The ROWBERRY FAMILY

I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus. . . .

2012-02-08T12:54:00.000-08:00

Halloween??????

2012-01-31T16:30:00.000-08:00

ok, so I'm a little behind. The storm I posted about just before this one actually took our power out for 3 days and we didn't have power for Halloween. It was cold, but the kids loved it because school was cancelled due to lack of power. Also, all of our neighbors without kids brought their candy over to us because they knew we had kids. Samantha and Justin got on the news while they were out shoveling snow the day after the storm. It was crazy, because there really was a ton of snow especially for October. We ended up driving to a different neighborhood for trick or treating and it was really nice. We missed seeing our neighbors and had kind of a tricky time getting in our costumes in the dark, but halloween was a really fun night. That is until we had to come home to a freezing cold and dark house. I was afraid to use the fireplace because the night before when we had used it the house filled up with smoke and our carbon monoxide alarm kept going off.

The next day I took all our dirty laundry to the laundromat and vowed to myself that it was too cold and we would definately go stay with some friends that had offered if the power didn't come back on. Of course when I came back from the laundromat, the power was back on. Isn't that how life works? It was a very memorable Halloween.

Sorry, no pictures couldn't find the camera in the dark, but Kate was a chicken, Michelle was a cowperson (not cowgirl), Nathan was captian Rex, Samantha was an angel/devil, John was a zombie, Joseph was a werewolf, Justin was a young high schooler (letterman's jacket), and I was an old woman (cougar).

SNOW!!!!!

2011-10-29T18:25:00.000-07:00

Today was supposed to be a super busy day. To begin with Justin and I were going to run a 5K for Feed the Need (connecticut food bank), then after cleaning the house Joseph's friends were going to come over to finish making a paper mache bugs bunny head for the scarecrow they are making for school. Then the boys were supposed to have a soccer game at 4:00 and then the trunk or treat at the church at 6:00.

Well, we made it to the 5k, and it was FREEZING!!! But, we ran hard and had a nice time. We got t shirts and free bread. yum! Then when we got back we cleaned a little and the boys came over to finish the bugs bunny head. It turned out awesome and then it started snowing, not just a little, it was really downpouring. The kids of course had to run out and go sledding. It was amazing that in just an hour there was enough snow to go sledding. The kids had a great time, but that's when the whole day started to change. Because of the snow the soccer game was cancelled and sadly so was the trunk or treat. The roads were pretty slick and power outtages were forcast, so it turned into a nice slow afternoon. We ate the chili and cornbread I was bringing to the chili cookoff and opened a bag of candy and watched a nice family flick. I was able to finish a halloween table runner that I didn't think I would get done before Halloween (YAY!) The kids were sad to miss the trunk or treat, but at least they get to go trick or treating this year! Plus, I'm super excited I got my Halloween table runner done. I've been feeling crafty as of late, and it's nice that I was actually able to finish a few things.

So October is also big item pick up day which has been really profitable for me. It's been exciting becasue we were able to get a beautiful oak entertainment center for the basement, a desk for Samantha's room, and several old windows that I'm going to make into wall hangings for our house. I'm super excited for that project. I'm almost done painting Sam's desk so we can put it in her room. We finally moved all of the toys to the basement and her room is kind of looking a little more grown up. I love it and can't wait to get the desk in. I'm also refinishing one of the windows and putting cork in one of the sides to make it ino bulletin board for her. I'm so excited.

Summer's greatest hits

2011-10-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

So today as I was helping Samantha take out the garbage it actually started snowing!! SNOWING!!! I just barely convinced the kids that they can't go to school in shorts any more. Winter is sneaking up on me way too fast. Anyway, I figured it was time to finally post the last of our summer pictures.

This first series is a group of pictures that the kids took one day when they were bored. They were pretending to be super heroes and took pictures showing their super powers.

Michelle is super strong. See how her fist of fury knocks Joseph right out!

Samantha is water woman. She controls water.

Joseph can fly!

The kids played A LOT on the trampoline this summer. Unfortunately, it ripped just recently and we had to take it down until we can get it fixed. Bummer! But it's allowed the kids to remember that they like to do other outside activities like ride bikes and scooters too. Also, since it's been down, I haven't had to referee all the neighbor kids (and my kids) who like to play rough games on the tramp.

A big highlight of the summer was the marriage of Justin's youngest sister Kristy to James Wilcox. It was a fast and furious weekend drive to DC to the wedding and back, but a lot of fun. We left Nathan, Michelle and John at Aunt Maia's house in New Jersey and headed over to DC with Samantha, Joseph, and Kate. It was nice to have such a small group of kids. The wedding was beautiful and even though it rained for pictures, we all had a nice time. We didn't meet James until the actual wedding and really haven't had a chance to really get to know anything about him. However, they seem to be doing well.

Kristy and James and all of the kids who were there.

Kristy and her bridesmaids. So cute!!!!!!

Another summer event: riding a ripstick downhill = 8 hours in the ER, 6 stictches, 4 large scrapes, and a huge bruise on the hip. All this happened on my Birthday. At least Justin was able to get home from work to take him to the ER.

Joey's chin (stitches

Bruise on the hip. This is what took the longest time. They were worried that he might have some trauma in his innards because Xrays showed that he had fluid in his body cavity. Luckily it was nothing, but they had to wait for the trauma team to come to verify that everything was OK.

Lots of random picture taking by my kids. I have millions of extreme close up body shots. Mainly eyes, lips and fingers.

It all ends with the climax of the first day of school. Here's all the kids outside ready to go to school!! Goodbye summer!

Stoker Family Reunion

2011-10-14T12:09:00.000-07:00

In August we had our Stoker family reunion. We went to the Yale Outdoor Education Center for this reunion. We rented one cabin that my parents and Maia and Kendall shared and then Matt and Colleen and my family both brought tents. It's a really beautiful facility with a lake and kayaks and rowboats that you can use. We took a few day trips to the Groton submarine, Gillette castle, and Newport RI to see the cliff walk. We even stopped in Mystic for a picnic lunch and watched some ships pass through a draw bridge. When we weren't sightseeing we were watching the kids swim in the lake and play at the beach. They also loved kayaking and were able to kayak across the lake to where a bunch of wild blueberries were growing and picked a few. It's always great to get the family together and this was one of those great times

Here is Brigham by the slide. He was in love with a certain john deere tractor/4 wheeler that he loved to find and climb into. Poor Maia had to work to keep him out of it. He was a pretty busy guy and loved playing in the water.

Michelle, Maia, Kendall, and Brigham at the submarine museum.

Samantha and Nathan pretending to use a big gun at the Groton museum.

Michelle, Samantha, Nathan, and Joseph in front of the Submarine.

Ranger Rick, the racoon that kept getting into our garbage. I think the others had different nicknames for him.

One of the goats by our cabin. The kids had a lot of fun feeding him. For some reason I neglected to take any more pictures, so this is what you get. Unfortunately, Justin had to work so he missed out on most of the day trips and we only saw him in the wee hours of the morning and night. But we had fun with him on Saturday and Sunday. I was so grateful that he came out each evening to be with us. As for me and my family, we were set up pretty nicely in our tent. Justin and I have a big blow up mattress and it was so comfortable. The weather at night was perfect, not too hot or too cold in the tent. It was a great week.

Michelle My Belle

2011-10-04T19:17:00.000-07:00

We love our Michelle. I've been meaning to write a post about her here for a while. For the past year she has been a cat. As you can tell, the cat costume (that is a 2T) is getting a little small. She actually had two that were the same size. She loves that costume and has worn it all over, to preschool, to the grocery store, to the library. However, it's time to say goodbye. I actually tried to make a pillow pet out of one of the costumes for her birthday ( I wanted to save the other one for Kate) but maybe it's just time to get rid of them both.

Fierce Michelle the king of the cats.

Michelle also loves to wear all sorts of non traditional outfits. Here she is on the first day of preschool sporting pink cowboy boots and shorts. She called herself "pink cowboy/black shorts cat". Her other favorite was a pair of rainbow striped pants. Mistakely last week I decided to take her shopping to find some new clothes that both of us could agree on that 1. matched and 2. looked nice. We came back with a pink zebra shirt and black and white zebra pants, and a cheetah shirt with black pants. Wow, that was kind of a backfire, at least the 2nd outfit matches. Those outfits were a compromise, For some reason she is really drawn to bright colors, rainbows, and animal prints. And of course, never a dress.

Despite her crazy dress choices, we sure love Michelle. She's a lot of fun and has lots of good friends.

Michelle with her best friend Anna on the tractor ride at Norton Farms.

Happy Birthday Michelle and Kate!

2011-09-16T13:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know what you're thinking, "Aren't their birthdays in like July or something?" yes they are. However, that doesn't stop me from posting about it now. We had a fantastic time at cosey beach in East Haven with lots of cupcakes and friends and balloons. I love the beach. It's probably my #1 favorite place to take kids during the summer, so when Michelle said she wanted her party at the beach it was a no brainer. No cleaning the house, no having to plan a million silly games that no one wants to play, No worrying about if there will be too many kids to fit in the house. I now want to have all of our birthday parties there. It truly was a fabulous day!

Kate with her 1st birthday cupcake.

Michelle blowing out her candles.

Michelle and Kate. They are such sweet sisters. Kate has a rocking doo. Her hair is so funny. I love it!

Kate loves to eat sand. I kept having to get it out of her mouth.

The kids jumping the waves!

Reunion pictures

2011-09-16T12:46:00.000-07:00

So I finally got the pictures back from our reunion and just wanted to post a few. The new picture in our header is from that photo shoot as well. Like I said before, we just don't do serious very well.

older girl cousins

younger girl cousins

All the grandkids in birth order. The best is John right beside Sasha, there's just a little height difference!

The boy cousins flexing their muscles

The whole family

Rowberry Reunion

2011-08-10T04:53:00.001-07:00

So the last week in June we were in charge of the Rowberry reunion. It was so fun to see everyone in Justin's family. Almost everyone made (except uncle John) who was missed by all. We camped out at camp cedar crest. It has cabins, but was still pretty rustic. I think the kids probably had the best time. It was so neat to see them getting so old! The older boys and girls were able to sleep in their own respective cabins and really have a great time bonding with each other. I should be getting some pictures soon, but didn't manage to actually take any on my camera (story of my life). Here are some of the things we did:

-hike to the castle on sleeping giant and did some geocaching
-went to Hammonassett beach and nature center
-had a 5k in the rain
-took family pictures
-had an adult night out at Coromandel
- had a talent show and testimony meeting
-watched an outdoor movie with glow sticks
-had a camp fire
-cut lots of vinyl signs on the cricket
- played games and talked

It was a lot of fun. Mostly I'm grateful for the good attitudes. The camp was a bit dirtier than I had remembered and the showers were really tempramental and didn't really work great, the nights were colder than anticipated and it rained two of the days, but despite all of these things everyone seemed to have a good time and just enjoyed being together. Thanks to everyone for coming!

Mother's day pictures

2011-07-24T16:55:00.001-07:00

So on mother's day I used my rights as mom and forced all of my children to dress up and get pictures taken. Needless to say it's not their favorite activity, but I really like to take pictures of them. Here is our mother's day feast: A picnic of freezer burritos in our luscious back yard.

Michelle

Nathan, he was hilarious. I couldn't get him to give me a normal smile and he ran up and changed into play clothes while I wasn't looking.

gangsta Nate

Blue steele. His attempt at a model face.

Samantha on the tire swing.

Samantha.

Samantha

John

Joseph

All the kids plus a crying baby on the trampoline.

The boys minus Nathan.

The girls.

Kate

The girls taken by Joey.

NEW CAR!

2011-07-24T16:31:00.000-07:00

So, at the beginning of the year I had a goal of posting new things here at least once a month. I did pretty well until May, and then it all went to pot. To begin with, some time around the last week in April our minivan died. I was driving all over the countryside trying to round up applications for cub scout day camp so that we could get the early bird discount when my car just died at a stop light in the middle of Ansonia. I got some strangers to help me pull off the road and waited for Justin to save me. That was about the 5th time that had happened this year and I was just done. So, we started car shopping. There really weren't a lot of options out there for large families. Having lived with a minivan for the last 5 years I was sure I was done with those, just not enough space. That only left 12 passenger vans and large SUV's. THough the SUV's were definately cooler, they still didn't allow us to haul any extra kids. So we bought a 2008 Ford E350.

We were loving the extra space, but kind of hating parking and driving next to semis . . . fast forward 2 weeks and the transmission started going out. What. . . WHAT!! I just paid tons of money for a new car so I wouldn't have to deal with these problems any more!! Luckily the car was under warranty, so we took it in. Ford of course had to fix everything before they finally were able to really pin point the problem. It took 6 WEEKS for us to get our car back. Luckily we got to drive a cute little chevy traverse during that time that the dealership paid for. It was annoying but in some ways it was kind of good to remember why exactly we had decided to go big. We've had our big van back for 2 weeks now and it's great to have the extra room. I was able to drive all the boys in our pack to cub scout day camp (and my extra kids). Also, we were able to take some friends with us to Rhode Island on Friday for a fun beach day. It was great! I think we made the right choice.

Anyway, back to my original point. My camera was in the van while it was being fixed so I couldn't post any new pictures. For what ever reason I can't seem to make myself post anything without pictures so that's why I had such a long absence. Hopefully from now on I will be able to keep up my once a month posting schedule.

Spring Break!!

2011-04-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

We just got back from spring break, and it was wonderful! We took a little trip up the coast to Newport, Plymouth and Boston. It was a lot of fun! I think everyone had a great time. The first day we explored some beaches in connecticut and Rhode Island and visited the Nautilus which is the first nuclear submarine. It has been turned into a museum and is free to the public in Groton, CT just outside the naval base there. It was really interesting. We didn't get any pictures the first day because we got a new camera and were waiting for the battery to charge. The beaches were really cold.We ended the night at a hotel in Newport. The kids were so excited to be in the hotel room. Michelle was especially mesmerized by the mini fridge.
The continental breakfast each morning was a favorite of the kids. You would of thought we were dining at a super fancy restaurant. They loved it.

Day 2: The Cliff walk and Breakers (the Vanderbilt mansion). I loved Newport. It was my favorite day. I think eveyone else really enjoyed it too. The next couple of pictures are views from the cliff walk. It is a 3-4 mile trail that has breathtaking cliffside views on one side and spectacular mansions on the other. It was truly remarkable. The only bad thing is that at one point there is a 2mile section where you can't exit the trail because you would be tresspassing on private property and they have fences etc. At that point Samantha had to go to the bathroom and so she and Justin hurried off to find a bathroom. Me and the other kids followed but at a much slower rate. There are a few spots where the trial gets a little treacherous and I probably would have turned back, but we wanted to catch up to Justin and Samantha. Thankfully Joey and John were really helpful with the little kids. John gave Michelle a piggy back ride and Joey walked right by Nathan and made sure he didn't slip on any rocks or stray off the path. Nathan was pretty obedient.

After the long but beautiful walk we made it to the breakers. It is the largest mansion in Newport and belonged to the Vanderbilt's. They had a great family tour. Each of us got our own headset and was able to go on the tour at our own speed. The kids did surprizingly well. I was nervous that we would have to leave and that the kids wouldn't behave, but they did great and seemed to really enjoy the tour.

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but as you can see the building is very large and impressive.

Family picture on a tree outside the breakers. After our day in Newport we hopped in the car and drove to Plymout so that we could rest for the next days adventure. The hotel there had a pool, but the heater didn't work well. The older boys were the only ones brave enough to really swim. The other kids "swam" in the bathtub in the hotel room.

We ended the night with a disney channel movie "Lemonade mouth".

Day 3: The Mayflower and Plymouth Plantation. Plymouth plantation was really interesting. They have a whole village laid out just as it was in 1627 and right next to it there is an Indian village. The people in the village all adopted a character and would talk as if they were in 1627. It was great! The people were so amazing and it was fun to learn about history at that time.

The "moo-flower"

A Wampanaug Indian home. This is a winter home. It was pretty warm inside.

THis is one of their summer homes.

Inside the summer home.

THe English fort and main street into the village.

Houses in the English village.

The cannons in the fort.

The "little" kids with their happy meal hats on their heads.

Samantha and Michelle on the Mayflower.

Katie

Nathan's birthday dinner at IHOP

Birthday cupcakes (ding dongs) at the hotel.

Birthday spankings! Don't you wish you were in the room next to us?

John, Kate and Nate!

The hotel in Boston. It had a great pool. Justin took the kids swimming while I went to the temple, then I took them to the science museum while he went to the temple.

Family bike ride on the farmington canal on good Friday.

Brooksvale park. THe destination for our bike ride.

The peacocks at Brooksvale.
IT was a great spring break. Sad to see it over. Happy Easter to all!

Samantha's baptism

2011-03-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

Ok, the format on this is all off and I can't figure out how to switch things around so you will have to bear with me and read about the baptism weekend a little lower. I'm so proud of Samantha for getting bapitzed. It was really a beautiful meeting. Tahlia Green, Samantha, Kenya Green, Michelle.

Brigham and Samantha

Kate and Gideon Larsen

Samantha, Kenya, Tahlia, and Victoria.

I love this picture of Samantha. It is right after her baptism and she just looks so sweet, innocent and clean.

Samantha was baptized on March 5th 2011! It was a super great weekend with lots of family and friends. Justin's parents came up Friday on the train from DC. We went out to Pepe's pizzeria for world famous thin crust pizza. It was really fun to pop in and see what all the hype was about. Supposedly it is where American pizza was invented and some of the cooking techniques/equipment are so unique you can't get this pizza anywhere else. That makes for a long line at the pizzeria, but we made it through (and met some fun people). The pizza was really good! The baptism was on Saturday at 2:00. A very sweet man from the ward offered to take lovely pictures of our family using his camera and light equipment. It was nice to get some professional quality pictures. I made Samantha's dress. It was a fun challenge. I really enjoy sewing dresses, especially when I give myself ample time to work on it. Our ward here is really good about attending baptisms. Several families came in addition to my sister Maia and her family, my brother Matt and his wife, and our good friends the Green's. The service was great. Samantha is my first daughter to be baptized and it was really fun to go behind the scenes and help her get dressed. She sang a little solo of "When I am Baptized". She was really excited to be baptized! We all love Samantha! After the baptism all the family (and the Greens) came to our house for some ham and potatoes. Good food, good company, it was a great weekend.

Joseph, Grandma, Grandpa, John, Samantha, Kate, Nathan and Michelle. We really can't ever manage to get a "perfect" family picture. We love these kids anyway!

Samantha and Michelle (and Michelle's polka dot tights).

February

2011-02-27T14:53:00.000-08:00

I can't believe February is almost over! It has just flown by. I haven't posted anything all month, partly because I can't find my camera and partly because we've just been so busy.

The last week in January we went to Coco Key in Waterbury. It is a hotel/waterpark resort. It was just the thing to wash away our winter blues. To make it even better our good friends the Greens came with us. The water was kind of chilly, but we made good use of the hot tub and the restaurant there had a nice buffet that we visited regularly (yum!) There was also an arcade that we went to quite a bit too. Valecia brought her smore's maker and we sang songs and played games in the hotel rooms. It was a lot of fun. The only bad thing is that I haven't been able to find our camera since :(

Here are some of the highlights for February:

-John's birthday and greek mythology birthday party. We played a huge board game that we made up where the players had to get their men from Athens to Troy, performing the labors of Hercules along the way, and build a trojan horse. It was pretty fun. John was really creative and had fun making the board with me and building lego men and boats for the players. Lest you think we are super creative, we totally ripped off someone elses blog for a greek mythology party, but it was still fun and we still had to be a little creative. We finished the night off with "Percy Jackson and the Lightening Theif". It was fun.

-Blue and Gold banquet. I'm one of the den leaders so I had an active part in planning the evening. We had a huge turn out and we all had a great time and of course ended the evening with the traditional father/son cake. John's cake was a round cake with a snake on top made of marshmellow fondant.

-True Moo party. My friend Heather invited us to a TruMoo party. Tru Moo is chocolate milk. She was selected to host one from houseparty.com. They sent her coupons for free chocolate milk and lots of fun paraphenelia. (which she then passed on to us).

-Quilting/sewing. I sewed a lot in Feb. I'm almost done with Samantha's baptism dress. All I have to do is sew on a bunch of roses that are at the gathers. I of course didn't save any money by sewing her dress, but it has been so fun. I like the group of ladies that I sew with because they inspire me to do a good job. I like to sew fast and furious and never unpick, but I'm learning to do things correctly, slowly, and to fix mistakes early before it becomes a huge task to fix it. As a group we are making 2 baby blankets. One that has a series of applicaed circles and another that are pinwheels. The blankets truly are adorable and it is so neat to learn how to do these techniques from women who really know what they are doing. Also, Quilt day always includes world class food. YUM!

-February break. I kind of wish they would have taken it away so we didn't have to go to school for so long in the summer, but that being said, we had a really nice time. We went to a frozen pond and slid around, saw Gnomeo and Juliet with some friends, went to the Peabody Museum (a real treat for all, I loved their ant farm), had friends over, and ended the week with Samantha's littlest pet shop birthday party!

-Samantha's birthday party! It deserves it's own paragraph. 11 girls, lots of littlest pet shops and pink peppermint pie. I think a good time was had by all. As a special treat, Samantha got some of her good friends (the Green girls) to spend the night because they live so far away. She was super excited and the girls had a really nice time. I enjoyed watching girl movies with them. That doesn't happen that often at our house.

Now we are prepping for Samantha's baptism! Grandma and grandpa Rowberry are coming into town as are Aunt Maia and family and uncle Matt and family and the Greens too. We are excited! Should be a special day.

Christmas 2010

2011-01-23T13:32:00.000-08:00

Ok I'm finally writing about our Christmas this year. It was busy, busy, but full of fun. I'm committing right now to simplify next year. Remind me to read this then. From about the week before Thanksgiving to the beginning of January I just felt slammed. Joseph had a birthday party the week before and then we had 23 people over for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a ton of fun. Janae and her family came and so did our friends the Greens and Matt and Colleen. Lots of good food and good company! The weeks before Christmas held the usually things shopping for Christmas presents, parties, scout and preschool events. The scouts put on a nativity show for the ward. I was partially in charge of this so it added a bit of stress, but wasn't really my baby so I was able to stress less about it. The kids did a really great job learning lots of songs and acting it out.
I am in a quilting guild here in Connecticut. I'm not really a great quilter, but I do like to sew so it's been fun to learn some new techniques here. It was my turn to host. We had a gift exchange that everyone was supposed to make something homemade for. I made this table runner. It didn't turn out perfectly, but I'm happy with it. I designed it and had fun picking out all the material. We decided to go to Washington DC for Christmas. I didn't want to bring all the presents so we opened them on the Saturday before. Here are a few pictures:

Nathan had a little song presentation at school. He learned the words and sign language to Rudolf the red nose reigndeer and the 12 days of Christmas. It was pretty cute.

Christmas eve nativity at Grandma Rowberry's house.

Joseph and Mary (Nathan and Samantha)

Our family with Grandma Rowberry, Uncle Ryan, Aunt Barb, and Aunt Kristy at the Barlow Center. We spent a lot of time here playing games and visiting. It was fun. We hadn't seen Ryan and Barb for a long time. It was really great to see them.

Snowed in

2011-01-21T06:23:00.000-08:00

Samantha and John at the bottom of our hill.

Icecicles on the back of our house.

Bearded Joey and Nathan.

Joey and John on the snow cave.

Ok, so I need to catch up a ton on my posts, but will just start with today because who knows if I will ever actually be able to get everything covered from Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The weather the last couple of weeks has been crazy! In the last 2 weeks the kids have only had 4 1/2 days of school and one of those days was a 90 minute delay. Needless to say we are suffering from a bit of cabin fever. Even the kids were dismayed today to wake up to a blanket of snow and the early morning recorded call from Mrs. Smey cancelling school. Last week the days off were welcome and everyone had a great time building forts and sledding down the hill. This week has been freezing rain and sheets of ice which just means hours of chopping up ice on the drive way and lots of salt. Also the snow on the ground is completely covered with ice so it's not even fun to play in.

On Tuesday a tree on our street fell over and took out the power lines so we were without light or power from about 6 pm to 1 am. It was cold, and I learned that in addition to having flashlights for emergencies, you should keep them in an easily accesible place where you can find them in such an emergency. We were just sitting down to dinner and it was completely dark when the power went out. Justin was still at work. I found the kerosene lamp fairly easily, but we didn't have any kerosene. Then I found the camp lantern we had but realized that the kids had been playing with it and had broken the bulb inside it. I found various pieces to lots of flashlights (including batteries) but couldn't find all the pieces to a single flashlight. (Nathan and his friend Lucas played camp out last week and apparently took apart all the flashlights.) KIDS!! We were finally able to find some candles and I also realized I could use the light of my cell phone to search for things. We ate by candle light and then played some cards. I called Justin at work and asked him to pick up some flashlights on the way home and some firewood. When he got to our street the street was blocked off so he had to walk all the way up the hill carrying a load of firewood and flashlights. The firewood was a little wet so we never actually got a fire going, but put everyone to bed with extra blankets. It was pretty cold and I secretly wondered if we would end up having to pile everyone into one bed to keep warm, but the extra blankets did the job and we were extra toasty when the heat came back on at one. Now I have a long list of emergency supplies to buy (if I can ever actually make it to the store).

Since I began this post it stopped snowing, the sun is out, and the neighbor boys came over and are sledding down the hill. It's super fast now with it's topcoat of pure ice. The snow plow came by and plowed our road, we might even be able to go shopping this afternoon (after a few hours of shoveling the driveway that is). I've never had a desire to own a snow blower till we lived here. But I secretly know that if we buy one it won't snow for the rest of the season and next year will be unseasonably warm and we won't even need it. Ah well, I guess I will just have to put those boys to work ;)

Happy Birthday Joseph!

2010-11-22T20:32:00.000-08:00

Joey is 11 today! I can't believe how old he is. He is becoming a nice young man. I'm able to depend on him to help with the other kids which is really nice.

For his birthday this year he asked me if I would just take him and 3 friends to the new Harry Potter movie instead of having a birthday party. I agreed, but then somehow we ended up having a party anyway. I guess I just like to party too much. He ended up having 5 friends over for pizza. Then Justin took them to the movie and they came back and 2 of the boys spent the night. They didn't sleep at all, but they did play a whole bunch of wii. The poor boys had basketball practice the next day. So after no sleep they had to run around a gym and didn't fall asleep until later Saturday afternoon. Here they are completely crashed out on the couch.

I know this is a lousy picture, but it's the only one I have of the party. (of course I couldn't find my camera when we were singing happy birthday). I made each of the boys a stenciled Harry Potter t-shirt for the movie. They were super excited and had a really fun time running around the house.

Fall in Connecticut

2010-11-22T19:53:00.000-08:00

I have been busy this fall. Many times I have composed entries in my head but never quite had enough time to upload pictures and sit down and write all about everything that has been happening here. Today will be a monster post, sort of a photo essay of our fall here in Connecticut. This is a picture of the joy school kids that Michelle does joy school with. It was my turn to teach last week and we went on a scavenger hunt to find leaves and acorns to glue onto our turkeys. This is the wall in our back yard. Kids are lt to rt: Michelle, Elijah Larsen, Gabriel Palmer, Amelia, and Jack Dynes.

John buried in the leaves. Our fall was definately full of leaves!

Alexa (neighbor) and John playing in the leaves.

Samantha.

Samantha on Halloween. Since it was Sunday we didn't go trick or treating, but some friends of ours, the Larsens came over for dinner and good times. It was alot of fun. Heather made these cool broomstick candy sacks for all of the kids. She's so crafty and fun.

Close up of the cool broomstick sacks. I'll have to make these some time.

Heather also brought cupcakes for the kids to decorate. We had a lot of fun building different monsters.

Here's Kate's halloween costume. She was a flower. As you can imagine, she didn't enjoy wearing it, but I thought it was really cute.

Nathan's halloween party at school. His class had a little performance and then snacks for the parents and kids. He was a pirate.

Little orange jack o lanterns I made for Nathan's party. They were filled with fruit salad. I got the idea from familyfun.com. I love that website.

Michelle. She decided to cut her hair this month. Right up front. I would have tried to fix it, but nothing would really work short of shaving her head, so she just looks ridiculus. She also has become fixated on wearing rainbow pants every where she goes, so she is definately one of those crazy dressed 3 year olds. She also thinks that rainbows match rainbows and constantly fights with me about how she should be allowed to wear striped pants with a striped shirt and is sure that it matches better than stripes and solids. Gotta love her. She also is able to take her shoes off in 2 seconds flat. She hates shoes and the minute we get inside anywhere, be it a store, church, school, her shoes come right off (as does her coat). She is so stubborn. We have lots of fights about clothes. I guess it's just the age, got to love 3 year olds. I do have to admit though, she is hilarious and adorable in her own crazy way!

Columbus Day - Bishops orchard

2010-10-26T07:15:00.001-07:00

On Columbus day we went to bishop's orchard with the Larsens. It was fun. The day was absolutely beautiful! It's always nice to go to the pumpkin farm, go through the hay maze and enjoy some homemade apple cider. I was a little frazzeled heading out the door this time and some how forgot to pack the stroller. (big mistake). Luckily they had these cute little wheel barrows so I didn't have to carry Kate around the whole time. (especially since she was asleep and of course Jusin was working.) I planned to take some cute pictures of the girls while we were out there and had some ideas about coordinating outfits, but of course Michelle had to be her own person and I couldn't get her to wear anything other than the crazy outfit she has on here. So, we all tried to coordinate around her and her rainbow pants. I think we did pretty well considering the circumstances. Kate was more coordinated, but had a blowout just before we got there so had to be changed as well, but still did ok. Michelle.

Nathan

The whole crew. Jonah Larsen, Nathan, John, Noah Larsen, Elijah Larsen, Samantha, Michelle, Joseph and Isaac Larsen. Just after this picture we got yelled at for climbing on the maze (whoops!). Leave it to mom to disobey the rules.

Everyone on the tractor. Should have zoomed in a little closer.

Kate in her makeshift stroller. I can always count on her to be a great sleeper! YAY Kate!

The boys chugging cider. yum!

Samantha, Michelle and Nathan. You can tell that Samantha loves to pose for pictures. She actually looked really cute. I thought the bow was a bit too big to wear right there in her hair, but she really loved it and I think it worked out. She's pretty good at putting things together.

Here's my girl picture, if only I could have gotten Kate to look at me. What you can't see is that there were about a million little kids trying to jump into this pile of hay so I really couldn't take a lot of pictures right here (plus my camera isn't that good).

After playing in the pumpkin patch we went into the store where I was able to pick up a bunch of lower grade apples for a great price. The next day I made a couple of batches of apple sauce. That's something I need to do next year too. It was so good!

The 35th day of school

2010-10-26T05:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, so the first day of school I couldn't find my camera, so we didn't get any pictures of the kids ready to go. I took these pictures about the 5th day of school, but didn't manage to get them uploaded until now. That's just kind of how my life is going right now, slow. That's all right though. Nathan was avoiding me at all costs. At least I got some sort of picture. He is really working hard at his adjustment to kindergarten. It hasn't been as easy for him as it was for some of the other kids. He just has so much more energy. However, he is making some real improvements and he may actually like school when the year is over. His teacher, Ms. Peel, is realy sweet. She is young, but seems to do a pretty good job of managing the class which is full of lots of energetic boys that don't always get along. Nathan calls her Ms. Banana Peel. So far this year I've been able to voluteer in his classroom twice and go on a field trip with them to Brooksvale park. Every time I've gone with him, he's been pretty well behaved as long as he doesn't sit by his nemesis Blake. They tend to fight. Blake likes to push peoples buttons and Nathan doesn't deal well with that.

Samantha is still such a girly girl. This is her favorite outfit. On this day she especially planned to wear this outfit because two of her other friends have the same outfit and were going to wear it to school that day. She is big into dressing alike. She constantly tries to get Michelle to wear matching outfits with her, but Michelle is her own person and won't allow it so Samantha usually just gets Kate to match her. She even asked me once if I could wear matching outfits with her. (I'll have to remind her of that when she's a teenager.) She's very creative and will often pick out some of Michelle's dresses to wear as shirts. It actually doesn't look too bad, and since Michelle hates to wear dresses it all works out. She is a really sweet little girl and is really looking forward to getting baptized in February.

John. As always he is doing really well in school. His teacher called me one day at the beginning of the year just to tell me how well behaved he was and how he fits in with all the other kids so well. He has a good friend named Kyle that he makes up stories with at lunch. He really has an amazing imagination. His stories are quite funny. He also has a very sophisticated vocabulary.
He is obsessed with video games especially Age of Mythology. He also loves all the Percy Jackson books and is the one child I can count on to have his nose stuck in a book continually.
He started playing the drums at school this year and is going to play basketball in the upcoming season.

Joseph. I had to laugh because when I took him school shopping this year, the one thing he wanted the most was a bright green dri-weave nike running shirt. You know, the kind made out of that special material that wicks the sweat off of you when you are exercising. I wasn't sure it would really be that cool to wear it to school, so I tried to dissuade him, but he really wanted it so I relented, and you know what, it actually looks pretty good with his nike shorts and shoes. The part that makes me laugh is because he then said something like "mom, I want this shirt because it's pretty much who I am. I love sports." It only makes me laugh because I'm pretty awful at sports and Justin is not what I would call the super sporty type. But, I guess if Joey wants to identify himself through sports that's fine with me. We just signed him up for basketball. It will be interesting to see how well he stacks up to kids out here. There are just so many more kids out here than there were in Mt. Home. I hope he has a great experience with lots of playing time. He really wanted to play football, but I had to focus on helping Nathan get adjusted to kindergarten and getting Michelle potty trained during that time. Next year for sure we will have to do football. I have to admit it is probably my favorite sport to watch.

This is the new experience for all of our kids - the bus! They've always walked to school before. They are the last ones picked up in the morning and the first ones dropped off in the afternoon. So far it's working out pretty well.

So far we like our new school. The principal and staff are all really sweet and seem to know us all all ready. It's not as big as our Texas school, more the size of the school in Idaho, but better organized more like in Texas. They are a lot more intense, even in things like school lunches. The kids are not allowed to bring in cookies or candy or cakes or anything in their lunches. Also, the school menu is a lot healthier which is a good thing, but ilicits more complaints. As for our family, we are actually doing cold lunch this year. Lunches cost 2.50 a piece. With four kids in school now that comes to $10 a day. That just seems like too much, so we are trying it. So far it's going all right. It's hard to come up with things besides sandwiches. Also, we have the occasional water leak from their water bottles which is annoying. All in all we love Bear Path Elementary.

Trees

2010-10-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

It seems that at general conference there is always at least one talk devoted to trees. This year there seemed to be many references. And that is where I find myself, completely surrounded by trees. The back of our new home is being engulfed by trees. There is a little forest that stretches for a few acres behind our house. The kids love to wander out there and visit the long abandoned tree house someone built years ago. Just behind our house there is a little stone wall someone must have spent days building. Supposedly they are all over Connecticut. A little reminder that long ago someone cleared the land and farmed this area, but the farm is long gone, completely swallowed by trees. No one would guess that this forest is all new growth, all that remains is the ancient wall surrounded by trees.

Now the trees are trying to take over my grass. Actually, they already succeeded. The previous tenants failed to keep the leaves off the grass and the back yard is completely barren. Dirt and mud are constantly tracked into the house from the back yard. It's so annoying! I'm fighting back. Justin and I planted grass a few weeks ago. According to the internet it's the perfect time of year to do so. We got the seed down and then it started raining and the weather turned cold. I carefully watched it everyday for a week, vigilantly keeping little feet from trampling any seedling that might emerge and making sure it was appropriately watered, but nothing came up. Then I got distracted. More important things took up my time. I began to rake leaves, and chop vines and clear out old dying trees and brutishly uproot any acorns that began to sprout. I gave up on the grass. But just yesterday I looked again and realized that the grass is growing! It's very tender, but it's growing! I'm so excited! I have fantastic visions of a thick emerald carpet stretching out into the woods, soft and delightful, but Justin laughs and tells me it will never be. I know he's probably right, but it's still so exciting. The only problem is that now the leaves are falling and all of my tender grass is suffocating. What to do? If I rake, I will probably tear out all the grass and if blow the leaves away the grass may become tramatized as well, and of course if I do nothing it will surely be killed as well. Oh well, at least it's just grass, and I did prove to Justin that it can grow back there! I'll probably just blow the leaves and if it all dies at least we can try again in the spring when it will have all summer to flourish before the trees kill it with their treachourous leaves.

Back to the trees. I find it so fascinating to work in the trees. There are vines everywhere. I feel like there should be a confernce talk devoted to trees and watching out for the destructive vines that kill them. It really is fasinating. There are several trees between my house and my neighbors and I have spent an extensive amount of time between the two houses raking leaves and pulling up vines so they won't kill the trees. There have been many times that I have chopped down a vine and as I began to unwrap it from the tree realized that the tree was completely dead. It had no leaves, all the leaves I could see actually belonged to the vine and after the vine was removed the tree simply fell over with only a gentle push. It's a very empowering thing to be able to push a tree over. It really is kind of addicting to work in the trees and remove the vines. There are two types of vines in my trees, grapevines and killer vines. Really they both kill, so I chop them both out. As I chop, I must reflect, what are the vines in my life? My friends? my trials? my temptations? For right now it is anything that distracts me. I feel like I'm so busy all the time. There is so much mundane work that has to be done all of the time, laundry, bathrooms, leaves; let alone all of the little projects I'm itching to do to make my house more beautiful, pleasant and stylish. Then there are the groups and clubs: literature group, quilting group, PTA. My church calling, boy scouts, piano lessons. Exercising, cooking dinner, facebook and blog hopping. What should stay and what should go? What is helping my grass to grow and what is choking my trees to death? As I try to figure that out I realize I must go inside and nourish that which is most important. Rock the baby, tell a story, make sure teeth are brushed and toenails clipped. Kiss the husband who wanders in at 11:00 p.m. (a long hard day). The grass might die, the vines might kill the trees, the leaves will surely take over the entire forest. (How can they not?!) But, inside my home, that which is most important will surely thrive.

Camping at Kettletown State Park

2010-09-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

One of our best weekends this summer was spent camping at Kettletown State Park. It's located in Southbury which is actually about a half hour away. It is amazing how one minute you can be in a fairly large city and the next you can feel like you are in the middle of no where. There are so many trees here, it just shelters you from the world! This campsite/park was really nice with great showers etc. There was also a nice lake and hiking trails. The staff had also planned lots of great activities that the kids could do. It really was just a nice set up. Just funny. I call it city camping because the campsites were really close together and the ice cream truck came by right about dinner time. The camp staff had activities planned that could keep your children occupied the whole time you were there. It was sad to me to see parents taking there kids camping and then not actually spending time with them. There was this one little boy (about 8 or 9) who kept coming over to our campsite to hang out with all the kids. It was kind of sad, because he was literally hanging out with us all Saturday morning and we never saw his parents. I think he was an only child and was just lonely. He really wanted to hold the baby, all the time. Kind of annoying, but I really did feel bad for him. As for us, we pulled into camp around 6:30 and immediately started putting up the tent. It didn't take long for me to realize that we had left one of the poles back at home. We really weren't that far from home, but didn't want to go back, so we used our ingenuity to jimmyrig our tent so it would stand. We tied it to a tree (Justin's idea) and used a branch to prop it up (my idea). OK so Justin's idea was better than mine.

THere's my oh so sturdy branch. (tiny tim's crutch as Justin called it).

The tent tied to a tree.

The sign in the bathroom asking us not to hang our tent to the tree.

John on our hike.

Super Michelle.

Nathan. This is the picture he took into kindergarten to show all of his classmates about his summer.

Climbing a huge rock on the trail.

Samantha at the lake. Love the goggles.

Joseph and John building sand tunnels.

My birthday. Justin made me a cake with fruity pebbles for frosting. It was GGGGrrreat! This picture is all the kids jumping on me and waking me up from my sunday nap with my freshly baked cake. Happy birthday to me!

A few summer highlights!

2010-09-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

Now that school is back in session, I finally have some time to post and blog about all the fun things we did this summer. It will take me a few separate posts, but here is the first batch:

On august 23rd (the day after my birthday) my little brother Danny flew in and spent the 23rd adn 24th with us. My other siblings came as well so we had a little reunion before Danny headed off to Egypt. He had a 30 hr layover, so it was short, but fun. Maia picked him up at JFK on Monday then headed to my house where Matt and Colleen met up with us as well. We spent Monday night chatting and then on Tuesday we walked to Brooksvale park and played with the animals and threw around the football. It was great! I love my family! then we came back for thai food and more chatting. Then Matt and Colleen took Danny back to JFK where he flew away to Egypt. We are missing him, which is weird because it's not like we ever really saw him that much before he left, but it's always a little anxiety producing to have a loved one in a foreign country. I hope we get to visit him before he heads back. I'm thinking summer 2012. The siblings: Maia, Matt, Danny Megan

The whole crew minus Colleen (she took the picture for us.) lt to rt: Maia Greene, Brigham Greene, Matt Stoker, Danny Stoker, Megan Rowberry, Joseph Rowberry, Kate Rowberry, John Rowberry, Justin Rowberry, Nathan Rowberry, Samantha Rowberry, Michelle Rowberry.

The next set of pictures is from our trip to Rhode Island. One of Justin's co-workers owns a beach house in Rhode Island. We were invited to enjoy it (along with all of his other co workers.) Of course no one else has kids, but fortunately pediatricians (especially developmentalists) are very kind and tolerant of little ones. We had a BBQ at the beach house, and then went to the beach. The beach was gorgeous. The waves were much bigger than the Connecticut waves. We also learned to catch these cool little crabs. I think they are horseshoe crabs as they don't really look like the typical kind you think of. After the beach we went back to the house, cleaned up and went out to eat at a popular sea food restuarant. The boys shared a lobster because they really wanted to try it and it was a pretty good price. yum!

Our bucket of crabs. It was amazing how many there were. All you had to do was start digging and you would find tons. They just feel like little rocks and try to run away as fast as they can. It was fun to catch them.

Joey, John, Nathan and Justin catching crabs.

Michelle. See sometimes she lets me put her hair in pony tails, just not that often.

Hiking sleeping Giant with the cub scouts. (I'm the leader over the bears and wolves). It was fun!

Kate's blessing

2010-09-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

Kate was blessed last Sunday Sept. 5th. It was really sweet. Justin's parents came up from Washington DC and so did his sister Janae and her husband and kids. Matt and Colleen came from my side. It was really sweet. I love it when we have a chance to get together with family. I made the dress she is wearing. It's hard to see the details, but the bodice is smocked. This was my first smocking project. It was really fun to learn, but took a long time. I really didn't anticipate it taking quite so long, so of course I was scrambling to finish it on Saturday night. Justin's mom actually hemmed it and did the facing while I made dinner on Saturday. She's great!

The weekend went really well. We've never really lived close to Janae and Tyson, so it was fun to spend some time with them and their little family. On Monday we went and toured Yale and went to the park, then grabbed some Thai food and played games at night.
Tuesday was a little dramatic. We went to Brooksvale park to see the animals, but got home a little late. As I was speeding to get Tyson and Janae to the train station to make their train, the power steering went out in the car. Then a few minutes later the temperature light came on. I kept driving because we were kind of close to the station and I didn't really know what else to do. Then the battery light came on. Then the car just started beeping constantly. I dropped Janae and Tyson off and the car completely died. The battery was dead. I was in the drop off lane blocking cars behind me. Luckily a taxi driver pushed me to the side of the road. I was still parked in front of the bus stop, but didn't really have any other options. I called Justin from work and he came and rescued me. We had to get the car towed to a car shop and got it fixed. It was a broken serpentine belt. The annoying thing is that we just spent a significant amount of money on it last week to fix a big oil leak that we had. Apparently this wasn't related (at least that's what they tell us). Hopefully the car will run for a while longer. We started looking at replacement vehicles, and let's just say it's not cheap to buy a car that seats 8. I would like to go a little bigger too, but don't really want to have the really big van, not a lot of options. Hopefully we'll just make it a while longer so we can save up some more money.
Here are some pictures of Kate in her blessing dress. Of course I couldn't find my camera on Sunday, so these pictures were taken a few days later, but you get the picture.

I normally really dislike collars, but it works on this dress. I love Kate's hair! She's actually wearing one of my barrette's, but has the hair to keep it in. So fun!

Spring Break

2010-08-09T16:08:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from our spring break. What can I say, between moving, having a baby and having our computer break down several times, blogging kind of got put on the side burner. My good friend Kelly Landin and her boys came to visit us for spring break. It was a lot of fun. We went to the sand dunes one of the days she was there. It's one of my favorite places in Idaho. Even though it was a little chilly, the boys were still fascinated by the water and kept trying to figure out a way to use the sled as a boat. Luckily no one fell in..

Kelly, Soli, Dominic, Tyler, Samantha, Joey, John, Nathan, Adam, Michelle and Megan.

silly face picture

Building a tunnel in the sand.

Samantha and Dominic getting ready to slide down the hill. Justin and Michelle at the top of the hill.

Sweet Michelle!

Cross country trip to Connecticut

2010-08-05T17:49:00.000-07:00

I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from our cross country moving trip in June. We took a little over a week to get here. It was a lot of fun with Grandma and Grandpa Rowberry each taking some time to travel with us to some hot points along the way. To begin with, we spent a few days in Idaho Falls with Grandma Dalling and Kelly and her boys. It was great to see them, and of course enjoy some yummy ice cream from reeds dairy. Then we drove to
Mount Rushmore. It is truly amazing! unfortunately we don't have any pictures of the first part of our journey because our camera got sand in it on memorial day weekend and it still wasn't working correcrtly. It happened before, but after a few weeks started working again, so I was hoping it would be back to normal soon. Unfortunatley, that never happened. The night before we went to Nauvoo Justin broke down and bought us a new camera. So most of the pictures are from Nauvoo. After Mount Rushmore, we headed for Nauvoo. We got there on Friday night. It was a really neat learning experience. Between the two of us, justin and I actually have a lot of ancestors who lived there at one time or another. It was neat to visit some of there homes and read about them. Gilbert Belnap was one of those ancestors. There is a quote from his journal along the road the pioneers traveled while exiting Nauvoo. Since returning home, I found some papers my dad had put together and sent me years earlier depicting his live. It was really facinating to read a little more about his life. Times sure have changed is all I can say. Joseph and John standing by the Gilbert Belnap sign. He was a son in law to Vincent Knight, and was also with the prophet in Carthage before the martyrdom. He and a few others were sent back to Nauvoo just before the shootings. It said in the pamphlet I read about his life that every year on the anniverary of Joseph Smith's death at the exact hour he had been killed, gilbert would take an hour of silence out of respect for the prophet.

Joeseph, Nathan, Michelle, John and Samantha at the gravesite of the prophet Joseph Smith and Hyrum.

A bullet hole in the door to the prophet's room at Carthage.

John Stoker Rowberry pointing to the name of John Rowberry Sr. who was buried at the Nauvoo cemetary. It was neat to hear about him.

John and Joseph by the Gilbert Belnap sign. Sorry, didn't mean to get that in here twice and can't figure out how to delete it.

Gravesites of Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith. Lt to rt. Samantha, Joseph, Michelle, John and Nathan.

Children's band and parade in Nauvoo at the "Sunset on the River" show at night. After this show, the BYU young ambasadors performed. They were amazing! I was grouchy and tired and almost didn't go to the last show, but am so glad Justin took the kids for a few minutes so I could recharge. It was definately worth seeing. The best part though, was watching Samantha dance on the sidelines. She was in heaven. At the end we realized that one of the girls was my really good friend Valecia's sister. It was fun to talk to her for a few minutes after the show. It's such a small world.

Justin took the kids for a few hours to the pioneer village while Dad Rowberry and I searched for ancestors at the land and records office.

The kids waiting for the show "Just Plain anna Amanda to start" It was perfect for them. I still hear Michelle sing the theme song to it every once in awhile. It definately made an impression on her.

Samantha at the pioneer village.

Kathryn Marie Rowberry

2010-07-31T20:32:00.001-07:00

Here are some lovely pictures of our new baby Kate! Michelle and "Beanbag". The nickname Michelle has given her sister since she was in utero.

Her eyes are actually open! She sleeps a ton! (Which we appreciate!)

The whole family Lt to right: Joey, Justin, Kate, Megan, John, Samantha, Michelle, Nathan.

Kathryn Marie Rowberry was born at 5:16 am at St. Raphael's hospital in New Haven. She was 8 lbs. 9 oz. 21 inches. She has lots of dark brown hair and so far sleeps a lot. Thank goodness! The kids all still fight over who gets to hold her. Labor started at 3:53 am, so it was a pretty quick labor again. In fact, the doctor went into the other room to grab my records, and when he came back, the baby was already born. Luckily she came when my sister was still staying with me, so she was able to watch the kids. I was really nervous about getting child care before we had to leave for the hospital, since we are so new to the area. Maia was so great about staying to help us out until my parents got here.

We Love Connecticut

2010-07-11T12:34:00.000-07:00

So far Connecticut has been very good to us. Our house is old, but spacious. There are lots of projects I want to do on it, but am restraining myself since I need to still get the babies room situated.

Our ward is super friendly. It's been really nice to jump right into friendships. We're still working on finding friends for everyone, but i feel really accepted and loved here. The boys have made a few friends. Still working on the younger crew, but I know that will come with time. I went to see the movie Eclipse with my new friend last week. It was fun!

It's so fun to be close to family! Matt lives about 2 hours away, and Maia is 3 hours. They both came up last weekend for the 4th of July. It was really fun to see them. Maia will be coming to stay with me next week while Kendall goes to Brazil for business. I'm excited to spend some time with her. I think Colleen will come down and spend Thursday with us too.

It's also been great to move back to some of our old friends. The Greens (our friends from medical school) live in Pelham NY which is about an hour and 15 minutes away. Valecia and I took the kids swimming at a great pool in Westchester last Friday. Then She volunteered to take the kids for a sleepover so justin and I could have one last night before the baby comes. She is amazing! I love good friends! Justin and I jumped on the chance and took the train into
Manhattan. We wanted to see a broadway show, but were too late to catch the good discounts and too cheap to spend much on plays we didn't know much about. Instead, we went out to dinner and a movie, a comedy show we had to walk out of and people watched on 42nd street. It was fun. Then we spent the night at the Soldiers, sailors, Marines and Airmens club in the VIP room. Saturday morning we woke up just in time to make it to the 10:15 temple session. Interestingly enough, we saw Glenn Beck at the temple. I almost went up and spoke to him and begged him for his autograph for my friend Kelly who loves him, but decided that might be inappropriate at the temple. It was a really good experience though, and reminded me of the importance of going to the temple and doing what's right. It was kind of funny, because all Friday night we kept missing everything we wanted to do because we were just a little late, and it was hot and crowded and noisy. Walking around (which I usually love to do in Manhattan) was kind of painful and annoying being so pregnant and though we had a great time, I kept wondering if it was really worth all the money we were paying for the hotel and other activities. Then we woke up kind of late on Saturday and I thought for sure we were going to miss the 10:00 temple session, which we would of if the session was really at 10, however, the session was at 10:15 and we made it just on time to get dressed and hop into the chappel. We also happened to see Glenn Beck and just the whole atmosphere of the temple was amazing. I kept feeling so blessed to be able to be there. Maybe it was just the stark contrast of the tawdry 42nd street night and the peaceful, clean beauty of the temple and the atmosphere around that area. I really started crying, I felt so blessed to be there. Justin also ran into our old stake president, and everyone was so kind to me because I was pregnant. It was wonderful! After the temple we went to a nearby cafe for lunch and ate outside. It was beautiful. It really reminded me of the importance of temple attendance and the blessings we get there. Then we headed back up to Pelham to pick up the kids and go home. It was a wonderful weekend. I'm so thankful for Valecia who was willing to take care of the kids. They had a great time too playing with her kids and getting "all sugared up". (yes Valecia they told on you! You are the best!)

Moving Day

2010-06-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

Today the packers come to pack us all up. I think we're actually going to pull everything off (amazingly)! Monday I was a wreck worrying that there was no way we were going to get the house clean and all our stuff packed up on time.. . . . but I think we'll make it. Yay! It didn't help that they put me on a new medication that day to regulate my sugars and it dropped them really fast. That has got to be the worst feeling ever. I got released on Sunday too, though they haven't called anyone new yet, so I will go to mutual tonight just to make sure everything is under control.

We will sure miss everyone here. Mountain Home has been a great place for us, even though it is far away from all civilization.

I had an ultra sound yesterday in Boise. They said that the baby already weighs about 5 lbs. 14 oz. give or take a pound. That is so big for 32 weeks. Joey only weighed 5lbs. 11oz when he was born. THe tech said that her stomach is measuring at 37 weeks, but all of her organs etc are at 32 weeks. This is going to be a fun delivery. There's a good chance I will end up with a scheduled c-section. At least it will be nice to schedule it. I have this secret fear that my due date is all messed up and that I will actually be crossing the country at 38 weeks instead of 33 like I thought and I will end up delivering the baby on to of Mount Rushmore. I guess then we'll have to name her Lincoln or Washington or georgie or something. Maybe that will end the name debate. In all reality though, I think we will be fine. I can't beleive we are almost done here. Better get back to work to make it all happen.

Yard sale in a blizzard

2010-05-23T18:24:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we had a garage sale and it started snowing. Rain I expected, but not snow. It even stuck to the ground and the kids put on their snow pants and made a snow man. I guess it's a sign from heaven, "Just take your crap to the thrift store, no one wants to buy it and you don't have time for a yard sale anyway." We actually made $55 though, which is kind of surprizing because we only stayed out there for a few hours. I guess tomorrow I will take all our crap to the thrift store. I'm so excited to get it out of here.

In other news, I got to see my cousin April last night at her sisters house in Meridian. It was great! I love getting together with family!

Gestational Diabetes

2010-05-18T17:02:00.000-07:00

So I went to the doctor today and he told me that I have gestational diabetes. NOOOOOO!!!!!! I was so hoping that the other test was just wrong. I started getting weepy in the doctor's office. It was so embarrassing. How do you explain to people that no, I'm not worried about the baby, I'm just so sad to break up with my best friend sugar. Really, I just don't have time for more trips to boise for ultra sounds and doctors appointments etc. I already planned out menus using up all of the food we already have so I don't have to throw a bunch of stuff away when we move. Dang it, I just bought a big thing of honey so I could make granola bars out of the huge bin of oats I have in my pantry that they won't tlet me move with because it's already opened. Now I'm sure I have to go buy more vegetables, and I probably won't even be able to eat very many granola bars. I really am feeling a little overwhelmed.

I came home from the doctors and met up with a few of the other yw leaders to make food for the graduation party we are planning tomorrow. We put together a barbie cake and some graduation caps made out of reeces peanut butter cups and mini hershey bars and fruit roll ups. We also are making little tortilla wraps shaped like diplomas. It was so annoying not to be able to sneak any of the candy or lick the frosting off my fingers etc. Then for dinner tonight we went to the end of year girl scout picnic. I'm sure I overate, but I didn't even have any desserets. Not even the sugar free trifle I made. When I was at the doctors, I was supposed to be able to go see the nurse and she was supposed to teach me how to monitor my sugars and stuff. This first week, I think I'm just supposed to eat normally and take my sugars in the morning and 2 hours after each meal, then, based on what they find out from there, they will tell me more about what to avoid etc. (I guess). I won't be able to see the nurse until Thursday. Not that I'm in a rush to poke myself with needles all the time, just that I want to know what needs to be done so I can feel like I' taking control of this. So annoying.

Anyway, I'm done having my pitty party. Sad day, but I'm sure we'll survive and maybe I won't gain any more weight. hahahaha!

Busy, busy, busy

2010-05-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

So I had my ultrasound with the specialist yesterday. The doctor said everything looked just the same as the other ultra sound. The baby is big and there is a lot of amniotic fluid, the kidneys are slightly dialated, but all are within the limits of normal, just the upper limits of normal. So, I guess it doesn't mean anything at this point. He said I should be fine seeing the normal doctor here on base and that I should be fine to travel across the country at 34 weeks. I guess you never really know for sure, but hopefully everything will go well on the trip across country and I won't end up giving birth on the side of the road in the middle of Nebraska. At least I'll have a pediatrician with me ;) If the pioneers could do it . . . . ha ha ha!

Today was my last day of teaching joy school. It was crazy, but good. It's nice to be done. The people who are taking our dog just picked her up. Samantha and Michelle started crying. Michelle was really dramatic. I have to admit though, that of everyone in the family, she probably loved Lucky the most. Samantha, however, didn't really do much with the dog. She was just being kind of silly. With everyone crying though, I shed a tear or two and I saw John hiding his face for a few moments. I hope all goes well with the new family.

468 cinnamon rolls, 420 chocolate strawberries, 4 loaves of bread, 7 young women, 4 leaders, 2 toddlers and 1 elementary school cook

2010-05-09T17:36:00.000-07:00

Yep, that was our lineup on Saturday and miraculously everything went smoothly. We got to Grandview Elementary around 8:30 am and worked continuously till about 1:30 and got it all knocked out. It actually wasn't too bad with such a large kitchen and so many people helping. I was really nervous that everything was going to fall apart, but thanks to Sister Chick (the elementary school cook) and everyone who came to help we got it all done relatively quickly and easily. Let me just tell you, that industrial mixer, oven and dishwasher are awesome. So is Sister Chick! She really did a great job helping the yw roll and cut all those rolls.

Friday night, I was a little panicky. Justin and I were taking the boys to see Alice in Wonderland here on base while a friend watched the little kids. Just as we sat down to start the show, my 1st counselor called me. She was in Boise at Costco, she was supposed to pick up all the strawberries there, had gone a week before, checked everything out and was assured they would have plenty of berries for us, but when she got there Friday evening they were completely sold out of strawberries. We were both dying! I sat through a few minutes of the show, but was freaking out, so I had to ditch my dates and run to Mountain Home and check out the stores there to see if there were any berries. The first store I stopped at had only 6 lbs left on the shelf. We needed about 40 lbs. I was completely freaking out. I then ran to walmart, grabbed the 10 pounds they had (mind you half of these had visible mold on them) and ran to Albertsons where I met Lisa (my first counselor). The strawberries there were selling for $3.50/pound and they didn't even look that good. Luckily, Lisa told me that she had called the first store I went to and asked them to pull 20 pounds off the shelves for us. We went back there and they let us into their cooler where we were able to pick and choose enough strawberries to finish our order. Disaster averted! Thank goodness! All the berries we bought came to $1.50/pound. Which was really a pretty good price. I missed Alice in Wonderland, but got home about the same time as Justin and the kids. Actually our friend offered to watch our kids a little longer so Justin and I could have some time together, so we went to the bowling alley and ate ice cream, played a round of pool, and played miss pacman. Thanks Connie. We really have some great friends here. I will really miss them when we move.

Unfortunately though, I missed the boys last soccer game. They won 3-2 and Joey made the winning goal. It would have been nice to be there, but Justin and the others were able to go so it all turned out well.

Journal time

2010-05-07T07:12:00.000-07:00

Ok, this Sunday I'm supposed to give a lesson on journal keeping to the young women, so I feel that in order to not be a hypocrite, I need to write in my journal. Right now, this is my journal. I love it because I cannot lose it, everyone should be able to read my hand writing, and it's so easy to add pictures to it. The down side however, is that I always get distracted when I write in here, visiting other people's blogs etc. Also, I probably don't share all of my intimate emotions/experiences in here (unless they're positive) because of the public nature of the blog. I do love being able to share and connect with others so easily though.

So here is what is going on in my life right now. We are moving in 5 1/2 weeks. This week we got rid of the piano and got someone to agree to take our dog. Those are 2 major accomplishments. It feels good to get those 2 monkeys off of my back. The family that's taking Lucky seems really nice and they have a 1/2 acre fenced in back yard. Sounds like the perfect home for her. I've also been decluttering and scrubbing walls. I've made just small steps in those directions. All the walls will probably have to be rescrubbed in 5 weeks anyway, but at least I can get some of the stuff off now so it won't be so overwhelming at the end. My mom and dad have offered to come take the kids for a few days after school's out and Justin's mom is coming out to help clean and drive cross country. Aren't mom's great!

In other news, our yw fundraiser is tomorrow and I actually feel pretty prepared for it. We've already collected most of the money. YAY! Most of the ingredients have been bought and paid for, the packaging is all figured out. I just have to copy off the lists so we have multiple lists for people to look at as they are preparing and packaging everything we need. Girls have volunteered to help, multiple leaders will be there. I think it will go well. I'll let you know though. We are making 31 1/2 dozen cinnamon rolls and 28 dozen chocolate covered strawberries. Should be fun.

Kid news: Soccer is almost over. Samantha's last game was on Monday and the boys last game is tomorrow. I will probably have to miss it because of the fundraiser :( I'm bummed, but Justin will be there and it's the only game I will miss. John has been playing goalie all season. A few weeks ago the other goalie sprained his thumb, so John has been playing goalie the entire time for the last couple of games. I've been really proud of him. He's been doing a great job. Joey has looked really good this year too. The coaches have him playing forward (I think that's what it's called) he's in the front and is pretty aggressive. I think he's even made one or two goals this season, but he's best at assists. He gets the ball up there and then usually passes it off to one of the other players who get it right in the goal. It's been a really fun season to watch. They've only lost one game, and if that game had one more quarter, I think they might have won. The kids really didn't play their best the first quarter, but ended really strong.

The rest of the year is getting full of end of year picnics, field trips, BBQ's, piano recitals, temple trips, recorder concerts and family visits. I teach joy school for the last time next week. YAY! Still not sure when I'm going to get released from my calling. I hope the next presidency likes what I have planned for them. . . . camp is coming up so some plans have to be made.

I'm both excited and scared to move. Even though we've only been here 2 years, we've made some pretty great friends here. AFB are great places to move to because everyone is looking for friends and it's easy to fit in. I'm pretty sure we're going to stick out like a sore thumb in connecticut. oh well, it will be fun.

My doctor just called, I almost failed the diabetes test yesterday. I got a 135. Here they don't make you test again unless you're 140, but I guess other places the cut off is 135. I had to retest with John because I was 135. He wasn't going to make me retest, but after talking to my hubby decided to err on the side of caution and make me take the 3 hour test. Curse that man! I also had an extra ultra sound on Wednessday because it looked like the kidneys on the baby were a little dialated. The results came back normal, but on the upper limits of normal. The baby's size is also measuring in the 98th percentile and her amniotic fluid is also measuring high (indicators of diabetes). He wants me to go to Boise for another ultra sound with the specialists. He says they are just being cautious. I guess it's good to make sure eveything is ok, but it's still a pain in the neck. Cross your fingers that everything turns out ok.

Our new home

2010-04-27T21:14:00.001-07:00

Here's a picture of the house we are going to be renting in New Haven:
I'm pretty excited. I think it will be a really good fit for us. It is on a nice little cul de sac in a pretty nice neighborhood in Hamden. The elementary school is a couple of blocks away and I think it will work really well for us. The rent is great for the neighborhood and there is a little forest behind the house. Around the corner is a Christmas tree farm. Anyway, I think it will be a lot of fun. I forgot to take pictures of the inside of the house, but it's pretty comparable to what we have here. It's about 2200 sqft, four bedrooms upstairs and then a living room, family room, kitchen and dining room on the main floor. THere is also an unfinished basement. It is a little more run down than some of the houses we looked at. Run down is not really the right word, The house is about 30 years old and it's obvious that none of the cabinents/bathroom tile etc has been updated in that time. It's clean, just old. The carpet looked good though (it's been replaced), and the rent is amazing for the area, so I think it will work well for us. We looked at some pretty crazy houses on our house hunting trip. One was built in 1760. It was absolutely gorgeous, except for the wavy floors and cielings. Also some of the carpet was pretty trippy. It was really neat though because the fireplace had a place for hanging a big pot on to cook and a little bread oven built into the side. It had a lot of other cute period woodworking pieces as well, like an actual water closet that was probably an actual closet at one point. It was just a little too old for a new baby, but the five acres it was on were beautiful too. I'm not sure Justin will ever forgive me for putting the ax on that house, but it had to be done for the safety of the children. Another house we looked at had a mouse in it that attacked our real estate agent. It was pretty funny (after all the screaming and Justin managed to lock the mouse in the bathroom. ) Another one literally reeked of urine and other pet odors. Anyway, I think we made the right choice. I'm getting excited for Connecticut,but I will really miss all of our friends here. I can't believe we only have about 7 weeks left here. We are going to be so busy up untill the minute we leave. Every single weekend is already booked with sleepovers, soccer games, dance recitals, temple trips, garage sales and fundraisers. Whew! I hope I can get everything done before we have to leave.

I'm still serving as the young women president and we are doing a fundraiser May 8th for girls camp. We are selling cinnamon rolls and chocolate covered strawberries for mother's day. I thought this would be pretty low key, but we already have 28 dozen cinnamon rolls orderd and 21 dozen strawberries. That's more than I thought we would get. It's great because we will make more money, but wow it's going to be so busy getting all those orders filled. We are just now realizing that we might not be able to just run down to the store the day before and pick up that many strawberries. Eeek! My 1st counselor is going to talk to the people at Costco and see if they can make sure thay have that many for us to buy from them. Luckily, my secretaries mom is a cook at a local elementary school and has offered to let us use their kitchen, huge industrial mixer and recipe that makes 200 cinnamon rolls at a time. Wow, this is going to be crazy! I'm excited though, I think it will go well. I love young womens, but it is so busy. It seems like I'm constantly doing something for it either preparing a lesson, planning a stake dance, visiting our inactive girls, planning a mutual activity . . . . the list is endless and it always seems like I could be doing more. I will really miss it when we're gone : ( The girls are so much fun.

Wing ski day at Bogus Basin

2010-03-04T09:15:00.000-08:00

Once again we went to the wing ski day this year. It was Feb. 5th. Justin took the boys up on the bus that left at 7:00. They skiied all day and then met up with the rest of us to go tubing at 4:00. This year everyone was tall enough to go, but Michelle just refused. Each kid has to be in their own tube. She might have gone if she could have been in my tube, but she was not into it. Nathan went though. He had a lot of fun. Justin and I took turns walking around with Michelle. After sledding we went out to eat at Applebees. As we were pulling in I heard Joey mumble from the back seat. " I guess we could eat at Craplebees." It made me laugh really hard, because it was a direct quote from Uncle Danny. What a bad influence! J/K. Joey's never eaten there before, and we consider it a "nice" restuarant. Especially to go to with all of the kids. It was a really fun family day, and I think Joey wants to go back to "crapplebees" again. (Not that I endorse that kind of language. ) Michelle making faces. She did not want to go down the hill.

NAthan throwing snowballs. I think he thought that was more fun than actually tubing.

Joey and John getting ready to go backwars spinning down the hill.

Family picture at the top of the hill. It was a fun day.

Birthdays!

2010-03-04T07:02:00.001-08:00

I'm still in catch up mode. We are almost finished with birthday season at my house. YAY! Joey's was in November and John and Samantha both have February birthdays. Joey had a football party, John a lego star wars one, and Samantha had a high school musical one. I love throwing parties, but have to admit they wear me and my budget out. Each year I keep trying to downsize, but my kids and hubby love the fun so we get caught up again.

I'll start with Samantha's party because hers was the most recent. She wanted a high school musical theme. It's so funny because she is so girly. She insisted on making her own invites. They were really cute. We made little backstage passes with all the info for her party on them and hand delivered them to all of her friends. I made her limit it to 12 and only invite girls. That was hard for her. It was a total girl party. We brought out all of the girl costumes and I borrowed a few from my friend Connie. When the girls arrived they got to pick out a beautiful dress and then came in for hair and makeup. They got to wear makeup and put some temporary streaks in their hair. (which they loved). THen we made picture frames out of foam and took a picture of each girl on the red carpet. Then we hooked up the karaoke machine (thanks again Connie) and sang through the high school musical sound track. Most of the girls sang and danced, but a few ran off to play. It's funny to see all the different personalities in kids. After the singing we ate pizza and corn on the cob, then had a bling hunt and did cake, ice cream and presents. It was actually a pretty low key party (especially compared to John's party a few week s before. Girls just behave so much better than boys). Nathan sporting a blonde wig, purple cape and glasses plays with the high school musical tent and dance pad that one of my friends lent me. Thanks Amber! It was a hit!

Making picture frames. I happened to have a bunch of foam in my craft closet. This was a great project to get rid of a lot of it.

The birthday cake. Samantha had very specific instructions on what it should look like. She really wanted red and purple, but pink was the best I could do. I'm actually very proud of this cake. My decorating jobs usually don't turn out so great, so I was really pleased with this one.

Next, I'll describe John's party. I couldn't find my camera at the time so you'll just have to use your imagination. He had a lego star wars birthday party. We put out our huge pile of legos and gave the kids 15 minutes to build a star cruiser/ racing pod. I set up our folding table to be a ramp so they could race. That was a bad idea because Michelle kept usig it as a slide and broke a part of it. I think it still works, but it's a little less stable than it used to be. The kids made some pretty neat things. Once again, it's always so interesting to see which kids really love that kind of thing and which ones are ready to move on to the next activity after 5 minutes. After the pod racing we made light labers. Each kid got a 3 ft piece of insulating foam for pipes, it looks kind of like a swimming noodle only a little skinnier. They then got to choose red or blue duct tape to cover their light saber with to make it a light saber. I also had metalic or black duct tape for the handle. THose that really got into it made little buttons to put on it as well. They turned out really cool, however anyone who knows 9 year old boys, should know better than to give light sabers to 8 boys and expect them not to hit each other. I expected them to hit each other, but not to hurt each other. I let them run outside and fantasy play, but ended up having to run out and stop and take everyone's light saber away as one of the kids was getting hurt and obviously not having fun anymore. For the next game, Justin dressed up as Darth Vader (thanks again Connie for the costume). Each Jedi was supposed to take a turn being blind folded and trying to hit Darth Vader with his light saber as he ran around and taunted them. Justin was a really good sport. He got hit a lot. I had to hold onto the sabers except the kid whose turn it was, Even so, it seemed like every time I turned around some group of kids had managed to get their light sabers back and were hitting each other with them. Finally we just put them all up high and ate padawan pizza and gungan grapes, kenobi carrots and yoda soda. I made a cool cake that looked like a light saber. I was really proud of it. We ate cake and ice cream did presents, and the boys played football outside until their parents got there. Boys are so rowdy. But, they had a great time. Grandma and Grandpa Stoker had come up for the weekend, so they helped with the party too.

Next we have Joey's party. He had a football/sports party. It was an excellent fit for that group of boys. THey have so much energy. As they came in they each made a jersey with permanent markers and cheap walmart t shirts. Then they played all sorts of different sport games. They did an obstacle course, the dizzy dash, chicken wrestling and shooting bottles with nerf guns. The best was chicken wrestling. We put duct tape on the carpet in the living room to make a ring that everyone had to stay in. Then each person had to grab onto their ankles with their hands and try to knock people over or butt them out of the circle. It was pretty funny and not very violent because you couldn't use your hands or feet. They asked to play that over and over. After food and cake the kids went outside and played football. I bought flags at the dollar store for them to use, but of couse they wouldn't. They are all about playing tackle. I don't allow it, but it seems they are always playing it whenever I turn my back. There's a big field behind my house so there is often a group of boys out there playing football.

Here's my football cake. Yes I'm proud of it! I know all of you cake masters could do better, but I'm happy with it.

Here's a little clip of Samantha's birthday party. Notice the girl in brown who looks like she's being forced to be there. It cracks me up. She is much more of a tom boy and this party wasn't really her thing, but Samantha loved it. It was exactly what she wanted.

sledding with the young women

2010-03-04T06:41:00.000-08:00

Today I'm playing catch up. I use this blog as my journal/scrapbook. I just don't have enough time to do a traditional one and eventually I plan on making a book of this blog. So, here are some photos from our YM/YW combined activity for January. We went sledding up in the mountains towards Fairfield. It was only about 45 minutes away which is amazing because there was absolutely no snow in Mt. Home on this day. We actually really lucked out. The weather in Mt. Home was awful, cold and windy and threatening to rain. I almost cancelled, but luckily the mountains sheilded us from the wind and for the 3 hours we were there, there was no precipitation. It did start snowing just as we left, but that was it.

In addition to the sledding we had chili and hot chocolate thanks to the huge stove the ym brought. They also chopped wood and made a fire for us. It was great. The day was really perfect! I think everyone had a lot of fun.

Joseph, John and Dallin Brown. I konw, they're not ym or yw, but my first counselors husband is deployed so she had to bring her son, and mine just begged to go. I'm glad I took them. They probably had more fun than anyone else there.

Brother Powell tending the fire. As you can tell, we just set up right on the side of the road. We were at Little Camas, a public area for hunting etc. Our ym leaders are avid hunters/outdoorsmen. It's so handy having them around because they know the area and are great fire builders.

A few of the young women eating chili and hot chocolate. MMMM! It was a great day!

Sweet, sweet Samantha

2010-02-08T10:26:00.001-08:00

I just have to write a little about Samantha. She is such a good example to me. Yesterday when we were getting ready for church, she kept asking me if she could invite a friend of hers to come with us. This friend's parents are members, but are inactive. I know her mother, but we are not really close. Honestly, I really didn't want to call and invite her because I was pretty sure the answer would be no. It was just a few hours before church, and I kept coming up with other excuses as to why we shouldn't call her. Finally, I decided just to do it to get Samantha off my back. To my suprize her mother was almost glad to have her come. She did great at church today, and when I dropped her off she begged her mom to let her come again next week. I was so tickled that it all worked out. Samantha is a good example to me.

On to other things: We are now the proud owners of an 8 passenger van. How much was it you ask? $155. That's right! O.k. we didn't buy a whole new van, but we bought a new middle seat that seats 3 instead of two. I found it at the auto salvage lot so it was pretty cheap. (a new one from the dealer was over $500.) I'm just pleased as punch that it all worked out so well. The color is the same and everything. YAY me! Now we can save all our money for a house in Connecticut rather than a new car to fit the new baby. YAY!

Nathan and Michelle

2010-01-29T13:14:00.001-08:00

Right now I'm home all day with Nathan and Michelle and I always have little things that I notice about them that I tell myself I'm going to write down, but never seem to have the time. This post is dedicated to them and some of the funny things they do.
Right now, Nathan is obsessed with cutting things. Everyday he asks me if he can learn to cut something new. It was so annoying at first, because, really I don't trust him with knives, but he has proven himself to be pretty good at it (supervised of course). One day when I was making stew he wanted to help with everything! He cut up almost all of the vegetables for me. It was pretty awesome. He didn't survive the onion though. He's such a funny boy. When he decides that he wants to do something and that it's worth it to follow all the rules, he will be the most obedient, sweet, charming child. . . . I love Nathan.

Now on to Michelle. She is so different from Samantha, it's mind boggling. When Samantha was 2 she would only wear dresses, even in the winter. I had to beg and bribe her to wear pants. Michelle is just the opposite. She hates dresses. Every Sunday we battle it out so she will go to church in a dress. It just cracks me up, because I really thought they would be more similar. She also really hates having her hair done. So did Samantha, but at least when it was finished she could appreciate they way it looked in the mirror and would keep the bows in. Not Michellle! However, Michelle still loves make up and she loves being told that she's beautiful. Maybe not when she's wearing a dress, but when she picks out a sparkly top and anything with Dora on it she beams when she wears them. I love Michelle.

Christmas 2009

2010-01-01T22:42:00.001-08:00

Our Christmas Eve this year was really special. I decided to do a shepherd's dinner since it was just our family. WE all dressed like shepherds and ate dinner on a blanket under the Christmas tree with the lights off and the tree lights on. I made roasted beef kebabs, pita bread and hummus, oranges, and rice. It probably wasn't that authentic, but I was trying to make something that the shepherds might have eaten that evening. During dinner we talked about the shepherds and a little about what their lives were like. After dinner Samantha came dressed as an angel and quoted the bible "for unto you this day . . ." During dinner I had hidden our "manger" (baby cradle) in one of the bedrooms. I put a nightlight above it. The lights were all off and the kids had to find the star and the baby Jesus. It was really neat. Then we went back downstairs and read the rest of the story. It was a really sweet experience. I think the kids had fun too.

Earlier in the day we finally put together the gingerbread house I made. I made the gingerbread from scratch, but I didn't measure very well and one of the roof pieces didn't fit quite right and fell and broke. We had fun eating it anyway, but it wouldn't win any contests.

Of course, you read my other post and know that Michelle was making mischeif later on Christmas eve. Christmas itself was really relaxed. We ate, played with toys and watched movies. Then a few days later we drove to Washington to see my parents and siblings. We only had a few days, but it was a lot of fun. I'm just kicking myself because I forgot to bring my camera. Both Maia and I are pregnant so it would have been fun to get a picture! Too late now! Next time I see her, she will have already had her baby.

Somebody's been naughty

2009-12-25T15:52:00.001-08:00

Last night, Christmas Eve, while Santa was busy downstairs filling stockings and putting presents under the tree, someone was stirring upstairs, and she was up to no good! Michelle was upstairs getting into my 24 hour lipstick. You know, the kind that won't come off for 24 hours, that stains your lips until finally your lips have sloughed off the skin that was dyed red. I ran upstairs and found that she had covered her right arm and half of her face with the stuff. Luckily she stopped there. THere was none on the beige carpet, or the white bedspread or even the linoleum. Just skin, but let me tell you, that stuff is impossible to get off. I have given her several baths, but can't get it off at all. We did have a little luck with a foot sander that I have, but couldn't use that on her face. I just hope it's gone by Sunday.

Lucky for her Santa still came. It was actually kind of funny because she was so upset when she realized it wouldn't come off. Kid's are so funny.

Christmas letter

2009-12-22T09:41:00.000-08:00

Obviously, I'm going to be very late getting out our Christmas card this year. For those that I don't have recent addresses for and just so I can say I got my christmas card to someone on time, here is our annual Christmas letter:

Dear family and friends,

Is it just me or does each year seem to get busier and busier? I really was going to get this out earlier, but I was waiting to hear where we would be moving in June and that just set me back far enough that this little note won’t get to you before Christmas. Well, hope it was great anyway! We are still in Mountain Home, ID but just learned that we will be moving in June. Justin got word that he was given permission to do a military sponsored civilian fellowship in developmental pediatrics. He is really excited. He was accepted into programs at Boston Medical Center, Yale, and Stanford. So we will be moving to one of these areas. I think we are choosing Yale, so Connecticut here we come! We are all really excited to move. It will put us close to my brother Matt in New York and my sister Maia in New Jersey. Also, a lot of Justin’s family lives in the Washington DC area so it will be nice to visit them also. We also learned this month that we are expecting number 6 in July, so this summer will be really busy.

Here is the run down on what we are all up to:

Justin: He is one of two pediatricians here on base. As if that didn’t keep him busy enough, he finished and turned in a research paper this summer and will be presenting it at a medical conference this spring. He was also just informed that he will be advanced to the rank of major in the next few months. In his spare time he has been taking guitar lessons and is really starting to sound pretty good. In the ward he is both an advisor in the High Priests group leadership and Den leader over the wolves and bears. It has been a fun calling for him and keeps him on his toes.

Megan: I am young women’s president in my ward. It is a super fun calling but a lot of work. I am really enjoying it. Other than that I have been keeping busy canning for the first time, as well as cleaning, babysitting, gardening, sewing, reading, taxi driving, cooking, and cleaning some more. I really enjoy being at home with my kids. It has been a fun year.

Joey: He just turned 10 which according to the handbook they give you when you move into base housing means he can stay “home alone for up to 12 hours”. He’s never been alone for 12 hours, but we have both enjoyed leaving him at home while I run the other kids to sports, girl scouts, etc. He is in 4^th grade and has picked up football as one of his hobbies this year.

John: He will be 9 in Feb. He is just the same zany kid he always has been. He loves music and can be found bouncing to the beat while playing the piano or singing. He loves babies too. When I babysit for friends he is always a good helper and loves to take care of the little guys. He and Joey still play together a bunch. They were on the same soccer team in the fall and are signing up for the same basketball team after Christmas.

Samantha: She’s in 1^st grade and is reading up a storm. It is so fun to see it all click. She is in ballet and girl scouts and has lots of friends. She is just really fun and good.

Nathan: Is still a ball of fire. He will be 5 in April. I can’t believe he will be going to kindergarten next year. I don’t know how he will manage to stay in his seat all day, as I’m sure they have all day kindergarten in Connecticut. It will be a big change for him. He is doing joy school this year and really likes it. There are 6 other boys and one girl in his class. Teaching them is exhausting as they are all high energy boys (except the girl who is super girly). The other moms all say he is great at their houses. He is super sweet and I can definitely see that he is maturing. He plays really well with Michelle.

Michelle: She decided a few weeks ago that she would start potty training. I’ve never had a child do such a good job with that. Usually it takes a full 6 months to a year of blood, sweat and tears to get my kids potty trained, but she is doing great! She has already made it through 2 weeks in underwear with only a handful of accidents. I’m so happy! She is still my animal lover and constantly climbs on the dog. Her speech is getting really clear and it is fun to hear what she has to tell me. She is just really sweet.

Well, that about sums it up about us. You can get more updates on us at my blog megsrowberry.blogspot.com. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. I am so humbled when I think of Mary giving birth in a stable and laying her son in a manger. I am so grateful for her sacrifice and even more for the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. May we remember the reason for the season.

Love,

The Rowberry family

Megan, Justin, Joey, John, Samantha, Nathan and Michelle

Family Pictures

2009-11-20T07:28:00.001-08:00

We got some pictures taken by my friend Brandi. I just wanted to post a few.

Squash smoothies!

2009-11-10T11:34:00.000-08:00

I know what you're thinking. Disgusting right? But it really was pretty good! This morning for breakfast I made smoothies for the kids using a jar of bottled apricots, 1 c. of pureed hubbard squash, a tangerine, a half eaten banana and a bunch of ice. I really liked it. You couldn't taste the squash at all and there was enough sugar in the bottle of apricots that I didn't need to add any sugar either. I feel almost healthy :) We also had squash muffins (with chocolate chips, can't really be that healthy) and oatmeal. Yes, I'm turning into my dad. I didn't tell the kids there was squash in any thing so they did pretty well with everything. I had leftover muffins for joy school (it was my turn) and lots of the kids had seconds. I just feel so proud.

Halloween

2009-11-04T12:51:00.001-08:00

I forgot to take pictures of everyone this Halloween. I don't know what came over me except that I was in charge of the cake walk at the ward halloween party and was busy making a few cakes that day. I did get this snapshot of John a week before when he went to a friends b-day party. He was Darth Maul. His makeup was pretty awesome if I do say so myself. Joey was a zombie, Samantha a witch, Nathan cookie monster, and Michelle was a cat. Justin was Clark Kent and I was also a witch. I made Samantha and John's costumes, but everything else was pretty much thrown together from the costume box which was nice. Halloween was great. We went to the ward party, ate our fill of chili, played games, did the trunk or treat and then drove into town to do a little extra trick or treating. It was great and we ended up with way too much candy. John counted 220 pieces in his bag (and that was after he had eaten a ton all day Sunday and Monday.) I finally confiscated most of it the other day and am still trying to figure out what to do with it. I usually just let them eat it up until it is all gone, but this year they just had too much to do that with. Anyone want any more candy? I will mail it to you!

These are our sad but economical pumpkins. They are actually acorn squash. When we went to visit my parents at the beginning of this month, they sent us home with a box of about 10 acorn squash. So we used some of them for our jack o lanterns this year. They actually worked pretty well, but are a little bit harder to cut than a normal pumpkin. Joey and John cut their own and stacked them to make a totem pole.
These last few pictures are of Nathan's joy school field trip to the pumpkin patch. It was a lot of fun. Nathan's favorite thing was to climb on the hay tower and to go through the hay maze. The tower was pretty tall, but he had no fear.
The hay tower. Nathan is on the second bale from the top. He went to the top too, I just didn't get a picture. I was a bit nervous with him at the top as he kept jumping up and down. boys will be boys.

Nathan's school friends. Levi, Isaiah, Aiden, Mikayla, Nathan and Luke. They had a great time on the hayride.

Military Ball

2009-09-27T21:11:00.000-07:00

Ryan, Tom, Phil, Justin and Justin

Last Saturday night was the military ball. They have one every two years here at this base. It was a ton of fun. Lots of our friends went, and it was great to get dressed up and spend some time with out the kids dancing and eating and having a blast. I ended up making my dress just because I'm kind of wierd and I like to do that kind of thing. It was a fun project for me.

Here I am sucking it in.

Brandi, CherriAnn, Amy, Me and Lisa on the red carpet

Justin and I before we left. Isn't he handsome?

Monstercation part two: NYC

2009-09-20T17:57:00.001-07:00

After a week in the DC/Virginia area, we packed up our bags and rode the bus to NYC. There is a bus there that runs between the two that is only $15 each way. Originally, we were going to rent a car in DC and return it in NYC. We made all our plans and when we went to rent the car, it turned out that it would be about $2000 to rent in one city and return in another. I was banking on $1000 because it was about $400 to rent each car for a week and return to the same city so that just blew my mind. We had already bought our plane tickets so we couldn't just drive up to NYC and then return and fly out of DC. So instead we took the crazy china town bus from DC to NYC. It was actually a really nice bus with plugins for laptops or whatever you could want. I think it even had wifi and there was a bathroom, so it was a pretty good setup and would have gone pretty well if our kids hadn't been sick. . . . but they were, so it was a very long and painful ordeal. To begin with we started in Virginia and had to drive up to D.C. which took about 1 1/2 hours in the car. John wasn't feeling great, but he held on pretty well. We met up with Justin's parents in DC and ate lunch at a thai restaurant. The adults loved it, but the kids weren't impressed and the sickies really didn't eat much. Then we turned in our rental and got dropped off at the bus station at 3:00. The bus ride went relatively smoothly. Nathan threw up once in a plastic bag, but his clothes stayed clean and he slept most of the time. We got dropped off at 7:00 p.m. to downtown Manhattan. We had 7 bags, two car seats, 2 backpacks and a stroller. When everyone was feeling well we pulled it off pretty well. Basically everyone rolled their own bag and Justin and I managed the back packs stroller and car seats between us. But this time Nathan was just feeling cruddy and instisted on being carried and not carrying his own bag. The boys really didn't feel good either but they had to carry their stuff. We only had to walk about a block to the subway station, but it took forever! The stairs down are always what kill me. We kept seeing a sign that said elevator one block up. So we walked around and around the block trying to find the stupid elevator. We never found it. Hopped on the train and then of course realized we were going the wrong way. Hopped off and back on again. Rode up to 42nd st. took the shuttle to the train station and the train up to Pelham, where our friends the Greens live. Nathan threw up again on the train right in the middle of the aisle. We had a few minutes till the train left so I tracked down the conductor so we could clean it up. Of course he had nothing to clean with so he threw down a piece of cardboard so people wouldn't have to walk through it. It was really gross. We finally made it to the Greens and he threw up again. We hopped in their car and drove up to Poughkeepsie to my brother's house (another 1 1/2 hours.) We finally made it to our destination at midnight. That night was so long. I just had to keep telling myself "We're saving $1000, we're saving $1000". The next day Nathan was feeling much better. We had a great time with Matt and Colleen, but Samantha was pretty sick that day. Justin stayed home with her and Nathan while Matt, Colleen and I took the older boys and Michelle to FDR's home and library. It was really beautiful and interesting. I had a great time! We came back that night and played a rousing game of Settlers of Catan after the kids went to bed on Matt and Colleen's enclosed patio. The weather was perfect! The next day Matt was leaving to go to his 20th reunion in Washington so we hopped back in the van drove out to Jones Beach on Long Island. The beach was alot of fun. The waves were great and it was fun to take turns taking the big kids out to body surf. Michelle hated the water so someone always had to stay back with her and build sand castles, but it was a great afternoon. Everyone seemed to be feeling fine and we were glad to have the sickness behind us. We left the beach around 6:30 and headed back towards the city. Everyone was starving so I pulled off the freeway by a mall figuring there would be some food around there somewhere. Instead of eating, we got rear ended and had to wait around for the cops to show up for about half an hour. It was awful. We were driving a friends car so our hearts just sank. It was such a stupid accident anyway. I just felt so bad. It wasn't my fault at all, but I just felt so awful because it wasn't our car. We got that cleared up and started back on the highway. John had hit his head, but it didn't seem to be causing him any problems (the guy behind us was only going 5-10 mph). As we were driving he kept complaining that his head hurt and then he stared throwing up violently so we rushed to the nicer hospital in the Bronx. After a cat scan and waiting 4 hours in the emergency room they decided that he just had a virus and we all finally got to go to bed! I was so tired. Saturday Justin stayed home with John while I took the other kids to visit our old apartment and then we went to see the Zambrano family and had lunch with my good friend Alicia and her kids. They have a wii so the boys were happy and the younger kids all had kids and toys to play with. It was so good to see Alicia. She is so amazing! From there we picked up John and Justin and drove to liberty park in New Jersey to see my sister Maia and her husband Kendall. We had a really nice visit with them. Got in really late again. Church on Sunday was a real treat because we got to see a lot of people we hadn't kept in contact with since moving from the Bronx. All the kids I taught in primary there were now teenagers. It was amazing to see them still have strong testimonies. That night we ate dinner at the Taylors and that was a lot of fun too. Monday was our last day in NYC so we took the kids down town and saw all the touristy stuff like the statue of Liberty and ground Zero. We ended the day with a ferris wheel ride at the Toys R Us on 42nd street. Thank you Aunt Colleen who treated them to it. Colleen dropped us off at the airport on Tuesday and we made it home safely!
John waiting for the bus in DC. He felt so sick. Joey wasn't feeling great either. He was lying down on the other side of the luggage.

The train stop at Pelham. We were all waiting for Justin to come back with the van to pick us up.
Joey and John at a park in Poughkeepsie. Matt and Colleen took us sight seeing!

Jones Beach!

Michelle and John at the beach. John looked great! But a few hours later was puking his guts out.
Joey at the beach

Michelle, Samantha, Nathan and Joey at our old apartment waiting for the elevator. That's about the only thing they remember about NYC.
Our apartment was on the 19th floor of this building. There are 28 floors.

Posing at the medical school.

Liberty park in New Jersey. you can see the statue in the background. Kendall, Justin, Michelle, Joey, Maia, John and Nathan.

Michelle playing around.

Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters! It was so funny, we both stepped out of the car and realized we were both wearing brown shirts, jeans and black shoes. At least we're tacky together!
Samantha and Kendall on the playground. He was a great uncle to play so much with the kids!

Our family and Smiley at the Olmstead 2nd ward

The Diaz family. I taught both those boys in primary. It is fun to see them all grown up!

Irene Adams and Cynthia Figueroa. Awesome ladies!

Our statue of Liberty picture. Much to Samantha's disappointment the line to get on the ferry was about 2 hours long. Justin and I didn't want to wait that long so we took the Staten Island ferry instead and saw it across the bay.

The Statue of liberty

Ground Zero

The ferris wheel at Toys R US. Joey and John had to ride in the cabbage patch car. Ha ha

Justin, Samantha and Nathan on the Ferris Wheel.

Waiting for Justin to pick us up at the train station.

Monstercation part one: family reunion

2009-09-16T13:32:00.000-07:00

August was super fun and super crazy! We flew back east to a family reunion in Washington DC and then journeyed to New York to visit family and friends up there too. It was really great to reconnect with so many people we haven't seen in forever.

We started out flying from Boise to DC. We got there on Tuesday the 4th and stayed the night at Justin's parents house. The next day we all went to the dorms at Georgetown and stayed there for the duration of the reunion. It was a pretty nice set up. The campus there is beautiful! Justin's mom worked really hard putting together slide shows of all the kids in the family and we all took turns cooking and taking care of the kids. We went swimming, sight seeing, to the zoo, had a talent show, bbq in rock creek park, picked up Aunt Kristy at the airport for her homecoming. It was a lot of fun. The highlight was going to the temple and out to dinner with all the adults on Saturday evening. It was really neat to be in the temple with all of Justin's siblings. Food afterwards was awesome too. Here are some random pictures of
the reunion.

Sharon directs the kids in making fruit loop necklaces.

Samantha and her necklace.

Racheal eating fruit loops.

Aunt Kim and aunt Shauntelle stringing fruit loops.

Our family at the Lincoln memorial.

Michelle, Laura Dannemon, Samantha, and Sasha.

Nathan at the Lincoln memorial. If you look closely you can see the Washington monument behind him. Also behind him are Samantha, Sasha, Laura and Michelle.

The Zoo Crew

Nathan asleep at the zoo.

Justin on the canal ride.

Joey and John on the Canal ride.

picture day, cool but casual

Picture day conga line!

The push up contest. I can't remember who won.

Grandma and grandpa dancing at the talent show

swimming at the YMCA in Virginia.

Justin, Nathan, and Josh at the pool

Alia's 3rd birthday! We love cake!

Mary, Nathan and Michelle pretending to sleep. They were so cute playing house. They would lie down and take a nap and then a minute later run to the pool and swim then come back and "sleep". It was cute.

4th of July

2009-07-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

I'm finally recovering from my 4th of July weekend. It was so much fun. To begin with, the weekend before, we went up to Logan and switched kids with Micheal and Sarah. We left John there and took home Julia for the week. It was kind of fun to have more girls than boys for once. My parents and brother came through on the 1st. It was fun to be with them and we tried having the kids sleep on the trampoline, but the sprinklers came on in the middle of the night. Then on the 2nd my parents left and Mike and Sarah came for the weekend. We went to Boise and saw some sights on Friday. Saturday we rented a boat and went tubing and water skiing. It was a lot of fun, although I still didn't get up. We'll have to rent a boat again some time soon. We had ribs and homemade ice cream for dinner and went to fireworks. It was a great day! Sunday Mike and Sarah left and my parents and brother came back through. Ate more ice cream. It was great! Justin had Monday off so went with us to swimming lessons. Tuesday we babysat 5 extra kids all night while their parents went to the temple, so it was a party. Went to Roaring Springs (a water park) on Wednessday, fed the missionaries on Thursday, temple night for us on Friday, school shopping Saturday and then we finally had to return to "normal" life. Writing it down helps me realize why it took me till Saturday to finally get caught up on laundry and house cleaning. I love summer!

Sugar Baby

2009-06-17T15:28:00.001-07:00

This is what I saw when I entered John's room this morning. He has been saving his halloween candy and adding to his stash every holiday. What a weird kid. I personally would have eaten it all the first day. THe thing that really cracked me up was the lollipops. He had them sticking out of every bedpost, and yes, some of them are unwrapped for easy licking. At Least he was smart enough to pull the ladder up. (He is on the top bunk). Kids are so funny!

Good garden, stupid dog

2009-06-17T15:16:00.000-07:00

My stupid dog has been chewing on everything! She is no longer allowed inside unless some one is directly watching her which is pretty much never. arrgh!

On a happier note, we are actually eating stuff from our garden!! yay! I've never been good at keeping things alive so I'm excited that we have had salads from our garden for the past couple of weeks. Thank goodness Justin decided to take over and make it his little hobby. I'm sure I would have stopped watering by now.

Memorial Day

2009-05-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

We had a great Memorial day weekend, except that I forgot to bring the camera :( So you will just have to use your imagination. We went to my moms house. On Friday, Danny got a boat for us and took us out on the Columbia to go tubing and wakeboarding. Joey, John and Samantha all got to go. We all had a great time, but it was so cute to see little Samantha on the tube holding on tight to the rope with a big old smile on her face. She just looked so little and I thought she would be too scared or at the very least would hate the cold, cold water, but she was such a cute little trooper. Justin almost got up on the wakeboard. Danny wowed us with his tricks. He did some backflips, it was really neat! Then on Monday we went to a family reunion that my dad's family holds every memorial day. It was fun to see so many of my cousins that I haven't seen in forever.

Mother's Day

2009-05-15T08:25:00.000-07:00

My mother's day was awesome this year. To begin with Justin took the boys camping on Friday and Saturday so the girls got to watch chick flicks and go shopping. It was great, I even got a new swimming suit! Then on Sunday Justin did all of the cooking, the kids brought out their various Mother's day gifts from school and Justin got everyone to give me a spa treatment. Joey and John gave back rubs, Nathan fed me ice cream and Samantha gave me a pedicure. It was really sweet (even though the end product left a little to be desired.)
I tried to take some pictures of the kids to send to grandma, but they never quite cooperated so I didn't really get any good ones. They were so cute all dressed up though.
Here are some purses I made for my mom and mother in law for mother's day. I just got a new sewing machine and these were my first project on it. I've never made bags before, but they were fun. I was really pleased with the outcome.

Father and Son campout

2009-05-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! It's that time of the year again! Father's and sons is this weekend. When Samantha heard that in church today she turned to me and said in an awed whisper "Does that mean we can go to the mall?"

Last year when Justin took the boys, Samantha, Michelle and I had a special girls night out where we went to the mall and met a friend of mine at a french cafe in San Antonio. It was a lot of fun. So, we are hoping for a repeat. I'll keep you updated. It cracks me up that Samantha thinks the mall is like an amusement park. She is stoked to go. The sad thing is I am too. I am hoping I can get her and Michelle interested in swimming suit shopping with me. The only suit I can fit into right now is my maternity suit and it is time for that to go. Wish me luck!

Easter

2009-05-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

I'm finally getting around to posting some Easter pictures. We went to Logan to celebrate with Mike and Sarah and the day before we went to Anna Hansen's house in Layton for an Easter egg hunt/celebration. It was a lot of fun. Michelle loved this car.
Here are all of the kids in the bouncy house.
Michelle hunting for easter eggs. They had a golden egg and a silver egg each with $5 inside. The kids were pretty excited. My niece Julia found one of the prize eggs.
John, Joseph and Nathan dying Easter eggs at our house.

Got Dirt?

2009-05-03T17:59:00.001-07:00

I do! We finally got our dirt and garden all planted. We have tomatoes, strawberries, spinach, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, peas, and swiss chard planted in our garden. It's kind of exciting, although right now it still just looks like a bunch of dirt. We have some tomato starts inside still and the strawberries are up, but we're just waiting for everything else to get started. It's pretty fun. Justin has decided that gardening is his new hobby, so it's been fun to see him out taking care of everything and reading books on square foot gardening. It's a nice family project.

My Garden

2009-04-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

I just finished making a big garden box for our family so we can have our first family garden. I'm really excited about it. I got 8 of the red timbers from the self help store here on base for free. They also let me "rent" for free a circular saw to take home and use. I got boards from the wood pile (dump) here on base for the bottom and drilled a bunch of holes in them for drainage. We have to have a bottom on our box because the landscape here is under warranty so we aren't allowed to plant anything directly into the ground for at least a year and after that we have to draw up plans and get approval for anything we want to do. In the end I did end up spending about $66 on extra timbers and screws, so it wasn't free, but I still think we did pretty well. Now all I have to do is convince someone with a pickup to help me load up a bunch of dirt :)

Spring Break!

2009-04-01T10:48:00.000-07:00

We had a busy and fun spring break. First, the kids and I went up to my mom and dad's house and celebrated my dad's 72nd birthday. We also went hiking at goose lake and went out to see the sandhill cranes. It's funny how perceptions change when you get older. There are cliffs at goose lake that we used to jump off some times for fun. I remember them being huge, at least 30 feet tall. Well, when we went to them last week they looked really small. I think I was in the right place, but they looked closer to 10 feet tall. I'll just keep telling my self that they were taller so I feel braver.

After we got back, on Saturday, the whole family went out to the Hagerman fossil beds. The visitor's center was neat, but really small. Then we went on a hike that follows the oregon trail where some fossils have been found. It was a 3 mile hike, so Justin ended up taking the boys the whole way, and the little kids and I just went a little ways and then drove the car to the end and met them at the end of the trail.

As you can see the hike was pretty desolate. The weather was perfect for hiking though. Not too hot, not too cold, and not too windy, which is really the amazing thing for out here. If you look very carefully you can see 3 black specs hiking up the hill on across the way. I took this picture from the end of the trail as we were hiking ou to meet them. When we met Justin and the boys Joey came running up to me saying that John had broken his leg. Justin was carrying him to make the story believable, but of course he didn't really, they were just trying to trick me.

What a bunch of fakers! Here's some pictures of the little kids waiting for Joey and John.

They were so funny because every ten feet or so Nathan would plop down in the dirt and start breaking up dirt clots and it took forever to convince him to get back up and start walking. It made me think of all those poor pioneer mothers trying to prod their toddlers on the right trail.

After the hike we went to miracle hot springs and had a picnic and soaked up some warm water. It was GREAT! The water was perfect and of course it didn't matter that it was 50 degrees out side. In fact if anything it may have been just a bit too warm outside to really enjoy the warm water. THey had a little swing in the pool and these really cool domes you could rent for camping. It looked kind of fun so we might have to try that some time. All in all it was a great day.

Happy Birthday Justin!

2009-03-16T12:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Justin's 32nd birthday. THe kids made this great hat for him to wear while we sang happy birthday and ate birthday pie. The night before J and I went to the temple and while we were there we ran into some old friends from college. After the temple we all went out to eat at McGrath's which was great! It was a lot of fun. They had the absolute best birthday hat there. I really wish I would have had my camera with me. It was like a huge fish made out of pottery and formed into a hat. It was hilarious! He also got to go fly fishing on Friday, so it was a pretty good weekend for him.

LEGOMANIA!!

2009-03-16T12:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Justin's birthday so all of the kids made him a lego sculpture to help celebrate. I just had to post pictures of them because some of them were really cool.

Samantha's cactus girls.

John's Robot

Nathan's baby girafe

Joseph's robot.

Sleepover

2009-03-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

Samantha had her first sleep over the other day with her friend Victoria. I have to say that girl sleep overs are soooooo much better than boy ones. The girls were really cute and dyed their hair and put make up on and finger nail polish. It was a lot of fun. Plus those two are so mild mannered it was just a piece of cake to watch them. Victoria's brother Eddie also spent the night. (He is one of Joey's friends) so everyone had a great time. Just the boy room was rowdier than the girl one and none of the boys wanted me to dye their hair. Instead they got out all of their pokemon cards and dueled all night long. Even Nathan had a his friend Emilio over for a while, while his parents celebrated his mom's birthday. It's nice to see all of the kids making good friends.

GQ Joe

2009-03-08T16:53:00.000-07:00

The title says it all. I can't believe how good looking and old Joey is starting to be. It is amazing. John too, I just have to convince him that he wants to get dressed up and let me take pictures of him . . . hopefully soon we'll have new pictures of everyone. (Justin's the really hard one to convince.)

sledding with the kids at Bogus

2009-02-16T07:44:00.001-08:00

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The day before John's baptism we went sledding up at Bogus with both sets of grandparents. It was a lot of fun. They had a nice safe run with a rope tow so we could sled down and get towed back up. It was perfect for the kids and grandparents alike who were all a little nervous that they might injure themselves. It was military appreciation day so we got all of the tickets for super cheap! I love military discounts!

Bogus Basin

2009-02-15T18:37:00.001-08:00

To celebrate our 10 year anniversary and graduation from residency, Justin and I went on a four day trip up to Boise to go skiing and sample the night life here in Idaho. It was wonderful!! Both of us had only been skiing a few times when we were teenagers so there was a lot to relearn or really learn for the first time. I have to admit that after the first day I was seriously worried that I might die on the mountain. On my last run I totally lost control and flew down the mountain as fast as gravity would pull me. I really was kind of freaked after that, but the next day we went I got my confidence back and was feeling like a pro. We stayed at the anniversary inn all week and it was amazing! I really didn't think a room would make that big of a differnce, but it really did. The room was absolutely beautiful and they brought us breakfast every morning and cheesecake and sparkling cider every evening. It was great! The best part was the 2 person jetted tub. Everyday after skiing all day we would come back and take a nice long soak in the tub. I can't think of anywhere else we could have gone to have more fun.

John's Baptism

2009-02-15T18:19:00.001-08:00

John was baptized on Feb 7, 2009. It was a wonderfully spiritual experience with both grandparents and Mike and Sarah and family came. We really had a great time. Too short with all of the family, but we'll take what we can get. John was so handsome. It is amazing how quickly our children are growing. I can't believe that we now have two boys who are baptized and are reading the Book of Mormon on their own. It is amazing!

Christmas Gifts From John and Shauntelle

2009-01-18T21:04:00.000-08:00

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

New years Eve 2008

2009-01-18T18:37:00.000-08:00

Mike and Sarah called us the Monday before New Years to see if we wanted to get together for the big day. We of course did, and were so grateful they were willing to make the trip out to Mountain home because Justin was on call and we couldn't leave to visit them. We had a great time with all of the cousins together, playing the wii, dancing, playing board games, and of course eating all sorts of good food on New Years Eve! The kids even ate all of their asparagus! Cousin dance party! We had to work off all that good food some how!

Joey, John, Julia, and Gabe at midnight. Joey and John still remember trying to be tricked into bed early last year at Brandon and Kim's house and were determined not to fall for it this year. With the little kids down, it really was no big deal having the older ones up to play.

Jason made it to midnight unlike Nathan, Michelle, Rachel and Samantha. He was so cute and nice for a little boy at that age at midnight.

Mike and Sarah at midnight. No that is not alcohol on the counter behind them.

Here we are playing the wii:

Christmas 2008

2009-01-18T18:27:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas this year. We went to Grandma Stoker's house in Washington. We left on Christmas Eve and were afraid we might not make it through the pass, but it all worked out and we were able to make it there safely. Once there we had a great time just chillin with the folks. My brother Danny came and did alot of stuff with us too including feeding us chili and cornbread in his house after watching the movie "Bedtime stories". It's always nice to be home for Christmas and this was the first time we had spent Christmas at my parents house in six years! It's so crazy how time flies.

The grossest thing ever

2009-01-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

The story I am about to tell is true none of the names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved. Be forewarned it is really gross so those of you with a weak stomach may wish to skip this post.

That being said, the weather is starting to warm up around here. On Friday I decided to walk and to take the dog with us to pick up the kids from school. It really isn't very far and we all need the exercise so we behave better the rest of day. Lucky is now 6 months old. She has grown a ton since we got her, and still has tons of energy. So I am walking down the street pushing a double stroller with Michelle strapped in the front and Nathan is intermittently running far ahead of me and then stopping to pick up a rock, getting side tracked and falling far behind me. I however am being pulled all over the sidewalk by the dog who is so ecstatic to be out of the house, she is oblivious to the choke chain around her neck. I am currently reading the dog whisperer's book "Be the Pack Leader" and am trying so hard to reign her in and make her walk correctly beside me but to no avail. We finally make it to the school and pick up the kids. The older boys of course could care less that I came and are soon off walking home with their friends. Samantha however is walking right beside me complaining about how her legs hurt and trying to get into the empty seat of the stroller. This is when Lucky suddenly stops, crouches and leaves her little present for the world. I start to panic because they have very strict pick up your poop rules here on base and I knew I didn't remember to bring a bag. Luckily, my stroller was prepared and there were 3 bags left over from the last walk we took. I calmly pulled out a bag and picked up the offending feces and we were on our way again. 10 feet later she was crouching again, and I calmly used the 2nd bag, tied it neatly and continued to carry it along with the other bag until I could find a garbage can. I did notice that this second group was a bit runnier than the first (though of course still a solid.) We continued on our way and about 10 feet later she was again crouching. I only had one bag left, so I calmly picked up the somewhat fluid feces but didn't tie the bag so I could use it again if the need arose.
Suddenly, Lucky smelled something and tried to run off in one direction. I gave a quick jerk of the leash held in my left hand which was also holding the 3 poop bags to get her back on track. The entire contents of the third bag that never got tied went flying and landed directly on top of Michelle's head. It was soooo gross. I tried my best to get as much off as I could with the bag because I didn't really have anything else. I then realized it was also on my coat and my pants. We walked home as fast as we could and jumped right into the bath. GROSS!!!!!!!!

10 years of Beauty

2008-12-21T14:36:00.000-08:00

Last friday, 12/19/2008 was our 10th anniversary. It's hard to believe we've been married so long. After all we're still so young and good looking :) j/k You can tell my husband has rubbed off on me. I would have never written anything like that before we were married. He cracks me up. I'm just so grateful for him. We went out to dinner the other night and were able to review the last 10 years and they have been great. Right now so many of the people we know have husbands who are deployed and watching them cope just makes me so grateful that my husband is here with me and is involved in our family. The last couple of months have been wonderful because he has had so much more free time and I have been able to see even more how necessary it is to have two parents. He really is able to reach the kids in ways that I never will be able to. Our roles are just different. He is also just funny. I'm so grateful for his sense of humor. It is so wierd to be at a small base where almost all of the moms I come in contact with have seen him in a professional manner helping with their children. I've gotten so many compliments about him from others. I think I'm pretty lucky to have him. Here's to another 10!

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas!

2008-12-21T14:10:00.000-08:00

It has been snowing here for about a week. YAY! After living in Texas for 3 years it is nice to have a really white Christmas! NAthan has been so funny though. It really is his first snow ever and he loves it, but every time we go out he puts his bare hands in the snow and ends up crying. It has been fun to have the snow, but it has been soo windy that every time we go out it is bitterly cold. Every day after school I told the boys they would have to build a snow man before being allowed to watch tv or play computer, but once we get out there and I realize it is 15 degrees out and very windy I relent and let them come in. Today Justin finally got them outside playing and it really was one of the coldest days we've had with a bitter wind blowing snow everywhere. We got everyone dressed in their snow pants and boots, gloves, hats, coats. Then of course, Michelle started crying and I had to take her back in. The others however had a fun time building a fort under the trampoline. The wind had blown a bunch of snow up to the top of the tramp on one side and they just added more snow till they had a little shelter built up that protects them from the wind. It is really pretty cool. There is just something so wonderful about dads. I honestly have tried to get them to play in the snow all week, but when dad suggests building fort, all the sudden everyone is interested and gets all dressed by themselves and plays. I'm so grateful for Justin. He really is a good dad.

Lucky Dog

2008-11-14T05:59:00.001-08:00

Here is Lucky modeling her latest pink sweater courtesy of Walmart. Justin thinks it's ridiculous, but I just couldn't resist getting her a little sweater with the weather getting colder and all. I think she looks adorable. However, she has learned to take it off in under five minutes, so I guess she won't be wearing it that often. It does make a nice chew toy though :)

Maia Cynthia Stoker Greene

2008-10-31T21:24:00.000-07:00

Well, she really did it! My wonderful, willful, workaholic, sister finally got married! We are so happy for her and her new husband Kendall. They were sealed in the temple on October 18th 2008, and are now living in Nashville, TN. We flew to her wedding in St. Louis just for the weekend and then the kids and I went down to Provo for one of the receptions last weekend. It was a lot of fun. I saw so many people that I had not seen in years! It was awesome. My friend Susie took us in and let us stay at her house. Her kids and my kids had a great time together and it was just nice to be with friends who are glad to see you and aren't worried about how your children are wrecking their house. Thanks Susie, we had a great time!

"It's called trick or treat dad, not Talk or treat!"

2008-10-31T21:05:00.000-07:00

That is the quote of the night from John. We had a great time walking around the neighborhood, meeting new people and getting lots of candy. But of course as the line indicates Justin talked waaaaaaay too much at each house and the boys soon were two or three houses ahead of us. The weather was perfect for trick or treating tonight. Not to cold or too hot. Lots of the neighbors were out in front of their houses with a fire pit burning and just enjoying each others company. It was great!
On my camera there is a picture of everyone in their halloween costumes, but for some reason I couldn't get it to upload and then the battery died so I'll have to get it up later. Just in case I don't, Joey was a knight, John a ninja, Samantha a ballerina, Nathan a cat, and Michelle a dinosaur, Justin was high school graduate and I was an old lady trying to catch him.
In addition to Halloween, Justin was honored at a luncheon for being the best group leader something something in his squadron. Because of this he was nominated to be the best best bestest something on the base, but got beat out by the Chaplain. You can't really win against a man of God. It's not really fair, but we're proud of him anyway. Though he did miss out on a really cool trophy that looks like a superman crystal. Sorry I can't remember the names of the awards, but essentially he got an award for being the best company grade medical officer in his squadron which I think is all of the medical officers. He also took the boards this week so we are really excited to see more of him around the house again. No more tests for 7 more years!!!!! YAY!!!!!! Tomorrow he gets to tackle my honey do list:)

Nina Pretty Ballerina

2008-10-05T18:40:00.001-07:00

Here are pictures of Samantha's ballet recital back in June. She was beautiful and loved every minute of her routine. Here in Mountain Home she is taking gymnastics which she also enjoys.

2008-10-05T18:15:00.000-07:00

All right everyone who thought we fell off the face of the earth, we are finally settled into our permanent home (at least fo the next 3 years). Update for the last 3 months: We got a puppy named Lucky. She is a pointer mix and a lot of fun. We love her a lot. Samantha is still deathly afraid of dogs, but whenever the dog is in her crate she will go over to her and tell her that she loves her and always wants to do lots of things that include Lucky like take family pictures as long as the dog is on a short leash. Michelle on the other hand is not afraid of her at all. She is always chasing the dog and needs constant supervision so that they don't hurt each other. As you can tell from the picture Nathan is not afraid either.

As for the rest of us everyone is doing well making new friends and enjoying the brisk fall weather. We still miss our friends in San Antonio, but are adjusting well here. I'm just excited to be in my new home! The garage is still full of boxes, but it's thinning down out there. For those of you who don't know, our summer was kind of crazy. We stayed in the TLF for about 3 weeks (nice, but sooo boring)Then we were homeless for a few weeks (thanks Maia, Mike and Sarah, the Zaugg family and mom and dad who let us crash their homes for various periods of time.) It was a lot of fun to see everyone. Then we moved into the old officer housing in gunfighter manor for about 6 weeks and finally to our new home on Bear Loop. It's nice to be permanent.

MT. HOME!

2008-07-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

We finally pulled into MT. Home AFB yesterday afternoon! We left Texas on the 2nd of July and drove to Carlsbad NM. The next day we went to the caves and explored for the entire morning. Even then we left a lot unseen. It was really fun! That cave was HUGE! I don't think we even saw half of it. After that we were trying to make it all the way to Shiprock, NM that day, but the black car broke down around Albuquerque. We found a mechanic who was willing to work on it the next day (the 4th of July. So at about noon on the 4th we took off only to break down again about 100 miles away. We got towed back to a town called Grants where we found another gracious mechanic who worked on the car on the 5th. Meanwhile we spent the 4th at a casino in the middle of nowhere, NM with a spectacular fireworks display. THere was also a band that was really loud. The fireworks really were some of the best I've ever seen. The 5th we made it up to Provo and spent the night with Tyson, Janae and baby Reid. It was fun to see them. We went to church with them and then zipped up to Logan to see Micheal and Sarah. We stayed there for a few days and let the kids play. It was a lot of fun. Then we finally made our way to Mt. Home. I have to say especially on the drive out to base it really appears to be the land Desolation. There is No visible life on that fifteen minute drive. Not even sagebrush, really just a bunch of dried up cheat grass. Ahhh, home sweet home!

NASA

2008-06-07T19:47:00.001-07:00

Memorial day weekend I realized was the last day Justin had off that wasn't a Sunday preceded by a 24 hr shift or being spent in Idaho, so we just had to make a whirlwind trip to Houston to see NASA. It was definately worth it. We had a great time and made lots of fun memories. We went up Monday night (because Justin worked all Sunday until Monday morning so we had to get him a little bit of sleep.) stayed in a motel, and spent all day at NASA the next day. It was really fun, except the sleeping in a motel with 2 double beds and 7 people. It worked fine last year, but for some reason this time I could not get comfortable at all. I had to share my bed with Samantha and Nathan, and Nathan was soooo squirmy. We could not get him to be still unless he was lying across everyone's pillows. It was awful! At least Michelle went down in the crib peacefully. I guess we will just bring sleeping bags for the next motel stay. We'll be making a few here in a couple of weeks. I'm getting really excited to move to Idaho. I think we will make a few stops along the way at Carlsbad Caverns and Moab and then maybe at Mike and Sarah's. There's a small part of me that would like to camp our way up there, but then there is the other part of me that knows that setting up a tent, building a fire etc. can make the whole trip just seem really long. Also, I'm not sure Justin would be up for it. But we might. Especially in Moab. I've only been camping a few times in that country, but it was gorgeous, except when we went camping at Zions and John woke up screaming at 2 am and wouldnt fall back to sleep until I drove him around in the car for a few minutes. Isn't life with small children great! Anyway back to the post topic, NASA was great, I would reccommend it to everyone who lives nearby. You should take the time to visit. There are lots of very kid friendly parts and then some adult interesting things also. Definately take the tram tour if you go.

Dr. Justin Rowberry pediatrician!

2008-06-07T07:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was graduation and Justin is now officially a "Real" pediatrician. We are so proud of him! The ceremony was as exciting as they always are, luckily I got someone to watch the kids. Then that evening they had a dinner to celebrate and roast all of the graduates. It was a lot of fun. A lot of hard work went into planning and presenting all of the skits and funny awards all the graduates got. Justin got the "Dan Tolson award" most likely to have a show on TLC about trying to build his own choir from scratch. It was pretty funny. We love him and are excited to get to our new home in Idaho. Justin goes next Monday to pick out a place, and we will be leaving on July 2nd to get there! YEAH!

Memorial Day

2008-06-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures from our flag planting activity for scouts. They actually cancelled going as a group because only two scouts showed up from our troop, but my friend and I still went with our kids. It was a really neat experience. Every memorial day they plant flags on the graves of all the veterans at the graveyard at Fort Sam Houston (which is all of the graves). There were thousands of them, but thankfully there were thousands of scouts and young families from all over San Antonio who went and participated. The kids loved doing it and it only took about an hour with all of the volunteers. The only hard part was that after all the flags were planted, Nathan wanted to pick them all back up and had to be dragged kicking and screaming from the grave yard. He loved putting them in the ground though. The other funny thing is that I took the kids to Burger King after the activity because it was dinner time and they were hot and sweaty and starving. We had been looking for a McDonalds but we found Burger King first. All the kids ran inside and started getting ready to order and Nathan finally looked around and started screaming "This is not McDonalds!!" Luckily he calmed down pretty quick, but I thought it would have made a good commercial.

Mother's Day

2008-05-15T13:58:00.000-07:00

Mother's day was great this year. As you can see I got a crown and a bouquet of hand flowers from my children. It was great. The kids also brought me breakfast in bed without spilling the juice on the new carpet. (Nathan did try to eat my cereal though). I even survived the cherry and mushroom soup chicken (with a hint of cinnamin)made by Justin for lunch. Just for future reference be wary when Justin says "I added a secret ingredient". It actually was pretty good, but I like to give him a hard time. Just remember Justin if you are reading this, eggs do not belong in chili.

Father and sons campout

2008-05-14T15:16:00.000-07:00

Upon arriving home from the camp out Justin proclaimed, "From now on only kids 5 and up can go to the father and son camp out." I guess Nathan wandered a bit while Justin was trying to set up the tent and they couldn't find him for a while. Justin was a bit upset. I maintain that if he was just a bit more creative and say tied Nathan to a tree, he could still take him to the camp out with no problems. He doesn't agree. Other than that incident it seems that they all had a good time. The boys read a lot of Prince Caspian and had fun with water guns.

Father and Son Camp out

2008-05-06T13:46:00.000-07:00

So this weekend is the father and sons camp out for our stake. Justin is going to take the boys so I told Samantha we could do something really fun that's just for girls. She looked at me and said "like go to the mall?!" followed by an excited girly screech you would expect upon hearing that we were going to Disney Land. I'm not exactly sure what she expects. I guess it has been a long time since she has actually gone to the mall. I'm excited. I think we'll go eat and may be watch a girly movied. If we're super motivated we may even paint our fingernails before we go. yay! Move over Disneyland!

Battle of the Flowers Parade

2008-05-06T13:10:00.000-07:00

I finally got to go to the Battle of the Flowers parade this year. I've always thought it would be fun, but because Justin is always working, have never mustered up the courage to brave it alone with the kids. Kelly Landin called me this year to see if I wanted to go with her since it was our last chance. It was crowded, but not as bad as I thought it might be. (I was picturing a repeat of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parde in NYC or New Year's at Big Ben in London.) Compared to those events it was practically abandoned. It was a lot of fun and I know the kids had a good time too. Thank you Kelly for giving us a reason to go!

6 days on the market and counting. . .

2008-03-26T14:33:00.000-07:00

So we've now had our house up on the market for 6 days and things are going fine. We've had 3 showings so far. It really hasn't been too bad keeping everything clean since they give at least an hours notice, but it is just annoying because I never feel like I can just relax. At the same time, I don't feel like I can do anything very interesting either because all of those things make messes. No little projects to keep me sane, just the same old vacuuming and cleaning bathrooms. Yuck! I'm so bored, but of course always have lots of boring work I could be doing. Since the house has been up I have not really cooked. We've been eating, spaghetti, boxed dinners, stew and biscuits, easy stuff that's quick to prepare and requires little or no dishes. I never realized how much time I usually spend cooking, figuring out what to cook and cleaning up after cooking. It's been kind of nice to have the break, but at the same time that is probably the homemaking responsibility I enjoy most. Now I'm just left with bathroom cleanup.
My agent showed our house today and she said of the 11 houses she showed to her client ours was #2. The client liked my neighbor's house better because it's bigger, but she said ours was really clean! That's always good to hear. The new carpet helps alot with that. It is great at hiding dirt and stuff and we are working really hard to keep everything cleaned up. THe kids have also spent a lot of time outside lately which helps.
Samantha had a birthday party at the park on Tuesday which was great. According to Kethy Holland there was a scary man stalking us, but I was oblivious to the fact. Luckily her husband showed up to scare the man off. As usual I forgot to take pictures, or I would post something here.
Justin emailed Major Long today to see about our next assignment. He said he is working really hard to keep us in Mountain Home so hopefully that is where we will be. We are really looking forward to seeing family a little more.

Waiting, waiting, waiting

2008-03-23T19:06:00.000-07:00

Well, we carpeted the entire house, touched up all the paint, planted flowers, raked leaves, hauled off branches and other various pieces of junk, replaced the dishwasher, washed windows and cleaned blinds and our house is now on the market. Just days before all that work (and after all the money was spent) we found out we might not even be moving where we want to go! We want to go to Mountain Home, Idaho, and were told that was probably where we are going, but now we are hearing that we might get bumped and sent to some place on the non-volunteer list. yuck! Hopefully we will find out soon! Meanwhile, we have had two showings and no feed back. One of the showings was on Easter. Who goes house hunting on Easter? Easter was exciting anyway. Our ward choir did a cantada which I was semi in charge of. Justin sang a solo and the whole thing was pretty neat. Then we had dinner at the Landin's house. kelly is so awesome . . . she made blackberry pie, need I say more?

Joey's Baptism

2008-02-06T20:19:00.000-08:00

December 8th 2007 Joseph Allen Rowberry was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was a wonderful day. Grandma and grandpa Rowberry came out for the event and the Massengale family also came down from Dallas. Joey was excited. Justin baptized and grandpa Rowberry confirmed. It was great meeting.

Thanksgiving/Joey's birthday

2008-01-28T21:05:00.000-08:00

This year was one of those fun years when Joey's birthday was on Thanksgiving. Consequently he got to have Birthday pie, yum! We went up to Uncle Brett's house in Dallas for the big day. It was great! Among other things it was our first close encounter with Tivo. What a great invention! The food was fabulous and the company was too. It even snowed for about 5 minutes! I forgot how much colder Dallas is than San Antonio. I don't think I even brought coats for everyone :0 Here is breaking footage of the blizzard:

Halloween 2007

2008-01-28T20:41:00.000-08:00

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This year the kids and I made wooden grave stones for our yard using the jigsaw Matt and Colleen gave us for Christmas last year. I can't tell you how much I enjoy using that saw! It's so powerful! It was so fun to just randomly decide one boring saturday that instead of organizing and cleaning our eternally messy home we would instead make our grave stones out of random scraps of wood. The kids had a lot of fun painting their own stones and writing things about themselves on them. We all wrote that we were dying on 10/31/2007 which I suppose was just tempting fate to have us all get in a fatal car accident that night (having written down our deaths weeks before) but we managed to survive the night and now have 5 very large tombstones competing for space in our attic. That really was probably one of my favorite parts of this Halloween, but of course there was also the pumpkin carving, ward party, the school party/performance, and actual Halloween night, Not to mention WAAAAAAY too much candy.

2008-01-28T20:22:00.000-08:00

That white stuff all over my dresser, that's lotion. I guess it looked a little dry. That's what happens when you think your 2 year old is asleep in bed and really he's not. Actually that is just a very tame incident that Justin cleaned up. He still thinks it's cute enough to merit a picture. In addition to "greasing" up the furniture, he also used some of my perfume that night. Luckily he still knows how to be extra cute when caught doing something wrong.

2007-10-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

Here's our smiling baby girl! She is becoming really sweet!

2007-10-02T20:34:00.000-07:00

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Here is a slide show Justin put together of his trip to Honduras. We are glad to have him home, if only for a few hours each day. He is now working nights, only 3 more weeks till he's back with us for real!

2007-09-19T19:23:00.000-07:00

Well, Justin is in Honduras this week. He is taking health surveys for the government and participating in some free clinics. He's been having a great time. He just called tonight briefly and told us that he has been having a great time. HE says the people are great and his spanish is coming back and he's even dreaming in spanish again. HE got to ride in a black hawk and play lots of soccer and participate in a few clinics.

Meanwhile back at the ranch. . . I've been busy organizing the lonely wives club. A few of my friends had working husbands on Tuesday so we all got together and had dinner together. It was a lot of fun. I've also been frantically painting furniture and vainly trying to save Michelle from violent attackers. Nathan threw a can of pears at her head on Monday to spite me. She is fine, but the whole incident was scary. Of course she screamed, but calmed down shortly after I picked her up. She has a nasty red mark on her cheek, but it never did bruise and as her pupils looked normal I didn't take her in, and she seems to be normal. THe kids also almost knocked over the shopping cart in the grocery store and she would have gone down as well, but luckily I caught her just in time. I accidentally dropped her in her carseat also. Poor baby! She has had an awful week, but she is still doing well and starting to smile sweet but infrequent little smiles at us. We can't wait for Justin to get home on Saturday!

2007-09-10T12:03:00.000-07:00

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Samantha, Nathan, Michelle and I went on a mother-daughter campout this weekend. I wasn't going to go because Justin had to work and wouldn't be able to watch the boys, but a friend of mine last minute offered to let the boys have a sleepover at her house while I took the little kids camping. It was kind of last minute, but we all had a great time! It was Joey and John's first sleepover. Joey says they stayed up till 2 am and John swears he stayed up all night, but since they didn't take a nap the next day, I think they probably went to bed a little bit sooner. As for the little kids, we had a great time camping with Vicky and Lizzy SMith and Melissa and her 3 daughters Jenna, Haven, and Leah. We also saw lots of different people from our stake. THe water was cold, but so refreshing in the Texas heat. I could have stayed all day long. I can't wait till our kids are older and we can all float down the river together.

1st week of school 2007

2007-09-01T14:10:00.000-07:00

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THe slide show for this week features the first day of school and a photo shoot of Michelle and the little kids including bath time. Well, this was the first week of school for this year, and so far it is going to be a great year. When asked by their mom how their first day went and every other day since Joey has always responded "great!" and John "Boring!". At one point on the first day John even said he'd had "the worst day of his life!" but that was mainly because he found out that Samantha, Nathan, Michelle and I had pringles for lunch and we ate them all. Even though he's had such a "boring" time at school, John has been the first one awake each morning and quickly gets dressed and eats breakfast so he can run to school and be one of the first ones there. Joey and John have started walking this year which has been wonderful! That way the little kids can sleep a little longer and their naps aren't interrupted in the afternoon. It also give me an extra half hour or so to work out or clean or shower in the morning while the little kids are still sleeping or dazed. I love it! The boys love it too. This way they are never late and can leave as soon as they are both ready in the morning. On Tuesdays and Thursdays they have market days at school and they can buy and sell things they made before school starts. They think it is the neatest thing. Samantha started preschool this week too. It was my week to teach and it was great! The class is smaller this year (5 kids) and the kids are all 4 rather than 2-3 like they were last year. Their attention span is sooooo much better! It's great!

Michelle's First Month of Life

2007-08-21T14:57:00.000-07:00

Michelle has been a busy baby! In her first month of life she has gone to the beach at Corpus Christi, gone to six flags in San Antonio, had dinner at Benihannas, gotten sunburned and gone to the pool regularly! She has been very good to us so far, although like all babies she has her moments. From the beginning we all commented on how loud her cry is. I think Heavenly Father decided to forgoe the quiet new born cry so that we would all be able to hear her and make sure she didn't get lost in the crowd. She really doesn't cry that often, but when she does she is loud. She is just barely starting to wake up and establish a schedule. It is nice to have awake moments with her. She is a sweet girl and tolerates alot from her siblings. They still all love to hold and kiss her. She's our sweetheart!

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8/12/2007 Sunburned, full of sand and having fun! The joys of being non anal

2007-08-12T20:02:00.000-07:00

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Well, we just finished our first "normal" week since Michelle was born. All of our company went home on Monday. (Mom and dad Rowberry came out for Michelle's blessing). On the way home from the airport, I stopped by costco and loaded up on milk. We also stopped at a couple other stores on the way and got a few things with no real problems! What a miracle! No one ran away or left the store screaming, it was a real success! We also made it to the pool 3 times this week which was really fun. Everyone did just fine. I still can't get in the pool, but luckily between the baby pool and the self sufficient boys, we were all able to enjoy ourselves without me getting wet.

Justin had an awful week this week. He had call on Tuesday and then on Thursday he had to go up to Fort Hood for the day, night and day. He got home on Friday at 8:00 p.m. and I made him watch the kids for me while I went shopping for our beach trip the next day. Poor guy, I don't think he really wanted to go to the beach, he just wanted to sleep and lounge the next day, but I knew that if we wanted to make it to the beach this year, yesterday was probably the only time to do that. We were invited by the Padillas to go and a few other families (the Lillywhites, and the Carltons) went as well. We left at 8:00, got to Corpus at around 11:00, enjoyed the beach and headed home around 5:00. It was a really nice day. My only regret is that Michelle got sunburned on her face a little. I tried really hard to keep her in the shade, I even bought a tarp, but I guess I didn't do a good enough job. Poor girl, it looks kind of painful. Other than that though, the kids had a blast. We brought the rafts that we took to lake Travis last year and the boys had the best time floating out into the ocean and building sand castles and catching fish. They actually were able to catch a fish with just their bare hands and a bucket!! It was cool and I think Justin had a good time playing with them. I waded a little bit, but I still can't swim for a few more weeks so I spent a lot of my time in the shade with Michelle eating lots of junk food. Not exactly the best way to lose all that baby fat, but that's life. It was fun to have a few other families there to talk to. They all have little kids (4 and under)but everyone still had fun. It's always interesting to be in a group of young parents, it reminds me how non anal I am. I'm not sure if it's a good way to be or not. Sure makes life easier not to be anal, but it means there is a lot more sand in your food at the beach.

Nathan's 2nd Birthday Party

2007-07-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

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Yes it's July, but I am just now downloading pictures from April. Here are a few pictures from Nathan's birthday. We went to Chuck E. Cheese (just our family) and had a great time. Two year olds are so easy to please! He sure has grown a lot this year. He just graduated from Easter Seals and is back up to level with his speech. He has a sweet heart, but being the youngest of 4 he sometimes is a bit violent. But even after he pulls Samantha's hair and bites John and hits Joey, who can resist that impish, dimpled smile and cute little laugh. He has learned to start saying sorry as soon as he gets to time out. So we get to listen to 2 minutes of sorrys before he is allowed off the chair. He is a tough, sweet boy who loves to wrestle with his brothers and do everything they do. He really idolizes the big boys and can hold his own with them on the trampoline and in the sandbox. He also loves all kinds of balls and likes to watch his brothers play at the YMCA. He can't wait to join his own sports team! We love our sweet boy!

MICHELLE ANN ROWBERRY

2007-07-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

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We are pleased to welcome Michelle Ann Rowberry to our family. She was born on 20 July 2007 at 5:30am!! Labor started at about 4:00 so it was short and painful, but I really can't complain because it was short. Short labors are great because recovery is so much easier. My mom and sister were able to come too. Everything worked out perfectly. Michelle came at the perfect time. Justin was home and Grandpa was able to stay with the other kids. She did great! So far Michellle has been a great baby. She sleeps alot still and tolerates being held by Nathann 24 times a day. He likes to honk her nose and give her lots of high fives. The other kids love to hold her too, but they do a much better job. Joey has started changing diapers all by himself. One day he just decided to change Nathan and proudly showed off his work. It was on backwards, but Nate was clean! He really enjoys helping out with the little kids. John does too. Especially with Michelle. He really enjoys holding her and talking to her if I'm busy when she wakes up.