A bit of a self-reliance lesson

A few days ago I had made a really hot fire in the wood burning stove to heat our cold house. Well, apparently I did a good job, because the fire was hotter than ever. So, I wondered if I could boil water on top like people used to do to cook food. Well, it worked. I boiled potatoes and and I boiled some noodles for snack. I decided to use the potatoes to make a shepherds pie for dinner. Then, when the boiling water was successful I decided to try making a makeshift oven on top and see if I could make the whole dinner over the fire. Here's a few pictures of my "oven". I made it with #10 cans, a cookie cooling rack and some tin foil. Shepherds Pie turned out great!
That worked and so I thought I'd try making some brownies in my makeshift oven. But, by this time the fire was even hotter. It ended up being too hot and burnt the brownies on the bottom and edges while the middle took longer than normal to cook. The brownies turned out okay as long as we just ate the center. I definitely learned a lot and am more prepared to cook over a fire if we don't have electricity for some reason.

Yesterday I decided to move all my canned food out the food storage area and into the house because (silliness) the food storage shelves are in the laundry room where the air gets very moist from the dryer. The cans are starting to rust on the outside. So, I pulled all the extra toys out of Rebekah's closet and put them in the laundry room storage cupboards and I also cleaned out the linen closet and put the extra blankets, sheets and towels out in the laundry room too. I filled those two closets with food storage.This is where my cans used to be stored.

I also made a little stair place for the children to play on in Rebekah's room. I covered it with two table cloths to protect the boxes. We'll see how long this lasts.

The children had fun helping me put the cans and jars in the closet when I was down to the single cans.
Sorry the pictures are fuzzy, I just realized that there was a big smudge on the camera lens. (Probably toddler fingerprints) :)

First Birthday!

Happy Birthday Hyrum!

My baby turned one! I can't believe time has flown by so fast. Hyrum's been with us for 8 months now and he's growing so fast. Here's a little picture story of his cake expereince. I
made a cake for him, but his "Nana" (old foster mom) made him a little one to have all for himself. So, he had that one and the rest of us had the big one.

Had to move the curtain out of the way...




On to the presents!

He's our happy boy. We sure love him!!

It's final

Yesterday we received a pile of papers in the mail from out attorney basically stating that Brigham and Rebekah are now ours for good. The adoptions were finalized and their names legally changed. We are so excited! To celebrate, we went out to dinner as a family. It feels so good to have two out of the three be ours for real. We're still waiting on the amended birth certificates, but those will be along shortly. Now I have to go to the doctor office, pharmacy, and everywhere else that has records of them and get their names changed. It will be so nice to call the doctor and actually make an appointment for Rebekah F____ instead of Angelina G______ . And to go to the pharmacy asking for a prescription for Brigham F______ instead of William R____. I'm so glad they're ours!!! We're also looking forward to getting them sealed to us, but we're going to wait until Hyrum's adoption is final as well and seal all three of them at once.

For those of you who haven't heard yet, Hyrum is now legally free!! We're just waiting on paperwork to be sent to us so that we can contact the attorney to get things rolling for him. He'll probably be ours for good in about 4-5 months.

Happy Birthday Brigham!!

Brigham's birthday was last Saturday. He is 3 now, though we're having a hard time convincing him of it. For a while there he was still convinced he was two. Then, when Nonna asked him how old he was on his birthday he told her he was four. The other day he told me he was five. So, I think we've confused him. But, the past two days he seems to be getting it.

Brigham wanted waffles for breakfast.


Here's the cake I made him. (pretty much the same as Rebekah's but different colors)

Another cake difference-I made it two colored with three layers.
(I got the idea from my friend, Teresa)



I thought this was funny, the gift bag was almost as big as he was.

He had a great day, he loved all the attention. The children are still singing the happy birthday song to each other at random times, which is delighting to hear. They're turning into quite the little singers. :)

Vacation for a wedding

We spent 10 days on the road and are sure glad to be home again. We made a lot of stops and visited with a lot of people. The main reason for our trip was for my sister, Tasha's wedding. She got married on the 1st of September.

Here are a few pictures of the children we took before the wedding.

Brigham was asked to be the ring bearer. He did a great job for how tired he was.

Tasha was beautiful all dressed in her wedding attire.

This road trip went a little better than the last as far as the children being in their car seats. They were a little more used to the idea of sitting in their seats all day, and therefore new what to expect when we talked about it ahead of time. They still got fussy from time to time, but that's to be expected with toddlers.

It was sure nice to visit with all the family and friends, though! Thanks to all of you who housed and fed us. :)

Rebekah's Birthday!

Rebekah's birthday was on August 26th. We had a great day, celebrating with her. We started out with some birthday crowns.

Followed by one of her favorite breakfasts- hot cereal. (That girl can eat almost as much hot cereal as I can!)


I made this cake for her the night before. I'm not very good, but I'm learning.



We played all day and got ready for her party in the afternoon. Her birthday party was after dinner. We sang, ate cake and ice cream and she got to open a few presents.




Our gift to her was a toddler bed.

She was very excited!

Making donuts

Last week we decided to make donuts with the children. It ended up being an all day thing and we had to cook most of them after the children were asleep, but they did get to taste the first batch before we put them down. They really enjoyed getting their hands on the dough and helping to shape it.

Hyrum even got in on the fun and played with the flour on the floor.