Behind on....Life

I don't know where to begin with this post. I see now why it is important to just keep up on it, because it is to hard to work backwards, SO what we have been up to.

1. The basement flooded while I was gone to NE, this is becoming a summer tradition I guess because we have done it EVERY summer since we have moved in, this time it wasn't me though. Ryan left the water on the lawn too long and that is how we got water in our newly carpeted basement. So we have had to take everything apart, including the office, which is a HUGE pain because of the HUGE desk and all of the other stuff in the office, bookshelf, filing cabinet, computer, etc, etc. We decided to go ahead and move the office to the craft room because the craft room has never flooded and we did finally get that done so I have my computer back, which is nice. I need to post a picture of the new office while it is still clean and organized, I am sure it wont last past the first of October, (after I pay bills in it for the first time). But it is sure nice for now. I HAD to paint the white walls before we could move in to it, take one guess what color.....YEP, Brown. Ryan says I am in a 'brown phase' right now. I guess so because everything seems to be brown. What he doesn't know is that I am ready to change the color of every room in the house right now, thus leaving the office the only room brown! Poor man to have to be married to such a wishy washy girl! Here are the girls in their 'painting clothes'

2. Potato harvest has officially begun. We dug just 8 trucks yesterday but today they seem to be rolling in as fast as they can go. They look good, I think, I'm no potato expert, but I would eat them, so what else matters right? The girls love to stand on the 'line' and pick clods, they will be such good help when they get a little bigger. Here they all are standing at their post.

3. I have a new found LOVE... for the Idaho Youth Ranch 2nd hand Store. This is big for me, I don't usually like to shop at 2nd hand stores, I love yard sales, that is different, but I have found some really fun interior decorating items, (sounds crazy I know) there. I have always only gone to the DI, but not anymore. I am a thrift shopper!! I have always been a thrifty shopper, I think at least, but now I am a thrift shopper too. It is so fun to buy things at such a LOW price. Here is a cute candy dish that I saw on the Joys of Home Blog, I had to try it out. It is just a little tray that I spray painted black and then bought some square glass votives to go on it, they fit perfectly, the tray was $1.50, the votives (from walmart) were .97 each, for a total of $5.50. I spent more on the candy to put in it, oh well. Pretty cute I thought! The glass bowl holding the apples (on the side) was also from the 2nd hand store it cost $1.00!! Oh please notice Casey the kitty, oh and way in the back is my Globe (Kiley) it was $3.50!!!!!

4. My kids are the best. I am having so much joy in them, it could be from being away from them for those few days, but I think I am just really enjoying them. Each day Ryan and I find something new about each one of them that is so special, we are blessed with good kids.

Ashley is doing well in school as usual, she is an excellent student. She LOVES her calf and is eager to get out of bed and feed him. She truly loves that thing, which might not be such a good thing. She is very concerned about her family members and is really loving having Emma as a sister, they have really started to play well together now, It is nice, not as much fighting and tears. Here is a picture of ALL of the kids playing together last night, they make a BIG mess, but they have so much fun, I Love it when they all play together.Emma is doing good in school too, if she could just not be so chatty. She hasn't had to sit on the naughty stool YET, but I am afraid it will be in her future. She likes school, but when she doesn't like it she sure lets me know the minute she walks in the door she says 'BORING'. Emma is not one to hold back her feelings, she lets me know everything, good or bad, most of the days are good, very few have been BORING. She has a big poem for the primary program in two weeks and is trying really hard to have it all memorized, she is half way there.

Justin is my helper now. He has also discovered that he has a mind of his own, Emma is not around to make it up for him, So now I am hearing NO a lot more out of him. I am used to that with Emma, but not my sweet Justin. He is quite stubborn, and is ALWAYS hitting, but he says sorry just as quickly as he hits and really does have a sweet heart. He always wants someone to play with. Since I am the only one big enough left at home I get to have lots of time on the floor playing with pickups, trailers, tractors, motorcycles, and cows, you name it we play it.

Claire has discovered the stairs, I hoped she never would, but she has and she wants to go down them head first, she hasn't yet, hopefully she wont ever...I think it is time for the gate. She is still a happy baby. She just poked her 4th tooth in on the top side, she is getting her teeth in funny, but at least they are coming. She will be one in 2 weeks, so sad. This year has just flown by. She is my snuggliest baby and is fun to rock and rock, I got to last night from 1:30 to 3:00, aren't I so lucky!! I think it must be more teeth, I'm not sure, sometimes she just has a restless night.

This is what I have been up to. It is busy around here I like it when we harvest here close to home, I get to go check up on how every thing is going, it will be hard when they move down to the farm 30 miles away. I have been helping with the Homecoming events at the HS. I am a judge. I think I am the worst judge ever though because I want EVERYONE to win, I don't want anyone to lose! It has been fun and has given us something to do here close to home. Life is good!

Weekend in Nebraska

This past weekend was an adventure for me. I don't have a lot of adventures now in my old married life years, but this was a GREAT adventure. Claire and I flew from Idaho Falls to Denver on Friday morning, the flight was good, Claire was REALLY good, she didn't cry at all. I met up with Mom and Dad in Denver, our flights ended up coming in really close to the same time, that was good. The Airport was total crazyness, the Democratic Convention was ending and people were flying home, that was a little scary, good thing I wasn't alone, I am so NOT a City girl, especially a BIG city girl. We made it out OK anyway. Kiley lives about 4 1/2 hours from Denver so we got a rental car and started the drive, it was normal at first, we just went down a Freeway and everything was normal until we got to Osh Kosh, I thought Osh Kosh was big, but it's not, from there the road just started getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller until we were on a one lane paved road. It reminded me of a bike path, it was about the same size as a nice bike path. She lives in the middle of no where. I thought I lived in the country, not even close, she is so far out there, like 40 miles on this little bike path, it is so mind boggling... We did get there safely though and had a really fun time. It was fun to go to her house for a change, I think I have only been to her house one other time since she has been married and that is when she lived in Rexburg. Her house is cute and her boys were fun. We had a great visit.

Claire getting some 'bites' from Ryder, these two were like the boppsy twins with their curly hair. Those boys are going to love their baby sister!

Dallie and Tayson (Bobby and Sara's new baby). They are 10 days apart, Tayson is older. They will have fun growing up together.

Jason, Dallie, Sara, Tayson, Bobby. Just relaxing after a full Sunday.

Claire and Ryder, AGAIN. He didn't play with her the whole time, but we would catch them together quite often.

Dallie, I never took a picture with her in her blessing dress, she looked so pretty. She is a good baby. The only draw back was that I didnt get to bring my other kids and Ryan, they would have liked it, Ryan has wanted to go there for a few years, I guess we will have to go back again soon! We had a fun adventure on our visit, thanks for having us all Kiley and Jason!

TODAY

Today we are having a at home day. I have got to get all of our laundry done for this weekend. Claire and I are going to Kiley's house for Dallie's baby blessing. I am excited. I wish I only had to pack myself, but the rest of the kids are going to Grandma Telfords while I am gone. Ryan will be around, but he can't keep them while he is working. The kids are excited to go to Grandmas, but they want to go with me too so they could fly on an airplane. I don't think any of them have flown when they were old enough to remember. They have all flown as babies, you know when they used to be free, but not anymore.

We went shopping yesterday after school, I had to take the girls so they could try on their shoes, I bought them both new shoes and they were both to small, (according to Ryan) so I had to take them back and this time I took the girls to try on. It is a long story, but we ended up keeping one pair for Emma and getting a bigger pair for Ashley, I didn't see them try them on, Ryan helped them and he thought they were to small.... Oh well, we have school shoes now that is all that matters. Justin has been begging me to make play dough so we finally did. I was just going to buy it but he was to naughty in the store so he didn't get any. I found a good recipe and it uses cream of tarter, it turned out so good. It is not sticky at all. I am glad I finally broke down and bought the cream of tarter, (it is a little expensive OK so it was like $2.59 for a little container of it, but at the store in Richfield it was 5 bucks!). ANYWAY, I am having fun days with just two kids!!! It is so QUIET around here it makes me sleeeeeeeepy......

I've been creating

I have started a couple of projects lately, I should be doing the ones that are more important, (like Ashley's bedroom), but I don't want to do that, I would rather do more fun things. Actually, I want to get her bedroom set first before I move her down stairs, not that her room isnt going to be fun to do....I did get Claire's crib up, it is just wall to wall GIRLS in that bedroom for now. Claire is loving her crib, as are all of the kids, they all want to get in and jump in it, well Emma and Justin do anyway, they are not allowed in her bed though, we will see how long that rule lasts.

So I found these cute flowers on a girls blog....I can't remember where or who, (plus I don't want you to go to her blog and see how much cuter hers are)...She doesn't use hers for hair bows either, she pins them on jackets and stuff like that, which is cute too. I think they turned out DARLING, and I have the cutest model too!

My other project has been those brown cupboards in the laundry room. We are going to replace them to match the kitchen..someday...my list of things to do on this house just keeps growing... But for now I thought I would just paint them black and put on new knobs. I even painted the baskets black, I think they are my favorite part. The pictures aren't the best, but I think it turned out OK for now at least! Give me a week and my taste will change and then....I will change them...

The Before:

The After:

So I just noticed that the best part about the make over was that the laundry room got cleaned...Oh well, What do you think anyway?

A new member of the family

We have adopted a new pet, I say pet because it is treated like a pet, not a large smelly animal. Our neighbors (who have a dairy) cant get anyone to take their bull calves, (they aren't worth anything right now). Sounds crazy I know, but with the price of feed they can't keep them around. SO we finally decided to get the kids their own calves to raise. They have begged for one all summer, well I guess you can say the price was finally right for us. As the calves are born we will go and get them, Ashley got the first one, She has done a good job getting up before school to go and feed him and she worries all day about him while she is gone. She is doing good, we will see what happens when Emma gets hers...

You would have thought we were 'CITY' people by the way we were acting, we acted like we had never seen a cow in our lives!!

But now you can see that we are country RED NECKS by the way we transported him, Ryan just rode in the back to keep him from jumping out, luckily it was a short drive and we didn't see anyone we knew....

Ashley's first time feeding him, He is still cute and fun because he hasn't stomped on her foot or pooped on her yet, She sees a cute fun new pet, I see college tuition....

Yes, there is a calf in there, they are getting detailed instructions from their dad on how to properly feed Him.

Hmmm, this picture just gave me an idea....

Emma's First Day of School

Emma had a great first day of Kindergarten, she seemed very happy when she got home, Her teacher even gave her a piece of gum (not usually allowed at our house) so she was REALLY happy. I started to quiz her a little about her day, I asked her who she sat by, (they sit at a table, not desks) She said "I sit by Serena, Taylor, my new best friend, and a Spanish girl." I said, "oh does the Spanish girl speak only Spanish?" She said, "I don't know, I said Hola to her and she didn't say anything back." I guess all of those hours of watching Dora has helped her with her Spanish speaking! Too funny! Then I asked her about her "new best friend" She said "we played at recess every time and she was really fun, but I cant remember her name." I guess it doesn't matter when you are five what your best friends name is! Then I checked her back pack, I could see that it was still just as full as when she left this morning, I was thinking she had a lot of homework already, No she still had all of her school supplies in it. She was supposed to get all of her stuff out and give it to the teacher, and then they just kind of all share supplies, not all like they keep there own scissors and notebook, but they share markers and crayons, ANYWAY, Emma was NOT going to put her stuff in the box with everyone else's, so she kept it in her back pack while everyone else was getting theirs out! I told her tomorrow she has to turn in ALL of her supplies to the teacher, she cant keep them in her bag all year long, silly girl!

Back to School

The girls are going back to school in the morning, I am sad, yet so excited too. Ryan keeps telling me I am going to be bored, I think I would like a few boring days for a change! I am not looking forward to Fall and Winter though, can we just skip it and go back to Spring again? I would really like that. Summer just passes to quickly around here. I am not ready for the lonely harvest nights...
Claire is officially crawling, She is the secret crawler, I don't see her actually doing it very often, she doesn't crawl across the room, but she will crawl a little bit and then sit, and then crawl a little more, she gets around really well, too well already. This morning she was in Justin's room and then crawled down the hall, into the bathroom and got up to the tub, I heard someone throwing things in the tub and I discovered her in there. So she is obviously doing it whether we are seeing it or not.
Justin is crazy wild, like normal. He got his first BUZZ hair cut, I didn't mean for it to be that short, I don't care for the buzzed look, but it is so much easier to do on a "moving" target. He LOVES Daddy's new pipup (pickup)(and yes it FINALLY came) and wants to drive it every day.
Emma has been crying every morning because it STILL isn't school yet??? Tonight she couldn't go to bed, she just isn't tired at night, I see a lot of tearful mornings in her future. She has all of her school clothes out for the morning and her back pack packed. She is going to LOVE school!
Ashley talks like an old pro, she is so ready for school and keeps telling Emma all about it, more than Emma cares to know I am sure! She did not want a back pack this year, she wanted one that would just go over her shoulder, she is getting too big. Emma was worried about not getting to ride the bus the first day because I told them that I might just drive them in instead of riding the bus, I was trying to tell her not to worry, you will ride the bus lots and lots of days, Ashley said, "yeah like at least 500 days a year" It was pretty cute. Well I better get to bed, I am going on the bus in the morning too, so I have to get up early, gone are the lazy days of Summer!

One last Hoorah

We had to play one last time before school started, Justin insisted on getting the swimming pool out (the night before school started) of course it was like 8:00 (at night) when we filled it up, the girls should have already been in bed, but werent. It is too hard to sleep when it is still light outside. Ashley had already showered for school the next day so she didnt get in but Justin did and Emma can't resist the temptation so she got in too. It was freezing cold water, but it didnt matter, they just wanted to go swimming! Fun summer days!

Blogging Lately

I am so frustrated with this blogging, I have tried every day this week to load pictures and I cant get them to load, I don't know what I am doing wrong, SO....no posts of all of the fun things we have been up to this past month...STILL! But when I do get it going be prepared for like 18 posts in one day! Just kidding....I think?

10 Year Class Reunion

Here are some pictures of my class reunion this past weekend. It got a little wild on Friday night, not surprising.... We had a tour of the High School and then went to a local restaurant to eat and visit. There were so many people there, there were lots who weren't there, but I was really surprised at the good turn out. Saturday we went to Scootney Reservoir and had a BBQ and got to meet every ones families. The weather was nice, a little breezy, but good. Ryan took the kids down to swim and they did, I was surprised that they would want to get in the water, but they did and had a good time. Here's Lotsa pictures from the fun weekend:

Erin, Fran, Jessica, Me

Jessica, Fran, Brandon M., and Eddy O.

Toni, Leslie, Jennifer, Jessica, Charie, and Fran

Shanae, Hauni, Me, Liz, Tamara

Sadakaeo, Kamphauly, Me and Todtou

Liz and Me

Liz, Me, Mikaela, Fernando, Charie

Back; Liz, Toni, Leslie, Charie. Front; Me, Mikaela, Kameron, Jane, and Fran

Frans little Gracee.

Claire and Gracee, what cute little red heads!! I wish we lived closer!