Must Be Crazy

Yesterday afternoon we decided to get out of the house and go sledding. We have a couple of parks with smaller hills, but Jon and the boys discovered what we call "The Gully" a week or so ago. It encompasses quite a few great sledding runs on the west end of the golf course. You'll notice in these pictures that we are the only people out there. Well, it was a whopping 19 degrees, and the wind was blowing. I don't know what the wind chill factor was. I do know it was C-O-L-D.
Moments where Carson and Evan are not taking swings at each other are relatively rare these days. I was happy to catch this one.

Makes me happy to see my Jonny happy, and there's not much that makes him happier than a day outside with his guys.

I took another photo of Carson properly attired, but I wanted to catch his wild hair - he's washed it, but it hasn't had a comb in it since Christmas Day.

We really weren't torturing Griff on purpose. He wanted to get up the hill "all by myself!" (said in his typical 3-yr-old stubborn fashion). So, this is what he came up with. He never made it to the top - just ended up sliding down sans sled.

Can't tell in this photo, but Evan is missing 4 of his front teeth (two top centers, one just to the left of center, and the 4th is right of center on the bottom.) He's really got a jack-o-lantern smile going for him right now.


These are the western and eastern views from the top of the hill. I love that we live where we do.

To the west you can see the Kennecott Copper Mine in the distance at the base of the Oquirrh Mountains (which you can't see because of the cloud cover).

To the east you see the golf course and in the distance, the Wasatch Mountains.

Jazzy Jinglin Bells

Carson decided to join the Terra Linda Elementary School Choir this year. They had their Christmas concert on December 13. It was great! The choir director taught them 9 songs, which included choreography, bells, lights, and singing in both Alto and Soprano. Sounded fabulous!


Jon told Carson to use his flashlight and point out the girl he likes. Carson just did his typical pre-teen frozen eye stare and turned to aim the light right at Mom and Grandma Norris. Thanks, Cars we really enjoyed that part.


He later confided (I suppose it'll be the last time if he finds out the conversation is now on our blog...) that he couldn't point her out because with all of the girls grouped together (see far right side of photo), he wouldn't be able to shine it at just one. At that point he turned red, realizing that he'd just admitted there was one that's caught his interest. He wouldn't tell me who it was specifically, but he had 3 reasons to take named females off his prospective list.
1. Her front teeth aren't straight.
2. She's already liked half of your class. (I'm assuming this means that he won't be considering any floozies)
3. When she dumps you, she dumps you hard - Apparently Samantha (who would be my first choice for my son's first 5th grade girlfriend) dumped Carson's friend Jordan the day before the choir concert. Not only did she tell him that she was dumping him, she had at least 5 of her friends talk to Jordan throughout the day to make sure he knew. Carson's last response on the subject was, "If I'm gonna get dumped like that, why would I want to like her?" (And this was the crowning moment - he already understands that at 10/11 years old, these things are definitely temporary.)

Cornbread and Beans

Carson had some assignments to choose from for his Colonial Project. There was a total of 150 points required, and he chose a 150 point project - Making Cornbread and Beans and serving it to his family for dinner. The following text and pictures are what he submitted as proof that he did the assignment.

Cornbread
I thought I could take a card out of my mom’s recipe box, read it, find the ingredients, and make the corn bread. My mom didn’t have a recipe, but we found one on the cornmeal box.
I didn’t know what corn meal was so we talked about how it was made. We guessed that you plant corn, let it grow, pick it, husk it, dry it out, then grind it. If you grind it when the corn’s still wet, you’d probably make a mess.



Beans
We had no idea how to make beans. We had a bunch in storage in our basement. I got a can of pinto beans. We called my great-aunt to ask her what to do. She said almost exactly what the directions on the can said.
First, we put the beans in the crockpot with water, turned the crockpot on low, and soaked the beans over night. We dumped the water down the sink the next morning. My grandma said you have to get rid of the water so that the beans don’t make you gassy. My mom had saved some ham drippings from Thanksgiving, so we added those to the soaked beans, put in more water, and then let the beans cook all day long. We added chunks of ham a couple of hours before we ate.



Dinner was DELICIOUS!!!!!