Finishing the Year 2 of 2

...continued from previous post:

- Halloween produced a little more involvement from Adam and I this year, as we actually dressed the boys up; Tyson in a Bob the Builder costume and Lincoln in the cutest skunk costume, all compliments of Heidi. She made the skunk costume years ago for her kids and it has been well used. Lincoln didn’t know about the big bulky tail, but it was sure fun to watch him go up to the doors and turn around with a big grin on his face and say, “I got candy.” And then from every door after that he would continue to say with amazement, “ I got some more candy!” Just pure excitement. One of my favorite Halloween ideas was of this headless horseman. This family that we know humored their son who wanted to be a headless horseman. They let him walk up and down the street on the horse and then put it away, so that there wouldn’t be any accidents.
- For Christmas this year we were suppose to travel to Oregon, however my mom had flown to Texas to help Clara with their new little girl, Vaughn was in Iraq, and Lillie and George were on missions, so we decided to stay in Hurricane, which although we missed seeing my family I wasn’t too opposed to staying since taking a long drive to Oregon didn’t sound too appealing at this stage in my pregnancy. Since there was a bed open at the Flat then we stayed the night there so that our boys could wake up to Christmas out there with cousins and Gma & Gpa. It was very enjoyable and I couldn’t resist snapping a picture of the aftermath, this wrapping paper mess is something the Stout’s take great pride in. It’s been a good year and we have been extremely blessed by the Lord. How grateful we are for Jesus Christ and his great example of how we need to be. We are already experiencing changes as Adam was recently called to be the Young Men’s President. For some time now Adam has been talking about needing a place that he can study, ponder, and pray and not have work all around him to tempt him, so for Christmas Susie helped me transform our back bedroom into that type of room. This is the first room in our house that has curtains and pictures and a bookcase and it is amazing the difference that makes. I don’t think I could have done it without Susie’s help. It turned out better than I could have imagined and even though on Christmas day Adam had a few presents here and there to open and a new suit that he had already picked out and had adjustments on, he didn’t get this last surprise until after 10 p.m., when we went home after he played basketball. I had banished him from that back room and he told me that he thought I was building him a gun case and he felt that he was very intuitive about it, but didn’t want to ruin it. Boy was he wrong. It’s nice to have a room in our house that never gets a mess and is always inviting when you want to read, think and just not be disturbed.
-My boys are quick to help with basic chores around the house. I couldn’t resist snapping this picture when one day I heard Lincoln yelping in the kitchen. I came out to find that he was upset about not having any more room on the counter to stack the dishes that he was emptying from the dishwasher. I must say I was quite impressed at his stacking abilities from only standing on the ground.

Finishing the Year 1 of 2

It’s been a long time since I have posted to my blog. It’s not that life has been uneventful all this time as that would be an understatement. Here’s a list of a few of the major events that have happened since my last post to work towards finishing off the year:
- August rolled around and the year mark for us not being able to get pregnant was coming with that. However we have been extremely blessed to have found out that I wouldn’t have to be considered abnormal, but that a home pregnancy test revealed positive.
- After waiting a long time until going to the doctor, I finally scheduled an appointment and went in to my first doctor’s appointment and being as far along as I was I was able to find out that we are going to be parents to another boy. As my cousin pointed out how nice that must be to not have the anticipation of what you are having, but to find out on your first doctor’s visit. We are very excited to add another boy to our family.
- Tyson managed to start an old 175 tractor that had a flat tire and looked like it would take some effort and work to get going. He managed to turn the plow on, which propelled the tractor into the side of my garage. Luckily it didn’t have a lot of power behind it. I ran outside when I heard the noise and didn’t know where it was coming from and coming toward my house was this very scared 4 year old just holding on to the big wheel and screaming. I jumped on and yelled for him to tell me where the key was and he yelled back, “There isn’t one.” Apparently it had been re-wired with a push button start because the key kept getting lost, how convenient for a child. We braced ourselves as we hit the house. Oil started to spew out the side and smoke out the exhaust and it was revving up high. I called my brother-in-law, Stuart, since it was his tractor and had to yell over the top of the noise to get complicated instructions on how to get it turned off. It was a very unpleasant experience and I feel like my boys were being watched over since Lincoln luckily wasn’t there after having stayed the night at Susie’s house and I’m just sure if he had been there he would have been trying to get on the tractor with Tyson and would have been plowed over. I don’t know if I am ready for the scary moments that come with raising boys. I learned from this whole experience that there are many pieces of equipment that my boys are constantly around that I need to learn about, so I am better prepared for the unknown.
- My vacuum broke, so we put money towards completing our central vac that we had already plumbed the house for when we built it, but ran out of money to get the actual vacuum. It’s not as heavy so I can now enlist my boys to help with the vacuuming.
- We made quite a bit of progress on our yard. We began by pouring the cement around the house and a patio area out the back of the sliding door. We are excited about the fire pit we included in that pouring and Adam used it already with his scouts once. We also had a trampoline pit poured and purchased a trampoline to install there. We hauled quite a few loads of mulch from the dump as well as sand from out at the sand dunes on the side of the road. Right now that is where it has ended, is with the piles of mulch and sand, as Adam has become very busy and I need to save more money to keep on going with the sod etc. Hopefully it doesn’t take us another 4 years to make more progress on it.
- My in-laws went on a trip with Monica and her family across the states and while they were gone a bunch of us spearheaded the great task of bucketing up the pile of wheat that was dumped on the meat shop floor (since it was the cleanest slab of concrete around having been poured not too long ago). It was quite the chore especially in the heat of the summer, but one of those tasks that gives a great sense of accomplishment when completed.
- Tyson was willing to take swim lessons this summer and he did very well. Lincoln was too young, however I was quite impressed how well he entertained himself on the grassy area while we waited for Tyson to be done. I think the lessons have helped Tyson out quite a bit.
- Lincoln shut his finger into the door of the backhoe, well actually Adam shut Lincoln’s finger into the door as he was climbing in behind Lincoln and closed the door behind him not looking to see that Lincoln’s hand was still there in his efforts to get all the way in. It was a very disgusting cut. We resisted to take him to get stitches and it has healed up quite nicely, I think even better than stitches would have done.