My Winter Break

Last week the kids were off of school for winter break.  While one of my friends was in Hawaii with her family and my other friend was on a cruise in Mexico with her family the highlights of our week were getting haircuts and visiting the zoo.  Even Peter and Britt went to So. Cal to visit Dan and Mia, while my parents and Brett and Jess went to Moab.  We were the only ones still surrounded by snow.  Although, I did let Blythe have a slumber party with two friends from school, complete with pancakes from scratch for breakfast, which I thought was pretty noble of me since I prefer sleepovers to be at someone else's house.  

As I downloaded the photos off my camera last night I realized that Blythe had taken some photos of the other kids on Sunday morning before church so I do have some new haircut photos to post for everyone's enjoyment.

This photo is of me after getting my hair cut on Tuesday morning and before Brynne got hers cut that afternoon, so you can see how different she looks now.

Brynne' s new shorter hairdo.

This one shows Brynne's true personality as well as her cute short hair.

This is a goofy photo of Barrett to go along with his his goofy new hair cut.  His bangs are definitely not straight.  I'm going to have to request a different stylist next time. Again, all photos in this post are courtesy of Blythe. 

Quirky Kids

I'm sure that all kids have some sort of quirk but sometimes it seems like my kids have more than their fair share.  Blythe's all seem to relate to clothing.  She will only wear ankle socks. Socks that have to be folded over or pulled up at all are a no go, unless they are knee socks and she is wearing a skirt.  She went through a phase when she was 2 where she wanted her socks loose, but her shoes tight.  It made no sense.  She still would rather wear a pair of shoes that are slightly too small than slightly too big.  

The quirk that is driving me crazy at the moment has to do with her pants.  She goes absolutely nuts if the hem of her pants touch the tops of her feet.  Every time I buy her some new pants they have to go to Grandma's house first to be hemmed up.  The last 2 pairs didn't get hemmed short enough for Blythe and she has been refusing to wear them.  You would think that we could just cuff her pants be done with it, but this is not an acceptable option.  She has one other pair of cute brown pants from The Gap that I decided didn't need hemming because they fit her perfectly.  When she rejected both clean pairs of jeans today I told her she had to wear the brown pants.  She started throwing a fit, so I had to threaten to ground her for two weeks, then I went downstairs so she could make her decision.   She finally came downstairs wearing the offending pants with her high heeled black boots.  Definitely not the footwear I would have chosen, but at least she had the pants on.  She was even remarkably in a good mood.  

I keep telling Blythe that she was born in the wrong decade.  She should have been born in the 70's like me so that she could have lived through the wonders of pegged pant legs.  I've been so frustrated with her refusing to wear half of her pants that I've even shown her how to peg her pants and suggested that she try to start a new fashion trend.  For those of you who may have forgotten or are too young to remember pegged pants, I've included a photo of me when I was 16 wearing some very attractively pegged pants.  Notice how far my pants are from the tops of my feet.  Blythe is going to be very jealous when I show her this photo as soon as she gets home from school.  By the way that's my first car that I'm standing next to. 

Jill August, 1990

In other news, Barrett has been using the potty this week (Yay!) and has even been wearing undies, which leads to a newly developed quirk.  He's insisting on wearing his underwear backwards.  It looks uncomfortable to me, but doesn't seem to bother him.  I can kind of understand why he would want to wear the undies that only have a design on the rear backwards because that's the only way he can see the picture.  However he's even wearing the ones with the designs all over them  backwards too and cannot be talked out of it.  I'm not going to include a photo of the undies, but I am including a photo of him wearing 3 pairs of Cars pajamas at the same time.  This is probably not the strangest fetish but I thought it was funny.  It's not a great photo because I didn't realize the flash wasn't on, but I decided it would do.

So far Brynne's major quirk relating to clothing was that at the age of 2.5 she decided she would only wear dresses or skirts.  This lasted until half way through Kindergarten last year when she decided to mostly wear pants.  She also refuses to wear tights that have the seam at the end of the toes as opposed to the seam on top of the toes.  I can't figure this one out because she wore tights every day from October through May for 3 years without any problems.  So that's my vent for today.  Thanks for listening.  

From the Archive

Isn't it amazing how angelic children can look while they are sleeping no matter how much trouble they were while awake?  These photos are from last September, hence the title of my post.  The girls share a double bed and Barrett generally  sleeps with us but for some reason he crawled into the girl's bed and cuddled up with Blythe before falling back asleep this one morning.  Does it get any sweeter than this?

Happy Birthday, Beth! (the new & improved version)

So I really should have posted this yesterday since that was Beth's birthday, but somehow didn't manage it.  Beth and I have been friends since we were two years old, we probably bonded at such a young age because our brothers Peter and Richard were born one day apart and we were transformed from only children to older siblings.  Of course this is just speculation since I was only 2.5  at the time and don't actually remember not knowing Beth.  Fortunately, we've stayed in touch more or less since I moved from Connecticut to Utah in 1989.  Meaning that sometimes we've gone for a few years without seeing each other and then other years we get together twice, like last year.  But with so much shared history it doesn't matter how long we go without talking to one another because as soon as we are together again whether on the phone or in person it's like we haven't been apart at all.

I just came across this photo of Beth and me from 9th grade shortly before I moved to Utah and couldn't resist adding it to this post.  We haven't changed much right?

         Jill and Beth, June 1989

  These photos were taken last May when Beth and her family came out to Utah.

Beth and her son Luke (who is a year younger than Barrett, but almost the same size) with Jill and Barrett.

Snowshoeing in our backyard

Justin's parents visited us briefly this past weekend and we squeezed a short snowshoe outing into their busy schedule.  One of the things that we love best about where we live are the neighborhood trails right out our back door.  It's hard enough to get the kids ready to go without having to pile everyone into the car too.  We had a nice warm (well above freezing anyway) and sunny day and everyone had a good time.

Brynne, Gram (aka Kathy), and Blythe ready to set out.

Brynne and the dogs.

The back of our house as seen from the trail.  We have some pretty big icicles that have formed.

Papa (aka Chuck), Justin and Barrett at the start of the trail.  Barrett started out walking but was forced into the backpack after a few hundred yards.  

Justin and a very unhappy Barrett, who would rather be snowshoeing under his own power.

Meet Ruby

For those of you who haven't been to our house in the last year, let me introduce our red-bone coon hound mix, Ruby.  She turned 2 on February 1st.  She joined our family last year on March 3rd.  If you aren't familiar with red-bone coon hounds think of the book or film "Where the Red Fern Grows."  She is really great with the kids and lets Barrett climb all over her.  She doesn't let any other little boys take the same liberties and will growl if they try.

This is why Ruby didn't make our Christmas card last year.

She loves to lick ears as you can tell from this photo of Brynne from last Easter.

She sleeps in her kennel at night, so we don't have to worry about her 

chewing up  things while we sleep.

This her best friend Kaya who lives next door.  Ruby likes to bark at and wrestle with her.

Mommy's Little Helper

I was washing the dishes last week and Barrett wanted to help, but first he insisted on wearing an apron and rubber gloves, just like me.  He looked so funny that I had to snap a few photos of him.  

So here's a Barrett story from last night.

Justin's parents were in town this weekend so we had a Petty family dinner in Salt Lake last night.  On the way home Barrett decided that he wasn't ready to go home and wanted to go to the store instead.  We told him that we don't go to stores on Sunday and were going straight home.  This was about 8:30 at night.  So we get home and all get out of the car.  I called my Mom and while I was talking to her Barrett brought my shoes over and tried to take off my slippers so that he could put my shoes on.  I wouldn't let him and he got upset.  When I got off the phone I noticed that the door from the laundry room to the garage was open, so I went to close it.  Then I saw that the sliding door on the van was open; then I realized that the van was running with the garage door down.  After turning off the van I noticed that Barrett had dragged his FP Little People garage into the laundry room so he could reach the car keys on the rack where I hang them.  He knows how to push the button on the remote that opens the sliding door and he since he has been the starting the car for me since  last summer he had no trouble there.  So now you know how headstrong and persistent Barrett can be.  We are definitely going to have to find a new place for our car keys!

Alta Part 2

Here's Justin driving the family snowcat, called the Imp. His uncles taught him how to drive it the week before. Apparently at the age of 36 he's finally considered to be responsible enough.

Here's the Barrett family cabin buried in snow.

The snow is almost level with the second story deck.

This picture shows Justin digging out the front

door, (okay so you can only see his elbow that's why I'm writing captions.)

This is the new cabin next door. The snow is so deep that it flows from

the roof to the ground in an unbroken line.

Here's the view from the cabin looking down

Little Cottonwood Canyon. It was a gorgeous day!

Alta

Justin's grandparents have a cabin at Alta that they have owned since his Mom was a little girl.  We went up a few weekends ago so that Justin could put up some new window trim.  They have a snow cat so that people can get to the cabin in the winter.  It was up at the cabin instead of being down at the parking lot so the kids and I waited while Justin snowshoed up and drove the cat down to us.  I took these photos of the kids while we waiting for our ride.  Alta is probably the only place that has more snow than we have at our house.

Blythe

Brynne with a snowball.

You can't see much of Barrett!

Barrett's Room

We took Barrett's crib down last summer and got him this bed.  It's actually a bunk bed, but we only set up one of the beds because I didn't want to have to deal with broken bones.  I've finally finished decorating his room.  As you can tell he's very into Disney Cars just like every other young boy.  The quilt on his bed reflects his obsession with diggers, dump trucks and all things relating to construction.  I bought him Cars flannel sheets for Christmas, so he refers to his bed as his Car-Car bed.  Justin's brother, Chris was in town recently and spent the night at our house.  I was changing the sheets so that he could sleep in Barrett's bed and Barrett was upset and in tears because I was taking his Cars sheets off his bed.  He was so hysterical for awhile that you would think that he actually slept in this bed for more than 3 hours a night.  Barrett's almost 3 so I figure there were about 1,000 nights that he should have slept in his room.  I think he's slept through the night in his room less than 10 times.  Oh well, maybe by the time he's 5!

The slide is almost an antique.  I had one just like it when I was growing up, but this one actually belonged to my cousins. 

 

Fall Soccer

Brynne playing goalie.

In the spirit of attempting to give my children equal attention, at least here on my blog, I'm posting yet another retroactive post.  Blythe and Brynne both played soccer last fall and they both played indoor soccer this winter.  You can't tell in these photos but Brynne is at least a half a head taller than all the other First grade girls.  She's a pretty good little soccer player.  My brother Peter, a former photo-journalist and current real estate appraiser, took these action photos of Brynne.  I'm so glad that he was willing to come to a few of their games because I never could have gotten these shots myself.  It's amazing what someone can do when they really know how to use a camera and have the right equipment.  Thanks Pete!

Blythe Turns 9 (last October)

The Birthday girl!

Cousin Hannah, Blythe, Aunt Brittney and Brynne.

My sister-in-law Brittney is an outstanding cake decorator and when she offered to make Blythe's birthday cake I immediately accepted.  Blythe requested a "Space Cake" since she was studying outer space in school at the time.  Britt did a fabulous job with a very difficult request.

Thomas Blankets

So I've decided to write a few retroactive posts so that I can share some cute photos I have.  Barrett and his cousin James, who is only 3 weeks older than Barrett, are very into Thomas the Tank Engine right now.  My Mom made these blankets for them and I took these photos the day that they received the blankets as early Valentine's Day presents.  You can just see how excited they both were.  Are these not two of the cutest boys you've ever seen?!  

Justin thinks I should explain the title of this blog just in case anyone is having trouble figuring out that the 3 Bees are Blythe, Brynne and Barrett.  

Happy Valentine's Day!

Barrett's First Time Skiing

We took Barrett skiing for the first time on January 12th.  He was more interested in the Life Flight Helicopter that landed to transport an injured mostly likely snowboarder and the school buses in the parking lot.  He loved riding on the lift.  He kept saying "Go up in the sky again."  Fortunately we had my Dad there to help us and Barrett skied between his legs and he also would let him ski a short distance on his own down to  Justin waiting below who would catch him since he's a long way from stopping on his own.  
You can see Barrett a little better in this photo.  This was taken just as we got to the resort.  His skis are his favorite color, Orange.

First Post

Well I finally decided to join the legions of bloggers.  I figured since I spend so much time reading blogs, I ought to contribute too.  My in-laws call every Sunday to get the week's worth of stories about Barrett and then they ask if I've written them all down.  This way I can kill two birds with one stone and they won't have to wait until Sunday to hear about his latest exploits.  I probably would have done this sooner if it had been my parents who lived  in another state instead of a mile away.  But better late than never, right?  So this is our most recent family picture although it was taken last September.