Have I mentioned before that I hate shopping?

Oscar left me this note last week. Ricky bailed me out and went for me. You will proud to know that I went shopping today. He will be so excited.

Poppy's invite

Someone is turning five this week...I love her invite.

Missing the Mountains...and my boys

Back in the day...Oscar on daddy's back

Oscar's First Hike, a few weeks old

Another one of his first hike, see how protective I was...can certainly tell that he was my first baby. The others would have been placed in the bjorn, and we would be on our way.

This is a picture of Ricky backpacking when he was about Oscar's age(from the side profile it looks like it could just be Oscar), wearing the same pack that Oscar is wearing on this trip...thanks grandma and grandpa! (Bet you didn't know back then that your grand kid would wear it.)

This picture may be about what he looks like today...well at least earlier today when they were actually hiking, and not right now when they are probrably snuggled into their tent sleeping (which is most likely what they are doing, that is unless, they are telling silly jokes and making farting noises)...

Here's another "oldie but goody" of Ricky and Big Rick. What good look'in guys!

Yesterday my boys left on an expedition to the wild wilderness of the Willowas.
As I sit here at 9:30pm at night, with my two girls in bed asleep (one of which is sleeping in MY bed, as a special treat), I can't help but really miss the mountains. I want to smell the crisp fall air, feel some rocks beneath my feet, a pack on my back loaded with all sorts of trail friendly foods, sit on a summit and stare off into the world beyond...I want to be hanging with my boys doing one of the things I love most, spending time outside.
I'm not saying that I haven't had a fun weekend with just us girls, on the contrary, we have been having lots of fun. We went to the fair last night and I successfully wore them out and they both crashed in their beds by 7:45pm. We have played at the farmer's market, cleaned the church, went swimming, had ice cream (including a gummy worm topping), I even rented Poppy a "Barbie musketeers" movie, and even painfully watched 75% of it with her (now that is love). We really have had some great time just being together, sans the boys.
All that said...I still am missing those mountains.
I therefore have a job for all of you out in blog world who are near some of those pretty, monstrous piles of rock and rubble. Do me a favor and take a hike. Be in nature and let me glean a bit of that exposure off of you.
In a couple of moths I'll get my fix. In the meantime, I'll settle for some freshly harvested wheat fields and some pictures that Mark Feltis is going to have to take, becasue our "Olympus Tough" camera wasn't' as tough as it was supposed to be, and suddenly quit working without any real abuse...more on that topic later... but I'll hopefully get a re-cap and my boys back tomorrow.
Oh, and I'm missing my boys too. Things seem weird and not so balanced without them. Too much Estrogen in the house right now. But then again, Grandpa Edge is used to that.

I Remember...

I remember Meeting Lisa at the Salt lake Airport to "see her off" for her transition from the MTC (missionary training center) to her mission in California. They never made that transition that morning. In fact they wouldn't make that transition for a while. As we drove back into Salt lake city from the airport, I left Rick at a bus stop so that he could ride the bus up to school. I turned on the radio and the reports were coming in of an airplane that had struck one of the twin towers. The reports were benign and seemed like a fluke tragedy.
I arrived at my office phone job where I worked customer service for the "Marriott Rewards" program. The phones were silent. Not a single one would ring. We sat their gathered around wheeled in TV's, watching the news unfold as the second tower was hit, as the towers collapsed, as the pentagon was hit and as they had the crash landing in PA.
I felt sick. Everyone felt sick, and helpless. We were sent home from work that day mid-way through. It seemed that no one wanted to see how their rewards were doing, nor did they want to plan a trip. It was very strange.
This would continue for a very long time. Our office had to "let people go" because there just wasn't enough customers wanting to redeem their rewards.
I was in my first trimester of pregnancy with Oscar and I was physically sick anyway. I recall a few days after the tragedy of us being paid to stand in the back parking lot of the building tearing out a page from all of the brochures because it was a page on the twin-tower Marriott.
I wanted to puke...and not just because I was pregnant.
I remember watching with my "cup half full" outlook, praying that they would find more survivors a week+ as they began to try to pull NY back together. I was sadly disappointed. Although there were success stories, there just didn't seem to be enough.
Rick's interviews that he had had lined up for jobs post graduation went cold. He decided to take the LSAT and see about Law school. Never had we considered this option before. In fact because of 9/11 he is an attorney today.
During law school we spent many hours flying across this nation. New security measures, and an ever presence of insecurity in the general populace, I always thought about those flights and those people who never made it home that day. It was haunting.
I wanted to write this down because everyone who was old enough to remember, has a similar story. Just like when JFK died, or many other historically marked tragedies, I will always remember. If I'm not here to tell you...you can pull up the archives of this blog and know that I lived that day and that my life has drastically been altered by this experience. Not necessarily for the worse, but certainly was a path that changed following the aftermath of this national tragedy.
To those who lost the most, I hope you have chosen to live and to share with the world the resilience and strength of the American spirit. We can do hard things and can make this world a better place.

Canned Food Inventory

Picture from last year

Tomatoes: 58 quarts
Salsa: 73 pints & 4 qt
Peaches: 54 qt
Pears (we haven't canned any this year) : 12 qt
Apricot Halves: 24 qt
Grape juice(none this year, which may include several bottles of vintage 2005): 27 qt & 1/2 gal.
Honey 120 lbs
Apples(none this year): 5 qt
Apple Pie Filling (none this year): 5 qt
Apricot jam: 32 pt
Cherry jam(none this year): 3 1/2 pt
Plum syrup(none this year): 2 pt
Black berry jam(none this year): 3pt
Strawberry jam: 2pt
Peach jam: 5pt
(Not included is the beans and wheat.)
Just in case I loose my handy dandy notebook, I want to be able to compare next years inventory.
Nothing quite like some home canned foods.

Budding Politician

Spiking your kids food for fun...

Hazel did her own tampering here...dip your bagel in the nice clean river water so that it softens up to the perfect consistency. (I should note I worried about giardia for the next week.)

If I'm not tampering with their food, sometimes I skip the whole make a "bagel and cream cheese" step, and just give them cream cheese on a knife.

(Poppy feeding herself)
Crapes are another food I find opportunity to stash all sorts of goodness into.

I'm not sure if I actually spiked his cereal, but that is the face I see when they actually figure out I have tampered with their food.

Oscar's spiked sucker that grandma sent 4 years ago...there's a cricket inside.

Tonight as I was preparing my two older children's bedtime snack of oatmeal, I decided I must make a post about how frequently I spike my children's food with all sorts of interesting things. Sometimes I do it entirely to see if they notice.
Take tonight for example: Oscar has repeated multiple times that he does not like whole milk or what her refers to as "Hazel milk". Even when we were entirely out of skim milk he said he would eat his breakfast without milk, so that he wouldn't have to use her milk. Therefore tonight I did what any other good mother would do, I used whole milk in his oats just to see if he would notice, even though we had skim in the refrigerator too. Did he notice? No.
Case in point# 2: Poppy has been getting up in the night for the past week. I decided that she must be mineral deficient or something...therefore I cut open one of my calcium pills and added it to her breakfast oats (I seem to see a pattern with oats, do you? You may want to consider skipping oats if you ever come to my house) did she notice? No.
Sometimes I do it is for nutritional value, or maybe to see if they will actually eat a different food that I know they say they hate, but maybe this time they will like it. The part that is the funniest is when I do it completely to humor myself, and they kids never even know it. Man I crack myself up. Maybe this is what parenting is all about...manipulating my littles.
Maybe it is my way of mixing things up a little. Either way I'm probably going to keep it up. Just to see.

Ocean Trip 2010

Once again we found ourselves at the Oregon coast doing what we love best, playing.
This year we had the special treat of having Auntie Nat tag along.
She was a big help and it was great having her around.
Here is one of the few family photos we were able to take. Funny how the children and spouse always have about the same crazy faces in EVERY one of them.
Hazel really enjoyed her new found freedom of being able to walk and explore the ocean for the first time.
We rented a Kayak and canoe on our second day. We stayed on Devil's Lake in Lincoln city. It was the best of both worlds...fresh water and salty.
Poppy was really excited about the little crabs. They may be one of the best parts of coming to the ocean. They are not to big to be threatening and very cute.

Broken camera...

I would like to blame our newly destroyed camera for my lack of posting, but I"m afraid I have simply just been lazy. Otherwise known as a writers block. Not that I haven't had tons to write about...In fact just today we had our bees swarm into our neighbors tree, about 60 feet in the air. Ricky climbed about 50ft up before having to abort the rescue mission. These are the days I am very much missing the camera!! Much has been going on, even if I have been on a little hiatus. Hopefully I can rectify my slump. Here are a few updates that surrounded Oscar's 8th birthday in may.

Grandma and grandpa came to visit..

Grandpa turned 20...I think that is how many candles were on the cake.

O'man got baptized. It was a very special day for all of us. He really is one great boy.

Oscar is officially a scout!! He couldn't be more excited. I was lucky enough to hang out at day camp with him in the very rainy 40 degree weather. Yeah, it was fun.

For his birthday Cake he ordered a lemon custard, chocolate pudding, chocolate whip cream pie. It was surprisingly tasty.

Overall things are well. We are enjoying the summer (with the lack of real summer temperatures) but otherwise happy to have the kids home from school for the summer and busy playing.
life is good!

My boy!

This is my 8year old boy, who by the way, will be baptized tomorrow.

I'm feeling quite sentimental and proud to be a mother. Not because he is getting baptized, but because he is such an amazing kid. I must have done something really great in our life before this one, to be lucky enough to be the mother of three great kids.
Truly when I sit back and consider this life, and all that I have been given, I am humbled by my Heavenly fathers plan and for the happiness I have received.
This is a special day for him and I hope he will cherish it always.

Happy Day to our Mommies!!!

Great Grandma Dilworth

Grandma Dilworth

Grandma Edge

(and the birthmomma Rosie)

Some flowers for you!

Dear Mom(grand, great, and in-law),

Thanks for being the great strong loving women that you are! Without sounding too cliche' or generic I hope each of you know that you have had a positive impact on my life and the life of my children. You are an inspiration to me. I often think of you and contemplate what choices you would make when I am in the midst of attempting to make a choice for my own parenting.
I appreciate you much more and more each year as I experience and recognize the million things you do and did everyday so that I and my family could be where we are today.
It is often a thankless job, with few short rewards. Thank you for being the women who made those sacrifices and created a world in which I could experience love, joy, happiness, and continual support as I make my own personal trek through this life.
Because of you I have an amazing husband, three beautiful children, and a sense of beauty, truth, and purpose for being the woman I am today!
Thank you!
I'm sorry your gifts weren't there to greet you this morning. They are coming...I'm sure you remember just how long it takes to get those packages created, assembled, packaged and sent. It is by no means a representation of our lack of love for you, on the contrary it is because we love you and want to give you something special, that we didn't just call and order you flowers today.
Here's a picture of some flowers to keep you company while your packages make their way to your doorstep!
We love you!!!
Love, the Edgie's

Brother Feltis

Our life on the Palouse would be poorly documented if we were to not include Mark Feltis ( A.K.A. our kids ward uncle). In all of his world travels he never fails to drop a postcard in the mail, making sure our kids get a good education about the deep and sometimes overlooked facts of the world outside of the Palouse. A little bit ago Oscar had his annual "bring someone special to breakfast" for our school. We thought mark fit the part perfectly...Oscar was pretty excited when he knew that Brother Feltis (that is how he is labeled at our house) had agreed to come along. It was great fun and the kids were sure to show Mark their best manners as they battled over the chocolate muffin. Thanks Brother Feltis for taking time for our kids! You are great!

Hazel Turns One...and 9 days

Our little Hazel who graced this world one year ago...

I'm sorry you had to spend your first birthday in the same place you began your life...
I didn't realize that you wanted a giant gorilla cage and my undivided attention for three straight days. Had I known, I think we could have arranged something at home. Instead, you were blessed with a lovely nose ornament and some extra rich oxygen...what more could a one year old want?
Finally after an extended long sick streak in our household, we decided it was time to give you a true 1 year old birthday party...albeit nine days late. Poppy helped to build a chocolaty beehive with tasty strawberry bees (they were the only part you would really end up eating, so I'm glad you approved of them).
You didn't like the feeling of having your clothes off...or the cold frosting. But you decided to give it a few tastes after eating a couple of the bees.

Poppy, the baking apprentice, was eager to lick the beater.
It was sooooo nice to have you back to your playful self.
I'm not sure what you enjoyed more, the balloons or the wrapping paper? Too bad we can't wrap a hospital bill for you to open. Don't worry, when we get it we will let you open it as a late birthday present.

You haven't decided that you want to walk yet, which is perfectly fine by me, but your are certainly perfecting your standing abilities! Poppy on the other hand is mastering the blowing of balloons.Oh, little Hazel!!! How I adore you and your little chipmunk smile!!! I can't believe you are one.
As a means of documenting your little quirks here is a short list of some of your developments:

You can stand, although you prefer to crawl, especially with things in your mouth or while holding the items and crawling with your hands full.

You have mastered the stairs, both to the sun room and the long set downstairs. You find great delight in your newly acquired freedom (I do however, have the right to block such passage to avoid you playing with the dog food...sorry)

You LOVE animals and you have mastered the dog and bear sounds and can give them on command! SOOO cute. Your little belly laugh every time you see an animal of any variety makes me chuckle. It actually was animal books that kept us sane while in the hospital...I was grateful to find the animal channel on the Television when they came and woke you up at 6am to weigh you. (We seriously need to teach hospital staff the importance of baby schedules!!!) The monkeys on T.V. kept you from pulling your nose piece out for about 30 minutes.

You have learned quickly the art of manipulation of your siblings, and your new-found screech that demands what ever it is you are currently wanting...not so attractive, highly obnoxious, but seems to be effective (note to self: figure out how to curb this behavior, especially at 2am).

We polished off the last of your birthday antibiotics and you seem to be healthy and well. You are one sweet baby that the entire family adores you...even smiley. I only have one last request...how about we give up the nursing?

January updates

Popster ready for pajama day at school...I'm not sure if she likes pink???

Hazel getting some lovin'

Family photo...Edge style. At least we have documentation that we all existed at the same time.

Ahhhh....the BINKI BLANKET!!!! This girl won't live long enough without it for it to be washed. She, just like her big brother, are in love with their blankies.