The Seven of Us

This was Isaac and Corbin's favorite part of Christmas! Jared's mom always has things for the kids to do.  A few years ago there were tons of toys and video games.  Sometimes the horses are nearby.  Recently the four wheelers have been a big attraction.   Isaac and  Corbin spent most of their time at Grandma Sally's place riding these.  We were there 4 days--one of which was Christmas--and I think they each logged a full three days of "driving".  Although this picture is of Ike, Corbin also drove the small four wheeler on his own. He felt soo cool!   (The older kids also did a little four wheeling-- and a little driving. This place has a circular drive that loops around the house; it became a practice track for Caleb and Kenna, who each made a few laps in the suburban. )     The older kids also did a little four wheeling-- and a little driving. This place has a circular drive that loops around th...

When we arrived in Washington Jared's mom was at his sister Janna's house in Port Orchard; Janna had gone into labor the day we left.  Janna has her babies at home and his mom wanted to be there. Actually, it was a good thing; we needed to spend some time with Jared's dad and stepmother anyway.    Here's Isaac when we arrived.  The grass there stays green most of the winter.     On Sunday afternoon all of Jared's local siblings (that's six) came to Dad and Rosannes.  Here's Corbin getting to know his cousin Aleeah, who is 3 1/2.  They were having a discussion about the ice machine. Here's Taylor with her Uncle Matt.      Caleb kept a slew of younger cousins entertained .   The seven siblings (Jon, Jared, Steven, Beth, Becky, Josh, Matt) with their dad.   

While  in Washington for Christmas we visited the Basin City cemetary, where Jared's mom's parents are buried.  His grandma, Teddy Tenney Coffey Cottrell, died on December 8.  We had wanted to see her once more, but we missed our opportunity.  Anyway, Jared had been to this cemetary a couple years ago when his grandpa died (actually, that was in June 2010).  I hadn't seen it until this trip. I really loved the inscription on this rock at the entrance to the cemetary.   I don't know a lot about the Columbia Basin project, but I have tried to imagine what it would've been like to move there in the 1960s. The people who did so were truly pioneers; until then, there was no water and very few residents of the area.  Lots of church members moved north because of the farming opportunity. Today, fifty or so years later, there is a temple in the tri-cities and in Jared's little farm town there are two huge wards (people there have a L...

We normally stay home for Thanksgiving, and this year (2012) was no exception.  We invited the Elders (Lane and Lopez) and we also had Taylor's boyfriend Quincy here (his family went to New Mexico, but he had to stay and work.  His boss at Miller Feed and Landscape depends pretty heavily on him.) We had our normal meal (potatoes, gravy, stuffing, turkey [we also had ham since we were feeding a lot of people], strawberry jello "salad", fresh cooked cranberries, and tossed salad).  Then we hung around and talked and ate pies and played games.    The Elders were a blast.  Because of our busy fall schedule it had been awhile since they'd been to our home, and we enjoyed getting to know them and seeing that they were so relaxed.  They made us laugh.  We asked a lot of quesion (about Rhode Island, speaking spanish [I asked Elder Lane if he spoke Argentine espanol or if he spoke like a European or...yah.  I like...

I need to post about Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I decided to add these first. I purposefully didn't post very many sports pictures from last fall; sometimes all of the sports photos begin to look similar.  Then I found on Caleb's fb wall and felt that it was worthy of the blog. This is Caleb after coaching his team of 6-7 grade friends (and fellow teammates) to a victory in this year's junior high football Toilet Bowl.  The TB is held every year at the end of the junior high season. It's just an intra-squad game; the teams are composed only of sixth & seventh graders. The eighth grade boys are the coaches.  Every player is given a nickname, which the announcer uses throughout the game.  One year Caleb was "Cuddles" and another year he was  "Reverend". (We never knew why. Maybe because people started praying when they saw Caleb the running back heading toward them?  He is twice as large of some of the kids he pla...

There have been times when I've felt that I work hard.  I have five kids who need to be fed, clothed, shopped for, transported, taught, hugged, loved, disciplined, laughed with, sent to bed, woken up, encouraged, lectured, corrected, and loved. All of that is work. (I listed love twice by accident, but I left it there on purpose.)   On the other hand, on the occasional summer days that Jared wakes up at 4:15 so that he can work for 14 hours and still get to Bishopric meeting, I feel lazy.  Still, I've always believed that moms are entitled to stay home with their kids. That's a great  way to live. Being  home when kids are little is just so ideal.  Sure, there are hard moments; three kids under age four was hard for a couple of years, as was having two kids in diapers, waking up several times each night with a baby, and having kids who tease, fight, don't listen, won't nap, etc.  Little kids who are impatient and per...

Well, as luck would have it, most of our Halloween photos ended up on Jared's phone.  (His phone takes phenomenal photos, and it's always in his pocket.  My camera takes good photos, but it's never in my pocket. We're working on "dumping" the Galaxy stuff onto my computer, but we aren't done yet. Anyway.)  I did take this photo of Corbin and his friend Milo playing together a week or so before Halloween. (Yes, it's before Halloween--our customary early snowstorm.) Milos' mom is pretty creative and she made him this donkey costume, which made Corbin talk about wanting to be a pig, which surprised me because he'd been set on being a bat for several weeks.  And he did end up being a batman bat--some type of crazy combination of a bat & batman. Those photos are on Jared's phone; here is the closest thing I have on the computer: