Friends and Lambs

Our friends, Brandon and J'lene, have a daughter that goes to pre-school with Owen on Mondays. Today while we were waiting to pick up our kids, I told Brandon about our lambs and told him that they could come help us feed them. They came over this afternoon to help. Zoey, Kamiah, and Braelyn all took a bottle and fed a lamb. They did such a good job!! Brandon also helped out with a lamb so I could take pictures.

Kamiah and Zoey feeding lambs.Braelyn got done first and she wasn't quite sure what to do with her bottle.Brandon and Braelyn feeding a lamb.The girls were so proud that their lambs finished their bottles. After feeding, the lambs had some energy. Kamiah and Braelyn had fun playing with them.

They stayed for a while and played. The kids all played so well together. It was fun for my kids to have other kids to play with. Here they are eating their "supper."

A video of everyone feeding the lambs.

Thanks for the help!!!

Queen of FHE

A week ago, Zoey was the queen of Family Home Evening. It was her turn to be in charge of treats. She decided to make brownies. She helped with everything. She's actually getting to be quite the little helper in the kitchen. She loves to stir things.And here she is scraping the bowl into the pan. She loves helping. She feels like such a big girl.Of course, after the brownies were in the oven, she had to lick the spoon. It started out with her getting the batter on her fingers . . .

And then licking them off.But finally she got bored with that and just went straight for the spoon.

Owen decided to play Peanut Butter and Jelly for our activity. We were playing and we realized that Zoey was holding her cards with her toes. It was hilarious. I just had to take a picture. Luckily, you usually only have two cards and the most you have is three. Her toes could handle that.Zoey won the game. Here she is doing her "I Did It" dance (a re-make of the Dora song). She's singing, "I did it, I did it, I did it . . .

"Yeah!"

Santa and the kids

At our ward party this last Christmas, they had Santa come. He told us ahead of time that he wanted the kids to come in families and he wanted to talk to them first, then parents could take pictures. He was a really cute Santa. We waited in line with all of the other kids. I had to go to because this was during the height of Zoey's stranger anxiety phase. We got up to the front and he talked to my kids for a while. I was on stage with them and could kind of hear what they were talking about, but it didn't really register for a while . Finally, I realized that Santa had asked what the kids wanted for Christmas. I think Zoey said she wanted a dolly, Jo wanted a pony something, but Owen told him he wanted a real alive T-rex. Then, he proceeded to talk to Santa for 4-5 minutes about how he really could bring Owen a real alive T-rex. Everything that Santa said to try to convince Owen to not want one, or that he couldn't bring him one, Owen had an answer or comeback to. Finally, Santa turned to the parents standing around and asked where this boy's parents were. Nathan was doing something else that night, so I was there by myself. Everyone looked at me on the stage. He turned to me and said, "Bless You!!" Our family was the talk of the ward for weeks after that. The Sunday after Christmas, everyone was asking how we got around the T-rex situation. I love that my boy is so smart.

And the happy "after talking to Santa" picture.

Random Phone Pictures

I finally found a cord to get the pictures off of my phone. Just a warning, I don't take fabulous pictures anyway, but I really take bad pictures with my phone. I didn't realize how many pictures I had taken with my phone, so here is just a sampling with a little explanation.

This one is just Zoey being her normal, crazy self.Owen when we went to Gabby and Yani's house for Halloween.Jo at Gabby and Yani's for Halloween.Zoey at Gabby and Yani's for Halloween.We had just left the Town Hall and we were walking through the grass behind the church. It was covered with leaves. Nathan and I were walking ahead and we realized that the kids were no longer behind us. We turned around and they were playing in the leaves. They just couldn't help themselves. So, I took a picture. . .And another . . .And another.Sometimes the kids and I will go eat lunch with Nathan at work. We love that his job is so close and we can do this. This is Owen eating lunch at Nathan's work. They love it when they get to wear hair nets at his work, too. They play with them for days afterwards. They also love the whiteboard in his office. They always HAVE to color on it.Zoey eating lunch at Daddy's work.

This one is really bad, but it's of Jo untying one of the lambs in the back of the truck.

Fun in Kaysville

A few weeks ago, we had to go down to Kaysville to pick up a lawn mower and some parts that Nathan bought online. We called up my family and let them know. We told them that we'd love to have lunch with whoever could make it. We met at an Arctic Circle. It was so fun. The kids all got to play on the play place and us adults all got to talk. The older nieces and nephews all played for a little while, but also enjoyed talking and hanging out with each other. It was great to see everyone that came. We did miss seeing a few from my family, though.Zoey had a blast. She is finally big enough that she can pretty much do anything she wants. The slide was a little intimidating for her still, though. Here's the oldest nephew trying to encourage her to go down. He was even willing to go down with her. She did finally go down, but only after mommy climbed up and went down with her.
After that, there was no stopping her. Here she is at the bottom so proud of herself for going down alone.

Horse Lesson II

A week and a half ago, Jo had her last horse lesson for a little while. Ross is going up to Wyoming for the summer, so he won't be around. He's done a great job with her. And she has loved it. Because we didn't have any horses at our house, we met Ross at Nathan's parent's house. They did the lesson in the corral with two other horses. One (Lunar) decided that it likes Gwenny (the horse Jo was on) and followed her around. Gwenny kicked at Lunar once with Jo on her back. I think it scared Jo, but she handled it well. Ross told her just to pay attention to Gwenny and she did better. She could eventually get the horse to go where she wanted it to go. By the end she was getting it faster. I think she'll miss working with horses. Hopefully we'll be able to get together with Ross at a different time and start them up again.

Making sure everything was just right.Getting instructions.Carrying out the instructions.Smile for the camera.

I asked Ross to come stand by Jo so I could take his picture. This is what I got. He would not turn around for anything. Crazy!! Anyway, thanks, Ross, for teaching my little girl about horses. She really enjoyed it.

Another update

I have a picture this time. And much better news. Last night I had a meeting to go to and when I got home, Nathan had already fed the lambs. He had gone out earlier in the afternoon to try and feed the lamb that wouldn't eat. The lady we got them from told us she fed some of them cold milk, so Nathan took it out cold and got her to eat about 4 ounces. Last night, he had to force her to take the bottle, but she finally ate 8 ounces. Nathan said once he got her to take the nipple, she drank like crazy. This morning, Jo and I each took two lambs and left the one that didn't like to drink to Nathan. Again he had to force it to take the nipple, but it drank well. It drank about 6 ounces. I'm feeling much better about things today. We let them all out in the backyard and they are loving it. As you can see from the picture, they are experimenting with eating grass. It's so cute. I am glad they are doing better.