Dance picture day.

Today was picture day for dance. I took a couple of the girls in their outfits before we left. I hardly recognize Ava with a clean face. lol.

9 Mile Canyon

Today we took a trip up 9 Mile Canyon. I had never been there before and Kim and I thought Travis and Jared would both be working for the longwall move, so we decided to make the trip. Jared ended up having the day off, so we loaded everyone in the car and went. There are a lot of indian petroglyphs there. We left around 11 and took a picnic lunch. I think that's what my kids were most excited for. It was a nice day, staying at about 61 the whole day. I had fun, it was nice to get out of the house and my back didn't hurt all day! I was very happy about that. I hope it keeps up. I start physical therapy for it on Monday. We got home around 5 and were surprised to find Travis already home! He switched back to working days today. It was weird having him in bed last night. ha ha!

I have some pictures here: Kodak Gallery

Spring is here!

Travis is still on nights with the long wall move. It's been so nice this week. It's supposed to be 70 on Friday, so we've been spending a lot of time outside. Ava and I cleaned up the backyard yesterday and noticed my tulips and daffodils are already growing.

I got a new washer and dryer!!! My other dryer was falling apart. It's so nice to have a load of laundry done in 2 hours. Also, my friend Heather, who we camp with, and I were talking and she told me she had a portable dishwasher she wasn't using, so she gave it to me. I got a washer, dryer, and dishwasher all in one weekend! Woo hooo! Thanks, Heather. Thanks to Kim and Jared for helping get both into the house and working.

On Monday and Tuesday we got to see the space station go by in the sky. It was pretty neat. I actually thought it was the space shuttle Monday, but it turns out it was just the space station and I didn't read the article about it clearly enough. The shuttle came by about 10 minutes later and we missed it.

I went to the doctor on Tuesday for my back and they are sending me to physical therapy. I hope it helps, because the pills they gave me to take are making me really tired. All I want to do is sleep! I also have a sinus infection, fun fun!

Ava had her 5 year old checkup last week. She is 50 pounds and 45 1/2" tall! She is in the 91% and 93% percentile for her height and weight. She is so tall! Everything else was great. On Thursday we signed her up for Kindergarten!!! I can't believe both girls are going to be in school in August. I won't know what to do. I guess it's time to start looking for a job. :)

My little sister turns 18 today. I can't believe it. It seems like she was just born. Happy Birthday, Chelsea!!!!!

I have some pictures.

This is Madelynn's new dance outfit.


This one is for her ballet class. We had to make the tutu. That was interesting. It's very poofy and the static is nuts. lol. I am going to have to do something to fix that.

Here is Ava and her two missing teeth. One of her adult teeth is already coming in!

A day out.

This morning we went to the St. Patrick's Day parade. It was a really beautiful day! Kim and I took the kids for a drive after lunch. We went up to the mountains first. We saw about 6 elk. That was pretty neat. None of the pictures really came out though. We kept driving looking for a place for the kids to play, but there was still too much snow, so we drove down to the desert. They had fun playing on the rocks there. We were looking for the place we camped last Easter and drove right by. There were a lot more weeds growing there this year. lol.

Roxy's growing!

5 weeks


7 1/2 weeks


8 1/2 weeks (she was rolling in the dirt again lol)


It's been a busy week around here. Travis is on longwall move, so it's pretty much nonstop work, but that's nothing new. They never give him any time off and it's making him really grouchy. It really sucks.

Ava lost another tooth! That makes 2. It's the same 2 Madelynn first lost. I can't believe she's losing them already, still!! Tomorrow we have Kindergarten Roundup for her. It doesn't seem like she's old enough to go to kindergarten. Madelynn seemed older at this stage. lol.

She's getting big fast!

Roxy is getting big fast! I didn't really notice much until I compared these 2 pictures.

This was the day we first got her.


This is today after a bath. She loves to roll around in the dirt.




In other news we bought our plane tickets to Portland (for Rachel's wedding) and Orlando yesterday! Woo! We are excited. Travis deserves a vacation, he works way too much!

In house news, the people living there were supposed to be served with papers last week. Hopefully we have an end to this soon.