A n-e-w year and I am already behind...that's o-k-a-y!

I have sooooo many things to share...I keep telling myself one day at a time. The holidays came and consumed my life. Erik has now been with UPS 21 years and has never worked so many hours at Christmas time. He worked almost everyday in December! That took a toll on our family, especially me. We missed having him around!

January is finally here and we are trying to get back into life. Routines, schedules and family time it is time to get on track. Lindsey playing club volleyball has been a change for us. She has practice twice a week in town (Gilbert/Elliot) from 7-9pm. We thought Erik could drop her off on his way to work, but that didn't work because she would be there for about 15 minutes by herself. So that has made life a little different. Conner and Carly are playing WHAM basketball and they have practice one on Monday and the other Thursday night. Oh man, what have we done. It is all good I keep telling myself.

I am back and will try to share life's happenings!

Pomegranates

Pomegranates = a yummy treat! Oma brought us all back some from Thatcher. They other day she call me and said come by I have a bowl of pomegranates for you (thanks mom for taking them out of the shell for me)! We have great memories of Grannie and Grandpa Dowdles pomegranate trees. When it was time to pick them all the Aunts and Grannie would make pomegranate jelly, yummy. Grannie would even make homemade bread to put it on, delicious (I am now craving it). Fun memories!

Cole home sick!

Friday, Oct. 23 Cole didn't quite make it to school. He threw-up several times in the car on the way to school. We obviously cleaned him up the best we could turned around and came home. He didn't have a fever (diarrhea came), but other than that he played like normal and asked to eat like normal. About every 4-5 hours he would puck and then be fine again lasted 24 hours and it was over, thank goodness! He spent a good part of the morning playing play dough. He loves it...he will even get it out on his own and play all by himself (finally). He loves to get out his animals and make paw prints.

Megan a-n-d Kaelen

Cousins are so much fun...Megan and Kaelen Lavold came to spend the night with us. Erik's Aunt Emogene passed away and the funeral was in Snowflake, Arizona on Friday Oct. 16. Erik couldn't get the time off, so we weren't going to be able to go. We thought what could we do to help someone else go? Tina (Erik's sister) wanted to go super bad and was hoping to go with us. When we couldn't go we volunteered to keep some of Liz's kiddos (Erik's other sister), so they would have room for Tina.
Carly was in hog heaven to have some of her cousins come and play. They had such a good time. The Lavold girls even brought some wood crafts to paint...fun! We rode bikes and scooters to the park, ordered PIZZA, watched a movie, ate popcorn and candy (shhhh don't tell their mom), and played a fun scavenger hunt game. Carly was so happy to have them over (they did crafts at 6:30am)! Wants to know when she can have cousins over again?!

Fire???

Every year as the weather cools off and we start to open our windows welcoming FALL our darn fire alarms go off! One starts and within seconds all 12 are going off. Waking the dead (Erik) as he had just fallen off to sleep and scaring Cole to tears. What a horrific sound. Off to Wal-mart I go to spend $10 a pack buying batteries, ouch! Erik swears by Energizer by the way (he has proven they last twice as long in his pump he wears). Awe...good for another YEAR!

What is it about popcorn?

My bOyS loooooove popcorn! Cole will finish his breakfast and ask for popcorn at 7am.

5th day to 10th day of Fall Break

We played all of break...with the exception of a few sick kids (Conner/Cole). The weather was gorgeous we rode bikes, went to parks, jumped on the trampoline, played with friends, took Marley on walks, had cousins over and had a lot of late nights. Lindsey, Conner and Erik hit a Queen Creek High football game. Not sure I would count this as fun, but we all went to the dentist. We caught up on some good movies and enjoyed being together! I love my family! Kids back in school and mom trying to catch up on some projects and putting the house back together. Oh and Cole is sick again throwing up, ugh!