Weekend at the Ranch

So, I'm combining this first picture with those from the Ranch. Adam had gone with Stuart to do a roofing job at the south rim of the Grand Canyon and didn't get home until late, so I left the kids at the flat with Phyllis while I went to mutual and she had Ben bring them home. This is how Tyson arrived in the car...wiped out. He has a very difficult time staying awake in a moving vehicle.
These other three pictures are from East Zion. Tyson sure is funny to watch. I couldn't keep myself from laughing as I watched him run from where the guys were at the zip line to the house to retrieve the two little shovels Heidi has. His short legs would be going so fast and then his arms looked funny as they would be swinging back and forth about as far out as his legs. I grabbed my camera and managed to snap this backside shot of him in his haste with the shovels (he figured out how to carry them both all by himself, smart kid), to take to one of the twins (he usually only says Emily's name). Then after he was almost there I managed to get the side view. You can see the excitement on his face. I don't think this kid could ever have a miserable time at the ranch...I guess I should say these kids, huh! That would be Adam on his umpteenth time on the zip line and he just runs up with great excitement, comes down with a grin on his face, and is laughing at the end. Don't know if I've ever seen this Big Kid so happy! And yes, he did talk me into going, which I just kept responding, "I don't know why it is so important that I go down this silly thing that is liable to hurt you." But he was just so excited, so I couldn't reject his plea. Aren't the colors beautiful up there this time of year? A great place to go, especially for boys.

Domestic Day

This morning I decided to take Tyson to story time at the library, as well as return his two tractor books and let him check out a few more. He didn't want to have much of anything to do with the story time, the activity they had planned outside, and pretty much wanted to just pick out books from off the shelves. After trying to encourage and help him along I finally gave in to letting him pick whichever books he wanted, checking them out and leaving. We headed to Susie's so he could show her his new books, but no one was there, so he wanted to go to grandma's and grandpa's. After arriving out there and planning to visit for a short time, we ended up staying as I made some butter from the other 4 whipping cream containers that Phyllis had, but didn't have time to do anything with. I had her take a picture of me being so domestic. I also helped Phyllis with peeling and de-coring some green apples for her to bottle into pie filling. I did have a little apple peeler/de-corer contraption to help. Wynn was out on the tractor spreading fertilizer over a field that he is preparing for planting wheat, so I ran Tyson out towards the end so he could ride with grandpa and snapped a picture of them when they returned. I stayed until 6:20 tonight and then left the kids with Phyllis while I headed to Lin's to finish off some food storage purchases from their last day of the case lot sale. Phyllis had asked me to pick up some more lemon juice for canning the pie filling and when I asked the guy there where to find it he said that you aren't going to find any anywhere around as apparently something happened to the lemon crops and they were told to not expect any anytime soon. He mentioned that he had seen 3 bottles towards the back of the top shelve and when we went to see they were still there so I snatched the last of the soon to be sought after lemon juices. I could sell them for a high price to a very needy lemon juice consumer huh! After quickly getting what I wanted I had to get to mutual. Adam had left around 5:30 this morning with Stuart to the Grand Canyon to help him finish a job and didn't get home until 9:30 tonight, so it was nice of Phyllis to watch the kids and to have Ben bring them home. I am so blessed to have wonderful family nearby that are always great help when I am in a bind. I couldn't ask for better in-laws. Oh, the picture of Lincoln is of him yesterday after I returned from going down the hall real quick and found him having decided to get out of his bouncer and kneeling into it. This was the better footage than when I had to quickly bathe Tyson from a poopy pullup and came back to find Lincoln having somehow ejected himself from the bouncer and on the way to lying on his back knocking over his breakfast off of Tyson's stool. He wasn't too happy on that one. Growing up fast! He turned 6 months on Sunday.

Pesky Pest Control

Yesterday I cleaned all day long to prepare for the Pest Control guy to come and spray, only to have the scheduled hours between 2-4 to pass and calling to find out if he had forgotten and then getting a call from his wife around 5:30 informing me that their work truck was in the shop and she thought he would have called me. I wasn’t the happiest and when she wanted to just schedule it for Monday morning, I informed her that it would be fine but that I had my house torn apart specifically for him to come. It kind of dampened my attitude for the evening. I told Adam that I needed to get out of the house as I had been slaving away in it all day long and was going to go insane. We ended up taking the boys to Phyllis’ and then using the 2 gift certificates to JBs that Monica had given me back when I helped with the peach canning. We enjoyed the time alone, especially me to enjoy a cooked meal that was actually warm when I ate it, as with feeding the boys food isn’t quite the temperature it is meant to be when I get around to eating it. Phyllis said the boys were great for her, which was nice plus Tyson didn’t cry when we left without him. After driving home, Ben brought over his date, Tia and we all watched Hoodwinked. I finished cleaning by doing the dishes during it all. Ben stayed the night and watched the kids this morning as Adam and I attended the 6 am session at the temple. We then headed over to Wal-Mart to get some diapers and milk and I was glad to still find the sale my neighbor had told me about on Campbell’s Cream of Chicken and Mushroom cans, so I stocked up for food storage on that. While heading out of the parking lot I called Ben and asked him to get the boys ready for Jarem’s baptism as it looked like we weren’t going to make it back in time. After arriving at the church and not finding very many cars there we found out that the baptism was changed to 9:30, which made everyone who was rushing through the door after 9 am on time. Ben managed the two boys just fine and we are glad he was willing to do that. After the baptism we went out to the flat and since it was a blustery cold and windy day it was a great day for football. I spent a good amount of time changing diapers, bathing Lincoln in grandma’s sink after relieving some constipation pressure, and then rinsing off Tyson in the tub after Phyllis gave him a haircut. I also spent time throughout the day shelling Phyllis’ pecans that she had cracked and by the time we left that evening I managed to finish the whole bowl. We went over to the Steele’s to have cake and ice cream for Gage’s birthday. I never thought I would say this, but at the end of today I found myself not caring much for football at all, though we are glad the Cougars won. The picture I included here is from one morning earlier this week, when I found Tyson giggling and Lincoln chewing on his toes. I managed to snap a picture of the attach right as Lincoln looked up at me. He sure enjoyed Tyson's big toe.

Rainy Saturday

Today was quite nice as it was rainy and overcast all day long. It's rare to get that around here so you enjoy it when it comes. Perfect day for having the windows opened and watching general conference, along with starting a fire in between and eating some yummy vegetable cheese soup that Phyllis made. Soup tops off a rainy day. It was funny because Adam prepped this fire with most of the junk from a dump truck and odds and ends lying around the flat. He thought it was too wet to start, but Phyllis and I encouraged him to get some gasoline and help it along. When it was burning alot of black smoke Adam had 2 different people drive up making sure everything was okay. I told Phyllis it is nice that people are concerned and watch out for them. This fire came about as Adam needed that dump truck to drive over behind the cow fences and transport dirt to the new location of the meat shop that him and his brothers will be building along with financing from other siblings. It's going to be a great place for butchering, canning, and any other major projects like that that have previously been done in the shop and Phyllis' kitchen.
As for this other picture it is one I took in September one morning after I had gone for the phone and when I returned I couldn't find even a little space for me to squeeze back into my spot on the bed as my boys took over what little space that was left. Lincoln does not sleep with us at all and quite often Tyson ends up in our bed sometime in the night from whatever it is that wakes him up, but I'll feed Lincoln his bottle in our bed during some early morning hours when I'm not quite ready to get out of bed. So after not finding any room to lay back down then I went for the camera to document the intrusion. How cute and innocent they are. Love my boys!