So much

There is so much I need to post about! Jaran had his 30th birthday on the 20th, and leading up to said day, he was having a hard time coming to grips with it. While watching "Failure to Launch," I said that paintballing looked like so much fun and asked him if he'd ever done it. He said a couple times in Utah. So I started formulating a plan. I asked Erik and Jordan if they knew of any places. Erik said that there was one in Greybull so I called. The didn't answer so I left a message. They never did call back, so I started finding places in Billings and came accross the perfect place. For $25 you get 500 paintballs, a gun, a mask and all day field access and air. So I set up a time for us to make sure there were guns. Being the smart person I am, I realized just having two of us there would not be very much fun, and decided to take my poor sister and her poor boyfriend with us and pay for it for her birthday which was today. I say poor because Matt is going to school and working part time and Calli is working somewhat part-time and having to rent a place. She has a great job that she loves, but the people always give her too little hours to work. Anyway- we had a BLAST! We got there around 10:30 and started having fun. I only have one picture of the thing, and it's a nice welt that my loving husband gave me after I was already out and standing up... here it is:

The lady told us it's like stubbing your toe- you hurt at first but it goes away quickly. That is a lie. Either that or he must have gotten me just right, and I must have gotten Cal just right- in the rear end... I still feel bad about that one. I ambushed her cause she would NOT move from the place she first hid. After being hotter than snot in our pants and long sleeves, we had to go cause Matt had to work and Jaran HAD to watch the BYU/WYO game from start to finish. We had a ton of fun and I'm glad that I am such a genious;)!

Okay- can I just tell you all how much I love my little girl. Not that I don't love my boys- but you just CAN'T dress them up into a cheerleading outfit like you can Ansleigh. Case in point:


It is because of her that they won that day. I love it! I have a video of her and it looks like she's dancing in it. I sent it to a few of you, and it's so flippin' cute! She is such a little trooper when it comes to stuff like that. I have taken to flipping out her hair with my straightner and I know she is such a good girl when she doesn't move and lets me. I love it!

Poor McKie had a horrible little accident this Friday. He didn't have shoes on, so I took him out of the car and sat him on the sidewalk. I was going to get Ans out and just happened to turn to look at him as he tried crossing a corner of the garden to get on the sidewalk and stepped on this:

That is 32 goathead thorns. Not only did he step on them without shoes, but after stepping onto them, he then stepped onto the sidewalk again. If you'll look closely at the picture there are a few drops of blood in the midst of the thorns. I carried him inside after removing the thorns and sat his feet in some water to try and calm him down. Then I got the tweezers to try and remove the pieces that broke off into his foot. It was WORLD WAR III. Both Bob and Jaran were trying to hold him down so I could do the task at hand and he still managed to flail. I wish I could have gotten a picture because at one point Jaran was plugging his ears to try and save himself from the screaming. Kies' face was a fuschia/violet color and sounded as though we were torturing him with a hot brand or something. I do have sympathy for him, however, as I stepped on about 2 this summer, through flip flops, and it hurt for about a week. So to have 32 in your feet couldn't have made for the most pleasant time.

Brensyn is such a funny little kid. This story is both sad, and HILARIOUS. We had a bit of a scare today as the kids were playing downstairs. I went down to check on them and smelled some gas, then heard some gas leaking. I hollered at all 6 kids to get upstairs fast and get out of the house. So we walked over to Cams... about half way down the block I realized Brens didn't have any shoes, so I ran back and grabbed him some. I put him in Wranglers this morning and that doubled with his little bow-legged walk was about the cutest thing I've ever seen.

On the way back from Cam's, he was just walking along and minding his own business and this black and white Aussie dog come running out and barking and poor Brensyn started running away and screaming. He had the most terrified look on his face- and what did I do? I laughed so hard I could barely stop. I know I'm a horrible mother, but I couldn't help it. I knew as soon as I saw the dog coming it was going to scare him, but I didn't have time to go and get him. I laughed for a good two or three minutes straight. Poor little man! He got over it quickly though.

So as I said before, I'm coaching the middle school dance team and I become more stressed as the days go by. I not only have to coach them, I have to make up the dances, pick the music for them to dance to, choose the uniforms, schedule when they dance, fund-raise for them and a load of other things I never really thought about when I thought this would be so much fun. I know it will be fun- I know it. But I am still scared out of my mind. Especially after Ryan(Boettcher, my bro-in-law) tells me half of the girls are little you know what's! Yikes... hopefully I can whip them into shape. I am not going to take crap from a bunch of pre-teens!:) j/k... I probably will. So wish me luck, our first get-together is on Wednesday! Take Care!

A Tag

8 TV shows I like to watch:
1. ER
2. Heroes
3. Gray's anatomy
4. House
5. How I met your mother
6. Greek... I know
7. Anything CSI
8. Friends reruns


8 Favorite Restaurants:
1. Olive Garden
2. Famous Daves
3. Johnny Carinos
4. Mongolian Grill
5. China Town
6. Santa Fe Red's
7. CHILIS!!!
8. Old Spaghetti Factory


8 Things that happened yesterday: (Oh geez, this is asking a lot!)
1. Woke up
2. Went to Church
3. Came Home from Church with Kies during Sacrament to put him in his room for being naughty
4. Went back to church
5. Came home from church and made lunch
6. Took a nap for one of the first times ever
7. Visited with Emily and Michael and Stetson
8. Went for a walk with the fam


8 Things I'm looking forward to:
1. Getting a hair cut
2. Finding a song for Dance
3. Getting the dance coreographed
4. The Holidays
5. Getting my house organized better- will it happen? no
6. Getting my eyes fixed- another thing that probably won't happen
7. Getting more financially stable- someone please buy our house
8. Getting rid of all of our CRAP

8 People I tag:
1. Kim
2. Janessa
3. Kendra
4. Vyedka
5. Nikki
6. Nina
7. Lauren
8. Lacey

Yes, I am still here

I just wanted to say something before I get yelled at. We had a yard sale today, and we did pretty good... although we still have a TON of stuff so we are going to do another one next weekend or the weekend after that. So anyone needing 0-4t clothes, come on over. We also have a lot of adult clothes, toys, WYOFAN gear and misc. junk to junk up your home! Take care!

To my post monitor- Bim

Here it is! No pics right now, but I will try and take some later, although my house is still a mess from trying to unpack and get things organized. Some news- I will be coaching the middle school dance team this year. It's actually pretty terrifying because I haven't danced (well for reals;) for 8 years. I will have to make up the dances as well, so please, if any of you reading this would like to help- let me know! My new blog thing I got from thecutestblogontheblock.com so if you like mine, there are a TON of cute ones there! Kies had to get shots today, and it was horrible. I had to try and hold him on my lap with my legs crossed over his holding him down, which his arms crossed and me holding him, and he still managed to wiggle. It was so sad, I just hope he doesn't have bruises on his arms later, cause I was really having to squeeze and restrain him. So sad, huh? Well I need to take him over to school. And one more thing, I don't have the internet, so I will be doing this from my mom's and Cam's... so please be patient with me! Take Care!

The Retraction, the house and school

I have to print a retraction. In the previous post about Buddy, I said he got a wrestling scholarship when it was, in fact, and academic scholarship! As soon as I saw Erika wrote me that, I remembered that I knew that, it just slipped my mind. Thanks Erika!
Now, for the house part of the post. We are finally starting to settle into the house. There are only a few un-packed boxes, bins and bags. Let me clarify that we are very gratefu and happy to finally have a place of our own, but I need to have a bit of time to complain. When I finally made room assignments, the guys(Jaran and Jordan) started moving the big stuff in. We already had some bags and bins in the smallest upstairs room that was to be the play/toy room. The boys' bunk bed was first to come in, and was destined for the larger downstairs room. As they started down the stairs, they realized that it WAS NOT going to fit down the stairs. The ceiling was far too low for the frame to fit down there. So we decided to move our master bedroom down there and let the boys have the larger room upstairs and moved their bed and chest of drawers in there. The boys took our bed frame down stairs and then took the box springs on the journey to find out that, this too, would not fit down the stupid stairs! So we had to decide to move our room back into the large room upstairs, move the boys into the small upstairs room, move the toyroom to the small room downstairs, which was going to be Ansleigh's, and move her stuff into the larger downstairs room that will double as the office/craft room. So we had to move EVERY SINGLE ROOM around! Awesome... and now we get to the closet space- or lack thereof issue. You see, in our old house, we had a quite large walk-in closet where ALL of our clothes, including socks and underwear were housed in cubbies and shelves, along with a big space for hanging other things. Now we are trying to stuff our things into ONE maybe three foot closet and ONE chest of drawers. It's not easy, but we have decided to downsize as much as possible and store things in bins that we won't need until it gets warm again. The boys also had a walk-in closet, but we did used a chest of drawers for them before. We added a bar to the closet and it's working out alright. Ansleigh's room has the biggest closet, so we are taking some of our stuff into her room, such as church clothes and things that aren't used regularly. We have a bunch of plastic drawers which we will use to put her things in, as we only have two chests of drawers, which are being used. One of Jaran's main priorities is to build one or two more sets of drawers, but until we get a little more settled, he is just going to concentrate on work... not to mention the fact that there is not room in the garage to house his tools, and everything is in his tool trailer. Okay that's it for the ranting... well for now, anyway! The kitchen has quite a bit of cupboard space, and there is a large space downstairs for food storage and what not. There is a large backyard as well, but without a fence, we are going to have to keep a close eye on the kids, as the house is on main street. Thanks to Jordan(Hitz) for coming and helping Jaran move stuff in. I'm sure it's not what he wanted to do on his day off, but we love him for taking the time to help us on short notice. Our move was one of Jaran's spur-of-the-moment things. He likes to do those a lot. But we're happy to be in our own place and letting the kids be wild and crazy and not getting into trouble for it!
Now the school part. Since we have moved to Byron, McKie is going to start going to school on the bus, which means he is going at a different time than before. He has been going fom 10:15 to 12:15, but will now go from 1:15 to 3:15 and will be riding home on the bus with his cousin Taylin! He's excited cause I'm excited, so that's nice that I won't have to drive him back and forth everyday! Wish him luck with his new class-mates!

Our Buddy

Buddy getting his last hugs from the boys

Buddy and Jaran, their Dad always calls Bud "Jaran"

I know I wrote about Buddy a tiny bit last post, but after hearing and reading so much about him from other family members, I wanted to go into more detail for those of you who don't know him, which is about half or more of the people who read my blog. Actually, I don't know who reads my blog. If you do- would you leave a comment, even if it just says, I read! Anyway...

Joshua Ryan Baker was born on September 7th, 1988 to Loyal and RuthAnn Baker. He is the 12th of 14 children and is the 6th son. As I've been told, when he was very young, either a few weeks or a few months, he came very close to leaving this life, had it not been for the prompting that his parents had to take him to the hospital. Something was wrong with his digestive system(I think that's what it was) and they were told by the Dr. that he wouldn't have made it through the night at home. So we are all grateful to Mom and Dad Baker for being so in tune with the Spirit to know what to do! I came into the Baker family when buddy was 13. And one of my first experiences was watching a video he had made when he got bored and couldn't sleep a few nights in a row. Let me re-phrase, he slept all day long and stayed up all night- which we all know he's great at doing;)! In this home-movie, he would set up camp under a blanket, turn on the video camera, and take a flip-flop and hit a completely sleeping person on the head. IT WAS HILARIOUS! He later graduated to putting shaving cream on the shoe, causing his victims to become so ANGRY they wanted to maim him. I couldn't stop laughing, and this had me realizing that I was going to love this kid. Buddy is a wrestler, a 4.0 student and a great all-around person. He is such a great wrestler that everyone who knows anything about wrestling in Utah knows his name. He got a scholarship to wrestle and Boise State, and will have a place there when he returns from his mission in the Nicaragua, Minagua(spelling?) mission. This last Sunday, as he was speaking from the pulpit, I realized how prepared he is for this mission. He gave the best talk from a pre-missionary that I have ever had the opportunity to listen to. His subject was having a peaceful heart, loving heart, something heart, and the likenesses that he made were great! He told the story of how after he and his roommate got their first utility bill, seeing it was so high and not really knowing what else went with the utility bill, they decided to turn off the heater. It wasn't so bad at first, but being one of the worst winters in Boise in a long time, it didn't take long before they were making excuses to be out of their house. They would wrap themselves in layers and go to practice early, or go to friends' houses. Before long, they realized that this wouldn't work, and had to turn the heater back on. He said that the Spirit is like the heater. You can slowly lose it, but you will start to realize that you can't live without it anymore. Of course we all laughed at the story, but it was a great likening. Also he talked about how he was trying to cut weight from about 140 lbs to 125 lbs. He would go to practice, lose a ton of water weight, put himself into a sweat suit and jumprope and run, go home and eat a TINY bit, let the suit dry out in the dryer, put it back on and go back to the gym, then if he could stand it go into the sauna. This whole time his roommate was there helping him, going anywhere Bud asked him to go, and was his constant companion in times of struggle and need. He likened this to the Spirit. As long as you need it, it will be your constant companion if you do what is right. I love Buddy, and we will all miss him while he is away. He is such a great example to everyone around him, and all of the people that came to his farewell was only a small group of the people that he has touched in his life. I am so grateful to have him be a part of my life and am such a lucky girl to have him as my family, as well as the rest of Jaran's family. Even though there is a LOT of crazy people, Kendra, Nikki, you know who you are;), I love them all, and I wouldn't trade one of them for anyone else... okay that's not true, Kendra and Nikki, I'm sorry, but I might trade you for the awesome werewolf and scary half man half woman that we saw at the Twilight book party, I'm sorry- but I have to put it out there! J/k, you know I love you! But truly, Buddy, I know you won't be reading this, but I am a better person for having you in my life, and I thank you for that! You are going to be a great missionary, and you will touch so many lives in such a great way, that Nicaragua will never be the same. Good luck to you Bud! We love you, and will await the day when we will be able to hear all of your awesome stories when you get back. Two years to go! Until then, Take Care!


PS- This is Sandy V... signing off;)! HA HA HA HA!

Quick Post

I'm just waiting for some pictures to attach and then I am done, so this will be short. We are moving into our rental in Byron today, yes Byron, so we will now be Niners... never thought I'd be a niner again, but it's okay! We went to Utah this weekend for Joshua aka Buddy's farewell. This is Jaran's second youngest brother, and he is going to Nicaragua! He is the only other in Jaran's family to go Spanish speaking, and only the third to go foreign, so we are excited for him. We will miss him, but we know that he's doing the right thing and we love him! Great job Bud! We went to the Hogle zoo on Friday, and the kids had fun, that is until Brensyn decided he would scream unless Daddy held him on his shoulders. But all in all it was a great trip and it was so fun to be around the family again! Here are some pics!