Goodbye for Now

I'm not sure why I feel so overcome with emotion about the passing of President Hickley. I know in my heart and in my mind that he is happier and in a much better place now. He's reunited with his beloved wife Marjorie and many other relatives and loved ones. I would imagine that he's had a chance to meet the prophet Joseph and others who came before.

It's just that I have so many tender feelings for this man who has been our prophet for the past 12 years. He's the only prophet my children have known. He's been such a shining example of living the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is so humble, so loving, so funny.

I love you and I will miss you, President Hinckley. (Say Hi to Grandpa for me.)

First Real Snow Storm of 2008

We woke up this morning to Montana screaming excitedly "IT'S SNOWING!" We looked out the window, and sure enough, it was coming down. We've had a few random flakes over the past few months, but nothing like this.

An hour and a half later, Reed and Little Guy discovered the winter wonderland

Church was cancelled, so the kids had a blast playing in the snow and making a snowman. I think this may be Little Guy's first snow.

Do you like his big gloves? He picked those out himself.

The girls were the first kids out in the neighborhood this morning. They had fun making tracks all over.

Doesn't it kind of look like Little Guy's head was cut and pasted into this picture? It reminds me of those Office Max Elves that were going around at Christmas time.



I'm pretty sure school will be cancelled tomorrow. This is hilarious to anyone who has ever spend any amount of time living in Utah or Idaho or any other state where it snows a lot. But here things just shut down because we don't have enough equipment or manpower to take care of all the slick roads.

A Book and a Pile of Cheerios

Alternate Title: How to Keep Little Guy Occupied for More Than
2 Minutes with Something Other Than Making Messes

Alternate Alternate Title: BlessYou Cheerios Play Book

Pick out a Cheerio

Place it in the little bubble hole

Look what I did!


Now it's time to eat them...

Yumm Yumm

Don't forget to lick your fingers!

Cousin Carter's Birthday Celebration

Carter celebrated his birthday on Sunday with Grandma and Grandpa and cousins. Mikell fixed a yummy "haystack" dinner, followed by cake and ice cream. Carter couldn't wait for his cake. He dug right in and LOVED it. Looks like Montana is a little worried there won't be any left...

The eating and present opening was followed by a good old-fashioned sing-a-long. Great Grandma Lake style. She passed out sheet music and we sang all the old favorites along with some patriotic songs. You can't have a sing-a-long with Grandma Lake without singing patrioritc songs. And even though her 92 year old fingers have carpal tunnel and numbness, she is still able to play the piano like a pro. She's amazing.

Land of the Living

Little Guy is back! He's been here all along, actually. He's just been really sick. He started with a cough Saturday night, had a fever Sunday, and by Monday morning he was diagnosed with Pneumonia. It happened so fast. He was really down and out for a few days there. He wasn't eating. He was refusing to take his medication. We literally couldn't get it down him. He would fight and scream and spit it all back in our faces. The doctor changed the Rx to chewables and then it was all good. He had a few days of breathing treatments as well, but he was fine with those. He liked the little fishy mask. It's good to see him feeling better!

Lost Tooth

Montana lost her front tooth last night. She was SOOOOO excited about it. She put it under her pillow and wrote a note to the tooth fairy asking if she could keep the tooth. The tooth fairy abliged. Montana ran into our room at 2:15 am and woke us up to let us know the tooth fairy had come AND she got to keep the tooth AND she got $1.00. Pretty exciting stuff. I could hardly go back to sleep.
She woke up this morning in tears because she couldn't find the tooth. She had set it on her nightstand with her dollar and it must have gotten knocked onto the floor. If you could only see the mess on her floor. Maybe some day I'll show you a picture. But I'm afraid that tooth is gone forever. Or at least until she decides to clean her room.

Christmas Mess

Please tell me there's someone else out there who hasn't put away their Christmas decorations. Please. At least I have it all gathered into one location. But this table full of "stuff" is driving me crazy. Evidently not enough to cause me to do anything about it. Yet. I'm expecting a visitor tomorrow, so we'll see how motivated I am to get it cleaned up. Wish me luck.

The Hunt

WARNING: If you are an extreme animal rights activist, or if you happen to be President of the Nutria Society, I would advise you to stop reading right now. Bye-Bye. If you have a weak stomach and/or don't want to read about the grisly details of eliminating Nutria, you are excused now. Go. Before it gets ugly.

If you are still reading...Welcome. Hopefully you despise Nutria as much as we do. Or maybe you just want to read about our adventures with them. Nutria are useless rat-like nocturnal creatures that visit us each and every night and leave POO all over our lawn. The same lawn that our children like to run, frolic, and play on. And it's not your run-of-the-mill POO. It's the most DISGUSTING, SLIMY, STANKY, STINKY POO that has ever been produced by man or beast. I'm not saying I'm a POO expert, I'm just saying that in 41 (almost 42...gasp!) years I've never seen the likes of it.

Hank has had about enough of cleaning up after these horrid beasts (bless his soul.) He has decided to take matters into his own hands. He got a trap and baited it with carrots, the "people food" of choice for Nutria.

The first few nights, they were somehow able to get the carrots, leave us some juicy morsels of disgustingness, and not get stuck in the trap. That was it. Hank declared all out war. He got his comfy comforter and set up his post as night watchman by the window. The hunt was on.

( OK, I cheated. I took the pictures the next morning.)

So I'm fast asleep at about 4:00 a.m. and I wake up to the gut wrenching sound of "THUNK THUNK" You don't want any more details, I'm pretty sure. I lay there for a few minutes trying to get my bearings. Then it dawns on me what I just heard. Ohhhhh. Grosssss. Then I couldn't get back to sleep. After about a half hour I went downstairs to see what was going on. I found Hank at the computer reading about how to dispose of a dead Nutria. (He didn't find anything useful.) I finally fell back asleep at about 6:00 a.m. I dreamed of disturbing things. Really disturbing. I think I need a therapist.

Anyway, this is probably only the beginning. 2 down, 200 more to go. We can eat an elephant one nutria at a time. Or something like that. (shudder)

This is the lovely sight our children got to experience on their way to the bus stop this morning.

Don't look too close...it's sick. Am I'm pretty sick to be posting it here. I know. You can't say you weren't warned. I needed to share my pain. Hank is coming home at lunch time to bury them down by the pond. That's what the fish and wildlife people said to do.

Thank Goodness for Christmas Money

I always take one last peek at my sleeping children before I head off to bed

The other night, I found these beauties still awake...

In Montana's bed!!! With Montana on her mattress that had been pulled onto the floor. I guess those bears (or dogs or whatever they are) are quite the demanding divas.


She LOVES her build-a-bears. And it's a good thing she got some Christmas money from the grandparents. Because that place (Build-A-Bear) is such a racket that I can't bring myself to buy anything there. But the girls sure do love it!! Montana was able to buy a new bear and 2 new outfits (for the bear) and she couldn't have been more excited.

New Years Eve

Because I'm sure you're just dying to hear about our rockin' New Years Eve, here it is. We had a nice quiet family party. We started out with a big feast of random food that the kids wanted. Pizza, bread sticks, little smokies in bbq sauce (which nobody really likes, but Reed insisted on having because we "always" have little smokies.) Chips and dips, miniature candy bars, and sour patch thingies. Sparkling juice, mango and raspberry.

After our New Years Feast, we settled in the family room and watched the Incredibles. Great movie. Then we performed a short play that Montana directed and then listened to a "lesson" that Montana wanted to give us about being good examples.

After Little Guy fell asleep, the girls dipped cookies and pretzels while Hank and Reed went upstairs to play X-Box. At midnight we screamed and yelled and lit off a few fireworks.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!!!!!!!!!! How did you celebrate??