I have been meaning to take a picture of this view. It is the view on the overpass as I drive home from getting the girls from school. It is just breathtaking. I love the blue sky, crisp rugged mountains, green grass, and even the new age building right there. I am taken away every time I see this. (Now note, I was on the side of the highway, and actually sitting on top of Autumn to get the pict., because I didn't want to step out and get hit by a car, so the giggling in the background noise was fun to.)


This is Autumn and Brooke afterschool when I pick them up, it was crazy hat day, and they got red wristbands, to help them say no to drugs, quite an ordeal. Today was crazy sock day and tomorrow is pajama day. Thursday is wear all red day. All to be aware to say no to drugs. Pretty cool.



















Last night for FHE, we decided instead of stay home and think of how much we are missing everyone from Spokane, we decided to do some service. We made some treats, and took them to our friends.

It was very humorous!!!!!

This is Autumn making brownies





This is Spencer and Brookey stirring the marshmellows to make rice krispie treats. Notice Spencer's hotpad on his left hand. Very funny.









Ok, so we were trying to mush out the krispie treats on a cookie sheet, and Mark dug right in, because it was cooling, so we had to work quickly, all the kids are putting oil on their hands so the krispy mess doesn't stick, well, dad skiped that step and look at the mess he has on them! It was so darn funny! (We also colored the marshmellow orange with food coloring, it worked quite well)






These are the finished plates. We made cards with vampires, mummies, and broomsticks on them. It was so fun! Notice we had to change Spencer's shirt before we left, because his other one was COVERED with frosting!



That was our monday night? What did you do? Leave a comment to let us know.
Amy

Old Gun or New Gun?

Here is the gun show "special" of the week...
a Smith and Wesson .357 mag. (oh, did you notice the slanted barrel (to the left off center in the pic)- so did we, after we bought it. solution you ask - we'll straighten it.







gun ready for the vice - just needs a little twist right? and it's a bit rough, no big deal - it's going to be a shooter - and with a straight barrel it will be fine.....









wrong, it needs more than the little twist - because the barrel was stripped (notice threads) and put back together with JB liquid weld. We found that out when the barrel went twist - twist- twist with no real tightening and a rather mushy(not-so good to feel in a gun) turn. nice gesture 'eh. "send er down the road Hank, no one will know the difference 'til they is a pick'n the pieces out of ther' teef (grunt - giggle - spit)"





solution? get over it and buy a new barrel (not easy to do - smith and wesson does not sell magnum barrels to the public). found one from a custom pistol smith in Georgia who took it off another gun to retro-fit that gun with an aftermarket barrel for competition - and we get the take-off barrel.






Here is the "new" 6 inch barrel fitted to the gun (minus the stripped threads and JB weld this time - sorry to ruin all that fun Hank).
the frame was also bent a bit from the pipe wrench hack job from before - it is now straight and smooth.







here it is with all the little parts removed and ready for a soft glass bead blast finish.











here is the finished product. new barrel that will stay on the gun and off your face (real novel idea), straightened frame, bead blast finish, smooth trigger job.









ready for the range? - we think so....

now where is a good target....hmmm......(maybe Hank)

Our week was slow

Well, this is my girl, on my new couch up in my bedroom. She is wearing the dress me, A, and B wore. My mom made it for me. And saved it for me. How wonderful. I loved seeing her in it.









This is the "runt" baby puppy of Rosiey's. You can see Rosiey's nose and eye in the corner, she's a protective little mamma. This puppy is reserved for the family who helped Rosiey have these puppies, by the contribution of their dog's help. His name's Dubee. He lives back in spokane.






Here's Spencer, looking out our back fence. Very cute!










This was this evening, they get a little stir crazy on Sunday's even the dad. So the fort was built. If you can see, the big couch is turned over on it's front to make that side. And yes my frontroom is big enough for this and still room to walk around in there! Can you believe it!

Our week

Ok, we are going to start backwards.

Lastnight we made granola, from Auntie B's recipe. It was SOOOOO good. We ate probably 1/4 of the recipe right out of the oven. No milk or anything. Just by the handful.







Friday the kids were out of school, so we decided to see what Utah is all about. We went up to Murray, UT, which is really close to where Pres. Hinckley grew up. We went to an historical farm that was really fun. We were able to do a lot of fun things. This is us sitting on a horse saddle on a sawhorse.






This was at the end of the day and Spencer was so done having his picture taken, this is what he does. Just covered his eyes. The weather was so nice we didn't need our coats at all. We loved it, it was so relaxing and wonderful.










This is a treehouse, I got kinda closterphobic in there. See me down on the ground in the window. . . And the girls acting VERY silly! It was fun.










Can you smell the stinky outhouse? Who do you want to sit next to during this experince?










This is Rosiey the cow, and Brookey back in there milking the cow by hand (this is one of the main attractions that the girls wanted to do). When Brooke was done she said "Mom, I don't ever want to have to do that again EVER" I asked her why, she said, "it felt really gross, meaning the teet on the cow" Made us all laugh.







Autumn doing the same thing, milking Rosiey.











Spencer on the saddle, very CUTE!













This is Sarah's latest trick. Everytime I go to pick her up or check on her, she has bubbles on her lips. . . Not sure why, but she likes to make bubbles.









These are our families latest excitement. We love to take care of the momma, Rosiey our dog. She is a very good momma, tonight she came out of her box and wondered around a bit, and went back and checked on her babies every other minute, but is feeling good enough to wander around the house again.

Autumn's experience

AUTUMN STANDS TALL:

Last night we went on a walk to the mall, and we were walking back. Autumn found a wallet on the ground. It was nice and fat, there was money in it. Her automatic thought was to find a phone number in the wallet so she could return it.

We talked about how satan would want her to keep the wallet or just the money out of it. But she didn't even want to or think of that. So, we came home, she tried to call a phone number we found on the internet that might work for her, but it was the wrong number, but was willing to make that scarey phone call anyway.

Then we found an address, she decided she wanted to take it to them, so we did that, noone was home so this moning we all woke up and the first thing she did was got ready for church so we could be ready early and go over there to the address to return the wallet.

That didn't happen, because we had the whole family to tend. But right after church we went over there she knocked on the door told the lady she found the wallet on our Stake Center lawn. She was so happy, she didn't realize she had even lost it. She opened her wallet and gave Autumn 3 whole dollars out of it.

She came back to the van smiling huge. She felt very good about it. We are very proud of Autumn and her choices to listen to Jesus instead of Satan!

We have 4 puppies

We have 4 little puppies today. Rosiey is a little trouper! She did so good. She loves her little babies. These are the size of hampsters. There are 3 black ones and one the color of Rosiey, my girls are holding the one that is the color of Rosiey.

This week at the M's

Well, Mark went in to set up the display (the boss wasn't there) and the boss called later and said "that display looks awesome! We need to get you a bigger display spot!" so, this is another knife he worked on last night to put in there today.








I am the bread maker. I have made probably 20 loaves of bread, and rolls, and cinnamon rolls, all with whole wheat. For my family. I know how to make good bread. We went to Golden Corral for lunch, and I remember just loving thier rolls. Well, they were made out of white flour, they stand up nothing to my own rolls. I know how to make what our family likes! Thanks to Barb's recipe.



these are the loaves coming out of the oven. I did a little experimenting. The one on the far right is onion, and cream cheese. The one next to it, with the brown sprinkled on it is cinnamon sugar swirl. I must say, I didn't know, but I love WAY TO MUCH cinnamon. I put a whole cup of cinnamon in the swirl part, Mark said it was a bit chalky, but I loved it! and the 3 on the left are what we call "old faithful" they just get better and better with time.



this is our pregnant Rosiey, she is due to have her babies next weekend. Hmmm, not sure how to do that. Anyone have advise? I am just reading online. The first thing I learned is to get a "whelping box" so, we have TONS of boxes, so I cut one with a hole in it and put my paper shreddinging in the bottom, so she can get use to it. Hopefully she will choose to have her babies in there, I have made it so she is comfortable in there.



This is my boy, 2 things, he has ALWAYS been sensitive about his ears and hearing, so, I have put these ear muffs in a place he can get to them easy. He gets them and wears them a lot, ie. when I vacuum (Reminds you of g-pa Rick huh) AND, as of last night, we are done with the "yeah yeah" (or binki to the regular public) He is trying really hard. He wants to learn to talk, so we need to keep this from hindering him. And it has really helped. He is talking a lot more.

I just looked at the pict. and he's in yet another cammo colored piece of clothing. I guess we have a lot of cammo for him. He loves it. Everytime I open his drawer he gets excited and says "yeah dada" like I want to wear this because it's like dad's. So, I'm a sucker for that. So there's a lot of cammo in that ol drawer.