Car is Fixed!

The old Honda is Werty's car since we bought the van last year. Old Honda's are great for tinkering, and Werty wants to learn more about fixing cars. So, he decided to tackle the wheel bearing repair himself. The wheel has made some noise since we bought the car from Soyjoy a few years back. It has been getting more warped and noisy over time. He originally thought he could finish it over Thanksgiving weekend. But, car repair is something new, and it always takes longer than you think it will when you are learning how to do something for the first time. The Honda has been up on blocks for 3-4 weeks, and he has been using my van to get to work. Good thing I had most of the Christmas shopping done, since I was without a car. (Everything is getting to the post office later than I wanted because of this...Jack-Jack's present still isn't mailed. :(  )

But on Saturday he finished it at last. He replaced the wheel bearing, the hub, the lower ball joint...um, if I forgot something else, he can let me know later...and now I have some idea of what those things actually are. He got to buy at least 3 new tools in the process, which always makes my honey happy. He did have to take a part down to a shop that was stuck to have them press it out, so that took up some of the money he was "saving" by doing it himself, but there is value in what he learned from this experience, right? With one week left before Christmas, I have a car again. So far, I have been to C0stc0 and T@rget...and mostly made up for those weeks I had no car to go shopping. Hee hee.

December Catch-Up

 Last month I promised pictures, so here they are. We were sick the last month at our house, but we are finally on the mend. Here's a review of the last month with photos:

 BooBear and Little Miss are playing together more now. He also introduced his little sister to Pikachu, while Werty introduced BooBear to the Pokemon DVDs this month.

We had our first big snow storm.

 Little Miss has improved her ability to reach for and grab what she wants.

 BooBear's favorite cousin came to play. BooBear will greatly miss him when they move in a month.

 Little Miss likes bananas, pears, and prunes. She likes sweet potatoes, applesauce and carrots most of the time. She may have had an allergic reaction to peaches, however.

We finally set up the crib for Little Miss because she is off the acid-reflux meds. Yay! Here is BooBear helping to "try it out for her."

 Unfortunately, we are still getting her used to the crib, because she got sick and was so congested that I left her in the raised rock-n sleeper to help her breathe easily. Some of the congestion was due to teething. She now has her two front teeth. She is constantly drooling, so I'm sure we will see another one soon.

 Here's the story to go along with the new few pictures. I came downstairs and noticed the empty plastic box (upper right corner of the photo). Hmm, that used to be full of pushpins. Where are they now? What did BooBear do?

 A few hours later, we find this truck with a few pushpins. confirming that BooBear was the culprit. But where are rest? Will we find them by sitting on them somewhere? More importantly, we don't want Little Miss to find them.

 The pushpins were taking a ride in the school bus. The bus was full of clear pushpins. Here's an up close view:

 It took some work getting them out because the bus was so full, but we eventually got the pushpins back into their box.

 Here is the apple pie I made for Thanksgiving. I tried a new method of crimping the edge from pinterest, and I really like it. Here are other projects I have been doing to get ready for Christmas. This is a picture from when I finished the top of my quilted tree skirt. I got to use geometry formulas to figure out the dimensions. I have heard so many students say, "I'll never use Math in real life," so I am always pleased when I prove that statement wrong.

New stockings for my kids. I used the material I had left over from Halloween and finishing the bottom side of the tree skirt.  



 We hung up our tree for FHE the Monday after Thanksgiving. BooBear wouldn't leave the ornaments alone for the first two weeks. He broke about 4-5 of them.

Werty and BooBear "fixing" his lawn mower. One of his favorite games is pretending things are broken and then he fixes them. He does this a lot on our walks. "Wait, mommy, my bike is broken. I have to stop and fix it." This is only a bad thing when it's REALLY cold outside, and I am anxious to get back home where it is WARM.

Werty's high school friend and "adopted" brother was married last Saturday at the Timpanogos temple.

Here is Little Miss dressed up for the reception in her Christmas dress. I was going to sew her a dress, but I couldn't find a pattern that I loved, and then I saw this at T@rget, and had to buy it.

In this one you can kind of see my new haircut, it's short again.

Isn't this one sweet?

 Tummy time: not crawling quite yet. But she did roll over a week and a half ago. She really prefers to sit, instead of being on the ground, so she doesn't get much practice, and that's my fault.

  These last two were taken yesterday, so now I am all caught up!

Snowy Day

(I wrote this on Saturday, hoping to post pics with it. Check back soon for pics.)

"It's a snowy day, Daddy." Yes, BooBear it is.We had our first winter snow with snow yesterday.

This year BooBear and I raked some leaves every few days instead of trying to do it all at once. So much better. We filled our green can (for yard waste) full right after it got emptied last week. So, we played a lot of games with the huge pile of leaves instead of bagging them up. However, with the storm coming, it was time. I informed Werty that he would be helping me bag  up leaves the moment he got home from work. I bagged leaves for about an hour before he arrived. By that time it was dark. Good thing we have a lamppost in our yard! We got the front yard done in time before the snow. /cheer! I am thankful that we have leaves to rake, because that means we have a house of our own, and beautiful trees to give us shade.

Election Day

Have you voted yet? I actually voted last Thursday. Waited in line for a little over an hour, without children. When we had one child, then we could both go down together and take turns waiting in line and chasing BooBear. With two children, it seems we have to take turns going to the polls. This time I decided to take my turn early, to make sure I had enough time to do it. Remember how long women had to FIGHT to get the right to vote - and they were fighting for you, so VOTE!

BooBear-isms

BooBear says some funny, cute things these days. Today, I thought I would share some.

Mommy: "I'm losing my patience."
BooBear: "Mommy, you need to find your patience."

His favorite game right now is, "I be the scary monster, and you be the tickle monster." He chases you until you are backed in a corner, then you tickle him to subdue him, and you run away.

"I want to pick you up." Translation = please pick me up.

"The conpigger crashed." Translation = netflix isn't working, the movie ended, or he accidentally muted it.

Mommy: "You have to wait until after lunch to eat some candy."
BooBear: "I can't stand it!"

Mommy: "What are you doing, honey?" / "What was that noise?"
BooBear: "Don't worry, I fine" / "Nothing," followed by a hasty retreat.

Mommy: "You broke it."
BooBear: "Don't worry, Daddy will fix it."

Mommy: "Don't hurt your sister with that."
BooBear: "Don't worry, it's just a truck."

Halloween Fun

So, BooBear really wanted to be a snowman for Halloween. He was inspired by the character Chilly from Dragon Tales. He was disappointed to learn that his costume could not be made out of real snow. (Some mornings he wakes up, looks out the window and says, "no snow yet!" Not unusual for a kid to be excited about snow, but he started doing this in August.) Well, no one sells snowman costumes for Halloween, which meant that I got to sew it myself, and make it up as I went along. Here's how it came out:

 The problem was, he refused to try on the costume at any stage of the process, so I had no idea if it would even fit. In fact, when we went trick-or-treating at Werty's work, he still wouldn't put the costume on. He wore his lion costume from last year because the snowman was "too scary."

 When Werty got home, he worked  his magic and convinced BooBear that he needed to try on the costume at least for pictures. BooBear agreed to try it on for a "short time." After a few minutes, he decided he liked it, and once we got going he was having so much fun trick-or-treating that it didn't matter.

 Little Miss was dressed as a giraffe, complete with her baby giraffe strapped into her stroller with her. Here she is with Grandma and Grandpa.

 Monday night we carved pumpkins for FHE. BooBear specified what he wanted his pumpkin to look like, "square eyes, circle nose, and no teeth." Werty carved the other one.

Here are some pics Werty took of Little Miss sleeping last week. Here she is with her baby giraffe.

And yes, she often falls asleep with one arm up in the air. Here's the proof.

Photo Potpourri

There have been some grumblings about my lack of posting pictures. We have been rearranging our office space and my computer was disconnected for a time. Since I am a fuddy-duddy without a smart phone, I had no way of reaching my photos.The good side of all of this is that the new arrangement, which includes new shelves, allowed us to unpack at least 5 boxes from our move a year and a half ago. You know how it goes...furniture gets plumped down during the move, and then left in that spot without any real intention or planning. Well, we are finally getting around to the planning and rearranging...because some things like having running water and laundry facilities took priority when we first moved in.

Here is BooBear at the Aquarium last August. We went with the cousins playgroup.

My parents came to Utah in August for the Brigham City Open House, since it is my father's hometown, he was pretty excited. My grandfather reminded us all that our ancestors in his side were part of the founders of Brigham City. Here we are after the tour, with my grandparents, Aunt S, my parents, Sue's family (Sue had just had the baby and was not there), my brother Ovaltine, and my Aunt M and Uncle J. It took hours of waiting in line, but it was a great experience. BooBear has been pointing out and talking about temples ever since, so that's cool. I just wish I had brought the baby carrier, since my hands were numb from holding Little Miss all day.

While my parents were in town, Sue's new baby was blessed, and my dad got to be in the circle. First grandchild's blessing he has been able to attend, so I'm glad it worked out. Here is Sue's family with a  four generation shot.

The two cousins E4 and Little Miss.

My parents with Little Miss and E4.

Our family with a four generation shot.

BooBear wanted to run in the sprinkler with an umbrella with daddy. What a good sport Werty is to play along with the games BooBear comes up with.

Picking golden raspberries in the backyard. He's always more interested in picking them than eating them, but Werty and I are happy to eat them, especially over some vanilla ice cream.

Another part of the office/family room makeover project. Werty had to build out a box for the new wiring, since it's not a good idea to bore through a load-bearing joist. So I suggested he use the opportunity to add a vent in the family room. So, now the family room has both heat and outlets, things that the previous owners neglected to add when they sectioned off the office from the family room. This vent is now finished, with drywall, paint, vent cover, etc.

All you have to do to get Little Miss to smile is say Hi, she is such a happy baby!

Here we are at the zoo in September with playgroup. Only Rena's family was able to join us, but we had lots of fun!

Baby and Mommy elephant, still my favorite part of the zoo!

The new Rocky Shores exhibit is finally open, with sea lions! When we got to the zoo, about 1/3 of it was under construction because they are finally going to get a lion! Oh, and the snow leopard had a baby cub 10 days before Little Miss was born. How cool is that?

Here is BooBear with his giraffe shirt (bright orange in case he ran off, right?) seeing the giraffes. Grammy, he loves that shirt btw.

For the big FHE in September (the monthly FHE with all of Werty's family) we went to Trafalga Fun Center in Lehi. BooBear got to play his first skeeball. mini-golf, and amusement park-type ride.

Mowing the grass with Daddy.

How Daddy looks from BooBear's perspective.

Little Miss is now 6 months old! Here she is sticking her toes in her mouth. BooBear did this all the time, probably because he didn't use a binky. She only just figured out that she could do this. I don't know why, but I think it's the cutest thing.