Hello Again...

After a few reminders from my sisters and mom, I am attempting to recommit to my blog.  I have been so busy and I always think I will have time later to do it.  Later is a long time....So I hope you will forgive me and I will try to do better.  I just wanted to take a minute to say how much I love reading all of my wonderful sisters' blogs.  (of course, Stacy and Abby are included in my sisters)  You amaze me with your creativity, your kindness, your grace, and your commitment to your families.  You make me proud to be part of our family.  Now that I have a smart phone, no one is safe from being forced to look at your kids, your crafts or your vacation pictures!  My employees smile and nod approvingly (because they have to) and my friends are all very impresed with the cuteness of your kids and the quality of your artistic endevors. :) In short, I miss you all and I wish I could be with you for Christmas.  I love you and wish you the most wonderful things life has to offer.  I am going to try to get some pictures downloaded off my phone so I can add some to my next post.  See you all soon....in my blog, I mean :)

Pizza nights

We started doing pizzas here almost a year ago.  When we first arrived, it was really impossible to make plans because I would often end up back at my store for one reason or another.  So, by the time my birthday was coming up, I decided enough was enough and they would have to learn to live without me sooner or later.  So, I planned a pizza night.  I invited a few families from our ward who had caught my attention.  I really didn't know anyone very well because I never had time to do anything.  Two families and the missionaries came and it was a hit!  We talked and ate until far too late and made plans to do it again soon.  We made an effort to hold pizza night once a month until the beginning of this year.  At last I feel like I can step away from my store more often.  We plan to have pizza every other week without fail.  So far, so good.  Tomorrow is the second pizza this month and the anniversary of the first pizza in our new home.  We are so excited to have made so many great friends this way.  Thanks, Mom, for all the years you set the example for me.  Pizza night will always be an important part of our family.
UPDATE:  For the first time ever, all the families and guests that I invited to pizza showed up!  5 families from our ward, Joann and Skylee, and Ryan-my dog trainer/friend-and his roomate! I tried to count in my head and there were at least 30 people in our tiny house:) People were spilling out into the backyard and filling every room.  I had to make 3 batches of dough- roughly 16 pizzas- and we only had 2 left over!  It was the craziest and best Okie pizza night ever:)  The last people shuffled out at 10pm.  I was exhausted and elated at the same time.  I am so  blessed to have such great friends.  One of them made me an awesome cake and everyone sang Happy Birthday.  It was beautiful- most of the families also make up our ward choir.  I am so blessed.  Did I say that already? Well it's true.

Old is New!

  

Since we had such a great result with the floor, we were inspired to keep going!  We tackled the much simpler task of recovering our kitchen chairs.  This is a little job that I had been talking about for years, but never got around to doing.  It was as simple as they made it look on HGTV:) an unexpected perk!  We actually used cheap tablecloths from Target.  You know, the kind that are plastic on the front with felt on the back.  I covered that with $5 worth of clear vinyl from Hobby Lobby and we were done!  "New" chairs and matching tablecloth, ta da!  Combined with the table from Joey's mom that we refinished last year it all looks fresh!  We are so pleased with our new and improved dining space. 

Have you heard about the floor?

I love the border we picked to transition
from the kitchen to the dining room:)



Joey measures and prefits the tiles before he starts cutting



  Although it isn't always the best plan to begin renovations on a whim, this did work out pretty well:) Sure hope our landlord likes it... too late now!



All laid out and ready to grout.



Have I mentioned that when you are trapped indoors for an extended period of time, you tend to act irrationally?  I am sure I knew that before, but it became a very real concept when Joey and I looked at our carpeted dining room floor all day long for weeks.  We suddenly had this brilliant idea to rip out said carpet and replace it with tile!  So off we went to Lowe's to make our dream a reality... from tile saw malfunctions to the less than knowledgeable staff at Home Depot, we were on the verge of being homicidal when it was finally finished 3 weeks later!  Joey did all the measuring and prefitting and calculating to ensure it would go together like peas and carrots.  Which is precisely why it ended up looking as perfect as it does despite all the setbacks.  I couldn't be more happy with the result.  Just wish we didn't have to do everything the hard way:)



This slab we put by the back door caused Joey
many sleepless nights, but he finally got it to work.



Cookies!

My new stove!

Trevor and Gavin hard at work!

Trevor's creation

Since we were stranded indoors for several days because of the snow, we took the opportunity to do some of the things we rarely have time to do as a family.  One of them was making and decorating sugar cookies together.  It was February so we made Valetine themed cookies.  It was so much fun and very yummy!  I didn't have a heart cookie cutter, so we had to be creative in our designs to make them seem Valentine-y. We made flowers out of stars and decorated "Valentine men".  We had a great time.

Some of Gavin's cookies.

Can you belive we moved back for this?

The first day of February, Oklahoma was hit with a record shattering blizzard. Over 20 inches of snow fell in Tulsa in a matter of hours. I tried to drive the 2.5 miles to the store (in the worst part of the blizzard) to feed our poor animals. I made it half way when I was forced to detour through a parking lot to avoid about 11 cars scattered through the intersection ahead. In the parking lot, I wound up in a deep drift of snow while trying to avoid yet another stuck vehicle. I rocked my truck back and forth, taking breaks to let the transmission cool, for 45 min. When I finally got my truck into sustainable forward momentum, I was pointed toward my house. I took it as a sign and drove the treacherous road home. Two heroic employees of mine walked through thigh deep drifts of snow for a mile to get to my store and feed the babies. It took them over an hour and a half to walk each way! I spent the rest of that day at home with my family who were out of school and off work because of the storm. It is certainly an experience we won't forget soon. The weather stayed bitterly cold and we got even more snow in the following days. I spent my time shuttling people from their homes to work and back. We were open shorter hours due to lack of customers and for the safety of my employees. (The roads were even more dangerous after dark and I didn't want my people out late.) Joey, Joann and I shovelled the back of my building so they could get the door open to take the trash to the dumpster. Also, the back door is a fire exit and it has to be clear when we are open. The snow was drifted to nearly the top of our 8 foot receiving doors. And this was no simple drift. You couldn't even see my dumpster that stands about 4 feet from the door! It was buried in the snow drift that really didn't taper down until you got about 8-10 feet from the building. There it was about 2 feet deep. Even with 3 adults trading off shoveling, we had to take a few breaks to warm up and catch our breath in order to finish. We began about 10 am and cleared one half of my doorway to allow one door to swing out by around 4 in the afternoon. It was nuts! All in all we spent 2 days closed and 2 more days closing early that week. Joey didn't work the whole week and of course the boys didn't have school. In fact, before all the snow was done coming, the boys missed 2 weeks of school! Talk about stir crazy!! They had cabin fever in the worst way! We were all ready for them to get back to school:) We were very blessed through the whole ordeal, though. We had enough warning that I had stocked our pantry and we were not at a loss for food or basic needs the whole time. I was blessed to have all the experience I gained driving on the snow in Utah. I was not the least bit intimidated to get out and drive, even after getting stuck the first day. I had confidence in my truck and our ability to get around and help others. It was great to be able to help my employees when they would have otherwise been unable to work. I was even able to take one of my girls to the grocery store to pick up the birthday cake she had preordered for her son's birthday! It felt great to be able to do that for her. Her apartment complex hadn't been plowed and she had to climb (literally) over 4-5 foot drifts of snow to get to my truck in the road. Crazy! Truly a time we will always remember.

Birdbrains

The boys have had parakeets since we moved here about 18 months ago. One day, a while after Christmas, we decided to take some pictures so everyone can see what they look like! The top pic is of Shady. He is a pale lavendar color. (Hard to tell, but he is.) Next pic is Max. We actually thought he was a girl for a long time, but his cere color finally changed. Rocky is the turqoise bird with a yellow face in the bottom 2 pics. He is Trevor's favorite. We actually have a solid yellow bird with red eyes. Her name is Tweetums. (yes, like all of mom's canaries) She is hateful, so we don't hold her. :( I will try to get a good picture of their cage and add it to the post. It really is a pretty cool cage. Keeps in all the mess!     Update: 4/2/11 Max passed away today.  I am really not sure why.  It is so hard with birds.  They hide their illness until it is really too late to help.  He passed quietly in a warm, comfortable place.  I took him away from the other birds when I noticed he wasn't well :(  I brought 2 more birds home from work with me.  I didn't want to introduce just one to the group.  I'll try to get pictures of them soon and post the names Gavin picks for them. (Max was his.)

An Okie Christmas

Our Christmastime weather was not much to write about this year. No snow and really not even cold for more than a day at a time leading up to the big day! Christmas itself did not disappoint, though. It did cool down and we even saw some tiny little dustlike snowflakes as we were out and about doing our yearly scavenger hunt! (I say "yearly". This is the second year we have held the tradition, but it's a definite keeper.)

Trevor and Gavin were almost as excited as Joey for Christmas to arrive. Joey spent hours pouring over the internet looking for the right (used) Wii combo for our boys. He made sure we ended up with a system that included tons of games and a complete band setup for the Rockband and Guitar Hero games we love. In all he found a like-new Wii with 13 games, 3 Guitars, a mic, drums and 4 controllers. Of course he tested it all out before buying and again when he got home, just for good measure. ;)

We planned to make it the last gift they would receive, after the scavenger hunt. We worked for most of the evening Christmas Eve making up the clues and hiding them at the sites. We wanted the hunt to be challenging, so we made the clues and the hiding places harder to guess. We had to hide the clues around the house last year because we were literally snowed in! This year, we drove all over within a 4 mile radius of the house hiding clues in places we frequent. One was at the boys' school, one at the Chik fil A by our house, one at Platos closet(that was a tough clue!)and so on.

There were 10 clues in all. We had the boys unscrambling words and playing hangman and solving word riddles to find the next location. Then the boys had to find the clue at the location. We had so much fun! We will have to make it harder next year because it took the boys less time to figure out and follow the clues than it took Joey and I to place them all the night before!

When we finally got back to the house(the safest hiding place we could think of) the boys were so excited to break it out and start playing. We played well into the night and continued playing the rest of the boys' time out of school:)

Joey and I are already plotting for next year's scavenger hunt. Bigger better and maybe a few twists!...