Baby Ivy & Snow caves

This week the very precious and beautiful baby Ivy Selamawit joined the Workman family! She is truly such an adorable girl. I have only seen her once, but I cannot wait to see her again! I love her sucking of her two fingers. She is so chocolaty that I want to gobble her up!!! Wow she is cute!
Congrats to Betina and Kenneth on the arrival of such a sweet girl!
(This is the view from the window between the two caves.)
Yesterday after shoveling a bunch of snow, Oscar and I made snow caves! We had a great time and he loves to be outside playing in them.
(cave #2, or the second one we made)
Today Ricky gave him and his friend Austin a couple of bottles filled with food colored water to decorate them with...I don't have pictures yet, but I'll post them when I take a pic.
Cave #1, this one was experimental and it seemed to not be the favorite...but we made a nice little window between the two. I was going to make a snow tunnel but Oscar wanted caves, not a tunnel.
The snow was too fluffy for a snowman so hopefully tomorrow the snow will be mushy enough that we can get one to stick together...maybe we could put Mr. Snowman on top of the cave??? We shall see...

Shorthanded Sunday!

For Christmas Oscar got the book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible,
No Good, Very Bad Day" This was me this morning at church.

Note: I Planned on being short two members of the presidency...leaving me and the secretary to do the Sunday tasks.

Phone rings 7:15, Sr. Primary chorister will not be attending church, snowed in.
Phone rings 7:30, Substitute teacher for one of our classes is ill and will not be able to help out.
Phone rings 7:45, Primary president calls and will not be able to make it has to drive daughter to Seattle. (this was not too surprising, I was mainly planning on it, but it would have been nice if she was there)
Get to Church sacrament meeting went well...
Shortly after the Jr. Primary chorister informs me that she is leaving and will not be able to teach singing time for the Jr. primary! (I was hoping she would be able to do both Jr. and Sr. but no)

Primary begins...Pianist is late, I am panicking scrimping to find someone to play the piano. Find someone, but then regular pianist shows up...she does however, struggle playing the piano and all of the songs I pick she doesn't know! We end up singing acappella and I only know half the words!
4 teachers are not there, and there are no substitutes...luckily we combined 3 classes into one and a kind man in our ward agreed to teach a combined class of 2 other classes...
We had a January birthday to give a present to, but we haven't yet put all of it together...I end up giving him the poster part and I will have to figure the rest out later!

The lovely CTR6 class did the Jr. sharing time (and did a great job from the little bits I saw), which was a saving grace because I was then able to get the manual for the teacher who was going to fill in for the two other classes.
Another blessing was that a kind wonderful woman named Sherry came to the piano Rescue during Sr. primary singing time (the Jr. primary chorister is the Sr. Primary pianist, I know confusing)...this time we had a piano to sing along with! Still, I didn't know the words very well and was quite horrible directing...but the kids were very kind and forgiving!
I then taught my sharing time, which given the craziness of the day went really well until the last 5 minutes when we found out that we would have to do closing exercises in the primary room (which barley fits all of us, and we had already put away the sunbeams chairs!) So, out come the chairs and we re-shuffle kids to make it work.
Next, closing exercises...Krissy was conducting for her first time and sis a pretty good job, I was directing closing music, and we ended having too much time left over and so I had to do an extra song to take up the time.

Seriously this was a weird crazy Sunday!
I am pretty much venting here the frustrations of trying to be in the position of making things work! I feel sorry for others who find themselves shorthanded every Sunday! Gratefully, I only have to experience this every so often, but truly I get so annoyed with unreliable and fickle people!
I then try to remind myself that this is a volunteer organization! Everyon is voulunteer (including me!) So why do some feel a more sense of duty and responsibility while others can put it all off so easily????
Now, I'm going to go take a nice nap and will wake up much happier and ready to prep myself for the Primary activity next Saturday! Hopefully ALL of the teachers will be there!

Christmas...

Cowboy Oscar!
Oscar is loving his new walkie/talkie watches...if only he could get the ear piece to stay in his ear, he has started wearing the big head phones over the top of the little ones in a effort to keep the little one in. The Grandma's and grandpa's once again spoiled our little ones.
He is also very much loving the new spider man attire and the socks o' plenty that came his direction.
Princess Poppy, as I'm sure you are not surprised, is decked out in princess/pinkolicious attire all of the time. Notice her new favorite book, which I am certain we have read at least a hundred times in the last three days...She has even now requested, when getting her hair done in the morning, to have her hair look like pinkolicious. It usually is that she wants Cinderella or Sleeping Booty hair. But no, not any more, I now have another hairdo to add to the daily routine.

Tonight while Poppy was saying her prayers she said "thank you for sleeping booty (four times), thank you for Belle, thank you for Cinderella, thank you for Snow White and finally thank you for Jesus..." (who knows how she learned about all of these princesses since she has only seen cinderella???)
Oscar has even discovered that he too, loves the dress up box. After pulling out his daddies old boots from his childhood, he put on the cowboy/girl hat that was in the box and told me he was going out to get some wood for the fire. I said "make sure and put your coat on so that your clothes don't get all woody". His response was (with a grin on his face) "why are you calling me "woody" mom??". Yeah, he now is loving his cowboy alter ego to go along with spiderman.
Our house was pretty much a disaster for the entire day and the day following.
Ricky and Oscar participated in the HBJ run, that I would have loved to do, if my cold hadn't been sucking the life out of me.
Rick said it was a lot of fun and Oscar even ran some of it. They were one of the first to finish and were too cold to wait around for the awards, Oscar was hoping to win one, but was happy to keep moving.
Ricky has now broken in his newest running tool, the Garmin. I love finding something that makes him track his workouts better! Seriously, I don't know anyone who exercises as much as him, and we all know that the engineer in him loves to track all of his progress!
Overall, it was a very fun Christmas season with so much love and happiness around us. I feel great with having so many great opportunities to share our life with others this season. We really have been overly blessed!

On a side note, and only to be posted for the note of noticing, was the absence of some yummy Cumming's thin mints and mint M&M's...(no guilt intended) just the fact that the Ghirardelli dark chocolate mint squares that Santa left in my stocking, are not as delicious.

Christmas Eve Party

After a delicious Mexican Fiesta of a dinner(too bad I didn't get a picture of the food)...Jen's Blog even cooked up some REAL traditional Mexican food, as opposed to my americanized 7 layer dip. We then painted ornaments and had a fun white elephant exchange.
We had so many wonderful friends who came to celebrate the birth of our savior! Our friends came from many different places and although some did not know each other, they all seemed to get along great and had a good time.
I was really feeling lucky to have so many wonderful people under our roof. And although they weren't family, it felt like we were all one big family celebrating.
Oscar was fortunate enough to get some fortune Cookies (we all know how much he LOVES them). Poppy was the lucky recipient of the lovely silicone body bits (yes they are as disturbing as they sound!). I got a pretty Christmas chips and dip tray, and Ricky (after having his chocolate stolen) ended up with....a bottle of laundry soap???
To end the night in a super celebratory way, Rachel and Rob were kind enough to serenade us with some piano music.
Seriously, we had such a great time and it was a picture perfect evening (aside form my cold that kept me from singing some of the beautiful Christmas songs).

Christmas Morning!

Christmas was wonderful and there is so much to post about that I have neglected posting at all. Even at this very moment I am going to leave you with a very short blog entry, because I want to get all of it together to post.
I will just say this...Poppy is a perma-princess these days and Oscar is busy at every moment playing with his new swords(yes i gave him swords for the first time ever) and his walkie-talkie watches. My kids have been in this constant state of over-stimulation imagination play. I love it! We are having a good Christmas break.

Wonderful christmasy week...

The week before Christmas and all though our house, our children are mischievous and exploring like louse (lice?).
Oscar discovered as you have now too, that razors are sharp and are not for hairdo's.
Poppy is now short a few strands of hair, but believe it or not she doesn't seem to care.
Sharing heads together they seem to find, that one is better and a lot less confined.
School craft day was fun, with lots to do. Poppy ate her marshmallow draidle before we were through.
My sweet Visiting Teachees were able to meet, as Helen and I served them a soup lunch and a treat. Together we had a wonderful time, sharing the Christmas spirit and some treats divine!

Today was a wonderful Sunday all day through. We each had a special church assignment to do. My talk went well, I made it through, Oscar gave a great primary talk too.

This evening was dinner fun friends with us to eat, then yummy home-made ice cream as a yummy treat!
One and a half days till Christmas,we are not quite through. A Mexican Christmas party tomorrow, with a bit of work left to do.

Why all of the crazy fun and excitement about? It must be the season for reaching out...
Outside of ourselves, to all of our friends, Christmas is about the great love we can send!

Poppy

Poppy, Poppy, quite controppy...
I seem to find you so contrary lately! First you want juice, then water, but no... no... chocolate milk instead! And a song, you plead for a song, but while mid-way through the first sentence you want a different one. I'm not sure if this is a phase, or once again your way of establishing your queen bee status??? All i can say is that you seem to be acquiring these manipulative female tactics from somewhere...but not me! Truly I do not attempt to manipulate the world around me to my every whim...and yet, here I have this sweet looking, innocent, pinching demanding bitter/sweet girl.
Which leaves the question...how does one go about curbing such dominating tendencies???
Meanwhile when i look at this sweet girl i almost can't help but squeeze and kiss her to death!
All I can say is, I fear for the male population when Poppy is a teenager!

Note to self

When deciding to walk Oscar to school with an abundance of snow on the ground. Be sure to leave at least an hour of grace time to get there on time...Otherwise, your not-so-nice mommy self will rear its ugly head and demand that he and little sister WALK like a real boy/girl and not like a cat. You may also be forced to put Poppy in the stroller crying, because she will inevitably want to lie down in a giant pile of snow and not want to get off.
Yes, you may find it a better choice to wait until the afternoon pick-up time to let the little ones doddle along until their little hearts are content!

Sweet boy!

Here is Oscar back in the early days of boyhood (off on some adventure). I wish I had had a good digital camera back then. He was such a cute kid, still is.
Last night while telling stories and such in his bed, he told me about a girl in his school class and he said her Mom didn't have any money and that this girl didn't have any snow pants. He asked me if we could give them some money so that she could get some snow pants.
I was so touched by his sweet sincerity and his genuine desire to help her. I told him we would talk to his teacher and see what we could do.
Then today when I dropped him off at school he slid down this big hill on his bum, only to climb back up to remind me that "we didn't get her any snow pants!" I assured him we would work on it today and maybe tomorrow we could get them for her.
I began thinking about how often i find him concerned about another, or sensitive to the mean things other kids do. I can't help but be emotionally filled by the sweet goodness of his heart.
Truthfully throughout this holiday season (other than when we were at grandma's and she had toy magazines) he hasn't asked for anything, unless we ask him what he would be interested in. Even then, he says things like, he wants a space tent and a rocket ship. Yesterday in the grocery store we walked past the toy isle and he said, "We can't get any toys now or Santa won't bring us any. Right Mom?"
Wow! I have been so blessed with such a great family!
I think I've already been given my Christmas present this year!

Bethlahem Feast

My good friend Reem who is from Palestine taught me how to make this yummy dish last Monday. She doesn't use "recipes" so the following information is my interpretations on how to make yummy Baba Ganoush.

Two fresh pretty egg plants(above you see four because I was doubling the recipe)
1 large container plain yogurt ( I like Nancy's and that is the kind Reem uses too)
1 bunch Parsley finely chopped (not mushed in a food processor)
1-2 Tbsp dried mint
4-5 Tbsp olive oil (to taste)
Salt (to taste)
Pepper ( to taste)
1-2 cloves garlic finely mushed

Take eggplant and place on cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour or until cooked through.
Remove from oven and place in a bowl and fill with cold water. Let sit to cool.
When cooled peel off the skin and remove top part of plant. Finley chop or blend up the cooked eggplant. (I used our magic wand and it worked great, you could also use a food processor)
Next add lots of yogurt...this it the main ingredient. Then add the parsley to taste and remaining ingredients.
When it is all combined you should have a nice whitish looking dip that has a light soft taste of parsley, mint, olive oil, garlic and eggplant.
This is very delicious on pita bread!

Falafel!
Here are the mini falafels (I'll post this recipe later) I made to take to our ward party...this is the pre-fried photo.
I was going to make sure to post a list all of the fun items I had on the ethnic tables and I will do so now. I forgot to take pictures so you will just have to link to some of the recipes since I pulled them off the internet...

Pita's
1 cup water
2 tsp dry yeast
1 TBsp Sugar

2 tsp salt
2 TBsp olive oil
2 1/2 Cup Bread flour (or combination of wheat/white)

Preheat oven to 500 degrees- remove top rack and place remaining rack on lowest setting, covered with tin foil.

Combine water, yeast, and sugar in mixing bowl. let rest until bubbly.
Add salt and olive oil
Mix well
Begin adding flour 1 cup at a time. Knead bread until soft, moist but not sticky. You will want the dough to be pliable and a little moist (like a babies bum)

Next knead all of the dough into a disk on the counter, cut it like a pizza into 8 equal parts. Roll each part into a nice round ball and set on floured surface. Cover balls with moist cloth or paper towels to avoid drying out. Let raise for 30-40 mins.
When pre-heated roll out 2 balls into nice disk(pita shapes) not too thin about 1/8 inch thick. Place both disks evenly on the tin foiled rack. Bake for 4-6 minutes (Mine are usually done by 4 minutes). Roll out next two disks while waiting for the others to cook.
Remove finished pitas from oven( I use a spatula to pick them up so that I don't puncture the pocket) and stack on top of each other to cool (this will help them to collapse). Wait for oven to pre-heat back to the 500 degrees (I watch my little light to tell me when) then add the next two pita disks. Cook for 4-6 minutes and keep repeating.

Store in zip lock bags after cooled. Can also freeze to remain fresh.

Hummus...
2 cans Garbanzo Beans (drained, reserve some liquid)
1/3 Cup Tahini (you can find this usually by the peanut butter...or health food section of store)
1-2 Cloves Garlic (minced)
2 tsp Lemon Juice
1/2 tsp Cumin
1-2 TBSP Olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
Take ingredients and place in a blender or food processor. Blend until it is nice and smooth. Add some of the liquid if the consistency is too thick. Add more lemon juice or oil to taste.
Make some Pitas and enjoy!

Tabouli Salad-

• 3 cups of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 1/2 cup of finely chopped fresh mint
• 4 or 5 finely chopped spring onions (with the green parts)
• 4 ripe, medium size tomatoes, chopped into small cubes
• 1 cup of medium bulger wheat (cracked wheat)
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 5 TBS good olive oil
• Salt and Pepper

Grape leaf rolls-

Reem made these and they consist of rice with lemon juice, broth, olive oil, salt and pepper, wrapped in pickled grape leaves...very delicious.

Lebanese cookies- Click Here for recipe

Iraqi Cardamom Cookies -Click Here (these were my favorite of the three)

Date almond balls Tam'r ab Loze-Click Here

So there you have it...My week bundled up into a menu! I am grateful that I will not bee cooking as much this week. Although I am very grateful that it went really well and I had a lot of compliments on the food. It just goes to show that people do like GOOD food, they just need to try it!
I have also gained a better appreciation for the the story of Christ feeding the 5,000! Truly amazing! I suppose I need to sharpen up my faithfulness and maybe next year I will be ready to test my faith and only make one batch of pitas and other stuff etc...
Let me know if you try any of the recipes and if you like them!

Charred pita anyone?

(My beautiful batch of perfectly puffed pitas made yesterday)
Today's post was hoping to read "Super-mom makes lots of pitas and cleans house at the SAME time!" Alas, this statement was almost true. That is, until the final two pitas were cooking (they only bake for 4min at 500 degrees) and I simply forgot that I had one last batch of pitas in the oven!
(Look how puffy that black little pita is!)
You see, this Saturday is our ward's Christmas party and I am in charge of the ethnic Middle Eastern food tasting table. As many of you may already know, I definitely have a passion for this sort of food...especially pitas, not the store bought nasty kind, I'm talking the yummy home made variety (not incredibly complicated, but one must keep an eye on the time!) I therefore decided that our ward would have home made pitas to eat the other (I will elaborate more on this tomorrow) yummy stuff on. I have enlisted a few friends to also help cook them, but I have been making a double batch each day to make enough to feed our church's 5,000. Just kidding, it's more like 200-300 and they will be tasting portions.
The up-side to the burned pitas (you know I'm an optimist!) Is that I now have a beautifully clean 1986 oven! You see, we often make yams which when baked, get the bottom of our stove all gooey and yucky. In fact, I was just saying a couple of days ago that I was going to go buy some of that nasty smelling oven cleaner to try to get our oven clean.
After the initial plume of smoke and the opening of all windows, I finally dared open the oven door to find that nearly all of the nastiness had been burned off! Yeah! Our oven doesn't have a self cleaning cycle and yet all it took was burning a couple of pitas! A couple quick swipes with the wash cloth and I now have a sparkley stove.
Other fun notes of interest is that we are still getting fresh tomatoes from out tomatoes vines hanging upside down in our shed! Yes, you may be jealous. They are not as delicious as when they are actually on the vine outside, but they are much tastier than the store bought zero taste variety.
Tonight, to try and get rid of the charred pita smell in the house, I made some yummy summery pizzas to make our house smell a bit better. (My hair still smells like I have been in a chimney, not suite as stinky and mom and Oscar when sitting by the fire pit when it is burning cotton wood, but stinky none the less!)
This my friends is the joys of being a supermom...or maybe not so super!

What's a mom to do?

"Mom my bed is all wet!" (Oscar is still wearing "buzz undies" aka pull-ups to bed)

"Well, then we will change the sheets. Tonight we will need to make sure you don't drink as much water."

12 hours later (Currently)
"Mom I really need a drink"...repeated over and over again...
"my belly is alllll driied upppppp!"
"I'm going to die without a drink!!!!"

Oscar you may not have a drink. You will wet through your pull up again. Sorry...

"Mom I really need a drink"...repeated over and over again...
"my belly is alllll driied upppppp!"
"I'm going to die without a drink!!!!"

As much as I would like to give my child a drink, I know that he will wake up all wet! What would you other, more loving and kind mothers do?

Wintery Week

Snow, snow, and more snow! I think it is safe to say that we have entered the winter season!
Oscar was determined to roll over his giant snow ball. Eventually he asked me to help. This kid LOVES the snow!
Poppy decided to taste the white fluffy stuff...she told me she was eating ice cream.
I love having a small but fun hill in our back yard!
After shoveling the driveway Oscar and Poppy discovered they could slide down it with just their snow pants on.

This week we have shoveled the driveway 4 times. It is currently snowing outside (pretty, big blustery flakes) and so I anticipate that we again, will be shoveling tonight or in the morning.

It has been a really pretty start to the Month of December. Although I don't particularly care for being cold, I do enjoy some of the winter specific activities.
Yesterday we took the kids ice skating. Oscar wasn't very good but he kept at it, by the end he was able to stand up and shuffle a bit. Poppy was more excited about having skates on her feet, rather than actually "skating" on them. After a few rounds on the rink she decided she was done. This definitely brings back some de ja vu to when Oscar was a two year old.

Lastly, we began our Christmas Nativity Advent calendar that was so generously given to us by our good friends the Lord's, when we lived in Riverton. Already today, Oscar was asking me if we could move Mary and Joseph one more step. I assured him that we would tonight, after we read the little dialog that goes along with each day.
Now the next thing to do to get ready for Christmas is to remove the moldy squishy pumpkins from the front porch...Oh, and I suppose we will need to get a tree (too bad this year we don't have one in our yard that needs to go).

Peer Pressure...the good kind!

Lately Oscar has been coming up with really funny things...For example he no longer likes his name "Oscar" and would rather go by the name of "Austin"(his favorite friend).
This same friend, who dose happen to be a pretty good kid, does have some quirks...for one he doesn't like girls. Therefore, Oscar no longer likes his girl friends in Austin's presence. Together they also become this very voluminous bunch of superheros when ever they are together. I find myself constantly saying "tone it down boys". Overall they always play very well together. Even though Austin is about 2 years older than O'.
This afternoon I have been watching Austin, and he happened to be staying for dinner. Oscar who recently has become the dinner boycott champion, decided that he would eat his dinner, and that since Austin LOVES carrots, Oscar wanted extra carrots on his stir-fry too.
This is the kind of peer-pressure I can handle!

Other notes of interest...

Jen posted a very kind birthday tribute to me...Thanks Jen, it was just what a girl who hasn't been running needed to hear! This year my birthday has been great...it has been an all month long celebration (I guess if Thanksgiving can count). I really feel blessed to have sooooooo many great friends and family who really care about me. I'm very blessed!

Secondly, I have created a new blog...not incredibly exciting, but if you wanna check it out it is Spin and Run. I will basically post all of my exercise stuff (or lack there of) on there...(that will mean less spandex pictures on this blog).

Blogger Hiatus!

Turkey day presentation at the school...Oscar shook his cute little tail feathers and made me some tasty stone soup instead of turkey. Poppy and Oscar had our pumpkin pie eaten before the program and the soup was served. His teacher then filled his pie plate with whip cream!
We journeyed to Utah for the Edge family Thanksgiving week. We had a great time with tons of great food and family. Our kids are STILL going through grandparent withdrawal...Poppy at 3am the last 3 nights wakes up crying for Grandma!
Grandma made sure to have plenty of activities for us. WE took a little walk up the canyon on some slippery, icy trails. Oscar had a great time "ice boarding".
This pretty much wraps up the kids week in a picture...stories, toys, cousins, dress-up, treats, and anything their hearts desired...grandma was certain to cater to their every whim...(grandpa did his share too...Poppy still keeps asking about grandpa!)
Thanksgiving day, uncle Carvel brought over a slackline for all of us to play on. It was a lot of fun and Oscar really liked it! I may have to get one for Ricky's Christmas...he has really good balance! Uncle Carvel was impressive with his slacklining abilities!

There is so much I have thought about posting and yet, I really have had no gumption to put it all down. So, here were the foot notes, and I will post some more later....

One year ago...

(Here's a picture from last year's Thanksgiving)

One year ago today we arrived here in Utah and surprised Rick's family for an earlier-than expected Thanksgiving visit.

Yesterday, we arrived just in time to see auntie Natalie swim in her UOU swim meet. It was really fun to watch, and she is so fast!

This past week was so full of many different things...Every day was so full that I didn't have any time to blog. It was a week that made me start to think of all the things I'm going to eliminate from the following week when we return.

Some of the highlights were really fun! Oscar performed a fun Thanksgiving feast and program for us parents. Poppy and Oscar ate their pumpkin pie first before eating our "stone soup". He made a great Turkey with his very cute turkey mask on.

Friday after Rick was home from work, we made our way to Boise. We had a hotel and stayed the night which made it really great to get a few hours of sleep before finishing out the journey.

Poppy decided she would rather sleep in the bed with us however, so even though we had a place to sleep...sleep was not as great as it usually is.

After driving in the car for a long time it is always so nice to go for a nice long run...(that is typically). Earlier this week I was advised to not do any running for a while...(let the whimpering and whining begin). The PT said I could ride but not run for a while. Therefore Ricky took a very fast 4.something run while I tootled along on the mountain bike. I never really got my heart rate up until he asked me to race him around the park.

I would say my quality of exercises has been quite lacking! I find myself more impatient and grumpy! I suppose I need my daily dose of endorphins to make me into a better mommy.

Spinning was nice on Friday, and I'm looking forward to utilizing my Father in laws spin bike while we are here in Utah.

Meanwhile, Oscar and daddy are out in the back yard chasing the chickens, Poppy is napping and we are here in sunny Utah enjoying the warmer weather.

Leaves, Birds, and Bees

(This is 1/4 of the pile that was previously here...the leaves were piled so high that they were as tall as Oscar and if he wanted, could hide and it was a lot of digging to find him.)
For the past month the giant leaf piles in our yard have been the greatest toys ever invented. Oscar daily would spend hours out side swimming in the leaves (mingled with super hero play).
(Here are the leaves that are up the hill from our driveway, from our yard...notice the neighbors piles, not the large expanding pile as ours.)
As of Friday we hauled the last of them(except the apple tree that is still dropping) to the curb for pickup tomorrow. Sigh...I'm really going to miss such a fun activity in my own back yard.
(Here is the pile, down the hill from our driveway. The kids still like playing in the leaves, even if they are in the street)

Birds and Bees-(for the uncomfortable people reading you can end now)

Yesterday, while Oscar was helping me with the staining of the kid room chairs, he asked me what the bump was on the back of my shirt.
I said "oh, that is my bra".
He then asked "what is a bra for?".
I responded "remember how girls have breasts?"
"What are breasts mom?"
"They are the bumps on women, you know, what we use to feed babies."
"oh yeah, I remember"
"Yeah, well, bras help to hold up the breasts so that womens backs don't get tired."
"Mom, what is different about girls and boys?"
"Do you know what the difference is between boys and girls?"
"Boys have pieces"
"Do you mean a penis?"
"Yes that what I meant. What is it called that girls have?"
"Do you mean a vagina?"
"Yeah, that is it...is it like a bum?"
"Basically yes...Boys and girls have different bodies for different things. Like, girls can have babies and boys can't."
"Yeah, will poppy be able to have babies?"
"Yes, when she gets bigger and gets married."
This is where Poppy comes in and disrupts conversation and Oscar leaves to play.

Later in the evening when I leave to get the babysitter for our stake conference adult meeting, Oscar decides to stay at the house with dad. (Dad later asked if I "put him up to staying home") While away and Dad is getting ready to leave, changing clothes and such, Oscar asks "Dad what is the difference between boys and girls?" Obviously, I have failed at filling his curiosity. Ricky being the more uncomfortable in these situations, told Oscar we would talk about it later.

This afternoon while Poppy was napping I pulled out my old anatomy coloring book with very basic illustrations of the human body. We looked at muscles, circulatory systems, and boys and girls insides. I showed him how they are different. NOT pictures of nudity per-se but the actual internal organs. Like how women have a uterus that the baby grows in it and a picture of a baby inside a mothers stomach. It was really cool for him to see illustrated the basic beginning of human life. He asked me how small he was when he began to grow. I then showed him a human cell and we looked at the different systems. We didn't actually discuss "how" a baby is made, we shall leave that to a later date.
Although I can't believe that I'm discussing these things with my five year old, I'm not surprised. This is my boy who has always wanted to know what was "real" and how everything works. Truth be told, I'm really relived to be discussing openly these things with him. It makes me feel as though I can fill his need to "know" without him having to discover it incorrectly from someone else. It feels a little empowering to know that I can openly share with him the miracles of life. We discussed how God really must have been really smart to develop so many wonderful humans. He did say that the book didn't contain animals and asked if they were like us humans.
Overall, it was a pleasant experience...next time we'll get Daddy in on the fun!
If any of our wonderful bolggy readers have any better advice on how to address this great but difficult question, feel free to share the information!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

(Here we have some of the delightful gifts given to me by my sweet friends and family. Flowers from Merilee, Family photos on a CD from Betina, chocolate from Jori, skirt from Kelly, Fun hand made card/present from my sweet in-laws, and a jar of our freshly canned (yesterday) black beans.)
I have had a bit of a progressive Birthday, it began last Saturday with a fun trip to Coure 'de lane with Betina, Jori, and Kelly. We went thrift store shopping went out to dinner. The ladies were great company on our outing and it was really a lot of fun searching through all the junk. Typically I really have a hard time enduring the thrift store junk but, I actually came home with some treasures.
I love birthday's especially my own. It is the day when if my children are being ornery or whiny I can just say "Sorry no whining today because it is my birthday!" or i can walk around the house singing "happy birthday to me...". But the best part is all of the fun cards, phone calls, visits, and dates of people who are so kind in remembering that today was my special day.
I also have been quite spoiled in getting our treadmill and some new-to-us bedroom furniture. Ricky also took me out to one of our favorite restaurants around here called Nectar. I seriously had such a great meal and over-stuffed myself that I had to undo my top button (maybe it was because I was trying to wear my sexy jeans...) It was a really nice date, especially it was nice to get out of the house since our house was filled with the aroma of Beans!!!

(notice how we are both standing...too funny)
Here is my kindred spirit Betina (who frequently gets confused as my sister) who came to my house with Jori (another kindred spirit, taking picture) to can beans. It was a great time and I never knew just how easy it is to can dry beans! It is even easier than the soak-overnight process! We jsut had to get over the fear of the pressure cookers exploding.
Basically it is 1 cup dry beans, 1tsp salt, fill quart jar to neck with warm water put on lid/ring and pressure cook for 60 mins at 15lbs of pressure.
For my Birthday feast tonight I made (to Oscar's dislike), black beans and rice. One of my truly favorite foods. It was delicious, and even more so because they were my own beans.
After dinner we had my pumpkin chocolate chip birthday cake. I didn't quite cook it long enough but it was yummy anyway.
Overall it was a great day and I even got a 5mi run in on my new treadmill. So, here's to my 28th birthday!!

Isn't he handsome!

Thanks to my great friend Betina, being willing to undergo the task of taking some family photos for us (to be posted later). She captured this great picture of my very handsome husband. Typically I get the photos of him giving me a scowl and/or putting his nose up in the air so that all I really get a picture of is his neck. This picture however catches the very handsome, sweet and loving husband that I married! This is what he actually looks like most of the time.
Yah, I'm pretty blessed with such a great guy!
And yes, I know that as soon as he sees this post I will get the a for mentioned scowl...but well worth it!

Who Needs Squirrels???

What you ask, is in their bulging pockets???
Why the acorns they gathered during our Sunday walk. Frequently I do the wash and find these little nutty treasures stashed away in the pockets of my two boys! They also use them as ammunition against each other and me!
You may think because they are small, harmless and that they do very little damage...but a couple of weeks ago I noticed I had these little dime size bruises on my legs and arm. Then it dawned on me that it was from the acorns....Boys will be Boys (or squirrels).

Musing of the Non-Conforntational

I'm a non-confrontational type of girl (who was born to a mother who loves to barter, this could be the reason for my stance)...Yes, we often hear that "nice people never get ahead" but I want to let the blog world know that yesterday I did!
We were buying a treadmill (woo hoo) that had been gently used and she was offering a rice of $600. After some research I decided that yes, it was a good price, but it would be even better if it were $550. Instead of bartering with the other "nice" lady. I offered her this email:
Barb,
We would like to purchase the treadmill. I'm not very good at bartering so If you wanted to sell it for $550 we would love it, but if you still want $600 that's fine we'll take it. I like it when both sides get what they want and a great deal.
Just give me a call later when you get a chance to look for the manual and we can set a time to pick it up.
Thanks,

Her reply was:
$550.00 is fine.

This my friends, is the way I would would like to do business more often. You say what you want but there isn't the nasty little edge of "if you don't' like my price I won't take it" I love it when both people win.

Now, as of last night we now own a treadmill. I am very grateful for Ricky consenting to buying it because it means I can exercise in the afternoon while Poppy is sleeping (especially in the winter) rather than waking up at 6am to run in the freezing cold, dark morning!

I do love to run outside, but that's when the sun is shining and I can see the ground I am running on.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes...

Child's Prayer

While driving in the car Poppy started screaming, not crying, just yelling (this is not unusual and always unpleasant). To her shrieking I asked her (in my kind motherly tone) to:
"Use your inside voice Poppy", then "Poppy please quit screaming" after she continued screaming I reached behind the seat and hit her foot with my hand (not hard, just a get your attention type of slap) and said "Poppy stop yelling".
To this she started crying and screaming louder...
Oscar hating the noise started screaming at poppy to "stop crying". She wouldn't stop screaming...In a very sweet sincere voice Oscar folded his arms and said "Heavenly Father please make Poppy stop crying."
Suddenly she stopped crying...(I think this was because she was interested in his prayer)
Oscar then folds his arms bows his head and says "Thank you heavenly father for making her stop."

Weekend W/O daddy...

We seriously have a billion leaves...we have spent the past week playing over and over again in the giant piles...I'll post on this topic later.
Apple picking at the orchard. We picked some tasty apples with friends that we plan to can this week.
Friday the tikes and I went to a Halloween party at the Eaton ranch. It was a lot of fun and even had a headless horse-girl ride in. Later the kiddies got to take a ride on the pretty black ponies back. Here is the sunflower girl on teh horse (she LOVES to ride horses...she just beams when she 's up there)
When was the last time you saw a sweet little power ranger on a pony???
Lil' O's last soccer game. (coach Harley had a sweet soccer mask) Very entertaining especially with all of the side lines cheering for Oscar to RUN and Kick the ball. He likes to stand in the back and watch the game (not the aggressive in your face type) . He did a great job but told me he was very excited it was his last game, so he could start swimming lessons again (Auntie Nat can be proud).

Mainly we spent our days trying to keep busy because inevitably if we had down time the kiddies would start missing their Daddy. Each morning Poppy would ask "Where Daddy Go?".
Oscar told me on Thursday night "Mom. I wish yesterday was Saturday so dad would be home sooner." It was really cute.
The next day I found him explaining to Poppy "Today I have school, tomorrow we play with mommy, and Sunday after church, daddy will come home! To this they both cheered "yeah daddy come home!!" They both really miss him when he is out of town.
Speaking of which, I do find myself a little more on guard and anxious when Ricky isn't around. I'm very grateful NOT to be a single parent. I am much more secure and happy when Ricky is home. He just makes our lives better!
(Shout out to Jen who finished second marathon yesterday doing both of her marathons in one month! You go girl!)