We had a great weekend with my family!  Doug and Larissa blessed their little Tommy in the Hatch ward and spoke.  They did a great job!  It was great just to get together. 
     After dinner my mom decided that the kids needed to go with her to the church to practice a song to sing along with Doug and Larissa's speeches.  Somehow Oak kept setting off a car alarm.  He did it three different times before she finally just drove away with the horn blaring every few seconds.  She stopped at my Uncle Ben's house to borrow a ball.  He had a few huge balls for the kids to play with.  They were having so much fun rolling around and bouncing them that we had a really hard time pulling them away to practice.  They did practice though and they sounded just fine.

 

     Jamie accompanied them on her violin and she is sounding great!  I was so happy with all of them.  When it was time for us to leave, Oak and Kyler were not ok with leaving.  They wanted to stay and play with the big balls for hours.  When I got counting heads, Oaks and Kylers were nowhere to be seen.  They decided to hide in the coat racks thinking that they would be forgotten and left behind.  Ha ha.  Little do they know that I would never just leave one of them behind.  Anyhow, we left, I believe with mom honking on the way.  (Huxti, Larissa, and I were too cool to be in the car and we walked!) 
     Church was good and the blessing went well.  When it came time to sing the song, Chlo and Lyvia just stood up front and smiled for awhile.  They didn't know the song at all.  Then Lyvia started running around and around the pulpit area.  Huxti grabbed her before she played the organ, but she did shimmy under the piano to get to her mom.  Chlo just continued to stand on her perch and smile. 
     After the meeting, we had a nice lunch with the family.  Jazzerz talked Ben's ear off, and Lyvia giggle goofed under the serving table.  She is cute!  Chlo hung out in the bathroom for most of the dinner and I kept sending the girls in to check on her.  I am still unsure what she was doing, avoiding the pressure to eat her lunch perhaps.  She finally did fix herself a plate of different varieties of chips...and a roll. 
    Back at Mom's Jazzerz was being kind of naughty because she kept trying to start a block fight.  No one really engaged, but she kept toppling towers and hurling blocks...stop Jazz!

     Ryan went right out on the lawn, and had a nap.  He even used Kyler's mitt for a pillow which looked kinda clompy.  I was surprised because he slept that way for hours.  Kids were running to and fro and Kyler and Kaden kept begging him to take them shooting.  He must have needed the rest.  He did finally take the boys and Wamer shooting.  I heard Kyler quickly asking him if he should bring the .22 longs (bullets)  I love Kyler's enthusiastic manner.
     Chlo and Lyvia became great little secret friends.  They ran around and around playing with this and that.  They weren't very good at badminton, and I had to remind Chlo not to hit Grandma's windows with the croquet mallet, but all in all they were just great buddies.  Lyvi called Chloee, Toee.  It was cute!

     Oak and Kyler had a great time too.  When it came time to go home for Kyler, he and Oak hid under the bed thinking that Barry might forget and leave him behind.  Not so, but nice try again.  Later when my mom couldn't find her laptop, it was under the bed, because they took it with them when they hid.  My mom also misplaced her phone thanks to my children.  It was later found in the button box.  All in all just a great weekend.

 

     The week has flown by in a blur.  I have definitely felt blessed this week.  I am grateful that Heavenly Father helps me.  I truly believe that when you are doing the Lord's work, you are entitled to his blessings and although things are hard sometimes, he always helps me.
     Ryan has been good to get the kids working this week.  He took the six older ones with him on Wednesday night to help him pull concrete forms off of a wall that he poured.  With all of our gadgets to help make life easier it is really hard to teach kids how to work.  I am glad my husband gets them working because I think work is a good help against depression.  Anyhow, Chlo came home looking black, but he said they all worked hard and had a great time. 
     Speaking of little Chlo, she had quite the shock the other day when she discovered a can of coke.  We don't buy pop very often and so my kids are unaware of what happens to one when it is shaken up.  Well, she dinked around with it and was prodding a stick at it, and was about to bury it in the garden when it exploded spraying her and Oak with mud and coke.  She bawled and bawled and was wailing that it was going in her mouth.  I just laughed and stuck her and Oak in the bathtub.  I only regret that I didn't get pictures. 
     Yesterday Oak went and helped Ryan on a concrete pour, and Chlo was a little out of sorts.  As much as they fight, he keeps her busy and happy for the most part.  She and Jerusha kept accidentally spilling stuff.  Jerusha dumped milk, then she dumped cereal, then she dumped milk again.  Chlo then dumped her cereal with milk.  At this point I shrieked.  Chlo had done nothing to clean up her mess besides placing a wash rag on it, and frankly Jerusha hadn't done much to clean her messes up either.  I figure that we bought a jumbo box of cereal and a gallon of milk just so we could dump it on the kitchen floor.  Anyhow, I shouldn't complain too much, it all gets cleaned up in the end.  After the cereal and milk dumps, someone dumped and smashed corn chips all over the floor.  By then I had no more happy energy left to clean any more messes.  I knew if I started in on it I would just shriek some more and so I went to bed where Ryan was watching a documentary on "armored cars."  Not a point of great interest for me, but a diversion nonetheless.
     This morning I was getting somewhat annoyed with Oak, who was scooting his chair to and fro.  He wouldn't get up to get anything, he would roll over, smashing the corn chip mess in the process.  I finally asked what he was doing, and he explained that the floor was too messy for him to walk on.  He had to roll around instead.  That gave me the motivation to clean it all up.  We are talking about a kid that doesn't usually wear shoes to tromp around in his grandpa's corrals so I guess it was pretty bad.  I am glad it is fit for Oak once again.
     My mom and dad stopped by today and they brought the kids some krabby patties.  It was great because Mo kept chomping them up and spitting them back out on grandpa's lap.  He wasn't too thrilled about this.  Speaking of little Moroni, he has found a lovely spot to play and it is under the barbecue grill in the backyard.  He goes under there with a broken fly swatter and sings and plays.  He loves it! 

   Ryan has been working on the pantry shelves and has boards strewn all over.  The kids made a really great teeter totter out of his materials.  Sorry, but it doesn't look too fun.  The bottom picture is Mo man and his creamy...yep they're dreamy!

     In spite of my best efforts today I ended up looking like a Sheena.  I just didn't feel like myself when all was said and done.  I just went to church feeling Sheena-ish and I must admit that church was nothing short of excellent today.  The high-councilman had the spirit with him and I learned a lot.  He gave an excellent talk on Moses, and I had the opportunity to think of some aspects of the story of Moses that I had never considered before.  It made church great for me.
     We decided to stay home and deep clean some different areas of the home this weekend.  It was a great thing to do.  We also had the opportunity to visit with Doug and Larissa.  I got to hold my little nephew Tommy for the first time and he is really cute and wriggly!  The kids took turns holding him and enjoyed every minute of it.  Lyvia and Chlo played really well together too, and Doug had to take her kicking and screaming when it was finally time for them to leave.

     Chlo has been on one this weekend.  She created this nice dirt filled brick and lovingly placed it on the seat of the van.  I am not sure what she was thinking, but you can see that this was all done with care.  See how she nicely sprinkled the dirt on and around the brick just so.  I am so glad that Chlo is making good use of her time.

     To get the kids ready for church I stuck Oak, Chlo, and Mo in a nice warm bath together.  They stayed in there for a good hour or so, adding more hot water as needed.  By the time they were done there was no hot water for anyone else.  Chlo wandered around bawling until Jazzerz helped her get a dress on.  She then came in to get her hair fixed.  I asked her how she wanted her hair fixed and she said that she wanted to look like a lion.  I bent down and asked her again because I thought I had not heard her right.  Yep, she just wanted her hair done like a lion.???.  I finally just put her hair in ponytails (being that this is about the only hairstyle I can do with her current DIY haircut) and she seemed satisfied with this.  She then bawled around about shoes until it was time to go.  I was scrambling doing everyone else's hair and helping Oak with his tie etc.  When we finally got to the church I told everyone to look around the van for Chlo's shoes.  I finally just decided that she was just going to take them off as soon as we got in there so we just went in without them.  About half-way through the meeting I was mortified to see that she had painted her feet brown.  I figured she had done this because she couldn't find her shoes.  I asked Jamie about it and she explained that she had painted them while playing with Lyvia.  I shot off a quit text to Doug telling him to check Lyvia's feet and then I got contemplating what to do about the situation.  I really didn't want to send her to primary with her painted-on shoes.  Obviously this paint was going to need some major scrubbing as it had out-lasted her lengthy bath.  With Mo in hand we went out to the van between meetings in hopes of finding some shoes to cover Chlo's home-made jobbies.

     When Mo and I got to the car, our mission was to find Chlo some shoes, and find Oak something to eat. He had been head-butting me all through the meeting asking for something to eat.  We found Chlo's shoes and a bag of onions.  I decided Oak would just have to hope for some treats in primary.  He would have eaten the onions if I would have to taken them in, but then his smell would have been quite offensive.  I sent Chlo to primary looking like she was a normal gal with shoes.  After church I asked her why she had painted her feet.  She explained that she had stolen Jamie's craft paint, squirted it on the lawn, and then just walked around in it....makes sense.  Luckily Lyvia had not participated in Chlo's feet painting activities.

     After church Moroni got really into the scalloped potatoes.  Ryan took one look at him and asked if someone had hit him with a pan of taters.  It looked like someone had.

     Today has been one of those cold spring days.  Moroni struggles when he can't play outside.  Chlo has not helped out in this situation because every time he got happy enough to play for a second she would head-butt him, or squeeze him, or do something to tick him off.  He has been on my hip most of the day because of this.  I am grateful that I get to be at home and can deal with my chores with my kids.  This is a great blessing.  To support a wife,  with seven kids is a big task and I am so grateful that Ryan takes care of us without complaint.  I love that guy.
     Speaking of Ryan, he is unlike other dad's in so many ways.  Rooshkie came home to tell us that she has the opportunity to dissect a fish tomorrow.  She was excited about this, but she has gutted many fish with her Dad, and she has assisted him in butchering cows, and sheep etc.  What she couldn't figure out was why they were not going to cook the fish after the dissection lesson.  She asked the teacher how these fish were going to be cooked.  She was quite disturbed when her teacher told her that they weren't going to eat the fish.  Ryan told Rooshkie to try to gather the dissected fish and bring them home to eat.  This doesn't excite me a whole lot because I don't care much for seafood.  It also seems to me that my dissected specimens from former school days had an unpleasant string bean type odor.  I don't care to cook or prepare formaldehyde fish.  This could get interesting tomorrow.  We shall see how it goes when Rooshkie demands the fish.

     Oak's couch moving is getting out of hand.  Today he moved the couches so that they met in the center of the room.  This made it so that no one could sit anywhere and it was pretty impossible to utilize the living room at all.  And this all for the sake of building up Croakster's muscles.  Being that Mo was on my hip most of the day, I did not get them moved back until this evening.  We also had to run some business errands and he decided in the car that it was an opportune time to be a rooster.  It was indeed loud.

      Well, I forgot to post about it, but Chlo cut her hair again.  Chloee is a beautiful little girl, but this haircut doesn't help her look much.  I found her stuffed owl with wisps of blonde hair all over it, and I knew that she had been into the scissors again.  I sat her down and explained that if she really wants short hair, then we need to find someone who knows how to cut hair, cut it for her.  She looked at me and just said, "it's ok 'cuz I already know how to cut it."  I guess this is true, but this cut has really been a knock against her looks.  She looks like a "Joni" at best, a "Claude" at worst.  Ryan and I have been calling her Claude and she has not liked it.  I guess I should  be glad that she isn't concerned about her appearance yet.  Jams, Sags, and Rooshkie are way concerned with their looks, and fights break out daily over clothing, hair accessories, and jewelry.  Chlo just chops her hair.  We will just have to wait to grow it out again.
     On Sunday, I got a new calling.  Ryan and I have been over the Webelos scouts for several years.  I have enjoyed everything, but the cheesy scout cheers and yet I was just getting the hang of it.  Sunday we got released and I was asked to help with the achievement day girls.  I am really excited!  This will be fun, and I will get to hang with Rooshkie and Jazz.  When we got home from church the kids were begging me for some old socks and flour.  This did not sound like a good thing and so I asked what they needed these items for.  They explained that they just wanted to fill socks with flour and throw them around.  I must admit that this idea had never occured to me.  I always admire my kids for the things they come up with, but visions of flour and broken socks scattered all over the yard
came to mind and so I suggested they use rice instead of flour.  The next thing I know, there are rice socks being flung to and fro all over the yard.  I never knew that such a thing could create such pleasure, but the kids had a great time with this game.  At one point Sagers sock flew over the block wall and into the neighboring property.   Our yard backs up to some individually owned condo's.  She went back there to get her sock.  There were some people standing around in the parking lot, and Sage innocently asked if they had seen where her "sock" had landed.  Unfortunately, they were not sure.

     Today was our semi-annual Dental appointment.  Our Dentist and staff usually give us the entire office for a few hours for these events.  I must admit that they are quite patient.  I have kids banging in and out of rooms, knocking over plants, and playing with lamps.  Luckily Ryan came with me today and so we had more adult supervision.  A few years ago, when Oak felt that he was Spiderman, he climbed all over that office.  I am so glad that they still seem happy to see us, and know us all by name.  Anyhow, a few of us got done first and so I took, The Beek, the Bean, Oak and little Mo across the street to a "water-walk."  This is an area that they have made waterfalls cascade down hills and around statues of important people.  It really is quite tranquil.  Well, Chlo takes her socks and shoes off and jumps right in.  I don't know what it is about my kids and turning everything into a swimming hole.  Anyhow, I was down from her and was a few steps behind Mo, when one of Chloee's socks floated by.  This turned into a fantastic game with them plopping the sock in at the top of the street, and then racing down the waterfall to chase it.  Oak would then pick it up at the end of the stream and whip everyone with it.  This went on for awhile, until Chlo began putting rocks all over in the waterfalls.  By the time she was done with this she had water backed up and going all over the sidewalks.  I then had to take all of the rocks out so we could leave.  All in all, a great time though.  We had 4 cavities, and Jams needs braces.  Good to be done for 6 months.  I do have to take Jazz back to get one cavity filled but that will be a breeze.  I will just have to chase Moroni and I won't have to be in the chair.
    

  This is what we get when Chlo dresses herself.  One boot, one flip flop put on cock-eyed.  At least the hat looks good with her new hair-cut!

     Well, we got the African report finished and turned in.  Wahoo!  Jazz did it all on her own too.  She kept asking me to come and help her and I was planning on helping her as soon as dinner was done, but by the time I got around to assisting with the grass and animals she was finished.  I was quite impressed that she found all of the animals.  Except for a few missing monkeys, the animals were gathered and glued in various places around the box.  It was displayed by a proud Jazz on the kitchen table.  I was sitting in my favorite chair rocking my little Mo-ster when I looked up to see Chlo, busy painting yellow all over Jazzerz blue African sky.  I hollered at Jazz to come and save her report.  Luckily, Jazz is low-key enough that she just shrugged it off.  She then decided to add some facts about African animals.  I chuckled when I saw that she had done a section on "Loins."  Loins are indeed fierce animals.

 

 

 

Ryan went out and watched her present her report and I was glad that he got to be there.  Great work and way to be Jazz!

 

     On Fridee Ryan called and asked "So are you ready to leave yet?"  I was like "huh?"  I was doing dishes and folding clothes and chasing Mo.  He explained that his Dad had called and encouraged us to come to the Clark County Fair to watch Arden show his steer.  My girls are wanting to show steers and I have had no experience and have no clue what to do.  I am sure Cliven knows this.  He decided we needed to be there.  Ryan wanted to leave right away, so I began throwing clothes and diapers in bags.  A few hours later we arrived at the fair and I was way impressed with Arden and how well he handled his steer.  A week ago it was still trying to murder him whenever he tried to work with it.  It just docilely followed him around the ring like a puppy dog and he won second place in showmanship for it.  Good job Ardeeno!  The fair theives were wanting $4 a ride for the amusement park and so we let all of the kids pick one ride and go on it.  Jamie and Arden rode the zipper, Chlo rode a dumb ride that just went around and around, Oak rode the roller coaster, and Sags, Rooshkie, and Jazz rode the ferris wheel.

     We then went to the animal displays and had a great time seeing all of the different chickens, baby goats, and pigs.  Oak kept getting the turkey to gobble loudly at him and he was quite thrilled.

     The next day we were planning on working bulls that had been brought in off of the range.  We needed to vaccinate them, brand them, and tip their horns so that they cannot gore other cattle and cowboys.  We had WWIII erupt because the kids all wanted to go back to the fair.  We finally consented to let the older kids go back down with Grandma, and I kept the little ones at the ranch so that I could help Ryan with the bulls.  Well, Ryan got fixing up the squeeze chute and so we never did get around to branding bulls.  Mel's girls came down to play and I was so glad because my kids had a great time with them.

     Chloee and Prestlie are the same age and they love playing together.  I did catch them scattering someones make-up and when I asked what they were doing they acted clueless as to who had been into the make-up.  I knew they had been into it and they apologized.  I noticed later that they had painted their stomach's and chest's with blush and cover-up.  They had previously been swimming in the ditch and had nothing but underwear on at that point.  I guess they felt like "covering up"  a little bit.

     They also got in trouble when they tried to hide the fact that they were in to Grandma's snacks.  I had told them they could only have one.  They tried to pile toys in front of the door so that I couldn't get into the house and see that they had helped themselves to another round of fruit snacks.  Little do they know that I was more than strong enough to shove the toys out of the way and enter anyway.  Chlo got disciplined over that one.  I had to chuckle when they weren't looking.  Make-up chest, fruit snack stealing, little Chlo.

     Oak has been acting interesting since he got back from the ranch.  I think all of his cowboying time with his Dad has started to go to his head.  He put on a blanket, tied it around his neck and instructed Chloee to "bow to the king."  Unfortunately she felt that she was too busy looking at a storybook at the time.  He has also been lifting the couch up and grunting loudly.  I get it that the couch was a big object to conquer, but why the loud grunts?  He has also been running swiftly back and forth, back and forth, all over the house.  He feels that this will give him the edge he needs to win the Bundy races.  Well, I hope it works.  He usually ends up waking up Mo from all of his loud grunts and stomps.

     The other day I caught Chlo eating a packet of "Carnation Instant Breakfast"  she ate it dry and then demanded a cup of milk.  I think she needs to realize that usually people just mix the two and are done in one easy step.  I still cannot figure out what she is thinking.

Above: Sage and Gracie at the fair

Sage and Whitley at the fair

     Well, I got my Oak back a on Tuesday and my husband and I can now feel complete again.  I must admit that I missed Oak's loud animal noises even.  It is great to have them back.  He came back with stories of roping calves off Buck and encountering rattlesnakes etc.  From what I gather, he did ride Buck, and the horse chased a cow around for awhile and his Dad told him to just hang on tight.  this much is true.  We had a winter storm roll in on Monday and the weather has been cold.  Chlo got bundled up against the weather and was somewhat upset that her jacket did not have a hood.  To fix the situation she simply put a bucket on her head.

 

     We also celebrated one year with our little Moroni.  It was a great day and I was so grateful to see the little one on his cake.  Because of a horrible case of pertussis, I thought I was going to lose him in December.  It was horribly scary.  We got him up, and sang, and made a big deal about him all day.  I was not sure if he knew it was his birthday though because we make a big deal and sing to him every day.  We gave him a big, red, ball for his birthday and he rolled around on it all day.  Oak wrapped his gifts and although his gifts look like a wad of paper, he just didn't get it.  The girls ended up blowing out his candle and helping him with his gifts.

 

     Jazzerz has been doing a report on Africa.  I am so, so, tired of her report.  She is doing one of those shoe box deals with the animals and environment etc.  I bought her a bunch of african animals and I thought she would whip it out in no time.  Well, we have been going for four days now and she wants to cover every inch with dry grass.  She has glued and glued grass for days.  In the mean time this grass gets all over the floor.  I have swept up grass over and over again.  I thought about bringing the lawn mower in if it gets any worse.  I have tried to encourage her to get it done and get it turned it, but so far she is still not satisfied with the grass situation.  Her animals that I bought have been scattered far and wide too.  Chlo insists on having a giraffe in her bath, and so the african animals are everywhere.  She will be lucky to find a couple of cows and a dinosaur to glue amongst her grass.
     Speaking of Jazz, she purchased one of those rinky dink journals with the cheap locks on it yesterday...not a good purchase.  The lock broke and fell off before she even made it home.  She bawled and bawled until I took the journal and headed out to the school book fair.  I complained, and they promised to order another one to replace the broken one.  Why do the girls always want to buy these?  Do they think that we are all lined up to read their journals or what?  Anyhow, while at the school book fair a girl about ten kept being very friendly.  I kind of enjoyed her until she wiped her nose on my back.  This made the whole journal fiasco more unpleasant.  Let's hope this journal keeps jazzerz thoughts private!



     We have had a great time this weekend!  I always love conference weekend and I love listening to all of the speeches and the songs.  Ryan headed south with Oak to round-up cows and the rest of the kids and I went to my mom and dad's to watch Conference.  The first thing that was announced was a temple in Cedar!  Yeah!  We are so excited!  We also got to see Barry and Mindi and Brandon, Kyler and Kaden.
     I love all of my nephews, but Kyler's enthusiasm is so much fun.  He and Kade took Jerusha and Jazz down to the river to fish.  They claimed that the fish were biting on peanut butter cups.  They also procedeed to set a whole bunch of fish traps in the river with the peanut butter cups.  I don't think they caught any. (Shocker!)
     The kids also started a game where they went around and around the house on the 4-wheeler dragging my dad's wood wagon.  The football would be thrown and whoever got hit would have to trade the place of the thrower.

Ha ha!  I love this picture because Rooshkie is embarrased.  Jazzerz, however, doesn't care.  I love my girls. 
     Chlo got a little too involved with the roll making process and began throwing dough against the kitchen wall.  We had to tell Chlo that she couldn't play in the door anymore and she got sad, sad, sad!  She also got upset because Mo kept sitting on the temple that she was building with the blocks.  She hollered, Moroni, don't sit on the temple!!!  Little does she know that there are many Moroni's playing their trumpet on the temple.

     We had a good time and Chlo even got a waffle shaped like a butterfly.  Believe me, the imagination had to stretch a little to see the butterfly, but Grandma was getting pretty creative to get Chlo to eat.
     Ryan and Oak should be coming home tonight.  Ryan said that Oak did very well and is getting to be quite the cowboy.  I am just excited to get him home.  I cannot help but worry about him and my imagination runs wild with all of the outlandish things that could possibly happen to him.

     Well, I am missing my little Oak today.  He went out on the range with his dad for the weekend and he was really sad that I was not going.  It would have been fun to go, but I still am not completely unpacked from last weekend.  We are close, but the thoughts of packing everything up again when I haven't cleaned up from last weekend just didn't seem good.  I realize that Ryan will be the one who makes Oak into a good man, and yet I kind of like to keep my boy where I can see him.  Chlo has been a little lost without her big brother and she hasn't quite known what to do with herself.  I caught her opening bottle after bottle of nail polish.  She spread them all over the table and luckily never spilled any.  She proceeded to paint her toe nails and polka-dotted one of her feet.  She also painted a little of Mo's arm and I finally caught on and ended the whole thing as soon as I saw what she was doing.

 

Speaking of little Chlo, she has been full of mischief.  I bathed Moroni yesterday and set him on the

bed and diapered him.  Oak was there and so I asked him to watch the Mo while I got dressed myself.

When I came out of the bathroom a heavy scent of vicks hung in the air.  Mo was slick and shiny with the stuff.  I had to scrape it off of him just so I could pick him up.  No, no, Chlo!

 

Sage got a surprise when she bit into her sandweech at school and met up with crunchy spaghetti noodles.  Chlo also got into the spaghetti noodles crunching and scattering them all over the house.  She also got the loaf of bread out and stuck the noodles hapharzardly all over in the bread.  I thought that I had removed them all, but apparently not.  Sage was disturbed at the noodle and could not figure out why I would put uncooked spaghetti noodles in her sandweech.  Today for lunch Chlo demanded ramen noodles, but just wanted to crunch them plain...yuck, but hey, it was easier that way.

She also demanded a peanut butter sandwich and then just ripped it in half and left it on the table.  I will never figure out what she is thinking.



     Every day I try to remember how blessed I am to be able to stay at home and mother my kids.  I am always amazed at how well they are able to entertain themselves.  I remember one day getting stuck with Ryan at a Peterbuilt repair shop for four hours.  I was pregnant with Rooshkie and Jams and Sags were little.  They had a great time pretending that they were on a merry-go-round for the duration of the four hrs.  They ran around and around in a circle and were way happy.
     Yesterday evening Jerusha, Jazz, and Oak started playing an interesting game.  Jazz was the Beek's secretary and Oak was a young lad named "William" who sought the Beek's assistance.  Jerusha's name was Juliet in the game.  Anyhow, Croaky had to consult with Jazz, who had to write some important things down at her desk about "William" and "Juliet. "  He was then allowed to enter the Beeks office and consult.

     Apparently the Beek is a busy woman with quite the busy schedule.
     Today Chlo had the opportunity of spending the afternoon with her dad.  She always loves to go with Ryan and she begs to go all the time.  When she returned she had smears of some kind of an oily substance all over which may or may not have been gear oil.  She also had some kind of a bizarre candy.  At this point she had dropped it in the dirt and no longer wanted it.  It was one of those items that she would have begged for in the check-out line and I would have quickly told her "no!"

     What in the world is it?????
      This afternoon Ryan came and got all of the kids and had them help him for awhile.  It was nice for Mo Mo and I to have the house to ourselves, but Mo is used to constant entertainment from the older kids.  He finally busied himself by pulling my old set of curlers around.  Once again, I am amazed at the things they do to entertain themselves.

     Today has been one of those days.  We had an Easter egg hunt last night and colored eggs because we were out on the range for Easter and didn't have the opportunity.  The colored eggs proved to be quite a mistake today.  Chlo peeled and ate one on the piano of all places and Moroni peeled and smooshed several in different locations around the house.  I ended up having to get Farley to clean up the egg messes.  Then, Oak has been a very loud rooster today and when he hasn't been crowing he has been barking.  Mo has been grabbing and twisting my lips, and spreading tin foil and  baggies all over the house.  All of this along with all of the mess I am still trying to clean up from the weekend.  We also had some men come out to hang some doors that Ryan ordered, and Oak was trotting around and around them like a horse. 
     Play practices started today for Alice in Wonderland.  Sage is Alice's understudy, and also the white queen so she pretty much has to be there every day.  Jams is a card, and the Beek is a dancer.  It should prove to be quite entertaining.  Anyhow, hopefully I will get caught up tomorrow or never.

     We went back to Nevada for spring break and it was so nice and sunny!  We played in the river...in fact the kids played in the river all day.  They had made up some restaurant in the middle of the river where they served up fresh onions, (some kind of weed in the river that they were actually eating, they looked like green onions)  Seaweed on a stick, and seaweed sushi....yum!
     Ryan showed up two days later and had a bull to butcher.  He and the guys had been out cowboying out at gold butte and they had a pretty rough time.  One of the horses he borrowed had been gored to death, Ammon had been hooked by a cow, and the horse he had been riding was hooked too.  She and Ammon were both hobbling around.  They had been eating rabbit, and rattlesnake (which they love), but any time anyone eats rattlesnake it means that there are rattlesnakes around and that is always a scary thing.
     He and I butchered the bull which was kind of a new experience for me.  Our dog Farley kept taking certain pieces of the bulls guts and dragging them around.  It made me want to throw up a little when he was chewing on the lungs and kidneys.  Yuck.  Anyhow, Ryan is really skilled and experienced in the butchering arena and for that I am very grateful.  I think he was still a little shocked at the horse being gored out from under him.  A bull charged and gored the horse right through the heart with a single hit.  The second time he hit he gutted the horse with one swoop which left Ryan looking for cover from the raging bull.  The problem with Gold Butte is that the cattle out there have not been worked for a long time.  This means that instead of steers out roaming the range, there are mainly bulls.  These bulls haven't had hardly any contact with people, and because of this they are pretty hot tempered.  I was sad for the horse, but glad that Ryan was ok.  The bull we were butchering was a different one from the one that hit the horse.  They had a lot of pretty serious encouonters with bulls all week.  This one got choked down when he got roped by one of the cowboys.
     Anyhow, after we were done with the butchering we went back out to Gold Butte to camp so Ryan could assist with the round-up.  We got out there to find that Rooshkie only had one shoe.  I have totally lost control in this arena.  I have the hardest time keeping track of everyone's shoes and coats etc.  Chlo even expects me to keep track of trinkets like favorite rocks and weeds and stuff.  I simply cannot keep up any more.  So, Jerusha walked around camp for three days with one shoe.  Great.  Chlo ended up wearing one of Jazzerz shirts the last day too.  Just the shirt.  We all looked pretty hammered.  Poor Chlo.
     The wildflowers were amazing this year.  I love that range when it gets plenty of water because it has a beautiful green carpet dotted with different colors of wildflowers everywhere.  This year it was filled with yellow California poppies, Orange slippery elm and some deep purple flowers.  I loved it out there.  We drank out of the water trough, climbed rocks and had a great talk about the resurrection on Easter morning.  Rooshkie never complained once about only having one shoe.
     At night, we slept out under the stars.  It was great until at 3am on the second night when I heard Ryan yell, "BOO"  really loud.  I was stirred out of a deep sleep and I thought that some man was in camp trying to scare me.  Ryan explained that the horses had all gotten out and that we just about got trompled.  He woke up to one of the horses in his face and so he booed to scare it away.  I am still not sure what those horses were up to.  Arden's horse Chumacko (sp?) had been dilly dallying around the whole time and he had been all over the place.

The top picture shows the flowers, the second one shows rooshkie with her one shoe, the third shows a Chlo in misery, and the fourth shows the kids playing in the river.  Their restaurant is located in the background.

We had the annual Bundy Easter party down on the ranch and a good time was had by all.  It was kind of cold still and yet all of the kids still wanted to swim.  They all found some kind of a mud bog to get in and Chlo was caught on the bank in nothing more than her undies.  We had to chalk up her clothing as another lost pair to the adventures of the ranch.  The kids and I enjoyed a nice egg hunt.  I honestly went with the intentions of helping one of the kids but I kinda got into it and Stetsy and Tayna had to remind me that it was really for the kids.  We also enjoyed church down there and then I took all of the kids home and Ryan stayed down there to help with a big cattle drive out to Gold Butte.  Jerusha ended up going to St. George with her aunt Lisa so that she could spend some time with Halle and she had a really good time.

Sags and Whitley

Jamie's back

     Because of Easter week we have been crazy busy and I feel bad that it has been awhile.  I had to make some cupcakes for a relief society dinner and Chlo wanted to eat what was left of the batter.  She had that bowl for most of the day dragging it around.  I caught her and got a picture.  Cute little Chlo.