Weekend visit from my brother

Every year my oldest Brother DeLane goes to a convention for his work at a nearby major city. So he books his flight for the weekend before so he can come spend a day or so with us. He arrived Saturday early afternoon. First thing my kids took him out back to see the chickens and collect eggs. We fed him some breakfast for lunch and then sat and watched Despicable Me. Then we went on a little hike in the canyon behind our neighborhood. My kids love to go back there to hike around. We had fun and took some pictures. Now that Jileigh has a camera, she never leaves on an adventure without it! Then we came home, made a fabulous beef stew with Matt's amazing whole-grain biscuits and then played some games. Sunday morning we made pumpkin muffins for breakfast. As I opened the cupboard door to get out some glasses, the cupboard door fell off. Again Jileigh had her camera in hand and took a picture. Funny Girl! Matt quickly put the cupboard door back on and we went to church. DeLane left after sacrament meeting to head back to get ready for the convention. We loved having him here for a visit. My kids love adult family member attention whether it be a grandparent or and aunt or uncle.

Update on me

I am feeling great! It has been 3 months since my surgery. I have been able to get back to my house cleaning routine and my exercise routine. I try to run/walk 3 days a week, bike 3 days a week, do my abs/thighs videos 2 days a week, and go to my friends house for her classes 1-2 nights a week. I eat a pretty strict diet of lots of veggies, proteins including eggs, low carb, low starch, and low sugars. I do drink my raw dairy including my kefir every morning and enjoy my healthy fats like butter and olive oil. My scale has the pounds and the fat percentage so I can watch both. Even though the pounds are going down slowly, I can see the fat % going down too. I still have 10 more pounds to go!

Angelique's history fair entry

For three weeks Angelique, her dad, and I worked on Angelique's hisory fair entry. About half way through her friend Emily and her mom joined in with us. Here's the link: http://68480846.nhd.weebly.com

As a result, she and her friend won 1st place in the website catagory. I wanted her to do well and cover all the requirements, but we weren't aiming for first place. Now we get to go to the district history fair. We don't know when it is yet, but we should find out soon.

Sewing project for Christmas 2010

During our Thanksgiving trip home to my mom's, we stayed at my sister's house. I saw the cutest hand towel hanging from her oven. So, I took pictures of it. I am not a seamstress at all, but I wanted to try to make one or several of these. I went home, downloaded the pictures and then made a pattern off the computer screen. I bought the fabric a Wal-Mart and got to work. I have to say that I am pretty pleased with how they turned out. I made two of the yellow ones for me to go in my kitchen, two for my mother-in-law and two for my sister-in-law Candy. Those two each got one of the blue ones and one of the green ones. The first picture is the hand towel at my sister's house that I used for my pattern.

The closet mirror . . . grrrrr

The kids seem to like to play in our room even though I have told them a million times not to. Well, Safia and Jaren were wresting by my closet doors and Jaren accidentally kicked my closet door. Even though that door has probably been hit hundreds of times, this was the one time that did it in. I heard the shattering and saw the broken mirror. The best thing I could think of was to just cover each crack with packing tape so no one would get cut on the glass. This way we can buy some time until we decide what to do with it.

Teeth cleaning at the dentist

Back in September I made an appt for all of my kids to go in and get their teeth cleaned in one trip. They got us in Dec 29th. Jileigh brought her camera along and happily took pictures. Yea for us, no one had any cavities!

Jan 2, 2011 Snow day!

We finally had ourselves a decent snow fall that the kids could play in. They made snow angels and made a large snowwoman. They played in that snow to their hearts content and until they were soaked and cold.

Christmas 2010

Well, I don't know how we do it, but we seem to pull off Christmas every year. We don't do any shopping until black Friday and then we don't stop until it's done. They each received the gift that they asked for. Matt also made some gifts out of a cedar log. He made a beautiful shelf for the kids to put their backpacks on and their jackets. He also made a chair for me to sit on at the dinner table. We have benches, but I like to have some back support so he made the chair. Then he made the cute toy for Elody. He also made each of the other kids a spin top or dreidel. That evening I cooked a prime rib roast and we ate on the fine china. It has become a tradition over the past few years as long as we can find the roast at a decent price. The pjs came from Matt's mom! The kids all love their new jammies.

Animal stories: 1 Farewell to Daisy and 2 The Stupid chicken

Daisy broke her teeth some how and wasn't eating very much. The kids would fine chop her food, but unfortunately she died. Daisy is the brown and white one. This was one of the final pictures of her while she was alive.


Chicken story: One morning I went out to feed the chickens and check for eggs. To my surprise I found a chicken crammed into a four inch space. It took all my strength to pry her out. She just flopped down on the ground when I finally got her out. So I brought her into the house and held her for a while by the fireplace to get her warmed up. Then I put her in a box with some food and water for a while. After about an hour she finally popped her head up and made some noise. I had to leave so I took her outside again. It took her a couple of days to recover, but she finally did. Since I had a chicken in the house and was holding it, Beau went and got one too. He was so cute that I had to take a picture of him. :)