The Beginning of March

So, the beginning of this month has already been quite adventurous for the Hunter Family. The first day of March was beautiful. So much so in fact that a friend invited us to go to the zoo with her and her kids that morning. Celeste had school and I forgot my camera, so the pictures are horrible because they were taken with my phone, but we had a wonderful few hours at the zoo. The weather was a little chilly, but the sun was perfect and there was hardly anyone there to fight with to see exhibits. We bought a yearly pass for the zoo and the science center, so we'll be able to enjoy both all year round and the zoo is only 15 minutes from our house, so we'll be able to go often this summer. I can't wait!

The boys outside the zoo.

All the kids riding the Rhino statue.

All the kids riding the Kimodo Dragon statue.

This is Amber. I only remember her name because the friend we were with is Amber also! We got a good laugh about that!

March 2nd brought some fun in the morning. Celeste didn't have school and it was Dr. Seuss' birthday, so we started our day with green eggs and ham. The kids thought it was so fun to celebrate that way.

Later on that day, we took Kyle to work because the weather was looking a little rough. We hadn't been watching the news that morning and the last we had heard, there was possiblity of thunderstorms, but that was all. Later in the morning, we started getting tornado warnings. For us, they weren't bad and we watched a lot of the weather pass through the front window. I wish I had taken a picture of the 20 minutes of rain and hail that we had, but I didn't. Later in the afternoon is when we heard about all of the damage that the tornadoes had caused. Kyle was sent home early from work after one of his coworkers left because his home was damaged during the tornado that went through the city. His coworker lives about 45 minutes from here and no damage had occured here, but boy was Henryville hit hard.

We had planned on going bowling on Saturday, but Kyle felt like he should go up to Henryville on Saturday to help in anyway he could. Not knowing exactly how bad his friend's house was really made him want to go. His friend also had forgotten his cell phone and some other things at work when he left in a hurry, so Kyle was able to get those things to take up to him on Saturday. Because we couldn't go bowling on Saturday, we decided to go Friday night. Once again, we forgot the camera, so I only got a few pictures on my cell phone.

 

The kids had a BLAST! Gordon has never been bowling before and the other two have only been bowling once or twice before this. We have to pass right by a bowling alley to get to Kyle'ss work and the kids have been asking for weeks if we could go. We told them weeks ago that if we got the garage all unpacked and put away we could go bowling. Then we got that finished, we just haven't had a chance to go, so we told them we would go this weekend. Gordon was so funny about it. The first time, Kyle helped him throw the ball down the lane and watch it hit the pins. Then Kyle tried to help him again and he pushed Kyle away and said, "Get off the wood, don't help me." From then on, Gordon refused any sort of help getting that ball down the lane. Sometimes we had to sit for quite a while as the ball FINALLY made it's way to the pins, but he LOVED every minute of his time there.

 Eddie was our star. He didn't get the highest score, but he did the best. I loved watching him jump in the air as he threw the ball. Of course with my phone, I never got a picture of it, but we promised them we would go again and I promise to take my camera next time!

Celeste was quite the character. Often she wouldn't even look at the ball after she rolled it down the lane to even see if she got any pins. She enjoyed it, but wanted to eat more, so she had an attitude near the end. This picture is just her though. She's not mad, just watching because we told her she needed to watch her ball go to the pins. She's so funny!

Then Saturday was the day Kyle won't soon forget. He made the 45 minute drive up to Henryville with his boss to do whatever they could to help. They weren't allowed through at first until their friend saw them and told the authorities blocking the road that they were there for him and to help. Kyle was able to get quite a few amazing pictures of the damage, but I've only added a few.

The side of his coworker's house. It's still standing, but it has such severe damage.

This is the pock marked ground from the baseball size hail.

The next day would be Sunday. We were invited to our friends, Sterling and Arien's home in Lexington, which is just over an hour away. I was so excited to see them. Sterling was like another brother to me growing up. He was friends with my brother, Mike, and we had a lot of the same friends in high school. It has been a long time since I had seen him since he has lived in Lexington going to school for the past six years. Of course, we just move here and they just sold their house and are getting ready to move to Colorado because he finishes school in June. Sad. We had a great time at their house while we were there though. Their daughter, Regan, is just a few months younger than Gordon. She wasn't sure about having to share her toys with some crazy boys, but she did alright for sharing with strangers and my boys loved playing in a new place. It was so fun catching up and learning about what they have been up to lately. I'm sad they are going to be leaving because I wouldn't have minded getting together with them every once in a while for dinner, but Sterling is almost done with school and wants a real job, so they have to do what they have to do!

Gordon and Regan playing on the couches. They had a great time jumping off the couch and running through the house.

This is Annie. She is so sweet.

Sunday night I let the dog out to go potty before bed and saw that we really need to watch the weather report on the weekends more. There were huge, wet snowflakes falling. I didn't know if it would stick, but was pretty excited about the idea of having snow again.

The next morning we looked outside to find SNOW! There was about 2 inches covering the ground and slush on the street. Celeste still had school, which she was actually okay with, so this is what the school looked like when we got there.

 

Our house with snow covering the area.

That evening we had signed up to have the missionaries for dinner. I had been wondering what to make for dinner all weekend and couldn't decide until Monday morning. I decided to make Hawaiian Haystacks. Then I talked to Kyle about it and he suggested we have a flexible dinner as well. For those who don't know what that is. A flexible dinner is where you basically dump the dinner on the table and then you scoop out what you want to eat. It worked really well with the Haystacks. We dumped the rich in the center and then dumped the rest of the stuff around the outside of it and then it was a free for all. Of course we passed the gravy around because that would be horrible, but the missionaries loved it.

You can't have a flexible dinner without have a flexible dessert as well! We kept is simple and just had ice cream. We dumped the ice cream on the table and then had toppings to go on them. It actually worked perfectly to have ice cream sundaes because we already had coconut, pineapple and cherries for the haystacks, so we just had them for both! The elders had a good time and the kids did pretty well at eating all of their dinner as well.

I can't believe we are only in the 6th day of March and I have already written a novel. I'm hoping that we'll have more adventures this month, but I'm hoping they are all fun from now on. I'm expecting that at least March 15th will be fun, for sure! I don't know if we'll have a kid free game night like I usually have, but we'll have friends over and cheese cake will be plentiful! Mmm, I can't wait!

Our Diningroom Art

I've always wanted to have a place for the kids to hang their artwork without it covering the fridge. Celeste used to use tape on the walls of her bedroom or door because she wanted to hang everything up. I've seen some homes with this idea before and knew that I wanted to do it. We have the space in our house now, so we went ahead and did it. We put the kids' names on the wall in vinyl and then Kyle put some wire up for each of them to use to hang their artwork up. I love that after they are done painting or coloring, they now have a place to hang their work. Gordon always brings home a coloring page from church as well, so he can hang it up for the the week if he wants to. They love it and I love that it's not cluttering the counters or fridge!

We also put their new piggy banks in the kitchen. I knew that putting them in the bedrooms would be a bad idea, so we put them up high enough that Eddie can't reach them, even on a chair. It may seem mean to them, but this way, when they get their allowance at the end of the week, I take the banks down and they put their money away and then I put them back, knowing they can't get into them without me. I LOVE IT! Before they were constantly getting into their money and loosing it or taking their siblings' money. They can't do that any more and I have more control over what they do with their money as well.

This is their corner in the diningroom. They love having a little piece of the kitchen and it actually looks nice as well.

Our next project is vinyl in the livingroom. We have a HUGE wall with nothing there, so those pictures will come later this week when the vinyl is up!

Valentine Weekend

This weekend we had a 50's dance at church for Valentine's weekend. It was so fun to get out for the first time without the kids. I was a little nervous because we still don't know people very well, but Celeste has made friends with some girls in the neighborhood. One girl is a year older than her and one is a year younger. They are sweet girls though and so far, haven't had any problem playing with Eddie and Gordon on occasion. So, Kyle asked their grandma who they use for babysitters and she said they would be happy to babysit for us. It was so nice of her to watch the kids for the evening. We had planned to feed them since we didn't have to leave until 6:45, but they ordered pizza and since the kids had been outside playing, just had them come in and eat with them. We offered to go in half on the pizza, but they refused. I know this summer will be fun though with lots of lunches and dinners to share with them, so I'm not at all worried about paying them back, we'll definitely get a chance!

The decorations were great. They were simple, but so fun for the theme.

These were the center pieces on the tables. They were great! I loved the ice cream sodas and all of the records were different, so we had to go to all of the tables to read them!

We didn't take pictures in the car, but you could get behind the car to take pictures.

They even finished off with ice cream sodas. I had cherry and Kyle had to try a few different flavors, so he had cherry the first time and then had to mix cherry and line the second time, just to try it out! We met some new people and danced with friends we have already made. We didn't stay the whole evening because church is so early and the kids weren't home in bed, but we really had a fun time. We have made a note to ourselves though! Being on time is being a half hour early! For some reason, everything is late here. Church even starts 5-10 minutes late on a semi regular basis. That's just the way it is here. Kyle and I will never get used to it. We still leave the house on Sunday morning with plenty of time to get there at least 10 minutes before church starts and that will never change. I will probably learn to relax on making it to play group right at 10:30 though because we just sit in the parking lot until someone else shows up when we get there that early!

Taken For Granted

There are so many things that we have in our everyday lives that we don't think about or maybe we do because we hate the way they function or don't function, depending on the situation. There was one inparticular thing that didn't really bother me in Troutdale, but now that I'm in Kentucky, I realize it should have bothered me.

My FAUCET!

In Troutdale, the water pressure was miserable. I don't know why, Kyle doesn't know why and we never did anything about it because it didn't bother me. My brother, Casey, hated it and told me every time he was at our house that he hated it, but it really didn't bother me. Once we got to Kentucky, the water pressure was amazing! So much so, that the water would shoot in all directions because it was a cheap apartment faucet that should have never made it into a house like this or lasted as long as it did in a house like this! So, after a few weeks with the awful thing, Kyle bought me a new faucet. It's beautiful. It has a long neck and when you turn the water on, it can be set to warm instead of trying to find the right tempurature with the hot and cold seperately. It's wonderful with the perfect water pressure to get the job done as well! 

Another thing you never think about when it comes to moving into a new place is the window treatments. I love the natural light that comes into our new home. In Troutdale, we had the windows in the livingroom that had a tree blocking. As much as I loved the tree during the summer for shade and privacy, it became a problem for bringing in natural light. In our new house, the light is fabulous, but something to think about, privacy, just a little! The window by our front door, at one time must have had a window treatment of some kind, but it had been taken down and nothing else was put up. The main problem with that was, our window looks directly across to our neighbor's front door. Not great when you have to get up in the middle of the night in your pjs or your son takes off his underwear to go potty and doesn't put them back on again! I've put up a window treatment for the moment. They need to be sewn properly (they are pinned right now), but we now have a little privacy when moving around the house!

I hate having boxes full of stuff all over the house, knowing that I need to put it away. It is so nice to look at the newly empty boxes and know that I have done something for the day! They are the perfect thing for the kids to play with as well until they are flattened! What has really been nice is being able to take my time and find the right spot for everything. My goal is to have a place for everything. If it doesn't have a place, it can't stay, so I'm taking my time and doing it properly.

Another thing that I don't feel I took for granted, but really appreciated, was having my mom close by to cut the boys' hair. They never sit still for me and are usually willing to sit still for her. Since my mom isn't an option anymore, we had to take them to Super Cuts to get their hair cut. Gordon didn't really care one way or another and sat perfectly still and Eddie thought it was so fun. They both look great, but we are definitely going to have to find some coupons or a less expensive place because little boys' haircuts shouldn't cost so much!

Some other things that I have found I took for granted in Troutdale? One would definitely be the distance to different places. I would think it was awful when Kyle had to run over to the Stake Center for church to pick something up or drop something off. It took up so much gas to go that 15 minutes away. Now, I will never complain about it again! We meet at the Stake Center for church now. The drive is just over 20 minutes away by freeway. We actually have come up with a new plan for getting up and going in the morning. We get up and dress. Then I prepare bagels and cream cheese that they have to eat in sandwich form on the way to church. Since we have 20 minutes, they can eat, and we can all relax and listen to church music. It's not a horrible way at all to start our day and so far, after doing it for a few weeks, we're getting into a good pattern.

Something else that I always knew I was blessed with and appreciated, but also knew that I was leaving behind and would miss completely was having grandparents close by. I know that many people don't live close to family, but since Celeste was just a baby, we've lived near our family. There has always been someone there to help out if I needed it. There has also always been someone there if the kids needed to get out of our house and have a new environment. Many times we would take a walk to Nana and Papa's house or to Grandma's work, just because we needed to get out of the house. There were also the Sundays when I just didn't want to cook and Grandma was willing to let us come over and enjoy the afternoon with her. I definitely knew then and I know now, that I was lucky. We're slowly learning how to deal with not having those blessings around. The kids are still in a good place where they have plenty to do. For them, going up and sliding down the stairs may never wear off. (Our carpet may shred into pieces, but the kids are happy!) We also have a basement and garage that they can ride their scooter or bike in, so even when it is raining outside, they can play. I must say, that after cooking for six days in a row, it was sure nice to go out for dinner!

We knew that we were blessed to have all of our family so close for so long. It was so nice knowing that there were people around that we could count on if we needed them. We also knew that this is where our Heavenly Father wants us right now. I love knowing that our family is just a phone call or email away. The blessings we have now of facebook and text messaging or google talk are amazing. We can chat with anyone, anywhere, at anytime if we want. I'm so grateful for the new blessings I have. I feel that if I need to live away from my family, it's REALLY nice to have a house that helps with the kids' energy levels, so life doesn't get too hard that we hate it.

I think everone has things they take for granted. What are some things you take for granted and are so grateful for?

Let It Snow!

Last night and this morning it said that there was an 80% possiblity of snow today. I was a bit surpriised because it was in the upper 50's the other day and sunny and rainy yesterday. Around 11am today they put out a notice that the kids would be getting out of school early for the day and then the snow started! HUGE flakes! I didn't get a picture of the flakes swirling in the air, but the kids just couldn't stay inside any longer once Celeste got home. She got her home work done in record time and then they all bundled up to go out side in the 1/2 inch of snow!

Even Grim had to go outside to enjoy the snow. He was bouncing around like a puppy and the kids loved throwing snowballs for him to catch. They also loved rolling down the slight incline in our yard. Eventually they got tired of that and we went for a walk to find better hills. Just down the road from us there is a better hill that goes into a drainage ditch. There isn't any water in the ditch right now, so the kids rolled down that hill over and over until Gordon and Mom couldn't handle it anymore and then we came home for hot chocolate. We're hoping for no school tomorrow and at least another inch of snow over night so we can play some more and visit some new friends from Church! The snow is finally sticking to our road, so there is hope of no school in sight!!!

Gordon Turns 3!!!

I can't figure out where the time has gone. My baby boy is 3 years old today. He's a rambunctious, sweet, caring, loving little boy. He loves cars, trains, planes, helicopters, police cars, tractors and dirt. His favorite thing to do this last summer while camping was laying in the dirt playing with cars. I don't have a picture of the dirt that was in his ear, but he would lay with his head in the dirt to and he would get up with his ear and side of his head covered in dirt. It was the cutest thing to watch and the most disgusting bath water ever!

I asked Gordon what he wanted for dinner. (I didn't know for sure what he would want, but wasn't surprised when he gave his answer.) He said, "Um, salad." He LOVES salad. Some times he will come and ask for salad as a snack, so I keep salad stocked in our house at all times. He likes salad even more if there are tomatoes on it. He doesn't enjoy cherry or grape tomatoes, he doesn't like them squishing in his mouth, but he does like a tomato cut up on his salad rather well. If he runs out of tomatoes, no big deal, Mom always has some for the taking! (Whether she likes it or not!)

Last night Kyle and I set up his gift from us. A few days ago we found a train table on Craigslist for a great deal with the tracks and trains to go with it. We stayed up until late putting it all together, so he wouldn't have to spend any time dealing with track and he could play all day long. This morning he received his first gift when he walked into the playroom and found his wonderful new toy. He and Eddie played with it off and on all day long. They were both in heaven and I already know that the investment was a great one!

So, for dinner Gordon wanted salad, but his siblings have been trying to talk him out of it for a few days. They suggested pizza, which he decided he was interested in. I asked if he wanted pizza or salad for
dinner and his response was, "Um, pizza salad."

I have no idea what pizza salad is, but that's what he wanted. From then on, every time anyone would ask him what he wanted for dinner, he told us pizza salad. So, we had pizza salad for dinner! We had green salad and put pepperoni, olives, tomatoes and cheese on it. He loved it. We let him make his own salad on his plate and then we put ranch over the top. It was actually really good and the kids did a great job of eating all of their dinner. It will definitely have to be a repeat dinner option for our family!

We made strawberry cupcakes with chocolate frosting and had vanilla ice cream. Mostly Gordon just wore his frosting, but I didn't actually expect him to eat any cupcakes since he snuck three of them this morning before I had put frosting on them. Then he tried to sneak another one this afternoon after the frosting had been applied. He finally got his frosting tonight though and that's all he wanted!

Since Kyle and I got him such a large gift, we only got him the one gift, so he didn't have a gift to open from us this evening, but his brother and sister had a gift for him along with one from his Nana/Papa and Grandma. He is loving his new gifts. He had a hard time leaving the playroom tonight because he wanted to keep playing. I have a feeling the next few days, I may not see much of him if he can help it!

I forgot to mention. This morning I made pancakes for him. At first he was too busy to eat breakfast because he wanted to play with his train. When he finally did come down for breakfast, he ate and then left. I turned and realized he was on his way back up stairs. I said bye to him and he said, "Bye Mom, I'm going to play with my trains!" It was so adorable. I love this age when everything is so much fun.

I'm so grateful for my sweet boy and all of the love that he brings to our lives. He's growing up so fast and I just appreciate everyday with him in it. The cuddles and kisses may be gooey, but they are sweet and the best gift he could ever give his Momma!

Celeste and Eddie made a birthday sign for Gordon.

Gordon sang Happy Birthday to himself with us. We all sang off key in traditional Hunter spirit and he was right there with us!



Playing with his new toy from Grandma. I promised him we would play with his new game from Nana and Papa tomorrow!