I'm a Big Boy Now!

Raleigh this week has decided that he is so big now. He has been getting himself dressed, without being asked and he even did his own hair. He surprised me and walked down the stairs one morning with it done. So I had to take a picture because I thought he did a pretty good job.

St. Patrick's Day

For St. Patrick’s Day I decided to have a little fun with the kids and make our dinner green. So I made green eggs and green French toast. As I was making it Raleigh looked at it and almost started to cry because it looked “Yucky.” For like 15 minutes and I got things ready and cooked it he just kept repeating over and over that it was “not going to be good”, it looked gross and he didn’t want to eat it. I kept telling him it was going to taste any different but he wouldn’t believe me. When it was finally time to eat I cut his french toast and he took a bite and said “Mmmmmmm, this is so good, I love it!” I thought it was so funny. Then for FHE that night we read Green Eggs and Ham and frosted sugar cookies. It was a really fun day.

Our Green Eggs and French Toast, they don't look very green in the picture

Jett couldn't get enough of the cookies.

A Few Good Laughs

So I have decided that the only way I am going to remember the funny things my kids say and do is if I write it down so here are a few of the funny things that had me laughing this week.


Raleigh: Where am I am going to go on a mission?
Deb: Where ever Heavenly Father wants you to go?
Raleigh: Where are you going to go Mom?
Deb: Where ever Heavenly Father wants me to go?
Raleigh: Where is Daddy going to go?
Deb: Maybe he will go with Mommy.
Raleigh: No, he’ll go somewhere else, but I’ll go with you Mommy!


Raleigh: Where does Jesus live?
Steve: With Heavenly Father in Heaven?
Raleigh: Where’s that, space or something?
Steve: He lives on another planet.
Raleigh: Another planet? Then how I am suppose to get there when I get old?



Raleigh: “Jesus’ last name is Savior, cuz’ he saves people.”

Update

JETT'S BIRTHDAY

Jett turned 1 on February 23rd. I can’t believe my baby is already a year old. It is crazy how time flies. Raleigh was so excited for Jett’s birthday that I pretty much let him plan the whole party. Especially since Jett won’t remember it anyway, why not let Raleigh have some fun. So we made a chocolate cake, hung balloons and streamers, or as Raleigh called them “lines”, invited family over, played games and had prizes for the winners. So here is how it all went down. Raleigh decided we were going to play Twister, Duck Duck Goose, and hide and seek. It was funny to watch personalities in adults come out in the games since there were only 3 kids there old enough to play. When it came time to open presents Jett could have cared less so Raleigh decided he was going to open the presents for him. He pretty much took over the toys as his too. After the presents it was time to have cake and ice cream. I was really excited to see what Jett would do but to my disappointment he didn’t like the ice cream, because it was too cold and he decided he didn’t like the feel of the cake on his hands so he just wanted someone to feed it to him. All in all I think we all had a good time though.

A present from Grandma Jolley.

"Happy Birthday to you"

Oh that looks cool, I want to touch it!

Tasting the cake to see if Mom's cooking skills are any good.

Mmmmm that was good.

Raleigh Counting

Grandma hiding

Grandpa scaring Raleigh

Our 2 favorite boys! (Raleigh with his favorite fake smile)

ZOO, BOUNCE HOUSE AND POOL

This last week has been a fun but busy one for us. On Wednesday we went to the Zoo’s free day with my sisters and Dad. I think sometimes we go to the zoo as much for the kids and we do for me. I love the zoo. I love to see the animals up close and watch the things they do. Even though it’s not like seeing them in the wild, it is still pretty cool. Then on Friday we went to the bounce house at classic skating. You might think that it is just for kids but me, Steve, Muffy, Raleigh and Jett all had a great time. As adults we made competitions out of a lot of it. And even though we came away with a few burns on our hands and arms I would do it again any day. Then Monday night for FHE we decided to go swimming. I had thought it was a great idea until we got there and there so many cars and we knew it was going to be crowded. We tried to talk Raleigh into doing something else instead but he didn’t want to do anything but swim. So we headed in to the pool. Raleigh amazed me with how brave he was. This may not sound like much to many of you but Raleigh has been terrified of water and especially getting water in his face but last night he was putting his face in the water, going down the slides and he wasn’t really afraid of anything. It was so fun to watch. Jett on the other hand was very nervous at first. He just clung to Steve and I and wouldn’t let go. He has always been better in the water than Raleigh so we just gave him some time to warm up to it all. It was so cute to watch him by the end as he was splashing and playing. He would even let us put his head in the water without screaming. He would just laugh as we swam around in the water chasing Raleigh. So it looks like there might be a lot of trips to the pool this summer with as much fun as it was last night.

Raleigh and I climbing the BIG slide.

This is a picture of the Nerdy goof I turn into whenever I am with my sister Marianne.

Jetty and Mommy

The fam exhausted and about ready to go home.

FUNNY QUOTES BY RALEIGH

“Mom, one day I want to be old like you and President Hinckley.”

Raleigh wrote a story one day and it said “And the Lord said that the good guys should kill the bad guys”

So Raleigh woke up one morning and told Muffy “Last night I was scared because the Lamanites were coming but I said a prayer to Heavenly Father to send Jesus to come be in my heart. So Jesus came and was in my heart and kept me safe.”

Update

Hi Everyone. So I am still alive but I have just been busy and I haven’t gotten around to updating my blog. So here are a few things we have done lately. About a month ago we went to my sister Camie’s house in Idaho for the weekend. Since both she and I went to Rick College she thought it might be fun for us to go to the Rexburg Temple open house and then walk around the campus. Everyone was suppose to have tickets to get into the open house so that things would run smoothly but we found out the day before that they were letting anybody in whether or not they had a ticket. So we got to the temple and they had us waiting at the church near by and there were just a ton of people. We thought we were going to wait for a long time because of the amount of people but they actually got us in pretty quick which is a good thing considering we had 6 kids with us. We found out a little later that the reason we had to wait at all is because a little while before we got there 2 big bus loads us people without tickets showed up. Anyway, as we walked through the temple you couldn’t help but feel the peace and beauty of it. I especially love the endowment room and the way they had painted it. It was absolutely beautiful. I don’t think all the kids understood the significance of the temple but they did really good at trying to be reverent. We didn’t get a picture of all of us at the temple because it was so cold and our cars were parked a ways away and we couldn’t bring cameras into the temple. We did drive around though and Steve sat in the car and took a couple of pictures of me and Raleigh in front of the temple. I had totally forgotten how cold Rexburg gets and the wind just kills you. After we drove to Ricks campus and took a trip down memory lane. It was fun to take Steve and show him the places significant to me but the kids just wanted to run and play so Steve and my brother-in-law Doug were nice enough to take the kids and let them run around while Camie and I walked campus reminiscing about our college days. Wow I sound old but it was really fun to go back and remember such a fun time in our lives. After we walked around campus we drove to Idaho Falls for some much needed food and shopping and then it was back to my sisters house in Pocatello. We put the kids to bed and played a few games. I even talked my sister into playing a game that I really like called California speed. I can’t seem to find anyone else who really likes to play it with me. I personally think it is because no one can beat me. I know, I know you are all thinking that I am incredibly cocky and maybe I am, it’s your call, but I have yet to find anyone that can beat me, although Camie did come close. The next day we went to church in “Pokie”, played a few more games and drove home. It was a fun weekend to be with my sister and her family.

NO CHURCH

A few weeks ago we got so much snow that they cancelled church. So we decided we would go outside and play in the snow as we tried to shovel the driveway. There was so much snow it was ridiculous. I haven’t seen this much snow in a really long time. We had mounds taller than Steve. It was totally crazy but fun. Raleigh said he wanted to build a snowman so I said I would help him but really he just wanted to throw snow and watch me build the snow man. It was fun to go outside and just have time to play in the snow and enjoy it.

This is the entrance to our cool snow cave.

Raleigh trying to shovel the snow.

Our huge mound of snow. Note Steve is 6'3"

SNOW STORM
As many of you know last week we had another big storm, only this one wasn’t as much snow as it was wind. It started about mid afternoon and went through the night with many roads being closed and a lot of cars being stranded on the roads. So here is our story. Steve works from home and he needed to take some stuff to the Fedex Kinkos. The weather looked bad but Steve has driven in bad weather before so about 5:30pm he set out into the storm. I called him about 25 minutes later to see where he was at and to find out if the roads were really as bad as they looked. He told me that he had never driven in anything so bad and that when he had finally gotten onto the main road he had a hard time knowing what direction he was going because it was a complete white out. He finally made it to the Fedex about 6pm and he needed to take some stuff to a friends house in Pleasant Grove. Because the weather was so bad he told me he was going to stay there for a while and wait for the storm to calm. So about 7:30 he decided it was time to head home. He drove around for hours trying to get home. He tried side roads, which they had closed, he tried the main roads that were at a completely standstill. He was so frustrated and just wanted to get home. I was a little nervous too because the news was saying the winds by our house were blowing 70 mph. About 9:15pm he called me and said he was going to try to make it to his brothers house to spend the night. I thought that was a good idea and was grateful when he finally made it there. The next morning the weather was better but the roads were a mess. When he got to the entrance to our neighborhood there was a highway patrolman saying that only people with 4-wheel drive and residents of the neighborhood could enter. Well we don’t own anything 4-wheel drive so Steve was off to find another way to get home. He drove to his cousins house to see if they would be able to give him a ride home. They said sure and when they got to the entrance the cop wanted proof of residency. We have only lived here a couple of months and Steve hadn’t changed his license yet so Steve was about to just get out and walk home when the cop decided to get off his power trip and just let them through. So finally after hours of driving around and lots of drama, Steve made it home about 9:30am for Valentine’s Day. Thanks Ben and Mindy for your help getting Steve home.

SLEDDING

Presidents Day weekend we decided to go sledding with my family. We went to Hobble Creek canyon and had a great time. It was such a nice day. Raleigh had never really been sledding before and he was quite nervous about it. He didn’t want to sit in the sled unless it was on flat ground and you were pulling it. Although my sister was able to bribe him with candy to go down the hill once. It’s amazing what a little candy can get him to do. I went down the hill with him and after I asked him if had fun and he said yes but that he didn’t want to do it again. Oh well the rest of us had fun.

Raleigh with Aunt Muffy

Steve and Jett

The Fam over flowing in one small sled.