A favorite

I have to admit I have a favorite in the upcoming election. 

This election year has been interesting because Dallin and Landon have watched all the debates with us.  They have lots of questions.  Mostly thanks to a super liberal teacher at the high school.  Dallin has a speech teacher who is unabashedly  anti-Romney and she showed parts of the second debate in class and proceeded to slam Romney, pausing every few seconds to make comments and point out Obama's side of the issues.  

I don't mind the teacher pointing out and discussing debate tactics but it really bugs when  teacher doesn't at least try to discuss both points of view.  Or at the very least make sure the students know that she has a one sided opinion...

So we sat down and went back through the debate and talked about each of the questions they had.  They took notes so they would be able to intelligently discuss the situation with the teacher.  

It's so interesting to switch the channel from FOX to ABC to MSNBC and see the blatantly different opinions.    I guess that's what free press is about right?  We get to hear everyone's different points of view.  The most important thing is to recognize that everyone reports from a bias.  I don't actually think there is such a thing as neutral reporting.  So that's where it becomes important to listen to all the sides and make it a matter or prayer.

And I'm glad to see I'm not the only one praying.

Falling

Sometimes it is just nice to get out of town.  We don't do it often enough.  There seem to be a million things that keep us here but last weekend we left all the unfinished projects and bishop duties and went to Franklin.

There is no place more beautiful than Franklin in the Fall. And the Spring, Winter and Summer for that matter...

Landon and Darrin and Sam went on an early morning ride.  Morning temperature? 22 degrees.

By the afternoon things were warmed up to the 70's.  Crazy Idaho weather...

We got to spend the weekend watching and listening to General Conference--one of my favorite weekends of the year.  We took a break and went for a walk in between Sunday sessions up Crooked Canyon.  My favorite fall walk just 5 minutes from the Hatch home.

On Saturday we loved the perfect fall weather.  

Austin helped clean Starglow's hooves.

 Jen and Ben helped get the horses saddles and brushed.  Beau ran around like a city-slicker with a goofy grin on his face while eating horse hooves .

 MissQuito took Jen and Ben for a ride in the cutest buggy ever.

What a great weekend.  

Fair and Balanced

           We love that Dallin and Landon get along and generally treat each other very fairly but these two seem to have an 'injury equality' philosophy that is getting seriously expensive.  

And painful for all of us.

Both boys somehow tore the meniscus in their  left knees last spring.

Landon  had surgery to repair his a couple of months ago.

We thought Dallin was going to get away with physical therapy but no luck.

Dallin had a flap of the meniscus hanging into the joint which (despite several months of physical therapy)  has gotten more and more painful and he also had a spot on the condyle of the femur that was smushed in (to put it scientifically...) from an  injury in a game a few weeks ago.  

So he had surgery today to fix the meniscus.  The bone will just have to heal on its own.

All day the nurses were saying "you guys look really familiar..."  

We were in the same room with the same doctor with the same knee injury and the "same" kid.

It was funny. 

He will heal well but he has six weeks of no running so football is over for this year.  We'll have to see about basketball.

In the meantime he is wearing support hose, watching netflix and eating Oreos.  

Chicken Whisperer

Jackson 'helped' my dad work on the chicken coop today.  

The chickens have a particular squawk they make when Jackson is in the vicinity.  He can catch them no matter where they go.  At least he has learned to pick them up by the body instead of just a foot or wing.

Poor girls.

They can't wait for the fence and gate to be done...

family photoshop experiments

 We took some family pictures last weekend.

Pictures with a toddler are a challenge. 

Most looked like this:

 Or this...

So I combined this picture--

and this picture--

To get a family picture with everyone looking.

I used the quick selection tool.  It took forever to figure out how to get two photos open at the same time.  I think I finally just drug them both up into the work space   Then I cut Jackson out of one picture with the quick selection tool and then I right clicked on the selection and chose 'layer via cut'  and then I used the move tool to drag him over to the other picture.  I slid the picture of  Jackson around until it looked like it fit in and there it is. 

I am writing this down mostly so I can look back and remember how I did it.  

Here are a few other favorites:

I can't wait until I'm EIGHT!

Benson turned eight on Sunday.

We sure do love this kid!

Eight years sure does fly by.

What was the most exciting thing about turning eight?  

A pocket knife of his very own, of course.  

What is it with boys and pocket knives?

Here are a few things we love about Benson:

He has the best laugh.  Ben makes us all laugh when he laughs.  It kind of starts inside his chest and just bubbles its way out.  Even when Jen and Ben were tiny toddlers I would sometimes hear Jenna mumble "I love it when he laughs" when they were playing.

Ben is a peacemaker.  He is almost always the first one to climb in the back seat of the car,  he never complains when Austin "helps" him with a computer game. (ie takes over the controls...) and he can play with anyone--brothers, sisters or friends.

Ben is a hard worker.  He is by far my favorite kitchen clean-up helper, he practices his piano without being asked and he was the first of all the kids to change Jackson's diaper all by himself.

And our current favorite feature--

His awesome one toothed smile!

Fall, twins and other random thoughts

Today is a perfect Fall-ish day.

I always feel panic when I realize that summer is coming to an end.

But then, just as I begin to despair in earnest, the mornings and evenings turn crisp, the afternoons are nice and warm (hot?), the garden doesn't need to be watered or weeded anymore, the grass grows like crazy,  I get to watch the boys play football and I can make beef stew and baked squash...suddenly I can't remember why I was so worried about summer ending!

Dallin grew an inch this summer and gained thirty pounds making both Dallin and Landon 6' 1 1/2".  Dallin is 204 lbs and Landon is 205 lbs.  How's that for being twins? They have always, always gone through spurts when one was bigger or taller than the other and then they have always evened back out.

Speaking of being twins, last Sunday everyone sat down to play Settlers of Catan and they rolled the dice to see who got to go first.  Dallin and Landon rolled the exact same number FIVE times in a row.
Hilarious.
What are the odds?
Seriously I would like to know...

Landon got to play in his first football game last week.  He has recovered from surgery well but has some tendinitis in his knee.  Wearing a patellar strap helps a lot.  Oddly enough, Dallin's knee hurts in the exact same place.  It is swollen and painful which means that he, too, needs an MRI--for the bargain price of $1500. There is a good chance that he will need surgery as well.  We have already tried a bunch of physical therapy. Is this a genetic thing?  Seriously how 'random' is it that both boys randomly tore the meniscus in the lateral left knee at the same time?!

Both boys are playing offensive line and Landon plays defensive end, strong side and Dallin has been playing linebacker.  I think.  They all make fun of me when I get the positions wrong.  I'll have it down by the time Jackson gets in there.

Austin is playing football at the middle school this year and he loves it. Of course.

Jackson and I are home during the day.  I spend a lot of time trying to keep Jack from terrorizing the chickens.  He crawls out the dog door and climbs in the chicken coop and picks them up by their tails or wings or whatever else he can grab.  Little stinker. Between Jackson's snatching and Beau's habit of herding the little chickens all over the yard, I'm sure we will never get a single egg.  But it's fun anyway.

I'll have to post a picture of the cutest chicken coop ever.
As soon as it gets its final coat of paint.
Which might be a while...