Thursday, January 23, 2020

When Mom's Away

I took a couple of trips to Mississippi in January. My sister Lena had her 10th baby!!!  I went down to help with her kids while she was in the hospital on the first trip.  I was gone several days.  Lee and the kids hopefully had fun hanging out at home!  Lee made potato soup one night while I was gone.


Lee and I have been making homemade yogurt and it's been awesome because Lee has been making it from start to finish as well.  I made homemade vanilla over Christmas in the Instant pot and it's been yummy using it in the homemade yogurt.  Mmmm.........

Down in Mississippi Chick-Fil-A had free breakfast the whole week.  We did that one morning with the kids.  Mike used our Honda Fit and I drove around their van.

Lena went in for an induction and had the baby that afternoon.  She has 5 boys and 5 girls now.  Her baby is Sarah Grace. We had fun going to the hospital that afternoon after we picked up Ethan from school.  We got some balloons too...5 blue to represent her boys, 5 pink for the girls.











That night we went to the Lance's for a birthday party for their son Sam.  I know a few people in Lean's ward which is fun.  Sam and Sarah Grace were born the same day, just years apart!

We got stuck in the mud.  I let Ethan drive a few times in their big van.  He pulled way in on their yard.  I should have had him back up. I didn't realize that the ground at the Lances was so mushy, in a sense.  And it was kind of freaky driving with Ethan because he doesn't look over his shoulder to see who is to his left.  He almost hit a car by the hospital.  Thankfully he did't!

We also went to the library.



Kristen made pizza.  She put too much sugar in the dough so it was sweet.  But it looked awesome!

Lee making something fun at home. 

Sarah Grace is home!

We did a little baby shower for Lena and bought some clothes, diapers and wipes for Sarah Grace.





Back at home...Cal finished his Lego rocket!

Ethan made a yummy dinner one night.

I want to make these cheese puffs sometime.  They are so yummy!


I had a fun time in Mississippi.  On the way back my air conditioning fan came loose and punctured a hole in my radiator.  I had an unexpected stop in Gadsden, Alabama to get it fixed and had to spend the night there.  When I was pulled over at the gas station a guy stopped to help me.  I bought some new radiator fluid because I knew the engine was overheating and visible smoke was coming out of the exhaust and the from under the hood.  That is how I knew to pull over and stop.  Anyway, I bought some anitfreeze and a guy was pouring it in for me.  Then I heard the sound of liquid draining onto the ground.  Then  knew something was definitely wrong!  It leaked right out.  Thankfully I remembered that my insurance would do a free tow truck.  But I had to wait close to two hours by the time I called to the time they dropped me off at the car place.  That was annoying.  Though I shouldn't have been annoyed....



I found a cute motel called the Gadsden Inn, I think.  The owner's daughter of Mayo's Auto dropped me off there.  I walked to Aldi and bought some food.  Then did some computer stuff, read and watched TV.




My friend Brittany was really sweet and brought my family dinner the day I drove home from being stranded.

The second day in Gadsden I went on a run, then hung out at the hotel till noon, then walked to the local library.  I hung out there till the car was done.  The owner's wife came and picked me up, which was so sweet of her.


Clark is getting college junk mail.  Crazy!

Lee took the kids night skiing one night.  I finally made it home!

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

What are you doing in the New Year?

Where we last left off, we made it home from Florida to a little bit of snow.  Of course school was cancelled.


The kids enjoyed the day off and so did I.  Haley and other kids played in the snow.

I have been enjoying the DeBrand chocolates Lee gave me for my birthday.

Lee came up with the idea to shoot our houses with a paintball gun.  That was pretty fun.  And as you can tell it was so warm out!  What great weather!












Clark likes to clean his instruments. I'm very impressed!  He liked using some cleaning things he got from his seminary teacher as Christmas gifts. 


We went to Pennsylvania one Sunday to celebrate Serena's birthday.  It's always fun to hang out for a little while and visit. 

Shanna really wants to have braces, ha ha. I was the same way.

My kids had fun with the bunnies that are new pets at the Bartholomew's house.





Cousins and best friends.  I love it when they can hang out together!

I hope your new year is going well.  We still haven't done our goals yet, but definitely thinking about how I can improve and know what I need to do to change.  I just need to change!  I think it's great making goals though and and working towards them.