Matt's Success at Hollister

Matt has spent the last 3 months at work working on a job at the Mall in a store that is being built called Hollister. He has been the foreman over this job. Last week was the inspection by the city. Yesterday was The Punch list by the Hollister people. Matt passed both without any complaints or changes. That rarely ever happens in the construction world. Matt is really good at what he does for a living.

Angelique lost her other front tooth

Monday night Angelique lost her other front tooth. I need to get new batteries in my camera because I don't want to miss this picture.

Jileigh's project

For Jileigh's birthday, she wanted the materials to make Beauchene a baby quilt for his birthday coming up in a week. So this weekend we have been working on it. It is almost done being tied. Jileigh and Talon get along really well when they work on it together. The little kids keep being pests by running under and around it, driving Jileigh crazy.

The Beast strikes again!

The batteries in my camera are dead, so I missed taking a picture of this event. Safia got into my pantry and pulled out my bag of crunched up egg shells. (I save them to put into my compost pile for my garden.) She dumped the entire bag all over her bedroom floor and scattered them amongst the clothes on the floor. It was one of those times when I just pulled her out of the room and shut the door unable to face the mess. Later on that evening, Jileigh was willing to help me clean it up. Thank goodness for shop vacs.

Today's accomplishments

To start off with, Talon had a good morning. The girls got up early and were completely ready and out of the kitchen by the time Talon got up. I was able to have him alone in the kitchen to help him get his breakfast and he ate undisturbed. Then I kept him focused in his room to get dressed. We didn't have any fights or mental breakdowns. As a result, he had a good day at school. His teacher fills out his behavioral chart everyday and he got a 5 today. He is judged from 1-5, 5 being the best. While the kids were at school, I did preschool with the little kids, got my kitchen all cleaned up, cleaned up all the clutter on the floors, gathered laundry, and I got all my CDs and downloaded them onto my new computer that we have had now for several months. Then I made a yummy dinner for Hawaiian haystacks, read scriptures with the kids, and got most of the dishes done with Matt's help. Now all the kids are sleeping peacefully. I think I will go to bed too.

Saturday adventure with Dad

At noon, we drove to a site in Northern Arizona. We took the kids on a hike (appx. 2 1/2 miles each way.) Matt and I switched off holding Beauchene and sometimes Safia and sometimes the backpack. We hiked back into a sandy canyon to a spring that Matt and his brothers and cousins used to hike to when they were young boys. We hiked for a while and then Matt would show them things on the ground like broken pieces of pottery or flint chippings. We were pretty exhausted by the time we made it there. I rested for a while with the little kids and the older kids explored more of the canyon with Matt. He showed them some indian pictographs. Heading back, Safia actually walked most of the way. She had found a larvae and happily walked along holding it in her hand. When we were about 3/4ths way back to the car, she dropped it and got really upset. The 3 older kids thought we were right behind them but we had stopped to deal with Safia's little fit. There were several horse trails through the trees and the kids went off course a ways. They found their way back pretty easily by yelling for us and following our voices. We turned our experience into a lesson in life. They all were quite the troopers. I think I was more exhausted than anyone else afterwards. We drove back to Matt's mom's house to change and then went to his cousin's (Margaret) reception for a few minutes then returned to Matt's mom's house. She had dinner ready for us of sloppy joes and salad. We made it back home at 11:30 that night. We all slept very well.

Angelique lost a tooth

Saturday morning Angelique worked and worked on wiggling her top front tooth and it finally came out. She was really quite proud of herself, so we took a picture of it. She is 7 1/2.

BIG NEWS!!!

Matt is changing employment! Starting May 5th he will be working for the church as and maintenance engineer specializing in electrical services. (Leave a comment so I can email you if you want to know exactly where he will be working. It is pretty exciting.)

She's a BEAST!!!

First of all, a couple of days ago, I found Safia in my bathroom with several feet of unwound dental floss at her feet. Then, tonight during family home evening I noticed that Safia had disappeared. I sent Angelique to go find her. Safia had climbed up into the cupboard, gotten the honey bear, went into her room and was drizzling it on the night stand, a DVD case, on a stuffed animal, and on a shirt when Angelique found her. Just now while I was typing this, right behind my back, she got a bag of ponytail holders, bit a hole in it, and was shaking the ponytail holders onto my bedroom floor as fast as she could until I stopped her. This child is an out-of-control messmaker. Which leads me into my next paragraph.

This afternoon, I notice she had disappeared while I was cleaning the kitchen. She was in her bedroom with the water sprayer. She had soaked Beachene's head and clothes and was squirting down the mirror. I startled her by saying firmly, "Safia, what are you doing?" She proceeded to explain to me that there was a ghost in her room. Then she took a step back and said again that there was a ghost in her room. So I asked her where the ghost was now and she pointed to her bed and said, "Right there on my bed." So I asked her if the the ghost was a boy or a girl, and she said that it was a girl. So I told her that the ghost is a spirit and that she didn't need to be afraid. She could talk to her and say hi to her. Then, after I cleaned up the mirror, I left the bedroom and went back to the kitchen. Safia then came running down the hall to the kitchen yelling, "There is a ghost in my room!" I went back to her room with her. She told me that the ghost was on the vanity where the mirror is again. So I just told her that the ghost wouldn't hurt her and that it was just a nice spirit. So, that was the end of that.

Beauchene eats spaghetti

I love to take a picture of my babies the first time they eat spaghetti. Beauchene really devoured his and enjoyed making a big mess.

Friday night we had Jileigh's birthday party at a park in St. George. Forgot the camera. I made some vegetable pinwheels and stacked them on a plate into a spiral and put candles on it for her "cake." We had a potluck dinner with Matt's family. We took a couple of homemade pizzas. No one knew what to get for her so they all gave her money. She wants to buy the new Fablehaven 3 book when it comes out on the 21st.

Beauchene's lab results

Beauchene's doctor, or Dave, called last night and gave me the lab result of Beau's stool samples.

Salmonella anatum poisoning.

Holy Cow! Where did that come from? I have spent the last 24 hours speculating and google searching and I have no concrete clues as to where or how he got it. I did find out the salmonella does not transfer through mother's milk. He is fine now. His poop is quite normal now. I just hope he doesn't get it again.

April 8 Happy birthday Jileigh

Jileigh is 11 years old - Happy Birthday!!! I gave the capris first thing this morning for her birthday so that she could wear them to school!

A quiet afternoon

While I was nursing Beauchene to sleep, Jaren and Safia decided to hide in the toy closet under a blanket. I had such a nice quiet afternoon!


Beauchene is really taking off. He feels more sturdy on the carpet than on the tile. He is walking about half the time and crawling the other half.

General Conference

I love General Conference. This year, for the first time, I actually took notes. I loved M Russell Ballard's talk about Mothers. I want to frame that talk and have it for a FHE lesson every Monday!!! I also enjoys the talks Saturday morning on parenting and families. I feel like General Conference gives me a renewed sense of starting over to try to do all that we should to be better people, parents, and try to have a better family.

Matt's talent

My husband is such a MacGyver! Tonight when I was in the kitchen, I heard a funny sizzling sound by the refrigerator. Then I smelled a funny electrical burning smell. Safia kept saying, "Mommy that smells bad." I called for Matt to come in and check it out. He pulled out the frig and took off the bottom part of the back of the frig and fished around in there. Apparently, the capacitor burned out which didn't allow the compressor motor to run which over heated the thermal protection repeatedly which eventually caused the adaptor plug to burn up. (Those were Matt's words). So, he went out to the garage and got an old ceiling fan, pulled out it's twin capacitors, and wired them up in parallel (so that they added up to a sufficient number of microfareds) to the compressor motor in the frig to replace the bad capacitor. He plugged the frig back in and it worked! This will do for now until we can order a new capacitor and adaptor plug. He is so smart!

Beauchene loves his daddy!

Beauchene loves his daddy. As soon as Matt gets home from work, Beauchene only wants to be with him. On the weekends as long has he isn't hungry or tired he is with his daddy. Matt even takes him with him to his Sunday meetings as long as he is not teaching. If Matt has to work on something and can't hold him in his arms, he puts him in the baby backpack. Beauchene doesn't care, just as long as he is with his daddy. I finally captured this in a picture. This was Saturday morning. Matt was building a temporary panel for someone. When he was done, I went with him to do a wire pull and install the panel. We took Talon and Beauchene with us. Talon was finally able to concentrate on his homework. Afterwards, we went to Colorado City (polygamist town) to get some raw milk. They had flats of strawberries on sale there. We picked up 4 flats. As tired as we were, we spent the evening making strawberry freezer jam. Then we got the house cleaned up and ready for Marni and her girls to stay the night. They had spent the week in Mesa and were heading home to Boise Idaho. We spent Sunday morning together and made four 8 x 13 dishes of German oven pancakes, some with blueberries. After church and lunch Matt and I crashed for a couple of hours. I love Sunday afternoons!

Safia - beyond words to describe this child

Friday night Matt and I went on a date for my birthday. We went to eat at BAJIO's and did some shopping in St. George. Matt's mom babysat for us. It was really nice to just get away and spend some time alone with my honey. After we got home, I realized Safia had disappeared. I found her in the bathroom. She had emptied out the contents of my toothpaste on the lid of the baby toilet and was playing in it. That child is constantly getting into things. I just now found her pulling out a bunch of floss from its container.

A day with a twist

This morning I went to the store to get the stuff to make a salad for my birthday luncheon at my friend Pam's house. I got everything all ready and went to a wonderful luncheon. All my friends in my ward were there. THEN Beachene pooped bloody mucus in his diaper and he was being extremely fussy and grumpy, so unlike my little Beau. So I changed his diaper and then he went some more, a lot more. I panicked. I called Cousin Dr. Dave and he told me to bring him in immediately. So I left my wonderful luncheon, Yes I did get to eat a plateful before I left, and took Beauchene to the doctor. He filled two more diapers before he actually saw the doctor. Then Beauchene was totally happy and had stopped pooping. Fortunately, I brought the diapers with me so he could believe me. Dave gave me a scenario of several possibilities, but he told me to take him in for some lab work. So we went to the hospital lab and they pricked his finger to get the blood and then gave me 4 bottles to collect stool samples. FUN EH?! I got home about the same time that Matt did and he had gone to the store to get stuff to make hamburgers. How thoughtful of him. (In picture: Shelly Beutler holding baby Corbin, Andrea LeBaron, Amanda Borden holding baby Sky, Amy Yardley, Terry Allen, Me holding Beauchene, Pam Hamm -our hostess, Shari Smith, Inger Gerkin, Leann LePour)

Beauchene wants to walk!

Beauchene at 10 months and 3 weeks has decided that he wants to walk. He can hold on to our fingers or a rolling toy and walk. He can stand up in the middle of the floor on his own and take a couple of steps then does the Mogli crawl to his destination. He was even holding on the wall and walking. It is going to only be a matter of days before he is offically walking. (yay)

Happy Easter

Friday night we got the house all cleaned up and ready for Marni (my sister) to come with all of her 7 girls. They showed up a little after midnight. We spent Saturday morning with them and made a big breakfast of waffles with custard sauce, sausage, and scrambled eggs. The kids played their hearts out. After they left at 11am we got things cleaned up and drove out to Rockville (about 30 minutes away) and went on a little hike. We also built a little fire and roasted hot dogs. I was kicking myself for not taking my camera. We all came home tired and reeking of smoke. After we got the kids ready for bed, we left Jileigh in charge and we went to the grocery store to get stuff for their Easter baskets. We got them: apples, bananas, 100% juice boxes, string cheese, cheese cracker sandwiches, fruit snacks and pudding cups. They were quite content with the contents Sunday morning. We didn't even have to feed them breakfast.

After church and lunch, Matt and I crashed for a long nap and the kids built a fort outside in the backyard with sheets and blankets. They really do have a ball together

I need to write down what Safia did on Friday afternoon while I was cleaning the kitchen. I keep a cheap lipstick in my bathroom drawer. Well Safia got into it. She had it all over the lower half of her face and she put it all over her hands like lotion. Then she put hand prints down the hall on her way to come show herself to me. I stuck her in the tub and bathed her and again was kicking myself for not taking a picture of her. (We call her "turkey" because she is constantly pulling stuff like this.)