New Hair Cut

I found out a lady at church has a salon in her basement.  I made an appointment and got a hair cut!  It has been a while since I last had my hair cut and I am happy with it!  Thanks Brooke for doing it for me!  My girls are now asking when it will be their turn to go get their hair cut.  It told them we will do it soon!  I love the new look!

Last Day of School 2013

Today was Dillon's last day of school for the year 2012-2013

This year has brought a lot of changes for Dillon.  Entering into 1st grade, eating lunch at school, but the biggest change was the move from Longview Elementary in  Murray were he got to ride a bus to Northlake Elementary in Toole were he either gets a ride to and from school or he walks with the other kids. (we are 1.25 miles from the school so it is a little bit of a walk)

Dillon seemed to really excel and start to do really well after we moved, so in a lot of ways seeing him do the things he has done because of the move has been very worth it!  He is excelling in math.  Speech, reading and spelling are still the area's we have to work on the most.

All three of the 1st grade classes put on a program for us today and then we got to take our kids home.  It was a very patriot program.  It was neat to watch him singing, even though some of the songs were a very fast pace song, he did so well!

Dillon we are so proud of you and we hope that this next year is even better for you!
We love you!

Spring 2013 school pictures

The 1st grade program

Dillon and Mrs. Willis his 1st grade teacher.  He even helped me make a gift to give her for her new baby that is due soon.

Dillon worked hard and earned this scooter.  He was so excited as his bike is still not ride able for him to ride.  Also most of the kids in the neighborhood have scooters because of all the little weeds in our area that cause flat tires.  He had so much fun on it today!

Graduating Kindergarten

This last Friday, Jennilyn or Jen as she goes by at school (her choice not mine so I go with it) Graduated from Kindergarten.

When I heard some of the songs they sang I turned to my dad who was able to come and said, I seem to remember singing some of these songs when I was in kindergarten, he shook his head yes.  I had not heard I'm a VIP or No one else can Smile My smile in many years.  It was fun to hear Jennilyn singing it.

Jen with her diploma

This is two classes.  You can barley see Jen on the front row.

Thanks Papa Jack for joining us for this event.

School is now over for Jennilyn, but as her sisters will be starting preschool this fall and she is moving into 1st grade and Dillon into 2nd I plan to have school hour during the summer so we don't forget what we have learned this year!

Jennilyn, we love you and we are excited for you to move onto 1st grade!  Keep being the good student you are and the loving sister you are!

Having fun with projects

We have been busy with a few projects in our home.  They make me happy and I am loving how our home is coming together and is more and more what we want. Here are some of what we have done.

Our kitchen  windows face the West so we get the heat in there in the late afternoons.  We finally got a ceiling fan in the dinning area of the kitchen.  I never thought I would be so excited, but it feels so good with it going, as right now the a/c is not working.  Thanks Dan for getting it in for us!

This is the before picture of our room above the garage.  That we have turned into a office/craft room/guest room

This is Dan taking apart the bottom shelf.  It was a wall built and hung on the wall.  It was too high to be a desk so we took it out carefully so that we could reuse some of the wood.  Glad we had bought a shop vac, as it helped clean up all the sheet rock nicely!

Here is the office with the desks the table for crafts (sorry about the mess.  I have been working on a project for girls camp that is in 2 weeks)

These are some of the cubby shelves that Dan made from the wood he took down from the long shelf.   It has really helped get things put away and use the space more efficiently.

What fun we have had.  It has been good for us!

Busy

I have been busy the last few weeks scanning pictures for the Burke side of the family.  I have completed 2 books so far and have 4 more to get done of the ones I currently have.  I have also been asked to make some car seat canopy's for some of our family.  Yesterday I tried something different on one of them.  I put the babies name on it.  I hope they like it.  Now I am just trying to decided if I am going to do names on a couple of girl ones.

Making Butter

I have never made butter before.  I was getting ready to go to the store and buy more butter when Dan's cousin's wife told me she needed to churn her butter before going to bed.  I asked her how to make my own butter and she told me what she did.  So I got the stuff and did it!

 I got 1 qt of heavy whipping cream.

added 2 T of  Real Sea Salt (that is my salt of choice now days when I have salt) (Salt is optional)

Then we churned the whipping cream in the mixer until it separated from the buttermilk.  Then we strained in a colander and rinsed with cold water and then we wrapped it up in a cheese cloth to squeeze out the extra water.

The whole process took about 10-15 min.

The blue dish is my butter dish (and only some of the butter is there) and the other is 2 cups of buttermilk, that I will save and use for cooking.

Thanks Jessi for giving me a simple way to make raw butter for myself.

Home Improvements

We have lived here for 4 months now.  We are loving our home, and we bought the stuff to fix the missing shingles on the roof including a taller ladder then we had to get up to the roof.

We have not done a lot of  home improvement work on the house yet, but I am so proud of what I did yesterday.

This is my front door.  I hated not having any privacy with it, but I loved the light that it gave me.  After much thought, I went to the store and bought this:

This is a $5 fix to my problem.

This is now what my front door and laundry room window look like:

I am loving the look with the front door, I have the privacy that I wanted, but yet I can still see the shadow of someone at the door when they come to the door, and I am loving the look of the light this morning coming into the room from that door.  It is not as harsh as it was. 

I am loving the look in the laundry room, I have all the right light but don't have to worry about everyone looking in my laundry room window and seeing everything in there.  I loved the way it looked yesterday afternoon when the sun was hitting it the most, it just made the room look great!


I am glad that I found a cheap fix and that I am loving how it turned out!  Now onto other projects!

Easter 2013

Easter has now come and gone.  We did a few things differently this year and I feel like it was one of our best Easters ever.

We started off getting together with my sister and some of her friends and our kids to decorate eggs on Wed.  On Saturday we dyed Easter Eggs at our home using Kool-Aid and warm water.   As you can see we got some good color's!

I then put together the plastic eggs with 4 jelly beans and 4 quarters in the eggs.  The kids were to find 6 eggs with their names on them, Only 5 of them had the candy and quarters, the 6th one was empty and we then talked about the tomb being empty when Christ was risen.

On Sunday we got up and we had the kids find the 12 eggs that had the Easter Story in them.  We then talked about the Easter Story.

One of the Easter Story Eggs

Then for breakfast we went into the kitchen and we had roll dough, we talked about how the dough was the tomb and a marshmallow was Christ body.  We then explained how when they put the body in the tomb they used spices so we dipped the marshmallows in butter then then in cinnamon and sugar and rolled them up in the dough.  When they came out of the oven they were hollow (empty), so we talked again about the tomb being empty and why we celebrate Easter.

Later we got ready for church.  We had a good time at church, Jennilyn even gave a great talk on The week before Easter in primary.

We had so much fun spreading the celebration over a few days and the activities that we did that we have decided to do these things again

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter.  Here is one of my favorite pictures I saw on Facebook today.

Love you all!

Difficult Times

Life has hit us with a hard one right now.  We were excited and had started to tell people that we were pregnant again, when I started having some sharp pains.  I think I scared Jennilyn when she saw me having one of the pains shooting through my chest and couldn't breath.

Dan called a neighbor and they got one of their daughters who teaches the twins in primary over to watch kids  and Dan took me to the ER.  We had thought of going out of town for the weekend since Dan's niece Afton was getting baptized, but Dan really felt like we shouldn't go.  I was hard to convincing  that we should not go, but I am glad that he listened to the spirit after everything that went wrong on Saturday.

We got to the hospital and they got me right back since I was complaining of chest pain they did an ekg just to make sure I was not having a heart attack.

I had woken up on Saturday with a little cramping, but drinking water helped with that, but I stayed in bed and read a book.  Dan brought me breakfast in bed and later a granola bar.  Just as Jennilyn brought me some silverware to eat lunch with, I started having shooting pain that went right to my heart and I was having a hard time breathing.  I told Jennilyn to go get Dan.  Dan came up and I had another shooting pain.  I told him who he could call to come and stay with the kids.  I got my socks and shoes on and with the babysitter got here, we left for the hospital.

I told the Dr. that the first thing that went through my mind when I started to having these pains was the pains I had when I had a tubal ruppter in 2006 and lost my right tube.  My symptoms were not the same as then.

They had me have a chest x-ray and sent me back for a ultrasound.

They took lots of pictures and even got a baby heart beat, but the baby was not were it should be.  They told me they were going to do an ultrasound of my legs to make sure I did not have blood clots, but then when they came back in to do that they said no we are taking you back to the ER.  When we got back there, they told me that  my left tube had ruptured and that they were sending me into surgery.

When they got in there they found damage to my left ovary as well.  They took out the ovary, and left tube, but also found that my bladder  had grown up over my right ovary with scar tissue.  So they brought in a general surgeon to make sure all was well there, they took off a cyst that I knew was on the right ovary and sent it to be tested.  The cyst has been there since before I got pregnant with Dillon, but non of my dr's had wanted to do anything about it.  They took out my appendix too as it was about to burst.

The Dr told me that the type of cyst that I had was probably the reason that I had so many tubal pregnancies  and that it was a miracle that I have had the kids that I have had since it has been there from the beginning.

I stayed in the hospital overnight and came home on Sunday afternoon.

My mom and dad are here to help out and for that I am grateful for.  I am glad their schedule is such that is allowing them to be here for me.

As for now the only way I will be able to have any more children is to do invetrofertiliztion as I still have my uterus and one ovary.  My  other option is to adopt.

So for now our family is done growing, we will see were the Lord takes us as we have felt like there were more to come to our family, but maybe in a different way.

I feel the Lord is watching out for me and my family.  I am grateful that my husband listened to the spirit and not to what his wife wanted.

Thanks for all your prayers and love and support.

Annette

Greatful

Can I just say that this move to our first home has been a blessing for us!  I use to struggle with Dillon to do homework, now  he wants to do his homework right when he gets home.

It is also nice to get to know my neighbors a little and we have started to carpool the kids to school in the morning.  Dillon has even been walking home from school with them (that is starting to save me on my trips back and forth to the school).

Dan has even noticed that the change has been good for him too.  We are enjoying teaching our class at church and this Sunday we get to talk in church too.

I hope you all have a great Valentines Day!

Netty

Happy Birthday Ruth and Irene!

I know this is a few days late, but we had internet frailer for a few days...now here we are!

Wow! It has been 4 years since these little girls joined our family!

Happy Birthday Ruth Lois and Irene Marlyn!

We love you!

2012 in Review!

Wow 2012 has gone by quickly!

Dan has kept busy with his job, he did have to travel a few times this year including going to Alaska for the 1st time.

Annette has been busy as a stay at home mom, babysitting  and in July started delivering newspapers.  She was glad to finally quite when we got ready to move to our new home.

Dillon lost his 1st two teeth this year.  He is now in 1st grade and is 7 years old.  He is getting tall and is usually kind to his sisters most of the time.

Jennilyn started Kindergarten this year and is loving to learn!   Both her and Dillon are starting to read, and are doing really well.

Ruth and Irene have been busy this year.  They both finally potty-trained (yes no more diapers).  They are learning their letters and learning to write.

The biggest news we have is that the end of Sept we decided to start looking for a home thinking it would take us a while to get into one.  By the end of Oct we had an offer in and we closed on Dec 9th.
We moved our things in on Dec 15th and we finally got to sleep in the house on Dec 21st.  We are loving the space that we have as it is a  2 story home with a basement.  There are things that we are learning to fix as we go, and we are still getting settled in, but we are loving the home and it feels like it is our place.  Everything moved so fast that we felt like it was a dream in some ways.


We hope all of you have a great holiday and that the Lord will bless you this next year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2012 Christmas Card

From Our Family to Yours!

Happy 7th Birthday Dillon!

Dillon's 1st Christmas Eve with Great-Grandma Burke~ This was Grandma's 1st time meeting Dillon.

Happy 7th Birthday Dillon Archibald!

7 years ago we welcomed our first child!  Dillon has been such a joy to have in our family!

Dillon, you got your name from mom's maiden name and your middle name is after your Great-Grandpa Archibald who is the inventor of Scotch tape.

You are so loving with your sisters and share so nice.  You are the big brother mommy always wished she had!

We love you and we hope today is a good day for you!

Love,

Mom

Dillon's 1st grade picture

Updated Family Pictures 2012

In September we had some updated family pictures done by a family friend's daughter who is studing to be a photographer     I thought she did a great job and  we will have to try and do one more setting with her before she leaves on her mission next summer.

Most of the people who read this will have seen the pictures on Facebook, but since my blog is also emailed to family and friends there are some of my favorites for you to enjoy!  A big shot out to Savanna Skinner for doing these for us!  (Yes Grandma and Grandpa this is Jean Skinner's granddaughter).

Dan, Dillon, Jennilyn, Ruth, Irene and Annette

Irene, Dillon, Ruth and Jennilyn

Ruth

Dillon

Irene

Jennilyn

Jennilyn and Irene

Jennilyn

Jennilyn, Ruth and Irene...I am going to blow this one up for their bedroom!

Our Family

Irene having fun with Mommy

Kids being kids

Irene

Ruth

Dillon

Jennilyn not wanting to do pictures anymore!

The kids were done by now!