Jelly? Ketchup? Same Diff!

I don't know exactly what it is about it, but I LOVE Strawberry jelly.  I have always loved strawberry ANYTHING: ice cream, dum-dums, bon-bons, you name it.  It's always been my favorite flavor--for as long as I can remember. 

Much to my dismay, my children LOVE grape jelly.  I don't know why, but they will choose grape over strawberry any day...at least Tyson ALWAYS will.  When I look at the pros and cons of which flavor of jelly to buy at the grocery store, practicality almost always wins out.  Grape is CHEAPER...like ALL THE TIME.  Except last week.  Last week Welch's squeezable jellies were the same price, no matter which flavor I chose, so I merrily put strawberry in my cart!!!  (After all, Tyson has been choosing honey lately for his PB sandwiches anyway, and I thought I might be able to sway Emmett to eat it--he's not as picky with his food.) 

At lunch the other day, I was relishing in the delicious taste of my sandwich and I told Emmett, "This is my FAVORITE kind of jelly!"

He looked at me. Looked at his food. Eyed the squeezable container. He FINALLY decided to taste his lunch and proclaimed, "Mmmm!  This my favorite kind of ketchup!!!"

Whatever works, right?  Looks like one of my children is seeing jelly from my point of view, even if he thinks it is easily comparable to ketchup.  

Oranges and Independence

 

We have been so lucky to be friends with the Lamoreaux's who happen to have a little farm close-by that we sometimes get eggs from.  Mitch took the boys there on a bike ride and they got to come home with some "free-range eggs" and fresh oranges from the tree.  Last time we got eggs from them, they also shared home-grown broccoli with us which was actually the most delicious broccoli I've ever tasted, hands down.  The boys love to go there because they get to pet the bunnies and see the cows that Emmett calls "goats".  I loved hearing Tyson explaining the things to me he learned from the "girl farmer" on their trip. : )  It's so much fun.  You would think having oranges would seem like a common thing since we get them all the time from the store, but whenever the kids get ANYTHING from the Lamoreaux's farm, it turns into something EXTRA SPECIAL.

Emmett was my helper setting the table last night.  The first thing he did (all of his own accord), was set an orange in front of each chair--one orange from the farm for each of us.  Then I handed him plates.  He left the adult plates stacked, and put the kid plates out.  And finally he put the forks on the table...of course the adults ended up with the kid forks and the kids ended up with the big forks, but it was cute and he was happy to be setting the table by himself.

 We actually only ended up sharing one of the oranges at dinner last night because we had so much other food prepared, so this morning the boys wanted to eat oranges again.  Tyson, of course, asked if we could make orange juice from the oranges.  At first I didn't want a mess, and part of me wanted to say no, but you only live once, so we pulled out the juicer.  I'm so glad we did.  He was so proud of himself and beamed when he told me, "I cutted my first orange!"

 Team work

We finished juicing all the oranges. Tyson insisted on cutting them all on his own with a butter knife.  As you can tell...his skills didn't necessarily improve with each orange--they "halves" became less equal with each orange, but they still juiced just fine and he had fun!

The orange juice we made was SO SWEET!  I love fresh oranges--you don't have to add anything to them at all to have a delicious, tasty treat.  It tasted even better because of our kids' fun memories with the Lamoreaux's.  : )

Mo-Tab

So, we totally lucked out on Saturday when Trent & Rachel asked us to go to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with them.  They ended up having 2 extra tickets and let us fill in.  This was only my 2nd time seeing the choir live, and it was Mitch's 1st time.  Apparently it was the Mo-Tab's 2nd time EVER in Arizona.  Good thing Arizona is turning 100 tomorrow so that we could have a fun celebration.  We pretty much had the best seats in the house.  We were at the perfect range to get the the right sound mixing + the choir's natural sound coming towards us--my dad understands what that means, because it's a big deal to him, and the trio to have the right seating for the right sound mix at any concert. : )  We also had awesome seats because of Trent's skills at the ticket booth.  There was a mix up with the tickets and the Blake's ALMOST got jipped by getting nose-bleed seating even though they paid for a lower section, but the ticket booth was very accommodating and fixed the issue by giving us PERFECT seats!  We were only 4 rows up from the ground level, so we could see unobstructed past everyone's heads, and had a full view of the choir and orchestra.  The concert was great; I'm so glad we got to go for our early Valentine's date.  We ate at Pei Wei beforehand which meant I got crab wontons all to myself + we had excellent company.  We also ate dinner with Scott & Laurie, but I didn't take a picture until later.

My favorite parts of the performance included Alex Boye's solo on "Down to the River to Pray" (he sang each note with clarity and passion).  I also loved hearing "Come, Come, Ye Saints" live, and apparently my baby LOVED "Battle Hymn of the Republic", because he was kicking throughout the ENTIRE song.  So cute!  I also loved the Gershwin organ solo of "I've Got Rhythm".  Never in my life have I seen the organ played that way...I will probably never see something that amazing on the organ again.   I don't know how anyone can play differing rhythms and melodies between their hands AND simultaneously play a foot pedal line, too.  His whole body was in motion and the result was awesome.

Thanks, Trent & Rachel!  We had an awesome time and loved the Mo-Tab & Orchestra!

Tender Moments

D-Jo: I have the cutest kids in the world!

Tyson:  Are you sure about dat? Because there are a lot of kids in the world.

D-Jo: Well, you and Emmett are the cutest kids to me!

Tyson:  Well I think there are kids who are probably cuter.

D-Jo:  Like who?

Tyson:  Like Cory's baby sister or somefing.

We were fortunate to host a missionary discussion in our home last week for a friend who is looking into the church.  We were having a lesson on the First Vision and my husband was reading the passage.  To relate back to something that had happened to our friend, Mitch read the passage and stopped after her read about the pillar of light.  Before he started to expound, Tyson (who had been sitting quietly) piped up and said, "The light was Jesus and God."  It made me so happy that he remembered that and that he was being a little missionary.  At only 4 1/2 and he helped teach a discussion on the 1st Vision.  Gotta love it!

After church on Sunday, I asked Tyson what he learned at church.

Tyson:  I don't know.

D-Jo: You don't know what you learned about?  You forgot already?

Tyson: No, I don't know IF I learned.

D-Jo:  Well, learning is when you hear something new.  So, what was your lesson about.

Tyson:  The war in Heaven.

D-Jo:  Well, have you heard about that before?

Tyson:  I don't think so.

D-Jo:  Then you learned something!  Yay! (Knuckles)

Then we started talking about who won the war in Heaven.  And I told him that we're still fighting the war in Heaven here on earth now.

Tyson: I know that.

D-Jo:  How did you know that?

Tyson: That's what my teacher said!

D-Jo:  Oh!  And do you know how we win the war against Satan on earth today?

Tyson: By doing good things and being nice!

Looks like he's learning...even if he's not sure what "learning" is.  : )

Sometimes I ask my kids, "Will you be my little boy forever?"

Tyson's response is always, "You mean, your big-boy forever?"

Emmett's response is always, "Will you be my little mommy forever?"

Sometimes I tell Emmett he's a "cutie-patootie", and he says back to me: 

"You a tooey-tooey!"

And this last one endears me to Emmett, because it makes me smile.  He likes to "race" Tyson from the front door to the back door, although he doesn't truly care who gets there first, which is good because Tyson ALWAYS wins.  Emmett is always the one who starts the race when they're lining up on the wall and he tries to say "On your mark, get set, go!" except it comes out, "On get mark! On GET, GO!"