Linder Farms 2020

We weren't sure we were going to make it out to Linder Farms this year but we still wanted to do it, especially since this is their final year. Thankfully our friends, The Flamms, contacted us a couple times about going together again this year and we made our plans. The last several years we have gone with them and it became kind of a tradition so it was fun to go with them again. We finally made plans and went yesterday evening. It was kind of bad timing just because we had lots of wind and it got COLD. I warned the kids that it was probably going to be cold that night so I made each of them pack stuff in their own bag to help them stay warm, like extra jackets and gloves. I wasn't prepared for it to be that windy though! 

So even though it was the last year we didn't end up doing as much. We started with the big hay slide. Then when the Flamms met up with us we headed to the maze so we could do it with daylight. We all split up into our own groups. Nikki went with Eden. The older Flamm girls went with their friends that came. The boys decided to do the bigger maze. Candee with her little girl and me with my two little girls did the small maze. The girls led us all over the place. We ended up coming out the entrance but hey, at least we got out! 😆

We got out long before the older kids so the girls went through the straw bale maze and then back over to the big hay slide. My girls and I were heading over to do the cornbox while Candee chased down her little girl. We were sorely disappointed (but for me not unexpected) that the cornbox was empty thanks to Covid. I had already gotten some tokens so I headed over to get the girls on the swings. Candee didn't have any tokens yet so we split up from there so she could go get some. I didn't see her again until awhile later. Meanwhile, I took my girls to do the swings, the barrel train ride and then to pet and feed the animals. There were goats, a sheep, two donkeys, a pony and two mini yaks. 

Charlotte is on the right with the purple gloves.

Alice is in the pink jacket also with purple gloves.

Nikki then tracked me down to get some tokens so she could go on a ride with her friend Eden. We decided to follow so we could watch. It was right next to the hay slide so of course Charlotte wanted to go again. This time she took Alice up with her and Alice finally rode down the slide, which I kind of missed because Curtis showed up and we were talking about what was going on. Thankfully, Alice did it again and I was able to see her this time. Charlotte and Alice rode down together. It was so cute to see them come out the tunnel slide together. Next thing I know I was taking Alice and the boys to go get food while Curtis watched Charlotte on the slide and then watched Nikki go on the ride. I missed it! I had given the boys some tokens to go do a ride or something. They decided to use their tokens on food instead, lol! Garrett ordered chicken nuggets and a soda while Jack ordered a corn dog and soda. I went ahead and got some fries and of course the mini donuts! I can't go to Linder Farms without getting the donuts!

After freezing our tails off while eating the food we were trying to decide who wanted to go on the hay ride since we hadn't done that yet. The boys ended up going to wait in the van with Curtis while Alice, Charlotte and I went on the hay ride by ourselves. Nikki was still in line getting her own food with Eden. It was a cold ride but it was still fun!

We didn't get a family picture on the haystack like I was hoping to because of the cold windy conditions but that's okay. We still all had a fun time! Sad to see Linder Farms won't be around next year but maybe we'll try The Farmstead or something else.

Meeting my future sister in law!

Wednesday night I was reading my book and about ready to go to sleep when my phone started vibrating and I saw that it was my brother Colby calling me. I knew he was coming this weekend with Cindy so that we can meet her so I figured it was something to do with that. Well, Colby instantly got on and said he wanted to introduce me to his fiance, Cindy.  She then got on the phone with him. I knew they would be getting married eventually but it did catch me by surprise getting the phone call already. However, it was perfect timing for them since they were getting ready to come meet us and all of Colby's family.  The had made it official just that evening. Unfortunately it was getting late so he wasn't able to call everyone that night but they made more calls the next day.

Friday evening we met them and some other family at Thailand Express, a Thai food restaurant that is right down the road from our house and located right next to Del Taco, where Nikki works. We dropped Nikki off at work and then waited in the parking lot for my parents, grandma, Colby and Cindy to show up. Melissa met us there also. Later, Stillman and Nathan showed up as we were waiting. Colby and Cindy seem very happy together and it was great to finally meet her! After dinner Nathan went to the store to get some ice cream and head over to grandma's for dessert. We decided to go get churros for everyone from Del Taco. Nikki wasn't thrilled with how many we ordered since she was working. ha ha Not long after we got to grandma's Nikki called to let us know she was done working. Curtis picked her up and brought her over to grandma's. Then we all visited.

Saturday morning we did some stuff around the house and I made up a big batch of frog eye salad because that's what we signed up to bring to our meet and greet dinner at grandma's house at 4:00 that day. Laverne took some pictures of each family that was there. There was my sister Melissa and her family (minus Blake who's on a mission); Tamara and her family (minus Katie who was at a friend's Halloween party); Stillman and his family; my step brother Scott and most of his family; Dad and Laverne; my great Aunt Joyce; and of course my grandma Norton. We were missing Nikki since she was stuck working until 8pm that day. I also wanted to get a picture with Colby and Cindy.

We visited at grandma's for awhile and then some of us headed over to our house. That included Colby and Cindy and Stillman's family. Colby wanted to come see his cat that we are taking care of, Stardust. It was perfect timing because she had been outside all day (as usual) and a couple minutes after we got home she showed up to eat some dinner, just in time for Colby to see her and Cindy to meet her. They will be taking her back some time after they get married. We hardly see Stardust since she's outside most of the time and so it won't be too hard to give her back but it has been fun to have her for this last year.

Anyway, we visited some more and then the adults played a new card game called Slide 5 that Garrett got for his birthday from Grandma Butterfield. We all had a good time. They all left around 10pm because we had 9 am church the next morning. On Wednesday evening Curtis and I had been called into the stake center to meet with one of the stake presidency counselors. We were both nervous about who was going to get what calling. It ended up being for Curtis. He was called to be the 2nd counselor in our ward's bishopric. The current counselor was moving out of our ward. We were both a bit surprised but I think Curtis had an idea something like this was coming. His previous calling was deacons advisor. He'll still be overseeing the deacons as 2nd counselor in the bishopric.

Since Curtis would be sustained and set apart on Sunday he invited both of our dad's and his oldest brother Casey to come. Casey came with his wife and daughter Ambrey. And since grandma usually goes to church with my dad and Colby and Cindy were staying with grandma, they also came to our ward.  So we filled up two whole long benches at church since they all came for the whole Sacrament meeting. 

I have to admit I was feeling unsure about Curtis getting this calling ever since Wednesday but after the stake president (Keith Stucki) did the sustaining, Bishop Lyman got up and said a few words, thanking me for letting them borrow Curtis. I felt the spirit tell me then that it was right. Immediately following the meeting we all went down to the Relief Society Room where Curtis's dad advanced him to a high priest and then the stake president set him apart for the calling. It was great to have more family there than I would have expected to be a part of it.

I also wanted to share a few fun pictures of Alice from last week. On Thursday while the 4 older kids were at school, Alice and I drove around doing some shopping. We had a few miscellaneous items to get a Walmart. Then we went to Saver's, Goodwill and Idaho Youth Ranch trying to find Alice a pink princess dress because that's what she wanted to wear for Halloween. We didn't see anything at Saver's. Goodwill had a pink dress but I didn't really like it because it looked short and like she would be cold in it. However, we did find her a crown there. Luckily, we found a dress next door at Id Youth Ranch. We paid about $6 for it. I told her that she could be Sleeping Beauty since that's the only princess I could think of that has a pink dress, even though this particular dress wasn't an official Sleeping Beauty dress. After that we went and bought groceries at Winco. When we got home I told her she could watch Sleeping Beauty, she's never seen it before. Well, she was excited to watch it but then she fell into her character.....and fell asleep while watching.

After we bought the crown.

Now she gets to wear the dress with the crown! We might have to get her a shirt to wear under since the front is kind of low cut.

Asleep while watching Sleeping Beauty.

Saturday morning after I had made our frog eye salad we had some down time so I told Alice to get a game to play. She came back with a bunch of puzzles instead. Honestly, I love doing puzzles so it was a win win. She's gotten to where she can do the simple puzzles by herself that only have about 4-6 big pieces. I get her started on the more difficult ones and then she likes to finish them off when there's about 4 or 5 pieces left. She helps with other pieces as well. 

Lots Going On!

Well, last week I found out that my dad has prostate cancer. They did find that it was contained all in the prostate so that is a good sign. They are leaning towards having surgery in hopes to remove all of the cancer. Hopefully that's all that will be needed. It was a shock but I also remembered that my friend Whitney's dad, Dean, also had prostate cancer a few years ago. I honestly don't remember if he did surgery or radiation. Whatever they did, he's still around. I don't know how he's doing exactly but I'm optimistic about my dad because he has been doing a lot of walking and trying to eat healthier for awhile now so hopefully that will help. 

Thursday is a day that the 4 older kids go to school and Alice stays home. Her preschool days are Monday and Wednesdays. Well, I got busy doing stuff and turned around to see this little cutie. She passed out just as she was finishing her last gold fish cracker. She didn't quite get it in there, lol. 

I did decide to do some more Halloween decorating but man it took a lot to get me going. I got as far as emptying out the bucket with everything spread out on the floor and couch but I was just not feeling like decorating. I left everything there for at least an hour or so before I finally came back to it and finally just slowly started finding places for everything. After a little while I was finally getting into it and enjoying it a little more. I don't know what's wrong with me because I usually love decorating. I think the older I get the less I want to do it. Usually the kids get excited about decorating and I'll get them out. They pull out a few things to play with and then disappear, leaving me to decorate by myself. To my surprise, Jack was upset to see that I had decorated without him this year. Not really upset but a little disappointed. The funny thing is I usually do it by myself anyway. Sheesh, I can't win. 😂

I haven't gotten a picture of the decor outside yet just in case we add more but I did get this shot of Sage sitting by the sign. Of course she gets up as I'm taking the picture.

A lady from our ward, who happens to be our relief society president and the mother of Nikki's friend Logan, made some cute succulent pumpkins and was selling them. I decided to buy 3 small ones and do some ministering with them. This time I was able to get both of my partners involved with helping. Nikki is one of my partners. She helped pick out cards and then drew a little picture on each card. Then around 4:00pm we all went to deliver them together. Nikki had to work at 5:00 and we were only able to visit with two of them before taking her to work (one being the mother of Nikki's best friend Angie). Then our other partner Emily Rogers and I went back to visit the third person. We ended up visiting the last person for about an hour because between Emily and the husband of the third lady being there the conversation kept going and going. Fortunately for Emily from the conversations that were going on she was able to tell about the problems she was having with her home construction project. Bro Nickell has done some renovation work and offered to go look at it and see if he could help out. I guess it turned out to be a bigger project than he thought and it's too late to get started on it this late in the year but said they could do something in the spring. 

The last couple of Fridays Charlotte's teacher sends a link for a learn to draw session. These three did it both times. They did a fox on Friday. The week before was a bird.

This was the first week when they did the bird. I didn't get an after picture, silly me!

I made sure to get an after picture this time of their foxes.

On Saturday Garrett really wanted to go look at the guitars at the music store. Since we needed to replace a part on grandma's guitar anyway I said we could. The part that broke on grandma's guitar was the plastic piece around the screw where the strap goes on. I decided to replace both pieces with metal ones so we wouldn't have a problem later with the other plastic piece. After I was finished Garrett started looking at the electric guitars because he REALLY wants one. While the employee was helping him to look at one I got a text from Curtis in the car that Alice needed to go potty so I went and took her because Curtis was too tired and was sleeping in the van. After we got back I learned that Garrett had more money saved than I knew about and before you know it he was purchasing an electric guitar along with a carry case, cable and amplifier. He didn't quite have enough to cover everything so I helped him but he only owes me $12. He doesn't know how to play properly yet but is having fun playing with it.

After leaving Dorsey Music we went over to Deseret Industries to look for a couple of things. The boys were looking for something they could get a low powered fan to make their own fog machine with. Alice and I looked around at other things and found her first pair of skates for $5. Charlotte was so excited about Alice getting skates that she washed her wheels off and both girls rode around inside on Saturday and Sunday. Alice's skates have a mechanism in it that makes it kind of noisy when she skates but it keeps her from rolling backwards. She loves them! Charlotte even helped write Alice's name on the fronts of both skates, lol.

After we had dropped off Alice and Garrett at home we were supposed to hurry over and meet my parents to go to dinner at Sizzler. The hurry part went out the door when I got hit with some stomach problems. It wasn't diarrhea but it sure felt like it could have been. Every time I finished pushing a little out I would think I was done but then I'd wash my hands and start walking around a little and all of a sudden feel a pain like it was gas and then felt like I needed to go again. This happened multiple times and the last couple times I went it triggered some acid reflux/heart burn. I took 4 Tums to hopefully help settle it down. I was in a lot of pain on the way over just from this. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to eat anything. I definitely didn't feel like eating steak so I opted for the salad bar. It seemed to settle down as we were eating. It kicked up a little again later at their house when we were watching movies but I took another antacid. It slowly started feeling better. I'm not sure if it was something I ate for lunch or what but at least I felt good again by Sunday morning. The movies we watched were The Others, which is a spooky movie (for Halloween of course) and then so we wouldn't have bad dreams we watched Maverick. 

Yesterday was our first Sunday back at church where everyone was combined for Sacrament meeting, the first time since March 8th! Everyone still sat spread out and most people wore masks. We had previously been doing half and half so we'd be going every other week. The kids and I were running a little late but I couldn't help but get taken back by the sight of all the people who were there when we walked in. It felt like a family reunion almost and I just about teared up as I was rushing in with my kids to find our seat. It felt so good to be all back together. And there were lots of new families names that they read in today that moved in over the past 6 months. 

We have been given the okay to start having activities at the church again except each ward in the building will have a specific night of the week that way we're only in there cleaning the building once a week. Our ward was assigned to have Thursdays and this Thursday will be our first Relief Society activity at the church. We're going to be taught by one of our new sisters who does innovative penciling (looks like fancy color penciling?). I will be going because it looks like fun! If it doesn't turn out too bad I will share a picture of what I did. Yay, life is slowly getting back to a normal feeling! Slowly.

Oh yeah, I also received a few more Halloween decorations from Laverne when we were over there Saturday night. I really like this big spider web she gave us and how it looks right there.

Kids are Growing Up!

 Here's a few highlights from the last week. Nikki finished her 2nd sewing project, the owl skirt. It even has pockets and she loves it! She did most of the sewing but Grandma Butterfield (Gaya) helped her with some of it. I know Nikki likes it because on Sunday we were watching general conference at home. I had put my Sunday clothes on because I felt like it and then next thing you know Nikki comes out wearing her new Sunday outfit too. That's a big deal for someone who doesn't like to wear dresses or skirts!

Nikki also made her first big purchases after saving some money. She bought her own computer and drawing tablet, after getting advice from her uncle Colby. She now has a nicer laptop than either Curtis or myself! It's pretty nice.

Her first little doodle on her new drawing tablet.

Sunday morning we woke up to a surprise by our back door. This adorable little puppy was huddled up in the corner. It seemed so scared. I contacted a couple of neighbors to see if they recognized it and sure enough one of our next door neighbors had brought it home the night before after finding it on a dirt road some where in the Nampa/Caldwell/Middleton area I think. They had given the puppy a bath but somehow the puppy got away from them at some point and went through our gate that was accidentally left open that night. Anyway, the neighbor by the name of Heather came and got the puppy and said they were going to take it to the Humane Society. I thought they had taken care of it that day but then Monday evening I got a message from Heather asking if I knew anyone who wanted the puppy. Long story short the gal who has found the puppy took off with her boyfriend and hasn't come back and they couldn't keep the dog because they already have 3 dogs. Because Heather didn't have transportation to the Humane Society I offered to give her a ride Tuesday morning since I was taking a load of stuff to Deseret Industries anyway. Part of me wanted to keep the puppy but I decided it would be best to take the puppy in to the animal shelter in case someone was looking for it. 

One of our traditions every time we watch general conference is to get this big bag of blocks down from the kid's closet and they build temples or other structures while watching and listening to conference. So the 3 younger kids played with the blocks while the rest of us played with our cat, Sage. It was a great conference with many wonderful and inspiring talks, which is what we needed right now.

Most of the time the girls just want their hair down but Sunday I was able to get Alice in a ponytail for a least half the day and then I put Charlotte's hair up later after Alice took her hair out. 

I decided the next day I would do Alice's hair again for preschool. We went with pigtails this time and I even got her to wear her cute "school" dress. I had bought this dress a couple years ago for family pictures at Bear Lake for Charlotte to wear. I made her wear it then but she never wanted to wear it after. Alice was more willing and thankfully I had a pair of white shorts this time that were made for wearing under dresses so I think that made it more comfortable for Alice. She also happened to get to go pick a pumpkin at preschool today. She is loving preschool!

Yesterday I was able to let Charlotte let me braid her hair. Then of course Alice wants to do it with her hair because she always wants to do what her big sister is doing.

I also made the decision to start letting Alice use a booster seat instead of her car seat. She just looked like she was getting too big for it anyway. Now she's excited to be able to sit in the very back of the van with Charlotte. Charlotte will be done with booster seats by her next birthday. It will be so nice!

Garrett recently has gotten really excited to learn to play the guitar. I think part of that was because of watching Back to the Future, Freaky Friday (the newer one) and seeing a video on Facebook of my cousin's son who loves music and plays many instruments (Lara's son). I took him over to Grandma Norton's Tuesday night so he could look at Grandma's guitar and play on it a little. He really wants to buy an electric guitar and learn to play Johnny B. Goode like Marty McFly. Grandma didn't want Garrett to borrow it at first but changed her mind the next morning after talking to Diane about it. I wasn't planning on letting Garrett borrow it either but she was sure that she wanted him to borrow it and learn to play until he could get his own guitar. He's turning into our music man, which I love! He spent a lot of time yesterday teaching himself with the books grandma sent with him. He also had me purchase a new strap that comes with picks and a digital tuner. I ordered them for him online and then he paid me the cash that was owed. Some things we will buy for him but the guitar stuff I decided he would buy with his own money. I don't want him thinking he can just get what he wants because mom and dad will pay for it. I told him he's going to have to save money for buying his own guitar as well. It will be a good learning opportunity for him to learn to save up for something he really wants.

I'm also proud to say that this young man has improved on his mowing job for the lady in our ward and for the first time yesterday I didn't help do any of it. I dropped him off with all of the tools he would need. I did help him unload and load stuff but that was it. I left him there until he called me to say he was finished. He's growing up and learning to work! I love it!