It was really loose!!

Two weeks ago the kids were here for dinner, Sarah could hardly eat because her very first tooth to come out, was so loose she was afraid to bite anything.
So we fixed her up with some dental floss, and she yanked it out all by herself.
She was so brave!!

Card Lady

My next door cubicle neighbor owns a business called Snake River Outfitters, and she and her husband sell fly fishing equipment, and do fishing trips. I made a Christmas card, and she really liked it, and contracted with me to make some fishing theme cards. Well it just so happens that I have a fishing stamp set, and so I made some cards for her to send from her business. She thinks that I am the most talented person in the world because I can borrow an idea and make it into my own creation. Well anyway, I have been making cards to put on her website, to sell.
Here is a sample of the ones that I made the past few weeks.
I hope they sell, because it has been really fun making them.

Christmas Slippers

About Thanksgiving, I decided that I wanted to make slippers for our Grandkids.
I called my friend Kathy and she told me how she makes them, and I got a refresher course from my Mom, and started knitting. I started with red, green and white for Anna, Of course, green and yellow for Brett, green and blue for William, a pink/yellow/purple/ for Sarah, and then I started purple ones for Danica, and black and grey for Kaiser. On Christmas Eve, I had to beg forgiveness from Keaton, because I didn't have his done. He picked out green and black for his, and on Sunday the 3rd of January, I finished them. I still owe Kody a pair, and I want some, because mine have holes in them, and I told Carrie I would make a pair for her, however, since I can't even hardly hold a book because my arms ache so bad from all the knitting I did over the past several weeks, that may have to wait a day or two. Next year I vow to start earlier on what I want to do for Christmas, just in case I decide to do something stupid again.

It's all about Family!

Last Saturday, we dragged all of the kids and grandkids to get family pictures taken. Despite the complaining, and the crazyness, they turned out pretty good.
We had a great Christmas, and a fun time with everyone here over the New Year.
David and Jon are now both in Colorado, Carrie and Kaye Lynn are both in Idaho.

This weekend Kaye Lynn and Jerimie went down to Utah to see Jerimie's cousin play in the BYU Women's Volleyball game against Colorado State University.
We got to keep the kids for the entire weekend. They went to a craft fair with us, and then we went shopping, Lowes, Walmart, lunch at Craigo's, Fred Meyer, Winco, and then home. We fed the animals, and then we made "Gingerbread Houses" out of graham crackers, and lots of frosting and candy. We had such fun!! The best part of course was the part about eating them. Anyway, this is mostly the reason that I'm glad we live here now. Time with grandkids cannot be deducted from a persons life, even if diet pepsi bombs go off in your kitchen! (Brett dropped a can of DP, and it exploded all over the kitchen, thank goodness for vinyl floors, and washable cupboards/walls/ceiling/stove/fridge/garbage cans.) Yes we love being able to be grandma and grandpa.

I haven't posted in a while, and as I look at other blogs, I have about decided that it might be better to just keep up with others blogs, and just let mine die.

Jim and I have been so busy with butchering turkeys, and canning everything that we got in our garden, that I almost don't know if I'll be able to stop. We killed the last of our turkeys that we are going to eat, yesterday. We have one that we are going to keep until spring at least. She is not a bronze like the others were, and she is so pretty that Jim can't bare to kill her. She is much smaller than the others that we have in the freezer. We also have 6 chickens that we are anxiously awaiting eggs from. We hope to not have to buy eggs over the winter. I bottled 9 pints of turkey yesterday, and 9 pints of carrots, and I did 6 pints of marinara sauce on Friday. I still have lots of tomatoes, a 5 gallon bucket about half full of carrots, and I want to do a few bottles of pumpkin. When all was said and done, we picked 32 pumpkins. What do you do with 32 pumpkins?? Well you give them to grand kids, and neighbors, and to the kids that helped us pick huckleberries.

This is a picture of "Dolly", she is kind of grey and smaller than the other turkeys.

We have decided that we are going to stay in this house until at least spring. We want to get a little more of a down payment in the bank before we decide to buy a house. That, and neither of us want to move in the middle of winter. That just does not sound like fun at all.

I am trying to get used to the almost 2 hour bus ride both ways to get to and from work, and I have done a fair amount of reading. I read three books last week. They have still not found enough work for me to do, that I'm trained to do, so I have a lot of what my boss refers to as "down time". They don't seem to care if I read, but they do not want to find me sleeping. Do you know how hard it is to read when your tired, and not fall asleep. I usually sleep on the ride to work in the morning, but it's still light when we leave work, so I read then.

We had a dinner here at our house on Friday with all of my sisters and brother and spouses. I made pizza, and they brought the salad, and bread and dessert. We called it a birthday party, because three of us have birthday's in October. We picked a day in December to all go to the Temple. Have I mentioned how thankful I am that Brett started praying a couple of years ago that "Grandpa Jim would find a job in Idaho, and he and Grandma could move closer". I am so grateful to be closer to family. I am also most grateful that prayers are answered. Sometimes I just have to stop and look at the mountains, or the sunset, or some of my Grand kids, and remember where all these blessings come from.

It's been a while, but we are still here. It's been a busy few weeks.

We have picked apples, corn, zuchinni, beans, beets, and starting this week, even some tomatoes. We have about 20 good sized pumpkins, just starting to turn orange, lots of butternut squash, and carrotts and onions still getting bigger. Since Jim went back to work full time, I started working for NPS, through Northwind, for CWI out at the site. I'm entering freight invoices for payment, and will soon start learning the shipping part of the job. Right now there has not been very much to keep me busy, so I have been reading alot. Three Stansfield books in a week, starting on a Skousan book today, and have three more checked out from the library.

The picture in the middle is our huckelberry outing, with a kid that Jim works with, and his two boys and wife. We went up above Heise, and picked almost all day and brought home about 1/3 of a gallon of berries. It was sure dusty, but the berrys are really good.

The same week that I started work, our house closed in Illinois. It was a good week. We are so glad to have that sold, and we will start looking for a place as soon as the garden freezes, and I can stop putting things in bottles and freezer bags. The kids helped pick apples last weekend, and there are lots more to pick. Even in spite of how many apples they ate!!