Valentine's Day

It is like 2 am, but I was on a roll with work projects and now I'm just about caught up with the blog.  Seth and Luke wanted to get creative with the Valentine's boxes this year.  I am more on the page of covering it with paper and slapping some stickers on.  Seth wanted a minion.  Of course, creative people have done that so I found an idea and we did it.  This was a stretch for my non crafty self.  Luke loves all things reptiles right now, so he used a tube and we made a snake.

The kids had to dress up that day for their "Valentine's Manners Best Tea" as Seth kept telling me.  When we went to PTC a few weeks ago the kids got such good reviews and Seth spent the whole drive there describing the horrors of the "manners best" day.  He said he would be required to walk down the hall arm in arm with a girl, pull her chair out for her, get her a cookie, and...talk to her!  Ha!  He was so funny about it, but he was actually quite excited.  Luke was the very unexcited one.  Afterschool I asked him how it went.  His reply was "stupid," and I'm pretty sure he meant it.  Girls definitely still have cooties around here.

Jer and I went out that night to dinner with Steve and Cami to La Tienda.  Yes, the gas station in Franklin where Utahns go to buy lottery tickets!  It turns out they have an amazing restaurant.  Not heavy on atmosphere, but delicious food.  While we were waiting to be seated, Jer had to use the bathroom.  The girl came out, looked at us and said, "Just the three of you?"  On Valentine's Day?  I'm not that pathetic! I did have my own date. :)

Wacky Winter...Flood!

This winter has been so strange.  Like yesterday when we headed out after church for a bike ride to the sewer lagoons in 50+ degree weather--in February!  (And it snowed about a foot, a total blizzard, on Saturday at Beaver with spring in the valley.)  Funny side note--while we were riding Jer said something about "human feces."  Ian asked, "what kind of species live here?"  That's feces, Ian!  It was a beautiful, relaxing day spent with the ones I love most.  Watching them all bike in a line down the road in front of me, in this beautiful place we live, I felt truly blessed.  I digress though...

Back in February it did become winter around here for a short time.  In a period of three days we got almost two feet of snow at our house.  We were hammered!  It was awesome and everything looked so beautiful and white.

A few old winter pics from Christmas Eve...kayaking behind the four-wheeler!

February's big snow storm.  I think Seth was rethinking his decision not to wear snow pants to the bus stop.

After the big snow storm it immediately warmed up and started raining non-stop.  In about a 24-hour period of warm temperatures and steady rain all of the snow melted.  Well, we live across the road from hundreds of acres of farmland.  On Saturday Feb. 8th water started coming across the road like crazy.  (We found out last summer that there is a problem with the ditch that is supposed to catch it.  It has been filled in by some neighbors down the road so the water has nowhere to go.  We knew we needed to address the problem with them in the spring and before flood irrigating time but weren't anticipating problems in the winter.)  Anyhoo, during the night water came in force and pooled up at the end of the driveway.  That's the only place it can go through the gravel and get under the house--which it did.  The sump pump kicked on but the discharge was only a foot or so from the house.  Jer and I were working on church stuff about 7 am when Luke came running up saying his bathroom was covered in water.  Sure enough water had filled the window wells and was pouring in the windows in the bathroom and the guest bedroom.  Luke and I started vacuuming and wiping up while Jer ran outside, jumped in the crotch deep icy water, and bailed it out.  So fun.

The day just go better as we removed the furniture, carpet, etc...from the guest room and then headed out to fight the flood.  We were blessed by friends and neighbors out here who came with heavy equipment and shovels to help us out.  We spent most of the day digging and training the water to go in between us and our neighbors and off the drop off at the back of our property.  It was a raging river rushing through...the pictures don't even begin to do it justice.  The ground was too frozen for the backhoe to really dig in or for us to begin to address the root cause, which is the ditch, but we put some band aids on the problem.  We made two temporary "speed bumps" in our long driveway to direct water, and I spent quite a bit of time over the next few days using a pump to move water.  The sump pump discharge has been fixed, so I don't think our basement will flood like that again, but we do have a bigger problem to address come spring.  It was the perfect storm.  Quite the exciting day.

 

 

 

January

January flew by and I don't have a lot to show for it. We have done a lot of skiing, but I think I'll just hit that in one big post when the season's over.  We did celebrate Chinese New Year with our local group of Chinese adoptive families.  It's always fun to get together.  Leah is growing up so stinking fast.  She is sweet but also sassy beyond belief.  Her naughtiness has really amped up lately.  She called me "fatty" at least a dozen times today!  She says it often because she knows it's not nice.  It usually goes along with her telling me she is not going to do what I'm asking her to do!  Leah also refuses to finish potty training.  She does have bowel irregularity issues, but she will not do the #2 consistently in the potty.  We have had more accidents than I can even count.  I have thrown away lots of underwear because I just can't bear to clean it out.  Ugh!  I am so ready to be done with diapers and potty training. Leah has also transitioned to a big girl bed and abruptly stopped napping.  I'm not going to lie.  That's painful.  She is so funny and cute though.  She takes turns telling her brothers they are her "best buddy" and manipulating them with her cuteness.  She sports pony and piggy tails, rides her no pedal bike and scooter, plays ninja with her brothers, goes to Sunbeams, and is in general growing up way too fast.  She is a handful right now, but we sure love this girl!  Don't be offended if we see you and she calls you "fatty."  She loves to mix that in there for shock value.  If not that it's her second favorite dis--"dummy!"

 

 

  

 The big boys are in the part of the picture I couldn't fit in with my 50 mm! Oops.

Mountainside also had their Western Night in January.  Seth was way stoked about it and Luke was a bit more unsure, but it turned out to be so fun. We dressed in our Western wear, headed to the school, learned how to square dance, and had root beer floats.  There is a night for moms and sons and another for dads and daughters.  The first session was K-2, so Seth and I danced it up.  Seth was seriously a natural!  There was this move called a "courtesy turn" where he put his hand on my back and turned me back to position and looking down at him with that cute bandanna around his neck, taking it so serious, he was just so dang cute.  My little cowboy man.  I wanted to freeze that moment in time!  Jer brought Luke over for the second session, and we had fun too.  He was a bit reluctant at first but loved it too.  Who knew.  My fourth grade square dancing skills came right back to me.  I lived in St. George my 4th grade year, and we had to square dance once a week!  I always had this partner, Randall Brinkerhoff, that I was not fond of. I eventually started being "sick" that day until my mom caught on!  Sorry Randall wherever you are.

These are the best photos we could come up with...along with a couple of little photo bombers!

Luke was really a bit more excited than that!

Give Up or Catch Up: 2013 Finale

Well, it has been two months since I last posted.  Two months!  I decided it was either attempt to catch up or just be done with the blog.  I hate to do that since this is my effort at journaling.  I love the blog books I've made...I'm only two years behind on that!  Oh well, here's a quick wrap of 2013.  I love December, but the month actually felt as rushed as this post will be.  Moving two weeks before Christmas is crazy!  Tack on pretty much steady sickness on my part since the move, trying to unpack and get settled, way too many side gigs, church stuff, starting my last class for my masters, and of course four kids a hubby and all the day to day stuff and that pretty much sums up the last few months. It has been so nice to be settled again, and I love it here but it hasn't exactly been a restful time.  The best things about finally moving in are that I have Jer back (that's huge), and the school bus which is the next best thing.  No more days of hours spent in the van.

So here goes...we moved December 7th.  It was frigid and snowing much like the January day we moved nearly a year before.  Beat me with a big stick if I ever mention moving twice in the same year again.  We had tons of help from old friends and new neighbors and ward friends.  I'm always amazed at how kind people are and generous with their time!  I could tell I was getting sick the night before we moved and I have not been bug free since.  The few weeks before and after we moved were a blur of packing, cleaning, unpacking, cleaning, repeat...ugh.

The day after we moved we were surrounded by new snow so even though it was in the single digits the kids played after church.  That did my heart good.  It was so nice to finally live here and see them playing at our house!  On their first day of school I was going to give them a ride to the bus stop (it's about 3/4 mile) and it was -14 degrees.  (They walk home from the bus stop everyday and will soon be walking in the mornings too.  It's character building, right?)  On this particular morning though I was planning on giving them a ride.  We got in the van to find it was dead as a doornail.  I didn't know what else to do but send them walking.  Our neighbor came along a minute later and picked them up.  They probably think I'm a hard core mom...walking in subzero weather.  I just wish we had snow like this now!  Back when it did snow there was a day of crazy weather and even crazier roads out here.  I sent the kids walking to the bus stop in lots of deep snow only to find out later the bus didn't make it and a different neighbor took the whole bus stop to school!

 

On a Monday the week before we moved in we spent an FHE night at a live nativity at our neighbor's barn and then we put up our Christmas tree upstairs.  I knew it would be a while before I managed any Christmas decorations.  The upstairs tree is the kid's tree, and it includes a random assortment of all kinds of homemade ornaments.  Nothing matches and some of it is childhood stuff of ours.  The kids love it, and we had a great night.  The weekend after we moved in we set out like the Griswolds to cut down the perfect Christmas tree.  We did take a saw.  We headed up Relief Society Hollow in Idaho (I think that's Jer's made up name for it) where Jer and I cut down our first Christmas tree ever.  We had so much fun!  There was quite a bit of snow and the kids sledded.  We also ate out twice in one day--big pizza-size pancake breakfast at Herm's and dinner at Big J's--can't beat that.  Leah loved her little sled so much and even rode it down a few hills.  Jer pulled her all over in search of a good tree.  It was slim pickings but we eventually got one.  It was 12' tall so we needed a ladder to decorate it.  Our lighting skills were way sad, but it looked pretty and was really fun.  (Ian's saucer was by far the fastest!)

   

Leah had a dance recital in December.  It was 15 minutes long and mostly consisted of her playing with the necklace her teacher gave her.  She looked cute standing around though!  She has actually loved dance class this year.  She asks me a lot if it is dance class day, and she runs in with a big smile.  Katie is so awesome and cute with them!

The lead up to Christmas was crazy busy but fun.  We managed to get the place kind of decorated and get presents for everyone.  We had to put off our Salt Lake trip until the weekend right before Christmas.  That was fun but a bit stressful since I still had lots of last minute stuff and hadn't wrapped a thing.  The kids really look forward to this tradition, and it was great.  We ate, shopped, rode Trax to Temple Square, ate some more...Seth in particular loves the brunch!  We ended the weekend with Sacrament meeting in my parent's ward.  Leah was so exhausted by that time she about didn't make it.

 Yep, this was the best family picture we could come up with!  You may be noticing a pattern with Seth and pictures right now!

 Jer calls this look Ian's "Michael Ballam" hair.  It is a bit feathery.

 Leah's "Santa" pictures are notably absent.  That is because she wanted nothing, and I mean nothing, to do with him!

Then it was Christmas!  I was getting over my cough and cold just in time to start feeling really weird the night of the 23rd as I was up late wrapping presents.  By the 24th I was sick, as in I had the flu sick.  Fever, chills, body aches.  It was truly awful.  I feel like I barely survived Christmas.  Never before have I wanted to sleep through Christmas, but it was all I could do to make it through the motions this year.  Bummer.  No one else got sick though and Jer and our families helped pick up my slack so everyone else had a good one.  Pity party for me.  As a result of my near death state there are not a lot of Christmas pictures this year.  I just didn't care that much!

We had the grandmas and grandpas over for Christmas Eve.  The kids put on a little program that included piano, singing, and of course the nativity.  We also watched the Piano Guys O Emanuel.  We are big Piano Guys fans around here, but I seriously can't watch that without getting a lump in my throat.  I know my kiddos felt the spirit.

 The boys take piano from our 14-year-old neighbor, and she is awesome.  They have improved so much, and she is a saint for putting up with them!

 Yes, there are pets in this picture.  Seth got a hamster named Fuzzy and Luke got a leopard gecko called Spot.  Super creative names.  They requested and we relented.  I think we are trying to delay the inevitability of a dog living out here!   Seth's hamster caused some fun times.  I first got a really cute little dwarf hamster.  I asked the girl at the pet shop if that particular kind had a good disposition, and she said yes.  Well, over the next few days while it lived in our master bedroom closet Jer and I found out differently.  It bit me several times including once really hard that drew blood!  After we found ourselves wearing gloves to handle it we decided it would not make the best pet.  Jer took it back for an exchange!  He came home with the kind we said we would not get.  (Go to your local pet store and check out the hamsters.  You are sure to see the kind that have giant testicles.  Yes, big balls. There is no other way to say it.)  Apparently at the store a worker took Jer into a back room to check out a few other dwarf hamsters they just got in.  She said they were nice but the one immediately jumped up and latched itself onto Jer's finger.  WTH?  Needless to say we did not get that dirty little bounder.  We instead have Fuzzy--a very sweet, friendly, big balled hamster!

Bam.  That just happened.  2013 all wrapped up.  What a crazy year.  I can't say I'm too sad to move on!