Stef's Stuff

Thursday, October 30, 2008

We've Got Guts - and Faces

It's that time of year again! My kids thought it was that time of year three weeks ago, but I held off until the day before Halloween.

The kids had lots of fun gutting pumpkins, but Robyn was the only one who actually carved her own. The rest were carved by Jef and I, and I'm pretty sure it will be a long, long time before I volunteer to carve another Disney character into a pumpkin.
But they turned out great, don't you think?

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Missing: One House

There is a cute little red brick house that I pass often in my goings and comings that has been for sale forever. I haven't paid too much attention to it. Just an absent-minded mental note-to-self. "That's a cute little house. Somebody ought to buy it."

So when my brother called me up the other day asking me to keep an eye out for houses around here, I naturally thought of that little red brick one.
So today as we were running around, I thought I'd drive past it and see how much they were asking. I couldn't remember exactly where it was, but I was pretty sure it was on the north end of 2nd or 3rd west. Couldn't be too hard to find. I pass it all the time.
Hmm. Not here.
Well, maybe it was 1st west.
Not there either.
Could it possibly have been 5th?
To get to the point here, I have been up and down every street.
Every street that I go down on a regular basis, many streets I rarely use, and some that I have never been on before. And it's not there. It's not anywhere. I described it to Jef, who knows every house in town, but he doesn't know this one.
I promise I've been passing it on a regular basis for several years now, but where?
I have become obsessed with the finding of this house.
Not for my brother. No, the original point has been entirely forgotten.
My brother can find his own house, I'm busy.
Looking for my mind.
I seem to have lost it.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Family Pictures

Robert Whitmore's homecoming was on Sunday, and we took the opportunity to take some family pictures. Of course, when you put the Andersons and the Whitmores together, you do not end up with regular old normal family pictures.
Cannon was a little worried about falling off the pyramid, and kept watching the bottom people. But when we told him to look up - he did!
The girls' pyramid was not so geometrical as the boys'. But we're cuter, so it's alright.

Lydia does not approve of out-of-the-box family pictures, as you can see above. But she did think the leaves were pretty fun to play with.
Too bad she didn't smile this well for school pictures last week. I guess she likes leaves better than dead chickens. Strange...

Monday, October 20, 2008

What Kind of Water?

Jennie has something against hot water. Or even warm water. Why anyone would want to take a cold bath is beyond me, but she does. I'm always trying to make her bath as warm as possible, without her getting after me. Except she can't get the terminology quite right. When it's too warm, she says,
"No, I want clean water."
Does she think the warm water is dirty? I don't know. But she must have picked up on the fact that she wasn't saying it quite right, because now if it's too warm, she says,
"No, I want dry water."
What a cutie.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Truckful of Treasures

On Saturday, Jef went to an auction at an antique shop. But they weren't selling antiques. Just the junk out of the shed in back. But Jef was thrilled to find some swingin' bargains.
He bought a lawn edger for $2, and they threw in a snow blower for free.
He got three sections of triple wall insulated chimney pipe, which he was very excited about. (No, we don't have a wood stove or anything else that requires a chimney.)
Other bargains included a fertilizer spreader for $2, a dresser for $6, and he also bought some shelves for $4, but was required to take away everything that was on the shelves, too.
And there were all kinds of treasures on those shelves. My favorite was an Incredibles DVD, but that CD of The Best Darn Drinking Songs Ever was pretty good, too. (Anyone need 100 pocketknife holders?)
The other stuff, well, there was a lot of it. Some of which we have yet to discover a name for - or a purpose.
Here's a picture of Jef looking through his treasures which almost covered the floor of a U-Haul truck.

All for a total of $20.
(Eat your heart out, Kendra. ;)

Everything you can think of, including the kitchen sink.
(Four of them)

Broken-Hearted

Last night during the chaos of bedtime, I suddenly heard wailing from the bathroom. I went to investigate, and found Jennie completely broken-hearted. When I finally got her to tell me what happened, she said through her tears,
"Cannon says I'm a windshield!"
Shocking, isn't it?

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Happy Birthday Lydia!

Sunday was Lydia's first birthday!

I think that was probably the fastest year of my life.
And definitely of hers.

She really couldn't figure out the whole candle thing.
But she knew just what to do when we moved on to the eating part.

She is such a sweet little girl, and I am so lucky to have her in my life.
And she's not always so serious as she appears in these pictures. In honor of her birthday, here are a few of the

Faces of Lydia.

And here's a video for Jamie.
(Since I'm sure that's who she's calling. ;)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LYDIA!!!

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Monday, October 6, 2008

And There You Have It

Two weeks! It only took me twice as long to blog my trip as it did to live it. Not bad. Thanks to all of you who have followed me clear through the TWENTY blog entries I required to share an eight day trip. (Some people are just long-winded. That's all there is to it.) If you're just tuning in, this all started clear back at Niagara Falls.
But don't worry, I'm sure I won't be going anywhere else for at least another eight years, so you'll have some time to recuperate.
But seriously, this trip was such a blessing, and I really feel as if I was led to the places I needed to go and the people I needed to see. Even though it wasn't a convenient time, and we couldn't necessarily afford it, I felt such a strong need to go. And now I'm so glad that I did. If only all of life's callings were so much fun. ;)

Connoisseurs

Well, we may not be architectural connoisseurs, but we are definitely experienced in cemeteries.

We visited cute little ones in churchyards,
Gigantically huge ones with lakes here and there,

Very old ones which inspire rest for both the living and the dead,

And then there was this one. This one caused us to flip a U-turn on the highway and get out to take pictures, even though it was almost dark. This one was obviously inspired by a lazy lawnmower.
All the headstones are scrunched up on one big square of cement, and the cemetery is left big and open. And empty. The headstones were both old and new(ish), and the people didn't seem to be related.
Sorry, no more room in this cemetery. Our little square of headstones is full. Try the next town.

At Least That's What I Thought

Before we left, I tried to find every ancestor buried in Ontario, and make sure I knew where every cemetery was so I wouldn't miss anyone. One couple, Adam Clarke Cooper and his wife Charlotte, I didn't have any record of where they were buried. But I remembered reading somewhere that someone thought they might have been buried in Buffalo. So i checked out the Buffalo cemeteries, but there over twenty of them, and I couldn't figure out which ones were old enough, and I finally ran out of time and gave up.

So on our way to the church history sites in New York, we got hopelessly lost in Buffalo. We ended up just driving around until we finally found a road that was on the map. As we were wandering, we passed a cemetery. I said, "I wonder if Adam and Charlotte are buried there."
But we continued on, finally found our way out of Buffalo, spent the whole day visiting church history sites, and made it back after dark. Our plane would be leaving at 11:00am the next morning, and our trip was pretty much over.
At least that's what I thought.

As I pulled out our itinerary to make sure I knew all the right times, I realized that our tickets were for the 24th, not the 23rd. I was shocked. I still have no idea how that happened, and I still get angry when I think about it. They were for the wrong day!!!
So we called the airline, and after charging us a hefty fee, they changed our flight to the right day. But it wouldn't leave until 5:00pm.
Suddenly I had a lot of time on my hands.
So I said, "Remember that cemetery we passed when we were lost?"

We found our way back, and asked at the office.
You already know, don't you?
They were there!!!
How crazy is that?Of course, they had no headstones. That doesn't seem to be the fashion among my family. This backpack is where Charlotte's headstone should be, and if you look really close, you can see Jef waving his arms where Adam's should be. They're like ten rows apart!

And remember how I thought that first cemetery was so big?
Well, this one was bigger.
It was HUGE!
Massive!!
It was
two hundred and sixty-nine acres!!!
Yes, I'm serious. You can check their website.

I didn't even know they made cemeteries that big.

So Jef and I found a picturesque spot to eat lunch by one of several bodies of water. While we ate, we noticed this big weird thing, and we went to check it out. No names on the slabs, a weird quote on the poking up part. We couldn't figure out why it was there.
We said, "Huh."
And went home.
So when I got home, I went to their website, and found out that this thing is a very famous monument by Frank Lloyd Wright, and they are very proud of it. I guess we're not exactly architectural connoisseurs, are we?
Also turns out that Millard Fillmore (the President) was buried in that cemetery. But we sort of missed that.
Or maybe we did see it, but we just said, "Huh."
And went home.

Just a Practice

We missed the kids' primary program while we were gone. (I know, I know. I feel terrible.) But we called that night to see how it went. When I talked to Cannon I said, "So, was it the primary program today?"
"No, it was just a practice."
What?
"A practice with everyone watching?"
"Yep."
"Oh. So, did you do a good job at your practice?"
"Ya, I was pretty great."
What a kid.