Goodbye Garage!

Phew! How does time fly so quickly sometimes?

Last Tuesday we decided to look at our house and see what needed to be done to it to finally finish it. The biggest project was the garage. So wednesday there was a gas guy (hee hee) out to cap off the gas to the furnace, thursday we had our contractor out to cut off all of the electric and Friday morning a gigantic dumpster was delivered. Oh, and we rented a storage unit for everything that was in the garage!
So now we have everything moved out of the garage, into storage and started demolition. Yikes, what a mess!

Here's Colton swinging the first blow. (Ok Jesse staged it. He really can't hit that hard!)

Oh yeah, with all of the moving and shuffling we came across about 5 of these! Here's a black widow next to a nickel. We saw another one bigger than this, but I didn't want to get the camera before it got squished!

Didja miss mee?

Hey there! Sorry it has been so long.
So much "bloggable" stuff has happened that I did have the time to blog.
So to recap what has happened for the past MONTH!...

1. My sister and her husband and two boys came up for a visit. We stayed here, my dads' in Helena and a cabin near Crow Creek Falls. Here's some pics:

Christopher and Blake playing in a stream
Cooking dogs over the campfire

Connie looking for sapphires ( I love this pic)
(looking for sapphires: picking through lots of gravel, they look like windshield glass. She found the biggest one and it was a little smaller than a dime and as thick as a pencil eraser- before being cut)
Connie and Evan, and Jesse and Colton playing on rocks where we went fishing

Here are a bunch more pictures that they took (and the rest of mine once I upload them to their site)


2. Colton's first day of First Grade!!!
(it always makes me think of the Chris Rice song, "Billy Joe McGuffrey was a really clumsy kid... and it goes on and on.)


3. We tagged along on one of Jesse's work trips and spent two days in San Diego!
Here's a few pics, but I'll add more on a blog just for our trip.

Colton got his face painted at the San Diego Zoo

The boys at the Aquarium at Lego Land

Feeding/Petting the dolphins at SeaWorld
(I stood in line for a long time to buy 6 anchovies for $12.00)

Jesse and Colton (last row) on Atlantis ride-SeaWorld

Me and Colton after the big drop on the Atlantis ride
(he actually did enjoy it)

4. Not as significant, but noteworthy. While we were in SD, my bro-in-law informed me they were opening up a new suffix (probably not the correct term) for internet things (.com, .org, .gov) and he grabbed www.cortney.me for me. Isn't that cool?! Right now it will only send you back here,but I am working on putting together a better homepage and I plan on moving over to that site pretty soon.

5. We paid off our car!!! Though, again, may not be huge in the scheme of things, but to think that in January it was $14,000 and we worked really hard at attacking our debt! Watch out Visa, you're next!!!

Thank God for Kids

I grew up in a house that listened to country music. Like 80s country music...
Think Dolly Parton and Kenny Rodgers, Oak Ridge Boys and Bellamy Brothers. Oh yes, I lip-sang with the hairbrush to Crystal Gale (hair down to her feet).

Well I heard this song recently and it completely took me back to Christmas time as a five year old and I just sat and listened to the song. And now as a mom, I can love it on a whole new level. I just loved the words, so I am sharing it with you. Pretty much whether you like it or not! hee hee! No really, take the time to listen and soak in the words.



I think I will make my sister cry... well, maybe not cry, but choke her up a little!

Plus you can look at old and new pictures of adorable kids that I know and love:

Thank God for kids Lyrics:
If it weren't for kids have you ever thought
There wouldn't be no Santa Clause
Look what the stork just brought
Thank God for Kids

We'd all live in a quiet house
Without Big Bird or a Mickey Mouse
And Kool-aid on the couch
Thank God for Kids

Thank God for kids there's magic for a while
A special kind of sunshine in a smile
Do you ever stop to think? or wonder why?
The nearest thing to Heaven is a child


Daddy how does this thing fly?
A hundred other where's and why's
You really don't know but I try
Thank God for Kids


When I look down in those trustin eyes
That look to me, I realize
there's a love that I can't buy
Thank God for Kids


Thank God for there's magic for a while
A special kind of sunshine in a smile
Do you ever stop to think? or wonder why?
The nearest thing to Heaven is a child


When you get down on your knees tonight
To thank the Lord for his guiding light
And pray they turn out right
Thank God for Kids


Thank God for Kids

Christopher's first tooth!

Hurray!!! It actually popped through last weekend, but you really couldn't see anything... let alone try to get a picture of it! This means I don't have to try and get him to sit still for xrays! Hurray! Hurray!

This one is almost ready to come through!
Colton's Journal for todayI thought this was cute so I thought I would include it:
He was to write 3 things "I love my brother because"
1. he is so special
2. he loves me and he can walk
3. he is my frend.

Are we home yet?

So you book a hotel room on a fairly well-known site, which you have used numerous times before. You expect to have a place to sleep that night. Then a computer malfunctions (somewhere in the hotel computer world), and your room is given to someone else. It makes you a little irritated that this has happened. Then apparently everyone in the world has descended upon Salt Lake City and there are NO VACANCYs in a 300 mile radius. (Seriously, this would be where I exaggerate, but there were no rooms.) We started heading north, thinking well, we'll hit the next town and there will be something. Nope. Conventions, 30th Anniversary PowWows, some type of Mormon thing... no rooms. Most of the hotels actually had little paper signs that said "NO VACANCY" taped to their doors. I left two separate hotels in tears. Harumph.

Enter into our situation: 4:24 a.m., Dennys, Jesse drinking half a pot of coffee (he doesn't drink coffee), I have downed a couple of Red Bulls, Colton doesn't even wake up when we carry him into Dennys and lay him down in a booth, and Christopher is so delirious that he goes back and forth from laughing to whining. We just couldn't keep our eyes opened. I thought it would be good to document with pictures...

Christopher... whine... giggle... whine... giggle.Colton... zzzzzzzzz

So what do you do? It was then, at Denny's, at 4:30, that we decided we couldn't drive anymore. We spotted a 24 hr WalMart, bought a couple of pillows and $5 blankets and slept in the car. Here is us when the sun came up...

Oh, Jesse, what a trooper
...sleeeeeeeeppp, precious, sleeeeeeeepp...
oh, yea, did I mention that we had the dog with us? Yeah, the kennel was full too.
Here's the boys, the next day,
waffles and cartoons...life is good.
Apparently it is like this all summer long.


I need to build a hotel with 1000 rooms in Salt Lake City.
I'd be rich.

VBS

Welcome to the Tiki Village. Alicya is Luau Lily, I'm Fruity Fran and Marissa is Tiki Ty!So here are a few shots of Vacation Bible School from Parents Night, yesterday. I didn't really get that many since I wasn't feeling so well and I just forgot to go around to the other rooms to get good shots of them. Basically we turned the sanctuary into a pirate ship, along with our room (crafts) was a Tiki Village, Under the Sea (floor to ceiling blue tarps with fish all over), a deserted island, the top deck of a ship and then a shipwreck. The kids have had a great time and so have we!

Me with Gina Jellyfish (aka Annette Dea)Marissa and AlicyaSteve and Christel

The picture doesn't quite give a correct perspective on how big this ship is. The main mast is a telephone pole...
P.S. Yes the hat was homemade... a woven rug and a bunch of fruit from the $1 store, hot-glued together.
Yes it was pretty uncomfortable and heavy. I used maxi pads on the inside for padding.
Yes it was all worth it!

Quick update

So I have been crazy busy with Vacation Bible School. If you have ever been involved with anything at GFCC you will know that they don't do anything halfway. So as a girl that also doesn't do anything halfway... you can see where I am going with this. Plus the two lovely ladies that I am working with in my room are 15 (Marissa) and 13 (Alicya), so I think I can keep up!

We have two more days of VBS and on Friday afternoon we are going to get Colton from Salt Lake!!! I think VBS has been a great distraction from having my usual I-really-miss-my-little-boy mental breakdown!

In other news Christopher has really taken off this week with walking, but once he is down, opts for the reliable crawling. I also tried "helping" his teeth pop through (read: torture, with baby Orajel and a semi-frozen spoon). I am really praying that they appear before August 20th, so I won't have to take him to the dentist (not a pediatric dentist, which I would have to drive to Helena for) for X-rays on his teeth... er, gums. Somehow I don't know how they are going to accomplish that. All I can picture is both of us covered in lead aprons with me trying to get him to keep one of those bite thingys in his mouth without him squirming long enough to get a decent X-ray. Plus I am getting really tired of the constant diaper rash and crummy attitude (Christopher's, not mine). Also tired of the horrified look I get from people when I tell them he is almost 16 months and doesn't have one tooth. And their rebuttal of "Oh I've heard it is better for their teeth if they stay in longer." Hmm I guess we'll see. I'll keep you posted.
(sorry if that came across as excessively whiny).

Camping with the Rhodes

We had a great time this weekend camping and hiking to Crow Creek Falls. Laura Beth was an amazing hiker almost 8 months pregnant (and actually kicked mine and Jesse's hineys on the hike)! We had an awesome camping spot right by a bridge and stream. (LB has all of the pics from the camping side of things)
Here are the pics from the hike:

The entire group at the trailhead.

Christopher really wanting to play in the ice cold waterJeremy taking a dip in the ice cold water!Brrrrr!Hannah is a superstar!like mother, like daughter!Benjamin sneaking a drink from Jesse's camelbak
A fun time was had by all!

In preparation for a few camping/hiking trips coming up for us and looking on the backs of granola bar boxes, (most are glorified candy bars filled with artificial flavors, colors and high fructose corn syrup)
I decided to see how easy it would be to make my own. I just grabbed this recipe off the net and added my own twists. The one on the left is chocolate chip with Reese's pieces and the one on the right is dried blueberries.

Let me know if you try it or if you have an even better recipe. I'd like to experiment with different mix-ins. Such as cinnamon and dried apples or peanut butter with raisins (PB&J). Here's the core of the recipe:

2 1/2 cups Oatmeal (instant or old-fashioned)
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (adds Omega 3)
1/2 cup chopped peanuts (because they were in my cabinet)

the original recipe also called for this, but I didn't like or have it so add it if you want:
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/4 cup sesame seeds

Take the dry ingredients and cook them in a 300* preheated oven for about 18-25 minutes (the longer the crunchier), stirring occasionally. Just this creates a yummy warm, nutty smell in your house! Then on the stove combine these ingredients and bring to a gentle simmer:

4 Tblsp butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey

Pull out the dry ingredients and this is where you get creative. Add the ingredients that make the bar you want. The original recipe called for 2 teaspoons of vanilla to be added to the wet ingredients at this time, but I forgot. I don't think it affected the outcome of the bars, especially the chocolate one. Anyway combine the dry and wet ingredients until evenly coated and spread out onto a waxed/parchment paper lined cookie sheet or pan. (the smaller the pan, the thicker the bars.) Lay another piece of waxed paper on top and compress with a rolling pin. While the bars are still pretty warm (or the paper sticks really bad) flip them out of the pan/cookie sheet and let them cool and dry. Once they're fairly cooled, cut and package them. Using a 9x12 cookie sheet, I got 24 bars (roughly the same size and shape of a store bought bar).

These are so yummy, I don't know if they will last for our trips!

Christopher's first steps

He was walking a little better right before this and I think he was just getting tired and a little silly!
Enjoy!

Button, button, who's got the button

My child is obsessed with buttons. Is this every boy? I remember Colton enjoying gadgets, but this kid loves anything with a button. We gave him an old tv remote and old cell phone just to save ours, but he also like to put his treasures "in" things. As you can see the remote into the car, but we have to shake out our shoes before putting them on, or you may find a little present in there from Christopher! Here's my evidence:

I promise this wasn't staged.

He's saying "Nah, nah, nah." (Because he is NOT supposed to push the tv buttons.)
But that doesn't stop him.
Buttons on the Xbox controller,
and the buttons on the phone,
Hiiiiiaaahhhh!