Well...

Well, we've been up to a lot but haven't stopped to write since we've been kind of busy this week. We still need to write about our cruise but I don't have time to do it justice right now. It was a lot of fun and took us a week to recover. We promise pictures soon!

Earlier this spring I had an idea as I was reading Gavin a book about trucks and tractors. He really liked it so I thought that it would be fun to make him his own truck and tractor book with him in all of the pictures. We have scoured Rexburg looking for various things. We have done pretty well finding most of the things on our list. I have really had a lot of fun doing it. I like our new camera we got last fall. It is a Kodak Z1012. Here is a few of the pictures that we have collected.

Fairies

So Erica is not real big on the whole Santa Claus and Easter Bunny thing. She thinks that these holidays need to be more focused on the real reason for them, Christ. I agree also but I have to joke with her a little bit, just for fun. The other day I asked her about the Tooth Fairy and she shot that one down too. But I finally came up with something that she will support. I would like to introduce you to the Cleaning Fairy. She is the fairy that comes at night and throws all of McKinley's papers that are scattered around the house. The Cleaning Fairy also threw away the bird nest you made Sophie. It also got the house made out of paper towel rolls. The Cleaning Fairy and I are becoming good friends. Now McKinley doesn't get mad at me for throwing her stuff away. I can also tell her to put her stuff away or else the Cleaning Fairy will come and get it in the night. It's great!!
For you aunts and uncles of McKinley, please don't abuse this new found friend of mine. It works too good to have you guys ruin it. We love you.

Ahhh, the joy of dirt!

Today I rediscovered Tonka trucks. We went to help Garrett work on the cabin and I realized that we would need something to keep the kids busy while we worked. There is quite a bit of sand from when the river flooded so it is kind of like a big sandbox. I asked Garrett if he knew where our old Tonka trucks were and he said that he had an idea. When we got home, we found them and Gavin and I had to try them out. We have two trucks, a bulldozer, and a truck with an excavator arm on it. It was great to push them around in the dirt. I love the bulldozer more than anything. I remember playing as a kid for hours in our sandbox. Piling up dirt with the shovel and digging holes and then using the bulldozer to make roads around everything. We used to have a front end loader but it must have gotten broken and thrown away. There is nothing quite like a pile of dirt and some cool toys to play with. I'm going to search around the web right now and look for a front end loader and maybe another bulldozer. I can't wait any longer!!

It's a boy!!!

So, I grew up on a farm but never really learned much about farming. We learned how to drive tractors and bale hay and feed cows, but never really learned when or why. Same thing with cows. We would always help in the spring to drive them into the corrals and give them their shots, eartag them, dehorn the ones that needed it, and brand them. We knew that Grandpa kept a herd to breed but we never really got too involved, only that we knews the cows had their calves in the spring. I had the lucky opportunity to go help pull a calf. I have never helped before so it was quite the experience.
The cow had started to have her calf earlier in the day but she hadn't progressed much. There were two of the calf's feet sticking out but that was it. We got her into the pen (after some chasing around) and Dad donned his birthing coveralls and some shoulder length plastic gloves. Yep, that's right, shoulder length. We roped her and I held her in the corner so Dad could work. We tied some strings on the calf's feet and tried giving a little tug to see what would happen. Not much was the answer. Dad and Grandpa decided that it was the calf's back feet that were coming out and that he was not turned right inside the cow. Dad made full use of the gloves and got the calf turned right side up. With a few more tugs on the strings the calf came right out.
He was a bouncing 62 lb 13 oz baby boy with dark red hair. The mother is doing fine in case you were wondering.

It was quite the experience! It's not quite what you see in the hospital when your own children are born.

Look at her go!!

I do have to say-I'm a very proud mama right now! McKinley's training wheels broke off her bike 3 or 4 days ago. We figured it would be a good time to see if she could ride without them. Matthew didn't really think she was ready and so we thought we would just find some new training wheels. Matthew couldn't find any at Wal-mart and we haven't been anywhere else. Alas-today was beautiful and we convinced her to try again - and she did it!! She can ride her bike without training wheels! We have to help her start-but she is getting closer! She can ride like the wind!

It's such a satisfying feeling to see your child accomplish something new! Especially when I don't really have any idea of how to teach a kid to balance on the bike. Have you ever noticed that parents don't tell their kids how to balance? They just say, "don't tip over, your leaning too much!" How do you tell a kid what balance is? Anyhow-McKinley has always been talented in the physical aspect of growing-and fast for her age. Walking at 9 months, climbing at 12 months, and riding a bike just shy of 4 years old!! She's going to be an awesome athlete! (if she wants)

Matthew and I are proud to annouce that we are taking a vacation! Without the kids! We have booked a cruise to the Western Carribean and fly out to Miami the 2nd of May. That just happens to be my 28th birthday! The kids are going to stay with my parents in Salt Lake for eight nights! Hope my parents survive! Hee, Hee, Hee!! I'm a little concerned about Gavin as he has never been away from both of us overnight. He is definitely a home body. McKinley will be fine I think. All her cousins live in Salt Lake-so she has plenty of playmates! We will take lots of fun pictures and post them after we get home.

Happy Easter to all! We don't remember holidays very well. We even forgot our anniversary! Okay-we didn't forget. We celebrated early in Logan, UT by going to Le Nonne-the best Italian restaurant ever! We just forgot the day of! It was actually quite humorous. We didn't remember until the day after. Look what 5 years of marriage and two kids does to our memories! Its been a fun, exciting 5 years. This is a picture of us on our honeymoon!

The bottom picture is the only picture of us together that we've taken! All our pictures our of our kids now! Even in our last Christmas letter-we didn't have any of us together!

Well-I'd better sign off. We don't blog often-but when we do, you can't stop me! Hope all is well. May we all be better people and remember the reason we celebrate Easter!

Ready for spring!

Spring made an appearance last weekend and then it disappeared again. I took the kids outside and all of the kids that live in neighboring buildings came out and they were all playing outside. It was so nice! It makes it rough when it gets cold and snows some more. This week is not looking too good either.

I don't get real sick that often but when I do its a doozy. I couldn't hardly function yesterday morning when I woke up. I had a headache and then every time I coughed it felt like my head was going to explode. I was dizzy when I stood up and eating made me a little nauseous. It was not a good day. Devin and Garrett came in the afternoon to help me out. It was sure nice of them.

I am also a little jealous of Morgan and Sophie. The live quite the nomadic life. It would be nice to be able to take off a week of work and go to Moab and then on down to Phoenix. We've always either been in school or working and it's tough for Erica to get off that much time at a nursing job. We've never really taken a trip anywhere. We had considered going to Hawaii this spring until things got so slow at my work we decided against it. We kind of lost our drive after that. We need to sit down and think of somewhere to go. If anyone would like to volunteer to watch our kids while we are gone just let us know! :)

Delivered as promised

I would like to start by telling Sophie (my sister-in-law), "You inspire me." And I don't mean that in a weird way! She's the reason why I wanted to start a blog. Last night Erica and I were looking at her page and decided that we needed to update ours. I am always amazed at the things she shares about what is going on. I love to see the pictures she takes. Which reminds me that I need to carry our camera with us more often and take more pictures. It's a digital camera for pete's sake, you don't have to pay to have them printed! Her and Morgan are always up to something; going somewhere, building something, etc. When I grow up I want to be cool like them.

Erica mentioned in her post last night, or early this morning I guess I should say, that I haven't been working full time this winter. We finished up most of the jobs we were working on last December and didn't have any new ones to start. We all switched to hourly and have cut back on our hours. I have been pretty lucky to have had a project that still needs to be finished. Erica got a job so that we would be able to pay the bills regardless of how much I worked. She likes to be able to work and keep up her nursing skills and enjoy the companionship of coworkers (not people who work with cows but fellow employees).

I have been able to stay at home with the kids part of the time which has been a blast. Who knew that it could be so much fun to spend hours making paper airplanes and then color them and throw them around the house? It has been fun to find things to keep the kids busy inside the house. Sometimes though we get the bug to go outside. Dad has not been working this winter either with home construction being pretty dead in the water. We have had some fun excursions with grandpa. We went ice fishing a couple times this winter. We took the snowmobiles once and the boat once. We went up the ski hill several times with the kids. It was a good winter. Again I wish that I had taken our camera with us more, but I do have a few pictures to post. Enjoy!!!!

Cows Are Awesome!

Snow Kayaking is Awesome!

Gavin loves to ride on my snowboard.

WEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

Going ice fishing.