The campout

As I mentioned in my last post, Steve told the boys that if Nathan got 4 out of 5 stars on his behavior paper this week, Steve would take them all camping in the backyard. Well............
The funniest thing to me was that Steve and I were watching the weather report all week hoping that the low of 24 degrees they were calling for that night would somehow come up 20 degrees. But that did not happen. haha

We started the evening by having hobo's. A cute name for foil dinners that Steve and Steven learned at a boy scout camp they went to last week.
That was quite an interesting experience. Steve saw these scout men do these dinners last week, so he was all ready to show us how it was done and be the master. Unfortunately for him I have had foil dinners many times back in my camping days, so I had a lot of opinions on the matter. Steve takes the dinners out to the fire and throws them on the FLAMES! I just had to voice my opinion over and over about not putting them on flames, they are suppose to go on coals. Especially when I saw that the fire was starting to burn holes in the foil. I finally went inside to do dishes because Steve didn't want to hear my opinion. :-) So he brings the dinners in a short time later, and they were perfect! How does he do that? I have no idea, but I for one was shocked.

The boys and Steve set up their tents and brought ALL the blankets from the house out to the backyard. Which actually is a lot of blankets since we have opened our blanket boxes from the garage. Then they went to bed. The only one who came in to sleep was Steven. He got up to go to the bathroom at 12am and I think when he went back out he just couldn't get warm again. Steve said there was frost on top of their blankets when they woke up. It was COLD out there. But they all had a great time and Nathan got his reward for being good. I am sure they will do it again, but probably not until May. :-)

Brandon on the the other hand, has a funny story to tell this week. His face has been really dry since the winter began, so I have been putting lotion on it a couple times a day. He always likes to help me and is very thorough on getting it on his checks. Well, the other day after dinner, the sour cream was sitting on the counter(the boys cleared the table) and he reached up and got it. (A new bad habit of his) Steve walked in the kitchen to find this. Apparently he thought it was facial cream and was making sure not to miss any spots.

Too much stuff

You know how I was complaining about this house being a little too small and not having any storage space? Well, that problem just got a lot more complicated. When we moved to Germany our stuff was put into a storage unit in Utah since the company did not move us there. It has sat there for over four years and was just delivered to our house about a week ago. Luckily we had Alicia and Scott there to take care of things in Utah, so we didn't have to fly out.

So, now our stuff is all in one spot and we have WAY to much of it. We have replaced 90% of what we had in Utah. We did not expect to get a job that would move us back to the states from Germany so we thought we would be using our old stuff again, but tis not so. Now we have the dreadful task of going through all 50 boxes and figuring out what goes where. You better believe we will have the biggest garage sale in town when we are done. And I will be counting the days until I can use the garage for my car again.

On a good note it has been a lot of fun finding some things that I had forgotten about. I found the quilt Gma Allred made us for our wedding and it is now proudly displayed on our bed.
We found the crockpot and it served us well for dinner on Sunday. I even found the infamous jeans Steve wore on our first date. They are a size 32 waste and even though neither of us could fit in to them I really hate to part with them. :-)

In other fun news, Steve and I have decided since we now have a big backyard, and the right to do so, we are going to have a firepit. We actually bought this stainless steel raised firepit so we wouldn't have to dig a whole in the ground and it can be moved very easily. We had family home evening outside tonight where I read a story from the Friend about being a hard worker and serving others like the pioneers and the indians. Then we roasted marshmallows on hangers and had s'mores. It was great and we hope to have many good times with our firepit. Steve has told Nathan that if he gets good marks on his obedience at least 4 days this week, he will take the boys camping in the backyard on Friday. I really hope Nathan is successful, because I don't want to deal with the tantrum if he is not.

32nd Birthday

Yesterday was my 32nd Birthday and I had a Fantastic day! Steve took the day off of work so he could pamper me, which included taking me out to Breakfast at IHOP with Brandon and Jacob in tow. We had a great time which was easy since breakfast is my favorite meal of the day.
Then we went home and Brandon and I went down for a nap while Steve and Jacob put together my Birthday present. After the boys came home from school we did homework and then headed out to dinner at Longhorn's. It was pretty good, but I would definitely have chosen Outback over them if we had one here.

After dinner we came back for cake with cool whip.


Steve gave me 2 white rocking chairs for our front porch which I absolutely LOVE and am so happy to have.
The boys bought me the third book in the Twilight series.
Gma Allred got me a GREAT CD from Voice Male. And I got very nice cards from the Hughes and Mom and Dad with a little something special tucked inside. Thank you all for your kindness.

I really love my birthdays and am not bothered at all that I am getting older. I don't feel older, so maybe that is why it doesn't bother me. One of the best things about birthdays is the calls I get from my family. I got to talk to Gma,Laura, Jessica, Alicia, Mom, and Dad yesterday. And got a voice mail from Lyle. What a great day. And amazingly I actually answered each call and got to have a good conversation with each person without saying I had to go for one reason or another.

The last year of my life has been very fulfilling to me. I have learned and grown a lot which is always a good thing, and so much has changed in my life with our move here to GA. I have had a very nice year indeed.

My Mom wrote her life history for a class she was taking when she was 20 years old and has given me the idea that I want to do that too. I should write a little about my life before I wait to long and have forgotten the younger years. So, that is my goal for this week.

Thanks to all of your birthday wishes. And Natalie Buck you make me laugh that you said, "For some reason I remembered it was your birthday" . You will know my birthday as well as everyone else you know for the rest of your life. It is just one of your many talents. Thanks for remembering.

Catch up

I came to do a blog today and found pictures from last week that I forgot to post! OOPS So, now I am catching you up on last weeks stuff.


We are LOVING the weather in Georgia. The summer really didn't seem too hot to me, and now we are enjoying the winter weather so much. It got cold for a short time and now the sun has come out for a couple weeks and I am guessing that at some point it will get cold enough for my space heater again. It is so nice. Last week the boys and I went outside to enjoy the sun.
Brandon, oh my darling Brandon. This boy seems to be more BOY than the other three were. He climbs up on everything. He will not sit down in the shopping cart, or a high chair at a restaurant, or in the stroller. He got out of his seat belt the other day which totally shocked me as you can imagine. I guess I hadn't pushed the chest buckle up when I put him in, but I am driving down the street at night, and the next thing I see in my rear view mirror is the back of Brandon's head. He had stood up and turned around to see what the boys behind him were doing. But his very favorite place to be is on the kitchen table. He climbs on it constantly and has spilled so many things including a huge container of apple juice. He if often know to wipe up after a meal with his shirt.
I found a good snack for him in the car. He loves to eat apples and it kept him busy for an hour drive to Savannah the other day. He does spit the skin out though (notice his chest). :-)
On Halloween the boys school had a "Pumpkin Parade" down the main street of our little town. It was the cutest little parade and a great idea. Each class chose a book that they had read and dressed up like the characters in the book. They also decorated their class pumpkin to go with the book. Then as they walked down the street the parade commentator told us a little about each story. What a great idea of mixing a little Halloween dress up with some education. Perfect

Here is Jacob, a happy spectator

This is the office staff. They are dressed up as queens and kings.
Here is Nathan's class. Their book was "If you were a parrot"Here is their parrot pumpkin
And our little Nathan parrot

Here is Steven's classAnd Steven supposed to be dressed as a hockey player

And better late than never huh? A quick glimpse at Halloween night. Here are the boys, our pumpkins, and the porch decor(not much) all in one. :-)


Nathan chose a recycled Harry Potter costume for Halloween night.
And here is my main MAN baking up a little treat to keep me happy.