June Update

Back, I'm back to catch up on some of the goings on between January and today. Things change so quickly while new things come and go. There are many things that have happened in the last 6 months that I hope to remember for a long time.

Here are some of our fun and maybe not so fun experiences.

Since I don't want to move the pictures all around everything in is order from most recent down to stuff that happened in January.

I started this project with the purses in January. My crafty cousin-in-law taught me how to make them after I begged her. She was great about. Thanks Dena!

I finished them on Saturday, very thankful to be done and ready to use one. They also make great diaper bags because they have nice big pockets on the inside. So when that next time comes around that I will need one, it will be available.

After finishing up this project I was feeling crafty and found a pattern online for making baby booties. They were the homemade baby booties that are sprawled over craft sites galor and there to entice the DIY'er which, for a moment, took a hold of me.

I spent the night making a cute set of baby booties out of jean material and red and blue plaid material. My crafting emotions were at a height and I was getting it done(with a few difficulties along the way).

Well, so I'm not such a good crafter. The one baby bootie that I was able to finish was probably too small for even a preemie. I stayed up until two o'clock to finish the one shoe because I would not let myself give up on it. I had to get it done. I guess it will be a fun little shoe for the girls to play with. If they have a one legged doll! :>

Last weeks adventure was going to the Zoo. I think its been several years since we went as a family to roam around the Zoo. It was very exciting, especially since it has changed since the last time we were there.

It happened to be a mildly warm day so we were able to see a good amount of happy animals. We saw the Tigers at the end of the walk. We caught them right at the time when the trainers were about to come out. The animals were ready to have a real friend come by; pacing in their enclosures.

It was a very nice family outing and worth the discounted rate on Thursdays.

This Lion lifted up her head just in time for us to take a picture. I think she smelt the trainers perusing through the park.

Here is our Lion King friend! This little guy was funny, but really just a bit sad as well. He sat like this staring through the glass, bored and with no friends. He moved for a minute to look up at us but that was pretty much it.

At the Tiger cage.

These young giraffes were eating and just hanging out. The one in the picture stood there and chewed his food staring at us for a little bit. It was the funniest and cutest thing. His mouth was munching back and forth and just staring. It looked like something out of a cartoon.

This is I think a vulture type bird. It is a bit scary looking at him this close. What's cool is that this picture was taken by Doug's phone. Great quality.

Mr. Crane.

A couple weeks ago I went crazy at the dollar store buying up a ton of foam curlers for the girls. I then put the curlers in their hair the next evening to sleep with through the night. Sunday morning came and I got them all dressed up with their pretty curly hair. After church we had a photography session sporting their new do's.

Loosing teeth seem to be such an exciting time. For us at least. Cameron lost his first tooth in May and then his second in June. This is a picture of his second experience loosing a tooth. The first time was a little surprising because it was very loose and he wanted us to get the thing out. He kept saying to get a tool(like pliers maybe) and pull it out. We yanked and yanked on that thing and he didn't even cry.

This second time he didn't like as much, but none the less he wanted to get rid of that tooth so the tooth fairy would come. Luckily the tooth fairy had just enough change stashed away (that she forgot about) to give in place of his tooth.

Our next adventure was at the church orchard. We were asked to prune our wards aisle of peach trees. It took us a while but it was fun. It was great getting out there and doing some good service.

What was cool is that right as we were leaving, we drove by the owners house and he was out in the midst of a huge swarm of bees. It was loud. We asked him if we was being stung by any of them. He said, "Oh, there not stinging, they are swarming around the queen bee. Come on over and see for yourselves." I though it was too exciting to pass up the offer. So I jumped out of the car and walked over to him. He started explaining about the bees and how they follow the queen, making new hives. It was interesting. He found where they were swarming on top of the queen. He suggested,"Just put your hand on the bottom of it. They won't sting you, they are full of honey and moving too fast to sting, but don't move to fast." So, gullible me, put my finger up to touch the bees and while just about to touch, a bee rammed into my finger and scared me. I took my finger away and had enough at that point.

Very interesting.

The kids loved the ladder.

Oh, my goodness. I look horrible in this picture. This is when we went to visit Grandma H and family at Cascade for the night. That whole weekend was mostly rainy and cold, so I was very glad not to be there the whole time, but it was nice to go hang out with everyone.

The water was beautiful. We watched as the other family members went fishing. Those fish were not biting at all. It was worth being there, breathing in the serenity and peace.

The night was finished off with telling jokes and scary stories around the camp fire.

Again, picture taken by our phone.

Cameron started playing T-ball this month. It is his second year playing and he really enjoys it. It can be so funny watching these kids play. They get bored in the out field resorting to gymnastics, fighting over catching the ball and wrestling on the ground for it. When running the bases, they run around the other team member bypassing the base so that they would not get tagged. I love this game because it is so innocent. They just love being there.

Miah was being goofy this night while looking so cute, so I snapped a picture.

At the dog park. The dog park has become a new favorite outing. Triger, our black lab, loves going there. He takes his turn playing around with every dog at the park while Jessy, our rat terrier, hides behind the family away from the other dogs. This time we had some time to practice throwing with Cameron.

This was the first time that I used my hot curlers on the girls. They had to show off their curls. It is where I got the idea to go to the dollar store to get the foam curlers.

This was cleaning day. I was trying to get the kids to help me with the cleaning and the most exciting thing for them was to vacuum with the hose under the cushions on the couch.

This was an experiment on doing some different decorating stuff with cupcakes.

Tasty.

This was Doug's graduation from the post academy. He lived(except for weekends) at the post academy from beginning of January to March 12th. It was sometimes difficult but we were extremely happy when he was done. Now he is working the job that he loves and he is much more happy. He started out working the best shift at the Dep., Sun-Wed. 4pm to 2am. He loved this shift. I didn't like him having to work on Sunday, but with this job you have to or you don't get to work for them.

As of last night, he now has to work the Wed-Sat shift 8pm to 6am. I am not very happy with this change because we will not be able to do any of the weekend stuff that we had planned(like the ward campout). It is really hard for him to get to church while on this shift because he doesn't get home until 6:30am and is dead tired by the time church comes around.

I know that it is good that he has the job that he loves but this shift is going to take some getting used to.

Wierd picture ^

:) This was when they were waiting to come into the cultural hall for the whole graduation display.

And this was right after the graduation.

This was Lilly's 5th birthday party. Don't ask me why I did not get a picture of her, but she had a great birthday party. She had all her friends from preschool, cousins and even our "different" neighbors kids come over. The kids had a fun time playing games and running around.

Thanks to all who were able to come. It made Lilly very happy.

We got new carpet! Wahoo, we were so happy to get rid of the old nasty carpet.

It was a bit of a fiasco with the carpet company considering they laid the wrong carpet. So, words were said and it was very close to the look of the carpet that we actually wanted, so everyone was to blame and I was upset, but I'm really trying to let it go :|

It is nice to have good carpet and worth all the mess.

Well, there you go. Some of the things that have been going on for us. It is exciting to have new adventures and we hope to continue with them as often as possible.

Here are some of the videos we caught while on our journeys.

Job searching

We have officially decided that I have got to find a job. There is just no getting around it. I have to go look for a job along with the other like 72% of people in our area.

So last week I went out a couple of times, droping off resumes at every dentist office I drove by. I ran out of copies of my resume so I went to my mothers house, who thankfully had resume paper I could print it on. I had all the kids with me so I wanted to get them home and Miah needed her nap.

We left pretty quickly so there was enough time for me to drop off a couple more resumes. The first office I stopped at was a place off of Meridian rode and Victory. I was nice in there and it just so happened that the dentist was hanging out at the front desk. After he finished talking to someone I handed him my resume and asked if they were hiring. He then preceded to ask me questions about my resume. After being in the office for a couple minutes and trying to look professional in front of the dentist, I heard kids running through the doors behind me. Hoping that they weren't mine I slowly turned around and saw that they inevitably were my kids and Lilly just had to yell the minute she opened the door, "I HAVE TO GO POTTY". Cameron was right behind her and ran straight to the toy area.

Wow, I was feeling really professional at that point.

Daddy finally working as a reserve officer

 So, this isn't the greatest picture in the world but here he is. Finally wearing that uniform and pretty much accomplishing his goal. 

Getting hired on as a police officer has been a dream of his since we were married. He had tired to go through the testing several time. I think the the testing stuff was attempted like eight times through out a 5 year period. 

The first time that he had his public safety testing, Cameron was born. The second time he forgot the very important have or don't test paperwork. The third time the public safety people rescheduled and didn't tell him. The fourth time he tested and did not get a passing grade on the written. The fifth time he got through the physical and written tests, then didn't make it passed the oral boards. The next three times he tested he didn't make it passed the oral boards for Meridian, the Ada county and Nampa again. Then he decided to test for the reserve program for Nampa and very much relieved he was able to make it completely through the testing and follow up stuff. He got to start training in November and he officially wore the gear and was able to ride the third week of December. How very nice it is. To be so close to something that you have been waiting and working so hard for(I sure many people have faced similar ssituations). 

He is so close but not quite there because hello he is working for free. Now he just gets to work three jobs instead of two and from what we here it is pretty scarey that he might not be able to get hired on full time for another year. 

I don't know if I can handle that. Him gone all of the time, working three jobs and never being home and then when he does get home he is too exhausted to do anything. That scares me but it is what he really wants. He wants to be a police office so bad that he is willing to sacrifice working three jobs so that he can live his dream and so that I can stay home. I am amazed by his stamina. I am impressed with his willingness to work so hard for us. Yes, I am thankful for that. I am also thankful that he has a job in the first place. 

Our hope is that in April even though he will not be a level 1 reserve( they told us you have to be a level 1 reserve in order to transfer over) maybe the chief will allow him to be hired on full time any way. Maybe if he pleads with him. We'll see :\

He is happy to wear that uniform though and does not shy from being able to tell people that he is a police officer. For now that is o.k I think. As long as he is happy doing it, then so am I.

My Garden

So I started a garden this year. I tryed several different seeds but not all came up. As you can see there are only three groups of plants. I have my corn on the bottom, pumkin on the upper right and tomatoes and green peppers on upper left. I have a large space of plants but I did not want to waste a whole lot of food so I did small sections. I was suppose to have four rows of corn but only three good rows came up. I hope they will pollunate o.k.

I also had carrots and cumcumbers, squash, basil, cantelope and watermelon but none of those worked out.

I do not like trying to keep up on the weeding. Every day there are more and more. I just can't get myself out there everyday. There is a lot of that, so I usually enlist the help of my sisters. Corin has helped a lot with that.

The pumpkin is doing well so I will have extra of those I think. Same with the tomateos. I will enjoy actually having something I grew myself and hopefully things will be better next year in its variety.

Daddy the umpire

So my husband is crazy. He filled his week end so full he almost fell asleep standing up umpiring a baseball game.

He had two deliviries to do on Thursday that he finished in time to race home and get to his security job which he worked from 6pm to 2am. Then Friday morning he had to get up at 7am and umpire 5 games. After his last game he had to race home again and do his 6pm to 2am security job and get home to rest. He had a very hard time waking up at 7 am to get to umpiring the next 5 games for Saturday. Wow he is resilient. He will probably be working until 9 0'clock tonight. It is crazy to me because I know that I would not be able to handle all that with so little sleep.

We took lunch to him yesturday while he had a 20 min break. The kids had a good time seeing him and we just sat in the grass until his next game started. After that we played at the park. It was a long day but a good day I think. At least with him gone so much the kids were able to see him for a little bit.