Doug's Toy

We have had a somewhat interesting week. When we got home from Utah last Sunday we again couldn't find our driveway. It was even worse then the last time, which was less than a week prior to this. It looked like all the snow that had been plowed off had blown back on in addition to the new snow. It was extremely cold and windy and we had a car full of luggage and Christmas Presents, not to mention James. So again we parked at the neighbors and walked home. We tried calling the guy who plowed our driveway before but got no answer as was the case with all the other plow services we called, nothing is open in Rexburg on Sunday. After a lot of frustration, crying (pregnant women do that) and prayer, we decided that it would be more cost effective to buy a snow blower.

On Monday Doug called the plow guy and asked him to come do our driveway. He came, was here for about 5 minutes then left. He did about 15 ft at the front of the driveway and called Doug to say it was too heavy to push. If we had called him yesterday he could have done it, (more frustration!) Doug took off work early to look for a snow blower, he couldn't find one in Rexburg. When James woke up from his nap we drove to Idaho Falls to look, no snow blowers anywhere! I looked on the Internet and couldn't find anything. On Tuesday morning I had this thought, "Maybe Utah has snow blowers and my parents are still there and can pick it up." So I looked online and called Lowe's, they had 1 that was just returned. So I bought it (using the money we had saved for food storage), and it sat in Utah until Saturday night when my brother brought it up. Doug was so excited he couldn't wait to get started, even though it was dark.
Sunday Doug went out early to get the driveway clear, 4 1/2 hours later he came in to get ready for church and we walked out to the car to go to church. After Church he spent another 1 1/2 hours, with the help from a neighbor. So after a week of walking down the driveway to go anywhere, and 6 hours of work we were finally able to drive in our driveway! And he accomplished all this just in time for it to start snowing today!

I try to remember what a blessing it is for us to be here, and for Doug to have t his job, but at times like this it is hard. I would not mind if his next job were in a much warmer climate!

Sorry, this is probably going to be a long post, Doug hates when I do long posts, but there is just so much to tell, and I wish I could put more pictures in because James is so cute right now it is really hard to choose.
We had an awesome Christmas with my family. On Christmas Eve we drove down to a condo my parents rented by Powder Mountain in Utah. The heat wasn't working, so it was freezing, but they gave us some free ski passes so it was worth it. James had a ton of fun climbing the stairs and playing with his cousins. He went to bed early that night.
On Christmas morning we came downstairs and opened our Christmas Stockings, James didn't really get it. He played with the boat for a minute then kept trying to go do other things, he didn't even care about the rest of the toys or the candy!

After the stockings we all headed downstairs to the basement to where the tree and presents were. I went early to try and get James' reaction when he walked in the room. I was not disappointed. Santa brought him a bike and he knew it was for him.

He rode his bike around for a long time until Doug finally hid it so he would be interested in some other toys. The next present he opened was from Grandma and Grandpa Allen, we didn't know what it was or we probably would have saved it until last. It was these cute little kid Rollerblades. He knew right away what they were and couldn't wait for Doug to get them out of the box. He spent the next 30 minutes or so dragging one of us around to try them out. Myra kept asking when it would be her turn. Finally Doug hid those and we could move on to other presents.

After all the presents were finally open Doug took James out to play in the snow. He loves to play in the snow and doesn't even mind how cold and wet it gets.

The next day we went to Salt Lake. We didn't get there before Christmas so we had to go to IKEA to get James' present from us. We got him a small table and chairs. When we got home he helped Dad put it together using his new tools that he got from Uncle Scott. He was so excited that he couldn't wait for Dad to put the table together, he took one of the chairs in the other room and tried to put it up the the table.

Finally it was done and he could play. Now we just have to wait for a day warm enough to paint!

James also got this neat marble run that he loves. He puts the ball in the top and says "Set Go!" Then watches them go down. I also heard him throwing them across the kitchen floor, then telling himself, "Nice throw!"

There are so many other things to write about, but I guess it will wait until the next post. Plus we need to get some cute videos of James playing with his new toys. We also got Wii Fit and it was so fun to watch James do the Yoga poses!

Adventures in the Snow

My family came to visit this weekend and it snowed the entire time! My parents, Blake, Jordyn, Brandon, and Allison all came late Saturday night so we had a relaxing Sunday and Chad and Shannon and their family came up Sunday afternoon. On Monday we decided that it would be fun to go sledding. So we bundled up all the kids and ourselves, it was snowing pretty hard, and ventured out.
James loved playing in the snow and didn't seem to mind getting wet and cold at all! I was so mad that I forgot my camera because he was so cute. He especially liked eating the snow, with no hands, just stuck his face down in the snow and licked it up! After sledding we decided to go to Big Jud's to get hamburgers. Chad wanted to do the 1 pound hamburger challenge, the rest of us all split the hamburgers.
When we got home from lunch we couldn't find our driveway! The wind had picked up and blown huge drifts across it and we were stuck out on the road. Luckily we have really nice neighbors, with not so long of a driveway, and they let us park there. Then we made the long cold trek home. For a few minutes I felt really bad for the pioneers. It only snowed probably 6-8 inches, but this is what our back yard looked like this morning. The big drift was a little lower in this picture because it was after all the boys jumped off the roof into the snow!

This morning everyone helped Doug dig the cars out so he could go to work, then carried bags out to the cars. Our driveway is about 100 yards long, so it was quite the ordeal. On the way out of town my parents stopped at a gas station and saw a guy with a plow. They talked to him and paid him to come plow our driveway for us. I am very grateful for this because I didn't know what we were going to do this winter. The plows came and about 15 minutes later we had a clear driveway!

James loved watching them work. He would run to the window and watch, then run back to his dump truck and push it around for a while, then run back to the window, then back to his truck. I thought it was so cute how excited he was about all of it.

Why we moved north for the winter (By doug)

I just thought some of you might be interested in the project I am working on now. I know it is not as interesting as a Temple but it is still a neat project.

This is the BYU-Idaho Auditorium. It has a 15,000 seat auditorium in one end (very similar design to the Conference Center in salt lake) and 10 basketball courts with a suspended track on the other end

This is a picture in the back of the auditorium

This picture is from the running track looking at the courts area.

This is the lobby of the building.

Boots and Football

James loves his boots. I gave him a bath and barely got the diaper on before he ran off to put his boots on. He then wore the boots all day! I took them off for his nap, as soon as he woke up, he put them on again.

The other day they were put away in the closet, Doug got them out and we bet to see how long until he put them on, I had under 10 minutes, Doug had over 10 minutes, Doug won. It took James 12 minutes to find and put his boots on.

After the football game on Sunday I was listening to some pretty happy screaming in the Living room. When I went to investigate this is what I found.

Now every day, just about the time Doug is getting home from work, James grabs my finger and takes me to the hall to play the "Set, Go!" Game. Usually we only do it once because it's just not the same with mom!

WORST MOVIE EVER (by doug)

Fact: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is the worst movie ever made. I hate everything about it. Andrew Adamson and Christopher Markus, the writers and director, feel they can create a better story then C.S. Lewis and name it after one of his books. Well my stupid Friends you can not. The Chronicles of Narnia are some of the greatest books ever written and do not need anything changed. The first movie was good but had a few completely unnecessary changes but this was a complete joke. If you have not seen it DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE EVER. This movie is so far from the original story and in such a bad way that i hope they do not make the other books into movies. The books are great so quit at that.

Free at Last!

Every night Doug or I go and check on James before we go to bed. He occasionally has a poopy diaper and needs to be changed. The crib is too high for me to lean over and smell, so I just have to feel his diaper to see if it is clean or not. So imagine my surprise when I went to feel his diaper last night and felt butt crack instead! My first thought was, "Did we forget to put a diaper on him?" but after feeling around I found it bunched up in the bottom of one of his pajama legs! So we had to change his diaper and pajamas last night and I think I will be washing sheets this morning. I think he really enjoyed those few hours of freedom!

We went to Colorado for Thanksgiving and had a ton of fun, but not a lot of pictures. Actually this is the only one I took. James in Mom and Dad's bed. He didn't want to get his pajamas on and crawled under our covers instead. It snowed a little and James loved playing outside with Dad, but surprisingly he didn't like sledding. James was amazing on the drive there and back, he really didn't scream and seemed to enjoy having somebody in the back seat with him. When we got home we set up this Christmas tree, I think James enjoyed it, but the blue balls on the tree look just like his blue balls and he keeps trying to take them off and throw them around. I'm glad I bought some plastic ornaments.