Easter in Big Piney Wyoming!

Well we have moved from Rozet to Big Piney. We LOVE the town. I love that it is a small town and if I need to run to a store I can run in less than 3 minutes....(even if its a VERY SMALL STORE WITH LIMITED ITEMS) I love it here. I can see our family staying here permanently. Weylon has Mr. Miller as his Kindergarten teacher. And he LOVES that he has a "MAN TEACHER". He has to have patience of no other to be able to have a kindergarten class. He has 7 boys and 3 girls in his class. He loves going and comes home happy. I loved Mrs. Gutsche in Rozet, but this has been a positive change for him. Savanna has Mrs. Wood. She seems to like it. She stresses more than others though. Get this one...ok on the last day of school in Rozet, around 2ish, I get a phone call from the school counselor that Savanna is in her office quite upset. I asked if she was upset because we were moving that day. NO NO that is not the reason she was bawling up a storm. Out on lunch recess some very wrongly informed child told Savanna about global warming and how the earth was going to melt and we were all going to die. Savanna took it to heart and thought we were all going to melt and die. And boy howdy I will tell you she was in an uproar. Brandon finally had to go to the school and calm her down. I busted a gut laughing before they gave her the phone and I was still laughing a little. Only MY CHILD would have a melt down about global warming. Dumb old Al Gore anyways. HAHA

We sure do miss all of our friends from Rozet and the Moorcroft branch. We made so many that will last forever and we were so blessed to know so many good people. We had several show up to load the u-haul and help clean the house good for the Andersons and when we got to Big Piney over 15 people showed up to help unload. It was wonderful! I just finished unpacking a few more boxes today, but am in a defiant state right now because this house we are in is so crappy and I dont want to unpack here. But apparently Brandon and I are pretty picky in the housing department because this rental we are in now is a gem compared to the crappy ones we have seen so far. And this one is A DUMP! It puts a whole new level to the word trailer trash! HAHA But as Savanna keeps telling me, "mom be glad you have a home and don't live in the streets." So I will keep this attitude and try to suck it up and unpack and make this as much of a home as I can while we search for something better. Please pray for us that we can find something better too! So I won't post pictures of the house but I do have a few from coloring Easter eggs. I will post those. I am terrible this year, I didn't even get a picture Sunday morning of the kids in the new Easter dresses and ties. Or of when the Easter Baskets were brought on saturday evening. So here are the eggs and enjoy!

Found some fun pictures!

Sweet little Memphis has had a run of ear infections, RSV, and more ear infections...And then he broke out in this nasty skin rash and after about a week it decided to spread from just his chin to his whole face, ears, arms and legs. So I took him to the doc a couple days ago and he has a bacterial skin infection...WHERE DO YOU EVEN GET THAT? So he is on a nasty skin cream for that and to top it off he is on #10 ear infection. Poor little bugger will only be 11 months old in a couple days. So I tried to get him in to get tubes put in before we move next week, but NO ONE has any openings. NOT EVEN IN SOUTH DAKOTA! DANG IT! So here are some cute pics of him, even through the skin and ear infection he still smiles!

SLUMBER PARTY!

Savanna had her moving away slumber party! She invited 9 girls from her 3rd grade class and 2 girls from our branch. ALL OF THEM CAME BUT 1 GIRL! And we had a blast! It as a beautiful day on friday so after they all did manicures and pedicures and makeovers, we drove to the Rozet elementary and they played at the playground for 2 hours. On the drive to the school (which is only about 2 miles) we put on the song by Taylor Swift "Mean". I was just a laughing at the singing that was going on. I think every single girl knew all the words. And of course OakLeigh was right in the middle of them all singing the loudest. It was really cute. Brandon and Weylon drove the truck. They didn't want to ride with so many girls. After that we had pizza and soda. Who would have thought that 11 girls could wolf down 4 large pizzas so quickly! I should have taken a picture of how much junk food they actually had through out the night. To name a few; runts, tootsie rolls, hot tamales, 4 bags of sour gummy worms, kitkats, peanut butter cups, candy corn, chocolate covered marshmallows, peeps...and then of course we had to have ice cream sundaes with all the works! I was praying no one was going to barf on my floors. Oh then we popped 8 bags of popcorn. And I finally got to go to bed around 1030. But I got up several times to change movies, ease a few crying eyes, and finally by 330 AM all was quiet. Until I had to get up at 600 and start on pancakes. After breakfast, the floor was so covered in food and junk that I couldn't even set Memphis down because he would have choked for sure on all the yummies. So after shaking out and folding about 50 blankets and sleeping bags, I swept up 4 DUSTPANS FULL OF crushed food. And the girls were off doing makeovers again. They were all gone by 1000am and I was exhausted and ready for a nap. But we had to go to home depot and get flooring to finish the floor in the master bathroom. I went to bed at 9 and slept really good. I was so tired I hurt to move. LOL I am so glad we got to do this for Savanna. She was on cloud nine. I hope it makes her know how loved she is. And of course OakLeigh was right in the middle of all the girls until I had to drag her to my bed kicking and screaming. Weylon would have loved to slept in the middle of the action too, but one of the girls, Sierra kept finding him and torchering him with her tickles. He slept by Brandon in our bed. HAH....Here are some pictures!







There were a few girls that hid and didn't want their picture taken. All in all it was a great party! I think in a year or two I will recover enough to do another one!

Well we have so much that has been going on! Brandon went back to work after having 2 months off from his accident. He went back the last day of February! But while he was home he went to Rock Springs to an MSHA class and job hunting. We have been praying a lot lately about where we should be and what the best place for our family is?! And we got our answer. It literally almost fell into our laps. He had someone call him while he was in Rock Springs and offer him a job in NORTH DAKOTA...So he called me on his break and said "you wanna move to ND?" I said, "HELL NO!" So that answered that question. haha Anyways, he was offered a job from the same company in Big Piney, Wyoming. MUCH BETTER! North Dakota isn't even a little bit appealing. Big Piney may be small and have no stores, but its in Wyoming. It has a good school system. If anything were to ever happen in either of our families, we would be close enough to go visit. Brandon leaves next week, so once again Brandon gets out of packing the house up. This is oh our 5th move since we got married 9 years ago, and I have had to pack up every time. But this time at least I am NOT pregnant. It makes a world of difference! However, he has a huge list of honey does to do in our rental in Big Piney before the kids and I move in. So it really does even out. We have the most wonderful branch here and we have made some life long friends. We will dearly miss you all so much! Kristin, Terra, Heather, Wendy I will miss our girls night out. You have NO IDEA how much it helps to get out and laugh and chat WITH ADULTS! And with such wonderful friends! I love you all and will be back for a lot of visits! We have been the recipients of a lot of love and service since living here. We lost our baby boy, while building our garage, and while I was in the hospital delivering him, the branch priesthood came and BUILT THE GARAGE FOR US! They finished it. How wonderful and thoughtful of them. When Brandon's brother, Trent, passed away, we had so many prayers, meals, calls, cards, etc...When Brandon was hurt a few months ago, we had meals brought for almost 3 weeks. We had visits. He had some buddies show up and take him out for a while. I will never be able to thank or re-pay all the love we have been given. I only hope that someday we can return it. Last night our branch threw our family a going away party. (I think they want to get rid of us...lol). Brandon and the kids went, I had to stay home with Memphis because we found out yesterday he has RSV. But they brought home a HUGE card the whole branch signed, a book, other cards, cake, etc. But once again, I have received many calls today to see if they could help me since Memphis is sick. I have so many coming to help pack boxes, clean, paint. I really don't know that I will ever meet such a great group of people.

In other news, Weylon has had 2 bottom teeth that have been lose for several months. I finally held him down the other day and pulled 1 tooth out. He was screaming. Brandon was yelling at me to let him go. But the tooth was just a dangling. So I yanked it. He went to scream again and realized I was holding up a tooth and he got the biggest grin on his little face. The tooth fairy brought him $1.25. He was so excited. A week later, he had another dangler. I held him down and pulled that one. Once again, he was screaming, Brandon was yelling at me to let him go. I was laughing. I held up that tooth, and he was laughing so hard he couldn't stop the tears. He got $1.50 for that one. He is growing up. I took a few pictures. He looks scared to death and stoned. HAHA Gotta love my boy.

Savanna is having a bit of a hard time with this upcoming move. She is in 3rd grade. She is 8 years old. She is our social butterfly. She has so many friends because she has a heart of gold. So she is having a farewell slumber party at our house this friday the 9th. We made invitations and she handed them out at school yesterday. We told the girls to ride her school bus home with her on friday and the party would begin. I got a text of warning from a mom last night, she says, "did you know that friday is only a half day of school?" No, NO, NO I did not know that. So it looks like 10 little girls will be here starting friday at 100 and for the night! WHAT WAS I THINKING? HAHA We are going to be doing make overs, manicures and pedicures, watching movies, eating popcorn, karaoke, making ice cream sundaes, and eating pizza. Hope no one barfs on my floor. It should be fun! I will post pictures soon! Weylon and his dad are going to go somewhere fun while the girls party. Then the next friday Weylon and OakLeigh get to have 2 friends each stay over. (It makes it easy because they both like the same people). Then I really have to get busy with my packing and cleaning!

So this first picture: I came home from urgent care with Memphis last night. I walk in and look on the kitchen floor and see chunks of hair. I think OH NO! I follow the trail of hair which led down the hall into Weylon and OakLeigh's room and right to the closet door. I open the closet door to find this picture. A pair of scissors thrown down, and all OakLeigh's horses and barbies almost hairless. Some of them were scalped completely.


Here is another picture of the damage. And of course daddy had no idea.



This was Savanna's picture day today. She looked cute! She is getting so big!



Here is Weylon with his first $1.25 from his tooth fairy.



This is Weylon after holding him down and pulling his tooth the 2nd time! Poor kid I think I traumatized him! LOL

Weylon is 6!

I dont know what we were thinking having two birthdays so close after Christmas and to have Weylon's birthday only 11 days apart from OakLeigh. That's too much birthday cake in too little time! But I am so glad we have birthdays! Weylon was so excited! He got night vision binoculars and they are pretty darn cool. They are kid ones, but actually work in the dark. Brandon now wants a pair as do I! He got a couple car games, and a diesel log truck. Then he also got a bike helmet, a shark, as you will see in the pictures and a bike horn. I took it out the next MORNING and hooked that sucker to the bike just to get it out of the house! PHEW! It was loud! His cake turned out really cool if I do say so myself. It was a race track. I also made bright blue cupcakes with orange frosting and a blue #6 for his class. I wish I would have taken my camera to his class, but here are some pics. I Love you Weymore!

OakLeigh is 4!

I can't believe my OakLeigh girl is 4 years old. She is quite the handful. I can tell you there is no other like her. She is a HORSE FANATIC. I showed her the old black and white TV show, Mr. ED (the talking horse). She now goes around singing the Mr. Ed theme song. It is hilarious! For Christmas she got some horses, and a barn and wooden corral, and that is all she will play with. Forget the rest of her gifts, they don't exist to her. So for her birthday she really wanted a horse that could walk. Since we really aren't in a spot to get her a real horse yet, we got her the MOXI Girl walking horses. What a bargain I found. Buy one get one half off. So she got 2 horses and a cowgirl for them. And from the time she wakes up till the time she passes out at night, she is playing horses and watching horseland or Spirit. She is so funny, at night to go to sleep she even tells herself the Spirit story. I made her a horse cake. It turned out cute, but not how I had imagined it in my non creative head. But it tasted good. She got her cake and "masagna". Garfield the cat loves lasagna so OakLeigh does too. We had birthday doughnuts at Uncle Ryan's house with her cousins and then drove on home. I think she had a good day. Here are some pictures! They are a bit blurry because I had to take them with my cell phone, but you get the idea. I still need to get the other pictures of her and her horses on here!





HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY OAKLEIGH LYNDELLE GIRL! We love you so much!

Starting 2012 off with a bang!

Well we definately started off 2012 with a huge bang! And a huge reminder of what is important! Sunday morning Brandon went off to work. The kids and I went off to church. After church around 12:15 I called Brandon. He was at his last well site, I was going to get gas because the suburban was empty. He said he would call me in a few minutes. The roads were extremely icy because of the storm the day before. I was driving slow. Tried calling him a few times. NO answer. Then just before I got on Adon road to head home, Brandons mom called me screaming. I couldnt understand a word she said except for that Brandon was hurt. Head to the hospital. I headed for home to drop the 3 bigger kids off with his mom so his dad could drive me in to town. We were both crying. He said that there was an explosion at an oil well site. Brandon was burned bad. We got almost to Gillette, praying the whole entire way, and dispatch called me to tell me they were going to life flight Brandon to Greeley Colorado to the burn unit there. I freaked out. You hear LIFE FLIGHT and automatically assume the worst. We actually got to the spot an hour later that the ambulance was and life flight was. We got to climb in ambulance and see him before they took off. He was already intubated and he looked bad. He was swollen and burned bad. We drove on to Greeley and it took 5 or 6 hours. It is all a blur really. Thankfully his sister Dusti lives in Fort Collins and was able to be at the hospital when he arrived. So glad he wasn't alone. When we arrived he was already scrubbed and very sedated. I have never prayed so hard in my life. I never want to think about how I am going to raise my kids alone again. But I didn't know how bad he was hurt. I didn't know if he was going to be ok. I didn't know if my prayers would be answered how I WANTED THEM TO BE! I am so thankful that Brandon is alive. I am so thankful he was given another chance. He says he must have 12 lives and that he was on his 9th. He has been through a lot and is so very blessed to be alive. His face, neck and hands are burned badly, but they are 2nd degree burns. He will heal fully. He doesn't have to have skin grafts. He is in pain and hurts, but he is so blessed. We are so blessed. I have such a wonderful branch. They were at my house immediately upon finding out and didn't leave Brandon's mom or my kids alone for a minute. My RS president, Penny, stayed here the whole time, day and night. We have groceries in our pantry, food in our fridge. Someone cleaned my house. Gifts were brought to my kids. Our animals were all fed and taken care of. We left in such a hurry we didn't even have baby food for Memphis. Our friend Clinton drove all the way to Greeley to bring us supplies. My parents left Texas (they were at Kel and Sara's house) and drove all night to be home. Then mom drove all day to be with my kids. Emily drove 6 hours to be there to help me with Memphis and to just be there for me. What a terrible way to start off the new year with such amazing results. We are so blessed. Brandon is alive due to so many prayers and the power of the priesthood. When the dr spoke to me Monday morning, he told me we would plan to stay 3 to 4 weeks. We left the hospital for home on Wednesday. Miracles exist. Prayers are heard. Trials bring out the best in people and we have been so thankful for it all.