February and March 2018

Not much happens in the dead of winter.. Plus really i marco polo everything instead of taking pictures. Sigh.

Still taking the dogs out every night so sometimes i take pictures of the hmodel homes being built... Not sure what they are building in the I garage... Offices?

They have huge fireplaces!

I thought it was funny the names they are coming the streets by the soccer practice Arena..

Here i think I am trying to get a picture of the owls..

The dogs kept scaring them away. They are big!

Sometimes Gage joins us for dinner while Jared and Amy go out. Here's Aaron with his work shirt! Can't remember when he started working but he's enjoying working at the game store.

And joseph turned 1 so we let him go at a piece of cake. He was pretty excited!

So cute! His mom was pretty excited to #)

Mmm... Cake!

Then he opened presents... Babies are much easier to buy for than old people :)

Its been so fun to have the nieces and nephews close. It's hard work every Sunday but i think is so fun that they actually want to come up and hang with us.

One Sunday Emily was so very sick so the kids brought us dinner! I'm sure Jalyn instigated it but it was so sweet.

Jared ran a 50miler so we went to watch. He was amazing! Of course, I didn't get any pictures of Jared... I did get a couple marco polos though! :)

Emptying poops on the truck...  Aaron and I tried to use the tractor to dump the compost on the beds but the little tractor couldn't handle the up and downs... kept getting stuck. 

Aaron was pretty disappointed. Especially after we had spent all afternoon trying to get the tractor started, taking off the mower so we could hook up the trailer, and then figuring out how to get it started again.  I have a bunch of marco polos to Emily laughing at our woes cuz one of the reasons it wouldn't start is that it was in gear... Took us a while to figure that out!

Oh yes, and our dumb rototiller wasn't up to the job either.  Sigh.

Not sure why I have this shot of Cooper... probably making fun of him because he is so afraid of bees he won't come outside if he sees anything flying or hears any buzzing.

Easter haul!  I like doing baskets for everyone.  What is funny is that the presents I got everyone for Easter last year (kites) are still in our birthday box upstairs... sigh.

The dogs were of course excited... they are always excited when you talk to them...

K, that's all I remember about those months.  On to April!

January 2018 - goats

When we got back from the holidays, we went searching for left over Christmas trees to feed the goats.  They love munching on the needles and even eventually strip the bark if the trees don't dry out too quickly.  One of Emily's coworkers wanted to bring her tree over since they like to keep their tree up past the time the county comes and picks them up for mulch.

We found a big pile of trees in the park by Jared's house and so we filled Jared's truck up with them.  We even brought home a fake tall Alpine tree with the lights still on it!  People are really weird.  Do they think the dump can mulch that?  Anyway, after we brought them home we took some pictures.

We wanted to post on facebook to invite anybody in the ward that still had their tree to bring them on over.

Problem was, the goats weren't that interested :)

Tulip nibbled, but they had already eaten hay and grain that morning and so weren't feeling it.

Emily is hiding cookies in the trees :)

It looks like Dot is eating it, right?

And there is Spots in her coat.

I made her a couple coats since she is older now and suffers more from the cold.  It kept the goats from sleeping in the sheds on warmer nights... makes cleaning the sheds out in the spring MUCH easier.  This one is made from a table cloth Mom gave us that I cut down.  It wasn't quite wide enough so I supplemented with left over fake suede from making my Robin Hood halloween outfit.  So pretty!  She just tore those coats up.. something she rubs against must have a nail.  You can see how I tried to patch it with old jean material.  I made one out of canvas as well but it didn't hold up any better.  Still, they got her through the winter and now I have a very servicable goat coat pattern :)

We got one more Christmas tree from a ward member and then a ward member from down the street brought all her roses clippings.  They LOVE those!  Its crazy to watch them eat something so pokey... and it doesn't hurt their mouth.

One Sunday Aaron and Emily got up into the attic... I don't remember why but I sure took a picture.  I was responsible for bringing lights for them to see.

You know I take the dogs out to run every night where they are building a soccer accadomy with the accompaning practice statiums and fields.  They are also building houses.  I've been following the progress of 2 model homes they are building.  Those houses go up SO FAST.  I found the plans for one of them inside.

Pretty big homes on tiny lots.  The area I take the dogs is getting smaller and smaller and when all the lots are filled with homes we may have to deal with people out and about for Daisy and Cooper to bark at.  Sigh.  Guess we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

I've been knitting quite a bit once I remembered I have these cute great nephews to knit/crochet for.  Baby stuff is so much fun because you finish the project before you have a chance to get bored of it.  This is especially important when it comes to socks :).

Here I'm trying to get a picture of Joseph wearing the hat.   He doesn't actually like wearing it :)

See the cute baby on the phone? (The hat is skulls and crossbones)

That didn't work so I distracted him with treats... I did a great job with the hat if I do say so myself.

Megan took some pictures of Lincoln sporting my presents as well (I stole these pictures off her blog since I lost the ones she sent me on my phone... that story will be told in the May post).

We continue the out to eat on Saturday night tradition, even though we are not too tired from working in the garden/preserving to make dinner.  Sometimes we go to fancy places... when Emily picks :).

Yeah, so its June but I'm pretending I posted this in February.

2017 Holidays - New Years

Some of the fun things we do during the holidays are ice skating and hiking.  Unfortunately for these two Bethanie and family had already left :(

Getting ready to head out to skate... Tom is doing a hoe down.

talking, waving

Are we going?

Nope.. need a couple pictures of the girls!

And Gage :)

Didn't take any pictures of the actual skating because I didn't want to take my phone out on the ice... Dad held our phones.  It was very fun as always.

We also took a hike down the red dot.  I had been wanting to go.  It was fun to teach Gage how to touch all the red dots to deactivate the booby traps along the trail.

Here we are at the bottom, down by the river.

It was so cold!  Cooper was shivering so much but he still wanted us to through the stick in the water. Cooper loves to jump in the water.  Daisy just loves to be with us.

This is heading back up.  So warm against the rocks... a big difference from the river.

I really like this picture of Emily looking up into the distance.  It could probably be one of those Mormonads... Reach Higher?  Or remember those who've gone before?

I love time with my family, even when things don't go exactly as planned.  Emily and I had already gone down the red dot trail a different day but then we went again with the family.  I do love that hike in the winter.  Not too hot like in the summer.

And to end, I'll share this video of Amy drying her hair.  Jared thought it was very funny.

2017 Christmas Holidays - Emily's birthday

For Emily's birthday we always go to Rancho de Chimiyo for Lunch.  This year we had to do it on a day earlier since the Parkinson clan had planned a family get together on her birthday...

Here I am trying to take a selfie of those who started off walking to Chimiyo, since I no longer take my bike.

I thought all the pictures were funny :)

There we all are!

Did I take enough?

Bethanie joined us after the cutthough.

Its always a fun walk with the a few of the nieces and nephews :)

Eating food and taking pictures!

Wait, who is taking pictures?

Everybody say cheese!

Emily wanted to go ti some hot springs for her birthday so we all packed up and headed to the Jemez in 4 different cars... I made Jared get lost by telling him we had passed Hummingbird (we hadn't :().

Angela couldn't get up the steep hill in her wheelchair so Jared carried her.

It was very beautiful!

But more people than expected...

And Emily was the only one who brought swimming gear.

Bethanie took pictures and then went down to hang with Mom... it was too steep a hike for her.  She was still recovering from all the illness :(

I was wrangling dogs so it was hard to take pictures.  This was my attempt at taking a picture of Jared packing Angela back down the mountain..

Then we celebrated Emily's birthday with trifle.

Directing the Happy Birthday song that night with candles in her trifles...

Hold it! Hold it!

Jared and... others (can't remember who else) were so excited that they had gotten fireworks for her birthday.  Emily loves fireworks and was sufficiently excited for them.

Lovely pictures, eh?

Yeah, just believe me that it was fun.