Church and Twister

The title pretty much says it all.

The newest in church news:

Logan participated in his first primary program a few weeks ago and it was so sweet. He had a long-ish part to memorize but he rocked it - I was so proud of him and I love how proud of himself he is at the end of the video.




Also, last Sunday was Lincoln's first Sunday in nursery! It was so wonderful to be hands-free in Relief Society and Sunday School. He walked right into the nursery and sat right down at the table to do puzzles. No problem, didn't even look back. And today he had just woken up from morning nap so he cried just a bit when we left but got right over it.


And I love that my great friend, Jackie King, happens to be his nursery leader. She is so good with the kids. We actually went to High School together and she was one of my bride's maids. And now she is attending the Spanish branch that happens to be combined with our ward (the youth and Primary are combined). And Linc knows her a bit, or at least she knows Linc, so that's made the transition easier.


Then last week for FHE we broke out a game of twister that I don't think we've even played before in our 9 years of marriage. Logan LOVED it and keeps asking to play it. It has been good practice for learning his lefts and rights, too.

And then Linc decided to join in too by tackling me. (If you're confused by the random cowboy boot in the picture, it's not on Logan's foot - it's on Lincoln's hand :)

And speaking of Lincoln, he has become constant trouble lately.
About a month ago he learned how to push a chair over and climb up to get what he wants.... and yes, that is a knife he's reaching toward in the pic below. Time to Lincoln-proof my counters.

The Roof Day 2

Today was exhausting and eventful... and I wasn't even the one up on the roof working, slaving and sweating.

Ben started this morning at 7:15 with a trip to Home Depot with Conner Johnson (young man in our ward who's spending his weekend off of school earning money helping us out). They came back for a quick breakfast of egg croissant sandwiches and then got to work.

Here's all the ply wood for the front half of the house - more than we hoped we'd have to replace.

Here's what the house looked like early off this morning.

I came out this morning to find Matt Brockbank also on our roof helping out (another young man earning money).

They worked all day on tear off from the east side of the roof.

Ben, Ashley Gosselin, Conner and Matt

Conner and Matt mid shoveling nasty, old shingles off onto the ground.

I took the 3 kiddos to the store to get lunch items for everyone (I'm watching Owen, Ashley's little guy, while Ashley helps us out) and while I was putting lunch together Conner started tearing off the old sheeting.

Our roof in shambles on the ground. Clean up is going to be loads of fun (literally, loads...)

Shortly after lunch Ben's progress came to a halt when he measured and realized how incredibly warped our main beam and all of the tresses are. Ugh.
(Note to self: Buy a newer house next time around... wait that sounds vaguely familiar. Isn't that what I say every time we embark on a home improvement project? Yes, I believe so.)


This was definitely the low point of the day. But thanks to help and advice from Chris Kelly, Jon Lanier and Jeremy McSpadden (my bro-in-law who just so happens to be a roofing contractor in WA) Ben found a solution!

I don't understand the grand plan completely, but it's something about propping and bringing old tresses into alignment and scabbing 1x6's onto the old tresses.

The good: We won't have to invest thousand more in all new tresses.
The bad: More money needed to buy the 1x6's
More good: It will only put us back another day, pushing us into next week.
Even more good: The weather has been gorgeous and is supposed to be gorgeous even next week.

Ben and Jon brainstorming

Then after this I put the boys to nap (amazingly enough the boys ARE sleeping through all the pounding, slamming, falling debris, etc). I decided to head out to see what I could help with for an hour or so and thought I'd start on some clean up and I started stacking wood out of the way. I thought, "maybe I should jog back and forth so I can get more done in my hour," then a little voice said, "No, you'll probably step on a nail if you get in a hurry." So I kept walking and started watching where I was going, avoiding stepping on any wood (most of which had nails poking through).

Well not even 5 minutes later I happened to step on a little shingle (imagine that.. it's everywhere) and I actually felt a nail go through my shoe and just poke my foot, luckily I caught this before I stepped down all the way on it. No damage done. Phew!

Then I really started watching where I was going. And not even 5 minutes after that... I stepped on another nail that was stuck to another shingle. duh. And this time I could feel that it was in my foot. I panicked! Luckily Ben was off the roof already and helped me right away. He pulled it out from the bottom of my shoe and that part didn't hurt at all. It didn't penetrate too deep, thank goodness, and didn't really bleed much. It has only hurt slightly the rest of tonight.

Needless to say I was done after that. I came inside and Lincoln was awake anyway. After cleaning up my foot, I gave Linc a hair cut (he's a trooper). And Owen came back over to play while his parents (Ashley and Peter) climbed on the roof to help more. And Devin Tidwell came over about that time to help too.

The boys and I went to pick up pizza for dinner for everyone. Then we just played (inside) the rest of the night. I was sure to show Logan the hole in my shoe and my poke in order to scare him so he won't wander outside without me. And when I told him what happened, he just got a cringed and appalled looked on his face and said, "Mom! That is not safe! You need to be careful! That is not safety!"

It gets dark at 7:30, but Ben started on some clean up and Richard Bird came over to help. Finally Ben came in at about 8:30. What a day for him.

The great news is the old 4 layers of shingles are all off now! And work resumes at 8 am tomorrow morning with putting drip edge and paper down on the back half of the house and shingles get delivered (to the roof) in the afternoon. They'll start to shingle the back half then Saturday Ben, Jon and Richard will start repairs on the front half. Yay!

The unexpected part of this for me, is that every single time I go outside, it seems there is someone new out there helping us . It's been humbling to remember what it feels like to be in need of so much help and to have people step up and drop what they're doing to help us. We are both so grateful. In fact, that was my Happy Ramble for today.

The Roof Day 1

We started on our roof today (and by "we" I mean Ben)! We have waited 6 LONG years to get this nasty thing replaced and the day has finally come!

Ben actually started a few days ago trimming the trees that were in the way, tearing down the awning, buying supplies, etc. But first thing this morning the dumpster arrived and kicked off our weekend of roofing.

Before

Ben working of taking the awning down. My heart felt pure joy to finally see that nasty, ugly thing come down!

(Side note: that crumbly stuff that Ben pulled down at the end of the video was 2 layers of rotted shingles. Ew.)

8 am this morning our dumpster was delivered! (ps - if you need a dumpster rental these guys are super nice and were the best deal we could find).

Ben got off early from work and got an early start on tear-off.
We were signed up to have the missionaries over for dinner tonight and I thought Ben would be the only one working up on the roof, so I thought it'd be fine for him to take a short break to come down and eat for a few minutes. So the missionaries came and dinner was ready so I went out to tell Ben and lo and behold, there were actually 6 people working on our roof! See?

I was so filled with gratitude that all these friends and neighbors volunteered offered their help for the afternoon!

(Curtis Thacker, Warren Smith, Peter & Ashley Gosselin, and Tyson Wyatt and Jon Lanier, not pictured, helped earlier too).

Ashley - she's a bit masochistic and is totally excited to help us roof the whole weekend. So anyway, I ordered pizza for the roofing crew that we had all of a sudden and the little boys and I ate our fried chicken with the missionaries outside with everyone else. It was interesting but it worked!

The good: almost half of the roof was stripped today

The bad: There were more layers of shingles than Ben originally thought - 4 freaking layers (come on people... sometimes I wonder about the people who worked on this house before us)!

The ugly: Our roof. Now that it's exposed, we can see the sheeting is in worse condition than we thought and all the sheeting needs to be replaced over the front half of the house.

The good: Ben is taking Thursday and Friday off from work to do the extra work - love my hard worker!

October Thus Far

Here's our October! My goal? To be done with this post in 10 minutes. Here we go (and in no particular order - because putting pictures in order takes way too long on blogger :)

Last Sunday Lincoln fell asleep while we were walking home from church. That says just how wiped out he must have been because it takes all of 3 minutes to walk to church from our house.

We tried waking him up (he still had to eat lunch), but to no avail. So we just plopped him down on the living room floor assuming the noise, etc. would naturally wake him up. Wrong.

So Logan, being a good brother he is, got a pillow for his head and a blanket to cover him with - and Lincoln was still out cold.

Heritage holds a gala every year as a fundraiser for scholarships for Heritage alumni. Anyway, this year the centerpiece on every table was a character from the Wizard of Oz... made out of balloons. Amazing huh? I would call that art.

Anyway, they were selling them as part of the fundraiser, and since our silent auction got out-bid, we brought home the tin man for Logan. We got him out of bed to show him because we knew he'd love it so much.


He was almost as tall as Logan. He even came with a small oil can... so clever!

I love play time with Logan while Lincoln takes his morning nap. My goal is to have as much fun in one year as we can before Logan is gone to kindergarten every day next year.

Anyway, we made a fort one day and read our Halloween books in it.

Linc cracks himself up any time something sticks to his finger (usually pieces of his food that he smashes). This was a lego piece.
Logan got two sticky eyeballs from preschool last week ("S" is for sticky...) and taught me how to throw them on the ceiling and count how many second before they fell down. I didn't realize this was an actual game they played in preschool until later. ha ha. Miss Morgan said they all had a bad case of the giggles trying to play the game.
We've all been sick around here and Lincoln was the first to get it. The morning after he had been throwing up all night, Logan didn't want to get sick and so he made a mask for himself and taped it to his face. haha.
And last but not least, we kicked off October with General Conference weekend.
I woke up to Ben making ebelskivers or "clams n' jam" as Logan has termed them. Yum!


Then a quick job of mowing the lawn with copy cat boy.

Then Logan started working on his conference packet that I made him as soon as conference came on. (By the way.. I'm so grateful we get to sit and watch all sessions of conference in the comfort of our home and jammies. I remember growing up when we'd get dressed up and go watch one session at our stake center where it was broadcast).
And of course we had to make conference popcorn (it's just caramel popcorn).
Last year or the year before, the Friend had a fun recipe called General Conference Popcorn and I made it with Logan. It was a bad recipe, so the next conference time, I didn't plan on making it, assuming Logan forgot about it. But of course he remembered and insisted that we had to have it because we were watching General Conference. So it's become a tradition now - Caramel "Conference" popcorn (with a new recipe, though, thank goodness).

Then not pictured is our tradition of having mini pizzas between sessions on Sunday at the Nelsons and staying to watch the afternoon session while babies sleep. So fun! This year we also explored outside in the Nelson's yard, Logan got to smash eggshells in the garden (don't ask.. this all started from Abby, Logan's cousin), and Ben taught us all how to whistle using your thumbs and an acorn top. My husband is so talented... I know.

And on Sunday, Logan insisted on dressing up in church clothes (his western-cut white church shirt, might I add) even though we were staying home for conference. I caught him running and sliding into the kitchen just like this and I laughed so hard because he totally reminded me of Tom Cruise.

See?
And just as a PS: I don't even like Tom Cruise and I've never even seen this movie.
PPS: It actually took me 30 minutes to write this post... hey a girl can try, right?

Date with Lo

(Note: I wasn't supposed to publish this post until tomorrow (duh), so it covered up my Washington Trip post that I just did. )

See HERE for a recap of our trip to Ellensburg! :)

Now back to this post...

I got to take Lo on a date a couple weeks ago. I kept it as a complete surprise and he loved it (he is the KING of "presizes").

I took him to see The Lion King while it was in theaters for two weeks. It was so fun to remember what it's like with just one and so fun to be able to hold conversations with him without being interrupted by Linc. I love the little guy but he can be a bit distracting at times. :)

I totally meant to take a pic by the movie sign but totally spaced it. But here he is excited and full of anticipation on the ride to the theater.

Then afterward I took him to use one of his library coupons to get frozen yogurt. Of course I forgot to take a picture while we were eating there.

But here's Logan finishing his treat at home. I love how he could get a smattering of every topping possible on his yogurt and think it's delicious, even when it all melts into a nasty gray color.
The happy duo afterward. And a happy Logan because he got to stay up late for this date.
Love you buddy!

Washington Part Two

After being in Spokane for 4 days, we drove over to Ellensburg to visit Grammy and Pa.

The day before we went to Ellensburg my sister told me about a local store that actually carries little spurs for kiddos. So on the way out of town we stopped by to pick up some spurs for Logan (a dream come true ever since he saw them in a library book).

So naturally after he got the spurs put on, a conversation about cowboys went on and on.





Once in Ellensburg, we got settled then went on a jeep ride. In the land of Grammy and Pa some things just have high priority and jeep rides are one of them.

'42 Willys
We're bundled up because once you get going up in the canyon it gets cold.

And what was so funny about this ride is that half way up to the top of Robinson Canyon Lincoln fell asleep. Who falls asleep on a jeep ride with a jeep that has no shocks, loose steering and where your brain is being rattled out? (see video below to see what I'm talking about.)



Reading "The Story of Ferdinand" with Pa which would not be complete without Pa's original Ferdinand toy (on the foot stool).
Ellensburg is a special place for Ben and has become a special place for me too since going first in 2002.
This is where Ben learned how to fish and since my dad got into fly fishing a couple years ago, Ben wanted him to see his own most memorable places to fish. Grammy and Pa were generous enough to allow them to come over for a couple of days and stay out in the barn apartment. It was so fun to have them there for just a bit to show them around.

Fishing at Naneum creek

Not too many fish caught but my dad had a great time

Lunch break with Pa and my dad


We showed my parents the Thorp Grist Mill

Lincoln and Nana bundled up

One day we did some work around the property.
Of course Logan helped in his own way.

Wood chipping
Logan gathered a small pile of pine cones on his own and insisted that Ben drive the mower and cart over to the pile to pick them up.

Tractor rides with Pa

Picking up rocks. Lot of them.

Logan's first fishing trip in Ellensburg!

Pa, Ben and Logan all went fishing at Stafford creek.
Pa first started teaching Ben to fish in Ellensburg when he was 4 year old, so this was fun for Ben to take Logan out now that he's 4.
Here he is with the 4' 4" bamboo rod that Ben built him. Someday Logan will appreciate what he has. I hope.
Logan loves playing with these trucks every time he visits Grammy and Pa's.
And what would we do without the play house? Logan loves it out there in his own little world.

And Lincoln decided to take off walking while we were there! Until that time, he had been taking a few steps here and there, but something clicked while we were there and he was a walking fool.

See?

Eating honey sticks on the porch. We walked away from the Ellensburg Farmer's Market with honey sticks and a cowboy vest.

Pa on the porch

Walkin' at Grammy and Pa's.
They have 8 acres and it's fun to walk with the boys through all the different parts to explore.

Love the flowers - these are California Poppies

Eating clover flowers
While we were on our walk around the property, the lighting in the back pasture was perfect at 7 pm and I couldn't stop myself from snapping away.
The rock piles in the pasture.
Swingin' on the porch swing
Grammy in her wicker chair
More playing!
Logan loved riding his blue bike down the long sidewalk. He'd start at the top and pick up his feet about half way through and coast down.
Playing with Grammy
Lincoln LOVED pushing these trucks around
He even got to swim a little bit. But really he just drank the pool water the whole time.

It was so fun getting to see Grammy and Pa and spend time with them. Wish we lived closer! We took a day trip over to Whidbey Island but that will be the next post.