Supervisor

Derrick was made supervisor over mapping plats. Hooray!

Merry Christmas!

I heard Landon come running down the stairs. He has to go through the Christmas tree room to get to our room. He yells, "SANTA CAME!" I told him to come in our room, he could barely handle that request so we sent him back upstairs to wake Porter up. They were back down the stairs in 5 seconds flat. Landon couldn't seem to find his Santa pile right off the bat.... he was getting a little distressed. Porter was wide eyed looking at his. Hazel was still sleeping at this point. I was able to get a nice little posed picture of the boys infront of the tree surrounded by presents. :-) unopened and still looking pretty.
Here a few more pictures of them opening gifts and wandering amongst the chaos. I made there pj's, finally finishing them yesterday at about 5pm. We feel they had a great time and are still enjoying themselves.

Landon's Preschool Program

Cute Hazel

Here is a picture of Hazel looking just so cute and happy.

Christmas Tree

This Christmas tree is special to us. Here is why. Earlier in the week we had gone over finances and decided that we just didn't have money for a tree this year. We had been laid off for a month. Thankfully Derrick is working again. HORRAY! The following Sunday some members of our ward asked if we could use a 9 ft tree. Derrick said yes. That evening the tree arrived, 14 feet tall, and totally fresh. I think they cut it themselves from the mountains. Derrick cut the top off and we put the top in our Christmas stand. Its actually a very pretty tree.

The kids helped decorate it and were besides themselves with excitement. Landon is especially excited. We found him after bedtime sitting in the rocking chair watching the tree. The next morning he was up at 4 am turned the lights of the tree back on and went back to bed.

Santa Pictures

Here are the kids at the ward Christmas Brunch Party. The kids were very excited, and I think we even had the real Santa there at our party!

Landon's Fifth Birthday

Landon has turned 5. He is very proud that he is five now. His presents were a bat mobile and bat helicopter and a book called, Its Hard to be Five by Jamie Lee Curtis. Its cute.

Happy Halloween.

The boys had a great time trick or treating. They ran from house to house. Then they came home and sorted out ALL the candy they didn't want. ALL CANDY BARS and other occasional yucky looking pieces of candy.

Porter dressed as Bumblebee transformer, Landon dressed as Optimus Prime transformer. Hazel wore pink. She likes smarties. I would have posted pictures of the pumpkins we carved and of the kids in costumes, but I can't find the camera ANYWHERE! (found it hidden in a box in a hall closet Nov. 4)

Derrick has been laid off. Who knows maybe we can move back to Idaho. I do know this, we never want to buy another house until we have lived there for a couple of years and we know the job is gonna stick for longer than 7 months.

Hazel's first birthday

Hazel has turned one years old. She is a sweet blessing in our family. She did not like having frosting on her hands. Here are just a few random pictures taken from the week of her first birthday.

Croup

All these years I had thought croup was an old time illness that didn't happen nowadays. Remember in Anne of Green Gables, Diana's sister had croup and Anne had to go help. Well, Landon has been suffering from croup for 3 nights now. It is actually pretty scary. He has been having trouble breathing since the first night. Last night and this morning it became steadily harder for him to get air into his lungs. Each breath you could see the strain in his neck and hear him try to pull air in.

I finally decided to take him to Urgent Care . . . he was rushed back, they began to nebulize him giving him medicine, then informed me after getting a history etc . . . that an ambulance was ordered and he was being taken to the hospital emergency room. Okay . . . this scared me a bit. His breathing pattern was called Stridor ( breathing in through a tiny straw size hole due to airway being inflamed). I called derrick to tell him and followed in the van.

The treatments worked, xrays showed nothing really, it was called croup and they sent us home with extra steroids and an inhaler. If he starts to have stridor again, return to the ER immediately for the 24 hours hospital stay.

So far he is doing well, I can just hear him a little as he tries to breath in. It was scary.

Hazel, Just cause she is cute.

Toads!

The last few days has been pretty rainy so our window well in the basement has filled with toads. Well, five toads. Derrick rescued them and put them in a bucket for the boys to play with.

Porter Plays Soccer

Porter has started playing soccer. He has fun. The kids are just fun to watch. They have played 3 games so far. The first two games his team was creamed and our team didn't score any goals. The third game Porter scored the first goal of the season. It was VERY VERY exciting. After he scored, his team all hugged him and weren't letting go, they were just so thrilled. The game was delayed a little bit trying to get them to play again. :-)

Landon.. just cause he is cute.

Dining room remodel update

Beforeafter


I can't beleive what a difference windows can make in the feel of a room. I am soo glad we had this done to the room. Now I can see into the back yard. There is lovely morning sun that comes into this room and fills the kitchen with great light. I love it. We still need to calk and paint the room, but you will get the general feel of it.

Porters first day of school

Porter was pretty excited about school starting. He was ready about 30 minutes before it was time to go. I dropped him off at his classroom, he gave me a hug and ran to the playground.


Porter also started soccer for his first season ever. It was an adventure trying to figure out how the shin guards and socks are supposed to go on. We figured it out, not sure it was right, but it worked just fine.

School starts tomorrow!!

I can't wait for school to start!! It is gonna separate these two fighty boys! WHOOHOOOO!

All Three Together

All three kids together. That wall with the black stripe is now a sliding glass door. Horray! These kids sure are cute together!

Fence oiling.

The boys had a great time helping us oil the fence. It sure was a lot of fence to oil. The front gates were just recently finished.

Art by Porter

Robot!

Spiders Everywhere!

Every time we see a spider in the house, we are informed by Porter that his school teacher told him that they weren't supposed to kill spiders. I have tried to tell him that it is okay to kill spiders if they are inside the house, but outside we just leave them alone. This explanation wasn't working for him, he still insists that we don't kill the spiders. Finally today I told him his teacher was wrong and that its okay to kill spiders in the house. He was pretty mad at me for telling him this and went and wrote up a sign that said "Dot Kll Spiders" (translation "Don't Kill spiders") It was pretty cute and I am very proud of him for sounding out dont and Kill. He did pretty good. He wrote the SPI and asked for help with the DERS. A little while later, he said, "Mom, come see! Look on your bed!" I go look and there is a picture of a giant Black widow and a brown jumping spider with the stripe and all! He was teasing me by putting them in my bed.

Repairs

Well, Tornado repairs are underway. Our fence is put in, we have started to oil it making it a slight brown cedar color. The oil really brought out the grain patterns in the boards. I would post a picture but our usb cord is lost for the camera. The boys have helped a good portion of the oiling. They each have their own rollers and do a pretty good job. Hazel sits in her highchair every evening while we all oil away. A few more evenings and it should be all done. We also oiled our neighbors side of the fence for her as she lives alone without much help around.

The gutter guys came today aswell. They removed all the battered gutters before receiving word that they were at the wrong house. They were supposed to do someone elses before they do ours. They will be back in the morning to finish up.

Shingles and windows have been ordered.

We are still deciding on a new color for the house. Any suggestions would be nice and welcome.

Our van has been in the shop for the last three weeks. We received word that they are hoping to be completely done friday at 4:30. Horray!

Thats it for us!

Birthday cake!

For your information I didn't make this cake and I don't really know who did, BUT this is the birthday cake I would like for my birthday end of July. Any volunteers to make it for me??? Anyone? Anyone?

A Homeless Squirrel?

A homeless squirrel?
Where in the world
did that big tree go?
In a tornado?
NO!

Author: Derrick

Windsor Tornado May 22nd Damage Pictures