Trevor's Song

Last fall when Landon decided that he wanted to become a hunter of coyotes he went looking for a "hunting buddy." He struck gold at the DI when he found a singing squirrel. The school used to hold a nut and sang the song "I'm gettin' nuttin' for Christmas." Our kids loved it until Landon tore it apart and turned it into his decoy.

Because of this "hunting buddy" our kids learned the words to the song and have continued to sing it to us. Trevor most of the time when he has sung the song we haven't been able to make out all of the words, but his speaking is getting clearer and the other day I found him singing the song and finally figured out exactly what he was singing.

If you listen closely to the end of the song he sing, "I'm gettin' nuttin for Christmas, cause Mommy and Daddy are bad."

Luminary

A couple of dear friends of mine from our ward participated in Relay for Life this year. I am so grateful that they did because it gave me an opportunity to get luminaries for Shelly and Connor. Ellen helped me decorate them and I think they turned out fabulous. Something that they really would have appreciated.

DeeDee Murphy and Leslee Thomas. The sweet ladies in my ward.

Making the luminaries was actually not as hard as I thought it would be. I enjoyed being able to create something that people would be able to look at and see something of them. I really wanted to do pictures of them and chose a couple of my favorites. Ella then drew on the back, on Shelly's she drew a picture of Aunt Shelly with Ellen and Trevor. On Connor's she drew a picture of Connor's birthday party. (The last thing she really remembers doing with Connor.)

We went out to Relay for Life to show the kids what happened with the luminaries. Landon and I had never been to it either. It was really fabulous to be there and feel the support that everyone had. Most people who participate in the Relay have been touched by cancer just like we have. I saw friends who have lost parents and people who knew and loved Shelly and Connor. In fact, I found out that two of Michelle's really good scrap booking friends were on my friends relay team. What a better tribute for my sister than to have her friends be walking and lighting her luminary.

We were not able to stay to see the lighting ceremony, but even just seeing all of them lining the track and knowing that each one was for someone that was loved and that battled with courage that most will never have to face was touching. I am grateful that there are people who are willing to put together these functions to keep the memory of our loved ones alive.

10 Years...Whew!

A couple of weeks ago I had my ten year high school reunion. While this in itself is something to get a little excited or nervous about, it goes beyond the regular anxieties for me. I made the joyful mistake of being our Senior Class President, so I get to plan all of these joyous events. Luckily, I had some really good help so it wasn't too bad.

The process started about 6 months prior to the actual event. Century High School here in Pocatello opened up my senior year of high school, so all of the students who graduated from Century went to school with all of us for two years as well. Because of this the three high schools, Poky, Century, and Highland decided to do a joint luncheon. I don't know how smart of an idea this was, because it ended up being a pain trying to coordinate with the other two schools, but most of our classmates really enjoyed it.

The lunch was the easy part for me. My vice-president, Bettie, planned the whole thing and she did a bang up job. As much work as it was trying to coordinate with the other two schools, it was really enjoyable to be able to watch as we totally smoked them at the lunch. It does help that we had more money, a lot more money, than they did. (Thanks Mom for thinking ahead 10 years ago!) But, really, Bettie just had some great ideas and pulled off a fantastic lunch. It was a lot of fun to get to talk with everyone and see people whom I really enjoyed being with in High School, but have lost contact with over the last 10 years. It is crazy to hear some of the things that my friends were doing with their lives and realize how grown up we have become. One friend is a railroad conductor, another is adopting two kids from Africa ages 6 and 8. How did we get this old to have real grown up jobs and do real grown up things....

The dinner that night was my responsibility. Thanks to my awesome sister-friend and photographer Allie White I was able to get invitations out for the event cheaply and they looked fabulous!!! Then I had to find the venue, The Holiday Inn, and the entertainment, Gabriel the Hypnotist, and collect every one's money. We didn't get nearly as many people as I had hoped for, but those that did come made the evening enjoyable. Our hypnotist only got two people under, but one of them made the whole night worth it. He was so brutally honest in his facial expressions with what he was doing it was fantastic! It was also a really enjoyable night to spend with my sweetie!

The reunion really made me think back to ten years prior and my high school years. I have to admit, I really enjoyed high school. It was a good time in life and there are times that I miss the lack of responsibility that came with being in those years. The thing I miss the most is my group of friends. I had a great group of friends that were always up for a good time! The best part of that was that it was always clean fun. We would dress up and make music videos, or pretend we were super heroes and terrorize the town. We would climb the school building and play on the roof of the school, have huge bonfires in the Belnap's backyard, and then bear our testimonies to each other in the back of someones car. Most of these friends I have remained in contact with, but many I barely see or talk to anymore. Yet others have remained my dearest and sweetest friends to this day. Friends who will come to your rescue in your darkest hours, and have!

Sadly, none of these great friends were able to come to my reunion, but I am still grateful for the class reunion. It gave me months of planning to look back and remember those fun years. Don't get me wrong, I am glad to have moved past the and become the adults we are today, but I don't look back at high school with any regrets. Those years were important in making me who I am today and the people I surrounded myself with helped with that. So to all of you dear sweet friends, I love you!!! Thank you for making my teenage years not only bearable, but enjoyable.

My Favorite Holiday...Independence Day

My very favorite holiday is the 4th of July. Blame it on being raised by a politically active family or just my unadulterated love for Sweetened Chex Mix. I don't know why, but I LOVE the 4th of July. I was so looking forward to the holiday this year as well because once again the 4th fell on a Sunday which means living in Pocatello we had the opportunity to celebrate the Independence Day all weekend long.

My brother-in-law Mickey's parents live in Idaho Falls, so we were invited up to IF for the Saturday festivities up there. I know that people complain about them not being done on the 4th, but as for me, I appreciate because I get two nights of fireworks instead of one. We went up and spent a little bit of time at Mickey's parent's house before heading over to one of Mickey's sister's friends houses for the fireworks. It was a fabulous location and good company. The kids were tired, but loved watching the fireworks and enjoyed getting to see Morgan. We wondered how Levi would do with the fireworks, but he was peachy-keen. He liked seeing the colors and actually got bored with the big ones after a while.

Look at that smile on my Levi Baby's Face!

Sunday we were able to go to Landon's brother Eric's house. They live right across the freeway from the Bannock County Fairgrounds so they are the PERFECT place to watch the fireworks. Their house is lovely and a very comfy backyard, and no crowds!!! Yeah! We had a fabulous BBQ and let the cousins play and the adults chat. The fireworks were great this year. There weren't even that many that went off too early, sending the fireman running into the field. (Those are Landon's favorites.) In a nutshell. Sunday was good times, good company, and good sweetened Chex Mix.

Trevor and Braiden playing the Eric's Backyard.

Part of our 4th of July Festivities this year was Ellen's hair. I have really gotten into finding cute new ways to do her hair thanks to a blog that I found. "Girls Ideas and Hairdo's" linked off of this page. Ella likes to look at the blog and pick her hairdo and this was the one she picked for Independence Day. It is suppossed to be a flag with the braids for stripes and the little buns for stars. It was a lot of fun to do and she looked cute for the holiday.

Monday night we were able to extend the festivities one day longer with the left over fireworks from the night before. We still had a bunch of flowers and a fountain to light off. Ellen loved throwing the flowers out into the street. Trevor got bored and wanted to watch them from the back of the car while reading a book, and Levi wanted to touch them and run in the street. It was a lot of fun.

Earlier on Monday Levi stepped off of our front porch and scratched up his face. Here he is saying "Cheese" to show you his mark.

June Newsletter Submission

Landon's family, and mine when I get off my behind and do it, have a monthly family newsletter. We write a breif this is what we are doing and compile it all together to keep everyone informed of what we are all doing. This is ours for June. I thought I would include it because not everything from here made it to the blog and vice-versa. So, some of it is repeat for my blog followers, but some of it is new stuff that I want to be included in my family's history.

June was a busy month filled with lots of fun things. Landon started his second part-time job this month. He works as a part-time maintenance man for a senior-citizen apartment complex and has been fitting right in. Just a couple of weeks after he started his boss quit and he was left in charge for a couple of weeks. The residents really like him and he really likes that he doesn’t have to think too hard at this job. Landon also was able to complete his hunters safety course this month. They even gave him a really neat hat. He is so excited and can't wait to get his license now.

I spent the beginning of the month carting the kids to the doctor and to swim lessons. Trevor had to go see the doctor for a nasty wart that he had on his hand. We had to burn it off and it wasn’t a very fun experience. As I was checking us out and getting Trevor his sticker and sucker and speaking with the receptionist about how much our copay was, Trevor announced: "My wart doesn't hurt as bad. I'm so happy!" Everyone in the doctor's office broke out laughing. It was so cute. And he repeated himself several times. Truly, truly, happy that his wart didn't hurt anymore. To reward him for being such a big boy we stopped off at Arctic Circle and got him a courtesy cone.

Swim lessons were a huge success for us this year. We have only been able to do one session so far, but are hoping to get another one done in August before Ellen starts school. Ella completed level 2 and Trevor was in a pre-school level. We are just happy that he is alive and didn’t drown. They both loved getting to swim everyday and Levi and I got to bond a little more while waiting for them.
Ellen and Trevor also got a unique experience in the middle of this month when they got to go for a train ride with my Aunt Linda and Uncle Paul. The ride that was supposed to be an hour long ended up being almost 2 1/2 hours after getting pushed into the siding a couple of times, but they loved the whole thing. Both came back home telling me all about the train. We are so glad they were able to get this experience.

The middle of the month also brought a trip to Boise for us for the Hill Family Reunion and Katie’s half-marathon. It was an all women’s marathon and I am proud to announce that we finished it in 2 hours and 22 minutes. I ran it with my sister Annie and besides being taken for lesbians at the beginning of the race, blistered feet and an achy knee, it all went well. I am so glad that I was able to have this experience and to do it with my sister. Thanks to all those who helped support me financially for this race.

Ellen finished up her piano lessons at the end of the month with a piano party at her piano teachers. They had a party and ate dinner and got to play a song they learned. Landon said she did fabulously. (I missed it because I was at the Twilight premiere. I know… where are my priorities, right, but I still think I would do the same thing if I had to do it again.) Trevor has started potty training at night and seems to be doing well with this new endeavor. Levi continues to learn new words everyday and has become a climber.
Love you all!

Landon, Katie, Ellen, Trevor and Levi

GREEN!!

I have gotten fairly far behind in my postings lately. A large part of that is because I was still waiting on pictures from my half marathon so that I could post about that, but I still haven't gotten copies from Annie and I am giving up on waiting for them to post. So hopefully in the next couple of days I will bombard you with posts and just maybe I will get the pictures for the half marathon as well.

As I am sure you all remember our house is constantly a work in progress. That is what you get when you buy remodel houses. It just depends on what stage of the remodel you are at. We finished the kitchen a couple of months ago, and decided that this summer was going to be about the yard. When we bought this house almost two years ago the market in Pocatello had not crashed yet. We had a low budget and literally this house was the only suitable option in our price range. I knew that the inside was small and that it would need a lot of work to make it comfortable, but what really made me okay with buying this house was the yard.

Our backyard here is huge! We get a little extra space back there because of the canal easment. While the backyard was FAR from beautiful when we bought it I could see the potential. The house had been vacant for a year and the lawn had not been watered. In fact when we first looked at it the weeds in the backyard were waist high. But we wondered with a little tender love and care what we could make of it. The front lawn has been a simple fix. We began watering it and trimming it up. Spray it for the weeds and it looks great. The backyard has been a different story.

The first spring we lived here, much to our surprise we learned that there was still some grass in the backyard. That gave us hope that we wouldn't need to replant. We tried diligently last year to make it work, but to no avail. The weeds far too easily took over what little grass we had. So, we decided this year it was time to do something about it.

In May I took Roundup to the entire backyard. No small task I might add, and killed everything. All of the weeds and what little grass we had. Then came the great debate. Do we plant or sod. Seeding is so much cheaper, but with our lack of sprinkle system and not being able to put one in without some major overhaul to our back porch, we ended up deciding that sod was the way to go. It took us a couple of months to dig up the cash and the time, but finally on July 2nd we got it in.

I felt like a giddy little girl while we were rolling it out. Sod does so much for instant gratification. Our yard looks like a completely different place. We only had enough money to do the front half of the yard, but the back half is only going to be half grass (the other half a fire pit and sandbox) so really we did most of the grass we will need. Since then it has been a constant vigilance to water the beloved sod. Without a system it keeps our water running fairly constantly but it is so worth it. I can't wait until I let the kids go play on the toys on it. To fill up the swimming pool and not have to worry about all of the mud it will make. Yeah for GREEN!

Our process in pictures, oh and words:

The other part of this process was finishing up the kitchen project. Ever since we moved in my back porch has been a cabinet shop. Landon and Eric have kept it busy doing projects for my house and side jobs for Eric. With the finish of the kitchen I was promised that the cabinet shop would be removed to the shop. So, I made that part of the backyard project. We made a bonfire of all of the old kitchen cabinets and all of the scrap wood that had taken up shop on my back porch and set it ablaze. Surprisingly enough the above picture is after hours of work cleaning it out. Normally you could only walk through a path on the porch to the back yard.

Landon the fireman!

The kids loved the fire.

Landon thought the ash would be good for the soil so we spread it all over before rotatilling and leveling the ground for the sod.

The kids were so patient with us as Landon and I spent days working on the backyard well after their bedtimes and into the dark. But they were troopers!

The finished product!!!

Levi's New Trick

Levi has decided that he is a climber. He has always tried to be a climber, but he has finally figured it out. He climbs on everything, the couch, the chairs and his most favorite spot seems to be the table. When he achieves his goal he is so proud of himself and so stinking cute. I decided to take a picture to share his new achievement the other day.

As I got the camera out to take the picture I realized that Levi had a new trick that I didn't even know about. He says "Cheese" when he thinks his picture is being taken. I didn't even know he knew how to say cheese, but he does. I think he learned this trick from his siblings. Whenever we take pictures both Ellen and Trevor sing out together "CHEESE" incessantly. And now, we have a third to add to the chorus.