Where to start...

We all had fun outside for most of the day yesterday. We raked up about 15 bags of leaves with hickory nuts galore mixed in there. Our front lawn is so hashed from all those nuts. But we got the front yard looking presentable again, and the kids had a lot of fun in the process.
Thomas & Sam in the leaf pile

Rusty in the leaf pile!
Grandpa and his little helpers have been hard at work building the treehouse in the back yard. It's a lot more work than we planned, and it probably won't get finished this year, but it is looking good so far!

Jr. up in the treehouse in our back yard...with Grandpa

Jr. and Isaac with Grandpa up in the treehouse
Here's Grandpa mixing concrete for the footings in the wheelbarrow.
Working together on their project!
Here's me and my little Gord. I am having so much fun with him these days.
I went to the temple with my temple buddies...
And we met up with Dad and Lucille!!! It was great to go to the temple with some family! I hope this will be a regular occurance.
Rusty wanted me to squirt some whipped cream into his train so he could have fun eating it...
And he had so much fun!
I love having kids!!!
Tommy was iron man on Halloween...
Mary was a bunny this year...
Jr. was a green alien. He wouldn't put his wig back on for the photo though, so you can't see how cute he was.
Isaac was a powerful WIZARD!
I've got power and fashion!
Did I post this picture yet? Jr. got his braces off in October.

Before
and After...what a difference. Isn't he adorable? I sure think so.
Take care people. I hope you are all in good health! Meanwhile, I'm still plugging away trying to be superwoman and do it all. I must be crazy!

I've been so busy!!!

I cannot believe it's been over a month since I posted anything on here. I've been so busy with school that I hardly noticed! Well, I am doing well this week because I'm between classes. I will start into fundamentals of nursing on Monday. I've already learned basics of patient care (you know, bathing and feeding and changing linens, vital signs etc.). Now I'm going to start learning about head to toe assessment. I get to go to the VA this semester and have my own patient for a day also! Sue said that the old men fight over the student nurses over there. Ha ha ha!
We've been busy around here with this and that. Sam turned 4 in August. Happy birthday little buddy.

He loves going to preschool. He comes home and sings a song to us "rise and shine and welcome to school today". It is really cute. He is growing up so fast! It is nice that he has something of his own.
We all had fun spreading mulch around the bushes in the front yard. Even little Rusty helped out. We love working together as a family.
Mary went to dance camp for a week this summer (during the day only). She learned some really cute new dance/cheers. I cried at the recital. She really has a special gift for dancing.
We went out to the lake and had a picnic with all the cousins. We roasted hot dogs and let the kids run as far as they wanted out into the sprawling park. They had a blast together. Then we went swimming after the picnic in our favorite lake. I had so much fun playing in the water, you would think I was one of the kids! haha
I will try to keep up on my posting better.

Nursing Classes!

I started my introduction to nursing class a couple of weeks ago. It has been so intense that I haven't even had time to blog about it! The first two weeks we learned about basics of nursing care (like a nursing assistant would learn starting out). I'm glad to have this foundation because of my lack of health care experience. I'm starting from zero.
Yesterday I passed my first two masteries on hand washing technique, and applying a wrist restraint. I was so nervous. The first one had 17 steps and the second, 36 steps to memorize. I was thinking that was tough until I saw next weeks masteries which are both over 60 steps each. YIKES! They are all about transferring a patient from a wheel chair to bed and vice versa. I'm so glad to learn these things! I love nursing! I'm having a blast!

Family Vacation to St. Louis

It had rained so much in the previous week that the Mississippi river was flooding the street. That river was huge and running so fast that it really gives me nightmares just remembering us being so close to it.

There were huge barges that take tourists for a ride on the river. Also, mini helicopters taking tours over the river. It is beyond me why anyone would want to do that. We even saw a person in a kayak (did I spell that right??). Yes, a kayaker was making his way across that huge river! He had to be nuts!


First stop, the St. Louis Gateway Arch. It was a spectacular sight. It was right on the river front. We carried the stroller up all those steps you see behind Mary. We really got a workout.


Here we are standing in front of the arch, close up. We sat in line for about 15 minutes, (and it was a mile long) before we realized we would be there in line for at least an hour, and the tickets to ride up to the top of the arch in the elevator were $10 for adults and "less" for kids. We decided to head out to the zoo (cheapskates).

Little Rusty LOVED the train ride. It took us through the entire zoo. We rode it twice over because it was so fun. Throughout the whole ride Rusty kept shouting "Weeeeeeeeeeeee!"


We were so hot. It was a hot and muggy day, but we knew it was now or never because I'm going to be in school soon.

There was a lot of fun things to do there at the zoo.



And, of course there were animals. Here is a hippo we saw swimming in a pool.



Jr. took this picture. He's eating a frozen yogurt.

Isaac took this photo. It looks like something out of a magazine!


Even Dad rode on the carrousel!


What the heck is this creature? Crazy lookin.

We had a long day in the sun, but we had fun TOGETHER, which is what family vacations are all about. I love my family!

I'm surviving...kinda-sorta.

Jared is in Florida for the week on a business trip, and I'm trying to survive while he is gone. I had the idea to finally potty train Sam while he is gone. I sat with Sam on the toilet for 2 1/2 hours yesterday before he finally gave up and went pee in the toilet for the very first time. He is still working on it and mostly successful, so YAY!!!!

We went to "Going Bonkers" fun center

Weezie and I decided to get out of the house and take our kids plus Susan's kids and go to an indoor fun center here in Columbia. The kids had hours of fun. We are trying to squeeze the last bit of fun out of the summer, can you tell? haha

The Devil's Icebox Cave

We went on a hike to a beautiful nature area with a cave. It is one of our favorite hang-outs around Columbia. There is a boardwalk that circles the entire area, and we were sweating pretty bad by the end of our hike, so we stopped and waded in the stream, which was ice cold. It was so refreshing on a hot and humid day. Glad we brought plenty of gatorade and a bag of ice...

Happy 6th Birthday Tommy!

Our little Tommy boy turned 6 on July 26th! He had a party with all his cousins.
We ate pizza, cake & ice cream, and candy. We played the bubble wrap game (walk across bubble wrap without popping any bubbles to get a prize).

He got a drum set, and he was so excited.

Hooray!

Morning cuteness...

Mary: "We're letting Sam do our morning exercises with us, Mom."

Mom: "Oh, that's nice of you."

Tommy: "Yeah, we're gonna exercise all morning long so we'll never die."

Mom: "Wow."

Tommy: "And for dinner we're gonna have the vegetable corn-on-the-cob. Vegetables are good for ya'."

Mom: "Oh."

Tommy: "Yeah, we also figured out that popsicles are good because they have ice in them, and ice has water in it, and water is good for you."

Mary: "I taught him that, Mom. C'mon Tom, let's go finish our exercises."