Lots of Rain and Banana Muffins!

Okay, so with pregnancy brain and being out of the daily habit of journaling, I don't really have much memory of what's happened in the past week. Shad's family is still out of town til Thursday, so we've been subbing for Levi's two paper routes. Last Monday we went out around 4 when the missionaries left from spending their preparation day with us playing games. It was probably somewhere near 100 degrees and it sucked. Shad and Tommy did the shorter route by Shad's parents' house, and I took the longer one by the grocery store (this was because we each knew our respective routes better than the other person). Anywho, I also hadn't really eaten very well that day, and so that combined with the heat and physical effort nearly killed me. I went to the grocery store afterwards to sit down in air conditioning for a while, then to get bacon for BLTs. I barely survived the shopping, cooking and eating. Really, I'm not exaggerating. As soon as I finished my sandwiches, I told Shad to call Scott and Beverly Burris (a new LDS couple in Norton) and cancel our plans to play games with them. It was around 6:30. I lied down and fell asleep for a couple hours. I was sooooo wiped out.

The rest of last week was heavenly with temperatures! Nothing in the triple digits! In fact, everything was between high 80s and mid 90s. This week, we have low 90s down to 75 tomorrow! Mom and Dad, you guys just picked the wrong month to come. July was miserable, but August has been quite the relief. We've also had great rainstorms! Those have helped tremendously in cooling down temperatures. We had one last night, earlier this evening, and now another one is brewing. One night last week a storm came up in the middle of the night and Tommy got scared of the thunder. I rocked him in his room for a while, then tried to put him back in his crib, but he clung on to me for dear life and cried more. I was tired, so I decided I'd just bring him back to my bed for a sleepover. It was nice to get to cuddle my little guy. He was also teething last week, so that was not the first time I got woken up in the middle of the night. He finally had a third tooth cut Sunday morning (on the top) and is still working on getting the partner tooth through. He'll be 13 months tomorrow and it's about time he gets more than just his 2 teeth.

Remember how I talked about the missionaries last week? Well here they are. Meet Elder Michael Scott Riha (for real, that's his name--Michael Scott) and Elder Alexander Jackson, aka Michael Rollins and Rex Alexandre, my cousins. I love these two so much because they're just like my Michael and Rex away from Michael and Rex. Love it.


Interesting thing--last night for dinner we had summer squash from my garden as a side to our spaghetti and meatballs. One of the two looked quite a bit more orange than it ought to have. I was confused. It's skin was also much tougher than the other squash and the seeds were darker and the pulp...well, pulpier. Needless to say, I was pretty skeptical as to whether it would be good or not, but decided to cook it anyway. The skin stayed tough and the inside went soft and pulpy. Guess what it tasted like. PUMPKIN! Yes, we are pretty sure that that squash got cross-bred with my pumpkin plant. Quite the interesting tasting experience. Not one I'd try to do intentionally, but I'll eat the leftovers just in the name of not wasting my food.

I finally made banana muffins tonight. A double batch. Guess what I discovered this week! Our grocery store sells ripe bananas at half price. So now anytime I want/need to make banana muffins for my little addict, I don't have to wait for bananas to go ripe! So we have lots and lots of banana muffins...and tomorrow I have a good bit of zucchini that needs to be baked into bread as well. Mmmmmm, yum! And you know what is just so great? It's such a rewarding feeling to spend all that time and effort baking muffins for a sweet little person who, upon seeing a muffin in his momma's hand, will start flapping his arms and talking so excitedly to tell me that I can't possibly give him this muffin fast enough. It's just nice to feel appreciated. He even shared one of his oh, so treasured bites with me.

You know what else is great? This. Having your little guy go to his special little chair with a book and ask for help to sit in it and read on his own, content. Thank you, Tommy, for making life and all my efforts just so rewarding.

Grandparents, Stress and Stock Races

Well it's been two weeks, so I guess we'll have to play catch up. I honestly have no recollection of Monday through Wednesday from two weeks ago. It was hot and so I don't think we did much but hide out in our basement with a fan. Mom called me sometime earlier in the week asking if it was okay that they come on Thursday instead of Friday. Dad had Thursday off for a doctor's appointment, which ended up getting canceled. So they came Thursday night in time for dinner. After dinner we went on our usual evening walk with them, but it turned into an hour and a half showing them around town. We usually only go for about half an hour.

We had fun with the Grandma and Grandpa here...we weeded the garden, enjoyed a 10 pm thunderstorm with nice lightning, played games, toured town, and helped Mom find a rustic wagon wheel to decorate her former flower garden that has become a dirt patch due to infertile soil. We went to Brian and Deb Kieswetter's for dinner one night. Brian grilled quail and pheasant. We went to the Mexican restaurant in town another night as Dad's treat for us. Tommy LOVED that! Any time Shad and I have gone before, we've left Tommy with his Bumpa and Nana. He loved the colors and decorations. He danced and bounced to the music. He waved to everyone that walked by, and offered to share his chips with the waiters. He just had a blast and was very well behaved.

Last Saturday (when my parents were still here) an 11 year old girl from our ward came to stay with us while the rest of her family went to Washington for Girls' Camp and to pack up the rest of their house to finish moving here. Her dad was still here, but works 12 hour shifts sometimes in the morning and sometimes over night, so she needed a place to stay. She was going to be with us until this coming Wednesday or Thursday, but when her dad picked her up on Thursday morning for his 2 days off, I decided I couldn't take her back. It was simply just too stressful for me. Don't know exactly why, but it was. I had an emotional breakdown Wednesday night and Thursday morning and had to say "Enough!" to something in my life. We talked to our bishop and he helped coordinate something else so that we wouldn't have to take her back. Things worked out nicely and I just felt so relieved.

My parents left Monday after lunch. The missionaries came over shortly after to play Magic the Gathering and other games. We've kind of become their P-Day hang out:) I don't think I've mentioned it, but I really like these two missionaries. Elder Jackson looks like my cousin Rex and has a similar personality. I love talking and joking with him. Elder Riha (pronounced Rehi) reminds me of a 13 year old version of my cousin Michael (Rollins)...with an extra dose of naivety. It's just so hard not to laugh at him all the time! We have also been helping them with transportation needs since their area is so huge and they have a small amount of miles to cover it, especially when they have meetings two hours away a couple times a month. We took them to Kearney a couple weeks ago and took them to Lexington last Wednesday.

Friday while I was visiting teaching and we were talking about blessings of the temple, I felt strongly impressed that Shad and I needed to go out to dinner to celebrate. Celebrate what? I have no clue. Perhaps the coming of our first child to be born in the covenant. Maybe our willingness to follow the Lord's guidance for us. Maybe all the blessings we've received. I don't know exactly, but those are thoughts that crossed my mind and I felt overwhelmingly happy about it. So we went to the Chinese restaurant. And Tommy enjoyed eating fried rice, lo mein and watermelon. He also discovered last week that it's fun to make noise JUST to be noisy. So he had a lot of fun being noisy in that quiet restaurant and the echoing acoustics it provided. After Tommy went to bed, Shad and I watched Benny and Joon. What a fun movie:) It was a little like watching Wildlife Discovery, though. Shad provided the narrator commentary, saying, "Like Chuck Norris, Johnny Depp is often unaware he is being filmed."

Tonight we went out for our usual evening walk and after stopping to take care of Shad's parents' mail (they're in Utah for 2 weeks), water and pick veggies from our garden, and socialize with the neighbors...we walked to a parking lot on a hill overlooking the park where stock races have been going on last night and tonight. Tommy had so much fun watching the cars go around the section of the track that we could see. He kept clapping and pointing and even waving at the cars. He was also very social with the people sitting in their cars that were watching as well.

Tommy has learned a new skill in the past couple weeks--sharing! When he comes to steal a drink from my water bottle or cup, he'll take a drink, then push it back to my mouth and even help tip the cup. Then he'll take it back for himself to get another drink, then push it back to my mouth again. What a sweetie! I love it! He also started doing that with his own sippy cup. And now he shares his food, too. He'll reach to put his goldfish or Cheerios directly into my mouth or Shad's. He'll do it spontaneously just to be nice, or even if I ask for a bite. And he'll give me another bite if I sign "more," then stop when I sign "all done." I just love my little guy and watching him grow up. He's so excited for Katie to come, too. He pats my belly and smiles, and he loves looking at the clothes and other girl things that we're acquiring for his sister. I'm so excited for him to be a big brother. He'll be so good at it and just love his Katie.

Hokay, enough of being long winded. Picture time!


Several weeks ago (before I went to camp), Tommy found the bag of Mini Wheats and began a new love affair.
He was entirely busy feeding himself from the bag for the whole time I was cooking dinner.


Testing out the new shades Grandma and Grandpa bought Tommy while they were here visiting.

Tommy is very friendly with the old folk at church. He never lets them pass without hitching a ride on their walkers. Here he is today with "Grandpa" Dodds.



Old picture from a month ago, but here's Tommy with his scoot bike that we got for free from a garage sale. Walking by garage sales at their closing time may just become a new technique of ours...people just seem to almost throw their stuff at us!


Another month old picture. Funky nap hair! And who could resist that sweet face and pose?


Aaaaaand the climbing on furniture begins:)


Shad and Tommy. They're such good friends:)


I love this face!

Stay tuned for tomorrow. I'll post a picture of Elder Jackson and Elder Riha for those that know Rex and Michael.

Girls' Camp Week

Tuesday morning we woke up and discovered that it was 70 degrees outside and it stayed that cool til about 1! Even at 3:30 it was only in the 80s and very tolerable to be outside. We got soooooooooo much yard work done! There was a huge tree limb with all sorts of twigs and branches that was left in the yard from the previous owners. Shad broke that down into transportable bits, as well as took care of the weed pile that was growing in about a 10x15 patch of dirt in our yard (possibly a former garden area?). He also trimmed low hanging branches off the elm tree in the back, and the black walnut tree in the front. I worked on finishing my rose bush removal project and trimmed the other bush by the porch that took a beating in a thunderstorm a few weeks ago. I picked walnuts off of all the branches that Shad cut off the tree and we have a nice basketful drying out on our porch.

We borrowed a truck from folks in our ward and filled the bed beyond capacity with all our yard waste. It's free to dump it at the dump. It was nice to borrow the truck then and be able to use it for a trip to the dump because I needed practice driving it before the 3 hour road trip I would be taking Wednesday morning up to Girls' Camp.

We left at 8:40 Wednesday morning, which was only 10 minutes behind schedule. I was pretty satisfied with that. I drove 3 girls in the borrowed truck and another leader took 3 girls in her car. We picked up a girl from another branch half an hour into our drive. She is one of 4 young women in her branch. One is too old for camp and two are gone for the summer, so she was the only one that went. I don't think they even sent any leaders. It didn't really matter because the girls were split up into years the whole time and camp was run by the youth camp leaders, so the adult leaders didn't really have anything to do. I felt mostly useless, but helped where ever I could with the food preparations.

Camp was mostly uneventful on my end of things. I didn't do a whole lot of stuff with the girls...I dunno, maybe it was because I'm 5 months pregnant. I went with the 3rd years on their "hike." It was MAYBE a half mile walk to the greenhouses for a tour of the area to learn what the park rangers do to protect and preserve the environment. And even with that for a hike, you would not believe some of the complainers. Goodness sakes! The girls also had canoeing, tubing and river activities that I didn't participate in.

I'd say that the most eventful thing for me was Wednesday at 5 am when some of the girls were OBNOXIOUSLY loud and woke me up. I yelled at them when I realized that it was not waking hours yet. Thursday before bed I thoroughly threatened the girls that I better not be woken up again unless they wanna see The Hulk 5 months pregnant storming out of her tent. I had a blissful, solid night sleep. The girls were all tired and squinty eyed the next morning, though, and complaining that a tent of leaders kept them up all night. It was a bit amusing to me, but I told the girls that they did a great job for me and if they did it again I would bring them cookies to stake conference. They followed through for me and I will be bringing cookies.

Today while Shad was gone to a stake priesthood meeting in Kearney, Tommy and I hung out in the basement. I got caught up and distracted in a chat on facebook with a friend of mine in England. While I was distracted, Tommy managed to pull my tupperware dish of cucumber slices off the coffee table, along with the little bowl of ranch dressing without me noticing. I didn't notice until his little hand reached up to the couch next to me and left whiteness on the cushion. I looked down and saw the little guy sitting on the floor BY MY FEET dipping his hand in and out of the ranch and into his mouth. He was ssoooooooooooo happy with himself! Yum!


I didn't notice the cucumbers missing until he came back to me a little while later with cucumber seeds and bits on his hand, arm, leg, and naked little chest and belly. I cleaned him up and then located the cucumbers...on the floor...centers eaten out.


I laughed so hard at him. I love my little boy and the joy and entertainment he provides for me. We took an evening walk at 8 to Nana's house. It was 95 degrees and boy, did it feel NICE! Guess that's what happens when that's a cooler temperature than earlier in the day.

I brought chocolate chip cookies to church today for a belated Father's Day appreciation. Our ward didn't do anything for Father's Day but briefly mention it in the announcements in sacrament meeting. DRIVES ME NUTS how holidays are completely overlooked in this ward! There were no Easter talks and only one hymn. No special talks for Mother's Day and the YOUNG WOMEN handed out little rocks for necklaces after sacrament. So when there was absolutely nothing for Father's Day, I had to do something. Took me a month to finally get it done, but I was glad to have done something and the men were happy to be appreciated. Given that Christmas is actually ON Sunday this year, I'm very tempted to just not go if it's going to be ignored like these past 3 holidays.

Oh, and we are 5 months pregnant today!

If You Wake a One Year Old Up From His Nap...

If you wake a one year old up prematurely from his nap...

He'll cry and wail, but then forget about it when he sees a camera...


And then get excited when he realizes that everyone came to see HIM.


He might even get friendly enough to hold your hand.


When you show him his oddly wrapped presents, he won't really know what to make of them...especially after his dadda gave him some really cool balloons to play with first.


You'll have to help him know how to open the gift.


And even when it's opened, he still won't quite know what to make of it.


His dadda will have to show him what fun the new toy can be.


The boy will only need shown once, and then he'll know what to do.


He'll give it hugs and cuddles.


And tackles.

You'll have to introduce the next gift in an attempt to save the bear's life.


But your attempt will fail and the boy will wrestle the bear.

And viciously beat in the head while screaming with delight.


When he's done with that, he'll crawl over to see why his momma is hiding under a blanket.


When he finds his momma, he'll also find the new outfit from his nana,


which is a monkey theme, for the little monkey, of course.


Because he's not that interested in clothes, he'll get distracted by the camera again.


So you'll have to show him another present. He'll be excited because it makes noise.


He'll have fun pushing it around after a brief tutorial from Dadda.


When you show him a more traditionally wrapped present, he still won't know what to do with it, but he'll like the curly bow attached to it.


You'll have to help him pull out the present again, and given that it's some goofy homemade monkey(?), he won't be that thrilled with it.


He'll want the colorful, noise making toy and cry when you try to help him with the last present.


He'll forgive you when he sees that it's a mirror set, because he is a narcissist.


When he's done looking at himself and giving his reflection kisses, he'll be ready for cake.


He'll be happy with the huge pile you give him and shovel it in by the fistful.


He'll be sure to share the cake with his hair and ear, too.


And get it all over his face.


Because he's a loving, sharing child, he'll try to share his cake with you...and get some of yours in exchange, of course. Oh, and he'll ask for your ice cream, too.



When he's done with his cake, he'll be too messy even for the bathtub.


So you'll have to take him out back to hose him off.


He'll hate it,


but be okay when he sees his guests and presents again.

4th of July Week

A couple in our ward invited everyone in the ward (it's really not that many people) to their home in Franklin, NE for a bbq on the 4th. We went and had an enjoyable time. We drove with the Dodds, the elderly couple with whom we carpool to church, and brought the missionaries as well. Everything was outside with awnings, so with an occasional nice breeze, it was very comfortable. They have a large field behind their house which they rent out to a wheat farmer, so it was a nice setting with the ready-to-harvest wheat backing everything. There was horseshoes and corn hole for entertainment. Tommy loved being outside for so long as well as socializing with everyone and getting to beg yummy food off of any given person's plate.


We bought a little bit of fire crackers when we got back to Norton and set them off with Ruth and Levi until Tommy begged for the loud noises to stop. He didn't mind the colors and lights, just the loud noises. Shad and I left him with Nana and Bumpa for the firework show at night because he was really tired and wouldn't have enjoyed all the booming.

Thursday I had an ultrasound. I don't think my doctor even told me his name, but I really liked him. He was really laidback and easy to talk to. When he walked in, he asked if I was really pregnant or if I was there for a test. I stood up to show him newly developed belly and he diagnosed me as being definitely pregnant. I told him my due date as well as the date of my last period and after spinning the wheel on his chart, he was surprised to find out that I was correct with my due date. I told him we think the baby is a girl, and he told me that we could get an ultrasound right then. So I called Shad to come down while the doctor finished up with the belly measurement, heartbeat and urine test. Anywho, here it is: SHE'S A GIRL! We already knew that, but it's nice to have the medical proof.

Aaaand...we've had more heat. We were entirely drained of energy yesterday and couldn't bring ourselves to be able to do anything. We just hid out in our basement all day. And today...well it's 7:30 and 95 degrees. It was triple digits 2 hours ago.

Heat Wave

We've been desperately trying not to melt for the past week. We've had temperatures in the high 90s, with Wednesday and Thursday being 1o6 and 110. THAT was disgusting. We were lucky to get our Young Women's garage sale done a week ago Saturday before the real heat kicked in. Our friends from church, Karin and Marcus, came over after the garage sale for dinner and games and spent the night because they live an hour away. We invited Sarah and Matthew over too. They just didn't spend the night because they don't live as far. Karin and Sarah are both pregnant with girls and due in August and September, respectively. Then I'm due in November with who knows what flavor baby, and there's another lady in the ward due in January. This is just entirely a new experience for this ward that gets excited if ONE person is pregnant. Our mother's lounge won't even fit more than 2 chairs. We'll see how interesting it gets in 6 months.

Tommy went through either a growth spurt or a teething period last week. Friday the 24th he went to bed at 6:00. That's a normal time for him to take a nap, so we didn't question him when he asked to go to bed. Then he just never woke up. We kept checking to make sure he was breathing. When I left the house at 6:45 the next morning, he was still sleeping without a sound. Shad said Tommy slept all day, waking up every 2 hours to eat and go back to sleep. He went to bed at 6:00 that night as well, but woke up at 11 with a fever. Gave him medicine, a snack and water and he went back to bed. His fever returned in the morning and was gone in the afternoon. No new teeth cut through gums, so who knows.

I love watching Tommy grow up. Tuesday he started making those lip spit sounds. He used them appropriately in context Wednesday morning. Shad asked him if he was getting sleepy and ready for a nap and Tommy replied with two deliberate lip spits. We took that as a definitive "no." But he was ready 10 minutes after that. And Thursday night we were in the basement watching a movie when Tommy let me know he was ready for bed. He didn't even wait for me to get up off the couch before he took off crawling to go upstairs. It's been fun watching Shad and Tommy play this week. Shad has a certain sound that he makes before he starts chasing after Tommy and Tommy just goes WILD when he hears it! Shad will crawl around the floor and chase Tommy all over the room and when Tommy gives up, he'll just roll over onto his back with arms and feet up to try and protect himself from tickles. They are so funny together.

Yesterday we had rain and refreshing 70-80 degree weather. I abandoned my house cleaning and baking projects and did yard work instead. I pruned the large flowering bush by our porch and discovered that there's a rosebush growing underneath and next to it. I hate rose bushes. There's one growing in front of my kitchen window and I've been wanting to get rid of it, but have been prioritizing the inside of my house over the outside. When Tommy woke up from his nap, we went over to Shad's parents' house to weed our garden and borrow pruning sheers.

Our garden has been completely over grown with weeds to the point that I haven't really been able to weed until now when the weeds and vegetables have become distinguishable. Half the plants growing in that plot of dirt are now gone, and there's still more to weed out. I also got to harvest a mass of radishes. Tommy and I went back home when Shad got home from a ward service project and I worked on cutting out the rose bushes. In the evening we went out for our walk and heard the stock races down at the track. We decided to walk over and enjoy the free seats' view. Tommy loved it. He heard the engines and started his motorcycle lip sounds.

Well, I'm boring myself reading this, so I'll wrap up. We borrowed the game Shadows Over Camelot from Matthew and it is a really fun multi-player game. We've played it several times this week and are borrowing it for another week.

Blessings, Trials and Tornados

Well folks, we're alive! I don't know exactly how long it's been since I've written, but it's been a while. We went to Denver Friday the 10th to visit my parents while my sister Jen and her boys were in town from Idaho. We spent time with them in between running errands all over to get things that are either unattainable in Norton, or just too expensive. So we went to Jared to have my ring inspected (needs it every 6 months for the insurance), Target, Walmart, King Soopers, Costco, the dollar store, an Asian market, Kid-to-Kid, Savers,...I think that's it, but I may be missing something. Our trips to Denver are always disgustingly expensive, but satisfyingly productive. And we always have to console ourselves that even though we spent a lot, we were saving ourselves money. I was in desperate need for powdered sugar at Costco and it was perfect timing to run so low right before going to Denver.

When we got back from Denver Sunday night, we noticed a lot of furniture and other things out on our neighbors' curb. So at 11:00 when we noticed the front door open, we ventured over to introduce ourselves and ask about the curb gear. Turns out that in April the wife had left and now the husband was packing up what he wanted in his truck and putting the rest out on the curb. He was leaving Monday morning to move back to Colorado. He said we could have whatever we wanted. We honestly didn't know if we wanted any of it, but we couldn't see stuff like that get picked up by the garbage truck in the morning. The guy and his friend helped us haul a table and 3 chairs, love seat, and boxes and bags of toys, clothes and decorations over to our garage. In the morning the guys brought over a king size bed. So we've been filling up our house with the things that we decided to keep. There was a family in the ward who was needing furniture, but we found out they are no longer in need, so we decided to keep it all. We bought all our bedding gear for the KING SIZE BED for $30. That's cheap even for a smaller size bed! We also inherited a nice rocking chair from another neighbor. Ashley bought it for $5 at an auction and said that the fit just didn't suit her. Could be her 8.5 month belly in the way, but she has another one that works for her anyway. So she told us to take it if we wanted it. Then a lady in our ward brought over her glider for us that she wanted to get out of her house, and we were glad to help her out with that.

I had a VERY successful weekend with garage sales this past weekend! I got a set of 4 kitchen canisters (flour, sugar, etc) for $3. Yep. They even have rubber seals on the lids. Soooo nice! I also made off with about 20 pieces of tupperware (the real stuff) for $2. Tons of Christmas decorations and a coffee table. We spent a lot of time on Saturday arranging all our new furniture (bringing in stuff from the garage) and putting our house together. We are really loving the way everything is coming together so nicely and all looking beautiful together. We really feel blessed with as much stuff as we've received.On Monday Tommy and I enjoyed some really nice overcast weather in the morning. We played outside while waiting for the garbage truck to come by. Tommy was just entranced by this huge truck! It was funny. Around 1:00 I thought it'd be nice to go for a walk down to the grocery store to get some more good veggies on the last day of the sale. Tommy thought otherwise and asked for a nap. I quickly realized that the wind we were having was blowing in a storm. An hour later I realized that this was going to be a heck of a BIG storm. I don't normally listen to the radio, but when Tommy woke up from his nap, I moved his CD player from his dresser to the floor so that he could play with it while I worked on cleaning up and organizing his room. He hit some buttons and turned on the radio. Changed a couple stations and I heard, "Save your lives--get in your basement or shelter immediately!" I quickly unplugged everything and went to the basement with Tommy. Returned upstairs to get him a snack and water, water bottle for myself, radio, computer and phone charger. Then I called Shad. He asked if we were in our basement because he was about 15 miles south of town and saw this:


I made sure they were okay, then called his mom to make sure that she and the kids were in the basement. That actually took a couple minutes of convincing her that it was necessary because our tornado sirens had yet to go off. She finally took my word for it and then I called to make sure the missionaries were okay. They were already in the hospital basement because one of the Young Women had told them to take shelter. Our sirens went off a couple minutes later. Sirens only go off here when a tornado has formed and been sighted. It's not a frequent occurrence, but you know it's serious business when it happens. All the danger was over and passed by 3:00 and everything in Norton was safe. I don't think our town sustained any damage. However, Calvert is just 8 miles northeast of us, and Almena is 2 miles north of that. Fencing and roofs got torn up in Calvert, and a less active family in our ward in Almena lost the home they were renting.

We spent all day Wednesday in Almena helping with clean up. The David family already had a new place to rent, as well as tons of furniture, appliances, clothing, etc. donated or salvaged from the wreckage. I helped go through piles of boxes and laundry baskets of donations, or their clothes that had been pulled from trees and corn fields and washed by people in the town. It took me several hours with the help of one of the visiting teachers for this sister. But we finally did find their living room and dining room floor and table. While I did that, Shad worked with a crew from our ward cleaning up a corn field for the community. These poor farmers can't even tend their crops until all the debris is cleaned out of their fields for the machinery to get through. There are a couple of field sprinklers that are twisted up. Half is right side up, half is upside down. Trees are ripped to shreds and twisted like you'd wring out a towel.

We finally went to the wreckage of the Davids' home to help search for a few specific things: namely, Katrina's purse with all of their birth certificates and social security cards; and three months worth of Preston's $3oo/month medication. Shad found the purse and someone else found a month case of the medicine. They were thrilled! This is what was left after the storm:

Here is the foundation...and over there is the house wreckage.


The house wreckage we sifted through.


Their Suburban was in a tree before it landed here.


So, Mom and Dad, we no longer have that king size guest bed that we told you we had for you to sleep on when you come visit because we felt the Davids needed it more than we do. We'll borrow an air mattress instead. And if they still need it come Saturday, we'll be giving them the love seat, too. Tuesday was Shad's last day of work. We found out a week ago that he was being let go because the company decided that they really needed someone with a better working knowledge of the truck Shad was supposed to start driving. They wanted to feel comfortable sending someone out on the road knowing that they could fix the truck if it broke down. Shad just didn't have those skills, they knew that when they hired him and told him it wasn't a problem and they'd give him all the training he needed. Well, they decided they just didn't have the funds to train him as promised. But you know, we know that everything is going to work out the way it's supposed to and that we'll be taken care of. We have little things in life that give us reason to smile and look forward to a new day. I'm 18 weeks pregnant today, and my diploma arrived in the mail finally. We went to the city appraiser and got the house information that everyone has been asking me: 2200 sq ft, built in 1909, 56x129 lot size. And then of course, there's this little creature:

He loves the chocolate chip banana muffins I make.

He has these gorgeous, big, blue eyes that you just can't say no to.


He looks good in a cowboy hat. 4/09/11


He makes a really cute goat in his goat coat from Germany:) 12/21/11


He is our Superman. 10/23/10


Yes, that's right. I am just now putting out pictures of Tommy's contest winning Halloween costume.


AND we just had a delightful walk to the park this evening where we rubbed marijuana leaves on ourselves after learning from some frisbee golfers that it's a natural mosquito repellent. And there was a berry bush next to the marijuana, so we enjoyed a really juicy, sweet snack that stained my fingers purple. Then we tossed a football around, with Tommy smiling and laughing. We gave him turns to hold the football and toss it out of his stroller. He got so excited every time it was his turn. It makes me happy that we can have these enjoyable family outings and activities with Tommy included and he's not even one yet.