February Birthdays and Other Stuff

 This Month started out with Calvis 3rd birthday! Where did the time go?! He is such a fun little guy and was so excited for his birthday. He is super in love with trains as I have prob said that before.  He was way excited to get some new trains for his birthday. Here we all are in the morning opening some presents and having birthday waffels. He also kept telling everyone his was 7 while he held up 5 fingers. We will have to work on the whole 3 thing.

 We had a little party for calvi with dinner and swimming with some friends and family. He wanted nachos and his batman cake. He really likes batman and so he was way excited about his cake. Yes I am pretty proud of it cause I made it.

 Jodi really liked the cake to. We had such a fun evening with everyone. We got home that night and calvi walked in the door and said "man that was the funnest birthday ever!"  That made me so happy and glad I went through all the work for my awesome little guy.

Calvi was so excited about all the stuff he got for his birthday he hauled it around all day. It was pretty funny he actually played equally with all the stuff. 

 Here is Tysen helping calvi read his birthday card.

 We had more family come in to town to visit for his birthday that weekend and he was really excited about more cake. He was kinda funny cause he didn't want anyone to sing or say happy birthday cause "it was already my birthday!" so we just had a party NOT a birthday party.

 Calvi is really good with his trains he builds all kinds of crazy tracks it is really neat to watch him. He could play with them all day. My sister asked him what is something that your mom says to you a lot? He thought and said "pick up your trains". That is probably right.

 Little jodi bugs. 

 We have been sick off and on all month and one sunday we were all super sick and didn't go to church. The next day calvi came downstairs dressed like this in his church cloths and said "mom I am going to my meeting. I will go to save you a seat ok mom, and you come to church ok." It was pretty funny and he was super mad when I said we missed church cause we were sick and he told me he was not sick and he was going to church. At lest I guess I have taught him well.

 Calvi has gotten really good at puzzles. Here he is with his mickey mouse puzzle he did.

 One day I found jodi in the dryer and calvi wanted to jump on in to. They thought they were so funny.

For Valentines day we had heart pizzas and Jello. Calvi thought it was super awesome. 

 We had some family come to visit it was fun to hang out with Gma and Gpa Stuart.

 It is fun when the kids actually get along and have fun together. This is one of those times.

 There are a ton of birthdays in our family in February. Here is calvi with Tysen and calvi hangin out at a birthday party.

 It has still been snowing and so we took advantage of it. After work one day calvi and Ty went and make a sweet snow slide in our back patio. We still use it, the kids will be so sad when it all melts. Calvi is so sweet he said "dad made a snow slide with me cause he loves me."

Jodi is so nice she has taken intrest in dolls. Here she is with her baby that I am sure I have wrapped up in a blanket a 100 times a day! But she is being so sweet to them it is fun to see her like girly things.

And here is Jodi with her little piggies. Her hair is growing and getting pretty long. The kids have had so much fun and way to many birthday parties this month. We wont know what to do next month when we are not having a party every other day! Thanks to all the family and friends we have been with or who have come to visit us this last month it has been so fun.

A Happening New Year

 We started out the new year in Twin Falls visiting our families. We had a late christmas dinner at Tys grandma flints house. The next day Tys brother  (who got married a few months back)  had their wedding open house in Buhl.  We had a lot of fun visiting with family and friends. I had a lot of pictures from these events but I am sad to have lost them I will explain later. The only picture I have are from the ones I took off my camera to send to my brother who is on a mission. The rest of the time we were in twin we spent with my parents. Here are the kids driving the jeep in g pas shop.  Calvi liked to stop and get gas a lot.

 Calvi loves trains so he was so excited when grandpa got his trains out to play with. That was calvis favorite part of the whole trip.

 We had fun playing in the snow it was super cold though. As we were leaving it was in the negative degrees. We drove our truck to Twin cause our car is kinda broken, well we just dont like to drive it for long trips till we fix it. Anyway the trucks heater wasn't working.  My wonderful parents were so nice to let us take their suburban home so we wouldnt freeze the whole way home. We left the truck to get fixed and my parents brought it back when they came for my nieces birthday. The suburban was nice and roomy we loved the ride. A few days later I wanted to go visit an old friend I was going to pick her up on my way to twin and spend the day with her while my mom watched the kids. We headed out on our way and something crazy happend.

 Here is what is started out to be I was driving and had the suburban set on cruze control and all the sudden it stopped and the speedometer needle started bouncing around and the gas wouldnt let me go anywhere. I pulled off the side of the road and popped the hood to see what was going on. I saw what I thougth was steam but as I opened it up I saw a flame of fire. It was not huge but big enough to freak me out and I ran and got calvi out and put him on the side of the road then grabbed jodi. Luckly jodi had a blanket with her. both my kids had no coat or shoes on just socks and their cloths. This is what it looked like while I got the kids out. Thankfully within 5 min a nice guy let us get into his pickup. He was the one who actually took all these picts. He also called 911 and took care of all that, I was just in shock. A semi stopped and they had a fire extinguisher they tried to get the fire out but it as to far gone by then. you can see in the pict above the semi that stopped.

 So long story short I sat in a guys truck and also a police car and watched the whole thing go up in flames. It was insane I have never seen or heard of this happening, the whole time I kept thinking what is even happening. Calvi thougt it was pretty cool cause he got to hang out in cop car and see fire trucks. The fire trucks didnt get there till like 45 min later and so by the time they got there everything was gone. Calvi was also super helpful I was a mess and calvi turned to me and said "it is ok mom these things happen sometimes" I thought ya calvi they dont but he was super sweet and nice about it. My sister jill came to be with the kids I was about 30ish min from pocatello so I called her. It was nice casue she had a car seat with her for jodi. my mom is crazy and drove crazy fast to come see us. I had only talked to her like 15 min before to have her get ready to meet us. Ty and troy met us in pocatello. I am so thankful to have family drop everything to come take care of us.

 Here are some picts my sis took. It pretty much burned everything to the frames and metal. When we went to look it all hit me what was all in there. I am still finding things that I didn't even think of that were there.

 As you can see there was nothing. The only things I could recognize was the part of a phone book and a small pice of my jeans that were in my suitcase in the back. Everything else was GONE. I had a bunch of stuff in there like car seats, we ended up getting some new ones when we got to pocatello to go home in. My camera (which is why I dont have my pictures) amongst my kids coats and shoes and a bunch of other stuff all burnt up to nothing.  On the way home I was still in shock of what had really happend and trying to think of how to regroup after all of it. I felt so bad that I wasnt able to go be with my friend, I was happy that we were all ok, I thougth it was funny how somethign so crazy had just happened I was kinda all over the place. We got home and had nothing to unpack. My sister Brooke was so great to come and bring us dinner. She left and I found an envelope with gift cards wich was something we lost a lot of. I just lost it and started bawling.  Then shortly after we had other frineds come and bring things for the kids new coat boots other stuff to replace things we lost and over the next week we had so many family and friends come and take care of us, bringing us things and money. Although we dont have everything all the way back to what it was in the beginning I feel like we have more. They arent the same thigns but they mean more casue they came from such wonderful people hleping us out. It was such an eye opener to know how many people really do care about us and how many blessings we got from it. I hope when something bad happens to someone I know I can just drop everything to think of a way to help out. It is funny I joke to ty how it is crazy how things work out for a reason every thing happens the way it is suppose to happen. It is so wonderful to see these plans fall into place when at the time they seem so random and crazy. I am at peace with how it all ended I kept thinking I should run back and grab my bag or the shoes, but every time I ran it over in my head something bad happend I am just blessed to know we did the best thing and everyone was ok and that is all that matters.  I learned something, that blessings can come in the form of many things, in our case a burnt up suburban.

 On a happier note here are all the good things that happened the rest of the month. We had some friends give us a camera so I could get right back into taking pictures.

 Jodi's new thing is she has to stand up to the table like a big girl. Yes she falls but I cant really stop her.

 The kids reading books with dad before bed time.

 Calvi got super sick for a week of throwing up and diarrhea.  He just sat on the couch doing nothing with his barf rag cause he refuses to throw up in a bucket. So yes I did a lot of laundry.

 We had Snowfest in Rexburg which was more like slush/mud fest but the kids still had fun.  Tysen was able to come hang with us for the day to.

 The next day we got a TON of snow like I have not seen it snow so much at one time for a long long time. Calvi really likes to go sledding and jodi just loves to be in the snow.

 Clara came to be with us for an afternoon and we had fun playing in the snow.

 They are in a snow ship. Arrrggg they are pirates.

 Jodi loves her dad she just has to be right by him all the time it is pretty cute.

Here is jodi sleeping, she is all over her bed when she sleeps it is pretty funny. I try to go find her and it is like a game of where is jodi. This new year had bought on a lot of crazy stressful things (beside the fire) but I am so thankful to be blessed all along the whole journey of life. We are happy the kids are happy so whatever crazy things come our way hopefully we can keep up the right attitude and push though!

A Very Merry Christmas

We had such a wonderful Christmas this year. We decided that since the kids (well Calvin) actually understood Christmas that we would spend it in our home this year. It was so fun and wonderful to be together and watch the kids be excited about the whole thing. We started to get snow on the 23 and it didn't stop so we also enjoyed the snow during that time and still are. 

The Holidays are a little crazy the kids would be so wound up about things that they would just crash. Here is calvi he just went into the other room to get something and never came back!

Dad was also busy with work and here is Jodi just trying to help out.

Jodi got a little bigger this last while. She can now fit little pigs in her hair it looks so cute until she rips  them out!

Calvi at the park

Jodi telling dad a secret. She is just being silly.

Calvi still likes to ride his bike if we can find a clear path. Jodi chases him and thinks it is super funny.

I took this picture cause jodis hair is super crazy.  After a tub we can get all of it to stick strait out it looks really funny.

For Christmas eve we went to tys moms house to hang out for the evening. We had fun playing and opening some presents.

Here are the new PJ's!

Christmas morning was so fun. Calvi  had been asking for a tool set like his dads and on sunday tyler observed how much calvi still loves trains. He asked me if a tool set is really what we should get him and I didn't know so we asked him if he would want a train set or a tool set and he said "I want a diesle train with a wooden track" so good thing santa knew where to find on on Christmas eve. Santa ened up bringing him a train, he loved it. We helped santa make jodi a little treasure box to put some of her girl stuff in. She loved her little step stool and would sit on it and put all kinds of things inside. It is a good thing that the kids start out young with santa cause there was a lot of things that santa did around the kids that prob would raise all kinds of questions if they were older.

Here we are opening our presents. Crazy but the kids got way to many presents. There were still 3 presents that we opened the next day cause we just told calvi he could open them whenever. He was super content with what he had, and just played all day.

Jodi being a girl. We also got the surprise of my parents on Christmas day. They came and brought my grandparents to visit for a few hrs. Calvi was excited to see them.

We had my sister and her family over to eat dinner and we all went into the other room and I looked around and didn't see jodi so I went to find here and this is what I found. She is a crazy climber.

Here is calvi camping out with his fire his aunt Brookie made him.

This kid loves candy canes so santa brought him a huge one. Yeah for hot chocolate!!!!

Jodi LOVES the snow, she just rolls around in it and laughs it is so funny to watch her play. She doesn't even care if she gets cold she just keeps going.

Calvi's snow angel. Ta-da!!! We had a great Christmas and are so excited for the others to come. Calvi was worried when we took down the tree that dad wouldn't know what house was ours when he got home from work. He is silly.