Santa

Our ward had a Christmas breakfast last Saturday.  We went and ate yummy breakfast casseroles, cinnamon rolls, juice, etc. and then the primary kids sang some Christmas songs.  We have the BEST song leader in primary.  She handed out Rudolph noses and jingle bells to all the kids and kazoos to the kids and all the rest of us.  Then Santa came.  The kids were excited to see him, especially Owen.   

Waiting to sit on Santa's lap.

Erin did really well.  She even talked to Santa, which is a big step for her.  She asked for a brown bear.

Liam didn't know what he wanted so Santa said he would bring Liam a Barbie doll.  Then Liam decided he wanted a lab set.

Owen was a little hesitant.  He wanted Erin to come with him, but decided it was okay to walk up by himself.  He asked for a monster truck.

See Santa...check.

The Blustery Night

Thursday morning
Scene:  3:00 am, our house.  I am sleeping peacefully.
Erin;  Mom!
Me:  Going into her room "What's up Erin?"
Erin;  "I'm Scared.  What's that noise?"
Me:  Realizing it's windy for the first time "It's wind.  Wow, it's really windy out there huh!"  In fact, it sounds REALLY windy out there.  Crazy.  I would be scared too if I were 5.  So I ask if she wants to come into our bedroom and sleep on the floor.  She agrees and I make her a bed on the floor, but never really get back to sleep.  I think "Oh, our little Christmas tree is out on our porch, I should see if it tipped over."  So I get out of bed and open the front door.  And yes, there is our little decorative 3 foot Christmas tree tipped over, with ornaments rolling all over the porch and lawn.  I pick it up, drag it inside and go back out for the ornaments.  And...they're gone.  No ornaments.  They have flown hither and yon, far beyond my reach.  Plus, it's freezing outside, so I think, "I'll just get them in the morning."  Back to bed.  Still can't sleep.  The front door starts making a noise like a horn blowing every time a big gust comes.  Not conducive to falling asleep.  4:00 am.  Cameron gets out of bed because he can't sleep either.  That wind is LOUD!  What is it, a tornado?  He checks on the house.  I am still trying to fall asleep.  5:00 am.  Just barely, barely went to sleep and Cameron wakes me up. 
Cameron:  "Babe, babe, get out of bed, I need your help!"  Said very hurriedly and sort of panicked.  (Accompanied by shaking me awake).  Then he leaves.  So I get up and start walking around the house trying to find him.  I see a flashlight waving at me from out of our living room window.  Oh No!  Not outside!  It is cold out there.  Well, I am a good wife.  So I get my shoes on, grab a sweater and put my coat on over it.  and outside I go.  I found him in the backyard trying to secure our awning that used to be hung up over our living room window but has broken off and is banging and flying violently in the wind.  The poles that had it  anchored to the house were flapping in the wind and we thought they were going to go crashing through the window.  I reach up and grab the flapping awning and hold it close to the house while we figure out how to secure it.  It took all my strength and Cameron's too, just to keep it there, the wind was blowing so hard.  We don't have rope, (of course, right?)  So I think and say, I have some twine, would that work?  So I leave Cameron, run inside and find Liam at the back door a little scared because we aren't in the house.  It's okay I say, we're just outside fixing something.  Just sit on the couch.  I get the twine.  Outside again and holding down the awning while Cameron secures it.  The wind has been blowing so much, the string that was on the awning in the first place is tangled in sticks and knotted up.  We try and get the knots out, but realize we can't feel our fingers anymore.  We need scissors.  Back inside again and there's Liam and Erin both at the door a little scared.  The wind is loud, the power is flickering.  So I grab a flashlight, put them on the couch, reassure, reassure, cover them up with a blanket and back outside with the scissors.  As I walk out, the power goes out and stays out.  We cut the rope instead and Cameron gets it tied down.

 Awning

  Back inside and run warm water over our cold fingers.  Truly, I have never been that cold before ever.  Back outside to the garage to get our oil lamps.  I find them and back inside to light them.  I can't get my fingers to work.  Cameron can't either.  We have to wait.  Here comes Owen.  Truly?  It's not even 6:30 yet.  (Yes, it took us that long to tie the awning down.  That wind packs a punch.  It lifted me off the ground a couple of times while I was holding the sail, uh, I mean awning.  We light the lamps and are just getting a little warmed up when we look outside and our shed is lifting up off the ground.  Really?  Okay, back outside, this time with gloves and a hat.  The shed is truly flying up into the air and Cameron and I are grabbing onto it, trying to ground it.  We get the doors put back on (kind of) and are standing inside thinking about how we're going to anchor this down.  Again with the twine.  Sure wish we had some rope.  But, you do what you can right?  Cameron runs to the house and leaves me to hold down the fort...literally.  I am leaning with all my might against the doors to the shed and holding it down and it's still not enough.  The wind is kicking me all over the place.  So I fortify and just push with everything I have.  At least the doors are still up.  Cameron comes back with the twine and a crowbar.  He pounds the crowbar into the ground in front of the shed and we start to tie the doors down and attach them to the crowbar in the ground.  Luckily, we had cleared out our garden area and had a ton of flagstone laying in a pile right there.  We got some of that and put it on the frame of the shed to hold it down.  We had everything all tied down and were looking at it to make sure it would hold when a big gust of wind came and broke the twine.  Down went the doors and up went the shed.  Back to square one.  We did the same thing again, but with plastic over the doors so the sharp edges wouldn't fray the twine.  It was so cold.  my mouth was numb and I couldn't form words because my mouth wouldn't work the way I wanted it to.  I had to speak very slowly and enunciate every word so Cameron could understand.  We kept looking at our one tree that was whipping and bending in the wind, hoping it wouldn't fall on us when we were right there by the shed.  We got the shed secured and back inside.  Reagan was up by this time, so we all stayed in the living room trying to keep warm.  I looked out the window and SNAP, the twine for the awning broke.  Back outside.  We decide we need rope and Cameron decides to  go to his parents to see if they have any.  We don't have a phone that's working.  Power's out and no cell.  So we secure it as best we can and Cameron goes off in search of rope.  I start feeding the kids cold cereal.  Cameron is back.  I put Erin in charge of Reagan and we are back outside, roping down the awning.  As we are finishing, Cameron's parents come to see if they can help.  They brought some bungee cords.  As we are talking to them, the shed falls apart AGAIN.  WHATEVER!!!  So we rig up a system with the bungee cords and tie the shed down. 

Here's our bungee cord system.  All the stuff on the right and left is either debris from the storm or cinder blocks we pulled out of our garden.

This is after the wind died down.  This is what it did to our doors.  All misshapen and bent out of place.

This is showing how windy it is.  It pulled the shed off the foundation.

The sides and the back of the shed buckled out with the wind.

 We went back inside, fairly secure all things would stay strong.  We had said a couple of family prayers by this time, and I thought Heavenly Father knew I would shrivel up and freeze like a Popsicle if I had to go back out soon.  So we watched out the window at the destruction going on around us. Our trees were blowing so hard.  We have a big, thick Sycamore in front of our kitchen window and the trunk was just swaying back and forth.  Really scary.  As we were looking out the window, one of the branches of our tree broke off.  

Here's where it broke off.

Here's the branch.

 It was quite an awesome sight.  Cameron and I both got worried a tree would come through our roof, so we took the kids downstairs and started playing games.  We got done securing things outside at about 11:30 and the wind lasted until the afternoon.  Our house got pretty cold, because we had no heat, so all of us were in coats and hats.  We told the kids it was like camping.  After the wind died mostly, we decided to drive around and see how others were fairing.

We noticed some siding had come off our house.

We had leaves and sticks outside our door.  When we picked up, the city said to put your debris curbside and they would pick it up.  We had about 6 wheelbarrows full of sticks and 10 big garbage bags full of sticks and debris.  Plus the big branch.  Crazy.

This was in my in-law's neighborhood, across the street from my good friend.  This was only one of many, many pine trees that were down.

This was an electric pole that had snapped off and was blowing around in the wind.

This is another big pine that was down in our old neighborhood. 

Our heat and power stayed off until about 12:00 am.  We were lucky and got our gas fireplace started.  It couldn't blow, because that part used electricity, but we camped out in the living room and it stayed nice.  Cameron's parents came that night to get warm and visit.  We made the kids' beds in the living room and they slept there and Cameron and I slept in our room under six quilts.  We learned our area of the state got the worst of the storm, with wind gusts up to 103 miles per hour.  Hurricane force.  The average gust was about 75 miles per hour.  We were very blessed though.  Not much damage and we got our power back the next day.  Some in our ward didn't get power until Sunday.  There was supposed to be another wind storm on Sunday night, so church was cancelled and the wards went around cleaning up the debris from the previous storm so it wouldn't become a danger in the next storm.  Cameron and Liam went and helped out.  We battened down our hatches again, and waited for the wind that never came.  Cameron said "You know, I think we had so many people praying for safety, it turned back the storm."  I agree.  I have never seen that much wind before.  It was really scary, but I am glad we were so very blessed.

Silly Erin

The other day I was putting my shoes on to go outside and clean the leaves out of the gutter.  Erin asked me where I was going, and when I told her she asked why.  Not really paying attention, I just said I don't know.  Erin said "Because the Lord said so?"  I laughed and said "Sure.  No, Dad wants me to clean the leaves out."  So she thinks a minute and says "Dad thinks he's the Lord?" 

Finally Halloween

Finally, my post about Halloween, now that it's November.  In the days leading up to Halloween, we had Owen throwing up for two days and Reagan coughing all over the place.  They stopped for a little while, then Owen got a fever and Reagan started coughing and being sick again.  Owen's fever was up to 106 degrees at night and would hover around 103 or 104 during the day.  He had his fever for three days, so I decided to take them both in.  Reagan had two ear infections and Owen had strep.  Fun times.  They both got to start taking antibiotics and were well just in time for Halloween festivities.

We made a Halloween CD and the kids danced around the living room and played with their spooky sticky hands and stretchy skeletons they had gotten at school.  Reagan found this pumpkin bucket and adopted it as her hat.  She still wears it.  She loves this thing.

 The kids all wanted to be skeletons this year.  Erin wanted to be a girl skeleton, so we put her and Reagan in skirts with fun Halloween tights.  I was going to have bows in their hair, but  it just didn't work out, but I think they look cute just as they are.

 Liam was the one who came up with the skeleton idea.  Everyone else just thought it was a great idea.

 I can not take a picture of this one without his mouth open or a silly face.

 Miss Erin doesn't like to smile at all in pictures, so this is pretty rare.

 This is on our front porch with the pumpkins they carved.  Each of them wanted to have the scariest pumpkin.  Owen's is on the bench, Erin's is on the left and Liam's is on the right.

 Reagan didn't like this pose.  See what I mean with Owen and his faces?  Crazy boy.

 Here's the fam in front of our house.  I think they're a cute bunch of skeletons.

Liam had Crazy hair day at school and decided to dye it red.  We did it with Kool-Aid and spiked it up.  We dyed Erin's too, but didn't get a picture.  The kids had fun trick or treating.  We went to main street and got treats, then went to my aunt's house and grandma's house and then they were off in the neighborhood.  Cameron took them and they came back with scones, root beer, chili, and all sorts of yummy treats.  What a fun neighborhood we live in.  Happy Halloween!!

Me and Mine

We have been trying and trying to get Owen to say I, and my, but it isn't happening.  He says Me and mine instead.  Like, "Me want play Mario".  So I say , No bud, it's I want to play Mario.  Owen says I, me want play Mario.  I haven't been able to break through that train of thought yet. 

So the other day we were driving to the store or something and Owen was in the back just belting out his ABC song and he got to the end and sang really loud "Now me know mine ABC's, next time you will sing with me!!"  It sort of reminded me of cookie monster.  Someday he'll figure it out, we can't have a teenager saying "Mom, me want to go to mine friend's house...pwease?"...or  can we???

What We've Been Up To

 We go to go to Vernal to visit Grandma, Grandpa, aunts, uncles and cousins for a few days.  It was loads of fun and now the kids would like to live there.  When we were there, it coincided with the death of a fallen soldier that was from Vernal.  His body was being flown in to be buried and they were going to have a processional around the town before taking him to the funeral home.  I thought it would be a good opportunity to teach the kids about soldiers and the price some pay for our freedom, so we hopped into the back of my nephew's truck and off we went.

 

 The route the casket took was lined with flags.  It was quite patriotic.  There were policemen, firemen, the soldier's family and a whole lot of motorcycle people that accompanied the hearse. 

 Liam got a science experiment kit for his birthday and we took it to Vernal and did a couple of experiments.  This is glow in the dark alien blood.  They all thought it was cool.

We also had Miss Reagan's first birthday.  She's such a fun girl.  She still isn't even interested in walking.  She is a great crawler and can get places okay that way, which is fine by me.

I made her a purple elephant cake.  Happy 1st Reagan Roo!

She loves dirt.  If there is a choice between grass and dirt, she'll play in the dirt every time.  Cameron and I were getting some bushes pulled out and she found this most delicious rock to eat.

She is also a really good helper.  Every time I do the dishes, she is right there, ready to sit on the dishwasher and help in any way she can.  Pulling silverware out, moving dishes around, whatever it takes.

The first day of school came and went.  Liam is in 2nd grade, Erin is in Kindergarten and Owen just wanted to be in the picture.  He also really really wanted to go to school.  Two more years buddy!

While we were in Vernal, Grandma pulled Liam's front tooth out.  His other front one is pretty wiggly.  I think this is the sixth tooth he's lost.

Erin wanted a ladybug cake for her birthday, and boy did she get it.  She really was glad to turn five because, as she kept telling me, "all my friends are five mom and I don't want to be four anymore."  Alas,  I think this is how it will be her entire life, being that she is the youngest in her class.  Happy 5th Erianna!!

Owen has been doing his very best to be the best mess maker he can be.  This here is lip gloss that he emptied out all over his arm and the carpet in the girls' room.  I'm actually pretty proud of myself that I took a picture instead of yelling.  I really wanted to yell though.

I've been canning.  I got a ton of apples from my parent's tree and my friends and I went to town canning.  We got 87 quarts of applesauce and 35 quarts of apple pie filling. We still had half a box of apples left.  I am so done with apples.  I have two 5 gallon buckets of pears upstairs calling my name waiting to be canned though.  Sigh.

We've been working in our "garden".  Well, it will be our garden next year.  Right now it's just our weed patch full of cinder blocks, flagstone and  pavers.  The people who owned this house before us loved cinder block so much, they lined their rose garden with it, sometimes burying them two deep.  Great fun for us.  I'll put an after picture on here when we're done.  I spin trimmed the weeds, raked them up and am in the process of getting the rest of the rocks out.  We'll till it up and I'll post an after picture.

And, in closing, I tried to be a good mom and give my family cinnamon rolls for breakfast one time.  I put them in and was doing the dishes when BOOM, something exploded in the oven.  Oh wait, that was my Pyrex pan exploding in the oven.  Glass all over my oven and all in the cinnamon rolls.  It was a nice thought though right?

Cabin Fever

This summer we were fortunate enough to get to go to a cabin by Pineview Reservoir and hang out with Cameron's family for a weekend.  The kids had a really fun time and keep asking when we get to go again.  The cabin belonged to my brother-in-law's friend, but he has since sold it, so we will have to go up sans cabin next year I suppose.

A few days before we went, though, the three older kids were riding their scooters and bikes around on our driveway.  Owen and Liam decided it would be fun to ride down the neighbor's driveway and this was the result.

Our neighbor's driveway is a lot steeper than ours is and Owen biffed it at the end of the driveway and fell on his face in the road.  Poor kid.

Anyway, back to the cabin.  We got to hang out, eat, play games, have fun with cousins, roast marshmallows, watch movies, chat, and go to the beach.  It made for fun times and good memories.

Grandma brought some lawn games and the kids all liked badminton. 

 Owen liked jumping off of this fireplace onto the grass.

Erin liked badminton too and...

...riding her scooter all over.

Reagan was content to just crawl all over the place...

...and give loves to Rafe, whom she loved.  He was a very good sport about it.

Uncle Greg gave rides on the 4 wheeler.  Erin went too, but I somehow missed that picture.

Reagan, managing to still smile through the constrictive-ness of the life jacket.

Again, somehow I missed taking Liam's picture in his life jacket.

Cameron was really good to swim with the kids and go on the tube with them.  It was an overcast day and I was freezing cold and just couldn't bring myself to get in the freezy water.  I watched the baby, shuttled people and made lunches.  Good enough for me!