Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Last week Isaac went hunting. I mentioned he bought a muzzle-loader, my only complaint was that he is SUPER hard to buy for, he doesn't get excited about anything, so the week before Christmas he had to outfit himself for hunting. The gun, stuff to clean it with, then a knife...and so on. I just kept thinking there's a gift idea, there's a gift idea. Oh well, he never did buy a case for it, and neither did I so I obviously still had chances ;) I wanted to do something fun with the boys while he was gone so we built graham cracker "ginger bread houses" I thought it was fun, Colt was sold on the getting to eat the candy and put the icing on. He'd say "Little dob here" over and over in his cute little voice, I loved it. Cannon was disappointed they didn't end up looking like the one in the story book we have where the little boy gets to make a gingerbread house with his mom. Darn. Oh well. My favorite part of his was the crunch bar glued to the side with a bite taken out of it.

 

That was the first time my kids (can remember anyway) having Sweedish Fish. -it was leftover Halloween Candy- but they LOVED them, they were totally sold and said "Can you buy more mom?" So I did for Christmas but didn't get them out today. Oh well. We have them (but they don't know it yet.) 

My big helpers have been fighting (not my favorite part) over getting to help with the dishes. Its pretty darn cute! If only I thought it would last.

 

Monday we went to the Orton's for FHE, it was So SO fun. We had a great time. (And we had super delicious food too, she served her mission in Italy and is a great cook! And that homemade ice cream gelato stuff was to die for!) I asked what we could bring but Marie just kept saying nothing, but we weren't going to go empty handed so the boys and I made an apple pie. My mom makes awesome apple pies, I was hoping it was genetic or something-haha-but it turned out ok. And they boys are awesome at being the pastry cutters for the crust! Seriously, I'd do it again with their help. I hate that part.

 

I'm not sure why we had to be in out uniforms to eat breakfast this day...but they were and I of course took a picture.  

Tuesday we went back out to Bishop's and did the carriage ride with some ward friends again. It was sooooo cold, seriously miserable cold. (But Wed it was almost 60-this place is crazy! Someone told Isaac if you don't like the weather here don't worry it will be different tomorrow. Apparently it's true.) That night Colt went with me and we did a little charitable shopping because Isaac had found someone with some needs, (I know so much for doing our alms in secret right but its part of the story soooo I had to say it) well, I bought the little boy a monster truck and Colt LOVED it he asked and asked for one I just kept saying "no, it's for a little boy that doesn't get toys" then Colt smartened up and said "You buy one me, me poop in potty?" I said "You Bet!" But clarified it was going to be when he had no more accidents. So Wednesday started out the best day ever-it was awesome-I kept asking Colt if he needed to go and he kept just saying no then all the sudden he came up to me and said "mom, me ready poop potty" and he did!!! It was awesome!

That afternoon Isaac took the boys church'n but when they  came home, they showed up with a dog. Originally I did a whole separate post yesterday so as not to ruin this one, my Christmas post, with my frustrations and venting, but ultimately I didn't post it because I know the internet is not a good place to voice familial frustrations. Sufficed to say my boys are on cloud nine-especially Isaac-I have been very upset about it. He doesn't understand .... it has been a very VERY stressful couple days. Moving on.

The cute Orton's gave us a Christmas present when we were there but Cannon wasn't minding and tore into it when we'd asked him not to so we didn't let him finish opening it until Christmas eve. (I could see that it was a puzzle and thought that would be good activity for Christmas eve -but it was 1000 pieces sooo we didn't really do it.)

 

 

And then it was Christmas, and Santa found us :) he didn't bring Cannon a real mining shovel :( but the boys got hooked up with some toys, the only bummer was when Colton's remote control started running Cannons crane-oh well.

I guess the other bummer was that I got the kids snow pants and a sled but I knew that was a risk and we are supposed to have snow next week-I'm sure we'll have more than I care for soon enough.

Today's craziness: 

You know I could start out every single post with that heading right? Well anyway, our house stinks, it we need to tell the land lord about it but anyway, we don't have it pinned down, we think it has to do with when the heater runs, Isaac was on a mission to see if he could find something dead in the vents (yeah, its gross and its bad, its not all the time-but it is too often) anyway then he just decided he was ready to get out of here so he headed to zillow.com to look at houses/property. Great. There he found 12 acres and a one room shack west of town for 40k. There were no dimensions on it, but I'll guess 15x30 (that's probably being generous) wood burning stove in the middle of it. And a few appliances along the edges. "Look that's an electric stove, it has to have electricity." He says along with "We'd only live in it for less than a year, I promise, less than a year." Can you feel my blood pressure rise as you read this? Needless to say it was causing some stress in our home-he'll say he's not serious, then he'll make 15 more comments as if he is. He must get a kick out of getting me wound up. But then, Cann Man to the rescue--I said (to Isaac) "There's not even a bathroom! That little curtained off thing might have a shower rigged up, or there might be a toilet but there's certainly not both, its tiny!" And Cannon in his little 4 year old way pipes up and said in all seriousness "We could just poop outside like the dogs." It was so so funny, as I'm typing it, its kind of dumb, but in the moment-it worked-stress diffused! We laughed so hard!

I hate the house hunt. 

Anyway, onto the week: Saturday we went out to Bishop Sorhus' farm, it was fun to see some of our ward friends. We were late and missed the little horse ride but they went for round two after everyone left. I had a heck of a time getting picture where you could see their smiles AND the horses so here's two. 

After hang'n out with Poppa, Colt was pretty annoyed he couldn't just sit on those horses-they were right there taunting him.
Tuesday night we had tithing settlement and I got the boys to put on their Christmas sweaters...but tongue out was as good as we could do on the picture evidence. I've never really liked the sweater look before-but I think I'm changing my mind, its growing on me-because its so dang cold. I think they're pretty cute.

 

 

It took most of the week doing some here and there but we did get our little tree up. Colt put the lights on!  I didn't fix or redo the decorations after the boys did them, I just kind of let it be their thing, but the lights had to be fixed...sorry Colt. (Oh and you can see from the next pic, little undie man, we're back at potty training again. UG! Some success...not enough...but some. I HATE it! But I'm trying to stick with it...)

 

Thursday when I took Cannon to preschool Mrs. Hardee said "Can Colton stay too?" I didn't think Colt would go for it but then he got playing with the toys and he didn't miss me at all. It was AWESOME! If only I'd known I was going to get that break I could have had a list a mile long, but it was still pretty dang nice and I got a lot done. I went back early because they were having a little Christmas party. (Some of the boys are out of town and the other one was sick so I think that's why she had Colt stay.) Here they are doing the Pledge of Allegiance, then singing one of their addition songs. 

I love his preschool, Mrs. Hardee did give me the bad news that she's not going to do it next year, understandable, she wants to be retired for real, but a bummer for Colt. Oh well though-its been SUCH A BLESSING!
How about these cool nativity glasses?

 

They made a cute little wreath with Cannon's hand print this week along with a baby Jesus in a manger one day where they wrapped him all up in swaddling clothes and a Stable the one day. So dang cute. On the stable day we sang  part of the Christmas song "Picture a Christmas" for her, she loved it, we need to burn her a CD with that (and a few other trusty LDS favorites) on it. 

I found some window clings in my Christmas loot-the boys had fun with those!

 

And Mel sent me a few of the cousin pics from when we were in Huntington. I love that Colts holding Eric's hand, he LOVES Eric. And says "Edrcik my favorite!"

 

 

What else? Who knows?

Isaac bought a muzzle-loader this week, he and Cannon went to sight it in today and he's going hunting with a guy in our ward tomorrow...

I guess that's about it.

So glad to see dad!

So its Friday, its late, its been a LONG travel day, It was SO SO Good to see Isaac and Cannon was darling giving him a message from Grampa. But now everyone is sleeping and I've done most of the blogging (well what's going to get done anyway) on my phone so I thought I'd jump on the computer and move around the pictures a little (but dang blogger won't center them anyway) and then publish my post. Well I opened the computer and you won't believe what the web was opened to, well maybe you will, but...Camels. Camel for sale. Camels? Really? He's CRAZY! We love him! We missed him, but he is crazy!

I learned a lot this trip! Namely-too long to be out of our routine. I didn't want to go to Utah for Thanksgiving, then turn around and go again for Christmas two weeks later-soooo I thought this was a good plan, I picked it, but was a little rough! If I were to do it again I'd totally come twice, it might be tough to sell Isaac on that I think his vote is more like "one or the other" but...I think we should have just come after Christmas, then the trips wouldn't be so close. Oh well, water under the bridge at this point. Then there's the other side of it, its like the kids almost settle into being there and coming back side of things is challenging too. We had a ton of fun but it was just laced with the stress of having things not normal for too long (add in the sicknesses-total recipe for disaster) and the subsequent naughty behavior...I'm tell'n ya, Santa might just need to skip us.
Anyway. Onto the good part. There was A LOT of good too.
Saturday morning I got to go to the temple. I love the St. George Temple! I kind of had to sneak away but Colt was good as gold-we'll take that blessing. After that Cannon and I slipped up to Poppa Great's. We were trying to catch him before the "sun downers" set in, it worked pretty good. Cannon played "Basketball" (throw a ball into a bucket) with all the old timers and he was the star of the show doing trick shots and all. I tried to take pics but they turned out way blurry. Oh well.

Then we had to bust it out of there, it was off to McDonalds because in conjunction with the annual "Donuts and Pajama Party" Grama decided to take the kids for Happy Meals then to the Peanuts movie. We do McDonalds play place all the time-but its pretty much 8:00 am after we've driven through the night and there's no one else there. That place is utter chaos and just gross. I was happy to leave! And the movie was darling, I liked it! The kids had a great time. They were so cute all lined up in their seats but pics in a dark movie theater...lame.

So I'm 0 for 2 in the pic dept today...
The funniest thing was as it ended Colt (so tired-no nap) did a big sigh and said "AMEN" all drawn out! Oh my little southern boy. After the movie we headed up to the corrals see another brand new baby calf (and to buy Grama some time to wrap the jamas) but I'll tell ya, the corrals are way more fun when Grampa is there! Anyway, then it was back to Grama's for stories and donuts and pajamas.

 

 

 

 

Colt went missing amid the chaos and I found him in on Grama's computer. Behind him on the couch...black sharpie :( that was a bad deal.

The kids had a great time at the party though and that's why she does it-I, however, was a little frazzled by time the dust settled. Yikes. Then on to Sunday, Sunday's are the worst because were gone too long and we don't really busy ourselves with other things so its just like What's going on with Primary? (Oh the kids are singing in sacrament next week-I had no clue) And Isaac is so good he just busies himself with the missionaries and then the Lingwalls take care of him but he has to do that because his family isn't there, its not like when he's gone to work and would be gone anyway type of thing. Anyway. The kids went crazy, then I blew a gasket, then its like lets sit here and watch the Christmas devotional and let there be peace...yeah right... My bad. On a happier Sunday note we went over to Great Grana Cottam's (our original plan to watch the Christmas devotional but we couldn't find it on her TV) but we got to see her, and Uncle Steve and Aunt Sher and even Uncle Don (breifly) and speaking of him, I don't really know who "Gethsemane Art" is but they did a great job of making him Santa, isn't this a great pic?

 

Anyway Grandma taught the kids how to shell pecans--too cute! And her neighbors had some fun Christmas decorations, they were so sweet about telling the kids to go ahead and climb on and take a picture (cuz I was trying like crazy to keep them off)

Monday we got to see Aunt Jayne, I swear we always miss her by one day one way or the other so it was great to visit even just for a short hour or so. (So there were definite positives with the length of our trip too.) That afternoon went to Cedar well, Enoch, where we got to see Ky and Kami's new place and the kids got to play, they always have so much fun.

We also swung by and grabbed Isaac's suit coat from Melanie. I only talked to here for 5 minutes but it was still just so dang fun, I love her--we need to plan better for next time I'm here! That night my mom laid down by the boys until they fell asleep (they won't mind me and I didn't need to blow another gasket so somehow Grama-total reward, became the punishment...whatever it worked) But I went in and visited with Chip and then after the boys fell asleep my mom came in and it was just fun to chat-one of the best parts of the whole trip!

One of the nights Cannon didn't want to go feed (cuz I was going to make him wear a coat) so he just stayed at the house and got in trouble over and over-after that feeding wasn't optional! But I'm so glad we went (when Grampa has two helpers he needs me to help play defense so I go too) it was fun though-just kind of to get back in the routine of what we do when we're at Poppa's house. Naturally when Grampa asked if they wanted to drive the mini or ride the horse, one said mini, one said horse. Colt was awesome about going with Grampa and I became the "adult supervision" on the mini. Yeah right, it was more like "Cannon, what does this do? What does this do?..." But he's a good little teacher and mostly I just sat back and watched. I know we have a million pics of him on the mini-but here's a new view.

Eventually they switched though-and I had to prove what I have learned with the Colt Man, I admit though it was pretty fun.

 

Cann's been pretty worried about his dogs missing him when he's not there.Colt, I think Colt struggles with goodbye like me. Poor kid. It made me try to be tough and positive about things because its a sad little sight.
But anyway we survived the long travel day. Our flight was a little delayed so we didn't make it back for the ward party but that's ok, and tomorrow with any luck I'll unpack...and we're going out to Bishops and we're taking soup to that-that I need to get groceries before I can even make it, and I need to plan sharing time for Sunday, and...we'll see what really gets done.

Oh boy! We've had a heck of a week! Aunt Laur and Shad were going to be here on Saturday so instead of my folks coming to Emery County Saturday to come get the boys and I they came Friday night so we would be able to actually see them on Saturday. It was great, the only bad thing was they kind of forgot to confirm that they were coming Friday, so while I did call Friday afternoon I then forgot to let people know so I pretty much felt like we ran off so that wasn't the best but we hit the road and headed south. We didn't have too bad of roads (although I'm still glad Chip was driving) and Isaac took off WAY early Saturday morning headed back for Missouri-and made it that night! -or technically very early the next morning-he's a trooper.)
It was so great to see Aunt Laur-it really had been a long time. I stayed up for a few minutes Friday night but Cann Man who had power napped on the drive wasn't about to go to sleep before I came back to bed but we got up early and visited some more. A bonus that I didn't know about was Barb and Jer were in town so we got to see them for a few minutes before they headed back to N.D. Saturday morning. It just felt so normal, them stopping by, like they should just still live across the street but...they too live across the country instead. Truth be told I didn't even hardly see or say Hi to Lydia but the kids had a blast and a major dog pile on her.

After they took off Uncle Klint (Aka Santa Clause himself) dug out the Christmas decorations and the kids were tons of "help"...

The (temporary) finished product...haha Gram'a reworked it since :)

And I know Cannon is super blurry in the above pic but you can tell he's singing his little heart out so I went with it...and here's the video to match.

Poppa Great didn't really recognize us when we went up, but then he gave the boys knuckles-so maybe he did. Then Colt got sick so I haven't been as diligent about getting up to see him this trip. Last night he did recognize us but about all he said (well to  me anyway) was "Come on Lyndi! Lets get out of here!" But when I wheeled him towards his room instead of the door he wasn't amused.

 At church Sunday we went to the Gospel Principles class because I guess my folks are ward missionaries now. Anyway the teacher was telling us that one of the blessings of reading her scriptures 30 minutes a day was that her mom  passes away and didn't have to suffer from dementia very long...I told my folks maybe they better get reading. 

Speaking of Colt being sick...holy cow! He'd had a nagging sickness for weeks but Monday night it got super bad! We were seriously up ALL night long. At least every 20 minutes so finally Tuesday morning we took him into insta-care. (Isaac had been ready to take him last Friday but the Clinic in Emery County was closed) anyway-the verdict, more strep throat. (Unfortunately Grama had it 2 days later and Cannon Chip and I are just doing out best to avoid it-fingers crossed)

Boy were we glad to finally get this smile back! Grampa grabbed his hat on his way out the door-so his little helpers had to follow suit. 

Some of the other fun at Grama's house--somebody helping himself to the left over Halloween candy. And helping make chex mix. 

Helping clean up a little before they put up Christmas lights. 

This is what my bed looks like most nights...if I'm lucky I kick on of them off to their beds on the floor. But they're so dang cute I'm not really complaining. 

Cannon has a major aversion to both long sleeves and coats ...not so good for winter-even in Southern Utah its been coat worthy weather. (Actually he throws a major fit if his jeans are the wrong color too-its really annoying) But anyway since I've been adamant that he wear a coat, he hasn't been as much of a helper this time. And we don't have as much daylight in the winter but oh well. We've still had some fun up at the corrals. Cannon's had a little fork but Poppa had a new one up there for Colt too-pretty big stuff!