Brother Having a Swingin' Good Time

David and Donovan can be the best of buds when they are in the mood. Sometimes I wonder where my boys are and there they are, playing together and having a blast. Yesterday they were having fun with their new toy, a motorized jeep that was given to us by our friends, the Gossetts. They needed to get rid of it in anticipation of their move and we were happy to accept it. The battery is dead but that didn't stop the boys from taking it for a spin. They took turns pushing each other around the yard (and over the rocks too).




Later we looked out the window to see what they were up too and discovered them having a swingin' good time. It was so cute we just had to take a picture.

Service with a Smile

This was a wonderful day for service. We had a cool morning with just enough cloud cover to make it just right. Those blessed individuals who showed up were rewarded, before any service was even rendered, with some nice muffins and juice (or milk). After a few moments of quiet reflection and quick munching we were divided into teams and headed off to our assigned projects.

I had the three oldest boys with me and they were full of energy and excited for the opportunity to serve at someone else's house! After swing on the church railings and a quick potty break we headed off to work. Things were great until we were shown the work that needed to be done (the back yard was being guarded by an over joyed monster dog (as piglet would say) and that was just too intimidating for Donovan and Michael (can you blame them when the dog stands taller than they do?). But the dogs joy soon was exhausted and he laid down and went to sleep, thus allowing my boys to begin their escapade.

The first act of service was to thoroughly test the play equipment to make sure it was up to par. After having examined the slide and swing to their satisfaction they began an in-depth examination of the sand box. Upon find that was also satisfactory they found the commissary and the popsicle storage facility adequate. And the final inspection was of the ground to surface signalling device (sidewalk chalk) which proved quite psychedelic. Once the boys tour of duty was completed they condesended to assist the grown-up with weed collection and plum thinning. They proved to be quite the big helpers.

Meanwhile, the adults we, for the most part, assigned to weeding the garden boxes and flower beds. Not nearly as glamorous as my boys duties but a trite necessity that needed attention. We spent the bulk of the 2 hours of our dedicated service in these pursuits.

The important thing is that we were able to provide some service. Everyone who was there did what they could to help. And everyone was pretty much able to carry their own weight in service.

Pears...and the bottling continues

With the corn done we have begun to bottle pears. It's a big job getting all the fruit done for a growing family like ours. Today Michelle recruited help. Our 2 dear friends Kelley and Elisa came over and helped with the chore. The peeled and sliced for a couple of hours and finished 3 batches! And it was all done under the intense supervision of little Zach.

Our boys have been troopers...with Michelle preoccupied with getting ready for winter our boys have been left to themselves to enjoy the end of the summer. They have been sent into the backyard and left to themselves to discover all that our backyard has to discover. I think they've figure out most of it now. I think this partial exile from the house has forced the boys to begin using some of their imaginations to find ways to entertain themselves for these extended periods of time. A skill that I think is well worth developing.

Children of the Corn

It has been a tough transition for Donovan, watching David go to school. David leaves for afternoon kindergarden, Michael usually takes a nap (and sometimes Aleky too). That leaves Donovan as an only child for up to 2 hours a day! He is not used to being alone and is struggling to figure out what to do during those 2 hours. Fortunately mommy knows best, especially during canning and bottling season!

The boys have officially been put to work helping prepare the corn. Their job is to husk the corn, taking all the green stuff off and whatever corn hair they can eliminate. After a short training lesson our boys have produced miracles! And today officially ended the Jones corn food storage preparation!!! Thank goodness we have some hard working boys.

Kamikaze Swingers!

David has learned how to swing without having someone push him from behind. (Donovan and Michael have not quite reached that stage in their mobility awareness.) With this new freedom comes the desire to explore the possibilities. Obviously you can swing higher but ultimately the principles of basic physics work against you and limit the altitude that you can achieve, even with amazing technique in the swing pump action!

Not to be limited by such trival matters, David has graduated to swing jumping! He swings just as high as he can and jumps out of the swing! He's pretty proud of himself and his new daring actions and loves to display his courage to both his mommy and daddy (again...and again...and again...and again...). I managed to capture him in action:

Injured at Church - Nursury Can be a Jungle!

I don't think we fully appreciate the efforts of our church nursury leaders. Some weeks can be pretty rough, trying to keep those 18 - 40 month old kids reverant for 2 hours! So here's what happened...
There I am sitting in a wonderful priesthood lesson about revelation when the stake president stops in the doorway, scans the room, points directly and me and summons me to the door! I have to admit that a small pit entered my stomache as I went to see what the stake president could possibly want from me (all the high council and bishopric positions are currently filled and our ward has contributed more than its fair share...). My fears were quickly put to rest when I was informed that one of my boys was acting up in class. I tried to guess which one as I had already had the opportunity to visit 2 of them during their primary time. But I guessed wrong; David was behaving wonderfully after our little chat. I was surprised that it was Donovan who had been behaving well up to that point.
But the acting up wasn't in a diruptive way. When I walked into the room he looked so pathetic, holding his arm (while sitting in the window sill next to his teacher) crying, obviously in pain. My first instinct was to check for broken bones (which is challenging when the little guy won't let you touch his arm). I thought he'd just been a little rough with the other kids while playing "pop the bubbles" in class. I should have interrogated the teacher much more thoroughly but I was preoccupied with my sobbing son and decided to take him back to my class and console him since there was only about 5 minutes left in class anyway. Since he was still not happy and still in pain he got to ride in the stroller all the way home.
Once home we began to investigate because this little injury wasn't getting better and Donovan certainly wasn't acting like himself. He still wouldn't let us touch his arm and Michelle's motherly instincts were getting out of control (ok, not out of control but she was definitely expressing some concern for her child). She started calling the entire ward directory to investigate the situation because of my lack of dective skills in the matter. With no luck on the phones we decided to take him to see the doctor who happens to have have (emergency) office hours on Sunday.
We checked in while Michelle held down the fort and continued calling anyone in the primary who might have a clue (or know someone who might have a clue) as to what had happened in class. Meanwhile we go wait to see the doctor and all of the nurses can't get over how cute Donovan is in his white shirt and tie (with grey vest) and his future missionary badge. We go back to an open room, answer some quick questions and wait 37 seconds for the doctor to come in (it's Sunday and we're the only patient in sight). The doctor asks me all the questions that Michelle had already asked with the same unintelligable results. So he does the best he can to determine what the problem is...
He makes an educated guess, starts to examine the arm as he explains that there is a simple & easy possibility or a much more complicated one. But before he can finish his explanation he "pops" the arm back and then explains what just happened (Donovan wasn't too happy with the examination and really wasn't happy when his arm popped). The problem is referred to as "nurse maids elbow" and can happen very easily when an arm is pulled suddenly (and that arm is very relaxed). It isn't a full dislocation, just a subluxation, and a simple pull and slight twist will fix the problem.
We were sent back to the waiting room to allow time for Donovan to "forget" he was in pain. It took a couple minutes but when he tried to read a large book with one hand it didn't work too well and in a moment of forgetfulness he started to use his hurt arm. Success!!! His arm was better. Once he realized that his arm didn't hurt he said, "Daddy, my arm doesn't hurt anymore!" All the nurses smiled at him as he made his way through the waiting room and out the door to the car.
This (fortunately) little injury caused us a few moments of concern. At one point we thought the arm may have been fractured somehow because of the apparent pain level Donovan was exhibiting. But now he is better. Michelle has a little chat with the Primary President after the boys went to bed and let her know what had happened so that she could inform the primary workers to be careful and watch out so that no more arms would be hurt during church.

How to spell fun...G.R.A.N.D.M.A.!

We are trying to help Donovan get potty trained. Grandma was able to get David potty trained in about 24 hours (at least that is the way I remember it). But Donovan doesn't seem to be quite as motivated as David. So we hit upon this great plan...David had gone to visit Granda Petersen all by himself and Donovan felt left out. So we promised him that if he could get potty trained he could go stay at Grandma's house too. Well it was a big success (finally)! So David and Donovan went spend the night at Grandma's house.

From all accounts they had a wonderful time (obviously I wasn't there...which was the point of the reward, to stay at Grandma's house alone). They got to stay up "late" and watch a movie, ate popcorn and had other treats (I think Grandma was trying to spoil them and then laugh as she sent them home again). They did some walking and exploring in the morning. The plan was to meet at the zoo and we'd take them home from there. So the zoo is where we came into the picture...

We went to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake.

Michael spotted the turkeys.

David hung out with the elephants.

And how close can 3 boys get to the penguins?

Donovan spent a lot of time trying to find the giraffes (this stop is the zebras)

David thought it was great to drink from the lion's mouth.

And then there was the spouting elephant.

Seeing the cheeta up close was pretty cool.

Some of the displays weren't made with kids in mind, but don't worry...my boys will find a way to see the turtles swim.

This was very captivating...where else can a little boy move such a huge ball?

Grandma treated everyone to a ride on the Carosel. While it was a hit and all my boys loved it (and through little tantrums when the ride was over) Aleky seemed to enjoy the ride the most...by far!

After the zoo we were all tuckered out and hungry, well at least Michelle and I were tuckered out, but we were all definitely hungry. So we stopped at Wendy's for a quick bite to eat.

Our boys had so much fun. We discovered that the average attention span of a child at any exhibit at the zoo is 3.7 seconds! If you want to take a picture then you must have all the children at any exhibit at the same moment so that you maximize your photo opportunity! In spite of the quite pace of the walk through the zoo everyone enjoyed the afternoon. And our boys definitely loved the ice cream treat at the end!

We've Discovered Facebook

It sounds a little strange to be excited about a website. But we just discovered Facebook.com and the first workings of social networking. Last night we were up until 1:00 am chating with long-lost friends who are no longer lost! Michelle couldn't help but comment on the number of friends that we had online before we finally had to go to bed (our children still wake up bright and early in the morning)!
If we have any friends reading this blog please join us online (at facebook.com). You can find me at http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1446170384 and Michelle is at http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1060956116. I think you'll be amazed at how many of your friends are online right now and you have lost contact with them over time. Check it out.

Open Invitation Link:
(http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=1446170384&k=YWD4P3VXU54M5FLBUK34PW&r&v=2)

Day of Infamy Remembered (9/11)

It is hard to believe that 7 years have passed away since this fateful day. I remember hearing about the attack in our ballroom team rehearsal. Lee walks in and says that a crazy pilot crashed his plane into the WTC building. I remember thinking that was weird that a little plane was flying anywhere close to the towers but didn't think much of it at the time. That was around 7:00 am. By the end of rehearsal at 9:00 am there was full media coverage on every available TV on BYU campus! It was a tragic day. A lot has been said and done in these 7 years since then. I don't know that we, as a society, have learned anything from it yet.
We've gone to war, gone into debt, swung the political pendulum, but have we figured anything out about ourselves. What really got us into this mess and are we really doing the right things to get us back out. While the newspapers, radios and TVs spend a lot of air time and space relating to this event and its aftermath, we haven't spent much time trying to fix the problem that got us so disliked in the first place. We have created patriots and soldiers but are we any nicer to the world community? Are we most honest in our daily activities, more concerned for the welfare of others, or anything that would suggest that we're not just thinking about ourselves all the time and our petty concerns?
I'm sure there have been some who have changed for the better. But it seems to me that our country as a whole is still moving along much as it was prior to these attacks. In general, it doesn't seem to me that there has been any learning from our past (mistakes) to make a better future. And if that is truly the case then we're doomed to repeat those mistakes again and in this day and age the consequences seem to just get bigger.
Hopefully with our global neighborhood we can begin to realize that those people in those other countries are people just like ourselves. They have similar hopes and dreams, trials and disappointments. But ultimately they just want to be happy. I certainly hope that I can be one of those friendly neighbors who will reach out to the next guy/gal I meet.
(picture from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks)

Fresh Baked Bread

There are few people in this world who will ever be lucky enough to sample Michelle's fresh baked wheat bread. For those who have, it is certainly a treat. Michelle made 2 batches of bread (8 loaves) today. We'll freeze 6 loaves to keep them through the next week and we'll eat the other 2 right away (why wait!).

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

7 cups hard red wheat

5 cups warm water

2 T yeast

1 1/2 T salt

2 T wheat gluten

2/3 cup oil

2/3 cup honey

10 to 10 1/2 cups ground wheat flour

1/2 T dough enhancer

1-2 cups white flour

Shortening or butter

1. Grind red wheat into flour.

2. Put water in bowl, sprinkle yeast on top, then add rest salt, gluten, oil, honey, and wheat flour; mix on low for 5 min.

3. While mixer is still going, add dough enhancer, gradually add flour. When enough flour is added dough will start to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl. The mix 4 min. on low. Dough should be sticky.

4. Shape into 4 loaves, put in grease bread pan, cover and let rise 1" above top of pan (20-30 min.). Pre-heat over to 350.

5. Bake at 350 for 28 minutes.

6. Brush top of bread with shortening or butter to keep them soft. Then turn out of pans onto cooling rack and cover with cloth until cool.

It sounds pretty easy but honestly, I've never tried to make it myself. Maybe I will, one of these days.