V.'s photo shoot

Every year I take a photo of V. in her Christmas dress to give to family members with our family Christmas card. Here's this years little photo shoot~









I think this will be the one we use!

My Thankful November

Last month I posted on my sidebar about the things I am Thankful for. I wrote something every day. I thought I would share my months worth of blessings all in one simple post~
The simplest things remind us of all that we have to be thankful for ....
1} I'm thankful for my beautiful family!
2} I'm thankful for this beautiful earth God has created for us!
3} I'm grateful for V.'s little friends that she plays with!
4} So, so grateful that Steve has a job.
5} I'm grateful for the knowledge of Eternal Families.
6} I'm grateful for a big, warm, cozy bed V. can snuggle in and watch movies when she's not feeling well.
7} I'm grateful for lazy Sunday Mornings spent as a family!
8} I'm thankful we have a warm, safe home to give us shelter.
9} I am thankful for good friends.
10} Iam thankful for my senses. Thankful I can taste sweet treats,savor the taste of a delicious meal. Smell snow in the air, or enjoy the smell of rain, smell bread baking in the oven. Hear laughter in my home, hear my hubsands' or daughters' sweet voices, Hear them say "I love you'. Enjoy the feel of a kiss or warm embrace, or feel the texture of my daughters hair as I style it daily, feel my daughters small hand in mine.Thankful I can see Mother Natures beauty around me, see my daughters' smile and the color of her beautiful eyes.
11}I am thankful for the men and women who sacriface their time, and in some cases, their lives for our freedom.
12}I am thankful for the love of one of Heavenly Fathers little angels.
13} I am so thankful the Lord gave me a miracle, my daughter. I am so grateful she is a part of our lives.
14} I am thankful my Saviour prepared a way for me to be with my family for Eternity.
15}I am thankful for running water and electricity. I'm so happy I can go to the bathroom in my house, and flush it all down the drain!
16} I am so grateful for a running car! I would hate to walk, or ride a horse on this cold, windy, wet day!
17} I am thankful for the love of a wonderful man, my husband!
18}I am thankful for telephones to help me stay in touch with family and friends!
19}I am grateful that we have full cupboards. Grateful that my daughter never needs to worry about her next meal.
20} I am thankful I have the health and energy to play in the snow with my little girl!
21} I am grateful to live in such a beautiful part of the world!
22}I am thankful that we only drive 5 minutes to go to church. I know some people travel far distances to get to church!
23}I am Thankful for our food storage. We don't have a 2 year supply, but we do have a good amount of food and supplies saved up. Today we are all at home because of a Blizzard storm warning. All the roads are closed and most offices and bussinesses are closed as well. It is nice to know that if we got snowed in for a week or two we would be fine because of our supplies and food we have saved up!
24}I am Thankful for a husband who does handy work around the house with V. following his every move. Hopefully she'll learn from him and be able to take care of herself when it comes to things like that!
25} I am Thankful for loving parents!
26} I am Thankful for family and extended family!
27} I am Thankful Steve shot his elk again this year. It's nice to know we have a freezer full of meat. It saves money on our grocery bill to not have to buy it monthly!
28} I am thankful that we can afford to have me stay at home with V. I love being a stay at home mother! So many people struggle and have to have both parents work just to make ends meet. Again, I'm grateful Steve has a job and that it is enough for me to stay home!
29}I am grateful for all the snow we have gotten! It is so beautiful and hopefully it helps with our water situation for the crops next year!
30} I am Thankful for and Believe in the power of the Priesthood!

Our Trip to see Santa

This last weekend we went to Boise. While there we went up to Horseshoe Bend and rode the Polar Express up to the North Pole to see Santa! It was a ton of fun!This is our 4th year doing this! We had hot cocoa and cookies and milk. We sang Christmas carols and visited with Mrs. Clause on the train. We saw Santa at the North Pole and then walked around a bit and warmed ourselves by a fire they had going. Then we got back on the train to head back home and visited with Mrs. Clause again. Overall, it was a very fun trip!
Here are some photos from our trip~

Falling leaves

Just some cute pictures of V. helping me rake up the leaves the in backyard.

Snow day

Today it is snowing!!! It has been snowing all morning and is absolutely beautiful!
V. was sick over the weekend. Poor thing. She was throwing up, had a horrible cough, headaches and body aches, then a fever. Poor, poor thing. She is feeling much better now. She just has a runny, runny nose, and a small cough. SO anyway, I told her she couldn't go out and play in the falling snow, because she is just getting better.
So instead, I made some hot cocoa, some cinnamon swirl bread and turned on Christmas music and let her color at the table, and we are planning on playing board games in a little bit. You can see in this picture her Santa mug of cocoa off to the side. {You can also see the colors I painted my walls last week!}

V. has had a birthday!

Yes, my baby has turned 5! I'm late in getting this post up. And I don't have cute baby photos to show because we didn't have a digital camera when she was born. So I'd have to scan in older photos and all that. I'll do that one of these days so you all can see what a cute baby she was!
She is growing up so fast! I can't believe it's already been 5 years. She is such a joy in our lives! With each miscarriage I have, I realize more and more what a miracle and a blessing V. is. I'm so grateful she was chosen to come to us.
She is a smart, goofy, friendly little girl. Her teacher has told me many stories of V. be-friending another kid in the class who was maybe having a rough day.
She is also good at making Steve and I laugh. She's just so funny! Last night at the dinner table she was making faces and we were just laughing and laughing!
She loves to help me with the housework. She loves to sweep, dust, do the dishes, fold the laundry, etc. Hopefully this eagerness to help with housework sticks around for awhile!
She loves to follow Steve around when he is tinkering around the yard, garage or house. She'll get out her tools and 'work' on her tricycle while Steve is working on his motorcycle. Those two are just two peas in a pod! She loves hanging out with Steve and they'll talk hunting talk, which she understands and I don't. Honestly, one day she was looking thru a hunting magazine and she points to a picture and says,"Mom, these are called wattlers {rattlers}. You make noise with them to get the deer to come to you." What? How does she know that? I didn't know that...
Anyway, we have loved these last 5 years and are excited to see the young woman she grows up to be. However, I wish there was a way I could slow time down. She's just growing up too fast!
So here's a few photos I've taken over the last few months. She is such a beautiful little girl! She'll always be my baby!

Happy Halloween!

Okay, a quick post on Halloween.
V. was Ariel. She got to dress up 4 times. Once for story-time at the library, once for her pre-school Halloween party, once on Saturday for trunk-n-treat, and again on Sunday for trick-n-treating. I know alot of people don't go out on Sunday. But we didn't see a problem spending the evening as a family walking around doing trick-n-treating. Now, when she gets older and wants to go out with friends on Halloween, if it's a Sunday, we'll say no. Sunday is a time to be together as a family. Anyway, so yeah, we went trick-n-treating on Sunday. We're little devils like that!

V. with her scary jack-o-lantern Steve helped her with!

Trunk-n-Treating with V.'s cousin, J. Man,there were so many kids there! I handed out, maybe, 7-8 pounds of candy! But it's nice to see our little community here in Moreland get together like that! V. wanted Steve to go as Eric, her Prince Charming. But dressing as Eric really isn't dressing up. SO we convinced her to let him go as Eric dressed up for Halloween. So, he was in disguise, in disguise!

Aren't we a good-lookin' couple?

My Thankful November, 2010

Last year I started a new tradition with myself that I want to do again this year. This month is Thanksgiving. But instead of focusing my gratitude on only 1 day, I'm going to be thankful EACH day. I've added a list to my sidebar titled 'My Thankful November'. Each day this month, I will add one more thing I am thankful for. Doing this last year really helped me realize how blessed I really am. I think it's time to remind myself of all my blessings!

At the Pumpkin Patch!

It's that time of year to decorate with pumpkins! We took a drive to find a pumpkin patch and the best pumpkins in the world!

The pumpkin patch at Grove City Gardens~

V. ran around the whole field looking for the perfect pumpkin!

Here I guess she was riding a pumpkin? Not sure...

We took V.'s cousin with us. They both had alot of fun!

She's saying here that it's too heavy!

I filled our flower pots with the pumpkins we bought and squash from our garden. I LOVE Fall!

Our trip to see Autumn!

Things were kinda stressful last month. Steve found out he was going to be laid off, but he found another job quickly at the I.N.L.that will allow us to stay right where we are! But for a couple of weeks I was sooo stressed I almost couldn't take it! Steve said I was even more stressed than he was! But that's just the way I am.
So we decided to go do something as a family! Steve knows how much I love the Fall colors, so he suggested a trip to Jackson, WY. The drive up was beautiful, the drive down was beautiful, and everything in between was as well! Jackson was having their Harvest Festival that we went to for a bit. We played at the park, walked around enjoying the lovely Fall temperatures and just had a very pleasant weekend! We talked about maybe turning this into a tradition where we go every year about this time.
So, here's a bunch of photos from our trip to see Autumn!

Inherited quirks

SO, I noticed this morning that it looks like V. might have inherited a little of my O.C.D.
Now, I don't have O.C.D. too bad. In fact, my house looks like something far from an O.C.D. person living there! But a couple of years ago I finally realized that I am, in fact, a little Obsessive Compulsive. In small ways.
I finally understand why I have the need to only push the volume button on the remote an even number of times. I can't let the volume be at an odd number, I start to get antsy.
I've ALWAYS separated my Skittles and M&M's into little piles by color. Then I make sure each color pile has the same number of candys in it as the other piles do. If It's off, I eat the candy until the piles are all equal.
I drive Steve crazy with my talk of budgeting our bills so that the same amount of money comes out of each paycheck and goes towards bills. BTW, Steve is switching companies at the INL. He told me just yesterday that starting in October he will get paid weekly, not bi-weekly. I said, okay, once we know what each weekly paycheck will be, I'll figure which bills come out of each. Not so. I made it about 2 hours after he told me that, than I went and drew up a budget so that the same amount of money will go towards bills each paycheck.

I once tried to do the whole plan-a-months-worth-of-meals thing. Hoping it would help with my stress level and with my grocery shopping. I knew going into it that things will change, and that's okay. I don't HAVE to make the meal that I originally planned out. It's okay to do something different. This lasted a whole month and a half. I was getting too stressed with the fact that things weren't going the way I had written them out and stressing over the meals. Steve was like," What does it matter? Just make something else?" I was like," I can't! I HAVE to make what's written down!"
So yeah, that whole idea went out the door. To stressful!
I have just recently started letting V. help me put her laundry away. I WANT her to do this. I don't want her to be a teenager and have me still folding and putting away her clothes. It's one of life's skills that needs to be learned so you're ready for the world on your own when you leave. I get kinda....nervous I guess is the feeling, watching her just roll her clothes up and throw them in her drawers. That's not how I would it! {Confession~ sometimes I go thru her drawers when she's not looking and refold her laundry and put all the socks together, all the undies together. The jeans in one pile, shorts in another. 2-piece jammies in the back of the drawer and nightgowns in the front.}
But, I figure I'm making progress in letting her help me with the laundry. It's one small step. Hopefully in the future I'll be able to contain myself and not go thru her drawers at all fixing things!
Anyway, there are many more small ways in which I'm a little O.C.D. And if things don't go the way I want or plan, I start to get all anxious and panicky!
So, the whole point of this post was to mention how I think V. has inherited this trait. I came into the kitchen and saw this on my table~


She had separated the pumpkins from the corn. At least the corn is all together and not separated by color as well.
*Sigh*
The weird little quirks we pass on to our children....
{Second confession~ I have her closet organized by long sleeves vs. short sleeves, then color organized. And the sweaters are separate from the long sleeves. The skirts separate from the dresses, etc. It never ends...}

Help Jaquee!

Help Jaquee
A friend of mine has a sister who is going thru a horrible divorce and her 'husband' is trying to take her girls away from her permanently.
Jaquee is a couple years older than I, but I remember her from High School. She was always so nice and sweet to everyone. And she had an amazing voice! Such talent!
It breaks my heart to read her story of what she has gone thru the last few years. Her family has put in all they can financially to help her get her little girls back. But it's not enough.
SO, in desperation, they have made her story public and are asking for donations to help with the legal costs. Please check out the site they have made and if you can't help financially, please keep Jaquee and her girls in your prayers!
Read Jaquee's story or donate here~ Help Jaquee website

Steve's Mule Deer

Steve had success Friday night! He called me at around 8:00 to tell me he took a shot at a mule buck, and got it! He was pretty excited!

This is his second buck ever. Last year it was a white tail buck,{that made the Pope and Young record books}.
Anyways, here's another shot of his mule. He shot it with a bow.

He still has a doe and cow tag. So the hunting season is far from over!