Austin's quilt

Austin and I went on a date together last week, and she decided she wanted to make a quilt, so we went to wal-mart and picked out the fabric, and we got to work. I ended up doing most of the work, while she helped wherever she could, but we had fun doing it together, and it made for a great date!

Christmas Vacation part II: Wyoming

So we left the day after christmas for Wyoming, there was a lot of snow in the forecast, and a lot on the ground, so we stopped at Wal-mart and bought some chains. Once we got to Evanston, we stopped at the tire part of Wal-mart and got Travis got help putting the chains on, since he had never put any on before. So we were pretty happy for a while after that, Travis said it was much easier driving, until a few miles down the road we heard a snap, so Travis slowed down and pulled over, and said one of the links had broken, he did his best to try and fix it with no tools, and started again, it snapped off again after driving a few feet, but he saw a country store up ahead so drove slowly there, and stopped to get some tools to fix it better. He fixed it a little better, and we drove off, but unfortunatly once we got to higher speeds we heard a snap once again, so we stopped and this time both sides and breaks in the chains, so Travis took off the chains and then we turned around and bought some more chains at a local auto shop, and put those on, they worked fine for a few miles, until once again they broke. So we stopped took them off, turned around and return them to the auto shop. Finally I grabbed the manuel for the chains, and read them, finding that they said not to go more then 30 mph with the chains on I realized the problem. We had just been going to fast. So we went on our way with no chains to our destination. When we got to Star Valley Ranch, we knew the hardest part would be getting up the road to my parents house, they had received a couple feet of snow the previous night. My dad warned us we needed some speed to get up the hill. So we tried and tried and tried, but no luck we just couldn't get up enough speed to get up the hill. Finally I called my Dad and told him we were having trouble, so he came down in the 4-wheeler to lend his assistance, while Travis put on our busted chains to see if they could hold up long enough to get us up the hill. One chain broke, but the other one held, but it still wasn't enough to get us up that hill. Finally a guy who knew my dad, stopped and pulled us up the hill with his truck. We were so glad we finally made it, but we also knew we were stuck until it was time to leave, the poor van just couldn't make it up that hill in all the snow. A trip that was supposed to take 4 hours, took 8! We were quite happy to arrive. We had a lot of fun in Star Valley, lots of yummy food, good company, and games. We saw deer several times, but we also had some that came right up to the house, so I went outside and fed them some apples, it was really neat. We also had the fun job of shoveling snow, (I actually only did it for a few minutes) off of the roof into a big pile in front of the house, after we were done shoveling we jumped off of the roof into the big pile of snow, my dad went first and landed feet first, and was stuck in the snow, so he told us to not jump feet first, so I jumped and landed on my bum, and slid down, it was awesome! Then my mom jumped in, but went in feet first and got stuck too, they looked so funny, that I had to take a picture of them, before helping to dig them out. We went sledding on the road in front of the house, that was quite fun with the kids, by Dad and brother got out the 4-wheelers and pulled some of us behind in an intertube. We had lots of fun playing in the snow, but were sure glad to go inside for some nice hot cocoa. Samuel had a cold that started before our trip, that just seemed to keep getting worse, so after we both had a sleepless night, due to his cold, my mom and dad drove Samuel and I into Afton, WY to see a Doctor. The poor old Doctor really looked like he needed to retire, his hands were shaking so badly that he cut the inside of Samuels mouth a little when he was looking at his throat, but we were able to get Samuel some medicine that helped him get better quickly, so we were grateful. Another night, we went into Afton and watched "Bedtime Stories" at the theatre, it was a funny movie. There is a part when the main character's tounge was stung by a bee and was swollen, and he was trying to talk, with his tounge sticking out. Samuel thought that was hilarious, and busted up laughing everytime the guy tried to talk, and after the movie he kept trying to talk like that, and laughed a lot. We also went up to Jackson another day, to this fun pool they have there. The kids had a blast! There were slides, and lots of fun water things to do. Samuel loved sliding down the slides, and couldn't seem to get enough of the water. We ended up going back to Utah a day early, because a big snowstorm was supposed to hit. So we stayed at a hotel in Salt Lake City, and the next day we went again to the children's museum, and then got to the airport, well of course our flight was delayed, but not too bad, but then a big snowstorm hit, and it took us two hours once we got on the plane, to get de-iced and all the runways clear, and apparantly right after we finally took off, they shut down the whole airport. We didn't get back to El Paso, until 1am, so just like before everyone was exhausted, but we were all happy to get home. We had a wonderful vacation, and thankyou to everyone who helped it be such a wonderful experience!

The good and the bad

Well lets see, the good things that happened today were:
-I cleaned the living room and kitchen, I even mopped the floors
-Austin did really well on her reading homework
-The kids were really cute slurping their noodles
-I got to talk to Travis on the phone
-I made my bed, and said my morning prayers
-Samuel kept giving me kisses and telling me "luv u"
bad things:
-Joseph and Austin threw tantrums about going to school
-while talking on the phone to Travis, samuel dumped out 1/2 gallon of milk all over the counter, chairs, floor, and cupboards that I had just cleaned
-Joseph screamed and yelled at me, becuase I told him to go to his room for hurting Betsy
-kids wouldn't go to bed very easily

Noodle slurping

We had top ramen for dinner tonight, and the kids looked so funny slurping the noodles that I had to get a video of it.

Samuel's split chin

Monday morning Samuel was standing in his chair, and he must have leaned too far forward and the chair came crashing down to the floor with Samuel, and he banged his chin on the floor, splitting it open. I grabbed my purse and shoes, and told each of the kids to grab their shoes and something to do and get in the van. I grabbed some ice and a wash cloth to put on Samuel's chin (which was useless becuase he wouldn't let me put the ice on anyway) And we drove to the clinic near our house. After we checked in a nurse came out and looked at his chin, and said it needed to be taken care of right away, so we followed her to the back room. They brought in 3 little chairs, for Joseph, Austin, and Betsy, and then cleaned off Sam's chin with iodine, which he hated. Then after they got everything ready, I had to hold Samuel's arms down and lay myself on top of him to hold his body still, while another nurse had to hold his head still. The doctor numbed up his chin and put in 3 sutures, which probably only took a couple of minutes, but it sure seemed forever with Samuel screaming a crying, and yelling "mommy, help", "mommy, need you", "mommy, up"(he wanted me to stop holding him down). I was talking softly in his ear the whole time, trying to comfort him, but he wouldn't be comforted. Once he was done, he calmed down pretty fast, especially once they gave him 2 suckers, he was sure happy to get out of there, and took about a 3-4 hour nap, once we got home. When we got home he went over to the chair (it was still laying on the ground) and said "fall down, hurt." I've had a bit of a hard time keeping a band-aid on him, he loves pulling them off, and every once in a while he'll bump his chin, and say "hurt" but other then that he seems to be fine. After the Dr. was done with Samuel, Joseph (who has had his chin split open 4 times) said "Mom, did you have to do that to me the 1st time I split open my chin?"
"yes"
Joseph: "how about the second time?"
"yes"
Joseph: "how about the third time?"
"yes"
Joseph: "What about the last time?"
"nope, by then you were old enough to hold still, without me holding you down"

Christmas Vacation part I: Utah

We had a wonderful Christmas vacation together! We flew to Salt Lake City, Ut. on the 17th, right after we picked the kids up from school. I flight was delayed a few times, and we didn't end up getting to UT until about 1am in the morning, man we're we ever exhausted. The poor kids were so tired that when we went to get our luggage, they just laid down on the cold hard ground, and went to sleep. Being used to the heat in Texas, they were absolutely freezing the moment we stepped out of the airport, they kept saying how mean we were to make them go out into the cold. We made it to Travis' sister Maia's car, and she cranked up the heat and we were soon nice and toasty warm, then we stayed the night at her house. The kids really enjoyed playing with their cousins, and they also loved the birds they had, and couldn't seem to leave them alone (poor birds).

The next night, Travis and I left after the kids went to bed, and went to Salt Lake and stayed at a hotel there, and then went to a session at the temple the next morning. It was really nice to just spend some time together without the kids. It was also the best nights sleep I've gotten in a long time. The temple was beautiful, but it was very cold. As we were walking there was always beggers, and homeless people asking for money, but I kept telling Travis it was too cold to stop. So my wonderful husband took me into the visitor's center so I could warm up for a second, and then went back and gave money to a lady standing outside temple sqaure, sometimes I wish I could be more like him. Then we went and got the kids from Maia's house in Tooele, and drove to Orem, Ut to meet my sister Cristin, and her family at the Chuck-e-cheese there. We happened to be driving in the middle of a snowstorm, so instead of driving 60 mph, we could only drive 30mph, it seemed to take forever, but we finally made it. We had fun at chuck-e-cheese, and loved seeing my sister, and her new twins, conner and makayla, they are so cute, and each gave me a big cheesy grin, when I said hello to them. The big challenge there was keeping Samuel out of trouble, he kept climbing up on the skee-ball machines, and running up them to where you throw the balls in, we finally convinced him to climb in the play area where climbing was allowed. We stayed at the super 8 hotel in Provo. The next day we went bowling, to a movie, had smoothies and fresh bread(both from places we don't have in Texas, it was yummy). We also went to DI, looking for a winter coat for Betsy, poor girl only had a jacket and was freezing. While we were looking, Austin saw two cute little stuffed animals that she fell in love with in a shopping cart, that no one was around, and asked if she could get them, I told her we could go ask Daddy, so we started walking away. Well as we did so, this crotchety old lady emerged from the bathroom and yelled, "hey stop, those are mine", I apologized saying we didn't realize they belonged to anyone, and put them back in her cart. She sneered at us saying "yeah right" and huffed off. Austin bursted into tears, at how mean the old lady was. We ended up leaving with an upset Austin and no coat for Betsy. So we went back to our hotel and went swimming at the indoor swimming pool. It was really fun, it was really warm, and the kids had a blast. Samuel is quite the little fishy. He couldn't stay out of the water, and tried to swim as much as possible, with mom or dad frantically trying to keep his head above water. His favorite game was to climb out of the pool, and run to a spot where no one was at and jump in, and hold his breath, until mom or dad caught him and brought him back up to the surface. That is one crazy little boy, but we sure had fun. After swimming we walked to the Dairy Queen next door for dinner. There was one family already in there, so we ordered food and sat down next to them. After the family left, the mom came back in, and handed me $6 and some change, she said she wanted to buy our family a box of dilly bars. Surprised I said "thankyou" and she left. I'm not sure what prompted her to do this, but it sure was nice, and made me feel good inside. We also got to have yummy desserts after dinner. The next few days were filled with playing with cousins, and shopping in Tooele. We stayed at the Tooele Army Depot lodging, which was basically a two bedroom apartment. We would go out to breakfast each morning, and then make our way over to Maia's house. One morning we went to McDonalds, which had a nice big play place, and while the kids played, Betsy spent a long time organizing all the shoes in the bins, but she did play for a while too. It had a basketball hoop, that Travis, Joseph and I played with for a while. One evening we went to the Messiah, it was nice, but pretty long, and Betsy and Austin(samuel and Joseph stayed at the house) were getting pretty tired of it so we left after the Hallelujah Chorus. We also went into Salt Lake one day to the Discovery Children's Museum. The kids had a blast, there were so many fun things for the kids to do, we didn't even get to all of it. Finally the big day arrived. Christmas Eve we went over the Travis' Aunt Nora's house in West Valley, and had a delicous dinner, which I was actually able to enjoy becuase Samuel was taking a nap, and didn't insist on sitting on my lap. We had a little Nativity Scene performed by all the children, that I was in charge of. It was a little bit crazy, but we got it done. While the kids were playing we also had a moment with the adults, where each of Travis' sisters, mom, grandma, and aunt all sat on his lap and talked to him for a minute, since they won't see him again before he goes to Iraq. We went back to our apartment, and put the kids to bed. I laid out there stockings, and went to bed too. The next morning the kids happily opened up their stockings, and ate candy and played with little toys. Then we headed over to Maia's house for the opening of presents and breakfast. The kids each got quite a few presents from grandma and aunts. We had a huge boxful of things to take with us. I made a cinnamon roll christmas tree, and eggs and bacon for brunch. It was delicious. Maia's family got a Wii for Christmas, so I set it up for them, and we played games for a little while. We relaxed until dinner time, and had a scrumptious dinner, which was all so yummy! Then we tried to get in a few pictures, but ended up needed to leave before all the grandkid shots were done becuase Samuel and Betsy would just not sit and smile, so I think I made a few people mad when I said we were done and left, but it was just not going to work and I didn't think they wanted picture with kids kicking and screaming. Anyway we went back to our place and packed up to leave the next morning for Star Valley Wyoming to be with my family. Travis' sister graciously allowed us to use their van for the duration of our trip, saving us over a thousand dollars. Thankyou Maia!

Christmas Caroling

We went Christmas Caroling on Monday, December 15th, for our FHE. The kids and I had been baking up a storm, and made about 15 different kids of cookies, and made up 32 plates of cookies, with plenty left over for the kids to take to their classmates, and Travis to take some to work. We had a lot of fun baking together while listening to Christmas music. So we piled into the van with our cookies, and started our evening of caroling about 6:15pm. The kids were so excited and happy, they were run, or skip if it was Betsy, up to the house, and sing a hearty "jingle bells" or "we wish you a merry christmas" give the plate of cookies away, and run, laughing and screaming back to the car. We only had one little incident of Joseph running too fast, and knocking Samuel down that marred the evening. We had a wonderful time, but we began to run out of time. Finally by about 9pm the kids had had it, they were exhausted, and I'll admit so was I. By the time we got home our kids were all fast asleep, even Betsy!(Betsy hardly ever sleeps in the car)