John Deere Green

Recently we became the proud owner's of one of these.  Adam and I don't seem to have too much of a preference when it comes to lawnmowers, although I have always felt like a John Deere would be more reliable, but mostly because our boys love John Deere and they love to sing the "John Deere Green" song.  You should hear Lincoln sing this song when it gets to the part that says "...on a hot summers night..." he hits that high note like Alfalfa off of Little Rascals.  It is really entertaining.  I could listen to Lincoln sing songs all day long because he is so animated with his face and voice when he sings and also does it with such passion.  Anyways I recently wrote my brother-in-law who is serving his mission in Samoa Apia and told him that "since his mom’s lawnmower left for two years Adam and I saved up to replace it/him with this.  In case you haven’t seen one of these it is a RIDING lawnmower (hee hee).  You said to take care of your mom, and since time is difficult to come by then we decided it would be much easier to find to zip through her lawn and ours."  We have found great use for this machine especially as a motivator to the boys to help work.  We are glad that we were finally able to purchase it and I have noticed that mowing the lawn has become more of a relaxing thing for Adam to do with the boys then a dreaded chore, plus he seems to be taking greater care of our yard, which I am grateful for, since I would like to but find it difficult with a toddler to do so (I'm just not as strong and coordinated to drive it around while having a couple of kids along for the ride.  I do have to point out the helmet that Tyson is wearing.  A couple of Saturdays ago I took the boys to a yard sale the Young Women from our ward put on and even though I don’t generally go yard selling I think Tyson may have turned into a fan of yard sales because he was wandering around the place and found a helmet for a motorcycle/4 wheeler and was instantly attached.  We went to go ask how much it was and the lady said she had not seen it before, so she did not think it was for sale.  You could just see Tyson’s face drop with great disappointment.  I told him we would have to wait and see, but I wanted to make sure that if it was for sale that he was able to get it and not some other kid that showed up and grabbed it.  I had him go put it back and then asked the girls at the goodie table if they saw anyone bring the helmet to sale and one said she saw someone drop it off and then the lady’s husband had showed up and I asked him and he said he remembered someone bringing it in one of the first boxes that was donated, so I asked him to go let his wife know while Tyson was already on to what was happening and had reclaimed the helmet to take back to the lady to buy.  Susie stopped by and said that Tyson just set the helmet on the table and they told him it was $5 and then he realized he needed money, so he told them to hold on as he quickly found me to complete the deal and then he didn’t take that helmet off.  He rode his bike home with this huge helmet, which was entertaining to watch.  

Before the yard sale find, Adam took the two older boys to the Aaronic Priesthood Commemoration (formerly known as Father and Son’s) Campout.  The boys were excited all week about going except when Friday came Lincoln wasn’t feeling too good and so we were trying to talk him in to staying and started to unpack his stuff, but as Adam began loading the truck Lincoln went to the bathroom with diarrhea and said he was ready to go and seemed to be back to a little more of his normal self.  Adam said that Lincoln was fine with going to bed in the tent after they ate dinner, so I think he just had a little something ailing his body.  Adam had a mountain biking ride the next morning from the camp with his young men so the bishop brought the boys back home since he had to come back anyways and he said that Tyson kept trying to talk him into going on that bike ride because he thought he could keep up just fine.  Getting his bike fixed has given him new freedom.  Adam and I managed to get a babysitter and went to the movie “The Avengers” and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Last Sunday it was my week to teach the lesson in Relief Society.  I felt like it went well, aside from me leaving my lesson outline on the computer at home (I didn’t even get around to printing it off).  Luckily I had put everything together that morning, so it was fresh in my mind and my biggest challenge was just having it all flow from class participation, lesson material and quotes.  

How Fitting!

You want me to pose?

Started walking 1 wk after bday

Did you miss us?  I don't know if many read this blog, which is fine, however after one relative coming out yesterday and asking why I don't post on it anymore and then spending some time last night catching up on a friend's blog I went to bed with a great reminder about how I need to make this blog more of a priority for the journaling of the happenings in my family since I don't do anything beyond this.  I also woke up this morning with a determination that I was going to try and do better, so I figured that determination starts by just posting.  I'm sure there is alot I have missed in the past year since I last posted (hopefully we did some fun memorable things :), however I decided to just start with the right now so that I don't get discouraged with the missed past postings I should have done.  How fitting it is that the last post I had was after our sweet Jason Wynn Stout was born and here he is a little over one year later still bringing great joy to our family.  He also is the only boy with me right now since the other two went with Adam on the Father and Son's campout last night.  I'm glad I get to have Jason for one more year, but he is already at the age that he does not like being left behind and feels that he should get to go wherever the boys and dad goes.  He fits right in with the crew and doesn't like being left out.  I still have to train myself to take more pictures (I should carry it around like I do my cell phone :)  I know that having pictures to post helps encourage me to write, so I will have to figure something out there.  My sister Susie took these pictures of Jason and did a great job.  She caught some wonderful facial expressions, this one being one of my favorite.  I'll have to get some of the others from her since I had a few more I especially liked.  As you can tell he is a cutie and his personality adds even more.  When we were getting ready to have Jason join our family, Adam and I could not imagine what kind of personality a third boy would have since we felt with Tyson and Lincoln that we had the personalities covered, but Jason brought a new twist and makes us all laugh.  His older brothers adore and take great care of him.

Jason Wynn Stout

Here is a picture of our new little boy, Jason Wynn Stout. He was born the day before Adam's birthday, April 6th and weighed 7 lbs 14 ozs (My smallest in that category) and 20 inches long. Once again, like my experience with Lincoln, I scheduled to be induced, since my boys seem to be big in the head and shoulders and I was positive for the bacteria they test for, so I didn't want to have complications with that and wanted to be able to get the doses of antibiotic before he came. I quickly confirmed my shaky decision to have an epidural after a very strong contraction that brought the pain and I didn't regret it. This was the best delivery, even though I still ended up with a 2nd degree tear (same as Lincoln). Jason's head was 37 cm (the biggest a nurse there had ever seen). At first I thought that he looked like Tyson and then shortly after Lincoln's look emerged. Adam and Susie were there. Susie took some great pictures and later did a photo shoot for her photography that she recently started. She's pretty good at it. I just think it is funny that usually it seems that the more kids you have then the less pictures you find yourself taking, but it has been the opposite for my kids since Jason has had by far the most pictures. We feel extremely blessed to have another little boy join our family.

He Bought What?

It's funny because Adam always seems to make fun of people who use the phrase, "It was such a good deal, I couldn't pass it up." I'm beginning to think that he is one of those people (C'mon who doesn't like a good deal?). The problem with Adam's good deals is that they are on the pricier end than any good deals I would ever go for or could even amount up to in my lifetime. So yes, he recently purchased an airplane hanger from a guy at the St George Airport. I snapped a few pictures to show his great find. The only catch is that he has to take it down and relocate it elsewhere, since that little airport on top of the mesa is closing down for the new airport. Don't worry, I won't forget to calculate in the cost of relocating it to hold against him down the road.

Vaughn, Maryjane, and Caitlyn came to visit this past week, which added some excitement. The boys enjoyed having Vaughn stay with us and did their best to pester him by w

anting to play on his phone or while he was on the computer. Lincoln wasn't so sure about Vaughn sleeping with him that first night and was a little more adamant in the night to have his "mommy". The next night Lincoln ended up on our floor since he wasn't feeling well and Tyson woke up in the early morning calling for Vaughn (I don't know why Vaughn wasn't with Tyson), but when Vaughn went in there Tyson said, "Where were you? How come you are not sleeping with me?" Vaughn was kind enough to oblige the rest of the morning and sleep next to Tyson.

Saturday we spent the day at the Flat where just about everyone was sick. Grandpa, Grandma, Jared, Tyson, and Lincoln. I asked the boys if they wanted to go home, but they wanted to stay at grandma's, so they just layed on her couch. I'm hoping not to get sick, since that would especially be miserable while pregnant.

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.

Swimming and Digging

On Monday Adam had his dad come over to supervisor putting up the fence to replace the one he tore up over the previous weekend. For Family Home Evening that night we met Daniel, Susie, Addie, and Liam over at Susie's friend, Comet's place to swim. It was fun because our husbands were able to be there with us and the kids enjoyed being to play with their dads in the water. Lincoln loved jumping off the edge into Adam's arms. Adam was a little more daring in letting the kids jump in and then pull them out of the water after they went under. I'm sure on this swimming trip that they took in quite a bit more water from it all. He said doing that would teach them to close their mouth, which it seemed like they did start doing that after a while. Comet was in the process of moving, so we will all be sad that she doesn't live where this pool is anymore. On Tuesday Adam started digging the trench for the sprinkler system and did the office work when he got too hot. Tyson hopped into the backhoe with him and shortly after that I found Tyson digging the moving the levers, digging the trench, and dumping the dirt and then repositioning the arm of the backhoe to get another scoop. Adam said that Tyson caught on really quick as to what lever moved what. That means I have to be a little more attentive when he is around equipment like that because he'll think that he knows what to do and go to it. I started Webelos again, which was challenging after having about a 2 month break. The two boys that I had previously had their b-days and moved up to 11 yr old scouts and I miss not having them at den meeting. Adam started the school in Alamo Nevada on Wednesday and so he was gone for a few days there and then went on a 6 hour drive to Natarita Colorado to bid on a church there and then...you got it the 6 hour drive back home. Luckily him and Stuart went together so they could trade off driving. On their way back they picked up a new dump trailer for the Alamo job. It was nice to have him home for the weekend. The boys and I have a very difficult time when Adam is out of town and traveling constantly and it always comes in spurts. I took the boys to a wedding reception Friday night, which Susie and I met up there since both of our husbands were gone.