Our Summer

We have had an overly busy summer it seems, why it has felt that way I don't really know, but that is how it has been. We weren't able to live in our house for a month becuase we are adding on to our house. We are in a mess and behind schedule due to one sub, who has taken a month to get his job done. But the end result will be nice.

Here is Jeremy working on the roof.


Here is the only picture of the addition, this is the side angle of the house. There are more angles that are on a different camera that I haven't uploaded yet.

We live about a half a mile from the train tracks and a week and a half ago a train came that we the public was able to go on a little ride. We were able to go and Trey was in HEAVEN! He loved it. We got the royal treatment becuase our friend was in charge of the event and we got to sit in the business car, on coaches and chairs, while everyone else was on the passenger cars. We got to sit with the conductor and Trey got to ask him every question he has ever had about trains. He showed us a couple of controls and even gave Trey a golden spike pin that he vows to wear until he gets married, although that didn't last too long becuase he can't find it the last couple of days.
Here we are on the train.

This is my favorite picture of Trey, he loved the ride!

Here are our kids in the train car. They are standing in front of the door leading to the train's engine. Notice Trey's smile?!! He was so happy. He kept saying it over and over.

This will have to be my post for now, I will post more later. My pictures stopped uploading so I will try again later.

It's been awhile

So it's been awhile again, I'm just not a blogger. Retreat for Girls just ended, and it was great. We decided to build on to our house as well this summer, so we were out of house for a month, not the best timing right before retreat, but we made it. Now we are back in the house, but it is a mess. It will be nice when it is all done! Here are a couple of pictures from Retreat.

Every year at Retreat the counselors do a silly, fun fashion show. My girls were in it this year, dressed up like pioneers. We couldn't convince Trey to do it this year.

We rented a hand cart for an activity for the girls. The activity turned out really good. They learned all about the handcart pioneers and each group had a chance to pull the handcart up old main hill. We couldn't get Trey to smile, notice the pose. I guess this will be a short post, I suddenly have to run. More sometime later!

Shout out for Retreat for Girls

I just had my training for Retreat for Girls last week and as counselors they had an idea to help and try to get the word out about Retreat that we should all blog about it. I thought that since all of them are doing it that I would do it as well. As most of you know, Retreat for Girls is a conference that I am the director of at Utah State. RfG is held each summer and it is for LDS girls ages 12 to 15 (Beehive and Miamaid aged girls). This is a great program, it is very similar to the EFY program but just girly. This program is based on the old Academy for Girls program that was held at BYU for many, many years. If any of you know of anyone that would be interested our website is http://www.retreatforgirls.com/. Also if any of you want to post it on your blog as well to help spread the word about this great program, let's just say that I would be more then eternally grateful to you!!!! It is really hard to spread the word about a program like this because it is such a narrow market that I am focusing on. I advertise in different ways each year and I have taken out several ads in different things this year but I thought that I would try this as well, it can't hurt right?!! I also have flyers and brochures that I can send to anyone if they are interested as well. Hope all is well with all of you!

Munchkins and Easter

I thought I would post a couple pictures of the girls as munchkins and of Easter. The girls did really good in the play, and they enjoyed it alot. They are however, trying to still catch up from the lost sleep. I survived and I am finishing the last load of costume laundry as we speak, kind of procrastinated on that one.


Here are Paige and Sadie as we dropped them off back stage before one of the performances.









Paige singing her heart out.












Sadie doing the same.











Here are my cute kids in their new Easter outfits.












Here's Trey. He loved his outfit. When we were trying it on in the dressing room he couldn't stop looking at himself and smiling. He wouldn't even try on the other choice, He just said "No, I'm handsome in this"








Here is Sadie in her pretty dress. The sun was so bright that day that she could hardly keep her eyes open for the picture. We haven't really seen the sun since then. It's been snowing yesterday and today.... you've got to love a Cache Valley spring.








Here is Paige in her dress, she loved it. They loved easter. We had a great day. We had a fun easter egg hunt and dyed eggs. I was going to include all this but it is taking forever to upload each picture so I ran out of time. Just picture my kids bent down in the same clothes picking up eggs.... and later in sweats dropping white eggs in various colors making odd color combinations as you go. Those are the pictures your missing out on. That's all for now!

Been awhile.....

Ok, so I am the first to admit that I am not a blogger. I just never find time to sit down and do it. Our camera is officially broken so we don't even have any pictures of the past two months. Just a quick update on our little fam. I am busy, busy making costumes for the school play. I do this every year but this year has been so much work. My house looks like it is throwing up fabric, literally, it's everywhere. My girls are going to be in the play, they are munchkins, as you might have guessed we are doing Wizard of Oz. They have enjoyed it a lot and are excited to perform soon. The play starts on the March 18th and goes through the 21st so the work is almost done. Jeremy gave me a new serger for my birthday which has been a lifesaver for doing all of this!! I was so excited to get it. That's about our update. Not very exciting. Also, I have told several people that I am speaking at BYU's Women's Conference this year, I am pretty excited. I know my time now, it's 2:00 on Thursday, April 30th. This is a different time than I originally told you, they changed my time last week. I thought it would be easier to tell people this way then calling everyone. That's all for now, my sewing pile is screaming at me to get it done!!

Sue

I just thought I would do a fast post mostly to tell Jeremy's family that our dog Sue died a week ago today. I was outside on Thursday, the 8th of January and Sue came up to me as if to show me that something was very wrong. Her face was huge and swollen. As luck would have it, Lauritz and Lynda were on there way to Boise and Jer was still at work (I have no idea what to do with animals so I turn to Jeremy and Lauritz all the time) so not knowing what to do I ran her to the vet. She had bumps everywhere and they thought that maybe she had been bitten by a poisonous spider and got a horrible case of hives as a result. The other option was a horrible and fast growing cancer everywhere. They gave her a shot and told me to give her Benadryl. She didn't get better, just worse and worse. The next day they said it probably wasn't hives, if it had been that she would have been getting better not worse. They felt at that time that it was most likely cancer. She was suffering so much and it was really hard to watch her. We took her in Monday to have her put down. That is it's own traumatic story in and of itself but I'm not going to write it down, I don't ever want my kids to know about it. You can call me if you are curious. I know Jeremy's siblings would all probably want to know because they all knew Sue. The kids are doing better now, a week later. Last week was a different story.

Here are the kids with Sue.

Paige's Birthday and More

Paige's birthday was on December 16th. She wasn't as excited for this birthday because as she puts it, she has Peter Pan syndrome, she doesn't like growing up. I think I was more excited for it than she was. Her party theme was Pinkalicious because she has always loved pink. I thought she would have grown out of her almost obsession of pink by now, but it hasn't happened, but that's ok except for when she refuses things because they are let's say purple and not pink. Everything for the party was obviously pink. I give my kids a friends birthday party every other year and this year was her off year. The year they don't have a friends party we take them out to dinner and I was so happy when she choose Fredrico's!! Yum, Yum!!

Here is Paige by her pink cake. Nothing exciting, but that is what she wanted, pink.

Paige hasn't known for sure what she wanted for her birthday, which was fine by me because I knew exactly what I was getting her for months. She has always LOVED the American Girl doll Molly and I know that she really wanted her but she would never dare ask for her because they are a little pricey, so I decided to surprise her by getting her one. She had absolutely no idea that she was getting this. The look on her face when she opened it was priceless and due to our luck, our camera batteries died (the camera, by the way is slowing dying on us, may it rest in peace but not yet please!!!). The camera actually hadn't died, it was just teasing us and it came back to life and we were able to get a couple shots shortly after she opened it. I did get the initial reaction on video so the moment wasn't completely lost!

Here is Paige with Molly~

She was so surprised and so excited. It was one of those really fun mom moments for me!!!

A couple weeks ago our dog Sue was barking at our old cat house on our deck literally all day. I didn't want to go see what it was that she was barking at because I was afraid of what it was. It could have been a little mouse family.... which I couldn't handle seeing period, a raccoon, a skunk who knows. Finally the kids called Jeremy because they had, had it. Jer told me to put the dog in the garage so whatever it was would come out. Well I finally got brave and opened the door a little to look outside at the cat house and a kitten jumped out, I seriously almost peed my pants it had scared me so bad. A little later another kitten ran out. In total there were three kittens in the cat house. They looked like they had just been weaned from their mother. One kitten jumped in our window well and we had to wait for Jeremy to come home to get her out. We thought that the cat would leave because our dogs HATE cats. The cat decided to stay, much to the utter joy of my kids. And our dog Sue no longer bothers her, a little miracle. Trey is so happy! He loves her.

Here is the new little kitty. The kids named her Smokey. She is definitely an outside cat, but I let her inside for a little while so she could get used to the kids. Trey was thrilled. He carried her around for a half hour and she just let him. So far she looks like she will be a good cat. Her only vice is she can't figure out the sliding glass door. She keeps running in to it. They get a good laugh every time, hopefully she'll figure it out soon.

Here are some priceless shots of Trey with the cat. I love the looks on his face.

Finally, we took our kids to see Santa yesterday after my Watkins family party. I thought I would share the pics.

Here's Trey telling Santa he wants Lincoln Logs, the set that comes with a train.

Sadie letting Santa know that she wants a camera and a surprise. Santa was confused with the surprise part, that's ok.

Paige is telling Santa that she wants a camera and a microscope. Santa was impressed that she liked science and asked her to find out this summer with her microscope if a fly has a heart. Luckily we live somewhere where flies are in plenty. At least it will give us one use for our herd of flies we get each summer!

If I don't post again, Merry Christmas everyone!!