Amber lion and her friends

Amber definitely has a very active imagination. She is often a cat or a dog and tells me, "Kitty wants some meat" which means that she wants some lunch meat, but just by itself. She lately has been more of a lion. She will tell me she is a lion and that she won't bite me because she is a nice lion. She often will have a spider on her hand (all imaginary) and want me to pet it and reassures me that it is nice and won't hurt me.

Today I was working on some little projects and I was using some new paint pens that I got. They are like markers, but they have a paint brush tip and the paint automatically goes to the paint tip so you can paint. I was doing some stuff and Amber was wanting to color also. I gave her a paint pen to use, watching her carefully that she was going to only use it on her paper. A short time later, she started writing on her arms, then her hands, and last her face. I then decided to continue her drawing on her face and gave her some whiskers, and a nose. She then was very delighted and told me she was a lion. Her name of course would be her normal name for anything "come-play." She was so excited to show her sisters when they got home.



When the girls got home from school, they thought it was pretty cool, and then they wanted me to paint their faces too. I basically painted Lindsey and Laurens mostly the same as Amber's minus Amber's own drawing on her cheeks. Then Emily wanted her face done too, but she wanted something else. I started with Emily's and just drew her some glasses on her face. She looked so funny! (Wish I would have gotten a picture of that!) But this is what she ended up with.


Like I said, Lindsey and Lauren where some sort of cats and then Lauren washed off her face and asked if she could be a butterfly instead. I repainted her face as a butterfly, and then Lindsey came to me with a clean face again wanting a butterfly too.

Lindsey here isn't too happy, and Lauren already washed her face before I could get a picture of her butterfly.

The girls also colored my face, gave me a mustache, hair on my chin and glasses too. Robert's parents where here too, and they did Grandpa with a real curly mustache and a little goatee. He looked like the nutcracker! Then they did Grandma and they did all sorts of stuff on her, she had facial hair and glasses and rosy cheeks and all sorts of who knows what, but they kept painting her. Poor Rob gets home, looks around and sees the girls and smiles and then he sees his mom, and is looking really confused, and then he sees his dad and me too. It was priceless to see his face!!

I was just glad to see that they washed off. I wasn't sure how well they would work to wash off since they were really paint. We even gave Samantha a few little whiskers and a small blue nose. I thought these "paintastic" (I think is what they are called) pens where going to be fun but didn't think this was going to be the way they would be fun! My face is a little dry now, but it could have been the super windy weather I was out in today, looking for the sleds that blew away!

Christmas Tag

This is a Christmas edition of getting to know your friends. You copy and paste this to your blog and then change the answers so they apply to you and then tag 6 people.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper, unless it is hard to wrap then I go for a gift bag.
2. Real tree or artificial? I really love the real ones, but we do a fake one here in UT. Growing up in Washington state, we ALWAYS had a real one.
3. When do you put up the tree? Sometime after Thanksgiving, when I get around to it or when Rob gets the box out.
4. When do you take the tree down? Sometime after New Year normally, again when Rob instructs me it is time to get it down.
5. Do you like eggnog? I use to like it, but I don't like it much anymore.
6. Do you have a stocking? I actually have 2, but that doesn't mean they ever get filled by anyone but me. This year we have a fireplace to put our stockings by, so that will be fun!!
7. Hardest person to buy for? Robert for sure! He normally just gets whatever he wants or needs through the year, so Christmas time I am trying to come up with something and it seems like it is always really lame or stupid... "wow, a razor holder that has a suction cup to stick to the inside of the shower... thanks hun!?" Yeah stuff like that...
8. Easiest person to buy for? Emily seems to be the easiest to buy for.
9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes but I want a new one. The one I have is one I got for FREE when I bought Robert's wedding ring. It is like tiny, the figures are about 2 inches tall. Amber keeps eating baby Jesus in the manger, which is the size of a chocolate out of a box of chocolates.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Normally I mail them, but the last two years I can't remember even sending them out.
11. Most memorable Christmas gift you ever received? There is lots of them, it is hard to narrow it down. I love the homemade gifts the girls do at school... one year my parents gave me (and the rest of my siblings) a picture of my family when we were sealed in the temple with a sweet saying on it.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? I can't think of one really, I like the old classic cartoons like Frosty and Rudolph, but those aren't really movies. Oh, maybe Santa Clause movies.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? It varies by each year. Sometimes I start early in the year planning out and making gifts and other times (like this year) it is all done in like a week of crazy shopping.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I can only think of like white elephant/gag type gifts that I recycle. We went to a neighborhood party, which seemed like that was the only thing people brought was last years gifts. Last year we got an emergency toilet seat with a backpack attached with dehydrated water inside and other great stuff. It was wonderful!
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Any thing that has to do with candy or chocolate!
16. Lights on the tree? Our fake tree is pre-lit with white lights.
17. Favorite Christmas song? The one that comes to mind first is "Christmas in the Northwest" but I am sure I could think of something else if I sat here long enough.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Now that I have kids, I prefer to stay at home. Being here with the kids all day all alone is fabulous. Nothing beats a Christmas at home!
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Dasher, Donner, Comet, Cupid, Blitzen, Vixen, and then Rudolph... helps when you know the song! (although I had to sing it again to see who I was missing)
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? We currently have a star, and up until yesterday there was a candy cane stuck through the star 'til Amber saw it and wanted to eat the candy cane.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Growing up, I always remembered opening presents on Christmas Eve, but maybe my memory is wrong. With my family now, we always do it on Christmas morning.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? It really bothers me that this is suppose to be such a wonderful special time of year, and yet it seems like I see many RUDE and thoughtless people. It sure would be nice if everyone was caught up in the true spirit of Christmas and not worrying about getting all there shopping done or whatever it is that makes people rage. It would be much nicer with people that where really thinking of Jesus and how he would be treating those around him.
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? I have no color or theme, unless you call homemade a theme. My tree is full of homemade ornaments, both from my kids, and to my kids from family and friends, and then some from my side of the family. So the color is more like rainbow-ish.
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? I am not really picky, whatever smells good is sure to taste good. It always smells better if I don't have to cook also! (Now I am sounding like my mom! ha-ha-ha)
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? I just got a beautiful new house, and I am going home (to Washington) after Christmas.... don't know that there is much more I could ask for.
26. Who is most likely to respond to this? The one person I would say would have responded would have been the person that I got this from, so I doubt she will do it again :)
27. Favorite Christmas Tradition? We haven't done many real traditions yet, we normally do have a big Waffle breakfast after presents... and as a kid, my family always went looking at Christmas lights on Christmas eve and then when we got home, Santa left all our presents for us.

I tag... anybody that wants to do it! It's fun!

Family Night Gingerbread Houses

For Family Home Evening, we were invited to a neighbors house to join with them in doing gingerbread house... or should I say graham cracker houses. The girls were really excited, as was I so that we could get to know some of the families in our neighborhood.

The girls had a blast. Amber just mostly ate candy, but the girls created their houses. The mom asked if the girls wanted to share one or if they wanted to do them separately, Emily immediately said she wanted to do one by herself. I told the twins they could just put their houses together on the same board. What a lovely creation they came up with. The frosting didn't stick really great so when Robert took them out to the car the wind blew Lindsey and Lauren's house right in... (hmmm, that reminds me of another story I know about some pigs!)

Here is one picture of Lindsey and Lauren's masterpieces. Lauren's is the one with the falling down roof, okay so they both are falling down. Lauren's is the one on the left and Lindsey's is on the right.

Not sure if you can see it or not, Lindsey put black frosting out of her block chimney for smoke... it was pretty cute. I think that part of her house fell down.

This is the top view of their house. The dad when we were leaving told the girls they didn't have anything in their backyard, so he added some licorice and said, now you have logs back there. Nice family!!






Here is Emily's work of art. Robert helped her with her house, just putting it together. I like her sucker in the front and her licorice in the front too. I also liked her Kit Kat steps.

Emily's house has a mound of candy on the left of the house, she called this her "garden" and more specifically her "nutritious garden." I think like "mound of cavities" or "pound of sugar" sounds more appropriate.

That was about it really. The candy houses are still mostly there in our kitchen. Every time I get close I can smell the sweet smell of frosting and I think, I will have a little piece. But then when I look at the houses, I am not sure what to grab, and I decide not to partake of any of them. (It is probably better that way!) Amazingly enough, Amber hasn't tried at all to eat any of the candy off the houses or want a piece of them. I am sure once she sees the girls eating them then she will get the idea. But as for now, the houses are Amber safe.

4 Things Tag

Okay, so I have been thinking about doing this tag, and then I keep forgetting about it! (I was really going to do it in the first place, I just forgot to do it!)

The tag is Fours

Four Things I like about my Hubby:

1. He is so honest. I love that!
2. He always makes me laugh. Sometimes even when I don't feel like laughing he is doing something or saying something that makes me laugh and I can't stay angry anymore or be upset.
3. I love that he has always wanted to get a good education to be sure to provide for our family. It hasn't always been easy with him in school and the schedule and time away from home, but it sure has paid off in the end.
4. He always wants whats best for us, especially ME! He supports me in whatever I want to do and encourages me.

Four Jobs I have had:

1. Worked at Colton Pharmacy when I was 14. I got the job because a lady that worked there told me I should apply. It was a great first job and experience for me.
2. Gee Cee's Truck Stop... (I now know where the trucker stereo-type comes from) I started as data entry and when I left I had done everything from acct receivable to deposits to payroll to inventory. It was also a great learning experience. Plus, I met one of my best friends there!
3. JCPenney Salt Lake Acct Center, did Sales tax returns and then got into licences for the stores, renewing them and setting up new stores.
4. I worked from home doing various things from bookkeeping to payroll. That wasn't as fun as being a Mom which is what I had hoped for since I was little. (Although I am sure I will have another job someday again.)

Four Movies watched more than once

1. When A Man Loves A Women (haven't watched it in a long time since it is R rated, can't even remember now why it is, I guess I would have to watch it again to remember ;-) )
2. Hope Floats
3. Mary Poppins
4. Lake House

Four TV shows I watch

1. ER
2. Smallville (with Robert)
3. Everybody Loves Raymond
4. Reba

Four Places I have visited:

1. Maui Hawaii
2. Porterville California to visit family there
3. Chicago Illinios, went with FFA in school
4. Kansas City Missouri, again it was with FFA

Four Places I have lived:

1. Winlock, WA where I grew up
2. Holladay UT, my first home in UT that I lived at for a month in a half before I married Robert.
3. Midvale UT, moved to be close to friends
4. Orem, UT our last home that we lived there for about 8 years!

Four foods that I like:

1. Mozarella sticks (yummy)
2. Lettuce Wraps from PF Changs
3. Enchaladas
4. Nice big juicy Cheese burger with Bacon and BBQ sauce (and pineapple if available...)

Four Places I would like to visit:

1. Ireland, sounds beautiful and have seen beautiful pictures from there
2. Texas to visit family there
3. Alaska - the northern lights seem to attract me
4. Back to Hawaii to see more there

Four People I tag:

1. Karen
2. Julie
3. Jamie
4. Becki

We have TV

We got our TV turned on, or at least we got a dish system so we have local and other channels now. We went with DirecTV. It seems okay. I really LOVE the whole DVR system. It is great! I can watch a recorded movie that I recorded a different time, or record something while the other kids are watching what they want to watch, or record something for the kids to watch later.

Robert loves to watch Smallville. He use to be gone a lot on Thursday nights when it came on. He would normally miss it and I would forget to tape it for him. He normally ended up buying the episode on his iPod. Now, I have just told it to tape them when they come on and he can see them, we never have to remember to start recording it. And we don't have to try and watch it while we are putting kids in bed. We just watch it later.

With that being said, I have noticed that when we first got out here, we didn't have TV reception. We had our DVD player plugged in so the kids could watch movies, but that was about it. It seemed like the girls at first watched a lot of movies. Next thing I realized is that they were playing together more, Emily was reading her library books (A to Z Mystery series) to the girls and they were ALL loving it. Now that we have TV, it seems like no one is interested in reading a book. The TV seems to ALWAYS be on. I really am disappointed.

I did notice that there was a timer of some sort on the receiver. You can program it so that you can only watch TV at a certain time. It can be programed to only watch a certain amount of time (like 30 minutes or 2 hours) of TV or you can program it to only work during certain hours of the day.

The more I think about it, the more I think I might need to do that. I don't like the kids having total access to the TV all the time. Unfortunatly it seems like I am too busy to monitor exactly how long they have been watching TV, they turn it on and next thing I notice they are STILL watching TV. Meanwhile I have prepared dinner, fought with Amber eating all the candy canes off the tree, and dealt with Samantha and her teething issues.

I have heard of a family that did like "tickets" for the kids. The kids could get tickets to watch TV, if at the end of the week they turned in any unused tickets they got something special or money for every ticket. I was thinking the girls could even earn extra tickets for certain things too. Bad thing is I am super good at starting a new program but super bad at keeping it going.

Not sure what the answer will be for the girls, but I am tired of the TV being on all the time. I do have a rule that they can't eat and watch TV at the same time. (No breakfast and cartoons at the same time.) I do occasionally allow popcorn with a movie but that is the exception to the rule. When Robert and I first got married he would always eat dinner on the couch and watch TV. I hated it! I thought, why do we have a kitchen table then? He has gotten better, but still for lunch and breakfast, he is in front of the TV watching the news or whatever else might be on. It drives me batty! When we eat as a family, mainly dinner, he always eats with us, so that is good.

I guess after all this "blah blah blah" I could have narrowed it down to, we have TV now. On one hand I love it and yet on the other hand I think it was a bad idea! That would have made it so much shorter wouldn't it have!

The Wind Blew...

There was this BIG storm that was coming through on Friday night. We were suppose to get lots of snow on Saturday. All night long here the wind blew and blew and blew.... And when it blows out here, it just howls through our doors or something and it makes such an erie sound. Robert even at one point went out on our balcony to make sure the Christmas lights where still on our house. (They are still in tact!) All night long I would wake up and hear the wind blowing. It was awful!

Saturday morning comes, and I was telling the girls about the wind and asked if they heard it. It was still blowing so they heard it Saturday morning. The girls love to go out on our balcony, so they asked to go out there. Before they went out there, they were looking out the windows at the effects of the wind, tumble weeds blowing everywhere... they would say, "Oh look how big that one is!" and "there goes another one, did you see that one?" When they were out on the balcony they noticed Angel's (our rabbit) cage. They came running down the stairs and told me the cage was tipped over. I figured we better go turn it back over and see if it was broken or anything. The girls ran out before I even had my shoes and a coat on. They came running back in almost in tears, "the cage is tipped over and Angel is missing!) I go out and look, sure enough, the cage is totally tipped over with the front side of it laying on the ground. Angel is missing. Somehow the garbage can was inside the rabbit cage too, it also tipped over. The wind was still just blowing like crazy.

The girls are out in the yard at 8:30 in the morning yelling, "Angel....Angel....Angel!" I told them they should be a little more quiet for our neighbors who may still be sleeping. I also remind them that the cat barely comes when you call him, and I doubt the rabbit is just going to come hopping up because you call her name. I am thinking, the rabbit is gone, she is possibly even dead somewhere in our yard, maybe she got hurt when the cage fell over. I look around and under the blanket we had put on her cage the nights before, no rabbit. I am trying to think what to do next, go talk to the neighbors and tell them that we are missing a white rabbit, let us know if you see one... or just what. All of a sudden, one of the girls say, "I see her, she is right there by that rock!" I look over, and sure enough I see white fur, and there's Angel just eating what little grass we have in our yard among the weeds and stickers. I pick her up, and we bring her inside. She spends the whole day in our little bathroom.

I put her in with the cat food and cat box. We added her food and water in there too. She had gone to the bathroom on the floor, so I picked it up and put it in the cat box. A little later, I notice there is a little wet spot in the cat box. She had used the cat box. FUNNY!! Robert had made the comment to me before, "Like she is really going to use the cat box." I had told him the cat box was for the CAT, not the rabbit. I have heard of rabbits being box trained but have never tried it since the rabbit lives outside. The rabbit did pretty well going potty in the box but the little droppings where all over the bathroom and in the box too.

Later that night, Robert fixed her little house/cage and I put her back in it. It made for a perfect time to try out my new tile cleaner on the little bathroom floor. The cleaner worked so great, I ended up mopping the rest of my floors (kitchen and dinning area) and it was like at 10 at night.

And out of all that wind and all that snow we were suppose to get, we got hardly anything. I was thinking maybe we are a little higher up next to the mountains a bit so maybe we would get more snow then the valleys, but I guess not, or at least not during this storm. BUMMER!!

Friday is Ice Cream day

I sort of started a bad habit with the girls that we would get an ice cream on Friday's after I picked them up from school, or if we were running around doing something.

Of course now it seems a little more inconvenient to go and get an ice cream. It is only about 4 miles to Artic Circle to get an ice cream, but compared to our location before, it seems so far away.

This last friday the girls reminded me that it was ice cream day, and I wasn't really all that excited to go get ice cream... it seems like I am always so swamped with unpacking or organizing stuff to be more functioning. (It was just last week sometime that I finally found the girls' lunch boxes.) I was thinking also that it would be nice to go do something fun or something other than watch TV, now that we have it, and it was too cold to really go out and play. Sooooo.... we got ice cream.

For those who haven't been out in this area, when you drive into "town" if you want to call it that, you start here from areas full of houses and developments with entrances and then there is just like nothing but open farm land, maybe a few farm houses but mostly just open fields and then you reach the "town"area with a grocery store, a few fast food places, a gas station and a few banks and other little stores. While we were headed to "town" I noticed a deer, and then looked and noticed another, and another.... there where like maybe 50 of them. As I looked at them, I realized they weren't deer, or not the normal deer that we have seen out here before, they had white belly's and like a black and white head... they just looked different.

I of course am trying to show the kids as we are passing them so they can see them too. I am trying to recall our Yellowstone Guide that had all the animals on there and what they were, and I tell the girls, oh those aren't deer-they are goats, oh no they are long horned sheep, no wait they are pronghorned sheep... by this time Emily is saying, "They aren't sheep or goats mom!" I am still trying to identify them to the best of my knowledge of wild animals here in the state of Utah, and I am still struggling. I finally say, "I think they are pronghorned deer." And that is what I stuck to. There were just everywhere, all around this little farm house in the middle of this big field. We got our ice creams and headed back home, and saw them again. This time we see more, there are more on the other side of the house which we missed before coming in.

Of course this is bugging me because I am not sure what they are called. I come home and look up on the internet about pronghorn deer, and see the pictures above, and say...YES that is what we saw. Then Robert's mom comes out to our house and says, "We saw that big herd of antelope that Robert said you saw the other day." I told her I thought they were Pronghorn deer, she corrects me and says, no they are antelope. I guess even when you try to be right, you are still wrong.

If they are pronghorn deer or antelope, I don't know what is correct. But these are the best pictures of what we saw that I could find. There were at least 50 of them, if not more. It was fun to see them. Now I keep trying to think of things I might need to go into "town" to see if they are still around. I have gone a few more times, but it has always been at night - and of course, I couldn't see a thing.

Maybe next ice cream day we will see them again.

Emily's smile has changed abit

Back in Feb Emily got braces. She wasn't too sure about getting braces, we knew "one day" she would need them but then when her teeth didn't come down like they were suppose to then we needed to get them fixed now. Here is a picture the day that Emily got her braces on... this is of course BEFORE braces.... on Feb 29th 2008.

This is Emily right after her braces where put on... it took some getting use to but she did great with them on.

This is just today, this morning before we went to the Ortho appointment to get her braces off. Amber wanted to be in the pictures too.

Here is Emily again, just a few last pictures before her smile changes....

And Amber is getting a little more happy in the pictures now too. Emily's last smile on film with braces.... Now we have a BEFORE

And now AFTER! Look at that smile!
Amber was pretty caught up in all the talk of Emily getting her braces off, Amber kept saying she wanted to get her braces off too. Before that she was telling me she was getting her braces off too. She even tried to go back to the chair.

Here is Emily and her new smile for a while... 'til she needs braces again later.

Amber was so funny, the whole way back to school, she kept saying all the things Emily was saying, "It feels like my teeth fell out." or "it feels so wierd..." then she would repeat a few and then say, "my teeth are more wiggly now," or "can I eat some corn chips? Please" Emily would say something and then Amber would repeat it with some of her own adverbs...awesome, cool, freaky, dude... anything the other girls have said before. "That's just freaky!" (sounds funny coming out of a 2 yr old)

So now we are done with the orth....'til Jan when Lindsey gets her spacers and retainer! What fun it is to go to appts!

Samantha at 6 months

Okay so I have been so busy lately, that I didn't ever post anything about Samantha and her 6 month appointment. (Or did I?) Samantha turned 6 months on her cousins year birthday. So fun! She weighed a wopping 17 lbs 7.5 oz and was 26 inches. She is in the 78% for her weight, 60% for her height, and 71% for her head. Most all my other girls, excpet for Amber, have all been in the 90+ percentile for weight, and head circumference. Rob's Grandma says smart kids have big heads! I like to think so too! Samantha has gone down a little in height and weight as far as how she was growing before, but still is doing great. When I was nursing Samantha she was in the 92+ %ile for her weight. I thought Samantha was going to catch up with Amber in weight and all, but it looks like she is slowing down and may not catch her as fast as I thought she was. Amber is still just like 23 lbs.

Samantha is doing great. She is always laughing and giggling. She squeals at Amber all the time in the car. I will hear Amber laughing and then Samantha will just start squealing at Amber too. They seem to be doing better together. Amber will try to wake her up when they are both in the car, she will start laughing at Samantha and try to wake her up that way.

Samantha loves her feet, she grabs them and just loves to touch them. In fact, it is kind of any feet. When I change her diaper, I lay her down on the floor and I sit down on the floor with her between my knees and she grabs at my feet or pant legs. She is really grabby. She grabs faces, earrings, zipopers...anything she can get her hands on. She seems to also LOVE hair! She will grab my hair or one of the girls' and she will just squeal and get so excited. She still isn't super cordinated, so she wobbles and grabs things clumsily. She has 4 teeth on the bottom and 3 on top, maybe 4 on top by now. She LOVES to latch on to a finger, arm, shoulder.... whatever she can get her mouth on and chew or BITE really hard. She got my chin once, at first I was like, oh how cute she is giving me kisses, and then that turned really quick into get her off of me! She is sitting up by herself really good. It almost seemed like overnight that happened. She rolls over a little but hasn't quite used it to her advantage to go anywhere. She sometimes will get flipped over in her bed onto her belly and then will cry trying to get back on to her back.

She has been such a wonderful addition to our family. I love to just play with her in the morning after she has eaten and before her nap. She is also very tickleish. Especially under her chin or around her neck. She has been protesting lately about getting into her car seat, and when she is upset, she won't bend to sit down when I try to sit her down on the floor. Guess she knows she gets put there and then ignored too often.

I was hoping to do like a bunch of photos from when she was a baby 'til she was 6 months, but I will have to do that later. Here's a few pictures that I found on my computer and camera.


Here is Samantha with her cute flower headband on. The other girls kept trying to get pictures with her doing the same things Samantha was doing.


Here is Lauren holding Samantha, this is her actual 6 month day.

Amber was trying to smile for the camera with Samantha. Anytime I get the camera out, Amber thinks it is all about her. (Normally it is, Amber is too cute!)Amber was giving Samantha a kiss, I kept missing the kiss so I kept having her do it again. Samantha wasn't too happy about it as time went on.

This picture cracks me up! It is quite the funny picture of Samantha.
Here Amber is trying to talk to Samantha.

And this one has nothing to do with Samantha, but it was too cute, I had to add it!

And this would be my all time favorite of Samantha I think so far! So cute!!!

Fox 13 News

This week the cool school on Fox 13 news was Saratoga Shores. The 1st graders sang Rubber Ducky with their principal. You can click http://www.myfoxutah.com/myfox/MyFox/pages/sidebar_video.jsp?contentId=8044826&version=1&locale=EN-US to go see it.

I am not really sure how to do the links, so I am hoping that does it, if not I think I have also added it to this post somewhere? I am hoping so anyway. You can see Lindsey to the left of the principal, and Lauren is way on the right side of the group, next to a girl with blonde longer hair with a flower headband in her hair... it is harder to see Lauren.

The girls were WAY excited to be on the news. I set my TV to record, but somehow it totally missed it. It stopped recording about 10 minutes before they sang. I was so glad to see this link on the news.

Pictures from WA trip last Aug.

Since we had to get a new email account, I have been trying to go into our old one and get some of my emails out of there. Especially the ones with Pictures. Lots of times I never save the pictures, I just go back to the email. Teaches me I need to SAVE them each time I get them huh! These are some pictures my sister sent. They are from our WA trip during this last August. These were great pictures one of my sisters took, I just had to post them and SAVE them too!

Lindsey and Lauren

Amber with her cousin Destiny

Emily next to the fountain she was helping to build and decorate. (btw Emily most likely decorates better than I do, and is more creative with it. Not that I always like her ideas, but she is great for her age I think! And she isn't afraid to state her opinion or idea.)

Grandma Karen (my mom) and Sam

Aunt Lorri, Grandma, and Sam

One of those days!

The girls had a pretty good day yesterday at school. It is hard to adjust here, on 550 West, there were SO many kids to play with, my doorbell didn't have a chance to rest. Amber got so everytime the door bell would ring she would say, "It's Madison" or the one I loved the most was, "Jacob's home!" She really loved all the girls friends especially Jacob. Here the door bell only rings when we have a repair guy or a tech of some sort here. We finally got TV yesterday afternoon, which was nice. It doesn't seem there are many kids to play with on our street, or maybe we just haven't found them yet. We are going to go ask people about this cat here, figure that will be a good way to get to know our neighbors and find out about the cat. Robert said we need to adopt it (I was shocked he even offered that) or take it to the pound.


The poor tech guy, everything seemed to be okay until the girls got home from school. The girls asked if they could play with the neighbor girl who is 5. They had to wait until she got home from school since she is a "later gator" and wouldn't be home for another 40 minutes or so. The girl next door has a Doberman puppy, that is pretty big and seems to be pretty hyper. The owners are constantly chasing her around and trying to take the dog back home, she seems to wonder a bit when she is out. When the girls were finally playing, they had the dog on a leash and they were taking turns walking the dog.


One of the girls came running in the house saying they needed help walking the dog. I went out to see what was up, and Emily said, "You know how on cartoons someone is walking a dog and the dog is pulling them on the ground while the dog is running away, that is what happened to Lindsey." Lindsey seemed to be okay, I told them maybe they should stick to the girl only walking the dog. I go back inside...


While I was outside I noticed another girl out there with her dog, the dog wasn't on a leash. It seemed that the girl was having trouble getting her dog. I then hear some major barking, and again the girls run in to tell me that the dogs are fighting. I go outside again, to find the dobberman on the leash with the little girl holding on with all her might and holding onto the back bumber of our car to hold the dog back. The other dog (a springer spaniel looking dog) is going crazy barking and running around the other dog and my car. I go out and try to talk to the dog on the leash to calm it down. (I don't know why this was my job or even why it would work.) Finally the little girl asked me if I could hold her dog. I do. Again, I am not really sure what I am going to do... then she asked if I could walk her dog home. We do... the little girl had big scrapes on her fingers from holding back the dog so much, she was bleeding and my girls decided to donate a few bandaids for her. I go back inside....


Emily comes in and tells me that the other dog (spaniel type dog) is bothering the cat outside. This would be the cat that came with the house that tries to get in all the time and fights with our cat. Emily said she was trying to get the cat our of our garage, I was telling her to just leave the cat, it will fend for itself better than we can protect her. I go back inside again....


I talk to the tech guy for our dish system, then I hear one of the girls coming in again... This time the dog was bothering our rabbit. I told them to just try to keep the dog away and then I would be out in a minute. The dish system was just finishing loading or whatever it does to start up. Everything was installed and we were just waiting for it to be done doing its configuring or whatever it does. Then I hear horrible screaming outside and Lindsey comes in running and yelling that the rabbit got out because it was scared and Emily was trying to calm her (the rabbit) down but the rabbit got loose. Now the dog is chasing the rabbit all over the yard. I can hear Emily screaming and crying outside. I think the worse, that the dog is gonna eat the rabbit, or that it has already, I run outside look around see the rabbit zig zagging all over the street and the yards of ours and the neighbors, I tell Emily to hurry and help me. She still crying and now Lauren is all crying and freaking out too. I run barefooted across the rocky asphalt to the neighbors where the rabbit was running wild. I atempt several times to grab the rabbit or the dog. Finally I grab the dog and the rabbit runs through a fence. Emily is still out of control, I tell her to reach through the slats in the fence and grab the rabbit and pull it through, I will hold the dog back. She gets the rabbit. I tell her to give me the rabbit and she can take the dog and I will take the rabbit back. Emily isn't going for it, I am afraid she will get scratched to bits from the rabbits razor nails. I take my jacket off while still holding the dog and tell Em to wrap the rabbit up in the jacket so it doesn't scratch her, and go put the rabbit back in its cage. All is good. Although I am still holding the dog, and I mean really like holding it, like carrying it. The older girl (maybe 7-9yrs) asks me if I can carry her dog back to her house. I am like, NO. The girl tells me she knows where she lives, guessing that maybe she is new to the neighborhood, I tell her I will help her out a little bit. (Meanwhile, my little girls are sleeping in the house with the tech guy for the DirecTV. ) I take the dog down the sidewalk a bit, then let the dog go. The girl is running and the dog is chasing her. Then she stops and the dog runs back toward us, I tell the girl to run again and call her dog and the dog will follow her home... Why I didn't think of that earlier, I don't know...


I decided that last night was a good BATH night, I left Robert setting up the tree and I took a nice HOT bath. I do like the bigger tub here! I even was productive while my tub was filling, I folded laundry.


I look forward to a productive day today, hopefully. I also sent out emails of my new email and phone number. If you didn't get it, call my old number and it will give you my new number. As soon as we get our new internet up, I can get a new email set up.


I better get on with my day, I hear Samantha awake upstairs and Amber just notified me that she is stinky. It wouldn't be so bad, but I remembered that she took off her diaper and put her jammies back on with out a diaper while I have been on the computer. Nothing quite like a big mess in footed zip-up jammies, she is walking around a little funny. Duty calls! I guess it is time for Amber's bath... good thing we have hot water.