Morgen Morgans!

This is Brynne. . . . and Taggart!

2011-08-23T18:21:00.000-07:00

Two

the

CRAZY

PEOPLE

love.

Yeah.

So, without missing a beat. . .

2011-08-23T18:14:00.000-07:00

We picked the peaches off our tree yesterday night. And they were so remarkably sweet, juicy and delicious that I just had to tell you all about them.

There were about thirty, baseball or bigger sized peaches and that's just a crazy yield from our little two year old tree. We weren't expecting it to set fruit this year at all, and back in the spring, I picked off at least half of all the fruit buds that the tree had started to grow!! So, my joy is mixed with an equal portion of disbelief!

I have plans to make a Peaches and Cream pie from Cook's Country magazine, which we are excited about, but the rest are for eating out of hand! You should really hear the slurping at our house.

Come to think of it, you probably can!!

So close to almost done!

2010-12-13T22:46:00.001-08:00

Painted walls, yes, pink. I think it works great with the cupboards and the wallpaper.

Clean countertops for a minute at least. Ty made it fit together just perfect!

We still need to make or fix a door for this corner cabinet, which is a hold over from the old kitchen but was the best choice to make that corner work and not cost too much. I just painted the inside white so that it would be lighter and easier to see into. I'll probably keep produce in there.

The sink was only out for a day and a half, which is a marvel, I know.

I'm telling you, my hubby is amazing! We did find out there is great potential for losing fingers when lowering the new sink into place, though, so be careful next time you try that.

No worries, we avoided that problem, though narrowly.

The blue rectangles are sticky notes listing the contents of each drawer and cupboard, until we all get used to the new configuration of things in our new kitchen.

I just have to say how grateful I am that this project has been able to be completed now and how happy I am to have a sensible and well-designed kitchen. I never thought it would be done by now. I didn't think it would even be possible for another three or four years, but here it is practically finished!

The Lord certainly has blessed us and I'm so thankful!

The front room got a little bit of facelift, as well. We've painted the south wall a light bamboo green and we are very thrilled with the effect it's having on the entire feel of our home.

Countertop, microwave and wallpaper, oh my!

2010-11-21T11:08:00.000-08:00

The countertops. And the wallpaper.

And the microwave, with it's attendant cabinet.

Thank you Tyler!!

Oh yes! and the electrical outlet at the end of the bar. My incredible husband.

Does anyone know where our third high backed, swiveling barstool is?

Kitchen Progress

2010-11-17T12:07:00.001-08:00

Yay! So last you knew, we'd just covered the studs with drywall and filled the pantry with shelves.

Then Tyler taught himself how to mud and tape the walls with incredible success, and we'll just shampoo the carpet after we're all done remodeling. That goes without saying, right? He did a fantastic job on the new doorway to the kitchen. We used bull-nose corner bead because we wanted a rounded edge to the wall there and it turned out really great!

In the picture below, you can see the area at the top of the room in the corners where we removed the space-wasting soffit that used to be above our old cabinets. Doing that involved repairing the ceiling and it was really intimidating, but Ty did a marvelous job! I'm so proud of my wonderful husband! You can also see the new light fixture above the sink that he installed. I love him!

Trying to live and cook in a kitchen that's being remodeled is not an easy thing. The pole-sander in the corner next to the stove made the sanding easier, but the whole business is a very messy, drywall-dust-covered affair!

The above photo shows how the walls looked underneath the old cabinets. Apparently, some one in the past was trying to find a wall-stud with a hammer, instead of using his brain. That's the only way to explain the mess over the stove. I looked this way for about three weeks and then last Friday, Ty did the texturing and priming, and on Saturday, Ty and his brother hung the upper cabinets.

I came home from steaming grape juice at my friend's house with all the kids in tow, and this is what greeted me in the kitchen.

Wonder of Wonders!!

Miracle of Miracles!

And it was only one more day before the floor was mended, and the lower cabinets started getting put together! You can see how excited Lizzy is about that!

I think I'm going to go clear off my fridge right now.

Ty is very careful and thoughtful about everything.

Here it is finished! Connected together and to the wall and the floor. I am overjoyed!

Tomorrow, the countertop!

This is Kurt, as Wolverine, on Monday.

At least the costume didn't come with adamantium claws.

Here's a funny pic. Apparently I have a One- headed, Two-Bodied, Three-armed, Four-legged child lurking some where in my house. Maybe it came with the new cabinets.

This is a terrible picture of a cell phone pic of the wallpaper I've ordered for the kitchen backsplash area. Butterflies and Red flowers with green leaves on cream/tan background. Well?

Then and now: Google Satellite pictures

2010-10-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

This picture is from the summer before we moved in, say, July 2007.

The one on the bottom is newly taken this year in June.

Much better, say I.

Spare time for bits and pieces

2010-10-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

So, I'm up early and have a minute to post some dozen pictures or so:

These are of my new corner pantry. You can see I've put a clear shoe organizer on the inside of the door, and for right now, it's working great, although, it swings and clanks against the door, so we'll be trying to secure it at the bottom soon to stop that. Below is a close shot of my old upper cabinet lazy susan that Ty let me install in the new pantry. It had to go through one of the shelves, but I think I like it even more than before. It's perfect for keeping spices and the like manageable.

When the shelves were put in this pantry, I cleared out all the upper cabinets over the stove and around the sink. When I was done, those items had only filled about four shelves in the pantry. By the time we're done with this kitchen, storage space in it will have increased exponentially.

Now I have a functional place to put my buckets of flour, oatmeal, beans and sugar!

These are the raspberries. They've exceeded the bed by about three feet on all sides. We've got to figure out how to contain them by next year, and how to trellis them so they can be kept more upright.

Pear tree and pumpkin patch

Garden view from east side of yard

Back fence and new side fence on north

Blueberries and Elderberries and Rhubarb in big pots

Big green leafhopper that was eating leaves on our raspberry bushes

Morning Glory!

Our second set of three, three and under.

Our new Back door and screen door

Just inside the backdoor, Ty added an "L"-shaped wall to make a mud room, or walk in coat closet. That's one reason that we were able to sacrifice the front hall closet to the kitchen remodel.

Those black things are shoe storage, and there's peg board all over the inside to hang things from.

The shelf above is great and below is a bench, with more shoe buckets underneath.

Before Tag was born, we installed cordless shades in the sunroom.

This is a new curtain I made for the bedroom

Front Garden views:

The iron railing is now black, as it should be, since Ty painted it.

Fall strawberries

My Favorite color of snapdragons

The new side front fence on the north perfectly matches the one on the south, and cost us nothing! Thank you neighbors!

Connect these three pictures, and you can see the front view of our house.

And at the beginning of August, we replaced the furnace and added an air conditioner, which allowed us to get rid of the swamp cooler. Next year we'll fix the roof where the shaft stump is now.

Not too bad though, considering what it used to be, right? Even the grass is greener.

Our new cupboards and "Nevermind Robert"

2010-10-06T07:19:00.000-07:00

First, We've been going at this remodel for about three weeks now. It started kind of suddenly. Right after I'd posted "Help me Robert!" at the beginning of September, we actually did find some wonderful second-hand cabinets in our paper's online classifieds. The people who were selling them had just redone their kitchen, and were selling their five year old almost pristine cabinets, countertop, crown moulding and kitchen sink, even. They are medium oak, way better than I could have hoped and will be perfect for us. This miraculous stroke of luck changed the timeline on our new kitchen from about five years, to about five weeks! And they only cost us about $1800!

Here they are in our garage. We brought them home on the 13th of September, and then the next day, started taking out cupboards and tearing off sheet rock. The door for this one is on the floor next to it; they've got to be taken off anyway to put them on the wall.
This is a closeup of the countertop. It's white formica, with a corian edge at the front, and it will be great. I have no desire to ever have granite or stone or tile or meteorite countertops and am perfectly happy with these. We're going to have to puzzle piece one corner near the sink, but it's totally doable.
There are about seventeen units all together and one kitchen desk, which is in our sunroom at present. We're going to have two base cabinets left over, to use in the sewing room, but all the upper cabinets will fit perfectly the way that Ty has it configured. The only bummer is that we won't be able to fit in the crown moulding above them, 'cause raising the ceiling is simply not an option. But I'm sure I can figure out what to do with some extra crown moulding.

You can just see the corner of the new sink here above these words. It is going to be so lovely and easy to keep clean! I'm really looking forward to all of this. Below are some pictures of the floor that need to be patched with new linoleum. Again, I have no love for real stone tile floors in a kitchen. Anything you drop on them automatically shatters and they are really hard on knees and ankles. I love my stone-patterned linoleum, though! It's lovely, and tough, but very easy to clean. Here, you can see the floor in my corner pantry where the front room closet used to be. It shouldn't be too hard to patch and it's going to be out of the way so I don't care if it matches.

These areas are right in the traffic pattern where we are and will be walking everyday, though, so I hope they'll look seamless. Most of the long side will be under the base cabinets, but that short little rectangle will be right out in the open. We are hoping the company that installed it two years ago, will be able to help us, and do it right.

The blue tape on the floor marks where the footprint of the base cabinets will be.

Now these pictures are of the sheet rock that Ty put up last night. They were the panels that need no holes for electrical boxes.
This shows some of the new electrical wiring that Ty's mom did for us over last weekend. She is amazing!! Thank you so much, Mom! The wiring in this house was truly frightening in some places and she has helped us clean it up and make it safe, as well as move switches and plugs and install new lights! She also has saved us hundreds of dollars and probably prevented our home from burning down around us.
The rest of the sheet rock will be done by Friday. We're hoping to see the flooring guy today or tomorrow, and then we'll stop tripping over the turned up linoleum. The curtain over the new door to the kitchen is just waiting there while the window it should cover is still in the construction zone. Those are the colors I'd like to use in the kitchen, light red, yellow and sage green. Yeah, "light red" is a euphemism for "pink." You caught me.

So, What do you think?

Out of Doors

2010-10-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

This is a short and un-expert video of our Family starting the hole for the trampoline at the beginning of spring.

The earliest beginnings of my garden this year. These were pumpkins. Sorry it's blurry.

Enjoying a bike-riding day, perfect for picture taking.

The front view of our house, Lilacs, tulips, daffy-down-dillies, Iris and strawberries have all come a long way!
More lilacs, some blue phlox, and bleeding hearts. See the new gutters?

This is from the north front corner, looking across the yard, past the front door.
The north side of our yard, where we planted some grapes, hoping that the heat caught by the neighbor's garage would be just what they needed to flourish.
These trees were planted just after Tag was born. Four here, at the north of our lot, and six in a row at the east side of the garden area. I cut them all off about fifteen inches above the ground. All but one peach put up with it admirably. I want short, wide, manageable trees, and lots of them with manageable yields of fruit.
Here's our completed trampoline installation. The hole extends about two and a half feet deep in the center, but is only one foot deep at the edges. The legs have been shortened to stand the top about 18 inches off the ground. It took about two weeks of infrequent digging, because of rain, to finish, but was completely worth it! We love not having to worry so much when the kids are playing on it, and feel it is so much safer.

Below, you can see the trees near the garden better.
Pears, peaches, apricots, plums, and apples. Also, raspberries. Which went crazy this year.

Before much was planted, just onions, spinach and lettuce there, and the raspberries coming back.
The arbor Ty made is simply gorgeous, even when completely bereft of greenery. Next to it on either side, he built planters for me to try the desirable type of morning glory this year. Next year, we'll try sweet peas. The benches, are perfect to stand on and wave hello to the neighbors and hold garden tools and harvested bounty really well. We don't spend a lot of time sitting on them though.

These are the peas that I started growing in early March, here on the south side of our garage, thinking they would be warmer there, in the cold months. They covered most of the wall and gave us pounds and pounds of peas in the pod that were delicious. They were done by July, so, before I thought of taking another picture of their bounteous glory, I pulled them off the trellis. The trellis is there, you can see it just against the dark earth at the bottom, and in the window reflection. It's uv-treated plastic mesh about 7 inches square, and is fastened about six feet high all along the wall with masonry screws and a wire woven thru it.

Tiny little corn peeking up here.
Iris. Love it!
I love pink lilacs!
Our first strawberries!
Great ground cover, but tricky to pick later without stepping into the bed.
We had a lot of visitors to the garden this year. A covey of quail frequent our yard. Here's one of them standing on just one leg. Below is a bird that nearly brained itself flying into one of the sun room's closed windows. Ally brought it in to recover, and the kids had fun holding and petting it for a half-hour.

Simply delighted by this little bird. You should have heard the squeals of laughter!

Thank you, Vanna! Smile, Brynne!
It was really fun for the kids, and they were glad to help it get better. We let it go that night also, and it was able to fly to the hedge next to our garden, just fine.

Things have started getting abundant in mid July. The horizontal slats you see through the arbor is a bench glider that is perfect to sit on once the shade hits it at about four pm.
We'd never seen a red praying mantis before.

There are the Morning Glories!
The peas are gone by this point, and these are spaghetti squash, cantaloupes and tomatoes.
I just love it!

The rest of these pictures are more recent. This is a long shot of our back fence and the future garden bed I'm trying to put in there. It will have flowers, and herbs and shrubs and maybe a new peach or nectarine tree. And I have some legally purchased Sego Lily seeds to grow there as well.

My whimsical wavy garden edge is not all I hoped it would be, but there's plenty of time to work with it. You can just see the raspberries far off in the distance.
Here are the grapes, which almost cover the side of the garage now. Also the trees near the sandbox did great this year. We got about three pounds of grapes from our vines this year, and hope for some tree fruit next year, maybe.

This is what the front garden looks like now: Autumn Glory Sedum in back, petunias, snapdragons and an orange daisy-ish flower that self-sows like crazy!

Our cute baby boy! Read from bottom of post to top.

2010-10-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

He's been our earliest to try crawling. He's just almost ready to take off. A few more days of rocking back and forth on hands and knees, and then he'll be figuring out moving forward without the flop. And then, stairs are next! Watch out world!
Good Job!
Then flop back on the floor, a few inches further than where you started!
Teeter for a moment or two. . .
This is how it works: You push up onto your hands and knees. . .
Lizzy loves her brother, too.

My what big Eyes you have!!
What a grin! He's pretty sure he's adorable!
Learning to roll has it's drawbacks. He got stuck against the wall at Grandma's house! Mom, put down that camera and rescue me!!!
Before, and after he falls asleep, for one of the last times in his moses basket.

Lovin' the bouncer.

Oh, come on! It's not that bad!

He is such a happy baby!

AWWWW!!

That's right! I'm a cutie!

Super Baby, to the rescue! (He did that all on his own!)
Now they've got him surrounded!
A moment free from the tyranny of big sisters. Ope! there's another one!

This is a long overdue look at Taggart Morgan, in no particular order, and largely sans captioning. I don't know why that is underlined.

I just found out you can't rotate them once they are on the post. Oh well. This is just so cute of Ally and Tag together. He's always been a little koala baby.
Crazy Eyes Lily has him now!! That's a rather ineffectual punch, little brother!
I so love snuggling with a new baby. Maybe a week old here.

This was his first Day. April 3rd 2010, almost six months ago. He's sitting with Grandpa Morgan, while mommy and daddy sleep, and the siblings mill around. Lily had to be restrained from the very beginning so she'd be gentle with him.

It does seem that the youngest pictures are at the bottom, and the most recent are at the top of the post.

And so it begins...

2010-09-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

...er, well, continues.

"Help me Robert, Help, help me Robert"

2010-08-31T16:31:00.001-07:00

Thanks for looking at this:

For our first phase of the Kitchen Remodel Project, we are going to convert a front hall closet into a kitchen pantry. The picture below is an artist's rendition of what the final project may look like. We're not really in love with the blue and the green parts, but we're certain that we really don't like what they are drawn over. Except for the picture of Christ, that we really like. . . er, love. Of course.

The perspective is a bit skewed, but it conveys the basic idea. The stove will move over to where the dark brown cupboard is, and the pantry will take about a foot more on either side of the closet. The cupboard that is over the stove will have to be removed. We'll change the door from the hallway side to drywall and framing, and put a 45-degree angle door in, that faces the kitchen. Shelves and organizers, and all the miscellaneous nonsense on my counters will be tucked into the new pantry and Marie will cartwheel across the yard for joy!

The next project will entail creating a new traffic pattern for the kitchen. As it is right now, our kitchen is just a glorified hallway from the front part of the house to the sun-room and basement. We want to close off the current door, and pass-thru and make a new access in the far right side of the living room that is four feet wide. The new entry would also require cutting back counter-top and removing some currently almost useless drawers and an upper cabinet. I'll have to relocate my fridge as well, probably putting it over next to the new pantry. Framing in the open spaces seems pretty straight-forward, but this is a load-bearing wall, and we are understandably wary of knocking parts of it out without some help. Let me know what you think, and thanks again for looking this over.

Ty basically figures he can handle the pantry project, but I think we'd benefit from some guidance. And your help would be invaluable with the new entrance to the kitchen.

I'm thinking that there are some great deals on cabinets from newspaper classifieds and craig's list, so that's probably what we'll be replacing our crap ones with if we can find something suitable. We are not going to spend fifty thou doing this, but we do want to pay for your help, and not sparingly. If we can get good help, we can make do with second-hand cabinets.

There's a new baby at our house!!

2010-04-05T22:54:00.000-07:00

Literally!

Taggart Ray Morgan was born on April 3, 2010 at 11:45 am after a stinking-hard, eighteen-hour-long labor, and the worst pushing EVER!!! He was born at home, surrounded by family and friends and weighed 10 pounds, 2 ounces, and was 22 inches long. His hands are about three inches across.

He's enormous. But still little, anyway. I'm well aware that Mom has me beat here and there's no way I'm going after that championship title. No thank you.

He is such a cutie though and we love him so very much. He has dark, shiny, soft short hair, and velvety, albeit peeling skin, dark baby blue eyes and the sweetest little lips and busy baby tongue!! From this side of things it is easy to forget that he was 13 and a half days overdue!

Tyler is elated. The siblings are delighted.

Lily is ULTRA-possessive. ("My baby! My turn!")

And Marie is exhausted--but she didn't tear, even a little bit! YAY!!

Hugs and kisses to all! Thank you for your love and prayers!

Now we just need a collective fast to end this perpetual winter weather!!! This is the view from our back door, right now. No kidding. It's obscene! We're supposed to get 12 inches. . . grrrr!

Before Pictures. . .

2009-05-14T16:07:00.000-07:00

Not sure why this is underlined. This is the south side of our garage, notice the garage door in the front, fence in the back, and the brown trim and broken gutter.

This is the front of our home, from the street, still the brown trim and gutters, but this pic shows the improvements we made to the front garden beds, but it's from earlier this year, when none of the plants had come to life yet.

South side of the Garage, just dirt. It was weeds and garbage, mainly cigarette butts.

This is the front garden bed closest to the garage. Very weedy, and full of garbage. It did have tulips, sedum, an orange daisy and iris that have done well, with a bit of dividing. The concrete bricks along the front of it are put in wrong, and they're just in front of the sidewalk. We took them from here and put them on the other side of the door to build up that bed. Also, they had black plastic edging along the edge of the concrete driveway. Go figure.

These three pictures are of the south end of the back yard. There was a cruddy old fence and gate around an even cruddier old rodent-infested woodpile. Also a lovely chain-link fence spanned the entire depth of the yard from the gate to the back of the lawn. The area on the other side of the fence had been a junk yard and car lot, and was still full of bit and pieces of garbage.

Haven't you always wanted a totally random lamp post growing out of your back patio?

In this one, you can see how deep that back corner is, way out there. We really do have

a large lawn, which is wonderful of course. The white irrigation riser was inconvenient here,

so this year Ty moved it, which impressed me greatly!

This was what the front garden bed looked like before we did anything with it. There weren't gutters along the front of the house on the north side, so all the water just pounded into the ground where it fell from the roof. The edging bricks are put in with the front side up, instead of forward, and there were only weeds in this area. Neighbors tell us there were beautiful hedges and an amazing flower garden here before the previous owners tore it all out.

Saturday in the Springtime!

2009-04-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

So this year spring has teased us three or four times. The weather has warmed up beautifully for several days, and then been followed by quick plunges back into snowy weather. It's almost like Spring wakes up for a few minutes and then goes back to sleep, whining just like a kid who doesn't want to get out of bed. "Aww, Mom!? Just five more minutes. . .*snore*"

I'm done being demoralized by it though. I think by April 18, it's safe to say that Spring might be here to stay. Part of my angst is driven by the fact that I want nothing more in the world than to be able to get working on our garden. We have a bunch of improvements planned for our yard and property this year and we're ecstatic to be able to get started. Here are few pics detailing where we are starting from, followed by where we've gotten to so far.

This is the Picture from Google Earth, taken before we moved into the house, probably two years ago. As you can see the previous owners used the southern triangular bit of the property as a junkyard, for parking cars, trailers and storing lots of junk. I'll add to this later.

Again with the backward thing:

2009-03-19T21:52:00.000-07:00

So this note should be a Post Script to the last post, but it is up here, and not down there. Whatever.

There is a reason we are sick, but I'm not going to point fingers. So, I'm not going to point fingers. Love you all. Please keep us in your prayers. You are in ours.

We are sick!

2009-03-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

All this fall and winter we managed to stay pretty healthy. I try to stay on top of sniffles and sneezes, mostly with elderberry extract and homeopathic remedies. Also Grapefruit Seed Extract. All worth it to me, because they seem to work keeping us well.

But now we're sick. Oh, SOOOO SICK!

Deathly ill, according to my poor kids. Coughing, (which is the silliest, non-sensical spelling of a word, EVER!) sore all over, raw throats, boogers everywhere, other unpleasant-ness, and general misery. It's a glamorous life, isn't it?!?

I hope you've avoided this, but if not, please leave me some reassurance that it will be done soon! I'm having a hard time seeing the light at the end of this tunnel.

This is something great that I've found. You may Enjoy it too!

2009-02-15T21:20:00.000-08:00

Being a homeschooling Mom and a cheap one at that, I've discovered this great website that has great free items every day of the school week. Things like Audio tracks of famous speeches from history, cute coloring books like the well-loved Kewpie books and Goops from the 1930's and 40's, even lesson plans and enrichment ideas on educational topics. They have lots of interesting old-time resources that have been dusted off and digitized and made useful for a new generation of learners. I really enjoy it and I think you might too. Give it a try. The address is, www.homeschoolfreebieoftheday.com

This week their line-up includes, lesson plans, virtual tours, poetry and the actual papers of presidents Washington and Lincoln, a Chinese Wonder Book in PDF format that is a collection of Chinese Stories and legends about the rich history and culture of China. There's also an old-time radio dramatization of the story of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railway, a high school unit study of character development for Christian young men, and an instructional ebook about how to make butter in your blender. What fun!!

I mean, who doesn't want to know how to do that! They change everyday what resource is available, and so you have to check back. We've gotten a ton of great stuff and I'm very glad that we have been doing this for the past six months or so.

In other news, I got my hair cut, and I think I really like it. I'll post a picture as soon as I get one taken. Love ya!

I just thought this was newsworthy.

2009-02-04T07:34:00.000-08:00

A moment ago, I was looking for the stapler. Couldn't find it anywhere. Then Lizzy came around the corner with it in her hand and a grossed-out look on her face.

"Oh, great! You found it!" I said.

"Yeah, but it's still all yucky," replied Lizzy.

"What happened to it?"

With an obvious note of scorn and disgust, she said: "Kurt tried to staple his peanut butter celery."

Well, then. Now I get to clean peanut butter out of my stapler. But at least I have a great mental image to entertain me as I do it.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-01-21T18:42:00.000-08:00

Culinary Delights with Lily Eilonwy!

2008-12-30T19:07:00.000-08:00

Wow Mom!! Look What I DID!!

This happened one morning when I was a bit distracted. I had started feeding Lilian her breakfast cereal and bananas, but got called away to do something else in the middle of it.

I thought that I'd put the bowl far enough away to be out of her reach, but I guess not. I forget sometimes that our kids have monkey arms! She quietly sat in her high chair in the middle of the kitchen and scooped the tasty goo into her mouth. . . or there-abouts. As you can see here, she's also gotten it up her nose! Gives a new meaning to the phrase, "A little stuffed up!"

How can you be upset about something that looks like so much fun? However disgusting this appears, she was having a blast! And the delight with which she plastered herself with banana sludge was simply adorable. The other kids laughed so hard and so long it only increased her happiness. I really think she loves doing things to make her sisters laugh.

Just a close up to illustrate the slimey-ness we're dealing with! It was straight into the tub with this one!
If it had been summertime, I'd have just wheeled her outside and hosed the baby, bowl and high-chair off with the hose. She had managed to coat the BOTTOM of her tray with the sticky stuff too! That's talent right there!

Thank goodness for vinyl high chair seat covers, and dishwasher-safe trays!

Silly Mommy! When will you ever learn? But seriously. . . what a cutie!

Big Mouth, Big Claws!

2008-12-30T18:41:00.000-08:00

Lily is getting so big now. She's about seven months old, and is branching out into new foods. She's very excited about this, as you can plainly see.

In these pictures, she is holding an entire vanilla wafer in her mouth and grinning ear to ear. She's so thrilled to have something to sink her gums into that she started smiling too much and could hardly gum the cookie.

Kurt is brandishing his "Santa Claws" for us here. Of course, he thinks it's a name for some kind of animal with big claws. He'll have plenty of time to figure it out before next Christmas.

She's been working hard trying to cut her teeth in and is very close to finally having chompers.

Here's Kurt showing his skill at engulfing an entire cookie, just like "Lillan," which is how he says her name. I'm sure he's thinking "This is easy! Give me a challenge here!"

The picture I've been working on . . .

2008-12-30T18:30:00.001-08:00

So I've been trying to get this picture to shrink a bit and fade a bit and slide it right behind and to the left of the header on this page, but I have failed. So, I just decided to put it on here and have done with it.

At our house, the Muppets are a favorite. Especially old-school-in-the-hey-day kind of Muppets. Since my blog is named Morgen Morgans, (even though it's not actually a Swedish phrase) I have always thought it could be something the Chef here might say. So. . .

"Morgen Morgans!

Frog leegs foor sooper! Bork Bork!

Kom und geet eeta!"

yeah, that's all. *smile*

Lizzy laughter!

2008-12-16T11:32:00.000-08:00

So, just a moment ago, I was kind of half-way listening to Lizzy tell me something. She asked if I'd like to try making rock candy again, and said "Did you know that rock candy used to be used as medicine?"

I said I didn't know that. Then I jokingly asked her, "How do you know so much, smarty-pants?"

Without even missing a beat, she said, "I don't read. I watch TV."

Hurray!!!

2008-12-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

Something Monumental just happened in my life and I'm bursting to tell everyone about it!!! I finally found Nina Hollier again and have started catching up with her!! Nina is from Surrey, England. I'm from Fruitland, Idaho. We met while she was spending a year in America as an exchange student at my high school. And we've been best friends ever since. We've probably only seen each other three times in the last fifteen years though. I pretty much lost track of her after we moved to Connecticut. But I'm such a miserable letter writer anyway, I had almost no hope of getting back in touch with her.

Enter Facebook. I had been on for about a month before I realized that I should look for her there. I searched and her profile came up. You know how when you do that, most of the time there are about five hundred other people with the same name, all over the globe? Well, there was only one hit for her name and I about did a back-flip for joy when it came up!! I can't believe how excited I am! It is fantastic to be able to connect with my best friend again after so long and being so far away. Doesn't she look great!? I love her so much!!

Halloween Hauntings and Huntings!

2008-11-08T22:32:00.000-08:00

Good Grief! It's been a long time since I have made a new post!!

Now, we'll remedy that problem. So much has been going on, it's crazy really how much I need to add to this blog. But we'll start small again, and give you a glimpse of our Halloween.

Alicia was a Vampiress. We bought about fifteen dollars worth of teeth (that didn't work, fit, or look right) for her before we found the ten-cent ones that we had been hoping to get to start with. Brynne was a cute little devil, which is accurate in soooooo many ways. Lizzy was all geared up to be a good witch, like Kiki of "Kiki's Delivery Service," but then switched at the last minute to a fairy princess, with a unicorn stick-pony, that she bought with her own birthday money. Good thing our dress-up box overflows with fairy attire! Kurt wore the Superman costume he did last year, with one notable difference: this year it actually fit him. I had to re-do the S-shield because it had been through the dryer one too many times, and the iron-on had melted together a bit. The felt I used to over-lay it looked really great, and I was happy with it. Don't tell anyone, but the cape he wore was lifted from his sister's Snow White costume! Lily, who is not pictured, was dressed as a little pink kitten. The majority of her costume featured a pink binky with pipe-cleaner kitty whiskers. It was really cute!!

This was our party at Aunt Amy's house with the Morgan cousins all decked out. We had a ton of fun playing games and eating a yucky lunch of Mummy Burgers, Witch's warts, Skeleton fingers, Witch's hair, and Bubbling Bat's blood.

We love dressing up and decorating for Halloween. Ty had a blast draping cobwebs all over our front porch and hanging a gigantic fake spider right in the center of it all. You can see it reflected in the front window here. Someday he wants to be able to cover the entire front of the house from the chimney on down with a web and just have an enormous spider leg coming over the top of the roof. Very Creepy! Kurt would look outside and tell me almost everyday how worried he was that the "pider" was going to eat him. He loved it!

That night we canvassed the neighborhood for two and a half hours. I got to take the kids out this year, which I've never done before. I realized at the hour-mark that it wasn't about them any more, and I was living out my childhood fantasy of having the chance to trick-or-treat at an almost endless line-up of doors. It's pretty sad when your kids start whining that they don't want any more candy and their bags are too heavy, that their feet hurt and they want to go home. Lizzy was sure that we were lost forever and that Daddy would miss us really bad!

I have to believe that if they lived in the country and had to climb in and out of a suburban, driving miles between each homestead, collecting a pitifully small amount of Halloween loot each year, they would think differently. My children's suffering was worth it! We (They) got about twelve pounds of goodies--only one of which was apples. (which everyone knows just don't count!)

My mom, who understands me completely, sent us each a gummy Creepy Crawler as our grandma treats. These three massive gummy candies were the only ones left to take a picture of the day after they arrived. Lizzy got the most disgusting one: the cockroach! *shudder* She had no problem eating it, even though it was larger than her hand. EWWW! Kurt had a centipede, which was over five inches long. I wish I had a picture of the gooey mess he made of himself as he ate it! I'm sure you can imagine. Sometimes there aren't enough wet-wipes in the world. . .

Hard to Remember. . .

2008-09-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

This is a difficult post to make. These pictures are of Kurt, when he was about four weeks old. His little friend in this one is about six months old, but she was only two pounds and ten ounces when she was born. Kurt was eight, four. But at this point in time, roughly the last week of October 2006, they were the same size.

This picture adds Joshua Florian to the bunch. He was about five or six months old, and next to these two, he's such a roly-poly little boy. He stayed chubby and angelic for two precious years, two months and two days from the day of his birth, and then he died, from undiagnosed Addison's disease, in a matter of about four days.

I'm posting this because his mother, my friend Litzy Florian, has asked me and everyone who knew him, not to let him be forgotten. We were only a small part of his life, but I was privileged to be there when he was born, and saw him about four or five times with his family and his grandparents throughout his life, because we moved further from their sweet family, but kept in touch.

Joshie was such an adorable boy! Everyone who knew him loved him and couldn't help but be swallowed up in his gigantic spirit. My heart just bled when I found out that he had died so suddenly, especially since my own son is just about the same age. It sure put into perspective all the trouble I think Kurt causes me and all the frustration I direct his way.

I'd much rather have the frustration, messes, and screaming that mean he's still here for me to love and cuddle, than calm, clean, and quiet without him. I hope that Joshua's family will always treasure the time that he was able to spend loving them and look forward to being with him again soon. I hope that I can learn from their example and treasure mine just a little bit more.

I love you Litzy!!

Magnetix, anyone?

2008-09-18T21:12:00.001-07:00

Brynne Adell got a good-sized package of Magnetix for her birthday in June, and was elated.

Ally has had a few isolated pieces for a few months, but kept them mostly to herself, not allowing anyone to play with them. So for Brynne to get a set for her b-day was a major coup.

She's been connecting them and building shapes to spin around on the stand that comes with the set. It is really cool, I think, and magnets are always so entrancing. She'll get them out and sit on the floor for hours, just playing, enthralled with attaching the bits together.

Arranging the steel marbles in patterns.

And re-arranging them. She presses them into the carpet and makes little dents in the fibers.

She concentrates on it and insists on taking pictures.

And then she's done. . .

And they still sit for hours on the floor. . . until Kurt comes and tries to scoop them up.

At least, stepping on a Magnetix isn't as horrible as stepping on a Lego. Still. Neither is fun.

You know that feeling. . .

2008-09-18T21:12:00.000-07:00

When you walk into a room, say your garage, meaning to clean it, but you can't get started because there's just so much to do? The overwhelming-ness of the task paralyzes you and you just walk back out again. Apply the same concept to posting stories on your blog. You seriously can't write one hundredth of the stuff that goes on in your life. But you've still gotta try.

I've got over three thousand pictures on my computer waiting to tell their stories--and that's just since we've had a digital camera. I know you probably have the same problem. I guess we just take 'em one at a time and keep trying. . . Slow and steady, posts the page.

The Boy loves lotion!

2008-08-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

Kurt came waltzing into the living room--covered in lotion a few days ago. He thought it was so funny!

This is something that happens often. Predictably, it occurs anytime the lotion is left out and unguarded. You could almost say it's our fault for leaving the bottle anywhere within his eight- foot reach.

The worst part is: It is funny, hysterically funny--but you're not allowed to laugh, even though you're getting the camera--because you know that you've got to convey that it's not actually okay to do this, or anything like it. But when he starts crying so pathetically, it just makes it more laughable.

This one really makes me just want to snuggle him up, poor baby, but he's just so slimey!

Kurt hates getting cleaned off with a wipey. He screams like it's dipped in acid or something. Such a sad little boy.

We love you, mister! But you just can't have that much lotion!!

Difference in Size and other things

2008-08-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

Hello Kurt!

One thing you experience as you have a new baby is the immediate contrast of how BIG your previous child is compared to your new tiny one.

Now, I know the perspective of this shot is skewed, but look how little she is here! It could be easily argued that our babies are never actually little, and goes without saying that they don't stay that way, but even a near-nine-pound baby is miniature compared to a near-thirty pound toddler.

Here's Lily Eilonwy just after her first bath. Ty always gets to give our babies their first bath and loves slathering them up with lotion afterward. Another thing about our babies is that they are strikingly ruddy in color for the first couple of weeks, after which they pale to regular skin color.

This time she wasn't the least bit jaundiced, and I think it was because we passed on the Vitamin K shot. In the past, our kids have had a couple days of yellowing beneath their redness, but not this time. I was glad. There's only so much time you can sit them in the sun, wearing just a diaper. Babies don't like that much.

Lily Eilonwy's life--the following week

2008-08-19T21:35:00.000-07:00

Here's our cute baby, a little older, maybe two or three days after being born. She's just peeking out of one eye to see what's up with this noisy family she's been born into. Poor girl. I apologize to her about ten times a day that she has such overwhelming (read loud and bothersome) siblings. But hey, she volunteered to come to our family, so . . .

Yeah, she's just going to stay asleep and pretend she doesn't hear us. Which is, honestly, probably very wise. Now she's also a SMART baby, not just a CUTE one!

This picture caught her getting ready for a fight. It looks like she's going to punch somebody. "Put up yer dukes, Kurty!"

On Monday, when Lily was four days old, my mom Verna came with my two youngest sisters to stay for a few days. She was very helpful and it was great to finally have her able to be with me right after I had a baby. THANKS MOM!!

Can you see the clip-on earrings that Ally's got on? She looks so incredibly grown up like that, and she loves it. Scares me though. In this picture, my girls and I have got very long hair. We cut all of it the week after Mom left, but that's another post.

A contemplative look from tiny girl to adored grandma.

Hey they even match!!

My sisters Kathryn and Nancy were fantastic help with the kids and loved getting a chance to hold little Lily. Later in the month, they each came individually to spend about two weeks with us, helping out and having fun. It was wonderful for me! How else was I going to read Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse in just one week? I ask you!!

Kurt hasn't got an answer for that one.

But Grandma loves him anyway. Even when he wears his underwear (please don't call them panties, or Ty will bite your head off!) on top of his clothes. Poor kid is inundated with super heroes. It must make him a little crazy.

Give your grandma a kiss, you silly boy!

These little creations are each about the size of a silver dollar, just to illustrate their minute detailing. Nancy and Kathryn showed Ally, Brynne, and Lizzy how to make "Poogles" with modeling clay. They spent all day making antennae, wings, bows, flowers, dots, tails, ears, tables, fruit, back packs, chairs, carrots and flying carpets for these teeny little balls with googly eyes.

I was surprised that they were so engaged by the activity. It was fun to see them play and pretend while they put together these little guys. One thing I haven't got a photo of but wish I did, is a taco that Lizzy made for her poogle to eat. It was so tiny and it even had lettuce!

So, I feel like you're going to be reading these backward, since you'll start at the top of the page and read down to the older posts, which are about the first part of her (Lily's) life, but I suppose that's how it works.

This being said, "the following week" won't follow anything, but will be what most of you begin with, and will therefore precede the preceding post about her birth. Is anyone still bothering to read this?

A (fifth) child is born!

2008-08-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

These are pictures from Lily's first day of life, May 30th, 2008. She was born at home, at about four in the morning. This is Elizabeth holding her, while she wears her silly hat--and a rather exhausted expression. Being born is definitely hard work!

Grandma Morgan was staying with us to help out with the kids, and so got cuddle privileges right off the bat. She weighed eight pounds, four ounces and was twenty inches long. She had lots of dark hair that has been slowly rubbed off in the last two months, and has beautiful dark blue eyes.

Lily was very patient and let everyone hold her, even Kurt, who was entranced, if a little freaked-out.

He really loved her toes and feet, and kept unwrapping her to see them again.

Checking out the little sister for the first time! What's she hiding in there?

Later that day, Ty and the other kids made birthday cupcakes for the occasion, with frosting and sprinkles.

They were delicious! I remember that Kurt was very meticulous about frosting his cupcake.

It was funny to watch him try so hard to get it on the top and carefully spread it around with the knife.

Then he discovered that it was way more fun to use his knife to eat it instead of spread it.

Here's Alicia demonstrating the fine art of balancing various containers of sprinkles, though using her chin to steady them. You might call it a leaning tower of sprinkles. She seems quite pleased with herself. That's almost as long as her hair has ever been.

Explain yourself!

2008-08-13T09:48:00.000-07:00

"Morgen" Is a german greeting that means "Good Morning." I took two years of German in school and my husband Tyler took about seven years. (He was all but fluent in German when he was called on his mission to South Korea.) We don't speak the language at home, cause I don't know enough, and he's garbled it all up with the Korean he learned, so when he tries to speak german, it comes out in Korean word order and conjugations.

I have always liked the similarity between the german greeting, and our last name, Morgan. Truly, the "o" in morgen should have an umlaut above it, kind of like a sideways colon (:), but I don't know how to make my keyboard do that.

So, This is a picture of the entire Morgan Family, meaning Ty's parents and all their kids and grand kids. It was taken at our baby Lilian Eilonwy's blessing day party. It's hard to get that many people to all look good at the same time. Sorry Brandon.

I'm in the middle back with the tiny baby, Lily. I'll name everyone for good measure.

Back row: Tom, T.R. (on his tiptoes!), Amy with Sara, Marie with Lilian, Kurt (folding his arms the whole time!) Tyler, Brandon, (on his toes, with his eyes closed) Charley, Lori, and Anota. (great smile, Mom!)

Middle row: Joey, Tommy (what a 'tude!), Brynne (I have no explanation for this face), Lizzy, and Alicia.

Front row: Anna Belle, Rachel & Dorian, Halle, and Zoe.

We love our family!!

It can't possibly be this easy, can it?

2008-08-13T08:25:00.000-07:00

So After long consideration and on-going perusal of others' blogs, I have finally decided to put our family crazy-ness out there for all to see. It seems like an easy, no-pressure way to let others catch up on your life, or at least what you're willing to share about your life. Our life. Looks easy. I'm sure the hardest part is just keeping it current. I hope I can find the time!