Fall Fun

Admittedly, fall is NOT my favorite season. I mourn the passing of the warm, lazy days of summer and I dread the coming cold, dreariness of winter. Fall in SE Idaho lasts about 2 days as well before the snow flier and we are socked into winter for half of the year. But both Abi and Tal love fall for the leaves. They had a great time raking and building this giant leaf pile in our front yard. Tal had been dying to rake the leaves on Sunday but he couldn't, so on Monday he burst home from school and grabbed the rake. He was a more than a little upset when I made him come in and do his piano practicing and homework first. But when he saw I wasn't budging, he raced through he chores in record time.
Leah loves the leaves as well. She loves getting outside everyday after lunch for 15-20 minutes. Some days we walk around the block and as the first leaves started falling she would squeal in delight as she crunched across them. Then she would turn around and dance back across them again to hear the delightfully crisp sound.
On Saturday, Kris took Abi and Tal to the U-Pick pumpkin patch to choose the prefect pumpkin for our jack o'lanterns. Leah was recovering from the flu, so we had to stay home.
They regaled me with stories about the corn maze and how much fun they had. Abi confided that by the 3rd time she had it memorized and so "it was easy."
They also got to ride on this fun little train. See them peeking out of the yellow caboose.
On Monday night we carved our jack o'lanterns. This year we gave in and bought the $4 carving kit. We are NEVER going back to plain old knives. It was quick, easy and little chance of impaling ourselves or chopping off a finger. Leah got into the act by smearing pumpkin innards all over her belly.
We turned out some pretty cool pumpkins. Tal's is a face of flames. Abi's is a bat. My favorite part is making the roasted pumpkin seeds. They are soooooo addictive. Recipe below from one of my favorite sites: www.Allrecipes.com.

Spiced Pumpkin Seeds
1 1/2 Tbsp margarine, melted
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp garlic salt
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce ( I used more because I love it.)
2 cups cleaned pumpkin seeds

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix all of the ingredients together to coat pumpkin seeds and pour onto cookie sheet. Bake for 1 hour, turning every 15 minutes or so. Enjoy!!!

Happiness Is...

I've been struggling a little lately with that green eyed monster. I get caught between wanting the bigger house , the new furniture, and the exotic vacations and then learning about a woman from Kris's mission whose family was hit hard by the typhoon in the Philippines or the devastation from the tsunami in American Samoa where other friends once lived. I keep re-learning over and over that gratitude and service are the only ways to combat that green eyed monster. True happiness has to come from within - not from material possessions. ( I'll have to come back to this post often to remind myself.) Here are a few random things that have made me happy lately.

Abi, Tal and I made these festive pumpkins on their long weekend off from school. I am becoming a pro with the spray paint.

I wasn't too happy when I first discovered how Leah had disposed of an entire tube of my favorite lipstick - OK the only lipstick I wear. But before I got mad, I just had to grab the camera. She was so pleased with herself and thought that she looked soooooo pretty.

Making Ultimate Chocolate Brownies - Yum Yum. Talmage was my good little helper, and of course the best part is licking the beater.

The gorgeous sunshine of this weekend. I got out in my gardens and cleaned them out and put them to bed. Working out in the sunshine, especially in my gardens is one of the things that brings me the most happiness in life.

Ten amazing years and counting

This past September 17th, Kris and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. Now I don't have a scanner so I can't post a photo from our wedding, but trust me, we were really good looking :) And here we are ten years later with 3 kids, a mortgage and a minivan. And life, love and marriage are better than we every dreamed it would be. We celebrated with a Stay-cation. We sent our kids to my parents for the weekend and we stayed at our house. If you haven't tried it, it's FANTASTIC. We ate out at places we've wanted to try, we went golfing, we went to all the stores we have wanted to go to, we went to a late movie, stayed up late, slept in late, and thoroughly enjoyed just being together.

Milestones always make me reflect and our anniversary made me think about what an amazing husband I have and how grateful I am for our marriage. As a tribute to my darling husband:

Ten Things I Love About You

1. Kris went grocery shopping for me the other night - coupons and everything.
2. Kris fixed our toilets yesterday and does all of the other handyman jobs around the house.
3. He washes the dishes for me nearly every night.
4. He brought home a chick flick from the Redbox that he knew I had been wanting to watch.
5. He bought me jelly beans at the grocery store because he knows how much I love them.
6. He brings me home the flowers from work.
7. He sacrifices buying things he wants - like a motorbike - for things that I want.
8. He suggested that we read Conference talks together for scripture study and that we go to the temple more often.
9. He got up with the kids on Saturday morning and let me sleep in.
10. He is my best friend, my confidant, my lover - amazing by the way, a wonderful father to our children, and the person I fall more and more in love with every day.

Modest is Hottest

To preface, I have THE BEST calling in the church. I am the Activity Days Leader for our ward. Activity Days For Girls is a bit like Girl Scouts. We meet twice a month to work on goals and projects that help the girls develop talents and skills in 4 different areas. Most of our activities are planned around the "Faith in God for Girls" program of the LDS church. The girls are fun and silly and developing into such sweet young women. Best of all, I get to spend extra time with my own daughter Abi who is eight. In September we had a Super Activity that we called "Modest Is Hottest." During one of our weekly activities we learned about modest dress and made a poster of modest fashions. Then we planned this activity for a Saturday where we made pajama pants, had a little luncheon, and a fashion show of their pajama pants and a school outfit.

The moms and girls had a great time sewing together. Now, I'm not much of a seamstress but with a little help from an expert seamstress in our ward I had asked to help guide us along, we all turned out a cute pair of pajama pants.

Abi and I are working hard.

After our lovely luncheon the girls modeled thier pajama pants. They were so proud of themselves. Big shout out to Julie for the decorations and Tony for the sound system and catwalk music. It was awesome!!!

New to Us - Table and Chairs

When Leah insisted that she was tooo big for her high chair and that she wanted to sit at the table like all of us, it expedited the need for a new dining set. A humongous THANK YOU goes out to my sister Kalene, who gave us her old dining set with six chairs vs our four. It was a great, solid wood set that had been treated really well but didn't quite fit into the eventual grand decorating scheme for our house. But with a lot of hard work and even more black paint, it looks amazing now. First Kris secured any loose legs, arms or dowels with screws and gorilla glue. Then we sanded them all down, the steel wool on the spindles was the hardest. Next I washed them all with TSP substitute. The chairs we decided to spray paint and so I first sprayed them with Rustoleum Primer in brown, 2 coats. Then I used Rustoleum spray lacquer in black for a top coat, 4-5 coats. This is what took soooooo much paint. I used 7 cans of primer and 15 cans of lacquer on 6 chairs. I just kept going back, and going back to Home Depot for more paint. For the table, my cousin - in-law a professional painter recommended painting it by hand. Per his recommendation I used Zinser Bullseye Primer - that's a latex primer- tinted grey. Then I painted it with Porterguard Oil based enamel in black satin. Because our table will be well loved for many years to come by our family of 5+ I protected it with polyurethane, 2 coats gloss and 1 coat satin. Total cost - about $150. But look at it now........

Of course, it's not perfect but I am thrilled. I looks gorgeous and when the chairs get dinged up, as they will, I can just wash them down and hit them with another coat of lacquer. We are also protecting the table with the clear vinyl heavy duty tablecloth.

I'm posting my re-do on A Soft Place to Land http://asoftplacetoland-kimba.blogspot.com/2009/09/diy-day-and-giveaway_23.html. Check out all of the other fun DIY projects.

Fair Fun

Visiting the Eastern Idaho State Fair is a tradition for the Meek family. Opening day was a beautiful Saturday so we loaded up and went. Abi and Tal love seeing all of the animals. They were especially excited to get to pet this miniature horse.
You have to get a hat from the Culligan Water booth - it's tradition. Leah is our little runner, but we kept close tabs on her with her Elmo harness. Tal is upset that I wouldn't buy everything for him.
We love going to McKee's petting zoo. Leah was thrilled that the goats would eat right out of her hand. You just hold out the food and they lick it right off. It tickles.
In the Ag Education Area our kids participated in many fun activities. This is as close to milking a cow as my city slicker son will probably ever get.
Leah found it quite enjoyable to play in the corn pit. This is one time when it is OK to play with your food.
Abi enjoyed milking the cow too. Hmmmm, maybe I should hire them out. We topped it all off with what else, ice cream from the Dairy Barn. Huckleberry Cream for me - Mmmmmm.

Leah at 15 months

Our little Leah is making the change from baby to little girl. This past month she refused to sit in her high chair any more and made the jump to the booster seat. She looks so tiny sitting up to the table but she knows that she is soooooo BIG. She is pretty good with a cup and spoon as well. Leah continues to grow tall and thin. She is 32 inches, in the 90th percentile for height, but only 19 lb 5 oz, just above the 3rd percentile for weight. Leah also stopped nursing and started sleeping through the night this past week. Yeah!!!
Leah also had her first haircut. Her bangs were getting a little long and so they got a little snip. She was soooooo good, just fascinated with the cape. Leah continues to love to take baths and play with the toys. She also likes to "help" wash dishes and drink out of all of the clean cups.
Leah's vocabulary is really starting to take off. She knows the parts of her face as well as "belly" and "toes". She loves animals and can say "doggie" and "bird". "Want down" is another favorite but it can mean down or up. Leah loves snacks and food. Here she is tearing into a fresh chocolate chip cookie. Yum. Other favorites are mac and cheese, cottage cheese, cheese, juice, cheerios, peaches, yogurt, peas and all kinds of sauces. I joke that her carrots or fries are just the vehicle for the sauce. She will dip them and then lick all of the ranch or ketchup off. Likewise she will lick the peanut butter or jam off of her bread and leave the bread. Leah loves books - her two favorite are "Baby Faces" and "Busy Baby." We read each of them before nap and bedtime.