Just kickin' it

The girls and I are having fun on our way to California. We haven't quite gotten there yet. It's been about five weeks since we left Moses Lake, we spent 3 weeks in Seattle with my brother and his family but they were leaving for Hawaii so we moved on down to Weiser for Thanksgiving. We had so much fun there. Klave got to take four days off to come visit us. He totally surprised us and got there four hours earlier than we expected him. All of the girls missed him so much, but not as much as I did. Nora just clung to his leg the whole night and just kept saying Daddy, Daddy! She is definitley a daddy's girl. We went to Klave's cousins' wedding at the Courtyard Marriot. It was a pretty wedding but after the ceremony as we went into the reception Naomi was totally confused. "Why didn't they get married? They just kissed, they didn't even go to the temple." She was very disappointed. But not for long, those girls didn't leave the dance floor all night long. They are party animals! We had such a blast dancing all night with all of Klave's family.
Klave went home on sunday and then a couple days later Klave's parents left for a conference over in Boise. We were left with Kassee and Maycee Klave's teenage sisters. It was a blast because we got to do all the chores on the ranch. Feed the chickens, the dogs, the horses and the calves. Let the sheep out and bring them in at night. These girls are hardworkers, well that's what I was trying to teach them anyway. After 15 minutes of crying because Naomi got dirt in her flip flops we got down to business and they really loved it. They are kind of sissies like their mom, they don't like to get dirty. Here's Lucy taking a bath in the mudroom sink at Grammee and Papa's.

So now we are down in Utah with my family for a little while and I'm praying we'll be in California by Christmas!

And she's off....

Ok, so here's Lucy at seven months! Does that seem soon for crawling to anyone else? It's probably normal but I can't believe how fast she is growing up! She climbs like a monkey too. It's so much fun watching all that she can do. Sometimes Nora will play with her a little and it's so cute. Usually she wants to sit on her or step on her but the other night I heard all this squealing in the other room, so I peaked around the corner. Nora was sitting in front of Lucy fake laughing the best she could until Lucy would laugh enough that her pacifier would fall out. Then Nora would quickly put it back in Lucy's mouth and start all over again. When Lucy stopped laughing Nora would just take the pacifier out for her and then plug it back in. So sweet!

We're Movin' On!

...and hopefully up! About two weeks ago Klave accepted a job as Assistant Livestock Manager on a ranch in California! Oh yeah! Well I always thought it would be cool to live in Cali, it's just that I was imagining more like San Diego or Sacramento. Instead we are headed to the Mt. Shasta Valley. I believe that is the place. I haven't really been there yet, which seems kind of crazy. The other thing that is more crazy is that I just got off the phone with Klave and he is sleeping in his car tonight down near the ranch, but he is loving life! He has been itching to get back to working with livestock so this was our chance and here we go. We packed up all our stuff and left our home praying that it sells really soon! I'm staying with Dan and Grace in Sammamish, WA with the girls until a)we sell our house, b) the ranch gives us a house to live in on the ranch, c)we get a raise. We are having fun so far but you can only go so long without your own space.

So I know I have been away from the blogosphere for a really long time, there are about a trillion things I want to post about but I thought at least I should let my friends know where we are....and if they are moving to Moses Lake, there is a really great house for sale right now.

Happy Birthday Nadine and Naomi!!

I can't believe we've had these girls for four years now!!! They are really growing fast and they are so much fun.

We were talking about which friends they would invite to their party and they said, Lanie, Rachel, Ashlynn, Brynlee and Melissa. I'm like, "Who's Melissa?" They were talking about their Aunt Melissa in Utah. Well it worked out really great because David and Melissa had vouchers for Delta that they had to use before December so they flew up for their birthday. David and Melissa are such fun visitors to have. If you want to laugh and have an awesome party, invite David and Melissa. Friday they woke up to all their cousins and David and Melissa to play with. Melissa and I decorated the cakes. We made a princess and a castle one made of cupcakes.
They got a bunch of princess "action figures" and a witch and princes. (They were actually Anakin Skywalker and Obi One Konobi because, Where in the world do you find Prince action figures?) Then they also got a new bike helmet and a ton of princess dress up stuff. Here's Nadine admiring herself in her new heels and jewelry.
Nora also really loved the cakes, here is a video of my little snitch.



We went to the water park on friday with David and Melissa and Dan and Grace and their family. Dan and Adelaide
Uncle David, can you read the secret message in his chest hair?
Aunt Melissa and Lucy

These video's are Klave on the flow rider, he makes it look so easy!
David and Lucy taking a nap

The day after the water park we went fishing at the hatchery. Actually the kids are the only ones aloud to fish but we all had a good time. Last year we caught about 13 fish but realized once we got home that that is way too many fish to eat. This year we left with just 3.

Nadine with the worms

David and Naomi

Dad and Nadine

Nora and "the big one"

Do you think this post is long enough?

Adventures in Sammammish

We are so lucky to have family in Seattle. We love to go over there each month and hang out with our family and go to the temple. This last time Klave went on to Bellingham for training while the girls and I stayed in Sammammish with the Stevenson's. The coolest thing that happened while we were there is that at the temple I sat next to a friend of mine from girls camp, like 12 or 15 years ago. It was so crazy to see her. Julie Pack was her name then now it's Bown. Her and her husband and 2 kids moved there about a month ago. Jen and Amy, do you guys remember her? She is so funny and energetic. Hopefully we can meet up again or maybe she'll start a blog?
Another cool thing we did was go to the Pacific Science Center. There is so much to do there we could have spent a few days but only had a few hours. The kids really loved the bugs!! Here are a few pics of them with the gargantuan cockroach! Nadine is not afraid of anything!

Naomi was trying to be brave but she must have too much of her mom in her to allow her to touch something that nasty.

I totally saw that coming!

We went through the butterfly pavillion, which was really cool if you like butterfly's. They are so pretty but I just don't like anything crawling on me. I did it for the kids though and prayed that one wouldn't land on me because I really didn't want to freak out in front of all those people. On the other hand Nadine couldn't keep her hands off of them.

There were some really bright ones and ones that were just huge! It was hard to get a real good picture of them though. But here are some cute kids and a fairy.
Outside we had a picnic and they had all sorts of high powered water sprayers you could play with.
Here's Lucy on her second day with pig tails. I love it! Since then I trimmed her hair because it was all bald on the sides and uneven on top. I cut about an inch off. Her hair is pretty thick now, just too short for pig tails.

The next day we decided to take all the kids on a hike. I love hiking and I forgot how much I love it. In Moses Lake there really isn't anywhere to hike, so this was really exciting. I guess I expected that the kids would think it was really cool too. Here's the group, Nora 2, Nadine and Naomi 4, Jacob 5, Sam 3, David 7 and then Grace is holding Adelaide who's 1 and I'm holding Lucy 5 mo. I think we do some crazy things sometimes but we always have a lot of fun.

This hike was so beautiful, it felt like we were walking through the rainforest. Trees everywhere and about halfway through it really started to rain. The hike was about a mile and parts of it were pretty steep but the kids did really well. They haven't really been hiking before so some of them complained but we'll definitly do it again.
We hiked down to the bottom of Snoqualmie Falls, amazing isn't it? I was so glad that crazy guy was out there fishing so you can see how huge the falls are.

Here are the falls again from the top. It kind of terrifies me to look over the railing. I always stand back a few feet. Can you imagine the terror I felt seeing my kids hanging on the railing and swinging their feet over the edge? There are bars close enough they can't fall through but I just about had a cardiac. And Naomi kicked Jake's flip flop over the edge, I think she was disappointed it landed in the grass on the side instead of in the water.

Always room for one more!

A week ago we got to have alot of my family come and visit. I love it because we never just have one person or family come visit. As many people as can get school and work off and as many people as can squeeze in the car will come too. We had Liz and her three kids come (we missed Brayden, who had football) my mom, Annie, Michelle and then the last part of the week Grace and her kids came too. All of the kids played together so well and were really excited to see eachother. It was a blast!
The first day we walked down to the park by the lake and had a picnic and practiced our baby drops. I don't remember it hurting so badly when I was in 3rd grade. Liz had a pretty sweet bruise behind her knee all week. That night we went to the movie in the park. We saw Enchanted, I can't believe with all my girls I hadn't seen it before. I loved it.
Elizabeth has turned into a maniacal, rock hard, workout machine, so we "got" to workout with her a few times. It was great except that I couldn't straighten my legs for a week, they were so sore. We also spent a day at the water park. We all took a turn on the flo-rider. You can see on the slide show a great wipe-out picture of Klave. He actually did the standing up one where the rest of us did the body board side. It's great fun just make sure you have your swim bottoms on good. It's dangerous that way, just ask Annie.
In the outrageously hot weather we also conquered the Wild Horse Monument hike and a cookout at the sand dunes. The hike is actually only about a quarter of a mile, if that. But it's steep and we had a lot of kids. The cookout at the sand dunes we all agreed was something we would definitley remember. It's not like the sand dunes in Rexburg that you can play on and slide down. It was more like your worst nightmare. Building a fire to roast hot dogs when it's 100 degree weather and smores where the chocolate is melted before you open the package. Sand in all of your food. I guess I was getting desperate for exciting things to do in Moses Lake. I only wish we took some pictures.
One of my favorite things is girls night out with my sisters and mom. This year it was Klave and 11 kids so we put them to bed before we left. We went to dinner at El Rodeo(good food) and had so much fun talking. We have so much fun together, I laugh so hard with them and my cheeks always hurt by the end of the night from smiling so much. It's too bad we live so far from each other, but it just makes the reunions that much sweeter.

And you will be bless!

On my mission the Africans would always say that. I love it! Anyway I have so much to blog about which I will get to someday, but right now I just have to say how blessed we have been. I'm amazed! I have really wanted to get serious about getting our food storage this year and have been working on it as much as I can. You just have to know that when you want to do something the prophet asks you to do, Heavenly Father is going to help you do it. Soooooooo, on with the list. Twice now someone has called us that is moving and decides to just give us their food storage and emergency preparedness stuff, hundreds of dollars worth of food and supplies!!!! A free deep freezer, free flats of strawberries for jam, a great inside deal on some heavy duty storage shelves. I know there is more that I'm forgetting at this moment but basically our storage room is overflowing. I see how the Lord blesses us way more than we deserve, it makes me want to be so much better!

Cirque du Chandler

Do you see a resemblance?

This morning at breakfast there was a live fly on the window near Nora. She reached over with her pointer finger and smashed him, just like that. She's got skills!

I love to see the temple

Usually we go to Seattle each month so we can of course visit Dan and Grace but also to go to the temple without worrying about finding a responsible, fun, available, and most of all cheap babysitter. For the month of June we missed our chance to go before they left town the last half of the month. So did we give up? NO. Not totally anyway. One day after Klave was done with work we drove down to the Columbia River temple which is about an hour and a half away. There is a stake center there with a field and sand volleyball pit and drinking fountain, so Klave watched the kids while I went into the temple. It was so great to go inside and I enjoyed every minute of it. It's so peaceful there. I come out feeling totally refreshed for life and find Klave just about unwound. Nora I think just had pants on and was filthy, Nadine and Naomi were digging in the sand pit, equally dirty and Lucy was laying on a blanket crying. Klave is a great dad but I think he just needed some more resources, like snacks, swings, toys, etc. Anyway I come out ready to watch the kids and he's like, "That's ok, I can't leave you with these kids. They're crazy!" That was really nice of him to be so concerned for me but inside I was thinking, "What do you think I do every day of my life?" I tried to get him to not worry about it and go ahead inside but he persisted so we ending up just heading back home. The girls love going to the temple. They spend most of their days pretending like they are going to get married, so they really wanted to take their white dress-up to the temple and get their pictures taken. They loved it and we got some pretty cute pictures. Here you go...

Psycho in real life!!

So, a few days a week I go to the church and workout with some other ladies while our kids all play in the gym and on the stage. It's great, we have fun and our kids do too. There are about 10 little girls that come with their mom's and they are all 2-5 years old. This last week once I got to the church which is about .5 miles from our house I realized I forgot Lucy's pacifier which is crucial to being able to workout the whole time. So I called Klave to see if he could drop it off on his way out. He said yeah but he was about to get in the shower so it wouldn't be right away. After about 30 seconds I realized I couldn't wait so I just decided to run home and grab it before we started. I got inside our house and heard the shower running and my dark side took over. I could not resist the temptation to pretend attack my unsuspecting hubby. I stealthily tiptoed to the bathroom, (he didn't even close the door!!) postitioned myself just right and snatched open the shower curtain.
Poor, poor Klave had soap all over his face and was swinging blindly at his assailant. I was laughing hysterically and almost crying. Partly because I felt so badly for scaring the living daylights out of him. That really made my day, all throughout the day I would think about what happened and start cracking up all over again. At the end of the day is when the terror set in. Klave came home from work and said, "I've been thinking all day about how I'm going to get you back." Not fair, I get scared way more easily than he does!

My girls

Just a few things about my girls. I've noticed that everything is considered "fair", no matter the outcome as long as it's determined by eenie meenie miney mo. Their favorite car is "the one that Daddy gave you, Mommy" it's a '91 Subaru Loyale. It's a real beaut. But they would rather ride in there than in Klave's work car, a 2007 Honda Pilot. I think it's because it is really loud, we have to roll down the windows because the a/c isn't that great and because one of them has to ride in the front seat so we all fit. (Don't worry there are no air bags.) Whenever we arrive somewhere they yell, "Don't open the door, I'm going out the window!" Nadine loves to dig for worms it's just that she usually stretches them so far that they break, then she has to find a new one. The other day she was just playing with one and I was watching her as she stretched it out and not really thinking almost put it in her mouth!! AAAAAAHHHHHHH luckily I stopped her before it made contact! She must get that from Klave. Naomi loves to stash stuff under her desk, like her clothes, even though she has to walk past the dresser to get to the desk. I always find a pile of things I've asked her to put away right there under the desk. Nora wasn't really talking yet or saying any words which kind of worried me, because she's almost 22 months old, but she has the greatest expressions. I would try to work with her to say some words and she'd try for a while and then shake her head and try to cover my mouth. Actually the last few weeks I've been making it a real focus and praying alot for her to be able to learn and she had been trying so much more. You still can't understand most of what she says, but she's saying things and tries to copy us. She's such a sweetie.
Lucy is starting to smile alot more and laugh a little too. I can't wait till she can defend herself from all of her overadmiring sisters.

Another story about Nadine, a while ago she came and sat on the couch across from me and says, "Remember when Naomi got sick at church...." and on and on for probably 5 minutes relating every detail about what she was wearing and everything that happened that day. At the end of the story she's like, "Do remember that mom?" "Yeah I do" I said. Then she says, "Oh, I don't."

It seems like I write down alot of the crazy things they do, but they really surprise me often at the profound things they say. This morning we were reading in our scriptures about the Nephites preparing for the Gadianton robbers to come down to fight them and how they made armor to protect themselves. I was explaining to them what armor was and then Naomi asks, "So, how can we protect our bodies?" I was impressed at how thoughtful that was and they had a lot of good answers to it too. I sure love these kids.

The Winnecook Ranch

Over the last weekend we took a trip to the church ranch where Klave did his internship in Harlowton, Montana. You probably have never heard of it because only a few people live there Well not really but it's far enough out there that our phone didn't get any kind of coverage until we'd left and been driving for an hour. Some of the highlights of the trip were throwing stuff off the bridge, trying to catch the bunnies that were everywhere, seeing horses, cows, antelope, jack rabbits galore, deer, elk, and our favorite an otter. The otter was the best, we saw him swimming through the river so what do you do? Throw rocks, right? It was cool because wherever we would throw a rock in the water he would swim to that place, so we ran him around for a long time and got him to come really close to us.
This is where we would get our water if we decide to homestead there.

We also went exploring for fossils and went to the buffalo run that is there on the ranch. A buffalo run is where the indians would herd the buffalo up and over a hill but on the back side of a hill is a cliff where they would break their legs and then the indians could eat them. That sounds pretty morbid but it was interesting to see it. There also was a wall of rocks shaped in a "v" and the buffalo would run through the point of it and the indians would hide behind the rocks to scare them through it. (Erin I hope you are not totally disgusted by this post, sorry!)
That's the buffalo run behind the girls.

The drive took about 8 and 1/5 hours but it was really beautiful and it was so fun for Klave to go back and see old friends and reminisce.
.The Jacobson's, our friends we stayed with.

(Travis, Bekah, Emmett, and Seth)

On the way home I was really excited because we could stop in Spokane and go to a store that's not Walmart. Wahoo, I planned to stop at least at Old Navy and get some clothes for this in between stage of pregnant and not pregnant body. I was searching the racks and talking with but not watching my girls when the alarms start blaring! Nadine had opened the emergency exit door. "ok girls, that's alright, just touch the clothes and nothing else ok?" A few minutes later the maniquin next to me starts losing limbs, and an arm comes crashing to the ground. Nadine and Naomi just stood there wide-eyed. That's as far as the shopping trip went. I just can't shop under pressure. We tried a fabric store also for just a few minutes and then headed for Wingers. At first I was kind of bugged that I didn't get to buy anything that it seemed I'd been waiting forever to buy, but quickly enough I realized it really didn't matter. We had such an awesome trip not because we went to an extremely cool place but because we had so much fun together as a family. The whole time I just felt like I was on cloud 9. Everyone was happy for the whole trip (with 5 girls that is not always the case) and I totally could never ask for a better time. I love my family sooooooo much!

Nadine's excited to hold Lucy and get her picture taken.