Happy Birthday, Aubree!!!

Yesterday was Aubree's 3rd birthday!! We started out the day opening presents from her Grandma Good, which were three three outfits. So she picked one out to wear for the day. For most of the rest of the day, we just hung out and decorated her birthday cake. When the evening came around, we packed up and headed out to the sand dunes with Brett's brother, Ryan, and his family. Everyone had such a fun time!! We built a fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, road on the four wheelers and Ryan's way cool dune buggy. It was SOOOOOO much fun!!! Aubree absolutely LOVED riding in the dune buggy! She also had such a fun time playing in all of that sand. It was such a fun party and Aubs loved every minute of it. We owe a BIG thanks to Ryan and Valerie for letting us ride on their toys!!!!!!

This morning, Aubree finished opening her presents. She got a cool flashlight/lantern and fun bubbles from Ryan and Val and kids and a sleeping bag from us. We're hoping to go camping next weekend with all of our new camping gear. We'll see if it happens and how it goes! But as for Aubree's birthday, I think it'll be a day she won't easily forget!!

Here's the party with Ryan, Valerie, Kenadee, Dallin, Emalee, Jaron, Brett, Austin, Aubree, and me and Brynnlee (we're behind the camera).

Here's Aubree's Sunflower Birthday cake!

Ryan in the driver's seat, Brett in the passenger seat, Austin behind Brett with the blue helmet, and Dallin behind Ryan in the red helmet.

Now it's the girls' turn! Aubree is behind me in the blue helmet.

Aubree in the blue helmet, Emalee in the center, then Dallin in the far red helmet.

Fashion Sense

I've been trying to teach Aubree that it's important to choose clothes that match when she's getting dressed. Well this morning, she chose to wear jeans and a white t-shirt - pretty easy to work with. When she wanted to go outside and play, I told her she had to put her shoes and socks on first. She went back to her room and picked out her socks (white with pink trim). When she brought them out to show me, she said, "Look, they match my pink panties!" I'm so glad to be teaching her so well!!

The Hole

Monday morning, the crew of three came back to finish the hole they started on Friday. Just by looking at the hole, it looks fairly large, but keep in mind that a good portion of it is for our walkout basement. Brett keeps telling me that we should just line the hole and have one awesome swimming pool! With rising temperatures, the idea doesn't sound too bad!!

The next step is to get the concrete done, which probably won't happen until next week. I look forward to then!

Car Show

Saturday was a WAY fun day for the family. Brett's work puts on a really neat car show every summer and that's where we were yesterday. There were so many cool cars! Austin kept pointing out cars that looked like the characters from the movie "Cars." He thought that was soooooo awesome! We each took pictures by some of our favorite cars. Now you'll have to know that these cars are NOT to be touched, just looked at. Well, when Aubree was taking her picture, the owner came up to her, picked her up and put her in the driver's seat of this AWESOME car!! She was SOOOOO excited that she got to "drive" her car. That was pretty neat!

After we were done looking at cars, they had this fun blow up, bouncing thing for kids to jump around in. I think that was Austin's favorite part. So here are some pictures from our fun day yesterday...enjoy!!

And So It Begins

Well today was the first official day of getting started on our house. Everything started out smoothly and the kids were entertained for hours watching the crew dig the hole. We were so excited that people were here getting things going that the kids and I decided to make to make the three guys a treat to show our appreciation. So we whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and some strawberry lemonade. When we saw that they had stopped, we hurried and took out our goodies. The guys were so excited to get a treat, but had some bad news to tell us. The reason they had stopped was because the excavator had broke. GREAT! But, hey, that's alright. It's not that big of a deal. We can't start doing anything else on the house until probably the beginning of not next week but the following week anyway. So it really isn't a problem for us. What I'm worried about, however, is that this is just a preview of how the rest of our house-building experience is going to be! Let's hope not, but I guess we'll see!!

Our little patch of real grass is now gone. = (

The excavator arrives!

Here is Brett and the kids digging a new ditch.

The crew is here scraping where they will dig.

Now they are digging where the storage room will be in the basement with the master suite above.

Here they are digging out the one of the spare bedrooms in the basement and the formal living room will be above.

Now here they have dug everything but the gathering room on the main level and the kids' bedrooms both in the basement and above as well.

I Think It's Going To Happen!

Today was a very productive day for us! For those of you who don't know, we have been living in a mobile home for the last 2 1/2 years with the intent of paying off our land and then building a house. Well, we finally have been able to pay off the land and have picked out the house that we'd like to build (we've made several changes, but this will give you the basic idea of what we'll be doing). So recently we've been getting bids and making plans. But that's all it's felt like - just making plans and dreaming that one day we'll be able to build a house. After today, I think it just might happen!

First thing this morning (six o'clock to be exact), our neighbor came over to cut up, roll up, and take away our sod. We decided to give it to them rather than keep it and have it ruined while our house was being built. At a more decent hour, Brett took all of our finalized papers into the county planning and zoning office to apply for our building permit. Then we got a phone call from the bank telling us to come and sign papers since our construction loan has been completed and approved. So we went in this afternoon and signed those. When we got back, Brett and I measured the land that our house will be on, finding that it's on about 1 1/2 acres (I was really hoping for 2, but yay anyway!). Shortly thereafter, the excavator arrived so that it will be here and ready for our hole to be dug tomorrow. And since it was just sitting there, Brett has gone ahead and used it to dig a new ditch (since I made him push our fence line back to make more room for my backyard). I've been taking some pictures, but I'll wait to post them until I have some cool ones of our hole being dug.

So I think this is it; it just might be happening. We're starting on a journey that I've heard can be a very difficult and frustrating one. So I hope you don't mind, but I'll be using this blog as my outlet and journal of our building experience. We'll see how it goes! Wish us luck!!

Our Athlete

Austin had another T-Ball game today and this time I took a few little movies of him playing. So I wanted to post one in case anyone wanted to see him play.

2 Funny Conversations:

#1 -

Austin asked to eat a "healthy banana" before his game. So, of course, I let him. Well, after one of the times he hit the ball and ran all of the bases, he came over to where we were sitting and said, "So Dad, how did I do?"

"You did a great job hitting that ball. Way to go!" Brett said.

"It's that banana!" replied Austin.

#2 -

Brett was telling Austin to watch the ball while he was on first base in case anyone throws it to him so that he can catch it and touch the base. Then Austin said, "I'm just trying to give the kids a chance, Dad."

He's a pretty funny little kid! We sure love having him in our family!!

Our Best Bites

About two weeks ago, I was introduced to a fairly new blog that I absolutely LOVE!! It's called Our Best Bites and I've included it in my favorite links. For anyone who loves to cook or even anyone who hates to cook, but if they have to it's got to be good, check this site out! There are recipes GALORE!

The scoop on this site -
It is done by two Mormon women who consider themselves "food snobs." So the recipes that they post are supposed to be amazing! And to me, by just reading the recipes and looking at the pictures, everything looks to be just that - AMAZING!! They have a theme each week and they post a new recipe Monday through Friday going along with that theme. Not only do the recipes look and sound good, but their daily comentary is really quite entertaining.

So check it out and let me know if you try any of the recipes. I'm seriously considering starting something like this up with the recipes from my recipe boxes. I'll keep you posted on that! In the meantime, enjoy the new website!!
http://www.ourbestbites.com/

Summer, FINALLY!!!

So today has been an absolutely gorgeous day! Brett turned the water on the trees this morning and asked me to make sure that the watering lines were hitting the trees after a while. Well, after trying to yank and tug the lines to fix them and totally scratching up my arms in the process, I decided to just walk the rows of trees and water them with the hose myself. That was no easy task either! The hay and grass (well, mostly weeds) has grown so tall over by the trees making it seriously funny to watch Aubree try to walk through it. It goes up to her waist and if she falls in it, which she does quite frequently and mostly on purpose, she gets completely buried in the tall hay. So I thought I'd post some pictures of the kids I took while we were out watering the trees.

Aubree is kneeling in the hay and grass.

Like I said, when Aubs falls, she gets completely buried! Can you see her next to Austin?

Here's Austin and Aubree tromping their way through!

Who can resist a nice cool drink straight from the hose?

Miss Idaho

From left, Krissy Gutierrez (Co-Director), Vanesa Cannon (Miss Falls Valley),

Genevieve Nutting (Miss Southeast Idaho), and me (Co-Director)

For those of you that don't know, I am a co-director for the Miss Falls Valley Scholarship Pageant. What that means is that Krissy, our other co-director, and I run this pageant. We are an official preliminary to the Miss America Pageant. So if one of our titleholders (we have two - Miss Falls Valley and Miss Southeast Idaho) wins the title of Miss Idaho, she then would go on to compete in the Miss America Pageant. Pretty cool, huh? I have been LOVING this hobby!!

Well, this last weekend was the Miss Idaho Pageant. So Krissy and I took off to Boise to watch our girls compete and boy, was it fun! Both of our titleholders made it into the Top 10, which is HUGE; that means that they both worked very hard and had some great directors guiding and helping them ; ) ! That was our goal as directors and our girls did it!! But it doesn't stop there. Our Miss Falls Valley, Vanesa Cannon, won an award for raising the most money for the Children's Miracle Network and our Miss Southeast Idaho, Genevieve Nutting, got Second Runner-Up!! Isn't that AWESOME?!!! This is our first year directing and both of our girls did very well. We couldn't be happier!

SNOW!!

Wow, three posts in one day! This is definitely a record, and one that I probably won't break for a while!! I just have to vent my frustrations. One thing that makes me very grouchy (and unfortunately there are many things that make me very grouchy now that I'm on this awful birth control!) is to see snow when it's almost the middle of June!!! Why? Why?! Why?!! It's supposed to be summer! Come on!!

Birthday Cakes

Aubree's third B-day cake - sunflower cake

Austin's 5th B-day cake

My nephew's golfing B-Day Cake

Austin's 3rd B-Day Cake

Brett's B-Day cake (super messy Skor Bar Cake)
Brett's B-Day cake

Austin's 4th B-Day Cake (Friend's Party - Clifford's Doggie Bowl)
Austin's 4th B-day Cake (Family Party)
Aubree's 2nd B-Day Cake


Over the last few years, I've been having so much fun decorating cakes for my kids' and other's birthdays. And so since this blog is more like a journal for me, I'm posting pictures of the cakes I've made. None of them are professional by any means! But my kids sure do love them. That really makes it worth it for me.

Austin's 5th Birthday!

Yesterday was Austin's 5th birthday! He was so excited about it that he could hardly go to sleep the night before. When he woke up, he got to see his fire truck cake that wanted for his birthday this year (since I stayed up for hours the night before working on it). Though I was very dissappointed with it, Austin thought it was the coolest cake! So that was nice for me.

That afternoon he had seven friends over for a birthday party. That was kind of crazy! Brett was supposed to come home from work to help me, but he wasn't able to get away until five minutes before the party was over. So I told him not to worry about it. But we managed. Brynn was a little fussy toward the end, but Aubree and her little friend attened to her every need while I was dishing up cake and ice cream for everyone else. What great little helpers they were.

Then that evening, Brett brought home pizza for dinner - Austin's FAVORITE!! He was sooooo excited! After that, he and Aubree went with Brett to go pick up a bull to bring home. While they were at another ranch getting this bull, there was a new little colt that they both got to pet. He really enjoyed that. And when they got home, he opened the rest of his presents from the family.

You'll have to understand that for the last couple of months, Austin has been saying that he's a cowboy. So he'll always ask me, "Do cowboys eat this?" "Do cowboys like to do this?" "Do cowboys listen to their mom's?" and so on (a very easy way for me to get him to do what I want him to!). Anyway, my mother-in-law gave him a cowboy hat yesterday for his birthday and he was in HEAVEN!!! When he wears his hat, he talks with the cowboy drawl and yee-haws. It is absolutely hilarious!! He kept saying, "I'm a REAL cowboy now! YEE-HAW!!" In fact he jumped on his little bouncing horse last night and did not want to get off!

So yesterday was a pretty fun day for everyone! I can't believe that he's five years old! I can remember so plainly the day that I had him and now he's FIVE! Where did the time go?! I really should enjoy his childhood while I can!!

T-Ball

Up to bat!

Runnin' home!

Having a good time!!

Austin is number 1 - how cool is that?!

So today was Austin's first official T-Ball game! He had so much fun!! It's so funny, after he hits the ball, he always looks at his coach and asks if he should run to first base. "Yes, RUN!" is what we all say to him. You can tell he's having a great time by the big thumbs-up he gives me every time he makes it to a base or throws the ball. Aubree has a really good time too. You can always find her climbing the fence by the dugout or behind the catcher. I really do have a monkey on my hands!

Rough Day

Today has already been one of those days that you just want to be over with! First of all, this morning when I was cutting the kids' fingernails, I was just about finished with Brynn's when she moved just as I was cutting her last nail and ended up cutting way back into her nail bed along with a good chunk of her skin! It still makes me want to cry!! I felt SO bad!!!! It took what felt like FOREVER to get the bleeding to stop; and do you know how hard it is to get a little baby to hold still to keep pressure on it?! So her very first owie is one that I inflicted on her! My poor baby!!!

Then, once I got the bleeding to stop, I gave Brynnlee some tylenol and a bath to help her feel better. Well, when I got her out of the bath and was getting her dressed, Aubree decides that she wants a bath as well. Now I had already gotten her dressed for the day and done her hair all cute since we were going to Austin's first T-Ball game today. But that wasn't going to stop her! She strips down and jumps in the tub (that I hadn't drained yet), hair done and all. So I took out her cute hair-do and bathed her, redressed her, and did her hair once again.

By the time I finished with Aubree, we had ten minutes to be to Austin's game. So we were rushing around getting everybody out the door along with the treats we were in charge of and we made it to the baseball field right at 11:30, when his game was to begin. But guess what? The other team didn't show up. It had rained during the night, so they must have thought it would be too wet to play. So all of that rushing around was for nothing! But I suppose there is a silver lining to this part of the day...since we were so rushed to get to Austin's game, I forgot to take pictures of him before his first T-Ball game. I guess I've been given a second chance to get it right for tomorrow's game! So we'll have to see how tomorrow goes. Wish me luck!!