The Three Amigos

Ivan, Ollie, and Linc my three amigos

I'm an Aunt Again!

Meet Abigail Desiree Lemmon my beautiful new niece who was born yesterday. Congrats to Kyle and Kelsey.

Girl Party! ...and Father's and Son's

The boys have been begging to go camping, but we aren't quite sure we're ready to take Oliver camping yet. Luckily for them, our ward has Father's and Son's, a camp out for just boys and dads. Aaron agreed to take them. As soon as I told the boys, Adelia said, "I want to go!" And I said, "Oh Del, you can't it's just for sons." She said, "I'm a son!" And I said, "No, you're a daughter, but it's ok, you and I will stay here and have a fun girl party. What kinds of fun things do girls do?" She thought for minute, then scrunched up her forehead and said, "Maybe play and....clean stuff?" I had to laugh! Poor kid. She thinks girls clean stuff for fun. I decided to show her differently. I took her to WalMart and let her pick out her very own color of nail polish. Then we got a cheese cake, and headed home to do facials, pedicures, and eat chocolate! She wasn't too sure about the facial, but she really enjoyed painting my toenails. And the chocolate was her favorite part. Girl after my own heart. :)

Meanwhile, up at Jolley's Ranch....

Four Months

Ollie made it to four months...but his hair didn't. It's starting to fall out big time. I'm so tempted just to buzz it to prevent him from looking like an old man with a comb-over. He's still darling though. And the easiest, most mild-mannered baby I've ever had.

Oliver is still a champion sleeper. Sleeps through the night consistently, and takes at least one long nap every day, sometimes two.

He pretty much holds his head up all on his own now. He's even strong enough to do five minute stretches in the Bumbo. He doesn't like it very much yet though. But he still loves his monkey bouncer, and has started grabbing at and batting the toys that hang down. He's usually content to sit in it for 20 minutes or so, long if one of the kids will stand next to him and talk to him.

He's also really good to just lay happily on a blanket on the floor. I'm so amazed. It's wonderful to have a happy baby. His little grins and coos just melt my heart. He's not laughing yet, but every now and then you can get a good squeal out of him if you tickle him in just the right spot.

This is How We Roll...

What a day it was today. When I woke up this morning the plan was that we were going to do some school work in the morning, then I was going to drop Adelia and Oliver off at Aaron's mom's house for a few hours, while I took Lincoln and Ivan on a field trip to BYU's MAGICC Lab. But then our AC broke (again!) after the guy had just barely come to fix it not more than a week ago. So we called them again, and another guy came out to look at it and determined that when they installed the unit when the house was built that they'd soddered the coil on at too hot of a temperature, and so the metal became brittle and snapped off from the unit and was leaking coolant everywhere. It was a four hour job to fix the coil, and ended up being right in the middle of the time I was supposed to be on the field trip. So no field trip for us. I decided to go grocery shopping in the morning, and then still take Ollie and Del over to play at Grandma Swan's. Actually, we all went over there and had lunch, which was really nice. Then I took Lincoln and Ivan to play tennis for an hour, before we had to go home and meet the AC guy.

But it all worked out. I actually had a really good time playing tennis with my boys. Ivan cracked me up, by insisting the he play in his soccer shin-guards and super hero cape. :) And Lincoln surprised me by being fairly good at tennis. We even had a few volleys back and forth. I think I'd like to take them out more often.

After tennis, we picked up the younger kids, and came home to wait for the AC guy. It was a long, hot afternoon. We had quiet time for some of it. Lincoln has been doing awesome at reading silently to himself during quiet time. I had a big stack of books that I'd bought for him to read to me as part of his school starting in the fall. He found that stack and has been reading them on his own. Today I found him reading The Big Balloon Race by Eleanor Coerr. He was excited about it because he remembered seeing the hot air balloons last year in Provo on the 4th of July. We decided we could probably come up with some kind of hot air balloon project to work on after quiet time.

Making sun-catchers in one of my old stand-bys, as far as crafts go. Usually we do them in fall with apples, or pumpkins. And we've done some Christmas ones as well...but why not hot air balloons? So I got to work.

I found a template that I liked online and printed it off. Then I used a black magic marker to make the lines thicker. Then I cut the white places out of the center. When the kids got up from quiet time, we put each balloon cut-out onto a piece of contact paper. Then the kids took tissue paper and stuck it onto the back.

When they were done filling in the blank spaces, we put a second piece of contact paper on top, and cut around the edges. Then we hung our balloons in the window to catch the sun. They turned out great!

And That's a Wrap

Kickball season is officially over for the year. Good job boys, you played well. They were both thrilled with the medals the got, but I think they were even happier with the after-game popsicle.

Lincoln playing third base...or maybe just playing?

Ivan had a headache so he spent most of the game under the umbrella with us.

Adelia and Gramma Tam

My mom came down and spent the day with us, and then came to see the kickball game. We love it when she comes to play. This trip, I made her bring her picture box so we could sort out pictures. More about that later. Adelia loved having someone to hang out with that the game besides Aaron and Ollie and I. :) She kept saying, "Grandma, take a picture of us!"

FHE: Laundry Soap

We are trying super-dee-duper hard to stay within our budget this month. Every month we make a budget, and most months we stay in close range of the budget; but, if it happens to get to the end of the month and we need, oh I don't know, toilet paper, or something, and we don't have any money left in the house portion of our budget, we generally will just get the toilet paper anyway. But this month we are trying to be really good, and pretty strict about it. So we ran out of laundry soap, with one week left in the month. Crumb. We can't realistically go a week without doing our laundry. I'd never catch up. I thought for sure we were going to have to go over budget for laundry soap. Turns out though, that somewhere along the way, I had put everything we need to make our own laundry soap into our food storage stuff. Yay for me! So for FHE tonight, we made laundry soap. Ten gallons of it. For free. Yippee!! And of course, put in a good word for hard work, budgeting money, and emergency preparedness along the way. :) I love when things work our like that. (And no, I don't think it's just a coincidence when they do.)

Seven Peaks Saturday

On Saturday, Aaron and I took the kids to Seven Peaks. I am SO glad that I had not attempted to do this on my own with four children. The kids were really good, but it just would have been too hard to try and keep track of three kids while holding a baby. I'll do it when Ollie is old enough to float in a life jacket, but until then, we'll have to stick to Saturday visits so Aaron can go with us.

We had a good time though. Aaron mostly swam with the older kids, and I mostly held Ollie and watched. I was planning on putting him in the water a little, but he fell asleep, and I thought that would be mean. :) Aaron also took Lincoln and Ivan down a few water slides while I watched Adelia in the kiddie pool. I love Ollie's little baby swim suit.

After Seven Peaks, Aaron worked on the shed for a bit. He got all the trim put up, and both doors on. So all it needs now is to put the vents in and then get painted. I stayed inside and made French Bread to take to Aaron's mom's birthday party. I have been perfecting my french bread recipe, by making it a couple times a week over the last several months, and I think I'm to the point where I make better french bread than I can buy, so that makes me happy. The last couple of times, I've even been able to get that flaky crisp crust. My recipe is a whole wheat french bread. I even bought a special loaf pan for it and everything. I'm pretty happy with my results. The trickiest part has been figuring out the right flour to water consistency. That part is tricky because even if you follow the directions exactly, the consistency varies depending on the age of the flour, the water temperature, the room temperature, and how well the dough is kneaded. That's why I've had to make the dough over and over and over again, to get a feel for what makes a good light loaf and what makes a dense, hard-as-a-brick loaf. But my efforts are paying off. Here's the recipe:

Whole Wheat French Bread
2 Tbsp yeast
2 Tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2-2 1/2 cups of very warm water
4 cups whole wheat flour
1-2 cups white flour

1. Dissolve yeast in water with salt and sugar. Beat in 3 cups flour to make a batter; beat until smooth. Let rise for 15-20 minutes until double in bulk.

2. Beat in enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. If your dough gets too tough, add a little more water, and mix well. 

3. Knead for 10 minutes

4. Place dough in a large, greased bowl and let rise for 1 hour, or until double in bulk. 

5. Knead briefly, and shape into two oblong loaves. Place on a greased baking sheet. (if you don't have a french loaf pan, a cookie sheet will work.) Let rise 1 hour until double in bulk.

6. Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes. The length of time will depend on your oven, I always check mine at 18 minutes just to make sure. Loaves are done when the are light golden brown and sound hollow when tapped. 

7. Remove from pan immediately and place on a rack to cool.

Saturday evening we went over to dinner at Aaron's parents' house to celebrate Debbie's birthday. It was fun to see Aaron's brothers and their families there as well. We ate out on their back patio, and the weather was perfect for it.

Article of Faith #6

On Our Evening Walk

Consumed

Oh, hello there...Remember me? I used to write on this blog. But thanks to Kyle Lemmon - who, on our last trip up to Hooper, convinced me that I needed to finish a book series - I have been consumed with reading for the last while.

No, really. Since I last published a blog post I have read 3,293 pages; otherwise known as the last three books in the never ending Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. And it has sucked up every spare second I could muster, and quite a few that I couldn't. When I was in about 5th grade my dad started reading this series out loud to me, and we read about the first six books together (all that were published at the time). Then when I was pregnant with Lincoln, and stuck in an apartment in AZ by myself all day, I reread the first six and then up through book eleven (all that had been published at the time). Then Robert Jordan, the author, died. And I figured that was it. But a few years later they announced that Brandon Sanderson was going to take over and finish the series. But still, I waited to finish. The last three books came out, and I never got around to reading them...until now.

What a ride. Have you ever spent 15 years wondering how a book was going to end? I'm not generally a big fantasy reader...I tend to lean towards historical fiction, but this series has a sentimental aspect to it, because I can remember reading and discussing it with my dad over the years, speculating how it was going to end. My dad is gone, but it's been fun to pick up that speculation with my brother Kyle. And as I've been reading these books, he and I have been texting back and forth about the parts we liked and didn't like, or the funny/awesome things that happen. The characters themselves are like old friends from my childhood. And although I loved the ending, I'm a bit sad to be finished.

So what else have we been up to? Well, Lincoln and Ivan had two weeks worth of swimming lessons. Lincoln passed level 3. The funniest thing he learned to do was jump off the platform into the 12 feet deep water and swim to the side without help. And Ivan passed level 1. The coolest thing he learned how to do was do six bobs in a row, and put his head all the way under the water. Ollie and Del got to learn the beauty of being spectators. Ollie passed his time mostly by being cranky, and Del passed hers trying to see how many times she could convince me to take her potty in the "swimming potty" (the bathroom at the pool), before I got fed up with her and told her to hold it.

I've been working hard trying to remember to water our garden. I think it's coming a long ok. I found this little yellow bell pepper growing. About half of our bean seeds sprouted, and about half of our pea seeds too. Lincoln and I went back a couple days ago and planted more bean seeds where the others hadn't grown in yet. We also planted some cucumbers, zucchini, radishes, carrots, watermelon, and cantaloupe seeds. Some of those have sprouted but not many. Aaron's mom gave us some zucchini starts, and I haven't killed them yet. And we have about 10 tomato plants of various kinds, and they are doing well. If I think about it, and get around to it, I'd like to find a pumpkin start and plant it in our last little patch of garden. Oh! And our grapes have come back from the dead, and are actually doing really well. Hooray!

We had the patio poured, and we love it! The kids thought the cement truck was about the coolest thing there ever was. And it just about killed them to have to wait 48 hours to walk on the patio. I think it's the perfect size for our needs, and I can't wait until we can afford some patio furniture to go on it!

We also planted two more trees, Red Maples. One on either side of the Linden. We'll be getting another Linden one of these days to put on the left to block out the neighbor's giant shed. The maples will turn a pretty bright red color in the fall. And the Lindens sprout these pretty yellow flowers in the summer time that smell like heaven. Our back yard is going to be awesome! And it's kind of cool because I'm starting to be able to see it all coming together, with the patio and the trees, and the garden and fire pit. All we need now is some grass...and a fence...and... :)

This is the view I have when I sit on our patio and look out at the back yard. The trees are kind of hard to see with the neighbor's house in the background. 

Ollie and Linc hangin' out in the family room.

Oliver has spent some time growing like a weed. I swear I just barely got out the 3 month size stuff, and now I'm scrambling to find my 6 month sized summer stuff. He's started grabbing at toys. AND, the little stink is rolling over! Not for me though. I put him down on his tummy and he waits until I'm not looking to do it. But if Daddy is around, not only will he do it for him first try, but he does it a second time so that Aaron take a freakin' video as well. So, I have yet to see this development with my own eyes, but Aaron's got me covered.

More pictures of the cuteness:

Somewhere in there we celebrated Father's Day. I tried to make it a special day for Aaron, even though he's not my father. I got up early (that right there should be enough to let you know how much I love this person...I don't get up early for just anybody) and made whole wheat waffles from scratch, with bacon and orange juice to boot. The kids made cards and helped me put together a candy bar poster. After church, we had Aaron's dad over for dinner. Aaron chose to have Cafe Rio chicken burritos with tomatillo dressing (thank goodness it's an easy crock pot meal) with apple crisp for dessert. Aaron's dad is always telling me how much he likes my homemade bread, so for Father's Day I made him four loaves of his very own, plus I threw in a jar of homemade strawberry jam. :) Hopefully he was happy with it.

Here's my five loves on Father's Day 2013:

Ivan, Adelia, Aaron, Oliver, Lincoln

And  a shout out to my own Dad. I couldn't find a picture of he and I together, but this one of he and Jackson is really cute. Sure do miss you Stew Lemmon. Don't worry, I read some Wheel of Time in your honor: 

Also, Lincoln and Ivan have been playing kickball a couple nights a week, through the Springville Rec department. They are loving it! Technically, Lincoln was old enough to play T-ball, but I thought it would be easier to keep him and Ivan on the same team this year, so that we were only going to one place every week instead of two. And it's probably a good thing. There are a lot of rules that I'm realizing I haven't taught Linc yet. So I'm thinking kickball will be a good foundation for T-ball next year. Lincoln is #2 and Ivan is #9

Adelia had been on a pirate-princess kick. Every day during quiet time she strips down, and puts on her sparkly red Christmas dress (backwards, because she can't zip up the zipper unless it's in the front). Then she put on a pirate hat. She completes the ensemble by carrying around a wand made of K'Nex. She calls herself pirate princess, and claims that her wand makes rainbows and changes the color of things all around the house. I suppose this is preferable to just a regular princess, right?

We've done a couple of letters for our alphabet train. T and U. For letter T we did trees, and read Be a Friend to Trees by Patricia Lauber, and A Tree is a Plant by Clyde Robert Bulla. The first book talked about all the things humans use trees for. How they grow food, make wood and paper, and the different kinds of things we can make from tree sap. It was pretty cool. The second book was all about how trees work. What the roots, bark, and leaves are for, and how they use sunlight, soil and water to grow. We took the opportunity to observe our own trees, especially our apple and peach trees, because they have fruit on them this year! And we each took turns taking care of the trees by watering them and pulling out the weeds that had grown around their trunks.

 Lincoln and Ivan's T trees, with roots. 

Our apple tree

We also did letter U, and talked about things that are under the ground. For this, we read the Usborne book called Under the Ground by Anna Millbourne. It was a really cool book. It started off with the obvious things that are under ground like roots, and ants, and animals; then, it talked about water pipes and electric wires. Then subway systems and sewers. Then it went even deeper and talked about fossils, and mines, and lava and the center of the earth. My kids were fascinated. We made letter U's underground. Then one day during quiet time, Ivan used his Trios to make a model of underground water pipes. I was pretty impressed when he brought it out to show to me.

Ivan has actually been really into building lately. He's been building all sorts of little vehicles out of legos. He and Lincoln have been using the K'Nex to make ball ramps, and the other day, he brought down this robot to show me. I think it's the coolest thing he's ever built to date.

And of course we've been spending a lot of time outside. The boys have been on a bike riding kick. Sometimes they pretend that their bikes are get-away cars for their super hero selves. It's pretty amusing.

We've also visited the splash pad plenty of times. Mostly Springville's, but today a friend invited us to come up and try out the new Provo one. It's nice. My kids had fun.

Of course I had to bribe them with a Sonic Slush to get them to stand together for a picture. It was worth it though.

DIY: A Potty Training Revolution

Hi,

My name is Adelia. My mom refuses to potty train me (she's scarred for life from 21 combined months of potty training Lincoln and Ivan), so I've decided to take matters into my own hands. I decided to start this weekend while we were at Gramma Tam's house, because why not? We were on vacation after all. Basically it works like this, when I need to go, I just strip down, climb up on the potty, and take care of business. I may or may not let anyone know about it afterwards. I'm cool like that.

Mommy has decided that it's easier just to put me in underwear because, at least I can put those back on by myself. Unlike my diaper, which I could never get back on, so I decided to bag it and run around the house naked. I miss that free feeling, but my underwear has Tinker Bell on it, so that's almost as good.

I heard my mom tell my dad that she's washing her hands of this whole business. I'm ok with it though, I have always been a do-it-yourselfer, even before I was two. I must get those independent and stubborn genes from my parents.

Anyways, all is well at our house. I have only had two accidents in three days. And I'm just doin' my thang.

Home For the Weekend

Saturday Ollie and I headed up to Hooper for my sister-in-law Kelsey's baby shower. She got some really cute stuff for baby Abi, who will be here sometime in the next three weeks. I'm excited to have another niece! I'm curious to see what she looks like...so far, if you look and my kids and Jackson's kid, the Lemmon genes are pretty dominate, so it will be interesting to see if the trend continues.

It was fun to drive to Hooper practically by myself. Oliver slept in his car seat and didn't make a peep the whole way there. *Miracle* I got to listen to the music of my choice at the volume of my choice, and sing along without Adelia screaming, "Stop singing Mom!" Or Lincoln and Ivan saying, "We don't like music! We want to listen to stories!"

With no little voices to break in on my thoughts, I was able to have a good, long think. Sometimes it's nice to just think about things with no interruptions. I was able to think about how grateful I am for my life and my husband and my kids. I examined areas where I think I can improve, and noted areas where I am succeeding. I thought about summer, and how I want our family to spend its time. I thought about which activities we are currently involved in are worth while, and which ones I might need to let fall my the wayside. I thought about this up-coming school year, and what my goals were for each child, and how I wanted to implement them. I thought about things that make me happy, and things that make me sad. I analyzed my personality and tried to determine it's purpose in my life, how it makes me what I am, and how it effects the choices I make and how I respond to the choices and personalities of others. And I tried to figure out how being who I am fits into the grand scheme things. Yes, driving time is definitely the best thinking time. I need to do it alone more often. It's good therapy. :)

Jackson, Tanner, and Krystal after playing a little catch in the back yard.

And, of course, it's good to be with my family. Aaron brought the older three up Saturday afternoon on the train. It was nice to have the opportunity to miss them all for a short amount of time. :) Also, I got to spend some decent quality time with each of my brothers over the course of Saturday and Sunday. I miss them. I wish we all lived closer together so that we could hang out more often. They make me laugh, and my children adore them. Kyle is in the process of writing a book. His idea is intriguing, and I love talking about writing and books with him. He and Kels are getting excited for baby Abi to come and be part of their family, and I'm excited to watch Ky become a Dad. He'll be awesome. Jackson is dating a girl named Bri. I think they're pretty serious, and I'm glad. For so long I've wanted him to find someone that can make him happy, and Bri does. She also doesn't take any of his crap, which makes me laugh. And since they've been dating we see a lot more of him. And Tanner is still my little goober...although, I finally have to admit he's taller than me.  Tanner has a great sense of humor is a subtle sort of way, and he's always saying things on the sly that make me laugh. I can always count on him for a well-timed Disney quote. Underneath his teenager-ness, he's a big sweetheart. When push comes to shove, he'd do anything for you; he gets that from my mom.

Jackson and Bri and Tanner and I played catch in the back yard on Sunday afternoon. It was soooooo nice to just throw a softball. Man, I miss that. And yes, I will be very sore. I don't think I've played catch (with an adult) since before Adelia was born...maybe even since before Ivan.

Anyways, it was a great weekend. It was nice to be away from my house. I love my house...but sometimes I just need to step away from the day-to-day and re-group...and Hooper is always good for that. It's a place I love full of people that I love.