Clue

My girls like to hang out with their mom sometimes and watch old British classics, especially Addie since she getting older and gets all emotional about the love stories. They also like to play Clue.

Tonight Stacie was sick in bed and Thursday's are no electronics night at our house; Chloe thought we should play a game - Addie decided it'd be more fun if we played it with British accents like the movies. There were lots of dreadfully awful accusations and overly dramatic statements made so it was a bit more exciting than usual. I was impressed with their skills, even Elsie can do a pretty good accent.

Chloe finished the game with a comment that sounded as if it came from a stout, seasoned woman serving warm beer at an Irish pub. And she knew exactly what she was doing. She's got a knack for it, that girl.

Stroll Through the Park

Rhen and Avery taking a stroll. I don't have much to say about this picture, i just thought it was cute.

Everything is better with Bacon

Chloe and I took a trip to Wy last week which turned out to be a lousy day due to horrible weather, cancelled drywall delivery, a basement almost flooding (problem solved), a finger almost broken and very muddy, wet shoes and clothes. Despite all that, and thanks to Chloe, it was one of the funnest trips. She was a great helper and good company.

We just about had some bacon on the car-b-q when out of no where these pigs strolled out on the road somewhere in Ovid. You wouldn't expect to see wildlife in a big city like Ovid, but we did.

new blog

I have a new blog. It is to get some of my creative energy out and have fun with the things going on in my life, and also with building a new house I wanted to document it. Whenever Jake has taken Rhen to our property in Star Valley he has called it the house in the trees. So my blog, mylifeinthetrees.com begins. You can go check it out, or not :).

Destroyer of Self Esteem

Tonight I was reading Rhen some books before bed. After reading several pages of Curious George, Big and Small I started making up my own big and small comparisons.

Me: "Dad is big, Rhen is small. Dad's shirt is big, Rhen's shirt is small." Rhen was in agreement until, "Dad's muscles are big, Rhen's are small"

Rhen: "Whatever. Yours is like a barbie dad."

goings on

not too much has been happening at our house lately. Either that or too much has been and that's why we haven't blogged for a while. It's Sunday and I had some free time tonight so I figured I'd write a long post about the last month. That way when we're old and can't remember anything we can read back about what we did in January of 2011. Anyway, here are some things we did:

I took Rhen up to do some skiing last week. He did great, but was a little more interested in riding up the lift. He thought that was pretty cool. Yes that is a picture of a cruiser around his neck. His sisters were making necklaces and he really wanted his own necklace. I gave him a lanyard and he wanted a picture of a cruiser in it - i was very proud. I think it's better than pink and purple beads.


This is Rhen taking it easy on the hill thinking about going on another lift ride.

Stacie's been skiing more this year than she has since we got married, which is nice because she is learning fast and getting much better. Not that she wasn't good before, just sayin. She hasn't been able to go for a long time because every year we were able, she was pregnant or had a newborn. It's been really nice to have her up on the hill with me and the kids. One of these days maybe I'll get her out in the powder after a nice storm. Chloe loves skiing, Elsie and Addie are thinking about it. I think if Justin Bieber were to show up Addie would enjoy skiing a bit more. For right now she is unsure about being out in the cold for so long voluntarily

Speaking of Bieber fever, I tease Addie about Biebs from time to time and I guess Rhen decided he'd join in. Yesterday i was playing with Layla on the floor and Rhen came running in with his hair wet and combed down over his eyebrows and he says, "hey Dad, Check it out! I made a Beiber!" Pretty cool.

Rhen started to affectionately call Layla, "Lay". It's pretty cute. If she's crying he'll sweetly say, "don't cry Lay. it's ok."

In January, we celebrated Chloe's bone marrow birthday, and then a week later her real birthday. Since she had two birthdays, she wanted a Pazookie instead of a cake for one of them (thanks for the pan Eskelson's/Whites! it gets alot of use). Chloe is down to checkups every three months, which we are really enjoying. We had a visit last week and she is doing great. Everything looks wonderful and we are so grateful. Another exciting event was that Addie got braces as you can see in this pic. Chloe got some kind of mouthpiece aparatus which is a prelude to braces so we have those bills to look forward to.

Stacie distributed some hugs throughout this month as mothers tend to do. This was one. She gives good hugs.


Stacie has also turned into a running machine. She runs most every day and has started capping the weeks off with a 10 miler on Saturday, just for good measure I guess. I run to the fridge when I am hungry, and figuratively I 'run' to the post office occasionally. I haven't capped anything off since that broken sprinkler pipe last summer.

My brother Jeff and I hit a Manchester United game a few weeks ago. He is a huge fan and has really been wanting to catch a game in person so I decided to tag along cause it sounded really fun. It was. I wish I had made arrangements to take Stac with me. I definitely owe her one since she was stressed out with 5 kids while I was galavanting around with Jeff. Oh and Man-U won very comfortably. It was an exciting game and way better in person than on TV.

We cruised through the countryside to catch a church meeting in Preston. The countryside was beautiful as always. Jeff drove that 1.2 liter Skoda compact like he owned it.

We got there just in time for sacrament meeting to start in Preston and had a wonderful experience there. Pretty hilarious actually, but thats for another posting. The temple next door was beautiful as expected.

Then we strolled around the Rievaulx Abby ruins in the rain. It was a very memorable trip and always fun to spend time with Jeff and try and gain a little of his wisdom.


Layla started to walk this last week. She doesn't like it enough to keep trying until she gets it, but she'll take a few steps here and there and loves to stand on her own. She also started dancing - or trying to while keeping her feet planted. It's pretty darn cute.

In between our regular daily duties we've been taking many trips up to WY to work on or check in on our remodel project we have going on up there. We're getting a hefty new roof that should hold up better than the old one, so that is pretty exciting. We also just got a pretty sweet new flight of stairs welded in. It's been challenging for the guy framing up the addition/remodel as we've had a combined snow total of 120" that has had to be shoveled away. It'll be months before we're ready to start finishing things off, but we're on our way.



Well that pretty much sums it up for now. Maybe we'll start posting more regularly, or maybe not. It's the unknowns that make life more interesting.

a favorite thing, christmas decorations

Thanks to addie and her creative photography, we got some good action shots plus pretty great shots of the final product this year.

crazy cute kids! We had so much fun putting the decorations and being together and drinking egg nog.

Rhen was very helpful putting the decorations on and very good at not pulling them off this year! Yay.

This last picture is our after thanksgiving family dinner. After we had a wonderful dinner at grandma's we had one again on sunday at home. Both were delightful.

The Rhen-man is three

Rhen had a fun birthday, cake, balloons, pizza and toys. What more could you ask for? Just look at that smile, that says it all. Here he is wearing our family birthday hat, each year we add a trinket to the hat and they get to sport it while we sing to them. For his birthday we are going to add a horse from his birthday cake.

It is very ironic, since Rhen is lactose intolerant, that he loves pizza. We take off the cheese then he eats the peporoni and bread and dips it into the ranch dressing. YUMMMM

He saw this little tractor and horses and "guys" as Rhen calls them. He wanted them on his cake. He was to anxious to wait to play with them so I got them out for him to play with them the day before I made the cake. The next day I made the cake and went to put the horses and guys on it and couldn't find them, he searched most the day for them. He wanted them on so bad and was so glad to find them and ran to me when he did and said, "put it on the cake!!"

ode to Jake

Since Jake wrote such sweet poetry to me, I thought I would reciprocate the guesture, although I am not nearly as poetic with the english language.

Jake is like the Patagonia Nano Puff Jacket

Durable, good looking, well worth the exta cash and always in style. Light weight, yet warm. It protects you from the wind and rain. In any element you just want to have it around. As unpredictable as the weather is, it wraps around you to make the storms bearable and comforts you to were you never want to take it off.

Love you Jake xxXOOooXxO

14 Years of Bliss

It's crazy how fast time flies. 18 Years ago Stacie and I went on our first date. She wore a faded denim button up shirt with a white banana republic t-shirt beneath, worn out boy style jeans and brown boots. That was a super cool outfit back in the 90's and she rocked it. She smelled of everything lovely, had a rad personality and I was hooked. Four years later and 14 Yrs ago today, Stac and I got hitched. Seems like yesterday and all of the sudden we have 5 kids. Seriously, I just double checked by counting them on my fingers - we really do have five.

Being married to Stacie has been like the perfect cup of cocoa when its really windy and cold outside. You know how it is when it's just a really good cup? Right from the first sip you know you got a good one. It instantly puts a smile on your face and makes you feel safe, warm and cozy. You forget everything cold, windy and lousy outside and you just feel great - that everything is going to be alright. Every chocolaty smooth sip gets a little bit sweeter as you go. I'm going to savor this one for as long as I can.

Love Ya Cakes. Happy Anniversary!



This is Stac sipping her own cup of cocoa on the Ferry early one frigid, windy, cold morning off the Isle of Skye, Scotland.