Baking a Ham, Halloween, and Farming!

I think anyone who even looks at my blog already knows but we are baking a very special little ham that will be due sometime next May. He/she will have the perfect amount of seasonings from Jared and me containing, humor, athleticism, patience, beauty or handsomeness, intelligence, spirit, and obviously humility! Right now I am about 14 weeks and feeling great! I am getting big really fast with this one and so stay tuned as I post my growth. Soon, I may not even fit on the screen!

Side view of Ginormica! We don't know what we are having yet so I can't name the baby so I just call myself Ginormica!
Jared and the kids looked so cute I had to just take a picture of them.

Eli's hair was getting so long and so here is a picture of us giving him a haircut.

For Halloween, the girls were cheerleaders, Eli was our mascot, the chicken, and Jared and I were basketball players. We went to our friends, the Godfrey's, house and partied! They are playing pin the femur on the skeleton.

I have to say that the best costumes there were the Incredibles. Annie Godfrey made matching costumes for her whole family and they turned out soooooo sooooo good!

Our classic chicken costume that all our kids have now worn. It is my favorite one we have and I am glad that we have gotten a good use out of it! Eli would flap his wings and go cock-a-doodle-do once or twice and then quickly take it off. I couldn't keep it on him all night!

Kenzie had crazy hair day at school.

Front view. She was cute!

Our neighbor is a farmer and one morning, he was out early plowing the field near our house. He saw the kids watching through the window and gave them each a ride up and down the field.

Eli seemed scared at first but started smiling after a while.

Gary is helping Eli wave to me!

Oh, I thought I had gotten a picture of Kenzie but it would be a hassle to try and put it in now, so here is another picture of Eli.

Alexis with Gary, she was still in her jammies. She had on her pink coat and pink boots with her princess jammies and Gary said the machine might not work with so much pink in the cabin. :)

Mesa Falls

3 Weeks ago, my brother Jamie, and his family came up from Utah to visit. (That's when we all went fishing.) But, we also all went to Mesa Falls. My sister Sharon planned the trip and it ended up being such a nice day to go hiking. Three car loads and an hour and a half drive got us to Mesa Falls. A super pretty water fall. I had never been there so I was glad we took the opportunity to go. I don't have a picture of Sharon's family but she posted a picture of them on her blog.

Here is Jamie, Mel, Noah, Kaleb, Carson, and Garret standing next to the upper falls. Jared, Me, Kenzie, Lex, and Eli.
We were finishing up our picnic lunch when a man and his daughter came riding by on their beautiful horses. They stopped and let each of the kids pet, feed, and ride the horses. I was jealous, I really wanted to ride the horses too! Lex was scared at first but then finally decided she wanted to get on the horse too.

Eli had no fears. He really liked the horses.

Mackenzie really liked the horses too. She wanted to get on again after her turn was over. You can see Sharon's little girl Jayner's on the horse behind Kenzie.

It was a really fun day. We went out for dinner that night at Hard Hat Grill and it was pretty good food. They have these specials where kids, 12 and under, eat free. So watch for those adds because you can save yourself a bunch of money and still go out.

Fly Fishing with my big brother!

Jamie prepping the line for me. Choosing the Blue olive fly. A bug with bluish wings and an olive colored body.

I'm wearing Jared's waiters and so it is nice because I can walk into the water and not get wet all the way up to my chest. Course, the current would push me over if I went that far in. And, Jamie found me some fishing shoes, they have felt on the bottom of them so you don't slide on the rocks, and this is the first time I have been able to use them.

Jared brought the kids down to the river to watch us for a little bit. Kenzie was watching us from up on the hill.

Jared went across the river to catch a better view of us, you might be able to see us in the middle of the picture, in the water.

The girls had fun throwing rocks in the water and scaring our fish away. We had to wade out into the water to get away from their noise...but they had fun too and that is good!

My older brother Jamie and his family came up this weekend and so Jared and I had the chanceto do some fishing with him. He is really good at teaching you technique and we were pretty successful with our 2 hours of fishing. We caught about 5 fish. Jared and Jamie did catch and release but when I went with Jamie, we planned on keeping the fish so that Jared could enjoy a fish dinner. Jamie's rule is to let the first fish go because it creates good karma so we did, which ended up being our biggest fish we caught. The next one, Jamie let go because he thought is was too small. The third, we put on a make shift line (tree branch) and set it on the bank of the river. We caught another with managed to wrap itself around a rock and break the line, it took our fly and everything. We said we would catch on more and then head home. We saw some really really big fish rising out of the water and so we focused on them. But they wouldn't bite. (OH, so if you count that up, it is only four fish, but still good fishing in my opinion. )

By the end, the sun was almost down and so the shadow over the river made it hard to see the fly and two hours of standing in cold water started to make me shiver...we called it a day and headed back to shore. As we were heading back, we saw a beaver on the banks of the river, swimming under the overhang of the tree branches. We reached where we deposited our fish and it was nowhere to be seen. There was no way it could have floated off and so we think the beaver had a meal of our fish. Jared was pretty dissapointed that he wasn't getting a trout dinner.

Here is the first fish we caught. It was a beauty!

I'm a pansy!

Today I got a call at 8:00 this morning from our neighbor saying that they are short handed some folks and could use me to help with some of the harvesting of potatoes. I was totally willing but Jared was at a camp out with the boy scouts and so I couldn't just up and leave and finding a babysitter on such short notice for the whole day wouldn't have been easy. So I said I couldn't.

But...Jared got home at 1:00 and so I drove down the street to the potato cellar to see if they could still use some help. They could use my help so they set me up on the conveyor. The conveyor runs by and you have to grab the dirt clots, rotten potatoes, rocks and other junk that may go by, while huge potatoes jumble by. It wasn't too bad in the beginning because they seemed to stop alot at first. Then, they starting running it longer, or so it seemed to me. The constant vibrations, and the belt running fast in front of my face and the normally good smell of wet dirt but now smelt like rotten potatoes began its toll on me. I was in it for an hour and a half and then I could do no more. I nearly threw up whenever I looked at the conveyor. Even now, If I picture it, I feel sick. I am a pansy! I came home and Jared took over at the cellar. I am a failier. I can work hard! I worked at the paper mill for goodness sake, but I can't stand at the conveyor belt during harvest or I will throw up all over the freshly dug up potatoes and then the FDA will be all over me. In my defense, I never was very good with car trips, and though I haven't thrown up when I fly, I do feel like it if there is a ton of turbulence. So...I just need to find some other way of helping during harvest. Like shovel, or drive truck, or run the piler. We will see if they give me a second chance at a different job. I was totally fine once I walked away. Sometimes, you just need to realize that you got a BS so that you wouldn't have to do this kind of manual labor!! (Except...extra money is always nice. Especially when you are trying to earn money to get new carpet!)

Eastern Idaho State Fair

The fair comes every year and we love going and seeing the parade and animals and rides. This is at the petting zoo they bring in. The kids love to walk among the animals and touch them. This is Alexis and Eli looking at the turtles.

These cages had little bunnies in them. You can buy little containers that have food for the animals.

The goats are the same height as Eli but he wasn't scared, he loved touching them.

Alexis was a little bit more worried whenever the goats go too close.

This year we decided to let the kids go on some of the rides. This was Mackenzie and Alexis' favorite ride. The dragon roller costar.

They were laughing the whole time and asked to go on the rides again. Lexi was technically not tall enough for this ride but the carnie guy was really nice and let her on with Kenzie. We realized that it will be a long time before we take the girls to a real amusement park because they are too short to go on most rides.

They weren't even big enough for this ride, which is really dumb, but if a parent rides with you, then they can get on. The girls really liked this ride. Poor Eli didn't really get to do much except watch from the sidelines. Jared had a blast with the kids, he loves the carousel!

Finally, Eli got a turn, but again, I had to pay extra just so I could get on with him. He liked it even though in this picture, he looks afraid.

Lexi was barely tall enough to go on this one. It went up and down.

Kenzie enjoyed the elephants a lot. She was the only one on the whole ride and still, the carnie only had it run for like 1 full minute.


It was really fun going to the fair! Jared and I volunteered at the tiger ear booth. It was extremely hard on the body. We had to flatten out the dough so it could go into the fryer. 6 hours of constant squashing sure does a number on your back and neck. I don't really want to eat a tiger ear again! :) Although, the process is so organized you would be amazed just watching what goes on behind the scenes at the fair.

I thought about putting my paintings in the fair but was too late to enter them. Maybe I will enter some of my sexy trees next year but they will be done in pastels (which were given to me by my sis Shavonne for my b-day) so hopefully they turn out. Or, some things from our garden, if we get it in. Hopefully we do! Although, a lot of people around here have gardens and give us stuff all the time. I have two zucchinis on my table waiting to be made into delicious bread, and a huge bag of red potatoes. Plus, our neighbors next door said to come and pick corn anytime. Life is sweet here! We love living in Shelley and in Southeastern Idaho! (Mom, Dad...it is a great place to retire too!)

Family Pictures 2009

Grandma Betty and Grandpa Jerry with the grandkids

Get Grandpa

Heath Family 2009

I love this picture! Give us a nice little smooch! Jared is going to download pictures to put on his computer at school as his screen saver and he said he can't use this one. I don't know why...I think it is a great shot!

Tackle time!

Everybody circle up! My eyes look really blue.

Eli....concentrating

Daddy gets Lexie

Lexie had a hard time in the beginning, but she came around. All of us: Alexis, Courtney, Eli, Jared, Mackenzie

Kenzie looks so cute...I really like this one!

Caterpillars Don't Need Baths!

I've made it a point to teach the girls not to be afraid of bugs. Living in this house, there seems to be a lot of bugs that the girls find outside that they want to show me. Mainly they bring in the lady bugs and moths. I am not keen on it and quickly have them bring the bugs back outside. Even in the house, Mackenzie will find flies and spiders. She will catch a fly, I don't know how but she does and then she tears their wings off. I am not a person that likes to torture things and so I tell her if she is going to kill it, then kill it quickly. So...she has stopped tearing wings from little bugs.

But....my point...caterpillars. Yesterday the kids were playing outside and Jared and I kept noticing Alexis come in and out, in and out, filling up her water gun. It didn't really phase us and then when we went out to sit on the swing, we noticed Lex coming in for more water again. We asked what she was doing and she said that she was getting water for Kenzie to give the caterpillars a bath. I went out and saw Kenzie holding a plastic bag filled about three inches with water and two caterpillars floating on the top. We ran to Kenzie and told her she needed to get the caterpillars out of the water. She said, "No mom, they need a bath!" We told her that they didn't need a bath and that baths would kill the caterpillars because they can't swim. We poured out the water onto the porch and waited....waited...waited! After a small moment, one of the caterpillars started moving. At first, I thought it was just the wind rustling the hair on the Caterpillar but then it started slowly creeping away. It was alive! But the pour other one died. Mackenzie was sad that she had killed the Caterpillar. She now knows that caterpillars don't need baths!
Inspecting the caterpillers to see if they are moving! Poor poor caterpillar!

Kenzie's first day of school...Did I cry?

Mackenzie's shirt has little apples on it. I thought that was fitting for school. Anyways, here we are ready for school.
Here we are watching out the window for the bus to come.

Jared was jealous that he didn't' get to see Kenzie get on the bus. She looked so cute!

Eli and Lex are waving goodbye from the porch.

My little girl back safe with me on the porch after a great first day of kindergarten.

I was sure that I wasn't going to cry and yet, I put her on the bus and the tears started flowing. But I am fine and Mackenzie did great! The bus driver told me she would get home around 3:00 and so I went out onto the porch and waited for her.(not the whole time, just at three I walked out!) I was going to set up a blanket out there and wait like my mom use to do for us (that is one of my most favorite childhood memories, she even did it my senior year because I said I liked it so much.) But I was watering the lawn so it would have been kind of wet. She jumped off the bus and ran to me and hugged me. We went inside and she showed me the stuff she brought home from school. She pulled out a box and a fome egg and showed me humpty dumpty. Then we did her homework of drawing a picture of her first day of school. It was a good day! Alexis and Eli did well too. We colored together and went out to lunch with Uncle Byron and Aunt Jemayla, took naps and had snacks. We got it all on video and I am trying to get that uploaded for you to see but it isn't working. Hopefully it will work soon.

So, we are back on line and got a new camera and so there should be posts more often for your reading enjoyment. Some things to look forward to are our pictures of the house and...well...ummm...I guess that is it so far!