Darlin's 1st Birthday

Darlin woke up a happy camper this morning. She was so dang cute, talking to me, and snuggling. The best was her rats nest in the back of her head. I laughed and then hugged her and sang her a quiet happy birthday.

When Denim and Blazen woke up, they crawled in bed too. They got excited because it was Darlin's birthday. They started singing. Darlin could tell that the kids were excited, so she started getting excited too.

Kisses for sissy.

Purple pancakes for Darlin.

Our lovely handy work.

Darlin really enjoyed the cake mix.

Darlin and Mom.

We had a little birthday dinner for Darlin. Denim and Blazen helped all day. They loved getting everything ready for the birthday girl. We decorated the house, wrapped gifts, made the cake, and made a yummy fruit plate and salsa and chips. Auntie and Tessa came over to spend the evening with us.

Denim told me, "Mom don't worry about me, I'm just the server, I like to serve." She has been playing "the server for a few days. She gets the tops off of plastic tubs and serves Blazen. She was absolutely ecstatic to be able to serve everyone. She got to cut the cake (into perfect pieces I might add, ha ha ha.), and serve Darlin 1st.

The birthday girl got the biggest piece and she got to dig in. No help at all. She was actually a little bit reserved at 1st.

Darlin got several really nice gifts from everyone. She loved the paper and twirling around after
each gift the most. She also received several phone calls with voices of "Happy Birthday" on the other end. With each phone call, I put it on speaker phone and told her it was for her. She would just beam and then grab the phone, hold it to her chest, then look at it and kiss it. It was so cute. She knew she was the special girl today.

Homemade sweater from grandma.

We put up a little pinata for Darlin. Denim and Blazen were very excited about that one. Once the candy came out Darlin ran for it. She is no dummy, that girl knows what candy is.

When I was in town I was sure that I had a package of balloons at the house, so I didn't buy any. Sure enough I did have a package of WATER balloons. The kids and I got creative because we just felt that Darlin had to have balloons on her birthday. We filled them up and put them in the sink. Then after all the fun, we put Darlin in the warm sink and let her play with her birthday water balloons. She loved it. We got really silly and did some BIG ones and tiny ones. The big balloon we named "Big Goliath" and the little one we named "pip squeak."

It was sooooooo cold today. It didn't get over 5 degrees. As Darlin was taking a sink bath I had Ace take this picture of our ice covered windows. Good thing for a nice warm fire.

Happy Birthday to my baby. I can't believe you are already 1 yr old.

I love you Darlin.

The Fire

Today it snowed

The snow brought to our attention how much we appreciate a lovely warm fire. We love to sit by it, read by it, look at it, & drink hot chocolate by it.

It also gave the children the opportunity to remember that to every fruit there is a labor. Isn't life sooooooo very wonderful that way. By my kids faces you can tell that they think so.

LumberJack Ace

I read somewhere that children need to feel texture as part of their development, so today out came the rice. If you are not into messes I would highly NOT recommend this for you. That said, we had a wonderful time playing in rice. We then put food coloring and oil on it, then baked it to dry out. Tomorrow, I think, we are going to attempt to make a collage with it.

And this is what happens when you forget about the rice in the oven.

For the FHE activity Blazen wanted "The biggest bubble bath in the world." So we attempted to make that happen. We googled for awhile and this is what we came up with. Dish soap, water, and LOTS of mixing. (We were supposed to have jets, but since we don't have any the kids and I shoved our arms in and mixed like crazy.) I was pretty proud, the kids were in awe, and for the evening I was the best mom in the world. (Until a little later when Blazen got a spankin for being a major toot.) AHHHHH the life of mother.

Funny story: Ace told Blazen and Denim to pick up the living room. Blazen replied, "NO, Silly dad, that's what mom does, SHE's the cleaning lady." Then he marches into the kitchen (where, shocker, I am cleaning dinner up) and says,"Mom you need to come in here and clean up this mess."

Sierra is having a baby guessing contest........here are our guesses.

Denim:

Girl, born June 20th, 6 lbs, 17 inches, name...Rosetta.

Blazen:

Boy, born June 14th, 7lbs, 15 inches, name....Cowboy Hunt

Darlin:

Politely Declined to guess this time

Ace:

Boy, born June 21st, 6lbs, 19.8 inches, name......Dallis

Timber:

Girl, born June 18th, 6lbs 8 oz, 19.4 inches, name.....Arcadia

School

 We took a VERY nice long break from school. 3 weeks in fact. I really needed it as did the kids. I talked to a lot of other home-school parents as well as read some articles and this semester I decided to take a MAJOR chill pill. It has been sooooo awesome. Last semester I was just so worried that Denim wouldn't learn enough that I pushed REALLY hard. A bit of an overkill. This semester I cut down the time in half. I cut out a LOT of the lesson plans and focus on the basics. At least 20 min reading, 20 min writing, 20 min math. That's all we HAVE to accomplish. We do another about 30 min in the afternoon so that it is broken up. It has made all the difference in the world for all of us. It gives me time to spend with Blazen too. The really amazing thing is that Denim is learning and retaining more than before. I think I might just figure this out. We also added some scripture time in. When the kids are eating breakfast I read them and article from the Friend and we talk about it. They love it. Then after breakfast each child reads 1 verse of scripture. The fun part is that we get to mark the verse with highlighter. It is helping Blazen with his pronunciation and Denim is really reading big stuff. It starts the day out so nicely.

Denim requested that we added fun things to school. We made sand volcanoes. It was a blast and super easy. You just put a cup in the sand and put the sand around it in a mound. Then you put baking soda, a little dish soap, water, and food color in the cup and stir. Then you pour in vinegar and watch your volcano explode. Last you play in the colored sand.

Darlin really enjoyed the fresh day as well.

This week Ace has been helping me organize all of our storage tubs, garage, and mud room. It has been a beast of a job, but it is finally done. We have acquired hand me downs from a lot of people so we needed to organize. It was fun to find old memorabilia as well.

Sorting through little shoes.

 

Lots of miles in these babies.

 

Darlin liked the hand-me-downs as well.

Birthdays

 HAPPY 35th BIRTHDAY TO ACE

This week we celebrated Ace's birthday. I can't believe he is 35. I can't be married to such an old man. he he he. We just relaxed. All that Ace wanted to do for his birthday was spend all day playing with the kids. We also went and ate lunch together at the Daily Pie.

Denim looks just like her daddy.

I had a little birthday dinner for Ace. Nelda, Jerry, Tawana, and Tessa came.

This week we also drove up to Farmington, NM to go to a surprise birthday party for a good family friend of ours, Craig Doty. His wife really had a good party. Chocolate fountain and all. We drove with Jerry and Nelda. It was great bonding time. Darlin was tired of traveling.

Jerry, Craig, and Ace.

On our way back we went through Albuquerque. Ned Tietjen just had open heart surgery and we wanted to see him. We were able to see him as well as Janet and Nedra. Nedra is so much fun. The thing that always stays with me is her laughter.....so contagious. We were able to go to church with Nacona and visit Nalynn, Whitley and Ike.

Ike is posing for the camera.

Nedra at the hospital.

Nacona's neighbors think we are crazy. Can you guess why?

Yep. That is us playing in the driveway with the water hose and swimwear in January.

Whitley and Nalynn got out their old dance outfits for Denim and made her up.

Phoenix

We went down to Phonix. Right now is there season for citrus. Oranges and grapefruits. The kids and I were in HEAVEN. We found a guy selling fresh oranges on the side of the road. He had a pickup truck and the entire back was full of the most wonderfully smelling oranges ever. We bought SEVERAL bags to bring home and share. We all ate so many oranges that we were sick. They were the best ever. SOOOOOO sweet. My fingernails got tired of peeling them for the kids, then we started slicing them with the pocket knife.

If you were wondering......this is what DELICIOUS looks like.

We were driving into Phonix and on the outskirt we passed cotton fields. Ace has seen them a million times, so he wasn't terribly impressed, but I was. It was so fun. I loved to see the huge white stacks of cotton. They looked just like a big white hay bail. Ace was kind enough to walk out into the field and get me a piece of the cotton.

While we were in Phonix we were able to get the grand tour of a huge dairy. It was really fun for me to see the setup of everything and how it all functions. I loved how they had each pen set up and their rotation system was awesome. Their milk ends up in Bashas, Safeway, and others. One thing that I had never seen was cotton seed. After the cotton crops have been harvested, they feed the seed to their cows. It is a very good supplement as it is a good source of protien. We especially loved it because they stack it WAY high under big sheds and the kids got to have a hay day.

It was like jumping on a bouncy cloud. The kids LOVED it. I think it was better than McDonalds. OK. let me restate. MUCH BETTER than McDonalds. They did flips, summersault, jumped as hard as they could. It was so Awesome!

We were able to visit with friends while down there. We also stayed with the Hoffmans. It was fun to see them. They are growing and busy as ever. Caleb is the bishop of a HUGE ward right now. I respect he and his wife a great deal for all that they sacrifice.

New Year

We brought in the new year with the Green Family. Ace, the kids, and I went over to Little Bill and Dawn's house. Buster, Sharon, and Sierra met us there. Carolie and Billy came too. Dawn had tons of wonderful food cooked for us. She made traditional Pasole (the BEST I've ever tasted I might add) and a dish that she says is supposed to be good luck for the new year, black eye pea bean dip. We visited, ate, and played cards. It was a ton of fun.

Sharon, Buster, and Sierra. Dawn and Bill.

Quote

I just found an amazing quote book that I made 10 years ago in college. It has my most favorite quotes inside. I have been looking for this book for a very long time, and it just popped up in a very random storage tub. I decided to post one of my most meaningful quotes that really helped me in college. I hope you enjoy!

All the water in the world, however hard it tried
Could never sink the smallest ship
Unless it got inside
And all the evil in the world
The blackest kind of sin
Could never hurt you the least bit
Unless you let it in