FALL FUN

Here are some pics of fun times the kids had in the leaves the past week or two! 'L' boy wasn't too sure about them, but they all had fun!

Pickled Green Tomatoes

So I decided to try something new today. Since it has been so cold lately, we've had to pick all of our green tomatoes, which is a LOT. I've never even tasted pickled tomatoes before, but why not have 6 quarts of something you've never tried? I mostly used cherry tomatoes, using this recipe here and actually cut enough up to do 3 more quarts or so, and tons of regular sized ones I don't know what I'll do with. Anyways, here is the final product:

We have a RAT!

Yes we have a rat, and it is VOLUNTARY. We got the girls a little pet rat. We decided on a rat, because when we were first married we had one, and between them, gerbils, or hamsters, we feel like they are nicer and better for kids. I've never ever heard of one biting a person, but the other animals will. She is so cute! When we get a bigger cage, we might get her a friend. Her name is Molly Lou, or 'LuLu' for short. ;)

(If you are wondering what is on the girls' hands below, they don't like the feel of her claws, so they put sock 'gloves' on their hands. lol.)

CRAZY HAIR DAY!

Thought I would post some fun pics of the girls' hair on crazy hair day at school. 'W' wouldn't let me get a pic of the front of her, but here is the back:

And here is 'E''s hair:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY 'R'!

Ok, so I know I'm undoing this whole 'R' thing again, but these are the best pics we got! I am getting so cheap with the cakes nowadays, but she still thought is was the best cake ever with the mermaid on it. ;-) She had a fun day, I can't believe she is 3!

And here is a pic, below, from a couple weeks ago, that I just had to put with this poem for her:

There was a little girl,

who had a little curl,

right in the middle of her forehead,

And when she was good, 

she was very, very good,

and when she was bad,

she was horrid. 

Love you 'R' girl! ;-)

'E' has GLASSES!

'E' got a letter from the school nurse after eye exams, saying that we should get her eyes checked. I felt so bad for her, since I got glasses in 1st grade, and they got worse and worse and worse. Anyways, after calming her down , she got used to the idea of possible glasses, and we took her in. It turns out, that for now, all she has is an astigmatism, causing blurry vision. She picked some cute glasses with butterflies on the side. She looks so cute, and is taking good care of them!

MORE HAIR!

So, this weekend, we did a little bit of hair-styling. Every time I would look at "E" I could just perfectly see these side bangs on her, and so I decided to try it out. I think it fits her perfect, and she loves it! She looks way older tho. :'(  "W" doesn't have the same thing going with her hair, and I don't know how well bangs would work, but she wanted something too, so I curled her hair for her.

Then I finally cut "L" boys hair to be like daddy's! Here is a before picture first:

  He had little curls going for him in the back too, so cute, but it was time to get rid of the shaggy look.

Here he is!

He looks like a little boy now instead of a baby. Too cute. :)

More GARDEN FOOD!!

So we have picked tons of food over the last week or so, mostly tomatoes. Here is a pic of ONE DAY'S worth:

And this is what I did with 25 out of the 38 lbs of tomatoes:

It is a yummy pasta sauce with garlic and peppers, which aren't in the picture, but I did pick 4 that day too.

Here is another day when we had an eggplant, zucchini, onion, tomatoes and basil:

I made a Ratatouille of sorts, with Quinoa added as well.

Yum Yum! Now I just have to figure out what is for dinner tonight........besides tomatoes!

"R"'s first day of Preschool!

So, this isn't usually a big deal for us, because the older girls hardly did preschool and it is actually just a coop within the neighborhood. We all take turns teaching at our house, but it is still a great way to get them to socialize a little bit, since that is what I feel preschool is mostly about. We are doing a letter each week for them. I just had to share tho because she just looks so stinkin' cute! (I actually ended up staying the whole time because she was so shy, but by the end she seemed to be doing good)

TORREY!

Over Labor Day Weekend we went down to Torrey in southern Utah. My parents go there almost every weekend to work on their cabin they are finally able to build. This is their small side cabin that they are building first:

It is getting close! They are just getting the insulation and boards onto the roof now, which is what Will helped my dad with:

 

Another reason we were excited to go was because we finally got the two older girls fishing poles, and we were able to take them fishing. We took "R" too, even tho she didn't really fish, she still had fun tagging along. The fishing was actually terrible, it was windy, and the water was just gross and had tons of 'seaweed' or whatever it is called in a reservoir. We went to Lower Bounds on Boulder Mountain. Here's a few pics!

 On the last day, on our way out, we did some apple picking. They have a few 'U Pick' fruit orchards in Fruita, and the have these really delicious Ginger golden apples. Yum! Everything is $1 a pound, which kind of turns out to be a lot, but you can eat as much as you want to while you are picking! ;) We got a couple of bags full and I just made some applesauce with them today! Anyways, here are the girls helping me!

And here's my applesauce!

After that we made a pit stop at a park in Fruita, and when we drove in, there were tons of deer hanging out. The girls are looking at some here.

It also rained a ton while we were there. Here is a waterfall that came from all of the rain, and we actually saw a flash flood come down the creek, it was pretty cool.

Grandpa also made a little shelter for the girls to go play out in the rain.

And I can't forget my cute boy! He had fun too. We all slept in the cabin and he was an awesome sleeper, he just talked to everyone for a bit in his pack n play, and then he went right to sleep! We had fun!