i hate august

Old buildings are not charming. They are hellish saunas that make it extremely difficult for librarians to tolerate little children touching and moving and misplacing all their things. Like the books. And then they have faculty room pop machines with broken refrigeration that have been sold out of Diet Dr. Pepper since spring. That is all.
I have spent the last three days in the story center with sweat rolling down my back and looking at little shiny sweaty faces. It can't be safe. Nothing helps. I open the windows in the morning and close them when it gets warmer, run the broken swamp cooler and move my old little fan around the room. Then I come home and the weather man says it's the hottest summer ever on record. It's heartbreaking to say goodbye to summer but once school starts, and it becomes obvious it's over, I just want fall. So ready for cooler days, colored leaves, and--oh yeah, a paycheck will be fun too.
How I make it bearable (playing :) ) -- 

Our  library and character theme this year is soaring and all our merchandise has owls so I made this tree. The owls are holding banners with each classes name.

Decided to clean, organize, decorate, and actually utilize my office this year. It's my happy place.

Story center decorated with back-to-school books and a chain we made in the spring with all of our favorite books written on the links

Who are the Radfords???

Well hello old blog! As you all know, I had a baby! That is my exciting news! I wrote an update on my BLOG if you want to read anything about Sylvie's birthday.

We spent several days at mom's house and having her spoil us... yummy new food/napping/walking/ice cream/movies....all great things! It was so much fun!

This last weekend Dan's parents were in town so we went to Jackson on Saturday. The kids (weird I can say that plural) did great! Sylvie got SOOOO much attention form strangers. I forgot how popular newborns are. And especially red heads! :) 

We have had a great 2 weeks since Sylvie has been here! I love being a mom and love my cute little kids! Dan loves his family too... he has to fight with mom and me to hold her! :) 

Life is good! Hope everyone has a great week! (pictures from my iPhone on my blog)

Tut, Tut- It looks like Rain!

We are loving the weather here in Havasu right now!  The past couple days it's been a little cooler and cloudy/rainy with thunder and lightening too. 

These are some pictures of the sunset lastnight:

Dark gray clouds covered the entire sky except for a little space where the sun was going down.  It was pretty cool-looking.

It almost felt like a fall day this afternoon.  There was a slightly cool (to us) breeze and the kids were FINALLY able to play outside without suffering from heat exhaustion!  They had fun and it was nice to have a little quiet in the house :)

Levi wanted to hold Ryder after church today. He looked so small sitting behind Ryder! Look at those thunder thighs- ha,ha!!  We love our chubby baby boy!

 

Ryder still has clogged tear ducts so we were finally able to schedule an appointment for them to be cleaned out.  He has to be put under for the procedure, which I'm not too excited about, but if it means he doesn't have to have goop in his eyes all the time, then I guess that's what it will take.  We have to take him to Phoenix on Sept. 13th to have it done, so we are planning to stay the night there.  It will be fun to get out of Havasu for a couple days and it will be so nice to have the goopy eye situation taken care of!

Hope everyone's doing well!

Big Wind....More Branches down!

My blog posts are always so boring.....and no pictures.  This has been a really fun week.  Melanie, Dan and family stayed with me from Friday night until Wed evening.  Holding little newborn babies is the best way to spend the day!  :)  We got some fun picture taking time in.  ( not sure how much fun Dan had....  )  Melanie and Dan invited me to Sunday dinner today, then they decided to bring Sunday dinner to my house.....  more fun picture taking......  results to follow on Mel's blog post!

Yesterday I was cleaning my garage, and I got a call from Josh informing me that Jefferson county was under tornado watch.  That made me a little nervous, because the guy I called to give me a bid on taking down the large branch that was split on two sides, said it should be fine unless we had 50 to 60 mph winds.....  :(  Well, it didn't come down, but a lot of other branches did, including a good sized one that took out the volleyball net!  Fun times!

Next week is preparation for the fair, so I work every day.  The week after that is the fair, so I work everyday again.  More fun times!

Hope everyone has a good week!  XOXOXO

 Hello!  This is Kristie IT's late and school starts tomorrow, so I'll be short:)  Corey put pictures on facebook from ID on our nice camera, and some on here too maybe, but I had a few more from my phone that I liked. We sure miss everyone!
We had a great week, trying to fit in all the "last week of summer" stuff.  Including hair cuts.  This was Hazel's first trim.  She was a crazy girl as you can see:)  We cut off her "tail" or "mullet" and it looks a lot better:)
We spent time at several swimming parties this week, and spent Tuesday at Hurricane Harbor, the Six Flags swim park since Corey had the day off.  Friday night we had friends over for mexican

food at last night Corey and I went to the Cowboys game.  It was so fun!
We loved having Bridget and Scott here the week before that.  Hazel asked for you this week Bridget:)  We ate at yummy restaurants and loved visiting!
Good luck with the beginning of school everyone!

 mom in nursery.  I took the picture through that little window in the door:)  Hazel's in the 4th of july outfit

Peterson's Big update and kinda long

Hey look, I was the last one to post too! NOT a happy time of year around here for the Peterson household. We were just finishing up our house and getting to do fun things and then the public school system takes my babies away from me! This year was the saddest for me yet. Millie was home though, she doesn't start until tomorrow. She and Tommy play so good when it is just the two of them. They never leave one another's side and they both LOVE riding their bikes up and down the sidewalk and around the driveway. I ran to Aleisa's house to drop something off and when I got back Millie could ride her bike without training wheels even though she said she didn't want to try it until she was Daphne's age. Tommy would get his dump truck and push it up and down the sidewalk for as long as Millie was out there riding her bike. Once he realized he fit in his little Radio Flyer bike he LOVED it! Millie got cowboy boots for school shoes and he was bound and determined to wear them every second. He would sneak them out and wear them all of the time. My friend Katie has a little boy who Tommy loves named Owen. Owen called at 9:45 at night to see if Tommy was still awake and brought over a pair of his old boots for Tommy to wear. I have never seen Tommy more excited about anything. The first thing he said in the morning was "Can I wear my boots? They fit me. Owen gave them to me. That was so nice of him!" He never takes them off. I even let him wear them with shorts. The day after Tommy realized his little big wheels bike fit him I decided to let Millie and Tommy ride to the post office realizing I would probably have to carry his bike most of the way there and back. No, these two kids are so different from my first two. Millie rode back and forth and Tommy just hauled butt the whole way there and back which is almost a mile. I tried to push him on the uphill part and he turned around and saw me and yelled "STOP IT!" so I did. We finally got our garage door! It isn't hooked up to a motor yet (supposedly he is coming to do that tomorrow) but at least the door is up!
     The kids LOVE school. Maizy couldn't say enough good about her teacher and her class. Miles is all happy and runs to his bus. Maizy found out the day before school that the little girl who gets bullied, that Maizy friended is going to a charter school. We were at the park in Trenton playing and she walked over to Mitzy's house to see if she wanted to come play and her Dad told Maizy that she had already started school. Maizy was so much sadder than I thought she would be. She came back and told me and then her eyes filled with tears and she said "Mom, what if there is no one at the school to defend her?" Oh, my heart just broke for her and I told her Charter schools were different and I am sure she will be fine. :(
     I think I have decided to do the Halloween Half marathon in Provo. I have to see what Joel's work schedule is but I think it sounds really fun. I think I have even talked Joel into doing it with me! It is 7 weeks after LOTOJA so he should be fine right? Saturday I was going to do 7 or 8 miles and Joel was going to pick me up on the way to Logan. We had the plan all figured out and where he was going to pick me up, etc. Well, I had just headed out of town and was a couple of miles away when I saw a hearse pass me. I had just thought "I wonder who died?" when I literally stopped in my tracks, screamed, looked at my watch and ran as fast as I could back to my house. It was 9:30 and I was supposed to have three dozen cookies to the church by 10:00! It was the fastest 4 miles of the year I think! I made some rice crispy treats because that was the fastest thing to make and ran them up there and surprise, no one was there. I talked to my friend today that was in charge and she said they didn't even have the food until 1:30. Joel did a 115 mile ride on Saturday, he is getting all trained up for his big ride. Here are some pictures of the house. These are before our furniture is moved in so it looks quite a bit different now. But first...this is one handsome family!

Hall to stairs 

 

 Master

Girls 

 

Kids bathroom 

 

 Boys room

Master bath 

I don't have a picture of Mom's apt yet because Joel hasn't cleaned all of his stuff out yet!

 Millie is browning hamburger with her protective eyewear and her puppies under the sweater watching her.

 With the golden locks

 Without :(

 The girls sold homemade lemonade before the Martin Harris Pageant one night. They made quite a bit of money and went through 5 pitchers of lemonade! Millie said "did you know that Maizy said they used me to sell the lemonade?" I asked "No. Because you are cute?" She said "Yeah, it was kind of weird, I have never been used like that before, it worked pretty good!" Oh I hope she hasn't learned an inappropriate lesson from that!

 She likes dogs.

 

 

 

 

 I saw the two of them out the window and it was so dang cute! Sam was sitting with his arm around her and comforted her as she cried. She couldn't find Sheriff her teddy bear.

First day of school! 

Our house now with the garage door on!

A little from the Peterson's

I am almost at a point in my life now that I can post....almost. The house is basically done and I can now CLEAN! As in, put stuff where it actually goes, clean! I am pretty excited about that! Joel had six days off so we worked on the house, went to bear lake, camping, Martin Harris Pageant and worked on the house. Don't worry, we still don't have a garage door! I got yet another e-mail from him after it was supposed to be installed about how it will be installed next Wednesday (this is almost two months now) and I just replied that it was actually almost funny at this point. He didn't write back so I hope I didn't anger him! I will try to post some pictures and an actual post next week. We have closets done and dressers moved in and all beds in the appropriate rooms! YAY! If anyone has any extra really big furniture send it my way. My room looks completely empty and kind of dumb. Tommy is also now potty trained 100%. Not even accidents at nights or during naps! Kids start school and I can't even express how depressing this is to me that Millie is going to kindergarten! I think it gets harder with each kid that goes! I will only have one child at home and none in my belly. This is definitely a first for me and I don't like it at all! I brought this up to my husband today but he didn't seem to feel bad for me. I am only 36! Plenty of time for having a few more! :) I love you all! Have a great week and stay safe!
Megan

Back in full swing.....

First of all- Congrats to Mel & Dan on their new addition!! Hope things are going well for you and that sweet baby girl! 

Well, we are back in full swing of a regular routine.  Max started preschool on Monday.  He was pretty nervous, but he's settling in quickly and starting to be excited to go again. 

We went to the lake Monday night for FHE. Jon had his school open house on Thursday. Our garage door opener stopped working on Friday so Tyler was trying to figure out what was wrong and got electrocuted. He's fine (thank goodness!!), but it definitely caught him off guard. Saturday morning Tyler had to take a CPR class for wrestling and when he got home I took Taylor, Jon, and Max with me to go help clean the Church. Saturday afternoon Taylor and Jon went to their Primary Teacher's house for a class party.  They had fun swimming and eating, but they both got pretty sunburned because they forgot sunscreen :(   Saturday evening we went grocery shopping and then picked up free dinner from KFC with a coupon Tyler won at a Teacher Appreciation Day he went to at Staples a couple weeks ago.  We've had a pretty good week, but the weekend goes by WAY too fast!  Hope everyone else had a good week too!

Check out Ryder's new trick- He thinks it's pretty neat :)

Busy Busy Summer!

Wow, what an eventful summer we have all had!  Work has been busy, and frankly a little overwhelming for me.....  lots of changes, lots of catering and weddings..... and, Chris and Cindy had a new baby, so he has been gone a lot!  All of you are busy either with school, or getting ready for school, traveling, recuperating,or just getting back into your routines.  This past week was a fun one..... I love welcoming new babies!  Makes me miss all of my grandkids even more, though!

I had a guy remove the tree branch.  He found huge cracks in one of the larger branches while he was up in the tree.... :(  I am going to call someone this week to come and check things out. The guy who cut the branch down, was nice enough to cut it into smaller chunks as he took it down.... made it easier to haul it off....right Dan?  Dan was kind enough to haul it all out to the field for me.  Which, by the way, he was able to do because my lawnmower is now in tip top shape..... thanks to Mr. Bill Aullman!  He and Suzanne made several trips to check it out and work on it.  It was so very nice of them!  Dan also mowed the field for me! Thanks Dan!

I hope everyone is settled enough to find time to make weekly blog posts!  LOVE TO ALL  XOXOXO
 

What?! I'm supposed to still have a week to do things...

Hi everyone! Short post today (hey, at least it's a post! ) I'm so excited that I was finally able to get away with my family for a few days (next week we get pigs again. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!). But now I'm in panic mode. I've been thinking I had a week of summer left when we got back--selective amnesia I guess. Got my schedule and now remember all the work days and training this next week along with registering all my kids for school. And just for fun we're throwing in a trip to Iowa for new pigs (just Ken), five last dentist appointments and two back-to-school nights! Whew. Love you all!
I put some of our pictures in a separate post. Can't figure out how to combine them today. :)

Just a few of our 108 pictures (in a little over two days... :) )

 Love this picture of Daph!

 Lily was star-struck and in Heaven!

Bummer!