New Year's Eve Sledding Party

On New Year's Eve I hosted a sledding party for the Chudleigh extended family.  We are fortunate to have a great sledding hill in our backyard.  I love it because I can watch the kids sled out of my kitchen windows.  I do enjoy sledding myself from time to time, but not as often as kids do.  I didn't get out to sled on New Year's Eve because I was busy in the kitchen making white bean turkey chili, chili, cornbread, pumpkin pie cake and pineapple upside-down cake. I didn't have to provide the entire meal.  My Mom made minestrone soup, my Aunt Sheryl made a potato soup, Brittney brought a veggie platter and homemade hand held pies in four different flavors.  My Uncle Steve and Aunt Lisa came up from Lindon with my four cousins.  Alyssa (19) and Diana (16) thought they were too old to sled, but Clayton (13) and Ethan (6) had a great time outside with Justin, my kids, Hannah, James, Nathan and my sister Jessica.  Thanks go to Jess for the all the photos.  Everyone had a great time visiting, eating and sledding.

Nate, Barrett and James ready to go, 

with Blythe in the background.

Nate, Barrett and James heading downhill fast.

Notice how none of them have their eyes open.

Blythe and Barrett on the tube.

Blythe on a saucer.

Barrett, James and Hannah full of smiles.

Barrett's favorite way to sled, on Justin's back.

Blythe trying to "snowboard."

Brynne copying her big sister.

An attempt at a sled train.

Blythe, James, Brynne and Barrett with Justin watching.

Christmas 2008

We traditionally have our big family dinner on Christmas Eve at my parent's house and this year was no exception.  We had my entire immediate family present and my Grandma Rich too.  We had a fabulous dinner of pot roast with potatoes and carrots, mashed potatoes, peas, orange glazed sweet potatoes, Justin made dinner rolls, my Mom made orange rolls, and I made a new salad with romaine lettuce, baby spinach, pears, fennel bulb and dried cranberries.  We had a couple of different desserts including lemon bars and my favorite Sticky Toffee pudding.  

Five of the seven grandkids posed in front 

of Grandma's Christmas tree.

We had three tables set for dinner.  The three boy

cousins sat together.  We always have Christmas

crackers and wear the colored tissue paper crowns

while we eat dinner.

After dinner we tried something new (for us) and had the kids dress up and act out the Nativity.  Brynne was a shepherd, Blythe was Mary, Barrett was supposed to be a wise man, but refused to wear a costume.  Nathan was Joseph, Hannah was an angel, and James was the cutest sheep you've ever seen.  Jessica stripped 13 month old Tyler down to his diaper to be baby Jesus, but he was even less cooperative than Barrett.  My Dad told a very condensed version of the Christmas story and then we sang Christmas carols while my Dad played the piano.  The kids really got into Jingle Bells.  Then since we weren't going to be together the next day we exchanged gifts.  Barrett almost fell asleep while we were singing, but revived enough to open his presents.  He conked out for good shortly afterwards and missed dessert.  

Brynne sitting on her Great-Grandma Rich's lap.

Walt at the piano.

Waiting to open presents.

Our Christmas tree.

The kids stockings and presents from Santa.

Christmas Day the kids woke up at the respectable hour of 7:00 a.m.  Unfortunately, Justin had woken up earlier than that to throw up.  He was able to join us to watch the kids open their stockings and then we moved right on to all the presents under the tree.  I remember as a child when we would spend Christmas with my grandparents in Pennsylvania that we could open our stockings as soon as we got up, but we had to wait to open the presents until everyone had woken up, eaten breakfast and gotten dressed.  I remember waiting anxiously for my aunt and uncle and two small cousins to finally appear.  There was no tortuous waiting for my kids this year.  As soon as all the presents where opened Justin went back to bed where he stayed most of the day.  We had planned to go to Salt Lake to see Justin's extended family.  Both the Petty's and the Barrett's were having brunch at 11:00 a.m.  I'm still not sure how we were going to pull that off.  For the first time ever we just stayed home all day.  At first the kids were thrilled to be able to play with their new toys right away.  Especially Barrett who had gotten some new trains for his Brio set.  But by 4:00 p.m. the novelty had worn off and Brynne had declared it, "The worst Christmas EVER!" because she was so bored.  By then the snowstorm that we had been expecting all day finally materialized and I decided it wasn't worth the effort to go up to my parent's house for dinner.  I would have had to snowblow the driveway twice.  Luckily, we had brought some of the leftover pot roast home with us since my Mom didn't have room in her refrigerator so we had plenty to eat.  I never did get another piece of Sticky Toffee pudding though.  Justin's Dad ordered a Thomas the Tank Engine playhouse for Barrett.  He was so thrilled that he had to sleep in it that night.  My parents had given him a Cars sleeping bag, pillow and flashlight set, so he put those inside his Thomas and actually slept in there for about three hours before waking up and crawling into bed with me and Justin.  

Barrett in his Thomas playhouse.

All ready for bed, notice he is holding his new engine.

Justin's Birthday

Justin's birthday is one week before Christmas on December 18th. I always feel a little bit sorry for him having his birthday so close to Christmas.  He also has a twin brother and he says that growing up he was frequently given  birthday/Christmas gifts to share with his brother.  How sad is that?!  I must say that Justin's Mom did her best to make their birthday special and individual including sometimes making two cakes.  I know one year Justin requested a birthday cake of Santa going down the chimney and Kathy delivered.  His tastes have matured and it has become a tradition for me to make Justin a chocolate cake with peppermint filling and chocolate ganache frosting.  

The birthday boy by the light of 37 candles.

A better look at the birthday boy.

A view of the inside of the cake.

It was quite good if I do say so myself.

Edible Christmas Crafts

I'm not sure if I've mentioned before that Barrett attends a co-operative preschool.  This means that I co-op once a month in his classroom, as well as having a year long position to fill.  This year I am the party coordinator for Barrett's class.  I am in charge of planning and executing a Halloween party, a Christmas party, a Valentine's Day party and a Last Day of School party.  I specifically chose this job because of Barrett's food allergies.  I decided it would be better for my mental health if I were the one in charge of buying the food for the parties.  I am supposed to plan four activities for the kids to rotate through during the party.  One station is usually decorating a cookie.  I decided to mix things up a little for the Christmas party and  I had the kids make Christmas Trees out of upside down sugar cones and oodles of green frosting and candy.  Finding candy that is safe for Barrett to eat is always challenging, and finding candy that could also double as Christmas tree ornaments was even more of a challenge.  However, I was able to find a large box of Nerds in red, white and green, Gimbal's jelly beans and Hershey's chocolate chips.  I had enough stuff leftover for my kids to make some trees at home too.

Blythe working on frosting her "tree" with Ruby 

attempting to get in on the action.

Barrett frosting his second tree.

We have made some progress with his clothing.

He will wear clothes to school, the store, etc, as long

as I promise him that he can put his pajamas back 

on as soon as he gets home.  

Blythe's finished tree.  She doesn't like

jellybeans so she found some Skittles left

over from Halloween and used those instead.

All the white nerds are supposed to be snow.

Brynne with her completed Christmas Tree.

New Hats

Winter is officially here and the kids are outfitted in new winter gear.  My neighbor Jen, who is one of the most fashionable people I know,  recently hosted a hat party.  Her friend crochets the most adorable hats you've ever seen.  Blythe has a thing for hats, so I took her and Brynne with me to Jen's party.  I ended up ordering a hat for each of us.  We were able to choose the colors and type of yarn we wanted and I had them made up to match the girls' winter coats.  

Blythe sporting her new hat.  She picked out a

striped one with a visor and a cute button.

Brynne looks fetching in her new winter hat.

She fell in love with this fuzzy yarn and  chose a hat

with ear flaps, tassels and a crocheted flower.

Barrett is still on his Lightning McQueen kick.  We've traded 

in his baseball cap with the "headset" for this fleece hat.  

Needless to say he loves it and his new matching coat too.

I didn't get a photo of my hat which is made of out of a black and cream colored yarn and has a black crocheted flower on it.  It's very cute and sort of retro.  If you want to see more hats you can visit Ashly's blog at hatsbyash.blogspot.com.

Nine Mile Canyon

I've gotten terribly behind on this blog and have been trying to get this post finished for a couple of days now, but here it is.  We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Moab and we took a side trip on our way down on Wednesday.  Nine Mile Canyon, east of Wellington, UT is known for it's pictographs (pictures drawn on rock with pigment), petroglyphs (images carved or pecked into rock) and ruins left by the Fremont Indians who inhabited the area from roughly 300 A.D. to 1300 A.D.  I was under the impression that this would be a short jaunt of 9 miles each way off of the route we usually take to Moab.  I was wrong. 

Justin decided the best way to get there would be to drive to Duchesne and then drive down a dirt road for 37 miles before reaching Nine Mile Canyon.  So we were once again off-roading in our van.  I think our van has probably been driven off road more than most SUVs.   (And Justin wonders why our struts wore out "prematurely.")  Nine Mile Canyon is a misnomer, as the canyon is actually 40 miles long.  When the area was originally surveyed in 1869, the topographer did a 9 mile triangulation drawing, which he named Nine Mile Creek.  So our "short" detour turned into 3 hours, but we did see some cool stuff which I documented.  You can just check out my photos and save yourself the trip, unless they excite you enough to inspire a trip of your own. We skipped out on the hike to see the remains of a Fremont village, because it was cold and we were quickly losing sunlight, so Justin is insisting that we'll be back before too long.  Well enough with the history lesson here are the pictures.

Brynne standing by a panel of petroglyphs.

More petroglyphs of deer or mountain goats.

Another petroglyph.  It looks to me like it's a warrior.

Right in the middle of nowhere is this power plant.  Justin actually thinks it's a natural gas collection facility.We saw a lot of natural gas well heads on our way through Gate canyon, as well as a lot of large tanker trucks.  We were the only non-truck we saw on that dirt road.  It was a very windy canyon with a lot of blind corners, as well as being narrow and as we were approaching about the second or third blind corner I asked Justin whether he thought he ought to sound the horn in case there was truck coming and just as I said it one of the huge tankers rounded the corner right in front of us.  So Justin slowed down and moved over and honked before every other blind corner.  He never would have honked though if that truck hadn't come just then.  I give full credit to my woman's intuition.  

The cliffs are very impressive.  The Fremont

indians apparently built dwellings on some of the

larger ledges.  If you have good eyes you can spot 

stacks of rock where some of their homes or

watch towers used to be. 

"The Great Hunt."

Indian pictographs.

Blythe is studying Utah history this year and recently learned 

about the Fremont Indians.  She is pointing to a pictograph 

that she says means "evening."

Barrett looking very proud of himself for climbing up 

on a large rock.  He is wearing his Cars hat with the fake

headset that he has been wearing non-stop since October.

Some more petroglyphs.  Sadly these have been defaced. 

Barrett employing his usual mode of transportation.

Some Early Christmas Cheer

My sister Jessica was here today and created this  video

of our family to entertain Brynne.  It's pretty silly.  She 

did a disco version on her blog, but we chose the Charleston

 version instead.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

A New Addition

I guess I get to be the first one to officially break the news that we have a new addition to the family.  My parents adopted a new dog on Saturday while they were in Moab.  To be honest, they drove 4 hours each way just to go see this dog.  She's an English Coonhound and she resembles a Blue Tick Hound except her coloring is white and ginger instead of black and white with a little brown thrown in.  The name her foster parent was calling her was Punkin, which nobody wanted to keep.  After much consideration my parents decided to give her an English name.  They are calling her Dawleigh (pronounced Dolly) after a town my Dad served in on his LDS mission to Central Britain.  Brynne, our resident animal enthusiast,  was invited to accompany my parents on their trip to check out the prospective new pet.  

Brynne and Dawleigh with Solda in the background.

Dawleigh is a very sweet dog and everyone likes her, even Hannah and James who aren't keen on dogs in general and Ruby specifically because she's jumped up on them a time or two.  She and Solda get along great especially after cuddling up together the whole way home on Saturday.  She met Ruby yesterday on a hike in the woods and they mostly ignored each other, which we took as a good sign.  She went to work with Walt today and was very well behaved.  As Barrett and I were driving up to my parents house this afternoon he announced, "Mommy, I LOVE Dawleigh.  I want to buy a new dog."  I told him we could go visit Dawleigh anytime he wants because we are NOT getting a second dog.   

Cafe Rio Fiasco

We went to Cafe Rio for dinner last night.  A not uncommon event now that we finally have one close to us in Park City.  It's also one of the few restaurants we feel safe letting Barrett eat at with his nut allergy.  Anyway we picked Blythe up from her first soccer skills clinic at 5 p.m. and headed straight to Cafe Rio.  While we were in line after ordering our food, but still waiting for it to be prepared my cell phone rang.  I saw that it was my sister so I answered it.  I paid for our dinner and grabbed one tray of food while Justin grabbed the other.  Justin was ahead of me, then Barrett followed by Blythe and me.  Barrett decided to climb the soda machine.  I don't know why since Justin still had the cups on his tray.  But attempt to climb he did and he used the grate you set the cups on while you fill them to pull himself up with.  It worked at first, but then it came loose in his hand and he fell backwards onto the floor.  I was still trying to talk to my sister on my cell phone and I had my hands full with my tray with my salad on it.  So I walked right past to him to the table Justin had chosen, meanwhile telling Jess that I'd have to call her back.  Justin made it to Barrett before I did, but not before a horrified mother who was sitting close by did.  He was crying and his hair had somehow gotten wet with soda.  

Justin couldn't believe I'd walked right past Barrett.  I saw him fall and I wasn't too worried that he was hurt.  I was more mad at him for trying to climb it in the first place.  When I did go back to pick him up the first thing I said was, "That's what you get for climbing on things."  No, I will not be winning any Mother of the Year awards anytime soon.  The horrified mother was probably even more horrified when she heard me say that.  

He's developed a bad habit of climbing up on everything.  The day before we were at Costco together and there was a large ride-on Thomas the Tank Engine, which was on a shelf higher than my head.  Every time, I set Barrett down he made a beeline for Thomas and was determined to climb up so he could sit on it.  One time he actually got his head and shoulders up through a gap in the shelf before I caught up with him.  He also has been climbing up to reach where we hang our car keys.  He pulls himself up by grabbing the faucet to my laundry room sink.  I swear he's going to pull it out one of these days.  I cannot figure out how to keep him from doing it.  

But back to Cafe Rio, we got Barrett to our table where he promptly pulled off one of his shoes and socks and said that his foot hurt.  He cried for a few minutes and well within 10 minutes later he was laughing and happy again.  I'm hoping that he got scared and hurt just enough that he won't try it again.  Oh, and as Justin finally let me know when we were halfway through dinner I'd left my credit card with the cashier and hadn't signed the credit card slip either because I was on my cell phone at the time.  I was totally clueless.  That's a living testament to why you shouldn't talk on the phone and drive at the same time.  I'm going to try to be better about that.  I also won't be answering my phone at Cafe Rio anymore!

Halloween 2008

This year we broke with tradition and spent Halloween in Salt Lake with the Stevens family.  We initially turned Jessica down when she invited us to Tyler's First Birthday party because Justin thought that the girls would want to go trick-or-treating with their friends.  When Halloween arrived and the girls hadn't made any plans with their friends I asked Jess if it was too late to change our minds about coming.  She graciously said we were still invited.  We left to go trick-or-treating as soon as we got some photos of the kids in their costumes.  This was the first time I ever accompanied Barrett while trick-or-treating, since I usually stay home to pass out candy.  Nathan literally raced from door to door.  Barrett wasn't too far behind.  

Brynne as Hermione Granger from Harry Potter,

Barrett as Lightning McQueen's Pit Crew Chief,

(this was his costume last year but he was adamant

that he wanted to wear this costume again) and 

Blythe as a vampire.  She wore the same dress last

year when she went as a witch so all I had to buy 

for her was the vampire teeth and make up.

I finally took Brynne to get her hair cut after

she cut it herself.  She got a lecture from the 

hairdresser about leaving the hair cutting to her.

I love it short like this.

Brynne, Barrett, Nathan, and Blythe holding Tyler.

Notice Tyler's bare feet.  It was the warmest 

Halloween we've had in a long time.

This was in someone's front yard.

Halloween must be their favorite holiday.

Brynne holding Tyler, the birthday boy.

We were lucky that the rain held off until we finished trick-or-treating.  Jessica fed us chili and corn bread for dinner. Then we watched Tyler demolish his pumpkin shaped pumpkin cake.  After that we indulged in pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, banana cupcakes with chocolate frosting and halloween shaped molasses cookies.  We were all suffering from sugar overload by the end of the night!  

The next morning I sorted all the peanut and "may contain peanuts or tree nuts" candy from the kids Halloween haul.  I let the girls keep a few "may contains peanuts" items such as M&Ms and Kit-kats as long as they promised to keep them away from Barrett.  Blythe was upset because I took away all of her Nestle Crunches because they had a tree nut warning on them.  She had purposely collected a lot of them.  Justin ended up taking a gallon sized ziploc bag full of confiscated candy to work with him on Monday.  I replaced the forbidden candy with Barrett safe candy such as Junior Mints, Nerds, Starbursts, Skittles, Caramel Apple Pops etc.  Since I didn't end up passing out any candy I now have enough candy on the premises to last us until next Halloween.

A Big Mess

Last week I was on the computer reading blogs.  I was reading my cousin Kirsten's blog about her 2 year old son who put crayons in the jam jar.  She said she is counting down the months until she no longer has a two year old.  I left a comment saying how last year I'd been doing a similar countdown and I was thinking how nice it is that Barrett doesn't routinely trash my house the way he did last year.  While I was occupied Barrett was downstairs playing . . . OR SO I THOUGHT!  In reality he was doing this  . . .

trashing the family room.  Now the funny thing is (or more accurately the not so funny thing is) that Justin had actually made the effort to pick up all the toys the night before while I was at a bridal shower.  Barrett dumped every toy out onto the floor in front of the back door and then for good measure pulled all the cushions off the sofa and added those too.  He told me he piled everything there so that the girls wouldn't be able to get into the house when they came home from school.  I'm still not sure what that was all about.  You can't really tell from the photo just how many toys got dumped out because the smallest toys are underneath everything else.  It took me forever to sort all the toys back into their proper bins.  Barrett helped a little but then my Mom showed up with James and that was the end of Barrett's help.   The silver lining was that I did take the opportunity to sort a few items into a bag that ended up at D.I.  I'm hoping this doesn't turn into a new habit of his.  

Observations by a 3 year old

On Friday evening I was relaxing after Blythe's birthday party.  The girls were at their school's Fall Fun Festival with a friend and Barrett was outside riding his bike on the driveway.  All of a sudden Barrett burst in the house babbling excitedly about what sounded to me like a "pishy walk."  He grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the house and up the driveway where he proudly pointed out the "fishy rock" he'd found in the retaining wall.  I ran back inside for my camera so I could document the moment.  He was so proud of himself.  How have I lived here for 3 1/2 years and never noticed that there was a fish shaped rock in our wall?  It makes me realize how differently the world must look through 3 year old eyes.

Barrett pointing to his "fishy" rock.

On Sunday evening Ruby threw up all over her dog bed.  Barrett was the first one to notice it and quickly summoned me to the scene.  As I was cleaning up the mess, Barrett said sadly, "Ruby's sick.  She ate nuts."  I laughed and told him, "No, you are the only one who gets sick from nuts."  He's definitely becoming more aware of his allergy and knows that nuts will make him sick.  Now I just need to train him to stop sucking on his hands.  I'm worried that he will come in contact with some nut residue while we are out in public and then put his hands in his mouth.  Not to mention all the germs too.  Eeeww!

Blythe's Birthday Party

Blythe turned 10 years old last Monday and we had her party on Friday afternoon.  Blythe loves her American Girl dolls, so I decided to throw her an American Girl Mystery party.  Since she has Kit, the girl from 1934 and the Kit movie came out during the summer I chose to order that game.  The invitations were included with the game and each guest was assigned a character and encouraged to dress up for her role.  Blythe was of course Kit and I was Kit's mother, Mrs. Kittredge.  Justin's mom, Kathy happened to be in town looking after her parents so she came to help me out with the party.  She brought her grandmother's apron to wear which most likely dates from the 1930s.  

Jill, Blythe and Kathy all dressed up for the party.

I borrowed the apron from Kathy's mom.  You

 can't tell in the photo, but I am also wearing

earrings that belonged to my Grandma 

Chudleigh, that she wore in the 1930's.

Blythe, holding Kit with her Gram before the party started.

Kit is wearing her birthday dress and I had Brittney decorate the cake to match the doll's dress.  I made the cake and the frosting and gave it Britt and she created magic once again.  The bottom layer is buttermilk devil's food filled with raspberry jam and frosted with white chocolate cream cheese frosting.  The top layer is yellow cake filled and frosted with chocolate cream cheese frosting.  In the mystery game the girls have to figure out what happened to Kit's mother's pearl necklace, so I had Britt put a pearl border on the cake layers.  The fabric of the doll's dress is hard to see in the photo, but it has white flowers with red centers and overlapping white circles which Brittney replicated on the cake, she just didn't put as many on. I bought the cake stand just for this party.  I wasn't out looking for it specifically, but it caught my eye and I knew it would look perfect.  It has white daisies on the scalloped border.

Kit, Blythe and Brittney with another of

Britt's edible masterpieces.

The girls all dressed up for the party.  The short girl

in the front is dressed as a hobo and the girl next to

her is dressed as a boy and is wearing Justin's 

grandma KK's U of U sweater from 1939. In the 

photo we are missing one girl, who was also dressed

up as a hobo.  She finally showed up 45 minutes late.

We had Kathy read her part until she arrived.

The girls reading their scripts.  They all really got 

into the play which made it rewarding for me.

The game instructed me to have plates of food as 

props, specifically oatmeal cookies, carrot sticks and 

cream cheese and jelly sandwiches.  Blythe doesn't 

care for cream cheese sandwiches so I also had sunbutter

and jelly sandwiches.  It was a good thing I did since only

one of the girls actually ate a cream cheese sandwich.

The top of Blythe's cake.

The birthday girl!

All the girls wanted the yellow cake.  Blythe was the only one who ate the chocolate layer.  Next time I'll know to make yellow cake for the big layer.  After cake and ice cream Blythe opened her gifts and handed out the favors.  In keeping with the 1930's theme my mom sewed fabric gift bags that she edged with lace and also sewed pink ribbon on them to tie them closed with.  I gave each girl an antique handkerchief that my Mom found in antique stores in Pennsylvania when she was on a trip there recently.  They were all beautiful.  They also got either a pearl necklace or bracelet.  I was worried because the bracelets were big even for me, but one girl had the idea of using the bracelet as a necklace for her American Girl doll.  Perfect!  They also got a barrette like Kit has, a mini gel pen and candy that kids would have eaten in the 1930's, such as salt water taffy, caramels, bubble gum and butterscotch candies.  The girls were all well behaved and I think everyone had a great time.  My feet were killing me after wearing heels all afternoon and I was so happy to take off my shoes, nylons and dress and put my favorite jeans back on.  Fortunately, Brynne's birthday isn't until May so I have a bit of a break.  The girls only get friend birthday parties every other year on their even birthdays because it's just too much work for me to do every year and I think they appreciate them more.