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!!