Hard Rock

No, my title is not referring to a music genre. Or a certain chain of cafes around the world. No, we're talking about ROCK. Hard, solid rock.

This past week Brian's parents came down for a "helping visit" (in other words, we said, "We need help!" so they came). We needed to dig a trench about 500 ft. long for the underground electrical wires to go over to where my parents are going to have their piece of property. Since we wanted to do some kind of customized things, we decided to dig the trench ourselves rather than hire a company to do it. Brian's dad is a backhoe expert, running a farm and all, so he was the best man for the job!

We rented a backhoe and thought it would only take a day or so to get the trench dug. Off to a happy start!


Things were not happy for long, however, when we realized what we had to dig through. Rock. Lots and lots of hard rock.



It didn't take long before we realized we needed a jackhammer for this job. (And, I'm using the term "we" loosely here, since I of course was not heavily involved in this project other than documenting a little with some pictures...)

You can see in this picture one really tough spot that the backhoe could not get and had to be chiseled away with the jackhammer.


Brian would get down in the trench and try to break up the rock with the jackhammer and then his dad would try to scoop it out with the backhoe.





Tiring, back-breaking, extremely slow work!

After 2-3 days of not making much progress, they decided to try a different approach. Someone had suggested using a "Ditch Witch" and the guy at the rental place told them it would cut through about anything. Sounded perfect!


However, no luck. All it did was bounce around off the rock and wouldn't cut through it.


So they kept chipping away at it a little bit at a time. All the way in front of the shop...


and FINALLY over to the field where they zipped right through the DIRT (yeah for dirt!).


Fortunately the weather was decent most days, except for the last day. That day the COLD wind blew and blew and blew all day long. Those poor guys got really, really cold (and if you know Brian, it takes a lot for him to be cold!). We're so grateful for the help from our special visitors! THANK YOU!

(And we're also excited about the special cargo they picked up for us and brought down in their truck -- a WINDMILL! More on that later...)

Super Six-Year-Old!

Happy 6th Birthday to Courtney today!

We had a busy evening with a 4th grade concert at the school, but we managed to sneak in an early dinner (her choice of homemade pizza) so she could open her presents before we had to leave. (After McKay's concert, we stopped at McDonald's with a couple of other families for ice cream cones, then had cake when we got home, followed by a very late bedtime!)

I decided to try making a Barbie doll cake for Courtney this year. It actually turned out pretty good!

Instead of using a real Barbie doll, I bought a doll "topper" from the craft store (basically just the head and torso on a pick). I had read that real Barbie's are too tall unless you make extra cake to stack on the bottom.

Here she is for present time:

She got some fun presents. She was excited about the new Webkinz black poodle (a "sister" to Hannah's white poodle):

and some Playmobil sets from Grandpa & Grandma and Uncle Tyler...

She got a pretty good haul!

We had time to sing Happy Birthday and blow out the candles before we had to leave for the school. Courtney was very thoughtful about what her wish would be!

Courtney is quite a little spunky firecracker! We love her dearly. It's too late tonight for me to write more about her, but I did write a post about her earlier this year. (My intent was/is to do this for all the kids and I happened to start with her.)

Happy, Happy Birthday to our "Tenny B"!

Fairy Princess Party

Today was Courtney's 6th birthday party. Her actual birthday isn't until Tuesday, but the party was today. We let the kids have parties with friends every-other-year, so this was a party year for her. She was so excited!

We decided to invite only a few girls from church and school and make it a fairy princess party. As the girls were arriving, we had some princess coloring pages on the table and I went around and painted everyone's fingernails (those that wanted it). Then the girls made a wand from a craft foam kit and got to decorate with sparkly, glitter glue.

I made a bunch of tu-tus out of tulle for the party. A few weeks at at Stake RS Enrichment, I did a class to make one of these tu-tus and when I saw how easy they were, I thought it would be fun for her party as the "take-home" gift. So I ordered a bunch of tulle, cut it in strips and tied them around some elastic. I was a little worried about girls fighting over the different colors, but thankfully we didn't have any issues.

Here are the fairy princesses at the party today:

Then we cranked up the classical and they danced around the living room!

McKay deicded he needed to get in on the action too (crazy kid -- at first he put the tu-tu on over his waist, but I told him he was going to stretch it to much, so this is how he ended up):

After dancing, we had a little finger-foods lunch and I read the girls the story of The Princess and the Pea. We played a game where we would send one girl out of the room and then hide a green rubber ball under one of four pillows on the floor. We'd call the girl back in and she would have to sit/kneel on each pillow and decide which one had the "pea" under it.

Then it's time for cupcakes (chocolate, of course)...

and presents!

I think all the girls had fun. I did too, but I'm sure glad it's over!

Me vs. The Pole

I'm not sure I really want to be blogging about this little incident that happened this morning -- it's not exactly something I'm proud of, you know? But blogging is all about life and life sometimes includes some pretty dumb mistakes, right? So add this one to my list...

Saturday morning is gymnatics/dance class for the girls at 9:00am. So that means we're usually madly rushing around to make it out the door on time. This morning was no exception. Hop in the van and GO! Usually I back up into a little side/extended section of our driveway (by the basketball hoop) to turn around, but Brian's parents are visiting and were parked there, so I had to back all the way out of the driveway to turn around on the gravel section. (Hmmm, maybe I can blame this on them... just kidding!)

I'm zooming out, looking over my right shoulder (only) when there's a big thud on my left. Oops. Minivan, meet the gate pole:

I hop out, pick up the rear-view mirror on the ground...

...notice that the outer casing for the rear-view mirror is a little loose and off we go (we're going to be late, remember?)

Later my friend stopped by and I told her what happened. When I talked to her on the phone later and asked her if she noticed the mirror, she said "Yeah, and I saw the dent too." Dent? What dent? Yikes.

Out to the van for another look. Yep, a dent and scratch over the front wheel:

And a nice big scratch and dent along the driver's side door too.

Oh dear.

Lesson learned from this mistake? I hope so. Will there be more mistakes? Most certainly. Scratches and dents and broken mirrors -- that's what life is all about, right? :-)

10 Years

Wow, I can't believe my little boy turned 10 years old today! He is so excited to be in "double digits." We're very glad that we have McKay in our family. I know he feels a little outnumbered frequently but he usually puts up with his sisters pretty well. :-)

When I asked him what kind/theme of cake he wanted this year, he thought for quite a while before finally saying "I don't know - maybe a computer?" (Apparently he doesn't have a very strong preference like the girls usually do.) So this is what I came up with:


He requested pizza for dinner (as he does every year!), which we had to eat a little early because he had to go to Scouts tonight. After dinner was time for presents and cake.


This is the first present he opened:


You would think a 10-year-old boy wouldn't be so excited about a lullaby CD of Christmas bedtime songs. But, as I've said before, McKay doesn't always fit the "mold" for a typical 10-year-old boy. I got him this CD because he loves the other one we have (Primary songs for bedtime). He listens to it every night as he falls asleep. The girls frequently complain that they've heard it too many times, but he always wants the same one. So when I saw they also had one of Christmas songs, I thought he might like it. And he did.

This was his main present from Mom & Dad:



It's labeled as a Walkman, but it sure isn't like the Walkman I used to have. :-) This one is an MP3/video player for his long bus rides.

We also gave him a set of 3 books (by Andrew Clements) and then he was excited for this big present from Grandpa & Grandma and Uncle Tyler.


He can't wait to try it out on our property!

Our friends the Roberts came to pick him up for Scouts and brought him another present:


Yes, McKay has finally joined the Star Wars world. :-) It's taken him a while, but he started watching some of the new Clone Wars animated series on TV and then wanted to watch the movies. So far he's watched the original trilogy (which are still my favorites) and then he's watched the first one, plus part of the second. In the past he's always been too scared to watch more intense movies like this, but now he seems to enjoy them.

We had cake and ice cream -- and several attempts at blowing out the candles. I think he pretty much got one candle per blow. :-)



McKay is definitely his Dad's buddy. He absolutely adores his dad and wants to be doing whatever it is his dad is doing. He also has his dad's engineer mind, I think, because he is very logical and does well with math and science. He loves learning about how things work and taking things apart. His favorite TV shows are on either the Discovery Channel or the History Channel. He usually prefers to read non-fiction over fiction. He does well at school and I get lots of compliments on how well-behaved he is.

McKay is learning how to play the piano and enjoys playing sports to a certain degree. He is probably the most shy of our kids and takes a bit longer to warm up to people or to speak up. He can be a great helper when I need him to be. We love having him in our family!

I was going to try to pick out some personality shots of him over the years, but it's getting too late and I have way too many pictures to sort through. :-) So I just pulled one from around his birthday each year to see how my little boy is definitely growing up!

1998...


1999 (age 1)...


2000 (age 2)...


2001 (age 3)...


2002 (age 4)...


2003 (age 5)...


2004 (age 6)...


2005 (age 7)...


2006 (age 8)...


2007 (age 9)...


2008 (age 10!)...

Pumpkin Baking

I've tried two new pumpkin recipes this fall and have LOVED them both! You need to try them! (And sorry the pictures aren't so great -- food photography is one area I still need some practice in!)



Frosted Pumpkin Cookies

1 C. butter
½ C. brown sugar
½ C. white sugar
1 C. canned pumpkin
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2 C. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. salt

Frosting
3 Tbs. butter
½ C. brown sugar
¼ C. milk
2 C. powdered sugar

Cream sugars and butter. Add pumpkin, egg and vanilla. Add remaining ingredients. Drop spoonfuls onto non-greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.
Frosting: Boil butter and brown sugar until mostly smooth (2-3 min.). Cool and add milk and powdered sugar or until desired consistency. Whip with hand mixer until smooth. Spread onto cookies.



Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

2 C. flour
2 C. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
4 eggs, beaten
2 C. (1 can) canned pumpkin
1 C. cooking oil
2/3 C. chocolate chips

Mix together. Fill muffin cups and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. Makes 2 dozen muffins.

Delicious!!