Our Construction Christmas

We had quite a Christmas this year. We called it our Construction Christmas because all the kids wanted were 2x4's to frame up their new bedrooms upstairs. WE went to Logan as a family on Saturday and got wood and had lunch. But Christmas morning was a little different since there weren't many presents to open.  

Everybody had a really good attitude though. Grandma  Sony brought some monkey bread down and spent a little while with us.

And the Elders came over to spend the day with us. after we opened everything, we ate breakfast and then we all literally laid around. Matt was sick and both Elders had spent the day before in the hospital sick.

We were able to spend the next few days working on the upstairs though and it was fun to see how fast it starts to look like something.

It has been pretty cold so trying to keep warm has been a challenge. We took a coupe of heaters and have had them running but they couldn't keep up so our fearless Britnee climbed into the rafters and stuffed the vents with plastic to help hold in the heat.

All three kids have been a lot of help in getting us to this point.
 I'm so grateful this Christmas that we were all together, that we had enough, and that we were able to remember more fully why we celebrate this time of year.

Hanging with the Elders

It all started when the local missionaries came to the library one day and were asking if they could do service for us. I felt guilty for saying anything but "no, thank you," when our ward mission leaders told us that they need service and very few people will say yes. So I invited the over to help us split and stack our wood pile. They worked hard all day. A few days later they stopped by to say hi, then again a few days after that... And the rest is history.

Elder Dodge and Elder Torres were our first missionaries. They've been so good for our family. Since then, both have been transferred but we still have the new Elders over from time to time. I hope that somehow we are helping the Elders as much as they are blessing us.

Christmas Cookies

Our good friends, The Jensen's came up for Christmas and we spent Sunday afternoon together. Britnee had made cookies that morning so after a yummy dinner of ribs and potatoes, we got the frosting and decorated cookies.

Addison and Maggie are like little sisters to Jaycee, Britnee, and Cody. We love playing with them.

We didn't get to spend nearly long enough with them and can't wait to see them again, but we sure had fun while they were here.

FHE with the Missionaries

We've kind of adopted a couple of missionaries these past few weeks. It all started when the ward mission leaders asked us to sign up to feed them dinner. I signed us up and a few days later two Elders came to our house. We enjoyed having them and when they saw me the next week at work, they asked if they could please come help us with something for service. We thought about it for a couple days and decided that we would have them come help us split and stack wood.
By the time the split/stack day came, we had two new missionaries come. Elder Torres and Elder Dodge, who had been transferred in the day before.
Long story short, they've been stopping a our house to hang out to and from their various appointments in the valley.

 This particular Sunday night we had them come over for dinner and FHE with a new family in our ward. Both Elders brought their Yukalaylee's and have been teaching Cody how to play.

The lesson had to do with pepper and using dish soap as the Holy Ghost to protect you from sin. All the kids had fun watching.

After that, Elder Dodge burned his year mark shirt and Elder Torres burned a 6 month tie in the fireplace. Then Elder Torres taught Brit and Cody and how to tie a tie.

We're getting pretty used to the Elders stopping by now. It's been a really great thing for our kids to see how missionaries work up close and personal. I like having them feel comfortable here, just as I hope that somewhere in the world, families are getting ready for the future Elder and Sister McMullin's who will be going out in a few years. 

Cody's Toy Story Christmas Program

Tuesday December 18 was Cody's Elementary Program. His class sang Believe, Where Are You Christmas?, and Jingle Bell Rock. Cody doesn't usually usually like to sing so I was so proud to watch him get into it a little and have fun.

Our Annual Voicemale Concert

This year when I got on the internet to buy our tickets to Voicemale, we got a wonderful surprise, Voicemale was doing a concert right in our own little Montpelier. We got our tickets to the afternoon show and sat on the front row.

We had a wonderful time dancing and laughing to one of our families favorite Christmas traditions. I even grabbed a shot of Richard posing for us during the encore.

Babysitting

This summer Kelly and Ben took a trip to Georgia and we got to help Grandma Sony babysit Bentley and Princess Peyton. Cody turned out to be a great big brother and spent hours playing with Bentley. We played on the trampoline and even got them to ride on the 4 wheeler up the canyon.

It was a lot of fun having these two little munchkins running around for a few days.

Thanksgiving

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Payson with the McMullin's. We ate a wonderful dinner and spent time visiting but the highlight of this years trip was Brady's dart board. 

Everybody got in on the action. The kids especially laughed at the way the automated voice on the dart board made fun of the way we through darts.

Jo, Tamarie, and I went Christmas shopping on Friday and had a great time. On Saturday, we all went to Garrett and Tam's house and the kids decorated the tree while the boys worked on electrical stuff.
It was a wonderful weekend. I'm so happy that Garrett and Tamarie live close enough that we get to spend more time together.

A Little Situation in the Kitchen

A year ago yesterday I was standing in the kitchen making toast when my socks got wet. It puzzled me a little so I bent down to get a closer look and realized that the water was actually coming up from under the floorboards.

We started opening up the cupboards and taking out the shelves and drawers. What we discovered is that our water connections and started with a tiny little leak thanks to hard water build up that just slowly got worse.

The next morning we called the insurance company and spent the next couple of days drying out.

Matthew and Cody spent one evening taking all of our old flooring out and found that it wasn't as bad as it could've been if we hadn't gotten to it when we did.

They took our kitchen clear apart for about 2 weeks while about a third of the subfloor was replaced along with a small portion of our cabinets. We spent a lot of time eating out and I can't even believe I'm saying this, but I got sick of it.

Matt and I went and picked out our new flooring. I was thinking to go with a tile look but Matt set his mind on this. I was so nervous that it be too much wood until they got it put all back together and now I love it.

The one part about the kitchen that didn't need to be fixed was the sink. But while everything was torn out I started shopping and found a sink that I felt would fit so much better.

We're back to normal now and I can't believe it's been a year since we were doing all of this. I guess it's a good thing to have behind you.

Memory Monday ~ Wendy's Raccoons

Matt and I have taken care of Greg and Wendy's house for five years now. It's become like a second home to us in that we are there quit a bit checking on things. One major problem that they have on the east side is mice. And if there's one thing that Wendy hates, it's mice. 

So the cat house has been part of our job. I would feed about a dozen cats or so each week in an effort to keep down on the mice. We were finding however, that the raccoon population was also thriving and it doesn't take long for the word to get out that there's free food. Wendy didn't think that having coons hanging around was a very good idea either so she put a bounty on their heads and for the past three autumn's Matt and I have been on rodent duty.  

We set up a live trap outside the cat house with cat food as bait. Then we'd check every morning to see what had popped up. These little guys are smart, a few times, we knew that something had been in the trap but we found it empty. Matt was smarter though and rigged it so that once in, there wasn't any escape.
Two years ago on Halloween we had a stakeout where we stayed the night and baited the little critters. We had a good time but didn't find anything to shoot. We did wake up to a full trap the next morning though so it was worth it.
  The first time that I went to check the trap by myself ended up being a day I'll never forget. I walked around the corner and sure enough, the trap was full. Now we'd been learning about raccoons since starting our adventure and found that if they happened to get out, they weren't going to just turn and run away. So I had a little pep rally in my head and grabbed the trap. I stood it up and did my best to still my wildly beating heart while filling the trap with water. (Which we've found is a fairly humane way to solve the problem.) I waited quite a while to make sure that everything was quiet and then emptied the water and hauled the trap to the drop off point. I can't even describe how badly I was shaking as I opened the trap door and prayed that the darn critter hadn't come back to life since his swim.
By the time I got the trap set back up and left, the adrenaline had worn off and I was kinda weak so I stopped and got me a hamburger and Pepsi on the way home.

Wendy found a high tech way to keep the mice out this summer so we retired the cat house. It's nice not to have to run and check it all the time but we have some pretty good memories of the raccoon days and the Christmas's that the bounty money helped us buy.