Redemtion...Holiday style

Happy New Year From the Edge's
Look...a Family photo!!! We are off to a good start!
(OK, so this was Christmas eve, but since we didn't send out Christmas cards, this will have to do.)

We were lucky enough to get a nice little blizzard this week that has helped to keep our kids occupied.
This girl loves the snow but refuses to wear gloves...burr.
The boy showing off his skills on his new pogo stick. He was pretty disappointed on Christmas morning when his mom could pogo better than him. He is now working on showing me up.
Also not pictured, the boy decided to try out his new super awesome sleeping bag by sleeping in our freezing cold sun-room on a night when the temps dipped into the single digits...thanks grandma. He said he stayed warm!
Poppy wearing her new Rapunzel hair and dress...oh, the indulgent grandma, what would she do without you??? You certainly have the knack for knowing exactly what she would love. I do however win points for getting her a bead/creative box that has been getting pretty good play time too. Pretty sure that Rapunzel didn't have that in her tower!
Hazel didn't even have to ask to know that the barn and animals were hers. From the minuet she walked int o the room she had them in her hands.
The girls were pretty content with their pre-opened gifts prior to breakfast. We generally don't let them open gifts until after breakfast. This way they get to play with whatever is out on the floor and the other gifts come after.
Poppy was happy being Mary for our Christmas Eve nativity.Our good friends Helen and Justin came over for Christmas eve. We made our annual gingerbread trains. I was delighted by the fact that Oscar and Poppy are now old enough to handle the frosting themselves. They are really getting independent!
Christmas Eve I told Rick that I wanted him to take the kids out while I cleaned up the house and got it ready for Christmas. He then told me they were going hiking and I decided to forgo my plan...no way are they going without me! The bonus was that I got a awesome Family photo out of it. BTW I consider any photo that has my entire family in it-with them all facing forward a success. This may just go on our mantle.

(Oscar wore his cycling hat as a winter hat. Funny thing is, it doesn't cover your ears. I lent him mine half way through.)

Oscar did the extra two mile section with me. I always love it when I can hang with the o-man. He always has such great ideas and thoughts that come about when we are one-on-one.

Well, there you go, my first post of 2011. I am hoping to redeem my blogging self with the new year. I would love to catch up on the ups and downs for 2010, but then I get overwhelmed and don't know where to begin. So, lets just say I'll re-commit to do better this year than last. It shouldn't be too hard to do. Happy New year Blog world!

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.

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.

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

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.

The girls

(Poppy 10 months old)

I meant to write on this sooner but I got distracted. This is Poppy in the yellow pj's...a little younger than Hazel in the photo...

Here's Hazel in the same pair. I can see the difference can you?
I will also document soon some of our happenings...it just takes time getting from camera to computer...life is good. Oh, and Hazel is 11months old!!!!