Leaves

Our Birdhouse - A Procrastination Project

Extreme procrastinator: one who waits forever - and I mean FOREVER - to complete a project

Nathan and I both fall under that personality category. We have owned the above birdhouse for .....ummmm.....3 months or so. And what has it been doing for the last three months you ask? Sitting in our garage collecting dust. A week ago Saturday Nathan finally decided that it was time we put it out. Not sure what made him finally decide to do, but I am certainly glad he did! That is just the way it is with us procrastinators, when we finally decide to do a project there is generally no rhyme or reason as to why we do it :P. So Nathan got it all set up and let the kids put the bird feed in it.

Day one - no birds.

Day two - no birds.

Day three - no birds.

Day four - no birds.

Day five - Miracle of miracles, a red bird is perched on the feeder eating away happily. I call Nathan excitedly because I see a bird actually eating the bird feed! He comes home eagerly looking for a bird. No bird.

Day six - no birds

Day seven - no birds - Nathan begins to get paranoid that maybe no birds will ever come eat from it (I guess it doesn't matter that I have already seen a bird there) so he throws some additional bird feed out on the picnic table to lure the birds to the birdhouse.

Day eight - Nathan finally sees the red bird that I told him about and he feels very mollified that maybe the birds really do love him and his bird feed.

That Face

While at church today, I had to take Layton out into the hallway about halfway through sacrament meeting because he was fussing. This is generally our ritual every Sunday. Then for the rest of the meeting I usually walk around in the Relief Society room with the speaker on and listen to the talks. As I was walking down the hall to the Relief Society room, a sweet older sister came up behind me. Layton was perched up on my shoulder, much in the same way that he is perched up on Nathan shoulder in this picture. And as always, when someone comes up to him, he flashes his amazing smile. I heard the sister behind me make a little "ahh" sound and then she said, "His little face just melts your heart doesn't it."

Yep, this little face melts my heart every single day.

Gulf Specimen Marine Lab

Another very fun place that we went to while over with my family is the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab. It is in some little rinky dink sad looking building and the tanks are certainly nothing special, but this place was awesome. Talk about a hands on learning experience, well this was it. When Mema (aka Aunt Becky) first told me about it, I wasn't too sure how my kids would like it. But after just a few minutes of watching Sarah and Emily touch all kinds of little marine animals, they joined right in the fun too. I think Mandy was even more adventurous about touching things than Dallin.

And my fourth child Nathan, enjoyed it just as much as the other kids. In fact he was even touching things where there was a clearly posted sign "do not touch". Luckily he didn't stick his hand into the shark tank though. We happened to be there when the owner was feeding the animals. He fed the nursing sharks and it was wild. He held the fish right above the water and then the shark swam up to it and sucked it right up. It sounded just like a vacuum cleaner sucking something up. The kids were also able to feed some of the fish themselves using little sardines. At first Dallin refused to do it, but he quickly got caught up in the excitement of it and threw a little fish out into the water too. Mandy didn't need any coaxing at all. She just grabbed the sardine and threw it in.

All of the animals housed there are species found locally in the Gulf of Mexico. We were able to touch sand dollars, star fish, urchins, clams, crabs, and a few other things that I don't even know the name of. They of course also had other things to look at that we couldn't touch like the sharks, horseshoe crabs, sting rays, squid, and lots of other things. It was so much fun. We definitely want to go there again someday (hint to Mema :).

Did you see Sarah's super cute haircut in some of the pictures above? She grew her hair out for 4 years and then donated 10 inches of it to Locks of Love (they use the hair to make wigs for kids that have lost theirs due to illness). I am so proud of her! And darling Emily, why oh why doesn't she live closer to me? If I had my way she would be worn out with babysitting :). What I wouldn't give to have her come live with me and be my live in nanny. She is so wonderful with kids. She is going to be a fantastic mom one day!

Check-ups

Monday, Layton and Mandy went in for their 9 month and 3 year old check up appointments. The doctor checked them over and determined that they looked perfectly healthy! Which is wonderful. Layton weighed exactly 16 lbs and was 26 1/2 inches long. This put him at the 10th percentile for height and he actually dropped off the scale for weight. Just barely off the scale though. If I had to put a percentile on it, I would call it the -1 percentile, if there even is such a thing. The doctor didn't seem too concerned about it though since Layton had already been hanging out at around the 10th percentile for weight and it is not unusual for babies around this age to have a drop off in weight since they suddenly become so very active with crawling. And lets just say this is especially true for Layton because he is active in the extreme. So the doctor said that we should just take a wait and see approach to the situation and see what his weight is at 1 year. If his weight drops even further off the scale at 1 year, he may have to go on a high calorie diet of Pediasure. But hopefully he'll fatten up a little between now and then and we won't have to worry about a thing. He also got his finger pricked and they did a blood count and iron test, which came back showing his blood was perfect! So even though he is tiny, he is still very healthy.

Mandy weighed in at 28 lbs and is 39 inches tall. This put her at the 10th percentile for weight, which really isn't all that surprising. What is surprising is that she is at the 75th percentile for height. No wonder you can see all of her little ribs when she is naked. The little weight she has is stretched over a surprisingly tall body. She also took a vision test. She did extremely well on the near vision, but when it was time to begin the test for far sightedness, she began to get pretty distracted and she only made it through part of the test. But the part she did was correct, so I don't think she has any vision problems, which is great! Don't you love her little paper gown? She thought she was pretty special to get to wear it. And truthfully, she really is pretty special :)



P.S. I found an interesting article from the World Health Organization comparing their growth charts and the standard CDC charts used by US doctors. In the article it said that from 2 months onward it is not uncommon for breastfed infants to appear to "falter" in their weight on the CDC charts. And sure enough, when I looked up Layton's weight on the WHO charts, he is at about the 5th percentile and not off the bottom of the chart. Also there is a website that depicts the growth of only breastfed infants and on that chart Layton is actually at around the 25th percentile. So yes he is small, but maybe he isn't as small as I originally thought.

Pine Boards, Tractor Rides, and Sweet Water

While in Bristol, we of course visited the farm with my dad. It is fast becoming a tradition for us to spend part of each visit to Bristol at the farm with him. This time my dad demonstrated his little saw mill for us. It was pretty cool to see the perfect pine planks come out of a rugged looking bark covered tree. Last year, the priesthood in my dad's ward built wooden above ground planters for some elderly and handicap members of the ward. The planters are large wooden boxes set on about 3 to 4 feet stilts to allow easy access to a garden area so that even those with special needs can enjoy the fruits of their labors by planting a small vegetable garden. Although truthfully it sounds like a set up that would be nice for anyone, not just those with special needs, because not only does it give you easy access, but you wouldn't have to deal with intrusion from grass and I would think you would also have fewer weeds. Another local church heard of the project and decided to do the same thing for some of the members of their congregation. So my dad has been volunteering his time in cutting lumber for them to build the garden boxes. I think it such a wonderful idea for a service project. I know I love my little tiny garden that we have in the backyard and I am sure that all those who did receive one or will receive one will absolutely enjoy the process of creation involved with gardening.

We also did our usual feeding of the chickens. Layton was fascinated with them he couldn't take his eyes off of them. It was especially entertaining to see two roosters chasing each other around, picking a fight with each other. The bigger rooster ended up chasing the other one right up a tree. It was amazing to see how high some of those hens went up into the pine trees to nest during the night. I had no idea that chickens did that.

Dallin of course, had to take a drink of the "sweet" water. He claims that it is the best water he has ever tasted. And since he got into it, Mandy had to follow along too. They also went on a tractor ride. Layton actually went on one too. We thought that he might be scared of it, but he seemed to love it. I guess he is starting to fall under the Granddaddy spell as well and it won't be long before he is begging us to go see Granddaddy just like the other two do.

As night was falling crazy Andrew showed up on Cliff's four wheeler. He took Dallin for a spin and even took him through the mud a few times. I think that just like Andrew used to adore everything that Cliff did, Dallin now adores everything that Andrew does. After he got off the four wheeler, Andrew took off and went riding through the mud again. My dad made a comment about Andrew being crazy and we all agreed with him. All except Dallin that is. He stood up for Andrew and said he wasn't crazy. Then Nathan asked Dallin, "Well, what is he then, cool?" Dallin's face lit up with the biggest smile and he said "Yeah, he is SOOOOO cool." Scares me a little because Andrew really is crazy. He's a good boy, but he's crazy.

Torreya State Park

While we were over visiting my family, we decided to take the kids to one of my very favorite places in Liberty County, Torreya State Park. The park is located along the Apalachicola river and is famous because it is the only place in Florida, in fact pretty much in the south, where the torreya tree can be found. There are a number of other very rare flora and fauna that can be found in the park, as well as a huge variety of animal life, some of them endangered species.






It is also hold some historical significance because of the use of the natural bluff as a defense point for the Confederate army during the Civil War. There have also been some Seminole Indian relicts found at the park. Oddly enough, the park is also known as the best place to view the changing fall leaves in Florida. For some reason at this particular place there is a dense collection of hardwood trees, like beech, yellow poplar, hickory, sourwood, and ashe. It is said that the colors there at the end of November and beginning of December are amazing.





Of course the most visibly unique site at the park is the Gregory Mansion. The mansion was built in 1849 and was actually moved to this particular location in the 1930s in order to preserve its historical value. All that is well and nice, but this park is special to me because of memories made there. Almost every year in elementary school we took a field trip to this park. It was always one of the most fun field trips that we took. And I can't tell you how many egg hunts I have been to there.

This is also the place that Nathan and I went to have our engagement pictures taken. So it is pretty special to me for that reason too. It was so great to go there again and make new memories with my own children. Upon arriving, we picked up a little map of the park and Dallin immediately took it over. We decided to take the nature trail along the river, which is my favorite walk at the park, and Dallin opened up his map and determined that he would lead us the entire way. The path was marked by little rectangles of color painted on certain trees and so as we would pass one marked tree Dallin would eagerly seek out the next so that he could keep us on the right path.

Dallin turned the walk into a pirate adventure and pretended to use his map to look for buried treasure. And buried treasure we found in the sights, sounds, and hidden beauty all along the path. Since then, Dallin has asked me twice about going back there because he wants to go along the "pirate trail" again. Next time we go though, we are going to make sure we get there in time to go on the tour of the mansion house. The tour was at 10:00 and we got there at 10:30. Oh well, we'll just have to plan better next time. The kids still had fun peering through the windows into the house and of course the pirate adventure was the highlight of the day.