Fun pictures!

The boys built replicas of the Nile river but they were washed out in a major storm last weekend. Cody and Hugh have a hard time keeping sleeves or shirts on it seems. Brenton came home beyond muddy from the last few games he reffed. Liam is learning how to workout on the treadmill for when the high temperatures don't go above twenty, I don't know how he is gong to get his dog into that program though! And last but not least our amazing goalie at his last club soccer game. Too fun! Ok so the pictures are in the reverse order of my commentary. I will perfect my blogging skills at a later date. For now I am just happy to get something posted!

Too much fun!

Life here has been busy as always. Lots of life type decisions being made such as which college, which major, which photo for the yearbook. All the important things. But seriously we have been that good kind of busy that wears you out and makes you smile all at once. So here is the run down. Soccer season is over for a few months so we actually see Brenton before 9 at night, and Cody is back to working whenever he can with his Grandpa Jr. which is a huge good thing in my book. Half of the lambs have been sold (the kids had to deal with their first bad check experience but it turned out well), the ewes are off meeting with the bucks at the ranch, the other half of the lambs are eating lots and waiting to go to market soon! The two pygmy goats have been dehorned and we will never go thru that again. Don't ask even I was queasy about that ordeal and I never get queasy! Home education is rocking along though I still can't master Latin so Moira is taking that over. Cody has been accepted to Utah State and given a two year tuition scholarship, if he moves his ACT score up by one point he will get four years so we are studying! Liam is waiting to start basketball and considering a return to Irish dance as is Hugh though he refuses to even discuss playing basketball. Moira has a new project a ten day old Nigerian Dwarf goat, he is smaller than the cat! She is in love with the thing and bottle feeds it every four hours and spoils it rotten. Hugh is busy being Hugh and that is just great! Brenton is building a goat and bum lamb palace complete with insulation and wiring! He does nothing halfway that man! So life is good and we are so grateful to be a family even when there is too much laundry and not enough time. Have a happy weekend!

Marathoning and Turning 6!

Well no pictures for this note....I ran a marathon today and the only pictures from that will be the ones that the race photographer sells later. You know a picture of me and twenty or so total strangers as we run past the photographer! I am bone tired but must rally as the little man's 6th bday bash is tonight, I will post pictures of the little darling later. Quite honestly the timing is great, I don't have to cook or do the dishes. I thought a great deal about my family members whom have passed away in the past 6 years or so. All of my parents sibling are now gone and only two the siblings spouses survive; which makes me wonder if one heaven is not a bit louder (we were never a quiet group) and how will I keep their stories alive for my children and my brother's children? Yep, 4 hours of running can lead to lots of pondering! Well off to the pizza and root beer bash, the kid knows how to party....a few friends, good food, and a movie! Maybe early bedtime too?

Recent Happenings

I cannot remember the order I saved these pictures in so if the commentary is not in order consider it a brain exercise! This past week Moira obtained her learner's permit, but even more noteworthy is the fact that Liam and Hugh waited politely in the chairs at the DMV for over 30 minutes while she did it! We also made jars and jars of peach salsa which requires piles of diced onions. I cannot chop a small onion without major issues much less enough for all that salsa even with a food processor. So the solution I came up with a few years back involves ski goggles, open windows and fans going at full speed! My kids find it hysterical but you will notice none of them are helping at that point. The snake picture is one Moira took in the garden and then zoomed in on, she is great in the garden and amazing with nature photography! Sorry about the sideways picture but I am not sure how to turn it on the blog so consider it a yoga move to view it. Homeschool is rocking along and I am hoping for no more traveling for awhile. I just returned from Phoenix, I will write about that some other time. Back to the salt mines...........

oops

Ok the first picture in the last post was actually of Moira and Brenton as he was trashing the living room or as he calls it 'preparing for yet another scout trip'. And the picture attached here is of the kids and Brenton's mother Sherie at the falls on the way to the Matson reunion. It is late can you tell?

Matson Reunion 2010

We had a great time in Mid June at Idaho Falls with Brenton's mom on our way to the Matson family reunion which was just up the road near Rigby. The kids loved the falls and seeing Sherie's old stomping grounds, she and Herb were married in the Idaho Falls Temple. The farmer's market was fun but Hugh was pretty sure the guy with the pet wolf had 'a problem in his head', such a rancher's grandson. He also pointed out that wolves eat sheep and that is bad! The Matson homestead is still in the family and we were blessed to go on a sort of home grown tour of the area with some of the cousins, it was amazing and perfect. I have more cool pictures somewhere and will post them at some random point in time as I seem to be doing lately. The cute little boy with Hugh is Matt, Dee and Mary's grandson (cousins basically).

Ok, so it is no longer December 2009 but these skating pictures were too fun to leave languishing on my computer drive. Our neighbors the Wellings built a huge skating rink in their side yard and invited the whole town to stop by and skate whenever. They had us and several other families come for Family home evening and it was about 5 degrees outside! The kids had never skated before, Liam buckled down and pretty much taught himself, Cody was a natural, Moira did better than she will admit and the Leroy taught Hugh how to skate by having him push an old school chair around. Hugh and his little friend quickly discovered that snow boots are much steadier and therefore faster than skates and proceeded to tear all over the ice! What amazing neighbors we have. This makes all the mosquito bites I just got out in the lamb pens a little less itchy and my smile a little brighter.

May what May?

Ok, I never finished 'wrapping' up April and it is now June. I have a bad habit of not writing on this blog because I have always had a serious phobia when it comes to sharing my writing. My former students would really love to hear that I am sure. Anyway since I was last here we have done much, slept little, and even gotten a few things done around the homestead. Another 'issue' I have with posting things is that I am still trying to master my new camera and figure out how to do slideshows instead of lengthy scrolls of pictures. Back on track, May was busy with three family birthdays and numerous extended family birthdays. I celebrated 43, Brenton hit the big 39, and Moira is a glorious 15 (there will be a special post about her when I get it finished just so). Mother's Day was nice, and there were numerous dinners at goring Ranch throughout the month. Cody got his ACT scores back and is way too smart for me (I don't think I even knew the scores went as high as 31). There was an FFA banquet where Cody received an academic excellence award, there was a a soccer banquet where Cody received his varsity letter and there was lots of complaining about what a waste the last three weeks of school are. But much rejoicing in the fact that he (Cody) can take a million ag classes next year because he has been so diligent the past three years. We went to two Va'Del's competitions where Moira's group won everything in sight, one Irish dance innerschool feis (all did well, pictures soon), one dance review where the whole town darn near turns out, and one incredible Celtic Woman concert for Moira's birthday. I cried all the way thru Danny Boy and Galway Bay, I missed my dad horribly and conciously for days after. Brenton went to Jamboral for the Boy Scouts and then took Hugh and Liam to a fathers/sons camp out. Liam made Jamboral but was quite sick for the f/s camp out. He suffered admirably while I was at the dance review with Moira and the guys were camping he laid in bed and watched the Star Wars trilogy, repeatedly. What else in May? Oh yes twelve ram lambs moved in to the south pasture, 5 ewes moved in as well and delivered nine healthy lambs despite all the spring snow, hail, and rain storms. I was so grateful for no more bum lambs from that bunch. There are still seven bum lambs in that pen but they should be moving in the next week. Brenton claims that when the little darlings can rip the nipple off the bottle they NEED to go back to the ranch. We all started the branding /docking season and those 530 am starts are killing me. However, Cody and Moira always seemed to enjoy those days but man do they come home covered in blue paint and many unmentionable (and smelly) things. We put the garden in on Memorial Day and bought our very own roto tiller so now I am planning all kinds of tilling based projects. Well I now I missed a great deal of what went on, we did have school all month and Brenton and I even had a few dates that did not involve Walmart or Sam's Club. So I hope my millions of readers (mostly Becki and Carla) had great May's and that their June's are off to a rousing and sunny start.

April wrap up part one

Well, April is about to finish up with a bang here in Northern Utah where the weather is constantly changing. We have had everything from unseasonably warm, to rain for days, to snowstorms, to hail with driving winds, and back around the spectrum this month. I honestly do not mind the crazy spring weather but it is incredibly hard on the orphaned (bum) lambs the kids try to raise for their Grandpa Jr., not to mention the havoc the weather can play with wardrobe planning! Of course this was a busy month hence the lack of posting plus I always want to include pictures but we finally got a new camera (angels singing)and I am still learning how to make it all work. It would probably help if I read the direction manual slowly while not doing anything else! In the past four weeks we have been busy but happy and blessed. I began April with a three day trip to my Grandma Glennie's in AZ, she was having a rough spell so I spent a bit of one on one time with her. She is an amazing lady, she will be 94 in August and is still managing to live in her own home. She has lived in the same house since the early 1940s and cannot bare to leave it. We had a good time and she connected me with a distant relative in Alabama who has tons of family history on the Brazeel side of the family. I am still working on getting that project going. I really liked spending time with my grandma she is just a sweet person and I got to see my adorable niece and nephew for a few hours as well. The activities continued while I was gone with Moira and Liam spending hours with the 'guru' teacher from Oregon at their Irish dance company, they loved every minute of it. Cody spent much of his time riding the stationary bike our neighbors loaned as he rehabbed his torn ACL. All his efforts paid off and he was cleared on the 22nd of April, played in the last regular season soccer match on the 23rd and is now preparing for a playoff game the 29th. He has also been building pens and fixing fence since he is now the proud owner of 12 ram lambs, 5 ewes (very pregnant ewes), and co-owner of several bum lambs. We sent back one set of bum lambs who were huge and are getting ready to send back four more as soon as Grandpa finds 'room' for them. We get more bum lambs every few days but their survival rate is not great, many of them are just too small but the kids sure work at it sometimes feeding five or six times a day just to make sure everyone at least has a shot at survival. Moira, Liam, Hugh and I went to baby animal days at the heritage farm in Logan with some neighbors and had a great time! This year they had baby bears and baby mustangs on display. We have also been working hard on our studies, and the kids have decided to continue at least part time thru the summer so that they can take periodic breaks throughout the year. Smart kids if I do say so myself. Well there is tons more like trips to Colorado, adventures on the marsh trails, dance competitions, and visits with friends to write about but right now I have to head for town to get salad ingredients for Cody's "playoff kickoff" tailgate party after practice tomorrow. So I will finish up when I have another spare minute, can you hear the laughter over that thought?

And more pictures

Here we are thrilled to have the van mysteriously quit and then start a half an hour later. Thanks to Grandma Sherie for driving all that way just to follow us home. This is the only picture of Irish dance performance because my camera is beyond sad. Also important are the dog and cat cleaning up spilled lamb milk together...

lambs, FFA, bed building

Everyone enjoyed the headlamps for nighttime lamb feeding, Moira got a new bed and had lots of help taking apart the old one and building the new one. The Picture of all the blue jackets is the FFA Sate Farmer degree ceremony. Wonderful fun all the way around! Ooops enjoy the repeat of that cute Moira picture!

March? What March?

February disappeared in a cloud of dust and March has been no less blurry! It has been fun, educational, stressful, and downright busy. So settle in and catch up with us and I might even remember how to post a few pictures! When we last checked in it was early February and all was well. Many snowstorms (but not enough snow pack) later we are still feeding bum lambs, driving kids to this and that while trying to hold the house together and meet the educational needs of three of the four aforementioned kids. Cody made the varsity soccer team as both a goalie and a field player, yeah Cody! However, while playing strongly towards the goal in their first preseason game he was clobbered by the goalie and has been out for three weeks. He has been in a monster brace for two weeks and is going to the orthopedic specialist tomorrow. He hopes to get back in time for the rest of the season, I hope he is healthy and that whatever has to be done is covered by insurance! So off to Park City we go...Moira will hold down the fort as always. Brenton and I did get to travel to Cedar City to see Cody receive his State Farmer degree at the state FFA convention. He and his partner won second place in the ag engineering catagory but were no happy as only first place qualifies for Nationals. It was a fun day. The very next day after a ten hour round trip to the convention we trucked Moira, Liam, and Hugh to SLC for the St. Patrick's Day parade. It was beyond miserable, it rained, the wind blew, and it snowed on us the last half block of the parade. But, my little darlings did their one two steps and leaps the whole way! Most of the others just walked as we were nearly the end of the parade. Moira's special Irish 'poodle' socks turned black from her shoes and her hands were numb! Oh well, live and learn. Speaking of St. Patrick's Day the dancers had eight performances over four days plus the parade. It was crazy hectic but fun and Moira really shined as a helper for the 'littles'. And of course we have been feeding lambs, walking dogs and sneaking in outdoor run time wherever possible. We have even tried to start pulling the outdoors together to put in pastures, pens, gardens, and one day (I can dream right?) a chicken coop. Anyway life is great but a bit overboard at times. We are finishing this month off with extra Irish dance with the big man from Oregon, hopefully a return to soccer or a definitive diagnosis on a knee, my quick trip to AZ to see my nearly 94 year old grandmother, and whatever else Brenton forgot to tell me was on the calendar. Oh and refereeing season has started.....

More weekend fun....

Just a few more photos of our fabulous (but exhausting) weekend. The picture of Brenton lighting the charcoal with the weed burner/flame thrower has got to be some of my best work. He was so absorb in his 'work' he did not realize I was taking the picture until he caught me sharing it at the party a bit later. I love this family!

So we started our weekend early on Friday with the arrival of winter bum (orphaned) lambs, the wrapping up of the school week, and heading to our first Irish dance competition called a Feis. We also squeezed in a superbowl party with four other families at our home. The bum lambs are time consuming but mostly enjoyed by the kids, the survival rate is low in the winter. This year Moira has set up a 'lamb nicu' in the corner of 'her' rabbit shed, the particularly weak lambs get to share the heater with the rabbits. The lambs get fed four times a day so the kids are busy. The Feis was great! Hugh got a participation medal and was the youngest dancer there by four months. We were amazed at the composure he had in front of several hundred people. Liam received three medals for honorable mention and actually competed on the first level for one dance. Moira was in seven dances and was thrilled just to make it thru when we discovered she actually won one of her hard shoe dances. This means she moves on to the next level in that dance, she also placed 4th and 5th in two soft shoe dances. It was a great day and we were so proud of how well behaved our family was. Cody spent hours and hours building a fabulous lamb nursery behind the shed and did all the transporting of lambs from the ranch to our house, he even took away the unfortunate ones whom did not survive. During superbowl half time the kids went to feed the lambs and most of the kids at the party trooped out in the freezing weather to 'help', mostly to fight over whose turn it was to hold the bottles. It was a crazy 72 hours but good all the way around. More pictures to follow. By the way Moira's nearly waist length hair took almost an hour and a half to put into spike curlers, thank goodness Pride and Prejudice is on DVD!

 

The first photo is Hugh and I posing before we headed out to the grocery store, then we were playing with the air popper for making 'sitcky corn', gluten free caramel corn. Then we have the princess shoveling off the inground trampoline before heading out to the midget sled hill in driveway.

And it is over......

What is it about January that makes it seem so long? One theory is all the smog and fog we had this year but I am not convinced. So many good things happen this month but it always seems like a struggle to get thru it. We had three or four inches of new snow this morning, just enough to make driving up the hill to church a spiritual experience. We are all set to launch into February....indoor soccer is wrapping up and tryouts for high school soccer are on the horizon, Brenton might go to Nevada to ref a tournament, there is some scout camping in the freezing cold because we are manly thing, our firs real Feis (Irish dance competition, Valentine's Day, the Super Bowl party Brenton has to have every year and hopefully one shopping trip to the big city! So not much happening here....some friends came for an impromptu Sunday dinner and we had fun, their cute little almost four year old daughter told her Dad not to worry about her picking up toys...the kids would do it for her! We laughed hard at that one. Brenton's sister is our new neighbor, about a half mile away so we made her sticky corn as a welcome to the neighborhood but Hugh was deeply disappointed when they were not there for the delivery of the treat. One of her boys cannot have gluten so it is a special recipe for gluten free caramel corn. Actually it is quite good and we probably ate half the batch! We will catch up with them tomorrow and use delivery for our family night activity, how is that for multi tasking? Hope that life is treating everybody as well as it treats us. Oh and Moira's Irish dance dress will be delivered this week she is a wee bit excited. Yeah for February!!!!!!

That's too crazy?!

Can it really be nearly the end of January? Could preseason training for high school soccer really have started? That is an outdoor sport right? Last time I checked our driveway resembles a rather soiled winter wonderland complete with midget sled hill...which wonder dad Brenton added sides to for a bit of safety. Of course Liam still slid down the side (accidentally) yesterday and hit his head on the hitch of the scout trailer parked a bit too near the midget hill. Luckily he has the hard head of the Irish and seems to be fine. It amazes me how long the younger boys can play in the driveway and have a blast. Sunday night we invited our neighbors (the Fawson's..I actually taught Jared a million years ago when he was in high school, and Tiffany is one of my first friend here in Utah...her parents guided me greatly in those early years of marriage) and their two little girls over to sled. Brenton hooked up lights and they played until the dads starting giving snow bellies and generally being rowdy. Life here still revolves around high school, home school, dance, Irish dance, soccer training (indoor, in Logan), not enough running, Brenton's work, church, and whatever else we can cram into our alotted hours of the day. Moira performed at a drill team competition with her local dance studio, Cody and I went to watch her....fun was had by all and I got to listen to music on Cody's Ipod with his cool Skull candy headphones! The Irish dancers first competition (called a Feis) is on the 6th of next month so we are focusing on getting ready for that, the kids are excited but it is something oh so different for them to experience. I am excited because new can be hard and hard is always a good chance for growth. Well I am off to find Hugh's well loved and tattered "Thomas" blanket and prep for tomorrow's school....maybe it is time to sneak in an all art afternoon. I love those and Liam has been asking if he can try running the sewing machine so maybe we need a stay at home field trip. I will post pictures as soon as the techie daughter is out of the shower to help me get the cute ones of she and her brother out of the digital camera!

Sledding