baked pears.

i found this delicious recipe to help me out with our over-abundance of pears!  see here for original source (of photo and recipe)...i've changed it up just a tad to our liking...

when i told brady that we were having a scrumptious dessert, his eyes got big and excitement spread across his face.  but as soon as i said we were having baked pears the look completely vanished, along with..."what?! that sounds disgusting! ugg, i'm NOT eating that!"

i convinced him to give it a try and he admitted sheepishly that, yes, in fact they were yummy!

AND, i will continue to consider this "healthy"- freshly picked pears with only a BIT of sugar and butter

baked pears
3 ripe pears, halved
2 T. melted butter
1 T. lemon juice
1 T. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

Cut and core pears (i left the skins on and the stems on).  Place cut-side up in baking dish and drizzle with melted butter and lemon juice, sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon on top.

bake at 350 for 20 minutes and serve with a dollop of vanilla bean ice cream, cinnamon spiced home-shipped cream, or like we did: with a dollop of cinnamon spiced honey-Greek yogurt.

meeting Noah.

We got to meet our new buddy Noah when he was 4 days old!  He is such a cutie and we can't wait to see him grow!  Congratulations Quinn & Natalie!  

future friends: Zach 11 months, Noah 4 days!

1st days of school.

first day of 2nd grade

ready for the BIG DAY! with friends Ethan and Porter

Brady decorated his folder with a dragon/dinosaur and his name

 first day of preschool

and new cute shoes and jeans too!

duck week.

This post is long overdue.  In June the kids and I spent a few weeks learning about ducks.  It all started when we went for a picnic along the river when my mom was visiting.  The Canada goose goslings were everywhere!!!  We ate a hurried lunch and then ran as fast as we could back to the car!  They had surrounded us and tried to attack us to get our food!  

We didn't have a chance to get a picture of the large goslings, but I did take this one of some fuzzy little ducklings

When we drove away from the park we saw this duck crossing sign: 

which made me think of the book, "Make Way for Ducklings."  My mom used to read that book to us and I always loved it.  Since we were right by the library I ran in to check out the book, and while I was looking it up I saw many other books on ducks as well.  I thought, "What the heck?  Let's learn all about ducks!"

During the week we were presented with lots of natural opportunities to explore around us and learn more about ducks, geese and eggs. Grammie Morgan and I even had the opportunity to save a duck family that had gotten caught in the current of the canal and were about to be sucked under into the grid and culvert that runs under the highway.  The children watched with intrigue as we used a plank and placed it along the riverbank for the ducklings to get up into the grass.  Their mama was very distressed as she didn't know we were trying to help her babies, but after about 20 minutes we successfully got them to safety!

Our cousins gave us this nest that was built on their front door wreath!  It has a beautiful blue robin's egg in it!

We thought it would be fun to paint our own eggs from rocks we gathered outside.  The kids picked different eggs from the books we had that they thought were beautiful.  I think their creations are beautiful too and they are displayed on our bookshelf!




Brady drew a picture of the Canada goose family we saw

We started getting farm fresh eggs from our friends down the road.  We love how the eggs are different colors, shapes and sizes.  They taste so good and the yolks are a dark golden yellow and perky.  Try cracking open a store-bought egg next to a farm fresh egg and you'll be amazed at the difference in color and shape...not to mention the taste.  I actually cringe when I have to buy store-bought!

Poem written by my mom, Sandra Morgan for the kids:

We saw a duck

family today-

hooray, hooray!

They were swimming

in a deep canal water-way.

They were fuzzy and 

brown and swam 

all around.

Swimming really fast 

near their mommy and 

daddy, some swimming

past to their nest in the grass,

far out of sight- it was

fun to see them- they

were quite a delight!

our house of God.

When summer began we were struggling to get into a good routine every day.  My kids NEED structure.  They like to know what we are doing and it motivates them.  

It motivates me.  Without structure I go C-R-A-Z-Y!!!!

I was talking with my mom one day and she reminded me about something she did when my brothers and I were little.  She made a "House of God" outline on the side of our refrigerator that we could all see and it outlined what our home needed to be like in order to be a house our Heavenly Father would approve of.

This got me thinking a lot about the actual structure of our home, the environment that we are striving to have here and what we are trying to teach our children.

My children are very visual like I am.  When they have something they can look at then they won't ask me all the time what it is we are going to be doing.  They also like to know the order of things.

We had a Family Home Evening based on the scriptures in the Doctrine and Covenants that explains what a House of God is.

I made this bulletin board that hangs in the kitchen as a reminder of the things that we talked about.  It has three categories:  Spiritual, Order and Learning

Spiritual Goals

Plan of Order

(This is where the chart below comes into play)

 Learning Goals

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

First of all, I realized that my children are old enough to each contribute in their own way to our home.  I want to teach them the value of hard work, that everyone must help out and to work before we play.  I came up with this "chore chart," if you will, and called it "Daily Contributions."

Now that school has started a few of the responsibilities have changed.  For instance, Brady has less household contributions and more homework, reading etc.  When he has a good attitude while completing his school work and when puts his best effort forth he gets rewarded just as when he does his other contributions.

What they both have loved about this new "program" if you will, is that they get to move the pieces over after they have finished them.  Brady loves to visually see that he has finished his tasks and can then go play.  Olivia also enjoys visually knowing what she needs to do, but she is slower to get them done.  It really does help to show her though that when Brady is done and gets to go outside and play what she needs to do to be able to join him.

These are some extra things that they can do to earn something back that they lost, such as playing with friends or to earn extra tokens.

I set up a token system so for most contributions they earn 1 token.  This is a pretty simple reward system, but they can also lose their tokens through bad behavior, such as complaining, arguing, fighting and bad attitudes.  I always give opportunities to earn extra tokens as well and can surprise them throughout the day with good behavior tokens.  



Olivia gets tokens when she gets in the car and is buckled up right away.  Brady gets tokens when he is helpful to me with Zach and is a nice brother to Olivia.

Every night they get their tokens before bed.  10 tokens = $1 (play money)

They can earn money to buy things from the "Good Job Box." 

Brady has been able to buy two LEGO sets, a floatie to bring to Rigby Lake, and a few sand toys. 

Olivia has bought bath paint for the tub, fairy wings, bath color tablets, sand toys, and a swim floatie.

They must also pay me tokens to watch a movie, tv show or play a video game.  Olivia gets a few FREE shows in the morning before preschool and a FREE movie in the afternoon for her quiet time.  Brady doesn't have FREE shows or movies except on Friday night Family Movie Night.  They can also pay tokens for things like popcorn and chocolate milk.  We do not have candy and I don't use it as a reward.  

Something else we tried was an "Uh-Oh Jar" that has popsicle sticks with different consequences in it. I found that it didn't work as well for my children as taking tokens or privileges away.  I have been thinking of maybe taking it in the car and seeing if it helps when they struggle with arguing in the car.


Actually something that we have been doing recently with Brady when he argues is he has to do 10 jumping jacks every time he argues.  If he keeps arguing we keep adding 10.  He hasn't gotten more than 40 yet, and it does seem to stop him in his tracks and refocus.  Then after his jumping jacks we can talk about the situation.  

Lastly, at the end of the day we try to evaluate these questions, of which they can also earn tokens for.  Like I said, there are plenty of opportunities for token earning around here- IF they choose to.

(The "accidents" question is for Olivia)

Baby Boy for Quinn & Natalie!!!

One of my "bestest," Natalie just had her first boy, the last of 6!!!  In honor of her I threw a baby shower at the end of August.  It turned out cute and was simple and fun!  Her sister helped out with all the food and setting up of everything.

                   

Natalie- you are such a cute Momma!  

She surprised her hubby by making this Red Sox fleece blanket for baby and daddy!!!

labor day weekend. sun valley-style.

We finally got bikes!!!  For the last several years I have been wanting to get a bike.  When we lived in Twin Falls we had a bike trailer but I didn't have a bike.  We also got Chris a new bike and Brady earned a new bike to by doing 30 days of no soda and no candy!  

               

When we first got to Hailey for the weekend mom Graf took the kids for the evening so Chris and I could have some much needed time to ourselves.  We took a walk along the trails to the river and enjoyed some time talking.  We even saw a deer on the way back.  It is so beautiful in the Sun Valley area!  Later that night we even got to enjoy the hot tub and pool all to ourselves!

Friday we went for a bike ride to a beautiful little pond in a neighborhood about 3.5 miles from mom and dad's house.  

That evening Dad, Chelsae and Grandma got there and we enjoyed a neighborhood BBQ and swimming in the pool!  The kids wanted to be in the water every second of every day! 

A couple of these pictures are from earlier in the summer when mom and dad took Brady and Olivia for a few days.

                  

Saturday we had a pancake breakfast in town Ketchum and then shopped around and went to the Wagon Days parade.  

The kids thought this camel was awesome...my bucket list- ride a camel someday!!!

The highlight of the parade is the 20-mule team wagon train at the end.  It was pretty impressive!

Later that evening mom and dad took Olivia and Brady to the duck race and a concert in the park.

                  

Sunday evening we went for a family bike ride down to Bellevue.  They had a free concert in the park and the kids played at the playground.  It was about 6 miles round trip.

                

They also had some flea market booths set up and a sitting area in the "Beer Garden" where they sell drinks.  Mom and I were taking a breather and dad snapped this picture with the sign in front, silly man!

                 

Monday morning we got up early and went fishing!  It had been YEARS since Chris and I had fished, so we were both pretty "rusty."  Especially me!  Dad was very patient with me trying to help me catch a fish, and his patience payed off when I finally caught one!

The pond we fished at is right is right by Arnold Schwarzenegger's house! Speaking of "the Governor," Chels met him later that afternoon at the Golf Club and got this pic with him!!!  Chris was so disappointed he missed out!

It was such a beautiful spot, and although it was really chilly when we first got there it was a clear morning and it was so pretty seeing the sun come up over the mountains.

 

 

                   

                   

                         

I think we caught about 16 fish in all

We spent the afternoon at the Sun Valley Golf Club.  Chris and the kids did the driving range and everyone did the new 18-hole putting course.  Grandma relaxed up on the patio and Zach and I joined her and also walked around the trails on the course.  There are some gorgeous ponds and streams there. 

 

 Thanks for such a fun weekend!!!