Gingerbread Houses and Texas

Well it is definately that time of the year and I have done 4 gingerbread houses this year. Olivia would be proud. I even invented a mission of Santa Barbra this year!!! Wow what a project. In between all of this we are also heading out to Texas to spend Christmas with Matt's family and stop by and see my little sis in New Mexico. So of course all things must happen at once...Van needs repairs, work parties, (which I will be done after Thursday Yipee!!) Couldn't afford to work ha ha!!! That is California for ya! Cub Scouts, YW, running here and running there. Helping the kids get things ready for presents...and the list goes on. But I wouldn't trade it for the world. I love Christmas, and love the the music. Can't wait to get our new Christmas book too. Any suggestions?? Well I am of to finish icing the missiona and get to BED!!

Getting ready for Christmas and 101 Post!

I can't believe how fast the end of the year is coming up!! We had an awesome Thanksgiving this year. We have been celebrating for 3 days straight!!! Invited the Perkins family over and we did't finish dinner, so we invited them over the next night and still didn't finish, and so we invited them over, and finally ate the pies!!! So I think we did good. We wanted the Schelers to come over too, but they were in Sanger. The kids really missed having them over.

My parents and Carrie went to New Mexico, to visit my other sister in her new home and met her boyfriend and family for Thanksgiving. They got back tonight about 11:30. Sounded like they had a really good time. Mom got to pick up a lot of stuff for her class about Native Americans.

Well I am getting the gingerbread dough ready for the houses, it should be pretty cool and I will definately post pics as I am working on them. In the class that I am working in we are also doing the Polar Express, so I am working on the class room board for that. It looks really cool in my mind. But I think the mission style gingerbread house will look really neat too.

I am off to bed and can't wait to start packing for Texas!!! whoa whooooo!!!

Seeing New Moon

Yeah!!! It was soo good. Matt and I went and he actually enjoyed it! Loved it and can't wait till the next movie!! Thanks sweetie for the night out!

Life starting to smooth out a little

Well things are definitely starting to smooth out. We had a great Halloween. Erin, was nurse, Erik was a box of popcorn, Mike was Optimus Prime, and Danny was Bumblebee. We went to the school carnival, which was really good. Erin was two cakes at the cakewalk and the boys won lots of candy. On Wednesday the church put on a trunk or treat, which had an awesome turn out. Love those, where the kids can have lots of activities, and get candy all at once. What more can you ask for? Well Matt will be taking off to Houston for a few days and he gets to go see his family out in Texas, yeah soooooo jealous!! Can't WAIT for Christmas!!

Erin Home and Much Better~

We are so glad to have our little Erin back. She got her port taken out on Monday and has progressively gotten soooo much better since then. She will be returning back to school on Monday, and we are going to have to figure out how to catch her up through 6 weeks of school that she has missed. Yikes that is so much!

Erik also had his post op on Thursday down in UCLA and his eye surgery was a great success the doctor said. He now has a 4% difference between the two eyes which has been a night a day difference for him. He did have some adjustments that felt wierd trying, but after a couple of days it felt natural. Now he does have issues still when he is tired but it isn't as bad as it was. So everything is going better. YEAH!!

Erin back in the Hospital

Well poor little Erin is back in the hospital. She got an infection from her appendectomy that she had on the 17th. So now she shares the date of her cousins appendectomy to years ago. She was admitted yesterday and the doctor wants to make sure he gets all of the gunk out! So keep her in your prayers. Thanks.

Danny Lost his first tooth

As of Monday, September 7th, Danny is toofless on the bottom left. He was soooo excited after he realized that he actually lost it and it was ok that it happened. Now you might wonder why it took so long to get excited about it...well of course there is a story. How could it not be an event and part of our lives!!???!!!

We had some of our friends kids over for the night for labor day weekend, and my parents came over for breakfast (family tradition). Breakfast was pancakes, eggs, and linguesa (Portuguese sausage). Well we were done eating and went out front to enjoy the day and Matt and I were talking to my parents and the kids were playing around the inside of the house and out back. All of the sudden the little girl staying with us, who is Danny's age, comes out screaming, "Danny's bleeding!" Now as most of you who know us we don't over react to much anymore, if we don't hear blood curdling screams of pain. And plus, our little friend, tends to panic when she sees blood. So we calming ask her is Danny hurt, and she said, "Yes, he is bleeding from his mouth, he bit a pancake and is bleeding." I am thinking he must have fallen, while eating a pancake and busted his lip or bit his lip while eating it. So we go inside to check it out and Danny meets us at the front door with some blood on his lip and in his mouth. Matt bends down and starts checking things out and asking Danny what happened. Danny says pretty much the same thing as our guest and Matt looks at me and says his gums are bleeding around his tooth. He has knocked most of the tooth out by the root.

So with this discovery we go into the room to check out THIS pancake. Well nothing seems to be overly hard, and there is nothing hard in. So I take Danny into the bathroom to clean up his mouth and assess the actual damage and what can we do. Well as I am rinsing I notice something and call Matt into the bathroom with Danny and me. I said I don't think we can save the tooth, it is broken at the root, but I don't think he broke it, because behind it is a NEW TOOTH!! It was loose and the pancake dislodged it from the other baby teeth supporting it. So we pulled it out the rest of the way, and Danny went from a panic giggle to pure joy of realizing the Tooth Fairy was coming!

Now Mike who is older and has not lost a tooth becomes quite upset and jealous about Danny loosing a tooth before him. So we had to do a lot of consoling and telling him he will loose his soon enough and checking EVERY single one of his teeth to see if he had any loose teeth. Also for my nieces and nephews who know I seek out loose teeth to pull, will know how much of a shock this story is that Danny literally lost his tooth eating a pancake! Well that was our fun event for Labor Day weekend! Hope you had a good laugh, we sure did!

Erin's stomach ache

Well if you haven't heard, we had some excitement that started on Saturday, with little Miss Erin. She was complaining that her stomach hurt all the way across. We thought it was growing pains or just nervous about something. On Sunday she was continued complaining about it, but it wasn't bad, it just hurt. So she went to church, had dinner, and got ready for school the next day. She gets up on Monday, and says her stomach is still hurting, but she didn't have a fever so we sent her to school. She didn't eat breakfast because she wasn't hungry. I get a call about 10 from the school. Erin is in the office complaining of a stomach ache. Me responding, Erin needs to stay at school, she is probably hungry, or growing, so just get through it and suck it up. At 1 the school calls again, Erin didn't eat lunch because her stomach hurts and can you come pick her up. I am pretty upset with her as I am heading to school and leaving with her. I bring her home and tell her if you are really sick you need to lie down and take a nap. So I give her some Tylenol and she goes and takes a nap. I leave to go pick up the boys at 3 and come home around 3:45. She wakes up and I ask her how she is feeling and check her head to see if she has a fever. She doesn't, so I proceed to let her know, You don't have a fever, so you if you don't get better fast we are going to have to take you to the doctor and they will have to draw your blood. Erin, who is deathly afraid of needles says, I don't care I want to get rid of this pain. I knew something was really wrong when she said that. I called the doctor and met Matt down in Bakersfield for a 6 o'clock appointment for Erin. I left to head back up to Visalia for a meeting dropping the boys off at Grandmas for her to watch them while I attend my scout meeting . Matt and I start texting while they are visiting the Doctor. He texts me saying that she is behind on her immunizations and so they will update those with 5 shots. They get the blood work back and the white blood cell count is normal and they think she might have the flu. (Didn't make since to me due to the fact that she has had the symptoms since Saturday, and no body aches, or fever, and no throwing up or cold.) So anyhow they finish up 5 shots later and still in pain, with instructions if she starts throwing up or the pain gets worse to call them. I get back from my meeting with the boys about 10:30 and Erin and Matt come home probably about 15 minutes later. We put the boys to bed, and have Erin take a bath to relax. And put her to bed and head of to bed ourselves. About 30 minutes after that, Erin is in tears, screaming about her side hurting. We told her to take another bath and gave her some Motrin this time. She ended up taking probably 6 baths and staying up pretty much all night and finally threw up her dinner around 5 a.m. and she finally falls asleep. We get the boys up around 7 to get them ready for school. Matt then calls the experts on what we think might be wrong, the Mechams. I take the boys to school and come back. Matt just finished talking to Bryon and Marcy and thinks Erin is having an appendicitis. We call the Nurse line to update them and they start to ask her some questions and have her jump, I didn't know while Matt was talking to Marcy, she had Erin do the same thing and she doubled over in pain and was bawling a few minutes before I came home. Well same thing happened when she hopped and the nurse said take her to the ER. So we got ready and headed down to Bakersfield, switching out vehicles with my mom so we would have some AC and followed Matt in his truck just in case that wasn't it, and he would be able to go to work and we could come home. We got there about 10:00 and it all began. They did a CT scan and found her appendix to be inflamed possible rupture. We had to wait for the surgeon till 5 when he got through with his scheduled surgery's. By 6 pm she was scheduled for surgery at 9 pm with 5 doses of morphine from the time we got there till surgery! Luckily, (thank you for all of the prayers for this one) An attendant for another surgery was late, so they bumped Erin up to 7 for her surgery. As they were taking it out if fell apart, the doctor said she was very lucky, if she had waited till the later time it would have been a lot worse, because it would have been a full appendectomy instead of laproscopy. She went through the surgery well but afterwards she had a fever. They still don't know what was causing it but they started her on antibiotics and we were able to come home Thursday night. So Erin is home recovering for the next two weeks before she can go back to school and that also means she doesn't get to try out for volleyball. (I think I am more upset about that than she is, but she is still upset about it) So keep praying for her, she is doing well and recovering.

Summer's End!

Yup Summer has come to a close around the Poole household. The kids started school on the 12th of August!! Yup, lovely California! The state government can even now mess up summer vacation!! LOL This summer has been very eventful to say the least. Updates on some of the latest, Erik's eye surgery went REALLY well. We were very entertained when he was coming out of anesthesia from some other patients and parents around us. But it was very quick and he has hated us this entire last week and a half because he can't do anything...literally. He is very lucky he is going to school! But he should be back in full form by this Thursday. The pics are of him after surgery. He just looks so cute! We had to take him back down to UCLA for his post op on the first day of school, so he went for an hour then we left. The doctor laughed at us when we asked him for a excuse note for school. He said are you kidding, what are they thinking starting school so early!?! But he said everything looks really good. We have to go back in 5 weeks to see if his muscles have strengthened correctly. Yuppie road trip!

We are still waiting to hear from the doctor about Danny. It will be interesting, we have some parenting classes that will be coming up soon that Matt and I are to attend. Erin and Mike are doing better!! So hoping to keep everything going. We are still working out some of the kinks with things.

Now all of the kids are in school, are biggest concern was with Danny. Thankfully he is loving school, which is such a relief. He and Mike just love walking to class together. Mike loves his new teacher, he said she is tall and must be the boss. (now I know why the kid doesn't listen to me, I am not tall enough!) The good news is his teacher from last year came in to observe him for an afternoon and said he is doing a 100% better. :) Erin is enjoying the class switches and having new teachers every period. Erik is still trying to adjust, because of his surgery, so he hopes everything will be so much better when he can go out to recess with his classmates. He says his teacher is ok. (lol)

Demo and remodeling is going slower than I hoped. Hopefully with things slowing down a little we can get this project moving just a little faster!!!! But the kids are making sure we have to remove certain things (ugh)! So their work has already begun. LOL

Erin is 12!

My first thought is wow what a neat girl I have, and gee the second is when did we grow up enough to have a 12 year old!!?? Well for her birthday she was able to visit Disneyland. And we will celebrate her birthday on Sunday when Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Carrie get back from visiting Great G & G Escriva on Sunday. So until then a list of 12 awesome things about Erin:

1. First Born!
2. Born in Texas (only a few are blessed with that honor)
3. Has beautiful blond CURLY hair
4. Eyes that change from blue to hazel (like her aunt)
5. Loves Horses, and any animal really, but horses first
6. Wants to be a Veterinarian
7. Loves to listen to all kinds of music
8. Can sing and plays the piano
9. Enjoys LONG showers
10. Loves all of her family (and we love her too!)
11. Can't wait to be a true TEEN!
12. Loves playing games

She is really excited about turning twelve though for some of its benefits: She now gets to have real babysitting jobs, gets to go to the temple w/ her dad for the 1st time to do baptisms for the dead, gets her own cell phone, can wear SOME makeup, can go to YW's now, and she also got to go to camp. So she is lovin' it! Happy 12th Birthday Sweet Pea!

Yes I am alive

It took a few days to recuperate but it was such a wonderful time, busy and just getting geared up for the rest of the summer! Have fun and thanks everyone who we saw and visited! Miss all of you.

Post #6 Girls camp

Yup Erin and I went to girls camp together which was so much fun. Oh the pranks, the sleepless nights, the wonderful food, the awesome girls, the mountain air, the mud fights, the spiritual devotionals, the crazy camp skits, and even crazier songs, the clean awards, great crafts, fun activities, my daughter getting over her fear of heights somewhat, the belches and excess gas, the new camp name (Roadrunner), the testimony meeting, new friends, old friends reacquainted, Phase 10, cramming 17 girls in a small space, the meds, the warm fuzzies! The memories are wonderful and we only had one ER visit at the end of camp which turned out well after surgery. She is recovering well and grateful for all of her hard work and so glad she made it through the week before it happened. We had a blast! and we are definitely BELIEVERS!! And a special thank you to Anita!

Post #5 St. George, UT

So on our way back from the visit/funeral in Midville, we had another family event to attend. We arrived in St. George to visit my cousins and celebrate the 4th of July with them and bless Karli and Kevin's baby boy. We had a great time visiting. My mom and dad meet us there late Saturday so they went and hung out with Aunt Judy and Uncle Al. We hung out with Kasi and her two kids Dax and Gracie and went to the fireworks there in St. George. After the fire works the kids got to go to the firestaion where Kasi's husband Vince works. He is a fireman and of course the boys LOVED it. But it really paid off on Sunday after the blessing when Vince had to take Matt to the ER. His leg was getting really bad and swelling up. So he was able to get in and out in record time. Tons of Antibiotics and prescriptions. We had dinner at Aunt Judy's after the blessing (which my garden provided the corn on the cob and the watermelon :)) Yeah! So then we left there for another party to celebrate Vince and Dax's birthday's. They had it at a park with a water playground in it. It was a lot of fun. We then went back to the hotel and let the boys go swimming with their cousins till we took off. The boys stayed with my parents because they were staying an extra day and we had to get back because Erin and I were taking off to girls camps and Matt had to go to San Francisco. We got back around 3:30 in the morning. Which leads into the 6th and final post.

Post #4 Utah

After the doctors appointment we were planning to go camping up in Grants Grove, but we found out some sad news from Utah. Matt's grandfather had a serious stroke. So the whole family headed to Midville, Utah. He passed away a few days after the stroke. It was really hard on the whole family. The funeral and viewing were wonderful. I learned so much more about this wonderful man through this experience. I can totally understand living up to a name. The funeral was beautiful and very touching, he served in the Navy and they had a 21 gun salute and a bugle playing taps. It was a great tribute. During that week together we also had a wonderful time getting to know the other relatives and also visiting the Rufs and Meachams. We had the privilege of also attending the Oquirrh (pronounced oker) Temple Open House. My kids loved it! I am so glad they can't wait to go to the temple! We have pictures but they are on Matt's camera. So I will post them as soon as I can get the camera from him. We also visited This is the Place monument, which was fun and interesting. The kids got to ride a really cool train and ride ponies. The only bad thing that happened is that Matt got an skin infection on his leg. We thought it was poison oak at first, but it turned out to be cellulites or something like that because they are not totally sure what it is. Needless to say it is painful and is taking a long time to get over.

Post #3 Drs. Appointments

This was kind of a hard week and a good week for me, the kids had drs. appointments to put them on medicine for ADD. Which was Mike and Erin. They are both doing really good with it. But the hard part came when Danny was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome. It explains a whole gamma a things, and it helps with how much more we need to be aware of him. He is very high functioning and is still social and shows emotions (even though they are not at the right times) but the emotions are real which is good. He still has more testing to go through which will happen at the end of July. We will keep everyone updated!

Post # 2 Day Camp and Turk Station

This week was crazy and fun. The scouts had a great time, and the weather was pretty nice which helped out a lot. So the boys learned so many different things. They absolutely love the nature hike, which included skeletons(hello boys yeah!) I was quite concerned about day camp and volunteered to help out for next year. I can't wait. Erin went to Turk station and got 4th in Archery. I am so proud of her! She had a really good time she said. Erik also went to WEEBLOREE which was so cool for him. He went with the Huffackers (such an awesome family) Love them! Had an absolute blast and we taught them how to geocache! I think they are hooked!

First post of 6

Ok it has been a CRAZY month! SOOOOO much has happened. Well lets start with Fathers Day weekend. I went to Oxnard to visit my friend Tara who flew in from TEXAS, to drop off her nephew Austin. And spent an amazing weekend with her family! We stayed at her friend Ann's house (thank you so much!) (who I definitely want to come decorate my house too!)(and has an awesome family) It was really crowded at her parents place with everyone else there. And then to top it off her parents refrigerator died! But luckily they have several friends in the area so food was spread around till Sunday! I tried to help with her photo shoots (by the way she is an awesome photographer) And then we went to the beach and had some FANTABULOUS food at Andrea's. YUM I am still drooling thinking about it! We then went to a birthday party/welcome home/ father's day party. More good food. We also stopped and got some great roadside farmers market. Yum again! And then I headed home to celebrate fathers day with Matt and the kids. Which I got several phone calls about how great a dad he is from members in the ward. (Already knew that but it was great to hear it from others)

Side note: I had to make a few corrections with some names (thanks Tara) The house we stayed at was Ann's, not Amy's and I guess I was thinking of mexican food because I put Angelina's instead of Andrea's. Any who. It is corrected now and thank you! I am just so glad I didn't have to recite every one's name that I met while I was there. I can remember a few, but it was crazy fun so I forgot who some of them were.

Mike made it to 6!!

Yup he lives to turn another year older! Our big Mike turned 6 and we will be celebrating his birthday for a few days. On his birthday we did some geocaching and letterboxing which he absolutely loves. And kept asking when we were going to celebrate it! So to Our Mike his own personal shots he took of himself.

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This year he loved doing so many things. He started kindergarten, played baseball (new love) caught his first fish. Found out he LOVES camping and riding bikes!! Still adores his John Deere boots, and being such a BOY! We are so proud of him and love him. Happy Birthday Mike!

Oh by golly what have I gotten myself into

We came home from a quick visit to TX and found that our garden has absolutely exploded. See the pictures!!

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Having a lot of fun harvesting, and counting stuff that is ripening!

Camping

Well sorry I haven't posted in a LONG while, but we have been quite busy. We went camping over the Memorial Day weekend with the Schelers and had an absolute blast. We saw a bear (for real) and Michael caught his first fish and ate it!! The kids loved climbing the tree stumps and running around the camp ground exploring. The Sequoia trees were amazing and we are planning to go back real soon.

The weekend prior the boys went on the Father/Son camp out at Success Lake. They were suppose to remove boulders from a campsite for a service project. Matt came up with an idea to help move the boulders along by using a TREBECHET and built one after getting permission from the park rangers. Well when he brought it up, they said it was to big and were concerned about the safety of people fishing in the lake (LOL) so they couldn't use it. :(. But they did have a good time canoeing and the usual camp stuff. Us girls did a half sleep over at the church, watching Chitti Chitti Bang Bang, painting nails, banana splits, and making cards. We had a really good time.

My garden is doing FABULOUS!! We have had lettuce so far. Corn is doing great, tons of green tomatoes. The pumpkins, beans, okra, strawberries, popcorn, peppers, garlic and zucchini are doing great. We should start harvesting soon!! I am soooo excited.

The kids have been doing great in school. Erik just finished his mission 3D rendition of the San Carlos Carmelo. It looked really good. Erin finished her reading project on Esperanza which was really cool. Michael got his first 100% on his spelling test and is so proud of it!

We also have pictures that are posted below of the kids and Grandpa Teves at the Antique Farm Show. They got to ride on the back of a small scale train. They had so many different things to look at and had an absolute blast. Matt and I worked on the signs at the ball park in Pixley. I must say they really look pretty good and we are almost done with them.

Erik also performed in his first Piano recital and did really well. Erin is also taking lessons but didn't feel comfortable enough to play yet. Baseball and Softball is going well for Michael, Erin and Erik. They have a few games left. I will post those pics as soon I get them scanned in.

I am having some issues down loading pics right now, so look for an update on the pics, especially the ones from the Garden, Antique Farm Show, and Camping.

Summer is coming up and can't wait!

Spring Fever

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Ok just to warn you this is going to be a long post, because soooo much has happened the last two weeks! Nothing really prior to that, except an update on the dishwasher, DISH HEAVEN!! Man that is one invention I am very grateful for!

We first have a cousins birthday to celebrate which is Conner. He is now a big 3 and is quite a neat guy! Happy Birthday Conner!

Starting the weekend of conference we made some plans to go up to the mountains to camp out and watch it on satellite, well it turned out it was going to be VERY cold and snowing, so we decided to camp out in their back yard. We had a total blast and enjoyed being with them. We helped chop up an old fence for LeAnne to use for vinyl signs, which turned out really cute, for a craft sale on Saturday. We also made a movie screen for outside shows, (which we are thrilled about and going to use quite often) The kids got along great and played all three days together wonderfully. We also got quite a laugh we were catching up on old times and I was looking at the scrapbooks and was looking at the engagement pictures that they had taken for their wedding 13 years ago. She went to get the scrapbook with the invites in it and low and behold there was my invitation (right on top) no joke. We died laughing. What are the odds?? We only had one mishap for the weekend...poor Danny got bit by Chance (sp). We took him to the ER (which was horrible we had to wait FOREVER!!) He ended up with two black eyes, his face was quite swollen and a puncture wound on the left side of his nose and a scratch under his eye and antibiotics. Chance was quarantined for 10 days. The poor dog, is older and has a depth perception problem and was startled by Danny, it was a total accident. Both are doing well.

Well that started are Spring break...so awe to sleeping in! I went down to Bakersfield for a Doctors appointment on Monday, Forgot Piano lessons on Tuesday. But remembered Baseball practice, that they didn't have... LOL but we were able to work on the signs for the back fence. Matt and I with several of the girls softball team, along with Robert, Sam, Kamela, and Samantha's mom are painting and stenciling and outlining for the season. We are also helping with the general clean up of the field. Now the funny thing is this is the field my father helped build when he was a child so this has a lot more meaning to it. It was the field he spent several hours on playing his favorite sport. Talk about making grandpa proud that all of his grand kids are playing ball on His field. Well while working on the signs we were talking about drive in theaters and how it is such a shame that they are all gone here in the valley, and came up with the idea of using the screen we just made and having a BBQ and having a double feature after Erik's teams scrimmage on Thursday! We had an absolute blast! What even made it better is that we had gone to the coast for the day to go see Grandpa and Hearst Castle (explanation in a minute) and Grandpa got to come home and watch the scrimmage too!

So that was Tuesday and Wednesday we hung out and worked on the garden, it was great no Webelos, Activity Days, Gymnastics, etc. Ahhhhh! So we were also able to get ready to go the next day to the coast. We took Grandma with us and headed over to met up with Grandpa. We totally enjoyed the beautiful drive over seeing all of the grapevines and Spanish Moss filled trees. After picking up Grandpa we headed over to San Clemente to visit Hearst Castle. Wow what a beautiful place, see pictures. There was sooo much to see, and we didn't even see half of it. We headed back to make it to Erik's scrimmage (event above)and were a little bit late!

Then Friday came and oh what a day to remember! It was Daniel's 5th Birthday! Yup my baby is 5 and he has been going on about his birthday for months, so fun to be young! We had a little get together with the Wilcox's and opened presents and had a Transformer cake and watched Marley & Me. My sweet little boy is now 5 (it is unbelievable that he made it to that age and those that know my son are probably dying laughing at that statement) We had planned to go to the snow for his birthday that day but it was bad weather so we planned to go on Saturday. David Jr. stayed the night for fun and ended up going with us to the Primary Activity and to the Snow on Saturday.

So Saturday, in true Poole form, we were suppose to be at the Activity at 9:00, we got there at 10 just in time to drop off the goodies at the Fire station and play a little at the park. Which was a perfect spring morning of about 55-60 degrees. Then we drove about an hour east and we were playing in the snow, where it was snowing! Yup just an hour. The great benefits of living in CA. The coast 2 hours away, snow an 1 away from our house. It was so much fun throwing snowballs around and getting shots with bluebonnets. On the way back down we stopped in for a treat at Reimer's candy store. Ice Cream!! LOL, kids are totally soaked from the snow and cold, and what do we go and get. It was so fun! After making it back down to the valley we dropped David off and went shopping for Easter. While shopping dad called and asked us to stop by Carrie's to see the project they had been working on. Shelves in the office, they turned out really good. Then they took Erin and Erik with them to the movies to watch Monsters vs. Aliens. Matt, me and the boys went up to Visalia and picked up the airbrush system Matt had been looking at to help with the sign project. Those signs are going to be really neat looking.

Well when we got home we started prepping for Easter Sunday. We have several traditions that we do to make Easter so meaningful. We make Easter Cookies and talk about the death and resurrection of Christ, and die the eggs for egg wars. We also have a tradition instead of an Easter Egg hunt, the Easter Bunny has a scavenger hunt for the kids to find their Easter baskets. That Bunny is quite creative let me tell you. We got up Sunday and got ready for church. Had a wonderful Sabbath morning except Matt's truck wouldn't start, so that was kind of frustrating, so we missed half of sacrament. But primary and Matt's class went really well. We then headed over to Aunt Carrie's to let them change and pick up the gifts for Danny's birthday and Easter dinner stuff. And then the entertainment began! Matt came home instead of going over to Aunt Carrie's to get things started for lunch and make sure the Easter Bunny had come. The kids found a note on the door from the Easter Bunny with a basket and pencil. They had an absolute blast figuring out all of the clues and it was nice having Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Carrie here, with Aunt TT on the phone watching it all. Then the egg wars began! Danny ended up the WINNER! Lunch was so yummy! Then we celebrated Danny's birthday, boy this kid totally made out with some cool toys. Mom and Dad also got gifts for the kids and us for Easter, and Aunt Carrie totally scored with the kids with some See's chocolate bunnies. Matt got some really cool books on how to make some neat toys, and I got a cookbook with probably the most fabulous recipes in it. Can't wait to try them ALL!!

Well now that you are all caught up! and totally exhausted from reading this, go relax and have some of your kids Easter candy to get your energy back to make it through the rest of the day. Enjoy the pictures.

The start of it all

When we put our sod in we left a large area to start our "Garden" So it is offical, we planted stuff this weekend and the waiting game now begins!! I will update with a series of photos that looks cool from begining to at least some green.

We had a really fun weekend with lots of people over. Not all at once though. But is was a fun weekend with a bunch of laughs.

We also just got a dishwasher, because I really hate doing dishes by hand. (SO LAZY) Anyhow here is a picture of it.

Sickies at the Pooles

Before I get started on the explanation of the title, I was laying in bed I remembered that is was my brother-in-laws birthday. Happy Birthday Scott, I hope you had a great day!

Well the crud hit our house again, poor Erik was the first victim, Erin was the second victim, Michael was next. Poor thing threw up so hard he busted the blood vessels in his face and eyes.

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Daddy was next with the headaches and upset stomach and took a sick day Monday. And has a left over cough that is horrible. Then Danny and I were next with fevers and achyness that started yesterday. Danny came up to me this morning and said he was on fire and needed bubble gum medicine. Poor thing. Anyhow we are starting to get better but it will take some time, hopefully.

Gophers, Ticks, and Garden Stuff

Well with putting the new lawn in the ticks decided to attack the poor dog, since we removed their home, but we hope that with some 7 dust, tick shampoo, and the stuff that you apply on the back of the neck and that they no longer have a home they will totally disappear. Now onto the gophers, we had a plant that they absolutely loved called Melba (sp) and there is some of it left in the garden area, so they have been digging some holes. So before they get to the new sod we got some stuff to get rid of them. We need to make sure they are gone before we start planting our garden here in the next couple of weeks. Or the garden will be full of very healthy gophers! It is going to be fun having a garden. The kids are so excited! Well

Fun Valentines

Matt and I had a really neat date on Valentines and hope everyone had a Happy Valentines Day. We went to a Hibachi Grill, and to my total shock Matt actually tried some Sushi and Liked It!! So Val and Lucy, We can totally go to the Sushi Bars now!!!!! I am so excited! If you have never been to a Hibachi Grill you sit with other couples around a grill while the chef cooks in front of you, dazzling his guest with wonderful tricks. We had a very nice evening and met a wonderful couple from Lemore. We also went out for my favorite place for ice cream at Cold Stone, YUM!
Well hope everyone had a Fun Loving Valentines Day!

First project

We did our first remodeling project this last weekend and it looks so different, we dry walled the garage. Enjoy the before and after shots!

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Extreme Sod Makeover!

Let's just say that the guys who lay sod for a living have a whole new level of respect from me! I see it every week on Extreme Home Makeover, when they redo these yards, and now have even higher regards to those who lay sod in cold weather, rain, and heat.
The story goes as follows:
After the Farm Show this last week,we found out that some of the exhibitors sell the sod that they had on the site of their displays. My parents backyard has not had grass on it for at least 15 years because they had leveled it and hadn't re seeded it. So as one of our remodel projects was to landscape the back yard. So I asked around what happens to the sod. Well it turned out it is brought in by different people, and we found one guy and asked him about it and he sold us some that would fill a little over half of the yard, and we thought we would seed after that. The problem is some people tend to walk off with it we were warned so on a rainy Friday my dad and I loaded up just a couple of 6 foot rolls of sod while it was raining. We didn't realize how heavy sod becomes when it is wet (LOL) So any how we decided that we would have to come back the next day (Saturday) and start rolling up the sod and put it in Matt's truck and make several loads. Which was great because it wasn't raining. We had a friend watching the kids, thank heavens, so that we could work and travel back and forth to Tulare.
We got started and learned a few things like if you cut it in small rolls it is easier to handle, and a sharp knife if very great tool. You can't leave it rolled up to long or it rots. So in all of this learning process we learned that we have to work quickly and get all of the sod laid out again. We also found out that we could leave the sod laid out, until we were ready to lay it down, but we still had to hurry, because we didn't want anyone taking the sod we bought.
So back to the story, the stuff we bought we knew would not fill the back yard because it is 75 x 150 and the site only had about 75 x 25. So we came home with the first load and started prepping the ground by rototilling it to get rid of the weeds, and smoothing it out (that took a little bit to figure out too) and that way when we brought the next load home we would be done and we would have a nice section of grass, with the thought of seeding the rest of the yard.
WELLLLL...it didn't quite end up that way. On our next trip back after laying the first load, the site a couple of sections down from where we bought our first sod, we saw several pallets of the same grass and asked if it was for sale also, because wouldn't it be great to just do the whole back yard it would be so much easier and look great. Of course it was, so we made a deal with them and ended up buying 26 pallets of sod!!!!! Now as I mentioned before the sod rots faster if it is folded or rolled up (like in 24 hours) so now we were under the gun. 1. because of the sod needing to be laid as quickly as possible. 2. The farm show grounds closed at 6 and would not be open till Monday (way passed the 24 hour time frame for the sod) and it was 2:00 and we had to hurry. Urgent calls were made to my father to get trailers and trucks so that we could have the fork lifts to put the sod on them. Calls to my mom and sister to help with babysitting, because we promised to have the babysitter home by 5. It worked out, great thanks to all of their help.
We were able to get a large tractor trailer, and my dad's work truck to pull that one. And then my dad's old blue truck (nicknamed mator by my kid's) and the trailer for the sprayrigs we used to haul on it. So now properly equipped we headed back up to Tulare and loaded up the pallets on the trailers. There was so much grass we literally had to drive 25 miles an hour home because they were soooo heavy (not recommended) When the fork lift put the first two pallets on the small trailer I swear you could hear the truck moan!! Your killin' me!
Well as you guessed we figured out that we needed a little more help now because we had a heck of a lot more sod to lay in a short amount of time and also had to prep some more ground. We called in some awesome re-enforcements, and learned a few more things about laying sod from them. We also called my dad in for one more favor, to borrow a fork lift, because after seeing how much sod there was and how many trips we would be making from the front yard to the back with a truck, we got scared! These pieces were sooo heavy because of the rain.

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We finished it finally! Took four days to do it,(we were able to do that because we left the other sod we bought on sight laid out on the ground and picked it up when we were ready) a lot of sore muscles, great memories and ended up with more than we needed and ended up doing our friends yard too that had helped us lay our backyard. It was a lot of sod! It is a very hard job, but oh so worth it. The pictures are before and after. The spot where the cars are right now is going to be a RV cement parking, and the L shape is my new garden area.
But like I said, I have a whole new appreciation for sod laying guys!!

Farm Show, Tulare Ca

We are gearing up for the Farm Show which is next week and it is going to be really fun too, because the webelos are going for an hour one day and then we are going to the Tractor pull after that. It is really cool. You can look it up under www.worldagexpo.com It is an awsome farming trade show.

What a whirlwind!

Well life has up'd it a notch around here and things are blowin' and goin'. The business in Texas has come to life and it is thrilling to see that happen for Uncle Bryon, Mom and Dad. It is going to be so neat to watch it grow. The home health care business is quite a niche for Bryon and I think he will do great in it.

What has been going on around here is that we have been given some callings and it has become quite adventurous for Matt and I. Matt is the new Cub Master and I am the Webelos Den leader. Sue one of my great friends in Texas was the Webelos and always came up with such awesome ideas and Val (Matt's other brother) was the Cub Master so we really now totally thank you guys for all of the stuff you did!!!

We have the pinewood derby coming up and getting ALL of the cars ready for that. We will post pics as soon after the event. It is unbelievable how involved the event is and hopefully a lot of people show up!! The other thing that is unbelievable is the amount of classes and training you have to go through, but it is really good.

I also have another calling which is right up my alley, enrichment activities chair. Love planning events and activities so hopefully I do good at this. So this is a long enough updates. Hope everyone is doing well!!

Texas Christmas

Well we are getting ready to leave tomorrow back to "sunny" California. We were hoping for a "White" or at least "Cold" Christmas here. Ha Ha Ha! It ended up being summer weather with a warm 75 degree day on Christmas and a thunderstorm a few days later and then nice warm breezes till today!! Only in Texas right?
Christmas was wonderful, we had a great spiritual Christmas and fun opening gifts and watching the kids reaction to everything. I love this holiday for so many reasons and enjoy looking forward to it all year. (I even play music during the year just to boost my spirits)

We did a lot of things and one of the highlights was a surprise Birthday/Anniversary Party for Grandma and Grandpa Poole on Friday night. It was quite an event trying to keep it a secret, even up to the last minute trying to figure out how to get Grandma there dressed up. The ploy was a temple trip with all of the adults. It was a brilliant plan...and Matt made it more believable (with his sisters and sister-in-law giving him looks that could kill) when he realized that our recommends expired on the 31st of December and we had only gotten one half of our interviews done with the bishop and we were missing the signature from the stake president. (I was laying down at the time because I had a headache so I am only envisioning this conversation) But things were remedied with some supposed phone calls to our stake president, ha ha ha. Then another kink in the plan came the next night trying to get Matt and Dad back in time to go to the "temple", because of our silly tv from the van, trying to get it fixed before we left on Saturday. They finally had to just leave, and they barely made it back in time. Well needless to say it went off beautifully. Grandma was totally surprised!Marcus, Anna, and Marie made some great food for the party (Michael particularly like the flower sandwiches, he ate 5 of them!) Marcy finished an awesome slide show of the last 40 years and had that playing during the party. We had a replica of the cake and flowers made for them. The cake topper was the original from the wedding cake so that was totally fun to do. We had a great time.

The kids and I also made a quick visit to Oklahoma on Saturday. We weren't able to see everyone like I had hoped. We just didn't have the time. I hope this summer we can get to see everyone and spend some time hanging out there. I am glad we did get to see Titia and her family. We had a really good visit and I think Mike and Dan got their Erin Elzeabet fix and Tyler fix, and Steph got her Mike fix. LOL! We drove through town and reminisced and looked at the Christmas lights on the main street. Stopped by Kaja's for a brief moment and then had to head back to Texas. We met up with the Brooks in Moore and drove home with them. We brought home some of the cold weather with us that was blowing in (yeah)

We got to also visit with our dog Gabbie. She is doing great, and has adapted VERY well to her new owner Terri, which is Grandma and Grandpa's neighbor. So every time we come to visit we get to see her too. We really miss her, but she absolutely loves playing with all of the other dogs and is totally spoiled rotten!

Well we will be off tomorrow back to California pending anymore technical delays (TV issues)!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a wonderful New Year.