Finally a note from the Peterons!

Well my computer wasn't reading my card so I didn't feel the need to post until it started working and now...it works! K, this is a picture of Daphne and our new Foster son Jaron. This was so so funny because I had taken a bunch of pictures of them here and zoomed out and there was little Tommy sidled up to Daph smiling sweetly like he was supposed to be there and I had no idea he had even come out. I laughed pretty hard.

We need some new snow! The kids love snowmobiling so much! They all just stand in the field across the road and Joel takes two at a time.

"I got too much toilet paper"

The boys playing on the computer

Sleepover on the big pillow! We have now surpassed the size of the pillow and one person has to take a turn only being kind of on the pillow. Millie was the fist volunteer.

I love using every ounce of old house we can. Joel almost threw this chunk of tongue and grove wall out when he cut out the door for the bathroom. What? Crazy I know! Luckily I made him save it and we used it for the seat of the bench we made for our room!

This is what running in Clarkston looks like for about half the year! This is Darcy Katie and I. Joel and I have done our 8 miler now. Just four more long runs until the half marathon!

Maizy's foray into cake decorating. She was a little disappointed it wasn't perfect the first time. Maybe now they will be a little more appreciative when they make their requests for birthday cakes! :)

This is my little boy! He wanted to get out the cars basket but I told him he couldn't until he cleaned up his "projects". I looked down and he was filling up the bucket in his loader with Legos and dumping them into his Lego bucket.

I was talking to Mom on the phone and here came Tommy with our tripod. I don't even know where he found it and our camera (which he isn't allowed to touch without supervision) and was trying to hook it up. I knew immediately what he was doing "are you being Unca' Dan?" "Yup" of course he was and he took literally hundreds of pictures. I was just thinking I should have taken a picture of our new bench when I saw this one. Tommy's self portrait with the bench behind him.

This is what Maizy's backpack looks like every single day. Why? Why would you ever need more than one book at a time? Aleisa she should have been yours!

 

This has been a big month for Miles! He has had a hard time with "yes" and "no". He has been able to communicate it to us forever without actually using the words and I don't know why it was so hard for him to use these two words. He could use pecs correctly but couldn't say yes or no. He now can communicate them perfectly and does so very proudly! In the store he walked over to the hot dogs and picked them up and smiled at me. I asked what he wanted and he said "Hot dog, please yes?" I was so proud of him! But hot dogs aren't healthy so I scolded him, told him no, and to put them back. Just kidding! He knows he can get ANYTHING out of me when he uses his words. In fact we bough two packages. :) He has been reading his early reader Lightning McQueen books every night and when he gets a hard word that is tricky he pulls the blanket over his head and giggles before he can go on. So sweet.

 

As Mom said last week she came down for Caleb's ordination and I am so glad she did! Besides getting to hang out with her, she saved the day in Sacrament meeting! We were sitting there completely silently and concentrating on the speaker like always :) and Joel says "Megan (hands me Tommy) and says "It's gum". Oh my gosh! For some reason Tommy had stuck his gum on his eye! As I went to grab it he rubbed his eye. Instantly sticking his eyelashes closed and making him look a little bit like his eye was melted shut because the gum was skin colored. I took him out and was wondering what in the world I was going to do. SO I did the most logical thing. Told my Mommy on him! I went upstairs and got Mom and she happened to have hair spray in her car. I took him in the bathroom and Mom poured it on a paper towel and wiped and wiped. Tommy has extremely long eye lashes and I thought it was never going to come all the way off. But 15 minutes later we walked back into sacrament meeting like nothing had happened! Thank you Mother!



Future Wrestlers

                          Here is a video of 2 of our little future wrestlers.

No Fun Here

A stomach bug has been making it's way through our family this past week.  

The End.

Tyler and Levi catching some much needed rest yesterday.

Where did January go?

I'm excited for today.  Everyone is coming to dinner......at least everyone who lives within a 20 mile radius.  :)  We haven't had a Sunday get together since before Thanksgiving.....I think.....it has been so long, I can't really say for sure.

This will be an interesting week at work.  Chris left yesterday for a week long cruise.  I am hoping nothing too exciting comes up.  We have lots of good help, so that shouldn't be a problem.

I hope everyone gets a chance to write on the blog today.  I really need to see what everyone has been up to.  :)  Well, you know me.....not too much excitement going on in my life.   I hope you all remember to keep our sweet Suzanne in your prayers!  She is a sweetheart....breaks my heart to see her struggle so.

I love you all!   XOXOXOX

A fun weekend ( Actually more like 24 hours :) )

Yesterday I drove to Clarkston.  It was a beautiful day and a fun drive.  I haven't been since Thanksgiving.  I got a text from Caleb last week informing me that he was being ordained a priest, and inviting me to attend.  I was excited to be able to go!  It was a short but very eventful trip.  I visited Megan and Joel and family, met Jaron Wallace (  Daphne's boyfriend and the Peterson's boarder), made the obligatory trip to hobby Lobby, watched a movie at the Arnold's, went to church,  saved Tommy's eye from being glued shut with very sticky gum...stuck to his very long eyelashes, ( you had to be there  :) ), went to Caleb's ordination,  drove to the farm to get cereal, drove home!  Seriously not much more than 24hours.....  like I said... fun trip!  Other than that, not too much going on  oh, and in case anyone is interested, Jaron received his mission call to Tokyo Japan!

Have a wonderful week!  I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!!!!!

Go Broncs!!

Tyler had two wrestling meets this week- Senior night was here on Tuesday and then there was a tournament in Bullhead City (about 1 hr. away) Friday and Saturday.  They had a pretty good tournament going 4-3 in the team portion. Individually they had three guys place Aramis Rodriguez took 2nd, Gilbert Rivera took 6th and Matt French took 5th.    

Taylor’s going on a scout campout this weekend and had to take all of his gear to mutual on Wednesday.  Someone in our ward donated a backpack frame for him to use and he’s really excited about it! 

A couple weeks ago I was invited to be part of a dessert club with some other sisters in our ward.  It’s kind of like book club, except we get together and eat dessert and instead of talking about a book, we just talk about whatever comes up J  I like this idea because I don’t have much extra time to just sit and read a whole book- haha!  The first one was Thursday evening and it was pretty fun-- Nice to have a little girl time.  I will definitely look forward to it each month J

Friday was Taylor’s 13^th Birthday!!  Man, we are getting old!  How do we have a teenager already?!?  But seriously, what a great kid! He’s always willing to help out and has a pretty good attitude most of the time.  He’s excited to be learning how to play the trumpet and he loves to listen to music. 

Each year Havasu has a Balloon Festival.  The balloons are amazing!  This year we decided to go to the “field glow” which is right after sunset and all the balloons light up at the same time.  It’s pretty cool!!  Everyone had a great time!  Tyler was at wrestlingL, but I’m sure he had a good time there too! 

We are all looking forward to a day off tomorrow.  I’m hoping to either sleep in past 6:15 or take an afternoon nap! 

Oh- and Hooray for the Broncos making it to the Superbowl!!  Should be a fun Sunday here in a couple weeks!  J

Radfords

Well, Dan is making a late night trip to Walmart for some much needed medicine for poor Sylvie June Bug... She has been on antibiotics for 3 days and was acting fine today until about 2 hours ago. She got a severely red face, a fever of 101, a cough that makes her cry, and horrible diarrh.... well, you know. So I called our Pediatrician on call and got a lot of advice on stuff to use for her. I really hope it works! It's so scary having a sick little baby! Dan's brother Aaron is coming over to help administer a blessing. So grateful for that.
We got Stori on antibiotics for Bronchitis, strep throat, and ear inflamation on Monday. Then Syvlie started to get really sick on Thursday, so we made our 5th Dr. visit in 3 weeks to get her on antibiotics also! haha I feel so dumb every time I walk in to that office cause I know what they're probably thinking, "here comes that crazy mom who takes her kids in over a sneeze!" :)
We did manage to fit in a few fun things before the 2nd round of sickness hit.
We celebrated Stori's 2.5 birthday by taking her anywhere she wanted to go. She chose Sam's Club! Hahaha...for their pizza of course! She's so dang cute! I wrote an update of her on my other blog. My favorite quote from her recently is this:
 When getting ready to go potty, stori lifted the toilet seat, saw a little piece of toilet paper in there and said, "oh noooo! That poor wipe is so sad cause he can't find his family. I forgot to flush him!" 
haha

Earlier today (saturday) Dan spent the morning applying for Law School, while I started the long and horrible task of packing! We move out to mom's in less than 2 weeks I think, so I finally started filling boxes and throwing so many things away! It feels kind of good to sort through everything. We don't know exactly when we'll be moving away to Law School---maybe 1 month, or maybe 6 months---so most of our stuff is going straight to the storage unit. Fun stuff.
Today we also took a break and let Stori play at Arctic Circle. And let it be documented that today marks the first day that she ate bread!!! It was my chicken sandwich, and I covered it in fry sauce so she  would try it---and she liked it! I wouldn't say love, but she didn't throw it up, so that's good! :)

Dan also got some of his camera equipment back from his dad's insurance! There was a $1,000 deductible so he wasn't able to get everything he had back...but better than nothing! :) Dan's been much happier these few days now that he can carry around a camera again!

Well, that's all! love you all mucho

We had the whole play area to ourselves! 

Stori was beyond thrilled when we took Sylvie out of her infant bath and let her "swim" with her! I think Sylvie liked it too! :)

after 2.5 years of waiting, the Car Cart was finally available for her to ride in! The guy in the photo is Jovi from Kennewick. We saw him at Broulims and he is so cute with Stori. 

We're back...

We have been in such a sickness rut lately! We got the usual Christmas sickness (I posted lots about that on my blog), and now Stori is sick again. I watched some kids this week and turns out they have bronchitis and ear infections....so I think that might be what Stori has! YAY! :(
Like mom said, we have decided to move back in. I thought it would be good to wait to move until we found out where we are going to go for Law school, but Dan might lose his job in February so we decided it's best to move in now and then possibly move sometime around june/july to start earning residency wherever we go.
Mel-started playing vball for the Sugar womens league again (suffering from post baby body , and broken wrist issues). Squishes children hourly.
Dan-finished all the application process's for Law school...now to just spend the money to officially apply to all of them. Built the millennium falcon while wearing his millenium falcon shirt.
Stori-sick again. Being my best helper with Sylvie June, and loves to have her hair fixed like Minnie Mouse
Sylvie-will be 5 months on Tuesday. Started rice cereal and loves it. Drinks from a little sipper, and is has so much chub!
Well, that is all.... Oh, we have been "sledding" a few times... pretty much dan just pulls all of us :)
And we built our 3rd annual life-size snowman! So fun!

finished the Millennium Falcon while wearing his Millennium Falcon shirt! :)

Sylvie June bug Snowman, and Stori Rose Snowman

Love you all!

The Doldrums of Mid-Winter

Hi family,
Not a lot going on right now. We're in the holding pattern that is January. The best of winter is behind us, spring is still a long way off! :)
Two exciting things with our family though: Next week Caleb is getting ordained a priest! Anyone who is going to be in the neighborhood is invited to the ordination next Sunday. ;) And Lily started piano. She LOVES it. Asher's teacher quit in January so he started with a new teacher and Lily started too. It was fun when I went in to pick up Asher the teacher was walking behind him and mouthed to me, "He's REALLY good! This is going to be fun!" So now I'm a little worried she may have some expectations for Lily!
And when I say nothing is going on, I mean nothing going on. See, I'm done. :)
Love you all!

Goodbye Christmas!

Well I finally finished putting Christmas away for yet another year.  Well, almost all, I still need to put the Nativities that I display in my hutch away, but that is easy.  I am sooo frustrated, because this year I realized that I can not physically take my trees down by myself!  I have always been able to do it. ( even though it is nice to have help....thank you Dan and Melanie  :)   Last Sunday afternoon I started taking all of the ornaments off of my upstairs family room tree.  When I finished, I took the top section off  of the tree.  Then, I TRIED to dismantle the other sections..... and tried and tried and tried!   Oh so annoying!!!  The really sad part is that not only could I put the trees up and take them down by myself before, but I could also haul them out of the basement and up all of the stairs by myself!   I am turning in to such a wimp!  :(

Melanie and Dan have decided to move in with me until they leave for law school.... maybe save a little money.  That should be fun!  They will be moving in the end of January.

I feel bad when I don't write on the blog, but when I do write, I never have anything new and exciting to report.  :)  I guess it is important to remind all of you how much I love and appreciate you!   XOXOXO

Back at it!

Well, we made it through the first week back after break.  Jon stayed home sick with a head cold Wednesday- Friday, but other than that we all survived.  It’s nice to be back on a schedule.

Tyler had a wrestling meet this past weekend. Our team did pretty good, but not quite well enough to make the finals.  3 of our guys lost matches where they would have medaled had they won. 

Over the break we moved Ryder into Taylor and Jon’s room and Levi in with Max.  We painted the older boy’s room and cleaned out Max’s walk-in closet and put all the toys in there.  We’ve been going through and getting rid of lots of stuff as we go.  It feels good to de-junk a little bit.  One thing I can’t decide on is whether or not to get rid of the bassinet, bumbo seat, and baby bouncer.  Not sure if we’re done having babies yet, or if we’re going to try one more time for a little girl. 

Taylor is in Band this quarter at school.  He brought home a trumpet from California and has been practicing a little.  He said there is some kind of contraption that you can attach to the trumpet where it mutes the sound of the horn, but there’s earphones and the person playing can still hear it.  Does anyone know what it’s called?  I’m pretty sure we’re going to want to invest in one of them J

Jon is enjoying 5^th grade and 11 yr. old scouts.  He has a really good scout leader who helps the boys get a good start on all of the requirements.  Over the break we found a treadmill on Craigslist for a decent price and implemented a new rule.  The boys have to earn their electronic time- they earn ½ hr. of electronic time for every ½ hr. on the treadmill or the trampoline. So far, Jon’s the only one who’s opted to use the treadmill and he said it wasn’t too bad. We’re trying to help them be active and hope this works.  Tyler and I made goals to get fit too. 

Max is glad to be back to preschool and is getting good at recognizing letters and numbers-especially on the computer keyboard and the Netflix menu.  He loves to play Roblox and jump on the trampoline.  He thinks it’s pretty fun to run on the treadmill too, but only lasts a few minutes. 

Levi is a Sunbeam now!  He seems much too little not to be in Nursery anymore, but he has a great teacher and seems to be liking sharing time and class.  He is at such a fun age where he’s learning a lot and just recently he’s been enunciating how he talks and pronouncing each syllable very clearly.  Each morning when he wakes up, he tells everyone “good morning” and when he says “I lub you” and then you say “I lub you too”, he says “Me too.”  So sweet J

Ryder is growing up way too fast!  He’s walking around furniture like a pro and is even standing by himself for a few seconds at a time.  He finally figured out the crawling thing, but only likes to crawl on the rug in the front room and the carpet in mom and dad’s room. I don’t blame him- It probably hurts to crawl on tile. He will be 10 months old this week! The latest thing he’s been doing is sticking his arms up above his head and waving his hands with a big grin on his face.  Cutest. Thing. Ever!   

Well, that’s our update for now.  Oh- did I mention how much we LOVE 9:00 Church!!  It’s so nice to have the whole afternoon to relax and spend time with family.  7:30 Ward Council on the other hand- not liking that so much.   I guess there’s always a trade-off.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Hazel Manger Park Song

Break went by SO fast! My mom has slowly started taking down the Christmas decorations and all that's left is the village. To do something fun while we were still on break, my dad took Cole, Tate, Lucy and me (Molly) to Champoeg park for a scooter/bike ride while sick Grace stayed home and watched all of the Star Wars movies and my mom worked on her talk for Relief Society. After that we went to a hay barn where we played for awhile. The weather is making us think that its spring time but we're reminded its not because of the cold. Lastly, for this year our church starts at 12 and ends at 3 and it was hard because of fast sunday today. Whenever there was a quiet moment in Young Womens, you could hear all of the stomachs growling. That's going to take a while to get used to...

Love You All! The Durst Family

Well, here are a few pictures of our Holiday Season. Bunch of sickos! Daphne avoided it with pro-active pepto bismol and positive thinking (seriously--she went to work, bought and took a bunch of pepto and told herself repeatedly that she was fine!) Caleb avoided it by staying outside as much as he could... the rest of us were miserable. And I haven't been that miserable in a long long time. I think it was the norovirus. A friend of my posted a CDC report about it on facebook that described our Christmas to a T.
There's not a lot going on around here now that the holidays are done. I love the holidays but it's also kind of nice to get back into routines.  I'm still putting Christmas away--almost done. I'm usually ready to clean up and stop the Christmas music on the 26th every year but this year I kept enjoying our trees and the music through the end of the year.
Sam started attending Senior Primary today. I seriously can't stand it. He also FINALLY bore his testimony without help (he was convinced he couldn't do it alone since Lily usually helps him).  Bron is a genealogy machine. She found a bunch of names for Daphne and her boyfriend Jaron to go do baptisms for and found Ken and I each a name to take for endowments.  I love going to the temple anyway but how cool to take a member of your own family! Our ward family history specialist wants to teach her how to do indexing. Ummm. Can't think of anything else to report for anyone else in the family. Just one of those lulls right now!
Love you all! (There, Tyler. Happy? :) )