Farewell my friend

Fare thee well....Albertsons. Go ahead and make fun of my obsessive coupon shopping at Albertsons and the grief I feel at them being bought out here in Northern Utah. The latest is that they will close Oct 25th and open the 26th as something else. However both Orem Albertsons haven't been bought by someone else yet. So while everyone else had a pathetic ad this week Orem Albertsons ran an awesome General Mills sale. So as probably my last hurrah I went yesterday and did three transactions. I spend $23.69 and saved $94.13. $2.32 of it was tax and then I bought 38 items at an average of $.56 an item. Overall my saving was 81%. I did not have a single problem with empty shevles or coupons and catalinas not working. And Adam was an awesome grocery helper. In short it was a perfect coupon trip. So yeah...I'm really sad Albertsons is closing. Associated Foods which bought them out never offers the kind of savings that Albertson's does. There is another rumor that maybe since the Orem stores haven't been bought that they will stick around until the end of the year and then just close. But no matter what I've got to find another store to coupon shop at. BUMMER!

Go Green Gators!

Jacob played soccer this year and David coached his team. We had lots of fun with soccer this year. Three of Jacob's friends from the neighborhood played on his team and he made good friends with the other kids also. David did a great job coaching and had a lot of fun helping the kids improve their soccer skills.

Jacob is number 7 and his team is called the Green Alligators. We even have a team mascot which is a stuff green alligators that Jacob got from a friend at a preschool Christmas party a couple of years ago. David would bring him to the games and have the kids pat him on the head before they went out to play. Pretty cute! Below is Jacob kicking the ball and running after it. And on the left is Coach David. He's out of the field with the players. There's no refs yet so David calls the game and helps the players go in the right direction etc.

Here's David giving his team a little half time pep talk and telling them how good they are running. Jacob didn't like having to sub out of the game and I was always trying to get him to sit down and cheer for the rest of his teammates.

Coach David with his boys. Adam felt very left out and so we bought him some green soccer shorts and he always wore his green Mexico soccer shirt so he could be like the team. David let him practice with the team each week and Adam is an awesome soccer player. He could keep up with the other boys and get right in there and score a goal. He gets pushed all over the place, falls down knocking everyone else down and just jumps up and goes after the ball. Than Hancock called him the human wrecking ball. It's really quite fitting.

Jacob is really a great soccer player. He has spent years with his dad playing soccer and David has done a great job teaching him how to play. Jacob is ambidextrous and can score with either foot. That's a big deal in soccer. He knows how to get the ball out of the jungle ball group, dribble it around them and go score. He's done a great job of keeping his arms and elbows to himself and this year we really focused on giving high fives to his teammates after he scored. Jacob scores rather often and we wanted to teach him good sportsmanship. However this is a picture of Jacob celebrating after scoring a goal in his first game. Hey, at least his shirt is not over his head like he's learned to do from watching Mexican soccer games.

So Jacob and Adam are great soccer players, David is a great coach and it turns out that I'm a terrible soccer mom. I get so mad when the other coaches won't call fouls on their players and just let them play out of control...pushing kids to the ground, arms and elbows flying everywhere, shoving, and kicking body parts instead of the ball. And number two I get so frustrated when parents let their kids play like this. I never thought I'd push Jacob into competitive soccer but it turns out that it's a very compelling idea. Competitive soccer plays with refs, and the parents are serious about having their kids there. Competitive soccer doesn't start until 8 years old so it looks like I'll get some good practice at biting my tongue. But even after all of that I really enjoy watching Jacob succeed and David having so much fun. Next year David thinks he's going to coach both Jacob and Adam's teams! Let's just get through Spring soccer before we start thinking about next year.

Crawling

Matthew started crawling two weeks ago and he's so happy that he can get around. He hates being put in a high chair or a walker or anything that restrains him. This is my first baby that I'm happy he can move where he wants to go. It's just easier to baby proof than try to keep him in one place. Then this week he started pulling himself up onto his feet. Wow, that was fast! He pulls himself up on his crib all the time and then starts screaming because he can't figure out how to sit back down and get the pacifier that he left behind.

Isn't he adorable?

David's friend Brandon took these pictures for us. I have yet found time to actually print them off but eventually I will actually get some hung up in my house.

He still doesn't eat baby food but he will chew on crackers or a pizza crust and then spit it all out. I don't think he actually swallows any of it yet. I had 3 nights in a row of him sleeping through the night about 2 weeks ago and then he got a bad cold and was up 4 and 5 times a night. Now he's over the cold but has yet to go back to sleeping through the night. So I'm going to be grateful for the 3 nights I had and hope someday he'll decide he can do it again.

Good-bye Garden

Here's the last of my harvest pictures. My parent's garden had 6 jalapeno pepper plants and 4 Santa Fe pepper plants (what were they thinking?) and my garden had 4 Serrano pepper plants. So what do you do with all those peppers besides putting them in salsa and enchilada sauce? Well I don't know what you do, but I pickled them. Out of everything I canned this fall, I think I'm most proud of these pickled peppers. David loves pickled peppers but they cost about $2.40 for a 12 ounce can. I pickled 16 quarts of peppers and that's a savings of $102.40. YEAH! And besides that, they look really pretty in the jars because the Santa Fe peppers are red, orange and yellow.

I did end up canning the last of my peaches. I don't actually like eating canned peaches because I don't like the texture. So I eat them in smoothies, milkshakes and jello salads but my boys eat them. And again I think they look pretty in the jars. I would can them just to look at the pretty fruit. However, I obviously should have worked harder at getting the air bubbles out of the jars.

David took this picture of me weighing my tomatoes on my bathroom scale. He thought it was hilarious. But I don't know any other way to do it. So help me...if someone has some great idea or better yet a produce scale let me know. But for now I will use my bathroom scale to measure out a 1/2 bushel of tomatoes.

Lastly we picked our pumpkin. Okay, it's Jacob's pumpkin. At playgroup last spring, Stephanie McArthur helped the boys plant pumpkin seeds in little plastic cups. Jacob was soooo excited to see his seed sprout so we transplanted it to the flower bed by the peach tree. We only got one pumpkin out of it because I think it didn't have enough sun but it's a good size pumpkin and Jacob couldn't be happier. So that's a success. Adam's little pumpkin is from the pumpkin patch. Next year I'll do better with the pumpkins since they were such a hit with the boys. Now Jacob's terrified someone is going to steal his pumpkin and wants to bring in it from the porch every night. Last year someone smashed our pumpkins in the road and Jacob hasn't recovered from the trauma.

Okay so here's the finally count for the year:

green enchilada sauce: 20 quarts

fruit cocktail from my nectarines and peaches: 22 quarts

canned peaches: 16 quarts

red salsa: 20 quarts

speghetti sauce: 9 quarts

pickled peppers: 16 quarts

Thank you, thank you to everyone for the recipes, help and hints and to mom and dad for letting me have the produce from their garden. I think our little garden was a roaring success and it's been lot of fun to learn some new skills this year. Now the plants have frozen and while my plan was to cover them I'm actually kind of glad that plan failed because I'm pretty sick of doing tomatoes. I do still have onions out there but that's it.

Football...

We had the opportunity to go to the BYU versus Florida State game. I'm not going lie, it was a horrible game. So horrible that I'm not even going to say anything about it. However, it was the first game that we took Jacob and Adam to. David and I have always been selfish and left the boys at home wanting to enjoy the game and not have kids hanging off of us. But I must say both of them did great. My kids always suprise me with how well they hold up. At first Adam covered his ears the whole time because the stadium was too loud. Then he spent the rest of the game trying to find Cosmo at all times. One time he spotted him and told me that Cosmo was his "best, best, best, BEST friend!"

Probably the only good thing about the game was that I got to listen to Greg Wrubell call the game on my headphones. Of course, we were made fun of for our FM radios but trust me once you've done it you can't go back to just watching the game. Greg Wrubell is my cougar hero!

Now on to better BYU news....did you watch Austin Collie and the Colts game? Collie had 6 receptions for 65 yards and a touchdown pass. Not just a little 5 yard touchdown pass. This was a fabulous catch. I was so proud! I just gave those stats off the top of my head but I think they're right. My statistic memorizing brother will of course let me know if they are wrong. And I can't finish a football post with a big shout out to the Minnesota victory over Green Bay last night. Nettesheims, please don't hate me, but Favre played a great game and the Vikings are now 4-0. Go purple! I love October...football season, baseball playoffs and the NBA season starts. I luv October!

Adam's going to preschool

Hello, blogger world! I'm finally back. I'm not even going to waste time making excuses. Sooooo, here's little Adam on his first day of preschool. When Jacob was this age, I did Joy School with him and 5 other little boys in the neighborhood. The moms each took a turn teaching preschool for two days each week and then we'd move to the next house the next week. After last years failed attempt at doing playgroup with Adam, I knew Joy School would never fly. So I put him in a 3 year old class at the same preschool Jacob went to last year. I knew Adam would do better with the same teacher, same classroom, same rules and schedule every time he went to school than with rotating homes and teachers.

Adam was so happy to finally be going to school after Jacob had already been going for 2 weeks.

David always takes Adam to nursery because Adam still struggles having to leave me. So we decided to have David actually take Adam inside. I love this picture of him waving me good bye. He went to school just fine and had a great time. So the next time I took him and it was a crying, screaming, gripping my legs sort of adventure.

So of course, I started bribing him. He could earn prizes by going to school and hanging his backpack up without crying. We call him a school hero (ya know, like a superhero) when he goes to school without crying. Last week we didn't have a single "episode" and I'm so proud of him. At the end of last week his teacher told me that yes, Adam's a bit on the shy and quiet side but that he participates and is obedient and follows instructions. WAY TO GO ADAM! Here's Adam with some of his art projects from preschool.

Adam is happy at school and I am happy with it also. It's so important to do what's best for your child even if it means you don't get to teach Joy School with all your friends again. Every once in awhile when I see everyone's car in front of a friend's house picking up their kids from Joy School, I get sad that I'm not a part of that. But I know that this is what is best for Adam and he is doing great. I'm so proud of you, Adam!