Buddies

Banana bread baking helpers

With Landon back to school, these two are figuring out out how to best keep each other company.  We're starting to wonder how quickly Owen will pass up Ellie in size, and how she'll take being the 'little' sister to both of her brothers!

Landon loves to be the big brother and take care of his little buddy Owen (and he does a great job). This morning (about 6:00), Jordan got back from the gym to find Landon and Owen at the bottom of the stairs and Ellie at the top of the stairs giving reminders to go back to bed. Apparently Owen had been crying and woken up Landon who wanted to let me sleep so he thought he'd get Owen up and go take care of him downstairs...  Jordan got everyone back to bed and I woke up happily just before 7 to hear the story I'd slept through! :)

January days/running around the block

Happy New Year

New Year's Eve pre-party partying :)

I'm just finishing up Christmas putting-away, so it still feels very 'New Years' for me. I haven't yet settled on my goals and plans for the year besides this - I just want to spend my time well with this little family that I love. And do all the things I should be doing each day. Running, exercising, scriptures, playing and reading with the kids, being kind, eating good food... 

Today was back to school for Landon and back to routines for Ellie and Owen and me. Ellie asked if we could do "homeschool preschool" and talk about mixing colors together -- which turned out to be  a pretty fun way to celebrate the back-to-regular-life day. 

Other top priorities for the day: laundry (!!!) and a special after school snack of chocolate chip cookies :)

back to real life / change is in the air

We've had such a nice Christmas break. A super fun stay in New Harmony with all of Jordan's family for Christmas, some down time (see above), some busy-ness, some organizing, playing, getting well from sickness, adventuring, resting, running, unicycling, reading...

And some big changes. (Like April moving! And we miss her so already!)

It feels like we're getting back to regular life, but somehow a different life than the one we left back in December.

But oh! what a sweet life!

Snow Days

This Landon kiddo sure loves the snow! Every day he has been outside playing, and he just can't get enough of it. What a happy winter-loving boy he is!


[On our snowy campfire adventure this morning, we were all huddled around the fire shivering and trying to stay warm while Landon was off shoveling giant scoops of snow, clearing off the tables and benches, exploring, and climbing the snow-covered trees!)

sub-zero days

What do you do on a last day of Christmas break when it feels (or is!) too cold to be outside, and you live in a small town with not too many indoor attractions?

This was our brainstorming session last night that somehow led us (well, Jordan)  to the idea of a campfire in our favorite spot up Green Canyon.

We bundled up the kids (and ourselves) in about a dozen layers (our thermostat read -2 degrees or so). Jordan filled up the back of the Subaru with all of his fire building gear/camping chairs/ extra warm gear. And off we went.

...to find out that Green Canyon is closed for the winter. (Nobody else is out camping in January?) Hmmm. Not to be deterred so easily (although the last remaining sunlight was quickly fading), we headed to Logan Canyon to see if another favorite spot at second dam was open.  A decent mountain of snow blocked the trail from the parking lot, but Jordan found a path along the side. But, it was a little too dark and a little too spooky for me so we changed plans and headed home. A front room floor picnic by lantern light with a  fireplace-campfire was just the thing to end our adventurous evening. :)

But, that was not the end of the campfire bug. I woke up this morning to find that Jordan had the car nearly all packed (again) with gear for a campfire breakfast. Another round of bundling up and back to second dam we went.

And the results of our breakfast campout in a foot of snow and 2 degree weather? Jordan called it a great success! :)  Our toes were frozen (!!!) though we propped our boots up at the fires edge (first snow-shoveled out by Landon and Jordan) but the rest of our bundling was a success and kept us warm and toasty. The kids ate almost an entire bag of marshmallows (the pancake batter froze before it could cook...)  and afterwards we felt as grateful as can be for a warm car/house/any place with heat... We came home and enjoyed our pancake breakfast (lunch) in our nice and cozy home, and we made a list of improvements that might be made (shoe sole heat packs, build the fire while Debbie and the kids wait in the car, a tougher camp stove...)

What an adventure!