A Life Update

So things have been a little hectic around here for the last little while! Here's a quick update as to what's been going on.

I totally forgot school registration for Sadie until that very day (luckily I picked Luke up from school and it happened to be on the sign!) but she didn't have all her shots nor could we find her birth certificate! So, we still have to do that. Needless to say, we then took Sadie to get her shots. I was prepared for a total breakdown because of all the pre-visit tears we had, but when it came time, she was fine. She got four of them. I don't think she would have moved all day if it wasn't for Motrin! But at least that's over. Now, where's that birth certificate??? She's started writing already and today I got my first note from Sadie (with real words that is) and I love it.

You can see the family resemblence. Even the doctor said we look alike!

I made a trip to the church cannery this week since we've been trying to work on our food storage. So we added a few chicken chunks and Marionberry jam to our storage. Yummm...we like the Marionberry jam! They were out of so many things! No wheat, rice, oats, white or black beans, spaghetti, or refried beans! The little old man there said it's mostly because people are panicking. I'll admit, seeing the cannery empty like that made me a little nervous too but we're doing alright. I'll be back when they start canning peaches from the orchard. In the meantime we've borrowed the canner from our stake and will be dry-packing some sugar and flour that we have. You can imagine how that's going to go with kids running around!

We woke up yesterday to discover that we had no water. That was a little crazy. We have a well and I guess there are a few issues with the pump and stuff...not to be too technical. =) So that will be replaced tomorrow. No water for about 4 hours but then we should be good to go! I really thought it would be worse than that so I'm happy.

Casey has his PRAXIS exam on Saturday. He's been so busy that he hasn't even studied. I just pray he knows all he needs for this exam because if he doesn't pass we'll be waiting a while for him to finish this school business. He does his student teaching this fall and the university has asked him not to work...at all. We're still trying to figure out how this is going to work but since they know what he'll be sacrificing, they've already set him up to train with a teacher that they consider to be the best mentor they have. It's kind of bitter-sweet. We're excited that he'll be with this particular teacher since Casey already knows him and knows that their teaching style is similar enough that he's going to like learning from him but not excited to go through more scraping and scrimping. You know?

Well, that's it for now. I have kids all over me. They must be hungry or something because I'm getting food and cups brought to me. You know, Luke asked me today, "You didn't know that you were going to have born such crazy kids, huh?" All I could answer was "Nooo." And then smile. It does keep things kind of fun around here. =)

Tough Kids and a Stylin' Babe

I came across these while I was getting the pictures for the last post. They would be from our pre-blog era but were so funny I couldn't pass them up!

**Just as a side note: Those are Maia's two kitties that she drags EVERYWHERE. She sucks her thumb and holds the tails. Sadie has one just like the striped one and we have a few extras hanging around but the ones with the crunchy tails are the only ones Maia wants. She'll straight throw the others out of her bed with an emphatic "I DON'T WANT IT!"**

Common Occurences

I thought I'd just go through some of the things that happen all the time around here and although not at all new and exciting to me, they may be fun for you to know.

Most mornings that Luke goes to school, Sadie likes to go outside and see him off. The other two watch from the screen door just like this. Since the bus picks him up at the end of our driveway they can still see us and the bus when it comes. The hat, I'm happy to say, is NOT a common occurence!

Here Maia is playing all by herself (and almost always talking to herself) with the Polly Pockets. This is one of her favorite things. Sadie claims to love the Polly Pockets but it's Maia that plays with them all the time.

The girls love to dance. They have two songs that they put on (both classical...who'd have guessed?) that they then dance to. Sadie loves this the most but since she's usually the ring leader, the other two follow along and usually end up on the floor laughing. They have alot of fun!

This is Ashton and Elektra, the two kids that I watch a couple times a week. Ashton is Sadie's age and Elektra is Maia's age. Let's just say that Ashton and Sadie get along better than the other two. Honestly, I think it's good for Maia. She's becoming a bit spoiled already.

This is the nightly scene at our house. I think it started out that they would hide from us in all sorts of places but now it's just the closet...every night. So that's the game, run to the closet and when dad opens it run out screaming. Hey, whatever gets those girls to their room for bed I'm all for it!!

Cinderella

So Maia decided today that she is Cinderella. She found an old dress of Sadie's yesterday and then found the Cinderella doll today. She must be alright at math because she put one and one together pretty quick. She certainly IS a cutie!

(P.S. Maia just saw herself on the Blog and said "Look at the Maia! She's beauuutiful.")

Cabin Trip

So I got the chance to go on an overnighter with the Young Women this weekend! It was pretty fun. We all went up to a cabin with the couple that owns it and planned on a relaxing night of playing games and such. Someone had told us that that there wasn't much snow and that it would be warm but when we got there, there was still three feet of snow and it was COLD. Some girls had only worn flip-flops or didn't bring coats. We'd gotten the fire going and the cabin was just getting warm when a neighbor knocked on the door and asked if we knew the cabin was on fire. "No..." "You have a chimney fire, but don't worry, we've already called the fire department." Uh? Not worry? So everybody had to go back outside and wait while the adults started to try to put the fire out while the fire department got there (which, by the way, took FOREVER!). We had it pretty much out when they came and they took care of the rest of it. We thought that would be the end of our trip but the old caretaker of the place told us we'd be chicken if we went home and that it would be fine to stay. Well, you know how women hate hearing that they're chicken so we decided to stay eventhough there would be no more fire to keep us warm. We borrowed a couple electric heaters and wrapped up in blankets until it warmed up. THEN we had dinner and played and talked until late. It was certainly an exciting trip. Not only was there a fire to keep things exciting but the brown water from the rusty pipes and all the spiders kept things interesting as well! I got home the next day really tired and had to make up some sleep and then I was sick yesterday so Casey was without a wife almost all weekend. He cleaned the house and took care of the kids for me. I'm so glad Casey takes good care of me!

These are the young women who went.

That's my boy!

We had our family home evening tonight (it's Tuesday's for us since Casey has class on Monday's) and Luke gave the lesson for the first time. I was really proud of him. I had written it out for him, with his help, and then he even practiced reading it beforehand so he was ready. He told us the story of Nephi and his broken bow and then told us how if something breaks we can fix it, that we should pray for help and that we should forgive others. Then we all screamed the primary song "Nephi's Courage" (I think that's what it's called), prayed, and went to the park to play. They loved family home evening tonight and I loved watching my Luke teach us. He's growing up so fast.

Hi Katie!

So here we are in Pocatello and the kids are loving it. I really think they love the craziness that throwing all my family into one tiny area creates. Kids running everywhere, some screaming, some crying, some just sitting playing Nintendo (ok, that's just Luke) and adults ignoring all that (for our sanity) and talking over it all. Yeah, that about covers it. It's really nice to see Katie and Garrett again. Garrett is such a cutie. I LOVE his smile. He's one of those kids where when he gets in trouble his smile becomes wider and brighter. He knows it's cute and he knows how to use it! Watch out Katie and Jared!
We had a fairly lazy day of watching general conference and shopping. It must have been a little too dull for Katie since she tried to spice things up by starting a fire in the kitchen and then just watching it asking what to do next. While Katie, Marlene and I all stood around working on saving the kitchen from going down in flames by telling Katie to cover the fire with one of the two pots she had in her hand so I could get to the baking soda that was, of course, on the other side of the flames, Sadie ran to Grandma to ask what was going on. I guess three excited and occasionally screaming women in the kitchen worried her just a little. No worries, though, we took care of it and then the house just smelled like we were barbecuing for dinner. Then it was a night of watching the hubbies play Wii. Gotta love that golf and guitar hero! Hey, it was pretty funny to watch them sit in their chairs and JAM!

Just Chillin'

Nothing too crazy going on lately. I do keep hoping that the weather will warm up a little. It gave me some hope for awhile and now it's back to frost and bitterness in the mornings. My little flower seedlings are doing pretty well so we're hoping to actually have flowers this year! I thought I'd have some last year since we were spraying Roundup on the whole front lawn and I went around digging up what looked like some kind of flower bulbs right in front of the house. I put them all in a couple big planters on the porch but they never flowered. Come to find out, I saved garlic bulbs. So, at least we'll have garlic this year since they're already growing again! LOL!

Sadie has been the little photographer as of late which I'm sure will make her Grandpa proud. Here are just a few of her great masterpieces. (It's amazing how many pictures one can take in a matter of minutes! Thank goodness for digital cameras...right Grandpa?)

There was a nice picture of Katie Belle's backside (maybe she wanted a picture of the Dora underwear?) but I opted for this one.

We'll be going to Grandmas house tomorrow and the kids can't wait. I'm excited to see Katie and Marcelas baby!!! Yeah, I'm excited to see the rest of you, too, but I'm afraid those two top my list. Maybe you'll be there next time. =0)

April Fool's Day

Yesterday was full of jokes on each other. Mostly between Mom and Dad and Luke. It went mostly like this..."Luke, you lost the Nintendo for ALL WEEK." "What?!!" "April Fools!" **Insert Grumpy, I've been had face here** And then the comeback..."Hey, Mom, I didn't get in trouble once today at school!" "That's great!" "April Fools!" "What! What did you do?!" **Insert maybe that didn't work so well face here** And that's about how it went. I think he got in trouble or set himself up for disaster just about every time! It was cute. I think it's because Luke hasn't quite gotten the hang of this April Fools thing that he told me this morning that April Fools lasts three of four days so I'm sure we can expect a few more tries out of him. It should be fun (mostly for me **insert sly, this is why it's fun to be a mom sometimes face here**)!