Sunbeams

The sun has been shining on our neck of the woods. The tulips are blooming, our jackets have been shed (temporarily, I'm sure), and we've eagerly ventured to the back yard to soak up some Vitamin D (because it's cheaper than buying infant vitamin drops, for one thing).

Rhett has taken to the outdoors like a champ. After his first introduction to the grass/moss in our back yard, he hasn't been shy about romping through the dandelions. He also took the time to sample the gravel outside the back door yesterday.


This is a rare specimen of Rhett's radiant smile caught on camera. The "caught on camera" part is rare, not the smile.


Benjamin loves getting dirty outside these days. Last year's garden plot is getting put to good (good?) use as he stomps through it, digs in it, and relocates its contents to various places in the yard. The other day he thoughtfully tossed handfulls of dirt on a new planter of flowers that Paul recently put together for me. And I wish I had taken pictures of Benjamin the other day when he first removed his shoes and then his socks (after they were saturated with dirt) and threw the dirt up in the air, letting it settle in his hair, clothes, and diaper (augmenting an already painful diaper rash).


Even though sunny days never cease to light up these faces, the smiles don't always last till we get back in the house.


We are really hoping for some stretches of warm, sunny weather before we head north to the clouds and drizzle that I am told we should expect in Juneau this summer.

Easter

I have so many things to blog about, but I'll start with Easter and work back from there.


Recently Benjamin has become really receptive to being taught about a variety of things, and it's particularly rewarding for us to teach him about Jesus Christ and the gospel and to see those lessons taking root in his memory. The week before Easter we had a Family Home Evening about the Resurrection and put the picture of the resurrected Christ up on our wall. Throughout the week Benjamin often requested that I sing the "Jesus and Mary" song to him.

He also painted that great egg with watercolors, and I meant to have him make more because I thought they were nice, but didn't get around to it.

We thought that it might be fun this year to host an Easter egg hunt in our back yard. It being the first time I've ever done that sort of thing, I was left afterward with dozens of thoughts of things that could have been different or better. Nevertheless, I think it was fairly fun for the kids who came. Free candy, right?

We invited some friends from church and our friends who live in the house next door. The kids ranged in age from 17 months (not including Rhett) to four years old. We felt really lucky to catch a break in the rain. Just as we finished up our activities it started sprinkling.

Off they go!

Some of the eggs kept coming apart and it seemed like there were jelly beans everywhere. Benjamin walked around half the time with blue Robin's Egg candy dripping from his mouth.

Thanks to you guys who participated in our first ever Easter egg hunt! We had a good time!

Later that afternoon it was time to dye eggs. Benjamin and I covered the table with the only four scraps of newspaper we had (why did I recycle it all earlier in the week?) and dyed our eggs with the last tiny drops I could squeeze out of our food coloring bottles. (If you can't tell, this Easter lacked a lot of planning on my part. I didn't even buy our Easter ham until Saturday evening.)

I made the swirly ones by wrapping the eggs in paper towels secured by rubber bands. Most of them we just dyed in random colors and later decorated them with stickers. I think the football ones were Benjamin's favorites.

While we were dying eggs, Paul was preparing his church talk for Easter Sunday. He did a fantastic job.

Due to more inadequate planning, the Easter Bunny didn't arrive at our house until around 10:00 p.m. on Sunday night. Yes, our kids were still awake.

Wheat grinder update

Well, it seems that the deal on the VitalMill is a no-go after it was agreed that the NutriMill is a better product. BUT, I guess now the group of ladies putting this together is going for a deal on Nutrimills! I don't have as many specifics as I'd hoped before posting this, but if you are in the market for a Nutrimill and would like to save some money on it, let us know. I think (again, short on specifics) that with a group of 10 people, each NutriMill goes down in price to $230 from a regular price of almost $300. Just thought I'd put the word out there.

A new question

Wheat grinders.

Do any of you have them? What do you use?

For a while now I've been planning on getting this one:

The NutriMill.

My sister-in-law Heidi has one and she sold me on it. I'm particularly jazzed about the variable speed feature which allows you to adjust the coarseness of the product.

It costs $270.

However, now we have an opportunity to get a really great deal on a different kind.


The VitalMill.

It's regularly $200, and on sale now for $180. But we can get in on a group discount and get one for $120-$140. I love the price, and I've been wanting a wheat grinder for a long time. But it doesn't have variable speeds, and I guess I got my heart set on the NutriMill.

So back to my question. What do you use?

Do I need a variable speed mill? Does it matter? Is there anything I can't make with the flour produced in a grinder like the VitalMill that doesn't have variable speeds? Do you know something about the VitalMill that I should be aware of before buying it?

I have done some research into the matter, but nothing compares to hearing from people who actually use a product. I'd really like to know your experience with whatever you have.

I was (and am) so pleased with the responses I got to my baby food mill question. Now anything you know about wheat grinders would be a big help!

Celebrating Spring

Thursday was a typical dreary day in the Northwest, so we spiced it up a bit with some lemon cupcakes.

Our baking was partly prompted by Benjamin's interest of late in the book Frog and Toad Together, and in particular the story about the cookies. Toad makes some cookies to share with Frog, and after eating till they are almost sick, they commit to find some will power to stop eating cookies. When tying the cookies up inside a box and putting the box on a high shelf proves to be an insufficient formula for will power, Frog feeds the cookies to the birds. When Toad mourns their loss of the cookies, Frog consoles him by saying, "Yes, but we have lots of will power," to which Toad replies, "You can keep it all Frog. I am going home now to bake a cake." When the story is finished Benjamin always says, "Let's bake a cake!" So we did.


This weekend we had beautiful weather! Friday night we took advantage of the beautiful, clear skies and the lasting daylight to take a walk on the campus of Western Washington University. I loved the look and feel of the campus, and it was so nice to take a stroll on a university campus as finals draw near without feeling the pressure!


I had a professor once point out that peoples' dispositions often show up by looking at pictures of them during childhood. I think this is generally true based on pictures of myself and my sisters growing up, as well as Paul's family. However, we have been disappointed to take so many pictures of Rhett looking just like he does above! He really smiles and laughs quite a bit, but we have a hard time capturing it in pictures. Benjamin is definitely more of a ham, but hopefully some day soon we'll get some of Rhett's big grins on film too.


Warm weather also means it's time to pull out the Dutch oven! Last weekend Paul made a great Dutch oven barbecue meal for the missionaries (including one who we found out twenty minutes before dinner was a vegetarian). We had them over again yesterday between Conference sessions for some Dutch oven sweet and sour pork (the vegetarian came on an exchange last weekend, so he was not here this time). Benjamin is so curious and was poking around in Paul's Dutch oven stuff all afternoon.


Here's to a beautiful Easter week!

A baby food answer

It was one of those choir-of-angels sort of moments. I wish I could articulate it better, but you know what I mean? I was at Goodwill and I thought to myself, Wouldn't it be great to find a baby food grinder here at Goodwill? Just then I turned my head forty-five degrees... and there it was! What are the odds? I was planning to buy one before our trip to Utah, and I'm pretty excited about paying less than two dollars for it. So far it works like a charm! Thank you all for your input and advice!

Paul's First Business Trip

I can now check off one of my lifelong goals: Go to Alaska.

This past week I went on my very first business trip. I have been to work meetings within the state of Washington a number of times, but always returned home that evening. But this time I traveled in an airplane and stayed a night in a hotel. Yep, watch out I've hit the big leagues now.

I traveled to Juneau, AK for a couple days to get acquainted with the project I'll be working on this summer. Thankfully Volcano Redoubt and the falling ash were roughly 650 miles to the Northwest, therefore not affecting travel into Alaska's Southeast area.

Juneau is only accessible via plane or boat, but it is not on an island, just locked in by large mountains and glaciers. For a small city though I was surprised to see all that was there, i.e. Home Depot, Costco, Fred Meyer, Safeway, and others. (Walmart was there too, but since I am VERY anti-Walmart and refuse to spend any money there, I will not mention it other than this noting.)

Below is a picture of Glacier Valley Elementary School. This is where I will be all summer. Dawson Construction is completing the second phase of renovations to the school this summer. Most of my time on this trip was spent at the elementary school taking measurements and visiting with other construction professionals.
It was snowing and raining when I arrived. A little surprising to me, for some reason, there was a lot of snow in Juneau. I understand it is ALASKA, but almost the entire city sits at roughly 50 feet, +/- 30 feet above sea level. The locals told me there had been twice as much snow sitting on the ground earlier in the winter.

Juneau is home to a very large glacier, Mendenhall Glacier. My pictures below do not even come close to doing this large mass of ice justice. I am still in awe over how ginormous this thing was, and is. Maybe I should pay better respect to the glacier and rephase the first sentence of this paragraph to say: Mendenhall Glacier is home to Alaska's Capitol City, Juneau.

I am told there are a lot of bears in Juneau, AK. I guess this is probably true when I didn't see any deer crossing signs because the bears ate them, and the bear crossing signs had to be put up instead. (Or maybe there are just lots of bears.)


While at the elementary school I couldn't help but notice the children's art work. They were very creative and I most enjoyed the local Native Amercian/Regional spirit which shown through.

Totem Poles.

Alaskan Animals: Killer Whales, Grizzley Bears, Salmon, King Crab, Bald Eagles,...

A picture I took from inside the airplane as I was leaving. Notice Mendenhall Glacier in the center background. That thing is MASSIVE!

The trip was very enjoyable and I am excited to have Vicky and the boys with me in Juneau this summer. One of the major perks to working away from home is Dawson Construction will be paying all our living expenses. And although I will be pretty busy, any of you are more than welcome to come visit us and we'll even let you stay with us.


While waiting for my flight back to Bellingham, at the SeaTac Airport, I took this picture for Benjamin. And as expected, he loved it, and wants to fly on it. Kids are so great! I think I want to fly on it too!

Benjamin in the kitchen, part two

Thanks for your responses to my baby food-making question. I'd still love to hear more if anyone would like to add! Those who have the Kidco grinder, where did you get it? I'm thinking of buying it on Amazon, but are there stores that sell it? I'd like to steer clear of websites with bright flashing buttons. Any tips on good places to buy?

A baby food question

I'm hoping that someone of you who read this will be able to give me some input on this. I'm tired of feeding Rhett jarred baby food. He goes through it so quickly, and it's getting to be quite expensive. I've been wanting to buy a baby food grinder instead. Have any of you tried this? When I have searched for one on Google there is basically just one that stands out, and that's the Kidco baby food mill. It has received some pretty good reviews, but others that say it's no good, which makes me hesitant to buy it. I wonder what other options are out there. Have any of you opted to make your own baby food instead of going the Gerber route? Any tips? I know we could get a little food processor, and I'm not ruling it out, but I like the portability of the food grinder. Anything anybody can tell me about what they've done or heard of would be so welcome!

If they didn't have holes before, they do now