Toothless 4/09

It was just so cute when Sam lost one of his front teeth, the other one moved right to the center of his mouth!
But is wasn't too long unitl that one came out too!
Then he became a real hoot to look at.
We LOVE you SAM

Spring Break/ Idaho Teaparty 4/09

Yeah for Spring Break!!!

Although, it should have been renamed Return to Winter Break. ;)

The kids and I headed off to visit family in Burley ID Monday morning (April 13th, yup I left before the 15th) for a quick visit and to get away from the house for a bit. I was tired from a long tax season and the kids were needing a change of scenery. The drive up was beautiful but the weather turned on us the next morning. I think the high that day was 35! It stayed that way, with snow Wednesday, until Friday when we left to come home.

Yes, we had a beautiful drive coming and going, go figure!

The kids took advantage of Grandpa's hot tub to warm up in with all that cold weather.

I have some fun pictures of Jake and Maddy the same size as Luke in the same hot tub, I thought I should make a scrapbook page of them then and now!

Sam lost one of his front teeth while we were there. It was funny, we were at Stephanie's for dinner when he came up to me with it dangling there, he had a mouthful of spaghetti and couldn't finish it because of his tooth. Not even thinking I took a napkin and pulled. POP! It was out. It made for such a funny smile when the other tooth moved to the middle of his mouth. -He lost it the next Monday when he was getting ready for school.

I have a post planned with pictures of his big toothless smile.

Look at all the snow still on my wind shield, and we had been driving for about an hour!

While we were there the "tea party" anti spending and taxing demonstrations were going on around the country. I had not even heard about the event until we got to ID so we decided to drive down town and see what was going on. I guess they threw ice into the Snake River and then marched back and forth across the bridge with their signs. We gave them a number of long loud honks as we drove by to show our support. The radio said that about 400 people attended. We thought that was a high number for the number we saw.

-I think the surprise snow was a bit of a turn off to many.

Sorry but I love the sign that says "Got any CHANGE left?"

Burrrrr!!!

We had a great time spending time with Grandpa and Grandma Kunzler as well as going in and visiting with Stephanie and her family. It is sad that we live so far away.

Some other things we did while we were there:

• Took up our old furniture for Grandpa and Grandma's basement
• Drove to Twin Falls just to eat at Golden Carrol-really the best one I have ever eaten at!
• Went shopping at DI -got me a new waffle iron and found a VCR I have been looking for!
• Dropped lots of stuff off at DI
• Drove up to Oakley to buy a load of Oakley Stone to haul home for my yard.-it is so pretty!
• Brought home 26 raspberry starts from grandpa's patch! Yummy.
• RELAXED!
• Had Kayleen cut Maddy's and my hair
• Bought tomato's and stuff from Richard and Roseanne's greenhouse for our garden

Easter 4/09

OK, so not the most perfect Easter... but like this Easter Lilly reminds me, it is not the "Easter Stuff" that counts but the "reason for the season" that matters most.

Madisyn took the pretty picture of our Easter Lily.

I don't know when I started it but I have made it a tradition to bring an Easter Lily into our home for the Easter season. They are just the most beautiful white and seem to bring a quite peace to my soul when I look at them.

The week before Easter had been cold starting on the Monday after Conference Weekend so we were excited Saturday when it turned out to be a nice day again. So, needless to say, we ended up spending all day out in the yard again, this time making a new flower bed.

-Watch for a post about just it.

Madisyn was so sweet, cooking the eggs and getting everything ready for coloring. Thank goodness she did because Roger and I were plumb beat from working outside all day. I don't know what Jake was doing but it was just Maddie and the two little boys who ended up coloring eggs. Roger was resting on the couch and I had to go out to the office to work on some last minuet taxes that had to be finished before we left for Spring Break that next Monday.

(on April 13, three days early for the end of tax season!)

Carrying on the tradition.
The finished products!

Easter Morning.
Sam left a note for the Easter Bunny to be very careful when hiding Sam's special eggs so they would not get broken. The Easter Bunny left Sam a note as well letting him know that he was.

The seeking began!

While I was preparing dinner Roger started the tub and left Luke to play. He suddenly remembered and ran into check on him and found a VERY full bathtub with a happy little boy swimming in bubbles.

(it was not as deep on Luke as it appears, he was sinking down on purpose for the camera)

Sam couldn't resits jumping in too.

My OVER COOKED Easter Ham! I left it with the oven set when we went to church so I'm not sure what happened but it was still pretty tasty with Aunt Allison's Missouri Baked Ham Recipe.

Dinner was Ham, Funeral Potato's, Deviled Easter Eggs, Rolls, and a frozen Blueberry Pie, but no Asparagus, I was so flustered by the Ham I forgot to cook the Asparagus when we got home!

Here we all are in all our glory. (how sad that I have such a disgusted look on my face) Why are the kids not in their nice clothes...I started to list all of the things that I felt were far from perfect on this Easter Sunday, but it just didn't seem right. We have been so blessed, and we are so blessed to have the Savior's Atoning Sacrifice to save each of us and His Resurrection to promise each of us the gift of Eternal Life.

That is all that should matter on such a sacred day.

Conference Weekend 4/09

Ah, Warm Weather FINALLY!!!

Between General Conference sessions we went outside and enjoyed the warm blessed SUN.

Roger and Jake started expanding our garden area that we put in last year.

It was back breaking labor, they broke the sod with shovels and the younger kids and I loaded it in a wheel barrow and moved it to the bottom of the orchard where we used it to build up the dirt burm that holds the irrigation water from running into the road. After getting all of the sod out we dug another layer of HARD clay out, which we used to build up the burm around the pasture, and then filled the entire garden area with composted horse manure. It was a lot of hard work but we think it will be well worth it when we get to enjoy all of the yummy fresh VEGGIES this summer!!!

Jake and the little boys taking a break to enjoy the nice weather .

Shawna tilling in the "good stuff".
Man handling the beast!
I was thinking how amazing it is that this old tiller still works. Dad got it up and going and gave it to Roger and I when we bought our 1st house in Kingman AZ. We have had it for about 12 years and I have no idea how old it was when he gave it to us. Somehow it has made it through cutting ground for our gardens and lawns for three houses. A little Ether and it just keeps on starting and starting and starting.

Our new garden area is about 30' x 12', well over twice what it was last year. And yet we are afraid it is still not going to be big enough for all the stuff we bought to go in it!

My Mishap.

While I was tilling the bolt holding the tilling tines to the machine stripped off so the tines just spun on the shaft. I bent down to get a closer look and rested my hand on the EXHAUST PIPE!

I couldn't believe I was so STUPID!

Thankfully I was wearing gloves and was protected from being severely burned. It hurt quite badly most of the day but there was just one small spot at the bottom of my thumb that was actually burned and it was not even very bad.

What a BLESSING!

The crew unloading the clay from the truck.

(that we had manually extracted from the garden with a shovel!)

This is why I tend to loose 15 lbs. in the summer.

We'll make men out of these boys yet!

And the girl too for that matter, I guess!

(we just watched Mulan the other day and these pictures made me think of that song from the movie)

SPRING 4/4/09

We have a little Red Breasted Sparrow Couple (not sure what kind of sparrow it is but the male has a pretty red head and breast) that decided to use my Winter Wreath on the front door screen as a Nest. The poor little birds, they must have been too in LOVE to be thinking straight, with 6 people in this family and being tax season, our front screen door opens and closes MANY times a day! Each time the door opens, away they fly, just to come back again and try to incubate their little EGGS.

Finally out of pity I made the risky decision to move the wreath, hoping that it would not break apart in transit or just as sad, be abandon. The hardest part was deciding where to move it to. Out of desperation I moved it to our garage entry door. Locking the door and telling everyone to use the front door. (After spend a year trying to get everyone to use the garage door!)

Amazingly, the birds returned to the nest and are trying to salvage there little brood. There were four eggs but I found one in the wreath and when I tried to retrieve it it fell and broke. I almost cried. After thinking about how it could have gotten where I found it I decided it must have bounced out of the nest one morning with one of Jakob's house rattling slamming of the screen. He seems to believe that if he slams the difficult to latch screen door that it will close better. It does not. But apparently it can knock little eggs plumb out of the safety of their nests!

I suppose all there is to do now is to wait and see if we get any baby birds in our winter wreath or if the little eggs got too cold with their parents having to fly away to safety every time the door opened.

Our Spring surprise behind our Winter Wreath!

The new home on the garage door.

Ward Easter Party 4/3/09

Fun, Family and Friends with a

yummy Dinner and a nice Easter program.

What else do you need on a Friday night?

Road to Eagle 3/24/09

Yea! Jake finally earned his Life scout!

He has been within just a few merit badges for well over a year, but with this years Merit Badge Fair in Fallon he really put in the time and got it earned. I think he is now just two or three away from being ready to do his Eagle Project.

Hopefully, this summer he will put in what it takes and get it done.

We are so proud of him and the good responsible young man that he is. Many times it is said that the Eagle should go to MOM but I don't feel that way at all. He will have truly EARNED it himself.

These pictures are all pretty bad but we were in the cultural hall with terrible lighting and quite a ways away to boot.
In this first photo, Brother Ryan Johnson took a moment for Jake to stand in front of everyone and display how the boys should dress for their Scout Camp this year.
I was proud that he was in full uniform, especially since our ward is pretty lax, to put it mildly, about uniforms. But I can't take credit for the real Boy Scout pants, Jeanna Flint had given them to him at his board of review because they did not fit her son.
Thanks Jeanna!
Jake receiving his numerous Merit Badges for the night, as well as his

Life Scout Award
Pinning his Mother
The traditional HUG for or from Mom

This little video is part of the thought he was asked to give about the Scout Law. He chose the topic of Being Helpful, which come directly from the Law.