8,036 days old

Sadly I am already to the point where I do not look forward to my birthday....( I used to say only "old" people said that they didn't like their birthdays)

But for a girl who doesn't like her birthday.....I sure have a pretty amazing husband who always tries to make the whole day special! Hank got up for work ran into the kitchen and came back and JUMPED on the bed telling me to open my present! So I forced my sleepy eyes open; sat up in bed and opened my gift. I lucked out, Hank has always been really good at picking presents! 

 After piano lessons, Hank and I headed off to Twin for my birthday dinner. We went to Johnny Corino's.....yummmm! After we ended the date with some yummy cold stone! 

Try not to drool....mines the one on the left.
French Vanilla with  gram cracker pie crust, Carmel, and pecans = AMAZING!!!

I am so grateful for my sweet husband who always makes me feel so so special every December 10th!

I'm dreaming of a white christmas

I have done all I can do to get into the Christmas spirit. Tree up and decorated....CHECK.....piano all decked out in lights and decorations....CHECK.......make new Christmas decorations (thanks pinterest)........CHECK......play Christmas music 24/7.....CHECK......Christmas shopping done.....CHECK.  So I have been wondering....where is my Christmas spirit, I have done all the steps!!!?! I have come to the conclusion its because.........THERE IS NO SNOW!!!!! I can settle grudgingly with no snow till the week of   Christmas but after that....if there is no snow I fear I may have to break out my snow dance until I get some! Sorry for the rant but this girl waits ALL year for the month of December, I just love the feeling I get when this time of year comes around.  I guess I will just have to break out the Christmas movies and hope that does the trick!
Hope everyone is getting into the Christmas spirit better then I am, if not......feel free to join in my snow dance starting the week of Christmas!

Monster cupcakes

A few weeks before Halloween my sister Devri came up to visit with her kids. It's always a lot of fun when family comes to Grandma's house! All the cousins have a blast.  Since it was the Halloween season we decided to make monster cupcakes. 7 kids under 10 decorating cupcakes = sticky monster mess. It was still a lot of fun, and they turned out.......scary, as all monsters are ;)

 

Thomas is allergic to a few things so Devri brought up a special cupcake that he could decorate and eat. Well he got his hands on it a little early so no cupcake for him to decorate. But he didn't care ha ha. A rice cake and whip cream with a little food coloring was good enough to him.

Pretty sure he would have been just as happy with just the bowl of whip cream

The finished product. Yummy huh?.....

This foot stool looks comfy, yup here I shall take my nap.

Weenie roasts at Grandma & Grandpa's are the best!

I love this one. Carter giving Hank the stare down!

 

Long overdue date!

Back before any of us girls came into the picture these three boys used to spend a lot of time together in college, one by one each of the the boys met a girl and got hitched.  So life is a little different now then it used to be when they would hang out, but I think it was still a lot of fun. A few years ago all 6 of us decided we would do a annual Christmas temple square trip because the first time we went it was so much fun. Well......the annual ended at the first year. Life gets busy and things get put on the back burner. So we had a very over due date night! It started out at the CSI corn maze.....lets just say we had to make it worth our 2 bucks a piece we paid to get in, so there may have been a few intentional wrong turns. It was a lot of fun and we had some good laughs. The night main coarse was at the old time eat out spot Sherry's. We ate our dinner (eventually after Stew finally made up his mind on what to order ;) then we headed to Kiwi Loco. I sure had a fun time with everyone! Lets try not to push the next date off so long!

On Sunday my brother Ranley was able to bless their beautiful baby girl Carli.  Once again I am reminded of how blessed I am. I am so grateful I have the opportunity to be with my family forever.  I sure love all my nieces and nephews! There is no greater/funner job then being a aunt ( we don't have kids yet so I can say that ;)  When you have babies in your family this cute it's pretty easy to LOVE being a aunt!

 

 

"Only an Aunt... can give hugs like a mother, can keep secrets like a sister, and share love like a friend."

 

 

 

Bingham Wood Chopping Trip 2012

 

I'm a little late on this post but eh oh well. Back in Sept we had our annual Bingham wood cutting day. Last year my sister in law spoke up and decided if our father in law Dwight was going to make us girls work all day.....well we just better plan on making it a camping trip. Last year was the FIRST year I actually enjoyed this trip. Yes that was only my second year, but if you had asked me the previous year....I was wondering what I had married in to. Yuck, just thinking about that first year makes me cringe. I was so pooped! But anywhoo, this was the second year we decided to camp. We went up the night before ate a yummy dinner (thanks Jami) and hit the sack. We had a early start in hopes we would not be getting home late and be splitting wood into the wee hours of the morning. I sure miss Whit (my brother in law who is serving on a mission) when this time comes around. We always miss the extra muscles when it's time for the heavy lifting.
                                                      But we still had pretty good help

Zayne and Brooke (my niece and nephew) sure were good help! Zayne was really good at filling all of our whole in the trailer, he was not about to waste any space.

I love this picture. Zayne and  Hank

Yup we are home wreckers. That  right there is woody the wood peckers home.
Whoopsie-daisy!!!

 Brooke was sure a hard worker

 

 

After eating lunch the kids wanted to go down to the stream......but we were all beat. Grandpa Bingham volunteered to take them down. Such a good grandpa.

My favorite part about going to get wood. Look at this view!

Got to love the makeupless/tired/dirty/showerless look that comes from cutting wood all day:) But hey........ its the memories that matter right ;)

Sure love this family!

Before taking off we had to snap a few family photo's. Dwight and Christine had already taken off by the time this idea popped into anybody head so we never got a group picture.

 

We had this trailer filled to the max, plus the back of a pickup truck. I think Jami and I actually impressed Dwight with our stacking skills this year. Them stacks were tall. Jami had to help out on the top stuff. Tall sister in laws sure come in handy ;)

 

I am grateful for the family I married into, even if I don't consider wooding chopping day as Hank would put it "fun" but the time I am able to spend with my family sure makes it worth the day of hard work!

 

It's Corn Chopping Time!

Can I just mention again how much I love living Dietrich!!!   Hank and I lived a different life while we lived in Twin Falls. City life was not good for either of us! With us both working indoor jobs, going to school, never seeing each other due to jobs and school...BLAH. Needless to say I was MORE then ready when we decided that moving to Dietrich was the right thing to do.  True I still don't see Hank a lot because he is always working, but now.......I can just go to work with him!!!!! I love this time of year! We started chopping corn a couple weeks ago, it may not be everybody's favorite thing to do around here....but for me....I LOVE IT! I was not able to go ride with Hank as much as I would have liked to, but life is a little busier this year for me.
                                  I was able to go spend a whole day being Hank's little tag a long.

The day started in the truck. We would follow right beside the chopper while uncle John filled us up.

The view from my seat.

What the days diet consisted of

 

My job was pretty ruff!

After a while we had to switch out jobs and we started packing pit. Not my favorite thing....I'm a wimp! But we still had a good time. 

Pic on the left is from the bottom..........then going up. It's a little steeper then I liked!

 



Look how high we are

See them hay bails....yeah, we're taller!

 

 

Can you see why this might not be my favorite job. It's hard to tell, but you get darn near the edge



 

 

 

Christine (mother in law) adding more corn to our mountain

These next 3 pictures go together. After Christine finished unloading her truck she went to get back into her truck..........it was locked.

. If you can't tell.......this truck is very tall; so its a climb

I love her face here....finally got it unlocked. Christine cracks me up!

I'm totally bummed I had to take these from inside the tractor so they are not very clear

 



Squashed in a tractor together for about 3 hours with my husband = a very happy wife!

I have a pretty amazing life!

 

I LoVe To SeE tHe TeMpLe

Today I was able to go to the Boise Temple open house with the Young women and men. I was recently put into the YW as a Beehive advisor. It doesn't seem very long ago I was a Beehive myself so it's kinda hard to think of myself as a leader. It was so fun to see all the youth walk through this beautiful temple. These kids spent their day off of school to go and experience this, and for that I am very proud of them!

     Dietrich 2nd Branch YW & YM



Such a beautiful Temple (stupid no parking sign.....messed up my picture)



 

 

On the way home we had to make a pit stop in Gooding to wet our whistles( AKA we were thirsty)

We could be wind blown coca cola slurpee models now couldn't we ;)

It's (Almost) The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

 

AWH.......FALL IS IN THE AIR!!!! I love fall.....almost as much as I love winter. After waking up this morning in a grumpy mood, Hank came in to give me a kiss goodbye before he left for work. The first thing he said to me is "IT'S COLD OUTSIDE"......awh.....I love those words. I'm not a fan of summer...heat...BLAH! Don't get me wrong I like the green and everything being pretty, but cold and gloomy days make me happy! The weather this week is supposed in the 60's.....THE 60'S!!!!!! Again......awh!!!!!! I'm excited to have the leaves change and to see all the beautiful colors.
The wind is really blowing today, which is not ideal but I can handle that! Hopefully the wind doesn't last to long.....I don't mind it, but my poor Hank has to work out in it all day!
                                                (almost time to pull out the long johns :)!!!!)

This picture gives you the idea of how hard the wind is blowing.....this poor little tree may just snap in half by the end of the day

Greenish Thumb?

I am so proud of myself! I grew up helping my mom plant and take care of a garden, but this year.......I planted my very first garden ALL BY MYSELF!!!! Whats even more impressive.....IT LIVED! When we lived in Twin falls I was convinced I had one of the blackest thumbs, I couldn't keep a easy house plant alive. Since moving out to Dietrich I have been able to keep many house plants alive. So I decided to try my luck with a  garden. I have really enjoyed having a garden for the most part. Next year should be better! This year there was almost weekly phone calls to either my mom,sisters, or my mother in law asking how the heck to do something! Without the help of these guys I'm sure I would of had the best watered weed patch in the Magic Valley :)
Now if I were good at this blogging thing I would of thought ahead and got a picture of my garden when it was pretty and everything was in bloom. Well.....I didn't. My potato plants are already half dug, and my beans are all done due to a earlyish frost. But everything else is still going strong. So don't mind the ugly dead looking spots

Like my garden decoration ;) Hank thinks it's the best looking part of our garden. When we moved here there was this snowmobile right in my lawn. After MUCH nagging to my husband to get rid of it..........its still here. So I decided to just plant my garden around it.

I planted a row of Zinnia's in front of the garden ( Thanks Devri for telling me about these flowers) I have LOVED them!  We got a little bit of a frost a couple weeks ago, it kinda made some of them die, but they are still very colorful and pretty.

E-I-E-I-0

Hank and I do not have any kids yet but I would like to introduce you to 2 new members of our family. (one that didn't last very long).  Never know what type of new "pets" you pick up while living in the country.  Now most "pets" are welcome and don't bother me to much if they stick around for a little while, but one of our new additions sent me screaming through the house! I'm sorry to say our family is back down to 7 instead of 8.

 

I would like to introduce you to Charlotts(as in web) evil cousin Herman. Herman was not the most friendly pet. And to be honest he was kind of a messy guest, he even had the nerve to leave one of his incredibly sticky strong web stings across my doorway. So when I walked outside it stuck right to my face making me instantly freak out! (Don't even act like this has never happened to you!) Then I look up and EEK!!!!!......there he be. He was just making himself right at home. Sorry Herman I couldn't keep you, I would never have a good nights rest knowing you were crawling around somewhere along my house. R.I.P Herman and please let your family know your kind is not welcome here! ( I also had to point out the size of this sucker!!!! See the other spider in its web?? That was actually a pretty regular sized spider. See how much bigger Herman is!)

Now these three little ugly ducklings swallows have made a nice little home for themselves above my back door. Well I guess it's not their fault it was their mother that picked the location of where their home was to be built. As much fun as it has been to have piles of bird poop on my back step I am ready for these little babies to leave the nest! I don't have the heart to knock it down while they are still living there. But I will need to hide it if my mother in law comes over while they are still living there. She is stronger then I am, she knocks down any nest in sight of her house. They are kinda shy, I took a number of pictures but never could get a picture of all three. The one you can see on the far left.... that's Tiki and other two are Lola and Kiki. I sure hope I have not offended them, do to the fact that I do not if they are male or female. Not sure how to tell on a bird???

If you're a little confused on the # of our family, I was counting Hank and I...that's 2, we have 2 dogs Zipper and Ziggy...that's 4, Tiki Lola and Kiki....that makes 7.

Sure hope I'm not the only one who has been getting a few extra little house quests the last little while. You can tell it's getting close fall when all the things that live outside start trying to live inside. Hope everyone is enjoying the almost change of seasons.....kinds feels like the mother nature can't make up her mind yet about what to do. I'm voting for a change to fall!

Sweet sweet summer time

Well I started out with all the motivation in the world to be a great blogger, I was going to try to have a new and exciting something to write about every week. BUT.........as I had mentioned before, my life is rather uneventful. I did have a couple of fun trip/outings but as they came and past I only manage to snap a few shots. It is a lot of work for some reason to remember to ACTUALLY take pictures with the camera that I carry around in my purse almost all the time. I used to take pictures all the time. Didn't matter what we were doing I had my camera out, but in my "old age" I have gotten lazy. My sister in law Jami is the champ at taking pictures so I am going to blame it all on her as to why I my camera has gotten dusty over the last two years! So way to go Jami ;)
 

 I was able to watch these two cutie pies. This is how us Koyle snorkel ha ha.

 

I have so much fun watching Alli every week. This little girl keeps me on my toes!!! I opened a can of spaghetti O's, put her up to her chair; then I went to change a load of laundry. I kept hearing her giggle and a few minutes later I came back and found her like THIS!!! She sure was enjoying her lunch. Spoons are for wimps! Good thing I had the feeling to take off her cloths before feeding her. I guess if you're still clean at the end of the meal....you didn't enjoy it enough;) !!

 

My awesome sister in law Jami

 

Grandpa Burt and Christine showin us how to get to get the job done! Grandpa Burt grows an amazing garden, wish I would have got a picture. 

 

Maybe in another week I will have some more uneventfulness to share :) Until next time.............