Flake Five

 Life has been pretty normal around here this past month.  The kids are growing and the 2 year old conversations and phrases are super fun.  I said "no way Jose" in jest to Robin a few weeks ago and now she says "no way, you say" whenever there is a small detail left out of a plan.  For example, we went to Casa Grande on Friday to see Becca. I was going over the general schedule with her in the car: "we will go get some dinner, go to the park, and then go to Becca"s house." 

"No way, you say! We have to EAT dinner first."

Rand has also come up with some cute, new words such as "Frigigator" and "circley saw".

Scott had his spring break last week and spent nearly the whole time building a small shed in the back yard. All of the kids were delighted when we moved their car seats into "Daddy's big truck" to go and get shed supplies.  Robin kept telling me, "Daddy drive. You too tiny."

As I mentioned before we spent Friday night with Becca, Darin and Rhonda. The kids loved the cat and dogs. On Saturday morning we made bon bon cookies with the aunts and then went to meet Scott's family at the aquarium.  It was really neat and the kids seemed to enjoy it.  The highlight for them seemed to be the escalators! We went up and down several times! 

Nilsson News

 We actually have some news to report this time around!  Addy wanted to make sure you were all aware that she has her driver's permit and has been driving all over.  She has not yet been introduced to driving our big excursion and we aren't sure when she will.  The van seems to be a good fit for now.  She also auditioned for the high school elite choir, Bonnevaires, and found out this past week that she made it!  They only select 25 students and Addy is thrilled and looking forward to this new experience.

The kids have been taking advantage of the beautiful weather and have loved playing outdoors every chance they get.  Somehow, they always seem to find a mud hole.  Yesterday, we were able to finish our front window well.  It was dug last fall and has sat through the winter.  Garrett went and bought the retaining wall blocks and we were able to get the entire thing built.  Now we just need to remove the rest of the dirt pile from off our lawn so we can plant the grass seed in its spot.

The biggest news of the week is definitely the birth of two donkey foals!  The first was born on Wednesday morning, a little jack that we named Hal.  We are going with a Shakespeare theme for names since we have been studying Shakespeare this year in school.  The second foal was born Thursday night, a little jenny we named Rosalind.  They are both perky and adorable!

Hope you are all doing well and enjoying the spring wherever you may be!

Rosalind is a lighter brown but it's hard to tell in the pictures.

This one is Hal.

Nilsson News

 It feels like spring may actually be in its way!  Most of our snow has melted (hooray!) and the weather is warm.  For us, that is 40 degrees.  This past week we went down to St. George to meet up with Garrett's sister's family who were on spring break.  It was a change of scenery and routine but the weather was a bit of a disappointment.  It was slightly warmer than Idaho but not by much.  The wind was blowing and it was cloudy.  I guess it was a blessing being from Idaho and only needing to wear jackets because the cousins from Arizona were freezing!  They were decked out in sweatshirts, coats with hoods, hats, and gloves and still said they were cold.  We did a little bit of hiking and biking and enjoyed what we could.

On the drive home and all the following day, all of the kids (minus Henry) got a stomach bug.  Not sure what it was but thankfully it only lasted a day.  

On Friday, Addy had her clogging competition.  I was worried if she would be able to perform since the day before she was sick and didn't eat anything.  Somehow she found her inner energy and did a fantastic job.  She took first and second place in several events and her team qualified for Nationals in May.

With the global state of things, Garrett and I spent some time taking inventory of our food storage.  We were able to stock up on a lot of items and figure out what things we needed to can this summer.  I was originally planning to cut back and take it easy with the garden since we will have a new baby, but now I'm thinking this is probably a year to plant double.  If any of you would like some seeds started (tomatoes, peppers, melons, etc.) let us know because we are in the throws of that right now!  Also, make sure to order or buy seeds now because they are in short supply.

That's all we've got for now!

Manning Madness

 It has been an interesting month. We were sick for most of February and it was actually a pretty nice time other than being sick. We didn't go to any of our usual events for two weeks and the boys played so nicely. It made me evaluate what I plan to do in a week because it was so pleasant not to go anywhere.

We have been looking at homes for a long time and after a pretty lousy experience with putting in an offer and realizing how competitive the market is, we decided to look into adding on to our house. That is also a big deal but we will see how that turns out. 

We got a new van a couple weeks ago and we are loving that! 

Nick is pretty busy these days. He is the assistant tennis coach at American Heritage and so that just made him even busier. He is headed to Front Sight next week and he has already been packed for a week so I think he is excited.

Wesley and Chet are two little pals these days. They come up with the funniest games. Chet climbs on EVERYTHING. If you sit down on the ground he will climb on you. He discovered that he can climb to the top of the bookshelf.

Gus is a very busy boy. He has been crawling for a month and he is fast and curious about everything. He is trying to stand independently too! He loves food! He is such a delightful baby.

That is about all! We love you and hope to see you soon!

Flake Fun

 

Rand made the FHE treat; white cake with chocolate frosting and fresh strawberries.

The new neighbors brought in 2 truck loads of sand and the kids love to play on them!

Our "snow storm" brought a whopping 1/4 inch but it was still fun to play in. 

The last month has been a fairly good one. We were a household of sickies for a couple of weeks and then were able to escape to Smithfield for a week which was a blast. It was good to see those of you that we saw.  

We had a couple of tiny overnight snows which the kids enjoyed. 

Scott has been busy with work and doing taxes.   He has a few new clients which is nice. 

The tenant in our Taylor house moved out and we put it on the market. Hopefully everything goes quickly and smoothly.

Hope that you all have a great week!

Nilsson News

 Wahoo!  Our two bedrooms are pretty much finished!  There are only a couple touch ups left but they are now functioning as bedroom space for our boys and girls.  I highly recommend taking advantage of vertical space because it opens up the floor space so much and it isn't that difficult to do!  In a nutshell, we absorbed Henry and Emerson's closet space and converted it into bunk beds.  In order to still have some storage space, we built the bottom bunk on top of a dresser.

We also finished off the final unfinished space in our house!  The small room in our basement that had mostly been used as a storage room, we turned into the girl's bedroom.  Had an egress window cut, did the framing, lights, drywall, tape and mud, painting, and had the carpet installed.  We built a closet, desk, and loft bed.  It's wonderful and Eliza and Millie love it (and so does the mom)!

The messy storage room and the temporary girl's room.

 

All done and very pink!  Now, we have an empty bedroom upstairs so Addy is planning ways to remodel it and turn it in to her bedroom.  That would leave her current bedroom empty and eventually we will knock down the walls and convert it into our dining room, but in the meantime it will become a guest bedroom.  That is the report for this week.  Hope all is well with each of you!

Smithfield Scoop

So we have been absentee for a little bit.  To recap, we had a nice Christmas season and attended several musical performances and several plays in the valley.  It was quite nice to get out to social events and see folks we knew.  We attended "A Christmas Carol" at Sky View with Emma and Cam.  It was also nice to visit with family members at different times during the season.  We were glad to get into some bookstores and get some books for the grandkids.  That makes us happy.

We enjoyed the visit with the Mannings on the eve of Christmas Eve.  They had a nice passover dinner which we enjoyed with them.  Then we stayed overnight and they joined us at our sparsely populated hotel at Thanksgiving Point and went swimming in the pool the next morning. 

But back at the ranch we spent Christmas day by ourselves, which is a first time event in our lives.  Not highly recommended, but we had a pleasant day notwithstanding.  Absolutely no rush about anything and we got a reasonably good night sleep prior to Christmas.  Not only that, we didn't even pay attention to the new year a week later.  We just forgot all about it.

It may have to do with the fact that Mom was very busy with lots of moms and babies during the holidays and the first part of January..  There was a lot of covid sickness that made that job very much more difficult.  She gets texts at all hours of the day and night.  Mom learned a lot of things she didn't know before and was glad to see some doctors and nurses who were quite helpful when their services were needed.  There were more transfers to hospitals than ever.

We made several trips over the mountain to Star Valley Wyoming and Montpelier Idaho.  We were very glad for our new used all wheel CR-V which helped with snowy mountain roads.  And we are grateful for the snow!

We recently delighted in the visit to our house by the Mannings and can attest to the "crab craze" of those little boys! So fun! We are very impressed with the courage of the Manning mama to buy, inspect and cook that crab! 

Mom recently was offered a room in a brand new chiropractic clinic to have appointments in. It has been somewhat stressful to do appointments at our home, so it will be nice to have another spot for that. Many of the moms live on the south and west part of the valley, which will make it more convenient for them, as well.

Dad has been spending his time chauffeuring his wife around three different states to appointments. He has also been flying on nicer days, which has been a joyful thing for him. He is also learning much from his instructor. He goes to the Brigham City airport since it is less busy. Funny that he has been flying in an airplane that is older than the one he learned in 45 years ago! Hopefully one day soon he will be able to take some passengers around the valley.

Lately, we have had a flock of turkeys hanging out in the trees in our backyard. Did you know that great big turkeys roost in trees?! I don't know why that surprises me, but it does. They forage for a while and then fly off to lower areas - which is an amazing experience to hear.