jake, jake, jake

he is pretty fun!

anniversary on a budget

monday is our 2nd wedding anniversary and we chose to celebrate this weekend in style (country, some may say redneck, style that is). i am just realizing that we only took one picture - what a bummer. words can't describe...it was awesome. we had dinner at pinn willie's in talmage. for those of you not from the area, pinn willie's is 30 minutes from anywhere. it is a cafe, grocery store, gas station, book exchange, etc. all within about 600 square feet of building. they make an awesome steak. we then hit the trail again and ended up in hannah, just past tabiona. hannah is a small little town (no stop light, no stop sign for that matter). it does have a general store and across the street is the hannah hilton. the hannah hilton is a cafe/bar and upstairs it has a few rooms. yep, that is where we stayed for the night. forty bucks. what a deal. granted, you don't have your own bathroom, that's down the hall, but usually there are no other guests. you do have a sink in your room. one of the public bathroom kind that have the spring loaded faucet handles that you have to hold on to make the water stay on. granted, your room is directly over the bar which can get loud when things are hopping, but it's all part of the fun. when checking in, you are greeted by two large boxer dogs. the first time i saw them they scared me, but turns out they are really sweet. matt and i wondered if there was a live video feed from our room into the bar for entertainment. let's hope not. such an adventure. the next morning we hopped on down the stairs to the cafe and had a country style breakfast of eggs, bacon, hashbrowns and toast. yummy! in fact the whole adventure was yummy because i was with my sweet husband. i love you matt!

this is our room, check out the bedspread - the room had a moose, pine tree theme. once again, i wish i had more pictures.

love her!

a good friend (thanks tauni!) told me about this blog - nieniedialogues.blogspot.com. she's adorable. she makes me want to be a better mom and wife. for some good reads, start back in august of last year (or before). if you read it, let me know what you think. i can't stop thinking about her and her little family.

ready for church

look at our cute son all ready for church last sunday.



unfortunately...i wasn't ready. i thought i was, but i had no idea of what was about to happen. about a month ago i was called to be a primary teacher for the 5 year olds. it would be an understatement to say that i was apprehensive. jake is a newborn and sometimes a little demanding (should i say high needs), but they assured me that i would have a co-teacher. a couple of days before the first sunday, the co-teacher called and said that she would be unable to be there for the next two weeks. i girded up my loins and although there were some rough spots, we survived. the next week, she was there and i realized how nice it was to have help when i am trying to take care of a newborn and six or so 5 year olds. fast forward to sunday. i was in charge of the lesson and matt was going to be set apart for the new elder's quorum presidency. i planned in my mind to leave primary for 5 minutes or so to attend matt's setting apart, leaving the kids in the capable hands of my co-teacher. well...no co-teacher. i am not sure what happened. maybe one of her kiddos were sick. anyway, after sitting through 1 hour of sacrament meeting and then one hour of sharing time, it was time to have them and jake all to myself and change their lives with an inspirational lesson. a good friend offered to take a somewhat fussy jake (thank you mandi), we had two little visitors (who were cousins) and four of my regular kiddos. the visitors were maybe the best behaved. two of my regular kiddos refused to sit on chairs and instead laid on the ground. my cute little guy wanted to sit on a stack of 4 adult chairs and play with his indiana jones lego guy (complete with whip and hat that kept falling off) - not to mention his desire to run away every time a door opened. my other girl passed around seashells (a great distraction by the way) and entertained us with stories of zack effron, the jonas brothers and building a fort out of a golden plate, diamonds and sticks that she found with her cousins. a little disclaimer for those who might know anyone mentioned in this story - i do love all these kids so much, but it seems like they are easier to love when i have someone helping me.
anyway, (sorry this story is getting long) someone came to watch my class while i ran to matt's thing (which is a story in and of itself). when i came back she seemed maybe a little appalled by my kiddos. she mentioned that we needed to get some of the chairs out of the room. there were stacks and stacks of adult sized and kid sized chairs, but no table. both of the girls were still on the floor, but now one of them was hiding behind my chair and the other one was laying smack dab in the middle of the room. i tried to continue with the lesson, but no one was listening. i used the line "i will just wait until everyone is ready." that doesn't really work on 5 year olds. my little storyteller found this a great opportunity to tell more stories. she had a quiet audience. i was thinking if anything could be any worse...well i guess it could. the before mentioned child laying in the middle of the floor began vomiting. yep. vomiting. and i started gagging. i ran and got help, but now there needed to be like 6 of us. one to clean up, one to take care of the newborn who was now very hungry, one to catch the lego toting run away tot, one to take the girl to the bathroom (that could still vomit more) and clean her up, one to go and get her parent and one to take care of the rest of the kids. what do you do?? someone sprinkled powder on the vomit and then what? i am supposed to take my kids back in there and do what?? anyway, needless to say, i am thinking of changing religions.

outside working

we have quite the yard...one acre of dirt, but we were able to plant our garden. come to find out what we could have done in a day (before jake), now takes three weeks. alas, it is planted. we have 16 tomato plants (roma and celebrity), yellow squash, summer squash, zucchini, armenian cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, beets, cilantro, jalapenos, anaheim peppers, bell peppers, spinach, 2 kinds of carrots, onions, potatoes, peas, green beans, yellow beans, strawberries, pumpkins, spaghetti squash, sweet meat squash, honey dew, watermelon and corn. are we crazy??? i think so. so far everything is coming up except our most recent planting (corn, pumpkins, melons). please say that we will get at least a little produce from this venture.

please ignore all the weeds. i didn't say it was perfect. the houses in the background are our neighbors.

yesterday, we also took on the project of finishing constructing and filling with dirt the flower boxes around the front of our house. we also began to plant them. we got the special flowers (alyssum and petunias) that had been marked down from $14.99 a flat to $8.99 a flat. the only concession is that we had to trim the petunias way back so we won't have flowers for 2 weeks, but when they bloom they are a dark purple color. we plan on adding a lot more flowers (other varieties), but yesterday about wore us out. now is where the fun begins. it rained most of the day yesterday, which was nice. it continued to rain last night which was also nice (being raised by a rancher you always have to be grateful for rain), but not so nice for our newly filled flower boxes and newly planted flowers. if they survive the drowning, that will be lovely. some of the dirt washed away - we will be adding more.

another pleasant surprise...right next to our front walkway, there was a fresh new hole...large hole. pretty sure it was a prairie dog taking up residence in our new flower bed. if i could get my hands on him....let's be honest, i wouldn't touch him, but he makes me mad. when our home teacher came to visit, he got curious and collapsed the roof in and then got a little freaked out and didn't investigate further. needless to say, the flower boxes are also still a work in progress. i don't know if we can even attempt the yard.

summer yet?

we are ready for summer. how about you?

twister

how long has it been since you have played twister??? for me, it had been a long time. my brother was out of town, so my sister in law, kim, and her kiddos came over to visit and they brought twister. i look hideous (remember i just had a baby), but it was a lot of fun. i was seriously sweating so much. it was quite the workout (pretty sad, huh).
i was laughing, and my quads were shaking. matt and i had a serious competition going but it all ended when the stress on his digestive system got to be too much and we all were forced to move away...