Missing: One Leatherman

Brady loves the leatherman tool. When Shawn gets home at night, Brady either takes the leatherman right our of Shawn's belt(most of the time without him knowing) or climbs up to the dryer(where Shawn puts his leatherman) and takes it. He loves to play with the pliers and grab things with it. Shawn now has lost one leatherman due to Brady's obsession. I think I need to go find a play leathermen for Christmas. THis time he had pulled my oven racks out and were playing with them.So like father like son. They both recommend you keep a leatherman on hand all the time

November Hot Dog Roast

The weather has been so nice lately, that Garret thought we needed to have a hot dog roast. He asked Dad and he agreed. So Monday night we had a hot dog roast. THe boys built up the fire and the kids just couldn't wait for the fire to burn down so they could roast hot dogs. It did cool off quickly, but it was relaxing to sit around a fire and eat outdoors. We had our pick between regular hot dogs and polish sausages. I think that it was decided that most everyone liked the polish sausages better. I didn't have big marshmellows so we roasted starbursts for dessert. They were pretty good, but could be hot and sticky. Everyone smelled like fire for the next couple days, but it was fun to have a hot dog roast out of season.

Boys in a Box

We keep looking for a way to contain the boys and this is what we came up with. Actually, the boys had emptyed a toy container and were both sitting in there watching TV and I just couldn't pass up the photo op. Garret and Brady love each other. Most of the time their first thought is of each other. They wake up and need to hug each other. I hope this continues.

Halloween 2009

I know it's been awhile but, we are slow going this fall. Here I am blogging about Halloween where we are only 1 1/2 weeks away from Thanksgiving. Oh well, here we go. The week of Halloween I was still recovering from the SWINE FLU. Just saying the name freaks people out. It was going around the schools rapidly. Anyway, enough said. The poor children of the Shawn Peterson household did not get any regular traditions of Halloween this year. Let's have a moment of silence. No carving pumpkins and no sugar cookies. We did throw together costumes for the ward's trunk or treat. Blakely came up with a girl vampire. Katelyn was Hannah Montana. Garret was a solider. Brady was a Vrrommie otherwise know as a Motorcross dude. We went to the church and enjoyed a wonderful dinner and games. Then the kids walked around gathering candy. The kids of course came home and traded candy, which may or may not be fair. And the questions remains, do you let the kids eat as much candy as they want and get the candy out of your house or let them only have a few pieces a day. Well, we did the first. I don't know if we did it right but oh well.

What Brady loves right now!

Brady loves to color. If someone else is drawing or coloring he has to get in the thick of things. We have had a few drawings on the wall, door, or body. We hope that when he had to scrub the door with his Dad he will not do it again. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

October Snow

We woke up Sunday morning to snow. It was such a heavy and wet snow. It snowed pretty much all day Sunday. The kids were just begging to go out to play in it. Finally, the parents relented and the kids played until they had blue fingers and toes. Katelyn and Eva made a snow dinosaur and Garret and Will made a snow dinosaur.(my camera died before I could take a picture of Garret and Will's) The snow was gone by Tuesday but it was nice to see snow, but it was telling us winter is just around the corner.

Apple Pressing!

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It is that time again, when we get to pull out the apple press and make yummy apple cider. Well, it just so happens that everyone bugged out on us this year, so we recrutied Kim and her family for the adventure. So rude that Grandpa Manwaring went to Kentucky and Blake's family moved to Michigan. We picked apples Saturday morning and then pressed apples all afternoon as we listened to conference. In all we made 41 gallons of apple juice. The morning we went over to pick apples in the freezing cold. All the kids picked apples until we had filled all our containers. We headed home with the kids wanting ice cream after freezing outside, don't quite get that. We got home getting ready to press apples all afternoon. As always the younger kids usually have fun for alittle while and then they lose interest. Katelyn was our babysitter for Luke and the rest of the kids in the house. Blakely stayed outside with us, manning the bottles. I kept reminding her to be careful in pouring the juice into bottles, but soon enough Mom hits the bucket on the table and spills juice out of the bucket. We thought about making applesauce and pie filling, but by 6:30 we decided just to juice everything. I still would like to try pie filling, so maybe next weekend. We have been offered more apples so maybe Shawn and I will juice some more. It is nice to have yummy apple juice in our freezer.