Exciting News!

Well, as you can tell, from my lack of posting and my completely monotone voice (just pretend) our exciting news has been postponed a bit. I know you all won't be able to sleep for wanting to know, but try, try hard! Hopefully by Monday...Tuesday, possibly Wednesday, or Thursday, but especially by next Friday I'll be posting pictures of our exciting news. And don't get too tense it's not like we won a trip to Hawaii or anything!

P.S. The neighbors dog, whom they promised they would keep tied up, ate our last chicken today. Man I am #@!. Don't worry, it really wasn't that bad of a word. I don't blame the dog...he's just stupid, but I am perturbed that I naively trusted the neighbors. Once again, Aaron was out of town, so the dog is safe.

R.I.P. Chicken Little

So last Tuesday all our chickens were killed. Yeah, it wasn’t fun. Let me share the story with you. I actually do have a picture as well, but I’m not gruesome enough to post it.

We had just gotten back from town and when I got out to unload the groceries I noticed feathers all over the driveway. I told the kids not to follow me and started toward the chicken coop. As I was nearing the coop, my neighbors’ dog came tearing out from the other side of the coop and ran home. I knew there was a problem even before I rounded the coop and saw eight dead chickens. I felt horrible. Of course, the kids wanted to know what was wrong and were starting to come over. I wasn’t very friendly when I ordered them to get in the house; I didn’t think they needed to see it. Aaron was out of town, so I called him to let him know. It was probably a good thing that he was gone, or the neighbors’ dog would also be dead now. I cleaned up the bodies (sounds like a crime scene) and then went inside to cook dinner. I really didn’t like the chickens, in fact, I had just had a discussion with Aaron about finding them new homes, but I was really upset about how we’d ended up getting rid of them. We sat down for dinner and Kessie asked to pray. Her prayer went something like this, “Dear Heavenly Father, Please bless Daddy. Please help us to find one chicken. All our chickens are dead. Please help us to find just one……” When she was done, I just sat there frustrated and tried to explain that they were gone. The kids kept insisting that we had nine chickens, not eight. Well, I don’t know. I was never on chicken duty, so I didn’t keep track, but I was pretty sure that none of them had survived. I realized that I had forgotten to get the juice so I went over to the sink to put water in my pitcher to make the juice. I happened to look up and glance out the window…..”What the….You have got to be kidding me…” I said a few other things that aren’t really appropriate, not that they’re horrible, but substitutions of surprised cuss words. There, standing just outside the window next to a bush was our last chicken. She was totally fine without even a feather missing. I had been sure that if there was a chicken left she would be hiding and we would find her later, frozen to death. But no, there she was. I yelled at Louie and Lanny to go round her up and get her locked in the coop. She escaped because she is as wild as you can get. We can’t even go near her, let alone that dog. After my excited exclamations, I heard Kessie say, “I knew it! I prayed!” She had absolutely no doubt that her prayer would be answered, and it was. I was totally ashamed of my lack of faith, and so proud of my little girl. It was just a chicken, just one chicken, but her faith was firm. It was definitely a faith building experience for me…but wait, I still had learning to do. When it was time for bed, Kessie asked to say the family prayer. Well, she had said the last prayer, so I was going to have someone else say it, but she really wanted to. “But, Mom, I want to thank Heavenly Father for finding our chicken.” Yeah, out of the mouth of babes. She remembered to give thanks for the blessings we had gotten. I’m sad that I wasn’t the one teaching my children, but very thankful for the lessons my children had taught me that day. I feel truly blessed to have such spirits in my home.

FYI: Aaron will say I'm jinxing everything, but we have some exciting news to share on Friday! No, we're not expecting!

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I know this post doesn't have a title, it's because I'm just not feeling witty or clever, as evidenced by my past 400 titles, so I just might skip the title altogether from now on. Just have a few pics to share from last week.
Kessie lost a tooth last week. She was sooooo excited. I was not. I was eating dinner, alone, as usual...all you moms can relate (you set the food out and everyone's done before you get to sit down), and Aaron popped Kessie's tooth out. It clickity clacked across the floor. I had just asked him not to fiddle with her tooth in the kitchen, yep, obviously he hasn't learned to listen. Teeth clacking across the floor tend to make me a bit nauseous, I dry heaved a couple times, but don't worry, I kept my dinner down. Kessie had a gap between her two front teeth, so now it looks like she lost an amazingly enormous tooth, but it was one of her baby teeth.

We went to the circus on Friday. Yes, you read that right. The circus came to Star Valley...well, if you consider the circus to be a one man show in a small conference room with a couple dogs, then yes, we went to the circus. The kids seemed to have a good time, I was a bit miffed. I'm use to elephants and motorcycles and amazing aerial stunts, but you can have a circus without all that right?!? There was one very talented young man, as evidenced by the fact that he was the juggler, clown, strong man, daredevil and MC. I got one picture of the kids with this incredibly scary looking SpongeBob...who might I point out has lost his nose. You'd think with the $15 my ticket alone cost they could fix his nose. Okay, enough complaining, just know, that if you ever get a circus ticket that says, "Free Ticket Coupon" on it and boasts animals from Madagascar....it's a total scam!

In other news, I am fed up with the screaming in my household every morning when I brush the girls hair. So my friend came over last week and chopped their hair off...don't worry, Aaron wasn't home at the time so my friend is still alive and will remain nameless. What is it with guys and long hair? I am thrilled to report that today was their first day back to school from spring break, and my girls brushed their hair and there was absolutely no screaming....aaaaaaah, I love the sound of silence! So I took a before and after of Louie. I forgot the before of Kessie, but if you look at her tooth pic you can see how much longer it was. They both love their new hair, and being the unbiased person that I am, I think they look pretty stinkin cute as well!

 

Here's just a cute pic of Kel and Kessie. Kessie was taking a snooze and I told Lanny to wake her up. He did so by lifting the front of the recliner off the floor and letting it thud back down. Kel did not approve of his technique and so she shoved him out of the way and climbed up on top of Kessie and gave her hugs and kisses. I think I'll go take a nap so that I can get woken up with hugs and kisses!

Oh, and P.S. we did not have mice take up residence in our attic....no, thank goodness. It's birds. They have built nests inside our walls. Just thought you all might want to know.

Holidays

We don't do anything for St. Patty's Day, but that doesn't mean that the Leprechaun doesn't. Lanny made this great trap, but unfortunately it didn't work. I believe in retaliation for the incarceration attempt the Leprechaun took all the children's clean (thank goodness) underwear and hung them up with clothespins in the living room. He turned our milk green, drew on my bathroom mirrors, and left a treasure hunt for the kids. They couldn't find the gold, so Aaron had to help them. The kids enjoyed the crazy little guy coming and Lanny is already prepping a better trap for next year.

Lanny had this sitting right by his bed. It has been stepped on several times, but I took a picture anyway. It says, "Please pull sting for service. Gives out 1000 coins of gold when you get a candy! Hungry? Come get a snack" Yeah, he's cute!

We also just had Easter, obviously. As you can see from the pics, there was snow, but there were some dry patches as well. Kel actually was getting into collecting eggs this year. She was super cute. I thought she'd be terrified of the bunny at the town Easter egg hunt, but she loved him. I hate commmunity hunts, but the kids wanted to go, so we went. It took all of 3 seconds (I am not kidding) and the eggs were gone. But the kids had a good time anyway. Kel was darling picking up the eggs. She even was thrilled to pick up halves that had come apart. And of course, everyone loved the candy.

 

I know, you're thinking, "Who wears goggles for an Easter egg hunt?" I thought the same thing...Lanny does!

 

It's spring break this week. The most exciting thing we've done is go to the library, but hey, we're okay with that. Louie and Kessie did get on the horses on Monday. I even hopped on Comanche, I did really well! Okay, he did really well and didn't buck me off, so he is my new BFF now! Hope everyone else had or is having a great spring break!

Kessie and Comanche!

Grandpa Evans

When last we met we were happy swimming around like fishies! Since then we've been to Aaron's Grandmother's funeral, my Grandfather's funeral, had St. Patty's Day, and Easter. The snow is melting and then it's a blizzard and then it's melting again! Just craziness as usual around here. I didn't get any pics at Grandma Helen's funeral, but I did take some at my Grandfathers. This was a hard funeral for me. My Grandma and Grandpa Evans have been a huge part of my life and I was always at their house when I was young. My grandparents made me feel very special and my siblings and cousins spent many happy hours running and laughing, camping, and eating with them. He took care of my Grandma as she grew increasingly more frail and played Skip-Bo with my Downsyndrome Uncle every night. He was a war veteran and so they gave him military honors. It was a horrible, yet amazing funeral. Love you Grandpa!

This is my beautiful Grandma! She understands Grandpa is gone sometimes, and then other times just thinks he's running errands. Her favorite color is lavender and I just noticed that she has purple flowers. She can always make me smile!

Swimming in the Snow

Yesterday was an extraordinarily warm day. Like crazy warm, over 40 degrees. Aaron had checked the weather in advance and knew it would be warm so we planned a trip into Granite Hot Springs. Aaron and I haven't been there since we were dating. We were lucky enough to get to go with Aaron's brother and his family. It was so fun. We had to get up early, not the fun part, and drive for an hour and a half, but it was worth it. We snowmobiled in and then did some swimming and then some more snowmobiling. I already knew this, but the grown boys are crazy insane on snowmobiles...climbing hills, speeding, and in general showing off. We had a couple of minor accidents, and luckily no one was hurt more than a scratch or two. I'm just glad with all our craziness nothing worse happened. And when you see the pics, don't be jealous because I look so fabulous in a swimsuit!

Lanny and my nephew Logan!

These are wild and crazy fish!

Thirteen years ago when Aaron and I went in there was a lot more snow, but the kids still managed to find a patch here and there to jump in. I love Louie's face!

Here's our crew. You know us and those other good looking people are Aaron's brother Clark, Clark's wife Debbie (doesn't she have a gorgeous smile?!) and their son Logan (their other little guy stayed with Grandma since he is only seven months old).

That's my movie star baby in a swim suit. We all know her fear of water. Yeah, she screamed for ten minutes when I first put her in, then we couldn't get her out. In fact, after I had gotten her out and dressed in her snowclothes again, she walked over to the edge of the pool and layed down on her tummy and tried to back into the pool. And don't think because she ended up having a great time swimming that she wanted to get in the tub this morning...yeah, another fight.

Lanny was trying to drown me...we acted like we liked each other for the camera and then he tried to drown me again.

I had a little girl ask me why I wore my shirt into the pool. I didn't want to explain that I didn't want to make people sick, so I told her I was trying to stay warm. She accepted that answer!

If you look in the background, you can see the falls. It was soooo pretty!

You all know what swimming does to little ones. Kel was out within ten minutes of leaving the pool. Here she is resting happily while the boys climbed some hills.

While the boys climbed, we putted around on the flat. Kessie tried her hand at driving. She did pretty good!

Lanny in the front and Logan in the back. These two take after their fathers and are insane, but what a team they make!

Literacy Week

Just wanted you all to know that last week was literacy week at the girls school. They had pajama day, crazy hair day, and wait for it....Fake Injury Day. Um, yeah, I thought those exact thoughts!