The North Country

A couple of weeks ago we ventured north to Logan to welcome home my niece Jaana. She had been doing an internship for Rep. Stewart and working for a lobbyist, all in DC. We missed her! Even though we don't see her too often because she lives in Logan anyway, my kids were well aware that their beloved Jaana was across the country and they could feel it. We are so glad she decided to come home for her senior year at USU (instead of finishing online) so we can see her more.

When we rolled into town Friday night, we stopped at a snowcone shack because surprise! my brother and sister-in-law now own two snowcone shacks. It made the request to stop there instead of their house at 8 pm make so much more sense.

Snowcone queen Lisa. All the other aunts and uncles have quite the challenge to dethrone Matt and Lisa as favorite aunt and uncle. They have a snowcone shack, guys. This is how Lisa is going to meet the other half of Logan.

Since I was craving Aggie ice cream like nobody's business we drove up to the creamery and brought our ice cream back to the shack on 4th north.

The kids had a great time eating ice cream and snowcones and hanging out in a parking lot way past their bedtime.

Lisa even let me go inside and make a snowcone! I made horchata for Justin and made him guess. He did. The first two hours of our time in Logan were probably the most fun for all of us. I just like being up there.

Saturday my parents and Meredith and Rachel and their families joined us (James slept great that night, btw, as long as he has a dark room all to himself). We packed lunches and went to Tony Grove up Logan Canyon. I don't know why I had never been there. I lived the first 8 years of my life in Logan and a year of college and I don't think I had even heard of it.

First we ate lunch at the campground. There were a lot of wasps so Henry sat far away from where they were buzzing.

Fun fact about my mom: She always brings a tablecloth. Either she hates dirty picnic tables or just loves tablecloths. That and earrings, she never leaves home without them. And James is cutest.

My cute girls. Sarah decided most emphatically that she does not like peanut butter on her jam sandwiches. Nevermind she ate them most days last school year.

James just gets dirtier from this point on.

Fallen logs are nature's playground.

Then we moved over to Tony Grove lake. It's such a pretty pond/lake. There were some kayakers and paddleboarders. It was too cold to swim so at first the activity was throwing rocks into the water.

It's times like this that I'm glad James doesn't care to get wet. I don't have to worry about him walking or falling in.

Hey there's Jaana! No one is as loved by these kids as Jaana. Kyra wasn't there that day as she was getting adjusted to her new life as a college freshman at USU (All 3 of the Syme kids are USU students this year. Isn't that fun?). Kyra is a favorite too.

A select group of men from the family were hiking on to White Pine Lake. Justin tried out the log before they departed.

Then most of us went on a walk around Tony Grove. The men left us at their turn-off and the moms and the kids continued on around the lake.

Tom Brady Henry and the rest of the kids climbed on every rock they could find.

Fun fact #2: A great big white owl flew out of this cave as the kids arrived. It was cool.

Then we made it back to our spot and the kids played on the log in the water. James ate other people's food.

Henry tripped and got mostly wet so then he decided to just get all wet. Erica followed soon thereafter.

Cute little cousin friends.

I'm going to make them recreate these photos in 15 years.

When the men came back we drove to Garden City and got dinner at Le Beau's. Then we drove across the border into Idaho and took the Wyoming way home so that Henry could loudly tell his friend in the chapel the next day that he was in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming all in the same day.

It was a short trip but a fun trip and we definitely tired this boy out. He barfed as soon as we pulled onto our street at 10:30pm. Poor kid.

Baby Einstein

Aside from being taller than my other babies, James seems to be developing speech and language faster than my other children too. At 21-months old, he picks up new words every day and he speaks almost exclusively in sentences. (Most of those sentence begin with "No" or "I don't want..." or "No, Mom. Shh.") I've been bowled over by some of the things he says and comprehends---so much so that I've wondered if I'm raising a GENIUS! 

Signs James may be a baby genius

He ran over to the toaster and said "Two lights!" He was right. There were two lights lit up.

He can say 49. Either he pretends to count and ends on 49 or he'll run in to tell me something important and end with "49!"

He does a killer Cookie Monster impression.

He got in the face of a 12-month old and asked her "What your name?" (I'm not sure he knew what he was asking but he knows that's something you ask.)

He can say things like, "Oh yeah, it's heavy, Mama."

He can say purple.

Signs James may be a normal baby

He says every color is purple.

Even when his fingers were covered in mountain soil, he sucked on them anyway. "Want taste, Mom?"

And then we have Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

And Exhibit D

Genius or not, I'm blowing through my supply of Magic Erasers. None of my other children ever did this. He is exceptional.

Back to School! (Aw Yeah!)

Hey school started. Wanna know what I'm not going to miss seeing every day? 

I kind of felt bad we didn't get to some of the things on their summer bucket list so the last couple of days before school started, I tried to shove in some kind of cool but not really cool things to do. There's a new pet supply store near our house that my kids are curious about. I think they thought it was a zoo where you could take the animals home. I took them inside after our weekly Walmart run. They were so excited as we walked up to the store and then when we stepped inside, the smell hit them and they immediately asked if we could leave.

After being grossed out by the molting lizards, we headed to the fish tanks.

 They liked finding fish from movies. "Hey this one looks like Flounder!"

 James liked the "baby fish."

 There was a lot of excited jabber from all the kids but they didn't ask for a pet fish.

This was their reaction to the ferrets. Erica and Sarah are holding their noses. James is excitedly telling us they are puppies.

But a puppy never creeped out James like the ferrets did.

Then we went down the row of hamsters, gerbils and then I saw the mice. Sarah and I got a minor case of the heebie jeebies, backed away slowly and high-tailed it out of the store. We calmed ourselves down by looking at throw pillows at Ross.

Friday I channeled my pioneer spirit and sliced and froze 30 peaches from our tree, ground a bunch of wheat, used that wheat and some oats to make 36 large pancakes and then individually froze those pancakes and then bagged them! I also made a batch of pancake mix for when those pancakes run out. I added the bags of pancakes and peaches to the loaves of frozen French toast from the day before. You guys, seriously, I deserve some sort of domestic merit badge.

 I channel my enthusiasm for school into healthy and easy breakfast.

 Monday morning I asked the kids if they'd rather just stay home and be lazy on their last day of summer or if they wanted to do something we hadn't done yet. They discussed it together and decided on doughnuts at the park.

 We should all approach life the way James eats doughnuts. All in.

 My pictures at the park are mostly of James because my other kids run off.

 In true Henry style, he quickly made a lady friend.

 You'd think they were life long buds instead of just meeting 10 minutes ago. They did everything together.

Then things got a little clingy on her part. When she followed us to the far side of the playground and I heard her asking Henry, "Where did you go?" or "Where have you been my whole life?" I told her I heard her mom calling for her.

When you tell your kids "If you get wet, I don't have any extra clothes for you so you'll have to ride home soaking wet" they hear "Go get wet then I'll take you home."

 Then we dried off and met their teachers. Henry is in second grade with Mrs. Groneman. His teacher was so nice and friendly and cool and her classroom was so fun and well organized. I want to be in her class and I told her so. She doesn't assign any homework besides reading each day so we already appreciate her.

Sarah is in Mrs. Wilson's fourth grade class. She's in the older half of the building now. Her classroom is obviously less cutesy and there are maps all over. I realized she'll be studying Utah history this year. Man, she's old.

After an early dinner, we took the kids swimming at the Spanish Fork pool to celebrate finishing the Book of Mormon as a family for the 3rd time (maybe? I haven't kept track.) It took us 20 months this time. The day before school starts is the day to go to the pool. There were 12 people there besides us. I didn't take any pictures but if I did, there would be dozens of photos of my kids coming down the waterslide. Since there was no line, they just went up and down, up and down. Unfortunately we had to get out because of lightning in the area and then a big storm blew in. The kids were super bummed so at home we had ice cream and watched home videos.

Tuesday's the day! It's like Christmas morning. Just to be clear, my enthusiasm is only partly from wanting less crazy-fighting-messy days around here. I honestly love school and am living vicariously through them. I love buying school supplies and helping them with outfits, helping in their classes, etc.

She picked out this shirt and paid for it herself.

 Henry put together this all black outfit all by himself. The second day of school he added his Patriots jersey and the third day I told him he couldn't wear any of it and had to wear any of the other 10 shirts or shorts he owned.

 Photo-bomb James!

Can you find photo-bomb Erica?

 All day long Erica went back and forth from being super bored and sad and missing Sarah to relishing in having the remote all to herself and bossing James around.

James didn't really care that they were gone and wouldn't be bossed by Erica.

Last year was nice while it lasted--no preschooler or kindergartener, shoo the kids out the door to the bus, welcome them home when the bus brought them back. We don't have a bus anymore. We are within the 1.5 mile range and now have continuous sidewalk. 

Henry collapsed on the ground after his ride home. He was so sweaty too. It's mostly downhill from school to our house but it's still 1.5 miles.

 The bus made Sarah sick so she doesn't care and she likes the freedom of riding home like a big kid. Do they make scooters with snow tires?

Most days they'll bike to and from school. Erica starts preschool in a couple of weeks so on those days I'll drive them all to school and they'll ride their scooters home. And probably do that every day when it gets too chilly in the mornings. I'm not looking forward to driving in the snow.