Flood!

 After living in Utah for ten years Living in Ohio has been such a great experience.  Especially to experience a Spring.  It rains all the time! I can't believe it.  I now know why people buy rain boots.  We have had some crazy weather.  On April 19th I was taking a nap.  Jake was playing with Warren.  I woke up to a doorbell and hearing a mans voice saying, "The water is an inch away from your back door."  That sure woke me up fast!  Jake and I immediately wanted to get photos of this.  And we were praying that the water didnt' rise anymore!  We really didn't want to deal with flood damage! Ugh, what a nightmare that would have been.

Between the two houses

The backyard.  Toys were starting to float away!!

It looks like a water park!

This water was the length of five houses

Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink!

Our street was a pond too!

Wish I had a canoe!

Good thing it is a Jeep

I just couldn't help myself.  I had to see how deep it was.  It got right blow my knees.  It was so freezing too.

He had the nerve to wear shorts.  It was ice water!

Duckville

 As a stay at home mom I am often asked, "What do you do all day?"  This question never ceases to amaze me.  I thought I would let you in on one of the many things I do.  I play with my son.  First of all you want to make sure you stay in your pajamas all day.  This makes play time way more fun.  Also, because it is cold and rainy, have big blankets to wrap up in.  (this also makes for a great game of monster)  You will also need to have a child that is at the moment addicted to rubber ducks. Blocks, lots and lots of blocks. Having other building material that you have found at goodwill will also work.    Lincoln logs are fantastic too! 

 You will them make a house and a yard and many other creative things. 

 Such as a pond with these linky block things.  That is the teenage duck with the baby girl ducks taking a bath in the pond.  Boys and girls do not take baths together so the boy ducks get to do other fun things. 

 The twin Pablo ducks are taking a break from playing on the teeter totter and slide.  They are sitting at the table. 

 The purple mommy duck and yellow daddy duck are working in the garden.  I think Warren planted bananas, broccoli, rutabagas, edemamas, blueberries, apples and lemons.  Very tasty.

 These  are the pirate Phoebe, Kimball and Warren ducks.  (a gift from Bella!)  There job is to guard the house and not let any bad guys in.   That is how you make a duckville.  Then after you have spent hours playing you need to take photos of you cutie. 

 He is so stinkin' cute!

 He never fails to amaze me on how creative he is. 

Can I tell you how much I love my job?  I don't think I would give this up for all the money of the world! 

Men at Work

Jake and Shail get along really well.  Phoebe and I were so happy to find them out in "the shop"  working on planing a board.  Phoebe, we sure are lucky, aren't we? 

Rescuing Phoebe

 My sister Phoebe is going to be 25 this year.  (she's my baby sister)  My sister finally got her drivers permit!  This is huge!  She is not a big fan of driving, but with the support of her boyfriend of Shail she has bought a car and is driving!  She is doing amazing!! I am so proud of her.  She and Shail came out this weekend to visit.  It has been far to long, so I was so excited!  I was driving Jake nuts with "is she here yet" comments.  Phoebe let me know they were going to stop by the outlet mall before coming to our house.  After a while I got a phone call from Phoebe saying she left the headlights on and needed me to come and jump her car.  Believe it or not I was thrilled to!  It was about a half our away but I felt great to know that I was in a position to be able to run out and help my sister.  Thanks for that great memory Phoebe!  Keep on driving!

Publishing party

At the kids school they really big on publishing books.  The kids have been working on writing different books and then to reward to them they have a publishing party.  Kimball's class invited the families to come.  Warren and I were to able to make it.  Kimball was so happy to read his book about a "function machine".  He was the only one in the class with such an original book! 

Warren was so happy to be able to visit his brother at school.  Kimball is such a sweetheart, that he included Warren in with all of his friends.  I love these boys!! 

Go Fish!

 Meet the cutest angel fish to ever walk the planet.  The second grade did a musical last week.  Phoebe was chosen to be the angel fish.  This part has plenty of lines to memorize.  Phoebe was up for the task!  This was the part Phoebe was talking about for weeks.  This is the part she prayed to get.  Finally on day she came bursting through the door to tell me she had made the part.  As a mom I wanted to jump up and down with her.  I was praying she would get the part too.  I just hate to see any of my kids disappointed.

 I was able to make her a quick costume.  I had the pattern on hand and the fabric was cheap with my coupon.  She felt like a million bucks and you could tell.  She worked so hard on memorizing her line.  She practised everyday.  She even taught her brothers all the lines, songs and dance movements.   As you can tell from the picture below Kimball and Warren could have been right up there with her.

 This photo just cracks me up.  We had people behind us giggling too. 

 The musical was very darling.  It was all about differences but still getting along.  All kids need to learn this lesson. 

 The music had a rap song, a country line dancing song and a few others.  I am so thankful that my kids are in a great school and get to have fun opportunities like this.

(In this photo is an angel fish, a clown fish and a tiger shark.  Pretty cute, huh? )

Daddy's Shadow

 Not only does Warren look like a mini Jake, Warren adores everything Jake does.  He LOVES to follow him around and "helping" do whatever project Jake is up to.  Last week was Jake's spring break.  We also had good weather.  Jake was able to work on some of his work bench project.  Warren happily gathered all of his tools and joined his dad outside. 

 Jake gave him some wood blocks to work on.  He was thrilled.  He felt like daddy. 

 I can't get enough of those two!

A future wood worker in the making!

Bookshelf

 Phoebe has been wanting a big bookshelf.  She has a couple hundred books in her room.  Jake is more then happy to make her one.  He was able to get a great deal on Black Walnut.  He and Phoebe took a long time finding the right bookshelf pattern. 

 Jake has been teaching people all about wood working, and math.  It has helped her with her math skills too. 

I love that she is working in her nightgown.  Too cute.  With Jake in school it is going to be a slow project but it is something they love doing together. 

Bugs, bugs, bugs!

 March 3rd was the 1st grade music program at the kids school.  They really have an amazing school and music program.  The 1st grade did a musical about bugs.  They had lots of different bugs, fireflies, army ants, butterflies, and the best, spiders! I only say  the best is because that is what Kimball was.  He was so excited!  I was able to find a black shirt and pants at goodwill for a couple of bucks and whipped up this costume.  He loved it so much! 

 Kimball did not have any speaking parts but he was the post passionate singer.  He was so involved with all the songs and dance movement.

 This is only half the singers!  I couldn't fit them all in on the camera.  Do you see the one wearing the sombrero?  That is the cockroach.  He was one of my favorites.  So was the maggot. 

Look at  my cutie!  I love him.

Valentines

 I hope everyone had a fantastic Valentines Day.  We celebrated by getting the flu.  Or as Kimball dubbed it, The Love Bug.  It was not very loving!  Kimball, Warren, Phoebe and I all got hit with it.  Thankfully I had the kids Valentines done.  I found this really cute idea on one of the blogs I read.  I though it was perfect.  I used my cricut to cut out the hearts.  I bought Hershey Nuggets and wrapped them with cute paper.  I then had the kids put there thumb prints on all of them.  I liked drawing the cute little faces on them.

 Warren even made some.  He is getting really tired of not having class parties, like his brother and sister does.  So we made him a couple to give to his friends next door.  He even wrote his name on each one!  How cute is that. 

 I am having such a hard time with him growing up.  I want him as my baby forever!!  Well... I wouldn't mind if he would FINALLY get potty trained.  He sure is taking his dear sweet time on that. 

 I made a totally of 35. 

 A few days before we all got sick (meaning the weekend before Valentines)  We made a whole bunch of treats to pass out to friends.  It was a lot of fun.  We melted chocolate and dipped regular and strawberry flavored marshmallows in them.  We topped them with candy hearts. 

 I found these darling mini cup cake papers that had "sweet"  written on the bottom.  The were the perfect size for marshmallows. 

 Don't the look cute?  I really can't stand marshmallows, but the kids loved them.  The strawberry ones were there favorite. 

 We also dipped Oreo's in the chocolate and then covered them with different sprinkles. 

 And of course we had Sugar cookies.  Kimball was sick at the point so Jake, Phoebe, Warren and I did this part.  I think you all can see the three red frosted cookies with the piles of purple sprinkles.  Those were Warren's works of art.  Lick marks included. 

We then loaded them up on plates ( don't worry, we didn't give out Warrens licked ones) and passed them out to friends.  It was a lot of fun.  I hope to start this as a tradition for Valentines day.  We have one other Valentines tradition that we missed this year. On Valentines Eve Jake and I will make home made Valentines for each other and the kids.  We have to sit in the same room and NOT look at what the other is doing till they are all done.  I was way to sick with fever and chills to do this.  We hope to do it this weekend.    Jake did bring me roses with a little card.  That really made me feel better.  I though you all would like to read what he wrote me.  He is so an engineer!  To all of my other engineer wives out there, please enjoy!  Happy Valentines Day!
Sariah,
My brain in dead,
The test is through
I'm glad this test is over,
Because I can't wait to see you.
I LOVE YOU,
Jake. 

Didn't I marry the best man ever????