Wednesday February 29

A couple days ago, Dad pulled out the box of some of his old toys from when he was a little boy.

This one was a big hit with Port.

Voltron - Defender of the Universe.

Lions that transform together into giant butt-kicking robot.

Port watched the show today on Netflix.

He thought it was pretty great.

Tuesday February 28

Look who got her new glasses today.

She is pretty excited to have her 'just like Aubree' glasses :)

We walked in the house and she said to me...."Wow, everything looks so different!"

It was pretty funny.

I am pretty sure that the prescription change didn't make that much of a difference.....but maybe the scratch less lenses made for a clearer picture :)

It is still gonna take some time to get used to them....they are a bolder color than her light pink ones that seemed to blend into her face.

But she loves them and she is happy, so I am too.

*****

Today was a pretty busy day....one thing after another.

The morning was rushed...not sure why.

I hate when mornings go that way.

I hate sending the girls away for the whole day after I have yelled at them all morning.

I wish I could make the morning routine run smoothly.....or smoother.

When Elsie was dropped off, Port and I headed home for some laundry and house cleaning.

After we picked Elsie up from school, we took her to get her new glasses.

Headed home so Port could get a quick one hour nap before we had to head to the school to pick up the big girls for their dentist appointments.

Now we are home and there is a lot of dishes to do and dinner to make all before I head out for Jenni's birthday dinner.

Crazy day.

Bed sounds really nice :)

Monday February 27

This girl keeps me on my toes.....

This morning we had a melt down, drag out fight about hair.

Yes, hair.

I still do her hair on shcool days.....and according to her, EVERYONE in her class does their own hair.

I said that, 'fine, I won't have to do it ever again....'(I may have had a bit of a stressful morning as well...)

Well, then I told her to go do her hair....

She finally came to me crying...begging for me to do her hair.

Seriously....can we handle this girl as a teenager???

Ya, I think we can.....but I am sure it won't always be fun.

After school she was very helpful and helped do chores outside....played games with the little ones so I could get dinner ready.

So she can be really great too....hopefully we can have more of that Madi :)

Cassi could not guess the card on her head.

We all thought it was pretty funny.

She is doing really good at guitar and we are planning to record her song she wrote tomorrow, and make a video of it.

She still stops between the chords....but she is getting better about it.

She is actually practicing right now and sounding awesome.

Sunday February 26

Just a few little snapshots into our Sunday life here.

The mornings are kinda a rush to get everyone ready and to church on time.

But after church, we have some nice wind-down family time.

Elsie was busy 'decrorating' for a 'party' and we felt a breeze come in from the front door.

Elsie had gone to 'answer the door' when her 'guests had arrived' (that girl and her imagination....love it!)

Well, she opened the door, and Mater was there waiting for her.

She sat and played with him by the door for quite a while before we realized what she was doing.

It was pretty cute to sit and watch them together.

He is a good puppy and the kids just love him.

After the girls wrote in their blog journals....(which I am trying to get them to do every Sunday....it will be fun to print them some books when the finish up a year)

....I let them play some computer games for a little bit while Dad and I  (mostly Dad) made dinner.

During dinner, we were trying to get Port to eat as much food as possible by telling him that he gets strong by eating good food.

Which somehow ended up with us trying to lift each other up.....then Dad was dared to hold all the kids.

I should have added myself to the equation :)

The kids thought he was pretty darn cool.

Then it was clean-up time after dinner.

Port grabbed himself a towell and started the towell whip game....thanks to dad for teaching him that one.

It was a fun time...and luckily no one got hurt too bad :)

Then the wind-down time.

Yep....this is how Dad watches a movie most of the time.

(It seems we have entered the no clothes era again with the little boy......)

Saturday February 25

We got to have another fun little date night out tonight.

We had a ward activity for the adults tonight.

It was called 'Manfood' night.

The men had to cook a 'manly' dish, and not allow the woman to help in any way....even in clean-up.

Brent made some 'Sweet Firehouse Chicken'.

It turned out really good.

And it was a big hit at 'manfood' night.

He didn't win the grand prize.....but it is hard compete with the  'Hamburger and Fries Pepperoni pizza' where the pepperoni pizza was topped with fries and hamburgers smothered in cheese.

Pretty funny :)

Anyway....the chicken turned out really yummy and it was a fun night to get to know more people in the ward.

It has been kinda hard to get to know people.

There are so many....and our ward boundaries cover a very large area.

Plus, both of us are in primary....so we know a lot of kids....just not the parents!

We are slowly getting to know faces and names.

But it sure it taking a while!

Dad made enough so we could leave some chicken behind for the kiddos to have for dinner.

They all loved it.

Like I said....big hit :)
*****
This afternoon, Madi Cassi and I spent some time junp roping out in the shop.
I knew Madi was rocking it with the backwards jumping.....but MAN, that is so hard to do!!!
I tried it backwards and got a total of 13....while Madi was scoring in the 80's.
And what a great workout.
I need to practice with her more often!
Only two more weeks until her competition....she is really wanting to break 100 backwards jumps, so that is the goal we are trying to hit.
She will get it....I knw she will.

Friday February 24

I feel like poor Madi doesn't get much of a spot light shone on her very often.

She is turning into a pretty great young lady.

She is very helpful around the house and with the little ones.

She is trying VERY HARD not to let Cassi annoy her.

She is doing great in school....

And loving to jump rope.

She brought her middle school enrollment packet home the other day.

She is nervous.

I am nervous.

She will do such a great job....I am not worried about that....

I just can't believe she is growing up so quickly.

She is a great friend to have and she loves to learn.

She will do great.

I think after we check the school out and talk more about what it will be like, she will be less nervous too.

I am thankful to have her as our first born.

She is so great.

I am terrified....but also kinda excited to meet her as a teenager.

I hope we stay on the same track we are right now.....cause if so....we will be some very lucky parents.

Dad pulled the tractor out today.

We have talked about what we want to do in leveling out some of the spots in the backyard.

We are thinking of pulling dirt from the back part and filling in parts in the 'backyard' area.

And then have a retaining wall of sorts.

It could be very cool.

But it will take a lot of dirt moving.

So we need to decide exactly what we want to do.

He tried moving some dirt with the tractor and it worked pretty well....Brent just said it would take forever.

The boys do look cute on that tractor :)

We got to have the Terry girls over tonight so Brad and Jenni could go out for their birthdays.

They were so excited for the girls to show up!

Everyone made their own pizzas and then played all night.

Cassi and Ayden haven't seen each other for quite a while.....so the were inseparable the whole time.

When it came time to leave....Aydo said she wanted to live with us :)

Thursday February 23

These two have become pretty good friends lately.

I love to listen to them talk to each other.

They talk the same jibber-jabber, so they are usually on the same page.

Elsie has taught him very well on how to use his imagination.

He is still really rough around her, and knocks her down quite a lot....but she hops back up and gets back into play.

Today they did a lot of running in circles around the couch, and then taking a nap on the couch.

Then when they woke up, they would decide what they needed to make for dinner....then start running around the couches again.

They aso took breaks to grab some fake snacks and to play like they were puppies by the front door.

I went to go outside to pick up Cassi from guitar and overheard Porter say to Elsie

"Just hold my hand, so we can go together."

And he grabbed her hand ever so lovingly and he helped her up the stairs.

So sweet.

Love my little babies :)

I love my big babies too.

They are pretty great.

Cassi learned another song today in guitar lessons....and she is still working on her song.

I need to record it.....gotta remember to do that!

Madi is doing really well with jump ropeing....her competition is on March 9.

She is excited and a bit anxious.

But I know she will do really well and I am excited to watch her.

Wednesday February 22

This little boy was my big helper this morning.

Once the girls were off to school we started to do some chores.

He was up early, so he was grumpy at times.....but easily side tracked when I asked him to help me with stuff around the house.

And somehow we ended up painting his room green :)

Ya, I may have a little bit of project ADD.

It would have been nice to go through my sewing room junk....but at least I accomplished something today, right?

While he was napping, I had good intentions of going through my stuff again....but decided to make sure my sewing machine still worked instead.

And it does.

Very nicely :)

It was good therapy, let me tell ya.

If only my junk could sort itself as I sew.

That would be great :)

We are sure loving these chickens!

The kids are such great helpers with them.

Madi is always the first to be willing and ready to head out and feed the chickens and dogs.

They are loving the life here :)

Tuesday February 21

Do you believe that I flat-ironed this girls hair this morning???

It kinda cracks me up!

She walked in the house today after school and I had to do a double-take.

(Oh and I forgot to mention the tooth she lost while we were in Evanston....she loves that toothless grin :)

It was an obviously wet and rainy day today.

Not much got done outside.

But....I am happy to say....that I may be slowly coming out of my rut.

I actually started to organize the sewing/office room.

Which is really just one giant junk drawer right now.

So, just looking at it as it is now, it is not very impressive......but I did make a good dent and plan to work more tomorrow.

But, it is all organization, which takes a lot of time.

I am excited about the possiblity of having my own sewing space so it will be easier to spend a few minutes here and there on a sewing projects instead of digging my stuff out of the mountain that it is now!

Wish me luck....

Monday February 20

We got up and going early this morning.

We got a good start for our long trip home.

The kids were sad to leabve Emmy.....we didn't get to have a very long stay with her.

But I am not sure Em would have lasted much longer.....Elsie and Porter expect a lot from Emmy when they play.

She is always so great to play everything they want to play.

They did lots of 'decorating' and making pretend ice cream.

Em, you really are the greatest!

We just love you!!!

We got home in good time.

Bubble was so great to feed and check on our chickens and take care of Mater for us.

But Mater was sure excited to see us!!!

Now we work on getting back into the routine of things around here....which shouldn't be hard cause I have yet to come up with a routine around here :)

Sunday February 19

We got our stuff all packed and we made it to the Buffalo place at about 10:00.

The Buffalo were all huddled by the gate...

We thought they had already been fed, but then we saw a truck coming down the road filled with feed, they must have been waiting for us to arrive.

It was cool to see the Buffalo's move when they saw that truck.

They knew that meant food.

It really was so cool to see these creatures....and I am beginning to love Buffalo maybe as much as Elsie does :)

Okay, maybe NO ONE can love Buffalo as much as she does!

There was a snow storm last night.....and pretty cold.

We watched from the car, cause they were so close to the fence.

Elsie was more than excited about this.

But when they started moving we had to pull Elsie (and everyone else) out for a closer look.

We video-taped that part....and man was Elsie a happy girl!

 *****

So then we headed to Emmy's house.

The drive was pretty good.

When we got to Em's we unpacked and got rejuvenated before we headed out to visit the Holdaway family.

Bruce just had back surgery and carpel tunnel surgery at the same time.

He is doing good.

We knew they wouldn't make it to dinner at the Homestead tonight, and we wanted to be sure to see them.

The kids had a lot of fun, but I forgot to take pictures.

After some time there, we headed to the Homestead.

We missed Ariel and Nate...they weren't there.

But all the other Utahans were.

Lots of good food and fun games.

I did learn one very important thing tonight.

You sure can't trust Katie while playing games :)

Saturday February 18

It was a fun day here in Evanston.

We did a lot of hanging out and playing games with Grandma.

The boys helped Grandpa at the store.

We made visits to the Aunts and Uncles houses....and made messes everywhere we went :)

After lunch we decided it was warm enough to get Strip out for a ride.

But we had to feed the goats first....

Dad turned to Port and asked him if he wanted to ride a goat.

Port was excited and eager to try it.

That kid will try anything.

So.....Dad threw Port on a goat and away they went.

Port held on pretty good.

And he had a huge smile on his face the whole time.

Crazy kid!

Then it was finally time to ride Strip.

It has been a long while for Elsie Rose....she was so very happy to give loves to Strip.

The kids all took turns.....and then more turns.

Bridger, Teagan and Lexi joined us for some horse rides.

That Strip is such a good horse!

Grandma called ahead to the Buffalo place to find out what their eating schedule was.

He told her that they feed them at 10:00 tomorrow morning.

Which goes along perfectly for when we plan to head out.

So that was our plan.

But, after Grams and Gramps treated us to some McD's, we decided we should pay a short visit to the Buffalo's and make the trip to see them tomorrow too.

It was perfect.

Just heaven for little Elsie.

Ten huge and hairy Buffalo....and all she could say was that they were "SO CUTE!!!"

I didn't have my camera with me, but took some with my phone.

She wants me to take some tomorrow so we can hang buffalo pictures in her room.

Her perfectly pink room.

The walls could definitely use some buffalo pictures :)