DNCFR

Hunter went to the rodeo with Grandpa and Grandma Stoor. His cousin Raleigh was up from Cedar Fort Utah and went with them. He left at 10 am and returned around 11:15 pm. He stated he had a great day and enjoyed both performances that they went to. At the afternoon performance, he was able to get a poster of the rodeo and have it signed by a few rodeo attendee's. He said that it was fun to watch the bull riders and the kids riding the sheep's during this performance. He was sad that the barrel racer from Blackfoot knocked down the 3rd barrel taking fourth place. He said she would have taken first place and would have been in the running to go in the finals. He had fun with Grandpa and Grandma and really enjoyed the day with them. I am glad that they wanted to take him to the rodeo. I feel that he is growing a strong relationship with them and I am really glad that they have taken an interest in him. He states that he wants to grow up and have his ranch with cows and horses. I hope he always has this spark in him as he knows that his parents would love to have their place with cattle and all the fun that it would provide. He is growing up and is enjoying what life has to offer him. He still is not sure about riding steers at the fair this year. He thought that he would ride a calf last year but it was a steer and I think that it scared him. I told him that he will just have to prepare to do this. He is involved in so much now and he keeps his mother busy running him all over town but I know that he does enjoy his adventures and he likes to tell his Dad about them when he is home. God sent his son here to earth so that we can learn from him and I know that God sent Hunter to us so that we can learn of him also. We learn that each day, we love Hunter more, accept his triumphs and failures, and we learn many things about the love of having a Son. Hunter is a shining example of what our Father in Heaven wants in his children and we know that through much guidance and care, he will make a great father someday because he is the best Son that could ever be sent to our little family.

Little Terror

Our youngest boy will be the death of his parents at a very young age. We have often told ourselves that we should have had him first and then we would have stopped having kids, in fact, I think I would have talked Michele into giving him up for adoption. He is the most energetic young man. He doesn't need to take a nap and he can go for hours..usually long after we have gone to bed. He enjoys animals and watching movies. He usually has all the animals scattered from one end of the house to the other and usually we are kicking them out of the way. I usually try to kick them under something so that I don't continue to walk on them in the middle of the night. He usually has to end his day watching his "show". Any show will do, but he usually gets hooked on one and it lasts about two weeks. We have wore out two VCR's and a DVD player. I am glad that I clean out apartments once in a while and find one so that we can replace the one's he is wearing out. He is now in the stage of potty training and that has been fun. Mom " I need to go potty"... puts new diaper on. Mom " I need to go potty"... and this is usually within 3-4 minutes of being on the potty previously..but oh no..you have to put a clean diaper on him..not the one he has just taken off that is practically brand new, well in fact it is brand new. But at least he is making progress with this new development in his life. He also is talking alot now, more than we would like at times. He told me just this morning that "Grandma is sick".. this is his new way of trying to get out of going to the baby sitter's for the day. We are so glad that we have Cynthia and Gerald Crossley to help us with our "little terror". She is very good with Shad and we know that he is safe and protected when he is there. Shad is now three, terrible two's gone.. or at least we hope. We probably couldn't have asked for a better "little terror" to keep us on our toes. He also keeps his siblings on their toes too and we know that they love him.. Hunter fights with him and Sierra locks him out of their bedroom... but we know they love him. God knew what he was doing when he sent him to us.. it is a test of obedience, patience, and being able to follow commandments. We have to have this each day because if we didn't, Michele and I would both be locked up in the behavioral health centers... We love you Shad and we hope you grow to be the best man that our Heavenly Father expects you to be and with our constant guiding and directing, we think that you will. Oh here we go again... Shad leave your diaper on.. and please don't throw your toys at Hunter.. and don't step on Sundance and please do not touch your sister's Ipod... Love you Shad

Easter Sunday

Easter was spent at Grandpa and Grandma Stoor's in Wayan. Hunter had gone out Wednesday with Grandma to spend time feeding with Grandpa. We got out there to help feed the cows, put out straw and chase two bulls in the shute to check one that was limping and to remove a nose ring left in a bull that was bought from Steve Olsen. Then of course we had to fix the gates after turning the new bull in with the bull we had brought in to check the leg. They fought for a couple of hours with the rest of the bulls but no more fences had been destroyed. Hunter stated that he had a good time with Grandma and Grandpa through the week and had been able to help Grandpa alot. He had fed the baby calf (Dottie) most of her meals and helped chase Reddy-Teddy throughout the barnyard. Helped clean out the barn and work up the new calves in the barn. Grandma cooked a great Easter dinner and we were very full after eating. Watched Old Dogs given to Sierra from the Easter Bunny. Grandpa says that Hunter earned his money helping him find the hidden eggs, 42 of them hidden in the house. They both stated how much they enjoyed Hunter coming out to help them and how well mannered he was. We are glad that they enjoyed him as much as he enjoyed his stay with them. We ended the day eating cake, watching tv, and playing on the hill of snow Grandpa makes with the snowblower. Lots of snow still at Grandma's house. Easter was fun.

Feeding with Grandpa

Went to Grays Lake to help feed the cows and to visit with the folks. The kids had fun riding the sleigh and feeding the cows. We had a good breakfast cooked by Grandma and then visited most of the day. We did play yatzee and Hunter and Sierra smoked us by each of them getting three yatzee's. Shad fell asleep on the stairs with his coat and hat on and he spent the afternoon sleeping on the couch. Helped Grandpa change out his 4 wheelers due to exhaust coming off and making a loud racket that could be heard probably in Soda. Kids got to feed the baby calf a bottle and was able to pet the two calves in the barn. We had a fun day and hope to go back out again soon.

Awesome trip

I had an awesome trip with my wife and kids. I had to go and take the national nursing test (NCLEX) on Thursday and so we drove to Ogden on Wed. night. My kids were awesome the whole time. They played in the pool and watched tv in the room. We took a drive to go and have dinner on Thursday and ended up at Red Lobster in Layton. They were very well behaved and it impressed the waitress. We then traveled into Salt Lake on Friday and went to the church office building and learned more about the Salt Lake Valley by going on a tour. I hadn't been there in years and so I thought I would just go up to the lookout by myself..ooops. It was very fun to look out and pick out all the spots that the tour guide had pointed out. We took a tour of the BeeHive house and my wife was able to bear witness to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon to a gentleman that had questions. She was a little embarrassed later but I told her that I was impressed and I thought that the spirit guided her to share her testimony to this gentleman. We then went up to Hogle Zoo and walked the 42 acres to see all the animals. Shadrack was in heaven. Hunter had Michele take pictures of every animal we saw. We walked around for over 3 hours and my feet could tell you about every step.

We stayed at Russ and Mony's place on Friday. They had invited the missionary's to dinner and all of John's Nephews were there and new addition soon, Mary Ann. We enjoyed dinner and the missionary's were able to give a fantastic lesson on why we follow commandments set by our loving God. Sierra got to participate and I felt that the lesson was good for me and it has made me stop and think about how easy we fall out of following what we are suppose to do. I was really tired so I chose to go to bed when all the rest played games. We went to Jared and Matt's home to see the new addition to the basement that Russ and the boys have been working hard at. They are adding more bedrooms for Matt and Mary Ann to stay after getting married. She will be a great fit into this family.

We traveled to Ruth and Mike's house on Saturday afternoon to spend a night with them. It was good to meet Kendall and Doug. They seemed like pretty good kids while we were there. Hunter thought that they were good too. Shad and Kendall would fight over toys due to Shad not wanting to share. We just visited and had a good time while there. Off to home later on Sunday and the weather was great. Enjoyed spending time with family and was nice to get away for a few days.

Impressed

Our daughter Sierra has been the best example of love, faith, friendship and who we know that God wants in all his children. She showed us over Valentines how listening and doing the "right" thing will work out in the end. She has the ability to go into a crowd of unknowns and can pick out a person in the group that really needs a friend and unselfishly will become this person's best friend before leaving. I told her Mom that she will go into a crowd and will pick the person out that will never be picked as a friend, just due to the fact that she wants this person to realize that they are important to her and will show what true friendship is all about. She is unselfish and always shows respect to everyone around her. We are very proud to have her as our daughter and that she treats everyone the same, she never disrespects anyone and she is trully what I want my best friend to be. Love you Sis..

Basketball at Soda High

Enjoyed going to the basketball game tonight with Michele. Seth played really good and the team did very well. There was good hustle on both sides of the ball with Soda coming out on top. I thought I would post a video of his performance, or what I got. Good Job Seth.

A time to appreciate your children

What a life we have with our kids. They fill our lives with so much work, but the joy we get out of it cannot be described. I guess every parent feels the same about their children, but I just wanted to express this in my blog so that they could see that I do enjoy each and every minute that I am with them. Sierra has been involved with the drill team this year and she has a project to complete a dance for the group. She is working on it with Bailey and I feel that they have worked pretty well to bring it all together. Of course work has been involved by her parents, driving her to meet Bailey, working on downloading music, and burning the music to CD within 5 minutes of her needing it at dance practice...amazing that she brings this up right before we are headed out the door. Do you see the joy yet? Hunter is involved with basketball right now and he is having practices at the church and he is enjoying this very much. He gets in car and we are traveling to school yesterday and he reminds us that he has basketball practice after school. Of course he knows this all morning, but due to the hustle and bustle of getting kids off to school, we have put this at the back of our minds. We then ask him whether he has brought his clothes for this event and he reminds us that he hasn't...why did we ask such a wonderful question to get the response we were expecting. Joy, Joy, Joy..
And then there is little terror...Shad. He brings much joy in to our lives each day with his adventurous spirit. He keeps us on our toes and usually our hands and knee's cleaning up after not following him around constantly wondering what he is up too. If it is quiet at our house, you better get up and see where he is at because catastrophe is about to happen. He thought that he would be a baker yesterday. Dad was taking a break trying to beat Hunter at the Wii and thought that he had everything covered: Movie playing in bedroom, milk, snacks, toys, and everything he needed. Next thing Dad hears is " cook Dad " and looking over to see that Shad was covered from head to toe in flour and the imprints of this was all over the carpet next to the couch all the way to the flour bin. He was playing in flour and had it scattered throughout the kitchen and down the stairs to the basement. He had flour up the back door and on the kitchen window sill. Joy, joy, joy.. but I couldn't get mad because it was my fault for leaving it out after cooking the family breakfast before traveling to school.
I love that the kids give me so much joy because if they didn't, I would end up not being involved in their lives as much as I am. Even through all the joy they bring, I can honestly say that I love every minute of it and would hope that they continue to bring joy to us each day. Love you kids...