Random Pictures

First an update on Micah.
Here's a comment from his mom. "Thanks for the thoughtful blog and comments. Micah's echo showed inflammation to an artery. Currently undergoing another treatment of IVIG. Pray for no more fevers. Mom and Melissa"
These treatments that she's talking about cost $10,000 a piece. We are very grateful for insurance! And also for modern medicine that can help this sweet little boy. He has to be fever free for 48 hours before he can go home. The good news is that he did eat a lot of KFC mashed potatoes yesterday.

Now for random pics from the weekend:
Time for Grampy to pull out the tractors. The grandkids couldn't be more excited.

Last Friday we watched a late night movie with Ben and Kaylin. Little Eli was so exhuasted that he just laid his head in my hand and didn't move. It was too cute.

Overnight in Wolverine..well almost.

Saturday night, on a whim, we decided to go camping with Brandon and Emily. There is a place not far from here called Wolverine Canyon that we thought we'd try out. So at 9:30 PM (yes we are VERY spontaneous around here) we pulled out of town and headed to Wolverine.

When we got to the mouth of the canyon there was a road closed sign and a barracade (still too much snow). We decided we didn't dare chance going past, so we just pulled over where we were and camped for the night. Aside from it being a sage brush filled cow patch, we had a great time.

We enjoyed smores over the fire, hungry man hash and blueberry muffins for breakfast, and dutch oven peach-raspberry cobbler. (Halle kept calling the dutch oven pan a dutchess pan.) Is there really any food better than camping food? Thanks for the fun time Brandon and Emily!

Our "beautiful" camping spot.

Kate enjoying the fire. We had a good sized fire, but it was pretty chilly outside.

Brandon and Addie

The girls had a blast decorating rocks with "cave men drawings" using their smoker sticks.

Carter's all time favorite camping game, Super Hero Match.

This was Johnny's and Addie's first camping trip and they had a blast running up & down the hill and sniffing out all the dead cow and dear carcusses. Mmmmmm.... Believe or not, Johnny didn't bark once in the night, even with the door opening and closing. He did bark at the cows and ATV-ers that came near by the next day though.

Alyssa, Emily, and Halle

Beware, if you go near Blackfoot, you'll come home with black feet.

Sick Little Micah

Our adorable nephew Micah is in the hospital and is a very sick little boy. They are treating him for Kawasaki Disease (something I had NEVER heard of before) and we are all praying that he will get better soon. Kawasaki Disease can be a pretty serious condition that affects the heart and blood vessels and sounds like it has symptoms much like rheumatic fever. (Jennifer, I know you can sympathize.) They haven't done any tests on his heart yet, those happen tomorrow, so keep little Micah in your prayers that he will get better soon and that his heart will be healthy.

Wedding Flowers

Just thought I would share a few pictures of the beautiful floral arrangements (all fresh) from a wedding reception I went to last night. The groom's sister, Wendy Infanger (If you need her number for anything let me know. She does an amazing job for any occasion.), did an amazing job decorating. It was an Indian/Asian theme, and I've never seen anything like it. I loved it.
I'm bummed that I never got a picture of the giant gazebo/tent/stage where the bride and groom stood, but it was all done in the orange draping fabric you see with white lights lighting it up. The Bird of Paradise arrangements stood at each corner.
Carter and Kayson enjoying the water element in the corner. There was a beautiful dark bamboo screen behind it amidst all the branches (from my dad's farm).
This gives you an idea of the color scheme. The tables were dressed in shimmering fabric of these colors. I also loved those tall arrangements on the food table.
These were the center pieces on each table. It really was gorgeous and my pictures just don't do it justice.

What in the world?

Did you think I was kidding about it being nasty cold today???? Can you believe those flakes? (And yes, I know my eyes are closed, but it was too cold to stay out any longer to try to get a different picture.)

When will we get two nice days in a row?

Since it is NASTY cold and windy outside today, I decided that I would post these pictures from last weekend. We took a little stroll around the river (one of my most favorite places here). Hopefully they'll help us all feel just a bit warmer today.

Ladybugs

Yesterday I bought a bag of potatoes. The dirt smell from it is REALLY strong. I don't know why it's "smellier" than normal, but it is. Everytime I get a whiff of it I think to myself, "Man, where were these potatoes when I was pregnant?"

Anyway, today when Halle got home from school she opened the pantry to get a snack and said, " I smell ladybugs!" LOL! Bet you don't keep ladybugs in your pantry. And I bet you didn't know ladybugs had a smell.

Walt Disney for the Day

Alyssa has been working on an assignment for the past month. She had to research the life of someone and then the culminating event was to dress as that person and give a short speech about them at the class's mock wax museum. (She was a little ticked that she had chosen a man after she realized she had to dress like the person.) She did great and it was fun to learn interesting facts about Walt Disney. Thanks to Kade and Deidra for loaning us some Disney artifacts.

Did you know that he wanted to join the army but was too young? So instead, he drove ambulances in France during the war.

Did you know that Mickey's original name was Mortimer, but Walt's wife hated it and decided on Mickey instead?

Did you know that on the opening day of Disneyland only 22,000 people were invited, but 33,000 showed up instead? It was a disaster of a day, but that didn't stop the magic of Disney.

Did you know that when Walt moved to Hollywood to make it big, he only had $40 to his name?

Happy Birthday Justin!

Happy Birthday to my brother-in-law Justin. He is such a great guy. Justin has the patience of Job and a hilarious sense of humor. I admire him greatly, of course we do share the same dot on the personality chart. What's not to like about that? :-) We hope you have a great day today!!!

Cherry-Lemon Lollies

Probably 7 or 8 years ago or so, I inherited some lollipop molds from my Grandma. I've never even opened the bag to see what shapes they are. But after some inspiration from Emily Loria, I decided to pull them out today and give them a whirl. Such fun and the kids were in heaven.

Getting the molds ready. Who would have known it was a spring set, flowers, chicks, eggs, and bunnies. Good thing we tried making these now and not at Halloween.

We did some free-form ones too. Halle informed me that they looked like bums. Hows that for a spring mix? Tulips, chicks, and bums. Oh Halle.... :)

Cherry-lemon sugary goodness. (Next time I think I'll add some citric acid to make them tart.)




Even Mom and Dad joined in the fun.

Alyssa is not pictured because she was at Bailey's house, but no one worry, we made sure to drop off a couple of suckers for them to enjoy too.

Thanks for the idea Emily! Now everyone go make some lollipops with your kids. They'll love it!(The recipe is on Emily's blog if you need it.)

It's Here!

I have been wanting to print my blog in hard form ever since I started doing it. After seeing Lee Ann's beautiful book, I couldn't wait any longer. Today my book showed up and I am so excited I can hardly stand it. This is just the 2006 book, and I only blogged half of the year that year. Still the book ended up being almost 200 pages long. When I get around to 2007 and 2008 I'll probably have to do them quarterly or something. But I am just so excited to have my journal/scrapbook/photo album really sitting on my shelf today!!! Hooray for technology.

*I got this one from blurb.com and it was quite simple to do after I figured out what I was doing.

My sister-in-law just did a really cute one that looks more like a regular scrapbook from picaboo.com, but I don't think that program uploads your blog for you. It's more like a cut and paste thing, but it was sure darling.

Did they walk out on their own?

You know how every house has a sock monster? Socks go into the wash and never come back out. Or socks get stuck under the bed and the monster eats them, never to be seen again.

Apparently our house not only has the sock monster, but the pants eater too. I know you will think I am kidding or exaggerating, but we are missing pants at our house. Seriously, HOW do you lose your pants???!!

It started with Jarom, ALL of his light colored khakis went missing right after his big trip to Boise. Of course we chalked it up to the idea that they must have been left in the hotel. But I have seen Jarom check out of a hotel and he is VERY thorough (to the point of OCD-ish) about checking in drawers, under beds, in closets, etc. for things we leave.

Well....now Alyssa's pants have mysteriously disappeared. Last week I noticed she wore the same pair of pants every day. I told her to bring up her laundry so I get her some clean clothes, she did and there were NO pants in it. I washed all the other bins of laundry and still no Alyssa pants. We've looked through Halle's drawers and laundry as well and it's no good. Alyssa's pants are missing. Maybe the pants have walked out on their own and taken a few pairs of socks with them so they won't be lonely. Is this the strangest thing ever?

It's a Beautiful Day in Our Neighborhood!

We had a beautiful weekend. In fact, today felt down right hot. (Nice weather....be still my soul!!!) We took advantage of the day on Saturday and pulled our trailer (Sacajawea) out of it's winter parking spot and de-wintered it. The kids were so bummed that we weren't going camping. "What good is cleaning the camper if we can't even use it?!" So, we decided to pull it down the road 15 minutes to a cool rest stop along the freeway, have a picnic, play with some cousins, and take a hike. We might have looked like red necks, but we sure had a lot of fun. View from the top of the rest rooms.

Let's go Sacajawea! We pulled up right next to the semi trucks and ate our fried chicken.

Time for climbing on rocks!

Rolling and sliding down the hill.



"Grammy, let's go this way."

Hell's Half Acre Hike

Happy Birthday Payson!

Happy 8th Birthday to Payson! He's Alyssa's very favorite boy cousin and for good reason. What a great kid you are (and I really wish I had a picture of you in that silly blue wig)! We hope your birthday is extra special this year and we can't wait to see you at your baptism in a few weeks.

I'm a Firecracker!

Kate is our hot headed child (well one of them anyway) and she is a bit of a firecracker. Whenever we say to her, "Kate, you're a firecracker.", she gets furious and says, "I not a firecracker! I just Kate!" So I was trying to get a video of her saying that. Instead I got this. I rest my case.
*And don't judge me by her outfit. It's number 9 of the day.

Subtitles in case you need them: She says, "I a firecracker! Let me go!"

Izabella Jean

My sister-in-law had her 5th child and 5th daughter over the weekend. So on a whim yesterday, a few of us girls, all needing to get our hands on and smell a brand new baby (Nothing on the planet smells better!), jumped in the car and took QUICK trip to Logan to meet little 7lb 2oz Izzy, Izzie, Izi, Izzi (Not sure how they'll spell it yet.) She's just adorable and it was a lot of fun going on a whim.
Look at those cheeks and that hair! So cute!!!

So alert and taking in all the crazy new aunties.

Is there anything more precious in life than a brand new baby straight from heaven?

After we each got a much too short turn of loving on the baby, we went to a Sports Grill for dinner. Little did we know that it was the final game of March Madness. You should have seen this place packed with men.
It had full on couches at the tables and a GIANT screen t.v. And with a game as close as it was, you can just imagine the hype in the place. It was actually quite fun and the food was good. I am sure all our husbands would have been jealous and thought we didn't appreciate the place nearly enough. Hopefully my sisters-in-law will get their pictures posted so I can steal a few from them. (Hint hint.)