Skunks

I was hoping for this to be a happy post about how we took out the skunk under our house. But, it's not. We did catch one skunk and a cat in the skunk trap last night, but as it turns out, there is an entire family of skunks under the house. This is a picture of the nice hole they have dug for themselves to get under the house.

This is the one of the little ones we caught in the trap last night. When Robert looked out to check on it, he saw two more coming out from under the house to help it, so he grabbed the shotgun and tried to shoot both of them, but was only successful at getting both of the other two to spray under the house, which seeped up through the walls and floors and such and made the house nearly unbearable last night.

So this morning we disposed of Skunk #1 and we are really, really hoping we are able to get the other two (or more!) skunks to come back out and just catch them in the trap. This is specifically a skunk trap and is small enough that the skunk can't lift up its tail to spray you - thanks to our great neighbors for allowing us to borrow it!!

Stockings Hung with Care

Well, we are all ready for Christmas up here in Idaho. I just thought I would share a little bit about our stockings.

Robert's mom has made each of us our stocking and spends many hours sewing both crosstitch and on the sewing machine to put these beautiful stockings together. Each of the kids in the family have a full crosstitched stocking and then the grandkids have just a topper.

Every stocking is different in some way, but they all go together as well - I love it! And, I love that I can give these stockings to my children when they grow up and they can have something Grandma made just for them.

And this year I am so happy to have Kaylie's stocking to hang with all the rest. Even though she isn't here with us, Kaylie is a part of our family and doing the simple things like having a stocking just to hang helps us to remember our angel in heaven.

Santa

Wednesday was storytime and this being the last storytime of the year, we had a special visitor come! Sam and Josh both enjoyed sitting on Santa'a lap and telling him what they wanted this year; Lilly wasn't so thrilled with the whole thing.

As for me, I had a little something to ask Santa for this year as well and I got my present early. You want to know what it is? We were able to have our mid-pregnancy ultrasound today and found out that the next little one to be joining our family will be another little girl!! I am so excited right now. Yes, later I will probably be a little apprehensive, but at this moment I am so excited to have seen my little girl and to know that she is growing and doing well. The due date is May 12, 2011. We are so excited to finally share our news with all of you!! Merry Christmas!!

Week Summary

This was so cute - on Sunday we made our mini version of Thanksgiving dinner, so we decided to let Sam stay up and enjoy the meal with us. But you all know how you feel after eating all that turkey and other yummy food, right? The poor kid was so wiped out he fell asleep during one of his own movies around 8:00 or 8:30. We put him to bed, but he woke up a while later to sit with me for a little while and then go back to bed.

This week has been filled with fun playdates and yummy Christmas treat making. On Tuesday Josh and Lilly came over to play and we made Muddy Buddies, which they loved because each got their own bag to shake and then to eat.

Then on Wednesday, we got together at the Potter's house to frost and sprinkle sugar cookies. The boys love mounding up the sprinkles and Lilly just enjoys eating all the cookies she can manage to grab.

Thursday we had visiting teachers come over and then played with another friend at his house. This morning I woke up to see three deer out in our backyard grazing to their heart's content. They stayed for a while, sitting just on the other side of the fence and then bounded off.

Then today we went to William's house to decorate gingerbread houses. My friend is so awesome - she actually made gingerbread and put the houses together last night so they would be nice and sturdy for little hands to decorate this morning. Both mommies and kiddies had fun sticking all sorts of candies on the houses and getting them just right.

Working hard to get the candies to stick on the roof

Sam's finished product and the trademark squinty grin. In front of the house we made a snowman, his wife and a snow baby and then Santa's sled out of tootsie rolls. Tomorrow Daddy gets to stay home again, so we are going to get family pictures taken and then spend some quality time cleaning the garage. I can't believe it is only two more weeks until Christmas!!

A Fun Day

It is finally that time of year again where Daddy can start taking Saturdays off, so we made the most of our first day by going just about everywhere. We enjoyed sleeping in and then having waffles for breakfast and then headed out to Rexburg to visit the motor sports store and the flight museum. These first two pictures are of Sam showing first Opa and then Grandpa some ideas for Christmas gifts this year ;)

We have been wanting to take Sam to the Legacy Flight Museum in Rexburg for a while, but they are only open from 9 to 5 on Saturdays right now and it has been hard to get up there in time. Unfortunately Sam was having a rough day and didn't really enjoy the museum as much as we thought he would, but being the only patrons there we were given first a guided tour and then were able to hear some of the stories behind the aircraft and the owner of the museum. All of these airplanes still fly and help show the history of flight through WWII and on up. These two red airplanes were some of the more recent. The lighter red was the kind that movie stars would fly themselves around in and the darker one they call the "Toyota of the Skies"

The guides were especially nice to Sam, letting him climb inside several airplanes to look at all the dials and switches and play with the steering sticks and you can see on his face how much he enjoyed the experience!

A model T truck. So awesome to see one of these!! They also had a jet engine that you can see in the far left of the picture. Upstairs they had an amazing collection of army/military/war artifacts from World War I on up to present day. It was amazing to visually see the progression we have made throughout the ages.

Sam wearing the pilot headphones and pretending to fly

After the visit to Rexburg we came home for lunch and naps and then headed back out to Idaho Falls to do some much needed looking around for Christmas gifts. We ended the night off right (in my opinion, but you may need to ask Robert about his) with some fudge-covered Oreos and finally getting to watch Eclipse - and on Blu Ray! It was a great day spent with Daddy and we are really looking forward to having more Saturdays to enjoy!!

Catch-Up

We are finally back up and running after being gone for Thanksgiving and coming back to no internet. So, to catch up on all that has been happening around here....

We had a blast with the Potters and Candace and April the weekend before Thanksgiving. Then, we were able to head down to Utah for some Thanksgiving vacationing with great food and family. We went Black Friday shopping thanks to Mom and Dad being willing to keep an eye on Sam while he slept. We scored some great deals on Blu-rays, a shop vac, a fancy grill and some various other items. We had a great time going shooting as is tradition in the Whatcott clan and Robert was thrilled to get his new gun's scope in prime setting for the few days he had left to go elk hunting. Then we enjoyed a night out with Candace and April and dates seeing the lights at Temple Square and trying some yummy Mexican food.

These first two pictures are to show how blustery the weather was here before we left for Thanskgiving. The wind was terrible and while we were gone our front door blew open again! I took the top one to show how unprotecting our garage can be against the wind! :) When we arrived home Sunday evening, Robert couldn't wait to open up and start putting together his new grill.

Here are a couple of shots of Sammy helping Daddy put the grill together (he loves to squint his eyes for pictures now) while Mommy enjoyed watching "The Blind Side" on Blu-ray. Robert was especially excited to buy this grill because you can grill either using propane or brickettes(?), which will be nice to use with all the steaks we get each year from our company-provided cow.

Some exciting news at our house: I got my Christmas gift early - an iPod touch AND, Robert was unable to go hunting yesterday and was quite dejected that he only had one day left to use his new gun and to score an elk (he didn't get one last year or a deer either year), but this morning he and his boss headed out early on the snowmobiles and he called me around 11 saying he had his prize! It wasn't entirely big, but the point is he got one and that we will have two kinds of meat to enjoy this year!

Last night we went and bought our tree - a real one again! We thought about buying an artificial tree during Black Friday, but both of us grew up with fake trees and we want to hold out a bit longer, so we have the fantastic piney smell filling our house and I can't wait to put up the lights on the house and the decorations on the tree (we bought it bundled up, so we had to let it open)

This last picture is just a heartwarmer for me not only because my little guy is growing up so much and getting cuter every day, but because he is getting to be such a big boy. We are working on letting him be more independent, so I told him to go to his bed to take a nap instead of taking him myself and tucking him in and giving him the talk about going to sleep and no playing. Not five minutes later, I opened his door a crack check on him and he is fast asleep! Also, more and more often I find him sleeping with his arms behind his head, like he is relaxing in a recliner - too cute!

Grateful for my Husband

My post today is dedicated to my wonderful husband, Robert. This weekend we were able to have my older sister and her family come visit briefly, along with two of my other sisters from Utah. It was wonderful to get to see all of them again, but it was a little stressful going from three people (four if you count Jake) to thirteen. On top of that, I agreed to substitute in Primary without realizing what else was happening this weekend. I've never taught Primary. In fact, I've never taught any class and thus was a little nervous. Robert, however, is the greatest teacher and he gets lots of practice being one of the teachers for the 11 and 12 year olds. He was such a huge help this weekend with everyone being here making meals, getting Saturday off of work, letting me and my sisters go shopping and out to dinner Saturday night and then helping me with my Primary lesson on Sunday (it helped that he had taught the same lesson the week before). I am so blessed to have such an amazing husband who will step in and help when I need him, in whatever capacity. I'm grateful for him and his willingness to serve those around him, no matter how busy or tired he is. We are greatly looking forward to traveling down to Utah to spend Thanksgiving week with my parents and a few of the siblings, if this snow will ever let up! :) We hope you all enjoy your Thanksgiving week with whomever ends up at your table!

Odds and Ends

First off, I thought I might share this cute picture we had taken of Sam in his Halloween costume. Our local studio offered a free Halloween 4x5 to those who donated a canned item and we finally got the picture back. This was after the kids Halloween party and Sam was a little grumpy and refused to smile for the camera, but I still think he looks so adorable as a ninja!

Our local weatherman (Daddy) said today was supposed to be extremely windy and cold. I guess he forgot about the snow that was to come as well because we got this much snow in less than two hours. But of course it has all melted by now. We had a fun experience this morning of waking up to our front door open, but with the handle still locked and the chain still on. The bad wind last night must have forced the door open despite the handle being locked, so I guess it is time to get a real, working dead bolt.

Things lately have been pretty laid back. We spent the morning in our jammies warming up next to the fire and playing cars and trucks. Don't you just love Sam's knee socks? My latest funny story from Sam is from Sunday after church. He had colored a picture in nursery and was very excited about it, so Daddy told him to go put it on the fridge. Later in the day, I discovered that he had not put it on the fridge, but IN it! There it was, sitting atop the eggs, waiting to be admired by anyone scavenging for food. We both had a great laugh and I took the picture out. Later, when Sam had woken up and found his picture out of the fridge, he took it and put it again IN the fridge. Who knows the workings of the two-year-old mind? :) We have enjoyed having Uncle Jake with us for the last few weeks and will be sad to see him leave this Friday. But we won't be alone for long when Uncle Ben, Aunt Corinne and the gang come to stay with us for one night on their way to a reunion and Aunt Candace and Aunt April come up to join in the family fun, so it should be a great weekend!!

Entertaining

This last Sunday we had the great opportunity to have our good friends, the Southwicks, over for dinner and Robert's little brother and his girlfriend. When we were first married, we loved to entertain people at our home. We would usually invite another couple over for dinner and games and we would go all out for dinner. But since moving to Rigby, we have had many things that have put entertaining by the wayside and I forgot how much I have missed cooking for other people and just plain enjoying other people's company for an evening. We are starting to get low on our meat supply and I only had two roasts to choose from for dinner, both being on the slim side for 6 adults, so I thought I would try making Hutspot to help make up the difference. Hudspot is a traditional Dutch dish my mother's father told us about and that I grew up having once or twice a year. It is basically potatoes, carrots and onions all peeled, cut and cooked until mushy and mashed together with gravy on top. It was a big hit and I am so grateful to have such a strong husband to help with all the mashing! The other big hit of the night was the dessert. The Southwicks have been in Boise for the last year or so and have not had the privilege to try my cake creations and requested that I make something special. (ok, they didn't say that exactly, but it was explicitly implied) I am making a cake next week for my sister's baby blessing and then two weeks later we are making a dozen pies for Thanksgiving, so I decided to go a little lighter and try filled cupcakes. I think most have picked up that my favorite combo is the cream cheese frosting with strawberries with either white or strawberry cake, so I made white cupcakes and filled them with a variety of fruit fillings (including strawberry) and iced them generously with cream cheese icing. I should have taken a picture, but by the time I thought of it, all 24 cupcakes were gone - and yes, they were that good! I really liked the idea to fill the cupcakes, although I need to work on sensing how much filling I have squirted in. So another success is added to my belt of yummy desserts. Thanks so much to the Southwicks for driving out to our place and bringing Ticket to Ride - it was great to enjoy the old times of entertaining friends with good food and fun!!

Halloween Preparations

Here's Sam in his Halloween costume for this year - a ninja! He loves wearing the headband, but it is on the tight side, so it can't be worn for too long! Sam loved getting to wear his costume to storytime on Wednesday and getting to see his buddies Josh and Lilly in their awesome homemade costumes. I'm just realived that this year it isn't a fight to get him to dress up!

And on Tuesday we had William and his Mommy come over to help us decorate some spooky Halloween cupcakes I saw on Make It & Love It and wanted to try. Sam was obsessed with the eyeball cupcakes and enjoyed eating them immensely!

And here are the mummy and ghost cupcakes. These were so much fun to put together, I think it would be great to do these for the "Boo"ing thing that goes around the neighborhoods next year because they really get you in the spirit of Halloween!

All of the finished cupcakes. Thanks William & Co. for coming over to help us make these yummy treats!

Annual Pumpkin Carving

It's time again for our annual FHE pumpkin carving. This year was made extra fun by the fact that we grew our own pumpkins and Uncle Jake was here to join in the fun! Jake's is on the left, then Robert's in the middle and mine on the end. Mine was a Frankenstein, but is hard to see because the features were so small. And probably that I'm not an expert at carving pumpkins, but we all had fun anyways!

Focusing really hard on getting it just right :) We have found a great way to get a cool picture on your pumpkin is to print out a stencil or shadow and using a nail or some other small object, poke holes all around the outline and then use the knife to carve the picture following the holes. Works every time!

Crazy Week

Sorry I haven't posted all week. My good friend had her baby and we have been doing our best to help them out in any way we can. We have also been adjusting to having Uncle Jake here with us as well, but it has been a good adjustment. Daddy has been going out every night after work trying to put his new gun to good use, but no luck as of yet. We are hopefully headed out soon for Utah to visit with my family and my grandpa who is here visiting from Virginia, so hopefully some fun pictures are to come soon! Have a great weekend everyone!

Can't Believe It

I can't believe it! We are FINALLY done with harvest for this year!! This year felt so very, very long for me and Sam and I can imagine it felt the same for Robert, too. What I also can't believe is how we have acquired yet another firearm!! Yep, somehow I was convinced to let Robert buy yet another gun. This will be gun #4 for him now. Our new addition is a Ruger 300 Winchester Mag. Robert has had hunting fever ever since he went elk hunting with my dad that first year and begged and pleaded with me that he needed his own gun and that the three other ones he owned just weren't right for the job. Don't get me wrong, I am glad to see my husband so happy with his new toy, I just can't believe how many guns we have acquired in not so many years! We each have a shotgun and Robert has a pistol and his Mini 14 and now the Winchester Mag.
In other news, Robert's brother is staying with us for a few weeks and so far it's going well. Sam loves wrestling and demanding Uncle Jakey to play with him and Robert likes having another guy to talk tractors, farming and guns with. As for me, I've pretty much finished up my canning for the year. We ended up with peaches, pears, peach jam, green beans and apple pie filling. I will probably can potatoes, but that can be put on hold for a while. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Trip to Logan

Last week Sam and I were able to take a quick trip down to Logan to spend some time with my baby sister and her husband and their new little guy, Thomas.

Even though this picture doesn't show it, Thomas is a very good-natured baby and it was such a blast to get to hold him and not compete with anyone but Mommy for snuggle time!

Sam really enjoyed getting to play with Uncle John while we visited - he misses his Daddy so much!

While there we were able to do a few things like sew some Pee Pee Tee Pee's to help with the whizzing little boys tend to do when you change their diapers! We also made a few meals, got Mommy a boppy to help with breastfeeding and starting working on some cutesy-fied burp clothes and getting the supplies to make a nursing cover as well. (that IS coming sometime soon, April, sorry!)

And last, but not least, one of the conditions of us coming to visit was that I had to make a cake for the Kimballs. We settled on fruity yumminess of a strawberry cake with strawberry filling and topping and cream cheese icing. It was very good! It was a great trip and we were so happy to be able to come down and enjoy some time with the Kimballs all to ourselves - thanks for having us guys!

A Good One

Yesterday was my birthday and it turned out to be a pretty good one. It was General Conference and my friend invited Sam and me over to help do some canning and play. We accomplished alot by finishing all 44 quarts of our potato/carrot/onion mix and processing two batches of 14 by the end of the day (they had to be pressure cooked, which takes FOREVER) During the priesthood session, we loaded the kiddies in the car and drove to Coldstone to pick out an ice cream cake and settled on the strawberry cheesecake variety - so yummy!!! Robert insisted that I couldn't make my own birthday cake (although I did last year and this year I actually WANTED to make my own birthday cake) and said we should try an ice cream cake again (we've tried the ones from Dairy Queen before) and I had a coupon for $3 off at Coldstone, so it all worked out great! I really like these cakes because instead of all ice cream, they are layers of both cake and ice cream, as you can see in the pic :)

And my sisters know how much I love flowers and sent this gorgeous arrangement of purple and peach flowers in a cool vase! Thanks sis's!! So even though Robert was gone, we were able to stay happy and busy and make the most of the day! Thanks to everyone for their birthday wishes yesterday!!

Almost Too Much Chocolate Cake

So today I decided to make yet another cake - can you believe it?! :) The main reasons being first, Robert was really sweet this morning and let me sleep in because I for some reason couldn't fall asleep until nearly midnight last night. And second, Robert was a little hurt that the last cake for my last class wasn't for him. Which is a little strange because he didn't really care for the cakes I did in the beginning. Oh well. So I had seen the recipe for this cake a while back on Make It & Love It and made a special trip to the store today to get all the ingredients needed to whip up this sucker. It looks like it will be pretty good, right? I hope he likes it!

On a side note, I have to tell you about an experience tonight because it touched me so much. Up until we had Kaylie, we had never really been sick or out of work or anything that would cause us to really need help. I mean, we had moved a few times and had some people help us, but that was about it. And then when we had Kaylie, I HAD to accept help because I just couldn't do it all. That was a learning experience, but sort of a necessary one, right? To get to my point, tonight as I'm making this fabulously fattening cake, my home teachers knock on the door. They had come home teaching a few weeks ago and had asked about our huge pile of wood. They suggested that they could ask in priesthood if anyone in the ward had a log splitter so we wouldn't have to rent one. The first week was a bust, but on Sunday they found us one to borrow. Well, tonight they came with the borrowed log splitter ready to split our entire pile of wood!! Both of them are in Scouts, so they had the 12 year olds come and help stack the wood they split and did quite alot in an hour! Not only that, but the home teachers are coming back tomorrow after work to try and finish up the splitting. I guess this touches me so much because I'm not a widow and it is obvious that Robert is capable of doing the job, but they found something they could do and went ahead and did it even though we didn't ask them to or say we needed help with it. It honestly was great enough that they had found someone willing to us borrow their log splitter. It, to me, is the example of trying to be like Christ. Christ wasn't asked to take our sins upon Him, but He could see the need and stepped up to fulfill it. I don't know, just some food for thought and a place for me to express how grateful I am for people who are willing to help out not necessarily because we NEED them to, but because it is the Christlike thing to do and is the spirit of home teaching.

Latest Cake Creation

Sadly, tonight was the last night of cake classes - at least for a while! It was our night to bring a cake to design using the things we had learned throughout the class. I decided I liked using gumpaste ALOT, so I made a bunch of these button flowers. The cake is for a girl in my ward who had a baby a couple weeks ago, but better late than never, right? It has been a great experience taking these classes, especially with friends and I hope I can continue to put my new skills to use! Thanks to all those who helped babysit so I could go to class and thanks to Robert for his love and support in my many endeavors!