All you need is a Jeep

I guess if you want your garage cleaned/organized all you need to do is get your husband a Jeep. That's all it took for my husband to clean ours.

He recently got this Jeep from his father when he passed and ever since he has been what I call "Jeeping". He is a member of 2 online Jeep forums and has taken the Jeep out a few times. The first time he went on a real "run" he broke something called a Sway Bar. I told him that he can't buy any Jeep parts until I has a new Refrigerator in my kitchen. (We have needed on since forever and he keeps putting it off. I can't live any longer without water and ice!) Needless to say, if you know Big J then you know that he has not been listening.

This guy above put a huge dent in the back and ripped out his tail light. This rock dented or scratched just about every jeep that went by it.

Last Saturday he drug us all up to Gorman for some Jeep party. The kids and I stayed for a couple hours and watched "Crazy" people put a lot of dents and scratches into their jeeps. When Big J got home around 11 or so he told me that he had flooded the jeep. He got stuck in a big puddle of muddy water and it all came inside.

(I told him to stay out of the mud)
I guess he got some water in his transmission and now he has to "work" on his jeep to fix it.

So yesterday he cleaned the garage. It would have been great if I could say that he cleaned it out for me to be able to park in there again. But no. only for his broken jeep to sit until it is fixed.

New Arrival

Big J did not survive his case of Boat Fever. We have lost him. We towed the boat home yesterday. He is so excited. He couldn't even sleep last night he was all worried that someone would steal it. kept getting me up making me go out and help him back the jeep in front of the boat so no one could take off with it. It like his little baby.

I told him that he could just sleep in the boat if he needed to. I told him that in stead of making him sleep on the couch when he is bad that now he was going to have to sleep in the boat. He said that he wouldn't listen to me. Which is no different than now. I wish that I could make him sleep on the couch when he is in trouble but he never does. Is it just on T.V. that wives can do that or do other husbands actually get banned to the couch?

Anyway, I'm sure our lives will be centered around the lake now. So if anyone wants to go to the lake just ask Big J and I'm sure he would be more than thrilled to take anyone out. He is super excited to try Wake Surfing. Click on the link to see a YouTube video of it. He says its actually easier than wake boarding. I have no balance so we will see.

He had to get this boat because it is made for wake surfing and making big wakes for wake boarding. Anyway...

Here it is our new arrival...

Did you call a plumber?

***This post is not for people with weak stomachs***

So every time something breaks I wonder if we are going to have to call someone to come out and fix it. Like when the hot water on the washer wouldn't come out or when the shower wont unclog. But every time I call Big J and ask what to do and he just says that he will fix it when he gets home. And he usually does.

So yesterday the kitchen sink clogged up. This has never happened before and I hadn't put anything big in it or anything. All I did was start the dishwasher and later saw water rising in the sink. When I called Big J he told me to plunge it. I tried but had no success. So I just left it for Big J. Later when he got home he tried to plunge it and also couldn't get it. So he went to the store and bought a 25ft snake thing. ($40) And tried to get the clog out. But still couldn't get it.

While talking to a friend (who happens to be a plumber) he was told that he would need at least 50 ft. So he offered to come and fix it for us. While we were waiting for him to get here Big J just couldn't help to keep trying. He said that our friend said that a lot of people try to get a plug thing off and end up breaking it because they don't know how. So what does Big J do? He tries to get it off. I kept telling him that he needs to wait and let the professional handle it, but that only made him try harder I think. Men are so funny.

This is Big J NOT being patient. Waiting for the plumber.

Big J's Plumber butt! He He

This came out when He opened the Plug thing. GROSS!

When our friend arrived he brought in, what I call, the BIG DADDY SNAKE! He did say that there was an even bigger one but thought that this would do. But compared to Big J's this was much bigger. He had the drain unclogged in about 10 mins.

Here is the Big Daddy Snake compared to Big J's

Big J was a little upset that he spent $40 on a tool that wouldn't even work. I guess you can't always just go out and buy the right tool. I know I know Big J has just about every other tool in the world. (Every time he has to fix/make something there is another special tool that he needs) And the one that our friend used was like $1000 or so. So I wonder if buying the tools evens out to the amount that the service repair people and others would cost.

Christmas Time Was Here!

Twas the night before Christmas... We were invited over to a house of our friends for dinner. (just happened to be the scene of an incident a week earlier. I will tell at the end of this blog post) It was nice to be able to go over there and celebrate. The kids decorated cookies, they were supposed to be for Santa but we found it hard to get any to save for him. They all just wanted to eat them. We ate and watched a little of the "Christmas Story" and ate some apple pie. Then we took the kids home, spread out the reindeer food, set out the remaining cookies and sent them to bed. We had to wait a while to make sure they were asleep for Santa to come cause I know how Little D likes to get up 10 times to tell us something. Once Santa had come I snapped this picture and went to bed.



Little D woke up first at 6:30 am which isn't bad considering some kids get up at say, 4 am. Once the other kids were awake we let them go to town. They were all happy with their gifts. I took a picture of Little D and his excitement when he opened his present from Santa.


It was Star Wars Clone Wars Wii game with light saber controllers.


Little A got just about everything Tinkerbell and has been very happy with her dress ups she got and make-up that Santa gave her.




Little C got 2 ride on toys and has been very protective of them. He is getting better at no crying when on of his siblings gets on them. Big J received 2 ties one was a reindeer tie (Little D picked out) and the other was black and blue (from Little A). He also got a CTR tie tack that Little A picked out also. I received a iHome Alarm clock to go with my Ipod touch that I got for my Birthday.

Later we invited some friends of ours over for dinner. I took a picture of the tables cause they looked to pretty.




We had a good time together and again it was fun to spend the Holiday with friends. Well I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We had a good Christmas here. And we are grateful for all the gifts that we received from everyone this year! Love You All!

It's Handy, To Have A Handy-man Husband

Look what Big J built me! There used to be 2 empty indents there. Now there is tons more storage! There is still not enough storage in this house. Which makes me wonder if ANYONE ever has enough storage? Or no matter what size house you have, you find more than enough to fill it? Either way I'm grateful for a husband that spends his days off trying to improve our home.

On the left is most our food storage. On the right is the entertainment equip. ... and our vacuum and shampooer!

Early Birthday for Big J

So It was officially Big J's Birthday yesterday. But he had to go to Washington for work so we celebrated on Thursday. I labored all day to make his requested cake, from his Grandmothers Recipe. Its a very time consuming recipe in that you have to mix by hand and sift it 3 times.

Now I don't know how important those 2 things are but Big J wouldn't let me do it any other way. I have made this cake only one time before so I didn't have all the kinks worked out. However I did, after the last time making it, go out and buy a sifter. This helped the process a lot! I also only have one 9 inch round pan which gave me the perfect opportunity to mess it up. After the first layer was done cooking I was too impatient and tried to take it out too soon and it just crumbled up! So then I was upset because who wants only a single layer cake? So I grabbed the box of chocolate cake mix that I had in the cupboard and made that too. So now It was only half homemade.


I had the bottom and the top layer dark chocolate cake mix and the middle was Big J's Grandmas recipe. The frosting was also homemade and then I put some white chocolate shavings on the top and sides. It turned out OK I guess but it wasn't all the "Greatest Chocolate Cake ever" which his Grandma's recipe is. (according to Big J) Little A watched me put the candles on and when she saw the 3 asked when he was going to be 4 like her. I thought that was cute.


So I hope that you had a great birthday Big J! We love you and are grateful for all you do for us. We are so blessed to have such a kind, hardworking, self-less Father and Husband.

Big J's New Calling

So Big J is now the new Ward Clerk! It was a total surprise. It was also a surprise to hear what that entailed. We went into the meeting thinking it was something to do with Stake Mission Prep or Elders Quorum. They said a lot about how he gets to see and know the inner workings of the Bishopric. They also said that when the Lord wants to tutor one of his children he gives them this calling. They said a lot about trust and confidentiality and how he couldn't share details with me (which I knew and expected) but that he could share the feelings and testimonies that would come from this calling. I knew that he would love to give me a hard time about the fact that he can not share details. So I told them about how he ALWAYS says that he can't tell me things because I am not in the "Circle of Trust"! They all laughed. No doubt I will hear that a lot in the coming months. He was sustained and set apart today and the outgoing Clerk was more than happy to pass the keys and get him "logged in" to the computer today after church. So there you have it.

Mr. Fix it!

I am so blessed to have a handy husband. Yesterday our air conditioner broke again! I say again because this happened last year. The last couple of days it had been making funny noises so we kinda expected it to go out. Still, once it goes out you feel like, "How could it do this to you in the middle of summer?" So all afternoon we were sweating it out here. We went and got some fans and at about 9 pm it was cooler outside than it was inside.

By the time Big J got home at 11:30 last night it was only 87 degrees in our house. But hey it could have been worse I guess. So anyway we got ready for bed and Big J went outside and tried to figure out what was wrong. We then got in bed and said our prayers praying for the air to be fixed quickly (we had a man coming out tomorrow afternoon to fix it) Then Big J thought that he should go try one more time. He had me try and turn it on after he was outside and like 2 seconds later the air was flowing! And it was cool! He showed me what he had done so that I could tell the service man. We were so grateful that it was on and that we would be able to sleep comfortably. We said another prayer thanking Heavenly Father for helping us. Talk about your instant miracles huh?

So now I am terrified to turn it off. We still have the service man coming out to look at it later today. Hopefully we will be able to extend the life of our unit for a little longer. Everyone knows how expensive these things are, and we don't need that!