home again

After spending 12 fun filled days in sunny, hot California, we arrived home to our desert, cold, windy Nevada last night (it actually rained mud last night!) And even though we had a great vacation, it's always nice to be home :)
The beginning of our vacation was quite a challenge as Trent broke out with chicken pox the day we left. This meant that the first 4 days were spent home bound at Mom and Dad's house (although that wasn't too bad as I enjoyed the peace and quiet of the country) with a very sick little baby. He had those nasty little itchy spots everywhere! Thankfully, our family was still gracious enough to let us be around them :) We enjoyed visiting family who came over to see us (Aunt Vonnie and Uncle Rod, Aunt Margaret and Uncle Keith, Renee, Lorissa, Nathan, Mark) and Casey and I took turns getting "out". We were also able to do family portraits on Monday - Trent will forever have his spots in those portraits to remind him of his case of the chicken pox!!

We spent the rest of our time doing fun things with Jerry & Bernice, James & Lucas, Marie and Mom and Dad.. it was so awesome to have everyone together!! The kids all played great together and the boys worked around the yard with their hammers!

I have LOTS of pictures to download and sort through.. will try to get to it as quickly as possible in between the unpacking!

Not too much to post from our end of the world. I have been busy preparing to leave for vacation, tomorrow! We're looking forward to seeing Casey's side of the family in CA. All of "the kids" and grandkids will be together for a whole week at Mom and Dad Havemans... a first time event since before Jerry and Bernice were married (thus, not all the grandkids were there) We are all excited to spend time together and meet our newest little nephew, Lucas. We have many fun things planned: boating, Mickey's Grove, birthday celebration and visiting family/Great Grandma Dora. Then, Trent and I will be flying to Boise, from Sacramento, on the 25th and, meeting my mom there for the weekend. She and I will be doing the Women's Fitness Celebration and, a "girls" weekend! Casey and the kids and, my mom, Trent and I will be driving home on the 29th. After being exposed to chicken pox, we're keeping our fingers crossed that everyone stays healthy!
bye blogging world for the next 13 days...

Mom and I were laughing today at how much mischief Trent gets himself into these days! He uses his walker to get himself all over the house... in and out of rooms, ramming into people on purpose, following his siblings around and grabbing things as he vooms on by. Today I caught him with the broom and mop... he was pretty pleased with himself! Today Tys kept himself busy with his work tools. He uses his hammer and saw around the house.. he's wearing his daddy's sunglasses. He informed us that he was "working like dada"!

We're still getting veggies from the garden... mom made zucchini bread and salsa today.

I took Tys, Katie and Jakob to the park this morning; I met my friend, Lisa, and her little girl there too. It was a fun morning and, Tys learned how to climb to the top of the big slide (a little nerve wracking for me! But, he kept saying "I got it" and was being a big boy!)

school

Mom and I have recently begun teaching our friend, Wesley, school... Mon-Thurs morning. He is a wonderful, bright student! Katie also likes to "play school" with us and completes a couple of pages a day in her Pre-K book. On this day she was learning the difference between long and short.

Being Dutch...

My mom was explaining to Katie that her daddy was Dutch, therefore, she is also Dutch.
Katie informed her that "no, Daddy is VERY, VERY Dutch"!!

Trent's been really loving life since his helmet came off! The skin irritations are already almost healed (due to the helmet) and even woke up with "bed head" this morning :) Guess I might have to start combing his hair now... Also, his upper right tooth has broke through; with his upper "fangs" already through that now makes 5 teeth total!

Treatment Complete

After approx. 3 months of wearing his helmet, Trent was "released" from it at his appt. in SLC yesterday!! The difference in his forehead went from 11mm to 3mm so, that is pretty good!!! Most people have 1-3 mm differences in the shape of their heads... Trent was SO happy to have his helmet off permanently; he's been feeling his head and in such a great mood. Infact, he didn't cry once during the 5 hour drive home! We are so thankful for the wonderful care Trent received and safe travels we had going back and forth. Even though I'm happy to be done with the whole process, I will also miss being able to go on our little mini-vacations to SLC... it was so nice to spend the quiet time away with just Trent and my husband and stay at Don & Arlene's house. They were like "dates" for us.. we just had to drive 5 hours to get there. This last trip we were able to eat out for 3 meals... we chose Applebees, IHOP, Wingers and 2 stops at Starbucks! And of course spending one on one time with Trent was always nice... he's such a happy, easy going little guy. On our way home, we stopped in Elko to pick up Tys' bike that he got with his birthday money. He loves it and is working on learning how to peddle it!

This Picture is For...

This is for Bernice.... I had last picked the garden on Tuesday so, this is only 5 days worth of veggies! Can you say "tomatoes" This is for Scott and Ann... because this week marks the year anniversary that you left for the DR. We had fellowship for the first time at our house last night... you guys are always greatly missed!

This is for Adeline and Darton... your little friends miss you too :)

This is for Nathaniel and Mary Ellen... a little plaid never hurt anyone! lol

This is what happens when your little brother wakes you up too early and, you spend the morning outside playing and riding on the 4-wheeler with Papa!! Trenton loves his bath times. He begins going crazy from excitement once he wears the bath water running and doesn't stop splashing until I get him out!

His surprised, I-just-got-water-poured-on-my-head face

BSU game

We had a BSU party last night and watched the Broncos beat the Ducks, 8-19. It was an evening filled with good times with our friends as we cheered on our BSU team! Tys says BSU is #1!!!

His mean, rough and tough face :)

Who's adorable BSU baby is that???

He's MY adorable baby! I am so blessed!!

Jerry's orange and blue "game face"

Dana, mom and I

The kids had fun watching a movie and, Katie was so happy when she found out that her friends got to spend the night!

Too much excitement for this little dude

Tomatoes

The tomatoes in our garden are doing awesome! Since we've moved I make it back to the garden once a week to "pick"... here is the amount we've been getting every week. We've been enjoying them in all sorts of ways... my favorite being mom's fresh homemade salsa!

One of Tys' favorite things to do is look at 4-wheeling magazines!

He also loves to use his hammer around the house and fix anything that needs to be "fixed" (we've quickly learned that he can only use the hammer under our watchful eye!)

Trent is starting to get to be too big for his big brother's lap!

We are officially moved into our new home! I spent today cleaning our old place and getting the last of everything moved. Cleaning an old home is always the pits so, I was VERY relieved to have that big chore over with! We continue to get settled and unpacked... I think hanging pictures is the last big thing to do (on the inside.. the outside is a whole other story!! But, my dad continues to work hard everyday organizing the outside "man stuff") Tys got to "help" his Papa put up fence posts today.. he was SO cute using his hammer! Too bad I didn't have my camera handy...
Our garden is doing awesome! Especially the tomatoes.. we have LOTS of them! I counted three dozen tomatoes on ONE plant alone :)