It's Spring - Almost

Life never slows down around here. Sometimes I wish it would but I have great hope that the lazy days of summer will help out with that! Paige is almost done with her year of preschool. It has been so fun to watch her learn and grow!! She was playing a game on the PBS kids website the other day (pbskids.org) and it was a spelling game that asked the kids to spell words by sound. She nailed every one. She is also hilarious. I do not know how her little brain functions but she comes up with amazing things. For example, the other day she said to me as we were driving home "Mom, I think I'm going to have seven kids when I grow up." I said, "Oh really?" She said, very confidently, "Yep! but if I have more than seven, I'll be like oh my heavens!!" Yesterday, as I was sewing, she came to talk to me and said, "Mom, it would be crazy if I dressed up like a clown and went to school one day. And if everyone laughed at me, I'd be really upset... But that didn't happen so don't worry!" Porter has the wildest imagination. Lately he will tell me that he's turning into Batman and he will take his hands and act like he's putting on the Bat-suit from his head down to his toes. Once he reaches the toes he starts physically acting like he's Batman. It's just too cute. He also loves to be my puppy. He especially loves it if he climbs up on the couch and I say "Bad dog! Get off the couch!" Sarah's language is really blossoming. She says cow and moos. Yesterday she started mooing as soon as we pulled into Grandma's driveway. She adores animals. It makes me sad that we don't have a dog right now because she loves them so much! I am still sewing like crazy. I just can't stop!! I also started learning to knit because I keep running into so many cute patterns that are knitting instead of crocheting. It keeps my mind and hands busy. I really like that!

Wanted: One maid. Willing to work for free....

So I have been on a creating spree. I am learning how to crochet and I LOVE it. It's relaxing, almost mindless and portable. It's almost the perfect hobby. I have made a hat, several pairs of beaded socks, and now I'm working on a bag and another hat. I guess I just have the itch to create! I just made the Easter dresses for my girls too. They turned out darling and they were super easy. I bought the pillowcase dress pattern from macymade on etsy.com for $3, the fabric and ribbon for $10, and little t-shirts to go under them for $3.50. That puts me under $20 for two Easter dresses. I think that's pretty sweet. The only problem I have is that I can't create and clean at the same time. It's times like these when I really wish I had a maid but I can only afford a free one. Any takers?? =o)

It's snow much fun!

Paige, Kaylie, and Kamber (Paige does not know how to take a picture without posing!)
The return trip of Porter's loop. See that look of terror on his face?

The maiden voyage.

Even the dog ran along.

Grandma Jo Bean is currently having a greenhouse constructed at her house by Uncle Skinny. He brought all the little girls with him to play with all my little ones. During the afternoon, the sun actually came out and so they all wanted to go out and play. Adam became the entertainment committee. He started up the 4-wheeler and hooked a calf sled to it and gave the kids rides around and around the pasture in front of the house. The girls loved it and wouldn't get off. Porter took one trip and half way through, he started screaming, "I'm scared! I'm scared!" He did eventually take a trip around with me holding him, but only if my arms were wrapped tight around him. (So much for my tough little boy! lol)

One year older and wiser too....

'Tis the season for birthdays at our house! Here are the pictures of the celebrations:

(The computer won't let me rotate any of them today so you get them as they are - sorry!)

The birthday boy ready to blow out his candle.

Riding his dino like a bull.

It's a dinosaur!

Brand new Wranglers from Grandma Jo Bean!

A football blankie so Daddy can have his back.

Getting started on his gifts.

A cowboy cake for my little cowboy.

The kids wanted to "eat" the candles off Adam's cake.
Porter actually took a bite. YUCK.

I forgot to bring candles so we dug in Adam's mom's cupboard. He wanted it as a '454' because it a good caliber gun and engine.

Sarah's favorite place in Grandma Jo Bean's kitchen.

The birthday boy and his cake.

Sarah did not like frosting on her hand.

Sarah's sweet Teddy Bear cakes.

Poor girl got sick on her birthday. You can see how flushed her cheeks are in this picture.

She was really not sure what to do with the presents.

The toothless wonder!

Paige finally lost her first tooth yesterday! I am so happy and sad at the same time. Happy because she has been having problems eating because of the tooth hanging on by a thread and sad because it means my baby is growing up! She lost it while watching TV. Apparently she was standing in front of the TV and wiggling her tooth when it popped out. She was so surprised that she just started hollering "MOM! MOM! MOM!" and when I found her she had this huge grin and blood streaming down her chin. The tooth is MIA. I don't know where it went but we're going to have to let the Tooth Fairy know the story in a note when Paige goes to bed tonight. She has not stopped grinning and had to call and tell all the grandparents because she is so proud to be so big! As you can see from the picture, lost tooth number 2 will not be long!

How many trips to the doctor can the Hatch family make in one month?

We are setting an unfortunate record right now. Someone in our family has had to go to the doctors office for something unusual for the last six weeks now! It all started with all three kids getting pink-eye on New Year's Eve. That is one heck of a way to ring in the new year! We went to Billings 48 hours later after we were no longer contagious to spend some time and celebrate the holidays with my family. It is always fun to see them. Adam and I got to go on a real date and go to the temple together, which had not happened since Sarah was born! Adam also got to go to Cabela's. While we were there at Cabela's, Porter started SCREAMING that his ear hurt. We ended up taking him to the Immediate Care place at the hospital and ta da! He had an ear infection. I got to spend almost an hour waiting at Walgreens for his prescription. The following week, I got to take Porter back to the pediatrician because it looked like the pink-eye was making a comeback. Then the next week, Adam started texting me at work that he was having a "gut ache" as he calls it and wanted to know if I had one too. I didn't. I asked where his pain was and he informed me that it was all over his stomach but mostly on his right side. I immediately started freaking out that it was his appendix. He wouldn't leave work to go get checked out but he did agree to go after work. Turns out it was a gall bladder attack but the nurse did yell at him for waiting so long to come in with lower right quadrant abdominal pain and told him to listen to his wife next time. (Thanks Nurse Kim!) A few days later Porter came down with a cough. I wasn't terribly worried about him. It just seemed like a typical cold until a couple days in when he couldn't stop coughing at night and started complaining of headaches. I got him in at the pediatrician's office. Turns out his oxygen level was low (in the 80's) and he had a 102 fever. They gave him a breathing treatment, steroids, and flushed one of his ears which was massively infected AGAIN. Finally, last night I was cooking dinner. I heard Porter start to cry but that's not anything abnormal with my three crazy children. It's probably more abnormal for them to be quiet. (In fact, Adam and I have discussed many times how incredibly stupid we were as children. We thought we were SO sneaky and we always got busted. How did our parents know?! Sneaky=quiet. It's such a dead giveaway! lol) Turns out that they were real tears. He had jumped off the arm of the couch and managed to split his chin open on my great-grandma's traveling trunk which now houses our DVDs. We got to rush to Immediate Care again. (You know it's bad when one fo the PACs come out the door to go home and wants to know what you're in for this time!) Luckily it wasn't terribly deep so we were able to get away with "liquid stitches" (why do they call super glue liquid stitches??) and a band-aid. The best part was how angry he was that they had no spiderman band-aids and had no sugar free suckers like they do at the pediatrician!! I do have a regularly scheduled appoint for myself next week but I'm really hoping that this is one streak we can put an end to!

How did Adam feel when his horse wouldn't cross the creek? He was crushed.

So last weekend Adam and his friend Mark Gough went for a ride (horseback) up by Gibson Reservoir with the intention of camping at Bear Lake for the night. They headed back in and got within about a mile of the lake before they had to turn around because the horses were belly deep in snow. (YIKES) They camped and goofed around for the night and intended to sleep in! Adam had been called in to work the night before they left and gotten home at 1 a.m. only to have to get up at 6 a.m. to leave. At 5:30 a.m., some bull elk started calling to their horses to see if they were cows and woke them up. (Adam swears that they must have been the dumbest elk on the face of the earth to think horses were cow elk!) All the commotion ruined their plan to sleep in, so they decided to just get up and get going, thinking that they could surprise the wives by being home before we were home from church. Not far from their camp they had to cross Bear Creek. They had crossed it on the way in and it was high but not bad The water had risen over night and now it was boiling. Adam and Mark both crossed easily but our dog Dixie was with and she couldn't make it all the way across. She was going about 3/4 of the way and then turning back and whining for Adam. He yelled at her to come but she just couldn't/wouldn't do it. He turned around and went back for her finally. Mark said it was the funniest thing to watch Adam dismount, put the dog up on the horse and then climb back up himself. Adam rode around for a minute to make sure everything was okay and then started to cross the creek. About two steps in, the horse decided it wasn't okay and started bucking. She flipped over backwards, pinning Adam in the creek with everything but his nose and mouth under water. The horse got wedged between a rock and the bank and couldn't get up. Adam couldn't move. As he lie there, he thought to himself about how much he was going to miss us. (He says that's a good thing because it means he's not afraid to die.) Mark pulled the horse up off him and got kicked in the knee in the process. The horses took off running. Adam and Mark looked for the dog for a few minutes but she was nowhere to be found. They are pretty certain that she got washed away. They had to chase down the horses and ride out. Adam got very banged up. He knew he had broken ribs as soon as he got up. He also had a bloody nose and lip and a black eye. He didn't believe Mark about how bad he looked, so he took a picture of himself just so he could see! They got phone service just as I was leaving church. Adam told me that he'd "come off Deuce and was pretty sure he'd broken a couple ribs" and asked me to come get him and take him to the ER. I was shocked at how awful he looked when I pulled into Mark and LaNeige's driveway. He was covered in dried blood, holding one arm to his chest, and slowly limping along. Not at all what I had pictured from his calm explanation that he'd "come off Deuce!" Mark and LaNeige watched our older two kids while we spent the rest of Sunday in the ER. Luckily he has no imajor injuries other than two broken ribs. He is doing as well as can be expected. I am so lucky to still have a husband. The only thing that saved him from drowning was a little scrubby willow bush that was exactly where his head landed. You can't tell me that's not a miracle. He and Mark have resolved to never again miss church to go riding. I think that's a good idea.