thank you averee!

(Averee & Karlee)

While we were at the cabin back in Idaho, Karlee decided that she could go to the bathroom in the potty. After seeing Averee do it, she just decided that she could it. We've only had a few accidents but it has been so nice not having to change any poopie bums. This happened at the perfect time and now I won't have to buy any more diapers for Karlee. She was by far the easiest to train, but I can't say that I trained her because Karlee just started telling me she wanted to go. So thank you Averee for training Karlee. Your a sweetheart and we miss you guys.

# 3

Cannon and Karlee are getting excited for a new baby brother or sister.

Karlee thinks we should name him/her Baby Jesus. We are thinking of others but Karlee keeps going back to that one.

In a week we should know what we are having. Steve is hoping for a boy and I don't care, just want them to be healthy.

Weekend at the Cabin

Cannon and Papa Steve found the perfect hill to sled down. Just the right size for a 5 year old and his Papa. Too Bad the other kids didn't enjoy the ride as much as they did, especially when they crashed into the creek bottom.

Who says you have to be a kid to go sledding?

All of the Grandkids

Ave's and Karlee lounging on the bed, watchin a little Barney.

We got to the cabin late Thursday night and Cannon was so excited about all of the snow he just wanted to play outside and help shovel off the roof. There was so much "powder" he looked like he was swimming.

{Dressin' UP}

When your a kid at Grandma's house, you HAVE to dress up!

Karlee, Heather, Emily
I love the new do.

Back in the West

We finally made it back to Idaho. Our flight ended up being an hour and a half late because of the weather in Michigan but it was worth the wait. The best part of the trip was landing in Utah and seeing those BEAUTIFUL mountains. I forgot how gorgeous the mountains are.

Now that I am back home, I get to use a computer that works so I can put my pictures back on my blog. We will be doing a lot of playing so hopefully I will get a chance to post everything.

Saturday we went snowmachin' in Island Park. Cannon rode his sled and we drove up to Big Springs and fed the fish, well actually the ducks. The ducks are way faster than the fish. Cannon had a blast. The snow was all tracked up and there wasn't any fresh snow, but none the less it was still amazing to get on a snowmachine. Friday I'm heading to Utah to pick up Steve and Saturday we will be out on the sleds again.

Pray for LOTS of snow!

Biggest Bloggin Slacker

I'm just going to come right out and say it. This last month I have been the biggest slacker on my blog. I can blame it on how busy we have been and I could blame it on the weather, but to be completely honest, I've just been sick of being on the computer. So this last month I have thought up every excuse not to blog. My other excuse is not because I am lazy, but because something is wrong with our computer and I have not been able to download any of my pictures off of my camera to my computer. We are dreading spending the money to get it fixed so you'll just have to read my stories for now, no pictures. At least until we win the lottery! Just kidding. Who are ya kiddin', we can't afford lottery tickets!

So as for December, Steve finally finished up his surgery rotation and we were all grateful for that. I think the kids wondered if their dad would ever be home long enough to play, or have the energy too. Cannon was out of school for a couple of weeks for Christmas vacation and spent most of his time outside building forts in the snow pile next to our house. Karlee begs to go outside with Cannon and she actually stays outside as long as Cannon. He is a good big brother and keeps a close eye on her.

Christmas was great! We had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner with some friends. Steve was craving Prime Rib, and to our surprise they had it for dinner! I still think that was Steve's highlight. Then after dinner we picked up the missionaries and delivered some surprise boxes. We had a lot of fun carrying on the tradition from Idaho.
Christmas morning was a blast. Cannon woke up at 4:30 and we told him to go back to bed. An hour later, he was back in our room asking again. We finally gave in and let him wake up Karlee. The kids were so excited and had a fun time opening up presents.
The missionaries came back over for breakfast and we fixed them crepes with a variety of mix ins. We fixed Alfredo sauce with chicken, steak, bacon, mushrooms, onions, cheese, or for the sweeter tooth blackberries, sugar, strawberry peach jam, etc. It was awesome. We stuffed ourselves to the point we couldn't move. The rest of the day we spent playing Wii and other games and cooking Christmas dinner. Both of our missionaries were from Utah so we decided to fix them Cafe Rio burritos. And later that night the missionaries took turns talking on the phone to there parents. It was a great Christmas and we had tons of fun spending time with friends.
New Year's Eve we didn't stay up for the new year but decided we should at least celebrate a little. So we had the Olson's over and ate pizza and played the Wii. I never knew how much fun those things are. Especially because they can be played by more than one person.
This last week Cannon kind of started back to school but after one day, he became really sick and spent the majority of the week at home. Steve finished up another rotation in anesthesia and is looking forward to radiology next.

On the other hand, the kids and I are completely excited to be taking a sunny, warm, palmy vacation in the great state of Idaho. Only one week left! YEAH!

Like Father, Like Daughter

I'm sure most of you have heard the story about when my husband was little. The story about how he talked his younger brothers into greasing up there mom's carpet with Crisco, then stripping butt naked and using it as a Slip n Slide down there mom's hall-way. Well, Karlee decided to pull something like that yesterday but it didn't involved Crisco, rather permanent marker. Yes, she decided to strip naked and color all over herself with a black permanent marker. She managed to get every inch of her body, even the soles of her feet, her back, belly, legs, arms, hands and even her face. She found the marker in our church bag and colored the tile in our bathroom and got so crazy marker even ended up on the door. This all happened in a matter of minutes. I just ran upstairs to change the laundry over and then came downstair and realized how quiet it was with a funny smell in the air.

I was trying to get Karlee to show me her arms but because she knew she had been caught and was in so much trouble, all she wanted to do was hide and cry.

These pictures don't really to justice to the crime scene. Let me just put it this way, after I got her out of the bath, the tub had a ring of black around it from all of the ink on her body. We weren't able to get all of it off but atleast it looks faded and will someday disappear.
I guess I should have saw something like this coming. She acts like her dad in so many ways. I guess I was just wishfully thinking!

I'm happy to say that it finally snowed out here and actually stuck to the ground. Saturday it snowed almost all day and my kids were excited to get out and build snowmen and Cannon wanted to drive his toy snow machine in it. Steve shoveled the driveway but he started to early because at the end of the day you couldn't even tell he did.

We searched high and low, through lots of boxes before coming to our snowsuits. Karlee didn't want to be left out and was really excited to go play in the snow until she actually went outside.
I think she lasted about 7 minutes before she decided it was too cold and needed me to make hot chocolate with extra marshmallows. Doesn't she look adorable all bundled up!

Karlee was helping me decorate the Christmas tree by playing in the box that it came in. It was a short lived tree, though. Steve saw the tree and decided it wasn't good enough, so he went out and bought a real tree. I forgot how good they smell. The smell makes all of the difference.

This was a funny picture that Karlee wanted me to take of her. She brought my camera to me in the morning and said "say Cheese mommy, say Cheese!" Needless to say she has some crazy bedhead and a jam face.

Oh ya, I just wanted to tell everyone Cannon is now allergic to cookies that DON'T have chocolate chips in them. Just in case any of those grandmas were thinking of making cookies for us.

RECaP of November

Sorry about being such a slacker for the month of November. I can't believe it is over already. We have been so busy that I have been slacking on my blog. So I thought I would give you a recap in a nut shell.

Steve finished his internal medicine rotation and started a new one in surgery. He liked internal med but still wonders if it will be exciting enough for him. Surgery has been very exciting, but he feels the stigma of surgeons, being arrogate, is true. Not all are like that, of course, but a lot are and he doesn't like the idea of having to deal with people like that. He really does like the surgery part, though. Last Tuesday, (his second day of surgery) he went to work about 5:15am and didn't return home until Wednesday around 3:30pm. The kids were wondering where daddy was and if he was ever going to come home. Luckily because of Thanksgiving they let him have the rest of the week off.

As for the rest of us, Wednesday we got ready for Thanksgiving. The kids helped me make a couple of pies to take over to the Olson's. Thursday morning we spent hanging out with the missionaries and then we all headed over to the Olson's for Thanksgiving dinner. We spend the rest of the day playing Wii and looking through ads. Friday morning Skye, Allison and Michelle (Matt's mom and sister) and I went and hit lot of early bird specials. It was a lot of fun but I have to be honest the lines out here are by far the worst I have ever seen. We waited for a long time in lines and they didn't seem to be moving. But it was still fun to hang out with everyone and share the excitement on the great deals we found. After shopping we all had breakfast together and after sitting down, realized how tired we all were. Needless to say, the rest of the day was spent lounging around. Saturday our ward had a Turkey bowl followed by a breakfast. Steve and I are on activities so we spent the morning helping make breakfast. It was a lot of fun. So here we are back at Monday starting the routine all over again. Hopefully everyone had a great Thanksgiving and found some awesome deals. I'll try to be better to update my blog, but I can't promise anything, it is December now!