The In's & Out's of the New Year

We have been busy - even though I don't have any pictures to show for it!

I have been chasing kids lately and occasionally sitting with my grandpa at the hospital.  He was put in the hospital a few weeks ago with a blood infection and lungs full of fluid. He was in ICU up until a few days ago.  I had the opportunity to go and sit with him some days so that he wasn't alone.  It was HARD! It was REALLY HARD to see him with tubes down his throat, and up his nose and all over in both arms.  It was hard to see his swollen hands and feet and his poor lips broke out in cold sores.  It was hard to watch him as he would try to move his tied down arms (they had to tie them down so he wouldn't pull the tube out of his throat) It was SO HARD when he motioned for me to untie him or for me to take the tube out.  It was hard when he would try to mouth words to me around the tube and I would not have a clue what he was saying.  It was all VERY HARD! I am grateful to say though that we are past that point.  Thankfully! We took the kids into see him last night for FHE and it was SO GOOD to see my sweet grandpa looking mostly back to normal.  His lips have healed.  The tubes are mostly gone and he was able to talk to me.  I didn't understand it all, but I could hear his voice and I LOVED it!

Oakley had club volleyball tryouts this past Saturday.  She has been working so hard at volleyball these past 2 weeks to get ready for the tryouts.  She had a great day at tryouts.  I sat and watched.  She got most of her serves over...she bumped (for the most part) really well and she even got a few good spikes.  I was very proud of her.  She came out of tryouts in tears though.  She watched them place her best friend on the #1 team and sent her back to the other side of the court in limbo with several other girls.  She was heartbroke.  We still don't know which team she has been placed on.  We should find out in a few days.  She is happy for her friend.....just bummed that they didn't see in her the same things they saw in Lauren.  That's okay though.  Oakley is a good little ball player and I am not worried about her at all.  We worked to build up her confidence again over the weekend and I think being knocked down a little bit is only going to make her work harder to prove to them that she wants it!  She has also been crazy with clogging.  One of the clogging teammates is traveling to Europe in a couple weeks for an entire month so they are cramming a new dance in before she leaves.  They have to have it learned...with formations...and everything.  They AMAZE me!! The steps they are doing are INCREDIBLE! They learned the 1st part of the dance last week and the 2nd part yesterday.  An entire dance in two weeks is crazy! But they do it and they do it well!!  She is a hard little worker for sure!!

Dallin started basketball again just after the new year.  He loves it.  He team is still undefeated and he is very proud of that.  We are still working to get him to be a little bit more aggressive.  He is just too kind.  He gets that from his momma!:)  He has also started math camp........and dropped out of math camp!  He tested high enough in his science and math portions of his state tests that they offered Science Camp (back before Christmas) and Math camp to Dallin.  He did the science camp and actually enjoyed learning how to blow things up in the microwave or make things explode with vinegar.  He didn't want to do the math camp, but I put him in it anyway hoping that they would teach them how to do some cool math tricks.  They didn't! Not so far anyway.  And he is MISERABLE!! He hates it so much! We decided that it is a waste of his time if he isn't going to get out of it what we were hoping he would, plus he is GREAT help to Ryan with the cows and would rather be home doing that after school anyway.  So we let him drop out. Dallin also tried snowboarding for the first time last week.  The bus was late getting them there and we had to leave early....so we didn't even get to see him try it! What a bummer! He really liked it though.  The school takes them up 3 more times and he is excited to try skiing next time instead of just snowboarding. 

Rhett is back in full force at gymnastics.  He got a gym mat for Christmas and has used and abused it already!  He is STOKED about his 1st pinewood derby that is coming up next week.  I wish his dad were as excited.  We have 2 cars to make and both have to keep an egg safely attached as they fly down the track.  Not a last minute thing to be worked on!  Ryan is kind of a last minute guy though. :)  Rhett also has this little fire inside him and has been wanting to share the gospel with about everyone he knows.  He asks constantly if he can take Mormon.org cards to school to give to people.  I am SO happy he wants to share the gospel.....I am just a little worried that the school won't be so happy about him doing it on their turf. 

Laiklie just had her 1st late over.  Friday night we had SEVERAL little girls her age (and several little boys Rhett's age) over for pizza, games and a movie.  She was in heaven surrounded by her best little buds.  She brings us so much happiness.  I LOVE watching her tease her dad!  She is a light in everyones lives!

The weather has been SOOOO COLD here lately.  We had our 1st snow day yesterday since I think Oakley was in kindergarten. Crazy!! It wasn't even cancelled because of snow.  It was cancelled because it was -25 outside.  That is COLD!! The pipes froze at the rental house so Ryan and I spent yesterday taking care of that.  He is at the rental house again today helping get a new heater put in.  It is too cold of a winter to heat such a big house with only a wood stove.  It will cost "just one big check" :) and we will hopefully be able to afford it on top of everything else we have already put into that house!!

We are 2 weeks into a new year and have started off nicely!  We are blessed in every way!

Final Event of the Year

We tried over and over during the Christmas break to find a time to take the kids to Salt Lake to see the lights at temple square.  We finally decided Monday that it was our last chance.  Monday morning we woke-up to new snow and debated about going and finally about 5:30 that evening headed out.

 We got to temple square just after 9pm.  Just in time for them to lock both visitors centers.  We were bummed!  They did however have the tabernacle open.  We didn't know what was going on inside, but the missionaries were welcoming people in and it was so cold outside so we decided to go in.  Besides that, we wanted the kids to see what the Tabernacle looked like.  It is the building they had conferences in when the church was first brought to Utah and a great piece of church history.  When we got inside I recognized the music INSTANTLY......

 It was a group called Octapella.  They are SERIOUSLY my FAVORITE!! I bought their Christmas CD last year because it was cheap at Seagull book and I was looking for songs for a Christmas lesson. It immediately became my favorite and I have been listening to it this year since before Thanksgiving.  WHO KNEW A FREE OCTAPELLA CONCERT THE SAME NIGHT WE HAPPENED TO BE THERE!!! I was ECSTATIC!!! 

 The kids wanted to sit up in the balcony and the only bench that was open was the very top bench.  We LOVED it!! The view of the tabernacle was incredible from the very top row!

 We seriously felt like we could reach out and touch these gorgeous lights.  They were right above our heads.  What a great opportunity for our kids to get to see such a beautiful building built by those who crossed this land for the love of the Lord and His church!

We left temple square and headed to the hotel about 10pm and  let the kids swim until 11pm when the pool closed.  We then snacked and cuddled in together to watch the ball drop to celebrate the new year.  Even Laiklie stayed awake til 12!

That was about the end of the super fun trip we had planned.....

We woke-up the next morning to a flat tire on the suburban.  We were across the street from a tire center.....but they were closed because of the holiday....OF COURSE!!  So lucky my sister lives about 5 miles away and her, her husband and son Jake came to the rescue.  The kids and I jumped in with her and headed to play at her house while Ryan and Jake headed to get the tire fixed.  They told us it was a 2 hour wait.....by then it was 11am and we knew we needed to head home by 1ish...the same time the tire would be fixed.  So the kids played with cousins instead of the other things we had planned that day.  They were bummed we didn't get to go to the Visitors Center or Church History Museum.  I was bummed we didn't get to go either. :(  We tried to make it better by telling them we would stop at Smith and Edwards.  They were closed.  So they got treats at Maverik and that was how we spent the New Year holiday.  Thank goodness for close cousins or we would have spent it at Wal-Mart!  We had a great time seeing cousins and will have to make another trip to Utah to catch-up on the other things we had planned.

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!