Valley Elementary, No more!

So on Stacy Layton's blog, well Garrard now, she posted that Valley Elementary will be torn down. And they are building a new one in Eden. Poor Valley Elementary, some good memories there. Here is Stacy's blog website if you want to read it, and she has a picture.

http://natestacyandzoee.blogspot.com/

Just a couple more

A few more posts

Just a few more cute pictures.

Pictures for the week

Well, I think my New Beginnings went well and I hope all enjoyed it. Layne is getting better and so is Evan, but now Bryce and I are getting colds. I think Doug and Carson have avoided it since they are gone most of the day. Today I started ripping up the old floors in the upstairs bathrooms so that we can tile them before the carpet comes.
I have attached pictures of the boys from the last week. We love you.

We support our Dairymen!!

Jaedon is quite the dairy fanatic! He always has to drink milk. We have to bribe him to drink water. But his favorite is getting the whole block of cheese out of the fridge and nibbling on it like a little mouse. What a kid!

Another Week

Well, half of the boys have been sick this week which in turn means that I don't get a whole lot of sleep. Evan and Layne have had high fevers and cough. Doug though took Carson up skiing on Saturday. He signed Carson up for 4 hours of lessons and Carson is doing great. He can do everything you need to and just needs practice to become better. Doug went skiing while Carson was at his lessons. They went to a ski resort that is up near Tahoe. Doug said it was amazing when you rode up the lift you were on top of the mountain and you overlooked the Tahoe basin. It was a beautiful clear day and it had snowed the previous day so all of the trees were covered in snow. He said he has never skiied anywhere that beautiful and he has skiied a good portion of the resorts in Utah. The funny part was that he realized how out of shape his legs were and he is now sore. Carson thought skiing was great and wants to go again real soon.Friday night we went to pick out tile since it is better to have the upstairs bathrooms tiled before the new carpet comes. The boys were crazy as ever, but the funny part was that Doug was loading the tile in the Suburban and he dropped a box. He never has great luck and I could tell he was very upset.Sunday was crazy with Doug and I trying to fulfill our callings and the children being sick. Next time I think one of us may just tap out and let our counselors handle it.Doug is quite busy with work this week and I have New Beginning on Wednesday I hope that it all works out.Bryce is not crawling yet he is still just scooting around and rocking on his hands and knees. He is just content to do whatever so I don't know if he is in any hurry to crawl.We love you all and hope to see you soon.Rainee and Doug

Our dear Prophet

It is sad to think that our dear prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley, has died. I must say that he has, and is, one of my favorite. He has done so much for our church and a true inspiration and example to us all. But I am so glad that he is finally reuntied with his sweet wife. As I read articles about him, there is just a feeling of peace, and what an impact he had on all people, of all religious beliefs. He was truly called of God. We will miss him, but look forward to what lies ahead.

All's Fair...

So I feel like I am always posting pictures of Jaedon and none really of Livy. So this post is showing what a cute little girl Olivia is and how fast she is growing. She is the happiest, and most smiley baby. She gets really smiley and starts to even laugh when she is really tired. It is so cute, that I prolong her going to sleep and eating sometimes just so I can see her smile and laugh.

This picture isn't the greatest, but I thought it was cute and you also can see her cute little arm rolls!


One of her little dresses that we put on and it was all ready tight around the neck and chest. She is such a chunker!

Playing around in the exersaucer, just lookin' cute.

Maybe this is why I post so much of Jaedon. He had to have his picture taken too!

Dad in the PI

My thanks to Mrs Jones for her skills in helping me get these pictures onto the "blog" as it were.
I thought it might be interesting to put some Philippines pictures of when I was there in 1973-74. The first is the picture of me at the mission home in Manila.








This one is at a baptism in Iloilo, which was my second area. As you can see the water is not very deep so we would go out where you can see the last wave and time the prayer with the wave to make sure we were able to get them "all wet" if you know what I mean.
The kids always would flock around and say "Ayna ko! Mataas ang ilong". I'm sure the spelling is wrong but the sounds are right. Mac should be able to understand. You would probably think they were admiring how tall I was, but instead they are saying what a high nose you have. Which I think is like saying what a large proboscis you have.
A cement court was a rarity, but the kids loved to play just the same.

This is one of my favorite pictures. I was thinking of Elder Jones on this one. I was a Zone Leader and got to go to Baguio and they had real pine trees, kind of. I even got to play a round of golf on the American golf course there. People even wore coats up there. I missed the mountains so much it was wonderful to be there. I only got to go twice and then was pulled into the mission home to go down to Cebu and open up the second Philippines Mission.





I talked a kid into letting me ride his caribou. It was just a young female. they get bigger than this, but not a whole lot taller. I was quite surprised how tame they are. they have a few horses over there, but they are about the size of a one year old colt. They look like a real skinny pony. The caribou was the real work horse over there. They did anything and every thing with them.

Spiders and Pink balls

The last couple of days have been alittle crazy, frustrating, and exhausting...with some comical relief mixed in. Jaedon and Olivia have come down with a nasty cough and runny nose. Luckily though they haven't really acted sick or really had any fevers, but the cough has been bad!Let's first start with Livy. I believe she has quite the sensitive gag reflex. She has not had a problem with sleeping, and not really with eating. But the snot running from her nose of course runs down the back of her throat, and therefore makes her cough, which then makes her gag on the little ball of snot that has accumulated there. Trying to suck out the snot with a bulb, (or the nose sucker, as we call it), is unsuccessful at times, (and I even think one time I got a piece of her brain, which was quickly shoved back up there), so most of the time we are just waiting for her to sneeze it out, which causes her to have quite the snot rockets! But the problem here is that after she eats, she usually needs to cough, which leads to the gagging, which usually leads to her throwing up all that she has eaten. SO, the poor girl is always hungry!Jaedon, on the other hand, just coughs and sounds like he is going to cough up a lung in the process. And his poor little nose is raw from all of the "boogies" and wiping. But 2 nights ago he could not sleep because he kept having coughing fits, which leads to mom and dad not getting any sleep either. So, I camped it out on the floor, which Jaedon soon joined me.But last night they were doing a little better, but while trying to fall asleep my cute husband started to say something looked pink while pointing to the ceiling. So I asked him what was pink? He told me balls! So apparently we had pink balls on our ceiling. (I promise my husband is not on any sort of drugs!) Then shortly after, Jaedon started to scream, so I went in there and he was curled up in a corner in his bed and kept saying, SPIDERS!! I tried to tell him there were no spiders, and even when I tried to lay him back down he started to freak out, still thinking that there was a spider on his bed. Like father, like son!!But through this all I have learned something. As I was holding Livy one night, I started to think, why is it so hard and frustrating when your kids get sick? Why can't we just give them some miracle drug and make them better? Or even take the burden upon ourselves, instead of seeing them suffer, and not feeling like you can't do anything to help? Then the thought came to me, that is how Christ feels. He holds us and comforts us when we are struggling, or "sick". His heart aches when ours does, He knows what we are going through, and can relate to us. He has taken that burden upon himself, and so therefore has lightened ours. But we too must experience things for ourselves to grow and progress. But we need to just remember that we are never alone, we will always have that constant companion with us, "holding" us.Enjoy life!!

Kace's activities!

Kace made this bread at preschool and was so proud of it. He wanted me to take his picture and then we could EAT IT! He told me all about how they made it and how it was delicious and nutritious because it has NO sugar!

This is his snowman that he built the other day. He somehow got all the parts on there!

and the snow cometh...

Well we have a lot of snow!! Today I heard this big rumbling and it sounded like an earthquake. I went outside and saw the damage and it made me cry but then I thought what if I had been sitting in the hot tub, I would have been squished. So Dad cleaned off the snow and the debry and said he will build me a better roof. I still feel sad because I so enjoy sitting out there when my bones feel like they are going to crack. We have tried to stay ahead of all of the snow and Dad has pretty much plowed and shoveled non stop. I am so glad that we are getting the moisture that we need so badly, so don't think that I am complaining. Dad and I are indexers now and this last picture is of us working on the computer indexing some of the census records for the church. It is kind of fun and is like a puzzle sometimes figuring it out. Mel has been indexing as well so now that we know what it is like, it is pretty fun!

A Farmers Wonderland

(If the music is too loud, scroll to the bottom of the page and turn it down)

Here in Pennsylvania they have a Farm Show. It is HUGE out here, it is kind of like a fair though, but just in January not in the summertime. It is crazy busy too, I felt like I was back in New York City trying to get on the subway during rush hour. We even had to be shuttled there by a school bus, which Jaedon thought was pretty fun. They have everything from tractors, cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chicken, turkeys, horses, rabbitts, alepecas (llama), and of course craft booths, and the yummy food. We heard they have shakes that are to die for. So we got one, and I must admit they were pretty dang good. They had a rodeo too, and it is even a PRCA one. But due to having kind of sick kids we opted out of that. Some of the events that they have had during the week too were sheep-to-shawl. They had a competition of sheering the sheep, then you would make the wool into yarn, on a spinning wheel, and then make the shawl. It was pretty cool, and then they even had tractor square dancing! That was pretty interesting to watch. (I saw that stuff on the news by the way) So here are some pictures to give you alittle bit of an idea of what it was like. Jaedon just loved it!!

Daredevil!

Well here is our little daredevil! The past few days Tydon has really been into climbing. It seems like whenever I leave him alone and then come back he has climbed onto something new with NO FEAR!!! I think he got the climbing thing from his Grandma Jones, because if I remember right Grandma Shaw told us how she climbed on top of the fridge! He definitely keeps life interesting.

Grandchildren and More

Caitlin and more early pictures