EXTREME SLEDDING!!!

We decided to venture out into the snow this past Saturday and go sledding. Most of the snow here in the valley has melted, so we traveled a bit up Mink Creek Canyon. We found a closed road that served well for a beginning sledding hill.





Then there was this......




And this........


McKinley wasn't too interested in the beginner hill. Gavin had to warm up to "extreme sledding". Jamison got cold, so he and I spent part of the time in the van, exploring all the knobs and gadgets. He did enjoy sledding.

Funny story about my brain. It doesn't work too well. I'm going to claim lack of sleep. We got all the way to where we stopped to go sledding before I realized I had left my snow boots in the garage. Matthew says "well, you'll be okay in your tennis shoes". I then had to inform him that I wasn't wearing my tennis shoes. Check out my "snow shoes".


I was wearing my slippers, which are clogs, so I just slipped the elastic on my snowpants over the top. I put the back part under my heel. It worked pretty good. McKinley didn't understand why I couldn't hike up to go extreme sledding. I still had a good time.

I just like the above picture of Matthew wrecking with Jamison. This is the mild extreme hill. Gavin ran into that pole you can see on the left, which kinda soured him on sledding down the bigger hills. He finally went one last time right before we left. He's so much more cautious than McKinley.

Happy late Thanksgiving!! May you all have wonderful sledding adventures of your own!!

There's a RAT in my Kitchen!!

I made bread again today. I find it very satisfying to make bread. It makes me feel like I've accomplished something. (Even if my house is still a mess!) Anyway, the recipe I use says to make 4 loaves, but they are small loaves. We use them for sandwiches, so making such small sandwiches is perfect for the kids, but not so for my starving husband. So, this time I only made 3 loaves. I took a comparison picture so you can see the difference.
On the far left is the previous size loaf. I think I'll stick to making 3 loaves. Matthew came home from work at 5:30 and saw the beautiful loaves. Then, about 15 minutes later, we went into the kitchen to find this!! A giant RAT-boy named Gavin took bites out of each of my loaves of bread! Little stinker. We just laugh. He's so funny. He'll eat cheese like that, too. Maybe he really is a rat.

First Major Blood!!!

This is what Gavin looked like this morning, before lunch. (Matthew was checking out possible family pic locations. Gavin was his model!)
This is what Gavin looked like after lunch.
He rolled off our neighbor's couch and hit their coffee table just right. 6 stitches later........He was such a trooper at the urgent care clinic. Didn't cry and let them do the job. The PA and MA were very impressed with how well he did.
We didn't take any pictures of the older kids in their costumes. Don't ask me why, just were trying to hurry. But we did get some good ones of Jamison. We had this scarecrow from Gavin, but it was a little small on Gavin. Jamison is just the perfect size!! He is so cute!!
Happy Halloween!

Our Sunday Photo session with Dad

So, a week ago Sunday, It was a beautiful day and Matthew saw some trees at our church that looked like promising back drops for pictures. We took our neighbors with us and took pics of their little girls, too. It was a fun adventure and behold....the results....

McKinley was holding Jamison about 6 feet in the air. Matthew was standing right below him. She did a very good job of holding him. However, since Matthew was standing guard, I was taking pics, and I'm not the photographer of the family!! It's cute anyway.
We really love this picture of the kids. We actually cropped this one to use for Gavin's 5x7 (see the next photo), cause it was his best one.

I love these shots when I see other families. This was at the end of our time and Jamison wasn't very happy about laying in the grass. This shot could almost pass as a smile!
Jamison's real smile with our neighbor, Molly. Molly is 2 and amazingly cute! (Even when she doesn't look at the camera)
Our favorite cheeser smile from Gavin.
This shot, cropped a little tighter, is McKinley's 5x7. Its rare that we can get a real smile from this kid. She always gives us the Chipmunk lips! (see below-and yes, she does it on purpose!)


Once again, cropped a little tighter, Jamison's 5x7. He is such a cute kid!!
Below is Kesley and Molly, our neighbor's girls. Kesley was a perfect subject! She was super quick with this lovely smile every single time!!
This is my favorite of Molly.
They have been great neighbors!! Rachel, their mom, is also a nurse, and is short, and her husband is tall. So, we have a lot in common. We spend a lot of time at each others houses. The kids play well together, so it makes life easy.
I'm so proud of Matthew's successful photo shoot!! They turned out beautiful!

Just call me a Domestic Diva!

Okay, don't really. Most stay at home moms do this stuff all the time. However, for me this was a first. Maybe its just cause I'm finally getting use to being home all day. And McKinley is in school some days, so it leaves me a bit more free time.
Anyway, yesterday I made home made wheat bread, and it actually turned out good! I also made potato soup, which is nothing new, but in combination with the bread, I thought it was pretty tricky! I also went grocery shopping yesterday. Monday I made a batch of salsa, and today I made another. We got a ton of tomatoes from our friends in Logan. Fresh salsa is so yummy!! I've also figured out what time I need to start dinner so its ready when Matthew gets home from work, or shortly there after. This doesn't happen every night, but it does happen occasionally. 0h-I also canned peaches and applesauce last week. That wouldn't have happened without my mother in law or sister in law, so I can't really claim that one. Needless to say, I'm feeling slightly better about my homemaking skills. Mostly the bread! I'm so excited that the bread worked! (Maybe that's just cause I recently invested in 50 lbs of wheat flour!!)

So, I had the insane desire to make McKinley have curly hair. I cut rags and rag tied her hair. This was the result!

The curls were so tight that it was a lot of frizz and very little curl. So, I invested in sponge curlers as she really likes her hair curly. The curlers work much better. She won't let me take a picture today because "the curls aren't as good as they were this morning!" That is a direct quote. They look so cute since they've relaxed after being free all day!! Oh well, maybe next time I'll get one first thing in the morning. She's so cute!!
So, reminiscent of my days in elementary school, this is what McKinley tells me about recess. "We chase the boys, or they chase us. And we have to scare them. I'm a snake-"hsss". I'm faster than all the boys. They can't catch me!" Already!! She's only in Kindergarten! And that "hss" is loud!! It sounds more like an angry cat! She really is faster than the boys. Love that girl!

My husband is AWESOME!!

Okay-I just wanted to start with this cute picture of Jamison! He is growing up so fast, although he doesn't seem to be gaining weight. He is hitting all his mile stones just fine. His latest trick is climbing up the stairs. He follows the kids up whenever they go up to get ready for bed. Cute kid!!
Gavin turned 3 last week. He seems older then that due to his size and his speech. He speaks very well for a 3 yr old. He is a complete monster, but he's so cute you can hardly get mad at him. He's very much into super heros, even though he doesn't really know who they are. He does know who the ninja turtles are, so he often plays karate.
My favorite time with him is when McKinley is at school and Jamison is asleep. Gavin and I get to do whatever he wants. A couple of times this includes using hangers as bows and pretending to have arrows on our back. We sit on the curb and shoot at the cars going by. We also use the hangers as fishing poles and fish off the curb when there are no cars coming. Good times. Here are a few birthday pictures.
Being the lazy mom I am, I bought the cake. He loved it, that's all that mattered.
He got these two swords for his birthday. Matthew and I tried them out at the store, hitting each other as hard as we could. They do not hurt!! Matthew made the shields a couple of days later. Gavin loves the swords!!

Then Matthew got even more creative! I love my husband! Anytime the kids want something drawn, or made, or created, they are sent to dad. I came home from a quick jaunt to the grocery store to find Gavin riding his "trusty steed" with his new knight helmet! It needs a bit of improvement, but Gavin loves it!! I'm sure Matthew will improve on the design in time. Gotta love the brain of an engineer! Matthew really loved the footie PJ's.

Red Ridge 2010

Dad, Morgan, and I made the annual pilgrimage up Red Ridge. Dad has been going for about 37 years he figures. As we were driving up towards Palisades Reservoir we could see snow on the top of the mountains and we were debating whether or not we would get up that high to get into the snow. We did. Along the top of the Red Ridge trail you are about 8800 ft at the highest spots.


Up the switch backs wasn't too bad for being muddy, but there were two trees across the trail that we had to lift our bikes over. The first stretch to the lunch spot was pretty good, but the next stretch was pretty bad.

The big red hill was pretty gooey and it got worse from there. We got into the snow which made the trail really muddy. The rear tire would pick up enough mud and pack it into the chain case around the front sprocket that it would ooze out the holes. There was one section that we couldn't even ride down the trail because the ruts were so deep and the mud so nasty that we had to ride up above the trail in the grass. The mud slide was a little scary to go across but we all made it.



It was a lot of fun as always. I love to be up there and spend time with my dad and brother.

Here's the pictures to prove it.

Mud oozing out the chain case.

Morgan practicing being a mud removal technician.

Mud in the front.

Mud in the back.

Snow on the trail makes things interesting.

Dinner is served.

The rock slide.

Back at the truck.

I know, I know-I just barely posted!

I meant to post this a while ago, but obviously it didn't happen. We went school shopping for McKinley and decided that Gavin needed a new pair of pants as he only has one pair of jeans that fit him, and they have a hole in the knee. Anyway, we bought 4T, which were too big, but decided to keep them. So we went back to JC Penny to buy 3T, came home and went to try them on, and this is what we found..........

Yes-one leg was an inch or so shorter than the other! It wouldn't have been bad, except the short leg was too short for Gavin!! These were Levi brand Jeans!! It was really quite funny!

First day of school! First day of school!

Finally!!! I feel like we've been waiting for this day forever! Pocatello schools started way later than any other schools in the state. They cut the teachers' salaries, but the union the teachers belong to said "if you cut the salary, then they will work less days". So that's what they did. I hate that they are taking away from the education of our kids, but I think that the most important learning comes inside the home-so for now, I'm okay with it.
McKinley goes to every other day, full day kindergarten. She goes on Wed/Fri and every other Monday. Today was her first full day. The school boundaries we live in had too many kindergartners, so they are busing her to a school on the north side of town. I'm okay with this, as it is rumored to be a better school. She gets on the bus at 7:16 am to drive to the elementary she should have attended, where she transfers buses and goes the rest of the way to one she actually attends. This was very nerve-wracking for me!! She made if fine though. The first thing she said to me after school was "I had 3 recesses!!". Oh, and this morning when I woke her up at 6:30, she started crying about how she wanted to go to school during the day, not at night!! Funny funny!! She's fine once we get her in the tub and let the water wake her up.
This first picture is actually after school as we were too late this morning to stop and pose for the camera. Love the pink converse!! They are hand me downs from a friend of Devin's. She doesn't have any white shoes. Oh well-they don't look too bad. Cute outfit came from Great Aunt Iva. I took 4 pics and this was the least cheesy smile! She hardly ever smiles for real at a camera-just loves to cheese it up.
Hurrying to finish breakfast while dad puts her shoes on. I actually got up and made her a warm breakfast. Then she informed me after school that she ate breakfast at school, too! We need to work on only one breakfast-as breakfast at the school is not free. I really don't mind if she eats there, though. Its less time between breakfast and lunch.
Here you see her with Shelby, who is in our ward, but doesn't go to the same school as McKinley. I had to make double sure that McKinley knew she couldn't follow Shelby off the bus. At least she has a bus buddy for part of the way. She was the only one on the bus for her bus stop on the way home. Shelby gets home way before McKinley! Weird. Oh well, at least she is excited to ride the bus. I have another friend who is driving her kid everyday, just cause she doesn't want her to ride the bus! As much as it makes me nervous, I know I have to let her grow up sometime. To each their own.
Overall a good experience. She will do fine in school. She's a smart kid.
Jamison made his first trip up the stairs today, with me right behind him. I can't believe he is that old! This last 9 months has gone by so fast!
Gavin is a monster! I thought he would get better by 3. No way! The kid is obsessed with Ninja Turtles and sword fighting. He gets super grumpy with a hyper/violent twist when he is tired. I can't hide him from Ninja Turtles forever.
Well, I need to go help Matthew get the kids to bed. I can hear them trying his patience.

Happy Birthday to me!!

What a birthday! Some birthdays just turn out awesome. We didn't really do too much of anything that was really exciting. I made myself some breakfast and went to work. Erica and the kids brought me balloons and a doughnut before lunch. McKinley and Gavin were so excited! It was hilarious. At work, they order a cake and we all take a break for a minute in the afternoon. I left work a little early and we went to Idaho Falls to help the youth do baptisms at the temple. Afterwards we met Mom and Morgan and had an ice cream cone at Reed's Dairy. Morgan had a special present for me after we ate our ice cream.

Morgan and Sophie had bought me a new bass! I think that everybody else chipped in some to help. IT IS SO AWESOME!!!!!! We played for a few minutes on Saturday but we are excited to have a full day.

I also got a water filter, some hiking socks, and a waterproof camera box which I am excited for. The kids fell asleep on the way home so that was another bonus. Overall a good day.

Thanks again Morgan and Sophie!

Feel free to bask in the glory of my new guitar. I posted them in large size. :)