Pictures at the park...

Sarah trying to swing.

It was a little windy as you can see with Sarah's hair.

Hangin' on for some fun - ok just hangin' on cause mom told us to!

Whitney is growing up so fast. Boy the time flies.

Whitney climbing.

Talon and Colton making themselves sick on the swing! (Talon is a friend)

Colton hanging out.

Sarah spends most her play time climbing up and down the stairs.

The race is on, of course Sarah took a little longer to get to the finish line. Luke was fast!

Luke has no fear - he climbs anywhere.

We finally had a nice 70 degree day and decided to take some photos for a book I'm putting together. It was a nice day. Hurray!

Family

This week has been both a really good and a very emotional week for me. I am compiling a special book and have been receiving the writings from different family members for it. It has brought back so many memories of my brother who died several years ago. As I've been preparing pages with pictures of his children it has brought him to mind so much this week. Not bad, just close to my heart. It seems there is a part of him in each of his three boys. I look at them and it makes me cry. I see him, I'm so happy that it has helped me not to forget him, especially his smile and quirky laugh. I miss him. I miss his wife and fine boys. He would be so proud of them, what a beautiful family they are not just on the outside, but especially on the inside. I've never seen stronger spirits than theirs (though I'm sure they wouldn't think they are.) I just wanted to share those things. Life can change so quickly, we have to make the most of everyday. I love you all -Mels

Creative Thinkers...

We'll Luke has reached a new stage. This four year old comes up with all kinds of unique stories but his one was very clever.

Jason had taken Whitney to the Build A Bear workshop in another town. I missed all the fun cause I was getting my haircut (something I don't get to do very often). Anyhow, whit had saved her money and decided to buy another bear. Luke decided he had a way to get a bear for himself. He began to tell his dad how his stuffed zebra "Thomas" needed a friend and since they were at the bear place he could get his zebra another friend to play with. Jason pried more into the need of "Thomas" for a new friend. Luke repsonded that the other animals on his bed are not nice to Thomas and that is why he needs another friend to play with. I didn't know that all this time the other stuffed animals were bullying the biggest animal on Luke's bed. He had such a voice of desparation for poor Thomas. Jason said it was really hard not to laugh.

You have to know this is the same little boy that believes his animals can do creative things. During Christmas time we had drawn names in the family to see who would do surprise acts of kindness for each other. Jason had Luke and each day he would sneak in his room and make is bed and place all his animals in funny ways, like an animal pyramid and such; he'd add sunglasses or little treats on them. Luke to this day still believes the animals did it themselves. Even after we told him it was his dad he still didn't believe us. A few weeks ago he was upset and when I asked why he explained that his animals hadn't fixed up his bed in a long time. He really believes they come to life or something when he's not around. Maybe he has seen too much Toy Story.

March came in like a LION!

Our happy family! No I'm not in the picture, though the snowman is about my height.

January brought he ice storm but March brought a large dumping of snow! The kids loved it. This is one of the few times we have had snow this winter. It was great snow at that. Soft and moist. Usually it is tooo icy and dry with bitter winds. This turned out beautiful.

Luke built himself a mountain, well it started as a hill but then he had dad add some snow and walla - a mountain:)

This is one of those crazy Sundays. The storm dumped quite a bit in a short time so church was cancelled. Now I know all you Utah folks are thinking - WIMPS! but you do have to realize we don't have the luxuries of snow plows and such to clear roads and many of us travel 40 min. to church, it wouldn't be good to have our members out on unploughed farm roads. It does seem funny to cancel anything because I grew up in the "unbeatable Rocky mountains." I never had a snow day in my life:( Though there were some times they should have cancelled. My kids get them all the time out here. This area just doesn't know how to function with bad weather. Stay warm and dry, love to all - Melanie

ICE ICE BABY!

January 27th was the beginning of record rain mixed with freezing temps. The results a 4 state disaster. What took 70 years to establish, was wiped out in 3 days. In many places the poles had snapped in half and were all over the place.

This was the typical street. Impassable due to power lines or trees down. They have replaced over 10,000 poles, and that is probably a low estimate.

This is a bush at Jason's work.

This is from our backyard deck. Thankfully the pole did not fall on our fence. Unfortunately, our neighbor had one fall on theirs. The first day we were without power we made the decision to travel and stay with a family in our ward who still had power. Within our ward (a 1 & 1/2 hour distance) their subdivision was one of a few who never lost power. Go figure. Bro & Sis. Hansen is who we stayed with. They were great! They became adopted grandparents to the kids.

This was the third day of freezing temps. The back of the mailbox melted but the front was still frozen.

Our little tree has made a great recovery though we thought it was a goner. It is almost straight now.

This is my favorite. These are blades of grass that have an inch of ice. It reminds me of Popsicles. If you look close you can see the blades of grace inside each cycle.

This is Jason's front work lawn full of these Popsicles!

Nothing like a frozen basketball net.


We stayed with the Hansen's for 2 weeks before our area received power. Today, a month later there are still some outer areas without power. It took two weeks for the kids to get back into school and some schools were even longer. I just can't describe how it was. We had been through ice storms in Dallas but never saw the damage that hit here. It was humbling to see a whole area shut down. People panic and at times stores/gas stations were unable to open. When they were able to open the people cleaned out the stores. Banks were down so you couldn't use debit cards. The National Guard patrolled our little Kennett to keep the peace as people under stress make bad choices, like going to walmart with a gun. (that happened the first day the store opened and had to be shut back down again while order was restored). The prophets have told us to be prepared, there is much I learned about through this crisis.

1. have a heat source.

2. food easily prepared or a way to cook it a must. Some had food but no way to really cook it.

3. water can be scarce- we were fine but some wells were threatened because of power loss. Making it impossible to pump the water (it's electric).

4. gas storage would be good idea. Not only incase you must leave, but incase you use a generator. It took 4-5 days for gas stations to reopen, which sent people into panic trying to get gas. Propane heaters have become very popular as they don't stink like Kerosine and they can use the tank from your grill:)

5. Nothing material really matters (big screen tvs, fancy stuff). We were just grateful we had a warm place, food, good health and each other. We were blessed.
6. There really are good people in the world. Jason's people needed food, they were trying to keep the office open so that the work would not be moved out of state to another site (which would mean he would have to go too); so he contacted places to see where he could get food to feed his employees as all fast food joints were closed. One place was running off a generator so they couldn't take credit cards, the man was wonderful and gave them the food and told them to pay when they were able. Yes they paid him, but he was very trusting, all to make sure people would have food.

7. There is always one who takes advantage: yes people were jacking prices of generators and such to make a profit, but some went so far as to get free meals at the shelters. We know this as people at Jason's work saw family on tv who had heat and food but felt the gov. owed them so they were collecting in free meals. It's pretty sad. Many of those shelters functioned from donations. In the end it all really comes from each one of us. So they are only taking from each other with that mentality.

We have all caught colds now, but I can't complain, we were all well during this disaster and that was a blessing. It had to be stressful for those who needed medication and Doctor care during this time. We had just gotten Luke's 90 day supply filled for his diabetes and this had no worries with that. We finally got cable/Internet/phone a week ago. It has been a slow process getting our lives back to the norm. But we are doing fine. Love to you all - Mels

Crash!!!!!!

Ok, not to terrible, but our computer died last week and so it'll be a little difficult to keep this up until we can replace it. So check back and hopefully new posts will appear as I am able to get access. Love to you all and have a wonderful Holiday!

"What would Jesus do?"

Raising a pre-teen has been a unique experience, especially since Colton is our first. He feels things are pretty unfair. For example, last night he was grounded for hurting Whitney's arm. He felt it was her fault and thus she deserved it. After hearing both sides of the story it was determined that though Whitney shouldn't have blocked him, he still had a choice and he chose to hurt her arm. Because he wasn't sorry or even felt bad that he had bruised her arm I felt I had no choice but to ground him.

He spent two hours crying, pounding in his room and finally playing "Had a Bad Day" on repeat over and over. After explaining why he was grounded I finally had to take the CD cord to end the annoying repeat of the song and started out his room. He cried back. "You want us to be like Jesus but you aren't." After stifling a chuckle I asked what he meant, to which he replied..."Jesus wouldn't have grounded me for not being sorry, he would have looked angry at me and walked away."

Ok by now I was really having to hold back uncontrollable laughter and try to help this poor boy see why he was in the wrong and why Jesus wouldn't have approved of his hurting his sister. In desperation he responded that maybe he should just run away since we obviously don't love him. He'd be better off living at the ditch (a small fort the kids in the neighborhood built near a ditch). I reminded him that he would be cold and hungry and he insisted that is friends would bring him stuff. This is really hard for me. I really don't know how to help him see how much he is truly loved and that he was being punished because we do love him and want him to be a better person. Any ideas I'd welcome them:)