October 07 Movie

Halloween Costumes

Yeah right. You think I actually sewed these?! Not in this life! No thank you. We wouldn't have dressed up if that were what it required. No, my sister Cara sewed them for her family a couple years ago and it happens that we each had a girl first, a boy second, and about the same distance apart, so the costumes worked perfectly. In case you need help, I'm Wendy, Sam is John (minus the round glasses and the umbrella - we probably should have looked for them before we actually needed to dress up!) And isn't Seara just the perfect tantruming Tinker Bell?! :)

Fridge Surprise

Yesterday I went out at around 2pm to meet my new Visiting Teaching assignments, right? (I must interject here that I received my assignment on Thursday, so I'm not procrastinating as much as you think I am!) So I come home after about an hour, and begin to plan my dinner. As I'm doing that I open my fridge, only to see this:


What on earth?! Has Samuel suddenly taken up fishing, run to the river a block from our house, and caught three rainbow trout - in just one hour?!! No, if you know my husband at all, you can see how ridiculous that is. My neighbor across the street, Russ, is a big outdoors man and is always bringing us over some of his catch/kill. We had an awesome elk roast and some amazing elk steaks from him earlier this year. So I guess he must have gone fishing over the weekend. My husband's true personality appeared when he cautiously held up the fish, looked at me quizzically, and asked, "What on earth are we supposed to do with these?" Ha, ha! Well, I for one am thrilled! You can guess what we are having for dinner tonight!

Kiddy Update

Its been a while since I did an update on the kids, so here you go. One of our recent exploits includes Seara finding Balmex (diaper-rash cream) and thinking it was lotion, and wiping it all over her face. It was mildly gross, mostly funny. Seara was also recently acquired the ability to annoy the heck out of me by following me around all day begging, "Gee-bee! Vee-yo!" (Hard G, like the last name McGhee or McGee) Go ahead and guess what those are. Seriously, just try. Because I know what they mean, but Samuel couldn't figure it out. I hear it a thousand times a day, but rarely give into (at least not more than once). Give up? She is saying "TV! Video!" I wish I could get her to say it on camera! I'll keep trying. It really is so funny to hear her baby voice say that! Here's her gee-bee hidden conveniently behind my couch.


One of the funnest things about having kids close together is just starting to happen here - that is that my kids are starting to play together. One of Seara's favorite games has always been having us chase her and call out, "I'm gonna get you!" So recently she began to crawl after Lije saying "I geet you! I geet you!" Elijah thinks its pretty funny and always crawls away giggling.

Seara has also discovered recently that is now tall enough to open and reach into my kitchen drawers. She especially loves the measuring cups and wooden spoons, and will spend hours opening and emptying the drawer, and then refilling and shutting the drawer. The thing that is particularly cute about this whole thing is that the very first thing Seara does when she gets into the drawer is to pull out a few things for Elijah and to run give them to him to play with. I know what you're thinking: "What a good big sister!" And its true, that is pretty nice. If only she would stop stacking the couch cushions on top of Elijah and then climbing on top of the pile!


Elijah has started saying some words beyond "mama" and "dada". His first real word was "no". I guess its quite obvious that there is a toddler in the house! After that he began to say "No way!" and "No, no, Rara!" (I assume Rara is Seara.) Then a couple days ago he started saying "amen" at the end of prayers. It took a few times before we actually believed our ears on that one!

Lije also spends most of his time standing now, although he's not too keen on walking along things yet. If he's standing at one end of the couch, and he wants to get to the other end, he'll still get down and crawl there, then pull himself back up to standing. The lazy gene in me cries out against that one. What a waste of energy!



There you go. My kids in a nut shell. I have recently discovered that nearly every kid Seara's age is going through the same things she is, and same with Lije. So this may not be very fascinating to anyone but grandmas. For example, for some reason my neighbor Melody doesn't seem to get all that excited about Elijah's accomplishments. Oh wait. That's because her daughter (Elijah's girlfriend) Maddie is only five days older than Lije and does every thing he does five days earlier. Anyway, if this post bores you, then you are dumb. You should have stopped reading five paragraphs earlier.

BYU Football

I guess I should start this post by explaining that I am a HUGE BYU Football fan! Samuel isn't a huge fan of spectator sports - he likes them fine, he likes BYU better, but lets just say that he would be fine never watching a game all season. But I am addicted. (The funny thing is that BYU Football is a girl thing in my family - my mom, grandma, and I all watch every game. When my little brother has football games at the same time, I call my mom every 15 or so minutes to give her the play by play.)


My parents have two season tickets to BYU Football, but since I have a big family we usually only get to attend one, maybe two, games a season. This last weekend, though, Samuel's boss ended up having three extra tickets and gave them to us. Yay!! My little brother Liam came down to use that third ticket, which was really fun since we love hanging out with him!


When the game started it was pretty cold - maybe in the low 50s. But we were bundled up pretty good, so it wasn't a huge deal. Right after half-time, though, it started raining. No biggie. Plastic bags, hoods up, we'll be fine.


Unfortunately, by the fourth quarter it was snowing. Samuel and I would have toughed it out, but our kids were starting to get uncomfortable. And honestly, I couldn't move my fingers or toes. So, with about eight minutes left in the game, Samuel and I began heading to my sister Lissa's apartment (where we had parked). She was an absolute psychic and had a warm home, grilled cheese sandwiches, and hot chocolate ready for us when we arrived. Phew!


Luckily, even without us, BYU managed to beat Eastern Washington 42-7. Yay! Poor football players, though, because the snow was awful! They were slipping around and having a hard time holding the ball. (It was really quite funny.) What a fun game!

Potty Training

I have wanted to potty train Seara for over a year now. But, for fear of jumping the gun, I waiting until this morning. In preparation for this day, I have read about five books on potty training. In fact, I read the book my mom & sis-in-law recommended three times. We've been prepping Seara all summer with all sorts of tricks, too. She is 27 months old. She is dry after naps. She stays dry all night. She gives signs when she is about to go to the bathroom. She immediately requests a diaper change when she uses the bathroom. She can put her potty seat on the toilet, climb up, and sit on it. She can pull her pants up and down. She can get toilet paper and flush the toilet. Heck, I've even been praying about this. So this morning I made sure to have Seara alone with me for the first six hours of the day. At breakfast and afterwards we filled her with drinks of all types, to make sure we'd get plenty of chances to practice.

When Seara refused to pull her undies up or down, I should have taken it as a bad omen. She can do it, but she hates being told what to do. Parenting books have a whole sequence of things to do when kids won't obey. You are supposed to get on their level, face them so that they are looking you in the eye, say "[Name], [direct command]," give them five seconds to complete the command, if they don't do it in five second, gently guide them manually. Okay, so I get down to Seara's level, but she refuses to face me. So I hold her face gently in my hands. But then she looks far to the left or right, so she doesn't have look at me. So I move my face around so she is finally looking at me. I say, "Seara, pull your pants up." She (obviously) does nothing, so I try to gently guide her to bend down, but her entire body goes stiff as a board. I manage to get her to bend over (while she fights me violently), but then she won't grab her undies. So I gently guide her hands to her undies, but she refuses to grab them. So I grab them with the extra fingers that aren't holding her hands, and "we" pull them up. I don't think that is how the procedure is supposed to work.

It only got worse from there. In the first thirty minutes she drank 16 oz of juice and milk. (A serving size of liquid for an adult is 8 oz, for a child between 1-3 it is 2 oz. So her drinking that much is equivalent to me drinking 64 oz.) So I sat her on the toilet, right? She fussed for a bit, but then became resigned to her fate and played there quietly. And I sat there waiting for her to go, so I could immediately praise her. After about thirty minutes I could tell she needed to go. After sixty she was using every ounce of energy she had to hold it in. An hour and a half after sitting down on the toilet she finally let a little bit out. I immediately praised her and helped her get up and pull her panties up. ("Helped her" because as much as she wanted off the toilet, she wouldn't do it once I asked her to.) My plan was to go through the post-potty routine (wipe, pull pants up, wash hands, etc.), and then immediately go back to toilet so she could finish going. Well, the minute she was off the toilet, she let loose. I am so glad we don't have carpet in the bathroom. So I followed all the steps the books recommended on what to do when a child wets their pants. Seara screamed and fought every step of the way. No amount of cookies, chocolate milk, or candy could get her to obey me. If she doesn't want to do something, she won't do it. Period. So we got back on the toilet and waited a bit, but she didn't go, so I figured she'd gone enough for now and we'd put clean undies on and talk about the toilet some. Well, I got her off the toilet and put clean undies, just in time for her to pee everything that was left all over both herself and me. And one hour, fifty seven minutes in to potty training, I quit. So I put a diaper on her. And for the next ninety minutes she was completely dry. She told me when she had to poop, did it, and asked for a change. But will she go in the toilet? NOOOOO. Why? Because I want her to. Maybe I should want her to stay in diapers and insist she NOT go in the toilet. Ha.

You know how people say you should wait until the baby is "ready" to toilet train? Well, how much more ready can she be? Her problem isn't her capability. That would be resolved with time. Her probably is stubbornness. And she will certainly not become less stubborn. If anything, it will get worse as she gets older. So I have come up with three possible solutions:

1) From now on, Samuel does all potty training.
2) If Samuel refuses, one of the Grandmas does all potty training.
3) If they refuse, Seara will stay in a diaper until it becomes too embarrassing to date with diapers on.

I don't care what happens now. I officially quit.

A Favorite Holiday

Is General Conference a holiday to anyone else? Because it is one to me. In fact, it is probably my second favorite holiday (second only to Christmas). I look forward to it for months beforehand, I get so excited! We always have so much fun!! We spend the whole weekend at my parents house, with mission reunions Friday night and Girl's Night on Saturday night (while the all the boys do the traditional male bonding at Priesthood Session and Hires). The whole weekend is full of food, family, and fun. We play games, watch movies, and of course, get eight (ten for the guys) hours of spiritual feasting. It is so fabulous!!


Then, the Monday after Conference weekend, Samuel and I have a General Conference Family Home Evening. We share all our notes with each other and make goals about what we need to do better. Each goal gets written on a post-it note and placed on our bathroom mirror, and we take each goal down as we complete it. We try to get all the goals done before the next General Conference, although right now we each have a couple left from last conference. (I think this time we need to make sure we have concrete goals - because how on earth am I supposed to "Learn everything I possibly can about the atonement" in just six months?! And then there's Samuel's, "Teach Seara by the Spirit" ... how is he supposed to "complete" that one?!) This time we'll try to set goals that can actually be completed! :)

Gummi Candies

Do you recognize this extremely rare delicacy? They are Chocolate-covered Gummi Bears - aka the best candy ever invented. They are really hard to find, but my best friend from college, Caroline, happened to find some at a candy shop recently, and since she was coming down to Utah to visit, she brought me some. I about died!! (Quite literally, in fact, since I skipped lunch that day and only ate the candy - talk about a stomach ache! It was well worth it, though.) They also helped prove that you never know everything about your spouse - Samuel had no clue that these were my favorite (probably because they are so stinking hard to find). Now he knows. Lucky man. He did win points for knowing my second favorite candies - Trolli Peachy-Os. I eat them by the bag-full and also give myself stomach aches. Talk about no self-control! :)

Garden Goods

Fall is here and it seems like everyone has an abundance of fruits & veggies from their gardens. That was a bummer to me because we weren't able to plant anything this year; BUT thanks to the generosity of my mom, Grandma Smith, and my sweet neighbor, I was given bags of apples, zucchini, squash, and tomatoes. So, I have spent most of this week trying to use things up before they go bad. Here are some of my creations:

Apples from Mom


Apple Pie (I love making these, but this particular one was the best one I have ever made - the apples were absolutely perfect for pie making!!)


Zucchini & Squash from Grandma, Tomato from Sheryl


Zucchini Bread (the powdered sugar is only there to hide the fact that the bread stuck to the bundt pan - it doesn't hide it as well as I had hoped!)


Squash-Cheese Sauce (I forgot to take a picture when it looked nice, so this is of Elijah's left-overs. We put the sauce on baked potatoes.)


Marinara Sauce


Fried Zucchini & Squash with Tomatoes, Onions, & Cheese