Kiley 2 Months Old

Nice milky smile!

Baby Kiley is a thinker. This morning she discovered she could taste her hand. As she licked her little hand her eyebrows were furrowed. She often has that same expression on her face while she eats. She smiles and has started to coo and comminicate in ways other than crying. She's started to have regular sleeping times and I'm hoping she'll drop one of her night feedings soon. She is a lot of fun! Cailin and Colten are always wanting to hold her. She likes them and they help me a lot by entertaining her!

Drifts of Fun

I've heard people complain about the snow here. I guess for me it just reminds me of being a kid, listening to the wind blow outside my bedroom window during the night and just waiting in bed for the phone to ring. That phone call would be part of a calling tree the school district in Teton Valley sets up to tell families that school is cancelled. They would cancel school for a blizzard, bad roads or if it was 20 below zero. (It was 30 below here a couple weeks ago and they didn't even blink, Cailin went to school.) The funny thing is that when I would lie in my bed and wait for that much anticipated phone call, all the sleep would flee from my eyes and as soon as Dad would come downstairs and annouce the wonderful news, all us kids would get up, get our snow clothes on and go out to play. We would play "King of the Tube", sled and ski behind the snowmobile, and sled down the hills in the mountains behind our house. I remember one year our road had drifted so bad that it made these really fun hills for a sled behind the snowmachine. We played all day and into the night, (we probably filled the snowmachine tanks at least twice.) That night we were still sledding in the dark when the piercing lights of Kunz's John Deere tractor plowed up our road to get their mom out. The next day the snow plows finally got the road cleared. This made for fun banks to ski up while being pulled behind the snomachine, which is kinda like water skiing. We'd see who could get up the highest. Ahh memories of being a kid...

Wind and Snow

After a couple days of some really nice snow, the wind started. It blew the snow into drifts that are just solid. It has been blowing hard, I mean really hard for four days now!

The Best Christmas

Cailin and Colten were so excited on Christmas Eve. The night before we went to cousin Scott's baptism in Livingston, then had pizza at their house. We got home late that night. Christmas Eve I mostly spent cooking for our family dinner. The kids watched a couple little Christmas Specials and were really wound up. We had Sparkling Cider at dinner that we ALL drank out of tall Glass goblets. It was a lot of fun. After we all cleaned up and got wound up some more, we watched "Joy to the World". We left some cookies out for Santa, said our family prayer and the kids went to bed. It was 7:30pm and we were up untill 11pm going through things, wrapping gifts and stuff. We undid all the toys from their boxes so we didn't have to spend Christmas morning cutting cardboard, and snipping plastic ties and stuff. Kiley was having a bad night so we could've been done earlier. Plus I put the bouncy seat together wrong twice! I have to say though it was the best Christmas. The kids got along, were really grateful and were so happy. We just relaxed all day. In fact Colten and Daniel didn't even change out of their pj's all day.

We want to thank Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunts, Uncles, Siblings, Parents and Santa! Here are some pictures with the kids and their Christmas gifts.

Santa gave Colt a backhoe, Brooke gave him a roller, and Cailin gave him a skidsteer. They are all CAT and make LOUD noises!

The kids love to have fun with their dad!

Cailin got a Sleeping Beauty dress and crown.

Just hanging out Christmas day.

Home for the Holidays

Kiley in her blessing dress that Aunt Pat made. Every time Daniel blesses one of our children he's worried that they will cry. They never do , but he does!

Cailin and Colten got new church clothes.
We made a gingerbread house!

Kiley likes to be in the swing,unless she's being held. This is the outfit Michelle gave her.

Decorating cookies on another night.

Decorating the Christmas tree. It is so tall it had to be put in the center of our house because we have vaulted ceilings.

Got Static Electricity?

The other day Daniel walked down the hall to turn the heater up and was shocked when he touched the thermistat. He jumped and said, "Why do I keep getting shocked!" I said "Haven't you ever hear of static electricity?" Then I rubbed my feet on the floor and walked over to him and touched him on the nose. Of course he was shocked that I could shock him! So of course this ended up in a shocking shock war. Cailin and Colten started shocking each other and us- which was no shock at all.

Anyways, so static builds up more when the air is cold and dry. I imagine the 30 below weather here may have something to do with the static electricity building up in our home. You can do something about it. Mix 1 teaspoon of fabric softner with a quart of water and spray it on the carpet around your house. It's not shocking that your kids will have fun doing this little job! It really does work!

Christmas Tree Hunting

I was telling them to smile and say "cheese" and at that very moment Colt says: Say "saw"! Because he got to hold the saw.
I remember when I was a kid going with my dad on the snowmachine to get a Christmas tree in snow that was at least three feet deep. Now we've made it a tradition to get the tree together as a family. We sang Christmas songs on the drive and talked about the fun things we had planned for the next couple weeks. Soon we found a spot where there were a bunch of potentials. We passed three kids, a saw and the tree over a fence tonight as the sun started to go down. Cailin and Colten enjoyed breaking the ice and checking out all the different trees. They hiked up little hills and it was fun to see how excited they were. Kiley was wrapped up in blankets and slept the whole time.

They tried to drag it out!

I'm just glad that walking and hiking is actually fun again!

It was getting dark on our way back to the truck.

These pictures don't do justice to what it felt like being where we were. You could look out over the whole valley and see the mountains on the other side, and not a light or sign of human life, except of course for the fence and entry way.

Sledding

Last week we got just enough snow to sled down the road. The kids really wanted to go sledding, but the road was the only place slick enough without tall grass. This always worried me because even though it is a dirt road away from any main roads someone has been building up the road from us and there has been plenty of traffic including big dump trucks hauling gravel. And they don't even slow down when they drive past our house. Well the kids wouldn't give this one up so I bundled Kiley up and put her in her car seat in the car and parked it in the road on the hill, that way anyone coming down the hill would have to slow down. By then they'd see us. We got lucky and there was no traffic the hour we were there. The next day the snow melted.

Harrison Montana

It was a beautiful cold morning here. A perfect day to sell some bulls! Today was the annual bull sale for Sitz Angus. They had 400 bulls that averaged $4100. The top seller brought $ 30,000! We went out after getting Cailin from school, had lunch and came home for a while. Then we went back out for the end. It was cold, but they had big heaters going in the shop/sale arena. I'm glad the big day is over, next they deliver a lot of bulls all over the country.

Kiley is one month old!

Today was the first day she finally decided she likes the pacifier. But only the hospital one! She is now a whole month old. The days are long, the nights short, but time has flown by!

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year we went to Daniel's parents home in Wellsville, Utah. We stayed the night Tuesday at my parents house. They are re-doing the outside of the house and it looks really good. Too bad I forgot my camera and don't have any pictures of the fun things we did over the break. We went to Smith and Edwards in Ogden and bought some Christmas presents for the kids. I got some new jeans - by Wrangler: Q-baby and Cash. They are a lot like Wranglers but are more flattering to a body that's had 3 children! Daniel got a new 70 foot rope. I actually roped with his other one when we were in Nebraska and I have no idea how he holds onto all of it and doesn't get tangled. After that we headed to his folks'. We had a nice dinner on Thanksgiving with all the trimmings. The next morning I decided to be crazy and go shopping early with Daniel's sister Rebecca. She is a really good bargain shopper and knew where some great deals were. Her husband Chris drove us around and was really patient! Daniel had some help taking care of Kiley and it was such a nice break. We had to come home on Friday because Daniel had to move some heifers to get ready for the annual bull sale here. It was a quick trip but fun. Daniel's dad made these geese from some old barn wood he found when we were at Lonestar.

Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong

My grandparents surprised me and stopped by last week. It was really good to see them. I'm glad we live close again.