Catching up

OH MY! It has been almost a year since I did anything with this here blog...I can't believe it.

What have I been doing with myself? I know you simply DYING to know. Honestly, all I do all day is sit around ALL DAY and eat chocolate bon bons while being fanned by my servants! HA!

My sweetheart won't stop harassing me about this blogging business. He says I must continue blogging...so here we go, READY!??

OK, so what have we been doing the last year?

Let's see, I have to go backwards, otherwise, I won't remember anything.

This past January, Ruby was in her first ballet recital. She did an outstanding job! We were so proud of our beautiful ballerina! Here she is waiting to go out on stage. She was so nervous, but she knew her dances well and she did great!

And YES! Those girls she is dancing with are her age or ONE year younger!!! HOLY MOLY, the girl is tall!

Check out those LONG, LEAN legs. I am so jealous!

Love you Roo!

Another Adventure in our Favorite Winter Wonderland

Rich and I wanted to take the wild ones back up to the cabin in January to get some more time in the snow. Hannah WAS NOT happy with our decision, so we left her with my parents and took the other three. We had a very nice, quiet, wonderful time. We played in the snow, went sledding, tried out the new ice rink in town and RELAXED together.

It was cold, but nothing like when we were there after Christmas.

Here is Ruby sitting on top of a VERY LARGE pile of snow.

John was a little upset we couldn't get the snowmobiles started!

Rich spent a couple of hours, one morning, digging out the back of the cabin.

THERE WAS SO MUCH SNOW! It was amazing!

WHAT A HUNK!! (who just had one hell of a workout!)

Ruby is such a doll she can have a blast no matter where we are and what we are doing.

I love you Ruby!

John perked right up after Rich pulled him around on a sled behind the 4-wheeler.

Kirk is hysterical and one day while we were up there, he was in rare form....so I took advantage of that and kept snapping pictures. I got about 20 hilarious shots, but here are just a few.

Uh, GROSS!!! (but kind of cool!)

One day, while Rich and I were making dinner, we noticed it was a little too quiet. We quickly found John watching a movie on Rich's ipad. He turned it on, logged on to netflix and started a movie ALL BY HIMSELF! We didn't know he could do that, too funny!

We missed you HANNAH!! Never again will we go to the cabin (or another other place) without you!! We love you and want you with us! The end.

An evening at the WESTERN IDAHO FAIR-August 24th

I just found this old post about the fair that I never "published."  What a shame.  I must share, there are cute pictures of the wild ones. 

The most important part of the fair!!! LEARNING ABOUT YOUR BEEF!!

Kirk got to "walk a llama..." I guess this particular llama is quite a character...his handler (?)

wouldn't let Kirk out of her sight!

GOOD JOB KIRKIE!

Leading him/her over the obstacle course!

Ruby wanted to do it too...her llama was just like her...FULL OF ENERGY!

I couldn't ever get a good picture! Oh well, it was fun!

Feeding the animals...

Hannah was so sweet to help the kids with the food...so I wouldn't have to! :)

Too bad everyone can't have a daughter as AWESOME as Hannah!

Cute (but smelly) little things!

CHECK OUT THIS BIG DADDY!

Kirk was the only one brave enough to feed this guy...

Wish you could SEE the SLOBBER ALL OVER his hand! EWWWWW!

Like Hi, remember me?

Mercy, what a strange Spring this has been...

I have had lots to blog about but no energy to blog with...that is about to change! I miss this.

BUT...WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE!?

My kids are growing up so quickly and keep me so busy. I swear someone has pressed the fast forward button, I keep trying to push the rewind button but for some reason, it isn't working!

WHOA!

We are about to move. We are scheduled with movers to pack it up on the 10th of May, OH MY!

It feels strange to leave this sweet house that we have resided in for ten years and brought two babies home to, but it really is time, time to move on.

We are hoping to move three miles north of where we are now, we will see! We made an offer on a great house. The offer was excepted, but the inspection didn't turn out quite as well as we would have liked...WE SHALL SEE! YIKES! We could be homeless, homeless with FOUR KIDS, fun huh? Yeah, I am freaking out! I am sure my parents are thrilled that we will be staying with them for a week or two. They may be moving back to Utah!

(This is the house we have lived in and loved for TEN years)

I can't believe all the junk that we have accumulated while living in this house for ten years...I keep taking loads and loads to good will but I never seem to get to the bottom of the madness! DON'T TELL MY KIDS! Hopefully they won't notice all the "treasures" that I am sharing with the less fortunate! Pray for me!

This is the house we are trying to move into...keep your fingers crossed for us, will you? It has quite a bit more room, which we desperately need and it has a double deep garage, so more storage as well! HOORAY!

Where has the time gone?

I can't believe it is time to pull out the holiday decor again! Seems like I just put it all away. A lot has happened this year and I have much to be grateful for. Rich is amazing and the greatest husband a girl could ask for and our wild ones, well I don't think they could be any better. I am one lucky girl. We are healthy, we have a nice, warm home and Rich has a great job, that he enjoys. ALL IS WELL! We celebrated Thanksgiving with my parents in their beautiful new home HERE IN MERIDIAN! It was so nice to not have a five hour drive before us. We split the dinner responsibilities 50/50 and it was so nice to not be stressed and worn out! It was delicious and relaxing! I loved it! THANKS MOM!! What a great day we had! Right before we left, my Mom gave us all a gratitude journal and asked us to write in it every day and then on Christmas, we will talk about our entries. I loved her idea...so many things to be grateful for, especially this time a year. I will look forward to hearing about the things my children recognize as blessings. The kids have been out of school all week for Thanksgiving break, it was fun to have them around and hear them laughing with their friends. I am really looking forward to their two week Christmas break. For the first time in at least ten years, we are not going to Yellowstone for the holidays. While I am sad we won't be with our hilarious and fun Fairbanks family, in my favorite place on earth, playing in all the amazing, beautiful snow, I am looking forward to some of the traditions we just don't have time for when there is so much travel and planning involved. My goal is to ENJOY the holidays and do all I can to make them enjoyable and memorable for the kids. I really want to take the stress out of Christmas! That is the plan anyway...I may have to read this post every day until Christmas! :) I have lots of pictures to post and oodles of catching up to do on this silly blog..but for now, I am going to break out the Christmas decorations!! I love Christmas and LOVE how my house looks at Christmas time. I will get back to routine blogging soon!! I PROMISE! XOXOXO H