That was easy!

Whoa! This iphone blogging capability may mean a new era in my blogging! Making posts with photos is soooo much easier when I'm not worried about memory cards, camera batteries, which hard drive the pictures were downloaded onto, not to mention that the computer is always being used by someone in the house other than me. :-). It's more clumsy to navigate on the phone than
on the big computer but that's a small price to pay.
Here are some recent photos of Heidi's birthday. She turned 11 and I can't believe it. I cried and cried the night before. She's one of my "little" kids but she's now eleven and growing quite tall. Sob. Hiccup. For her birthday she had her best friend from Kimberly come spend the weekend and they had a wonderful time playing board games and sledding the whole weekend. Then when Christmas break was over she took her 2 best friends from this area to the ice skating rink. Even Leif tried ice skating! H

Post by iPhone!

I got a free iPhone 4 for Christmas (that's the kind of gifts I like--the FREE kind) and it is so useful! When our Internet and wifi problems are resolved I know I'll love it even more!

Today Taylor put a blogger app on the phone and I'm excited to try it out.:-)

Here my current sewing project:

Chatty post at midnight

I haven't posted in a while so I thought I'd stop by to catch up a bit.  What's the family been up to?  Let's see.....

Torsten is still working at Simplot once a week on vet check day.  He follows the vet around, sorting and marking cows.  He comes home smelling pretty potent because he is usually standing at the hind end of the cow.  One day I smelled him through the kitchen window before he even got in the house.  That particular day I realized he had manure splatters clear up to his neck!  This is his first "real" job and part of his paycheck is being matched by the company and going into a 401K account.  Nice that he can start young since Social Security will probably not be around when he's old! Torsten will be the first to admit that this job is not endearing him to cows but I keep telling him what a great experience this is.  :-)  Isn't that what mothers are for?  To remind their kids that what they perceive to be a horrible drudgery is actually a "great learning experience". This semester Torsten is taking a dual credit history class and an online science class  and he just finished designing the promotional posters for the homeschool bell choir's Christmas concert.  He's done this for a couple years now and they look professionally done as always.   (have I mentioned that the Republican party in Twin Falls had him design the t-shirts for the state convention this May?  Torsten, Hailey and Taylor were pages at the convention.....)

Hailey is currently taking an online Spanish class and doing awesome.  (she has a 99%) Her teacher told me that some of the Hispanic students in the school, who are also taking that class, have said they are amazed at her and that she makes them sick.  In fact, one Mexican boy asked Hailey in math class if she is part Spanish because her accent is so good.  We had a good laugh at that one. (If you're familiar with what Hailey looks like you would know that's a strange question! :-)  I'm sorry the Hispanic kids are sick but proud she is doing well.  Hailey is currently in the middle of basketball season.  She enjoyed volleyball so she figured she may as well try out basketball.  Our family is not very sports oriented so this is her first exposure to either sport.  Athletics can be enjoyable and great exercise but our family agrees that it's not fun when people take it too seriously.  We take academics and music serious.......but sports?  No.  Maybe if we were any good at sports we'd be serious about them! ha ha

The last 2 days were very fun, but busy days for me.   I'm teaching art to the 3rd and 5th grade classes a couple times a month. (Reagan and Heidi's class)  Yesterday, I taught Heidi's class how to make snowflakes and it was really rewarding.  Many of the kids had never done it before and they were so excited to open up the snowflake and see the patterns they'd created!  Then today was Activity Days and we did stained glass/painted cookies, homemade gift tags, and a 12 days of Christmas countdown project. I usually have from 12 to 16 girls attend.  I love them!  Afterwards, the whole family went to the boys and girls basketball game at the high school.  Lately I've been going to the chiropractor in Mountain Home and he's been able to help me keep my back problems under control.  What a blessing.

Whoops, this is turning into a seriously wordy Christmas newsletter!!!  Which reminds me-- I SHOULD be composing a Christmas letter, so I can get cards mailed out, so that friends will know our new address! But instead I am typing on my neglected blog at 1 in the morning because I couldn't sleep.  When I can't sleep, I get hungry and then I have to get up and eat.  I got up and made a wonderful salad complete with pomegranate seeds and sliced mushrooms.  Yummy, but after making and eating that salad I was completely wide awake.  So here I am, but I should be in bed.  I will try to finish this post sooner than later and in the interim I can ask the boys where the heck we have now put the pictures so I can make this a little more interesting to look at.  We just changed our computer's hard drive and updated to Windows 8 and it's frustrating me beyond belief.  I was not made for the technological life!!  I just can't keep up with the changes.  The fact that I even figured out how to blog is due only to my patient sister who taught me how.   Good night for now-- hopefully I can fall asleep before I get hungry again!

Football

 Taylor did Jr. High football this fall.  He enjoyed the experience though he's not sure he'll choose to do it again next year. 

 

 He says he likes soccer a lot better.  Soccer and football are similar in that they are both about speed and getting the ball away but soccer doesn't include purposefully knocking people down all over the place.  Aggressiveness doesn't really run in our family.  Borderline pacifists would be a more apt description.  :-)

Happy little cowboy and other characters

 My little cowboy.

 Cute as can be.

I just want to give them ALL a hug and somehow keep them this age forever.

This is Hailey and her friend Sakota at the Saturday trunk or treat.  Though they are "mature" high school freshmen now, they still had fun spending an afternoon deciding how to dress up and making coordinating pompoms for their hair. (Hailey's white one is hiding)

Drivin' a big old truck

The last few weeks I've spent quite a bit of time in this.

  A sugar beet truck.  

I drive through the fields along side a big tractor and a beet digger that are digging and

  simultaneously putting beets in my truck.   When the farmer gives me the signal  I take off to the beet dump to dump the load. 

At the beet dump I drive onto a scale to get weighed.  The heaviest load I've done was 32,000 lbs.  I have a small truck.  After being weighed I drive over to the piler where I back up a ramp and then engage the pto so it will run the belt to unload all the beets.  The guy on the platform tells me when to start unloading and when I'm done. I was backed into the piler when I took this picture.  The beets go up the conveyor and into the beet pile.

When I first moved to Idaho I thought these big piles were potatoes.  We are in Idaho, right?

I wondered how being in the sun didn't ruin the potatoes.  Then I started wondering why they were the biggest potatoes I'd ever seen in my life?  Hmmm -- maybe they aren't potatoes!  Around here the farmers certainly grow more sugar beets than potatoes.  Do you think it's because we Americans eat more sugar than potatoes?  I don't know.

 Last week we started on a field that involves 12 miles of dirt road from the field to where we dump the beets.  Potholes, blind corners, cattle guards, and some single lane places.  But some of the loveliest scenery I've seen around here!  The whole road is following the river and there are no farms or houses, just really interesting cliffs, rock formations and great fall colors. It's a dead end road and at the end are 3 pivots and a small farm house.  I was sad that I kept forgetting my camera.  Saturday, Joel, Reagan, Leif and I all rode together the whole day doing that field.  Actually, Reagan hopped over into Chad Mills semi to ride with his kids for part of the day.  Their family has a truck with a double sleeper cab and there were 5 kids in there playing hide and seek.  I'm not sure how many hiding spots you can find in a truck sleeper but they were all having a marvelous time. 

Snow on the mountains

Was driving Taylor to school yesterday and when I turned the corner on our loop we both gasped.  Not just War Eagle and Hayden peak, but even the little foothills of the Owyhees were covered in a fresh blanket of snow.  What is it about snow on the mountains that makes my heart sing and my stomach flip?  The air was crystal clear making the magnificent view even that more mesmerizing.  I had to drive to Grand View 3 times yesterday so I enjoyed the yellow cottonwoods, still-green pastures, and snowy mountains all day long.  Even caught myself taking glances in the rear view mirror to continue enjoying their beauty.