Ya never know....

A couple years ago Josh Turner came to the Fair as one of the concerts. It is very rare for my musical taste to merge with Adam's but we both happen to really love Josh Turner so Adam bought us tickets. It was lovely to escape without our children and just be together for the evening. He played mostly songs we were familiar with, though I have to admit that Adam was disappointed because all the other concerts he has ever been to had a mosh pit. (See what I mean about that musical taste thing?? :) The highlight for me was the song below:



The lesson? You never know when you might have a spiritual experience.

You've had a birthday....

Six years ago I became a mom. Hard to believe it was that long ago. I was telling Paige her birth story the other night. We got to the part where, right after she was born, they gave her to me to try to nurse. The minute the nurse laid her on my belly she peed all over me. She giggled for ages when she heard that. She is the best. So glad she came to our family!


At cousin Rylee's baptism (4).

Paige started early with the crazy photo faces (6 weeks).

Brand new Paige in her isolette.

With newborn Porter (almost 2).

On Daisy (2).

Fishing at Gibson Reservoir (5)

Camping at Gibson Reservoir (5)

And, in honor of Paige, this is her very favorite song in the whole wide world. Fitting, don't you think?

Flocking

Yep, the snow geese are a-migrating. This was the scene in the field across the road when I left to pick Paige up from school today.

Telephone Etiquette

Today we took Adam's mom with us to the big town to do a little shopping. She had lost her cell phone while chasing some bulls in the corrals so it probably is resting peacefully in the manure. The joys of rural life right?? Well, Miss Sarah was super upset that her grandma got a shiny new phone and she didn't..... She screamed and screamed "Where's my phone??" Adam took pity on her and bought her a pink plastic Disney princess slider phone at Walmart. (Our children are so spoiled!) When we got back in the car to head to our next stop, she was pretending to talk to somebody and us three adults were talking to each other. She moved her pretty pink cell phone away from her mouth and yelled "BE QUIET! I TALKING!!!" Do you think maybe she's heard that before????



This is Miss Sarah as she fell asleep last night. It's hard to be a girl :)

Report Card Time

This is a picture of the teacher comments from Paige's latest report card. And I quote, "Paige is doing a great job. The time issue has gotten better but because she is so thorough and does a really good job some things take longer. Keep up the good work!"

And that, my friends, is Paige in a nut shell.

Write your senators and representatives!

Seriously.... Can I just tell you how much I HATE daylight savings time?? This week has been miserable and and it's all DST's fault. I am tired, the kids are tired, and when we are tired we are cranky, super cranky. HATE IT. Why can't Montana go be like Arizona and decide to ignore it? The end.

In other news, Porter is hilarious. Anyone who knows him knows that. Yesterday was our bi-weekly grocery shopping trip so we went and had lunch with Adam like we usually do. We were sitting around the table eating pizza when Porter started talking about our family. He showed us his index finger and said "This is Sarah...", the middle finger "This is me....", the ring finger "This is Paigey...", the pinkie finger "This is you, mom... You're little." and finally the thumb, "This is you, dad. You're fat!" Adam and I laughed. Hard. I had a serious case of the giggle. He looked up at us innocently and said "Sorry! We ran out of big ones!!" It was so funny.

Porter has also taken to snuggling up to me and singing "You are my sunshine" while he wraps his arms around my neck and looks lovingly at me. Adorable. No question that that boy is a lover. He's going to make some girl very happy someday. (And if I was a betting type of gal, I would put money on the fact that his daddy was just like that as a little boy.)

Physically, I am doing fine, incase anyone is wondering. I can do anything I want to really and have no remaining pain or issues other than being tired. Hormones are another question. YIKES. They are super out of whack right now and it is messing me up big time. I am hoping that they will start to settle down by next week and then things can get back to normal.

So does anybody else read Nie?? (nieniedialogues.blogspot.com) I just discovered her and I love what she has to say. I can't say my trials compare to hers at all but everything she says about trials relates to me. She is giving me a lot of inspiration right now.

The snow geese are about. They are everywhere by the thousands. They are super loud to boot. They have flown around/over the house twice this morning. It is so hard to describe the noise. They are all flying and honking but it sounds nothing like what you usually hear when the Canada geese honk overhead. Unbelievable. My mom in law says it's a sign that spring really is here. Crossing my fingers!!!

Also, WE GOT OUR CONSTRUCTION LOAN!!!! Woo hooo!!! By this time next week, there should be a very large hole in our awesome little hilltop. I am so excited!!!

Lessons from Little House on the Prairie

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately. See, one of my favorite blogs was nominated for an award and I was curious to check out the competition. They are all "Mormon Mommy" blogs so I figured they would have something interesting to say. And they do. For me, they just don't compare to my favorite but still good. While I was reading, one of the moms was talking about her homeschooling practices. She had some suggestions for books at different reading levels. One of those suggested was the "Little House on the Prairie" series. It actually got me thinking because a lady at church had asked me a while ago if I had ever read them to my kids because she thought Paige would love them. Yesterday when I made my weekly stop at the local library I grabbed the first book on a whim. Paige and Porter were soooo mad at me because "they only like picture books!!" I told them it had some pictures and I that I thought they would like it. We got all ready for bed and curled up on the couch for story time and started "Little House in the Big Woods" despite the groans and protests. As we read, the kids crowded in closer and closer and closer until they were sitting on top of each other to sit right next to me. They made lots of comments as we read too, like "we have to keep our stove going all the time in the winter too" and "our daddy hunts". When we finished the first chapter, I told them it was time to read scriptures and they whined "Oh Mom!! Pleeeeeasseee... just one more chapter!!" We read a few more pages and then had to quit so we could read scriptures and get to bed on time but they made me promise that we would read it again the next night. I was really surprised but very happy that they loved it so much. I had hesitated to read big books to them because they're so young but they certainly proved me wrong. It also occurred to me as we read how differently we live than probably 90% of people in this country. We heat our house with a wood stove and cut & gather our own firewood, we believe in planting a garden and storing for the winter, we spend lots of time outside, our daddy hunts and uses lots of outdoor skills, my kids understand that the meat we eat comes from animals and that they usually have known the cow that we are eating for dinner. It makes me glad to know that we are not so removed from our past, in fact, I think it's a really great blessing!

Can we get some Spring, please??

We just got home from California. It is a bit of reality check to go from wearing capris and flip-flops in the 70 degree sunshine to bundling up next to the wood stove again. This has been the longest. Winter. Ever. Seriously. Disneyland was awesome. LA traffic, not so much. We hated LA itself. Dirty, littered, polluted & yucky. Once you cross the line into Orange county there is an immediate change. I wish I'd have taken a picture. LA county - dirty... cross invisible line to Orange County - clean. So crazy. My kids had a blast. Paige told me it was 'the funnest vacation ever!!' Sarah hated all rides basically. She liked the carousel at Knott's cause her horse didn't go up and down, It's a Small World because of all the singing 'babies', and the Tiki Room because of the music. And she loved meeting Tinkerbell. I'll have to post the video. It's great. Porter's favorite was the beach. I guess having a giant sandbox would be most little boy's dream. He was sliding down the hill, picking seashells, running through it, etc. He just kept screaming 'This place is AWESOME!!' Paige says her favorite ride was 'the Pony Express' at Knott's Berry Farm. It was a rollercoaster but it had horses that you straddled instead of seats. I thought she was insane when she wanted to ride cause she is not daring at all. I think she was lured in by the horses. But she did it and says she loved it. She rode the Thunder Mountain Railroad coaster at Disney with me too. That one I know she loved cause she kept screaming 'I love rollercoasters!' during the whole ride. Pretty cute. We saw tons of characters. TONS. More than I have ever seen on a Disney trip. We could have met Rapunzel and Flynn Rider but the line was over 45 minutes (at one point 1.5 hours!!) and when I told Paige that she said "Nevermind." My favorites were meeting Belle & the Aladdin musical at California Adventure. Belle was miraculous for me because we got to Disneyland, walked down Main St, did our pictures in front of the castle, walked through the gate, and turned left to go to Frontierland and there she was. We saw other princesses but it was at the Princess Faire where you're guaranteed to meet at least two so not quite as amazing. The Aladdin musical was fantastic. Really, really, really good. The funniest thing was that my mom, Adam, & I went with all 9 of the kids, including the two babies. The babies were sleeping so it was fine and then the other adults could go ride the huge coaster. About half way through, Jordyn (3) came over and said she had to go potty so my mom took her. Then baby Kinley woke up and started to scream. She is a very picky kid and mostly only likes her mama so I ran to the back of the theater, turned her around so she faced the stage and not me, and bounced. As long as I didn't talk, she didn't realize I wasn't her mom. (Thank goodness for those sister similarities!) A minute or two later, Sarah crawled out of the row and came back to me. I told her to stay there and be quiet. Next thing I knew, she was walking down the steps to the stage. I ran down to get her and ran past baby Cruz's carseat, who was also now screaming. I whispered to Adam to take Sarah, grabbed Cruz, carried him to the back, put his carseat on my foot and did my best to bounce Kinley and rock Cruz with my foot. Luckily Mom & Jordyn came back a couple of minutes later and saved the day. It was hilarious and I'm sure, since I was wearing my BYU sweatshirt that day, the annoyed audience members thought I was some dumb Mormon woman with too many kids. I still loved the musical and think it was a super funny moment. And now I know that I couldn't do twins...lol.