Monday, March 31, 2008

Beautiful Belly

My sister's baby shower was a good time. My mom and I were late, my mom HATES being late. HATES it. This is what I say about my mom 'If she is not 15 minutes early, then she considers herself late.' That is truly her philosophy and I thought that it rubbed off on me a bit, but we were still late. I was driving. I hate being late too, honestly.

Tori received so many fun presents. She is well stocked on a quite a few things for awhile.
I have to share these belly pictures, sorry, but I cannot resist.


Baby Brogan should be here in a month, I am pretty excited.

I am doing another round robin and I have to take my center block to guild meeting this week. Let me know which layout you like the best. I know the colors are screwy, but I have some pretty fabric that goes with it and ties it all together. Take the poll to the left.



Saturday, March 29, 2008

Baby Brogan's Party

I am headed to my one and only, number one, favorite of them all, super duper sister's baby shower today. She is due on May 1st, but most people are figuring on the baby coming early. If you want to win an amazing very personalized prize for guessing baby Brogan's birthday and weight, go on her blog (link to the left) and see how lucky you are.

Here is a fun quilt I made for Mr. Brogan. It was a fun pattern and I had fun making it. Hopefully he enjoys it and throws up all over it a few times, just for my sister.


Brogan is going to be so lucky to have 2, yes 2, princess cousins. Very lucky. Actually, Presley makes 3 princess cousins.





I have to share this one with you. Matt and I cleaned out the garage on Tuesday, so nice. After spilling one of the crayon tubs all over the floor in the closet in my kitchen 14 times this past week, I decided to clean out that closet too. Hallelujah!!! It looks so nice, I should post a picture. Matt opened the closet when he got home from work and was so surprised! Anyway, Kelsey's binoculars were in there and she has not been far from them since.

Here she is with her binoculars yesterday spying on Derek and the boys across the street making a bike jump. She was so sneaky! I loved it and it cracked me up, so I had to capture it so I can tease her about it when she is 14 years old. She is the light colored dot in the bottom right corner hiding behind a sandstone rock.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Bizarre, Strange, and Crazy

Strange things are happening at my house. Yesterday Kelsey said to Kendal "Kendal, go hide and I will come and find you." And you know what? Kendal did it! Crazy and Bizarre. Today Kelsey and Kendal were watching that cute new movie called Enchanted and Kendal started to dance, grabbed her sister's arms and WANTED Kelsey to dance with her. She actually WANTED her sister to touch her. She usually screams whenever Kelsey comes close to her. Then, prepare yourselves, the most BIZARRE Kendal moment occurred this morning when she came and told me "Poo poo" and patted her rump. I knew that she did not have a dirty diaper and I told her so, but she was persistent, "poo poo." I finally understood that she may finally be a fortune teller and she might be trying to tell me BEFORE it happened, so I rushed her to the bathroom. A few minutes, nothing, another minute and a nice big stinker escaped. She was so pleased with herself and she was "all done." No poop, but at least she is realizing something occurs down there that belongs in the toilet! CRAZY and BIZARRE!





Crazy things are also occurring with Kelsey, for instance, she made her bed this morning without me telling her or asking her! CRAZY and BIZARRE!! She also told Kendal that she could play with her carefully organized My Little Pony tub of ponies. Now that is truly strange if you know Kelsey!




Now I have saved the best for last - My sweet Matthew. He is entranced with the High School Musical song I have on my blog. He LOVES it! He comes in the computer room, logs onto the blog, picks the HSM song on my player, turns it up and then he and Kelsey just belt out the words. He said to me a week or so ago, "That would be a great soundtrack to buy, maybe I will go shopping next week during my lunch break." BIZARRE, I know! How long has that movie been out and how long did Kelsey and I sing those irritatingly cute songs that got stuck in our brains around the house and he didn't care? Funny, that my husband is loving the music of High School Musical. Funny and crazy and strange!
One more strange thing is occurring! My front porch has only 2 or 3 wet spots instead of an entire sheet of ice. The snow from my roof is all but gone! YEAH! I am not sure what all these bizarre and crazy things mean, but maybe it means SPRING! Oh, where there was snow 4 days ago, I have daffodil greens about 4 inches out of the ground! I think Spring has finally hit our little valley.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Kelsey is a MASTER

I volunteered at the first of the school year to help the PTA with a program called MEET THE MASTERS. Masters being master artists. Funny I know, me teaching art, but it has been such a good time, and I only have to impress the Kindergartners. In a few of the projects we have used PAYONS. They are special crayons that you color with and then you get a sponge brush with water and go over the top of it to give a watercolor effect. I have looked for PAYONS in various crafty stores and have yet to find them. They are so fun. I did find some watercolor color pencils though so I bought them.
Kelsey has been playing with them re-creating some of the projects we have been doing this year. She loves art and for some strange reason she has an amazing memory of the different artists, what techniques they used, and what they painted.

Here is her picture of a tree by the river with its reflection that we learned using Auguste Renoir's technique. He was an impressionist painter, so use your imagination and see Kelsey's impressionistic use of color!

The very first artist we learned about was Georgia O'Keeffe. She painted the New Mexico desert with its colorful clay hills. Kelsey loves Georgia O'Keeffe for some reason and talks about her occasionally. She will say "Georgia O'Keeffe loved the desert, I think we should go there" or once when we were watching an old western movie she made a Georgia O'Keeffe comment. This picture has been hanging up in the kitchen for about a month and one of my friends who will remain unnamed said that Kelsey's New Mexico hills look like certain body parts! I didn't tell her that!

If anyone finds any PAYONS, let me know where you got them!

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Easter Archives

Here is the Crane Easter Archives from the past few years, just for fun.


Easter 2005, Kelsey was 3 and I was pregnant with Kendal.

Paige, Kelsey, and Alysen at the Salina City Easter Egg Hunt. A picture similar to this one was on the front page of the local newspaper. So cute.


At the ranch, 2006. All of Larry and Ellen's crew (Crane side), I think there were 10 of them (grandkids) back then.

Roasting marshmallows at the ranch, 2006.

We had a late Easter in 2006 with my family. We hiked a nice long hike down The Grand Wash in Capitol Reef National Park to find my grandpa's name etched in the rock wall from when he drove wagons through the wash on his way to Hanksville. Kendal and my dad. Kendal was almost 1 year old.


Kelsey loves to climb, trees, rock walls, it doesn't matter. She was 4 this Easter.


Presley almost 3, Waylon 7 I think, Kendal 1 and Kelsey 4.


Me and Kendal, she was done with that hike! Holy smack, my fingernails were painted! What was I thinking?


Easter 2007 - With the Chappells in the beautiful hills behind Torrey. My sister's and brother's thumbs, they were doing a genetics profile for me. Ask me one day and I will tell you if your widow's peak or hitchhiker thumb or attached earlobes or webbed toes are dominant or recessive!


Us at the Velvets, Kendal 2 and Kelsey 5. Nice hair.



Here are the Chappells. I sure love us! We add to our total of grandkids with Tori's baby next month! We will be up to a whopping 6! Taylor who is 6 years old is not in this picture, she was with her mom's family for the weekend this year.



Monday, March 24, 2008

Easter above Redmond

The Cranes headed south for Easter and joined the rest of the Cranes for a camping trip on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We ended up just going in the hills above Redmond rather than up to the ranch. We figured it would be much drier and the kids would not be walking mud balls. It was perfect. It was such a good time. These pictures are in reverse chronological order because I am too lazy to fix them.

Me and my girls rolling eggs down the big hill by our camping spot. Yes, rolling eggs. It is a south/central Utah thing I have come to find out. We don't eat our Easter eggs, never have, never will. The thought of eating an Easter egg makes me sick! We roll them, but soon after this picture was taken, the rolling turned into a massive egg fight. I have a bruised right thigh today to prove it.


All the Crane grandkids, 14 of them, and their grandparents, Larry and Ellen.
The moms stuffed and hid plastic Easter eggs, I am guessing around 200 at least and that is not an exaggeration! The kids loved it.

Kendal and her daddy, she loved that helmet.
All the kids getting ready to get turned loose on the hill and find all those hidden Easter eggs.



Scouring the hillside.


Kendal was interested in what was inside of them a little more than finding them for a little while!

Flying kites was a great time for the kids, and the adults actually.


Kendal knew grandpa would give her food in mass quantities that mom wouldn't. She liked hanging out with grandpa and the snacks.


Here is our camp. 4 trailer houses and our canvas tent. It was wonderful. This is the hill we rolled eggs down and flew kites from.


Alysen, Ashley, Kelsey, and Kendal ~ All the cousins got along really well. It was so great for Kendal to be around the ones her age, there are 6 of them. She jabbered right back at them and carried on conversations, even though they can all talk pretty well, they were very understanding of Kendal's jabbering.

Kendal loved baby Lilly and loved Wilma the dog.


We called this our 2 year old picnic. I had some cheese and crackers so I gathered up a few 2 year olds and we hid behind one of the trailers and had a picnic. This picnic group was Kendal, Adri, and Lainee. After they would eat them all, we would sneak back and get more snacks and then return to our picnic spot. We usually found another little one along the way to join us. After awhile the picnic-ers became so numerous, I ran out of snacks and we no longer fit on the 4 wheeler.


Mark made this fun trailer. The kids loved going for rides in it. We used it to gather fire wood too.



Aly, Kelsey, and April. I called them Darth Vader, Kelsey didn't think that was very funny.

More kite flying.
Kids scrambling for a ride with uncle Mikey.


Imagine Kendal saying "Vroomm vroomm." It was very cute.



Matt brought his bow and Kendal loved retrieving the arrows for dad. She is such an outdoorsy little girl. The pictures make it look really warm, but it wasn't all that warm. That cold wind would come around and crowd us back to the fire every now and then. It is a good thing Mark brought us a little coal for the stove in our tent! My little family of 4 still managed to get our first sunburn of the year though!

Thanks Cranes for a super time. Kelsey told me today that yesterday and the day before were her best days ever and her favorite Easter!




Wednesday, March 19, 2008

I love Teresa

My friend Teresa updated her blog the other day and it was such a relief to hear someone else blog about poop! She has all teenagers though and I have little ones! Anyway, this is Awesome Andrew Arnold and if you want a good laugh, go read about some poop on their blog. Just warning you, you might find a few tears too.


TAG

I painted my toenails the other day, I wore capris today, and I am still shoveling snow. I shoveled some snow today that is piled up around my north facing front porch onto where the lawn is hiding under Derek's slowly melting snow mobile jump. I have some major spring fever going on, and I should, Easter is this weekend!



I got tagged by my friend Jenn, so here you go. And by the way, I am tagging Heather, Lindsay, and Alison.

Tag
10 Years Ago: I was finishing my student teaching living with my parents while Matt was in Oregon going to his first year of vet school.

5 Things on my To Do List today: Get MATT'S car inspected, get the brakes checked on MATT'S car, get the tires rotated on MATT'S car, do my homework online because I will be gone all weekend, and I have to have to have to vacuum.


Snacks I enjoy: chocolate covered raisins, licorice, I truly like celery (I had to throw something healthy in there!)

3 Bad Habits: eating what my kids leave on their plates, procrastinating everything, making piles of my junk instead of putting it away (mostly sewing piles)

5 Places I've Lived- Logan Utah, Corvallis Oregon, Pullman Washington, Cortez Colorado, Midway Utah

Jobs I've Had: baby sitter, grocery store clerk, waitress, pubic hair picker upper (I cleaned motel rooms for part of a summer), fire fighter, biology tutor, Dairy Queen sweetheart, plant nerd at a bunch of plant nurseries, substitute teacher, and mom - I won't go into details with that job, too many of them

5 Things you Don't know about me: I am an open book - Let's see, I can think of 1 thing, I have a lotion fetish, I love putting on lotion, I do it at least 20 times a day.

3 people I Admire: Grandparents for living through The Depression and fighting in WWII, parents for getting married when they were babies and still loving each other, Matt for his unwavering love for me

3 Favorite Movies: I love The Cutting Edge, I love Robin Hood with Kevin Costner, and I really like Master and Commander with Russell Crowe

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Thank goodness for Henry Chesnut and Robert Lamont

Last year on St Patrick's Day my dad called and asked if we were having corned beef and cabbage for dinner. I told him no way, I am not Irish. He then told me oh yes I was. My retort was that Mary Lamont, who is an ancestor of ours, only gave me 1/32 part Irish. That was not enough to cook a corned beef.

I was only guessing when I said 1/32, but I looked it up and I was right, Mary's father Robert was born in Ireland in 1726 and he is my great great great grandfather.

Yesterday I bought a corned beef and some cabbage to cook for dinner. I simmered the corn beef for 3 hours and holy smack, it turned out delicious. I steamed the cabbage because my brother in law Mike told me that is the only way to eat cooked cabbage, steamed and slathered in butter. It turned out delicious! Then I had a few potatoes I chopped up, added some corned beef broth too, some butter and a few seasonings and roasted. Wow, so good too.
Kendal couldn't shove that cabbage in fast enough and ate all her corned beef and Kelsey's too. We all enjoyed dinner and it turned out well.

Last night I looked in my family history charts to see if I had any more Irish in me and I found some. My mom's great grandpa, Henry Chesnut, came from Ireland. He was born in 1830 and ended up marrying a Scotish girl. (That explains my amazing accent!) So now add that pinch of Irish (1/16) to the tiny bit of Lamont Irish (1/32) and I am a whopping 3/32 Irish. I guess that will have to be enough to celebrate with corned beef and cabbage. I went to Smiths last night at 8:00 and bought 4 more corned beef briskets for the freezer.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Check Mate

It has been a long, enlightening, fun, hilarious day. We were at the U of U all day long at the State of Utah Elementary Chess Tournament. Funny, I know. Stop laughing. Kelsey's elementary school has a little chess club. We paid $25 bucks I think back in the middle of January and every Monday she stayed after school for 45 minutes to play chess. She came home a few weeks ago with a paper for this state tournament. She was the kindergarten student they chose from her school to go to this state tournament. So we did.
We all got up around 5:30 this morning so we could be in SLC at 7:30. And then our very enlightening day began.

I got the massive giggles when we walked into the Union Building and saw this sight! Then I found out that this was only for the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders! There was a separate room for the K and 1st graders, and another for the 2nd and 3rd graders. It was then that I realized how serious some people took this event! I saw a table numbered 610 and I didn't even peak into one room! Kelsey played on tables 4, 11, and such numbers like that.


Here is Kelsey's first match. Everyone played 6 matches. Matt looked at the "pairings list" and saw that she was supposed to play a student with an oriental name and told me Kelsey would get creamed. How judgemental is that? They have all the parents leave the room and just watch from the hall through the glass walls. It was so cute to see all those little kids sitting there so grown-up-like! She tied with this girl. All they had left was a king a piece.


Sweet Kendal did great for the first 2 hours or so and then she and I had to head outside. She loved to just run and run. She was so cute and funny. I told her to say cheese as she was quickly traveling down the sidewalk so I could take her picture. She stopped abruptly and sat on this rock to pose for me. She wouldn't look at the camera though!

This is the side of Kendal I saw the most of today - the back.


Kelsey finally got to go outside for some fresh air. There were about 80 kids in her room and in the first 3 matches she was the last one there! I think she likes to kill all the pieces instead of going for the king! Anyway, she didn't get to go outside too much because she was usually the last one playing and then it was time to start the next match soon after she was done!


Here is her 5th game. By this time she had won 2, tied 1, and lost 1. I learned how to read the "pairings list" and the rankings pages. She was doing really well. It was so wild to realize that kindergarten kids going into this tournament were already ranked. I was talking to a lot of the parents and at least 1/2 of the kids had been to a few other tournaments this winter already. The kid in the back corner of this picture with a red shirt on went in ranked #1 and won every match today. I wonder if he knows how to kick a soccer ball! There were 35 Kindergartners that played today and Kelsey was the cutest one.


Kendal, Sweet Kendal. Matt made the mistake of getting a coke or something out of the vending machine early on in the day. That is all Kendal wanted when she was inside! She tried to drink every one's drinks around us! She would not leave them alone! So I made Matt go get another one. She loved it. I think she had more pop (can't say that s word - too cityish for me) today than in her entire life combined!


Here she is looking at her sister through the glass. When Kendal would spot her she would just yell "Kesie, Kesie" as loud as possible.

Between matches I was consoled to see some of the kids playing soccer, football, catch with mitts and baseballs, and just running around. I was truly worried about some of those nerdy looking kids. I think a few of them don't get to see much sunlight.


Sorry, but Kendal was so cute today!


Checking out the trophies between matches. Kelsey wanted one so badly! She ended up winning 3 matches, tied 1, and lost 2 matches. That put her in 11th place. She was so excited because 14th place and up got trophies. If she would have won her last match, she would have made 4th place, but she could care less, she got a trophy!


I was so proud of my 2 girls today. Kelsey was such a super sport. There were kids that cried and cried when they lost a match. She played a little girl that wouldn't get off of her chair and leave because she was crying so hard because she lost. Her mom had to come in and get her. When Kelsey lost, she shook their hands, said good game, and held hands all the way to the judges table to tell them who had won. Kelsey had a lot of fun and I am sure learned so much. Whenever she would come out of a match she would tell me where all the pieces were and how she moved them, what her opponent did, and what she did. I just listened and nodded. There was no way I could follow her story!

Kendal did so well today too. Considering we got there at 7:30 and left at 4:30 and there was only one meltdown and only one time I lost her, I call that pretty dang good.

5:30 am really got to us, Kendal and I crashed on the bean bag when we got home. It was such a fun, horribly long day.

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