Our Afternoon

This is how we spent our afternoon. You may not be able to tell from the picture, but this is ACTUALLY a bishopric blessing. WE'VE HAD SOOO MANY LATELY. The past few days Ryan has been worried about our stack of oats that they baled too wet combusting and starting on fire. Well, today was the day. Luckily he and Dallin were out there stacking some straw when they saw the smoke. He sent D to the house for me and he jumped in the loader and started hauling bales to the empty field. A couple of them burst into flames once he got them to the field, but he was able to unstack the stack and move any that might possibly burn before we had a major fire that could have wiped out our hay/straw stacks plus possibly a few buildings. We all smell like smoke, my house smells like smoke, there are several bales still burning in the field and will probably burn for a few days, my girls missed the cheerleading clinic.....BUT we are all safe and that is a blessing. We could have had a major fire tonight while we were all in bed. Thanks to a Heavenly Father that had us in mind and to Ryan for being in tune enough to listen.

Now.... you might be wondering what a few of the other bishopric blessings we have had lately are. This is actually fire #2 this week. Ryan's dad's field caught on fire during a lightning storm the other night....his brother thought he put it out....it started again the next day. IT COULD HAVE BEEN BAD! It was right next to a lot of houses. Thanks to a friend that lives 2 1/2 miles away from the fire that jumped in his tractor at the first sign of smoke (he had no idea whose field he was even headed to or if there was really a fire) those families still have their houses. Ryan told his friend Justin he had never looked quite so much like an angel as he did when he pulled in in that big green tractor!

Last week I took the kids to swim and we had been there swimming for about 30 minutes when Oakley stood-up in the water and said, "Ummmm.....mom.....I still have my pump on!!" Oakley's insulin pump is NOT waterproof, but thanks again to a bishopric blessing it works just fine!

Also, about a month ago we had some major plumbing issues, but similar to the fire today they were all caught before we had any major problems....like stuff backed up in my basement. YUCK!

WE ARE SO VERY BLESSED and know that the LORDS HAND is in our life EVERYDAY!

The First Day of School

AH!!! Can you believe it is already here again! Summer flew by and once again we are into the school routine. School started yesterday for my kids and they all had a great day! Dallin did bring home homework! That's right HOMEWORK ON THE 1ST DAY! I told him he needed to raise his hand and tell Miss C that his mom doesn't like homework on the 1st day! :) This 1st picture is what we "want" people to think we look like on the 1st day of school. Cute, calm, collected, happy to be going!

And this picture is a little bit more of what it "really" looks like around here on the 1st day of school. I think Rhett's AH!! says it best! I sure love my little group of CRAZIES!!

My Best Friend

THIS PICTURE IS MY NEW LOVE! I took it the other day as I was waiting for him to check to see if the grain was ready. I started looking at Ryan differently this week. I have ALWAYS loved Ryan...since the very beginning of us even dating, but this week that love has changed. On Monday one of my uncles passed away. Now, when you think of uncles passing away most of you think of the old creepy guy at the family reunion or the uncle that lives across the country that you've only met once. Well, my uncle - Mike is his name - was neither of those kinds of uncles. He lives not too far up the road and has made a great difference in my life. I remember when he married my Aunt Vonda when I was just little. I remember talking to my siblings about how now we have an "Uncle Mike!" Mike was a great man. He was always smiling, so postive and always fun to be around. I loved the way he took care of my Aunt Vonda and their 6 young children. Mike passing away happened so quickly and surprised us all. Hence....my new found love for Ryan. I look at Ryan differently. I smell Ryan....I feel his skin....I miss him like crazy even when he is just working. I can't imagine life without him. We are one of the lucky families that KNOWS that we will once again be a part of Mike's life and I am SO VERY GRATEFUL for that knowledge. I know that my sweet Aunt and her young little family have a very long road ahead, which I hope to be a part of. I am thankful to a loving Heavenly Father that gave us the plan and a Savior that overcame death. Ryan tells me all the time, "Death is harder on the living!" and he is right. We are going to miss my Uncle Mike and look forward to a time when we will be reunited. Until then I am no longer taking a single second of life with Ryan for granted. I love you Ryan!

Ode to Jake

In May my great big....much larger than I....nephew Jake came to live with us. He came with an excitement not yet seen before about changing water and building grain bins. He came so we could SERIOUSLY work his guts out!! In May I had no idea what I was signing up for. We had had Jake come stay with us for short periods of time during previous summers, but never for this amount of time. We had mostly good days, a few rough ones, alot of laughs and some great late night talks.

Here is my list of things that I learned about Jake:

He can play the piano by ear....and not just play it, like seriously PLAY IT!

He is cool with eating food when his hands are covered in mud.

He LOVES the ladies....and he thinks that they LOVE him! :)

He has perfected changing the water in his church clothes.....HE THINKS....my secret is I always washed them afterwards!

He started the summer with not being able to wake up to ANYTHING - barely water in the face did the trick!....BUT, he learns quickly and by the end of the summer he was totally waking up BY HIMSELF to his own alarm! Yay Jake! SO PROUD OF YOU!!

He only has stinky feet 2 days out of an entire summer and those are the 2 days he wears the same stinky socks!

He can keep 4 children entertained by things like "His Gun Show" while I take a nice Sunday afternoon nap.

He can kill a bird with a sling shot and a salt water taffy. DON'T ASK?!

He can fit 17 candles into a piece of pudding pie.

He loves to dunk stuff in milk.

He likes to "crump it" as he is leaving to change water. HILARIOUS!

So....I think Jake and I both came out of this summer having learned alot of different things. My house is quiet without him and my upstairs no longer smells like teenage boy, AND we are kinda missing it! Jake....I love you! Thanks for being a part of our lives!

This is a picture Jake took just a couple nights before he went home on my camera. I liked this one because you can see my corrals if you look closely. I posted this one so that when Jake gets homesick for Idaho he can just log on here. The night after this he and I hiked out back to look at the solid red full moon together. I am gonna miss you big guy!

Swim Lessons 2011

So....swim lessons got over a week ago today, but life happens and we have been super duper crazy and after attempting to blog this several times and getting kicked off the internet, TODAY IS THE DAY that you finally get an update!
I signed all 4 kids up for swim lessons again this year and just like every other year they did amazing and had a BLAST.

This is Oakley shooting out of the slide. She lives for the last day when she gets to ride it OVER AND OVER again!This is Oakley's knee dive. She has been trying to learn to dive for the past couple years and it is kind of a tricky thing to learn. She is actually pretty good from her knees. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but her skin is super dark this year. She tans BEAUTIFULLY. We have been teasing her that her dad is going to think she is a Mexican and start making her change the water if she doesn't stop getting so dark. Here's "D!" He also LOVES the slide. Dallin and Oakley are both really good swimmers and I only keep them in lessons to perfect their swimming skills! :) He is seriously like a fish and spends more time under the water than over. He was a little funny when I told him he was a "pretty swimmer." He didn't quite know what to think of that. HE IS THOUGH!! He seriously glides his little body right through the water making it look effortless.This is as brave as my kids got off the diving board. I convinced Dallin to atleast do a twist off it. I couldn't talk any of them into doing a front flip.And, here is Rhett. OH MY WORD.....this year was AMAZING for him. This was his 4th year of swim lessons and he had successfully taken 3 years of swim lessons and never once got his whole head wet. This time though - on the first day it was normal Rhett. On the 2nd day he cried on the way there because he was worried about getting dunked by his teacher...and I TRUTHFULLY brought home a different child than I took. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED, but he was a whole new kid. All of the sudden he was no longer scared of water and when I got in the pool that day to swim with them he kept saying things to me like, "Hey mom, do you want to see who can sit on the bottom of the pool longest?" WHAT IN THE WORLD!! It was amazing and he definitely grew the most this year at swim lessons!!!Here he is jumping off the diving board. He has walked to the end of the board several years now, but never actually jumped. THIS YEAR HE DID! See what I mean....whole new kid!And, here is my baby. I know she is almost 5 and NOT a baby anymore, but sometimes that is hard to admit. She had private lessons this year because the other child signed up with her never showed up. Her teacher was amazing and Laiklie ate up all the attention. She has a pretty mean glide she learned and is very proud to show!Here is her jump. I don't know if you can see her face, but it is super funny. You can see the fear!

The other thing that kept us busy last week was the FAIR. Oakley had her modeling....which she looked amazing, her rolls she baked and then this cake she decorated. We had a few frosting issues, but all-in-all it turned out cute. She was excited to come home from the fair with 3 blue 1st place ribbons and 1 red 2nd place ribbon. She also came home the proud owner of $11 as her ribbon winnings. It was ALOT of work and the day we turned everything in she told me that "no way was she doing 4H again next year." But, I think she actually LOVED it and will probably/hopefully forget by next year! :)

Dinner Conversation

The conversation at dinner tonight went something like this:

LAIKLIE: "Mom, are we having buttsghetti tonight?"

MOM: "What? Did you say are we having buttsghetti tonight?"
LAIKLIE: "Nooooo.....I said basghetti!"

RHETT: "Laiklie, it isn't BA-SGHETTI, it is PA-SGHETTI right mom?"

MOM: "Right!"

ha, ha, ha!!! It is conversations like this that make me hate to see them grow-up!!:)

PRETTY MUCH OVER THE HILL

So....today is my birthday. And, like the title says I am feeling pretty much over the hill!! :) I can barely stay-up til midnight anymore. In fact, I stayed up and waited for my nephew Jake (he is living with us this summer helping Ryan farm) the other night while he was on a date and thought to myself that we are still years from our children dating and I already can't stay-up and wait very well! :) I also have put on a few lbs since turning 30 and now 32 is kinda scaring me when it comes to that. I was just recently called as the YW president in our ward and have found that I am not as patient and kind as I once was. I am also not "super fun" anymore. Kinda makes me feel bad for the girls!

I did HOWEVER have a great bday today despite the number of years old I am. It started with a little service project for the neighbor lady. No feeling quiet compares to the feelings of a service project! We then ventured onto swimming lessons and stayed to swim afterwards. The kids and I hit a movie this afternoon.....we watched Rango....NOT highly recommended. A few inappropriate things - I thought anyway....remember though, I am 32 now and so maybe I view things a little differently than the world! Then Ryan took me to dinner.

On the list of bday presents....Ryan got me an iphone and then tonight after dinner we went and bought a cute pink/white cover for it. The inside scoop on the phone is - Ryan actually had 2 iphones because of switching from AT&T to Verison....so he didn't have to buy me one (I love saving money)....he just had to program it to my number. I tried calling him like 20 times on the way home from swim lessons to tell him my phone wasn't working - piece of crap! :) It was because he had switched my number over to the new phone that he hadn't given me yet. Funny!! He also bought me a dozen roses and a new frying pan. Some would think a frying pan would suck as a bday gift, but I REALLY needed a new one and was actually super excited about it. I have some amazing friends and got flowers, jewelry, cookies from some of my YW and lots of phone calls, facebook messages and texts.

So, now I am off to have some strawberry chocolate cake (Ry got that too....isn't he cute!) and a happy bday song from my kids. That is ALWAYS my favorite bday present!:)