Weekend at Grandma's


This past weekend we spent Friday night and Saturday at my mom's house. We were joined by Stacey and her kids, Kelley and Elle. My mom and her husband Ken live in such a great house in a gorgeous area of the Pacific Northwest. Walking into my mom's home is like walking into a magazine. It is beautifully decorated, lots of fantastic food to eat, fun things to do and great company. We love spending time there.

Here's a little peek inside:

Kitchen

Check out her cool hanging pot rack made from a sled.

And...the banquette Ken made for their dining room. Very cozy.

I love the shelves on the end for my mom's cookbooks.

Look at their amazing garden...and you can see part of their fire pit.

The weekend was cold and rainy. When we arrived on Friday we had homemade pizza and my mom made personal huckleberry pies in little canning jars. So good. She also had fun glow bracelets for the kids, and when it stopped raining our kids had a ball running around outside playing night games and and so did Tyler and I. She has a great yard for night time "hide and seek"...with woods directly behind the house. Perfect for a cold spooky October night!!

We got up early the next morning and walked the long bridge over beautiful Lake Pend Oreille.

Ken, Mom, Me and Reilly

So beautiful even on a cold and gray morning

The purpose for our visit was a warehouse antiques sale that one of our vendor friends was having. My mom and I did find some great items for our next sale which will be a Christmas Sale in Palouse, WA the first Saturday in December. We also hit a few other places and found enough stuff to fill the back of her car. Woohoo.

When we got back Stacey, Kelley, their kids and my grandma had arrived. We had a fun day together, eating and catching up. It was fun to have a family dinner. When we all lived in Utah we had a family dinner every Sunday night. We all miss it. My grandma looked good and stayed cozy by a crackling fire.

Bryn, Tyler and Elle. These girls are growing up so fast!!

All my mom's costume/dress-up boxes were raided and some fun Halloween costumes were put together. My mom fashioned a fantastic Twilight inspired Illuminati Vampire costume for Reilly.

River and Ailey

Bryn, River and Ailey

We headed home late Saturday night and then on Sunday night Tyler and the kids carved their pumpkins.

The Jack-O-lanterns turned out very cool and spooky. Halloween is in the air!!

Three Things

Number 1


Kameron ran in his All-City Cross Country Meet and did great. It was a freezing cold day but it is so much fun to watch him run. He ran against the all the top fourth grade boys from 34 different elementary schools. He loved it. His coach was so happy with his running this year. (His coach looks just like my cousin Kellen which is hilarious.) Anyway...Kameron finished right in the middle so he was really happy. He's a stressy kid and he was so worried about this meet...that he had to qualify to get to run in...and was worried that he would be last. No worries here. He got a medal; we had a pizza celebration; and he ended his season on a high note. He loves running. I think he has definitely been bitten by the running bug.



Number 2: Book Review

I just finished this book. This is NOT my usual book choice. But because I have a husband who reads every book I recommend and is even confident enough in his studly manhood that he read The Forgotten Garden... AND...came upstairs when book club was at my house last week to help settle the debate of whether or not Nathaniel was actually in love with Eliza or with Rose...I owed it to him to read a book of his choosing.

I began this book with trepidation. The Swedish title of this book is "Men Who Hate Women" not exactly a selling point. It is also a gritty crime novel which I loathe. Throw in a twisted murder mystery set in Sweden being solved by a financial journalist and a emo hacker and I still didn't really want to read it. Also I have had several friends with conflicting feelings about this book; several loved it and several down right hated it.

The first part of the book was a snooze. Mikael Blomkvist has been convicted of libel against a Swedish financial mogul. Lisbeth Salander (the emo hacker) is toiling away as a private investigator who has issues. But...once I got to the Vanger family I was hooked. I really liked Henrick Vanger and his mysterious island. I was totally into trying to figure out what happened to Harriet Vanger and could barely put the book down EXCEPT when I got to the horrible acts that were committed against the women in this book which were horrifying and vile. I probably should have stopped reading but I wanted to know what happened to Harriet. So I kept reading; in bed with a head lamp on into the wee hours of the morning. I couldn't put it down even though I REALLY wanted to at times.

As far as the characters go...they aren't very likeable. Loose morals, shady values, sexual promiscuity abound. Blomkvist- I somewhat liked despite his moral failings. Salander- I disliked the entire time. Don't even get me started on the creepy Vanger family. I did like the setting in Sweden despite not having much background knowledge of the country and it's customs. It made the book more interesting and unique.

This book is not for everyone. There are some dark and disgusting sections of the book. The first part was dull and the last part (where it returns back to Blomkvist vs. Wennerstrom, the corrupt financial mogul) the story held no interest for me. I liked following Blomkvist around as he dug up clues on a 40 year-old cold case...very intriguing...but once the mystery of Harriet was solved I was done. Will I read the other two books in the series? I doubt it.

My rating: Good...but very dark.

Number 3

After our disastrous pumpkin picking outing I felt we needed a pick-me-up. So we made these. The BEST autumn cookies ever. Try them!!

Don't Let the Pictures Fool You


Does it look like we had a lovely outing to Greenbluff? An idyllic day picking apples and pumpkins full of fun family time? You would be wrong. It sucked. Oh it sucked big. There were a few small pleasant moments but they were few and far between.

It all started as a pleasant outing up to our favorite farm area to pick pumpkins, apples, eat peach pie, and hot pumpkin donuts. What normally takes less than five minutes to get from the main road turn off to our first stop took over an hour. The whining began. "What is taking so long!!", "How much longer??", "Why are we moving so slow"...on and on. There were ten tons of people who all had the same idea we did. I have never seen such a horrible crowds and such terrible traffic.

Then the fighting kicked in. "Ailey stop humming!!", "Reilly stop singing!!", "Kameron is annoying!!", "Why can't we listen to GOOD music?!", "Why are you guys (i.e. me and Tyler) so MEAN?", "This was a horrible idea!!", "Stop kicking my seat", "Everyone SHUT UP!!" Bryn wailing.

We arrived at our destination and sent Reilly to go stand in the pie line because mama needed her some peach pie ASAP!! Tyler and the kids went to stand in the hour long hot donut line. After about 45 minutes Tyler realized that Reilly was in the wrong line and she moved to the correct line and stood in that line for another half an hour. Of course by then the peach pie was sold out. But I was appeased with cherry (sort of) and there were donuts and one would think that would make everyone happy. Um no. Not even when we arrived at our favorite farm.

The arguing continued...everyone was pissy...Bryn was a holy terror. Yay family fun.

The farm has wagons to put your pumpkins/small children in...would Bryn ride in one? No way. She had to run like a maniac or she would scream bloody murder and hurl herself limp fish style into the dirt.

You can't catch me

Running full speed down the lane...seconds before eating it...more crying ensued.

A happy family joyously picking apples

The real deal: Do not miss the crusty look that only a 13 1/2 year old can give. The six year-old wasn't too happy either. Nothing like having your own snotty eye roll/eyelash flutter come back at you. Grumpy dad. Where's the boy? Pouting somewhere.

Happier moments...or are they?

Bryn did have fun picking apples. She went crazy yelling "Apples!! Apples!! Apples!!" She picked quite a few including the one in her hand that she scarfed down to the core and then threw a huge fit when it was all gone and the core got tossed.

Bryn did finally get into the cart but only if she could stand up and "drive". Then it nearly tipped over as she saw another row of apples trees and lunged out of the cart while yelling "Apples!! Apples!! Apples!!"

So we got her another one

and then she sat down

Shouldn't picking pumpkins be fun?

The kids all picked out weird greenish or completely green pumpkins. I said...nothing.

Proof I was there. Unfortunately I was saying "Take the picture damn it!!"

I hoped to get some cute pictures in this hay bale area. One out of four...not too bad.

Bryn entertained herself with her new favorite past time. Pumpkin sitting. She went around and around and tried them all out.

Hmmm...how's this one?

Then we had a long ride home in which all four children fell asleep. Delightful. Oh well...not every family outing is going to be a pumpkin-picking, cider-drinking, peach-pie eating, skipping merrily in the autumn sunshine, fall frolicking good time. Maybe next year.

Better Than School Pictures...Misty Dawn Photography

Every year Misty Alger, our favorite local photographer, does her "Better Than School Pictures" offer and this year we were able to take her up on it. I was so happy with the results and I think it is such a great deal too. $30 per kid. We paid less for these great pictures of all the kids than we would have paid for just one of them at a Kiddie Kandids type studio. I absolutely love that Misty does this!! She also comes to the Seattle Area and Walla Walla area. I HIGHLY recommend her.

Kameron 4th Grade

Ailey 1st Grade

Bryn 17 Months

Reilly 8th Grade

Technically we didn't have these pictures done for the "Better Than School Pictures" but they were taken by Misty not too long ago. She donated her time and talent and took pictures of all the Young Women in our ward to show them their inner beauty. They were all gorgeous.

He Did It!!

Yesterday Kameron ran in another cross-country meet. He did awesome!! He qualified to be in the All-City Championship Meet where he will race against the top runners from 34 different elementary schools. Last year he just barely missed qualifying and was very disappointed. As you can imagine this year he is SO EXCITED!!

Triple A: Addie, Ailey and Abi

What is so neat is the supportive network Kameron had cheering him on. When he was done running he said "Mom, so many people were cheering for me!!" It is true. A lot of kids from our church and our stake were competing and it was so fun to cheer them all on...not to mention parents of Kameron's friends, parents of kids from his baseball team, and school mates and team mates. It really is such a neat opportunity for the kids to feel loved and supported. Our Primary kids did fantastic...as did Kameron's scout troop. I am sure there were some tired cub scouts last night after the meet.

Bryn the Berserker...she got a little crazy toward the end.

Today at school they announced the kids who qualified for the All-City Meet over the loud speaker. Ailey was thrilled to tell everyone..."That's my big brother!!" So sweet.

Reilly is also playing on her school's Girls Softball Team. Unfortunately all her home games are during Kameron's meets. She's been very gracious about giving Kameron his day in the sun and taking a backseat. The Lady Chargers won their game last night as well. Go Reilly!! It was fun to hear that several of the girls on Reilly's team also had siblings running in the meet and one of their moms who was at the meet was keeping them all posted via cell-phone on how their siblings were doing during the game. How cute is that?

Congratulations Kameron...You did it!!