What did your Barbies ever do to you?

I don't know what other kids do for diversion, but I have to say that Lauren and Edie get together and plan scenarios that almost always include all or most of the following: kidnapping, bargaining, tying up, death jumps, escape, love, marriage, death and then having dates somewhere in there. This was after one of their more elaborate scenarios. Usually the play ends with everyone escaping, but apparently not this time. Although, can you really tell if Ken is lounging or tied up this time? Usually they use their hair bands to bind the feet, hands and mouths--this would disturb me more if we watched crap and let them watch it too, but I really believe that all of this came from Scooby Doo and Phineas and Ferb. Maybe too much of those shows and more harmless Dinosaur Train?

Amelia's handiwork

 A Super happy Rapunzel! Edie wears this wig at least once a week. She was only too happy to let her sister complete the picture.

 Amelia decided that Lauren needed some 'tattoos'. At least she chose I 'heart' mom.

Edie was supposed to be a tree fairy. I'm sure this was obvious to everyone. She combined some of the dracula face design (notice the arched eyebrows). I love this face painting kit!---Most of the time. The one time Amelia went too far is when she painted the underside of her and other people's feet. That did not end well for her.

What will happen next?

Seriously where is their mother? While I was thinking this was such a great opportunity to take photos of them in front of the garden--I neglected to move the knife I used to harvest the crop to a safer place. Edie took her chance to get back at her sister for tackling her. No just kidding. Edie has an affinity for knives anyway so she was crawling to take a look at it. I promptly took it away from her, (Yikes) but not before I laughed.

Garden's Bounty

Our beautiful garden at the very beginning of September or end of August--can't quite remember. We finally had to mulch everything and pull out the plants about the second week of October. The green tomatoes were all brought in and have been ripening on the window sills. I have done about 8 qts. sauce from just the ones that had to ripen inside. There will be one last batch, but I'll be lucky if it equates to 2 qts. We had a battle with the earwigs over the zucchini plants. In the end I'd like to say that I won, but I don't really know how many more we would have had without those *&^# earwigs. It is sort of funny since two out of the three plants were supposed to have been cucumber plants. Since all that you see here were started from seed there are bound to be mistakes when transplanting to bigger plants. Next year I'll start my parents off with store bought cucumbers--since apparently ours were not hardy enough.

Lauren also had a birthday that went unrecognized by the blog for a whole month and 1/2. It was a costume party and she was wonder woman again (or super woman).

Family Pictures

I completely forgot about the family pictures that were taken at our Archibald Family Reunion this summer. In fact I seemed to have forgotten to post anything from that reunion. What was I thinking?! So here is the fam.

I like this one a lot despite the booty sticking out. We certainly all love Chris.

Funny Story

The other day we were all getting into the car to go to a park and Amelia yells out, "Shot-gun!" (They've learned it from my Webelos boys). So she knows that this means she can sit in the front. 

Then Lauren who was also getting into the car said "Shot-gun" (she doesn't know that it means sitting in the front). 

Amelia says, "No you can't be Shot-gun. You have to be 'Pistol'." 

Then Edie, who was being buckled into her car seat says, "Then I'm Baby-pistol." 

Amelia responds saying, "No, you have to be 'Rifle'." Edie was very upset and insisted that she must be "Baby-pistol"--and that's where I had to step in and say that if she wants to be called "baby-pistol", then we will call her that. I really did try to let the exchange go as long as possible to see where it would lead. :)

I was laughing for the rest of the day. Man they are so stinkn' cute! Sadly I did explain where the term came from and they've only said it once since that time. 

The Sawtooth National Forest: The White Cloud Mountains, Walker Lake trail, Walker Lake and Hook Lake.

Amelia's Baptism

Can you believe that she is 8?! I cannot. However she has really grown in maturity over the last 6 months and it has been awesome to experience her growth. She was baptized on August 6th at 3p.m.

Is this summer or what? I love it that she decided to wear panty covers from a dress as underwear and then tights over it all.

Vietnam

The last two weeks Chris was in Vietnam with an ngo called IGE http://www.globalengage.org/ . They were super awesome to invite and welcome Chris along for their trip. They even set up many very productive interviews for him to do as part of his research for his dissertation. This was an amazing opportunity. Here is a link to watch a video on vietnamese television about the conference he attended and the goals of the conference. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf72YVWzjWA&feature=related

Now here's some pics of Vitenam:

Vietnam is now Chris' favorite place.

The girls' TaVaci concert.

What is TaVaci you ask? Why singing and dancing of course.

In true Idaho fashion TaVaci is a combo name of the two women who started it. We have gotten to know the "CI"ndy, who is a wonderful woman and now that we've done one semester of the program I would have to say that it was super fun. The best was watching all the little performers bring their own brand of silliness.

Vampire anyone? What...it's not Halloween yet? Shh. Don't tell Lauren and Edie.

Amelia painted their faces and then she started on the feet....Well the tops went pretty good so why not the bottom of the feet? The carpet was washed the next day.

Very Special Denver Friends



Our trip to Brighton and Denver, CO.

Grandma & Grandpa Lee were tremendously great hosts. Our girls played with their dolls and tea sets for literally hours. I love that they have such a great imagination and can satisfy that need in such a pleasant way.

We were all glad to visit with both Uncle Andy and Uncle Rick. Rick wasn't feeling well and declined a photo, but we'll get him next time.



She's Super E and she's got super strength.

Ever have one of those off days?

Well Edie doesn't even seem to notice when some things are just off. Or in this case wearing a size 8 when she's lucky to fit into a size 2/3.



Our Trip to Provo

We went south to visit the Carl Bloch exhibit and visit my cousins at the end of April. While there we were treated to super yummy pizza at the SLAB. I had the Thai chicken with peanut sauce. Then we went to a dessert palace called The Chocolate. This place is run/owned by Chris' old mission companion and his wife. It was wonderful! I had the turtle brownie there, which was great. I wanted to get the cazookie, but Chris would have been really sad since he wasn't with us and his jealousy may have driven him mad if he didn't get to share that infamous dessert with me. By the way our cousins that were with us recently had a birthday party done at The Chocolate and they loved it too.

A great photo for the memories. Awesome cousins!

Spring Time

With a little help from the kids we started our garden planning and then some other peoples (unintentionally) about a month ago now. We started with a 70 Jiffy starter kit. It said that things would sprout in about 1-2 weeks. We had sprouts within 3 days. So many things had to be transplanted about 1 1/2 weeks later (the zucchini and cucumbers). The rest could easily wait the 2 weeks. Our bell peppers took 3 weeks to even amount to something.

These were the ones that weren't quite as big and will wait another week or so to be planted.

This morning it was a frigid 26, but the plants were safe inside--whew.

The happy planters.

 Amelia's beloved electronics kit by Elenco. Super duper awesome. She loves it!

Edie and I by the end of the day. She was a little wiped out.