Box". He would carry the heavy box everywhere and had an assortment of treasure inside. He was rather protective of it and when I tried to take pictures of him with is treasure box he quickly ran into the front office and closed the french door. I resorted to taking pictures of him through the windows but it didn't work very well. I would try and crack the door and get around the window glare but Sam would jump up and come a bar my way. Silly Goose!

Eventually he came out and started playing with his treasure again. As soon as I snuck up on him and got a picture he packed up and was on the move again.

His treasure consisted of cars and trucks, balls, dishes, Bekah's favored colt, and other random items.

All of this prompted Grammie to take Sam to the craft store to buy him a tresh box to take home with him. We got a small tin box with a lock and handle and Sam decorated it with Pirate stickers. Granted it isn't as cool or favored as the red beast but Sam was proud of it.