Walnut Grove

Over Spring Break we took a day trip to visit Walnut Grove, the famous town in Minnesota where Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her stories. I grew up watching the Little House on the Prairie and a while back I bought the DVDs for my kids to watch. So we wanted to visit this place while we live so close. Along the way, we stopped and took a little hike to see these Petroglyphs. There were thousands of pictures carved in the rock. My camera battery died, so I just have a few pictures of the things Kiley snapped along the way...

While in Walnut Grove, the kids bought this slate and a slate pencil as a souvenir. They had fun pretending they went to school with Laura and Mary.

We also passed this town called Sleepy Eye, which I remembered from the show. I was surprised that it was a real town.

We stopped at this park for a picnic lunch.

Basement is Done and Yes we are Moving...

I know it is crazy, but we are finally done with our basement and as usual, with the excitement of finishing this project and the anticipation that comes with enjoying the theater room, now we have discovered that Jason's job transfer will happen sooner than we thought and we will be leaving our hard work for someone else to enjoy (again). So here are some pictures of the finished product. It turned out wonderful and I just want to hang out there all day.

The storage room turned out great too, complete with my can sorters, which I have not stocked yet...

These are the can sorters that Jason made for our food storage a few years ago. I love them. You drop in the cans from the top, and pull them out the bottom and they rotate so you are always using the oldest can. He made several sizes for all kinds of cans that we store. I just love this and think he is the best.

Jason is super excited about this job. It is a promotion and to the brand that he has been wanting to work on. The only trick is that he starts his new job in Racine on June 1st and our baby is not due until June 30. So he will be most likely commuting back and forth on the weekend so the kids and I can stay here and finish school and have the baby here before the move. It will be tricky to get the house sold and find a house there in Wisconsin during this last trimester of my pregnancy, but I think everything will work out for us. We are hoping to make the move around mid-July. My parents and my sister Tracy are going to come and help during the really tricky times. (When the baby comes and during the move).

The kids are pretty excited to be reunited with their friends from Racine. We have not decided where to move exactly, but we will be going out to look at schools and houses soon and narrow it down a little. We all have mixed feeling about leaving this house and our friends in Minnesota. We have really enjoyed out short time here. But we knew we would be going back eventually and we are looking forward to being back in Wisconsin.

I have some great pictures of our little wanderings during Spring Break, but I will post those next time.

Happy March

We are so excited to be done with February, even though this February was very mild. I am needing a change in scenery and ready for this snow to melt!

We snapped a couple pictures of these icicles just outside our living room window. They were growing right above our air conditioner out back, so we were afraid that when they fell they would destroy the ac and we covered it with a big board. Sure enough, just a day after taking this picture, they came crashing down on a warm day. The ac survived and I was glad we got a picture of these icicles. The longest one measured over 7ft, 6inches.

We had a nice Valentines day. Jason took me out on Saturday and we went to the stake dance, we had a great dinner at a very nice restaurant. Then we went and saw "Valentines Day" in the theater. I was worried that it would be a dumb show, (usually when they pack that many stars into one movie, the plot is extremely thin), but I enjoyed the show and we desperately needed a night out after all his work in the basement and with the High Council lately.

Jason's Birthday was really fun too. We managed to surprise him with several unique gifts, but, the thing he was most excited about was the 5 bags of Plackers I found for him. For those of you who do not know what Plackers are, they are Dental Flossers. We bought a bag a year ago and he loved them. They were the only flossers that didn't break when he used them. We could not find any more and I discovered where to buy them and stocked up for his birthday. He was stoked!

This is a shot of our storage room, but only about 1/2 of the room is in the picture. I am more excited about this room than the theater, because I love having room for storage. Jason is going to build shelves for my big storage bins and some smaller shelves for food storage and stuff. Also, there is room to hang my can sorters, which I have been living without for almost 5 years

Now an update on the basement. Things got a little slow because our friend that is doing the taping and texturing was out of town for longer than he planned, but Jason finished sheet rocking and found a great cabinet for our theater equipment. And now, this week Mark is here taping and texturing and painting. Next week we can get the doors and trim on and then we can get someone in to do carpet. I am still hoping to have everything completed in time to watch New Moon down there on the 20th. I am embarrassed to say that I love the Twilight Saga almost as much as my 13 year old. Jason was not thrilled about watching that as our first movie in the theater room, so he wants to have it done on the 19th, and watch something more manly, like "Man from Snowy River." I think I can make that compromise, as long as I get New Moon on the 20th.

This is the unfinished Theater room and the big wall there will be where the movie will play. The doorway there is a small hall at the bottom of the stairs and a door into the storage room too.

Jason has been keeping busy at work too and he had a wonderful chance last week to meet with Elder L. Tom Perry from the Quorum of the 12 Apostles. What an experience! Elder Perry was here in Minneapolis meeting with the Stake Presidencies and the High Councilors over Missionary work in each stake. Jason was pretty thrilled to be there and be trained by him.

The kids are all doing great and wishing we could get away for Spring Break, but it looks like we will be staying here and hoping for good weather. I am feeling good still, but getting huge. We are looking forward to summer and the baby.

It's a Girl

We had our ultrasound a week or so ago and we were excited to find out that we are having a baby girl! The kids are happy about that ( the boys joked that we would have to just keep trying for a boy). She looks healthy and everything is going fine with my pregnancy. I feel great and I am not sick anymore.

The basement is coming right along. Jason is working on sheetrock now and it is looking really good. We have a guy coming to tape and texture and paint in a week so we have to get the sheetrock hung. Jason passed off his framing and electrical inspection so we can work toward the final inspection now.

The kids are doing great. Kiley is keeping really busy with the choirs she is participating in and her voice lessons. She has festival coming up and she has been working really hard on her songs. She has been babysitting a little too and saving up for her trip to DC this summer. She can't wait for that.

Will is doing great and loving school this year. He is taking advanced Math and just can't get enough of it. He has a great teacher and always comments that math is the best and most fun part of his day. He definately does not get that from me.

James is doing good in 4th grade and enjoying the recorder and phys. ed. He is growing and probably soon to pass up Will in height. James is enjoying the snow pile out in the middle of our cul-de-sac. He loves going out there and climbing and sliding down the hill after school. He is also loving scouts.

Kate is still spunky and very opinionated. She loves to wear lip gloss and sneaks into Kiley's makeup at least once a week. She loves kindergarten and loves to read. She is learning fast and a whole new world is opening up to her because of reading. She is so boy crazy and I don't know what to think of that. She is not shy about the boys she is crushing on and even drew Caleb's picture on her Valentine bag for school and wrote his name above it. I asked her why she drew his picture on the bag. She said she wants him to know she likes him, just incase he likes her too. YIKES! Any advice? Isn't that a little forward for kindergarten? She is normally so shy and all my other kids too. I don't know how to handle her sometimes. I do love that she is very bold and says what she thinks.

I have been busy with the kids and house and we are all looking forward to spring. We are hoping to get the theater room finished in the basement in time for the release of "New Moon" which I think is March 20. I think that would be a great time to try out the projector in our new basement.

I'm Back

It's been a long time. I will try to catch up today and this could be a very long post with way more pictures than you want to see, but I am going to post them anyway. What a great year we had in 2009! Most of you have heard by now that we are expecting a baby in the spring! I thought I was done and I got rid of all my baby stuff after Kate was born, but about a year ago I decided I wanted another baby and we are so thrilled to be due in June!

Other than that exciting news, we had a wonderful fall full of raking leaves and building a fire out back.

Kiley practices her fire starting skills

Will helps bag leaves. He got paid for every bag he filled. He was saving up for an Ipod. He finally earned enough money and bought his ipod in November. He lost it about 2 weeks later. Still hasn't shown up yet. We keep hoping. Poor kid.

Will and James working together to rake leaves.

Our back yard was beautiful this fall.

Kate enjoyed playing in the leaves.

We had to cut down one of our beautiful oak trees because it had oak wilt (diseased) and the city comes through and inspects the trees. Tells you which of your trees are sick and most people pay to have a tree removal service take the tree down and cut it up, but not Jason. I think he was secretly excited to get the news about our diseased tree, because he has this new chain saw that he has been dying to use. So one Saturday, our whole family spent the day outside cutting down this huge oak tree. Hauling the wood and another Saturday burning the branches. It was a huge job. I can't even explain how tall this tree was and how probably dangerous this was for all of us to be in the yard when it fell, pulling on the rope tied to the top so it wouldn't fall on our fence or trampoline. Hmm. Could have gone badly, but it didn't. We saved a ton of money and Jason was happy that his new toy paid for itself in the first year. What a guy! While I don't have any pictures of us working on taking the tree down ( I was a little preoccupied with trying to keep everyone alive), I do have this picture of what the oak looks like now, all wrapped up for a year until I think we can burn the wood.

We had a nice Halloween and a great Thanksgiving. We told the kids about the pregnancy over Thanksgiving dinner. That was fun and they were all very surprised.

Then for Christmas, we got to have Jason's parents come for a visit. Their flight was delayed for several hours in SLC and they had a long day of waiting, but they made it to MN in time for Kiley's choir concert that night.

Are you thinking what I am thinking?

Why in the world did they put her on the back row? Turns out, they didn't. When all the kids got up on the stand, the choir director looked up and mouthed to Kiley, "Why are you standing on the the back row?!?" Poor Kiley has not come to terms with her shortness yet.

Kiley is participating in three choirs this year. For the other two performances, she found her place on the front row with the younger girls. She was not happy. She wanted to stand by her 8th grade friends. What a cruel world!

Then on the 23rd we took Jason's parents up to the Lighthouse Resort (in Northern Wisconsin) where the company owns some cabins on a lake amd let us use them.

We had such a nice Christmas, full of gifts, good food, loving family, scripture stories, puzzles, snow, ice skating, sledding, snowball fights and everything that makes up a great Christmas.

The kids got new pj's and we took pictures of them on Christmas Eve. Kate was being very silly and posing like crazy for us. She loves having her picture taken.

I managed to surprise Jason with this gift. For months I have planned to refinish the cushions on this Morris Chair. This chair use to belong to Jason's Grandmother. It has been in her family for over 100 years. Jason inherited it, but the leather cushions had worn out and been replaced with some green terry cloth cushions. I had an old picture of what the original cushions use to look like, and had them remade. Jason was shocked and so happy with this surprise. It looks beautiful and sits in our bedroom.

For Christmas, Jason surprised me with the GPS I've been wanting and the sonic care toothbrush I have been hinting about.

The day after Christmas, the kids played out on the lake.

James got Will good with this big chunk of snow.

He planned a quick get-away after the attack.

Jason was equipped with a shovel when the fight really got going...

And Kate got involved too. She was pretty brave and got her brother good...

Kate helped Jason shovel off an ice rink for skating.

Then she tried on her new ice skates ...

Grandma helped her learn to skate while Grandpa watched the excitement. Grandpa had shoulder surgery recently and had to stay out of trouble.

Will pulled Kate around the rink to help her get the hang of it.

She got pretty good!

When we got back to Minnesota, Jason's parents had to catch a flight back home and Jason had the week off to work on the basement. He loved that and even talked the boys into helping him build the walls for our storage room. This is what our storage room wall looks like and now the framing is done and Jason is going to start electrical this weekend.

This basement project is much smaller than our past projects. It basically consists just of this storage room and the main room that Jason is going to make into a small family theater for his projector system. The boys had a great time helping and Will made a stool and table for Kate over the vacation too.

Then on the 30th we celebrated Kate's 6th Birthday. She is growing up so fast. Here is a picture of her showing off her shirt she got, advertising that she will be a big sister. She is such a character and always keeps us laughing. We are so happy she is part of our family.

We had a nice New Years Eve and played games with friends. We rang in the New Year with the kids and look forward to this new year and all the life experiences 2010 will bring.