a whole new level of arts and crafts...lol

Last night it got down to -35 degrees...brrrrrrr! We only had one dog house and of course the dominant dog (Katrina) was a butthead and wouldn't let Rita sleep in the dog house with her so poor Rita slept on the cold ground by herself. I felt terrible for her!!! So my dad and I started a project this afternoon and made a dog house with all the extra pieces of wood around the shop, garage and yard. It was great!!

It was actually a lot of fun.
The kids were impressed with our handy work. lol

I only wish I could have painted it...heehee. I told Theron I was painting it white and putting little red hearts all over it. He just chuckled. lol

We even put tar paper and shingles. :):) Very official.

Hopefully the shingles hold, we staple gunned them to the plywood...lol

fuzzy fuzzy, these are all cell phone shots...except for the last couple.

Rita was checking it out already. She was quite excited!!!!

We have much happier campers out in the weather. :) Theron said we should start an assembly line and sell them on ebay. haha! NOT! :))) He got the play by play of our progress to his cell phone and said he'd treat us to dinner for going to the effort. :) Woohoo! We'll take him up on it.

catch up time :)

OK, so the pictures all uploaded in the opposite order that i wanted them to so we'll start from recent to a day or so ago. :) Some of these pictures are just plain corny. :) Buy hey...:):)

I couldn't find my earpiece for my phone so I could talk and do my run at the same time tonight and rigged it all up with a shoelace...hahaha! That white sticker at the top of my phone attached to my ear is an address label. lol. oh and i dyed my hair dark tonight and lost track of time and left it on a tad too long...fun fun :)
Michael and Benjamin made a hammock for Jacob. :)
My sister in law Kristi sent me way way way cute website with ideas for doing little girls hair and it motivated me to test out a hair do on Madi's short locks. lol
front view of her hair do
Benjamin was super walle and then Paul wanted to be a super hero too with their little throw blankets they got for Christmas and Jacob is a sucker for a blanket and was hugging them to cuddle.
super walle again...lol
the boys had Jonathon played Rockband for nearly 2 hours on Saturday...they had lots of fun
more rockband moments
oh yeah, i was driving home from Cody on Thursday night and a huge owl flew across the road and didn't quite clear my left light
I was really worried that I'd find the owl still lodged in there. I can't tell you how thankful I am that it wasn't!!!! heehee

I think I can....I think I can....

This picture is completely how I feel! Although I'd have added a little daydreaming cloud of my bed and pillow...definitely wish I could get more sleep. :) Anyway, I sort of fail in the blogging department lately. Let's see, what have we been up to... Theron was home for this past weekend. It was GREAT! We got the chance to go to the temple together on Saturday. It's been a while since we've made it work to go at the same time. Then we got a ton done around the house. The workshop area has always sort of been left as is since we moved in and we unpacked and sorted about 70% of it. There's still a lot to be done. I dusted off my treadmill and have been running a mile every night since Monday. I'm starting small for the first two weeks says my personal trainer Tali! rofl..;) Anyway, that's been really great and the energy increase in just the past few days is really nice. Dad's been in Golden, Colorado visiting Uncle Denis and Aunt Ruth. He's wanted to get down there for a while now and with his work cutting back on employees, he took his lay off as a chance to get out and see those he's wanted to for a some time. He had his shoulder xrayed and even had an MRI but found that the tear to his rotator cuff is minor and can be repaired with physical therapy. That's a relief! He's headed home today though and we're excited to see him again. We've miss him! Anyway, we seem to be doing really well. I've found myself more thoughtful the last little while and really thinking of all the things I'm grateful for. As often as my kids drive me insane with their selective hearing, I love spending time with them. We had a great Monopoly game the other night thanks to Michael for suggesting it. Even in the car when driving somewhere with the little bickering here and there, I am really happiest when I get to spend time with my family. I have a feeling I'll be one of those mom's that has a really really hard time when the kids start leaving the nest. :) HA! HA! So to my kids, even though I have a short fuse at times or less patience than I should, I love you with all my heart and wouldn't trade you for the world!!!! I'm glad to be your MOM! :)

Flashback Friday!

I'm a little late getting this one done. My computer took a nosedive so I reinstalled the OS and suddenly everything is soooooo much smoother. Impressive. Thank heavens for flash drives to keep me from losing everything and having a really bad day. :)

So Theron's flashback story for today is about the time he was going to drive for the very first time. He was 10 years old. His older brother's, brother-in-law Jake, came over in his Rambler Station wagon. He was way cool and let Theron drive his car around the block giving him instructions the whole way. When it was his brother Lance's turn, he told his brother to hang on a minute while he ran in to use the bathroom. When he came out Lance threw the car into reverse and floored the gas pedal to get away, laughing all the way since Theron couldn't get in. Then suddenly Lance unknowingly rammed right into an oak tree and stopped instantly, blowing out every window in the station wagon. The look on their faces was priceless. LOL

My flashback is my school pics from Kindergarten to 12th grade. LOL

...to give me experience, eh?

I don't have a picture for this post. I wasn't thinking "camera" at midnight last night. I heard noises in the bathroom that were taking longer than a normal middle of the night bathroom break so I get up to investigate. Lo and behold, there's Madelynne looking worried at seeing me up with my mascara in one hand, a nail (no clue why) in her other hand. Her fingernails were painted green and looked halfway decent enough that I actually asked her who painted her nails. Then I started chuckling. Oh wait, I forgot to mention that the bathroom smelled STRONGLY of eucalyptus since she's smeared the Vick Vapor Rub all over Jacob's little gloves as well as the bottom of her feet then she pulled her socks on after handing me the mascara and nail. I usually do that when they have a cough at night, but she's not sick so who knows. I'm amazed that she wakes up and has enough juices flowing in the brain at midnight to be mischievous. I am all about falling back to sleep as soon as possible in the middle of the night. :) We love you Madelynne and look forward to your daily adventures. :)

Flashback Friday!

Okey dokey, Flashback Friday is pics from my mission this time around. Zany times, I tell ya. :)

we woke up to find that the elders had plastic wrapped our car and vaseline smeared our windows. :)

I had a bit of an identity crisis in the mtc...lol

little did the people I'd call know what the real me looked like. Make's you wonder what those chicks really look like that do the 900 numbers. hahaha...totally kidding there...not funny.

some missionaries had cars, some bikes....others roller blades. lol

not sure what to say about this one....lol

ummm.......

preparation day fun on a member's trampoline.

Who says a mission is all work and no play. :) Great experience!

kids! where do they get the crap they come up with? :)

Okay, so Paul (my 6 year old) was saying the blessing on the food the other night and it was going great then he all of a sudden prays that Barrack Obama won't take away guns. Hello? Where in the world did he come up with that? My guess is that he's been listening to his Grandpa! lol. I literally had tears after that one from laughing so hard. Good grief.

New Year's and Alice's birthday

I'm sitting here trying to upload pictures and Paul whispers down the stairs to me that Madelynne is playing with my make-up in the bathroom upstairs. So I go up there and there's Madelynne with her hair slicked back with who knows what....from the smell it was lavender lotion. My contacts and solution were on the counter...time to change them for sure. haha! And there was hair all over the bathroom floor with a guilty looking pair of scissors sitting in the middle of it all. Boy oh boy do I wish I had my camera...sigh. So now I can't remember what I was going to write about my trip to Salt Lake for New Year's and my birthday. hahahaha! Here's a couple pictures though. :) Oh, New Year's Eve was over at Rick and Nicole Mery's house. It was a lot of fun. We ended up staying awake till after 4am....ugh. Boy am I thankful for that 4 hour nap today. woohoo!

This was my little cupcake at 3:52pm when I was officially another year older. LOL
Theron and Jacob looking might excited to be wearing party hats. :)

Stevie, Andrew, Paul and Benjamin posing with the birthday girl....oh hey there's Lexi squished in the middle.

Lexi, me & Tali

Jacob with mom's toothbrush and dad's hat. Too cute!

This is my birthday cake that Tali made.

I was engrossed in my first attempt to play the Wii....photos later please. hahahaha!

Theron eating breakfast with all of Tali & Steve's kids and our kids....except for Stevie.

I made a TON of homemade salsa to take out to Rick and Nicole's for New Year's. It was super nummy.

Another salsa shot...Mmmmm!