Turkey Treats, Ow-ies and Pie

We were trying to think of a fun Thanksgiving project we could do with our Young Women for mutual last Wed. night, and I got this fun, easy idea for Turkey Treats from my friend Marti's blog. They were quick enough to do for a mutual activity and the girls seemed to have a fun time doing them. Here are 4 of our YW posing with their masterpieces:

During mutual Josh was having a grand time sitting at the table with the girls and sampling the candy. Until he leaned over in his booster seat and whacked his face, right under his nose, on the edge of the table. It caused some bleeding and crying, but luckily Josh is a tough little guy. He did have a nice scab that looked like a booger to show for it, though. Oh, he also has another scab on his cheek from a nose-dive he did while on our jeeping adventure last week. That was barely a scratch, but it left a nice scab as well (not the first, and I'm sure it won't be the last!):

David left for California for some work training last Sunday night and came back home on Thursday night. To welcome him home I made him a blueberry pie and made my first attempt at the lattice pie crust on top. I was please with how it turned out:

On Saturday Mindy and Chad went to Chad's work party, so Bryant and Karalee got to come over and play. The Turkey Treats were such a hit on Wed. night, and we still had some leftover candy, so we made another batch. Karalee and Josh had fun sampling the candy, but I think Bryant (4) was the perfect age for these, he really had a lot of fun. Here are the kids showing off their masterpieces (you can see that Josh was really into it):

Crown King

On Nov. 15th David finally got to take his new truck out "Jeeping" when we went with some buddies on the Crown King trail. Crown King is a "living" ghost town about half way between Prescott and Lake Pleasant. There are two ways into it...the back way that we took in which you definitely need a 4x4 vehicle for (preferable one with fairly high clearance), and a graded dirt road about 27 miles west of I-17, which we came out on. I say a "living" ghost town because there are probably about 30 people or so who live there, but I guess it used to be a mining town. Now there is a little General Store (that is probably kept in business by the people who take the back trail in to Crown King), a bar, and some other little touristy shops. They do have some REALLY good fudge there at the General Store...we sampled the apple pie and pumpkin pie varieties!

We got the truck stuck a couple of times and had to be pulled out by more able vehicles, but nothing too bad. David said it is a change getting used to the longer wheel base and lower clearance of the truck vs. the Jeep, but he's learning. It sure was a more comfortable (and quiet) ride for us, though! We were a little nervous about how Josh would do being in the carseat for so long (we were gone for about 12 hours), but he was a champ and did great on this trip. It helped that we got to get out every so often and let him run around with the other kids.

The only drawback about the whole thing is that now David is thinking of all the other upgrades he wants to make to his truck...rock sliders, a lift, skid plates...that's just the beginning, I'm sure! I'm glad he has fun hobbies that Josh and I get to participate in, though!

Here are some pictures:

These little do-hickies that stick down further than the rest of the frame were what kept giving us problems and making us high-center...David is wondering if they are needed or if he could cut them off...
I think I can, I think I can...

David showing off his handiwork.

Our friend Kerry with his Land Cruiser. That thing is a champ...it literally pulled us and the other vehicle that came with us out of some rough spots! Thanks Kerry!

Amy & Josh posing in front of the Crown King General Store.

A Good Cause

My sister-in-law Jennifer (Brandon's wife, since I have 4 sisters-in-law named Jennifer) :) has a friend who recently had a baby who was born with heart defects. Well, baby Kaiya passed away a few days ago, and Jennifer is trying to help the Hodges family out by collecting donations to pay for medical and funeral costs. There is a new button on my side bar that will take you to Jennifer's blog so you can donate to their cause, if you feel so inclined.

There are also instructions on how to add the button to your blog if you would like to help out and pass the word along.

Jennifer is also auctioning off a photo shoot to help raise money for the cause.

15 Months (+ 1 week)

Today Josh had his 15 month appointment with the doctor. I must say, it's getting harder and harder to hold him still, especially to get him weighed. He thinks the scale is the best toy ever, and it's a pain in the neck to try to get him to hold still and not play with the weight thingie as the nurse is trying to slide it (and hoping all the while that he doesn't pee, since he is diaperless). He got 4 shots today, poor guy. This time he cried more than any time before, :( but since we've been home he's been just fine, thank goodness!

Here are his stats:

Height: 33" (90th percentile)
Weight: 22#, 6 oz. (25th percentile)
Head: 18" (10th percentile)

In other words, we have a tall, skinny boy with a little head. :) He looks just perfect to me!

Some of the fun things Josh has been doing lately:

-Learning to talk. He can do animal sounds for a dog (his favorite), horse, cow, chicken, lion (sometimes) and cat every once in a while. He also says cracker, mama, dada, bye-bye, uh-oh (his favorite and most used, often right before he throws his fork or dinner on the floor), hello (while holding the phone to his ear), and probably a few others, but that's all I can think of right now. When he's not saying real words he's usually babbling on in his own language. I'm pretty sure I'll be getting an earful when he does learn to talk!

-Understanding what I'm saying to him. Every once in a while, anyway. My favorite is when I tell him to go and get his shoes so we can go outside and he runs to his room and comes back with his shoes. It's so handy having a "gopher"!

-Giving kisses. Who wouldn't love that?

-Dancing. So, he may not have the best moves, but we could't expect much in that area, considering his genetic make-up. He mostly just moves from side to side and shakes his head, but it sure is cute!

-Finally learning to drink milk from a sippy cup! I wanted to wean Josh from his bottle at a year, but I just couldn't get him to drink milk from a sippy cup. He would drink water from it just fine, and it didn't matter that the milk was the exact same thing that he was getting in his bottle, he just didn't want it from a sippy cup. And, since he is so skinny, I didn't want to risk him refusing milk completely. Finally, 2 or 3 weeks ago, he decided it wasn't all that bad from a bottle! Hooray!

-Dragging his blanket around. Just call him our Little Linus. He has two blankets that have the satiny material on the back and the super soft fuzzy material on the front that he loves. (Thank goodness we have two, so I can actually wash one of them at a time!) Luckily it's not so bad that he insists on taking it with him when we leave the house, but he does usually go and get it out of his crib and drag it around the house with him. It's actually pretty cute.

-Eating. He eats pretty much everything now, except for chips. They still tend to make him choke. You would think with all the eating he does that he would be fatter, but no. Hopefully he'll keep his good metabolism!

-Climbing. Okay, this one isn't so fun, most of the time. Luckily, we haven't had any major incidents so far (knock on wood), but I'm sure they'll be coming with his climbing abilities. He loves to climb on the chairs around the table, the piano bench, and pretty much anything that will help him to reach just a little bit farther.

-Throwing fits. Again, not so fun, but he sure is good at them!

-Being his cute, normal self!

Halloween 2008

We had a fun Halloween this year. Much to David's dismay, I got Josh a chicken costume last year on clearance at Old Navy. He made a pretty dang cute chicken, I must say (maybe too cute, since a couple people mistook him for a girl while we were trick or treating)!

We got to go to our ward's trunk or treat where Josh made off with enough candy to keep his parents happy until the real trick or treating on Halloween night. :) While there he got to hang out in the chicken coop with his friends Jameson and Alex, until Stanton the dragon came and scared them off.

We even got him to take a break from scoring loot to pose with his mother, the farmer girl.

On Halloween night we went out to Mindy and Chad's to go trick or treating with their family, since their neighborhood is much more conducive to trick or treating than our neighborhood is. Here we have Josh the chicken with Karalee the kitty. This was before the trick or treating started, because during the trick or treating, Josh didn't want anything to do with riding in the stroller...

...he wanted to be on Dad's shoulders!

Hope your Halloween was as fun as ours!

Canning Peaches

Okay, so this is pretty old, but I thought I'd better finally finish this post up and post it, to prove that I'm learing to be domesticated. :)

Mindy and I got a couple of boxes of peaches and she taught me how to can them. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, and now I have peaches in my food storage...yea!

The process.

The finished product! We also made a batch of freezer jam...yum!

New (to us) Truck

Back when David got his Jeep he promised that when we needed to "upgrade" to a miniavan, he would be willing to part with it. The original deal was that David would start driving my truck when we got the minivan, but since my truck doesn't have four wheel drive (and that is a "must" for off-roading adventures, according to David), it looks like I am going to have to part with my truck too. :(

David decided that this cool yellow taxi cab--I mean truck--would be a sensible solution, since it'll fit 2 kids in it and still let him do his off-roading. We got it back in September, but I'm just now getting around to finishing my post up. :) Isn't the truck model cute?

So long Jeep, we'll miss you! Luckily, we're selling it to his parents for his brother Thomas to drive, so David will still get to visit and keep in touch. :)