Happy Birthday, Little Man!

On December 11th Jamison turned 4. He is such a funny, little character. He loves to talk, and he does not talk quietly, and he doesn't stop talking when he gets started. My sweet niece, Zoe, can attest to this as she sat next to him at Sunday dinner on our last visit to Utah. It took him a very long time, and a move next to Grandpa, before he ever finished his soup.

Happy birthday, Jamison!

Jamison is a smart, energetic, skinny little guy. He loves to paint and do normal preschool glue crafts. Much to Matthew's dismay, he requested, and received, glitter for his birthday. He knows almost all his letters and is getting pretty good at writing them. He is constantly jumping around, following the lead of Gavin, where ever that might take  him. He hates to be cold, but refuses to dress appropriately. He loves to act like a kitten, especially when he is in trouble. Not really sure why he thinks "meow" is an appropriate response to discipline.

We should have named it. Alas, he's a beauty.

Double fist pump of joy after blowing out the candles!

His cake is a lovely creation that wouldn't have worked without my awesome engineer of a husband. He is also the better artist of the relationship. I baked the cake, he cut the shape, drew the plans on a paper, and I decorated the beast. It was fun and time consuming. I have pictures of when I was a kid with the awesome cakes my mom made for me, (She's way better than I am.) and have found that I want my kids to have the same memories. I enjoy decorating, even though I refuse to use butter cream frosting, so my frosting never looks professional. I don't like the taste of frosting, so I use a cream cheese frosting for everything. Speaking of frosting, Jamison loves mint chocolate chip ice cream, along with the color green. I decided to flavor this frosting mint. The first thing he will tell you about his race car cake is that the frosting is "minty and its green"! He only eats the frosting.

Just a sweet little story about my boys.....they are so funny together. Usually they get along really well, but sometimes they have their moments of disagreement- now more than ever, since Gavin has started school and is growing up. However, today at church we had an incident, and my sweet Gavin showed his true colors. (is showed a word? I think not. what is it? Shown?) Anyhoo....Jamison was bouncing around like his normal self when he jumped, full force, into the corner of a cased in bulletin board, cracking his head on the corner. I picked him up, thinking nothing of it, until one of the young deacons informed me that he was bleeding. Sigh, and rush to the bathroom with a  hoard of followers. After determining that it was a small gash, nothing too crazy, and getting the bleeding under control, we left the church. Upon arriving home, I called the pediatricians to get a second opinion. While on the phone, Gavin came upstairs to inform us that he said a prayer for his brother. Then he went to Matthew and started sobbing, so worried that Jamison was severely hurt. I always new he had a super soft heart, but to see it just makes me love my Gavin so much. Such a tender little guy. Just so you don't die of suspense......Jamison is fine, was bouncing off the couches within the hour. No trip to the community care. Just a small gash on his head. Luckily it will be covered by hair, so no concerns for a slight scar that will remain. Double sigh.
We may or may not get Christmas cards out this year. I'm trying! We love you all and hope that the Spirit of Christ reigns in your homes this holiday season.

Remodeling

We're doing a little remodeling at our new house. It's a little scary and after you tear it all up you have the thought of "Oh man, I hope this works out!" Kind of like when you play Rummikub and move all of the tiles around hoping your move comes together with no leftover tiles.
 
We've been looking at our backyard since we moved in and were trying to decide what would make it ours and our big plan. A family moved in the week after we did just around the corner that is the same age as us. We actually looked at the house they bought, we liked ours better. One downside of their house was the backyard. They have a big hill. We can just see their backyard between two roofs and he had a little tractor and was making some terraces on the hill so they can use more of it. At church I jokingly asked if he wanted to come work in our backyard. He said, "Sure!" So that started it. I brought home a level and rod from work to take a few survey shots in the backyard to see what we would end up with. We had talked about making enough spaces that we could play volleyball. A quick internet search turned up that a volleyball court is 30' x 60'. After some quick grading design we figured that it would work out okay in our backyard. On Friday Jake brought the tractor over and started on tearing up our backyard. He did a pretty big part of by noon when he had to leave. He left the tractor and said to keep working if I wanted to. I spent a couple hours that night and some on Saturday working at it. See the photos below.
 

 This is where Jake got to. We'll take some more photos when we get finished. It's remodeling, a work in progress!

 

 The kids loved the tractor.

 

 Whee!!!!

 

 We couldn't resist a little bucket ride. If you notice, Reagan is the only one looking at the camera. What a good example the baby is setting for the rest of them!  

 
So now that we've got it mostly tore up, we need to put it back together. We'll probably do a block retaining wall at the back and we need to plant grass. I have no idea how or when to plant grass. If anyone out there reading this is  a grass planting expert please contact us and give us some tips. Erica is determined to get it planted this fall. I'm not so sure that is going to happen. Again, some advice would be welcome and may save me some marital strife.

It was great doing some "MAN" work. Engineering is interesting, but you don't feel super manly while typing on the computer and filing things. Moving dirt with a tractor is manly. Some of you reading this may have a regular manly type job, building houses, welding stuff, driving a big truck or other heavy equipment, farming, etc. You may not have quite the same perspective that I do. I look forward to digging a hole with a shovel, pulling a trailer loaded with something, or any sort of physical work. Erica thinks its funny, but I think she understands. She was talking to Jake's wife Amber, and this exact subject of "MAN" work came up. Jake is a dentist and Amber was saying how much he enjoys getting out and moving some dirt.

We also dug up a garden spot. We put it up in the very top corner of the yard so its sloped quite a bit. I put three terraces in to level it out. We got some manure from a friend at work so we should be good to go next spring. Erica is really excited.

 

You may have noticed the pine tree squarely in the middle of the garden. We decided that we don't want a big pine tree right there, so it will be our Christmas tree this year. We'll cut it down in December and dig the stump up next spring.

That's about all I guess. There is almost always something going on around here. When winter sets in we'll get back to painting inside.



 

Gavin's birthday.....a long time ago

My boy turned 6! He is getting too old for my liking. He's such a good boy. His birthday was a very long affair. We went to Salt Lake for my nephew's baptism and went to the zoo for Gavin's birthday. Then his Grandma Janean and Grandpa James came down to give him a present a few days later. Then the next Saturday after the baptism, his actual birthday, we had a friend party.
I made devil's food cake from scratch. I don't like chocolate cake. It was yummy! He had a rocket ship cake, although nothing else about his party had rocket ships in it. It was really a nerf gun party. Party favors for all the boys were palm size, single shoot nerf guns. Matthew had an old calendar from work that was full of wild life pictures. He cut them out and hung them on the wall. The boys had a heyday "hunting". It was pretty low key. Here are some pictures.

The cake, baked in a 9x13 glass pan, sunk pretty severely in the middle. Matthew always tells me to fill it with frosting, but I think frosting is not very tasty. So I crumbled the cut out parts and mixed them with frosting and used that to fill the gap. Since I piped the décor, it worked out nicely. No one knew it was sunk and it had a better cake tasting flavor instead of frosting.

Me, McKinley, Michael, Gage, Jaxton, Gavin, Cody, Jamison.

 

Its kind of blurry, but I love the excitement on their faces when they all opened their own presents.

Gavin with his hippy hair. Its short now.

The happy party.

Love having a patio to eat outside.

Happy Birthday, Gavin!

These are not from Gavin's party, but I wanted to blog about it. This is McKinley's idea of trying to hide the fact that she was sneaking icecream. She continues to be a thief at home, but luckily she doesn't do it anymore at school. Just ask, Child!

And this picture is very blurry....but Matthew and I are very excited about this achievement. We paid off Matthew's truck. Even though my name is clearly on the title, its still his truck. What a nice feeling! We are now debt free, except for a couple of very large home loans. Sigh. Wish we could get out of our townhouse. Maybe in a couple more years.
Adios

Sweet Baby Reagan

Our sweet little baby Reagan is growing up. She is starting to parrot what you say. She loves to eat salsa and that is one of the words she likes. She whispers it and replaces the "s" with a "th" sound. "Thaltha!" She can say puppy and apple. There are a few others that I can't think of right now. It's just been in the last week or so that she has started. It makes Erica sad to see her grow up. 18-24 months is such a fun age when they can feed themselves, start to talk, and do really funny stuff. They haven't learned how to throw obnoxious fits and be old enough to know better.

Erica has been bottling apples with a couple of her friends. They did a bunch of applesauce and then decided to do some apple pie filling because they had so many apples left over. Reagan looks like she is practicing to be a 'Price is Right' showcase girl.

I'll  be glad when they're done and can have my kitchen back. The apples will be delicious this winter though!

First day of school, first day of school!

I'm so so happy that school has started again. McKinley gets way to bored at home, and when she is bored, she terrorizes her brothers. Then I get angry, the boys get mean, its just not a good feeling in the house. Sigh. School is good for McKinley.
Gavin is super excited about Kindergarten and seems to be enjoying the few days he's been. Both kids are bright and love to read, so I think they'll be okay in school. McKinley just finished the Harry Potter series for a second time. She reads very fast, so I'm not sure how much she is actually catching, but I'm glad she likes to read.
This made me laugh......

 McKinley's night stand. I thought it was pretty funny. She reads several books at once. Not really sure why she just doesn't finish one before starting another. Silly girl.

 Then I went into my own room and realized where she gets it from. Sigh. Matthew already blames me for her late night tendencies. Now I'm to blame for her book fetishes too. What can I say? There could be worse habits.

 First day of 3rd grade. She picked her own outfit. We call this "McKinley in Boots!"

 First day of Kindergarten. I just want everyone to know, he picks his own clothes. I don't make him match. What's the point? The kids don't care.

A rare display of affection. They are so different, but I love them both.

 

I can't believe how fast kids grow. McKinley finally seems to be slowing down. But Gavin, suddenly needs a size 2.5 shoe! Stop, kid! His feet are almost as big as McKinley's! (she wears a size 3)

Love you, little monkeys.



 

 

 

 

 



 

New toy

The other night, Matthew and I went to lowes to buy paint for our house. We put in our order and then went to find some weed killer. While looking, we found our new toy. We get almost as excited as the kids!

 My computer is being slow and I couldn't crop these closer. McKinley counted the first day we had it up. Over 50 humming bird sightings in one day. This does not mean there are 50 different birds. She kept reminding me of that. Its okay if its the same bird, its still a new sighting. Cute kid.

 There are at least 3 different birds we've been able to pick out. There is one more, not pictured, that has a much darker head.

 

The kids think its funny to smash their faces on the back door. Black mail in the future!

We are enjoying our new house. Currently have 2 different 4 foot color squares painted on our walls. Trying to decide on accent colors. Too bad neither of us have any decorating skills. I'll have to take before and after pics.
Until next time.

GPS directions from a 3-yr old

Imagine with me for a moment if 3-yr olds programmed GPS units and gave the directions to your destination. Maybe this conversation I had with Jamison will shed some light on how helpful it would be. We were leaving my work headed  home.

J: If you get lost I can tell you where we live.
M: Jamison, I'm lost. Where do we live?
J: We live in North America.
M: Uh, how do we get there?
J: Go to the corner and turn!....

Now, if that's not helpful I don't know what is! If any of you have a 3-yr old, try asking them directions and see how they do. It's guaranteed to be a riot!