It's Spring,... it's Winter,... it's Spring... (sigh)

This weather is killing me!  All through March and April we've gone from winter to spring, then right back to winter again. I suppose it's a typical spring in Utah, but it sure seems extreme.  Who knows how to dress the kids from day to day; one day they're in t-shirts, and the next day they need their snow boots.  It has made for a lot of fun times for my kids, however.  They love to play outside, whether it be in snow or shine (but not rain- which we are getting A LOT of lately).

Matthew and I made this snowman together, and he sure was proud of it!  It lasted a long time after rest of the snow melted.

 

Every time we got some snow, the first thing Matt would want to do was make snow angels in it.

 Abby tries to keep up with her siblings, including riding scooters.

 This is what happens  when we get the wild swings in weather.  After a nice day of riding, Matthew left his tricycle out.  He tried riding it through the new snow the next day.  I laughed for days after seeing this.  He got one wheel cleared off before I could get back with my camera.

 That is some great packing snow!

 We got far more snow in March than we did in December and January!

 Any time the weather is good, or even semi-good, Matthew can be found playing baseball.  Traffic cones make great t's- apparently.  Matt turns four just in time to be able to play t-ball.  Thrilled doesn't even come close to how excited he is.

 Sarah's got the baseball bug too- especially after her Daddy got her a new, super cool, girly, white and purple bat.  She says it's the coolest bat she's ever seen.

So here's to spring.  I hope you come soon, and stay a while!

When the Lights Go Out

We got to church this morning to find the power out in the building.  The Bishop had us have a short Sacrament Meeting in the dark- consisting of singing, the sacrament, more singing, and then being sent home. We were home by 9:30 a.m.  How's that for a short church day?!  I actually quite liked singing in the dark, and taking the sacrament seemed more peaceful.  It was kind of a fun experience.  Plus, then we had all day at home to kick back.  I took two (count them, two) naps.  Maybe this is just what I needed to get over this dumb cold I've had for the past 2 1/2 weeks.

When we got home, I decided we should try taking pictures while we were dressed up. I set up the tripod, and tried my hand at using the timer. This is what we got:

 It's not great, but it's something we can include in our Christmas letter.  I badly want my friend Amy to take family pictures for us, but I have yet to get it arranged.  I have issues, like: what to have everyone wear, extra pounds to lose before I want nice pictures taken...
Nathan became the photographer for a while.  He gets a kick out of it.

 Abby is growing up so much, and is so stinkin' cute!

 Here are my handsome guys.

 The cutest picture of my girls just has part of me in it.  Thanks Nathan!

 I have had many failed attempts at getting pictures of all of my kids looking cute at the same time.  Like here and here. Now, here's more to add to the list.

 Ah, Matthew's bored, and Abby's ready to kick back.  I should have found a better arrangement of the kids, but I was running out of fruit snacks, and the kids were running out of willingness to participate.

 Now Abby just wants to eat her dress, and Matthew says, "I'm done here."

Kinda  cute... but Matt closed his eyes.

 Oh well... we'll wait for Amy to catch that magic moment.  (Good luck with that Amy:)

 I wanted to get a picture showing Abby in her pretty princess dress she inherited from her cousin Madi, but she didn't care for my idea.  She just cares about dragons- apparently.

 It ended up being a really nice relaxing day, topped off with snuggling on the couch watching the awesome First Presidency Christmas Devotional.  I'm thankful for my great family, and a chance to spend a nice day with them.  I am especially grateful to have electricity.  This evening we had our lights dim like the power was going to go out.  It didn't, but east of us is pitch black as far as I can see.  Apparently a small plane crashed into a few homes in a neighboring town tonight.  It took out a few transformers, leaving everyone around us in the dark.  I'm thankful to have my lights and computer on, and especially my heater running.

Our Halloween

We love Halloween around our place!  Each year I look forward to finding out what my kids want to dress up as (sometimes with intrigue, sometime with fear of what I have to come up with).  This year I didn't have to make any costumes!  Hooray.  I really do love making their costumes, but didn't have the passion or the energy for it this year.

Matthew really wanted to be Spiderman.  It just so happened to be a very popular costume for 3-year-olds this year.  His cousin Adam, and his good friends were all Spidey as well. I love his muscly suit.  Much to my relief, he was thrilled with it! He wore a huge grin, every time he had it on. Last year I couldn't even get him to put his costume on at all.

Matt and Adam as twiner Spideys.

 Nathan wanted to be a solider.  Our next door neighbor came through for us with an awesome real deal US Army uniform.  He was bummed that he and his friend didn't get the chance to make a trailer into a tank to ride around on for trick-or-treating.  He always thinks big!  I guess ya gotta dream.

 Sarah's wanted to be a cowgirl all year long.  It was nice to not have her as a princess again! She already had the boots and hat (which somehow didn't get in any pictures.)  I'm pretty sure I wore that vest when I was little.  She made a beautiful cowgirl!

 Little Abby didn't have an opinion on a costume, but liked being an indian (a costume my mom and I made for Sarah years ago).  She would tell everybody, "indian," though it sometimes came out sounding like "idiot." When I brought up the idea of having an indian to go along with cowboys, my kids didn't get it.  I had to explain to them that we used to play cowboys and indians all the time when I was a kid.  Nowadays... cowboys and Native Americans just doesn't have the same ring to it.

 I love that smile!

 We had a fun Halloween carnival at the church.  I borrowed one of my mom's costumes, and went as Ben Franklin.  Rob was in Oregon helping his mom, so I tried giving him clues on the phone of who I was dressing as.  It came down to something like, "yeah, I'm wearing a sexy costume, if you like fat bald guys..."

 Since Rob was gone, my dad agreed to go to the carnival with me and the kids.  He was a life saver! He still looks great in his Air Force flight suit, though he couldn't find his "Top-Gun" glasses. My dad is the best!  Thanks!!!

 Abby insisted on carrying both her and Sarah's pumpkin buckets.  This is one of my favorite pictures of the night. On to the next house!

 She absolutely loved trick-or-treating!  What a concept. I look cute in my costume and say trick-or-treat, and people give me lots of candy!  A few nights after Halloween, I heard Abby call out in her sleep, "Want it, more chocate... more chocate." This girl loves sweets.

 Thankfully, the rain quit before we headed out trick-or treating. What a fun night! Nathan went out with his friend Spencer and his mom, bringing back WAY too much candy. We all got way more than we need.  I charged my kids too high of a candy tax, and now I need to have a standing date with my treadmill! 

Our Day with a Snort

*As a side note, in our family a snort is an excavator. We love the children's book Are You My Mother, by PD Eastman. In it, the little bird thinks that an excavator is his mother, until it snorts at him and he calls it a snort.  Technically I think it's a steam shovel, but looks like an excavator.  Anyway... my kids have all grown up calling them snorts.  I think it's cute, but I know that someday they are going to embarrass themselves by calling it a snort in front of their friends.- sorta like when I was little and didn't know that it was just my family that knew about bobbly-knobs (known to the rest of the world as ponytail holders with balls on the end- remember those? yeah).

So... we had a problem at our old house with water leaking into the apartment in the basement. This has been an ongoing problem for years.  We'd tried several different solutions, but after a while when it rained we'd get another call from our tenants saying that there was water in their bedroom again. Rob ended up having to cut the driveway and dig down 8 feet to the bottom of the foundation to seal the foundation again.  The only way to do it was to rent a mini snort.  We had it for 24 hours.  Twenty-four hours of joy on Rob's face, and many, many projects completed that would have taken much longer by hand.  Rob said several times, "I gotta get me one of these."

After fixing the problem at our old house, he took it home to see what he could get done. He moved boulders out of our garden, tore down dying aspen trees (why cut them down when you can just knock them down, roots and all?!), and built up islands... He worked as fast as he could before his 24 hours was up. We'll just keep it in the back of our minds that a mini snort is on his wish list. someday...

I got to try it too, but had to stop myself because I was tearing up the grass too much. It was so cool!

Fun Run Stampede

Though this happened way back in May, I wanted to include it in my blog catch-up.
At Nathan's school, they put on a 5K Stampede.  We had just taken Sarah to a clogging performance, and got home just in time to get to the school for the race.  We had to hoof it pretty fast to get to the school in time, leaving Nathan with a side ache- before the race even began.  We had barely caught our breath, when they started the race.  Nathan's side ache came back, and he fought it the whole race. Nathan's friend Spencer ran with us. At the end Nathan was struggling, but Spencer wouldn't go ahead. He said, "a good scout never leaves his friends behind." It was very cute.  Matthew and Abby had a great time riding in the stroller, cheering on the boys.  It was really fun, and a totally different experience than the 5K at his old school.  This Stampede was a lot smaller, and lower-key. We had people riding on 4 wheelers up and down the road, checking up on the runners.

 Spencer and Nathan are waiting for their names to be called for a prize in the drawing. Spencer's big brother won the whole race, and got a really cool prize. Fun times!

Can't Do Everything

Over the summer, I came to the realization that I can't do everything.  I never really had the illusion that I could, but at least I felt that I got some things done.  I went through a period where I felt that just keeping our heads above water was all I was capable of.  I struggled with getting the kids to and from school, football, soccer, helping with homework, weeding the garden, harvesting the garden (and actually using all that I picked), laundry, laundry, laundry, clipping fingernails and toenails, doing hair, scouts, spending time with my husband, potty training Matt, doing the dishes, keeping the house from total CHAOS, playing with the kids, shopping for groceries, canning, getting the kids to do their chores, helping build  the shed, exercising, cooking dinner... and BLOGGING.  I had to let some things slide.  Dinner, often times ended up being chicken nuggets from the freezer, or pizza from Little Caesars. Matthew is still not potty trained. Clean clothes can mostly be found in the laundry room, not in closets and dressers (sometimes folded, sometimes not).  Lots of produce from the garden went to waste because I didn't get to it.  My floor didn't get mopped very often.  And... I haven't blogged in months and months.

Things seem better under control now, as life has settled down a bit. So now, where do I start? Rob says to start where were are, but I don't know.  I want this to be a journal of our lives, and not skip over whole seasons. I'll get caught up one way or another.  Hold me to that ok?!  The task seems overwhelming, so I'll just have to plow through it.  I don't have the energy and brain power to be witty or clever. I've wasted enough time agonizing over that. So watch out, (hopefully) here come a plethora of posts.

Quick Trip to the Pines

With the summer almost gone, we had to take a desperation trip to the Pines (my parent's mountain property in WY).  I have been needing to go up there all summer, but hadn't had the chance.  Nathan has started playing football, and practices EVERY night for 2 hours Monday-Friday, and will have games on Saturdays.  This was the last weekend before games start, when our lives will be officially over.  We picked up Nathan from football Friday night, and headed straight for the Pines.  My sister Terri met us up there.  Terri is Sarah's favorite person.  If you ask her what she did over the weekend, she tells you that she went to the Pines with aunt Terri. It was quick trip, so we had to pack in as many things as we could.  Warning: I took a lot of pictures!

The kids had heard about their uncle Jim waking his kids up at 3 a.m. and laying on the trampoline to watch the meteor shower. My kids wanted to see it too, so they talked Terri into getting them up to see it.  I rolled my hinney out of bed and joined them.  It was fun.  There isn't much that compares with looking up at the night sky in the mountains.  There were so many stars, you could hardly tell the constellations.  We saw a couple of dozen "shooting stars." and my kids absolutely loved it.

Rob surprised Nathan by bringing up three bb guns and setting up a shooting range.  Nathan was in heaven. 

 Sarah had her first shooting experience, and thought it was pretty cool.

 We loved shooting up the targets we made.

 Matthew was a riot- as usual!

 It took two fingers for Matthew to pull the trigger.  He didn't even look at the target, he just concentrated on pulling that darn trigger.

 Sarah had a bad case of the grumpies because she thought that people weren't shooting at her target enough. SIGH

 Still grumpy...

 I ended up not being too bad of a shot.

 Terri even joined in the fun.

 The kids loved to call "cease fire" and run to see where we hit on the targets.

 We brought up bikes for the kids, and that was a new adventure for them.  However, I don't think we'll take them mountain biking any time soon.

 Abby most of all just loved digging in t he dirt.  Like her sister, she would love to pour a bucket of dirt over her head.

 Sarah was proud of the "garden" she planted.

 Next it was off to the lake- Meek's Cabin Reservoir.  They thought it would be like playing in Pineview Res., but soon discovered that it was way cold!

 We love taking our inflatable kayaks out on the lake.  It was a perfect day for being at the lake.  Here's Rob Matthew and Sarah.

 Me and Nathan.  It's so incredibly beautiful up there!  Off in the distance is King's Peak.

 Sarah, of course, was thrilled to go out with Terri.

 Abby was less than thrilled to wear the life jacket. 

 Being up there was just what my soul needed. 

 Sarah was determined to show me the turtle float she's been learning in swimming lessons.  She braved the cold and did it not once, but twice!!!  She thought I would do it too- silly girl.

I think that Terri is now Abby's favorite person too.  I don't blame them, I can't compete with her coolness!  We love Terri, and we love that she will join us on our adventures.

We finished off the trip with several games of UNO, a yummy dinner and smores, and made it home around 11 p.m.  WHEW!  What a whirlwind trip.  Though it was a lot of work getting packed up, for such a short trip (and will take several days to unpack and recover from the mountains of laundry) it was well worth it.  My soul was rejuvenated by the beauty and just hanging out with my family.