Highlights

So Santa came to our house early this year to facilitate our trip to Texas. These were some of the most exciting parts of the morning.

Goings On

So the primary decided to give each family a manger to fill with hay for Christmas. So these are the mangers that Sam and I came up with. I pretty much enjoy using the power stapler thingy!

 He found standing by the turtle makes it play music. He's a fan!

This was a custom made magazine rack and TP holder that we made for a neighbor.

Our big helper for shoveling.

"Snow Plow"

"Laughter is the Best Medicine"

How Bazaar, how bazaar!

Bazaar time! This year I (and Sam) tapped into my inner pallet designer. I offered Christmas trees, advent calendars, towel racks, shelves, magazine racks, snowman stacks, bonbons, and knitted hat/scarf sets.

Here is the truck all loaded up.

 This was the first look we used for the day. We were all smiles for the first 5 minutes of the day...

Lucky for me I have a fabulous friend who came and took The Girl and Boy to her house for a while. They got fed, had naps, and then came back happy to see their mom. 

 This is a view of the advent calendar and snowmen.

The bottle sets and bonbons.

After we sold off the snow men and some of the littler things we rearranged the display and our table looked like this.

It was a long day, but it was fun. Not so much in the morning, but that stress of something big is always, well, a stress. 

Mornings

The best part about cold mornings? Window condensation painting, of course! I have to admit that I'm kind of in love with these little guys!

October Fun

We had enough snow one day to make a snowman!

The Girl was super excited to dress up and go out.

 The Girl - as a lumberjack...all based on the hat that she wanted.

 Here we are, ready to head out....we weren't tired at all!

 The Boy went as a Gnome to the church for Trunk or Treat last week, but then I made some Cabbage Patch hair so he could go as that. What I didn't count on is him being sick from Sunday night to Thursday, so he put the hair on for a few pictures and stayed in the car as we took the girl around.

Trick or Treating in RV is quite the experience. This was my first year. We were in the car/gone for an hour and a half and went to 6 houses. It was pretty awesome.

  Happy Halloween!

Crawling!

So wow, it's been months since we've updated, oopsie! So...three of us napping at the same time? Not so much!

  

The Girl napping by herself after emptying an entire shelf on the bookshelf? Yes, please!

In other news, my life will never be the same again....blast! It's exciting, but at the same time, a little not so much. Enjoy!

FHE hilarity!

So this is what our dinner time resulted in on Monday evening...

Father's Day

This was our fridge the night before Father's day. We had almost all the blueberries out of there, a bowl of cake scraps, a plate of white, milk and dark chocolate dipped strawberries, a few lbs of strawberries and a big ol' chocolate cake. Sam requested 3 layer chocolate cake for our anniversary, but that just didn't happen. So he got it for Father's Day.

Big Ol' Cake...I was experimenting with the letters...

 Sam got a special shirt and some tractors/cars. He always tells me he wants a backhoe, bulldozer, or an excavator, etc. So I got him a 5 pack of CAT tractors...The Girl loves them! They would go to bed with her every night, except I tell her no tractors in bed. Instead she takes the other 2 cars...crazy girl!

How to use said tractors...

Sam is an amazing father and husband. We appreciate his hard work and try to find things to do to let him know how much we love him. The Girl's new thing is to cry for a while after he goes to work and continually say things like, "Daddy stay home. Mommy go work." She sure loves her daddy! And so do I! Although I've learned not to cry about it when he goes to work...most days anyway!

We love you, Sam!

For Lela

Some things are just special...

We love you, Lela!

Raising the roof

Work on our shop/storage/auxillary building is coming along. We had some issues with the building blowing over in the initial stages, but we've shored it up it's stood up to some pretty nasty wind storms since. Last week we put on the roof.

Of course the girl wanted to help out.

It was hard to keep ahead of my lovely wife. She's apparently done more than one roof in her lifetime. The girl was a great nail caddie.

The girl should be ready to lend a hand when we build a playhouse. That project will probably be after we finish the basement.

*Disclaimer! This video should probably not be watched by grandmothers who will think less of our parenting skills since the 2 year old is hammering on the roof of a building.

The Haul

So, John likes his trips to SLC, especially when he has an empty truck. He likes those trips because it means he can find a "back haul" because. It would be wasteful to drive a truck back without a load in it! Annemarie was coming home for a visit and he had to take the truck in to get her at the airport, so we did our part in contributing to the back haul. Okay, so 95% of it was our stuff, but it did make John happy! 

The haul consisted of a bunch of insulation for the shed, OSB for the shed, a kitchen table and 4 chairs and a double jogging stroller. Bonus!

Here is a picture before we started to unload it. Okay, we unloaded it a little to get the stroller out and set up - I was a little excited!

Our first feast at the table. There are 4 leaves that can be added to make this table 93" long! 

 The Girl has been talking about our "new table" for days and is still very happy to be able to get in her own chair by herself.

The Boy is really digging the idea of sitting up and joining the festivities that accompany our meal times. 

Funny

The LDS version of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus...

(published 5 years before the book by John Gray)

Zen Garden

So, after a day and a half of dealing with a sick, moody, whiny, lovely 2 year old, I needed out of the house. I decided to finally get the stack of bricks off the sidewalk and finish up the little chunk that needed it. Sam called it my "Zen Garden"...probably because I may have enjoyed making shapes and designs in the sand before I put the bricks down. Anyway, now as soon as we put the rest of the tools away we'll be able to walk from one side of the house to the other on the sidewalk! Yahoo, that's pretty exciting! So here is a picture of the results of my Zen Garden.

In case you're wondering why we left a gap in the sidewalk, it is so we have easier access to the valve box in case we ever decide to add more sprinkler lines, which we may do if we can get our grass to grow.

Big Girl

In the month of May The Girl joined ranks with big girls everywhere by sleeping.... 

on a.... 

mattress on the floor! 

(the bed frame is in the garage until we figure out if she'll fall off or not)

Things actually went surprisingly well, she still stays in her bed most of the time. There have been a few times like this though...

You open the door and see....not a child sleeping in the bed...

On closer inspection you can find her in the most logical places..

...like between the crib and the cradle. 

So we can't complain with the transition, it's been pretty smooth. It does end up with more mornings that look like this...

 

 But who can complain about that?

Hasenpfeffer anyone?

As an added benefit to our pipeline project we ended up with some pipe ends that we had to discard because they had holes in them. I decided I could repurpose them as planters for potatoes. I hauled them over to our yard a few weeks ago and this week I started moving them when I stumbled on a nest of rodents. At first I thought we'd found mouslings, but as I got closer I saw they were way too big for mice. We finally decided we had a litter of baby bunnies. The Girl calls them her rabbits and is quite enthralled. They are kind of cute. I think they're cottontails.

Our lawn

We've been in our house three years now and we're just getting around to getting some lawn in. We planted seed about three weeks ago and if you look at it from a low angle it looks like it's coming in really well. Just don't look at it up close. Hopefully it will fill in by the end of summer. Otherwise we'll bite the bullet and buy sod.

Pipeline update

For those interested in the goings on at the ranch, the pipeline project we started last fall is finally coming to completion and fruition. We installed the pivot, plowed the sagebrush and planted a 3-grain forage mix. Here's a few photos I took this week.

 Here's the diversion structure. The water enters the pipe here, then passes through some 24", 22", 14", 12" and finally 10" pipe on the way to the pivot.

 The pipeline runs about a mile, you can see the plowed ground beyond the trees in the picture.

This is where the water's journey ends. The pivot waters the field at nearly hundreds of gallons per minute. Already we're seeing some green and hope to have a hay crop sometime in July.