Jeans-Porch-Oktoberfest

So, I'm pretty sure people have been wearing them for at least 3 years now...I've been fighting it and fighting it and wanting nothing to do with it.  But, I have been feeling a little pressure from a certain little sibling to step up my level of fashion.  Oh, and I recently read this article while sitting comfortably in my Old Navy Jeans and it freaked me out.   Thus, I surrendered and bought myself a pair of skinny jeans this week.

They look so weird and don't feel right, but supposedly people are wearing these.  I'm pretty sure no one was taking notice of my skinny jean boycott anyway.

On the home front, I came home the other day and noticed several houses on the block had put out Halloween or fall decorations and I panicked!  This is our first year with our own house and I had no idea what to do.  I'm pretty confident in my Christmas decorating skills, but have no idea what I'm doing the rest of the year.  No, seriously.  I have 4 giant boxes of Christmas decorations and 1 leaf-shaped candle holder for the rest of the year.  Thankfully, I have a mother with a bit of a decorating sense (see her blog here).  She gave me a few tips and ideas and I headed out and got to work.

Andrew in his colander 'hard hat' helping me make my planter fall-ish.

The finished project all ready to put on the front porch.

Got a fall leaf wreath for the door and my planter on the porch.

My mom told me that it doesn't take much to look festive and it's just little touches here and there that make all the difference.  I think I may agree and am definitely feeling like less of a failure on the domestic front every time we pull into our driveway now!  

Clearly, I haven't spent enough time in the mountains this week since this is all I could think to post about tonight.  We did venture up Little Cottonwood Canyon last night to check out Oktoberfest at Snowbird ski resort.  It was a lot of fun and the boys did a little dancing to the Bavarian music.  We enjoyed kraut and sausages and pumpkin beer.  Ah, fall.  Here's the only 2 pictures I took up there--Andrew sawing grass and Matthew hanging out in the stroller.

Trip to the Zoo

"Maybe next time we can go to a zoo that has dinosaurs." ~Andrew

Our Week

This week has been somewhat uneventful.  Poor Andrew had a fever Monday through Wednesday, so we spent a lot of time at home.  We did a few projects around the house and Andrew spent a lot of time watching TV and resting.  I make the kids go 24 hours fever-free before I'll let them out of the house and around other kids, so we were bummed to miss the chance to get together with new friends on Thursday and go to Andrew's park district gymnastics class.  We also missed our neighborhood playgroup again.  I was definitely a little stir crazy by the end of the week, but am happy Andrew's better and no one else has caught whatever he had (yet, at least).

Here's a few pictures from the week:

On Sunday, we met up with friends at a playground.  Our kids are the same age and I caught some swinging fun together.  This park is pretty incredible.  The whole thing is full of sand and everyone leaves their trucks and shovels there for others to play with.  I meant to get a picture of the 50 or so trucks in the middle of the park, but forgot.  It's my favorite playground so far and Andrew's a huge fan.

Andrew and Ella: 

Matthew and Harrison:

Lots of time at home this week.  My 2 goof balls under the coffee table.  

I went downstairs to check on Andrew and found him dead asleep.  Besides in the car, this is definitely the first time Andrew's fallen asleep without being put to bed.  Poor guy.

A new friend here just decided to start a "Ladies Morning Out" group.  Once a month, we'll head out on a weekend and do something together--hiking, dining, etc.  We got up at 7 this morning and headed out for a hike and enjoyed some mimosas and breakfast at the top of the hike while overlooking the city and the mountains.  It was a beautiful morning and I've included some fall foliage pictures, as promised.    I only had my phone with me, so they aren't the best quality, but you can at least get an idea of the colors.

The mountains are pretty hazy right now because smoke is blowing over from fires in Idaho.

The buildings closest are all part of the University of Utah.  In the distance, you can see the capital building and downtown.

When I returned from my morning hike, Bob took off and did a 24 mile bike ride up a canyon!  I think it's safe to say that his Saturday morning activity was a little more intense than my mimosa hike. :)  

Kraut night!

Ever since we got back from Munich in 2009, we've made our own sauerkraut.  We went to the Salt Lake farmer's market on Saturday morning to get our cabbage and got to work tonight.  I remember the task seeming so daunting the first year.  Now, it seems like no big deal at all.  Tonight we had our 3rd annual kraut night after dinner while Matthew ate scraps under the table (see previous post) and Andrew helped load up the food processor.   4-6 weeks from now we will get to have a canning night and preserve our kraut to use in reubens, with sausages/brats on the grill, and we'll probably make some pierogies too!  Here's some photos of the fun:

First, you cut up the cabbage and shred it with the food processor.

Then, you dump the shredded cabbage (in batches) into a food grade bucket or fermentation crock:

Next, add salt and stir it all up.  The salt draws the water out of the cabbage and then you weight it down with a plate and some weights so that the cabbage is fully submerged under the liquid.  After 4-6 weeks, it's ready!

We highly recommend you enlist the help of an almost-three-year-old.  They're pretty good at pushing the button on the food processor, picking out the pieces that are too big, and stirring in such a way that pieces of cabbage fly all over the floor.  

Food and Tools

We've been enjoying watching Matthew's personality bloom.  One thing we've really noticed is that this boy loves to eat!  We affectionately refer to him as The Bottomless Pit.

Matthew snacking while Andrew yells at him to get off his book!

While camping last weekend, Matthew kept finding his snack containers and helping himself:

Matthew snacking yet again...

I turned around at a stop light while running errands last week and this little face was looking at me (and snacking, of course):

Andrew has never been all that into food, but he is currently obsessed with his tools.  He refers to himself as "Andrew the builder" and wants to fix everything!  He keeps asking me what's broken and needs fixing.  If I answer with something he's already "fixed" for us, he gets pretty upset with me and demands I name something else for him to work on.  I'm running out of ideas.  Today he used his chain saw and hammer to fix the lamp in Matthew's room.

Instead of carrying his tools in his tool box, Andrew the Builder likes to carry his tools in his "tool belt."  This is how he walked out from his nap this afternoon:

I'm thinking it'd probably be a good idea to get our little builder a tool belt soon.

Moose!

We found ourselves on a hike last weekend and turned a bend and saw this:

In Maine, we spent days and days hoping to see a moose and here was one just a few feet away from a trail.  Unfortunately, the friends we were hiking with let us know about a personal story of a moose charging a friend of theirs.  And, they mentioned that more people are actually killed by moose than bears.  So, although we were excited and got a few pictures, we were also pretty terrified that it was so close and spent a long time figuring out if we should continue on the trail (we did) or if we should turn around and forget the hike.  Fortunately, this guy was happily grazing and didn't care at all about us.

The view at the end of our hike was gorgeous.  Blue skies and pretty aspens:

The leaves are starting to change up in the mountains already, so I think we'll have to get a few fall foliage hikes in soon!

The Blog Title

When B and I got married 5 years ago, true to form, we researched every aspect of the day.  In fact, the priest even joked about how much we struggled to pick a gospel for the mass during his homily during the ceremony.  And, while unpacking in Utah a few weeks ago, we came across our lengthly list of every gospel we considered with grades (GRADES!) next to each one.

Anyway, we put an equal amount of effort, minus assigning grades, into the song for our first dance.  The song we chose was a Willy Nelson song titled, "Home is Where You're Happy."  Here are the lyrics to our song:

Home is where you're happy and I'm happy here with you,

Or any place on earth that you may be.

Home is where you're happy, just any house will do,

And I'll feel at home as long as you're with me. 

This room could not hold me for one short minute;

If you weren't here with me, I'd soon be gone.

That chair is just a chair when you're not in it.

It takes more than rooms and chairs to make a home. 

Home is where you're happy and I'm happy here with you,

Or any place on earth that you may be.

Home is where you're happy, just any house will do,

And I'll feel at home as long as you're with me. 

Time, someday, may cause this house to crumble,

But we'll move into another, love and all.

And if time, someday, should make your footsteps stumble,

I'll be there to catch you, should you fall. 

Home is where you're happy and I'm happy here with you,

Or any place on earth that you may be.

Home is where you're happy, just any house will do,

And I'll feel at home as long as you're with me.

We were living in Chicago when we picked this song and had no idea how much this song would end up being the story of our first five years of marriage.  We are now living in our 5th state since our wedding and while we're hoping to slow down and not have 30 states for our 30th anniversary, I have found that the final words of the song have rung true and that "just any house will do, and I'll feel at home as long as you're with me."

Welcome to our blog, where we'll share our big and little adventures of our new home.