Emmitt' first haircut

Emmitt got his first haircut today. He is a year and a month old. It truly isn't fair because my girls didn't have as much hair when they were one year old as he does! Anyway, we love Dick, the local barber, and since I now have a little boy, a suppose we will be going to a barber now instead of a 'hair stylist' for girls!







Dick has been teasing Matt, Emmitt, and me that Emmitt is going to start getting in fights with other boys because they will tease him about such long hair. Dick also said Emmitt was starting to look like a 'Wayne County Hippie' and we surely don't want that! So today I took him to Dick so he could take care of such boyish things!

He is no longer my shaggy little baby, he is my spiffed up little boy. I have been dreading this hair cut just because I didn't want him to grow up so fast, but Dick did a nice job and I was relieved he didn't buzz him short as short so he looked like a miniature 4 year old!

gun range

Friday night our Civil War group had a soldier campout at This is the Place Heritage Park and then the next morning a few of them came up to Heber City for a live shoot. It was such a great day. The weather was fabulous and it was pretty fun to watch the guys shoot their period guns, and also the not so period guns.

There were about 578 boy scouts (no kidding) up at the gun range shooting Saturday morning and they were automatically drawn to our soldiers. When they were finished with their shooting requirements, they would drift our way. Our soldiers were great about talking to them about their 1861 Springfield muskets and Henry somethings (sorry, I just know the Cavalry used a Henry something). The kids ate it up!

We have a member of our group who's heart is in the Revolutionary War. We comes dressed up Colonial-like and it is pretty cool. He was shooting a Brown Bess and it was fun to watch him also. He told the kids a little about General Washington's army and some of the requirements to be a part of his army - one of which is 2 opposing teeth so that you could bite off your cartridge top! That part cracked me up for some reason. I guess because I know a few folks that wouldn't pass that requirement! He showed the kids how to load his gun and they were very interested. It was fun to watch.

I even shot a few rounds. I thought about that 1861 Springfield, but went with the VERY modern Berreta. I didn't hit what I was shooting at! My dad used to call me 'little Annie Oakley' when I was little and we would shoot a 22 at pop cans in the mountains. He was apparently making his little Rachel feel special, or I have lost my touch!

The safety officer was very adamant about eye and ear protection. Here is Amanda getting her little ears gobbed up with protection! Notice the girls' ear protection. Kendal's cheeks were so smooshed it was darling!

Matt had to work in Roy on Saturday so the little ones were with me. They did so great. I was happy with how things went with them, although Amanda did have some treats that sure helped. There is this huge berm around the south side of the gun range that the girls spent alot of time playing on. It was a great view too. Emmitt hung out with me and he was so good too. The firing didn't even phase him. He played in the rocks most of the morning.

After the shoot, Amanda and I fed the soldiers a delicious lunch and then listened to funny reenacting stories for a few hours. It was a fun fun day.

My daffodils are blooming and beautiful.


Emmitt has a bottomless stomach and seems to finally be getting some flesh on his skinny little bones.


Kendal got her first taste of soap 2 days ago when she said "shut up" to her sister. She didn't like that.


Kelsey seems to be very cold soreish lately. I feel bad for her.


I ran over a skunk last night. My car STINKS!


Matt wishes he could buy a 250 thousand dollar Angus cow. He thinks he is in love.


It is going to be a great and beautiful day in Heber City today.

more Capitol Reef Ntnl Park

More Capitol Reef National Park pictures.

We looked at petroglyphs made about 1000 years ago. Kelsey thought she was going to interpret for us - she must think she speaks Anasazi.

Emmitt played in the dirt and loved every orange/red dirt second of it.

Kelsey is a little rock hound so she found cool rocks and washed them all off. She even found a box to put them in for the ride home.

Kendal wanted to climb trees after she fed her blossoms to the horses.


We hiked a bit.

There is a little old house called The Gifford House that is at The Park and it was once lived in by the Gifford family. My great grandparents also had a house down there, but it was torn down and now the area where the house was is called CHESNUT PICNIC AREA.

Anyway, we went in The Gifford House and looked at the rooms they have set up in old pioneer fashion. As we were wandering, I saw this picture hanging on the wall. I said "Mom, isn't that your Grandma Dicey?" She said she thought so and so I took the picture off the wall and took her picture with it. There were a few tourists looking at us like we were going to steal something, but I made my mom pose for this picture.

The lady that was working at The Gifford House told us the lady in the picture was Annie Jorgensen. She and Dicey Chesnut and Nell Gifford were sisters. My mom said they look so much alike. She really thought it was her grandma.

We had such a super time visiting Capitol Reef. I have so many fun family memories there, grade school field trip memories, high school date memories, and I even got to take the youth of our ward down there a few years ago and made some good memories then. My friend Jen has been down there with us too making memories. What a great place.

popcorn popping on the apricot tree

I looked out the window and what did I see? Popcorn popping on the apricot tree. Spring has brought me such a nice surprise, popcorn popping right before my eyes. I could take an armful and make a treat, a popcorn ball that would smell so sweet. It wasn't really so, but it seemed to me, POPCORN POPPING ON THE APRICOT TREE.

For part of our spring break out of school, we went down to Capitol Reef National Park and played around for a day. It was just me, the kids, and my mom. We went on a little hike and when we were climbing back down the last hill, the site took my breath away. It is the picture above. You could see the apricot orchards in full bloom against the red rock and it was so pretty. Just seeing the beauty in the harsh desert environment made me smile. Wow, what the early settlers did in this little piece of desert is amazing - and some of those early pioneers where my mom's grandparents.


This is my mom and the kids sitting on a bridge near one of the apricot orchards. I was expecting a super warm day, but it stayed overcast and a bit chilly sometimes. It was a great day though. I always love going down to The Park and so do my kids.



I loved these pictures of Emmitt in one of the orchards. He had to ride on my shoulders most of the time so he was so happy to be able to get down and walk by himself. The furrows kept taking his balance away and so he crawled too!

Kelsey has been down to this exact orchard with my dad and I picking apricots. I think it was good for her to see the orchard this way; in the spring with the green lush grass and the beautiful blossoms. Kelsey and Kendal picked a few blossoms to smell and when I told them that for every flower they pick now, that means less apricots in the summer, they realized what I meant and then only wanted one blossom for their hair!

Spring Break

The girls have been out of school this week for Spring Break. Monday we slept in and were very lazy. I had great yard work plans, but the weather made me clean the inside of the house! On Tuesdays Matt is home so we played with Dad and had another lazy day. We went swimming in the evening and then out for pizza. It was a great treat!


Today I took the kids to Orem for pictures. I have been wanting to get some done for long time and with the girls out of school it was the perfect time. They did pretty well. Kendal has a hard time looking at the camera and Emmitt just wanted to play blocks in the sitting area! Here are a few of the undoctored ones. Of course, they make them look nice and pretty. These are just some of the images on the CD I payed too much for. I am a sucker - I can't say no!

When we got home from Orem it was already 2:00 and the afternoon was spent flying kites, digging up grass, raking out flower beds, napping (Emmitt), climbing the neighbors' trees, hunting for bugs, playing chalk hopscotch on the driveway, and preparing dinner. The weather was fabulous and it was great to be outside. It gave me spring fever in a BIG BIG way. It snowed yesterday, so it was nice to have some sun and warmth.

We are going to go visit my parents for a few days and soak up some more sun for Spring Break. I think it is kinda silly to have an entire week out of school, but we will enjoy it!

i am heartbroken

Saturday was such a fabulous day here at our house. Kelsey was baptized and we had a load of family and neighbors here to celebrate with us. What I am heartbroken about is the fact that I deleted the 80 some-odd pictures from Saturday off of my SD car before I downloaded them. Yep, I am so angry at myself for it and so I am sulking from blog land for a day or so. But I was inspired to make a few changes to the layout. There is still lots of work to do, but it is a start and it will hopefully get me over my moping about the pictures.

so sad at our house

We have had a few sad things occur at our house lately. The first sad event is the death of my beautiful Grape Ivy plant. This sad thing used to be so gorgeous! It was full and green and happy and alive and not dead! This plant was given to me in 1998 by my visiting teacher Debbie and I can't remember her last name. She was an amazing young married gal going to school and working 3 jobs. She still found the time to come visiting teaching EVERY single month. We lived in Pullman, Washington at the time and this plant has been with us to Oregon, Colorado, and now Utah. I am a quite sadden by this occurrence.

The second sad thing that happened this past week is I made some truly nasty bread. I am so excited though, because I get to keep trying. I bought a wheat mill/grinder last week and I was looking forward to grinding up some funky, healthy grains and making the best bread/rolls ever. I went and purchased some spelt, kamut, amaranth, oats groats, brown rice, and millet.

I knew this was just going to be the most amazing experience ever, so I waited for the girls to get home from school and then I cracked open the can of hard red wheat I have had in the basement for 4 years and NEVER had any intention of using. We ground up some wheat to get my new wheat mill warmed up and then we started in on the spelt, amaranth, and oats groats.

The smell that came from the mill was one I recall from my childhood - the smell of the feed my grandparents used to feed the chickens. I was not worried, I knew it would make the best bread! I used a recipe I have had around for awhile and works WONDERFUL with white bread. The rolls that we consumed later that evening we not wonderful. I didn't cook them long enough and they were just yucky. I have learned a few things - you need to age your freshly ground grain flour a few days before you use it, whole wheat flour needs to bake longer than white flour; honey would be nice instead of sugar, and I need to use a recipe for wheat bread - it is different than a white bread recipe. So next week I will be grinding again and hopefully things will turn out better.

The last of the deaths this week is the laundry tub. The fabulous red tub was brought into the marriage by Matt. It has served us well, but with the 'train rides' that have occurred in the red beast, it is starting to show the damage. The handles are ripping off and since I used it as a stool last month, the entire bottom of it has cracked and is about to come out. You can see the shirt trying to poke out at the bottom. This tub has made it through many moves and many apartments and homes.

The best memory of this red tub for me is one day while we were at Utah State University I was walking home from class. I saw my husband walking across the parking lot with this red tub on his head like he was an amazing lady from Africa. He had gotten out of class early and was headed to the laundry mat to do the laundry and surprise me. Oh the wonderful days of early marriage!

This is big red's replacement I bought yesterday. We will see if we actually sort as we go! When Matt got home last night, the kids were playing in the red tub in the living room. He said "What has happened to my red tub? Oh Rachel, we can't throw this away. It has too many memories. My mom bought this for me when I got home off my mission and it has been around for a long time. We just can't chuck it." I assured him I would put it safely in the basement because I figured he would say something like that!

Civil War Medallion Quilt Center

Round Robin season has come again for the Heber Valley Quilt Guild. This year for the center block I used reproduction fabrics and made a block called Favorite Block. It is a traditional block that dates back to the early 1800s. We had guild meeting last week and I sent along with my block a bunch of Civil War reproduction fabric and asked the ladies to use that fabric as they add the borders to my center block. My hopes are to use the finished product as I go about the west pretending to live in 1863.

I also sent along this picture of a real 1857 medallion quilt to give the guild ladies an idea of the simple borders they used to complete their quilts. I am so excited to see what I get in a few months when we are all finished!

The quilt on the right is my round robin quilt from 2006, the first year I participated. I made the center block with potted tulips. The quilt on the left is my round robin from 2007. My grandma had just passed away and she had a few really great apple trees. I made my center block an apple tree for my grandma.

I did two round robins in 2008 and this is one of them. The center starburst is mine. It turned out pretty fun. The picture below is the other one from 2008. This one is my favorite I think. I am not sure why, I just love it. I love the center block I made and I love what the ladies did to it with the borders.

I passed up the round robin group in 2009 because I knew with a newborn babe that I would not have a lot of extra sewing time. I am kinda sad about that decision, but oh well. There are MANY more years to come!

Easter at the Ranch

We had a splendid Easter. We headed south to Matt's parents' house on Saturday morning and stayed until Sunday afternoon. It was truly fabulous. We listened to quite a bit of General Conference and the overall message I got was Love and nourish your family for they are forever, and Jesus is the Christ and without him we would be lost. That was my take anyway. It was very appropriate for Easter - Jesus was resurrected and because of the Great Plan of Happiness, we will be also.

Emmitt was a real trouper at the ranch. It was a little chilly to begin with on Saturday morning, but it warmed up nicely in the afternoon with everyone running around. Emmitt took his first 4 wheeler ride with his uncle Mark and was a little concerned, but not petrified!

Yes, this is me. I wore Mindy's rabbit hat to keep me warm. I have always wanted one, and this was the clincher - I NEED one! They look ridiculous, but they are so toasty!

Most of the Crane kids. They ran around and had a splendid time together. That is one of my favorite parts of Easter and always has been - playing with cousins.

My Kelsey, sweet Kelsey.

Matt and his lucky wife.

This is Kendal running mock-chicken speed for the Easter Egg hunt. She was running so fast I wasn't sure her legs could keep up and I was afraid she was going to crash hard. She didn't and she was a very successful egg hunter.

Lisa, Mike, Emiko, and Mark discussing the shed Kelsey found while the kids find the hidden eggs. It is now in my living room. She is so proud. Actually, her dad is more proud.

Kelsey, Lainee, and Aly

Lainee, Kendal, and Adri getting ready to roll their eggs.

Matt supervised the egg rolling with the younger ones.

Mace, Larry, Amanda and baby Izzy, and Lisa

The older kids had to climb clear up here to roll their eggs. Actually, it turned into an egg fight, but we knew that was coming!

Emiko and Ayden helped Emmitt roll his eggs. It was so cute, Ayden would hand them to Emmitt as fast as he could throw them. Ayden and I would then gather them up and do it all over again.

Mace, Mike, and Mindy got a nice game of baseball going with the kids. They loved it.

Me, Matt, Emmitt, and Kendal going for a little ride. Just prior to this picture I fell off the 4 wheeler, but very gracefully. It was not moving, don't be alarmed. Not sure how it happened, but I think it has something to do with that mother instinct to protect children at all costs (so he wouldn't fall off), or I am just getting really old!

Sunday afternoon we headed back up to the ranch and roamed around for awhile, just taking it all in. We love the ranch and hope to spend some great times there this summer.

Talbot cousins, Kelsey, and Kendal



Me and my little man.