Easter

Drat! I put all these pictures on to update my blog over a week ago and here I am (April 20) just getting it finished. Here is one of the projects I worked on, now that I have so much more "free" time - no internet and tv, remember. I removed the stained white curtains in my kitchen and put up these. I sewed them myself with fabric I bought on ebay forever ago! It's brought a lot of color and pop to my kitchen. I also added some color with some new bowls I got through my AtHome America party. Just have to say that I got almost $300 of free product! Hooray!

We did doughnuts one Saturday morning because Kannon didn't get to do the "doughnuts for dad" thing at the elementary school. Joshua wanted some too!
Easter! We did our egg decorating earlier in the week - maybe Thursday evening. On Saturday we enjoyed being together as a family. Kannon and I took turns going to General Conference. When Kannon was gone that afternoon, I hid the plastic eggs for the kids - more than once! They loved looking for them.

We went out to my parents house and had our Easter dinner with them and my sister, Susan, hubby Stephen, and their niece, Serenity. We hid the eggs again that night for my kids, for me and Grammy, for the kids and Serenity. Good time, good times.

This little guy keeps getting more teeth! He's now 9 months old and has 8 teeth. He could walk if he'd get over his fear. He holds my finger to walk now - that's it, just a finger. He drops as soon as I let go, even though he could stand up. He's a chicken, and that's okay with me. After all, he is still a baby! He's so good these days. Loves just playing around the house. Adores his brother and Daddy. Sarah's just okay right now. I think she still picks on him too much. He's sleeping better. Sometimes I can just give him his milk and leave him to go back to sleep. He's done nursing. I'm glad he's doing okay with the formula, I was worried because he just wouldn't drink from a bottle for forever. But, anyway he's healthy and happy and I love him. I love my family. I think I've come a long way in the last year to be able to say that. I've had a lot of ups and downs emotionally. Probably some depression. I think staying busy helps me.

Sacramento

We took a few days trip down to Sacramento to visit my sister and the boys, Tyler and Colby. Ben was on spring break and we haven't been to visit them in a few years - ack! We left Kannon at home so he could work and spent a total of 2 days and 2 nights with them. We went to the park for a picnic after Tyler's preschool. The kids really like the scooters.

We also spent some time making an obstacle course that they did over and over again.

We went to the Sacramento Temple and walked the temple grounds a few times. (Until these HUGE flying bugs started landing in my hair and the kids got out of my control!) The baby was teething - again - and had a fever. He wasn't so happy.

I loved how this bush matched Sarah's shirt perfectly -one of my new favorite pictures.

We also went to the Sacramento Zoo. I think the kids really enjoyed it. We hadn't been since just before Sarah was born, but you'd think I'd remember that it wasn't that fun. They didn't have as many animals as I think of when I think "zoo." No elephants, bears, tigers. The few larger animals were sleeping - the lion, leopard. We saw some monkeys, giraffes - they have tons of birds. And Sarah is still talking about the snakes.

They did have a fun children's play place that we stopped at toward the end. Nancy and I were really ready to be done, I think.

We really had a good time, a busy time. I'm so glad I live close enough to have been able to visit them. The kids loved being with Tyler and Colby - we don't get to see them as often as I'd like. It's different than it was for us as kids, living so close to our cousins.

Anyway, it was good as you can tell from this closing video. Happy times, happy memories!

Family Fun Day

We've been trying a new reward system at our house. If a family rule is broken their clip gets moved down to warning/ time out/ and then chore. If they are caught doing good things they get to move their clip up and earn tickets. When they have enough tickets they can spend them at our family store. Ben's been saving his tickets and Sarah just does what Ben does, so they finally had enough to turn them in for the Fun Center in Fernley.
We went over on Saturday afternoon. They started out in the playland. They were the only kids there, which was kind of fun, although I know Ben would have loved playing with other kids, too. They have foam balls all over and quite a few machines that shoot them around. I enjoyed helping Ben gather balls and load them. Sarah didn't like the noise of the machines, but finally got brave enough to explore the whole area.

Then we decided to take a turn at bowling. It was fun. We all did things our own way. Sarah used the bumpers and the roller-helper thing. (Sorry, I don't know the technical term!) Ben used the bumpers, but mostly rolled his own balls. I won - woo-hoo!

We also went out to eat at Wendy's and grabbed some ice cream to finish off our day. Kannon and Ben earned that by planting the grass seeds. I really enjoy our family time, the things we all do together, when no one is fighting. Then we have Sundays. Haven't figured out how to make those work better.

March madness

We've kept pretty busy over the last few weeks. Kannon had another lay-off. I wish they could make up their minds. This time they told him to put his name on the books. We were about to look into finding work in another part of the country or going up north to the mines when they called him and wanted him back. Who knows how long it will last this time. It's kind of a constant worry for me now. We were blessed to have just gotten our tax return. That, with unemployment kept us okay for the time. And Kannon's mom sent us home, from a weekend up there, with a bunch of food. We also made the leap to change our communications. We eliminated the internet and cable and changed our cell service to work better with our needs. That opens up about $120 each month. The hardest part about him being off was wanting to do improvements on the house, but not being able to spend the money on the items we would need. We did get the bathroom all done. (Well, there's a little trim painting I need to do today, and we still need a new window.)

Sarah, Kannon and I all got our teeth cleaned and all got good reports! Ben will have his done over spring break.
Lots of wet smiles. Joshua is doing so much better. Hopefully that will last more than just this week! He got a new tooth, making 6 and I'm pretty sure he's still working on one or two more. This little guy loves his dad - yay! He gets really excited when Daddy comes into the room and makes a beeline for him. He's done okay since Kannon went back to work, but is really happy to see him at the end of the day. I even got to spend a whole day in Reno with my mom. Baby did just fine with his daddy. That's also because he's quit nursing in the day. He still wakes up at night to nurse. And we've done okay with the formula. I've had some issues giving that up and keep trying. Some days he's better at it than others, but it's nice to know that he can be left for awhile now.




Making bristle block babies.


We had a really fun surprise party for Kannon's mom. She turned 50 this month and we got all but one son, daughter-in-law and grandson out to Winnemucca for a party. She thought she was coming to babysit for Sasha. When we all showed up at the door 15 minutes later she was really surprised. We just visited and ate and had a nice day together. Her brother and his wife came down, too.

We celebrated St. Patricks Day. I saw this on someone's blog. I think it was the Love Actually one. Wish I could remember for sure. So, surprised the family with this one.

I also made matching clothes for my kiddos (courtesy of another blog from a blog-hopping day!) Sarah has a skirt (Kannon took the picture and didn't know I wanted the skirt to show. =(

The baby has a tie on his onesie and Ben got the 4-leaf clover. It was fun to do and I think they liked it too. Well, the baby probably didn't care!

We've really been enjoying the spring weather. The kids sat outside one day while I worked on a project. They discovered the Napoleon Dynamite wig and took turns with it. The baby looked pretty cool too.

And just last night Joshua dumped the box of whales. I'm pretty sure we have a picture like this from Sarah, too, when she was little.

Catch-Up

I guess I haven't been in a blogging mood. It seems when I come to the computer these days it's been to blog-hop. Lots of fun ideas out there and I actually did some of them this month. But, now I've got some pictures on from February, so I'll tell you what we've been up to.

Every month the school has a fun dress-up day. Last month was pajama day and since we'd missed crazy hair day, we decided to combine them. So, Ben got his first mohawk. He loved it, but mom and dad insisted it get cut off before church on Sunday! In this picture you can also see the snowflake he made for school. He cut, painted and glittered it all by himself. I still enjoy walking him to school each morning. It's only a few minutes, but it's just the two of us and that's kind of nice.

Sarah is enjoying her ballet. Although, there have been a few times I've tried to use it as an incentive, "you won't get to go to ballet unless you clean up your room/take your nap/put away your clothes/be a good girl." You get the picture. Well, she says, "fine, I won't go to ballet then." Doesn't seem to work with her. Not sure if she just doesn't care about ballet or if she knows I won't follow through on that one! Here she is showing me her bow (that's ow, not oh).

I found this magnetic puzzle of the United States on clearance and, as you can see, the whole family has enjoyed putting it together. I'm hoping Ben will learn his states better than his mom.

So, I missed the perfect picture here. I came in to get Joshua, who'd been crying for a bit. He was sitting down with his legs stuck out between the slats. I picked him up before realizing how jail-like that was. I grabbed a few pictures, but the effect isn't the same as him looking through the "bars" of his cell!

During the month of February, Joshua learned to crawl, pull himself up, sit, (in that order!). He also acquired 3 new teeth, causing him a lot of pain, and many cranky days and nights. He would much prefer to walk. If we hold his fingers and walk him around he has a path he follows from one end of the house to the other. When our backs get tired, and we put him down, he hollers! We tried a walker this past weekend, but he couldn't get past the fact that we'd "stuck" him in something and learn to move himself. I think he'll be walking soon. He's been able to stand for a few seconds, too. Now that he is mobile, we've had to take the necessary baby precautions. I'm constantly reminding the other two to pick up their paper and garbage. More than once he's stuck his hands in Sarah's leftover mush. (Yes, I know I shouldn't let the kids eat in the living room in front of the TV, but it's just so cold in the dining room in the winter time!) We've pulled paper, wrapper garbage, ear plugs, even gum and it's wrapper from his mouth. We had a miraculous moment a few weeks ago. We've done our best to block off entrance to the wood stove - because it's hot. Well, one day I heard him crying in the living room and it was the I'm really hurt cry. I came running and found him on the tile surround bumping his head on the little lip in front of the stove door. I grabbed him and ran to the bathroom, immediately putting his hands under cold water. His hands were fine, he kept crying because the water was cold. I checked his head and he had two spots that were red. I thought they couldn't be more than first degree burns, but they disappeared before the end of the day - in just a few hours really. I went back to the stove and touched the legs to see how hot they were. They were hot enough that I wasn't willing to test the lip. I can't believe he wasn't hurt more, but am so grateful. We really haven't come to any other decisions about how to keep him out so I really watch him when he's on the floor and there's a fire. At least it will be warmer soon and we won't have to worry about it until next winter. Maybe he'll be old enough then to understand "HOT". (that was one of Ben's first words!)

I made some fun countdowns for Valentine's Day. I got the ideas elsewhere and just kind of went with it. I bought the heart box for $3 at Walmart and promptly emptied the chocolates, yes, into my mouth. I think it took 2 days. I modpodged the papers on the front and added some ribbon and embellishments. I wrote the ideas directly on my decorative paper and modpodged them to the glass rocks. I actually had only little ones and used them. But, they were just too small, so I bought bigger ones and redid that part. The kids loved taking turns each day, picking out the next surprise.

This one can be found herehttp://www.somewhatsimple.com/2010/01/countdown-to-valentines-day.html

In my "research" I came across the Love Actually blog and just love it!

http://www.loveactually-blog.blogspot.com/

It has so many ideas for romantic things to do for cheap! I thought it would be fun to make a countdown jar with her ideas and put this together for Kannon and I. It included stuff like 2-minute massages and emails to each other. I think we both enjoyed it enough to use it again next year.

For our craft (one of the countdown items) we made crayon stained-glass hearts.

We did homemade pizza a few times this month. One time I made a heart-shaped one.

We spent a whole Saturday in Yerington watching basketball with some friends. Kannon became friends with RA at work quite a few years ago. Turned out he is the younger brother to a childhood friend of mine. We all went to church together when we were kids! They have 2 boys that are 6 and 7, just right for Ben. We see them every so often and these boys have always gotten along real well. The boys are in a basketball league and Kannon wanted to take Ben to watch. I told him I wanted to go, too, so we all piled in and spent the day with them.

Thomas and Ben

The week before Valentine's Day I let Ben invite a few friends over to decorate cookies. They had a good time playing and frosting the cookies. It was a fiasco in my opinion. I thought they would want to cut out the cookies, too. But, they didn't. So Sarah and I did that while they played. Then when they were baked and cooled I called them in. The cookies were crumbly - that makes frosting them kind of hard. I made 2 different kinds of frosting and everything was just a general mess. I was so tired by the end of the day with all the cookie and frosting making, so Kannon cleaned up for me. He's so good about that. He does a lot of cleaning up for me and after me.

I ended up baking bread and cinnamon rolls that week, too, and Kannon cleaned up each time. I volunteered to help out in Ben's class for their party. They got to decorate cookies, make a heart bear, and check out their valentines. Plus, there were some snacks. I was glad it was veggies, fruit and chips with dip instead of a ton of sugary stuff.

That night, the 12th, Kannon and I went on a date - WITHOUT the baby! That was fun. We went to the schools' auction fundraising dinner. It was good food and we enjoyed watching everyone bid outrageous prices for everything. Kannon was laid off that week, so we didn't spend anything other than the tickets we had bought in advance. I take that back. I had a $20 I needed to break to pay the babysitter, so I bought some raffle tickets. And guess, what!? I won. Well, one prize, anyway. As they went down the list and called numbers, I said, "I'll probably win this one" - it was for a tour of the winery with wine tasting. And it was the one I won. Crazy, eh? At least they combined 2 prizes. I also won a basket of goodies from Raley's. I told them to pick a new winner for the wine deal. But, I enjoyed most of the basket. It had Dove chocolates, a box of chocolates, a bath pouf, some red kitchen items, and a few things I thought I'd save and give as gifts as needed.

I know I've mentioned before about Ben playing basketball. This month consisted of a game or two each week. I was glad this was a short sport. The team won their last 2 games (out of 6 total). I guess that says they improved. Ben did okay. He loved to have the ball passed to him, but then immediately got rid of it - either passed it to someone else or took a shot. All of his shots were too far away. I think he could really improve if he continues to play and practice.

In this pic he is the blue player facing the camera.

I mentioned the lay-off thing. It was only for a week, then they found a job to place him on. But, now he is off again. This time they said, go find a new job, we don't have anything else. It's bad all over the state for his kind of work. There are only jobs for tig welders, which is not a type he is used to doing, or feels like he can do a good job on. I told him to take a few weeks and go to Reno each day to practice so that he can get a new job. We are trying to be faithful, that we will be given the opportunity for work to continue to meet our needs and obligations.
I stay pretty busy. I also go crazy fairly regularly. Just ask my family. I think it shows most at night when I'm up - again - with the baby. He just doesn't sleep well. He wakes up so much, sometimes every hour or two. He eats and falls asleep, but often cries as soon as I put him down, or even better, waits until I've just gotten back in bed! Last night I just let him cry. I was so tired and didn't want to hurt him. I also really stress about weight loss or lack of. I really want to get healthy again, but don't think it will happen until I can figure out WHY I eat.

Anyway, that's our life for the month of February. This year is already flying by.