Today is the first day of Christmas vacation for olivia...and we wake up to snow! lincoln and her were very excited and could not wait to get out in it. They have been counting down the days with their adventskalender from liv's school and ask daily how many days until Christmas is here. here are some pictures of them in the snow. warning the video is pretty non eventful...sorry they cant be funny ALL the time.

quotes:
olivia- " I know we are not rich and we are also not poor. Because we a have a house and stuff....but we don't have a lot of gold things. Or limos."

olivia- " I wish we could celebrate Hanukkah. Oh wait never mind ...I don't, because I don't like those pancake things they have to eat. yuck"

halloween 2009

"Guess what?! I call Lincoln the 'King of the Babies' because he is better then all the other babies."-Olivia. (June 4, 2009)

Lincoln has been very interested in praying about rocket ships. At dinner every night if the person saying the prayer doesn't bless the rocket ships he sits there with his little eyes closed tight saying "bless the rocket ships" over and over until someone adds it to the prayer. He started doing this at church now. If the prayer in sacrament meeting doesn't include "please bless the rocket ships" (and surprisingly it usually doesn't) then he gets very sad, jonny usually has to add it on for him. cute lincoln.

school bags are done!

They are done! Thanks to everyone who helped with this project. I can just see the little children using them now...can't you. Olivia helped me fill them and she loved it, and was excited for the children to get them too. Do you want to do a project too?? Then go to http://www.ldsphilanthropies.com/ and look something up that you can make. (go to giving opportunities tab, and then humanitarian services, then patterns for download)

Anyway grandma sent me this website for amazing recipes that you should all be reading... http://www.smittenkitchen.com/ every recipe looks beautiful and delicious. Tonight i made Mediterranean eggplant and barley salad. I highly recommend it. I served it warm and added cooked shrimp and feta cheese....so yummy! Also on the menu for this week is the tomato and corn pie, and homemade pizza from this website. Also if you haven't been looking at http://www.cakewrecks.com/ it is a good laugh, and a must see as well.

Olivia: "mom I think lincoln will be a scientist, he is a smarty pants" "most people would make a good scientist...but lincoln would be a really really good scientist"

Olivia got a rocket kit for her birthday this year from jonny. She drew a sketch of how she wanted to paint it...hot pink and golden. They built it and painted it. They made a rocket launch pad and then we took it to the park and launched it! It was very exciting. Here is a messy little video of our first launch.

Does anyone remember this little girl? She has started 1st grade.

Here are some pictures of lincoln. He made a lotion beard..all by himself! And him playing with a new truck toy he got.

Thank you for leaving that slide of olivia on my bathroom ledge. It was a treat to find and makes me smile and cry every time i look at it. Slides are a beautiful thing..the light behind them brings them to life. Olivia and I were looking at it and she couldn't help but start to talk to the little girl in the slide. It looks so much more real and alive...I thought for a second myself that she may talk back to us. beautiful. We had a wonderful birthday party for her this Saturday. I will post pictures soon (as soon as they are emailed to me..hint hint). School starts tomorrow.

a couple little dolls I've been making.

Olivia and Lincoln trying to watch a 3-d movie
The at home 3-d is not comparable to the theatre 3-d

effects...so this didn't last long.

Our csa share from last week. This has been the biggest one

yet...And yippee ..NO greens except some baby lettuces.

This summer we have been in a strange transition between school and jobs. As a result we have had a lot of time to spend together as a family...even in a stressful time, it has been nice to be together. Lincoln has been really into saying "whats that" over and over...and over. so that's been fun. Olivia and I finally saw Coraline. It is now available at your Cincinnati public library for check out. The book was a better told story, but i definitely appreciate all the amazing work that went into the stop action movie. If you have older kids...say 8 and up "the graveyard book" also by Neil gaiman is pretty wonderful. Olivia is spending some time in Bloomington...today she is scheduled to go to the fair with my grandma. This is a tradition. We would go to the fair with my grandma every year. I grew to love every thing about the fair in Indiana. The animals and the wonderful 4-h building with the quilts and art work...I hope she loves it to.

Here is our little garden. So far the cucumbers have done great we eat them daily, and our zucchini has given us some delicious bread. The beans were a learning experience...we'll get it right next year. Does anyone have peppers yet? Are we really behind in the bell pepper department? Tomatoes will be here soon (yummy yummy). We have been getting a few a week from our csa and man oh man have I missed tomatoes. I rarely ever buy them during the winter because what you can get at the store......those are not tomatoes people!

Its been a long time coming, and I am so glad tomatoes are back. We also have some hot peppers and lots of herbs...oh and some beets. It turns out I'm not a real big fan of beets. who knew. I have been using the greens a bit, so its not a total waste. Oh and that big blue thing is our rain bucket that catches all the rain ,so we have water to put on the garden. it saves us millions probably.

happy 4th of july. This pretty much sums up our festivities. Oh yeah and we did some smoke bombs and watched all our neighbors...who were lighting off HUGE fly up in the sky stadium style fireworks. Yeah for explosives I guess.

liv.

at carols house.

jonny and anna in old town San Diego.

p.s. those cactus will bite you.

The back yard.

lincoln.

Well I guess It is time to get back in the habit of posting. Sorry about the long pause... our life has been a little busy lately. We had a wonderful time in California. It was so nice just relaxing and playing and seeing all the fun things. Disneyland was a hit...Lincoln still talks about pirates and mickeys house probably everyday. The kids, especially Olivia, Loved the beach. We went to the wild animal park and saw tons of cool animals really close up...and I got the bronze ring at the carousel. woo hoo. Is bronze the one you want? I think thats right...well anyway its the one that gives you a free ride.

The job hunt is slow slow slow. I have an interview on tuesday. Your prayers would be appreciated. Jonny has been working on his resume and then I guess he can start the tons of work he has to do on his portfolio. It is back to school season I guess. Boo Urns. But the good thing is the school supplies are really cheap! So... If anyone would like to donate a few school supplies to the school kits that grandma and I are putting together for the Humanitarian aid

just let me know, and I will get you a list. We all ready have a few contributors,okay one ...you know who you are and thanks very very much.

While we were in california we visited Jonnys aunt (on his moms side). She lives on this big plot of land out in the hills of nowhere. Liv & Linc loved it. She played with some Cousins she had yet to meet on an old school playground merry-go-round.They played with brand new baby kittens, and chicks, pet a frogs belly, and we meet this huge beast that they said was a dog..but it may have very well been a bear.

I better end this , I will post a new garden post tomorrow or the next. We have big beautiful plants...and some vegetables too!

It is hot. Pools open on june 1st and we are very excited about this new pool that was built close to our home. yeah for swimming. Olivia is out of school on thursday the 28th. Also there is no school on monday because of the holiday....so that makes 4 days left of her kindergarden days.

I am emotional about that. She has learned amazing amounts. counting by 2's to 100, how to read, singing, all about the earth, dinosaurs, butterflies were born in thier class, The voted for a name for the class pet and learned about the election, they grew flowers from a seed, they have been to wonderful places on field trips, I could go on forever. She has had a fun year. We are going to have a fun summer to. Today we made playdoough...It didnt really work out but they still had a lot of fun with it (which really is the point afterall ).

baby garden

Here is our baby garden. it is what a garden looks like when you have a tiny city yard. Its plenty for us...for now. Also our containers of herbs and hot peppers are started. I love to watch it grow, and to teach the kids about how it all works. And look!!! we have some blueberries...several bunches like this one. yummy yummy

Jonny spent a lot of the day at school....trying to graduate i guess :) So I took the kids for a walk.

We went across the street to the graveyard. the kids liked it a lot,  its a little bit of peace and quiet in a bustling city. Olivia was most interested in the mausoleums...which she was unable to get into because they are sadly locked up. The really old headstones were her next favorite and she would ask me to read them to her...She might have had more luck in reading them as they were all in German. There is a big section on the graveyard where the stones are so old they are just small flat and worn, or fallen into the earth and no longer legible...So you cant really tell anyone was buried there. It looks like a big open field and In the middle of the area is a big old tree. They spotted the tree and were anxious to get to it.  Olivia is pretending to be a warrior in the picture by this old tree. And here is a random one of lincoln trying to get to the green balls. S

OUr little plant box is doing pretty well. We may have to only end up buying bell pepper plants. We plan to get our compost and grasses all tilled into the garden this weekend...and then we plant! woo hoo.

Here is our little green house box at the beginning of its life. Updates to follow.

Lincoln is transitioning into a big boy bed...against my wishes. He just keeps climbing out of his crib and getting hurt so we had to turn his crib into a big boy bed, but he wont stay in it. He won't sleep. He is up all hours. I am tired. He thinks he is oh so very funny. Jonny went up the other night and he told lincoln "this is not a joke!" Lincoln's response is ...DADDY JOKE..hahahah DADDY JOKE..hahahah.

I guess he thinks it is a joke, and a funny one at that.

Here are Olivia and lincoln at the cincinnati kite fest. It was nice except for the lack of wind. And also jonny left his kite handles behind.

linc's new hair cut
lincoln was helping me bake, all he could do was grab chunks of baking chocolate (slightly sweetened)and shove it in his mouth. we used it anyway.

Okay..I think it is here. Its finally spring! We have been soaking up that beautiful sun the past couple days. Jonny and olivia and I took a nap on a quilt in the grass today. So great. I have been reading this fabulous book about the food industry, and the sad truth about what Americans eat. Anyway its getting me very excited to get my garden out. We signed up for a CSA this year, so That will be very wonderful to! So our produce is taken care of from may through october. Olivias fish winnie has passed. She won a new one at her school carnival a week after she died. The new one is named winnie...again-ie. Okay its really just winnie. Olivia has been talking about spring at school and they made kites this week. She was flying it down our neighbor joe's driveway and fell right on her face. She looks pretty tough now. We are leaving for Utah on wednesday and have non-stop flights! Yippie.

Lincoln Is really into the ice cream truck he hears it and starts yelling .."iceam bus, iceam bus".

Olivia-" whats so great about dinosaurs anyway? They're all extinct!"