Merry Christmas from the Smiths

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My friend Stephanie had this on her blog. Dallin, Adam, and I had way too much fun putting this together this morning.

Butch

I should have seen this one coming. I was put in my place last night. I kind of thought that my kids were "too well-behaved" to do something like cut their own or someone else's hair. Foot into mouth, here we go. Sorry if I ever judged. Look at what Dallin--five years old and way too old to be doing something like this--did to his brother. This, my friends, is a first-class hack job. And this is only the front.



Here's what Adam's hair looked like just a two days ago.



I like his hair a little longer hair on the top of his head because he is still a sweet little boy and doesn't need a big boy hair cut yet. So I was really sad about the inevitable.

After the incident I had no choice but to buzz it off.

(Sorry the photo's so bright.)
I used the clippers on a 4 (1/2 inch I think) and of course, that was too long to hide the chunks taken out. So I tried a 3, but still it was too long. So I regrettably used the 2 (1/4 inch) attachment and buzzed it down. That was even a little long for some areas but that was as short as I was willing to go.

So where was I when the haircutting was going down? Pretty naive, apparently. Dallin had a comb and Adam went into the bathroom to get his hair wet and Dallin told me he was going to "do Adam's hair." I did not see the scissors in his hands. Though I am sure Dallin did not want me to see the scissors in his hands. I told them to go outside to do Adam's hair because the bathroom is right across from Owen's room and Owen was sleeping. Mark wasn't home from work yet and I was making dinner. Dallin had at least a good ten minutes hacking away at Adam's hair before I went outside to check on them. For the rest of the night I was pretty short-tempered with those two.

But look, isn't a baby great for helping mom feel better?


Owen told me he would never do something like that.

"Me? I'm the angel of the family."

But it could be worse, at least I have boys. His hair will be back to normal in a few months.

And Owen wanted to share one more picture, to help mom have another reason to smile. Maybe it will make you smile too. This is "Owen and Rice Cereal: Take One."

Mostly About Dallin

Here are a few things that Dallin has been up to lately:

Laughing at Adam.
It seems it is a more recent thing, but Dallin thinks a lot of things Adam says and does lately are so funny. At three and five they are finally at an age where they are really good friends. It's more of a give-take relationship now. I totally love when Adam does something that Dallin thinks is cool or when Dallin laughs when Adam is trying to be silly. It's great. Today's happened when we were in the front yard having a morning snack. Adam points to the sun in the sky and says, "Look, it's Sunday." Dallin cracked up and said to me, "He thinks every day that the sun is out it's Sunday!" He gets a kick out of his brother.

Riding his bike.
A couple of weeks ago Dallin told Mark he wanted the training wheels off of his bike. He kind of tried to ride on his own but didn't try too hard that day. A week went by and Dallin wanted to ride his bike again. Mark says Dallin basically just started riding it like there was nothing to it. Mark came into the house to tell me Dallin was riding his bike on his own. It seemed like it came out of nowhere. He needs help getting started, especially since the bike we got him is a little tall, but he's getting pretty good at riding it around now.

This was about five minutes after he rode for the very first time.

Reading

Dallin is learning to read. He still has a long way to go to be able to read a book or something but he can read some of the store signs as we drive down the road or simple words. We are starting to work on a little phonics so he can get to the next level. I am excited for him to be able to read books by himself. It really will be a whole new world for him, I expect that he will love to read.

One Sunday a week or so ago Mark was gone for something and Dallin decided to make him a little treasure hunt when he got back. He asked me how to spell the words. The first note was on the front door, the second was in the mailbox and the third was inside the house on the wall. For the last part Mark had to search through the house to find where Dallin was hiding.

Photography
Every time I get the camera out Dallin wants to use it too. Here are some of his pictures from the last couple of days.
"Self Portrait"


"Adam and Hat"



"Owen and Hat"

This one looks like "Mom Making Peanut Butter and Mustard Sandwiches"

Just a couple of the many pictures he took of the pictures in a National Geographic magazine.

Instead of wearing his own pajamas every night, sometimes Dallin wants to wear one of daddy's shirts. One night he chose to wear daddy's sweatshirt to bed and tonight he chose to wear daddy's sweatpants.

And just because these guys are so cute, I couldn't leave them out:

Can you tell Adam is saying, "Owen, you're so cute." He says this maybe twenty times a day.

Adam and Owen with Grandma .

And to follow up on the last post, this is what we know so far about Michael the scam artist. We do have his full name, but I didn't want to post it for fear that he would track us down somehow, and we found his myspace page under that name, so it's probably his real name. We hear the police are working on a case and are going to arrest him. We found out from an officer Mark talked with on Monday that there were only two other families and they both got their money back from Michael. I guess he felt guilty, hid the money somewhere (under a trash can at a Wal-Mart and somewhere else) and called or texted the people and told them where he left the money. When they went there, the money was there. Apparently he doesn't feel bad enough for us. I think it's because we only paid half and then when Mark went to get the swingset and the police came to talk to Mark about the case they asked him to text the guy and tell him that we got the swingset and how were we going to get the rest of the money to him. The police were trying to bait him so he'd show up for the rest of the money and they could arrest him. But, he never responded. So, we can't even really send him a text to try and make him feel sorry for us and give us our money back because we already told him we got the swingset that he doesn't even own. Anyway, thanks for all of your kind comments and nice offerings of private detection.

And here is a sweeter note to leave you with:

Christmas Reconsidered

I am almost a little too embarrassed to tell this story. But oh well, this is our life and this is what actually happened.


Mark and I thought this year it would be a good idea to get our kids a swingset for Christmas. We're pretty frugal folk and yet we still wanted something that would be sturdy and last a long time. We thought we'd try finding a used swingset, maybe a nice wooden clubhouse-style one off of Craigslist. Unfortunately there seem to be a lot of other people in the valley with this same idea so swingsets we'd see posted would get sold before we ever had the time to go and look at them.


Last Saturday (a week ago) we called a guy about a swingset way out in the northwest valley. The post said it was bought for $3000 three years ago and they were selling it for $500--first clue. You couldn't tell at all what the set looked like from the small black and white photos. The guy said he was selling it for his dad--second clue--who was having renters move in and for their homeowner's insurance they couldn't keep the set there. Third clue, the post left a phone number and said, "text don't call unless I say it's okay."


After texting and then talking with the guy and asking all the questions we could think of to ensure this was ligitimate, we drove all the way across town and checked out the swingset. The guy knew we were coming but said he couldn't be there and to let ourselves in the backyard. Fourth clue.


Just to be sure again we knocked on the door of the house when we got there. No answer, so we let ourselves in the backyard. Actually, we'd taken our boys with us so Mark went first and examined the set for a while then I took a turn so the boys wouldn't see why we were there since we were trying to surprise them for Christmas. This thing was massive. Wooden clubhouse with a long slide, three swings and a set of monkey bars. We have a pretty good-sized yard but we still had to determine whether we had enough room for this thing. After a Sunday to think it over Mark got in contact with the guy, Michael, and arrange to meet to make a deposit. Oh yes, we made a deposit. We paid half, $250. Michael met at Mark's work and Mark had him sign a paper to verify the transaction and state that he owns the playground set and had the right to sell it. We still had some reservations at this point but after talking with Michael, Mark felt comfortable. He knew where the guy worked which was verified by a parking decal on his car and a few other things that made it seem like the guy had nothing to hide.


We spent the next few days making arrangements with family and friends to find four great guys who were willing to drive a trailer all the way across town and help dismantle and move the thing. My sister helped me write a letter to the boys from Santa explaining that their gift was too big to keep at the North Pole and he was delivering it early. Still, when Mark left on Saturday morning I told him to call me when he got there to let me know that the playground set was still there--there was a part of me that was worried this wasn't going to work out.


If I have the story all correct, Mark and his brother showed up late Saturday morning at the house and there was a moving truck there with workers dismantling the set. The family that owned the home was moving out due to foreclosure. They didn't know anyone named Michael.

We were not the only ones dooped because earlier that morning someone else who had already "paid" for the playset showed up and started dismantling it. The neighbors called the police who showed up and got things straight. Then the movers came who were the only ones who were actually suppose to be taking it and Mark and our handy helpers came after that. Besides us there were at least two others that were scammed by Michael.

It's hard to decide if there really is a lesson to be learned from this situation. If it is to not trust people I don't know if I agree with that lesson. We thought we were being careful, and we knew at least as much not to pay the whole amount upfront. It was obvious no one was living at the house, the backyard was totally empty except for the swingset, and there were several other reasons to trust Michael's story. But I would probably not make a deposit on something anymore, I would just buy it outright when it was picked up. Before we made a deposit we tried looking up the home to find who owned it but I couldn't find the information and I gave up too quickly. More than the money lost, I felt worse about the guys and their families who took hours out of their Saturday to help us when it turned out just to be a scam.

So now we have the question again about what to do for Christmas. And since we lost a bit of our Christmas budget and I'm not feeling so fond of dealing with strangers to get a good deal right now it is likely that there will not be a swingset for Christmas this year. And we are okay with that, so don't feel too bad about us. Besides, the kids never knew about any of it so they don't have any expectations and they will have a great Christmas with too many presents, swingset or no. It could have been worse anyway, so we're grateful for that. At least we didn't end up stealing it!

A Morning with Zane

Saturday we had some family pictures taken. It is a little bit of a stressful experience trying to get little boys to cooperate all at the same time for a fraction of a second while a camera clicks. But there are rewards at the end. For the boys the reward was candy when we were through. For us, we got these pictures:













You can find more of Zane at Lloyd Zeffler Photo.

Just thinking

Where have all the G-rated movies gone? In the past year, have there been any G-rated movies? I think the only G-rated movies have been Disney's Earth and the Hannah Montana movie. I have been kind of wanting to take my kids to a movie but I keep thinking that there's got to be a G-rated one come around but no. We rented Disney Earth when it came out on video and the boys love, love, loved it. So too bad we didn't take them to see that one in the theater. At the time Mark and I hadn't seen it and I didn't know if it would hold the boys' attention well enough for the theater.

Speaking of G-rated movies, my boys watched Meet the Robinsons last week. We own it so they've seen it a few times, but the end of the movie still gets me teary-eyed (at the least.) The boy has a family and they love him and the music is playing:

"Let it go. Let it roll right off your shoulder. Don't you know, that the hardest part is over? Let it in. Let your clarity define you. In the end, we will only just remember how it feels."

Wow. Come on, anyone with me?

Also, some pet peeves:

When people don't know how to use apostrophe's or "quotes." (Hint: don't use them like I just did.)

Email forwards that say things like, "If you believe in God pass this on. If not, delete it. Oh, please. If you are trying to make me feel guilty I will delete you and not feel guilty about it.

I recently was looking over some old pictures and examined this one from Memorial Day of this year. Nobody seemed to pick up on this at the time, but check out which shirt Mark wore to the cemetery:

Yes. Vultures. Smooth one, sweetheart. Now we officially have a list of shirts we will ban from wearing at the cemetery. I wouldn't have thought we needed a list but apparently, we need a list, even if it only includes this one shirt.

Four Months

Owen, you turned four months old yesterday. Look at you, cute as can be.



You are the most beautiful thing in the world. To me, that is not an exaggeration at all, just simply how it is.

At four months old you decided you'd better make it a momentous day so you rolled over for the first time. Your dad and I were putting dinner together and you were in the living room on your back. Daddy yelled, "He rolled over!" I couldn't figure out what he was talking about for a second until I saw you. You were crying because you didn't want to be on your tummy and you didn't seem to like your new trick. We shouted praises, turned you over and darn it, you flipped yourself over again and again immediately after that.

You have one cute dimple in your right cheek. I still am not totally certain if you only have one or if it's just that your cute little lopsided smile only shows one of them off. You have a great smile and if we get really fortunate someone can make you laugh.

You are pretty laid back. Except when I leave you in the Bumbo for too long taking pictures of you.



Also you have been drooling a lot lately and we are wondering if you are teething early.

Your brothers love you to the point of smothering and your dad can't get enough of you.

And this line here is where we will fill in your stats when we get home from the doctor's office on Monday.

And life goes on...

...too fast to get blogged about.

My sister Amanda came through town a couple of weeks ago en route to Vegas for a weekend with her husband's family. She got to meet Owen for the first time. We only had a short while before they had to get going so we served everyone breakfast then took some pictures and then Amanda, David, Iris, and company were on their way. Someone thought, "Here are a bunch of small children. Let's put them in the tree!"


Cousins. So sweet.



Later that afternoon Mark and I took the boys to the State Fair. Mark's family goes each year for the Figure Eight Races. If you don't know what this is, think a figure eight track on dirt with old cars and crazy drivers. Figure eight track means a thrilling cross-section of the raceway with near-misses and flying tires and even flipping or burning vehicles. The boys even went on a few rides.


Watching the races:



This picture didn't turn out very well, but the long sign that reads GIANT PIG says: "ALIVE" with quotes around it. We were wondering what "alive" meant. Not really alive, just what some might consider "alive." Maybe the GIANT PIG was in a coma.



Owen had two layers of hats to muffle the sound of the races. It worked apparently because he slept through most of it.

On Halloween I made a dinner I was pretty proud of--a pizza mummy.


This was a big hit and might become a tradition. I made a caterpillar-looking one without cheese for me and used refrigerated rosemary facoccia bread dough from Fresh and Easy. I used Fresh and Easy pizza dough for the limbed mummy so it made the operation easy peasy. For Halloween we all dressed up as Pokemon characters. One problem: not enough people know about Pokemon to know who were. We tried to stay close to Pikachu (Adam) to help people out. We failed in getting any pictures of the whole family in costume. Though we figure we may do a music video later so stay tuned for that. This is the best we got. We managed to squeeze in some pumpkin carving after all. Hurried and fast because it's time to go trick-or-treating.



Last week Mark got home early and was already home when I pulled into the garage from running errands with the kids. It was a windy day and Dallin asked if we could fly our kites. I told him yes though I figured we'd have to cancel dinner in order to make it happen because I had somewhere to be later that night. We've never done that before--cancelling dinner--but Nie Nie did it, so I figured I could do it too. We came into the house and Mark just happened to be in the backyard, untangling kite strings. I fed the baby, gathered some snacks and we drove (yes drove) across the street to the park. It was a perfect day for kite-flying because our three and five-year-olds managed to keep our dollar store kites in the air for long stretches at a time. We stayed outside until it got too dark to see and took five minutes buckling into the car to drive one minute across the street to our house. It's a busy street you see and jaywalking with three little ones is a little tricky.

During dinner last night Dallin asked, "Can we have a party tonight?" And I said "sure," then looked at the clock and added, "we can have a party after dinner for five minutes." I had picked up a storm trooper costume on clearance at Target, thinking way too far ahead for a Star Wars-themed Halloween next year. We already had our other Star Wars costumes from Halloween three years ago. Costume party it was! And five minutes turned into forty-five so the kids got to stay up late.



We are getting rebellious around here. Breaking all the household rules. But now that I think about it I realize that next year I will have a kindergartner and we will have more of a schedule to stick to and going to bed late on a school night won't be much of an option. So we'll try to enjoy our kids while they are here at home.

Maine Question One

Mark put together this little video to help the state of Maine pass a law to protect marriage there. They vote on this issue this November.

Life's better with the windows open.

I have so much more energy when the windows are open. I love it when the weather cooperates. Yay fall. I know the weather is flip-flopping around between moderate and hot, but I just tell myself that it means that we will have more nice-weather days before it gets cold.

3 Month Supply

Most of you know but in our church, our leaders encourage us to store food and otherwise be prepared to provide for ourselves and our family in case of an emergency.

We have been working on our food storage lately. We decided to focus on getting a three month supply of everyday foods that we can eat if we were not able to go to the store for whatever reason. We have here one week out of thirteen for our three month supply:

Here is the menu for the week:

Breakfasts
Granola and powdered milk (for two days)
Oatmeal and powdered milk (for two days)
Toast with peanut butter and honey (for two days)
Whole wheat kernel pancakes, syrup, canned fruit

Lunches
Tuna sandwiches and fruit leather (for two days)
PBJs and applesauce (for two days)
Macaroni and cheese and fruit (dehydrated or freeze-dried) (for two days)
Canned soup and bread

Dinners
Refried beans, rice w/ Ro-tel tomatoes, homemade tortillas, canned salsa

Spaghetti, jar of marinara sauce, canned green beans

BBQ sandwiches (BBQ sauce and home-canned chicken, pork, or beef) and fruit salad (canned peaches and mandarin oranges w/ pudding mix)

Zatarains red beans and rice, canned corn, garlic biscuits

Tomato soup and grilled cheese, apple juice box

Canned soup and bread

Fry bread (fried pizza dough with refried beans, shredded cheese, and salsa)

Snacks
Pudding cups
Granola bars
Popcorn
Rice Crispy Treats
Beef Jerky
Candy
Fruit snacks

This is a lot more snacks than we normally eat, maybe I went overboard. But part of me thinks that snacks will go a long way to comfort little people in a stressful time. Who knows.

--If you are wondering where the cheese is coming from, we bought a case of this:
We were considering buying Velveeta for cheese but decided we'd spend a little more and get the canned stuff. We're not so into fake cheese either way, but at least with canned cheese we won't have to rotate it and eat it nearly as often. It has a much longer shelf life than Velveeta does, and it shreds. We ordered it from this website and were very happy with the customer service. We purchased a few cans to try before buying an entire case. We think it tastes like Kraft Singles. There are some other interesting items for sale on that website if you're interested in looking around.

We got our freeze-dried and dehydrated fruits from FoodWise in Gilbert. They sell these foods in various-sized PET containers so you don't have to buy an entire #10 can of something if you don't want that much. We got an assortment of fruits in 13 quart-sized containers, one for each week. When we empty a container the store will refill them for the price paid minus the price of the PET container so you save by reusing your containers. This was the most expensive portion of our storage.

There are also basic items that we will need for our meals that are not included in our containers like ingredients for bread, wheat, beans, flour, salt, etc. These items are stored separately.

We decided that in case of an emergency we wanted to cater our meal choices around the things that the kids will like the most so we don't have to worry about them not wanting to eat in a time that's already stressful. Yes, this does make our menus not as healthy but that's just how it is. Maybe I'll be able to figure out how to do healthy and kid-friendly some other year.

I give credit to my friend Autumn for the idea of how to rotate our food. Each container is labeled with a month of the year. Ours are labeled November 2009 through November 2010, making thirteen containers. Each month we will empty the food out of one container and put it on our shelves to be used up, either through eating it or donating it sometime that month. Then, we will fill the container back up with another week's worth of food. Everything will get rotated once a year except for a couple of items like our cheese and probably our freeze-dried and dehydrated fruits. We spent more money on these items that have longer shelf-lives and we don't want to replace them as often as once a year.

The expense
Obviously, buying this much food at once costs a lot of money. We started out stockpiling food when things were on sale but our supply was building very slowly. We decided to put a hold on building our savings account and put the money towards our food storage for a few months. I'm not saying this is the right thing for everyone, but if you're wondering how we paid for it now you know. We had some money saved but didn't want to take it out so instead of depositing money into our savings account after a paycheck we would withdraw the money in cash and keep it in an envelope to spend on our three month supply. Now that we have completed the task we are going back to saving our money. I tried collecting receipts to calculate how much it cost us but misplaced a few of them. If you might be interested in doing this I could pretty easily estimate the costs. My friend Autumn and her husband used their tax return one year to purchase their food. By the way, if you want to see her run-down of this method you can check out her blog.

Pros and Cons
There are some disadvantages to this method of food storage of course. The largest ones I see is that my grocery spending is going to go up. I try to buy only things that are on sale. When I was shopping for our three month supply all at once I either bought sale items or bought in bulk. But, when I am replacing these containers every month I will not have that luxury. Another con, I have more mac and cheese, canned soups, and other processed foods than I really want in my house. And maybe when I refill my containers I can think of some better substitutes. Storage is also going to be tricky. As I type my containers are still in my front room.

And, the containers I bought are a little too big, so that makes some wasteful space that I will have to find room for. I figure I can fit about half of my containers stacked in my hall closet, four in Owen's closet and one in each of the other two rooms.

Though we feel like we can deal with these inconveniences because the beauty of this system is how easy it is to use in the event of an emergency. The system makes rotating food so easy and you don't have to keep a running total of every single item you want to store.

Now we'd better go put all this food away.

First Picture

Adam has drawn before, but until now it has been scribbles that he interprets into something. It's probably even better than a Rorschach because he does the scribbling and the interpreting himself. He's delving into the dark corners of his mind you know. And yes of course I looked up the spelling of Rorschach. But Friday he drew this:

He called it a "bread cow." I'm guessing he was going for a cow and after the fact decided that it reminded him of bread. And do my boys really have to do their first recognizable pictures on Magna Doodles? They do have plenty of time with paper and crayons too. But at least I got a picture of this one. Adam says the things on its legs are spikes. So cute, isn't it?

Robotic Happlesauce

Our caterpillar is dead. We never found the right kind of food for it. I felt horrible: both sorry and grossed out. Last night before I fell asleep I had images of creepy crawly things rushing through my mind. Dallin cried when we told him this morning. Just one more confirmation that we should never get a dog.

Three Months

Take a look at my beautiful Owen.

He is three months old today.

Owen, I love you so, so much. I told your dad last night that there is nothing else I would rather see than your sweet little smile. The Grand Canyon, the Eiffel Tower, they've got nothing on you. It's true. Just today it seems like you've had a babbling breakthrough. You were talking up a storm to me today. My heart melts when I hear your little sounds.



Today might be one of the last days for this little outfit.



Here is what it use to look like on you just a couple of months ago:


So far you are my big eater. I'm hoping in another year or so you can teach Adam a thing or two at the dinner table. Right now I am loving your chunky little thighs. My boys have been (and are) generally scrawny, so it's fun that you have some rolls, be they ever so small. Along with your smile, they are also better than the Grand Canyon. Feeding you gives me the opportunity to examine them multiple times a day. I estimate that they are now six times as large as when you were newborn. Don't forget I majored in mathematics so that's no exaggeration.

House Tour

Let's have a look around our house to see what we've been up to lately.

If you could shuffle through the grass in our front yard you might see some remnants of our picnic lunch aftermath. We've had a few picnics out there lately, the weather has been perfect. Probably the birds have gotten to most of it by now, but at one point there were grapes and popcorn all over the grass from the foodfight. It may or may not have actually been my idea. Usually I have a hard time letting loose but it was so fun to laugh and play with my kids. And the boys sure liked shoving grapes down my back. I will not tell you where I found a grape several hours later.

Enter the front door and we have our latest project. For now they're pushed against the wall until they find home in our closets. Yesterday the room looked like this:

Mark had the day off so we worked on our three month supply of food. Maybe I'll post more about this later. Because I have been so great at posting and everything.

But let's continue with the tour. The dining room has Dallin and Adam working on play-do. I was pleased because when Dallin asked to do play-do today I didn't tell him no I didn't want the mess, I told him he could when the dining room was clean. He didn't like the idea right away but once I left the room he begun the task. And they even cleaned up the play-do too without me asking. Wow. I know.

Amongst much clutter on the kitchen counter is the canned salsa I worked on with a friend this morning. I'm all grown up and learning to can. Tear. Someday I'll have the guts to do it without Nikki's help.

And what's this tied to the back door?

It's Adam's own amusement park ride. You see, you don't have to feel bad for never taking your kids to Disneyland because then they have the opportunity to create a Pull 'Em Back out of a bungie cord and a riding toy. And right now you are trying to figure out how to make an adult-size version. Me too.

Let's go past the ride and out the back door to the patio. What's this? Did the Smith family actually get a pet?

I guess the answer is yes. Though he will only be here when and if (BIG IF) he goes through metamorphosis. He's more of an "educational experience" for the kids.

Meet Robotic Happlesauce.

We found him leaving church on Sunday. It might have been meant to be because we went out a side door that doesn't get used very often and that's where we met him, crawling along the sidewalk. We stole a plastic cup from the kitchen in the name of science. We are hoping our limited knowledge (all found on the Internet) will be enough to sustain him until he becomes a moth. And if you're wondering about the name, so am I.

Thanks for humoring us. That completes the tour.