What Have We Been Up To? 2010



Our 2010 Christmas Tree

 Here we are again at the end of a year and I'm writing about our family and what we have been up to.  I can't believe it is that season again.  The children have grown and we are so proud of their accomplishments that we just have to share them with you.  :)  We had a ball as a family this year.  There were 2 big camping trips, many swim meets, more basketball games, some baseball games, alot of doctor visits and appointments with the dentist, and a whole lot of homework, but there were many more laughs, celebrations and good old fashioned fun here at the Hay House.  As mentioned before,  we went on 2 great camping trips.  Our first one of the season was with Antsy McClain and the Trailer Park Troubadours in Red Bluff Ca.  We had oodles of fun at Woodflock.  After swim season we went to Grover Hot Springs camping.  Many adventures were had on that trip.  We had rain, hail, cold, bears, mountain lions, and sun.  My nephew graduated from Humboldt State and we made a trip to Arcata to celebrate.  Tom and I are still enjoying this parenting gig that we have.  Tom is still in his same job, but his company was sold and he now works for Stantec, a company located in Canada.  He loves being so close to home.  I am continuing my efforts on the home front and love being able to be home when people get out of school.  We are also serving in our church.  Tom is working with the men, and I am working with the Primary children. 

Macie's big news is that she got braces.  We have known for a while and even thought she was getting them last year.  It finally happened and they were put on in November.  They hurt her for a bit, but now she doesn't notice them all that much.  I love seeing her smile with a mouthful of silver.  She is in 6th grade and sings in the school choir.  Macie loves to play basketball and is excited for the new season to start.  She swam for the Loomis Basin Dolphins again this year and had some of her best times.  This was the first year that she swam 50 yard races.  Macie is a very good artist.  She wants to learn to sew so she can draw and create fashion.  We enjoyed watching Project Runway together.

Thomas is in 5th grade, sits on the Student Senate, plays the trombone, and sings in the school choir.  This year he added baseball along with playing basketball, and swimming.  He loved baseball and looks forward to another season this year.  Thomas played for the A's and improved in all areas.  He loves to read and has read all 7 Harry Potter books in 2010.  He is really trying to convince me that the new Harry Potter is an appropriate movie for him to watch even though it is PG 13.  :)  We let him read after the other children go to bed and he is so quiet we often forget that he is in the living room.  He loves this as it gets him an extra 30- 45 min of reading. 

Julia is in 2nd grade and has the privilege of being in a regular ed. classroom along with her special needs Communicative Delayed and Disorder classroom.  Her speech is really coming along and she has become a whiz at her AAC device.  (we call it her talking box).  She played basketball and swam for Loomis Basin Dolphins.  I think she likes the meets and all the socializing and food better than the actual races.   She looks so cute in her cap with Hay on it.  Julia also got to be on the Tri City Little Leagues Challenger baseball team.  She received a trophy which she loves.  Julia is really good at computer games, and playing with her barbies.  She loves the book Pinkalicious.  Pink after all is her favorite color.  :)

Matthew has entered Kindergarten and he loves it.  The first few days of school though he kept asking us if he had to go back.  He is so excited for this new year because he gets to finally play basketball like the rest of the gang, and he will be joining Thomas on the baseball field and play T-Ball.  He is doing well academically in school, but as we all know he is a very high energy child (quoting the teacher :) ).  This year marked the first year that Matthew got to participate in the annual Tony Crane dance.  He danced to Shake It Baby and he was great!

Henry is 3 and is in a speech pre-school through the school district.  He goes to the same school as the others and is there M & W from 8:45-10:15.  He loves it.  We have a group of 7 little boys at church, so the moms got together and started a playschool.  We meet at a different house each Friday and the boys have a blast playing together.    He is working on getting potty trained.  He loves wearing big boy underwear. 

Well, there you have it the Hay House year in review.  We hope you have a terrific Holiday Season and are blessed with a healthy and happy family. 
Merry Christmas!
Love,
The Hay Gang
Tom, Stacey, Macie 11, Thomas 10, Julia 7, Matthew 5,
and Henry 3

Do You Have Room for the Savior?

We had a great time at our Ward's trunk or treat.  On Halloween we stayed home to pass out candy to the kids who cam to our door.  We had a great time.  Macie and I made "Mummy Dogs" for dinner, and then watched the Giants game with all the lights off and glo light necklaces on.  Macie also put her ipod attached to speakers outside with halloween music and sounds to scare trick or treaters.  My camera battery went dead on Saturday night so I do not have any pictures of the trunk or treat.  Thankfully I took a few before it went dead of the gang in costume.  :)

Our little hulk.  GGRRRRRRRRR

Henry decided to try on one of Julia's princess dresses.  He liked being the hulk better, but he sure makes a cute princess.

The First Fire of the Season

Today we woke up to rain.  Yesterday we spent most of the day getting ready for the fall.  Cleaning out the garage, cleaning the house and battening down the hatches.  It is a real storm out there today, so after church when we got home Tom built us a fire.  It is nice and warm here at the Hay House.  The whole family loves sitting by the fire.  Hot chocolate anyone?  I love a nice fire to cozy up the house.

Dance Performances

Every year at this time our school hires a professional dancer to teach each class a dance to perform for the parents on a given night.  This is something that my children look forward to.  Macie performed her last dance at Parker Whitney and Matthew performed his first.  I love watching the little kindergarteners perform every year and this year I was so proud of my Kindergartener.  :)  Macie and Thomas had "in front" roles and did very well.  Julia's school participates in the dance performances in the spring.  This year since we had 3 performing we went to the dance shows on both nights.  Macie performed on the first night and then Thomas and Matthew performed on the second night.  Grandma and Pa even got to come and watch the dancing goodness.  Here are some great pictures of my ultra good dancers.  :)


 

Our Friend, Greg

One week ago today our friend Greg Petersen lost his battle with cancer.  We will miss him very much.    Greg was a contractor, in the bishopric of his ward, a great father and husband, and a terrific person.  He did all the work on our kitchen, and two bathrooms.  He and his family moved about 4 years ago to Fall River Mills (about 4 hours away), but they would stop in when they were in town.  In fact, Greg did just that last spring.  He came by to see us and we had a great visit.  He was healthy and happy, and I'm glad we got to see him like that.  I am making pumpkin bread right now for his funeral and my house smells heavenly.  If you know Greg you might like to check out this memorial about him. 

Our Dirt Road

The machine that runs only at naptime.

There has been a big project going on on our street.  We aren't really sure what they are doing.  We think they are going to eventually repave the road, but first they had to drop dirt on the road, then pound it in with the enormous roller, then dig the dirt up and put it elsewhere on the road, then bring more to us and drop it on our road and then pound it into the ground again.  This has been done over and over.  Our house shakes and rattles.  One day I thought the windows were going to break.  They bring the big trucks, rollers, and diggers by around 1:00 p.m. everyday.  I don't have to tell you that is exactly naptime at our house.  We are happy with the way the road looks and is monitored.  No one is allowed down our street unless they live here.  This makes our usually busy throughfare of a street not very busy.  It is great and right now very quiet.  Maybe we can let the kids play out front.  :)  Here are some more shots of the work going on out front.

View from out my front door.

Digging up the dirt and putting it in yet another big truck.

What To Do? Have To's or Want To's?



Henry are you doing homework? 

 Today is yet another day of what we do here at the Hay House.  I don't get much done in the way of keeping up my house, but I do much in the way of getting kids ready for school, taking kids to school, picking kids up from school, serving snacks, lunch, and dinner, taking a webelos to scouts, running errands and getting everything on the oldest child's wal-mart list.  :)  Tom serves breakfast.  I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed with the unfinished things in the house.   There are so many things on my want to do list like painting the living room, my bedroom and the kitchen area, finishing the boys crown molding, and organizing the garage, but I'm the type of person who can't do the want to's until the have  to's are done.  How long do you think it will take for me to get the have to's done.  Well here I go off to work some magic.  :)  Yeah, right.

New Haircuts

My boys with their ears lowered.  :)

My dad takes the boys one by one to the barber when they need new cuts.  Today is the day.  He took Henry this morning and Matthew after Kindergarten.  He is picking Thomas up from school and taking him.  What a great Pa.  I think it will be a special time each boy will remember having with his Pa.  Henry is pretty funny I guess at the barber.  No matter who's turn it is once Henry has walked into the shop it is his.  He waits for the next chair and climbs in.  All the men in the shop get a big kick out of it.  Parker Whitney is having school pictures tomorrow so I'm glad Dad took them today to get their new do's for school pictures.  I'm even going to have Henry take a school picture, he is in pre-school after all.  :)

The Family Vacation

Is that snow or hail?

How can I not write about our family vacation this year.  It has become a tradition for us to go on a camping trip for our family vacation.  We have, in fact, become quite good at camping.  We have all the gear in our garage organized and in bins so we have easy access to it.  We also borrow a friend's trailer because we can not fit all our gear in our van.  This year was no different.  We were packed to the gills and headed off to Grover Hot Springs (about 3 hours away).  We left on a nice summer Sat. morning.  All was right with the world.  The gang was happy and looking forward to the 6 days of camping bliss.  As we traveled farther into the mountains it began to look stormy.  We didn't pay much attention to it it was summer after all and it didn't storm in summer right?  We get our campground and we were informed at the ranger's station that there had been mountain lion and bear activity even during the day.   Tom and I had to "act" brave because the ranger said all this loud enough for the gang to hear.  There were plenty of questions as we began to unload.  We had just started on the tent when the hail started.  Yes, hail.  We hadn't had time to put the rain fly over the tent so soaked we got and some of our gear got soaked.  We have a waterproof tent so there was a lake on the bottom of the tent.  I was cooking dinner during the downpour and we decided we could eat there so into the little town we went and found a picnic table with an overhang to eat under.  Everyone was wet and cold.  Tom and I did not want to stay there that night so we drove 30 min. into a town in Nevada called Minden where we got the last hotel room at the casino there.  The next morning we washed and dried clothes at the laundry mat and then went onto setting up camp.  I was a little skeptical of how fun our trip would be after all the rain, but we had a ball.  Scott, Kelly and Ali came on Sunday and stayed for a few hours with us and brought us fried chicken and bread.  Just what we needed as it also rained on Sunday.  Monday we went to the hot springs and pool.  After we spent a good amount of time there we went back to camp and Grandma and Grandpa came to visit with us they stayed until Tuesday around noon.  We went looking for a lake to swim and picnic by.  Wednesday we went into South Lake Tahoe and had a picnic and swam.  Thursday we came home.  The kids rode their bikes and joined the Jr Rangers.  They made friends and played in the dirt.  We had smores, campfires and went to the campfires put on by the rangers.  It was great and we are even talking about going back next year.  Here are some of our photos from the week.  Notice the hail it looks like snow.  BRRRRRR!

A changing tent and a sleeping tent.  I'm a mom who doesn't like footprints on her pillow. 

Henry was trying to channel a bear.   The rest of us were enjoying the campfire.

Henry enjoying a smore.  Are those glasses to keep the smoke out of your eyes?  :)

Macie do you love marshmallows or the chocolate to go with?  Am I the smore making station?

Thomas found a fishing line at Blue Lake.  Macie got into the ice cold water.  The lake was a beautiful blue.

The gang playing at Lake Tahoe.  Juli is behind Macie digging in the sand. 

Ali, Scott, Macie and Stacey playing cards, and trying to stay dry.

The School Year is Here

All I seem to be doing lately on this blog is catching up. I haven't posted in 3 months. It seems crazy that that amount of time has gone by. The kids survived the summer and swim team. All got personal best times. We went on a family vacation to Grover Hot Springs and stayed for 6 days. We all had a great time and were on high alert for bears and mountain lions. The gang rode bikes, played in the dirt, made new friends and became Jr. Rangers. Kelly, Scott and Ali came and visited and on Monday mom and dad came and stayed in their truck over night. Grandma and Grandpa have bought a new house with a pool and we have spent many an hour over there swimming to our hearts content. We went school shopping and met our new teachers before school started. The first day of school brought Emily and Ali over for some doing of the hair. Everyone looked great. Poor Henry was very sad that day as everyone left and he was all alone with me. The next day he got to go to his speech pre-school class and all was right with the world. Of course, when all is right with the world that means I'm in for some upsets of some kind. Matthew didn't disappoint. He has announced that he is not going back to kindergarten anytime soon. He told me he wishes he were still 4. Poor little guy. It is so hard to sit still for that long.

This new way of adding pictures is really throwing me.  I need to figure this out before I post more.  I was going to show some of my favorites from August, but with the troubles I've had posting these I'll spare you.  By the way, we took 237 pictures in August all from our camping trip, Donner lake Eco Logic family picnic, and the first day of school.  Wow that's a lot of pictures.  :)

Woodflock 2010

It has been about 3 weeks since we, the Hay Gang, have gone to Woodflock. For those of you who don't know, Woodflock was a camping experience for Flamingo Heads. Yes, we are flamingo heads. Antsy McClain and his Trailer Park Troubadours went to Red Bluff Ca for Memorial Day Weekend bash of camping, eating, singing, laughing, and making new friends. The kids had a ball and we grown ups had a great time talking with our fellow flamingo heads and hanging with the lead singer guy, Antsy. There wasn't a dull moment. I never had to really worry about the kids because let's face it we all know that it takes a trailer park to raise a child. :) Antsy brought his wife, Polly, and son, Grantsy, and a friend, Lorrinda all the way from Tennessee. My kids had an absolute ball hanging our with Grant. He was such a trouper, I'm sure I owe him lost of bucks for taking care of the gang. There were about 10 kids total and I had 5 of them. Good Times. We really can't wait until we get to go to Woodflock 2011. We had so much fun around the campfire with Antsy and Uncle Fred. Uncle Fred kept the children entertained until Antsy and friends started performing. Just think we were treated to 3 nights of fabulous music and friendship. Every night Antsy had different people singing and playing guitar with him. One night our friend Mike(Chigger) played his guitar painted by Antsy. During the day people played guitar with Fred Murray (85) who played with Antsy Friday and Sat. nights. One of the Woodflockers even brought his denim devil to show. The kids made friends with the Stewart family and with Kimberly, who was there with her Grandmother and Grandfather. I really enjoyed visiting with Polly, Lorrinda, Lisa, Cathy, and Ione. There were so many more people that I talked with and enjoyed getting to know. I'm sure at the next concert we will all meet and it will be like family seeing one another. We all left with hugs and smiles and wishes of safe returns home. It was such like a family reunion except we didn't have the reunion typed talent show. I think that would be a blast or have a type of karaoke to Antsy songs. They are talking about that one on the message boards. We arrived at Woodflock with a trailer full of camping gear, food, bikes, and enough flamingo decor to decorate a small mansion. We left with a trailer full of gear, and happy memories. I hope you can get the idea of how much fun we had through these pictures. My camera battery died and our friend Ione loaned us her disposable camera. I'm sure there are good shots on it as well, but I haven't had time to take it to get developed. I will add those pictures when they become available.