snow caves

We've had a couple of major storms blow through here lately and Kenyon and the boys went out and dug some deep interconnecting snow caves in the mountain of snow that the plows push into our front yard.

Sauce in his cave

Digging, digging, digging

Hunter in his cave

From Utah to Montana we went

Before Christmas, we drove up to Bozeman, Montana for a couple of days to see my brother and his family who were visiting my sister-in-law's family. After driving 12 hours through a snow storm (should have been a 6 hour drive), we arrived at the Leep's and barely left the house for the three days we were there. The Leep family is always so gracious and hospitable to us and we had a great visit.

Cousin Eva is only 7 weeks older than Squirt, so it was fun getting to know her better. Auntie Laurie is so funny!

Eva liked to take toys from Squirt and we all liked to watch her assertiveness and his passiveness!

Daddy with Hunter and Sauce Rufus with Mommy

Ski season is here!

We all got out for our first real ski day together last week. Here are some highlights. We hope we get some visitors this winter to join us on the mountain!

The greatest gift

After we returned from Montana, we had a nice Christmas Eve at church and with friends and then a quiet Christmas morning at home. Our friends, the Zwahlens, invited us over for Christmas dinner at their house with two other families. We topped off a yummy turkey dinner with a birthday cake for Jesus with candles for all the little ones to blow out.

Before presents, we always start by reading the Christmas story out of the Bible. This year, they were so distracted that we had a quiz afterward!!!

Cameron on his new bike

Lucas happy as always!

Coonskin caps from Hunca and Pop Pop

Brendan with his new Knex set

Kenyon with his favorite game

Brendan and Cameron got bike riding gloves like Dad's

A game of Flippin Frogs anyone?

Here is Andrew opening his very own Leapster and Brendan telling him how he "earned it"

Here are all the kids singing Happy Birthday to Jesus

How I do it

I can't count how many times people have said two things to me: "You sure have your hands full!" and "I don't know how you do it!" I thought I would explain some thoughts about how I do it (and what I just don't do!).

First of all, by the time Rufus was born, I learned the hard lesson that life is not all about me. A servant's heart is my key to happily being the mother of four little boys, staying home with them, teaching them and still liking them. Whenever I get focused on things or time I don't have - or what I have to do, life gets pretty miserable. Of course, this attitude can't be manufactured and maintained by me alone - it has to come from God and I am thankful that when I ask, He provides just what I need.

Secondly, four children seems like a lot to many people, but remember that they arrived into our family one at a time, and we live one day at a time. So luckily, it wasn't that we woke up one morning to a six year old, a four year old, a two year old and a newborn. I would likely not have the perspective I have now. We've grown with our children and as anyone does in any situation in life, we do what each day requires. I have friends who hesitate to ask me to babysit because they think, "you already have four of your own," but I think four is quite manageable because it is what I am used to.

I have always been a big supporter of having a schedule in our home to make our lives more predictable. Whether it's with little babies, or my first grader, when we know what a normal day looks like, it sure goes a lot more smoothly. Also, the schedule is always flexible so that if something comes up, we can adapt. Some things that are staples in our schedule right now are: laundry every weekend, Squirt's feeding and sleeping times, Hunter's school times, and rest and reading time for everyone in the afternoon. - not to mention bed time.

Homeschooling is a fairly new experience for me and I have realized that "something's gotta give." That something is having a clean house. I like to be tidy and keep up with it as much as we can, but I had a revelation one day that in about 15 years I will have all the time in the world to make sure my kitchen floor stays shiny. But I know that when I do have that time, I will sorely miss the little sweaty footprints that are so obvious in the sunlight. I made a decision that beyond the URGENT (pee outside the toilet bowl is big on my list), I would rather sit down and read a book to my boys, nurse my baby or play a heated game of war with my five year old, than worry about the dusty mantel above the fireplace.

The last thought I have to share right now is how important it is to seek out wisdom and encouragement from others. I have several friends that are in the same "season of life" that I am and when I reach a new challenge or feel discouraged, I regularly go to these women. One family in particular has twice the number of children that we have and on the outside, their children look perfect and problem free. Luckily, I am close enough to this family to know that they struggle just like we do, but they work on each issue as it comes up. Luckily, my friends share their successes and failures with me, and I have realized that most of the things that frustrate me with parenting are truly just a "season."

My great white hunter

Kenyon just left this morning to go try to fill his mountain lion tag and I realized that I never posted any pictures from his hunting trips this year. Our great white hunter has done a great job giving us a year's plus worth of meat (shown on an earlier post!). He took Brendan and Cameron on their first antelope hunt and they came home with stories of how they "took the lead doe". My great husband is an awesome dad and is paving the way for our boys to grow up to be manly men!

Here is the trophy elk that was the first hunt of the year

This is his trophy deer

Cameron and Brendan with their antelope on Thanksgiving weekend

Here are Cameron, Brendan and Kenyon with their "lead doe"

Our cute baby

Here are some updated pictures for those of you far away of our sweet not-so-little anymore Lucas. He will be six months old on Christmas and he is loud and smiley. I guess you have to be loud when you are the youngest of four. He loves when his brothers talk to him and laughs out loud when he is tickled.

Here is Lucas with his friend Sawyer Anderson

Lucas loves his saucer





He's all sleepy on daddy's chest on the couch

He had his first bite of cereal this week

Let it snow (finally)!!!

We're off to a slow start with snow this year, and when you live in a ski town, that is not a good thing. We finally got a big storm last weekend that left us with 33 inches of precious white stuff. Kenyon took the boys sledding and they made snowmen in the front yard while he was snowblowing the driveway. Here are some cute shots.

At the sledding hill

The snowmen and their makers

How fast can they go?

Andrew buried to his chest in snow

This was when Cameron had his friend Ben over to play and they went outside to play for about an hour

Ben and Cameron

Family Ways... and some tears

This is a cute video of the boys at the counter. Part of our homeschooling includes a book called "Our 24 Family Ways". It has us memorize 24 principles to apply in our family and scripture to go along with it. Aside from Andrew's fit, this is a cute review of the first three family ways!

7 Boys... and counting

We spent Thanksgiving with our good friends Scott and Erika Balyo in Cheyenne, WY. They have three little boys Isaac, Ian and Colby - all very similar ages to our three older boys. Also, they are expecting their fourth boy in late January! It's a boy circus when we get together.

Here are Andrew, Brendan, Isaac, Cameron holding Lucas, Colby. Ian is in front.

Our friends Herb and Cara Harjes came up from Denver and although they don't have any kids of their own yet, they dove right in to the romper room and all the boys enjoyed them so much!

Here's Herb doing a puzzle with Ian

Here's Cara reading a bedtime story to 6 of the 7 boys (Andrew got up when he saw me taking a picture and Lucas was sleeping)

Scott and Erika live way out in the country and Kenyon was excited to take a walk and find some deer out in the trees. Little did he know we were going to send four boys along with him! The landscape is beautiful!

We have a reader!!!

Brendan reached a major milestone in his reading and when he reached his goal, he not only got his long-awaited rollerblades, but we made a cake to celebrate! It was also a victory for me, as I never thought I'd be a homeschooling mom, and when I started it, it sent me to tears and I hated it. But now I can say that we've had a successful year so far and I think I'm starting to like it!!! My friends know that I am not a great cook (more like, I CAN cook, but just don't love to), well, I'm even less of a baker. This is why I buy all the birthday cakes in our family. It was late in the evening and Kenyon was still at one of his MBA classes when I decided to do this cake. After it came out of the oven, I didn't take the time to let it cool (I was wanting them in bed pretty badly!), and I tried to dump it out of the pan to a cooling rack (can't believe I even OWN a cooling rack), and yes - it came out into a million pieces! I stuffed it all back into the pan, slapped a bunch of frosting on it! I called it our "Messy Cake" and we ate it from the pan with spoons. By the way, the boys weren't nuts about the pink frosting (we're a very BOY family), but it was all I had on hand. Here are the pictures!

Mixing the batter with their aprons from Hunca Munca

Andrew licking the spatula

Eating the batter

The messy result

These are Brendan's glasses that he bought with his "Sweeney Bucks" (fake money system we have in our house). He says he looks like Arthur in them!