New Blog Address!

Due to my lack of ability in all things technical, I am getting a new start, with a new blog.  Here's the address:

fortheloveofedgar.blogspot.com

Isn't it all about my love of Edgar after all?  I'll continue with that address until I run out of room for photos there too. 

I Am Glad For Many Things, But a Little Sad Too

I am glad for many things, but right now I'm sad for something too.  The thing I'm sad about is that I am out of space for pictures on my blog and despite my best efforts (which are very lame when it comes to technology), I am unable to upload all the pictures I want to.  I will try to forge ahead and show some (but not all that I'd like) of our Thanksgiving extravaganza.  

I am thankful for dessert.  I call the maroon-colored pie harvest blend.  The filling was Asian pear/raspberry/cranberry/cherry/raisin.  It was well-received by some and not so well-received by others.  Some wished that those who did not prefer the pie to keep their preferences to themselves.  I'll not mention any names.  It is enough to say that we missed Jennifer's chocolate pie this year.  I will proudly state that the pumpkin pie turned out better than ever.  The addition of sugar to the pumpkin pie had a dramatically positive effect on it.  Two years ago I forgot the sugar in the pumpkin pie.

 I am thankful for turkeys--especially the turkeys that are related to me.  Liliana and Ruben helped me make turkeys for our Thanksgiving guests.  Enoch and Marianne got turkeys with all turquoise feathers because of their strong belief in turquoise as a traditional autumn color.  Enoch was not with us, but I will deliver that turkey his turquoise turkey just as soon as possible.

 I am thankful for talented children.  Carolina's talent (in our annual Thanksgiving talent show) was this incredible table, chair, and tea set.  She constructed the chair and table all by herself and she painted the tea set.  Unfortunately for this picture, she and Morgan were looking at their mom's camera.  Marcos, never camera-shy, was looking right at his mom too (me!). 

 I am thankful the Johnsons joined us.  They were just as glowing as they appear.  Desi's talent was that amazing scarf she is crocheting.

 I'm thankful for this nutty almost eight-year-old who drew Buzz Lightyear for his talent.

 I'm also thankful for pretty Lili and her drawing talent.  As you can tell, we lost our best brush on our trip to Nauvoo (yes, that was back in September).

 I'm thankful for Morgan's talent of getting seeds to sprout.  Squanto with his habit of burying fish heads with corn seeds has nothing on our Morgan.

The other wonderful things I'm thankful for cannot be pictured at this time--Hyrum and his incredible talent of using his ears to fly and Clarissa and Liberty bringing tears to my eyes with their beautiful music (Liberty on the flute, Clarissa on the guitar and piano and of course, on her vocal chords).  

Perhaps those of you with more blogging experience could offer some help.  I've tried making my photos smaller, but I don't know how. I've tried deleting some photos from my blog, but I am not able to upload more pictures because I have used up all of my space.

My parents still have 10 months (but who's counting?) to go on their mission and I want to keep sharing pictures.  Whatever shall I do?

Ducktails and Bobbysox

Some things you never forget--like how to ride a bike.  I used to think doing a handstand fit into this category, but the other day when I did two for my children, I realized it doesn't.  Although I was able to stay up for a split second, it hurt different parts of my body that haven't been used in a long while--since third grade maybe.

Besides riding a bike, I think being in a play might fit into the "never forget" category.  This week my sister Marianne directed a musical that I was in as a freshman in high school--21 blessed years ago.  My talented neice Desi played Bertha, a nerdy girl who fell in love with a nerdy boy.  I also played Bertha, way back when.  As Desi was saying her lines, I knew them!  Those 21 years melted away and there I was, a freshman in high school.  Isn't that something?  I hadn't reviewed them or tried to remember them, but they were there.  The play was a delight to watch.  Marianne and all her family did  a terrific job:

Deseret was Bertha--the nerdy girl that fell in love with a nerdy boy.



Clarissa was Laura Carter--a high school prodigy with some great rock & roll talent.  My sister Thelma played her back in '91.

Liberty was a cheerleader--the one on the left.  She was very enthusiastic and dear.

Hyrum made the crowd go wild as Elvis.

 

I had to include this one because I love the expression on Robert's face.  He and Marianne played alumni who had come back to the town for Homecoming.

Not only was Hyrum the King of Rock n' Roll, he was also a football player.

 Here are a few more fun shots from the production:

 

Speaking of performances, today was our Primary Program.  Poor little Marcos had been practicing his part "I choose the right by saying my prayers" for weeks.  He knew it so well and always loved saying it.  Of our children who have been in Primary, he is the most comfortable performing and the part was so easy and caused me no worry.

 

During the first part of Sacrament Meeting, I was in the mothers' lounge, focused on getting Omar to sleep before the program started so I could watch the program and not have to leave.  When I got back into the chapel, it was time for the program.  It was also the time when Marcos always gets his snack.  He wanted his snack.  I didn't think he ought to take it up because I thought his fellow Sunbeams might want it and it would cause problems.  I told Marcos he could have his snack after the program.  He freaked out and cried and I had to take him out.  His part was near the beginning.  He said he wanted me to come up with him.  I did and he went to the microphone and sobbed into it.  He didn't say his part after all that practice and that was that. 

 

I guess there's always next year...and the year after that...until he's 11.

Boise Temple Open House

We had a great trip this week to Boise and Meridian, Idaho where we stayed with my dear cousin Hannah and her darling family:  

Have you ever seen such a cute family?  Their new house is lovely, and they were so hospitable!

We shared the disappointing election results of Tuesday night.  The kids were playing around and the parents were watching TV.  Ruben came over to see how things were going.  He's been wondering lately who his friends would be voting for.  When I told him it looked like President Obama would be re-elected, Ruben scowled and said, "But I'm tired of him being President!"  When you consider that President Obama has been in office for half of Ruben's life, you can see where he's coming from.  Here are some pictures of the kids together:

Marcos and Maisy.  Maisy was determined to not smile--it reminded me of me when I was a kid.

These are all nine of our children together.  Notice Maisy's lovely smile here and remember Ruben's eyes.  You'll need to remember them later when they are closed in another picture.

Hannah, Me, and Ammon.  Hannah and I look more like each other than we look like our own sisters.  When we lived together at BYU, we learned to answer to each other's names as well as our own.

The perfect antidote for the post-election blues was a trip to the LDS Temple in Boise.  We were so glad we go to take our children to see the temple.  The serenity and peace of the temple was a great reminder that God is in His heaven and that He has a plan for us.  That's what will give us peace and security.

Please remember Ruben's eyes from before!  You'll have to remember Edgar's too which are also not shown.

Nevada Day & Halloween

Though Nevada Day once more fell on Halloween (it always has and always will), I did very little to commemorate it.  I did try to croak out the Nevada state song with my children, but alas, my voice is gone and I don't know if it will ever return.  It drives me crazy because I can't sing (and although my voice is not pretty, it is was loud) and so our family home evening hymns are greatly lacking in volume since my voice left.  Halloween, on the other hand, was well celebrated en la casa Cobian.  We had a cousin celebration (and even cancelled school because of it).  My children had a Peter Pan theme.  Liliana was Tiger Lily, Ruben was Peter Pan, Marcos was Captain Hook, and Ammon was the crocodile.  Little Omar was a random pumpkin, but Carolina went trick or treating with us, and she was also a pumpkin.  They were very cute together:

I love how Omar just kind of rolled into Carolina.

Lili made her skirt by herself.  She sews like me--
the seam ripper is her best friend.
  I thought her skirt turned out lovely.

Peter Pan and Iron Man (Luke) were inseparable as always. 
What makes the Iron Man red?
  Isn't that a song from Peter Pan?  If it's not, it ought to be.

Though we never got a hook for our little pirate
 (I was going to let him use my Kitchen
 Aid dough hook since we couldn't find one in the store).
 In the end, it didn't seem to matter.

Never smile at a crocodile!

The Dahl children:  Iron Man Luke, Savannah Strawberry Shortcake,
 and Davy Crockett Isaiah

The Johnsons--Morgan the Mouse, Hyrum proving that Elvis still lives,
 Carolina the Pumpkin, and Liberty, a dear granny

The whole group

Luke with his pumpkin.  He decided he'd rather play with Ruben than carve it.
  Liliana and Isaiah were only too glad to carve it for him.
  They got a little knife-happy (in a very safe way, Cor):

Handsome Isaiah with his pumpkin.

And speaking of pumpkin, let's not forget our annual culinary feast of Dinner in a Pumpkin.  Once again I was the only one in the family that liked it, but oh, how I liked it!  Everyone had to eat a little before they could trick or treat.  Hopefully, someday, my children will come to love it as I have and will force their children to eat it before they go scavenging candy.

Unfortunately, this shows a lot more of my dirty stove than I would have liked!

And as a parting shot, have you ever seen such a handsome baby?  My Grandma Jaynes and I picked this outfit out for Omar when I was 34 weeks pregnant with him.  She bought it for a present for him.  It was the smallest we could find, and it seemed so huge.  Now, Omarcito fits in his handsome vest suit.  He looks like the Prime Minister:

Five Little Pumpkins

Five little pumpkins sitting by the gate.

The first one said, "Oh my, it's getting late!"

The second one said, "There are witches in the air!"

The third one said, "Well, we don't care!"

The fourth one said, "Let's run...

"...and run..."

"...and run!"

The fifth one said, "Isn't Halloween fun?"

Then OOOOooooooo went the wind and OUT went the light...

And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

That little poem is from a board book we have.  Since we have five little pumpkins, I thought we'd better by them some pumpkin-colored shirts and take some photos.

This week our five little pumpkins carved/painted pumpkins and tried to look really scary for the photo.  Omar neither decorated his own pumpkin nor did he try to look scary.

 In other news, Liliana and Ruben went with Edgar, Abuelita, and Tia Elia and Tio Jonaton to a program at the Conference Center in Salt Lake.  They looked sharp.  Ruben needs some longer pants.  His birthday's coming up and maybe he'll get some.

 Since the program was only for older children, I kept our three youngest and their cousins.  I traded my two older (and I realized very helpful) kids for two really cute smaller ones.  I had a baby, a one-year old, a two-year-old, a three-year-old, and a four-year-old.  I was feeling like things were going really well and that I was a really capable care-giver.  I was making some mac n' cheese from a box when Ian (the one-year-old) and Ammon (the two-year-old) came out of Omar's room with potting soil on their persons and in their hair.  They had dumped one plant completely upside down and had knocked others partially over.  Edgar had already vacuumed that room too.

Ian, Ammon, Kiara, Marcos, & Omar

We had a great time and so did the performance-goers.

Happy Halloween from our pumpkins to yours!

All Kinds of Stitches, Blood, and Gore

Sweet little Marcos!  Last Sunday as I was creating a new blog post, Liliana came in the house to report that Marcos was bleeding and that he needed a band-aid.  If there's anything Marcos loves, it's a good band-aid (or even a bad band-aid).  He wants them all over himself and probably applies an average of 1.7 band-aids onto his little body every day.  I told Lili to give him a band-aid, and she took one outside.  

About an hour later, Marcos was in the house and I realized there was quite a lot of dried blood behind his right ear.  I removed his band-aid and there were a few jagged edges of skin.  I found out that he had been climbing on a rock jack outside and had fallen from it.  I don't know where the rest of him landed, but the behind-the-right-ear portion of him landed on a barb of the barbed-wire fence.  Edgar was still gone to work and wouldn't be home for another hour.  I needed a second adult opinion so I called Marianne to come over and see if she thought Marcos needed stitches.  She didn't know and I didn't know, but it was nice to have someone not know with me.  She pointed out that behind the ear isn't a real visible part of the body, but we also discussed the fact that Marcos's hair is short and that it will probably always be short.  

I called Edgar.  He thought he could probably superglue Marcos's skin together.  I was relieved.  Edgar is always so careful with our children and their health--more careful than I am.  When he got home, Edgar washed his hands and got the superglue.  When he saw the flaps of skin and that they were rather jagged, he changed his mind and decided we'd better go to the emergency room.  I amended the "we" and decided I'd better take our little Marcos.  Edgar had to leave Monday morning at 4:00 for work.  I took Marcos, Omar, some books and Marcos's blanket.  

We got to the emergency room at about 9:00.  After we got a bed, I started feeding Omar and reading to Marcos.  Our neighbor on the other side of the curtain was friendly and told us a lot about herself and her family.  Her granddaughter also happened to be in the emergency room, just one door down.  I felt like we got to know quite a bit about them all.  The doctor finally came and said Marcos did need stitches.  Then, an hour or so later, he came and stitched Marcos up.  He also put superglue on top of the stitches.  I had to hold Marcos's ear up so that it wouldn't get superglued (Sorry, Spellcheck, I'm going to insist that superglue is a verb and that adding a "d" to it makes it a verb in past tense.) to his little head. Then about an hour later, we got to leave.  We got home after 1:00 am and as I went to bed, I looked at the clock.  It was 1:40 am.  I thought about how Edgar's alarm would be going off in exactly two hours.  I'm glad I'm the one that took Marcos to the ER.  Marcos is his usual happy little self:

I tried to capture his stitches here, but the picture's a bit blurry.  I'll blame Thelma for that.

Monday night we had some more blood.  This time it wasn't a family member--it was Edgar's deer.  Monday was the opening day of his hunting season.  That evening when he came home, he was packing things up to go early the next morning to hunt.  When he went outside to get something, he saw a large buck in our yard.  He shot it.  We don't like venison, but our friends, Alma and Juan love it.  Alma told me once that they love eating deer, but that Juan is too tender-hearted to hunt.  I told her that I have a blood-thirsty husband who loves to hunt, but not eat venison.  Edgar called Juan and he was on his way to come and help cut up the deer (something my house and I will have NOTHING to do with!).  Edgar lamented that the children (who had just gone to bed) would not get to see the deer.  I knew Lili was still awake, but I didn't know about the boys.  So Edgar and I, in a bid to win a Parent of the Year Award, awakened our small children and took them outside in the chilly, dark night and led them over rocks with a flashlight to see a dead deer.  We left Omar in his bed.  Edgar shone the flashlight on the deer.  Liliana, our animal lover, hated seeing it.  Ruben was somewhat interested.  

Edgar said to Marcos, "Are you going to shoot a deer someday?"

Marcos:  "NO!"

"Why not?"

"It scares me!"

Ammon was just bewildered that his parents had gotten him out of bed to go outside and see a dead animal in the still of the night.

We tucked them all back in bed.  Sweet dreams, kids!  Please don't call CPS, dear reader.  Everyone seemed to sleep well with no reported nightmares.  One year I took pictures of Edgar's deer and vowed not to do it again.  I will spare you that image. You are welcome. 

On a much more upbeat note, Tuesday we got a treasure in the mail:  Omar's baby quilt that my mom somehow found time to make while serving a full-time mission:

It is gorgeous!  I don't think these pictures do it justice.  Each block is quilted in great detail.  It's amazing how many stitches are in this beautiful keepsake--many more than are behind Marcos's ear! (Thank goodness!)

As you can see, Omar is thrilled with it!

The final stitch I'll address is the stitch Lili didn't get in her side when she ran her second 5K yesterday.  She has been training some and was a few seconds faster than last time.  She got second place for her category this time.  Last time she got first.  I guess next time she'll get third.  She ran the whole way and did great.

This picture of her running in at the finish line is staged.  I was on the side when she ran in so we took this picture later.

Who knew I'd ever have a daughter who likes to run? 

The race was a the Marina in Spring Creek.  It was a great location.  The boys loved watching the water and the ducks.  There was also a playground nearby.

Lili enjoyed running so much that she and Morgan ran off while we had a family picnic later on yesterday.  She missed our photo.  My 94-year-old grandma came to visit.  We had a nice lunch at my uncle Drew's house with all of my aunts and uncles on my dad's side except one (of course Elder Dahl was not there either).

Today was Stake Conference.  Edgar wanted to take the whole weekend off, but he could only get yesterday off because too many of his work buddies had taken time off to go hunting today. (I guess that work influence is where he gets his blood-thirsty tendencies--I'm sure he doesn't get them from me or from anything I do or dream about!)

We went to the Adult Session of Stake Conference last night and it was so good.  Our niece, Deseret, babysat for us and did a wonderful job.  This morning Edgar got up at 3:40 to go to work.  I couldn't go back to sleep until 5:30.  I had set my alarm, but for some reason it didn't go off and I woke up at 7:50.  Our stake conference started at 9:00 this time and I had planned to leave at 8:00.  There was no way I could do that, but I rallied the children and we ate, packed snacks and books, got dressed in church clothes (except Marcos had to wear his white tennis shoes--we could not find his church shoes on such late notice!), and left by 8:25.  We drove a little fast and made it to Elko and the beginning of Stake Conference at 9:00.  Of course we were sitting in the back of the gymnasium on the folding chairs.  Hyrum kindly sat with us and helped with the children (especially with Ammon, who adores Hyrum).

This post has gotten LONG.  Sorry and thank you if you are still reading!