Father Lehi and Family

For FHE we decided to use visual aids to teach Preston the stories of the Book of Mormon.  We weren't able to make the whole family last night but we did make (in order from left to right) Sariah, Lehi, Nephi, Laman, and Lemuel.  I know it looks like Nephi is in a straight jacket, but that's how Preston wanted him.  Maybe that's what he really looked like when his brothers tied him to the ship.

More Snow?

Quick cougar update.  So my hygienist's boyfriend was going to hunt our friendly neighborhood cougar on Friday; however, he was already...hunted.  When her boyfriend's dad went to scout out the situation he found what was left of the deer carcass and saw something moving along the mountain.  With his binos he could see that it was two hunters carrying a cat down the mountain. 

Never fear, there is plenty of wildlife around here.  This morning Noah pointed as he was looking outside and kept saying "pooh-pooh".  We didn't think much of it because he only knows six words and pooh-pooh is one of them.  Well it turns out there had been a deer on our front porch last night who left his mark, deer droppings all over the place.

One thing we love about Pres is that he loves to play.  This is a picture of him landing in a huge snow drift after letting me throw him into a snow drift on our back porch.

You're kidding RIGHT???

  So yesterday, the doorbell rang (a novelty) and it happened to be our neighbor who lives above our garage.  That is a story all in itself but anyway,  he's holding a phone to his ear, tells me its his sister and that she has commanded him to come and warn us of impending danger.  He proceeds to tell me that right up our mountain (a mere 200 yards from our house) is a mountain lion eating a deer for lunch.  Not only that but he tells me that there are four wolves waiting to get their chance at the left overs.   Preston is standing by me during all this and proceeds to ask if he can go play outside...yeah, so, he hasn't played outside for 2 days now.  And may never for that matter.  Later, I'm thinking about it and I'm sure our neighbor must have been confused and his boss, too, since he saw them and the wolves are really coyotes.  Anyway, so I'm relaying my significant news to a friend and she says, " no, there really are wolves up there!"  I feel so comforted.  Actually, I'm not really sure what to make of all this, do I whack sticks together every time I leave my house or what.  A mountain lion..for reals?  Where did we move to?

The first picture was taken about a month ago but I just love it.  I never knew my husband had such an eye for beauty.  The next picture is one I took (no eye for beauty there) but it does show how much snow we've gotten.  The little picnic table that was in Jared's pic on the left is now gone and the fence line has disappeared completely from the back of the yard.  Mind you that's a 4 1/2 foot fence.   I say if its going to be cold and snowy, it might as well dump.  We are loving it.

We just want to be HEALTHY!!

Wow, this one will have to go on record without pictures as I was trying to save Jared's life while it was going on. I'll explain.
Friday started like normal, Jared went to work but some patients canceled and he decided to come home and help me pack to go to Boise for the weekend. I love my husband. He came, he helped, he grabbed a couple chocolates,and he left to work on the rest of his patients. About 5 minutes after he left, I heard a noise that I quickly assumed was a thief coming to rob us of our hand-me-down possessions. I ran into the kitchen only to find that Jared had returned and was looking a little odd. If you've seen Hitch or Pure Luck you'll have a good idea of what I was seeing. I probably would've laughed if it hadn't been so serious. (I laughed later..with Jared I might add!) Jared had realized about half way to work that he'd eaten chocolate with a walnut in it and he is very allergic to them. In fact he'd eaten 2 chocolates. So while Jared began to swell and whistling noises were coming out of his throat (because it was getting so small), we jumped into the car and hauled booty to the ER which has never seemed so far away in my life...30 minutes. We ran out, well Jared hobbled out, only to find the ER completely empty, no receptionist, no patients, nothing. When the recep. did finally come out, she looked terrified and 12 I might add, looking like she'd never seen an emergency in her short life.
Long story short, he was finally seen,they medicated him till he didn't know his name and we left 3 1/2 hours later, looking considerably better. And we now own 2 Epi pens.
To top everything off, on the way home my eye started feeling funny and 2 hours later I had full blown pink eye, Preston's doctor said he has pneumonia, and Noah who has no weight to lose, has diarrhea yet again. Last night, we began cloroxing everything in our house.

Dollar Mountain

Preston Snowboards!!  I love this picture.  He was like a little bullet rocketing down the mountain.  His snowboard is the size of a skate board, I'd say its cute but I suppose the preferred word here is "cool".  His uncle Eric taught him to bend his knees, hands out in front and he did it every time.  He really was the smallest snowboarder on the mountain and several people commented how surprised they were at his age and the fact that he never fell down:)  Granted he also doesn't know how to stop and took out other people several times.  We are so proud.

We love visitors

Just an update on more snow activities....they tell me I'll be having these same updates until roughly MAY!!!  Oh well, as long as the snow disappears before my birthday:)  So the Gunnel's came up for the weekend and it was fantastic.  We celebrated 3 birthdays in their family, JeNeale readily admits they could have timed those births a little better having an additional 2 more birthdays coming up in the next couple weeks, as well.

We love having so many visitors, I don't think I'd survive the winter without it.  The older kids went snow boarding with Jared.  And they all tried unsuccessfully to keep up with Brent on skis.  While this was going on, we took the little ones to go sledding and of all the runs they made the one with Grammy was their favorite.  I am just getting ready to give them a push in this picture, we were not about to try having 4 people on a sled.    And then there is Jensen (Preston's 5 year old cousin) he saw this picture and asked me to include it on the blog, he said it would make her happy.  My son is so cute.