Family Pictures

Here they are, I wish I could have gotten them digital so I could just post them, but I couldn't, So I just took a picture of them on the wall. You cant really see them very good, but I was pleased, Claire was so happy that day, it was a good day for pictures. I had to take a picture of Claire by herself because of the glare. And I thought all of them were close up, but I guess not, sorry mom.

Today I think spring fever hit. I have been cleaning like a mad woman. I like it when I get this way, I just wish it would happen more often. I even cleaned the stove/oven. I was going to take a picture, but I thought that might be a little to silly to post, but it does look good! We got the girls room all put together. They decided they didn't want bunk beds anymore, which is fine with me, I can not make a bunk bed, and neither could they apparently. I have been saving a few of my favorite school works of Ashley's so I could put them in a binder for her, (like a scrapbook, but with out doing all of the cutesy scrap booking, I'm not good at that). I finally got it started, well and finished for now until she brings home more save able homework. I am excited to have that going now.

I am glad to be done with some big projects, now what am I going to do tomorrow....

Girly stuff

Today we got to make some hair bows and flower head bands. I just love it, it is so fun, I love doing fun girly stuff. I was trying to post a picture of Claire with all of them, I think we made 5 today. A friend came over and she got way into it and made like 6 or 7 for her little girl. It is so much more fun to do with friends. Anyway here is Claire and I, I guess she does kind of look like me, poor girl. She has got her beautiful red hair though, I just love it! It just needs to GROW, GROW, GROW!!

Reality TV

So I have been wanting to post something all day, and haven't come up with anything. My days are usually filled with, "oh I should post that on the blog" but today, nothing. I guess I should start with the last part of yesterday, Scouts. It was CRAZY. As usual, but fine, it is done at least. Then Ashley and Emma are in tumbling on Wed. evenings, just what I needed to add to the end of my already crazy Wednesdays. Tumbling is fun though, the girls like it, and Ashley needs it, she is not to bendy, or athletic at all. Emma can do kart wheels around her. Then evening routine, dinner and homework all of that. I was exhausted by 9:00 and went to bed, well tried to anyway.
This morning we had to sign on our operating loan, I guess that means we are going to farm again this year. haha. The weather was terrible, the roads were just as bad as they have been all winter. The snow was totally drifting again. It rained and then froze and snowed on top so it was super slick driving. I wish we could have stayed home but we couldn't. It has mostly all melted now. See what I mean I really do have nothing to post how boring. Well I am excited to watch the Celebrity Apprentice, should I be admitting that out loud. Ryan got into it because it has Trace Atkins on it, and he has made it to the final two! Anyway so now we have to go through two hours of ridiculous drama from two other players, one of who was voted off a long time ago, and listen to them debate and then finally find out who wins. Don't we just love reality TV. I also love to watch Biggest Loser, so maybe I do like the reality TV, don't tell anyone. My mother in law taped it and I just finished watching it, we were busy Tues. night, so I didn't get to watch it then. It was good I wish they had a Biggest Loser for people who need to lose smaller amounts of weight, not 100's of pounds, just like 20 pounds, then I could go on (with all of my kids of course) and loose all my weight! I think those people who are on the show really are getting so much more than a chance at a large amount of money, they are getting their lives back, who can put a price on that. OK, OK, so I have blabbed on enough. My husband told me he would read my blog more if I didn't write so much. I get his point after this one. Isn't he so sweet!

Emma's turn

Emma, Justin, and I have been cracking up at Justins video so we had to make one of Emma singing too, you know it all has to be fair when you are 5!

When you know you have had too much High School Musical

This is too funny, Justin is even singing High school musical at our house, and dont you love the flared nostrils! He is very passionate about his work! I might have to post the real song so you can get what he is singing, but if you are an HSM fan like we are you will already be able to tell what song it is. Here He is Justin singing "You are the music in me." (for all of you non fans, Im sure there are some of you, sadly, dont worry its short). I think he should audition for High School Musical 14, because you know they are going to make that many!

Let it snow??

Yes, it is snowing AGAIN! Just when I thought spring was coming it snows again. It was hard not to like it though, the flakes were those HUGE Idaho flakes, It looks like cotton balls falling from the sky. I am sure it will turn to rain as it gets warmer, I guess I should say I hope it turns to rain! We have a road side clean up today with the scouts so I hope it doesn't rain too much. I had to take Ryan to the dairy this morning and so I took a couple pictures while we were there. The kids are good, Ashley wasn't even that disappointed when she saw the snow this morning, I think she is just getting used to the fact that summer might never come! Emma and Justin are climbing all over the desk, I guess they need some mommy time. Have a nice spring day!

Claire is 6 months old

Claire turned 6 months old yesterday, she is growing too fast for her mommy. I am not ready for her to be getting so big already. She is such a perfect little princess. She is the BEST baby, she rarely cries, and when she does she is easily consoled. Some things she can do is; roll over, eat apple sauce and rice cereal, she can say mama, (Ryan claims she said dad first, but she has never said it since), and that is about all. She is not very active, which I like, I do wish she would sit up, but I know she will be running around the house if I start wishing too much. She is such a good girl and so precious to our family. We love her so much!

Easter basket hunt

In Ryans family it is a tradition to hide the Easter baskets, it was in our family also, but in Ryans family they were hidden REALLY hard. I have had to make him ease up on the hard hiding because first of all, our oldest kid is barely 7, like she is going to find her basket in the bottom of the flour bucket, and second, every one is bawling after 1 minute of searching and not being able to find their basket. They can only be hidden in the kitchen and Ryan had 10 kids in his family, so I know his mom had to get pretty creative trying to hide 10 Easter baskets in one kitchen. I am proud to say that my kids are getting smarter though, it only took them 5 minutes to find them this year instead of the usual day and a half, just kidding. Emma's was under the sink, Ashleys was next to the stove in the crock pot, and Justins was in the fridge. It was a fun time.The girls wore their Easter dresses to church, they looked cute, I love brown and blue, well brown and anything really, Church was good until half way through Sunday school the Bishop came in and told us we would be going home after that because all of the bathrooms had backed up and was causing a mess in the hall. Anyway so we went home early from church, which has happened to us a couple of times this winter, we had the heat go out and too much snow and a couple of times no church at all. It was good meetings anyway.

We spent Sunday afternoon at Grandma and Papa Telford's. We hunted eggs inside oh at least 4 or 5 different times. It is amazing that it is still fun even after two or three times of finding them in the same exact places! Kids are easily entertained. Our dinner was sooooo yummy. Ryans mom is a great cook. It was a really nice day.

MUD

The kids went out today to play in the mud. That is pretty much what it came down to. The girls went and got their bikes out of the shed and I think all of the bikes shrunk, because I know my kids didn't grow, haha. Emma rode Ashley's, and Justin is on Emma's. The never ending saga of children growing and growing much too big for last years...everything. I just washed every ones coats, snow pants, and gloves yesterday. I was hoping to put them away for the year, not so I guess. It doesn't look like the end is in sight either, look at all the snow still to melt!! So for now we enjoy the mud, oh the joys of living in the great state of IDAHO!!!

Hair Bows

The kids all started playing so well together and it was quiet and I realized I had some time to do something fun so I made a couple hair bows. I had found this spring break ribbon, I don know if you can see it very well, but it was so cute, and since we are on spring break I thought I ought to make them. This is my latest and greatest hobby, I am always trying to find new things to do and create, as if having four kids isn't enough already. This is really fun, I can even make them to go on Claire's little headbands. Notice my cute little helper, don't let the cute smile deceive you, she has not wanted to nap today, I hope she isn't trying to wean herself out of one of her naps already.

Easter Bunny

I guess I don't have anything really to post for the last two days. Yesterday was fine. Ryan took a load of hay up to Boise and Justin, Claire and I were all ready to go ride with him in the semi, but it just took to long to get going and I had to be back for a meeting. Good thing we didn't go he got home about 9:30, my meeting started at 8:00 so I would have totally missed it. Thank goodness for grandma Violet to babysit for us all the time. She is an adopted grandma that lives just up the road from us, the kids LOVE going to her house she thoroughly spoils them, and me.
Since the girls were at Gma Violets I took Justin and Claire and went to Wal mart, I thought it would be good to only go with two, I chose the wrong two. Justin will not ride in the cart anymore, well he wont sit and I am afraid he will fall out one of these times so he walks, but he doesn't stay with me and there were no big sisters to go and get him for me. So needless to say we tromped all over walmart just chasing him. Then my meeting was short, which I like but I had to drive 30 minutes for a 20 minute meeting. Oh the joys of living in the middle of no where.
The night before last night Ryan got ambitious and took the carpet out of the hall, he has yet to install the new flooring. Why cant we have a job that allows Saturdays off. I never thought about it as a kid growing up on the farm, Saturday was the really hard work day, if not out on the farm then in the house doing Saturday chores. Now I realize that the whole world, excluding farmers has Saturdays off. What a novel idea. I will probably live my whole life and never know what it would be like either. Oh poor me, my life is so hard! Anyway, I guess I am just hoping to get the project done, so I can make him start on another one! I am impossible to please I think.
Today Ashley insisted on us organizing the kids cabinet. We did that this morning, I will give it a day to stay that way. Ashley is my organizer/cleaner, Emma is not. She screams and cries at the sound of the word work. I hope I don't scar her for life and have her turn out to be a bum who watches TV all day. Actually I think I already have. It is hard to be the mom sometimes, OK all times.
So for the rest of today I have to put away laundry, make dinner and hopefully Ryan will get home at a decent hour and we can get some work done on that hallway project. Tomorrow is the Easter egg hunt in at the park. We will be wearing all of our snow clothes, it should be easy to find the eggs though. The girls want to see Enchanted, is it good for kids? I never went to see it so I don't know if I want to rent it or not. Sunday we are going to Grandma Telfords for dinner and more egg hunting, inside the house. Hopefully some cousins will get to come too. I will try to post some pictures of the egg hunt in the morning.
So last night I was getting the plastic eggs all filled with candy, all of the kids were in bed, so I was trying to get Easter baskets ready, and in comes Emma. I had my door shut, which apparently means nothing in our house, so I told her to go out and knock, so she knocked and then walked right in again. So I made her go out and explained to her that you don't just walk in, you have to be invited in. Anyway so this morning at breakfast Emma starts announcing I know who the Easter bunny is. That little sneak, I cut her off before she said another word. There are NO secrets at our house. It will be so much easier when we don't have to pretend there is an Easter bunny, tooth fairy, Santa, etc, etc. I guess I am just a terrible liar. How long do we have to keep this up anyway?

Justin's Blankie

This is our Linus, Justin loves his "blue blankie." He wanted it in the picture, it desperately needs washed, which of course he will not allow. He is napping right now though, I need to go steal it off of him and put it in the washer before he wakes up.

Sleeping in the barnyard

We went to make Emma's bed this morning and found out that she was sleeping in the barnyard. She had a pony, a cow, a sheep, a camel and a polar bear all in her bed. Its amazing she got any sleep at all last night, and that she is still alive this morning! Silly Emma.

Ashley's new smile

Ashley finally pulled out her other front tooth, (well actually it fell out at dinner), the point is, is that it's out. She has the greatest smile in the world, I LOVE IT!

Grandma's House

Yesterday we went to Grandma Telford's house. The kids were begging and begging to go, I think they were going to start walking if I didn't take them, so we went and had a fun time. The kids colored Easter eggs and played outside on the trampoline. They kept taking there shoes and coats off, It was not that warm out there, maybe 40. Anyway then they all came in with no shoes on at all, crying because their feet were cold. Crazy kids! Anyway they did get to play with one cousin, and I got to visit with Grandma, it was a great time! Thank you to Grandma for having us all! PS I am not very good at posting pictures yet, I need to work on it more sorry.

The Wild Weekend

I am glad it is all over with. The Pinewood derby was great, there were 80 people there and 30 cars. It turned out good even though we didn't win, darn. Ryan is getting to be a better host each party, he does a good job. After we got home I had to still make the hair bows, they were very simple, it was late. Claire's turned out cute and I made one other small one for Emma. Then I scheduled the family pictures at 9:00am so Ryan could come and still go to work after that, so it was an early morning of hair and dresses and all of that stuff, we were late of course. Claire's pictures turned out sooo good, she is quite photogenic, right now at least. Emma did good to. Everyone else was cute too, I looked like, well I don't want my kids to read what I really think of myself so I wont write it, lets just say I don't think I am aging very gracefully. But it is all done for another little while at least. I will post some of them when I get them.
Sunday was good. I got to sub for Primary music, I like that job. The kids were good, which makes it much nicer. Then of course I crashed, Ryan doesn't like to nap on Sunday so I do and he sort of pretends, (well he doesn't even pretend) to watch the kids until they start crying or fighting of course. But it was nice to have a day to relax.
We went to Twin Falls today and I took the kids to the temple and got them all out there in the wind and was going to take a picture and there were no batteries in my camera, Imagine that. So next time we go I will have to try again. We got our dates for the dedication, It wont be until Aug. 24. I'm sure time will fly and it will be here quick. I cant wait.
The kids are excited for Easter. Ashley got a birthday card in the mail from grandma Nielson, she was more thrilled about a letter than the money. Thank you Grandma. I would have liked to have gotten something for myself for Easter, like a dress, but no luck, and I hope to stay home the rest of the week and get some spring cleaning and organizing done, I guess I did get some fun pampered chef stuff on Saturday, that can be my Easter treat. how fun. I guess that is pretty much it for today. I have to go find some batteries.

Friday Business

Claire ready to go to the Easter Party at Ashleys school

I thought I ought to post something today, I should be working but I would rather do this instead. Today has been busy. Ashley had her Easter Party this afternoon, we just had to bring the cookies, that was easy. It was fun the easter egg hunt was in the class because we still have TONS of snow, and almost just as much mud. Anyway it was fun, Emma and Justin got to find some eggs too. I am glad it is done. We have our ward pinewood derby tonight. Ryan wanted cookies for the prizes so this morning I baked like 9 dozen cookies, there's a tummy ache for you! Anyway I think we are ready, our car needs its wheels put on and then we will be ready. We have family pictures in the morning at 9:00 am what was I thinking when I made that appointment? I have hairbows to make still for the pictures. I guess that is my sign to quit blogging and GET TO WORK! The pictures are of the kids playing with their computers, they get them out every once in a while, it is like a new toy all over again. Emma is playing her barbie computer, Justin is taking his Thomas computer apart, sounds about right, I dont know what is up with his hat??

Ashley's Birthday

It finally came! Ashley thought she might stay 6 FOREVER. We had a fun day. I got to go and have lunch with Ashley at school, just me and Ashley not one other kid, not even Claire. It was really good. Ashley also took cupcakes to share with her class. There is another little boy who's birthday is the same day. Ashley said his cupcakes were humongous compared to hers, but they still were good I guess. Anyway then we had scouts after school, which actually was fantastic. We have never, ever had them behave so well. It was so nice. Then we came home Ashley's friend Shelby got to come over and play for a little while, that was fun. We had chicken enchiladas for dinner, that is Ashley's favorite. She was falling asleep at dinner, (thanks to this awful daylight savings time) Grandma and Papa Telford came and ate with us. Then we had the show by Ashley with a little help from Justin and Emma. We didn't get any pictures of Emma she was a little embarrassed. She was Sharpay in the show and was wearing a swim suit and was pretty shy, if you can believe that, Emma is so NOT shy. The stage held them all really well, they love it. Finally we opened her presents, she got a cute pink hat, (Ashley loves hats) a voice activated Diary, only her voice can open it, and a tent, sleeping bag, flashlight all in a backpack. She slept in the tent in the living room. We all tried it out, even Claire and I. It was a long, busy full day. We are so glad to have Ashley in our family. She is the BEST big sister and takes good care of her little brother and sisters. She always wants to choose the right and can't wait until she turns 8 so she can be baptized. We love her so much!

Mamma said there'd be days like this....

Ashley had one of those days today. She spilled her lunch tray all over herself, (tomato soup, applesauce) Yeah it was all over her shirt. She had to wear the spare class t-shirt home. Anyway then getting off the bus she slipped and fell right on her hands and knees. She was crying outside, she couldn't get her boots out of the mud to walk in. Poor kid.

It's Rodeo time!

We love a good rodeo at our house, Justin was swinging his "rope" the whole time, well before he fell asleep at least! It was a fun time anyway. The kids were watching the goat tying in this picture, (we don't usually let them stand up on the rails but we did for this event only). When they brought out the goat Emma said where are all the kids? The only goats she has seen in a rodeo had a ribbon tied on their tail. It was cute, anyway then they spent the rest of the time asking where are the goats, and can we see the goats? We had a goat for a little while at the dairy just to munch down the weeds but he got loose some how and we lost him. Anyway it was fun to get out and do something.

This week is Ashley's birthday, on Wednesday. She is so excited she cant hardly stand it! Ryan has her stage all built downstairs, he has to put the trim on and I have to do the curtains and hopefully it will be done before her birthday because she has a BIG production to put on for us. We had to narrow her "shows" down to a once a week occurrence, they are fun but you can only sit through so many, and she charges money, real money, her prices are steep! I will be sure to post a picture of the stage and the star performer later.

Emma had a talk in Primary yesterday, she would not memorize it, just the first line so Ryan had to help her with the rest, I think he was more nervous than she was. I had to go to Ward Conferences in two other wards for Young Women's, so I didn't get to see it. Ryan said she did a good job though.

Justin is Justin. He was pretty upset this morning when he woke up late and didn't get to see dad before he went to work. I do not like this daylight savings time, it is soooo hard to adjust to, especially the kids.

Claire is good, she is such a perfect baby. She is really shy, it is so cute when she smiles at you, but she always turns away because she is so shy especially with Ryan. I told him she is flirting with him, he doesn't think she knows how to flirt yet, she does though at least with daddy.

Ryan is working, like usual, he has a big Elders quorum party this weekend. It is a pinewood derby. Everyone is really excited, we are nervous. I'm sure it will be good, but some of these men get really into it and I don't want any hurt feelings, or fights ,or worse, when someones car doesn't win the race. Silly isn't it. Ryan has our car all cut out it needs sanded and a paint job, I guess that is my job? Should be fun. We have a busy week ahead and spring break is next week, that will be nice to have Ashley around.

Nail polish, Cookies, and Naps

Emma's self portrait

Justin giving Ashley bites, notice she is biting out of the side of her mouth, she has only one front tooth left, makes eating kind of tricky!


Justins Choco face, by the way Justin is sporting his favorite shirt, I am sure you will see it tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. Thought I should explain because you might start to wonder, we do have other clothes for the kid, he just loves his tractor shirt too much.





Emma asking for a scoop with out using words, this drives me crazy, she will just stand by the bowl and whine or look sad, but never ask for some, she can have a whole conversation with you and never say a word, this girl has drama queen written all over her face!

This is what we did today, so fun right! Even Justin got nail polish, I usually just put clear on him, but he is getting smarter and realizes that it doesn't show no matter how much I tell him it is sparkly and pretty. Dont tell Ryan, but his toenails are purple! We also made cookies, Emma, Justin, and Ash had some tastes as you can see. Ashley called twice from school wanting me to come and pick her up, I dont know if it is a good thing for her to know our phone number or not. It was after school and she just didnt want to ride the bus home. Anyway she didnt miss the bus thankfully, I really didnt want to have to load everyone up to go pick her up. So that was pretty much our day up until now, Justin and Claire went down for naps, and both woke up too early, they have both been crying. They should go to bed early tonight anyway. I am ready to be done with our "house arrest" that I have put us all on. I have been missing shopping, but I need to think of all of the money I have saved by not going to town. I do have a list a mile long now though, I am sure I can spend all of that saved money in one trip! Ryan is taking me/us (we will probably take the kids) to the local college rodeo in Twin Falls this weekend. That will be fun. It is kind of an anniversary type date for us, well not really, but it was the first time I ever saw him rodeo, (which all the girls thought he was so hot in his cowboy hat and on his horse, which he totally was) (and still is, sorry if I am being gross!) and the first time I met his family was at the CSI rodeo. It was a fun time, anyway we go every year now. Well I have to get going on dinner and all of the evening routine, homework etc.

Crazy Scouting Days

Yesterday was scouts, hence, no blogging, or anything fun for the day. I am one of two den mothers, and it is a hard job. I keep thinking why am I putting myself through this for these boys that aren't even mine, and I really hardly know most of them. Boys are so WILD at this age (8-10). But I do love them, they are fun, and one day my son will be doing the scouting thing and some other mother (hopefully not me still) will have to put up with his obnoxiousness. Needless to say it is done for the week. We are talking about recycling this month. Yes, a whole month on it. We will see how creative we can get with it. My baby is awake already, that was not a long enough nap. Kind of a boring post, I will try to write again later.

Potty training, yeah!

So since we have been home bound for the last while, due to illness, snow, and other ailments, I thought what better time to be potty training Justin. He is doing really well, 3 days in a row being dry, that is pretty good for little buddy. Although I will admit that I am not ready to say we are done and it was a success. We haven't gone anywhere yet, to really be tested. I hope I can stay motivated, and that he can stay motivated! Emma is ready to get back into some mommy school she does it with another little girl that will be in Kindergarten with her. It has been pretty fun for both of the girls. And they have a little brother for Justin to play with too so it works out good, when we go. I need to do something for her here at home until we get feeling better. She is really good at all of her upper case letters, (or are your supposed to call it capital letters) she needs to work on lower case, she is smart though and picks up quickly, when she wants to that is. Ashley is off to school and loves everyday, she doesn't really have any good friends she just plays by herself most of the time. I cant wait for Emma to start so they can play at recess together. Claire is still coughing. She was up for a couple of hours last night. It wasn't too bad to be up with her because I was up to, I don't know if I woke her or she woke me, but we were both up together, and Justin of course. Maybe after we get him potty trained we can kick him out of our bed. That is miserable, sleeping with a little body side-ways, upside down, on your head, on the floor, I don't know how the kid gets any sleep, because we sure don't. Well I have gone on long enough for today. Ryan is shipping potato seed today so it is getting more and more busy around here. I just wish the snow would melt, did I say that already?

Ready for church

We were actually early for church yesterday, it was nice for a change. We didnt all get to stay for all of the meetings. Emma, Claire, and I are all coughing our heads off still. Claire just got it Saturday, poor thing. It is so sad to see her be sick, she just moans and looks awful. Hopefully she will feel better soon. She also had her first tastes of rice cereal. She is a good eater! We are just staying home today, trying to get feeling better. Ryan is around, sort of, he is driving loads of barley from here to Gooding. Ashley is planning her birthday, she is so excited. I dont know what we are getting her yet. She wants some camping stuff, lantern, tent, etc. She is ready for summer already. I wish we could just get some spring weather. I cant think of too much else going on here today. Just hanging out, I need to look at scout stuff for this week, and laundry, fun, fun!

A family of 6!!

I thought I ought to put some pictures of our super cute children on the blog, I am sure there will be many more to come. We have 3 cute girls and one wild boy. Our little Claire was born in September and has some red,red hair. I dont know where it came from but it is red! They are a bit bigger now, she is 5 months old, Ashley is on the left and is almost 7 (next week), Emma is 5 and Justin is 2. They were helping me with some baking, what a crew! We are always up to something at our house!

I have arrived!

Everyone is doing it, I couldnt be left out right? Actually I probably wont have time to blog because I spend all of my time reading everyone elses blogs, which I love by the way! So here it goes we will see if I have the talent!