roundtuit farm

i helped chaperone an outing to roundtuit farm in massachusettes with the girls aged 8-11 from church. roundtuit farm is a minature horse farm and the daughter of the owner attends the same church as all of us. it was a great day and the girls had a wonderful time.

lily made a friend(s) (as pictured above), and i was pretty happy to pass off my three year old onto someone else! all the girls got to groom the horses, lead them out to the pasture, feed them and go up to the hayloft. below is a picture of the gang (the owner is in the light blue rugby shirt). i believe that horse is midnight whose full name was something like Arabian ?? Egyptian King Midnight Explosion.

i just love haylofts, even if it makes my skin a little itchy. the picture up at the top shows one of the girls who was daring enough to climb the old ladder up to the hayloft. i probably would've climbed it myself if lily hadn't needed me to take her up the stairs.

as i mentioned, it was a great day. their home was a more than hundred year old farmhouse. it was neat and the top of it had been renovated and a dance studio was built in. the hospitality, weather and horses made for a great day. this seems to be an annual trip, so hopefully, we can go again next year!

fly on the wall

if you were a fly on the wall of our house this past week, here are some of the things you might have heard. (WARNING: some material has mature content).

LILY (to me, as i'm changing jake's diaper and getting him dressed for school): "Mommy, what kind of bummy does jacob have?"
ME: "What?"
LILY: "Does he have a peanut?"
ME: (finally understanding) "It's actually called a _______, but you can call it peanut if you'd like."
LILY: "Daddy, Evan and Japie have peanuts. Mommy, Gigi and Lily have bummies."

nothing earthshattering in this conversation; just thought it was cute. i have no idea where lily got the word, peanut, but it works for me. when grace was little i had been told to teach your kids correct terms. then there was the day that we are walking into a preschool for my nephew's "graduation" ceremony, and gracie is yelling: "mommy, my underwear is up my v____!" i responded by saying in a prim and proper voice: "gracie, the correct way to say that is: 'i have a wedgie.'" emily post would be so proud! since then i don't hide the correct term from my kids, but i'm certainly fine with ample use of nicknames for private parts. with lily, i've tried to refer to everything in that area as bummy. i'm not sure how well that will work with evan.



[LOTS OF AIR POPPING NOISES] as Pat tries to squeeze the last of the honey unto his sandwich. Gracie and I happen to be standing near him.
ME: "Excuse you, Pat!"
GRACIE: (after much thought) "Or maybe that was the honey!"



LILY: (at the dinner table) "Why is evan eating?"
PAT: "Why are you eating?"
LILY: "Because i'm hungry and my bummy is telling me it wants food."

maybe i need to scale back on referring to the mid-section of the body as "bummy"??



ME: (to Pat) "You don't agree with me?"
PAT: "No"
ME: "Well, ...i agree with myself."

(i have no recollection of what we were talking about.)



ME: (lamenting) "Where has my baby gone?"

end of summer pix

here are some random (mainly crazy/fun) pictures from summer that i never posted.

the girls went through a phase were they had to get all dressed up (as shown below) to help me with dinner. the bottom picture shows what lily wore to the doctor's office one day. she had on a swimsuit, a skirt, pajama top (inside out), another swimsuit, bottoms to yet another swimsuit, a green dress and when she went to the doctor's office, a pink nightgown over all of that. and yes, it was a warm august day if i recall correctly.

i thought those were cute pictures of evan. another day, the girls and my niece had way too much fun with sticky gems.

my sister and my niece with painted faces. grace did my sister's face. i know it's kind of a silly picture, but i think it shows how photogenic my sister is.

8 things

i was tagged by laina. even though you already heard about anniversary, i will now bore you with the details of my wedding. i wasn't one of those girls who grew up dreaming about her wedding day. both my mother and my stepmom were clear across the country and my fiance was out of the country, so i basically i was on my own and a little clueless. i must say everything went well and the important things were all in place.

Where did you meet your husband?

we were in the same ward/church and apartment complex at BYU; thus, we would recognize each other and would say "hi" to each other on campus. then one day at the end of february/early march, pat called me up and asked me on a date. we pretty much clicked from the get-go. i often refer to our meeting as the "generic" (pat prefers standard) BYU love story with my disclaimer being at least pat was NOT my home teacher.

What was the first thing you said to your husband?

absolutely no idea, but i'm guessing it was something like "hello" or "hi."

Where was the first kiss? First date?

kiss: right outside my apartment door. first date was to a welsh festival. pat was taking a welsh class at the time. the date went well, so he ended up invited me out for the next night too (it was also the last activity for the whole "festival" thing; really the term festival needs to be loosely applied in this case.)

Did you have a long or short courtship/engagement?

being from the east, i was glad to tell people that i had known pat for over two years when we got engaged. i often omitted the part that i was serving a mission for my church for one and a half of those years.

Where did you get engaged?

for all you BYU alum, it was by the botany pond (and my apartment). we had gone a walk after a wonderful day spent together and he proposed.

Where did you get married?

salt lake temple. i was a missionary at the visitors' center right next door to the temple and so i was very happy to get married there.

How did the reception go?

which one? we had two receptions, a luncheon and an open house. we went to the alta club in salt lake after we were married for a luncheon and then that evening, we had a reception at the hilton hotel (now it's something else i believe) in salt lake. we stayed at the hotel that night. (i had stayed in our room the night before; i actually have a picture of my whole family and good friend from high school in the heart shaped tub that was in our room.) the next day, we flew to new york for reception number two. my absolutely amazing aunt took charge of that reception and it turned great. some good friends of ours own a day camp and so we had an outdoor reception on their property. the weather was perfect (especially considering it was the end of august) and it was a pretty spot. then it was off to minnesota for an open house at pat's parents house. that turned out well too, but i really hardly knew anyone and so my memory is quite fuzzy about this event. i remember that i didn't wear my wedding dress and disappointed a few people. i loved the dress i was in though; it was what i had worn to the temple before i changed into my wedding dress.

How was the honeymoon?

due to all those receptions and travel, we were too tired to drive 5 more hours to spend a few days at a nice hotel in minnesota for our honeymoon (we were already at a nice hotel; this was just a hotel not in the same town as pat's family). this was a poor decision and one of the only things about my wedding that i regret. live and learn, right? five days after our open house in minnesota, we started our last year of college at BYU exhausted, but happy.

some random things i remember about my wedding:

• my VERY talented mother-in-law made all the flower girl dresses. they had cherries on them and were darling.
• my dad got a dent in the car rental when he went to pick up the flowers.
• we drove back to utah from minnesota. the alarm clock at the hotel we stayed at had the incorrect time, but we didn't realize it until we were all showered and dressed at something like 3 or 4 in the morning. we just went ahead and checked out and got on the road.

ok, now it's your turn. i'll tag amanda, angela, chelsea, jennah, lara, natalie, tice, stace, elizabeth and anyone else who would like to do it.