On A Side Note

I am going to print my 2012 blog book in a few days and I haven't posted about one of the big things that happened in our lives this year and so I need to hurry and get it posted so it is included in the book.

This year Ryan decided he NEEDED (he REALLY had to talk to convince me he NEEDED) a pivot.  So in the spring we started tearing things apart.  We filled in ditches.....made new ditches...dug trenches....pulled out trees....tore down and relocated sheds...laid pipe and electrical wire......and built new roads.  It was A VERY LONG process with ALOT of work included.

 I took a few before pictures on Ryan's phone and never got them transferred to the computer.  So these are end of the year pictures after the grain was cut and baled even.  We have a HUGE field now that produced a fabulous crop for the first year.  Ryan LOVED that he could just go out and push a button and the field watered itself. :) I LOVED that his back didn't hurt near as bad this summer because he only had 1/2 the water to change.

 He has LOVED having a pivot.  I REALLY try to avoid anything that has to do with pivot bills....or power bills...because it SERIOUSLY makes me sick to my stomach.  But Ryan is happy so I am happy!

This might just be my FAVORITE picture of all of 2012.  This is Dallin (left) and JD (right) helping unload the grain truck.  I LOVE their little bums hanging over the side.  What a blessing to raise my kids on a farm!

The Year of Sewing

It seems like each year I find something that I end up doing alot just before Christmas....crafting.....baking....sewing, etc.  This is a year of sewing FOR SURE!! I swear my sewing machine sat on my cupboard from the middle of November to the day before Christmas.  My little machine is 10+ years old and just a very basic machine.  I have sewn the guts out of it! It held up through all my sewing again! What a trooper!

 My best sewing helper, Laiklie.  She put the pins in the pin cushion over and over again as I sewed.  She also kept several secrets as she was home half a day before kindergarten and saw several of the things I was sewing.

 Rhett and Dallin have begged for years for quilts.  I am just not into sewing quilts.  I don't like dealing with batting and binding them afterwards.  Not my thing!! BUT...when I saw rag quilts made out of jeans I knew that was just what they needed.  So this one is Rhett's.  He got airplane fabric and red flannel back.  Dallin's was green football fabric with his jean squares.  My FAVORITE part of my boys quilts is that the day before Thanksgiving my little niece Kiana kicked me in the right hand right in the knuckle as she was doing a handstand and it ended up fracturing my knuckle.  I had already started the boys quilts and soon realized that I couldn't clip the edges to make it a rag quilt with a fractured knuckle.  My mom told my dad about it and just a few days later my sweet dad called and asked if he could come get the quilts to work on clipping them for me.  It made me cry he would be willing to do something I couldn't do for myself.  I LOVE that he and my mom (she cut until she had a blister on her thumb...what a lady!) worked for hours on the boys quilts.  What a special thing for my boys! 

 Laiklie needed a blanket too.  So I made her a zebra/pink lap quilt and one for her dolly that matches.  She loved them!  Ryan...my sweet guy....clipped Laiklie's and the dolls (he thought I was weird for sewing one for the doll but TOTALLY got it once he saw how excited she was about it).  Dumb knuckle!!  I didn't sew Oakley a quilt this year because I am wanting to make her one out of her old diabetes, clogging and volleyball t-shirts when I do make her one.  She is still wearing too many of them so I am waiting for her to out grow before I sew her quilt.  She got a great big zebra blanket for her bed instead and was totally happy! 

 I also sewed ruffles onto 20 pillowcases for my young women.  We've talked about the temple all year and so we put one of these pillowcases with the special Temple Ensign and a tag that said, "We hope you are...learning about it, dreaming about it, and praying for a temple marriage."  They turned out super cute and were a huge hit with the young women!

I sewed up 12 regular pillowcases for the relief society president too.  I am SO GRATEFUL she asked me to help!

One day I heard a few of my friends talking about these knee high ruffle socks and so I went home and googled them and found a tutorial on how to make them.  So I sewed up a MILLION pairs of ruffle socks an color you can imagine.  I sewed from baby size to teenage size.  They are so stinking cute on!

This isn't a very good picture, but you can kind of see how cute the ruffles are peeking out over boots.  Oakley and Laiklie both got new black boots for Christmas and now have a million cute ruffle socks to wear with them.  Yay!

I decided to sew stripe skirts for a friends little girls.  They are such cute skirts and once I bought leggings to go under and t-shirts to go with I had entire outfits!  Super cute!

I am so very blessed to have a patient mom that has taught me to sew.  It has been a work in progress over the years with plenty of phone calls to her along the way.  What a blessing to be able to use my limited sewing skills to bless my family and those around me.

Christmas 2012

The batteries in my camera were dead this year so I decided I would just use my phone for pictures.  They all turned out fuzzy and grainy.  BUMMER! I wish I would have known and I totally would have just changed the batteries in my camera.  I guess I learned my lesson!

 Tree and Stockings

 Here they come!!  This Christmas was the year of the Throw-Ups! Laiklie threw-up on Christmas Eve and Rhett went to bed that night with a bowl.  It was a "tender mercy of the Lord" that we had ZERO throw-ups on Christmas day.  Rhett did end up throwing up the next day....but Christmas day was SICKNESS FREE!!

 Checking out the stockings.  Dallin was stoked about the Ucon t-shirt!

 Rhett is my Diary of a Wimpy Kid kid.  He got a hat, shirt, book, puzzle and with a gift card from grandma Hawkins bought the new movie.  He is loving it all.

 Laiklie thought these jammies win the prize.  She LOVED having matching jammies with her doll.  I also made matching quilts for her and the doll that turned out super cute too. 

 Dallin tore into Christmas.  He opened, I swear, 3 presents to everyone else's 1 present and then just had to sit around and watch everyone else finish opening.  He was SO EXCITED to just get them all opened!

 Oakley was a hard one/easy one to shop for this year.  She was hard in the fact I wanted to get her something fun....but didn't know what you get a 12 year old that is "fun."  She was easy though that she wanted clothes and curling irons and make-up.  All the stuff that is easy to shop for and buy.  She was happy with everything she got.

For those of you that know me you know that my house VERY RARELY looks like this.  I HATE messes and can't sit in them.  You will be happy to know that my house looked like this for 2 days.....TWO DAYS!! We kind of just pushed things to the side and pulled them out to play when we wanted to.  It was great!  You can see (if you look hard) Laiklie crashed on the floor still not feeling 100% from throwing-up the day before.  It took her about 1/2 the day Christmas day to finally perk up.  I HATE the stomach flu!!

Other than throw-ups and some sad news on Ryan's side of the family - His sweet Aunt Wendy passed away at the beginning of last week and we have a funeral at the end of this week for her - we had a great Christmas and LOVE celebrating the Saviors birth together as a family.

Family Pictures

I have a sweet friend/family member (she married my cousin) that is fabulous behind a camera.  I asked her to do our family pictures this year.  We haven't had them for SEVERAL years now and I was dying to get them done.  Ryan wasn't as excited as I was about all of it though.  He grumped and drug his feet.  Once we got there and he saw it wasn't going to be so bad he happied up! Thank goodness!!

 Jessica took alot of pictures and I love them all....but I can't post them all so these are just a few of my favorites. 

 I found this giant frame in one of our barns and pulled it out and spray painted it just an hour before we did the pictures.  I am SO IN LOVE WITH IT!!

 The weather was SOOOOO COLD! We had already rescheduled 2 times though so we decided to just do it.  The wind blew like crazy and we all had red noses and hands in pockets, but most of them turned out just fine.

 I love the way my boys look like they are marching on in this one.  Such cute little men!

 And the love of my life - Ryan!

Thank you Jessica! A huge SHOUT OUT to you! I appreciate you freezing with us to get these done!

Who Likes Santa?

Only 2 of my 4 kids liked him this year well enough to sit on his lap!  The primary did an activity - a night under the stars - where santa came at the end.  So Oakley was at home enjoying not being a primary kid! :)  Dallin wanted nothing to do with Santa.  He was in line at one point, but decided the candy cane wasn't worth the wait or being forced to sit on his lap.

 Rhett on the other hand climbed right on! (It was a pajama party...I promise I wouldn't have sent him in pjs if it wasn't.:)

My little Laiklie was excited to see him too.  This is her telling him, "My mom says I have to ask for a surprise."  MEANEST MOM EVER!! :) I told my kids this year they didn't get to ask for anything because I am so sick of years where we are overloaded with junk that they don't even play with.  They see so many commercials of toys they HAVE to HAVE and then don't even play with.  So this year I told them they were getting surprises all around.  I am SUPER EXCITED about some of the surprises I know they will be opening Christmas morning.  They will have a great Christmas and the best part is they don't have any idea what they are getting.  Lots of fun!! Rhett is the only one who has pushed the boundry on this a little.  Every once in a while he will tell me just what he wants.  Some of which he is getting....others he isn't.  It will be a great Christmas and hopefully they learn that asking for surprises is sometimes more fun than knowing what you are getting!

Mornings With Rhett

My little Rhett is funny about his mornings.  EVERY morning after I wake him up he comes out and crashes somewhere all wrapped up in his fishy blanket.  I find this little ball of fishy blanket all of the house morning after morning.

 Here he is crashed on the couch.  He's in there....I promise!

 And here he used the step as a pillow. Ha, Ha! Super comfy I am sure!

He doesn't even do breakfast with out this blanket to prop up on anytime he needs a little rest!  He cracks me up!

My Cup Runneth O'er

This past Sunday I sat in church with my handsome husband on the stand and  surrounded by more four beautiful kids I couldn't help but feel that MY CUP RUNNETH O'ER!  I really feel like my life is SO FULL of so many good things that it doesn't leave room for any of the evil of the world to get in!

 My first good thing is Ryan.  Ryan had his birthday this past week.  It wasn't much of a birthday.  He worked all day and had stake bishopric meetings all night.  We finally got to spend some time together at about 10:30 that night.  We ran to dinner in town and that was that.  Ryan doesn't require alot.  He is so easy to be married to.  He loves me so much more than I even love myself I have discovered.  Not that I have self-esteem issues....I don't.....Ryan just loves me enough for both of us!  He is the best thing Heavenly Father ever gave me. (This picture is from the minute-to-win-it that we had for mutual a few weeks ago.  He was in the rubberband competition.  You can tell by the look on his face and the rubberband in his hand that he wasn't happy about me and my camera.  Yes....he shot me! :)  That's why I love him.  You never know what you are going to get! You can see my beautiful baby girls cheek in this picture too.  Love her also!)

 The next good thing in my life is being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I LOVE being a part of something that is bigger than me....bigger than just here and now.  I am so grateful to have a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel on the earth.  I am grateful to have answers to questions that other religions don't have.  What a blessing the gospel is in my life.

 Another good thing that fills my life is my family!  I was sent to incredible parents and have 2 sisters and 3 brothers that are some of my very best friends.  This past week my mom, my sister Arnica and I jumped in my car and zipped down to Utah to my oldest sister Jenny's house.  Jenny turned 40 on Thursday.....40!! We were not going to let an opportunity like that pass us by! We showed up knocking on her door Thursday about noon and swept her away!  We played all afternoon.  We shopped til we dropped, we ate and ate and we went and saw the Christmas lights at Temple Square.  It was JUST WHAT WE ALL NEEDED!!  Jenny kept saying, "I just can't believe you are all here!"  What a fun surprise!

These two are NERDS! But they are my NERDS and I sure love them!!  We got to sit in the hot tub at the hotel without watching any children or without any children splashing us and begging for our attention.  It was like a little piece of heaven!  I am grateful to have spent that time with them and my sweet mommy!

 And the last good thing...which is actual and will always actually be the first good thing in my life is my kids!!  What would life be without my kids??!!  Dallin has been playing basketball this Fall with his cousin JD and they love being together. 

 Here is my big guy D jumping the ball.  What a great kid Dallin is.  I was blessed with great kids all the way around!

And here are atleast 2 of the other kids.  Oakley with her normal 12 year old grumpy face on.  It is something we see quite often around here lately.  We will be glad when she out grows that stage. Ha, ha!! :) And Rhett peaking around the tree.  And then me.  Not my best picture.  I had to have Ryan's shirt on to put up the tree so it didn't tear my arms up and it makes it look like I have a rather big bum.  I don't! Just sayin'.  Laiklie is behind the camera taking the picture.  They all mean the world to me! 

Like I said, my cup runneth o'er!

I love this guy!

Ryan is seriously WORLDS BEST DAD!!  We sure love him!

Can't you tell?!:)

The kids going in for the attack!

 It kinda looks like they might have a chance!! 

Ummmm......NOPE! They NEVER had a chance! :)

LOVE IT!!

1/2 a Man

Ten years ago today I delivered fat little 9lb. 2oz. "man child" Dallin!!  Now, he is as skinny as ever, but he is still a "man child" (that is what my brother always called him!) in a way.  His feet are now, at 10 years old, as big as his moms.  He stands only a head shorter than I do and is still growing like a weed.

 Dallin is an incredible kid.  I love him to death!  He is such a great kid and my VERY BEST helper!  Anytime I need a job done he is seriously the one I ask because he just digs in and does it.  (He sometimes whines along the way.....not gonna lie. ;) But he works hard and that says alot about him!)

This year for his birthday he wanted a .22 gun.  Oakley got her's for Christmas when she was 10 yrs old, so he thought this was the age to get one.  Ryan bought a .22 years ago hoping to one day give it to his boy so it worked out great.  Ryan was happy.....Dallin was happy......so I am happy!

 Dallin also wanted a remote control car.  He just so happened to get two remote control cars.  He went birthday shopping with his grandma Hawkins last night and came home with one remote control car and I had already bought him one for this morning.  Usually grandma and I talk before, but this time we didn't even think about it.  Oh well!! Two cars is better than one!:)

And the last present Dallin got was an electric blanket.  He sleeps upstairs and it gets fairly chilly at nights already and it isn't even dead of winter yet.  He thought an electric blanket sounded nice and cozy and has been asking for one.  We teased him that he can come home from school today and take a nap to try it out!

What a blessing Dallin is to our family.  I had a miscarriage after I had Oakley and was DEVASTATED! It was a horrible time in my life and I really struggled with it.  It wasn't too many months after my miscarriage that I found out I was pregnant with this big guy.  I sure don't understand why we have to go through all the trials we do in this life, but as terrible as my miscarriage was I can't imagine having had that baby at that time and maybe missed out on having Dallin when I had him.  He was like a ray of sunshine in my dark world.  I appreciate a loving Heavenly Father who knew I needed Dallin when I needed him.  What a blessing he is to our lives...then, now and forever!

Happy Halloween 2012

I SERIOUSLY can not believe October is over!!! Where has it gone?

 We celebrated Halloween this year with the ward trunk-or-treat! Same as usual!!!  Oakley was Iron Man (more on that in a minute) Laiklie was the cutest little pink skeleton, Dallin a rodeo clown and Rhett a white lego.

Oakley and 5 of her friends all decided to be the avengers this year for halloween.  We seriously have never seen the movie and have no clue who the avengers were until this past week.  Oakley either chose or was given Iron Man.  They all made these tutu skirts to match whomever they were suppose to be.  This is her and her 3 best friends and a little cheerleader friend joined in the picture too.  They had a good time making the skirts and being together!  Oakley went to her 1st halloween party that night.  AHHH!!! Ryan and I are not ready for that kind of thing.  We were one of the party pooper parents that made her come home early.  It didn't get over til 10 on a school night.  No thank you!! She had 6 tests to take today so she had to come home just before 9:30.  She is growing up on us for sure!

Cousins

 We had the chance to have our little cousins Fallon and Aniston come spend one night and a couple days with us last weekend! SOOO FUN!! I loved getting to see their little personalities.  We don't get to see these sweet girls very often and had a BLAST playing together!!

Young Womens

I have been the young woman's president in our ward now for just over a year and we just had our big Young Women in Excellence program.  I am SO IN LOVE with the handout we gave the girls and the presentation that I had one of the speakers do that I wanted to share.

 The theme for the night was "I'm Going There Someday."  We had the girls make these temple cans (idea from my aunt's ward) a few weeks ago and inside we put a Preparing for the Temple pamphlet, a temple recommend holder, a white bracelet the girls made to hold their temple name, a white hankie with a poem and letters to them from their parents telling them how proud they are of them for choosing to go to the temple.  These cans are saved by the girls to be opened the night before they go to the temple.  I LOVE the way they turned out once I spray painted them and covered them with burlap. 

I heard of an idea from my sis-in-laws ward about a lady who told a story of a YW she knew who made wrong choices that kept her from the temple.  All simple little decisions that slowly pulled her down the wrong path.  As the lady told the story she started cutting up the wedding dress next to her.  So....I LOVED this idea.  I bought this wedding dress (pretty for $50 right?!!)  and we used it and another gorgeous dress from a lady in our ward as part of our decorations the night of our program.  I then asked the stake yw pres to do this same type idea.  As she started into the story and told the girls of this yw's first bad decision she grabbed a pair of scissors and cut the sleeve off of this dress standing there next to her.  You should have heard the gasps from my yw....and if you could have seen the looks on their faces.  It was a perfect object lesson.  She continued to cut and cut with each bad decision and by the end of the story the dress wasn't near as beautiful.  She of course covered repentance, but also told the girls the importance of making the right decision FIRST! It was SO GOOD and SO POWERFUL!!

Then to end the night I had one of my old YW that has a very touching story about losing her baby during delivery come and speak to the girls.  She isn't much older than them and she told them the importance of a temple marriage and a priesthood holder husband and then told them briefly the story of losing her baby.  Also VERY POWERFUL!! What an amazing night!! Sure love my yw and the opportunity I have to be their leader!