Marysvale Marshalls

The cake I made for Melissa's 5th birthday. It took some time but I guess she's worth it!

When I found out I can post from my phone I decided I would try to blog more often now since I'm not near my computer too often. To be honest I pretty much forgot I had a blog until my SIL Jenn told me I should update it. Afterall, my last post was of Ava's 6th birthday and she's now 7. Jenn also gave me good advice to not try to play catch up. So here I am posting about what's current and not past.
All 3 of my kids are in preschool (heaven help their teachers:). William and Ava will move up to kindergarten next year and Melissa has two more years in preschool. I've been subbing at the elementary (kindergarten & combined 3rd & 4th grades). It has been fun to see and eat lunch with my kids. It has also been fun getting to know all the other kids in town. Tommorow I'm heading to Cedar City with a friend to take a class on home cheese making. I'm so excited! A friend I went to school with is teaching it and I'm excited to catch up with her. I'll have to post about the class.
I've been making different versions of strawberry jams (one with vanilla bean and one with cracked black pepper) to market with through our Rose Ranch business. I must say so far so good. I'm taking a food managers course next week so we can be all legal to market food. We've already built a certified kitchen to prepare the goods in. I'm excited because I thoroughly enjoy bottling. Hopefully all of the fruit trees we planted last fall survived the deer.
We're gearing up for another season. I've been taking lots of reservations so it's shaping up to be another successful season. We feel so blessed to live here in Marysvale. The people here are so wonderful and there are so many opportunities for the kids. The preschool teachers have done wonders for Ava. She continues to make leaps and bounds in her progress. We love it here!
I think that's enough for now. Until next time...hopefully soon!

Wow it's been awhile since I've posted last. I have collected some pictures that I wanted to post so mostly these will be pictures instead of a long, wordy, novel.

Ava had her 6th birthday on January 31st. I can't believe the progress she has made in that last year. She is walking now and talking a lot more. I contribute it to her preschool teachers. They are so good with her and make sure she does the things her physical therapist wants her to do. I'm sure she'll miss them when she moves on to kindergarten next year.

William hid out and cut his own hair. He cut it so close to the scalp...

that we had to buzz it!

We think it turned out pretty cute and this may be his new hairstyle for awhile considering I don't have to do anything to it but wash it:)

Nathan turned the big 40 in February! His goal was to lose 40 lbs by then. He almost made it. He's lost 35 lbs to date & looks awesome!

We celebrated his birthday with his family at Ruby River Steak House. Yummy!

I'll have to post more later. I have some good winter pictures of the tons of snow we got. Toodooloo until then.

Yesterday William had an appointment for some oral surgery at the Richfield hospital at 6am. So we got up at 5am to get there on time. We had to go through the ER because the hospital doors weren't open yet. While I was telling the nurse to buzz us in, William escaped to the drinking fountain. He wasn't supposed to have any food or drink after midnight. So we get inside and I tell the dr. He says it's too risky to do surgery after he drank water. So they told us to come back at 11am unless I heard from them to come earlier or later. Thinking we had several hours, we came back home only to find out that all William wanted to do was eat and drink. So we got back in the car and headed back to Richfield. We went to the dollar store and to K-Mart but he still wanted candy and pop. So I decided the waiting room at the hospital would be best. We got there at 11am. They took us back to get him in the gown at noon and then we waited, and waited, and waited. The nurse came in a little after one and said they were going to take him back. So she gave him some medicine to help him relax. Then the dr decided he needed to eat lunch first. So we waited until 2 before he went back. The surgery took about 45 minutes and another hour to sleep off the meds. By 4pm they came and got me even though William was still asleep. I got him dressed and we finally got home around 5. He slept all the way home and didn't wake up until 8:30. I thought for sure he would be up until the wee hours of the morning but he actually went to bed at midnight. He's doing fine today but doesn't remember anything from the surgery. He asked me why he had a band-aid on his foot (from the IV). He also had a black line on his nose from where they taped the tube. I told him what is was from and he was adamant that he didn't have tape on his face. It was an exhausting experience but at least it's all done and he survived.

Today it has been snowing all day. This picture doesn't do justice to what it really looks like outside. I'm sure we have over a foot of snow so far. And it won't stop! I'm afraid to try to drive my car in it. Nathan said he almost got stuck in 4-wheel drive while doing chores. I guess it's officially a snow day and I should just enjoy it while it lasts. Hopefully it will be the last snow of the season...I know it won't be but I can have some wishful thinking:)

Yesterday morning Nathan & I woke up to the sound of "Help! Help!" We hurried out to the kitchen to find William up on the counter not able to get down. It wasn't a real emergency but at least he woke us up to see what he was doing. He decided he was going to get up early and make himself a quesadilla for breakfast. He got the tortillas and cheese out. He cut cheese with a butter knife and was ready to put it in the microwave but it was too high. I guess that's when he decided to yell for help. Nathan put the quesadilla in the microwave for him and gave it to him. It was very early so we went back to bed and let him eat his breakfast. Kids!!!

I haven't updated my blog in quite sometime as you can see. Well the events of yesterday and last night have inspired me to do an update. The day started off fine. I subbed for 1st & 2nd grade at the elementary on Thursday and yesterday. I had a lot of fun with the 7 boys in my class. They were all good kids and made my job easy. When I got home at noon yesterday, Nathan had bathed the kids and cleaned the house. He even had fed them lunch! It was pretty amazing. However, from there it all went down hill. He had discovered that all the pipes were frozen at his parents vacation home next door, and the water to my washer was frozen because my laundry room is in the garage. So he left and went to Richfield to run a few errands and get some heaters to defrost the pipes. When he came home it was time to do chores. The kids and I go do chores with him every night so I can drive while he throws hay. He went to feed the chickens and the few horses we have corraled next to our house. So I was getting the kids ready to go and here he comes walking a horse. He said the horse was sick and he needed to walk it around. So he walked it and walked it and walked it, for probably 2 hours. By this time it was dark. He still needed to feed the chickens & few horses and he also needed to build a fire in the wood burning stove next door. So I left the kids in the house with a movie on and took the horse while he heated the house & fed. I walked the horse for nearly an hour. Finally, he decided to tie the horse up (because it's not supposed to lie down), and go feed the horses in the pastures. So we loaded up the kids and headed to the other horses. When we got there all 25 horses were out of the pasture and in the haystack! So we spent an hour or so getting what we thought were all of them back in the pasture. We get back home and the sick horse is laying down. So Nathan sat on the back of the truck leading it, and I drove around for another half hour. He decided to just walk it around the yard so I could take the now cranky kids in and feed them. I fed them and got them ready for bed (it was 10:30). Nathan finally came in, ate, relaxed for a bit and decided he had better go check the horses up in the pasture. Good thing he did, there was still one horse out! He got to bed after midnight but by then I was crashed out. I was so exhausted, I didn't wake up once before 6am which is unusual.

Today is going much better. It has warmed up and all the pipes are defrosted. The sick horse survived and is doing better. All the other horses are still in their corrals and I can do laundry now. I just called a babysitter and we're going out to dinner and christmas shopping tonight. I can't wait. We both need a break. Merry Christmas to everyone if I don't get around to posting again by then.

OK. So I am the worst blogger ever (next to my sister Trisha:)) Just kidding Trisha if you're reading this. We had a very happy halloween. It all started Monday with a carnival at the elementary school. They had a costume parade which Ava won the prize for her age group. We ate mummy dogs and sloppy joes and had homemade rootbeer..yummy! Then the kids played carnival games. Nathan felt it necessary to join in on some of it. William won a cake at the cake walk. He felt it necessary to pick the cake I made for it...oh well. It was a lot of fun. The school here is such a good school with so many fun things for the kids to do. I feel really fortunate that my kids can go to school here.

For actual halloween we went to Logandale to Nathan's parents house. Everyone dressed up including the adults and went trick-or-treating in one neighborhood. Then we all went to Jared & Jenn's for a party. We ate yummy food. Jenn made sloppy joes that were delectable. Kerrie made everything under the sun for dessert. She made cookie cut outs, cookie pizza, cheesecake, cupcakes, and something else I'm missing. She was busy all day. We had a cupcake walk for the kids, a donut game for the adults, and just good old fun. I hope we start a tradition to do it every year. I forgot my camera for halloween so the pictures I'm posting are from the carnival. I hope everyone had a happy halloween.