The Flood

After our vacation we arrived home to 28 inches of snow and sub zero temperatures. It was a lot of snow! Our parking lot was just mountains of snow with little canyons to drive through. Unfortunately, we didn't go out and take any pictures of it. During this last week it has been above freezing every day, and the past day and a half it has been raining. A creek runs behind our house. All the melting and raining has turned our little creek into a pond! Now, no one needs to worry, it has to rise many, many feet before it starts lapping at our back door. We just thought it was amazing, we went to bed with a creek and in the morning it looked like this...

Oh! and it supposed to start snowing again tonight!

Chatty Charlie

Dexter has been quite the chatter box lately. He is so funny. He learned how to make the "mmmmm" sound and it sounds like he even says mom! I just love it. It melts my heart. He is just the happiest baby. This video of him is after he just woke up for the day and has a full tummy. Gotta love it!

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*sorry the video quality is poor. I couldn't get it to upload on blogger so I had to use smilebox and it lost some quality through that. It is still pretty cute though!

Also, the Early Access gals came after we got home to see Dexter and he isn't quite making all the sounds the speech pathologist thought he should be. Nothing big, and she thinks it due to the fluid in his ear. So we get to do fun stuff like talk into bowls to make the sound louder, teach him how to spit (or blow raspberries), and some other stuff. He loves it when we do them and he has started to try to imitate us. Dexter gets a tube put in his ear on the 17th of February. The ENT doctor's wife passed away, so things got pushed back a few times. Hopefully it won't be any later than that.

Cookie Basics 101

One morning Dexter was pretty cranky and was only happy if he was with me and in my arms. I was running out of one handed projects and finally decided to put him in the front carrier and see what would happen. He loved it and I loved having two hands. I decided that after a long frustrated morning, we needed a pick me up. So, we made cookies. He was just fascinated and loved looking at everything in the bowl and was quite the helper with the measuring cups.

Called

The week before we left for our Christmas vacation, I got called to be the Relief Society secretary.  I was a little nervous but had this nagging feeling that they were grooming me for something.  You see, the rest of the presidency were students and their husbands are all graduating in May... see my train of thought...grooming me.  Well, I guess that my grooming period was the 2 weeks we were gone 'cause the Sunday we got back, they reorganized the presidency and I got released from Relief Society secretary and put in as...the 2nd counselor.  Maybe they are still grooming me and were just afraid I wasn't going to learn, so they bumped it up a notch.  I guess only time will tell...

7 Months Old

Dexter is 7 months old.  I know I say it each time, but wow!  Where did the time go?  He can now sit up by himself and he loves to play with his new blocks he got for Christmas from the Castillo family.   He is the happiest baby, is always smiling, and he loves everyone.  We finally found some baby food he will eat.  He likes peas.  Yay!  He has also been refusing to drink from his bottle but loves to drink from our cups, with the advise from one of the pediatric nurses, we gave him a sippy cup to drink from and he loves it.  Silly boy.  I guess we'll do what we can so he'll stay hydrated. He is so much fun to have around and I can't even remember him not being a part of our family.  We just love this boy! 

The Rest of the Trip

The rest of our trip was spent flitting between everyone.  That is one thing about having both families live so close together, it's a delicate balancing act to meet everyone's plans.  We ended the trip staying with London and Alissa and getting to play with Orion.  Dexter really wanted to play with him.  We would put them both on the floor and Dexter would try to grab his hand and Orion just stared at him wishing he could play :) 

January 3rd was both Orion and Chloe's blessing day.  Darn us, we didn't get any pictures at the parties afterwards.  The blessings were beautiful.  I love to see my brothers performing thier preisthood and fatherly duties.  It is wonderful.  Chloe looked so cute in her white dress and bow, and Orion looked handsome in his white vested onsie.

Monday the 4th, was the BSU Fiesta Bowl game (which they won)!  We went over to the Loveless' house since we hadn't seen them for a while.  Ashton enjoyed the game with Curtis and I got Dexter in bed and read books to Lydia and Brody and did an "I Spy" book with Lydia.  I fell asleep though and woke up right when the game ended. 

Tuesday night was our last night in Twin, so both families came over and we just hung out for a little bit. Dexter had been sick that day but was feeling better by that evening. 

Wednesday came and DeeAnn and the uncles took us up to Boise so we could catch our flight.  Half way there we got a call that our flight had been canceled.  There was a blizzard in Omaha and all flights were cancelled.  So, we got to stay with the Higleys again!  Well, that night both Ashton and I got sick.  Stomach flu sick.  It was the longest night EVER!  Finally the morning comes and we can both start to hold something down but were exhausted.  Our flight was showing as "on time", it left at 2:45, and we were just praying we would be well enough to go.  Blake called one of his friends over and they gave us blessings.  I love the church and I love the power of the priesthood.  Well, thanks to the Higleys we made it to the airport, and made our flight to Las Vegas.  It was the longest hour and 40 minutes ever!!!  Luckily we arrived without making a scene, but during our 3 hour layover Ashton found some Dramamine (for motion sickness).  Love that stuff!  Our flight into Omaha was late at night and we got to take the car seat with us since it wasn't full so Dexter slept the whole way which allowed Ashton and I some shut eye as well.  Kevin picked us up again and took us home.

Aside from the fridgid temperatures and the feet of snow, home was a sight for sore eyes.  When we layed Dexter in his crib he just stared at everything with a look of disbelief.  The next day he bawled when we put him in his car seat to go grocery shopping.  Can you blame him though?  He finally was home!

As a side note, Dexter was supposed to have a tube put in on Friday but we canceled the appointment because we were all sick.  Come to find out, it was going to be cancelled anyway, because our doctor had a family emergency come up.  The appointment will possibly be on February 3rd, but no one knows how long he will be gone.  We will keep you up to date on that!

2010 Celebrations

For New Years Eve, we went over to the Jenks' house and celebrated with them.  We had a small little party with Grandma and Grandpa Jenks, Uncle Stratton, Uncle Crayson, Ashton, me, and Dexter.  We munched on the usual party menu of chips, crackers, cheese dip, cheese, and meat, and we watched part of a movie.  Ashton isn't much of a partier, so we ended up going back to London and Alissa's and put Dexter to bed.  Shortly after, Ashton and I followed suit.   I know.  Kinda lame, but that's my husband.  He would rather wake up in the New Year well rested then sleep deprived.   We were also pretty lax on taking pictures throughout the whole trip too, so we didn't even get any on New Years Eve.  Bummer.

New Years Day came and yes, we awoke well-rested and energized.  We met my family and the Bringhursts at Idaho Joe's for our annual New Year's Day breakfast.  The Higley's made it down too, so it was fun to see them again.  Then we went to Target and found some pretty ribbon for 75% off. 

For dinner, we headed back over to the Jenks for a seafood fest.  London, Alissa, and Orion joined us this time and Ashton finally got his fill of seafood.  I even tried tilapia, which I'm sad to report, I didn't care for.  I guess seafood just isn't for me.  A game of Killer Bunnies was played, and then we just hung out.

 What a fun start to 2010!

Christmas 2009

This Christmas has been fun.  We made it safely to Twin Falls before all of the storms hit both Omaha and Boise.  The Higley family picked us up from the airport and we had a short, but fun time with them.  We had a Christmas Eve, Eve with Curtis and his family where Santa came and surprised the kids.  When he walked through the door, Brody ran to him and cried "Santa!" and hugged his leg.  For Christmas Eve we went to John and Diane's house and did a white elephant exchange and Sam and John entertained us.  Sam sang and played his guitar and John got out his accordian.  It was a fun time.

Christmas came and we were spoiled.  Spoiled so much we have to borrow another suitcase just to get everything home.  It's a good thing we are flying Southwest and didn't already take our maximum baggage allowance.  My parents bought themsleves a Wii for Christmas, so we have had fun playing that.  Curtis and Crystal came over and we had a fun sleepover with all of the cousins together.  When all of the kids were alseep, the adults had a Wii tournament.  It was a riot.  We got some cute pictures of all four cousins together.  Dexter also got to taste his first candy cane, mmmmmmm.

We finally got to meet Orion and Chloe and they are both so much fun.  They make Dexter look huge!  Brett and Devon both got to call on Christmas day, and it was so good to get to talk to them.  They both have an accent which made it fun to just hear them speak.  It might be the last time we get to talk to them before they come home in August!  YAY!

Ashton also had his birthday.  He is 27 years old.  Ashton doesn't want parties so I never plan one.  His mom did it anyway (thanks DeeAnn!) and we had Ashton's favorite soup and played a game with all our family.  We've had a nice time.

Well, that wraps up 2009.  We have had a crazy year.  I can only hope that 2010 can be jut as exciting as 2009.

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