Month: February 2011

Aubrey is studying Monet in school, here is her rendition of Bridge over Pond of Water Lilies.

While I’m posting art so that I can remove it from my fridge for the next batch that comes through…  here is Alyssa’s self portrait, I think it’s cute.

The world is still spinning but we’ve been spinning in one giant gray cloud.  The sun has finally shown himself today and I have the windows open and I’m airing out the house.  Swim lessons continue, as does life of a family with 5 children.  The kids are doing really well in school, and loving every moment that they are there.  I have been trying to take a picture daily, but got behind, and then didn’t know where to start back up.  I have no idea what day I’m on anymore, and am too frustrated from falling behind to figure it out.  I don’t want my blog to become something I avoid because I didn’t fulfill an expectation.  I really don’t want to quit documenting life with photos everyday, I need some new ideas, and need to get creative.  I will post what I have and continue to take pictures.  Any ideas of what I can capture with my camera?

Fancy Nancy party at the local library

Funny story, Hallie has become deathly afraid of baths.  A few weeks ago she…well…pooped in the bath, and of course Alyssa was in there and screamed, and then all the kids came to see what was going on and they all freaked out and screamed about how gross it was–you get the picture right?  Now Hallie thinks she is going to do it again, and cries and holds her bottom through the baths, and if anything happens to float in the tub she panics even more because she thinks she… the joys!

Another odd story.  We have this neighbor who throws all of his leftovers over our fence.  He likes to feed the birds (in my yard).  I have talked with him and explained that I have a dog, and don’t want her eating his leftover sandwiches, cakes, cookies, cheese and anything else he forgot to eat, and he assured me that he would stop… Maybe he forgot, or just thinks that I would forget, but every day his uneaten food is in my yard.  Maybe he hopes the birds will eat it before I notice, who knows but kind of funny.

We live directly across the street from Alum Creek Reservoir.  We hear it is quite the popular recreational place during the summer, but as you can see in the winter it is frozen solid.  The kids wanted to walk out to the buoy.  We cross the bridge almost daily and can’t wait to see it defrosted, full of boats and us on it’s beaches.

Sun came out!  Alyssa took a little jog down to the creek, as you can see she is still wearing skirts everyday, I wonder if she’ll ever out grow it?

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day.  It may surprise you to learn that I didn’t recieve a single flower or piece of candy, no card or even a small token of love.  The day started like any other day, Hallie screaming for her father from her bed, where he stumbled down the hall at 5:00ish in the AM.  Showers, breakfast and kids out the door for school.  I went grocery shopping, had stomach issues, came home before finishing.  When Danny got home, I took Emma and returned to the grocery store to finish up (it was a big shop day).  When I got home, it was past dinner time, so I quickly whipped up some buttermilk pancakes, and we topped them with strawberries and whip cream, bacon and orange juice were also served.  Danny quickly took a few kids to the dining room to get the table set, and that is when I got my Valentine’s Day gift.  I heard Danny tell Tanner, go get 2 pieces of ice and put them in Mom’s cup.  This may seem insignificant to most, but Danny knew that I like my orange juice with ice.  I felt a little teary eyed as I heard him ask his son, and explain quietly why Mom needed ice. As the evening went on, I got Aubrey into a shower while Danny started some laundry and hung up some other laundry.  Then I overheard him helping Tanner with some massive math homework, something involving X and how long it would take him to get to Mars if it took so long to get to Mercury.  Yikes, another teary moment that he was handling yet another problem.  As the evening went on, I noticed as Danny went down and switched yet another load of laundry, and started to wash the dishes that were in the sink that wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher so that I wouldn’t have a load of dirty dishes in the morning.  As I quietly observed all that he did I realized that every day is Valentine’s Day for me.  So no chocolate or flowers were involved, but I had a mighty fine Valentine’s Day.

Kids are sweet–Tanner got this in his box, the boys ripped it out of his hand while he was reading it, and tore it but Tanner held his head high, and didn’t let their teasing bother him.  Hope some little girls heart wasn’t broken, he has to ride the bus home.

When I asked what I should take a picture of today, Aubrey piped up and said my room…so… here is Aubrey’s Room

Before we left Dayton Emma entered a writing contest.  She won third place and $100.  They held a dinner and award ceremony last week for the winners but we were unable to attend but they were kind enough to send Emma her awards and the most important part her check.  She’s going to open a new account and save it.

By midnight we were without power, and temperatures were falling.  In Nevada we had ourselves a little heater and propane.  We weren’t allowed to take our propane on the truck that moved our stuff, so we ignorantly thought we could run to Wal-Mart for some propane, only thousands of others had the same idea.  No propane for us.  Here is Hallie napping in her coat, with lots of other layers on.  When the going got rough I got wimpy and in a very unattractive way, I whined and demanded heat and electricity.  I’m not as tough as I thought.  Guess what we are buying with our tax refund, never thought I’d be excited to say I spent a thousand bucks on a generator before.  I guess I learned a lesson the hard way this week.  Pity was taken upon me and a ward member loaned us their generator.  I must have learned my lesson quickly because our power was restored and there are  people around us without power.  Glad I’m a fast learner.

This was the beginning of the fun…

Mother nature, coated everything in ice, let the record show I was unimpressed and maybe even mocked this so called storm a bit.  Fine I decided to take a picture of the little ice coating the bush up front, and thought they cancelled school for this?  Mother Nature heard my disrespect and decided to teach me a lesson.