First Day of School

The girls started school on Wednesday.  I can't believe how FAST summer flew by!  Looking back, we sure had a great time, but I wish it was a bit longer.  A nearby school district decided to add 15 minutes to their school day in exchange for extending summer break until after Labor Day.  I'd be ALL for that!!!  Especially when you consider that June didn't actually count as summer this year.

Anyway, the girls were excited and a bit nervous for school to start.  Ali's entire class (minus about 5 kids) moved to the same third grade class.  Ali was one of the five that's not with her old friends, so she was disappointed and nervous.  Nicki was starting first grade and had a lot of fears about lunch and recess and buses, etc.  I was a little nervous for them too, but I exuded nothing but confidence in front of them (only Dave had to listen to me worry).  My biggest fear was that they wouldn't be home with me.  I miss them when they're gone so long!  I feel sad that they spend more of their waking time away from me than they do with me. 

Nicole's in first grade.

Alison's in third grade.

Josh wishes he could go to school too.

They were all awake, bright-eyed, and happy early in the morning (that lasted all of one day!)   They got ready quickly and we even had time to read the book I've been reading aloud to them for a few minutes before the bus came.  I waited for the bus with them so that I could chat with their bus driver, then I sent them on their way.  Of course, I quickly loaded up the boys and followed the bus to school (I've been doing that every year since Ali was in kindergarten - pathetic, huh?)  I was glad I did it this year because I was able to help the girls find their classrooms (which are right across the hall from each other) and meet their teachers.  I felt so good about everything that I didn't even cry!  That's amazing for me.  I cry all the time!

Waiting for the bus with our neighbor.

Ali getting on...

Nicki getting off.

I'm looking forward to my days with the boys.  It's totally strange right now, but I can tell it's going to be fun. I took them to the dollar store to buy first-day-of-school gifts for the girls and a bunch of activity books and games for Josh and I to work on while the girls are gone.  I also love the fact that the boys nap at the same time in the afternoon.  I can exercise, shower, study my scriptures and sometimes even clean a little before Bronson wakes up.  It's HEAVEN!! I haven't had alone time since Nicole was about three years old. 

The girls came home happy and excited.  They both love their teachers and are looking forward to learning.  Nicki said the day seemed to go by really fast.  I was worried it would feel super long for her (Ali, on the other hand, said she thought it would probably be dark outside when school was over because it took so long).  When Ali started Kindergarten, I inadvertently started a family tradition of having a first-day-of-school celebration.  We decorate the house with balloons and streamers, give the kids small gifts and treats and listen to every single detail about their day.  Dave told me I had a lot on my plate right now and I could probably let the party slide this year, but I told him that I'd rather let the laundry slide or something.  The fun family traditions that make our kids feel special and excited are NOT the things that I can let slide.  I admit, I was hanging streamers just minutes before the bus pulled up, but I was glad I did it because as soon as they walked in the house, I could see the girls' eyes scanning the room for decorations.  When they saw them, they grinned and lit up.  It was as if all was well in their lives.  And I think it was.

Fair

I love our little small town fair.  It's seriously one of the highlights of my year.  There's just something about it that makes me happy.  I love the animals and the home-bottled produce and the little booths everywhere.  I love seeing many of my friends and neighbors there with their livestock and cheering them on in their various competitions.  I love the carnival rides, cotton candy, and expensive game booths.  It's like a wonderland to me!  I never really went to the fair when I was a kid, an idea my kids can't even imagine- it's an atrocity akin to not celebrating Christmas around here.  We literally go four to six times during the three days that it runs.



Colored sugar - YUM!!!

 Each year, I tell myself that I'm not going to enter anything.  And each year, I wake up on the morning before the fair starts and think, "I've GOT to enter something!!!"  So, each year, I scramble to put a few entries together.  In the past, I've won a few blue ribbons and even won some prize money (from canned food, scrapbook pages, and baked goods, and vegetables from our garden).  My girls started entering artwork a few years ago and they've won too.  It makes the fair even more fun when you've got something in it (although I  loved it even before I started entering stuff).

Alison's entry in the photography section.  Cool, huh?

This year, we entered some art and photography and a batch of cookies.  We didn't win anything fancy with those.  I thought Alison's photograph would win for sure, but it didn't.  We did. however, win a blue ribbon and $2 for Cotton Candy the rooster.  It was our first time entering an animal.  It was pretty cool.  We had to feed him twice a day and it was always fun to hear people walk by and say, "Whoa!  Look at that huge one!"  He was pretty impressive.  We put a sign on his cage stating that he was for sale and within a few hours, we sold him for $5.  So, instead of paying someone to take him off our hands or butchering him, we made $7 on the beast!!  Yippee! On a side note, two days after Cotton Candy left the hen house, I was awakened by another crowing.  I haven't figured out who the new rooster is yet, but I wish there was another fair to put him in!

Cotton Candy - not the colored sugar kind.

Baby's First Haircut

At ten months old, baby Bronson was in desperate need of a haircut!  Either that or ponytails.  His hair has always been his most popular feature so I was a little sad to cut it off, but goodness!  Something had to give!His hair is very fine and puffy.  It always sticks straight up.  It grows up, not out.  About a month ago, it started laying down on his head. It started in front and every few days, another layer would lay down. You'd think that would be a good thing, but it wasn't.  It was long and stringy and he had MAJOR bed head when he woke up in the morning.  So last Friday, I decided to chop it all off.

Nicki took a picture of us in the act of cutting his hair.

That's pretty long for a baby boy!

Cutting a baby's hair is no easy task!  Bronson's hair was so fine that it would just slip through the clippers.  Also, he was a constantly moving target.  It's amazing that I did as well as I did, even though it's pretty choppy and I keep finding stray long hairs. 

So happy with his new haircut!

So...how do I look?

Bron looks like such a big boy now!  And I cut out all the dark color in his hair - he turned blond like the rest of my kids.  His cheeks puffed up a bit when his hair shrunk.  I guess I'd better start using full-body shampoo on him.  Between his haircut, his two new teeth, and his determination to start walking any day now, he's had a busy week. 

What Idiot Said, "Life On The Farm Is Kinda Laid Back"?!?!?

Well, A lot has happened on our little farm in the past week.  I'll try to keep it brief, but I'll just warn you I tend to wax poetical...

Last Tuesday, we sold our baby goats.  It was pretty sad.  We sold all five of them to the same person.  They sold within a few hours of our posting them on Craigslist.  Wow!  I was pretty sure that they were being sold to a butcher, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that the buyer just wanted some pets for his nieces and nephews.  I was glad until a little later in the day when I started thinking about it.  In some ways, a quick death is better than a life of neglect.  I hope their new owner knows how to take care of goats!  Oh well - I can't think about it now.  We miss our funny little babies.  Alison especially.  She had to sit on her bed and cry while the goats were being loaded up by their new owner.  Nicki came out and helped load them up. 

When we went out to milk the goats on the evening that we sold the kids, we were amazed at how much milk they had to give.  We went from getting less than two cups per day to more than two gallons per day.  TWO GALLONS!!!  I've been trying to stay on top of it, but my fridge is being overrun by milk!  I've been learning how to make cheese - that's fun!  David made two batches on Saturday because it sounded kind of like a cool science experiment to him.  He had a ball!  I think he could really get into it. We've only made Mozzarella and Ricotta so far (I made stuffed Manicotti for dinner tonight with our own cheese - yum).  The only problem is how long it takes to make cheese.  It's not like I'll be whipping up a pound of cheese every day.  I drink about a quart per day, and force the kids to drink quite a bit too.  They eat it on their breakfast cereal.  It seems like I never go anywhere without bringing along a bottle of milk for people to try.  I've become obsessed, but if you had 17 quarts of milk in your fridge, with more on the way in the morning it'd be on your mind too!  I told David that between milking twice a day (once on my own, and once with David), hand-washing the equipment every time, constantly washing jars, trying to make cheese, drinking it all the time and looking for people to buy some milk from us, I feel like I'm running a dairy.  Dave's response was, "Um, yeah.  You are running a dairy, Kel."  Oh.  That explains it alright.  My mom says we should name our place "Gee's Goat-A-Rama."  David prefers "Chateau Chevon." Chevon is goat meat, like pork is pig meat.  Sounds classy, eh?

Good ol' David milking Clover.

Enjoying goat milk on their cereal.

Overrun with milk.  There's no room for eggs anymore.

On a non-caprine note, our biggest most beautiful hen started crowing a few weeks ago.  Not so much a hen anymore.  Dang It!  We loved Cotton Candy (that was her/his name).  We've got to get rid of him.  Sad, but true.  We don't want a rooster for more reasons than I care to write about.  The problem is, no body wants a rooster.  You can't sell them.  You practically can't pay people to take them!  We may just have to butcher him (and by we, I mean David).  The good news about that is he's HUGE!  He's about the size of a small turkey.  Still, we'd rather skip the whole mess and find someone to take him.  Oh, and we have one hen laying now.  We get one egg per day.  By next month, we'll be getting roughly a dozen per day.  Maybe I'll start making goat milk eggnog.

Cotton Candy.  Look how he dwarfs the other birds.

Last Thursday, the kids and I went on a huckleberry picking adventure.  We went up into the woods and found a small huckleberry patch.  We picked for about a half an hour before we needed to take a break.  Nicki was absolutely sure that we were going to get attacked by a hungry bear wanting our huckleberries.   Josh was terrified of bugs and went back into the van.  When he did come out, he ate all the berries he picked.  I think that's fantastic for a two year old - as long as he doesn't eat the ones I already picked.  Bronson was bored and hungry and kept dipping into my bucket.  Only Alison had the stamina for real harvesting.  Huckleberries are so small that it takes a long time to get many. The good news it that they're so powerful it doesn't take very many to flavor your yogurt or ice cream, etc.  Anyway, we stopped picking and had a picnic lunch, which was very enjoyable.  It was the most beautiful day!  Slightly breezy, warm, sweet smelling, hardly any bugs, quiet except for the sounds of nature, tons of bright wildflowers everywhere.  Just amazing!  After lunch, we decided to pack up and drive out a different way than we came in.  If we found more huckleberries, we'd stop and if not, we'd go home.  Boy!  Did we ever find huckleberries!   We found a hillside just covered in berries!  The girls were so excited!  They chattered on an on about how many berries we'd get and how we could pick ALL DAY!!  About twenty minutes and two cups of berries later, they were ready to go home.  It was a little hard at first for me to get out of the berry-picking mode and into the this-is-just-a-fun-outing-with-my-kids mode.  Once I did, I could just appreciate the great day we had in the woods together and think of the berries as a great little souvenir of our adventure.

Picnic in the woods!

That's a huckleberry.

Look at the wildflowers!

Huckleberry heaven!

Oh!  Bronson's going for my berries again!

  Last Saturday, my parents came by to visit.  They were on their way home from a trip to Jackson and West Yellowstone.  They got here in the evening and ate dinner with us.  I invited Grandma and Grandpa Gee as well.  The kids were so thrilled to have BOTH grandparents over at the same time.  I think Nicki thanked Heavenly Father about three or four different ways that they were all there while she was blessing the food.  After dinner, the Gees had to run to a wedding reception.  The Smiths stayed a while.  Josh wanted to take them on a tour of the yard (even though they've taken a tour dozens of times.)  Then they watched us milk the goats and just sat in our family room and visited for a while.  Sounds like an exciting night, doesn't it?  They kept saying how happy they were to see the lives our kids enjoy out here.  I'm not sure if they really felt that way or if they were just trying to convince themselves.  Just kidding.  I have to admit, it's pretty wonderful.  I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be.

Soccer

Nicki just finished her summer soccer season.  It was the first time any of us participated in organized sports and I think it was really fun.  Alison has NO desire to play sports.  In fact, just the idea brings her to tears.  We'll have to address that some day...  Nicki, on the other hand, was really excited to give soccer a try. 

Nicole "Pele" Gee feeling excited and nervous before her very first game.

She and her team mates were all playing for the first time.  Not a single one of them even knew the basics of how soccer is played, let alone how to play it themselves.  The coach didn't really know either.  She was just a nice mom who said she'd give it a try.  I WISH they had asked me.  I'm no soccer genius but I can at least teach kids the basics - like what a goal is and the basic rules of the game!!! Our coach just confused the kids more.  Her husband coached the games, but he wasn't much better.  I really had to bite my tongue and try to be patient (it didn't always work at the games, which made David chuckle at me).  Don't get me wrong, they are totally nice people and I like them a lot, but they're not soccer coaches.

Nicki is the tall red player.

 Of course, it doesn't really matter how good you are in this first year of soccer.  No one keeps score and there isn't even a goalie.  It's just for fun.  Good thing too, because our team got clobbered every time.  It was still super fun for Nicki.  She never got tired of playing.  She towered over everyone else, of course, but I was surprised by how timid she was.  Somewhere in the middle of the season, I finally found a way to fire her up (I think I gave her a "Big Mike" this-is-your-ball, don't-let-other-people-get-your-ball pep talk).  After that, she was one of the best players on her team.

Typical team huddle.  Only half the kids are listening and Nicki isn't even near.

Nicki scored three goals this season (two for her team and one for the other).   I missed two of them because she scored them when David took her to a late game - I had to stay home and put the boys to bed.  The other goal was pretty unique.  She scored it from the sidelines.  She threw the ball in from the sidelines and no one from either team touched it.  It just rolled into the goal and the ref counted it.  I've never seen that before!

Go Nicki, go!!!

Nicki's favorite parts of soccer were throwing the ball in when ever it got kicked out of bounds (she hardly ever let anyone else take a turn) retrieving it after the other team scored a goal (she had plenty of opportunities to do this) and getting treats after the game.  She's looking forward to playing again next summer and already planning on going pro when she gets older. 

Resting on the sidelines.

Ode to Beets

Author's Note:  Be prepared for several entries about food from the garden...it's the stuff our lives are made of right now, so you'll hear more than you care to, I'm sure.

Oh, how I love beets!  When I was single and living on my own, my favorite lunch was a can of beets warmed in the microwave and a can of solid white tuna in water drained and eaten right out of the can.  YUMMMM!  I've tried to pass that love on to my children, and for the most part it's worked (Josh isn't a fan yet, though). 

My first year in this house, I canned many many beets.  They were beautiful!  In fact, they took second place in the Madison County Fair (1st place went to my green beans - I guess it was slim-pickin's that year). Since then, I have tried to bottle beets every year, but I always fail miserably!  They go into the canner the most lovely back-purple color, but they come out a pale, sickly, ballet pink!  Even I won't touch beets that color!  I've asked every person I can think of from friends and neighbors to county extension officers.  I've tried many different variations and still get the same result.  argh!  Still, I won't give up!  I wasn't named "warrior woman" for nothing!

Anyway, yesterday morning, both sides of my kitchen sink were filled to overflowing with beets.  This year I decided to pickle them.  Guess what - they didn't bleach out!  I haven't tasted them yet, but I'm hopeful that they'll be alright.  The kids all vowed that they will not eat pickled beets, but I'll win them over.  We've eaten a lot of fresh beets for dinner and I even made a beet cake last night (tastes like carrot cake).  The best way to get your kids to eat a lot of beets is to promise them that they will turn their urine purple if they eat enough.  It's true, you know.  One of the many cool things about one of my favorite vegetables.

Family Reunion Week

Whew!  What a week we just had!  David took Thursday and Friday off for the Gee family reunion, so we decided to try to cram in a few things we have been wanting to do all summer.  First off, we wanted to try a drive-in movie.  This was a total first for all of our children.  They were THRILLED, as you can see from the pictures.  As far as drive-in movies go, this was practically perfect.  Dave took the back seat out of the van and turned it into a comfy viewing spot, then set up a big bed in the back.  We ate tons of popcorn and pop while we watched "Cars 2."  The kids loved seeing all the stars.  They usually go to bed before the sun's down.  Bronson slept in my arms most of the time.  Dave and I sat on the car seat and the kids all piled in the bed to watch the movie (except Josh who kept climbing in and out).  Of course, there was a lot of talking and movement, so we kind of half-watched  movie and the kids had a hard time falling asleep in the back while we watched "The Green Lantern," but overall, it was a fun night.  I think we might even do it again someday.  By the way, Wednesday was also our 9th wedding anniversary. 

So excited!

Almost time

Mom and Bronson, Nicki, Ali, and Josh eating popcorn.

The next day, I wanted to take the kids to the new water park.  I knew I couldn't do it without David's help.  He really didn't want to go, so he offered to keep the boys home and let me take the girls.  SWEET!!!  We had a great time.  We even went down the big water slide (a pretty big deal for Alison).  We spent most of our time in the lazy river, though.  Ahhhhhh, the lazy river.  Actually, it's not very lazy.  It's packed with squealy people.

The only picture I took - too busy playing to take any pics.

That evening marked the beginning of the bi-annual Gee family reunion.  It's always fun, and this year certainly didn't disappoint.  I feel bad that I don't have more pictures, but that just shows how much fun I was having.  We had a hot dog and marshmallow roast on Thursday.  On Friday morning we all met at the Craze Fun Zone, where we played laser tag, went miniature golfing, played in the arcade, climbed through the slides and other toys, and played with a train set.  In the afternoon, we went to the splash park.  Most of our family was planning on going to the new water park we'd gone to the day before, but when they got there it was full and they were turned away.  Sad for them, but great for us because they all came to the splash park with us.  We met for dinner again that night.  Saturday morning was filled with breakfast and the family meeting.  Throughout all of this, we all had a great time visiting and playing with our family.  It was hard to drag ourselves away each time we had to leave!  I'm sad that it's over for another two years.  I sure love me some Gees!



Just arriving at the hot dog roast.



Playing in the slide toys.

Jodi and Hannah, Grandma, Grandpa and Bronson looking on.

Josh was a little bit troublesome with this train set.  He was VERY protective of it.

Look at that Gagge of Gees!!!

David performing the "Gee Rap!"

Swimming Lessons

The girls just finished their swimming lessons for the summer.  What fun!  They went at 7:00 pm five days a week for two weeks.  There were only three kids in their class and the other little boy missed over half of the lessons, so the girls got a lot of time with their instructor.  I have to say, I was very impressed with how much each of them had improved since the last time.  I don't know how that's possible, since I don't think we went swimming one time between sessions.  Maybe part of it is age - they were better at listening and following instructions this time.

Alison

Nicole

Teacher Andrew (he was their teacher last time too) helping Nicole.

Andrew and Alison.

Playing water polo at the end of a lesson.

The main issue with both girls is just feeling confident.  I remember when it dawned on me that I didn't have to swim like I was drowning all the time.  If I just calmly moved my arms and legs, they would keep me alive.  Ali and Nicki haven't had that epiphany yet.  They still looked panicked all the time.  Once they settle down, they'll both be swimmers!