A tale of three kiddies

Emotions…

2010-04-25T19:32:00.001-07:00

I know it has been a long time since I was on here, but I just can’t get my head into the whole blogging thing anymore… I think it is because I spent too much time on here before, and God is trying to help me manage my time better. Anyways, I had to write out some of my feelings and it doesn’t sound right when I write it to myself, so I am sharing with whoever reads this.

Most of you that do read the blog know that we had a miscarriage last September. I was only three or four weeks pregnant and only knew about the pregnancy for a couple of days, but it was VERY real to in that short amount of time. I figured out when we conceived, when I was due, when my c-section would be scheduled (for the most part…) and had new baby names running through my head.

Two close friends of mine were already pregnant when we found out we were, Tiff a couple of months, and Kelly a few weeks more than me. When we had the miscarriage it was hard then, knowing that they were going to look more and more pregnant and get to feel all the stuff that a pregnant woman enjoys, and I wasn’t. But that was nothing compared to seeing them hold their babies when they were born. Both had adorable baby girls and I am super excited for them, but it is hard.

So on to why I am writing this in the first place! Since having kids my cramps are almost non-existent, compared to before kids, when I would curl up in a ball and cry sometimes they were so bad. I don’t get that anymore, fantastic!!! I don’t get moody during that time of the month, but I do get very moody before. The only way I know it is coming. This is the hardest time of the month for me. Knowing that once again we didn’t get pregnant. This is the first time in our marriage that we haven’t been using the birth control pill, and we haven’t been able to get pregnant. Anyways, I can feel the crabbies coming on. And it hurts so much that I can’t stand it. All I do is holler at the kids, the hubby, I can’t get motivated, all I want to do is be by my self, and ignore everything going on around me. I just want to through a pity party for my self.

I have three wonderful kids already, I have a great family, enough that I should be happy with what I have. Not this upset about what we lost.

So please pray for my emotions, my healing, our family, my heart… I know that there are many people out there that have lost much more that I have, and I feel guilty about how upset I am about something that in the world’s eye I never even had. But in my heart I have 4 children that I love with all that I am. Pray that this gets better, that God will take away the desire to have more children if he isn’t going to fulfill that desire, or that he will lessen it for the time being, pray that if something is wrong with my body after the IUD that I had put in and taken out would heal if needed.

His life wasn’t taken, it was given in love,

Sharalee

Sleigh’s, skating, swinging, and sliding!!!

2010-02-27T10:39:00.001-08:00

Last week I found out about something fun, and cheap, to do on Saturday, so we bundled up and headed to an antique farm for some sleigh rides! We met some friends there, and the kids had a ton of fun on this hill! John, Nevaeh and Aubrie on our first rid of the day. Nevaeh enjoying some of the scenery! Wyatte had a ton of fun!!! The horse on the left of the picture is Bud and the one on the right is Mic. I asked how they could tell them apart, and the driver told me they had different last names… (Bud) Weiser and (Mic) Aelob!!! All joking aside, he said one of them has a dark mark on his shoulder. Wyatte was looking at the horses bums, and talking to one of the drivers. Our friends were on this sleigh Nevaeh checking out Bud and Mic. Aubrie had to get in on it too! Don’t forget Wyatte!!! Then the Barton’s all checked out the horses that drove them around. Then it was on to the games inside. This was by far the most favorite!!! Look how steamy they are!

Aren’t they beautiful! Huge too!!!

2010-02-22T19:52:00.001-08:00

I know I have been gone for a very long time, but hopefully I am back now. You would think with the new camera that I got for Christmas that I would have been taking tons and tons of pictures, but the opposite is actually true. I don’t know how to use it enough to get good pics, so I don’t use it at all… Hopefully that will change soon and I will get back in the game! Here are a few pics that I have taken though.

Aubrie has been pretty good about telling us when she goes potty (in her diaper) or if she is poopy, so I decided what the heck I am going to potty train her. So my little baby is in panties some of the time. So cute, and sad at the same time. She will be 2 next month, a couple of weeks actually, so crazy is that!?!?!? What is even weirder is the fact that I do not have a new baby, I am not even pregnant. I can’t tell you how much fun this is, I feel like a whole new mom when i am with her because I notice so many more of the 1st, since she gets alot more attention now than the other two did. And that brings us to these pictures. With the other two I had to get them out of the crib because we needed it for the new baby. So they were out by 16 or 17 months. Aubrie was still in it at 23, so I decided that we were going to try the toddler bed and with out risking jinxing it, she stayed in it!!! Isn’t she adorable!!! Pay no attention to the christmas tree that you see sitting in a couple of the pics…

My baby is no longer a baby :(

Valentines Craft!

2010-01-21T19:31:00.001-08:00

Since I didn’t get my Christmas Crafts photographed for you all to see, I thought I better get my Valentines ones done! I was blog surfing the other day, instead of cleaning (but my house is WAY cleaner than it was a few days ago, so it is ok!!!) and came across a super cute post by “tatertots and jello”

This is my version of what she made (sorry for the crooked pictures…)

These are going to either sit on a shelf, after I move it from the entryway to the living room, or hang on the wall. I really like the way the black, red, white, cream, and grey came together!

These are actually fake grapes that I had bought a while back for something, and never used them and when I pulled out the marbles I noticed the grapes were the same color and thought I would through them on a paper and see what it looked like. I actually like that sheet the best! The love hanger is part of the scrapbook paper, and super glued in… I really wish I had some plain black ribbon for the bow on this “0”, but the black is white is ok too…

These next couple pics are my first ones, and they turned out a little more country, or folk, or something than I wanted, so I tried the black and red… I still like these, but not for my house! If anyone else wants them, let me know!!!

House…

2010-01-02T10:17:00.001-08:00

This is another post about the roughness of my life right now, but then I am done! For a while anyways.

Some of you have heard me talk about how our basement is. With the cement blocks cracking, and the walls are tipping… Well today I went down stairs to put some clothes in the washer and hang up the load that was in there. (We have a dryer, but not the right power hook up. We are pretty sure we are going to have to redo all the wires to hook up the dryer, so for now it just sits in the middle of the basement and gathers soot, and dust, and junk…) I had to take the loads down that were dry, and while doing that I saw this… (Yes I did go grab my camera…) and YES THAT IS SNOW inside the house. Not just ice crystals like we have seen before, but SNOW. So then being the wonderful person that I am I went outside with the camera to show you the wall from another angle (take into consideration that it is –26 right now) This picture does a horrible job of showing just how indent this wall is. What you can see is the wood wall is supposed to be sitting on the edge of the block, like a normal house. Instead the board (pointed to by the yellow arrow) that supports the whole wall, is falling out. Just another couple of views of the wall. When facing the “snow” in the basement this window is about 3 feet to the left. See how the board at the top of the window is crooked? That is the board that was pointed out in the previous picture…This is another wall in the basement the back wall of the house. The cracks are all at ground level and the top part is all leaning out.

This is what you see when you come down the stairs. The window and “snow” are on the wall at the end of this one. This one just started to show a larger crack, but once it starts it has to go somewhere right???

The house was originally built by John’s Grandpa Russell. John’s dad’s dad. He built it in the lowest spot that he could on this part of their land. Plus there are no gutters on it at all, and I have been told that is the majority of the problem… After Russell passed away, Idella, John's grandma, sold the house to Linda and Lavern, John’s mom and dad. They added plumbing, and electricity. The outhouse turned into a shed, and is still in the back yard! Anyways, they built a basement, jacked the house up after their kids got a little older and they needed some more room, and moved the house back about 20 feet (where they had dug and built the basement.)

We really want to build in a couple of years so we don’t really want to put much money into this house, but I don’t think these walls are going to take much more… Any tips to get us by until we can afford to build??? Anyone want to come help us fix the problems with this house?!?!?!?

For those of you out there…

2010-01-01T19:30:00.001-08:00

I haven’t been on here much lately, partly because it is winter and I have once again hit a little depression that is associated with the season. Last year it started later, so I am little nervous about how this will go, especially considering other circumstances that I will share later. And also partly because of the circumstances that I will be sharing later (no we aren’t pregnant.) And partly because I have become addicted to blogs and facebook, and was trying to limit my time on the computer and so blogging go pushed to a back burner. I actually went as far as to keep the internet off (read, it was totally shot off from the providers end) for a while to keep my self from being on the computer too much.

On to the more info that you all want!!! Anywho, most of you that read this know that John was laid off in Oct. of 2008 when the construction company didn’t have enough work for him. That job was a huge blessing and we are grateful to Dale for providing the job as he was able. He did do some plowing of power substations over the winter, and mowed them all during the summer, but for the most part he was unemployed. We even had to go as far as extend his unemployment for awhile because he wasn’t working. John was waiting for a pipeline job. Lynn S., a friend and previous boss, works for them and said that he could get John on with him (this has been going on since Aubrie was born…) Originally he was supposed to start in April of ‘08, that didn’t pan out so we waited, then it was June of ‘08, the Sept of ‘08. Then they shut down for the winter. Then there was some political this with the reservation over some land that they either wanted the pipeline to buy, or didn’t want to sell, sorry I am not really sure of the details. Anyways, John did make the trip to Duluth to join the laborers union and was told that he would NOW start when ever the pipeline got the go ahead. This was another wait, and another wait, and another wait, and another wait… You get the idea.

I was working as much as they would schedule me at Autumn Lane, the adult care home that John’s sister owns. So that helped some… But we were still struggling. If we didn’t have such WONDERFUL landlords (John’s mom and dad) we would have been homeless once again.

Finally in the end of Sept/beginning of Oct he STARTED!!! I will admit I was kinda sick of having him at home ALL THE TIME!!! Now I am kinda sick of him being gone all the time. He gets up between 4:30 and 5 AM and is out the door a little before 6 AM and doesn’t get home until between 5:30 and 8, depending on the night. A normal work week for him started out as Monday thru Saturday. Thanksgiving Day the guys were told that they wouldn’t get another day off until Christmas, (thankfully that didn’t happen, but it was still pretty bad) Between Thanksgiving and Christmas break, He had 1, yes I said 1, day off. Christmas break started the Saturday before Christmas and ended the Sunday after. That was nice to have him home. Nice for him to get some extra rest. He took naps, opened presents, saw his brother, put up a door and wall (ask me about that later, after I have taken pics and I will show you!!!) and then went back to work this past Monday. He told me that morning that he heard they were going to work every day now until the project was done. So that could be March, or April, before he gets another day off.

So, while him working is a GREAT thing for us financially (I am working on a post about that as well, because I NEED HELP) him being gone 6 or more often 7 days a week is hard on him, me, and the kids. So please pray for his health and wellbeing, my mental and physical health, and the kids during this winter. We are already starting to feel some of the side effects of Daddy being gone so much, I don’t have as much energy to do stuff with the kids, the kids have too much energy, they are acting out more, I am yelling more, John sleeps pretty much the whole time he is home. It isn’t fun to be in the house some times. So we need some thoughts and prayers. And invites to do fun things this winter so we DON’T GO CRAZY!!! I was glad for this past week, where there was no school, no Cubbies, no MUMS, nothing to do really, but now I am ready to be moving again, and have places to go and things to do. Just to keep us sane!!!

So pardon this VERY long post, but I wanted to share some of the goings on in our house, and ask for prayer. So please remember us!!!

My lack of a Christmas letter led to this…

2009-12-31T10:56:00.001-08:00

So I didn’t get a Christmas letter out, I didn’t even get my Christmas cards/photos out :( I started a few of them, but didn’t have time to finish them. This card was my inspiration, (it’s is taken from the Family Fun website and you can find the directions HERE), but I couldn’t find any candy cane stickers. One of the joys of living in a small town and having three children so you don’t brave a trip to a larger town to get the stuff that you “need”… So I improvised… and came up with this… Imagine it with the same snowman as in the above picture! The snowman is actually an ornament that you can hang on your tree!!! How cute are they!?!?!?!? Since I couldn’t find candy cane stickers, I looked around for anything that I could cut to make it look like candy canes, and found some candy cane wrapping paper. After about 45 mins and only 10 cut out candy canes I gave up and tried something else. I had these letter stickers from another project so I put them on this stripped scrapbooking paper and brought it to a copy place in town and had them copy them for me. Then I made the snowmen, hot glued them on and we were good to go! (I did make about 15 of them, and hand them out, but if you weren’t around when I had them you missed out!!!)

This is the picture that I put in the cards, and even if you didn’t get a Christmas card you will be getting the picture (or at least most of you will!!!) Of the pictures that Katie took of the kids I think this is my favorite because NO ONE is looking at the camera!!! There are other cute ones, but I like this one! And since everyone has asked where I got the outfits here is the info! Nevaeh’s orange shirt came from Gymboree, the cream sweater was Target, and her brown pants are a Target pair of flared leggings. Aubrie’s shirt is actually a 3-6 month dress from Gymboree and she also has on Target flared leggings. Wyatte’s sweater came from Target and his pants from Penney’s. And even though not matchy matchy, they are coordinated!

I have been reading blogs that have the top few things that have happened to them or that they have done in the past year, and while I can come up with a couple my lists aren’t nearly as exciting. I will work on a post with those and you can look for that later tonight or tomorrow…

Right now I am off to make a treat to bring tonight to the party at the church and then we are off to some fireworks to ring in the New Year!!!

Happy New Year!!!

Wyatte Turns 5

2009-12-28T07:27:00.001-08:00

Since Wyatte’s birthday fell on a school day I decided to make cupcakes and send them for snack. I looked around the internet, but didn’t find anything that I liked. So I came up with this! Isn’t he cute!??!?!??!?! This is what I started with, a circus peanut. I cut some off the bottom so that one end was up higher than the other. (I enjoyed that part!!!)

Then using these wonderfully expensive cake making tools (yes I am talking about the pop can and fork!!!) I frosted the circus peanut green. Then I cut a jelly belly jelly bean in thirds, and used the two ends as nostrils.Then I frosted over them. Using another jelly bean, this time only cut in half, I made eyes. Using white sprinkles I added teeth and wala! Cute crocodile cupcakes!!!then I put the whole thing on a blue frosted cupcake, and there it is! I think they turned out pretty cute. They did take me a while, so if you are going to try them budget out a little more time than normal!!!

Grandma Linda was wonderful enough to bring Wyatte to school and pick him up afterwards, so that I could get stuff done for Wyatte’s family party that was that night. Grandpa Stan came over for lunch and brought presents for all the kids! Aubrie and Nevaeh got books.And Wyatte got a camo shirt (that in these pics is the wrapping paper!)Inside was a camo coat, and in the hood, sleeves, and pockets were all kind of treat! A camo hat, gloves, and TONS OF CANDY!!!

Here is the start of the crocodile cake that I made for him family party, and am going to make again when he has his friend party in January (there is WAY to much going on in December to have a party so we are just doing it one weekend in January!)Here is the cake that I kinda went off of. Not the same in any aspect, but it gave me a starting point…The feet are cupcakes, with marshmallow claws/toes (I used french vanilla snowman ones, trimmed a little bit because that seemed the easiest) The eyes are strawberry marshmallows, frosted, then another snowman cut a little, with a blue mini m & m’s as the pupil. The nostrils are parts of french vanilla marshmallows, frosted, with brown mini m & m’s. The teeth are the marshmallows, cut into slivers…For supper I made a version of Penne Alfredo. I loosely followed this recipe for Alfredo sauce, cooked penne noodles, used a deli rotisserie chicken and stirred it all together and then baked it for a while. When I make it again I will double the sauce, it was a little too dry for my taste, but was great! I did add minced garlic, and onions.

Then it was time for presents. He got a truck with horse and trailer, a farm lego set, a marshmallow shooter, a monster truck, a book for special school papers and pictures, flashlights, and a digger/truck magnetic puzzle, and a sweatshirt and warmup pants. I am sure I am missing something, but…

I can’t believe that I have a 5 year old. Crazy how the time goes by.

Craft Challenge (kinda)

2009-12-03T05:17:00.001-08:00

My camera crapped out on me last night, and so instead of having pictures of the things that I made for this month’s craft challenge, you have to look at the pictures that I got the ideas from.

My mother-in-law gets GREAT magazines that I love to browse through. In the past I have never had the money to actually buy anything from them, but it was fun to dream. Well now that my hubby is back to work I could order some things from them, but the only things that I really liked I decided that I could make! So off to Walmart (we don’t have a “craft” store in town, and with three young kids you don’t make any extra trips out of town, unless you have to! So I made do with what I found!!!

This was the first picture that I fell in love with.

Taken from The Country House catalog.

Or at least the mittens! For these I got some off white flannel and dyed it burgundy (stained the tub in the process!!!) I made them smaller than they are in the catalog and because of that they were really hard to sew, so I used some super glue for now, and have to figure something else out if they start coming apart! I got some tiny clothes pins and some twine to hang them on. Don’t quite know where they are going to end up finally, but they are sure cute!!!

Next I saw this frame, and loved the idea, but not the whole thing…

Taken from The Country House catalog.

I found a wood frame at Walmart, stained it with a light stain, and then started picking out papers. The first one I did is green and blue, the second one I did is the same color scheme as the one in the picture, and then I have papers cut out to do a black and white one, and a beautiful gray/silver patterned paper. No words on them, at least for now. I would like to be able to change the pictures if I want, and not be limited to a certain type…

Last but not least, was this idea.

I couldn’t find tags like this in Walmart, but did find some scrapbooking “scrap” pack that had tan/brown cardstock in it. So I found a couple of tag patterns in another scrapbooking pack that I got, and traced them and then cut them out. Darkened the edges (used some stain and some gold/bronze paint), used some of the circles that are used to strengthen whole punched holes (do you know what I am talking about !?!?!?!) and painted them a gold/bronze color and put them at the top. I painted Merry Christmas on mine, but have plans to make at least another set with a different saying. I also got some thin crafting wire to string them together.

All in all I was pretty happy with them all. If I get a new camera, or figure out what is wrong with my old one I will take pics and share them with you all.

Can’t wait to see what everyone else has done!!!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

**** Whoops! Forgot to add in the link to Blue Eyed Blessings! So here it is!!! Go check out some of the other Christmas Crafts that everyone has made!!!!!

Christmas Crafts

2009-11-20T04:41:00.001-08:00

So I know I said I was going to do this for the fall craft challenge (and I did something just not until after it ended!!!) Since I have already started working on stuff for Christmas I figured I am safe in doing this!!! So I am doing this challenge

Anyone want to join me? Click the picture and it will take you to another blog with all the details. Come back in a couple of weeks to see what I made, and check out what others have done too. If I get around to it I might post what I made for the fall challenge too!

I also have done a couple of posts with pics of the kids, but for some reason they disappeared… So I have to find my camera and redo the posts. So look for those soon too!!!

2009-11-11T19:31:00.001-08:00

A day in the life…

2009-10-31T20:02:00.001-07:00

So Friday was Wyatte’s picture day at preschool. Miss Heather decided to have both her AM and afternoon preschool classes come in the morning so the afternoon class wouldn’t have to come for part of the morning and then back again a couple hours later for school. This meant she was going to have 12 4/5 year olds for 3 hours! She asked if I would be willing to come in and be an extra adult in the room!!!

So I left the girls home with John (who didn’t go to work because of a rain day) and headed to school with Wyatte. It was actually FUN! To see them, especially Wyatte, do “school” things. At home he is pretty hard to get to pay attention, but in school he does better. Fun to see them turn on the charm for the camera guy!

I don’t think I was a huge help, but maybe seeing the two of us in there made the other parents feel better!?!?!? Here are a few pics of stuff. (Heather if I shouldn’t have these on here let me know and I will take them down…) I am not going to name names, or even really narrate the pics you can pretty much see what is going on!

Wyatte had show ‘n tell, and since they are on the letter “F” he brought a FISH and a FROG!

So just a snippet into my “Day in the life of Heather L”

You want to see my kids!?!?!?!

2009-10-13T17:37:00.001-07:00

Ok, so here are a few pictures that I took on the camera that I bought late last night! I really wanted to have one for the pumpkin patch outing that we went on today, so last night when I was done with the laundry (at 10 PM) I headed to Walmart to get one!!! Aubrie waiting for the kids to come down a “tornado” slide, she loved watching them come out, but wouldn’t go down herself!

Wyatte pulling a friend in the wagon. Wyatte enjoyed pulling and Sam loved the ride!

Here is Wyatte on the rope swing in the hay barn maze. My old camera had a setting for action, and I thought I was on it, but looking at the pictures, either I don’t know what I am doing, or the camera doesn’t work like I thought it would!

Here is Nevaeh on the swing too!

Aubrie enjoying a seat on some of the hay bales while the kids swung! Isn’t she adorable!!?!?

Nevaeh was checking out the llama that they had. In the cages towards the back right of the picture they had bunnies that you could hold too, but we didn’t have time to do that. The kids were bummed at first but I don’t think they remember at all now!

Aubrie didn’t want to get close to the animals! She did enjoy watching them though…

Wyatte, Rorey (red and black coat), Joseph (tongue out) and Matthew (spiderman hat) all on the hay ride getting ready to go feed the cows! Oh, Miss Heidi W. is in there too!

Just a part of the group that we went with!

Wyatte getting ready to feed the cows.

Nevaeh and Aubrie getting ready to feed the cows!

Tried to get a good pic of the three of us girls, but you can see how that turned out!

The cows came right up to the trailer and took the hay right out of your hands, or from underneath you, depending on how fast you were!

Aubrie liked looking at the cows, but not so much when they came for the hay she would throw it at them!

I guess she did get fairly close!

Wyatte really enjoyed himself, he wants to have cows at our house, in our barn (when we build it again!) so he felt right at home.

Look of fun? Or what!?!?!

Aubrie really liked the chickens! I think helped that they were in a cage! She has always like our chickens to, come to think of it…

Trying to feed the horse! She wasn’t scared of it at all…

And then we tried to get a few pics of the kids, alone and separate… Aubrie’s is ok, and then it got worse…

First Wyatte started throwing pumpkin’s around, then Nevaeh wanted to sit on them, and Aubrie wanted to get down… So this is the best one!

Nevaeh wouldn’t sit still, and she wouldn’t look at me, and she kept giving me funny faces…

Wyatte wouldn’t smile, he wouldn’t really look at me, and he wanted to get down to get the pumpkins that he threw…

I did get them to look at me when they were in here! Well almost!!!

Picking out a pumpkin after we were done. Not really sure where they are right now, guess I am going to have to find them!

Does she look like the Michelin Man or what??!?!?!?

A link to a fall craft giveaway!

2009-10-02T04:52:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I was going to do this whole craft challenge thing, and couldn't some up with any cute ideas that I thought I would actually put out, well looking around the blogs that I follow I realized that that month was over (duh!) and the links were up to those creative people who actually started and finished their projects.

One of the crafters/bloggers is doing a give a way on her blog for the things she made and they are SUPER CUTE!!! Even if I don't win I am going to take her ideas and try them myself. They are all ones that you could do for any holiday/season that you wanted! Way awesome!!!

So here is the link to her blog

My April Snow GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

2009-09-30T19:28:00.000-07:00

OH these are pretty!!!

My April Snow GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Preschool Pics...

2009-09-16T11:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I forgot to tell you all this in my last post, but Miss Heather (Wyatte's preschool teacher) has a website that she puts pics of the preschool class on, along with some short notes about what is going on. If any of you family would like to be able to see those pictures let me know and she will send you an invite to see the page. It is private right now, so that is why if you went to click on the pics of his first day of school you couldn't see them bigger... So let me know if you would like to see them!

Long time (still) no see

2009-09-15T18:38:00.001-07:00

So I still don’t have a camera, trying to be patient and not covet the cameras that I see. Trying not to be disappointed that I missed Wyatte’s first day of preschool. Or Aubrie jumping off the dock. Or Nevaeh playing dress up, here at home and with friends. Such is life. I think partly I am trying to pay more attention to what is going on around me so that I can remember instead of looking back and seeing the pictures.

Anywho, Wyatte is in his second week of preschool and LOVES it! He seems so grown up all of a sudden. He told me today that he knows all the letters, and proceeded to sing me the song. Previously he would say H, R, K, K and other letters in the wrong order. He also totally got the concept of right and left, and understands that one is different from the other. Such a big boy I have! Tomorrow marks the first night of Cubbies and I know that he is super excited for that to start.

Nevaeh has had lots of play dates lately because there is a group of us that is getting ready to sing a special in church next month and since one of the moms’ piano is in her basement with the toys we go there and the kids play and we sing. Works great! On Monday there were 6 moms and 13 kids. There were 5 missing (in school) and one on the way. So 19 kids between 6 of us! All 6 1/2 and under!!! So Nevaeh had tons of fun playing with all the other kids, along with Aubrie! Nevaeh gets to do Cubbies this year too! She is pretty excited too, so hopefully she does good! She is really ready for preschool too and if we had the money I would send her to Miss Heather too, but right now we just don’t have it. Later in the school year I might enroll her, but for right now, I am just going to try to spend some extra time with her while Wyatte is in school. We are going to do Story Time at the library each Monday, and have our Growing Together class each Friday so that is some extra attention that Wyatte won’t get. I am trying to find someone who will watch Aubrie during story time so that I can focus on Nevaeh, but haven’t found anyone yet…

Aubrie is getting pretty big too! She started jumping off the dock today when we went swimming. She would run down the dock to wear I was standing and say go, then lean out to me and wait until I grabbed her! It was super cute! She loves the water, and is a daredevil. She toppled a couple of times, but did great keeping her head up and I WAS right there to help her up right away. She has a floaty that she can sit in but she doesn’t really like that because she can’t “play” in the water as much. She is also ready to start potty training. She tells me “poop butt” and either needs to go, or has already gone. She hates to have a wet or poopy diaper which makes it easier to do this. We have started putting her on the potty chair some, but with all the running around we are doing right now it is pretty hard to keep consistent. I am not pushing her at all if she is poopy we change it, and if she says she has to go we try. She doesn’t usually go, but we are getting her ready! Aubrie will go to the nursery on Wednesday nights during Awanas because I am going to be helping with the paper work part of it. I can’t listen to the kids say verses or do anything else with kids because we aren’t members yet. To do anything with kids in the church you have to be a member and pass a background check. Both of which aren’t going to be a problem, just haven’t made the commitment yet. We have the papers, just need to do the steps. So pray for us as we embark on that.

Singing has always been in my heart, and I have missed doing specials and worship. God speaks to me though music and I love to share that with others, and haven’t felt right doing it lately. Our small group did a Beth Moore Bible Study called Believing God. One of the weeks homework was to ask God for a specific verse to use in prayer over a specific person or problem. I did that, and asked God for a promise. A song that he would give my heart so that I new he was going to give back to me. As I was asking, “Everything to me” by Avalon played on the music station that I was listening to on TV. A few other things happened and I knew he had answered me. Well to make this long story a little longer… on the 4th of July we had a Watson church service and Ann sang a song called Hosanna, by Brooke Fraser (of Hillsong) and it dug deep in my heart and never let go. I bought music and got the group together and we are singing it next month at church. God has totally blessed me with a wonderful support group of Godly woman, most of whom are music! How totally awesome!!! I am also praying about joining a worship team once a month. Plus working on a couple of other special songs! So when God blesses, He really BLESSES!!!!

John still isn’t working on the pipeline, he did join the union. But is still waiting for the call to start. We heard through the grape vine that they might stop until frost hits because they are in the swamp/wetlands so much… So that kinda stinks, but God blessed us with wonderful friends who thought of us when asked if they knew anyone who needed work. There is a green house in town that also does landscaping and the owners go to our church, and their son and his wife are part of our young marrieds group and we both have girls the same age. (Aubrie and Hannah are 2 months apart, and Nevaeh and Taylor are about the same, not totally sure of the dates though…) Back to my story… John Clark (the son) talked to John Hoard (my hubby) in church a couple weeks ago asking him if he was interested in working for Bloomers for a while. So John has been blessed with pretty steady work for the last 2 1/2 weeks through them. So much nicer than unemployment…

I think this is a long enough post right now, so enjoy that and I will hopefully get some form of pictures up at some point in the future. God Bless!!!

Wyatte's first day of preschool

2009-09-11T10:50:00.001-07:00

Click here to view these pictures larger

Here is a picture from Wyatte's first day of preschool. Since I don't have a camera right now, I was waiting for Miss Heather to put some up on the school website that she made. I finally remembered to look there and she had put some up! So here are a couple.

I have been really neglecting this blog lately and I am sorry. Since I don't have a camer I haven't felt like just putting our life on here in words. John has been working for a gardening/landscaping company the last couple of weeks and starts with the pipeline on Monday. So hopefully once we have a steady stream of income coming in I can get a new camera. John did promise that I could with his first paycheck after we get all our bills caught up. So hopefully soon you will all be back into the swing of our life!!!

P9094886.JPG

2009-09-11T10:49:00.001-07:00

Click here to view these pictures larger

Here is a picture of Wyatte's first day of preschool. He is in a class with 6 other boys, and 2 girls! He really enjoys going, and I have enjoyed the morning that I am down to 2 children!

Craft Challenge thru Blue Eyed Blessings!!!

2009-09-01T08:24:00.001-07:00

I added a craft challenge button on my right side bar, click it to see the details. Not sure what I am going to do yet, but thought I would try. Good times! Not really into halloween decorating, but fall decorating I am all about! So wish me luck, if you have any idea's let me know!!!

2009-08-31T20:30:00.000-07:00

I am re posting this as part of the "get your craft on" fun! Hope some of you that haven't seen it enjoy some of the pics!
There is another post about the party prep here, enjoy!!!

Here is what the cake looked like (after Nevaeh stuck her fingers in it!) It was pretty easy, besides the mess! (see below…) John had done the dishes before I started the cake and fondant, I used every dish in there!!!

I made my own fondant. Tried the stuff in the stores for previous cakes, and it was gross. This you can actually eat, doesn’t taste like rotten fish. It was pretty easy, melted marshmellows, a couple drops of water, and powdered sugar. Tinted one batch green and wanted the other one more a fuchsia, but couldn’t get the color right, so it ended up pure purple… Still ok!!! I did one rectangle cake, and two rounds. The round cakes were really cool when we cut into them. The rectangle one did too, but you got each color in the rounds!!! Nevaeh partially ready for her party! She was modeling the skirts that I made for the girls as party favors. Aubrie showing off her skirt! I made it with some of the “mistake” cuts that I made! The older boys headed outside to make tops, while the younger kids made candy necklaces! Tinkerbell is a tinker fairy and tinker’s love to build things!!! I got the kits at Walmart, and they were ok. Might have been a little too old for the 3 year olds, but they still had fun! All the boys outside working! My dad does this type of top when he spins. Just a dowel cut and one end sharpened to a point, then a circle cut with a hole in the middle. You decorate the wood circle with markers and then put the two together and wa-la(s/p) a fun toy!!! (I used a tutorial from Grosgrain for the skirts, and also blogged about making them here.) All the girls in the skirts that I made for them! They were pretty excited to get them! Nevaeh (july), Karis (june), Emily (july), Bekah (august), Selah (october), and Taylor (september I think). All turn three this year! There are two boys too that will turn three sometime before december, but I don’t know their birth months either… Watching Tinkerbell on the TV.

Nevaeh opening her presents. She quadrupled her “girly” toys in one day! Thanks guys she loves the gifts!!! (above a tinkerbell flutter toy, below a few suckers and a matching game and also a crown pillow. She has taken the crown pillow everywhere with her!!!) This is what the cake looked like decorated. The green fondant got too dry and ripped, so I had to try to figure out how to fix it…so the cake wasn’t the most beautiful, but it was super cute anyways!!! Under “Nevaeh” was a huge rip and the resulting horrible fix it job!!! There are blades of grass and purple “rock” like things around the cake. Hanging out while we wait for lunch to be done cooking. This made us all laugh, reminded us of a wedding dress picture! With the whole skirt lifted up behind her!!! Aubrie enjoying lunch. She was nibbling off of Nevaeh’s plate Our cloudy day turned beautiful and we got to head out side for cake! Here is a shot of the round cake! Doesn’t it look awesome! Thanks Mikki for sharing your cake!!! My brothers came out to help, here is Paul pulling some girls in the wagon.

One of the boys that will turn 3 this summer! The aftermath!

Nevaeh showing off one of the presents that she got. She wants to wear these shoes all the time! I think someone started something that I am not ready for!!!

All in all it was a great day, fun for everyone I think. I have to say that I am glad I am done planning parties for a while. Wyatte’s birthday isn’t until December!!!

Another link to a giveaway!!!

2009-08-26T13:29:00.000-07:00

Love September Favorite Skirt Pattern GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

The skirt looks like fun, and while I am not "into" sewing right now, heaven only knows how long that will last. Maybe this will get me back into the swing of things!!!

Unredeemed by Selah

2009-08-25T18:25:00.001-07:00

Here is a song that was shared by Angie Smith, wife of Todd Smith in Selah (He is the one in the rust colored shirt that sings in this video) a while back. She got permission to share it for a few days, and since then I have been waiting for the CD. I got it in the mail today and really wanted to share the song with you all. Really listen to the words, they are amazing.

If you want to check out Angie’s blog, you can do so by going to bringtherain.blogspot.com. She has a great story, if you look back far enough, and lots going on that is current.

Kookles Nursing Cover GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

2009-08-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

Kookles Nursing Cover GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

I have a friend who had something like this with her last baby and it looked so much easier than a blanket! I would totally use one if/when we get pregnant again!

Rollerblading

2009-08-18T20:26:00.001-07:00

So a while back Heidi B mentioned at our Bible Study that there was a Inline Marathon in Duluth in Sept. She thought it would be great for us to do it. We all got excited, and started making plans. John and I dug out his old rollerblades, we met at the trail. And I ~~only~~ made it about 2 1/2 miles!!! I went with two others that first time and they went about 3 1/2 or 4 miles. Then I didn’t go out again for about 10 days. I went 1.9 miles Tuesday, 3.1 miles Wednesday and then met them for our second go round. I went about 4 Thursday, and they went about 5.

Then my whole family got sick and I worked overnights and afternoons and didn’t go out. So tonight (even though I worked an overnight last night) I went out because we are meeting again in a couple of days and Heidi wants to do like 11 or more miles……… And I did 3.1 miles again tonight. I was going to do both my routes and get 5 miles in, but it got dark REALLY FAST!!! So I only got part of the skate in. Hopefully tomorrow I can do the whole 5 (or more) but we will see.

I am not super worried about the time or how far I go. What I am more concerned with right now it the fact that I am getting out and I am exercising. I have quite a bit of weight to lose to get back to a healthy weight, and this is a start. What is really nice is that I actually enjoy rollerblading. I might get VERY tired, and weak by the end, and not know how to stop very well, and am scared of falling but I really enjoy getting out there and feeling the wind in my hair, and listening to the praise and worship pouring into my ears. God is totally amazing when I am too winded to talk over Him!!! He is amazing all the time, but… You know what I mean right!?!?!

So right now I am looking for a good way to keep track of how far I have gone, and what days I did it, and how long it took me. Just to have a record. Right now I can remember the times I have gone out and how far, and so forth and so on…. But would like something that I can look back on. So if anyone has anything that they use to keep track let me know. I found a couple on Google Documents, but they aren’t quite what I want. So I am going to keep looking.

Keep asking me about the rollerblading so that I have some accountability!!!

Not quite sure what to name this post…

2009-08-18T19:41:00.001-07:00

Phil (my oldest younger brother) moved to Maine a couple of weeks ago. The week before he left Wyatte got sick on Monday, Nevaeh got sick on Thursday, Aubrie got sick on Friday, I got sick on Saturday; and we had a going away supper Saturday night. So being the wonderful sister that I am I took all my family to the party, even being sick. I told everyone to stay away from us, but as you can see above that only lasted part of the night. Mom wanted a picture of all four of us kids, and the boys complied. It isn’t the greatest picture of us, but hey at least we are all there right! The sad thing is Phil and Kirk got sick. Made for an interesting drive to Maine for Phil.

For those of you that haven’t met my family before I am the oldest of the kids, Philip is four years younger than me and is seen in the picture below checking out his new iPhone. This is my dad, Stan. (my parents are divorced, but live in the same town)

This is my baby brother, Kirk. He is eleven years younger than me. Wyatte is eleven years younger than Kirk. Kinda fun! He is the one the kids see the most because he still lives at home with my mom. Paul is the one in the picture with a beard. He is the middle brother, and is 8 years younger than me. He was going to school in Duluth, but in now transferring to ICC for this semester.

Anyways, back to the post…. oh wait, I haven’t really felt like blogging lately so I don’t really have anything to say……

Update on Wyatte.

2009-08-05T20:31:00.001-07:00

Just thought I would let you know, since a few of you commented on Wyatte and the turtle. Wyatte seems to be back to normal! He spent one (late) afternoon, all night and the next day (until about noon) puking. But the rest of yesterday and all day today he has been fine. No puking here! I will make a call to the doctors office tomorrow to see if we need to do anything else, but I think he is ok. I didn’t really think about it until I was posting the pictures and got to wondering if that could have been what made him sick.

I hadn’t blogged for a while and really felt like starting there, so apparently God knows what he is doing! Getting the pic up there and reminding me what could be making him sick…

Oh well, hopefully he is all better!!!

New side bar button.

2009-08-05T17:58:00.001-07:00

One of my “cousins” (we share an aunt but on different sides of the family) had a baby that was “born to the angels” last month. She had as normal a pregnancy as you can have, but when her contractions got close enough to head to the hospital they got some news that no mother or father want to hear. Avalon had gone to be with Jesus. Today she posted a picture and a link on facebook that I had to share with you guys. I was bawling while looking at the pictures, and if you read Christian’s Story (it is a link on the right hand side of the website) be prepared with a box of tissues. Here is the pictures that Shelby posted

and here is the website that she linked to. Please check it out. Heart wrenching it is. You can also click on the button on the right hand side bar if you would like, it should take you to the website as well.

Tall Timber Days

2009-08-04T20:09:00.001-07:00

I have a TON of pictures from things between my last post and this one, but am too tired (I just rollerbladed a couple of miles and am pretty sore too…) to get up and get them. So for now you are going to have to jump ahead in the Hoard Family Timeline a few events!!!

Every year we have a community event called Tall Timber Days, I guess I don’t really know why, but it is. Maybe I can look it up and find out. There are vendors there with all kinds of goodies; cotton candy, mini donuts, gyros, beautiful pictures, doll clothes, carved rocks, engraved picture frames, sports stuff, if you want it you can pretty much find it here! The town brings in a Lumber Jack Show (which I have pictures of too, but they are on the card that I am too lazy to go get…) This year it wasn’t as good, alot of adult humor that I don’t think they needed to put in. The kids did enjoy it and i am grateful for the fact that they are still too young to “get” any of that kind of humor. No we didn’t win the chair that they accidently make, but we did have fun! We had a couple extra kids for the show, two of John’s nephews. Our kids have a ton of fun with them and get along great so it wasn’t really that hard having five!!! Now if we get pregnant with twins don’t quote me on that!!!

Part of the festivities on Sunday are a parade. For the GRHS it is a pretty big deal because it is the first performance after band camp. Kirk (my baby brother) is in the marching band again this year. Took me a few pictures to find him, and a fellow parade attendee yelling at me to “Run, Sharalee, Run!!!”

This was my first picture of him! Can you find him???

A little better one, but you have to know who you are looking for. He is the 3rd one in the back row, playing the bari sax.

Here is the crew that we sat with! All of them are from church. The W’s, the B’s, the P’s, the C’s, the B’s and us. Lots of kids huh!!! Aubrie being the candy hound that she is. She was totally content being held until she realized that they were throwing CANDY!!! She starts making her little noise, that I can’t figure out how to spell(!!!) and about jumps out of my arms! Couldn’t hardly keep her still after that. She is my daredevil too, doesn’t care that there is a car ~~barreling down the road~~ going .0005 miles an hour!!! Wyatte loved this rig most of all. Not totally sure what it is, anyone else know??? I think our guess was the fire truck at the airport, but… The boy waving in the middle is a friend of our, V. Wyatte really enjoys spending time with him and was super excited to see him in the parade. One of the only other times Aubrie was still was when she joined Katie Lady in the wagon that Heidi bought at a garage sale (that we got up at a ridiculous hour to drive to Cambridge for!!! I have pictures from that day too, but guess where they are… Yep!) Loving the small cars.

Aubrie was getting tired and so buckled her up in the stroller and gave her some animal crackers. John and I can’t remember the name of the tortoise but the kids loved him! Looking at the turtles before the turtle races. Picking out a “painting” turtle. Getting to touch and closely see the tortoise. The hare didn’t even move!!! So much for a speedy hare, slow and steady did win the race though!!! Wyatte was trying to whistle to the hare to get him to come!Waiting for his name to be called so he could race a turtle. Nevaeh didn’t want to touch hers, so Grandpa Stan rescued us and helped! Thanks Grandpa Stan. The turtle at the top middle of the top picture ended up winning, Wyatte and Nevaeh’s turtles the two that are still in the center ring! They didn’t want to leave home plate… oh well, they still had fun! Enjoying some mini donuts after the races. Just a note of precaution, make sure you wash your hands after you touch a turtle. Wyatte has been sick for a couple of days, and we didn’t know why. I still don’t, but as you can see he was the only one to actually hold the turtle, then didn’t wash his hands and is seen above shoveling donuts into his mouth. So just be more careful than we were and WASH YOUR HANDS. Not something that you think of all the time when you are doing this fun kind of stuff, but necessary none-the-less.

Aubrie having fun watching Wyatte and Nevaeh run around.

Hope you enjoyed seeing these, and hopefully I will get my ~~butt~~ fingers moving and get some other pictures loaded for you to see what else we have been up to! Have a great day.

Kangas Family Reunion

2009-07-26T18:32:00.001-07:00

Sunday after church we headed to a community center for a Kangas family Reunion. There weren’t nearly as many people there as the Watson one, but it was still fun. The kids played outside with bubbles and the playground equipment Right after this picture Aubrie dumped the bubble mixture on her dress, do you know what bubbles are made of??? SOAP!!! Very hard to get out unless you really wash it, and the more water you add the more bubbles you get, and the more bubbles you get the more water you have to add, see the vicious cycle!!! I did end up getting enough off that she wasn’t covered in white soap suds, and we made it through the rest of the day with out any clothing mishaps! Nevaeh got this dress for her birthday from Mommy and Daddy. She looked super cute in it!!!

Aubrie wanted her turn on the animals! Funny how all of a sudden she is “growing” up!!! Had to have a turn on this one too!!! Nevaeh walked up to the mirror in the bathroom and started doing this to her hair! I got my hair cut a while back and it is pretty short, I don’t think I have any pictures of it, but will look so you can see…. Anyways, the back is very short, a couple inches at the most and I walk around and mess with the back all the time, so Nevaeh started doing it too!

Aubrie found these sunglasses and kept putting them on, Doesn’t she look adorable with them!?!?!?!

3rd birthday fun

2009-07-23T01:14:00.001-07:00

On Saturday the 18th, Nevaeh turned 3. I can’t believe how fast those three years went. Seems like last week I was freaking out about being pregnant already when Wyatte was only 9 months old. I don’t have any baby pictures of Nevaeh on this computer and as I type this I am sitting in McDonald’s instead of at the park, because once again it is raining on at Tuesday and we can’t have our MUMS playdate. Oh well, not like we are missing anything because we have only been able to have a couple of them. Every Tuesday turned into once a month. Oh well, that was a little bunny trail back to business at hand!

We were planning on going to the MckPicnik this past weekend. After praying so long and hard for the McKinney family it would have been a blessing to meet them in real life (IRL) but stuff came up, mostly I didn’t plan ahead and didn’t have a place to stay! But it was ok anyways. We didn’t get to meet as many of the bloggers that I wanted to this past weekend and see the miracle that is Stellan, but we had our own fun!

We drove to Duluth on Saturday and headed to the aquarium that they have there. Wasn’t quite what John and I thought it was, but the kids enjoyed it. The best part for Wyatte and Nevaeh was the seahorse exhibit that we saw right before we left. Aubrie loved looking at the big fish that were everywhere.

Looking out the window at the aquarium. Aubrie and Daddy enjoying the water and the fish. One of the ponds in the aquarium. I think there were river trout in this stream. Wyatte and Nevaeh enjoying some “ugly” fish. Wyatte was making “wind” in this machine, and he got to see how the sand/snow moved depending on how the wind blew. A sandpiper. Turtle that the kids LOVED! Aubrie and Daddy looking at the ducks in the bird room. Nevaeh and Wyatte watching it clean itself. There are two ducks in this picture. Both of them were sleeping, almost looked stuffed until I saw one of them blink! Aubrie loved them! Wyatte and I touched this sting ray, I was pretty nervous about putting my hand in there, but Wyatte wasn’t! He thought it was pretty cool. Watching the two river otters run around eating krill frozen in ice cubes and smell the cinnamon they sprinkled around for them. There was this huge “model” of the great lakes. Showed how the canal’s worked. The two older kids loved it. Putting the boats at the top and working all the way to the bottom. There was a thing to see how strong of a wave you could make, John “made” huge ones! Nevaeh, not so much!!!
One of the kids favorite thing of the day was seeing the seahorse exhibit. This one has a crab scurrying around the bottom, Wyatte thought that was pretty neat as well. Nevaeh in the beaver house

Going down the “otter” slide!

Then we headed over the bridge to Canal Park Point. As we pulled up to the bridge we got a red light and the bridge started to go up. Wyatte and Neveah and I ran out and watched while John sat at the light.

I tried to get a picture of Nevaeh and the bridge too, but it was all blurry and so you just get Wyatte’s! After driving what seemed like a really long time we go to the parking lot for the beach and headed out to the lake. As you can see Nevaeh was pretty excited! Watching the huge lake, playing in the sand, throwing sticks, being a frog were all things that were accomplished while we were at the beach! Then I tried to get a cute pic of the three of them… this was the best one!

Running back to the truck and to lunch!

Little miss independent! She wouldn’t let anyone carry her, or hold her hand.

After lunch at the food court in the mall, we headed to something that Nevaeh has wanted for quite a while. All she has talked about for a few weeks has been about getting ‘rings. A couple of the other little girls have gotten them in the last month or two, and she noticed and wanted them. We have talked about doing it in the past, but I wasn’t going to pay that much for something like this just because. I wanted to wait until a special occasion. So her birthday it was. As you can see by these first few pictures she was pretty excited! Then with this one she realized that it was going to hurt :( She jumped out of the chair into my arms and screamed bloody murder for about a minute and then was fine! She said after wards that she didn’t want them anymore, but I told her we have to leave them in, and she was ok with that!

Not a very good pictures (she was eating licorice), but you can kinda see the ‘rings (as she calls them). She does look very nice with them in. They are yellow gold with a pink stone. She is very good about letting me clean and turn them, so far!

That was our Saturday, what did you do???

(Winter) camping (includes about 3000000000 pictures!!!)

2009-07-17T20:47:00.001-07:00

Last Monday we got all packed up and headed to ~~one of~~ my favorite campgrounds, Clubhouse. It is just outside of Marcell, Minnesota; so only about 40 minutes away. It is a pretty rustic campground; outhouses, hand pumped water, no electricity… But it is one of the most beautiful places on this earth ~~in my humble opinion~~!!! Doesn’t hurt that I was there was a bunch of people that I love!!!

This first one was taken when Wyatte and I were out in the canoe. It was so calm the only waves were the ones I was making with the paddle and the ones coming from the back of the canoe. The view from the boat landing. Another view from the boat landing.

Wyatte in the boat, waiting for Daddy to start it and head to the campsite. And their off! Xander taking Wyatte for a walk! Wyatte had to run full speed to keep up with Xander!!! I think just a few minutes after this Wyatte ended up taking a digger and John or I took the leash. Must have been me, because John go the stroller with the girls! Enjoying her ride! Isn’t she adorable?!?!? John pushing the stroller up the “hugest” hill ever! Wyatte pretty much ran the whole time!

John finally at the top and able to move a little faster! Yes that is another dog, no you aren’t losing your mind! This is my brother’s dog, Rusty. These couple of pictures are of our camp site. We did end up setting up another tent right behind where Rusty is sitting for Paul and his friends that came up. The tarp is over the firepit (over which we cooked all the meals.) and the picnic table. John and I and the kids were in the camper that used to be my mom and dad’s but is now just my dad’s. My mom and youngest brother slept in the tent. Nevaeh was playing peek-a-boo with Krislyn, Paul’s girlfriend, when they came up. Krislyn is one of the kids’ favorite people in the world. They absolutely love her! She is great with them too! Wish we could see her more. This isn’t the best picture of her, but I didn’t get any better ones. Sorry Krislyn… Nevaeh was messing around at the table and all of a sudden she was on the ground! Still not totally sure what happened, but she looked too cute to not take a picture. Here are some more shots from when Wyatte and I were in the canoe. There are three loons in the pictures, if you look close you can see them. I am pretty sure it was a mom and two partially grown up babies. I just happened to look up at the sun and this is what I saw. At this time in the trip there were no clouds in the sky, no precipitation at all. I have never seen anything like this before in my life. My mom or Krislyn hadn’t either, so… I don’t know if it was a fluke or if it happens more and I just don’t see it. Anyways, it was beautiful. No, I didn’t edit the picture at all either, this is what it looked like in the sky…

Krislyn with all the kids! Getting ready to make smores. We tried something old and something new with our smores this year. We started using chocolate frosting instead of chocolate bars because the bars would end up melted, or get full of water in the cooler. So we used chocolate frosting on one side, and then going off a tip from the Wright’s (who also go to our church) we put peanut butter on the other side. Everyone seemed to love them, and decided that it was a keeper idea! Thanks Nathan and Heidi! Too bad for me that I don’t like peanut butter!!! But I enjoyed them with just the normal chocolate. If anyone else has a smore idea that they would like to share, let me know. All tuckered out after a full day! Krislyn and Paul, Kirk, Mom and I, and John played Scrabble after the kids went to bed. I don’t remember who won (I think Paul and Krislyn beat me and mom by a couple of points, but I could be wrong, that might have been our rummy score….) but the crazy thing, something that doesn’t happen to us very often is that everyone got rid of all their tiles. CRAZY!!! Paul and Kirk like to play disc golf or frisbee golf and since they had their discs we went down to a semi open spot and threw them around a little. Took us a while to figure out with this purple thing is, but we are pretty sure we know now. If after I describe this someone else has other info let me know and I will fix it! Based on a paper that we couldn’t really see we think it is sticky and catches bugs so the forest rangers and other guys can see what kind of bugs are around, so they can see if there are any that are potentially dangerous to the trees in the area. There were a couple of them that we saw around the campground area. We then took a walk down some of the trails in the woods. They are all over and lead to tons of different things. This one goes out to a point, partially down the trail is an opening that I always wanted to set up a tent in and sleep out there, but wasn’t ever quite brave enough to actually do it! Aubrie loves this uncle! Well all of them actually, but!!! Some of the natural beauty that we saw. Paul helping Aubrie walk down a hill, or trying to get her to let him help. She was pretty convinced she could do it alone! Pumping water to get a drink after the trail walk. This time up the hill we let Wyatte hold Xander’s leash and he pulled the stroller up the hill!!! Wyatte took a very long nap, something that doesn’t happen much any more.

It got pretty cold there on Tuesday, and stayed cold the rest of the time up there. The kids all had on three shirts, and still seemed cool. This is what happens when you are at a campground when it pours rain! John and Kirk had fun making trails in the campsite to let the water run down the hill to keep it from flooding the tents. I didn’t want the kids to get too wet and cold so I made them stay under the tarp for most of the down pour. John’s legs and part of the “trail” that he made to try to keep us dry! John got pretty wet! This pictures are pretty horrible quality, but apparently taking a picture during the pouring rain, under a tarp, in the dark, and through the smoke are too many somethings for my point and shoot camera to handle! Kirk put on his swimming shorts to keep his pants dry(er)!!! I did end up letting the kids run around in the water. They had fun, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be! We were camping after all. Even with a rain jacket he still got pretty wet! Aubrie enjoying her thumb and some mommy cuddle time while it was raining. Got pretty windy, had to prop the tent stakes up to keep them from snapping… Almost decided to come home at this point.

Filled this “tub” up with warm water (from the kettle over the fire) and the hand pump, and gave the kids a bath after playing in the rain. I don’t ever remember getting a bath when we were camping when I was going up, but THEY WERE FILTHY!!!

Grandma trying to chop up a birch log that we found for extra fire wood. John finishing up the job. Wyatte got his turn in the tub too!!! Wyatte, Uncle Kirk and John getting ready to go fishing. Aren’t the clouds beautiful in the back ground!?!?!? This is another of our favorite spots at this campground. I am pretty sure is it an old train car, but I could be wrong. It is at the end of a small crick, that when the water is high enough, flows pretty fast, and we used to float down in on inner tubes. My dad put up a rope in the culvert so that we could float through there and the pull ourselves back though. I guess he might have put the rope up in there so that he could pull the canoe back through when he used it to travel from one lake to the other, but we used it for floating too! This was on the walk back from the culvert, I wasn’t brave enough to get in the water much this time! TOO STINKING COLD!!!

This is called the Twisted Trees, and is a white pine and a red pine that have grown together. They have looked like this since I can remember. I am pretty sure they got struck by lightning one year when we were there, but we couldn’t find the scar this time…. Still a beautiful thing to look at. Aubrie was sleeping in there!

Waiting for Daddy and Wyatte to get back from fishing. Showing off what he caught. A large mouth bass, a blue gill and a sunny. Headed to the pier to fish. Nevaeh caught one! No, you aren’t going blind, it is a little speck of a thing under John’s hand! The really funny thing is this was the biggest one that we caught off the pier!!! I was kinda surprised that Nevaeh held it, but she didn’t seem to mind it at all. I know she looks kinda grossed out in this picture, but she really wasn’t! Aubrie on the other hand!!!! Wyatte was getting shown the art of Bocce Ball!!!

Hope that was enough for you to see! My fingers hurt from typing, and my eyes hurt from reading!!! Don’t stress out too bad if you have to come back a couple time to finish!!!

Wild Rice Festival/Bike Rodeo

2009-07-17T20:34:00.001-07:00

This past weekend in Deer River, there was the biggest Wild Rice Festival in the world! A big claim to fame for a town of just a few hundred people!!! Anywhooo, part of the weekend includes a Bike Rodeo put on by the area law enforcement offices (I think!!!) You can bring your bike and they will check and make sure everything is working right, and everything is tight and so forth and so on, and then they have a course that you ride through, with different check points. Then you “pass” the course, that is if you bring a bike…. Which, because I worked an overnight the night before, I left at home. Oh, well… the next events were what we went there for anyway. They have area businesses donate new bikes of all sizes (trikes up to adult bikes) and they have a drawing for each size and give them away. I entered all three of the kids, and myself. Aubrie and Wyatte had their names drawn and won bikes!!! Aubrie won a trike

And Wyatte won a bike.

This bike is at least a size bigger than the one he has now, and he LOVES this one! He calls it his hot wheels bike, I think because of the flames but I am not sure… He took it camping with us this past week, and even though he has yet to totally figure out the pedaling part, loves riding! I am hoping to take him to a flat tarred spot this week and see if he can get it there, as opposed to our rocky unlevel driveway.

Both the trike and the bike came with helmets too! Donated by another company, so that is pretty neat. Safety first!!!

Nevaeh has decided that she is big enough to ride a real bike too, and while Wyatte’s old Spiderman bike is ok, she really wants a pink or purple Princess one! What a “girl” she turned into all of a sudden!!! Don’t get me wrong I am glad she is embracing her girly side, but I am a little scared for the tween years!!!

After the bike rodeo we got in line to see Dora!!! Enjoying the Dilly Bars they were giving away complements of… you guessed it Dairy Queen!!! I think they were still watching people win bikes at this time. The two boys standing with Wyatte are Sam and Seth, friends of ours from church. We had lots of church friends meet up with us there! Such a fun time. This was the boys sneaking ahead in the line to see Dora and Boots! They were super cute!!!

We had seen her last summer at the Mall of America Nickelodeon Amusement Park, and both kids were pretty scared of her then. This time it was only Nevaeh! She thought Dora was pretty cool until we had to stand right next to her! Wyatte and Aubrie were pretty impressed with Boots being there, and Map was in Backpack!!!

In this one you can see that Nevaeh is pretty much terrified! Kinda felt bad, but I know she enjoyed it!

Don’t mind my pudgy belly in any of those pictures, kinda takes away the whole cute factor… I am working on it though.

After Dora we went and got tickets, and let the kids ride a couple of the rides they had there.

Well Wyatte and Nevaeh got to go on rides, Aubrie had to hang out in the stroller… next year baby girl! Doesn’t look like she minded too bad right!?!?! Wyatte wanted to go on ALL the rides, but seeing as they were 3$ a kid per ride, I couldn’t let him. Hopefully when the fair rolls around we will be able to hit up the wristband day/time and he can get his fill then. He was pretty tired and that made it worse, but he was pretty mad that I only let him go on two rides. He did still enjoy him self! I had to go on the merry-go-round with them so that is why the pictures aren’t the greatest, but oh well!

All in all it was a good day.

Sweet fun

2009-07-17T20:31:00.001-07:00

Uncle Kirk and Grandma Kris went with us, or we went with them. We left Aubrie with cousin Hannah, and took the older two kids with us. Wyatte did pretty goo for a while… Better than I thought he would. He picked about half a pail before he got tired of the work. Nevaeh didn’t quite last that long, but still did very well. Don’t they look fantabulous!!! No mom, I didn’t eat any!!! Nevaeh “complaining” about her full belly!!!

Wyatte and Neveah in the back of the “truck” with all the berries that we picked! John and I ended up taking 7 home, mom and Kirk took 4. I bought stuff to make jam, but John thought that we should just freeze them, so they are all in baggies in the freezer. I might go back one more time to pick a few more to make jam from. It is just too good! Now that we have crap weather though I don’t know if we will get another chance to go out… the berries need the sun.

2009-07-15T13:39:00.001-07:00

We are having fun so far! Yesterday was beautiful; swam, walks around the loops, cooked foil dinners, made smores, played games with Krislyn and Paul and the rest of us. Today woke up to a cloudy cool day, made "tonka toaster" breakfast sandwiches, walked somemore

Watson Reunion

2009-07-06T05:20:00.001-07:00

Today was an awesome day for me. The whole weekend was awesome, but today was very awesome. A couple of Sunday’s ago, I believe it was Father’s Day, but I could be wrong… Pastor Charlie Nelson, a former pastor at Grace, did the sermon. It was called “What’s Your Legacy” or something along those lines. I was thinking about it and wondering what mine was. Looking back at that Sunday I think the devil totally blocked certain things in my head and make me wonder where I came from and who I was, in Christ and in my family. Such hurtful feelings I had that day.

Well, this morning God gently reminded me in so many strong ways, what my legacy is. Part of our 4th of July celebration when the 4th falls on a weekend is to have our own church service as a family. This is the first one that I have been to since becoming an adult, since it only happens every six or so years… Anyways, today was one of those days. As everyone started coming this morning I was packing up our tent and stuff from the day before. Then I changed and headed to the garage where we had our service. We started with a few songs, and as everyone found a seat I started to cry. And spent most of the service in tears. I stood up and went to the back and started counting… This is what I saw

What you can’t see in this picture is that there are 70+/- of my extended family in this picture. There were a 105 people there yesterday, give or take a few, to enjoy the food and fun of the 4th. Today the majority of the family came back to worship God! There were a few missing that were celebrating the life of Nathan Junker in a service to honor God and share testimonies with everyone, and they did want to be with us, but thought it more important to spend this time mourning and rejoicing with the church family that just lost so much.

There are 4 generations in these pictures. I am going to try to get the story straight, and I know that I am going to mess something up, but I am going to try and someone can correct me (PLEASE) so that you guys can get a glimpse of MY LEGACY!!! Martin Vall was a part-time farmer, part-time builder/construction worker. I believe him and his wife had 6 children, none of whom were living for the Lord. This weighed heavy on his heart and he would spend a good amount of time praying for his children and their salvation. I think I have heard that he had a stall in the barn that was kept empty for his to pray in, but don’t know for sure… Helen was one of his children, one of the older ones I believe. She was teaching in the area. There was a revival tent meeting that started in the town and the kids all went. One of the brothers said he was so convicted that he wanted to run away, but my God is good and put up walls and he had to stay. Everyone of the Vall kids and most of the children in the surrounding families were saved in those camp meeting. Martin started praying for his children to marry Godly spouses, and to share the Message with their children and their children’s children and their children’s children’s children and so forth. Martin Vall was my Great Grandma Helen’s father.

Martin----->Helen------>Earl Douglas----->Stan------> Sharalee

I am part of (at least) the 5th generation of Christians in our family. What an amazing God that I serve to be able to have this to hold up when I am attacked my satan. I was prayed for before my grandfather was born!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How cool is that.

Here are a few more pictures that I took during the service…

This is the baby in my grandpa’s family. Sharing an experience that God shared with her. one of the newest members to the Watson family, Noah Benjamin Watson, I think he is number 183! Below is his Daddy praying of his son and the rest of the children in Noah’s generation. Keeping the legacy going. Great Uncle Everett sharing the story that I shared with you earlier in the post. Below is the Mark Watson Family, minus three of the older children. Ty sharing about how God can provide for us even in trying times. He might not give us what we think we want but he gives us patience to get through it, faith to over come anything, and the knowledge that out God can do anything. This was our sanctuary this morning! Our God is awesome!!! Aubrie checking out the guitar. Uncle Mark sharing something.

After Everett shared his story, Ann (who is seen playing the piano in some of the pictures) said that she would like us to sing a song that goes right along with the history that Everett shared with us. I took a video on my point and shoot camera and so I know it isn’t the best quality, but I wanted to share it with you. You can hear a few other people singing with her, I had tears pouring down my face so I am not in there. She said it was called Hosanna, and I don’t remember hearing it before… Enjoy.

Watson 4th!!!

2009-07-04T06:15:00.001-07:00

This is something that I look forward to each year! My dad’s family gets together over the 4th for fun, food and family. As many of the family that is able is there.

This is the family that comes, or the starts of them! Howard and Helen Watson are the parents in this photo and are my great-grandparents. (If I have this wrong someone tell me…) TOP TO BOTTOM, LEFT TO RIGHT:Earl Douglas (my grandpa), Howard, Janet, Helen, Helen(yes there were too Helen’s!), 2nd row: Lesley (Les), Stuart, Kenneth, bottom row: Morris (Morrie), Everett, Albert

Not everyone is able to come, and while we would love to see them all it would be WAAAAAYYYY over whelming! I still don’t think I have meet most of the family. Everett’s wife, Linda, has a list of everyone that is in our family, in the order they joined the family (birth or marriage or adoption…) and she said by next year we will be 189. Howard and Helen are numbers 1 and 2… I am going to try to get that list to have, but still fun to see each summer! She also has a calendar with everyone’s birthday on it. So I probably won’t be online for a while, spending the weekend out at Linda and Everett’s house on the lake! Lots of fun for everyone. Look for lots of pictures next week!!!

Not for the faint at heart… be warned.

2009-07-04T06:02:00.001-07:00

A few weeks/months ago we bought some baby chickens. Yesterday was time to say good bye to the ones that we bought for meat. We bought fifteen of them, only eight survived the first few days. So we brought our eight to my dad’s to add to their 70 +/-. We showed up at 9ish and left a little before 3. They had started before we got there, but when we were leaving they were done. Here are a few pictures from our day. Please be warned that there are pictures of dead chickens in this post. Only look if that is ok with you! This is how they “bleed” them out. The buckets are nailed to a board and there is a whole in the bottom. The neck comes out and then off… Normally they stay in the bucket, but every once in a while…

Then from the bucket to the boiling water, then to the “plucker” This is a motorized machine. turn it on and it spins and takes the majority of the feathers off.T Most of the chickens weighed between 4 and 6 pounds. They sell some of them for 3$ a pound, so if anyone is interested let me know… My baby brother hauling the chickens to the buckets. The kids were at my mom’s for a while, she brought them over on her way to Al Hermiston’s funeral. I thought they would be grossed out, or something but they were very interested. Nevaeh even carried one from the bucket to John! Wyatte got a couple turns turning the plucker on and off. Watching the chickens flop around in the bucket. Wyatte got to see what was going on when the machine was on.

Kirk, Dad, John and Mike cleaning chickens. When the kids showed up I got cleaned up and quit helping. Was too scary to have Aubrie running around. She likes to put stuff in her mouth… gross.Wyatte checking out the turkeys. Dad said last year when the butchered these guys they were around 50 pounds… HUGE!!!

Update on my last prayer request.

2009-07-01T16:34:00.001-07:00

This is a picture taken earlier this spring of Nathan and his family. Samantha, daughters; Lauren, Alexandra, Journey; and son, Lincoln, and Nathan.

Sunday late afternoon, they found Nathan Junker’s body in Pokegama Lake. Here is an article that was in the Star Tribune about what happened to Nathan and the older man that he was on the lake with, whom also passed on.

Star Tribune Article

Here is the article that was on WCCO about Sunday afternoon, and the resulting search.

WCCO News Story and Video

Here is the article that was on WDIO about Sunday afternoon and the search.

WDIO News Story and Video

Some of you that read this have already heard about Nathan and Al, and know all of the stuff that you are reading and seeing in the above links. Some of you might not care about the links above. This post is mostly for me to remember what happened to bring our community back together again after losing another loved one.

If you are out there and you feel for this man and his family they have opened a memorial fund for Samantha and their 4 children to help with expenses. I am only sharing this to let you know that there is a way to help them if you feel lead. Nathan was a youth pastor at a fairly small church. That was their only income that we know of. Now that Sam is left with 4 kids to care for and no husband, and no job to fall back against there are going to be lots of expenses.

Here is the link to the Nathan Junker Memorial Trust.

Also if you are going to be around Grand Rapids, Minnesota on Thursday night there is a Community Prayer Meeting to pray for the families of Nathan and Al, our community, our church family. Please feel free to come. It will be at the Alliance Church, which is pastored by Nathan’s father, Randy Junker; and will start at 6:30.

The funeral for Al Hermiston will be Friday, not sure of the time. I think that it is going to be at the Assemblies of God. If anyone wants to go to that let me know and I can get details to you. I mi

Nathan’s visitation will be Friday from 5 – 8 at the Assemblies of God Church also. His funeral will be Saturday at 10 AM at the church as well.

Prayer Request

2009-06-28T21:55:00.001-07:00

Just sharing some news that got passed on to me. Nathan Junker is the Youth Pastor at Faith Baptist, he is the father to 3 or 4 young children (sorry I can’t remember for sure, if it is only 3 the 4th is due soon I believe…) He was out on Pokegama Lake for a youth event for his church. He went swimming and is now missing. The divers were out looking for him tonight, but they have been called off until tomorrow morning. Nathan’s father is the Pastor at another church here in town, the name of which escapes me right now.

Please pray for him and his family and those searching for him.

Some stuff down…

2009-06-27T14:36:00.001-07:00

I have been getting ready for Nevaeh’s birthday party. I finally have a date nailed down. And because of that date and time I am planning some stuff for some older boys as well! I think it is going to be great! I am not too stressed out yet. I do think I bit off more than I can chew at times, but over all it is going well. I have two of the 7 skirts done…

I do know that there are three pictures there, but there is only one skirt! I just wanted to give you a few different angles! I got the idea for the skirt on this blog, with a few adaptions to suit me! I used sparkly green and white tulle. Two different thickness and color green ribbon. And a ribbon waist instead of the elastic that she used. I think they are going to be adorable on the girls! I still need to figure out if I am going to make anything for the two little boys that ~~are~~ might come.

The girls that come get to take this skirt home as one of the party favors! I also dyed some tank-tops green and they will get to take them home too. I am hoping they will put them on at the party and let me get a cute pic of them all together! Other party favors for the girls include a tinkerbell chapstick, and a small purple clutch bag. And a candy necklace/bracelet that they are going to make. Tinkers like to build/make things, don’t you know!!!

I have the invites done finally! At the reminding of a reader (thanks erin) I “waterfalled” out our address and phone number, just in case! So the bottom where it looks like a bar code is just for showing you guys purposes. The real one says “the party will be at…” and “please RSVP to…”

This is the one for the girls that are getting invited. I got the pic of Tinkerbell off the internet. Then used Picnik.com to add the text and the green frame. The envelopes each have the girls name on it (in a Walt Disney font of course!!!), surrounded by flowers. There are three different colors of ribbon for the tops.

Same thing for this pictures, I “waterfalled” our number out…

This is the one for the boys. Two of the main characters are Clank and Bobble, two of the funniest guys you will see in an animated movie I think!!! I used green and blue ribbon on the boys, and printed their names out in the same font as the girls names, but don’t know if I am going to put an stickers around them or not. I am going to have to look next time I am in Walmart… I guess I am going to have to go tonight because I am passing them out tomorrow at church!!!

I finally figured out what I am going to do for the cake too! A cousin (of some relation, sorry Mikki not totally sure how you are related) posted a pic on Facebook and I LOVED IT!!! Does this not look like FUN!!!

Here how she did it…

She used a red velvet cake recipe, with out adding the red. Then separated the cake batter into 6 different bowls. Using gel food coloring she tinted it. Then “stacked” it into the cake pan. I am going to try to do this, only in a round cake pan. The cake I am going to try to make is going to look somewhat like this one. (Go check it out.) Only I am hoping to have richer colors. I was also having a hard time finding a cake topper. We were just going to order a small cake from walmart and then eat that cake and use the topper on the cake that I was going to make. Well wandering around walmart the other day, I found a totally perfect cake topper!!! And you will never guess where I found it…

(don’t pay any mind to the fact that my bed isn’t made! or that my sheets and quilt don’t match…) This wonderful figurine came off of a……wait for it……wait for it………wait for it……..wait for it……A BUBBLE BATH CANISTER!!! For cheaper than what I could get the cake, or the topper in the store! So I took it off the bubble bath right away, washed it well and it has been sitting in my birthday stuff pile since!!! I am getting excited.

So I think this post is long enough, and there aren’t even any pics of the kids!!! Oh well I had fun, hope you enjoyed reading this!!!

Finally!!!

2009-06-26T12:49:00.001-07:00

This morning John couldn’t find his sunglasses and debit card. He needed both because he was going mowing. What he did find though was my CAMERA CHARGER! What a relief. Even though I did go ahead and order another battery and a charger off of ebay, and they showed up today too!!! The wonders of modern life.

Anyways, we had a lake date (like a play date only at the lake!!!) this morning, so I plugged the camera in and we were back in business! Until I left it here and had to turn around to get it. Good thing we were going to a lake a short distance from our house. So here are a few pictures from our morning!

Wyatte was the first one to jump off the dock!

I was able to put Aubrie in the floaty/ring and she stood there for a while. As you can see she isn’t the happiest of kids but she did do it for a while! She even took a couple of steps, until she lost her balance just a little and then she just wanted to be held.

nevaeh loving the water! Such a smile on her face!!!

One of wyatte’s jumps! I tried to get one of him in the air, but that is going to have to wait for our next swimming trip.

Neveah just lounging in the water. So nice to have her comfortable in the water this year. Last year she was pretty scared of it, especially if you weren’t holding on to her. THis year, now that Aubrie ~~likes~~ is still able to force into the water, it is nice to only have to have one hanging on you!

My chicken kids as we went for our water walk!

Wyatte looking with interest as we walked ~~deeper and deeper and deeper~~ farther and farther and farther, without the water getting any deeper! Such as nice place to swim with small/young kids!

Nevaeh wanted to come with us for our water walk, but thought it was too deep for her. Such a sad girl...

Wyatte and Sam filling up a squirty thing that miss Heidi got at a garage sale. The kids loved it!

Wyatte found a huge rock and this is the result of that rock! I only let him ~~throw~~ drop it a couple of times!!!

Nevaeh playing with one of sam and seth’s boats. she is finally getting brave enough to go in the water alone. Most of the time she has her floaty (ring) on but not always!

Her little butt was kinda hanging out of her swim suit and I couldn’t pass it up! You can’t really see it in this picture, but…

Sam, seth, Wyatte and Nevaeh playing after they got done eating. I think they were making a fire pit or something like that!

Aubrie getting into our food! Or maybe this was when she was putting it away!!!

Nevaeh and Aubrie enjoying some lunch after we swam for a while.

We decided that since our family, and now the Barton’s like this lake and landing soooooo much that we are going to share it with some of our other friends! So hopefully someday in the future we will have more lake date pictures to show you all. RIght now though I am going to enjoy the sun drying my clothes! Have a great day

Alphabitty Moments, brought to you by the letter R

2009-06-25T19:32:00.001-07:00

Head on over to 4 the love of family to see what Mama Bear and other did this week.

This week was fun for me! I know I have been remiss in doing these pages, but I am getting back in the swing of things. Wyatte’s pages are first with “Rides”

The text says “1st: Wyatte and Nevaeh getting ready to go to the underwater adventure. 2nd: Wyatte and Nevaeh giving daddy a ride in the big rigs. 3rd: Going up in the big balloon ride 4th: Daddy pulling the stroller up the stairs to the ferris wheel because we couldn’t find the elevator! 5th: Wyatte and Nevaeh by a huge statue of a turtle at the end of the underwater adventure.

Aubrie is next. Hers is pretty cute I think!!!

Nevaeh’s is pretty much the same as Wyatte’s I did switch one of the pictures in Nevaeh’s because she wasn’t in the one of Wyatte and John on the log ride! So this is her first page, and her second page will be the same as Wyatte’s, the one with the five small pictures.

Katie’s Quillow

2009-06-21T15:34:00.001-07:00

When we lived in AZ I made quillows for John’s two nieces that live down there, Kateland and Leigha. That was over 4 years ago, and when we were down there to pick up the truck they showed me ~~what was left of~~ them! So I told them when they came up we could pick out fabric and I would make them a new one. A couple of weeks ago we picked up fabric, and I was hoping to have them both done in a couple of days. But life has changed since I made them before, and it took me a little longer than I thought it would. Katie is leaving for camp tomorrow and wants to bring her quillow with her. So today after church I smashed it out! Please dismiss the mess that you see on both side of the blanket! The girls came over to help clean up so that I could do the blanket, but it was pretty messy! This is one side of the quillow. For those of you that haven’t ever seen or heard of a quillow it is a quilt and a pillow in one. The whole blanket folds up into the camo pocket at the bottom.Katie picked out camouflaged fabric for the pocket and the back of the quillow, and orange for the front. Now that they live in the mountains she is pretty woodsy! I think it turned out pretty nice looking, if I do say so myself! I know you quilters would nitpick at a couple of things, but it is good enough for me and Katie. I do have one more step to do, but that is going to have to wait until Katie gets back from camp. I have to tie it. Katie picked out camo yarn too. I will just pick spots about 4 or 5 inches apart all throughout the quilt and then we will be done.Here is a picture of the whole quilt folded into the pillow/pocket.

just a shot of the other side of the pillow. Anywho… This was my fun today.

Autumn Lane, Aubrie, and Idella

2009-06-17T20:55:00.001-07:00

A few days ago work had a barbeque. It was the first one that I have been at, let alone working! It was fun, even though it was a little bit more work. Getting all 10 residents situated at the table is a little harder when you are outside on the grass! For those of you that don’t know, I work for my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. They own an adult care home called Autumn Lane. Leanne, Dave, Mazie, Hannah, David, Noah and Asher were all there getting ready when I got to work. The first thing Noah asked me was if Wyatte was coming! So I called John and told him to bring the kids down to play and eat.

Here is Aubrie with one of the residents, who is also Aubrie’s Great Grandma! Grandma Idella moved into Autumn Lane just recently and the family is loving having her close (we only live a couple of miles down the road!!!)

Aubrie figured out that she fit under the table and went under…

And came out over and over and over! I had to take a picture, or a couple of them I guess!!!

I really need to start taking more pictures of the older two kids when we do something. I was just looking back and saw that I don’t have any of Wyatte and Neveah. Sorry about that.

And right now my camera battery is dead and I don’t have any idea where the charger is for it, so not sure when I will get around to getting more pictures. I WILL have it before Nevaeh’s birthday party for sure. I don’t care if I have to buy a new camera, I AM GOING to have pictures of that! So for now, you are just going to have to enjoy Aubrie and Great Grandma Idella and look back at other posts for pics of the other two! Oh wait, I still have to put up a post about the party that Nevaeh went to last Sunday. She was invited to her first birthday party for another little girl in her Sunday School class. So look for those pics too.

2009-06-16T19:42:00.001-07:00

Fridge emptied out, cleaned, and reorganized… Check

Kitchen floor swept and mopped… Check

Table cleared off and clean… Check

Dead camera battery so I can’t take a picture to show for proof… Check

14 Million…

2009-06-15T20:30:00.001-07:00

I was checking out MckMama’s blog tonight and realized something. She was very close to hitting 14 million hits. Very close. So being the wonderful wolverine that I am I hit refresh a couple of times to see how close I could get!!! This is what happened…

Do you see that! I am pretty excited about that number! I am more excited about this post that she did earlier today I believe. It is so honest and meant alot to me. I did make a comment on the post if you feel like reading through a few. I think I was in the first 20 or so to comment, so you shouldn’t have to read very far if you don’t want to!

A blast from the past! In present form!

2009-06-15T20:14:00.001-07:00

I got a text from my mom yesterday during church that said, “Hana and Carla are here.” I guess I had forgotten to tell her that they were going to be here. Hana Jo is one of my best friends from my before marriage and kids days. We did a ton together when we were younger. Hannah, who we nicknamed Hana (!), is a couple years younger than I am, but we were in youth group together, and our families did alot together. (I think!) I had a crush on her brother, and we “dated”for a short while. Any who… Her family moved to Ohio a number of years ago, and I have only seen her once since then. Two years back another close friend of ours got married and Hana came back to be in the wedding. If I remember right she had just found out that she was pregnant, and was super excited about it! A few days ago, Hana, her mom Carla, and Hana’s daughter Aliya started the trek from Ohio to Minnesota. They made a few stops on the way but arrived this past weekend. Yesterday I called her or she called me and we made plans to visit today. I was super excited to see her and meet her daughter, who is about a month and a half older than Aubrie. So enjoy some of the pictures that I took today.

This is Carla, Aliya, Kris (my mom) and Hana

Hana, Aliya and Aubrie headed down to the lake.

Aliya and Aubrie playing, or fighting over a book! Depends on how you look at the picture!!!

Aubrie sat down in the little chair and Aliya wanted in a chair too. They looked so cute sitting there!

Aubrie and me, Aliya and Hannah.

I had a bag of swimsuits packed and ready to go to Grandma’s but as you can tell I forgot them, and the kids didn’t mind at all! They were soaked in about 2 minutes after we got down to the lake.

I took Aubrie’s diaper off and let her stand in the water. At first she thought it was a little too cold, but she didn’t think that for long! She loved it. She was splashing around in the water here. I was sitting on the dock and she was holding on. I took her out when she started getting brave and started walking around. She got mad at me at first but then she sat down with Grandma and was fine!

Grandma Kris with Aubrie after Aubrie got done playing in the lake!

Aliya Ana-Jo, Isn’t she beautiful!

Map…

2009-06-12T21:00:00.001-07:00

Ok so about the map!!! You can totally click on the map and see where is it that I put the push-pin. So no prize for someone who can figure it out, sorry. If you want I will do a give-a-way next week sometime!

Trying something new…

2009-06-12T20:56:00.001-07:00

Ok, so one of the blogs that I read was talking about this Windows Live Writer and how great it is, so I am going to try it and see if I like it. So I am going to mess around and see about it. Let me know what you think about this post and maybe check it out for your self. It works with any blog service, so download it and see for yourself.

original picture…

color pop effect…

This is a picture I took, with a “frame” in Live Writer, called Reflection. Isn’t that neat?!?!?! I totally like it! Can you tell!!!!

You can make a picture look like it is a picture taken when I was younger! All in the same place that you write your post! This is totally amazing!

You can add borders, like this one, to make the picture look like a Polaroid picture! Look at the detail in the border, looks like it was scanned in.

You can even have the map showing where pictures were taken. If anyone can tell me where that push pin is I will find something to give them!!! No cheating though, I don’t know if you can click on it to find out or not!!!

Ok, enough for now, but I think I am hooked on here. Way easier to move pictures around to where I want them! I can upload individual pictures, and whole albums if I want!!! I guess now is the time to see what it looks like on the blog. Here goes nothing!

Sorry can't do pictures, a list instead...

2009-06-11T14:13:00.000-07:00

I was going to upload some pictures that I have taken lately, but John took the camera in the boat with his dad. Just in case they catch a big one! So I guess you are just going to have to deal with another kind of post...

I am trying to get ready for Nevaeh's birthday. She has decided on a Tinkerbell party. So I have all these cute ideas floating around in my head and they are all getting messed up so I am going to write them out on here and check them off as I finish them, so you can see my progress!!!

> Make the invites-I have copied a few images of Tinkerbell, and I am going to use a picture of Nevaeh and Tinkerbell and put something cute on there about the party, not sure about that yet...

> Order small cake with topper from Walmart (I am going to use the topper on a cake that I am going to make my self... Here is one cake that I might try to make, or one like this, or in the Walmart book of cakes there was one that looked like a large flower, made from cupcakes. I can't find a picture of it right now, but it was pretty cool. So I still have to narrow down the cake choice as well.

> Finish the Tinkerbell skirts that I am making as party favors. I am modifing this idea of a Tutu by using less tulle. I also dyed some white tank tops green for the girls to wear!

> Find "Lost Things" to hide in the sand box. Hopefully something they can "tinker" into something else!!! Haven't nailed this idea down either...

> Plan the menu. I am not sure of the time yet, I am thinking about doing it when we only have to have cake and ice cream and maybe some kind of snack, but I don't know about that yet. Seems to be right during nap time and most of the girls that would come have smaller siblings that would need to sleep. So still thinking about that too.

> I am sure there are other things that I will come up with to add to this list so I will leave it open for now...

>

Afternoon(s) of fun!

2009-05-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

Ok, finally in the order that I want them!!!

Last night John's parent's made it back for Arizona, they had been down there about a month. They brought back with them Kateland and Leigha, Jeanie's girls who live in AZ. They will be here for as long as they can handle being away from home! This will be the longest trip they have had with out either one of their parents. Usually Jeanie comes home, and every few years Marty (their dad) does too. Back to last night... Jim, John's brother, also came up from the cities to go fishing this weekend, so we had a party! We brought pizza and cake, and ate over there.

Katie reading a book to Nevaeh!
Leigha got a turn holding Aubrie. Yes, I know my girls are wearing the same shirt, and if you look closely they have on the same shorts, too! I have a problem, I can't get them dressed with out matching, even today they all have on green shirts, all no sleeve shirts too!

Then this morning Daddy and Uncle Jimmy went fishing and when they came back "the kids" (Wyatte and Nevaeh, that is what Aubrie and I call them!) ran over to Grandma and Grandpa's to play with everyone. John's other sister's kids were there too, so most of the grandkids, 4 of 12 were missing. John and the kids were going to come home for lunch but they were taking too long and Aubrie was standing at the door and hollering for the kids to come back in, so we walked over too.

Wyatte and Noah were racing from one side of the driveway to the other, seeing who could win!
Noah won, but isn't this a great shot? I got all four feet off the ground!

Then the boys were thristy so the hose got turned on so they could get a drink. Leigha decided to get one too!

Aubrie and Asher were looking for rocks. Aubrie must have gotten in trouble for something though huh!

Throwing those pop rock things that explode when they hit the ground. We bought some at a gas station on the way home from AZ for the kids to play with. Today was a good day to do that!
Nevaeh 2 3/4; Hannah 17 7/8; Wyatte 4 1/4; Noah 6 1/4; Kateland 11 1/2; Leigha 9 1/2: Aubrie was there too, guess I missed her

Then all the kids (ages 15 months, to 17 years) went for a walk to look for a killdeer's nest, with no luck, After they went back to the house I tried looking for it. I was walking on one side of the yard and then decided to try the other side of the yard. There were all kinds of rocks all over the place and then I saw four strange looking rocks all together, and then realized they weren't rocks they were eggs! Here are the kids looking at the "nest"
A little hard to miss huh!
But beautiful!
After all that running around it was time for a little quiet inside. Noah is holding a fish pillow that Leigha gave to Wyatte when we were in AZ. We forgot it there, but they brought it to us when the came up here!

After lunch at Grandma and Grandpa's it was a run back home for a nap! Even though the boy in this pictures is the only one not sleeping!

Flowering Tree

2009-05-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

Do you remember this picture from a post last week or so? This is what I "have" to look at while at the close line. Well, scroll down to see what the tree looks like this week!!!

Pics of Aubrie

2009-05-29T05:39:00.000-07:00

Enjoy some pics of Aubrie that I took before Daddy mowed down the dandelions!

Sweet Sugar Candy Give-a-way!!!

2009-05-28T05:21:00.000-07:00

I was reading another blog that I have in my blog roll (the list on the right side, if you didn't know...) and saw that she had a give-a-way! So I am sharing the blog with you all. If you have a little girl or know of someone who has a little girl (I have two!!! *hint* *hint*!!!) enter by checking out her website, Sugar Sweet Bowtique, pick out your favorite, then go back to her blog, Sweet as Sugar Candy, and leave a comment on her give-a-way post.

She has some adorable Korker bows, among others, that are beautiful! I love the pumpkin ones. I got some for my girls last fall and wish they could wear them more! So go check out the website, and let me know what you think too!

Alphabitty Moments, Brought to you by the letter N

2009-05-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

Time for Alphabitty Moments again! This time I started thinking about it earlier in the week! I had a couple of them planned out. Wyatte's was the hardest one for me. Had to ask for help with his!!! I think they are all cute, and they all are things that I never want to forget. Go check out 4 the Love of Family for her letter "N" pages, and to check out others' pages.

Wyatte's page idea came from a friend in high school. She recommended noodles! I knew I had some cute pics of him and his noodles! I know I have more, but I couldn't find them so only one page for now...

Nevaeh's was easy! I had to use pics of her!!! Like I mentioned above, I can't find some of my earlier picture CD's, so I don't have any of her as a baby. I was kinda bummed about that, so I might have to change these when I print the pages off. These are some of my favorite pictures of here though so, I guess it is ok!!! The one in the top right is of her in the grass, she HATED the grass on her legs and feet. I guess I am a horrible mommy for taking pictures of it and not helping her get up!!!

Aubrie was pretty easy too. As the "Newest" member of our family she fit pretty good in this letter. I absolutely love the picture of Aubre in the pink, by far one of my favorite pictures of her. The two on the far right were taken in the hospital, the other one on the right page was of her first nap at home. The picture of the three of them is a great one to me too. All three of my kids together for the first time.

I really enjoy these pages, I have since I started this carnival. I am really looking forward to finishing out the alphabet, and starting with "A", I think I might have to start all over though and make that one all the way to "Z". That way the book would go in age order!!! I hope you guys like to see these as much as I like making them.

Unfolding

2009-05-22T13:20:00.000-07:00

I just added a new button to the sidebar on the left side of the blog. It is for a company that worked with MckMama to design. The proceeds will go to a charity that MckMama picked out. You can go to MckMama's blog to read her post about it, or click on the button to get taken to the website that is selling the shirt.

Flowers, boats and brothers

2009-05-22T11:34:00.000-07:00

This morning we went and put flowers at John's Grandma Lucy and Grandpa Richard's headstone. They are Linda's (John's mom) parents. Linda asked John if he would put something there because they are still in AZ. So last night I went shopping. I didn't like any of the arrangements that they had, and so I bought a few bunches of the silk flowers and made my own.
Here is the one for Grandpa Richard. I tried to do a masculine one. There are two red rose bunches, one bunch with small white flowers, and one purple (they look blue) lilacs. Did you know that you can buy the cemetery vase? That is what they are in. Then blue ribbon to hide the stems and the floral foam in the base.
Grandma Lucy's is three bunches of coral/pink roses, with some small off white flowers, and some small white flowers. There is white/see through ribbon around the stems on hers.
I think they turned out nice. I hope Linda and her siblings like them.

After lunch John and his cousin Lynn got the boat pulled out of the side yard, gassed up, and hooked up to the truck. Wyatte found the life jackets, and they were off!!! Here are John and Wyatte getting ready to go.
Wyatte wanted his picture taken through the net!
We bought him some sandals for the summer, thinking they would be nice for him to have. Easy for him to put on and take off. Well, they are easy to get on and off, but most of the time when he puts them on they look like this!!!

I would also like to say congrats to my biggest baby brother! Philip graduates from Bethel tomorrow. Then after a full summer of training camps that he is going to work at, he gets to start as the "Graduate Assistant Athletic Trainer" at the University of Maine!!! He has worked soooo hard to get as far as he had in the career path. You can go check out the U of Maine Athletic Website to read a little more about what it is that Phil will be doing. I am sure he would love to hear from you guys too, so feel free to call him or send him an email. If you don't have either one, and want them let me know!!!

Alphabitty Moments, brought to you by the letter M

2009-05-21T06:09:00.000-07:00

Here we are again on the Alphabitty day! Once again it totally snuck up on me. Not sure why or how, but it did. Go check out 4 the Love of Family if you want to see her pages and others that have joined this.

Aubrie's was pretty easy. As you can see I have a "loose" definition of the letter "M." Fun to see all these pictures together!

Wyatte's are all pictures from Arizona. He loved the mountains. I hope he remembers some of it.

Nevaeh's is of her and Asher. Asher is a month and a day younger than Nevaeh and they love to play together. It has been fun to see them grow up together.

the last week oh grrr just the last couple of days...

2009-05-20T19:22:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures from yesterday and today. I was working on a long post about our whole week. But it got too long and I couldn't keep track of where I was in the week. So here is just the last couple of days. I will look back at the rest of the week, and see if there are interesting pictures and share them with you later...

Here are a few pics for you to enjoy!!! Wyatte has a few rubber lizards and he thought it was cool that he got one to stick to the ceiling!

Nevaeh had her first swing of the year!

Wyatte figured out the pedaling at the park.

This morning I woke up to 57 degrees at 6:45 AM! Totally exciting. So like the good housekeeper that I am I started laundry (really I did!!!) and didn't quit! I think I got 6 or 7 loads washed, hung up outside, dried, and folded today! Totally grateful for the warm weather and the wind! I love days like this. The kids enjoyed being out side at home too. We didn't take naps today, and I knew I was going to regret it later, but it really wasn't as bad as I thought!!! Yesterday at our MUMS park day we painted t-shirts. Here is a pic I took of them today with all three of the kids in their shirts! Aren't they adorable?!?!?!

Aubrie's first full set of pigtails! Are they not the cutest thing ever?!?!?!?!?!

Going for a walk! Granted they didn't leave the yard, but they had fun anyways.

Don't they look like they are having fun? In reality they were screaming at each other for taking up too much seat!!!

This is what I "have" to look at while I am hanging up clothes. Not sure what they are, or what comes from them but they are pretty now!

The kids came over to see what I was taking a picture off. Wyatte started picking the leaves off, said the bugs needed them!

Today I only worked for a couple of hours, and Grandma Kris watched the kids for me. I met them at the park when I was done. Here are a few pics of them there. It is only our 2nd park day of the year. Yesterday was our first day and as you already read it was a FREEZING COLD park day!!! Today was better, almost too warm. We did end up leaving because of a little rain but it wasn't too bad.
Nevaeh looks like this the whole time she is in the swing! She just giggles and giggles! It is totally funny to watch.

This was Aubrie's first time in the swing ever! I swung (is that the right term?!?!?!) last year while wearing her, but I don't think that she did it herself. She loved it too! All smiles. She was tired and after sitting in there for a while she laid her head on the swing, stuck her thumb in her mouth and started playing with her hair. Sooo cute!

Truck

2009-05-17T20:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, so these aren't the best pictures, but I have yet to take a pic of it here. These are ones that my sister in law took to show us what we would be getting if we did trade our jeep. (We did, for those of you that didn't know yet...)

2009-05-16T08:41:00.000-07:00

I forgot to put these in the last post. Pics of the fire. So here are a few.

Arizona scenery pictures...

2009-05-16T05:55:00.000-07:00

These were taken while we were on a 4-wheeler ride. Jeanie and Marty have a house in Show Low, AZ. There was a major fire there in 2002. There is an article about it here, I was looking for pictures of the before, during and after, but no luck yet. If you are interested maybe you can do your own looking and then let me know. So anyways, these are a few pictures of the forest 7 years after the fire. There is lots of new growth, but you can still see the fire damage. There are lots of dead trees laying down all over the place. John said if there was a fire again there it would take off fast and go hard. Marty said that the fire service in the area are working on cleaning up the dead trees. He also said that they can buy a permit for a few dollars and cut as much as they want or need. (they have a wood burning stove to heat the house). All these were taken while we were driving, so they aren't the clearest.

This one is a panoramic shot that I took at the highest point we got to. Don't look too close because I didn't quite match it up! Beautiful though isn't it!!!

This is one of my favorite pictures. Shows the fire damage and the new growth.

This is the view from Marty and Jeanie's back yard. I wish I would have taken more pictures of the view, but you can go check our her blog for more pictures.

These were all taken on the way home.
Seemed kinda like this didn't look right after watching the animated movie "Cars". The next two pictures are from the movie "Cars" and show what I am talking about!!! Do you see the mountain above Lightning McQueen (the red car for those of you that don't know.) It looks like the front end of a classic car. That is how alot of the mountains in the movie looked!
This is another screen shot from the movie. See the plateau, or mesa or whatever... It looks like a radiator (I think that is what it is supposed to be...) After watching this movie as many times as we have, see mountains that look normal was just weird!!!

Driving down the freeway.

John thought this one was really cool.

One of the mountains, or whatever the correct name is for it (mesa, plateau, or whatever!!!) that we saw driving on the way home.

The camera doesn't really do it justice, but I thought this was gorgeous.

This was Wyatte's favorite. He said it looked like a triangle loaf of bread!

This was a railing post that I found at the Bass Pro Shop. Thought it was pretty cool, til I saw the next one........

Is this not the coolest looking railing post ever? If you look close enough there is a fox on the bottom running through some trees. Up in one of the tree is a squirrel, and there is a leaf over the whole thing! I loved it!

Our excitement today

2009-05-15T13:10:00.001-07:00

A lot of pics of the kids from our trip to and from AZ

2009-05-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

Here is a very rough map of the route that we took. As close as I could figure, looking from map to map to map.

First movie of the ride.

"I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery, I may never fly over the enemy but I'm in the Lord's command!" Wyatte was listening to Sunday School music while Nevaeh slept.

Cool new glasses for both of them!!!

Finally able to get out and run around!!! They loved it!!!

Burning off lots of energy! We had a sheriff come up and give the kids each a sticker. At first when he came up to us I thought we were going to be in trouble, but he just wanted to talk to the kids and give them a sticker!

Nevaeh got a 4-wheeler ride right away the morning after we got there. Doesn't Auntie Jeanie look fabulous in her hat!?!?!?

Kateland and Leigha made Nevaeh a necklace out of some bones that they found in the clubhouse. She is also wearing a couple of wild turkey feathers in her hair. My Arizona Native!!!

Running down Marty and Jeanie's driveway to the "clubhouse" that the girls have (it is just a flat spot at the bottom of the driveway.)

Climbing up a slope to get to the clubhouse. He found bones, and cool trees, and fun sticks and all kinds of boy things there!!!

I am pretty sure this is a juniper tree, but not totally... He loves getting his picture taken!

Found me a pretty flower!

Wyatte finally got his turn on the 4-wheeler. We went for a scenic drive(look for some pictures of the scenery later!!!), and also looked for some elk and other wild animals.

Making it rain! He had a ton of fun doing it!!!

Nevaeh was sitting on the deck waiting for the lizard to show up again. It was crawling around the rocks that are in the picture, but we didn't get a chance to see it.

Nevaeh showing a bug to Kateland. She thought it was a scary bug, but it was just a beetle! Jeanie told her that there are some pretty scary bugs and Nevaeh made sure to let you know when she saw a bug walking around. Just in case!!!

Nevaeh got up early and enjoyed some time outside with Grandma and Grandpa!

If you look close you can see a strand of beads in this bush. Wyatte was "decorationing" (his word not mine!!!) the tree and making it beautiful! He loved being outside there, and if it weren't for the spiders, snakes, and scary bugs that could be under every rock and tree, it would have been fun for me too. I will admit that I was very nervous about him being outside.

When we started driving home Wyatte told me he was going to puke, and sure enough he did. Everything he had for breakfast. So he slept with a cup in his lap for the first part of the trip. He did end up feeling better, but for a while he just slept, waking up long enough to puke some more and then back to sleep right away. Poor guy. He was such a trooper.

Nevaeh got comfortable, and fell asleep just a few minutes after we started driving.

Wyatte enjoying a movie on the computer while Nevaeh slept. We bought earphones for them so we didn't have to listen to it too.

Wyatte getting more and more comfortable! I took a few pictures of him in different "poses"!!!

I wanted a picture of the kids with these bears, but Nevaeh was scared to death of them! I had to sit there and pet the bear for a while and tell her that it was just a toy. And even then she wouldn't get very close!

Looking at some of the fish in the aquarium. Wyatte picked out the crappies right away! There were some huge fish in there!!!

Daddy and Wyatte looking at trout in the stream inside the Bass Pro Shop.

While at Bass Pro Shops, Wyatte was pretending to be Diego and follow the footprints in the floor! He was counting toes, and trying to figure out what animal they belonged to! It was pretty cute.

One of the bucks that was in the store. The kids thought they were pretty cool. For those of you that haven't ever been in one, or heard of one, there were a ton of mounted animals in there. Bucks, does, turkeys, pheasants, fish of all kinds, buffalo, moose, elk and I am sure more. We spent about 2 hours in here wandering around and looking at the animals.

Wyatte was trying to see how many fingers he could get!!!

This is what happens to your hair when you spend 2 days on the road!