Flake Fun

 I think that I will let the pictures do the talking this go round.

We went to the homeschool Fire Station day and it was a lot of fun.  All of the kids were able to spray the fire hose and it was definitely the highlight. 

If you look closely you can see all 8 of our private mile deer herd. 

The owl that came to visit. 

Robin found kittens in Aunt Karen's barn and instantly fell in love.  

We got the footers poured for the house.  It was pretty stressful in that the cement guy told us on Tuesday that we could be ready to pour on Friday. So I called the inspector who, obviously wasn't in his office and left a message.  Meanwhile Scott scheduled the cement and pump trucks.  We didn't hear back from the inspector until Wed morning and he said that he would be there between 8 and 10 the next morning. 

The next morning we watched and did some odd projects around the site. Finally arou d 12:30 we gave up.  I called the town and they, thankfully, gave me the inspectors cell number.  I called and he said that he hadn't forgotten and he would be there soon. So, I waited another hour and a half and then had to leave for gymnastics. At 3:00 I got a call from the inspector that we needed to put pins into the rock every 3 feet (16 inch long rebar drilled into the rock) but other than that we had passed and could pour. 

So, Scott was up late that night but the next day we got it poured. 

It took 3 cement trucks but we got it done!

Since it was still curing, we did some fence post installation on Saturday.  The projects never end!

Love you all.  Can't wait to see you soon. 

Manning Moments

 We have enjoyed some really nice weather lately so we planted a few things for the kids to grow. Well, since then it has been cold and rainy. But I suppose it will get warm again sometime!

The house continues to get doner and doner. Nick is working on the drawers and shelves for the bedroom closet. He really has learned some great skills and he does good work. Nick bought me a fig tree for our home and we are trying to bring plants into the home to make it less sterile! I just have to keep them alive which hasn't been so successful in my life. So now I will try more earnestly.

Nick is being moved from UCAS to Skyridge this next year. It is his 5th move in 8 years. Not sure why he's moved so much but it isn't his favorite! He is always good natured though. He is getting a guitar recital ready for this week which is always so fun. 

Wesley had a weird and not fun experience this week. Last week he said his cheek hurt. Weird. I asked if it was maybe his tooth but he said no it was his cheek. The next day he said his tooth hurt so we took him to the dentist. The dentist couldn't see anything amiss and determined that it was the adult tooth putting pressure on his tooth. Well, on Mother's Day, Wesley crashed on his bike and bumped his mouth. He said it really hurt and Nick looked in his mouth and noticed a large bump on his gums. It was about the size of two marbles. We thought it came from the bike crash but Wesley said it had been there for days! Well the next day we took him to the dentist and they said it was an abscess so Wesley had to get his tooth pulled. It was pretty traumatic and I almost passed out watching them do the root canal x-ray. Yikes. 

Baseball season is on and the two oldest boys had their first games and practices this week. They do pretty well and it is fun to watch. We are wrapping up school this week and hopefully someone learned something! I enjoy having them home if nothing else.

Gus and Jane are two cute, delightful little people. Jane is in charge around here. She wants to do EVERYTHING by herself. The tenacity is remarkable and frustrating. Gus is so fun! He is so polite and sweet and he is learning his letters.

Well, Life is good. I'm so excited for the family gathering! You are the best family to gather with in my opinion. Love you all!

Hyde Happinesses

 Hello hello. Life is good :) 

We’ve had some really great times lately. We’re still getting into the swing of things with two kiddos and Cam working very long hard days, but it seems to be getting a little more “normal.” We’re really loving where we’re living and our neighbors (Rodney and Stephanie) are particularly delightful.

Most of my days are spent at home but I have attempted to take the boys out to the store and park and it hasn’t been too hard thankfully. Cam is in the thick of lawn mowing season with very long days but he’s a champ and immediately takes on the bigger boy when he gets home. Stetson is as fun as always, and his personality gets bigger every day (as does his vocabulary). Beckham is starting to interact more and is quite pleasant as long as you’re holding him standing up and walking at 5mph. Otherwise he can be rather grumpy 😅 but it’s been fun and we really do love it. 

Today Cam and I went and got some blueberries and raspberries to plant! We are very excited and hope they do well 🤞🏼 we also got some tomatoes and watermelon… we were feeling spontaneous. If anyone has tips for keeping things alive, send them my way pls. 

The exciting thing that happened today was when we attempted to put Stetson in the bath. It’s been leaking from the handle so Cam got out his tools and began taking it apart. All of a sudden there was a total geyser in our bathroom. I mean it went everywhere. Cam got this wide eyed look of panic on his face and began yelling for towels and Rodney (our landlord). I literally threw towels in the general direction of everywhere while Cam pretty much tried to apply pressure… not sure how helpful that was. Anyway, we didn’t know where the main water shut off was, and our landlord wasn’t answering his phone. I looked outside and he was in his pool so I ran outside and yelled over that the bathtub was exploding and could he please tell me where the water shut off was. I didn’t hear his answer because I was panicked but I went inside and told Cam it was downstairs. He ran down while I held towels on the faucet. Our whole bathroom floor was completely under water and the carpet was wet. Rodney had gotten out of his pool and came over. He surveyed the chaos and just said “what is it with this house and water?”Cam finally found the shut off and turned it off. We used every towel in the house and just stood there looking at the mess. The mirror was drenched and there was water all over the sink. Stetson was wet and so was his blanket (I’m still not sure how that occurred). Anyway. It was quite the adventure. 

Well that’s it for this week folks. Hope you’re enjoying your varying degrees of weather. If you want lovely and gorgeous weather come out and visit. It’s quite delightful at the moment. 

Beckham is literally half the size of Stetson. He’s outgrown most of Stetsons 0-3 month clothe 😭

An umbrella 

I will never not love baby feet

Watching for fireflies 

Flake Fun

 So much can happen in 3 weeks and at the same time, so little! Our highlights/lowlights of the past little while:

Scott went to a business conference in Las Vegas and left our little silver Kia there at a scrap metal shop.  Thankfully his boss who lives in Snowflake was also in attendance so he had a ride home. 

We planted all of our orchard and have 4 blueberry bushes in our green house waiting to be planted. We thought we would wait until night temps were a bit warmer. 

We saw 6 deer wandering the property but our orchard seems untouched. Thankfully there are green field surrounding us so the trees aren't quite so tantalizing. 

We got our rebar delivered and the footer forms put up.  As soon as the rebar is in the footers, we can schedule an inspection and get the footers poured! 

We had a crazy snowstorm and got more snow that weekend than the whole winter combined.  The kids loved it!

The kids attended a birthday party for our neighbor and played in a kiddie pool of oobleck.  It was so fun. 

Love you all!

Hyde Happinesses

 Hello hello! This week was… a week. I soloed for the first two days and it went a lot better than I thought it would. Stetson tries to be very helpful and other than a few world shattering tantrums, we survived pretty well! On Wednesday I woke up not feeling super great, but hoping that it would improve through the day because it was Cams birthday. It did not improve 🙄 I got mastitis so I sent Stetson to his grandmas house and slept most of the day. It was a pain to get an antibiotic because we don’t have a primary care doctor… or anyone else for that matter 😅 but finally a dentist in our ward was kind enough to get one for us and we figured it out. Cams birthday was kind of a bust because of that but he was sweet and said he had a good day. I did get a treat made for him and his parents came over and enjoyed it with us for awhile. He also bought himself a trampoline so he and Stetson could play. I love it.

Yesterday Cams brother brought over his kayak and they took turns paddling around the creek. Stetson had a good time but mostly wanted to go fishing. It’s a pretty fun little spot. 

So fun to see all the happy happenings going on around! We’re so excited for Joe and his family and their new place! That is awesome. Also so fun to have new additions to the donkey flock. We quite enjoyed watching Yanny’s tour of her house as well. So many fun things going on! 

Hope you all have a wonderful week. 

They had a ward Easter egg hunt that Cam took Stetson to. Stetson is obsessed with Mickey Mouse right now so this was a treasured find! 

Flake Fun

 We are staying busy and trying to stay sane with building....or waiting to actually build something! We have the trenches nearly done and hope to get the footers poured in the next couple of weeks. 

The weather went from winter to summer with a couple hours of spring thrown in. And this week it should be winter again! 

Our strawberries, raspberries and 2 peach trees arrived this past week so we spent a good amount of time digging holes.  We also started giant pumpkins (100 pounders) and hope to get them in the dirt soon. 

We went to Mesa last weekend to attend a birthday party for Grannie - 90 years old and still living alone and driving.  We were also able to go to the Phoenix zoo which was fun.

Hyde Happinesses

 Hello hello! Life has been good lately :) newborn snuggles are the very best, so if any of you are lacking in that department, head on over! 

We got to have mom here for almost 3 weeks which was absolutely delightful. Unfortunately she came right as we had a week and a half of solid rain, along with thunder, lightning, tornado warnings, and lots of flooding in our basement:) one night, Cam and I both got alerts on our phones, telling us to get to a basement if possible because of a possible tornado headed our way. I grabbed Beckham and Oakley and Cam went to get Stetson and grandma. We met downstairs and Cam had a funny look on his face; “ she doesn’t want to come,” he told me. That was a little weird. So a few minutes later I texted her, urging her to come. She came moseying down, looking perplexed. There was water pouring into the basement from a broken gutter that Cam and our landlord were trying to fix. “Why did you come downstairs?” She asked. I was so confused. I figured her phone had also gotten the alert, but it was not so 😅 she had no idea there was a tornado warning and was thinking the basement was probably the worst place to be if it were getting flooded… I couldn’t agree more 😅 but once we got that all sorted we stayed downstairs for about an hour and finally got the green light to go back up. It was a very strange night. Meanwhile, our whole backyard became a lake. Mom was quite impressed with the amount of water that fell from the sky. 

Thanks for all the well wishes with our new addition. It’s been fun and challenging and all the things. He’s a really sweet little guy and is very patient. Stetson is very preferencial to his daddy right now and doesn’t want anything to do with me. If you have insights on how to be friends with a feisty toddler who throws remarkable tantrums when daddy goes to work, that would be greatly appreciated. 

I want YOU

We got to go to the races before mom left which was such a blast! Beckham was definitely the star among the older ladies there. Right across the track is the airport, so while the horses were okay, Stetson had a blast watching planes take off and land for two hours. 

Beckham did not love his first bath, but he quite enjoyed a shower the next day!