Jenks Reunion 2011

We had a lot of fun at our reunion in Oakley this year with Barry's family. We went camping at Father and Sons' campground (the usual place) and his sister Amy planned all sort of fun things to do around a cowboy theme. The kids had a blast and were thoroughly worn out each day.

Panning for "gold."

Oh, dirt.

There was a bunch of fun rodeo activities. Here's Clara trying her hand at the lasso. We also got some fun videos of racing horses.

After camping for a few days we went back to Oakley and joined in all of the Pioneer Day festivities - the race, the parade, and lots of fun with family.

Summer in Mountain Home

Since fall is about here it's probably time to post about some of the things we've been doing this summer. Our days are mostly filled with the usual things like house and yard work, but we try to throw in some fun and excitement every once in a while. 

Fishing at C.J. Strike Reservoir on Memorial Day.

Some friends had a few fun craft days for the kids. Here is one where we made cookies.

A picnic in the park.

Independence Day

Lighting fireworks.

We went to a fun 4th of July party at a friends' house where we had a barbecue, slip and slide, and all of the kids did a cute bike parade.

Our New House

It took four months and two failed attempts with other houses, but we finally found the house for us, bought it, and moved in. We have really liked living in Mountain Home and hope to stay here for quite a few years, so we found a house that we felt we could grow into and also help us save money. We're mostly unpacked (except for those pesky framed wall hangings) and now just have a list a mile long of things to fix or make better around the house. Barry even planted the garden last week. We do still own our house in Pocatello (bummer), but hopefully someday we'll be able to sell it and in the meantime keep it rented out.

The house looks pretty small from the outside, but it does have over 2000 square feet thanks to the basement. It has a fireplace downstairs and a lot of great storage space. It has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, but we hope to turn the laundry room into a bedroom someday. It's only a 5 minute drive to Barry's work and within walking distance of the library, swimming pool, parks, and elementary schools. It even had new flooring and paint so we didn't have to deal with any of that.

Now we just get to do a lot of hard work to get it the way we want it!

Spring 2011

Our new house has kept us pretty busy lately, but here are some pictures from the last few months.

Clara's first pigtails

Easter 2011

Playing at one of Boise's fun parks

Quinton was very proud to climb up the rock wall all by himself.

Building a nest for their chalk eggs

Barry's 28th Birthday

The Boise Zoo

Visitors

A few weeks ago my sister Shari and her boys Triston and Connor came to visit and we had so much fun with them! The kids played nonstop. We went to the candy store and watched them pull taffy and we also made it to Boise for a fun trip to the Discovery Center. Quinton was heartbroken when they had to go and talks about Triston all the time when they're not around. I told him we'd maybe see them at Easter so he keeps saying it's "egg time" and we need to go see everybody. Hopefully we can!

I think you could spend 2 days at the Discovery Center and still not get through everything. With 4 kids 3 and under, an hour and a half was plenty.

They had a mock veterinary clinic where kids could take care of animals. 

Barry on a bed of nails.

Early 2011

March is coming to a close and I'm realizing we haven't taken many pictures yet this year. Quinton and Clara are getting so old lately. They're both talking a lot and surprising me with things they can do. Quinton knows a lot of his letters now and says some really cute things. The other day I gave them some cantaloupe and tried to convince them it tasted like candy so we should call it "candy-loupe." I don't think my sense of humor quite caught on because Quinton said, "No, we don't call cantaloupe, we call people!" He thought I was being really ridiculous. He has also been doing really well on the potty. He's gone almost a week now with very few accidents and we're all so glad! One kid down. One to go.

Clara has been a bit of a rebel lately. Recently she started climbing out of her crib, which turned sleep time completely upside down in our house. I decided maybe it was finally time for both of them to share a room, which they like a lot, but they still have a hard time calming down enough to actually go to sleep. The only time Clara stays in bed very long is when she is stripping off her clothes and diaper. I've resorted to duct tape and overalls to keep clothing on her without a fight. So we're all a little more grumpy from lack of sleep some days, but hopefully things calm down soon.

Barry's keeping busy with work and enjoying it. We really love it here in Mountain Home and it's definitely feeling like our home now. We've spent a lot of time the past couple of months looking at houses to buy. It's an emotionally up-and-down process, that's for sure. We made an offer on a house in January and we were outbid on it. We've been looking and looking for another house that feels right and we think we've found it, we're just waiting to make sure the inspection goes well and the financing goes through, so we'll update on that later.

I've kept busy the past month and a half or so working on starting a Bountiful Baskets site here in Mountain Home. I trained for 4 Saturdays in Boise and we're on our third week of running it here in town. It's kind of stressful, but also very rewarding and a lot of fun to be involved in the community.

In our free time we play games and rough house and go to play group and cook yummy food. So overall, life is definitely good!

Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam

Quinton graduated from nursery this year and is now officially a Sunbeam. His first week there was a little traumatizing and he cried quite a bit. (Mommy was a little traumatized, too.) But he made it through and with some convincing went back again this last Sunday. He seemed a lot happier by the end this time and not quite as many tears were shed (by Quinton, at least). Our little boy is growing up!