I love this picture!

I got this picture out of the Portuguese Liahona while on my mission. I found it the other day and scanned it to the computer. It was a little wrinkled so it looks a little ruff. Has anybody seen this picture before? I haven't seen anywhere. When I first got it, my thought was to put it in my son's room someday. Because of its condition, I would like to find a nice print of it.

Oh, I just noticed my hand there. That brings me to another story. We drew names in my family for Christmas and Cindy, one of my sisters-in-law, had my name. She got me a pretty bracelet from Target. Well, two days later it broke. I took it back and bought the one in the picture, a few days later it broke. I took it back and walked the store all over and could not decided what else to get. I figured I was not meant to have a bracelet so I looked at earrings. They didn't seem very strong to me either. I didn't look at clothes though and that is probably where I will head. If any of you know of something that you love from Target let me know.

Ice, Ice Baby!

We had quite the sleet and ice storm last weekend. We had low temperatures following it as well. A lot of it came on Saturday and Sunday. David spent those days chauffeuring people that work with him to and from work. He had his 4 wheel drive "truck" that made it easier to get around. The kids had Monday off from school for Martin Luther King Jr.'s day. George called it Junior's day until he was so boldly corrected by his older brother and sister. That is probably all he could take into his brain from such a long name. I had to chuckle. On Tuesday they had no school because of the weather. It was a long weekend for mom.















It was really cold so I got Lucy out there for a minute to get a picture. She loves being outside. There is Ginger with her little purse. Later she brought it inside and said she wanted to save some snow for Daddy. I opened it and there was some snow. We put it in the freezer and showed Daddy when he got home.

These guys asked if they could pose. Nobody mess with them, they look tough! Except for their angelic smiles.

Who is their mother?

I'll gladly claim these angels!!!! Here are some of our crazy moments over the past month or so.

Lucy loves to be into everything. Although, I was surprised she had the guts to climb on the piano like that.







Yum! this paint water is good.








Lucy, just like her sisters, loves to have pretty hair.
I'll do something to her hair then just rave about it and tell her to go show someone. She loves to show her daddy.






Ginger, need I say more. She loves to wear dresses and shoes. She usually has my old high heel shoes and Callie's long skirts on. Then she takes every opportunity to escape outside. She loves being a girl.














George, falling asleep in the car. How comfortable is that?















George made his own mustache out of scotch tape. He's become quite creative since he began Kindergarten.









Carson's lounge wear after church. My dad used to leave his navy calf socks on then wear those "cool" jamz pants, like MC Hammer, after church. He usually had meetings later on in the evening.



















Callie got the crown and veil with the Rapunzel Barbie for Christmas. This is Princess Callie coming back from taking out the garbage.

We've recovered

It is no fun being sick over the holidays. David took the Callie, Ginger, and Lucy to an urgent care and had them checked for strep. Before the tests came back the doctor had already written out a prescription for all of them and gave them to David. The tests came back negative. Ginger and Lucy seemed to be improving but Callie still wasn't feeling well. She missed five days of school. two days after she went to the urgent care I decided to take her back to the doctor. It was a different office than before. I was concerned because she had had that kidney infection two years ago. I had them check her urine too plus strep again. After struggling to get her to pee in a cup her strep test came back positive and her urine did also. So we got a stronger prescription for her and I told the doctor that I was just going to put Ginger on her antibiotic without being tested again. A few days later Carson and George had a slight fever and some stomach issues. It was the Friday before Christmas and I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't strep. We would be visiting my brother Curtis and his family on Christmas. Well, the boys test came back positive too. I then decided to go ahead and use Lucy's prescription and get everyone on antibiotics. The next day David went in to the urgent care and he was positive. I never got checked but seem to be okay. It was so confusing having all of them on different schedules with their medicine. Anyway we all survived and had a nice Christmas. I'll write more about that later, I seem to be behind.

Sick days

For the last few weeks there have been several people ask me if my kids have gotten sick yet. I thankfully said no. I guess its going around and around here. Well it hit us. Ginger has had a low grade fever since Monday. I think it was more like Sunday that she wasn't feeling very well because we had Stake conference and she was all over the place. Her checks were rosy and she seemed so tired. It was a long two hours to say the least!

Then Callie got sick Tuesday morning with a low grade fever too. She stayed out of school that day but was sad because that night was her Christmas concert. The 2nd and 3rd graders sang together so Carson had to be there also. I didn't know what to do. You know how they always feel better once they get some Tylenol in them. David was in Branson on business so I tried to get someone to watch the little ones. That didn't work so I decided to clean them all up and head out the door. I told Callie don't touch anyone. If Carson wasn't in it, we wouldn't have gone. The younger kids did really well for the first 3/4 of it. The last two songs we walked around the school. I met one of Callie's friends and her mom which was nice. It helps to at least meet them before they come over to play. After finding Carson we piled in the car to get an ice cream at McDonald's. The kids got their own sundae which they thought was cool. Remember that feeling of sitting down to a huge ice cream cone or banana split. It probably wasn't that huge it just looked that way to a little kid.

Lucy doesn't have a fever but threw up Wednesday night and has had diarrhea today. I just hope it avoids the rest of us and all of you out there. No fun!

A day trip

For awhile now David has had a dream of having a truck and trailer. He's looked at trucks and vans that could pull a good size trailer. We found a suburban that had the engine he wanted with a tow package. So now we have part of his dream. We will be making a trip out to Colorado, Utah, Oregon, and Idaho in the summer and this "truck" will make it much more roomy on the road.

Anyway, with this new "truck" we had to go for a drive. On Saturday we drove up to Adam-ondi-ahman and the areas around. We drove through Hamilton, MO(population 1,700) where the founder of JC Penney was born. There was Penney High School and a museum of JC(James Cash) Penney. I always wondered what the J and the C stood for.

After there we went onto Adam-ondi-ahman. It was really beautiful. A little gray and brown because of the season but the spirit there was awesome. I can't wait to go back in the spring or summer. We got out, ate lunch, and walked around a bit.Looking in opposite directions.


(above) Lucy enjoying a twizzler and the sunshine. (below) Carson, Callie, George, and Ginger on the valley floor.


From there we went up to Bethany(population 3,700). David had called a realtor in the Far West area and he asked if we were related to the Pettijohns in Bethany. I guess they own a Ford dealership up there. We didn't talk to anyone but we got some cool pictures of our name. After looking some around the town we took off towards home. Bethany is about an hour and a half from Independence. As always its nice to be home after being in a car.

Quote of the day #2

While pouring a glass of milk for a thirsty Ginger she says, "Mom, you're a good milk machine."