Long Overdue

Yes, I know. I am absolutely TERRIBLE at updating this thing. Let me tell you, my personal journal isn't much better. Sad, sad story people. Life is zinging by and I'm missing it because if I don't take the time to write it down, it disappears faster than I can relish it and soon I forget all the small things that make life right now what it is: wonderful.  SO... I'm going to take a second and give a quick update. Someday I will finish all my backtracking posts and get you totally updated on our life over the past 8 months, but that won't happen tonight.  NOTE:  None of the following posted pictures have been edited.  I know you don't care and probably don't notice, but I am absolutely cringing at the thought of posting unedited pictures on here.  C'est la vie!!


We moved into our beautiful home on June 25th and are absolutely in LOVE with it.  Clint took that first week we were moving in off from work so that we could get totally unpacked and settled as soon as possible since this is our forever home and we wanted to live HERE and not out of boxes.  Sorry, the pics are only of about 1/2 the house and unfortunately only one of them are of the outside {kinda, it's our family pic from the 4th of July.  It was taken in the courtyard out front}.  I'm still working on the rest!  It's on my "someday" list LOL

This house has felt like home since we moved in.  We are so excited, even with all the responsibility that has come with it.  We have almost an acre and a half with the house and Sandra {the woman we bought the house from} planted all kinds of yummy stuff.  This fall {ok, every fall from now on} will be a busy one trying to figure out when and how everything needs to be harvested, but it's a great challenge and SO rewarding!  Our garden was very generous, the grapes and figs were fab, apples are just starting to come off and in the next month our pecans, pistachios, walnuts and pomegranates will be ready also.  Crazy busy, bring it on!!  :O)


Next up, we went camping with my family on our beautiful mountain in mid July.  It was such a great weekend - although sorry to my BIL Troy who isn't quite simpatico with heights and had to drive up the cliff-side road with no guardrails... SORRY!!!!  We hiked and found a TON of lady bugs {note the difference between how many bugs are crawling on my girls vs my nephews... city boys!  LOL}.  It was just nice to get to share our mountain with my family.  My grandma had actually camped there as a little girl during the summers and until 2 years ago hadn't been back in almost 70 years!  CRAZINESS!!  Grandma, you don't look that old my dear!

Clint's Grandma GG came down from Oregon in April and stayed through July with Russell and Jonnet.  It was such a treat to have her here, the kiddos LOVE their Grandma GG and she will definitely be missed!

Ah, next comes the 24th of July.  Clint has somehow ended up in charge of our ward's float for the last X many years and this year a few days before he decided that we as a family needed to dress in pioneer garb and walk with the float to hand out all the candy.  Great idea except that we live in 2012 and don't have pioneer garb.  SO, I took a few old sheets and some extra fabric and sewed the girls and I bonnets and aprons.  Well, after working on them for 2 days my sewing machine evidently thought I needed a break cuz it bit me.  The needle went in exactly where the nail leaves the skin at the nail bed, I jerked my finger away from the machine with the needle still in my nail, tearing through the length of the nail all the way to where the nail leaves the skin underneath and turns white.  Yeeeeeeah.  Needless to say I cried like a baby, Clint took me to the doctor and all they did was give me a bandaid and a tetanus shot {which hurt worse than the original injury I came in for!  Hello?!?  Didn't they know I came IN with a needle injury?  I wasn't looking for another one!}.  I was so burnt about the bandaid that I made Clint take me to sonic.  :O)  See, I'm a little baby!

On August 8th, school started.  Madi took her first step as a big first grader {sob!} and Maelee began "Mommy School".  They are both doing great and loving it!  Madi loves her teacher, who is a great fit for us, and she has a lot of friends in her class.  Maelee has already learned to count to 13 {except that she keeps wanting to jump to 6... "1,2,6" "Try again, 1,2,3" "oh, ok!  1,2,3,6"... too funny!  Once she actually GETS to 6 she's perfect!} and most of her colors.  It's going to be a great year for both girlies!

Madi turned 6 in May and is still so sassy!  I mean that as spunky not as a turkey... actually... she's pretty good at both!  :O)  She tested into intermediate swim lessons this year {woot!} and enjoyed carrying Marcus around all summer.  Going back to school has been really good for her, she craves the routine.  She has mellowed out a lot in the last few weeks as far as stinker moments go and her sweet side is really starting to shine.  She's such a great helper and her most recent quirk is when she comforts Marcus, she tells him, "Sssssssh, it's ok."  Except she doesn't leave a space between the "sssh" and the "it".  So, honestly my 6 year old walks around telling my 8 month old "Sssssshit's ok!"!!!  And when he's really fussy, there aren't as many s's!!  Makes me smile.

Maelee is as always... our little coconut!  She turned 3 in June and still keeps us on our toes.  She has the funniest little personality and comes up with the silliest things.  She wants so badly to carry Marcus around and play with him, but typically it ends with him in wide-eyed tears, pleading with me to save him.  Give him another few months sweetie, then he'll be more ready to play!  She loves Mommy School and mimics everything Madi does.  She's also turning into quite the little pesty sister and LOVES to drive Madison crazy - poking, touching, kicking, looking at her... it's all fair game and Maelee eats it up.  Her biggest news is actually a total bummer: she has to have surgery next week.  :O(  She has had 7 UTI's in 10 months, her fever got up to 107.5 twice and it just gets worse with each infection.  We had a VCUG {awful, awful, awful experience for the poor girl} and it showed that she has stage 4 reflux which basically means her tubes which drain urine from the kidneys to the bladder didn't form right and so they don't stop the pee from going back up into the kidneys - which is a big no no.  In the surgery, they'll disconnect the tubes and reattach them properly.  Yuck.  BUT, to have the UTI's a thing of the past will be worth it.  SO not looking forward to recovery but hopefully she'll bounce back quickly!!!!!!

Marcus has grown by leaps and bounds!  We started him on cereal and baby food when we moved in, and now he's eating stage 3 baby food, cheerios and small bites of table food.  He hasn't mastered the pincer grip yet, but is quite proficient at the grab and shove method.  His first little tooth popped through 2 weeks ago and will hopefully be joined in the next week by a friend.  In the last week he has made the transition from crawling backwards to finally crawling forward, and has also discovered how to pull himself up onto his knees AND his feet.  Jeez kid!  I had to move his crib mattress all the down to the lowest setting today and he did NOT like it!  He was so mad at me for taking away his new found ability to look OVER his crib that he refused to go to sleep tonight for about an hour.  Poor kid was exhausted and still protesting!  Marcus has also discovered cause and effect.  When he waves his hand in front of the XBOX it beeps and flashes pretty green lights.  When he waves again it beeps more and the lights turn off - magic.  Or when he puts his hand in front of a night light it lights up.  ACK!  Baby proofing again?!?  :O)  He is the sweetest baby and we are all so smitten with him.  How can we not be?

That's the last 2 months in a nutshell.  A big nutshell.  Like a black walnut shell.  :O)

Country Thunder

My dear hunny works 2 days a week in a truck for most of the day, with the radio jamming to whatever he can find to amuse himself.  This guy knows the words to every song {so much that I am VERY surprised when I know a song he doesn't!} and hears every advertisement.  So anyway, a few months back Clint got this crazy idea; he wanted to go on a weekend getaway to County Thunder.  I thought that sounded kinda fun so we got online to check prices on tickets, see who was performing and look at hotels.  Hoowee!  The more we looked into the whole thing, the more excited we got.  It's been years since either of us went to a concert, and neither of us had been to Country Thunder, so we were looking forward to a fun weekend away.

In April 'round here{yeah, this post is late in coming, sorry!}, it's usually pretty warm, and it actually HAD been warm for a month or so prior to our mini-vacay.  BUT, for some reason this weekend the thunder clouds rolled in and dropped the temp by about 40*!!  Luckily, I had brought a flannel and jeans as an afterthought or I would have frozen!  On our way out we had to stop by a Target to pick up shoes {my flip-flops weren't going to cut it unfortunately}, socks and an umbrella.  I found 2 pairs of shoes that I really liked: a fun pair of rain boots on clearance for $12, or a pair of Converse for $30.  Normally, the cheap Tiffany would have bought the rain boots, but I just knew that I was going to feel like an idiot walking around Country Thunder in RAIN BOOTS just because it was sprinkling outside.  SO, I nixed the boots and chose the Converse with the excuse that I've always wanted a pair and that I will honestly wear them more often.

See how pretty?  This is the before shot...

And here is the AFTER!

Holy moley, did I choose the wrong pair of shoes!!!

The road that was normally dirt leading out to the action had been turned into anywhere from a few inches to almost 2 feet of the stickiest, slimiest, squishiest, nastiest mud.

It may not look that bad, but keep in mind that we were only going 5 miles an hour and STILL kicking up that much mud from the tires!!

Oh, and not just the road but EVERYWHERE else too!  EVERYONE HAD ON RAIN BOOTS!  Ok, not everyone.  I actually saw another girl with Converses on, and when she saw how much mud were on her shoes she pouted, then I showed her mine and we took comfort in the fact that we were both idiots and wished we had rain boots.  :O)

Now let me preface this with a small clarification for those who have never been... Country Thunder is typically a big par-tay, but with all the frigidness, there were a lot more clothes this year!!  :O)  I'm probably pretty accurate when I say that I'm probably one of the few who preferred it that way.  LOL

When we trudged up, Rio Grand was onstage, followed by Neal McCoy.  We REALLY enjoyed Neal McCoy!  I barely knew any of his songs, but he was such a GREAT entertainer that it didn't matter!  He danced even though he knew he looked like a goober.  It was one of the funnest performances of the day.

Next up was the Bellamy Brothers, who {I'm sure back in the day were awesome, but...} were pretty boring.  Just our opinion!

There was an hour break between performers, and we took the time to walk around and see all the vendors.  They didn't let you pay cash for food, you had to buy tickets and then use the tickets to buy food.  Pretty smart, because we would never pay $6 for chicken nuggets, but when you have 30 tickets, 6 tickets isn't such a bad deal.  Sneaky eh? 

We saw Rodney Atkins next and he was AWESOME!  There was a huge mud pit that was full of happy, drunk people at this point who were pretty amusing to watch too.  We were pretty exhausted and frozen by the time he was finished but Little Big Town was up next and we were pretty stoked to see them.  They were incredible!  You can't get any better than their harmonies.  It was so fun to watch and listen to them perform "Boondocks" live, I didn't know who to watch!  SO FUN!

When they finished, our feet were SO cold and we were walking zombies and almost didn't stay for Martina McBride, but we realized we would SERIOUSLY regret it if we left early so we stayed until she started at 9 that night.  We didn't stay for her whole show, but I found out later that she had a special guest star {Jordin Sparks!}, and I {dang it!} wish we would have stayed.  Oh well, C'est la Vie right?!

It was a blast and although we came home dehydrated {who knew that you could get so dehydrated when it was pouring rain?}, we were glad we were able to take the time to get away for the weekend.  Don't we all need a mini-vacay now and then?  :O)

Still more to come

I have so many pics and videos of this weekend's adventures and am past the point of wanting to upload them all, but I got a good chunk of them done and posted first.  Stay tuned for more later... if I get around to it that is!  :O)

Every 4th of July we head up to the mountain to camp for the holiday weekend.  It's always so surreal packing for the cold rain and freezing nights when it's over 100* outside.  Over the years I've learned to pack the essentials: 2 full sets of clothes per kid, per day.  Rain boots instead of tennis shoes.  Umbrella for Madi.  Clothes in a tub instead of duffel bag.  Lots and lots of wipes, hand sanitizer and lotion.  And of course, a camera {or in my case, 2 - my nice one that's pretty big and my older, dying one that fits in my pocket}.

Create a free digital slideshow

You can really tell a difference in which camera I used to take which pictures!  Amazing.  I'll try to give you a quick run-down of the weekend, but as anyone who either talks to me or reads this blog can tell - I like to talk and I like to tell stories!  :O)  {Yes, I admit it.  Close your gaping jaw!}

Now that Clint works 4-10's, we were able to head up Friday morning which was 50/50 on the good idea roster.  Any opportunity we have to camp is jumped on, but we overlooked the fact that Madi wouldn't have any friends until Saturday around lunch time.  Gag.  A bored 4 year old with no toys, TV, or crafts.  Just dirt, rocks, and stumps.  Luckily Saturday morning we woke up to twin 4 year old girls in the next campsite over who were kind enough to save us from Madi and Madi from us.  :O) 

Maelee was pretty fun to watch walk around.  She was pretty wobbly on the bumpy ground, and took a few spills, but always got back up and tried again.  Atta kid!

There was a lady from Germany who professionally trained mules, and had 2 beautiful ones {yep, they were pretty mules if you can believe that!!} at the corrals.  They seriously looked like lean horses with big ears, that's how pretty they were.  Madi got to ride one and was really stoked about it.  Cute girl!

I could go on and on with story after story, but I will let the pictures speak for themselves for now.  The girls are asleep and I am ready to take advantage of the situation by catching some Z's myself.  Post more later!!

Corky's Cake

We spent the weekend at my family reunion for my dad's side of the crazies, and it was a BLAST!!  We were exhausted when we got home, and Madison was SO disappointed when she woke up today and found out we weren't going back to "the cabin" to play with all her cousins.  We're going camping again this weekend on our mountain and I think she's going to be a bit sad that all her new friends aren't going to be there.  But totally getting off track here!  You are probably wondering who on earth Corky is and what she was doing with a cake... well, meet Corky.

See her name tag?  This is Corky.  She was the main chef who catered for our reunion.  {We rented this awesome place with 13 cabins that each slept 11, 2 bath houses, an open ramada, a flat for softball, a volleyball court, and a dining/rec hall.  It was SO fun!  And they cater all the food so you don't have to worry about ANY of it.  Plus, they had snacks and drinks all day and night.  Paradise!!}  She asked my dad if there was any reason that she could bake a cake for our family.  Anything at all, and my dad mentioned our anniversary.  She was SO excited and spent the whole afternoon working on, basically, a wedding cake for us.

Wasn't it beautiful?  When I thanked her, I told her that we hadn't had a big, fancy cake like that at our wedding {my aunt made one out of styrofoam and frosted/decorated it for display, but we had sheet cakes instead for one reception.  For my hometown open house we had a really pretty but small cake, and then in Clint's hometown we had this absolutely delicious cheesecake that actually Safeway ended up carrying because so many people here kept asking them if they did!  Such trend setters!!  LOL}, Corky started crying and told me, "well then REALLY Happy Anniversary!!"

My Uncle Cory brought us up in front and made us stand there while everyone sang "Happy Anniversary to You" {so embarrassing!}.  It was SO GOOD!  Vanilla cake with strawberries between the layers and a really light whip cream frosting.  Yum!

The rest of the reunion was such a treat and I'm so sad that it's over.  My family is pretty spread out, so we only have reunions every 3 years.  It's hard to say goodbye after JUST getting re-acquainted.  And this is the FUN side of the family too!  The side that gets out and plays sports and card games...  One of the things my grandma did was a fish pond for all the kids.  She spent hours and hours and hours and hours {give you a sense of how much time went into it?} sewing prizes, and Madi was fortunate enough to get the ONLY Raggedy Ann doll {I'll post a pic later}.  None of the kids understood the sentimentality behind that doll, but all my cousins did and I got a LOT of "Oh!  I wish my daughter had gotten a Raggedy Ann doll sewn by Grandma!", half because it's a Raggedy Ann doll and half because it's made by Grandma.  What a treasure for Madison... if we can keep it out of Maelee's mouth!!

My name is Mud

Well, it would be if I had any avid readers out there who were ticked that I don't update this thing very often lately...  BUT, kind readers, allow me to clear my name with this update full of slide shows and fun tidbits of our life over the last month.

Let's see... about a month ago we packed up enough food and warm clothes to supply a small army and headed up the mountain to play in the snow.  It was Keahi's first time and to be honest, she wasn't so thrilled to be stuck on a blanket where she couldn't eat the rocks.  At the bottom of our run, Clint found {and by found I mean fell into} a hole waist~deep in the snow made by a tree that had fallen before the snow came.  We heard that at the top of the mountain, the snow was around 12 feet deep!  We saw little snail-like things all over the place that were actually rocks or bits of snow that started rolling down the hillsides and grew as they rolled.  Pretty cool looking!  We were all freezing by the time we got home and were glad to come back to 70* weather.  {Gotta love it!!}

Next up, Keahi is eating table foods and turned 9 months last week.  8 teeth, 21.5 pounds, size 3 diapers, learning to stand up in the middle of the floor, cruising furniture, hasn't taken her first step yet but it's quickly coming!! 

Also... I had a fun idea for Madi's hair and voila!  It actually worked!!  {Sorry the pics are so pixelated... don't know what happened there}

I hit the big two-five last week!  That's right, I'm a quarter of a century old and I have to say that it wasn't as hard as everyone says it is.  Maybe 30 will be the tough one... I had a great day and don't feel like an old lady yet so life is great!!  :O)  I also was a finalist for our local version of American Idol, that was fun.  There ended up being 22 finalists {I think... there were a LOT of us!} and I had a blast!!  My audition is online, if you want to see it, let me know and I'll email you the link.

This last weekend, the boys {Clint, his dad, brother Rob and gf Kia} took Russell's kayaks and a canoe and took on the river.  We've a TONS of rain this year so it was flowing pretty heavy and a tad on the swift side... {ok, it was really fast but at least no one died right?!}

I think that really the only other thing that deserves note on this post is that our girls are friggin' adorable and we can't get enough of them!!

LOVE IT!!

Snow & Halloween=

Boy howdy have the last 2 weeks been crazy around here!  Clint was in Texas for a training for work for a week and then off to his brother and sister's for a deer hunt for 4 days!  I know, either I'm a saint for letting him run off and leave me with the girls for 11 days, or else I'm crazy!!  {Definately crazy, I know myself and I'm no saint!!}  So, last week I loaded up the girls and visited my Alma Mater {home town}.  We had so much fun eating yummy food at the local Mexican restaurant, catching up with friends, seeing all the improvements and how nice my old house has been fixed up.  I stayed with my friend Rachel and my girls fit right in with her 3 girls and 1 boy {Madi had a blast and was SO upset when we left!}.  It was total chaos but so fun!  When we woke up in the morning, there was 4 inches of snow on the ground just waiting to be played in.  Luckily, I remembered how cold it got there and had come prepared with boots, mittens, a scarf, a beanie, an extra sweatshirt, pants and socks!  Go me!  Madi had such a great time playing in all that white stuff {yes, she's seen snow before but not for a while}.  It was nice to get home though and not worry about the mud that I'm sure followed very quickly after the winter wonderland.  But all that cold got me TOTALLY in the mood for Christmas so when I got home I started up the Christmas music and SO BADLY wanted to decorate for the holidays... but it was only October so I decided to wait... more on that in a later post!  :0)

Now it's time for our Halloween story.  Well, it's actually kinda depressing.  All of our friends were going out of town for the actual holiday, so we had a progressive dinner/Halloween party Friday night.  We dressed all the kids up {so that Grandparents could see their costumes} and let them practice trick or treating.  Michele was so good and had little pens, notebooks, stickers and bubbles for the kids behind the doors in her house!  It was so cute and the kids had a blast!  Thank heavens for that party cuz that was the only Halloween Madi and Keahi got!  I'm not going to go into the whole story here {I don't want to offend anyone or stir up the hornets nest any more than it already is} so suffice it to say that some things happened, some words, ok bad words were loudly exchanged between some people and to avoid a breakdown on my or Madi's part, we instead watched Enchanted at my brother's house.  {Just so you know, the words were NOT between me and Clint, we were on the same team}  It's been over a week now and Madi hasn't mentioned anything about it since Sunday so I doubt she's been scarred for life.  My only regret is that I didn't get a picture of my girls dressed up like Tinkerbell together {yes, they were BOTH Tink, and it was freakin' adorable!!}.  I'm planning on dressing them up again and getting that picture!!!

So there you have it, another chapter in the book that is our lives!  And Clint made it home safe last night around 7:30, for those who were wondering!  :0)  And his girls ALL missed him like mad!

Labor Day Weekend and Visit with Kiki

You would think that since we got internet at our house that I would be better at updating my blog... yeah, not so much!  I instead spend all my time looking at cameras, etc. and dreaming about the day I can cross over to that totally frightening world of being a photographer.  (Yes, I am admitting that I'm terrified, but a good terrified, you know?)  :0)  SO EXCITING!  Anyhoo, on to the update.

Labor Day weekend was fun, as camping on the mountain always is.  We got rained on, hailed on and even saw some snow on the way up!  Such a nice break to be cold for once! 

There's just something magic about that old mountain air - it makes Madi's naps disappear and Keahi sleep through the night!  Go figure. 

Jennifer and Reggie had their horses at the corrals, just a stone's throw away from where we were camping.  Madison thought they were just the coolest things ever and was SO stoked when she got to ride one with Daddy.  :0) 

More wildlife this trip!  No bears this time though, just a doe. 

Briggs - he is SO dang cute!

You can't really telll, but she's trying to kiss me back!

Saturday the 12th, we went through the Temple with Riley and Kiki's family watched the girls.  Madi had a blast!!!

We left our camera in the backpack with the girls' stuff and they took some great pictures for us.

As you can see, it was definately a jolly ole' time!  :0)  Thanks again guys, the girls had fun!

Keahi Meets the Mountain

What a weekend!

We drove up our mountain Thursday evening and spent 3 rainy days enjoying (?) the Fourth of July weekend. :0) Our new tent will be returning to Wal-Mart for its false advertising; it claimed to be weather and water-proof… Yeeeeeeeeah right! No real harm was done, a few things got wet which we were able to dry in the Saturday sunshine. But we need a tent that can handle rainy camping, because that is the majority of what we do! Why do we do it? No idea! But we always look forward to it so much until we are there, wet and freezing. You think we would learn! :0)
Madi was SO cute in her rain boots; trudgin’ around through the mud and muck, picking flowers and torturing her friends… She only had ONE accident all weekend! WOOHOO! Yay for finally getting the hang of potty training!! Keahi slept in a laundry basket lined with a fleece blanket to keep out the cold, and any time I put her down, she was immediately picked up by one of our friends, male OR female :0). Both girls were such troopers and had fun.

Clint spearheaded a fishing trip Saturday morning which resulted in Andy cooking quite a few 7 inch fish. I hear they were good, I don't do fish, blech! :0) I pretty much spent the weekend munching, kissing owies, snuggling our coconut and trying to stay dry!

We had a few exciting moments, Paul and Stephanie were walking back from the potluck Saturday night and saw a tree get struck by lightening! Craziness! The bark flew all around them and they were a little dazed and breathing pretty fast when they got back to camp! Then Sunday morning, Clint was getting Madison ready for church and she said, "Look, Dad! A bear!" "Yeah, honey. A bear." "No, Dad! Look behind you! There's a bear!" Clint turned to see a black bear wandering around about 30 yards away! We all ran and followed the bear, taking pictures, and ironically explaining to our kids why you don't follow bears... Church was amazing, as usual. I love church on the mountain! It puts so much into perspective when you have the opportunity to take the sacrament in a meadow, listen to your friends bear their testimonies, and feel the awesome spirit that accompanies it all. That is definitely a tradition that I hope never dies!

We got home and unpacked, ate, bathed and crashed. All in all it was definately a weekend worth enjoying!