More snow fun

It snowed a lot before and over Christmas. So while Bryce, Cam and Dad were out feeding cows and moving snow, we played :)
All you need is some snow, a few fourwheelers and a sled!

James, Blake, and Josie getting ready to go.

Austin and James getting a fun ride.

Kaitlyn and Garrett getting ready.

Josie, Kathleen and Calvin, tearing up the yard :)

We all had a great time. I would say the sled go the worst end of it all. There was some ice in the driveway and after a few too many bumps on the ice, it cracked. I guess it took one for the team

Christmas fun

Christmas this year was at my parent's house. There were 20 people there and we had a good, loud time. A Christmas Eve tradition, that we have done as long as I can remember, it to sing Christmas carols. The best part, when you are a kid, is that we always get to use instraments too. For example, a triangle, jingle bells, tamborine, shakers, etc. Anything that makes "music". Needless to say, it gets a little noisy. Just be glad these are still pics and not video.

Uncle Blake (the kids love him) with Austin and Josie.

This is my attempt to capture everyone in the small living room, making noise, I mean music.

Some of the kids, doing the music thing. It is also like the paparazi visit us at Christmas time. In the back you can see Burke and Bryce with cameras, I obviously had mine and also Russ will have his out too. Plus there are usually video cameras rolling as well.

Mimi and Caden tapping out a song.

Jose, Austin , Calvin and Garrett.


Sorry Kathleen, I had to include this picture. We were singing a song (I'm not sure which one) and I got this pic. Isn't that great! Maybe it's her hippo impression. (Just be glad I didn't post it on facebook:)

SNOW!!!

It finally snowed. I thought I had jinxed the season. I bought snow boots for Austin and James in early November (I was hoping to avoid the---"it just snowed, everyone go buy boots rush". But then we waited and waited and waited. Finally it happened. Austin and James were so excited. That's why these picures are taken when it looks like it is getting dark outside. They didn't want to wait until the next day to go out and play!

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving week in UT, visit with Marnie and Pops (Cam's parents). It was so nice to be able to see them and the siblings and have a little vacation.
Pops took us up flying.
Here are James and I getting in the plane (it is SMALL inside). James wanted to fly but since he can't ride by himself, he got to do a taxi around the airport. Then I got my turn. It was fun but weird because it is such a small plane. Kinda like riding a bicycle in the air.

Austin was lucky enough to go up in the plane with Pops, all by himself. He didn't say much but I think he had a good time.

The boys, Cam and Uncle Dean played a little football. Austin and James loved it. Guess we'll have to practice so they can play when then are a little bigger.

James is a pretty tough football player!

We are so glad that Cam's family lives closer now. Although a 6-7 hour car ride isn't my favorite, it is still a day trip and we don't have to fly. Now we are able to visit them more and they can come hang out in Kuna some too :)

Have you ever noticed?

Have you ever noticed that while preparing for the wonderful holidays, everything else in life gets backlogged?
I am totally behind on most everything. You name it, and I'm sure it is on my "list" of to do. Including pictures and blog posts. Life gets crazy around the holidays. But now, it is time to get it all under control again. Piece by piece. A great man said that we should a try to do a little better. That is what I am aiming for---a little better.

Weather

The other day, the boys and I were getting ready to go out and rake leaves. It was a nice afternoon, about 70 degrees. Just as we are ready to go out, the wind starts. Big wind. Then the temperature drops. It went down to 50 degrees in about 20 minutes. The leaves were swirling, so the leaf raking got put on pause, but the boys still wanted to head out in the wind storm.

I know I didn't capture this very well with a still camera but Austin was out in the crazy wind, with leaves swirling around him. He had a tree limb and was trying to hit the flying leaves. He was yelling and running all over the yard.

James was out there too, but was less excited about all the leaves flying in his face, so he would stand on the porch to get out of some of the wind.

This picture you can actually see the leaves flying all around Austin.

They were having a great time. No toys for Christmas at my house, just need more crazy weather!

Then yesterday we had some dark clouds roll in. First it started with freezing rain, then small snow flakes, then these HUGE snow flakes. Luckily nothing stuck. I'm not ready for snow on the ground yet. I haven't even raked my leaves!

Random pictures

This is James and Austin in their aprons Mimi made for them. Anytime I start cooking in the kitchen, James wants to put on his apron and "me help?" They love them.



The boys had recently watched Mulan. Then that evening at dinner, James said he was a dragon (like the little dragon in Mulan) and he made this face. I didn't catch him with his eyes rolled way back. That was what the original dragon face was. It was hilarious.
Yesterday, one of my patients said "God put kids and cats on the Earth for entertainment." Maybe it's true :)

Sunday best

On Sunday, both boys wanted to wear ties, like dad. So here they are. Very handsome (just try to overlook the Tang mustache on James).

More Halloween

O ye traditional jack o'lantern carving.

Cam really hates getting the guts out of the pumpkin. Usually he figures out some way to make me do it for him. This year he had to do it himself. :)

Austin is making the same face that he wanted carved into his pumpkin.

Halloween or Sugar induced insanity

Halloween is really a weird holiday. Going something like this (especially if you have a stubborn, tired 2 year old).

"You have to put on your costume"

"NO"

"Don't you want to go get candy?"

"Yeah"

"Then let's get your costume on."

"NO"

(Why should I care if he doesn't get a bag full of candy that I have to spend the next week trying to keep him from gorging himself on? Because its Halloween, and were going to have fun, dang it!)

You can see how productive our conversations were.

Finally when we got to Cam's office (they let the kids come and trick 0r treat the cubicles), James wanted to put his costume on.

Then we got home and were going to take a few quick pictures then take them trick or treating to just a few houses in our neighborhood.

The sugar had already mix with their blood---they were crazy. Hence, no great pics. But I'll post what I have.

Ok, this first one isn't horrible, but James would not stand up, so he is leaning against the couch.

Then Austin starts flinging his bag around.

Now we have completely lost it. I think James is crying in the background. Awesome.

Quirky

I got tagged by Kylie and since I am ignoring all the stuff that I should be doing, I think I'll do this tag.

The Rules:
• Mention the rules on your blog.• Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.• Tag some fellow bloggers
1. I don't like to fold laundry. So often, a load of laundry will stay in the dryer for many days before I convience myself to actually fold it and put it away. Some people might say that is lazy, I just say quirky.
2. I am a book finisher. Once i have started reading a book, I want to finish it, so everything else goes neglected--house, kids, laundry, food. Therefore, I have to time my book reading very carefully!
3. I like to have the inside of my car clean. I always have. With a preschooler and a toddler, it is quite a feat to keep it clean. But I really hate when adults leave fast food drinks, wrappers, etc in my car, because they know better.
4. I am a hoarder. This maybe no surprise to some of you. As a child, I hoarded my allowance and always had a quite a lot of money saved (until my brothers "borrowed" some from me). As an adult, I still like to hoard money, although it is harder to come by. I also like to hoard food in my pantry, ribbon and paper for scrapbooking, etc.
5. I cannot put back on a pair of socks that I have already worn that day. For example, if I took off my socks in the morning because my feet were hot, I would not put them back on later in the day if I had to run errands. I need the new elastic feeling, so I would get out another pair of socks to wear. I also will change a pair of socks during the middle of the day if they seem to be too loose or something.
6. I don't like it when the toilet lid has been left up. (I'm not talking the seat but the lid) I have become paranoid about the spray vapor that comes out of a toilet when it is flushed and pretty much hits everything in the bathroom (i.e. toothbrushes). It is quirky I know, but if the lid is down then you flush, the particles don't go anywhere but the toilet, thus protecting the cleanliness of my toothbrush.

I tag Diane, Angie, Carrie and Stefanie

My garden is gone

Jack frost came to Idaho, and now my garden is no more.

I was pretty busy this summer keeping up with my garden. I have 6 garden boxes that are 4x8. I wasn't sure what would grow, but a few things did really well.

I planted some small tomatoes. They went crazy. I was giving them away to anyone who would take them. My bigger tomato plants didn't do quite as well, because the neighbors sprinklers were hitting them. Yellow summer squash and zucchini did well. Green beans were good performers too. My pumpkin plant made two respectable pumpkins. The cucumber plant had beautiful leaves and blossoms but didn't start producing cucumbers til about 2 weeks before it frosted. Oh well. We'll try again next year.

I never put up pics of the garden during the summer, so here are some. It makes me kinda excited for next year's garden!

Is it always about food?

Ok, so it seems that lately, I am on the look out for good deals on food. I really do want to build up our food storage/pantry. This month has been funny. I have come across some really random, but good deals.

I got Campbell's cream of mushroom/chicken for $.50 a can.

I also was able to buy 4 buckets of hard white wheat for a decent price (not a steal, but a decent price)

Walmart had 5lb bags of sugar for $1.50 (that works out to $7.50 for 25lbs--good price) I got 10. The cashier at walmart eyed me a little funny.

Then, this is my most random purchase of all, I got Hersey's choc chips, peanut butter chips for $.75 a bag. (I bought 10 the first time, then 20 the next time. Yeah, i know that is 30 bags of chips, but a great price and if you had to live off your food storage, you would be wishing for some chocolate chips too!)The cashier at Alberstons was like "uh, have fun?" :)

Ok, it is all a little silly but I feel like slowly, we are accruing more and more. ( I prefer the word hoarding.) I will blame it all on the economy, general conference talks, just a feeling I have, etc. What have you been accruing (hoarding) lately?

Happy 2nd Birthday!

I am a slow blogger. I uploaded some pictures and realized that I never put anything about James birthday. It was at the beginning of September. I am a bad mom. So here is a little about his birthday. Better late than never, right??

My kids are pretty lucky. They have both had birthdays with both sets of grandparents there. I hope when they get older, they can remember how much their grandparents were around and loved them.

Even Austin got a present (spoiled kids). His aunt Ashley went to Hawaii and brought both boys a t-shirt.

Phil's wedding (some cute pics)

I haven't been able to post many pics lately because our picture software has all changed (etc, etc) and I hate using it. So here are a few cute pictures from when Phil and Kim got hitched.
Austin, Leah, and James (they are cute but did not like just "hanging out "all day long for all the wedding stuff.

What a great looking group of women.


Me and my hubby. I seems like we never get pics together so it's kinda fun to have one of the both of us, and we are actually dressed up.

I have arrived

When you become a parent, there are certain things that happen that make you feel like you can wear your parent badge with honor. Last night, I believe I earned that right. Austin puked on my bedroom carpet. Hasn't that happened to all "real" parents. You would think I would be more angry about it. But he was doing his best to get to the bathroom, unfortunately he chose ours instead of his own (which was much closer). I guess it means I have truely arrived to parenthood. After all, I also tossed my cookies on my parents carpet when I was a kid (it was in a fairly new house too) and I think Cam has done the same. Welcome to the true trenches of parenthood.

Just so you know...

So, seriously, I'm not dead. I just have been a little busy. Life lately has been full of gardening (including watering, weeding, harvesting, canning, eating), taking care of sick people (namely Cameron), managing kids, work, church. Whatever. The point is, I'm sorry that I haven't posted pictures in a long time. I have good intentions (yes, I KNOW the saying about good intentions). So I will plan to put some stuff up in the next week or so. But for now, I've gotta go and can some tomatoes. It is a glamorous life.

Summer time!

I am going to post some pics of what summer has been for us so far.

One word:  SPRINKLERS!

 

We had tons of fun in the beginning of June when we went to UT.  We visited family and we took the boys to Lagoon for the first time. It was a fun reunion because we met up with Greg and Heather Nelson and their boys (some good friends of ours who moved back east.)

 

Ashley and Cam on the Merry-go-round

 

Austin

 

Austin and Joseph on the roller coaster. (We had to keep an eye on those two, they would just grab each other and run off to the next ride that they wanted to go on.  I guess they thought they were 10 or something :)

James got a little tired in the afternoon.

Austin and James on the boats. James wouldn't keep his had out of the water, no matter how many times he was told to keep his hand in the boat! Rebel!

 

The RANCH!

We have been up to the ranch twice this summer. And have enjoyed it so much.  It is such a nice break from the noise and hustle of life.

James LOVES the "wheel" (four-wheeler).

 

The lilacs were all in bloom.

What do we do at the ranch?  Eat, ride the four-wheeler, shoot guns, fight over the hammock.  It is really a very simple life.

We also had a fun time when MariLee's family came to visit.

They are best friends. (Josie and Austin)

Isn't he cute! (James)

 

We have also visited in UT twice this summer with Cam's family and Kylie came to visit us.

My kids can only be cooperative for pictures for a short amount of time.

James, Austin, and cousin Leah (kylie and dean's daughter)

 

So sorry for the tons of pics but that is really what we have done this summer.  And of course, watch our garden grow.  We got our first cherry tomato yesterday and had enough fresh green beans for dinner for all of us.  It is so fun to have a garden.  The strawberries don't stand a chance because the boys pick them off as soon as they are pink--never mind red!  Oh well.