Chalkalot

Camping

2011-11-13T17:51:00.001-07:00

In August we went camping with the Lamb cousins right before school started up again. We usually go on father's day weekend and invite grandpa Ellis to come along but it didn't work out this year. I think it was raining or something. Oh, yeah and there was lots of water in the rivers in Salt Lake County so I was on flood watch, going up and down the rivers checking for flooding and damage. So we missed that chance. So instead we just went up into the Stansbury mountain range that is just west of us to some campgrounds they have there. The kids put on their worst clothes and shoes and off we went. It was fun.

We took the fish from the trout farm and cooked them over the campfire for dinner. We also had the customary hotdogs for roasting. And I tried to make bread in the dutch oven but that didn't work out so well. It got a little hot on the bottom (pics below). For breakfast we just made some scrambled eggs and bacon in the dutch oven over the fire. It all turned out pretty nice.

There was a little creek running right next to the campground and the kids loved that.

There must have been some scary animals around because Lucy (the dog) after snooping around for a few minutes just wanted to get back into the car. She just sat next to it whining until I let her in. She wouldn't come out until the next morning, which is very weird for her. But whatever wild things were out there left us alone. The next morning when Lucy got out of the car she went missing for a couple hours and the kids were pretty worried. But they finally found her up on the main road that heads up the canyon. I don't know if she was lost or just exploring but the kids were sure happy to have her back.

Luke loves being outside. He spent most of his time collecting firewood and shooting the bb guns with his cousin Andrew. It was a nice getaway right before getting back to school.

Our campsite

Burnt bottom bread

You can see the full damage better in this picture. Surprisingly the kids ate it anyway after ripping the bottom off.

Leisel

Lila (she begged me to take this picture of her by the beautiful waterfall)

Zoe

Luke and Andrew shooting

Leisel whittling

Luke cutting us some firewood

Fishing with Leisel and Luke

2011-11-13T17:24:00.000-07:00

I took Zoe and Lila fishing a couple years ago at the trout farm and I decided it was time to take Leisel. I wanted to take Luke too but I wasn't sure I could handle him there. He is not very good at following instructions and I was worried he would end up in the water or with a hook through his lip or something. But in the end I took both of them. And it went just fine. We worked on casting for quite a while without a hook on the line (just sinkers to give it some weight) and then they both got to catch several fish. They thought it was great. Neither of them like to touch the fish though. But they like to hook them and reel them in. Here are some pictures.

Real fishing is rarely this successful. They get bored after 10 minutes without a catch and end up playing in the water, so it is fun to just let them catch them as often as they want.

Piano Practice

2011-11-13T17:12:00.000-07:00

chicken coop part deux

2011-08-21T15:35:00.001-06:00

I finished the chicken coop and run last month sometime. Here it is.

This neighborhood cat seemed to think I did a great job and didn't want to leave until Molly chased it away with a squirt bottle.

Having chickens in the yard has made our house seem a little more friendly to the other avian populace as well I think. We have had a bird house sitting out on our fence for years and they have never once looked at it. But this year we had two sets of birds lay eggs in it. It was pretty fun. Especially when they were little fledglings and learning how to fly. We got to hold a few of them while they screamed for their mom after falling out of the house. At first I was worried that they had fallen out of the nest and would be abandoned by the mother, but I read that they were just learning how to fly and that their mother knew exactly where they were and that they would be ok. I also read it was a myth that the mother would abandon them if we touched them. So I liked to pick them up and pop them back in the house. Then they would promptly jump back out again and fall to the ground. They sure are cute. Well they got cuter when they had more feathers than they are in this picture.

The chickens have been giving us eggs now for a couple of weeks. They are small and brown and sometimes speckled with black or white specks (no, the specs are not just poo). We are getting about two or three eggs a day and should end up getting about three a day on average. The kids still love the chickens. Especially Ethnie. She wants to go out and hold them all the time. They run from Luke, but hold still and let Ethnie pick them up whenever she wants. We like them. Everyone should get some.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

2011-07-12T21:36:00.000-06:00

I usually cut my own hair. It is cheap and easy to do when you have clippers and wear a simple hair-do like I do. So I cut my hair on Sunday and Luke was helping me and when I was finished I thought he would think it was funny if I took some of the cut off hair and made a mustache. He thought it was hilarious. Then I had the ingenious idea to put some of the hair cut off of the unwanted parts of my head and put it on the parts of my head were it is more needed. Just for old times sake, you know, to remind myself of how handsome I used to be with a full luxurious head of hair that waved in the wind like a field of wheat on a sunny day. So I stuck it on top. Luckily it was a hot humid day and the cut hair stuck to my head like flies on a fly trap. With the extra I made up the mustache again, but it wouldn't stay put very well. But I remembered seeing an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where he cut his hair and taped it to his face. So I went for the tape. And this is what I got.

You can kind of see the tape on my upper lip because the hair still had a hard time staying on a vertical surface even with tape. But all the kids were laughing and having a great time putting hair on their faces too so it didn't really matter. Here is Luke with his large eyebrows.

Aw yeah, good times at the Ellis house.

Camping

2011-06-05T21:50:00.000-06:00

I went camping with Luke for the annual father's and son's campout. It was pretty fun. We hiked all over the mountain finding sticks and rocks (not for a fire, just because Luke thought they were neat). Then we roasted some 'mallows and hit the sack. We didn't put up a tent. I just threw a mattress in the back of the suburban, so we laid in there watching Tangled on my ipod until Luke fell asleep. Not very traditional I guess, but it was comfy and warm. He looks kind of bored in this picture, but he loved it. I let him play with the fire as much as he wanted (with some guidance) and let him carry around my pocket knife and whittle sticks. He loved it.

New Truck

2011-05-15T16:18:00.001-06:00

My car died. It turns out that when they say you should change your timing belt at a certain interval (every 60,000 miles in my case) they say that for a reason. I changed mine at 60k miles but that was 75,000 miles ago. I had put off doing it again thinking that I might try to do it myself this summer. But the summer didn't get here soon enough I guess. The timing belt broke, my engine's pistons shot up into the valves, which shot out all over the place, and so the valves and pistons were pretty busted up. The car just stopped. I got a couple of quotes to repair the motor and they were both about $2400. But the transmission has been shifting pretty hard for years and something in the exhaust system kept causing the check engine light to come on. So I decided not to get a new engine.

Instead I bought a new truck.

A new to me truck anyway. There is nothing else new about it. It is a 1984 Toyota pickup and it is pretty beat up looking. But it starts easily and it drives nice. It has over 184,000 miles on it, but I think I can get a few more out of it. Molly doesn't seem to be very impressed with it. She knew I was looking for something cheap, but I think she wanted me to get something a little nicer. But it was only $600 so I figured even if it lasted a half year or so, it was worth it. And it might last longer than that. I am done with school now so I only have to drive a couple miles to catch my vanpool everyday. So at five miles a day, it should last pretty well I hope. And the kids love it. Luke likes to stand in the bed and shoot baskets. The kids want to name it Mater because it is pretty rusty on the back and I guess it reminded them of Mater from Cars. And they said Mater used to be blue. So I told them they could call it whatever they wanted. I am happy to have something that drives and I have always wanted a little truck like this.

Graduation

2011-05-06T18:34:00.000-06:00

I have officially graduated. They gave me a diploma cover and everything.

Walking away from my last final I felt great until the thought occurred to me that I wouldn't be back. Then I felt a bit sad. I will miss school. I just like learning new things. It does feel good to be done though. I can now watch all those movies on my netflix queue that I never got to. And who knows what else.

I should thank Molly for going through it with me. Thanks Molly. You are the best.

My mom came up all the way from St. George and my dad came down from Brigham City. So that was nice of them. They are great parents.

Chickens and Chicken Coop

2011-05-01T11:06:00.000-06:00

We thought it might be fun to have some chickens. And we like eggs. So we got some little chicks a month or two ago. They are called Buff Orpingtons. They are pretty cute. We bought some for us and some for Jenifer (Molly's sister) who was going out of town and couldn't keep them herself for a few weeks. So for a few weeks we had a dozen or so. But only four of them are ours. We kept them in the living room for a few weeks in a big plastic tote and the kids loved to sit and watch them and get them out and play with them. Especially Ethnie, who calls them the little babies. Here is a picture of her laying next to them and just watching them.

After a few weeks they started kinda stinking up the house, so we tried putting them in the laundry room for a while but that got pretty stinky too. So then they moved out to the garage and my car moved out to the driveway. A few times in the last month or two it has been warm enough to take them outside. The chicks seemed to enjoy that and so did the kids.

Well, they couldn't stay in a plastic box in the garage forever so I was slowly trying to build them a coop. Molly had been looking at different coops online for about a year and she decided the one she liked the best was this one. So I bought the plans (which was hard for me to do, but I was so busy with school that I wasn't sure I would have time to make my own, so thought it would be best this time) and started working on it. There was one Saturday about a month ago that was not snowy or rainy so I got the legs and the floor put on it that day. Since then, I have just been going out for an hour or two anytime it is not raining or snowing and working on it a bit. But it has been raining or snowing almost every day all month, so not much got done. Then yesterday it was clear and I got a whole day to work on it. I almost finished it. Here it is so far.

We put the chickens in it last night because it is finished enough to live in. I still need to add the trim and paint and what-not but it is getting close. And I have to build the chicken run. The chicks are about 8 weeks old now I think and they will start laying eggs at about 20 weeks. We eat about 18 eggs a week, which is about what these four chicks will give us (18-20). So that will save us about $2.00 a week. The materials for the coop cost about $400 so, not including feed, it should take us about four years to save any money. So I guess this is not about saving money, it is mostly just for fun. So far it has been fun, but I will have to get back to you on that after the novelty has worn off.

Snowboarding With Zoe

2011-04-02T17:59:00.000-06:00

A week or so ago I took off some work and took Zoe snowboarding. She has been wanting to go for a couple years and I told her that when she was ten I would take her. So I did. We went up to a small resort up Ogden Canyon called Wolf Mountain. They had a good deal on a lesson and lift ticket. So she took a lesson and I boarded alone for an hour. During her lesson, the instructor was just having her walk up the hill a little and showing her how to strap in and out of her bindings and then coming down the hill 20 feet or so. At the end of the lesson, she was supposed to go up the lift with the instructor and come all the way down the hill (the bunny hill). But she refused. She wouldn't get on the lift. So the instructor gave up trying to get her to go up and handed her off to me. She told me she wasn't going to get on the lift. She was afraid she would fall off from up high in the air. So we went to the lodge and had a piece of pizza and just sat there for a little bit. After awhile, she felt rested again and I told her about the safety bars that you can put down on the lifts to keep you safe. She wasn't exactly convinced, but I told her in the nicest way possible that if she ever wanted to go again, she was going to have to get on a lift. So she relented. And it was fine. Getting off the lift with a snowboard is not very easy, especially for beginners. But I just held onto her tight and kinda held her up until we were out of the way of the lift and it worked out fine. The first time down the hill took us about an hour, but then we went again and again and again and again. And by the end of the day, she was doing really well. Much better than I thought she would. I mostly just held her hands and went down backwards on my toe edge while she went down forward on her heel edge. By the end she was going back and forth across the hill with some comfort on her heel edge. Next time maybe she will be ready to try out her toe edge. Here are some pics.

Zoe and I on the lift.

Taking a break.

Coming down at the end of the day.

It was a great day. Zoe said it was one of her best days ever.

Santa Claus

2010-10-25T21:05:00.000-06:00

So I know some people are going to really not agree with me here (Shelli) but I don't like telling my kids that there is a guy named Santa Claus. It has bothered me ever since the oldest ones were small. I just don't know what the guy adds to Christmas. I think Christmas can be fun and exciting without him. I admit I was super excited about him coming when I was younger. But I am starting to think that it was mostly just the presents I was excited about and that the delivery method wasn't that important. I don't know for sure, but I think that had I known the presents came from my parents, I still would have been excited. I may have even been more amazed come Christmas morning. I mean we lived a pretty poor childhood (as far as money goes; I suppose you could say it was rich in other ways), but somehow on Christmas my mom always seemed to pull off the biggest feats of magic. We always got what we asked for. Or at least a reasonable part of what we asked for. The main thing we wanted was always there. We may have had to wear shoes with holes in them and get all our clothes from thoughtful neighbors because there was no money, but somehow on Christmas my mom always came through. And Santa Claus got all the credit. And she loved it that way. But I just don't get it. I don't mean to say she should have wanted to hog the glory for those wonderful Christmas mornings, but I think I would have been even more amazed if I had known it came from her. And Christmas would have seemed even more magical. I think one of the main reasons I believed in Santa for so long was because we were so poor all the time and I knew there was no way my parents could have given me what I got for Christmas. And that never let me fully appreciate what I got for Christmas. I was generally excited about what I got, but if something broke, it was no big deal. I mean, it wasn't like someone had to pay for it. Some fat man and his elves could just make up another one with their magic supplies of natural resources and callused hands.

Santa Claus was a big part our life when I was a kid. I mean my brother Adam wanted to be Santa when he grew up for much longer than most kids play with that idea. And my mom just loved the idea of Santa Claus. She would go out of her way to prove to us year after year that he was real. She would make up elaborate yet somehow believable stories to convince us if we ever started to doubt. We would try to put our letters to Santa in the mailbox without her knowing so that if we got what we asked for we would know once and for all that he existed. And somehow she would always manage to get them out of the mailbox before the mailman got there. She must have checked the mailbox every morning the whole month of December. And she wrote back to us sometimes. Posing as Santa Claus of course. So I was convinced. Did I get made fun of in school because of my continuing belief long after my classmates had stopped believing? Yes. Yes I did. But you know, I am a person of faith, and a Mormon at that, and I was used to believing in things that other people thought were silly, so their ridicule never bothered me. All I ever really thought was, "you people of little faith, how can you be so unbelieving?"

I simply believed, and the one thing that clinched it all for me was that my mother told me it was true. And because she said it was true, I believed it. I believed pretty much everything she told me. How was I supposed to know that she would mix truth and lies together in that same convincing voice. I never suspected. And to be perfectly honest, when I finally found out the truth, I was devastated. I didn't break down crying or anything - because I was almost 13 years old at the time and by then I was way past the tearful stage - but it hurt. I was reeling inside. I didn't know what I could believe anymore. It wasn't finding out that Santa Claus wasn't real that hurt, it was finding out that I no longer knew what I could believe. I mean if this thing that my mother had spent so much time convincing me was true wasn't true, what was? What other things had my mother told me were true that were mere fabrications for her and my amusement? I questioned everything she had ever told me. I even questioned my faith in God, though by then I had received enough witnesses of His existence to know that questioning my faith in God wasn't necessary.

So I think, is that really what I want my kids to look back and remember? If I tell my kids something, I want them to know it is what I believe and never have to doubt it. They may not believe the same things as me all the time, but I don't want them wondering if I really believe the things I tell them to believe in.

I suppose my experience with the fat man has negatively affected me and my desire to pass this "fun" tradition on to my kids. I think there could be a happy medium between what I experienced and the other extreme of never mentioning the man to my kids. And that is what I have tried to achieve with the kids so far. But I fear I may have erred on the side of keeping the tradition in mind instead of keeping the truth in mind. I have told them about Santa and that he is watching and that it was his reindeer that ate those carrots we left out. But on the other hand when asked directly if he is real, I usually dodge the question and say something like, "well what do you think?"

So anyway, what does Santa Claus have to do with Christmas? I mean, some might say he represents the spirit of Christmas or the love of children or the spirit of thoughtless giving or some other thing like that. I don't agree. I mean if Christmas needs some guy to represent the spirit of the season or the love of children or the spirit of thoughtless giving, why do we need someone other than Christ to fill that role? Do we really need some jolly old saint? Sure, I think in certain doses, he might add a little zing, but for the most part I think he just distracts from what Christmas is all about.

So a few weeks ago Lila and Zoe and I were hanging out and they asked me if there really was Santa Claus and I said no. They were somewhat surprised, I think, that I would answer so directly but it felt so good to say it. I had been wanting to say it for years. The kids were a bit unsure of what to think. Zoe asked, "well who brings all those presents then?" I told her it was me. That I was Santa Claus. They were really skeptical. Lila said, "I don't believe it. How could you be Santa Claus? There is no way you could deliver all those presents to all those kids in one night." It is hard to argue with that kind of logic. But I explained that I was only Santa to my own kids and that everyone else's parents were their Santa. So after talking about it for awhile I thought it was pretty clear. But I was wrong. A week or two later they brought it up again and were talking about how Santa could bring then anything they wanted. And I was being a stinker and said that I would only bring them what I wanted them to have. And they both looked confused and one of them said, "but I thought you said you weren't Santa Claus." Now it was my turn to look confused. I just don't know where the confusion came in. How could I have been more clear than, "Santa Claus is not real. I bring you the presents."? But apparently after our conversation they had had their own conversation and decided I was just messing with them. So I had to assure them one more time that it was me. So I think they now know that there is no Santa Claus. And I hope they let the other smaller kids know about soon too. Leisel won't be hard to convince. Last year she told me that she didn't believe and that she thought it was me. She is a smart girl.

I have told my kids to not mention it to others outside of our family and to definitely not make fun of anyone else that still believes, so hopefully that will happen. But if you haven't told your own kids, this year is a good one to do it in. May as well get it over with and stop all the deception. Let's find out how fun Christmas can really be without all the lies. That is what I am hoping will happen anyway. I guess I have either ruined it for them for the rest of their childhood or not. But I don't think I have. I am convinced they will still enjoy Christmas without Santa. I guess I will know in a couple months.

It's been awhile

2010-07-12T23:24:00.000-06:00

Been awhile since I posted (do I say that every time?). But we are always busy doing something, so here are some pictures (but not nearly as many as I wanted to post). Ethnie is as cute as ever, so I will start out with her. Here she is sharing a fat boy with Leisel.

And here she is checking out the cookie dough. This girl LOVES food.

One day Lila was whining at me that she wanted monkey bars, so I said, "well let's build some them." I had all the kids pitch in some money from their piggy banks and I pitched in $20 and we all took a trip to the Home Depot and bought some pipe. Then me and Luke nailed together some boards and drilled some holes and put in some pipe and voila!, instant monkey bars. Well, ok it wasn't really instant. It took about 4 hours to make. Or maybe it was 8 hours. I don't really remember. But they loved them. We will see how long they use them.

It is kind of a tradition now for me to take the kids camping on Father's day weekend and this year was no exception. Grandpa Ellis likes to come with us too. And I am glad because we like him and he makes breakfast.

Lila and Leisel spent most of their time hiding up on the side of the hill in their "secret hiding spot."

The kids love being out there. We like to go up to my dad's property in Mantua. It is nice and shady and private and there is a little river that is nearby. It is great.

Fathers day was pretty good this year. Molly decided to go big and bought me a big tv. It is a nice 50" LG and it came with a blu-ray player and surround sound system. It connects to the internet and we can watch netflix movies, and it connects to my home network and I can see all of my photos and videos. I love it. We watched Avatar on blu-ray the other day and it was incredible. Now I can't stop watching tv. But the tv didn't fit into our old tv cabinet so I had to build a new one. I started out with these plans and made the cabinet a little bigger and added a top piece that goes around the tv to protect it from flying balls or shoes or whatever.

Molly chose the paint color and painted most of the cabinet. I think it turned out great. Looks almost as good as the tv.

And I guess I will end with a picture of Leisel and the first harvested blackberry from the blackberry bush we planted this year. It is actually the only blackberry we have harvested this year. But we have our fingers crossed that their will be more.

That is it for now. More updates to the fascinating life of the Ellis family in a few months.

Spring Fever

2010-03-31T21:31:00.014-06:00

Well not last weekend, but the one before that Molly had some girl conference at church that I had forgotten about and I was all psyched up to have a productive day so when she reminded me she would be gone, I decided that I needed to do something fun with the kids since I wouldn't be able to get the yard things done that I wanted to do while watching them. So I decided to take them to the zoo. That is always a crowd pleaser. Until we get there. Then Leisel and Lila just want to go to the playground and Zoe and Luke and I want to see some animals. And of course I try to say they can play when we are done looking at animals but the playgrounders just whine at me the whole time that they just want to play. I still had a good time though. It was pretty good weather for the zoo. Not hot at all, but sunny, light jacket weather. The little elephant is still everyone's favorite I think. Here is a picture of everyone trying to cram onto the fake elephants trunk. This wasn't my idea, by the way. I told them it would be too crowded. But obviously, I am not in charge anymore.
And here is Lila helping Leisel on the monkey chains at the playground that we eventually got to.

And here are Zoe, Luke, and Ethnie feeding the geese.

And here is Ethnie's first "Ethnie in the egg" picture. You can't really tell, but this is a giant egg that the kids like to sit in at the zoo park.

Well, the zoo was fun but on the drive home I decided to turn off at the Saltair exit and drive down past the marina on the Great Salt Lake to a big rock that just sits out there by the lake. I had never driven out there before and I just wanted to have a look at it up close. The kids loved it. They were all over that rock. I could not get them to come down once they realized the joys of rock climbing. It kinda freaked me out at first but then I relaxed and just let them climb.

Here is Leisel on the rock about halfway up.
And here are the rest of them near the bottom. I love Luke's new hands-on-hips pose.

And here they are on their merry way up to the top.

It was fun until they got to the top and where running around all over the place. Then I decided I had better leave the baby with Zoe (who left the others about halfway up to go back to safer ground) and go after them. Once I got up there with them and saw how close they were getting to the edge and how crazy they were being, running around all over the loose scree without a care in the world, I started having a bit of a panic attack and decided it was time to go see the lake. So I got them all down , which they learned is a lot harder than going up and we went out to the lake.

Here they all are sitting on the sand halfway between the water and the rock. You can see the rock in the background. I guess they all decided it would be fun to highlight the fact that they were sitting on sand, by holding a handful of sand out.

It was beautiful. Here are the older four walking out to the water.

And here is Ethnie hanging back to check out a cool rock.

And a couple more shots of them playing near the water.

And one more shot of the whole family (minus me) because they are cute.

Ok and one more of Ethnie playing Wii Fit because it is a fun picture and makes me smile.

So it was a fun little trip and we got to get some of our spring fever taken care of. Today it has snowed all day and there is about 4" of it outside. And it is still snowing and is supposed to snow tomorrow too. So much for spring. I guess that means I need to go snowboarding again. Maybe I will do that Friday night. Or maybe not. We'll see.

Flying Flashbacks Batman

2010-01-16T10:58:00.003-07:00

I was looking for some glue for the kids and digging through a box of stuff when I found an envelope of old photos. They were mostly from when I was young and I had a good time looking through them. Then I found one where me and my sister Shelli had been flying with our dad and a friend of his in a little plane and it looked just like the picture I took of Lila and Zoe by the little plane. I thought it was neat. The two planes look almost identical. So here they are. Enjoy.

Halloween 2009

2009-11-06T18:58:00.005-07:00

You might have already seen Molly's post on Halloween this year, but I wanted to post some more pictures. So here they are.

First is cute Ethnie in her Eeyore costume.
She is just so darn cute.

Here is Lucy in her lady bug costume.

Me and Luke in our pirate costumes.

Luke by himself.

Zoe in her Dorothy costume.

Lila in her cowgirl costume.

Leisel in her Belle costume.

We decided to paint pumpkins this year instead of carving them. We just weren't up for the mess and all the work of cleaning them out, so I just got out the paints and let them go to town. I think they liked it just as much as carving.
The costumes seemed like a lot of work this year. Well mostly Zoe's I guess. Molly made it all which took a lot of time. Who knew making a dress took so much time? And Molly couldn't find any gingham so she had to go with a straight light blue which just wasn't quite right so it was kind of a bummer to spend so much time making a dress that wasn't quite right even before she started. But I thought it turned out pretty good. She can be Alice in Wonderland next year with a change in shoes and hairdo. We bought Leisel's costume used and I sewed in a few metal hoops that Molly shaped up inside it so it would have a little more shape. When she first put it on, it just kind of draped limply on her. The hoops made all the difference I thought. Lila's wasn't too bad. We just took a pair of old jeans and cut them off at the butt and sewed on some fabric for a skirt. Found a hat at the dollar store. We looked for cowgirl boots at the DI for the few weeks before Halloween but never found any so she just wore snow boots I think. Luke's costume and my costume were pretty easy. That's why I like a pirate costume. It is easy to make. Just some old pants that you cut jagged, some cardboard and some duct tape for a sword and whatever shirt you want with a little fabric to make a belt and a head cover. I grew my hair out for the occasion. But now it is back to normal. And Ethnie's costume came from one of the sister-in-laws I think. It was a good time for most of us. A little too much work or stress for Molly to really enjoy herself, but I think mostly it was because she was sick. But she is fine now. The experience may have left her a Halloween grinch though and I may have to be the main sewist next year. Is sewist a word? I almost wrote sewer but that isn't right. Neither is seamstress. Maybe seamster? Well you know what I mean. I may have to do all the sewing next year.

Flying

2009-10-30T22:11:00.004-06:00

Well, I found out that I guy I went to school with at the U (Wayne Crowther) has his pilot's license and so I thought it would be fun to take the older girls out for a spin in a plane and Wayne didn't mind playing along. Here are the girls in front of the plane that we went flying in.We started out at the Ogden Hinckley Airport and Wayne showed us how to do all the pre-flight checks on the plane and the gas and the weather. Then off we went. I decided to just have him give us a short flight because it is kind of pricey, so Wayne thought it would be good to fly up to Brigham City and back. That sounded great to me. So we got in and the girls were really excited, but they were being shy and quiet. It is kind of noisy in the plane and we all had headphones or earplugs in so we didn't talk much up there, but they seemed to like it. I was worried that Zoe would get sick because she gets motion sickness pretty easily, but she did just fine. Take-offs are pretty fun, but in such a small plane, I barely even felt it. We flew over Ogden and then over to the edge of the mountains. We stayed along the mountains looking at the pretty fall colors until we got to Brigham City. Wayne did a touch-and-go at the Brigham City airport where we came into the airport and touched down but then after going along on the runway for a few hundred feet, he just lifted off again and we turned around and went back to Ogden. On the way back we stayed west and flew over Willard Bay.It was a great flight and the girls really liked it. Wayne was a great pilot and the take-offs and landings seemed really smooth. Zoe has been asking me for years when I thought she would be able to go somewhere in a plane so I am glad we got the chance. And I am glad Wayne was happy to take us. Here is a picture with the girls and our pilot Wayne.
After the flight Wayne showed the girls his flight log and gave them their own mini-logs to write out the details of their flight. It was a good day. And when I think that Lila almost didn't come at the last minute because there was some thing in town were they had free hot dogs and she didn't think she would want to miss that. She was glad I convinced her otherwise. We stopped at the Burger Bar on our way home and that was way better than hot dogs.

Baby Girl

2009-10-18T21:32:00.004-06:00

I love Ethnie. I mean, not a little bit, but a whole lot. I go away in the morning to work and school and I actually think of her several times during the day and coming home I can't wait to get back home to see her. Maybe this is how I should have felt about all my kids, but for whatever reason I never really did. I love them all and I think I love them more and more as time goes on, but I never really felt this way about any of them when they were small. I am not exactly sure what is going on, but I think I must have been asleep or something when the last four kids were little. It is so fun to see her smile and cry and crawl and eat and drool and fall and play and stand and everything else she does (which isn't a whole lot more than that). I can just sit and watch her do things and not get bored. I am pretty sure Molly could do that with all of them when they were small. But I couldn't. Molly would say, "oh Shanie just look at her (or him) doing this (or that)" and I would have a look and say, "yeah, that is pretty cute" and then go back to what I was doing. It was never fascinating to me the way it is with Ethnie. It's like I am watching a kid grow up for the first time. I could always see in Molly's eyes the fascination with them and kind of thought it was cute how infatuated with them she was, but I never really got it. But now for some reason I get it. It is so fun. And she is so great. I am glad she came along.

Painting at Grandma's

2009-09-06T20:32:00.005-06:00

Every few years grandma Ellis needs her garage and sheds and fence painted. And this year was one of those years. She said the last time it was done was eight years ago, the year grandpa died, but it seems like we have done it since then. I am probably wrong though. I always like going over to do it though. It gives me a chance to spend some time with her and my dad. And Uncle Dan is always there and he can be a good time. I usually go alone, but this year we all went. We got there about 10:00 and painted for a few hours. Then we had some grilled hot dogs and pasta salads and beans and whatnot and then painted some more. I think we didn't leave until about 8:00 that night. It took a long time. But it was nice to be there. Cousin Monica and her husband and kids where there, and Brooke and Bob came for a few hours too. Brandon also showed up for a little while but he didn't stay too long. The kids really had a good time painting. We usually don't let them help paint at our house but because this was outside and paint drippings from previous years were already all over the place, I didn't think it would hurt to let them go at it. Luke liked it the most. Here is a picture of Luke, my dad, and I painting grandma's back patio.

Here is a picture of several of the others. Uncle Dan and Zoe are in the background, with Grandma holding Ethnie, and Leisel climbing a ladder.
Lila spent most of her time in the kitchen next to the goodies. As always, grandma had plenty of yummy things to snack on the whole day. That is one thing you can always count on at her house. There will always be plenty of peanut m&ms, coke, cookies, chips and salsa, and plenty of other goodies spread out. I don't know how she keeps her girlish figure. I love being there. It feels safe and comfortable.

Sunday Excursions

2009-08-18T22:23:00.007-06:00

Last Sunday was stake conference. I have to be honest and say that we haven't gone to stake conference as a family for a couple of years. Usually I will go and report back anything I found inspiring, or sometimes Molly will go. But we barely make it through the hour long sacrament meeting on Sundays with Luke every week, so two hours is really not even worth trying. We just end up frustrated and very uninspired.

So, we were sitting around Sunday morning contemplating how we were going to negotiate stake conference this time around and things were going downhill fast with the children. They were going crazy. I am not sure why, but they have been super wound up lately and I could tell Molly was about at her tipping point. She had that crazy look in her eye that said she was about to lose it. So I knew I couldn't leave her with the kids and go to church alone. It was about 9:30 and Molly had just put the baby down for a nap and the kids would just not be quiet. So I told them to grab their shoes and get in the car without making another sound. So of course they all started pestering me about where we were going and were getting louder by the second. I knew if the baby woke up there could be blood, so I told them that if they didn't zip it and get in the car, the only place they were going was stake conference. Well, even though they haven't been in awhile, two hours sitting in church must have left an impression on their wee minds because there was a sudden silence like I haven't heard in years. Even Luke, who I can never get to shut up, seemed to sense the great importance of not making a sound. So as quiet as little church mice the kids all got their shoes on and went out to the car. I grabbed our collection of children's movies, the car dvd player, some water, and some bread and a jar of peanut butter and was out the door with a kiss to Molly.

I wasn't sure were we would go. I thought about the zoo or the park. Anywhere to just get them out of the house for a few hours and give Molly some rest. But I am always telling the kids they can't go to the zoo or the park on Sunday so I thought it might not be a good idea to confuse them. So I thought I would just drive and let them watch a couple movies. Wendover seemed like a good destination. I had never been there before and I thought it was about an hour and a half drive which seemed about right. So I headed west. We got out a little ways and I saw a sign that said "Stansbury Island" and thought that sounded like more fun than Wendover. So I turned there. It was a dirt road that took us out past a whole bunch of evaporation ponds. Those are big shallow depressions that they pump water into from the Great Salt Lake and let the water evaporate out of to get salt and other minerals that are left behind. I thought they were really neat. There were several that were all evaporated and there was nothing left but big fields of salt. And there were huge piles of salt that we drove past too. I told the kids what they were and that if they licked the ground it would taste like salt. After driving past a few ponds, I decided to stop at dry one, and since they aren't fenced off or anything, I told the kids to go out and check them out while I made them a sandwich.

I was sitting there making a sandwich when Leisel comes back to the car and she is sucking on this huge chunk of salt she had picked up off the ground. She says, "You are right dad! It tastes just like salt!" So I got out and we ran all over the salty ground. The salt was about an inch thick and the kids took off their shoes and ran all around it for quite awhile until their feet started to hurt. They thought it was a lot like playing in the snow. Until they got it in their eyes.
The pictures aren't the greatest because all I had was my camera phone, but you get the idea.

Well after they got tired of the salt, we got back in the car and kept going on the dirt road. After quite awhile we got to the end of the road and there was a toilet and a big sign that said we were on the tip of Stansbury Island. It turns out Stansbury Island is only an island when the lake is really high, which it hasn't been for 25+ years. To the west was a big bay called Stansbury bay that is also a huge evaporation pond. I don't know what is in that water but it was purple. I told the kids not to touch it. But it was pretty.

There was a trail that left the parking lot and headed along the shore, so we decided to go for a little walk. It was a nice day for hiking. The sun was out but it wasn't too hot. Zoe didn't want to go because she is afraid of pretty much everything and she thought there might be dangerous wildlife. But we went anyway. I told them to stay behind me and stay on the trail because there might be snakes. About five seconds later Zoe screams, "Snake!" and is scrambling back up the trail the way we had come. Of course no one else saw the snake (and I think it was probably just a lizard) but it kept the other kids on the trail. We did see several lizards and a few bunnies, a horny toad, and a fox or coyote den. It was a fun little hike with big boulders that the kids got to climb up and feel like they were standing on top of the world. Here is a picture I borrowed from someone on flikr.

And here is an aerial image from good old google earth.

Well after the hike we got back into the car and headed back towards Tooele. We took a round about way home and didn't get back until about 4:00 or so. By that time Molly was well rested and life was good again. It was a pretty good day. That night as we were getting the kids ready for bed, Lila said, "that was probably the best Sunday we have ever had."

I hope they don't expect every Sunday to be like this. Next week it is back to church.

Dr. Horrible

2009-06-03T18:53:00.002-06:00

This is old stuff if you are up on your web surfing, but though I had heard about it awhile ago, I just watched this for the first time last night and really liked it. So if you haven't seen it yet, I am recommending it. It's a great time. Here is the link:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/28343/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog

It's about 45 minutes long or something, or you can watch the three 15 minute segments if you don't have a straight 45 minutes. Well worth the time I'd say.

Various happenings from the last few months

2009-05-19T20:29:00.012-06:00

Well ever since I started going back to school I haven't had much time for anything else. I am sure if you asked Molly she would tell you that I am not making that up. In fact the other day I was thinking that even though it had been pretty hard to keep up with school and everything else that at least I had been pretty good helping Molly out with the baby and the kids and other things around the house. But then Molly told me that I was wrong. It seems that I am just very oblivious. I feel pretty bad about that. I console myself in the fact that I was even more sleep deprived than Molly and that my brain probably just wasn't working right. Sorry Molly. I really would have done anything that you very specifically would have asked me to do. I think you know that. You were sweet to think that I was too busy to bother and just suffer in silence. But don't do it again.

Anyway, I have been so busy since January that I haven't done much posting on the blog. I have missed it really. It is nice to kind of review things that have happened and let myself take some time to ponder things. If I don't review in my mind the things that are going on around me they just fly by and I never learn anything from them. And if I write about them that helps the lessons to sink deeper into my brain. So for the next few months until school starts again, hopefully I will give myself a little time for this. Though I do have a lot of projects planned for the summer so I don't know how much time I will have. I have more projects planned than I have money for though so I guess my summer might not be as busy as it seems in my head.

Well, lets get started on the recap of the last few months. I guess I posted that we had a baby. Ethnie Rose Ellis. The final Ellis girl. She sure is a cutie and seems to be growing pretty fast. She has started smiling in the last week or so and that pretty much guarantees that we have to keep her now. Something about that smiling that just sucks her right into your heart. Here are a few pictures of her.

The fun thing about Ethnie is that she just seems so awake and alert all the time. She makes such grown up expressions that it is hard to remember that she is only two months old (yesterday). She really likes Seinfeld too. Or at least I assume that is why she insists on staying up late. She goes to bed about 11:00 every night and then sometimes she will sleep all night and get up between about 5:00 and 6:00. Then she has a hard time getting back to sleep before the kids get up so Molly doesn't get to go back to bed half the time. I am usually getting up just after she has finished eating at about 5:45 to get ready for work and Molly is half asleep in the rocking chair with that look on her face that lets me know she is very tired. She usually goes to sleep pretty well for me though. If Molly can't get her to sleep, I just take her and in 10 minutes or so she'll be snoozing. So I am not much good in the lactation department, but at least I can get her to sleep. We all have our strong points I guess.

Let's see, what else has happened? I took the four oldest to the zoo one day to give Molly a break. Here is a pic.
The kids love to go to the zoo, so we have a membership there and can go anytime. But it seems like lately even though they beg to go there, once we get there, they just want to go to the little park that there. Oh well, as long as they have fun right?

There was also Easter. We colored eggs. That is never as fun as it seems like it should be. For some reason the kids just end up fighting with each other about how many eggs they get to color or which ones are theirs or who is hogging which color. But I still insist on doing it every year. I must be crazy.
When it came time to get out the Easter baskets, I couldn't find them. So I used pots and mixing bowls. I don't know where those baskets ended up. I thought for sure one of the kids would complain, but no one even said a thing about it. This is the only picture that I took on Easter.

Then there was my birthday. I think Molly covered that one on her blog. It was nice. I got a pocket knife among other things. Here is Luke coveting it. Its so funny how the girls see it and have a look for a minute or two but then don't think about it again. But Luke just could not stop trying to get his hands on it. Boys and girls really are different creatures.

We had a pinewood derby in Elders quorum. Well, it was kind of like a pinewood derby anyway. We used a pinewood derby track but had no rules except that it had to fit on the track. I thought the best way to have a fast car would just be to make it heavy. It seemed like the heaviest cars always won. But I knew that if I made it too heavy that those little pinewood derby wheels would generate too much friction and it would slow it down. So I knew I would have to have wheels with bearings if it were going to weigh much. In the end I went to the DI and bought some used rollerblades and pulled the wheels off of those. They are kind of wide though so I tried cutting them in half. That didn't work very well, so I had to find something heavy and skinny that I could put between the wheels. I decided on a 3/4" steel pipe filled with BB's. I used a putty weld to attach the wheels to the pipe (using some threaded rod for the axles). Then I borrowed a steel paper weight from a co-worker (thanks Grover) and taped that to the top. A standard pinewood derby car is limited to 5 ounces. My car weighed almost 6 pounds. It was fast! But unfortunately not fast enough. Only two other people showed up to race. One had a standard regulation pinewood derby car and the other had a block of wood with a cordless dremel with a computer fan blade on the front that acted as a propellor. Well the propellor car was just a hair faster than mine. It won me by about half and inch each time. Good job Dusty. But next year I am sure I will win.

Leisel walked into the kitchen one day singing and wearing some fancy getup. I had to take a picture. She looked like a little french girl. Or at least how I imagine a little french girl might look.

Lila had a birthday, which was also covered on Molly's blog. I gave her a horn for her bike that she has been begging for for at least two years. Of course when she opened it she rolled her eyes and acted like I was being silly for getting that for her.

Molly covered Luke's birthday too. I guess most of you already saw the picture of his present. Those little battery powered ride on jeeps and tractors are just so much fun, how could I pass it up. The girls all got to enjoy the princess jeep (during the short bursts when it was working) so I figured it was only fair to let him have a chance too since the jeep died for the last time. I sure hope this tractor works better than that princess jeep did. I was always having to fix that thing.

Last weekend was the fathers and sons campout for church. It was a campout/service project and I didn't know that I would be much help for the service part with Luke in tow. So I decided to take Zoe along to help. She was a great helper. There was a little pond where we went so of course all the kids pretty much just hovered around that the whole time. Luke loved it. He would go get a handful of rocks (which was about three rocks in his small hands) from the parking lot and then go throw them in and go back for more rocks. Over and over and over. He also did a lot of "fishing" which consisted of waving a stick around in the water.

Well that about sums it up. Oh yeah, except the fence stuff I brought home on saturday. I am building a fence this year. There is now a big pile of cedar fence panels sitting in my garage where my car usually sits. So after I get the room in the basement finished, I will start on the fence. I am excited to get it built though. Seems like a lot of fun. Everytime I go in the garage and see that pile of lumber I just get excited. Hope it is as fun when I am doing it as I think it will be.

Cinco de Mayo

2009-04-29T18:17:00.000-06:00

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Ethnie has landed

2009-03-18T19:30:00.004-06:00

Here are a few pics of the new baby. She and Molly are doing great.
She weighed 7 lb 11 oz and was 20" long. Born at 7:52 a.m. March 18, 2009.

Happy St. Patty's Day

2009-03-17T21:01:00.001-06:00

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Best week ever!

2009-02-22T22:19:00.002-07:00

Here is a little recap of our week.
We got a little drywalling done on one of the bedrooms downstairs (just when I thought I was done working on the basement for awhile, Molly asked me to finish another room in the basement before the baby comes). Luke was helping me fill the screw holes.

We played a little DDR (yes Luke is wearing his princess outfit again). The kids are starting to get pretty good at this and can now even make it through most of the songs without failing.

Me and the girls went bowling on President's day. They have been begging me for months and I always just tell them to play Wii bowling. But Monday seemed like a good day to go out. It was a good time. Zoe beat all of us with a high score of 103.

I got my new glasses from Zennioptical.com and they work great. I got everything you see here plus a glasses case and lint-free cleaning cloth for the low-low price of $26 (including titanium frames, lenses, anti-glare, scratch resistance, uv protection, clip-on sunglasses, and shipping). I was very excited to find a cheap place to buy glasses. At standard optical they quoted me a price of $180 for the same lenses (not including the frame). I couldn't believe it. I told them to just give me the prescription so I could buy my glasses somewhere else. And I am glad I did.

Where does he get that confidence?

2009-02-22T22:01:00.003-07:00

Luke is a pretty rough and tumble guy in most respects, but he also really loves to wear girl clothes. Mostly dresses and nightgowns. And tights. And tu-tus and leotards. Not normal everyday girls wear. Just the really fun stuff. Here are a few pictures of him in action.

Here he is in a nice skirt and knee-highs.

And here, he is wearing a fun pink dress with a lace skirt, crocheted shawl, and sparkly visor.

This Arial nightgown is one of his favorites (really, who doesn't love Arial?)

And here we have a nice leotard with lacy pants.

I don't know where he gets the idea that he can just wear whatever he wants without caring if it is meant to be worn by a boy or a girl. I don't think I will worry about it much though. I am sure he will figure out that boys don't wear those sorts of things when he gets a little older. Or maybe not...

My lovely valentine

2009-02-14T11:07:00.004-07:00

I don't remember exactly when this was taken. Sometime in high school. I guess I would have been a senior and Molly would have been a sophomore. So that would make this in 1994 or 1995. I don't think I ever asked her to a school dance, so I think that this must have been a girl's choice. We dated for a few short months. Actually I don't remember how long we dated because I was in denial that we were dating for most of it. But I did like her a lot. More than I wanted to. And I still like her a lot. I am glad she was still available when I got home from my mission. And that she was able to forgive me for breaking her heart when I broke up with her in high school. I wasn't trying to be mean. Just practical. I knew that I was going on a mission in the next year or so and I didn't need to be distracted by an infatuation with a beautiful girl. I think Molly might say that being practical is one of my flaws. It seems girls don't find that very comforting most of the time. I think they would prefer a completely unpractical guy with nothing but lovely sentiments ruling his heart. But if they got their wish, they would have a hard life I think. So I try to strike a balance and not be as practical as I feel I should be. She seems happier that way.

Oh, and no, that is not a wig I am wearing. It's my real hair. Or it was anyway.

Middle of January

2009-01-15T12:12:00.002-07:00

Wow! It has been a long time since I posted. I will have to try to make time for that soon. Stay Tuned!

Molly's Birthday!

2008-11-23T19:55:00.008-07:00

It was Molly's 30th Birthday last Monday. So I knew this party had to be HUGE! Well we normally we have pizza and soda and a cake for a party so I thought I had better up the ante a bit. I bought streamers and balloons and a silvery shiny happy birthday banner to go with the pizza and soda and cake. I put up the banner before I left for work in the morning so she could see that much when she woke up. She loved it! Then she had to be in Salt Lake that afternoon for an ultrasound to verify that our baby didn't have brain problems (and luckily it didn't - which is good because it would have been a bad birthday present for her to find out otherwise). So after the ultrasound we went to her favorite restaurant, The Olive Garden, and ate lunch. It was delicious. Then we found out her parents where in town and coming to visit us in the evening so that was fun news. When I got home from work I sent her to her room so I could wrap the presents with the kids. And we got to work decorating the place. In addition to the streamers and balloons, I also bought a shiny red plastic tablecloth and pink plates and little celebration blower things. She came out when we were done and thought it was great. I know it seems dumb, but it is a lot more than we usually do for a birthday so I think it made her feel nice. Here is Luke pointing out the obvious:
We had a great time. We ate pizza and drank soda and Molly wanted cheesecake for her cake so she found a recipe online for a white-chocolate raspberry cheesecake that looked delicious so she decided she wanted to make that. It turned out great. I am not a cheesecake lover, but I loved it. Maybe she will post the recipe. And I bought candles that said "sparklers" on them so I thought that would be fun too. After I lit them they looked like sparklers. And an added bonus was that they were the kind that came back after she blew them out so Luke loved that. And he got to help blow them out. I don't think anyone minded having his spit all over the cake either. Here is a picture of the birthday girl and her cake.

Here is a picture of the Larsen grandparents and Zoe and Lila.
It was a great time. Even though there was no piñata I think it was a birthday to remember.

He can Dance if he wants to

2008-11-23T18:21:00.002-07:00

This is video that Zoe took during dinner one night when Luke just felt like dancing. We have always taught them that when you get the urge to dance it is unhealthy to suppress it. So even though there was no music or beat going on, he felt the inner music and just stood up and danced. That's my boy.

Accepted

2008-11-23T17:57:00.004-07:00

Well it is official. I have been accepted to the graduate program in Civil Engineering at the University of Utah. I feel like I should learn some more about structural engineering and thought school would be a good place to do that. So I start classes in January (the 12th) and I will try to take two classes a semester for the next five semesters and get my Masters degree. Seems simple enough. Hopefully I can last. When I was in school before it was pretty hectic and Molly hated it and I never saw the kids and I was always tired. But I like school and I like learning. Hopefully it won't be as bad this time. When I was in school before I was taking 4 or 5 classes a semester and trying to fit 40 hours of work in after school. So that made for late nights. Now I am going to try to only have two nights a week where I get home only about 45 minutes later than usual. And I can do my homework after the kids go to bed. So I think it will be much better. If not, I may have to scale it back to one class a semester. But I am excited to get started on it. I am signed up for Concrete Design II and Foundation Design this semester. I am hoping that now that I have done real work in these subjects that it will be easier than going into the classes cold, but I could be way off. A lot of classes in college have nothing to do with standard design practices unfortunately and only deal with the theoretical. But I will soon find out. If you see Molly alone and with a desperate look in her eye, you will know that things aren't going as well as I had hoped.

High School Musical

2008-11-05T21:51:00.002-07:00

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This one is for my sister Shelli, who went to see High School Musical 3 on opening night and loved it.

(the real) Halloween 2008

2008-11-02T20:07:00.005-07:00

Well Halloween was a success this year. If you call about 13 lbs of candy a success. I do. Since we only bought four pounds of candy and had at least half of that left at the end of the night, plus the 13lbs or so that the kids brought home. Maybe Lila will finally put on a little weight this year. The kids wore the same costumes that they wore for the trunk-or-treat. Zoe was a veterinarian, Lila was a witch, Leisel was a ballerina, and Luke was a turtle. Here is a couple pictures. I couldn't get them all together for one shot so I had to do two. The first is Luke, Leisel, and Lila. The second is Leisel, Zoe, and Lila.
And here are some pumpkins that the kids carved. They each got to design and carve their own which they loved. The top left is Zoe's, top right is Lila's, bottom left is Leisel's, bottom right is Luke's. I helped Luke with his but the girls mostly did their own. I even made them clean out the pumpkin innards themselves (mostly). I forgot to take a picture of them right after they were carved so this is after a few warm days and they have started to kind of slump a bit. And Luke liked to roll his around the yard so his is pretty beat up looking. Good times, good times.

Here is me. Well this is the me I always wanted to be anyway: long flowing hair and no pesky glasses. It is the non-balding, non-glasses wearing me. If I had hair I would grow it long and dye it black and wear it rocker style. Maybe. A guy can dream you know.

Trunk-or-Treat

2008-10-27T16:57:00.005-06:00

Does anyone else hate trunk-or-treating? For those that might not know what that is, trunk-or-treating is when a neighborhood or church group gets together and everyone parks their cars in a parking lot or central location and people are dishing out candy to the kids from their trunks. I assume it was originally intended to be a safe alternative to trick-or-treating with the assumption that you knew and trusted everyone involved in the trunk-or-treating. Of course like a lot of other holiday traditions it has been corrupted. Halloween is a fun holiday I think. I mean you get to go out all dressed up as whatever you want to be and people give you free candy. It's a great idea. I do get sick of finding half sucked suckers stuck to the sofa and the carpet and the back of Lila's hair. And I get sick of the kids asking me if they can have some more candy (because I take their bags and only let them have some when I feel like it). But overall, it is fun. But then, someone has the crazy idea that they should organize a trunk-or-treat. Well fine, its quicker, you get just as much candy, and it could possibly be safer. Oh, but wait. There's a catch. It turns out that this person with the idea to do some trunk-or-treating isn't the only one to have the idea. So they want to meet at the church parking lot, but someone else has already reserved the church parking lot for halloween night. So this person thinks, well that's ok, (and here is were they lose my support) we'll just do it on a different night. What? Halloween on October 25th? That is what happened to me. They wanted me to get my kids in costume and buy halloween candy a week before halloween. Now I know some people have their kids costumes all ready weeks in advance and have the candy bought in plenty of time. But not us. We usually go out and buy the candy halloween day and put the finishing touches on the costumes a few minutes before we go out the door on halloween. So to ask me to have all of that done a week early is asking a lot. And to ask me to repeat it all again the next week is really pushing it. I like candy. And my kids like candy. But we really don't need to have two halloweens a year. And you know that just because we did trunk-or-treating early they will still want to go trick or treating on halloween. So when we heard about the trunk-or-treating taking place a week before halloween Molly and I decided to boycott it.

BUT the day of the trunk-or-treating came and Molly was out of town and all the kids in the neighborhood were getting their costumes on and taunting my kids because I told them they weren't going and I just caved in and said, "Fine we can go." Plus they were having free dinner at the church before the trunk-or-treating and I didn't feel like cooking. But then of course I had to scramble for some costumes.

Zoe wanted to be a veterinarian and Molly had bought some fabric with some animals on it and was going to make her a scrub shirt. But of course she had not yet because we still had like a week left until halloween. Lila was going to be a ghost because Zoe was a ghost a few years ago and we already had the sheet with the hole cut out for the head. But when Lila brought it to me it was ripped. Leisel was going to be a princess or a ballerina which is easy because they have a huge dress-up bucket with a couple dozen princess or ballerina costumes. And we had bought Luke a sword and shield and helmet to be a roman warrior when we went to Vegas last March, but we didn't know what we were going to have him wear with it yet. So I had to find something for Zoe, Lila, and Luke. Well, I decided that I could handle making some scrubs for Zoe. They seemed pretty simple and I had an example of some (in Molly's size anyway). So I got one of Zoe's shirt to get the size in the right range and got Molly's scrubs to see what they looked like and started cutting out some fabric. It turns out that I was right. They weren't so complicated. Well actually I only made a shirt. It did take about three hours from start to finish though. But it looked ok to me. Good enough for a halloween costume anyway. Zoe took a picture of me sewing.
Then I found a box with more old halloween costumes in it and found a witch costume that would fit Lila and a turtle costume that would fit Luke. So we were all ready to go. Oh except Leisel, who had been wearing the ballerina outfit that she wanted to wear, peed in her costume. So I had to hand wash that and put it in for a speed dry. But then we were all ready. Oh, except I didn't have any candy. So we all went to the store and I bought three bags of candy hoping that would be enough. It wasn't. But I didn't feel too bad. I know the little buggers who missed out at the trunk-or-treat would be at my house in another few days anyway on the real halloween. Well the kids had a good time and got loads of candy. I didn't get a picture of them before we left so all I have is this picture of them looking all tired and scraggly looking afterwords. Oh well.

First Snow In Tooele 2008

2008-10-27T16:26:00.003-06:00

Well it snowed for the first time a couple weeks ago. I think it was the weekend of the 11th, but I could be wrong. The snow didn't last long (it was all melted by noon) but it was a mad rush in the morning when the kids woke up and saw snow outside. They were all rushing around trying to find their coats and gloves and boots. So me and the kids went out and had some fun. At first Zoe didn't want to go out, but once she saw all of us having a good time she came out. The kids love jumping on the trampoline with snow on it. They started throwing snow at me so pretty soon it was a big snowball fight, me against the four of them. I think I won.Luke kept falling over and his boots kept coming off. He would then take his gloves off to try to put his boots back on and after failing at that he wouldn't be able to get his gloves back on either. So pretty soon he had cold hands and feet. But he didn't want to come in. Lila and Luke and I made a snow man and put it up on the porch so that it would be out of the sun and last a little longer. I think it lasted all day Saturday and most of Sunday before it was just a lump of snow. We used baby carrots for the face.

The first snow is usually the funnest snow. But really any time the kids can convince me to go and play with them in the snow it turns out pretty fun. And of course anytime we go out in the snow, we have to have hot chocolate when we come back in. Sometimes that's the best part

Perfect Use for a Polly Pocket House

2008-10-05T21:37:00.002-06:00

Luke is a boy. A boy with three older sisters. A boy who is forced to live with the the hand-me-down toys of three older sisters. Sure he gets some of his own toys but the math kind of makes it impossible for the number of "boy" toys to be balanced by the number of "girl" toys based on his new arrival to the scene and the shear number of previous girl birthdays etc. Not that we much worry about what is a boy thing or a girl thing in our house. I put him in pink hand-me-down pajamas more often than not and he has gotten his own dolls for Christmas before because he likes them. But there is just something inside his little boy body that doesn't quite find the same satisfaction with the girl toys that it does with the boy toys. He likes cars and balls and legos. You would think that with about a million barbies laying around he could get used to playing with them. And he does sometimes. But he prefers the cars. And we really don't have the best accessories to go with the cars yet. So sometimes he has to make due with what he's got. And sometimes a Polly Pocket house is much more entertaining as a parking garage than a Polly Pocket house.

New shelves will do the trick

2008-10-05T21:18:00.005-06:00

So the kids have toys everywhere. We have way too many toys. And no matter how many we put away, they seem to keep coming back. We have a lot toys that we haven't even unpacked from when we moved here 20 months ago. But the kids sometimes sneak them out of the boxes. And they keep having birthdays and Christmas keeps coming around and grandma keeps coming to visit and though I like all of those things it seems to increase the number of toys. Now really I have nothing against toys (except for the extreme excess I see in my own house), I do have a problem with how they toys are generally arranged in the house. Here is a picture to give you a good idea of the typical arrangement (and yes that is Luke in a ladybug costume - who says that a lady bug has to be a lady?):

Since finishing the basement family room it has been used pretty much exclusively for a toy palace. Toys are everywhere. Well Molly kept saying that she was going to get them all organized when I got the shelves put into the closets that I built down there. So I finally got most of the shelves put in (after a minor setback of getting 5'7" confused with 57" and cutting all the boards 10" too short - don't fret, I fixed them). Then one morning me and the kids went down to the basement and didn't come out until the room was clean. Here is what it looked like when we were done:

Well it looked so good and the kids knew where everything was and they all swore on their mother's life that when they got through playing with something they would put it back. And we had a nice discussion on the importance of keeping it cleaned up and looking nice. I was sure that this time things really sunk in. Well that was a week ago. Here is what the room looked like this morning:
Should I be worried about Molly's life?

Wish granted and the following dose of reality

2008-10-05T20:24:00.005-06:00

Well Lila and Zoe have been begging me for a bunk bed for I don't know how long. Probably four years. Molly never really wanted them to have one because of the danger issue and they already had beds so there was never a good reason to get them one. But when I finished their bedroom in the basement I decided to get them one so that there would be more room in their room. So I found a cheap one at a garage sale and scrubbed it and painted it and put it up. Wow, they were so excited and happy to finally have a bunk bed. All their little dreams had come true. But it turns out that once they had what they wanted, they realized it wasn't really as good as they always thought it would be. Every night I go down to check on them before I go to bed and almost every night this is what I find:

They are almost always asleep together on the bottom bunk. Sweet right? Except for the fact that the time and money I spent on the bed was wasted! I should have just sold one of their beds one EBay and I would have been ahead a little money and they would still have the same sleeping arrangement that they have now. Oh well. I guess that is the way it goes with a lot of stuff we want. We think there is something that would make us so happy that just the thought of having it makes us giggle. And then we get it and our so excited to have it and show everybody how awesome it is. And then, it just turns out that after we have it for a bit that we figure out that our life probably isn't that much better because of it. Sure, we still probably like it, but it doesn't really gratify us the way we hoped it would. I have really tried to start thinking about what things are really worth my fawning over (is fawning a word) and what things are probably not worth it. I read a book not long ago called "collapse" about how much we consume as a society and it really made me conscious of how much we waste the limited resources our planet can provide us with. Well actually it was about the collapse of different societies throughout the history of the planet and how one of the recurring themes in their collapses was excessive use of their available resources. So that got me paying closer attention to what kind of things I buy and trying to not just buy stuff to have something.

And lately I have had some similar thoughts running around in my head about what is really important for me to be doing with myself and my resources. These thoughts have been less about consumerism and more about trying to become a better person and being more prepared for anything that might come. These days with all the crazy financial market swings and the banks failing and the economy going down the toilet have been really interesting to me. I think I worry a lot about what is to come and how hard it will be getting there and getting back. But something that is surprising to me is that even though I seem to be worried, I kind of look at what is going on and am excited. People think I am crazy, but more often than not, I am just like, "bring it on!" I don't know if it is the adventurer in me or what, but I secretly hope that the whole financial system fails and we go back to the wild west days of living off the sweat of our brows. Now of course the people that lived through the last great depression would probably think I am crazy for wanting some giant slump. And I probably am I guess. I just think that people don't realize what damage they are doing to our society by our whole living on credit mindset and that something drastic will have to happen before people will change. If the economy has to tank and everyone has to have a wake up call for us to change our ways, then I think that will probably be what is best.

And I guess I am ranting so I might as well continue on with current politics. Man those guys (and gal) drive me crazy. It is just so hard to have faith in the future of America with the current choice of our future leaders. On the one hand you have Barack who has never taken much of a stand for anything before in the political arena and who has spent time with crazy radicals but who says he is tired of typical politics and is for "change". But based on his past voting record in the senate and his lack of previous credentials I don't really feel like we can judge his prior experience with any certitude. And then there is McCain the "Maverick" who has been in Washington so long that he seems out of touch with reality. And though I do have some respect for Bush and think at the end of the day, no one can say he didnt' try, we are hurting in a lot of ways that we weren't before he came to office and McCain does seem to have a similar mindset to Bush (even though he seems to be realizing that if he doesn't change his mind he won't get many votes). And at first Palin seemed like she would be a nice change to have someone new come in and shake things up a bit. Kind of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But the more I listen to her, the more she scares me. She seems so aggressive. Like if anyone were going to push that nuke button, she would be the one to do it without much hesitation. And regardless of who actually wins the election, it seems that with all of the other career politicians and corruption in Washington that it doesn't really matter. I have been reading the biography of John Adams by David McCullough and I just think, please God, send us someone more like him. We need more people with the kind of vision and integrity that he had. So I tend to despair on the future of our country. But really I should have more hope. The audacity of hope as one might say. I should focus more on serving others where I can and hope that others will do the same. Really we just need to stop being self-centered and start caring for others as they did in the past. I can only hope that as myself and others try to do that, things will slowly start to turn around. Hope. It's all we can do in these crazy times.

Cats!

2008-09-22T21:06:00.002-06:00

Me and Molly went to the play "Cats" the other day (by Andrew Lloyd Weber). It was very different than I thought it would be. I didn't know anything about it before we went so I guess my expectations were along the lines of a great story like Les Miserables or Phantom of the Opera. But I was mistaken. For the first half of the show I just kept trying to figure out what the story was about and was feeling rather dense for not being able to follow the story very well. Then during the intermission I at last realized that there was no storyline. Well at least not much of one. It was just kind of a collection of different little songs and dances about different cats and their individual personalities. I will have to say that I didn't enjoy the first half. But after I realized that there wasn't a story to the play I tried to enjoy it for what it was and the second half was better. The dancing was nice and the singing was good. I would have to say that I would still have to rate it third of the three Broadway shows I have seen. But the Memories song was really nice. Almost made Molly cry. I would probably not recommend the play to anyone but those infatuated with cats and their crazy antics. Personally I have never been a cat lover. Don't get me wrong, I like cats. I just have never had one and so have never gotten attached to any to the point were I think they are great. But it was fun to go out with Molly and watch a show.

It's official - Baby #5 is on its way

2008-09-21T10:45:00.003-06:00

Well here she is. At least it seems she is a she, but we won't know for another couple months. Molly is pregnant with baby #5. She is about 13 weeks along with a due date of March 25, 2009. Molly has been sick (throwing up several times daily) for a long time. I don't know how long. It seems like forever. I don't think she has been this sick since Zoe was in there. The other kids don't know about the baby yet. I guess Molly gets tired of telling them everyday that it will still be another 6 months before the baby is born so she holds off on telling them as long as she can.

I was a bit undecided on the idea of having another baby. Four seemed like about as many as I could sanely handle. And Molly said she felt the same...except for this nagging urge to have another one. So in the end I came around and decided one more might be fun. I am excited for a new one. And worried. I can't say I am exactly the best dad in the world and who knows what kind of damage I have done to my current out-of-womb children so to have another one to take care of just adds to my current worries of inadequacy. And I am worried about Molly's life. She has had four C-sections already and her uterus isn't exactly in pristine condition anymore. But during the last C-section the doctor said it looked like she could have one more if she waited at least two years before getting pregnant again. So she did. So everything should be fine right? And how many times do you hear people say that they were expecting their wife to die during childbirth? Never. It is always a tragic unexpected occurrence. So the fact the I am thinking it will happen makes it less likely right? But if Molly did die, would the baby be worth it? I don't think so. I guess I just need to hope that I never have to face that question for real.

So we are thinking of naming her Mawtha because Leisel and Luke sound so cute saying it. Of course once they are grown that name may sound a little funny. Other names we have thought of in the past are Ethnie (girl), Jones Larsen (boy), Oscar (boy), Zeb (boy). I don't think we have fund the right name yet though. But Molly has really liked the name Ethnie for quite a long time. It's a little weird for most people's taste though. We still have quite a long time to consider names though.

Luke and Molly

2008-09-02T12:39:00.000-06:00

Here is a picture of Luke (about a year old) and Molly.