Good news, Bad news

Just the other day, I was taking to my dad about the computer.  About how I have not seemed to have as many issues with this one.  How I hadn't had to turn it in.   Low and behold, I woke up yesterday and the dang thing won't charge!  I've ordered a new cord.  I hope that is the fix.  So, I'll be gone for a bit.  But I'll be back shortly.  I hope :-)

Aaaaand, Happy St Patrick's Day!

Happy Birthday Little Man!

Today is this little dude's birthday!  Its a bit unfortunate that it falls on a Wednesday, as he still has to go to school, and there are activities in the evening.  Never fear!  We will find the time to appropriately celebrate his coming into this world and joining our family.

Happy Birthday Dylan!

Alone Time

I'm sure you can imagine the adjustment period there was when hubby went back to work.  He had been taking phone calls and emails at home for quite some time.  But he had been unable to visit the construction job site for over 3 months.  Throw in a site supervisor who quit to work closer to home, and you have yourself what we call "a large adjustment period."  Hubby spent quite a bit of time down at the job site getting things back on track, filling in for missing supervisors, and then training new ones.  He even spent a few weekends down there, which, again, is unusual for us.  That left us at home with nothing to do on a Saturday but sleep in and/or take naps.

 We would Skype whenever we had the chance to catch up.  He even "ate dinner" with us one night.  The picture might be a bit difficult to make out, since he was playing with the filters on Skype and was "dressed" as a scuba diver when I took the picture.

 Meanwhile, Kelsey continued to be my compadre, and we did all kinds of things together.  Like vote :)

Thankfully, that part of our life appears to be over, and we have hubby back on a more regular basis.  Yay!

Elephant Turds

Saturday we got a load of dirt to fill in some random holes and low spots around the yard.  Partially because we are cheap, and partially because we didn't necessarily understand the difference, we got a load of top soil instead of super soil.  That means it was slightly less filtered; therefore it had some sticks and clumps of clay in the soil.  My job was to load the wheel barrow, while hubby's job was to rod/tamp down the each shovel full into the hole.  That left the kids free to be our filter.  They took out the sticks and clumps of dirt.  In the course of taking out the clumps, the children somehow got around to wanting to have a "dirt ball" fight...  Doesn't that sound fun?  Thankfully, children aren't particularly good with things like aim or distance, and none of the children really got hit.  But, Kelsey was doing her darndest to collect clumps so she would be ready to get in on the action.  Fast forward a little bit, and the grass seed is raked in and the bag of mulch has been spread.  And we have gone inside for the day to work on other projects.  Sunday morning we open the door, ready to get in the car for church.  Hubby looks at the clumps of dirt on the porch and says 

"Why do we have elephant turds on the porch?"

In other news, the time change didn't affect us much yesterday getting ready for church.  It starts at 10. and we were actually on time!  This morning, however, was a completely different story.  Both rooms of children slept though their alarms.  This unusual for them,  They usually wake up between 6 and 6:30.  The alarm is set for 7.  Therefore, its only purpose is tell the children when to stop playing and when to get dressed and get ready for school.  But, this morning, they slept through them.  So, when I got up, I had to wake them and get them moving...  Its a little difficult to get moving in the morning when it is dark :(

Appointments, Appointments, Appointments!

If you went to girls camp with me, you'll probably remember this song.  Every time one of the leaders said the word "announcement", we sang this song.  Well, ok, we didn't know all the verses.  We mostly just sang the first 20 ish seconds.  But this was the best I could find on youtube :)

Now imagine me singing that song, but replacing the word announcement with the word appointments.  And that is the way the beginning of the year felt!  Dentists, pediatricians, eye doctors, for me, for this kid, for that kid.  It felt fairly ridiculous.  And, I'm sure you can guess, sometimes it takes quite a bit of ingenuity to keep the little ones entertained.  Like balloons at the dentists (because you can't give out lollypops!).

Or funny poses at the pediatricians.

Or lap rides in the waiting room.

Because....  well, sometimes you are a bit desperate, AmIRight?

Good news is everyone is happy and mostly healthy.  No cavities even!  Though, we may have a few new introductions to make....  

A Horse Fix for Hubby

This is another one of those long held onto kinda posts.

There is a woman in my ward (church) who had a horrible accident many years ago.  Since then, she has recovered fairly well emotionally and physically.  But she still needs some help and some therapy.  She has invested in her own rescue/therapy horses that she occasionally rides, but mostly just loves to watch and take care of.  I visit with this woman on a semi regular basis, and enjoy spending time and visiting with her.  In the course of our visits, we have spoken of the horses many times, and she is familiar with my husbands love of horses also.  One day, back in Sept/Oct, she mentioned that she hadn't been able to ride her horses as much as she wanted to.  She desired to have them ridden and wondered if I knew of anyone who might be interested.  Boy did I!!!

So, the Saturday before my husband was scheduled to have back surgery on Tuesday, we all piled into the van, and headed over to her house.  

While I have certainly ridden on horses before, and am thankfully decently comfortable on them, this time I brought my camera and just let the kids and hubby take turns.

It was a beautiful fall morning!

The lighting was good and the weather was pleasant!

We mostly started the kids off walking around the enclosure.

And the horses were gentle enough, and we eventually got comfortable enough with them, that we could let the kids help each other. 

Look how small she looks on the back of that horse!!!

This is Misty, and she is a pretty good horse :)

Again, I ain't no professional photographer, but some of the shots I think are really quite pretty.

And this is Phantom.  He's a pretty good boy too.

I'm pretty sure the kids had a ton of fun!

And we'll have to see if we can go back someday. :)

The Worst of It

After we cleared out all the belongings and took out the carpet and padding, we just had to move around the 5 rented fans every few hours (for the next few days).  Because we could, and mostly for my piece of mind, we cut a hole in the sub floor of the basement, and directed the fans down each of the bays to make sure that we dried everything that could be dried.  Remember when we constructed the subfloor of the basement, we had to put sleepers down to level the floor before putting two layers of subfloor on top?  This was to insure air circulation to aid in drying.  The fans just sped up the process a bit.

 We cut holes in the floor in the bedroom too, to make sure we got adequate air movement.

And it all dried up.  Good as new.  But, about a week later, after going downstairs several times, it still smelled like mold.  And we couldn't figure out why.  After doing some investigation, we came back around to the laundry room.  We hadn't taken up the wood flooring in there because it seemed to be dry. So, why move it?  Turns out, the wood planking on top was mostly dry. But there was a layer of cloth (ish) matting underneath it that was holding the water onto the subfloor.  And when we pulled it up (*trumpet flare*) there was the mold!

Boo.  Bad mold.

We took out all the of the top layer of OSB in the laundry room.  And, since then, the smell has gone away, and things seem to be fine.  Most of the things currently down in the basement actually belong in the laundry room.  The rest is in various storage areas upstairs.  So, we figure we will do the laundry room first and then put everything back into it, which will pretty much empty the carpeted ares.  Then, we can finish re-installing the baseboards around the rest of the basement (I took them all off to check behind them for mold).  Once that is done, we can have some brand new carpet installed!  So, here is where we currently are.  One layer of sub floor in the laundry room.  Yay. 

And, as if that wasn't enough, also while we were gone, our neighbor's tree fell on our shed outside and broke it. 

Thankfully, once we told him, he was really great and got it fixed right away.  But...  Sometimes, it feels like if it ain't one thing, it will always be another.

Happy Birthday ya old B!tch

I don't usually swear, but in this instance, it is actually accurate and appropriate :)

When forced to go through our belongings from the basement, I found some paperwork that had Mollie's birth date on it.  Wouldn't you know, her birthday is exactly 1 week after Kelsey's?  Though Mollie is the older sister by 8 years.  

That makes her officially 12!!!  In dog years, that is something like 84!

We know that we will someday lose her.  Dogs of her breed can live up to 15-17 years old.  But, she already takes some medicine for her arthritis and she is definitely working on some cataracts.

She has actually been quite cuddly and clingly lately.  Always under my feet.  Always getting kicked poor thing.

But on her birthday, which was a Saturday, she wandered into my room while I was still in bed.  And, my mattress being on the floor at the moment, she was able to hop up and cuddle with me for a minute or two.

And I made sure to wish the old b!tch a happy birthday :)

Best Present Ever: The Pink Gun

While we were playing hookie, one of the stores had this "hunting" set.  Kelsey fell in love with it, but we told her she didn't bring enough of her own money to buy it, so she would just have to wait.  Sneaky parents that we are, while I loaded the kids into the truck, hubby went back and bought it for her birthday.  And I think she liked it :)

It comes with a shotgun, with shells you can load into the gun and a pump action.

Being a fairly cheap toy, the action is not always the most fool proof, but Kelsey figured it out pretty quickly.

And while I was busy cutting the cake and dishing the icecream, grandpa got these great videos.

Because every kid oughta know how to shoot a shot gun :)

Playing Hookie

You know when you have things to do, but you just don't wanna do them?  Usually that either leads us to one of two different options.  1) Do nothing because you don't want to do what you are supposed to do, and therefore shouldn't do anything until that is done.  Or 2) Go completely crazy and ignore the real work.  

This particular Saturday, we were supposed to be working on the basement.  Putting things back together so we could get carpet in.  I'll give you two guesses as to what we actually did that day.

We may or may not have gone on a large shopping spree.  Where we didn't actually spend any money, but we walked through several stores and took lots of pictures of furniture we wanted for our "next" house (no that is not an announcement).  Or maybe we walked around Academy and took pictures of lots of the super sweet bicycle helmets they have.

And we may or may not have tried out a few skate boards.

And thankfully, we didn't break any bones! (Please note Kelsey on her stomach on a skate board way in the background)

Because, if you are gonna skip work, you may as well enjoy it.  Right?!?!

The LONG Layover

As it turns out, my parents are moving back to the states!!!  Remember when I told you they were moving out of the country?  Well, they finally got tired of all the tarantulas (I kid, though they did see at least a few) and moved back.  Where, you ask?  To Florida!!!!  I am not sure I could be more excited!  Though it isn't just down the street from us, it is the closest they will have ever lived to us since we have gotten married!  Score! Take that you Utahans!  After packing up their things and their lives down on the other side of the equator, they came back to the states to do a few minor things.  Like, buy a house, pick up belongings, and be there for their grandaughter's 4th birthday!!!

We got a few days out of them before they had to move on to other things.  Don't worry, they will be back in our neck of the woods soon.  But, while they were here, there was some crafting involved.  Of course.

And some napping.  On this particular day, grandpa treated us all to dinner.  We tried a Mongolian BBQ place that we'd never been to before (though growing up in VA we went to eat that kind of food many times).  I thought it would be a hit since the kids could pick out everything they would cook to eat.  Eh...  they didn't love it.  But we did capture this little gem on the way there.  Grandma was supposed to be keeping Kelsey awake on the ride there.  I wonder who fell asleep first.  And then there is the monkeys in the background.... :)

And nothing says family togetherness like a tornado warning!!!  We had literally just put the children down for bed when the sirens went off.  So, we opened the doors and took them all back to the currently unfinished basement.  Grandma was nice enough to sit on the floor with the grandkids, and we brought the laptop downstairs for some distracting entertainment.  The warning only lasted 30 minutes, and then it was back to bed!

When it was time to go, it was a sad occasion, as always.  Though, come to think of it, those faces don't actually look all that sad.

Maybe its because they know that we'll be seeing them again soon :)

Happy Birthday "Baby"!

Color me nostalgic, but my baby just turned 4.  And, it makes me sad.  But, happy sad.  (Like other humans girl.  I am not sad mad.  Just happy sad.)  (Brownie points for movie reference :)

 We started the day by getting ready for some guests and having some french toast for breakfast.  Yum!

How old are you Kelsey?  "This many."  We've got the symbolism down!  We'll work on numbers later :)

For most of the day we just hung out with our visitors.  And for dinner she got her favorite: Green soup!  Which is just raman noodles with green beans in it.  What can I say?  She is a girl with who likes simple pleasures.

There were presents, of course.

And a cake.  Ironically, this child has had the most store bought birthday cakes.  I'm pretty sure.  Remember last year's kitty cat burbay cake?  This year. she said she wanted one that looked like an O.  I thought she meant a pound cake thing we had had for dessert recently.  So, hubby took her to the store to pick one out, and she came home with this one.  Fine with me!  And she had to pick out and place her candles by herself.  Which did not pose a problem in a 1/2 in thick cake at all.  :p

Happiest of Birthdays Kelsey Gayle!

Wub you!

One of the gifts Kelsey got was a make your own mosaic crown thing.  It came with 6 crowns, and Kelsey was nice enough to share with her siblings.  It was a hit!  They loved all the sparkly "jewels".  Dylan wore his for several days!

Because, it never hurts to be a birthday queen/king.

Fall Festival 2015

Sometimes I hold onto blog posts for a long time.  I still have one featuring some water balloons from last summer....  Don't worry.  It'll make its appearance.  Some day.

These pictures are from the Stake Fall Festival held in October of last year.  The first thing the kids noticed after we parked was a tall tower.  They rushed over to stand in line for the rock climbing!  

They each went a few times, though with a few things in between.  And they loved to ring the bell to show everyone they had gotten to the top.

Dylan preferred to take his shoes off.  To get a better grip I suppose.  For some reason, in these pictures, he looks so long!!!  All three of the older kids really liked to belay down too...  It was an automatic system so they would just lean back and let go and slowly fall back to earth.  They thought it was great!  Though it took a turn or two to feel comfortable.

Kelsey even went!  She never did get all the way to the top, but each turn she went a little higher.  And if you watch as the pictures cycle through, you'll see in one picture she actually does get pretty high!

The other thing we wanted to hit up early (ish) was the sand art.  They seem to run out of that stuff early on.  So each of the kids got to design their own necklaces.  I'm not very good at reminding them to tamp it down and get out all the air.  A few minutes after they are "finished" there is always space at the top.  And since there is space at the top, they always come home with just colorful containers, rather than layered ones.

Kelsey and Kaitlyn seemed to enjoy playing in the straw and digging for toys.

While Kari played basically a version of dodgeball and Dylan watched.

We rounded out the evening with a visit to the bouncy house/slide thingy.

I mean, doesn't it look like they are having fun?!?!