The tree that once was

Here is a pic of the tree that cost me a chunk of money. Money that would have been so much more fun to spend on a trip to Disney World. Ty, however, thought it was a great way to spend money. He had such a fun time watching the men use such "cool tools". The tree fell down a week ago and thanks to a neighbor who heard the first pop warning sound, kept my kids far away from it. The tree fell down about 30 minutes later.

My cousins

These are some of my favorite cousins. Our lives don't intersect often but when they do we always find it easy to chat. When I was little and we visited them in New York, I thought they were so much fun to be around, that I wished I could stay with them forever.

Hello!

So I have lots to share this morning!

-My mom and Craig attended the family reunion on Saturday and oh how I wish I could have been there. I adore my extended family and I wish I could know them so much better. We lived so far away from everyone so seeing each other growing up was very limited. I swear I have the most fascinating aunts of anybody. My mom said the reunion was wonderful and apparently several members of my extended family read my blog. How fun!! I just wish they all had blogs that I could read too. I miss having Grandma Ella D's letters, mixed up facts and all, so I could keep up with how everyone is doing.



-I found this picture of Brianna in my files and I love it. It isn't perfect but it is so her. The ponytail that she is determined to do by her self and the fly-aways from running around.

-I am missing Connecticut right now. Every year at this time we would go apple picking at our favorite farm. We would fill ourselves up with apple cider and apple fritters and pick about 20 pounds of our favorite apples: mutsus, honeyscrisps,empires, and more. Fabulous times indeed.

-Andrew was gone this weekend for a trip to Utah to see family and attend a conference. He partnered up with his brothers to surprise his parents and Andrew said their reaction was exactly what he wanted. On Saturday he had an almost perfect day. He met Ty Detmer (the inspiration for our little Ty's name), he went to the football game with his two brothers and his dad and of course BYU would smother the other team 44-0, and then he got to help his parents around the house (which he loves to do, must be because he is the first child). He got home safe and sound last night. Thank heavens! I am not good as a single parent and I don't like not having him around.

-I am struggling with getting a good night's sleep lately and I am just done with it. I don't want to say the word tired in reference to myself again for a long time. I dislike the fact that I can't just exist on 4 hours of sleep and be done. Yawn. Other than that, life is great!

Super Saturday Crafts

Here are a few of the crafts we are working on as part of a special event the Relief Society is hosting on November 1st. The items that are not shown are a darling heart shaped door hanging, the other options for the tiles, and a different FHE board. I am in charge of planning this and it is a lot harder than it looks. I am currently putting together an order form and hope to get that mailed out to the sisters tomorrow. What fun!

Google Reader

Okay, so you might have noticed that the blog has changed its look today. Well I have spent hours trying to figure out why my blog is not accessible by Google Reader. I have no clue how it got fixed, but I think it got fixed.

If you use Google Reader, could you add my blog and see if it updates for you? Please let me know if it works.

Special shout out to Sarah with an h. You should be able to now use this address on your friends list and have it update like the others. Let me know if that works.

Little Miss Sassafras turns 2

(This post is a few weeks late due to my hard drive failure and all the headaches that caused.)

Ella is two! And a mighty terrible one at that. We have never had a terrible two year old before, usually just the terrible three year old kids. However, three older siblings have helped Ella to grow up a bit faster just so she can keep up. Here is a list of the wonderful (or not so wonderful) things that Ella does:

She has figured out how to undo almost every childproofing item we have in the house. We thought we were safe because Ty is still trying to figure some of these things out. What a stinker!

She adores emptying out an entire box of cereal. If she gets to the frosted shredded wheat, she will lick off the frosting and put the wheat part back in the box. She does the same thing with oreos with the cream filling. Ewww!


Ella is ridiculously hard to photograph when it is me photographing her. These photos were very hard to get. They aren't perfect but at least you can tell what she looks like. I promise she does smile.

Ella is still a peanut and fits 12-18 month size clothes.

Ella is obsessed with Care Bears.

Ella loves blankets (a.k.a. Banket or Gankie). She can't go to sleep without one and she will wake up in the middle of the night if it isn't covering her. She is starting to show a preference for two pink blankets we have, but usually anything soft, including a towel, with suffice.

Ella gets at least 4 cup of water on my floor everyday. I would like to know whose ingenious idea it was to have a water dispenser on a fridge that doesn't have a lock, grrr.

Ella is talking very clearly and using sentences. We find her chatter to be the cutest thing about her. She loves to say prayers and repeat after us during scriptures. The funny way she says the Book of Mormon names has us all giggling.

She has to eat cereal and cheese everyday as those are her two favorite foods. Noodles come in a close third. She is no longer on formula but drinks powdered milk and water.


She loves to snuggle and expects to be snuggled when she wants it, even if it is not convenient for you.

Ella is a fish. When we go boating, we anchor the boat for a while. Then we hang out, jump off the back deck and swim, which makes her extremely happy.

We all love and adore this little girl despite all the trouble she causes. In the end though, the joy and laughter she adds to our home is worth more than the trouble, so she is a keeper. Our family just wouldn't be complete without her.


This is as close as to a happy face that Ella shared with me. Stinker.


Ella is staring in awe at an apache helicopter that is flying near us.


Ella does not think my attempts at getting her to look at the camera are amusing. Anybody else's kid and they are fascinated, but Ella, no way! I officially diagnose her with PKS . . . Photographer's Kid Syndrome.

Five for Friday

1. I am sick with a terrible head cold.

2. I am totally going to make felt food for Ella for Christmas this year. I hope to get her a kitchen and the food would make the perfect addition. You can see this cute food here: Cute felt food!



3. I have been visiting www.etsy.com, www.craftser.org, and www.marthastewart.com a lot this week to help prepare for Christmas gift making and craft day for Relief Society. Lots of fun ideas and I can't wait to get going on my gift making extravaganza for the Holidays. I always try to include a little homemade item when I give gifts, so much more fun than buying everything.

4. I am really looking forward to Church being in the morning again this next year. Sunday afternoon naps will be possible again. Yay!


5. The fifth fact is a tip. My favorite backup plan for dinner is Knorr's Pesto packets (thanks to a friend, Ruth Ann who introduced me to this years ago) that you can buy at the store for about $1.25. I can throw in shrimp or cooked chicken to make it even more filling. The best part is that the kids love it too, especially in their lunch since it works well at room temperature.

Andrew's dream room

Oh, did I say Andrew? I meant Ty. Right. We received our Pottery Barn catalog in the mail recently and later on we heard, "Oh cool!!!! Mom I want this room!" from Ty. Of course, being the huge fan that he is, I wasn't surprised that he needed that room. However, he told me it in that little 4 year old voice. You know the voice, the one that has magical powers and makes you want to cave in to whatever the voice is asking for. Or maybe, Ty has a little bit of the 'force'? Either way, I am now researching how I can create the look for cheap.

Buggies

Ella is convinced that the raisins in Raisin Bran cereal are buggies, but it doesn't stop her from eating it. We were all laughing about it this morning, and then one of the older kids said, "What if she thinks she can eat real bugs?" Well that quieted our laughter down real quick and we kept repeating to Ella, "Those are raisins, not buggies." Good times.

Ten for Tuesday

1. At about 4:45 p.m., I witnessed the neighborhood pit bull escape from his home across the street and attack a neighbor. When I saw the pit bull dash out of its yard, I slowed the car down to make sure that my neighbor, who was outside chatting with another neighbor, would be okay. As soon as I saw the dog bite her leg, I started honking my horn like crazy to scare or distract it. The dog came towards my car and I pressed the gas a little. That scared it away from the car and from my neighbors. I'm glad it worked! My neighbor seems to be okay, but there was quite a bit of yelling between the husband of my neighbor and I believe the owners of the pit bull later that evening. I plan on visiting my neighbor tomorrow to make sure she is okay. Talk about unwanted excitement in the neighborhood . . . not to mention an unwanted, attack pit bull!

2. I have discovered a great new children's CD. It is by the popular band, BNL. You can hear samples of the songs here. While I'm not thrilled with the name of the band, their music is teriffic. My kids LOVE the "Popcorn" song.

3. We asked Ty what he learned about in Church on Sunday and he couldn't remember. So we tried prompting him with some questions. "Did you learn about Moses? Did you learn about Noah? Did you learn about John the Baptist? Did you learn about _________? (insert Bible name here)" and he would always say "Yes." We asked him "Did you learn about Luke? and he started to laugh and said, "Mom! We don't learn about Star Wars at Church!!" (Of course I meant Luke, the author of one of the Gospels.) We got a great laugh out of that one.

4. Ty is obsessed with Star Wars.

5. I finally figured out a way to protect our games for the Wii/Gamecube and our DVDs. They are always being scratched and it has cost us quite a bit! I bought a locking CD case and I'm the only one with a key! The case is called Vaultz and you can buy them at Walmart. The kids have to bring me the game they've been playing to exchange it for another. It's working great so far. I just may have figured out a way to stop Ella from playing "scatter-the-expensive-games/DVDs-all-over-the-floor."

6. Ella has earned the nickname 'Destruct-o-girl' in our house. I seriously can not keep up with the carnage she leaves behind sometimes. The other day, I was cleaning stickers off of my wood floor and while I was doing that, she emptied out a box of cereal. While I was cleaning that up, she got in more trouble with another contraband! I have never had a stinker quite like this one. Of course, with three older sibling leaving her easy access to everything (i.e. forgetting to put the cereal boxes away in the locked cabinet), she pretty much has free access to things that were only dreamed of by our other 'destruct-o' kids.

7. When you lose your hard drive and you have to start all over, you quickly learn what you miss the most. I miss my bookmarks and my organized mailbox folders. And autofill for email addresses is such a time saving feature. Sigh.

8. Brianna is getting moody and I don't like it. I have been reassured by parents of other 10 year old girls, that this is very normal, but that is only slightly reassuring becuse they also say that it just may get worse. :( She is constantly testing me and her emotions jump from low to high to low again. Ugh!

9. We upgraded our satellite to more channels for the football season. I am so excited to have Monk, Psych, and HGTV back!

10. We all seem to be getting sick. Yuck. Andrew and Ella have it the worst. It is the back-to-school cold rearing its ugly head again.