A conversation between Alec and Chris

Alec: "I want to skype, now, Daddy."

Chris: "Maybe Skype wants to alec"

Alec: " what?"

Chris:"Maybe Skype wants to alec."

pause....

Alec: "Does that make any sense?"

You know Alec is growing up when his own Daddy seems too silly.

Fall colors

On my drive home in the early morning from a run I noticed this colorful tree along our alleyway. I took Gwen out to help me take pictures.


Later that afternoon we had to drop off and then pick up Chris at work for a few hours in the afternoon thereby giving us some time to kill around the University/River/Downtown area.

These Fall colors just keep calling my name and I thought it would be stunning to see them around the river. I drove around until I found some parks that looked promising.

Then we spied a trail that led down to the water.


We had to explore and ended up throwing rocks in the water for a while.

Charlie found a triangle rock.

It was pretty muddy so I kept having to pull Gwen away for the water's edge. She is really starting to have an opinion and did NOT like me pulling her away. In fact when it was time to go she threw the biggest fit I've ever seen her throw and kept trying to literally RUN back to the river no matter how far away from it we walked.

Turns out, Chris needed to stay a bit longer so we drove across a bridge to explore the river from the other side. We found this pedestrian bridge and decided to cross it. It was SO windy. I was curious if Gwen would be frightened by walking on this skinny, high, windy thing...but no. She loved it. Alec was nervous enough for both of them and always kept a hand right by her.

You can see some of Edmonton a bit in the background. In some places it has a bigger city feel than I expected.

We've really enjoyed our Fall here. It is BEAUTIFUL and its everywhere. I kept saying over and over in an excited voice, "Isn't this pretty! Wow, this is so amazing" as we walked through leaves with a warm-ish wind on our faces. Alec started making fun of me by saying in a silly voice, "this is so pretty, this is so pretty..." Mock all you want, Alec... I will still keep saying it.

Ponytails

Even though its not quite long enough to actually need a pony tail, I've been putting some in occasionally over the past few weeks. Its pretty adorable. For the first few times she just sort of stayed still enough for me to put it up, but lately she'll run away and start crying if she feels me start to pull back her hair! but um... I still put them in.

No, there isn't anything in her hair for those last two pictures. But she's just so stinkin' cute I had to post them.

Apples and more Apples

Remember a month ago when we picked apples with a couple in our ward? Well Dixie helped get 2 batches of applesauce canned while she was here, but we still had 1/2 of the apples left to work with. We bobbed for apples, played with apples, made apple crisp and planned on canning some apple butter.
The boys have been BEGGING to bob for apples for a long time and we finally did it. It took them a while to get it and I had to switch to a shallower/wider container to make it easier for them. It was a fairly nice day and the kids just played out back bobbing all the apples from one bowl to the other. Not very sanitary but lots of fun.

My first batch of apple butter, I forgot about on the stove when we were downstairs having our Friday night pizza and a movie party with the kids. It burned....bad. After a few days I finally got the pot cleaned well enough to try again. The second try turned out pretty good! I don't think I simmered it quite long enough so its not super thick, it seems more like spicy and smooth applesauce. but for my first experience canning by myself, it sort of worked! I don't have a proper canning pot and with the apple butter not really boiling or hot before you put it in jars, I was thinking I needed to boil/process them. After a few mishaps I finally figured out a way to invert my steamer in the pot to set the jars on and use some big spoons like chopsticks (since we don't have any tongs) to get the apple butter processed. WHEW. I still have about 2 batches more of apples to do but having done it once, I think it'll go faster and be cleaner.

Magnadoodles

I love these things. No messes or wayward scrawls but hours and hours of drawing fun anytime, anywhere. The only sad thing is you can't save a particular sketch. So we take pictures. Here is one of Alec's latest.

Its pretty obvious that its a train (the LRT ones we see) on the bottom track going one way, and the track above it is for the trains going the other way.

A while ago we were sitting around at bedtime trying to get the kids to pick out books and come sit on our laps to read them but were being too lazy to enforce them. The kids were drawing pictures for us with magnadoodle as a delaying tactic. Although I really was trying not to encourage their behavior I couldn't help but make a cute fuss over this one particular drawing of Charlie's.

He walks up to me and says, "Look mom, a p'ess... Foy YOU." I don't really understand him and give a non committal, "oh." But Charlie persists, "A p'ess...foy you. a'cuz you loss it on the tain." Finally, it clicks, "a purse! for me? because I lost mine on the train?" What a sweetie. It had been a few weeks since I lost it and we hadn't even talked about it recently.

Its a good thing we have so many magnadoodles since, like always, if one boy starts drawing on it... the other one HAS to be drawing on one too. And lately this is not only true for the boys but Gwen is starting to get in on all the action. She loves to copy what her brothers do. Especially reading books and drawing on magnadoodles, running loops around the house, and hitting the table loudly with her fists during dinner, oh and taking baths, making silly noises, kicking balls, wrestling with mommy, and throwing rocks in the river...BIG rocks...the size of her head.

No, there aren't any pictures of Gwen and those big rocks because I thought it better to be on make-sure-she-doesn't-crush-her-toes-or-fingers duty. You're welcome, Chris.

Saturday hike

A few Saturdays ago, I was determined to get out of the house and move. It's been REALLY hard here to exercise as much as I was used to in California with my awesome friends/running/gym/dance class buddies. Seriously, it was exercise heaven. I have been lucky enough here to tag along with some ladies in my ward who do about a 5 K Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays at 6:30 in the morning. I would prefer to go a bit faster and longer but I'd rather run with people who entertain with conversation! Two runs ago it was beautiful. We run in this little ravine on wide hiking paths, littered with vibrant fall leaves, and on wooden bridges over a small river. The sunrise came up pink across the valley, so peaceful and yet energy-giving. Unfortunately, Fall is coming to a close, and fast. The very next run we had to use a head lamp for the first half and most of the bright yellow leaves are now a muted dirty brown.

ANYWAY...I always pictured our first month here full of hikes and other outings as we try to live up the warm weather here, but with Chris not able to walk very far without needing to sit or lay down, I figured our hiking days were over, for this season.


Then I realized, I could still go on hikes, just myself and the kids! Especially if we just stick close to home and explore more of that ravine right near by. So that's what we did and the kids loved it. I put Gwen in the hiking backpack and drove close to the ravine so the boys would last longer walking. It was fun and I think I'll try and do it a few more times before the weather gets ugly cold.


BTW - I love these close ups of Alec's silly grin and Charlie's smile. In Charlie's you can see where his front teeth got chipped when he fell down in mid-July. I was holding him with his arms wrapped up in his towel after swimming lessons (which.. I think I never blogged about yet! ...lets add THAT to my TO DO list). I put him down for a second while we waited for another kid and he tried to take a step but tripped and had no hands to brace him. BANG! right on his mouth/teeth. It wasn't very bloody but his teeth were obviously chipped and felt a little loose. When Alec accidentally whacked him in the face a little later that day and made it bleed much worse, I took Charlie for an emergency dentist visit. Nothing they could do really, but we still need to keep an eye on it. It could get infected and fall out or need to be pulled at any time in the following three months! So far, so good, although one tooth is starting to look a little discolored.

Picture this...

Alec gave a talk today in primary. He is really uncomfortable with speaking in front of people like that. One of his first times we only got a word or two out of him for a primary scripture, talk or prayer. He did pretty good the last time he did it (just a week or two before we moved away from CA) and he did even better today! It was really really cute and I wish I would've had a video of it, but alas, we didn't do that so you'll just have to picture this:

Alec is wearing a green/brown/blue plaid shirt with a tan, yellow, red and blue striped vest and stands up tall to the microphone with a nervously muted grin. Charlie has been recruited to hold the props and stands on his own stool next to the podium looking impishly handsome wearing a nice white shirt, tie and khaki pants. I'm kneeling behind/beside Alec whispering in his ear and putting things on Charlie. (The Theme was, "The Gospel is preached in all the world")

Alec - "Jesus made the world."
"It is sooo big."
"Lots of people live on it."
"Some people don't know about Jesus."
"Missionaries go all over the world teaching people about Jesus"
"My dad went to Lithuania"
--I put two dolls dressed in traditional Lithuanian garb in Charlie's hands who holds them up tall for all to see.
"My uncle Justin went to Mongolia"
-- I put a camel-hair-made-in-Mongolia scarf around Charlie's neck
"My uncle Ryan went to Canada"
"My uncle Thom went to USA"
"My uncle Todd went to Africa"
-- I put a bright, thickly beaded African necklace on top of the scarf.
"My uncle Jared went to Thailand"
-- I sling my famous purple purse that Jared brought be from Thailand over Charlie's shoulder....He still is just patiently standing there holding the dolls up high.
"My uncle Jordan went to an Island, called Kosrae"
"And even now Uncle Edward is in Mexico"
"They all taught people about Jesus and Jesus wants us to teach people about Him too."
"In the name of Jesus Chris, Amen."

He did so well! Both boys did. The Primary President gets up with a smile and chuckle and says, "That's a lot of Uncles!" It sure is, and we even forgot our newest Uncle: Justin/German. He served his mission in Brazil. It would've rounded out the geography quite nicely.