4th grade, 1st grade and Preschool

I am a little slow but here are the pictures from the first day of school:

Hunter is now in 4th GRADE! Wow how time flies. He has a class that is split between two teachers. One teaches monday, tuesday, and every other friday. The other teaches wednesday, thursday and every other friday. It seems to be going okay. The only problem we've run into is he turned an assignment in to the teacher on tuesday and the other teacher on wednesday said he did not turn it in and gave him a zero. Obviously, I did not think this was fair so I went in on the following monday to talk to the teacher he actually turned it in to. She could not find it either but said she would not give him a zero, as she had seen him working really hard on it. We'll see how it goes. He said they are both really nice and we had a positive parent teacher conference last week.

Little Miss Carly is now in 1st grade. This was totally weird to me because I kept on thinking I was late picking up a kindergartner since she is now at school all day. I quickly got over that and am enjoying some one on one time with Fisher while the other two are having fun at school. She is loving first grade! Her teacher is new at the school but has been teaching for 10+ years and she is SO nice. She has a Hollywood theme in her classroom and tells the kids they are all "Stars" I love it.

Little Mr. Fisher-man. Love this kid. Such a poser in this picture. Can you read what his shirt says? "What happens in Preschool stays in Preschool" Ha ha. Yep, my BABY is 4 and in preschool this year! He goes to our local high school and I love it because they have 1 high school student teacher to every preschool kid. Since the High School is on a block schedule, he rotates between two teachers. Mr. Braden and Miss Manda. I asked him how Braden was and he told me Braden was "Lots of Nice" When I asked him if Miss Manda was lots of nice too, he replied "Uh uh" I asked why. He said "Because I don't like her." I then asked "Why?" He said, "I don't know. I just don't" Hmmmm. Does not surprise me because he said this because he is in this phase where he does not like ANYTHING you suggest to him. Does not matter what you say, he says the opposite. Hoping he will grow out of it, lol. Sure he will :)

I think my husband is lost-

I think my husband is lost. Have you see him?


His name is Dan... He's about 5'8"


He has facial hair. You know, a mustache and goatee.
He's always had a mustache. And has almost always had a goatee.


Ringing any bells?


This guy here- the one hugging on my daughter??
I don't recognize him at all!!
My kids all think this guy looks like Uncle Justin.

Do you?

Happy Birthday Hunter!

Wow... 10 years ago today, you were placed in my arms.

You instantly had a place in my heart too.

Happy Birthday "Budda Boo", my "Hunter Buddy" my chicken farmer.

I am proud to be your mom!

I have a list of questions I am going to ask him and post here.

Until then, here are a few things about Hunter:

-His favorite toys are Bey Blades and Yugi-Oh Cards

-He loves school

-He is a jokester

-He is so dang smart

-He is a fishing fool

-He loves Pokemon movies

-He is caring and kind

-He gives great hugs

I've asked the questions, now here are the answers to his favorite things:

Favorite color- turquoise

TV show- Yu-gi-oh!

Movie- Pokemon

Food- Mozzarella Sticks

Drink- Powerade, Cream Soda

Ice cream- Orange Sherbet

Primary Song- Scripture Power

Country Song- Country Girl (Shake it for me girl)

Country Singer- Jason Aldean

Sport to play- football

Sport to watch- football

School song (He said his favorite hip hop song)- Clear the air from 3rd grade

Animal- Bull elk

Animal to hunt- Dove, pheasant

Season- Autumn/Fall

Salad Dressing- Cafe Rio dressing

Fast food Restaurant- Mels (In Beaver, UT)

Regular restaurant- Red Lobster, Joe's Crab Shack

Holiday- Easter and Christmas. For the death and birth of Jesus Christ, because we are celebrating something about him on both of those holidays.

Photo Shoot at Grandma Karen's

My mom has got this great looking wall on the side of her corral. It's bumpy, and rusty and dinged up with peely paint. Time to take some pics there, right?


My Hunter Boy.

He's almost a Webelo, almost in need of a new scout shirt. Have you ever bought one? Those things are expensive. When we bought his blue cub scout shirt at the scout store, it cost me $30+ for the shirt, neckerchief (sp?), the slider, the numbers for the shoulder, etc.

Then he lost it. Really, he did.

Heidi replaced it with an extra one she had.

Then he found it. Well, actually HE didn't find it. I didn't find it either.

Aunt Heather did... at her house. Right in the place where he left it weeks before.

He swears he doesn't even remember wearing it there, lol. Kids. Ha, Ha, Guess I'm no better because I didn't remember either!

So, then he had two shirts for a while. It was nice having a backup shirt.

Then we gave the extra to someone who needed one.

And I had to keep track of that once was lost, now is found shirt. I gave up sewing any of the patches he'd earned on it. Pulled out the trusty glue gun and hot glued those suckers on. They even lasted through the wash!

So, now that the patches are finally on the blue shirt, it's nearly time for him to move up and wear a khaki tan colored one.

Maybe I will get lucky and find one at DI. We love that store.



Little Miss Carly.

She just recently lost a tooth up top. She can't stop putting her tongue in the space and has discovered that a straw fits perfectly in there too. Thinks she's pretty tricky. See how long her pigtails are getting? She swears that if I hadn't cut her hair when she was little that they would be down to her bumb by now. That girl loves her long hair.


My Fisher Man.

He turned 4 a few weeks ago. He has said some pretty funny things recently:

F: "I am the boss of you mom!:
M: "No you're not." (While wagging my finger at him)
F: "Yes I am!! Put yo fingoh down!"

"I have a lot of gas. That means I have a lot of poop."

"It hurts my cut from my church tree."

Lonely blogs

I honestly think I'm the only one who reads this thing anymore. After being MIA for a year, people forget about you. Or maybe they already thought you were boring and decided not to drop in and read anymore. Or maybe Facebook has become their favorite way to keep up with other people Or maybe it's because my blog is private and doesn't climb to the top of the list when I update.

Blogger should work on that.

There should be some way I can still appear up there when I post something new, so people know I am still alive.

People don't remember to look at your private blog.

So your name sits there all lonely, somewhere in the bottom of their blog list, just waiting to be clicked.

C'mon friends,

Click on my name, see the photos, maybe even read boring stuff.

Would make me feel better.

Ha ha ha. What is wrong with me, lol. Oh well.

Whatever the case, it's kinda lonely over here. That long list of blogs on the right hand side? I love reading about their families. It makes me feel that even though we don't get to talk a lot, we've kept in touch. And there have been a lot of blogs that have inspired me in the past years that sadly, they have not seen an update in a while.

Maybe the answer is just "life". Life just gets busy and life gets in the way and life goes on, I guess.

Weird email addresses

Today Dan told me he doesn't even know what my email address is.

It's been the same for 13 years.

schwaanky@hotmail.com

I don't think schwaanky is forgettable.

Maybe difficult to spell/remember, but not forgettable

And unique.

Maybe unique like me.

I'd like to think so :)

Zippy -n- Fish

This is Zippy


aka our "big, overgrown golden retriever"
She's 6, the daughter of my horse Chigger and the same age as my daughter Carly.
Born in my backyard on April 24, 2004.
I only remember the exact date because it was my brothers birthday.

Zippy is pretty funny. She loves people so much, that she'd rather you pet and hug her than eat her hay.
Most horses will run away when they see you coming with the halter.
Not Zippy.
She'll run to you, in hopes that you will get her out. She's super friendly. Comes in really handy when the corral is all wet and mucky in the winter time.


She isn't biting him here. Just giving him a little love nibble.

She will lip your arm a bit and it tickles a lot.

Just ask Fisher, it always makes him laugh :)

Doesn't this just make you smile?

Doesn't this just make you smile?
It makes me smile
My little "nunkey" (monkey)

He's really good at giving "nunkey love"
He wraps his little arms around your neck,
and his legs around your waist,
and gives you a big squeeze and kiss on the cheek.



And my good friend, Heather Jo. She makes me smile :) Brought me a Cafe Rio Salad a few nights ago and made my crappy day better.



Our Park City girls getaway.
That made me smile.
That's Heather, her mom Laura aka my second mom, and Laura's sister Mary aka my "other mother."

Have you tried the apple pie carmel apples in Park City? To die for!
The carmel/chocolate/walnut ones were my fav.

Friday posting

It's friday. Time for a post :)
A random post to get the things out that are on my mind:

-There is a messy monster that lives in my house. And it's winning!

-Cinemark Summer Movie Clubhouse rocks! 10 kids movies for $5 with the punchcard. We've been to Megamind and How to Train Your Dragon so far. Looking forward to the next 8. Cheap entertainment.

-I love that my kids can't ruin VHS movies. DVDs are another story.

-We've got our white silky hen sitting on her eggs. Maybe she'll actually hatch something. We'll have to wait and see.

-I am bummed I never got to see "Unknown" and "The Adjustment Bureau" in the movie theater. Just not the same from the redbox.

-Do we really need all these blankets lying around my house? Okay, of course they are good in an emergency, but since when did making a fort become an emergency?

-I wish I could just take the locking gas cap off my car. It's annoying to use. Stupid gosh dang people, going around and stealing people's gas right out of their driveway!

-So glad to have an automatic sprinkler system that works. We went years without one, until Dan put in a whole new system a few years ago. Lawn is watered before I even open my eyes in the morning.

-And I'm definitely NOT a morning person. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever!

-Hunter made Taco Soup last night all my himself. He said the last time we ate it was when I made it and took it to Nedra's. Um, that was in DECEMBER!

-Becky came and picked up the puppy last week. They were so cute. Had a pink collar with jewels on it, matching pink leash and a little dog tag the shape of a bone with "Sammy" on it. As per my kids request, I called two days later to see how the pup was doing. She said Sammy was whining a lot at night so they put her in bed with Haylee and she hasn't whined at night since. I'm sure the pup is loving it there.

-My cats are getting up in their years. They both are turning 7 in July. Love those cats. Good mousers in the barn and so good with the kids. Both female, both fixed.

-I just got done reading "Inside Out" by Maria Snyder. I didn't want to put it down. I would recommend it to anyone for a good read. I am currently reading the sequel "Outside In" with only 30 pages to go.

And that's all on my randomness for today.
I think I need a coke.
I definitely need a coke.
I see one in my near future.

Montana and Memorial Day

Dan took a couple days off and headed up to Montana with some of his buddies. It's quite a drive but worth the fishing :) Looks like he had a great time!


On Memorial Day we spent a few hours at the indoor pool. Dan's camera is water proof so we got some fun shots under the water. I hope my kids get their dad's swimming ability. I keep making him show them how to swim because he is so good at it. I always plug my nose. He never does, lol. Hunter is quite the little fish and since we spent most of our time in the pool where Carly could touch the bottom, she was pretty independent. She looked at the pictures and said "Look! I can smile under water!" Fisher was in heaven in the water. He wasn't too sure about the orange kids slide. Even though it was only like a foot deep at the bottom of the slide he would still go totally under the water and come up yelling and pointing his finger at me and would give me "the look" He totally changed his tune when we borrowed a Diego life jacket from the pool and went down twice more. He keeps saying he wants to go back and use the Diego jacket. Might have to buy him one :)

Going, going, gone!

As you probably know, we live in a home built in 1961. "Way back then" I guess they did not have dryers. Only kidding :) But my house did come complete with a clothesline out front. We used it for a while to hang up blankets and sleeping bags, but after we put in the fence it was really akward and eventually the line was cut and only the posts remained. Imagine my surprise when I heard a backhoe running and went out to see this :)

Even with all the rain we've had that made the ground soft (notice the sinking tire track), he really had to work at it too. that thing was cemented in there pretty good.

Wow! We were totally shocked at how deep it was.

We had a city dumpster delivered that day and into the dumpster it went.

Then I had to take a few pictures of my kids in the huge hole, lol.

The lighting was good down there so I snapped a few pictures of Fisher and Carly. Hunter was not around, but I should have made him come up for a picture too, oh well.

The second one was more tricky. The top popped off while he was trying to pull it out.

Carly and Fisher decided they would help Dan by just pulling it out by themselves. Hilarious.

When his attempts were futile, he just posed by it.

And of course, her attempts were also futile so she posed as well.

Dan gave me this face when I asked him "Is this really going to work?"

He's pretty tricky, and handy and cute :) The man can fix anything!

I, of course, totally ate crow when it worked flawlessly.

And to the dumpster it went too.

And finally Hunter, my clever first born child, appeared on the scene.

He'd been in the hole. Hiding under a bucket. Totally laughed his head off when he startled his mom.

I'm Baaaack

See this picture?


This is one happy mama.

-A happy mama that got internet back for Mother's Day!

-A happy mama that can once again pay her bills online.

-A happy mama that can update her blog.

-A happy mama that can see the current coupon deals. Because she lives for those, lol.

-A happy mama that can put things on hold at the library.

-A happy mama that can catch up on full episodes of Vampire Diaries that I have missed.

-A happy mama that didn't have internet for 15 months and just discovered there was an update to Picasa online. Picasa now has a feature called Picnik on there and I edited the above picture with it.

One happy mama!


Easter 2011


Easter 2011. My, how they've grown!

Random thoughts from my brain

Random thoughts from my brain:

-With only a few weeks left of school, my kindergartner and 3rd grader are soon to be 1st grader and 4th grader. Crazy!

-I am looking forward to a summer of hanging out with the kids and having fun. The only thing I am not looking forward to is the extreme heat of the summer.

-I have actually enjoyed this last winter and I rarely even wore a coat. I am weird and am always hot. I always have been that way, don't know why :) The summer heat leaves me drained and tired until 9:00 or 10:00 at night when the sun goes down.

-Guess there should be a lot of swimming in our summer plans, lol.

-I got a part time job.

-Well, truthfully, 2 part time jobs.

-So far, so good. It's been a long time since I had a job where I got a W-2. About 9 years to be exact.

-I recently got glasses again. Haven't had them since Fisher broke mine when he was a baby. I was amazed when I looked out the window and could see a clearly defined eye on the horse in the corral.

-Dan's diesel truck gets better gas mileage than my car. Unfortunately, diesel is expensive right now! Oh how I miss my little Honda Accord when gas prices are high. It wasn't worth fixing though two years ago, and sold just a few hours after I put a for sale sign in it which let me know it was the right thing to do at the time. I cried when they drove it away. Silly, I know, but I loved that car.

-Our yellow lab surprised us yesterday and had a total of 3 puppies. We discovered she had milk and less than 24 hours later, she had the puppies. One was still born and one died at only a day old. The remaining puppy is doing well. Although it was not planned for her to have puppies, I still cried when they passed away. She is too old to be having babies and maybe that is why they didn't make it??

-We have already had to mow the lawn quite a bit. SO GLAD Hunter is big enough for the job. He is so helpful. It is nice to be able to count on him to help out in our family.

-Dan's brother, Morgan, and his wife, Christi, took out their endowments last wednesday in the Salt Lake Temple. All these years of having a recommend and I had never done a session there. It was awesome! I want to go back and do it again. They were sealed the following day at the Salt Lake Temple and I am so proud of them!

-Without having Directv and a DVR, I don't have a lot of shows that I watch anymore but I really like the tv series "Vampire Diaries" Have you seen that yet? It is in the 3rd season and I can't seem to get enough of it.

-Still don't have internet. It's been over a year lol.