House O' Sullivans

. . . tonight's event was CARAMEL APPLES!!  Not exactly healthy (except for the fact that there's an apple in there somewhere), but fun and delicious, none-the-less.  I decided that to celebrate the "harvest season" this year, we'd have at least one "harvest activity" each week.  Our creations speak for themselves.  (And, of course, we did all of this in the backyard.)

This morning's main event was a hike up Millcreek Canyon.  Spring and I rounded up the kids early and headed up Porter Fork--one of my favorite fall hikes.  The road is gated at the bottom and winds up through dozens of older (unique and very charming) cabins, many hidden back in the woods behind tall trees and just beyond weathered bridges.  Towering trees line the sides of the road and lean together in the middle, creating the illusion of a natural tunnel.  In the fall, this tunnel is brilliantly illuminated with the colors of autumn.  The stream rocks are covered with "fairy moss" and the whole area seems absolutely magical.  The kids collected dozens of glorious red, yellow, and orange leaves, explored lots of cabins, tossed "leaf boats" into the stream, and enjoyed a picnic of freshly harvested fruits, vegetables, and peanut-butter and honey sandwiches.  Perfect!

Since the kitchen is still ripped apart (it's been more than a month in the non-functional state) we spend a whole lotta time in the backyard.  The weather has been PERFECT, so it's been a blessing to enjoy it so fully. Soph and Hal carefully, painstakingly, taped these two apple boxes together.  The newly constructed device is a boat, a train, a car, pretty much WHATEVER the situation calls for.

Sophie and Hallee are playing on a local rec-center soccer team.  After their first game, a couple of weeks ago, the coach asked the team what they should call themselves.  Many suggestions were given, and after the vote, no conclusion could be made.  The official team name stands as the Bumblebee Dragon Princesses.  They are one amazing team with two superstar players that make like 20 goals a game.  Our girls?  They just chase the ball in a giant herd.  The formation of 3 and 4 year old reminds me of a comet--concentration of kids around the ball, then a trailing tail.  Oh well, they have fun and Soph and Hal are quite pleased with their pink shin-guards.

. . . the Zeke-Horse, that is!  I took these pictures of the kids after church last week.  We'd walked home and the kids all picked apples at our neighbor Shirlene's house along the way.  (We have REALLY nice neighbors.)

All of my kids have been fascinated with shoes.  Even now, Sophie and Hallee still pull all of my shoes out of the closet to set up "shoe stores" and try on various pairs, then clomp around the house.   Zeke follows in the tradition of his sisters.  He was walking around outside with one of Sophie's shoes on this week.  It was so cute I had to take some pictures.

A few weeks ago when we ripped out the kitchen cabinets and flooring, I started herding the kids outside to the covered patio for meals.  Thanks to our neighbor Annie's donation--an old redwood picnic table--we still had a place to eat.  Thankfully, the weather during the last few weeks has been AWESOME.  This week Casey started cutting the counter top from a slab I picked out at the stone yard and he took over our secondary table. So NOW we are eating at the tertiary table in the middle of the backyard.  It's constructed from a large piece of wood, supported by Casey's giant boulder and an old sawhorse (that doubles as the girl's practice soccer goal) and stabilized by a few additional rocks.  Hallee just about dumped the whole thing over at dinner tonight. I'm REALLY hoping that we can get the kitchen done before it gets cold.  Or before we get moved to a quaternary table.  This is getting really CRAZY.

I usually ask the girls what their FAVORITE part of the day was before they go to bed at night.  When I asked Hallee the question tonight, she replied, "Going to the fair."  That was interesting since we DIDN'T go to the fair today (although we did go a couple of weeks ago).  Then I asked her what her favorite animal was at the fair (since that's the main thing we did when we went a couple of weeks ago--checked out all of the animals.)  Her reply: "The unicorns."  And she was totally SERIOUS.

Sophie asked her primary teacher, Sister Farley, if she could pick some peaches from her tree on the way home from church.  Of course she said, "yes."  And of course, ALL of the kids picked peaches and came home sauced.  (Good thing Zeke was ALREADY wearing an orange tie.)

Last Monday we had our family home evening at Liberty Park.  The girls rode all of the kiddie rides they could.  They even let little Zeke-Horse on the carousel and the Ferris wheel (one that is over 100 years old).  The girls LOVED it.  I asked Hallee if she was having a fun time and she said, "Oh yes mom, it's like the FIREWORKS!" If you study this shot closely, you'll observe Casey Bert with Hallee and Zeke having the time of their lives. After the rides, there were the obligatory "ice cones" as Sophie calls them (snow cones) and popcorn, then it was off to the hill climbing and log rolling. We had the lesson proper on "the island" in the pond.  I'd just reviewed a talk that Elder Bednar gave in conference a couple of years back about being "more diligent and concerned at home."  He counseled us to: 1.  express our love to each other in our families often in word and action 2.  verbally share o...

Life at the Sullivans has been CRAZY this week.  Our kitchen is TOTALLY gutted.  Not only are there no cabinets on the walls or flooring on the floor, but there are gaping holes in the walls exposing the wiring and exposed floor joists.  (We ripped the floor out down to the joists.)  This whole thing started back in April when during a Saturday session of conference, Newel, Karen, Arden, and Maya came over and helped us tear out the wall between the kitchen and the living room.  Mary's father-in-law, John Goebel, an engineer, did the math and then our neighbor, Hayden, helped us put up a beam to support the house.  We had some guys come do the sheet rock work and our friend Dave helped us re-route the electrical from the removed wall.  The next step was the kitchen.  The more we removed from the kitchen, the more it became evident that we needed to rip it all out and start over--replacing old wiring, corroded pipes, rotten layers of sub floo...

I never believed those people who professed to "forget their age."  I also thought it preposterous that some people would stop and think, calculating from the year of their birth, their age.  Was it really possible to NOT KNOW how old you were? Well, I am now one of those ridiculous people.  A couple of weeks ago someone asked me how old I was.  I paused to quickly tabulate the number, then said, "I'm almost 38!"  Whoops.  I didn't realize THAT mistake until a couple of days later.  August 23rd turned me into a 37-year-old.  I think.  I ordered my own birthday dinner--Papa John hooked me up.  His cinnamon pizza was MY birthday cake.  Yum! Early in the day Sophie made me this special "birthday necklace."  When she handed it to me she said, "This has most of the letters from my name mommy."  Sophie DOES know how to spell and write her name and does so with regular accuracy.  I'm not sure how...

We hosted a family dinner in our back yard to honor Nate before he drove home to Colorado Springs.  (Thanks Johnsons for letting us borrow and helping us set up a million tables and chairs AGAIN!)  Nate just left Colorado for Afghanistan again, so today is a fitting day to post these pictures.  Kristen, Mary, and Newel were there with their families as well as Grandma and Paka and  Uncle Leroy and Aunt Cupcake with guest appearances by BOTH Lemmons--truly a rare and delightful treat.  Sterling Lemmon has been Nate's friend forever.  Nathan met him in elementary school.  He first observed Sterling, fist clenched, hitting a brick wall over and over (he wanted to get tough) and knew they were meant to be bffs.  The Lemmons are LEGENDARY in White family folklore. A rare occurrence--five of the six White siblings appear in one place at one time.  Look at us!  We could definitely be a gang.  (Just missing Beezer.) So...