Steve's Birthday

 Steve celebrated his 33rd this last Saturday.  We were lucky enough to have his parents here to celebrate with him.

Most of the day, Steve and his dad worked on projects around the house.  Not his ideal way to spend a birthday, but he was determined to get as much done on the list as he could.  We celebrated at dinner that night.  He asked for chicken pot pie for dinner and cinnamon crumble coffee cake for his cake.

He got to wear the birthday crown that I made for him and Anna really enjoyed helping him open all his presents.  He got a book and two LDS games from his parents, while I got him a new board game called Kingdom Builder and toaster tongs.

Happy Birthday, Steve!

Thanksgiving Week and a Visit

 
We invited Steve's parents to come visit for Thanksgiving this year.  We wanted to have it in our new home and wanted to have family there.  They agreed and came the Tuesday before until the Monday after.

It was a really busy, full of work week so I don't have a whole lot of pictures.  Steve and Dad Wheeler spent most of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday working through a super-long list of projects for around the house.  They both went to bed so tired each evening.  By the time they left, they had put up curtain rods around the house, put together shelving and installed it in the storage room, organized the garage so things weren't on the floor, put together all the baby furniture, bought and installed shelving in my craft room, put up the Christmas lights, plus a host of smaller projects.

Mom and I spent Wednesday and Thursday preparing and making food for the big feast.  Kate, my sister-in-law, brought rolls and mashed potatoes.  Mom made two apple pies and crusts for the two pumpkin pies.  She and I worked together on everything else.  We had turkey and gravy (Mom really liked the gravy!), homemade stuffing and cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, cornbread, salad, corn, carrots, and green beans in addition to the things already mentioned.

We also had a chocolate pecan pie for dessert.  I had such a hard time with it!  Wednesday night, I apparently heated the chocolate too much and it was all lumpy so I had to throw it out.  The next day, after talking with Stephanie about what I had done wrong, I tried again.  This time, the chocolate was nice and smooth.  I added the other ingredients and poured it into the pie crust only to discover that I had completely forgotten the eggs!  I tried pouring the filling out of the crust, but it was so thick and sticky that the pie crust just fell apart.  I had to pick little pieces of pie crust out as best I could, add the eggs, and pour it into a new crust.  Luckily, a little pie crust in the filling doesn't ruin it completely.

We really enjoyed having everyone here for the holiday.  We also appreciated all the hard work that Mom and Dad put in while they were here.  I'm sure that they will reconsider the length of the stays in light of the fact that we put them to work, but I hope that they'll come again for just as long.

The Perfect Day

We had a great day on November   .  It was the first big snow we've had this winter, and it was great!

We woke up to snow falling and it didn't let up all day long.  Steve decided to work from home, instead of driving in it.  Because of that, he finished up a little early and headed out to shovel the driveway and sidewalks.  Now, if you know Steve, you know that he likes a really good snowball fight.  While he was out shoveling, some of the neighbor kids came out and Steve couldn't resist rounding them up and starting a fight of boys against girls.

As soon as I got wind of what was going on, I bundled up Anna in her winter clothes and we headed out to join the fun.  Actually, Anna joined; I watched and documented from the sidelines.  I think we spent a good hour to hour and a half out there.  The kids had so much fun and Anna was ecstatic!  She was picking up the snow and throwing it into the air.  She tried throwing snow at the kids, but she had to get about a step away from her target to hit them.  They were really patient, though, and stood still until she had thrown her snow.  Her favorite part was eating the snow.  As soon as she discovered this cold treat, she lost all interest in throwing it.

After we were all cold and tired, we headed inside.  I didn't want to make dinner at this point, so we headed to a new Chinese restaurant that opened next to Soelbergs.  Anna loves Chinese food, especially the noodles.  It was pretty good, although the room was a little cold from the constant stream of people coming in and out of the door.

We came home feeling satisfied and settled in front of the fireplace.  I had made cookies earlier in the day, so we ate cookies and drank warm apple cider.  Anna played and Steve and I read until it was time to put her down for the night.

To cap off this great day, Steve and I settled down in front of the TV to watch Pride and Prejudice, the Kiera Knightly version.  We went to bed tired and happy after our perfect day.

Crafting with Anna

So, I've started doing a little craft with Anna every once in a while.  We have an hour between lunch and naptime that is sometimes difficult to figure out what to do with.  So, if we have enough time, I've got a few 'crafts' on hand.  Here are three that we have done this month.

Sewing

Whenever I'm working on anything sewing related, Anna wants to sew too.  So, I decided to show her one day how to sew using a big blunt needle, yarn, and burlap stretched in a hoop.  She loved it!  It took a little explaining to get her to go up and down on the same side of fabric instead of looping it around to the bottom every time, but she got it and she was so proud of what she made.  I think she told me it was a giraffe.

Bird Feeders

We did this just a couple of days ago.  Anna has been into collecting all of the pine-cones she finds when we go to the park.  This was an idea of what we could do with some of them.  I showed her how to do one, then we did one together, and then she did two by herself.  She was so excited to feed the birds.  All we did was slather some natural peanut butter on the pine-cone, then roll it in bird seed.  Add a tie to the top and you're ready to hang it from a branch.  We hung them up at the park where we got the cones because we don't have any trees to hang them from here, yet.

Candles

We're almost ready to start the Advent season around here, so we used some time today to decorate our Advent candles.  We have some colored modeling beeswax that we rolled then and then cut or shaped our decorations.  Anna enjoyed making the stars and holly berries and putting them on the candles, but was bored by the holly leaves.   This will make our Advent wreath a little more colorful this year.

Halloween 2012

 Our first part of our Halloween celebration had to be a visit to the pumpkin patch.  Steve's brother, Ken, and his family: Kate, Jared, and Billy, came down for the afternoon.  It was a little late in the season, so most of the pumpkins in the field were very small.  We chose 2 small pumpkins.  But two small pumpkins seemed a little disappointing.  So...we got one of the BIG pumpkins at the front.  It weighed in at a little over 50 lbs.  We took a hayride and posed in the bales of hay.  A very nice afternoon.

Next up, came decorating pumpkins and the Trunk or Treat.  I carved one of the little pumpkins and the huge pumpkin.  Anna colored and painted a white pumpkin.  That was just perfect for her.

The Trunk or Treat was the Saturday before Halloween.  We had soup and bread for dinner.  It was really cute; her friend Jonah grabbed Anna's tail and she pulled him around the gym.  They had so much fun.  We then went out for the candy.  Steve took Anna around.  There were several other kids dressed up as zoo animals.  A tiger and a giraffe, we were able to get pictures with.  Zufeldts dressed up as zookeepers with their kids as a monkey and something else.  We wanted to get a picture with them, but couldn't.  Anna was in love with getting free candy.

Finally, came the big day.  I, of course, forgot to paint her nose.  Oh well.  She was soooo excited to go trick or treating.  I took her to our old neighborhood.  She literally ran from one house to the next, barely stopping to knock on the door and get her treat.  Once, she tripped and fell and her candy went flying.  She jumped up, grabbed her candy and kept on running.  So cute.  Steve took her to the houses in our new neighborhood.  Needless to say, she was a little tired when she got home.  Not too tired, though to dump out all the candy and have a taste.

Our Family in September

So here's a little look into our family during September...after the stress of the move-in.

First, we went on our 2nd annual family hike in Middle Canyon.  The trees turn colors up there before they turn down at the house.  It's so pretty.  We had a little picnic of veggie calzones first.  That was memorable, because someone let their cattle out and they were roaming the picnic area, eating the grass and being BIG.  Anna thought it was great to have them so close.

Afterwards, we took a leisurely stroll up the path.  We collected different colored leaves and Anna picked up bunches of rocks.  We overestimated how warm it was going to be and Anna's pink jacket just wasn't enough so she got to wear my jacket, too.  It was a little big, so we tried to roll up the sleeves and we tucked the front of it into her pants.

We also made it to the zoo.  It was a cool day, in the middle of the week, and later in the evening.  We got there about 10 minutes before they closed the gates.  That gave us an hour and a half before they'd kick us out.  Basically we had the entire zoo to ourselves!  We loved seeing the new Rocky Shores exhibit with the otters, polar bears, and seals.  Anna really like posing on the tiger statues.  Then, she got to go on the carousel.  She was the only one on it and chose to ride the zebra.  I think this ride is what decided Anna in being a zebra for Halloween.