Emilie we're so proud of you and exciting for the new adventures that lie ahead for us all. We love you! Hugs, your whole family!
Everyone, today January 31st of 2016 at around 4:00pm, Emilie took her first steps!!! And daddy was here to see it! We were not expecting it at all, and the ability to get this on video was amazing! Since Scott wasn't wearing a shirt I'm not putting the video on for public, but immediate family members will be sent a link to the video, and if you're a friend or family member and want the link but didn't receive one, please ask and we'll send it!
Emilie we're so proud of you and exciting for the new adventures that lie ahead for us all. We love you! Hugs, your whole family!
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Okay, so it’s been awhile (again) since I blogged, so I thought I’d treat everyone to the best/funniest pictures of the week! At the moment we’re having some crazy weather up in the mountains. In our area, we’re getting around 80 mph winds with a High Wind Warning. We’re also getting a clump of Severe Thunderstorms with massive rain (which will turn to snow by tomorrow morning). They’re recommending that everyone stay on their first floor in the center of the house in case windows brake or trees fall into your house. Pretty gnarly, huh? Well, the goats are alive and the chickens are doing fine (though looking out the window we saw one outside, and it had it’s butt in the air with it’s beak in the corner… might need to get that one…). As for us, no power outages yet. Updates for family, I have a goal of writing at least every Sunday so stayed tuned. If I don’t write till then, don’t worry, we’re most likely still alive ;) I better submit this blog before the power goes out… Love to all :) Yesterday as I was picking up George’s toys from the car, I noticed something peculiar... when picking up his big dinosaur, I noticed something was inside it... so I dumped it out to discover there were coloves of my garlic stuffed in it! Thats what I get for letting him play in the onion bin with my Onions, Potatoes and Garlic ;)
Oh my gosh... My whole blog deleted again. Anyway!!!!! I'm writing in the middle of the night because I had a nightmare... of Ted Cruz... Yes him! ...He seems like he always has such a front on, and last debate he just seemed to wear to much make up. I'm leaning toward Donald Trump (since our political system is broken, and he'd shake things up a bit... though I don't know exactly how he'd actually shake them up... Is he like the Republican version of Obama? Saying he'll do all these things, not do them, and do a whole bunch of his own agenda unconstitutionally?) Well, anyway, I'll tell you my nightmare... I was sitting in the corner at the end of a hall, in the dark. Something rustled by me, and I got scared. I kicked (I rose above my fears and decided to face them by kicking at it). Well, whatever it was grabbed my foot with it's teeth... It wasn't a monster, you could say, it was Ted Cruz! ...And he was laughing at me and shaking my foot in his mouth like a Yorkshire Terrier. There's more to the dream, but that's the gist of it (and Scott was laughing his head off as I was telling it to him in the middle of the night). Well, it was terrifying to me, but I have to admit I burst out giggling along with Scott... It does seem funny, though it really scared me in the dream, and to be honest, I'm still creeped out. Well, here's the haircut with pics below. Enjoy! Inspired from "32 Stylish Boy Haircuts" from http://www.mens-hairstylists.com/boys-haircuts-inspiration/. I got the haircut pretty close right?! Better than I thought I would do, anyway! I'm happy and proud. :) ...Because of the previous layering I did with George's last haircut, his bangs are a little lighter in the front and the 'top' layers a bit in general. Nevertheless, the back grew out very nicely I think. I never know what I'll do when George needs a new haircut, but after going through some of the photos online (none of them tell how to do it!), I got some inspiration and found his one! George also helped pick out his favorites out, but wasn't very helpful as he liked every haircut we saw. He did decidedly like this one though ;) UPDATE: Emilie is almost about to walk!!! Two to three days ago, she stood up in the middle of the floor for three seconds!!!! She's so close everyone!!! Give her 1-2 weeks!!! ;) Today, we were finally able to go to our neighborhood/community meeting, which was at a local Christian retreat. It was so nice to be able to finally go, since it had been during church meetings every time before! Afterward, George got to play around the nice landscaping and grassy fields, and we had a nice calm afternoon. Emilie also got the privilege of stuffing dirt and rocks in her mouth, which we found out as she gave us an open tooth-smiled grin displaying all the contents. Our cute kids *grins* We were able to meet a lot of our neighbors during the meeting and get the latest on all the news and things they’re trying to accomplish. We had some of our own news to share as well, and they had some info to help. Our first goat, Kimmie, was taken a few weeks ago. This morning, our second one was taken, Nephi. Our most prized goats, gone. Kimmie was our girl Boer goat, with beautiful brown eyes and a brown spot on her back in the shape of a heart. Nephi was our Nigerian Dwarf with blue eyes and white hair. We though Kimmie had just hopped over the fence and got lost, even stolen. Now, it’s pretty obvious that they were snagged and killed by a mountain lion. Today we learned that mountain lions have no trouble scaling a wall, they’re giant cats. They jump over, take the prey a ways away, take a few bites, and then bury it and come back for the rest later. Sounds like a horror story, am I right? Well this mountain lion is 200 lbs and apparently is the mother of two cubs, and she lives on our bloody mountain! At first I was all for killing a mountain lion on site, but now, after hearing she has two cubs, I couldn’t kill her. I’ve watched too many documentaries about cubs starving because their mommy couldn’t teach them how to hunt in time and it takes cubs time to mature or they’d stave. If we trapped her, we wouldn’t have the cubs either, so they’d die. The only option we have now is to put the goats in at night or give them away because they’re going to get picked off sooner or later. Once a mountain lion knows you have livestock, it’s like telling it “McDonalds, right here! Fast food for the taking, and oh, you don’t even have to pay!”. It’ll keep coming back our friends said. On the positive side, people eat goats (our Kimmie was a meat goat), and they actually got eaten. Ok, so these were my pets and I told Scott we’d never eat them, unless in emergency situations (food storage), but they were mine. But, on the positive note, I fed a momma mountain lion with two cute babies in winter when food is scarce. I wasn't exactly offering them though, am upset, and I’m not exactly going to go outside at dawn, at dusk, or, well, just for the heck of it unless we’re going to the park. Well, one of the men at the meeting worked as a volunteer with a fire department, and he said the biggest prey of mountain lions (when he was on call), were goats. He said only once did one kill a human, and it was a woman who decided to follow one and take pictures of it... it felt threatened and killed her. He said the biggest thing to do is NOT RUN (triggers a cats instinct to attack) and obviously don’t follow them. He says I’m pretty safe because they don’t like humans. I don’t doubt they could kill me though because one, they did kill a woman (as stupid as she was), and two, the ranch next door actually had horses taken down by them (most likely because they ran though?) But anyway, I think I'm still a little scared to go outside! Firstly, they stalk their prey, from the bushes! They wait a while and THEN they strike. What the heck?! Am I overly feaking out? Am I unjustified? Don’t I have a right to be concerned? But how concerned should I be??? Well, obviously more than I was before, but how much more??? My goats are dead and now I only have two left, and also we lost a chicken to a coyote (it didn’t get it all the way though the fence when it got it though, and it had to be finished off. Our expert chicken killing neighbor helped). I'm happy we're still alive, that my kids are well, that we have a nice big, comfortable home. I'm happy we have a shelter for our goats at night (that we will be keeping them locked up in). And I'm mostly thankful for these experiences of death because they sober me up and make me a more cautious mother. That goat could have been my child. Anyway, I'm thankful to heavenly father for these experiences, and I'm planning on keeping my kids very safe. Sorry George, sorry Emilie. It's painful, but the goats taught us one thing. They liked to be out and not have to wait for us to let them out for food, so we let them have their cage open at night to go in and out as they pleased... now they're dead. You will never have unsupervised visits with the outdoors until your old enough for a carry permit. Oh goodness... so long since I wrote and look where the times gone. So much to catch up on, but I can’t possibly, so I’ll give you some fanfare pics ;) We had a fabulous time with family over Christmas with bountiful playing for the kids, being in one another’s company, and fantastic holiday food. Emilie really bloomed in the company of so much family around too. George himself loved all the attention and especially loved spending time with his cousin Sloan! On our trip, we also managed to sneak in the new Star Wars movie, which I give 5 stars for not disappointing! The kids were fine at first when we started the trip home, but later we got lots of questions from George, “Can we go see grandma and grandpa?,” “ Lets go see Sloan!”. It’s hard to explain to a three year old that grandma and grandpa are across the country, as well as his dear cousin Sloan. By this point though, he realizes we can’t see them just quite yet again though. When we got back home, we were really surprised by how cold it was. A bit warmer than Chicago, but really not by that much (though we did hear it was suppose to get even colder in Chicago than it was when we were there, brrr!). We’ve been contented to stay completely upstairs with Propane to get the heat up to where it should be and then blasting the heaters all day. Cooking is a bit miserable, since I have to go downstairs, but overall the benefits have been me becoming a faster cook (LOL) while still eating healthily. I totally give kudos to my Stanford Nutrition class! One thing I’ve discovered though is that veggies may not always be healthy! Everyone’s body is built differently. Also, with a bit of research, I’m thinking going crazy with verity with eating vegetables isn’t too smart (a little sure, not as crazy as my class says though). It has only been recently in history that we could have vegetables year round and to boot that, it was only passible to get vegetables that grew in your own country and region. I bet in the future, they’ll warn against having too much “verity”. Today, they recommend having vegetables (and a little fruit) make up half your plate. When doing this though, I find it hard to get enough calories and I also found a really interesting article that said too much vegetables can hurt us, and it helped me not to go crazy with it (HERE). Scott loved that article by the way ;). On another note, that I'm super proud of, is that Scott has made awesome improvement with his blood sugar! Last night, it was the lowest that it has ever been, 96!!! They key? We don't quite know, but it's probably a combo of a diet low in carbs, high in vegetables. He also had some major cardio and muscle workout when shoveling the driveway for over an hour yesterday, so that may have helped too. It's probably because of a combo of the above and the new low dose of Insulin helping speed up the progress. Scott's also able to have a bit of candy and an occasional coke and do fine too :) Anyway, I'm proud of him, he's doing really good. :) The other day (I just had to add this pic and story, so cute), Emilie wasn't feeling so well and she didn't want mommy, she wanted daddy! She went right up to him and snuggled into his shoulder. I couldn't get her to budge, even if I wanted her too. It was super cute.
Emilie hasn't made any move to walk yet, bet the pediatrician said she's able to if she wants to, since she can pull herself up and walk/scoot along the edge of any piece of furniture. The visit to the doctor for her one year check up went great, although the shots were a bit traumatic for her, and she ended up puking all over during the second shot. She does not like shots, poor girl. She promptly fell asleep in the car after, but is doing well once again! George is doing great too, and is full of energy and excitement. We have finally established a schedule, and both George and Emilie are doing well with it. Almost half a week into it, and Scott and I love it. I've started many alarms like my sister does and it's totally made me a better mother! An hour before bedtime, an alarm goes off and we turn off half the lights to calm things down. Then on the second alarm, we get ready for bed. We brush teeth and have potty time, get PJ's on, say family prayer and read a story for bed. The kids are then alseep by 8-8:30pm and then we get 2 to 2 1/2 hours to ourselves. Complete bliss! Why we never did this before, and I can't possibly imagine going back. Scott and I never got any time to ourselves, and now we do! I recommend solid bedtimes ;) |
Ms. MaryJust one of those average amazing moms... Cause you know, mommy = amazing. Archives
January 2017
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