our house: happenin' place to be

Holy COW! Monday night we got a knock at the door and when we opened it, there stood SANTA CLAUS! It was SO awesome! I was just as excited as the kids. He gave each of us a treat and told the kids to be good and he would see them in a week!

Dax's dad was here so we were all able to get a photo with Santa.

We enjoyed having Dax's Dad stay with us a few days. The kids love their Grandpa! (We missed you Grandma Beaner!)

Preslie had some friends over for a birthday party! She wanted a luau and it felt a bit like summer at our house! The girls made their own fruit kabobs and Dax served some delicious teriyaki chicken and rice. YUM!

Seven girls came to the party. They had fun!

No one got a picture of me in my awesome pink Hawaiian mumu!


It is so nice to have the kids out of school! Dax's work schedule is light right now, too. I love spending time together at home with not much to do. We have been delivering 12 days of Christmas surprises, eating too many treats, playing games and I've been trying to get the kids to still do their jobs around the house. They think they are on vacation or something!

never trust a groundhog

Today I painted the last of the touch ups on the fireplace area so we are all back to normal. It was a bit of work to get all the fire damage fixed up and I am happy to have it done. A big thanks to Dax's Dad who drove all the way up to help us. Here are pics of before, during, and after the repairs..

Hunter was a darling student of the week in his class last week and also sang in his 1st grade program entitled "We Love Winter".

I can only love winter son long because as I type it is currently -10 degrees outside. When you live in this town, winter is generally not a pleasant time to go out sledding or playing in the snow. It is spent trapped inside your house with nothing to do so you make cookies too much. And I don't care how good your house is insulated (mine happens to be quite so), nothing can keep -10 out completely. This is why the woodburning stove is crucial. For the couple of weeks it was out of commission, our gas bill went up $40 from the previous month.

Nothing quite warms my heart quite as much as my sweet little baby. I got her 6 month picture taken and also got Mack's done too. He was one the last time I got a profossional shot of him.

I hang out with these two a lot and I sure do love them.

Mack is still on his diet of cookies, candy, and syrup. What an inspiration!

Dax has been working hard and was recently workin' it with mohawk for a few days. He shaved it off because he had to teach a lesson in church and wanted to be taken seriously. I think it would have been a great attention getter/keeper.

big update

It is Christmas time and there is little time to post but here is a brief summary of what's been going down, in no particular order. Ready?.. GO!

Dax and I got new church jobs. He is Elders Quorum Secretary, I'm Primary pianist. I played for the kids while they sang Christmas songs in sacrament meeting last Sunday. I believe this calling is the one of the best in the whole church.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas starting with our lights, 2 Christmas trees peeking out the front windows, and 18 inches of fresh snow!

Here is our second tree in the boys' room. We inherited the tree from Dax's Grandmother and are enjoying it!
Another pic of Dax and me...I could not get it to delete for some reason.
Here I am holding 2 hams. One that I won from the grocery store for answering 2 Christmas movie trivia questions at the service desk, and the other is perhaps even more edible. Just look at those cheeks!
Getting ready for church...fixing hair and applying makeup while holding Quinn. My left arm is strong!
Painting ornaments sent from Grandma M.
Quinn wearing her Christmas dress sent from Grandma and Grandpa W. My Mom couldn't wait to give it to her on Christmas. Look at the darling crocheted shoes. My Mom is so amazing!

Grandpa reading to the kids. They love it when he comes!
The 3 big kids wrestling Dax. They really wail on him but he laughs the whole time. So thankful for Dads!
We held our 2nd annual Thanksgiving Dinner with our good friends because a turkey dinner is too good to have only once a year. Only got a few pics but so glad they were able to come (and bring their assigned portion of the meal!). We love them.
And here we are enjoying the remaining pumpkin pie the next day.

Whew! And now we're up-to-date!

Yay for Christmas!

be jealous (viewer discretion advised)...

because THIS--------->
is what's in my garage!

Guess the animal this skull belongs to.















If you said "Bison" or "Buffalo" you are correct. Dax got his Dad a Bison hunt on Ute Tribe land as a thank you for building our house. In my opinion, a thousand pound dead buffalo carcus is hardly payment for my beautiful home, but they had a great time.

Here is the spot...and the shot.



And finally, the kill! (or the "harvest" if you want to be P.C.)


And these are the hands that hugged me after he got home!







Just for fun, this is what Mack has been into the past 2 days. He put a lot of work into this.


And tonight, the kids and I hung out while Dax was working in the mountains. They played their best game of Battleship ever. I supervised a little, but they are really getting it down! I am so happy to have kids that can play games! My hubby doesn't like the competition. Makes him want to punch somebody.

Happy Weekend!

more visitors: Craig and Beaner!

I hit the jackpot when I married Dax. Not just because he is the best and nicest husband, but also because his parents are also SO nice. They are so good to us and so good to my kids, it is unbelievable. They came to see us for a few days and here are some highlights:

• The Rodeo!
• Grandpa's "Rocket and Chiquita" stories at bedtime
• breaking a pinata at the park
• Beaner the fotune teller, seeing the kids' future
• the kids making a flag cake with Grandma
• 2 extra adults keeping an eye on The Mack.

Such fun Grandparents, I tell ya!

Mack is getting SO funny and is very interested and into everything. We have fun watching that kid.

He is starting to do tricks and show off. He'll say, "Grandpa! Watch me!" then hang on something.

let's hear it for the boys

DAX is the MAN. He just got home from a week long work trip where he was in charge of transplanting bison from the Henry Mountains to the Book Cliffs; a project that he's planned for months. If you thought you saw him on the news last night, you were not mistaken. Very glad to have him back.

Craiger is the MAN. All the tile is laid in the b-rooms. If I had a million dollars, I'd for sure give him a few hundred thousand. Then I'd hire Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I'm sure they could knock the rest of the house out in like, ten minutes. Except I think you have to have a child with no bones for them to come build your house. Oh, well. I don't need Ty Pennington yelling in a bull horn right now.

Hunter is the man. He lost his first tooth this week and he's been landing himself in our funny journal every day. The other night he and Preslie and I were in the kitchen and he whispers, "Hey, I've got a top secret for you guys." He then gathers us into a huddle and we're like, "What?" Then he says, "I think Dad is under a lot of stress right now. So if you guys think of something that will cheer him up, we can do that."



Mack is the man. We installed cabinet handles today. He picked up the screwdriver and imitated me without skipping a beat.

The house photos keep coming.

This is what we post about, because this is what is heavily on our minds, takes up much of our time, and the majority of our money. Believe it or not, a house takes a lot of work to build. And THIS guy will be the first to tell you that.

Seriously SUCH a hard worker. And after a full day of hard labor, he comes home (to our apartment) and is the sweetest, most involved Grandpa I've ever seen. Then he showers in our ONE bathroom that he graciously shares with the 5 of us and gets ready for a great nights' sleep on the FLOOR on 2 camping foams. He always tells my kids that he is 100 years old. I think by the time the house is done, he really will feel like he's a hundred.

Dusk provides interesting lighting inside. It makes the colors seem really bright. The tile is taupe even though in the pic the walls are making it look greenish. I really like the tile; it reminds me of concrete floors.

WHAT a day. BUT, only the second mini-meltdown for me since we started this project. The first one was at the beginning of the construction process, and this one is near the end. So all in all, not bad. I took the kids up to the house and they played in the dirty, dusty, loud, and dangerous mess while I put up lighting trims and screwed in bulbs.

Preslie is excited to have her own yellow room. We'll see if she doesn't try to sneak back in with Hunter like she did when we moved here. They've always been roomies, and as social as Preslie is, I wonder if she'll enjoy being by herself.

See what I mean about lighting affecting color? This pic was taken in the same room but a different time of day.