A walking disaster

Taylor wrecked his dirt bike AGAIN.  In his words though, this time, he took it like a man.  

This past school year has been one accident after another-  helping at an Eagle Scout project Taylor accidentally pulled a headstone onto his leg and mangled it pretty good, hurt his tailbone ice skating, hurt his arm really bad when hitting a rock and flying over the handle bars of his dirt bike, twisted his ankle playing basketball, etc, etc.  We met our medical deductible for the first time ever last year, in large part due to Taylor's mishaps!  Taylor always makes life interesting.  :-)

Young women activity to Boise Ronald McDonald House

Our YW group went Boise to do some cleaning, organizing and cooking for the Ronald McDonald house.  What a wonderful place!  The large house is right next to the hospital and is a place for families to stay who have a child in the hospital. They have a stocked kitchen, playroom, living room with piano and books....... a homey atmosphere convenient to the hospital that only asks for donations. (I think they suggest 10 dollars a night.) Here are the girls doing some disinfecting and cooking:

Here is the dining room and hall- such a pretty old house.

Then we went bowling!

It was a fun day!

Happy to be fat

The other night Leif crawled into bed with Joel and I to snuggle for a bit and in a very happy, satisfied little voice said, "I'm getting SO fat, Mom!  Just like you and Dad!!"  :)

  I love kids!

Christmas in Arizona

This post is sooo last year, but I thought I'd go ahead and do it anyway.  So after Christmas I lost my phone for almost a month!  Boy, I was so relieved when it was finally found!  But I'm just now getting around to blogging about Christmas....

We went to Arizona for Christmas break, scary snow covered roads for 5 or 6 hours of the trip down, only to arrive in Arizona with warm weather and oranges on the trees.  I don't know how old I'll be before that transition ceases to amaze me!!  There is only 1 state that separates Idaho and Nevada but what a world of difference.  :)

Here is a random assortment of memories from our vacation: our favorite hike to the little waterfall in the White Tanks, (we had 12 kids in the car to get there!)

playing on the bike ramp in Aunt Ammanda's awesome back yard (zip line, trees, bike ramps, chickens-- we love our cousin's backyard!)

lights at the Mesa Arizona Temple,

and the Christmas Eve nativity with our cousins. 

Leif posed on Santa's lap last night at the school program.  He did fine until Santa asked him what he wanted from Christmas. Then he flushed bright red and and got a desperate look on his face.  "Mom!  What do I want for Twistmas???"  I whispered, "You want trains!".  "Oh ya, I want twains for Twistmas".  Cute!

Making music

There is a great new band teacher at our high school this year!  She's really inspiring the kids in our community to want to learn how to make music. Of course, our family has always really enjoyed piano and hand bells and singing....but now the kids are enjoying learning trumpet, trombone, flute and percussion too. It's fun to hear random music coming from all corners of the house as they work on their songs or try each others instruments out.  Joel and I like to try playing them too.

Taylor's Bruneau Canyon Pictures