The First Snow of the Season!

The title says it all. A huge snow storm came through the valley Saturday afternoon. The BYU game against Eastern Washington had to play in this blizzard. The boys had fun playing in the snow the following morning.

Swim Lessons

After waiting a month and half for the Health Department to remove the restriction that kids under 6 years old aren't allowed in the Orem pool due to a Cryptosporidium outbreak, Benjamin finally, FINALLY, started his swimming lessons. (Wooo, that's a long sentence.) The teacher is great, and Benjamin is having a blast! Isaac and I were enrolled in a Mommy-and-me swim class at the same time, but those wearing diapers are not allowed in the pool at the moment. Every time we drop Benjamin off, Isaac wants to go in the pool as well. Isaac has fun playing in the observation room/deck which helps ease his disappointment.

I know it's a bad picture, but there's Ben working on floating with his teacher.

I thought I'd throw these pictures in for fun.

Don't I have a handsome family!!!

Ben took this picture. Not bad for a three year old.

To be Three again!

I think this happened two Saturdays ago. Tom walks through the kitchen and sees some post-its on the wall.

This was definitely a Benjamin work of art. Tom's tack board at work is covered in post-it drawings. Tom asked Ben, "Did you put these here?"

Ben's reply was roughly this, "I did. I colored the wall with a marker. I put up the pictures to hide the line."

Lo and behold, after removing the 'many layers' of post-its and tape, we found the line on the wall. It was very hard to be angry with Benjamin. He is so resourceful. It was such a cute thing too!

Grape Juice Season

I apologize for the lack of updates. Our family was hit with the flu among other things. So time was scarce for me. But don't fear, I am back. :) The October General Conference, a world wide conference held by our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is a marker for many things.
Let me list them one by one:

1. It WAS a marker for the Day-Light Savings change, but don't get me started on that
2. It marks the change in season--drives through the canyon are beautiful at this time of year due to the changing colors of trees
3. A temperature drop, usually.
4. Beginning of the Holiday Trifecta.
   
5. And most importantly, for Tom, grape juice season.

We'd like to thank our backyard neighbors for cultivating such fine concord grapes. And yes, I'm as surprised as you are, we can make grape juice. With lots of guidance from Tom's mom, we were able to can 18-20 quarts of homegrown yumminess.

Tada!!! See us in our Grape Filled Splendor!

The only fear I have is that they aren't sealed properly. I only heard 1 pop out of the 4 jars there. But when testing, they seemed to be sealed.

The boys helped with the harvesting of the grapes. Benjamin and Isaac are great helpers!

Family Home Evening

On most Monday evenings our little family and Grammy get together for Family Home Evening (aka FHE). We have an opening song, prayer, a lesson, and a treat. It's entertaining for us adults to watch the boys participate. Even at three Ben is absorbing sooo much information. Grammy taught us during this specific FHE that we must obey the laws and rules. Her example of laws that we should obey were the STOP sign and the GO sign. Benjamin had a great time playing Red light Green light. As a matter fact, we all had a grrrrreat time playing that game.

Here's Ben and Ike conducting the song, Give said the Little Stream. Benjamin made sure Isaac and he had their 'ductors' (shortened from conductor) ready for leading the music.

To close this post with a bit of a laugh, I thought I would show you Isaac's new 'skill' he learned over this past week. Enjoy!

He graduated from walking in circles to spinning so quickly. Ah, to be a kid again and experience the pure joy in such 'skills'.

Our Soux Chefs

Daddy and son making a breakfast dinner.
Benjamin loves to help Tom or me with any sort cooking.

Benjamin and Isaac had a blast helping make Pigs-in-a-Blanket for lunch one day. We all had a blast. I was at first fearful of the mess this activity might bring about, but I need not have feared. Our little chefs handled the making quite well.

It always amazes me the 'big boy' things Isaac can do.

Trip to Kaysville

I had to post this! We were on our way to Don and Lhyn's home to help lay sod yesterday. We hit normal Friday traffic. So instead of taking about an hour to get to their home, it took us almost 2 hours. Side note: During gridlock in Utah is when I wish we have more than 1 interstate.


Benjamin fell asleep 5 minutes into the ride, and Isaac stayed awake the whole time. It should have been the opposite!

Towards the end our trip Ike started getting bored and began poking Benjamin with the light saber. It was hilarious. This video doesn't do the hilarity justice, but it gives you an idea of what happened for about 5 minutes of the car ride.

The younger one teasing the older one. You don't see that very often!

I also want to add that on Tuesday evening we had this huge, I mean HUGE, thunderstorm! It came from the west and rolled in over the Wasatch Front. Reports from Tooele, Lehi, Salt Lake City, Davis County reported huge trees blown uprooted by over 60mph winds, trampolines ending up in the next door neighbors' back yards, etc... We even had a severe weather warning! That should tell you how cool (and I guess bad) the storm was.
Jim said:

He felt he was on a boat during a storm. (He was in his home in Lehi.) Sheets of water poured from the sky. He thought buckets of water were being thrown at their house.

This picture doesn't capture the looming majesty of the storm, but here it is rolling into our part of Orem. We didn't get much wind, but we did get some loud thundering and rain!