WARNING!! you WILL ITCH while viewing this post.

I mentioned in an earlier post that Cade has hives. Here are some pictures to show how bad they are. Poor guy. He was happy for these pics though. Must be because we are at Grameri's house.

Thank you Aunt V!

This is a picture of Valeri taken today with a very upset CadleLoo and very curious Raddle Daddle.

This post is a shout out to my beautiful baby sister V-child, Valerianna, Aunt V and of course Valeri. She has been such a huge help with the boys. She is so great and watches the boys for me... often it seems. Today she watched them for a few hours while I helped with the Primary program rehearsal. Cade was not feeling well and he had "the absolute worst diaper" she had ever changed.

Cade- poor cade. He has been on antibiotics for his ear infection for the last week. A few days ago he started getting a rash around his mouth. I thought it was probably just dry skin from the cold weather. Then today he broke out in spots, EVERYWHERE! Head to toe covered in red spots. Long story short he is having a bad reaction to the meds. So he has hives everywhere AND a yeast infection... oh his FACE! Poor little guy. Evidently yeast infections are a common happening with amoxacillan as well as hives. Poor guy got 'em both.

Anyway, back to V. I left an itchy uncomfortable Cade with her today and she is such a blessing and a trooper. I love her so much, I am so happy for the future Mrs. Finley and am glad and proud to be the big sister to such a great, beautiful and talented gal!

Love you Valeri!

house pics

Here is our new to be house. It will be a different color than what is shown. Shayli picked "Tan" for the house and "Monterey Cliffs" for the trim.

Another Post

It's been really fun to have access to the internet again. Tonight I have been researching ways to be more "self reliant". Being more self reliant is something that Derrick and I have been talking about for a year or so and have really been trying to do. We raised our first chickens this year. A set to butcher and freeze (that sounds horrible but saved a lot of money)and a set to produce eggs. We also planted a garden but really didn't produce much as I did not research as well as I should have and the chickens ate the plants. We also started canning for the first time ever and we love it! It's such a great feeling to look at a counter top full colorful jars after a long and hot day of canning.

We have a lot of plans for our new home. Some of which include a garden that produces, more chickens, pigs, a cow, possibly a goat (we think that Cade may be allergic to dairy like Rad was) a shop, a killer budget, a complete food storage, lots of work, lots of fun, lots of family time, lots of love and a motocross track. (I know a motocross track doesn't so much fit with the farm life but its a fun hobby of ours.)

Derrick and I laugh at ourselves often. We hear of different people coming across large ammounts of money through inheritances, being in the right place at the right time... or whatever. Sometimes while on a drive we will think about things that we would do with a large ammount of money and we do not dream about new cars or a bigger house or crazy vacations. We talk about being debt free in a simple house with the things we need, building amazing root cellars, and then we think of the people that we would anonymously donate to etc. etc. etc. Ha. We are dorks. But it is so fun to be prepared. Really it is.

Some random pics

Rad put his board up on a jack and "fixed it all up".

Cade looking ready to use his squirt gun.

Our Land! Derrick and I call it our 5 acres in pasture land. We (I have a Power of Attorney to sign for him) signed papers and made it all official today! We are so excited! Hopefully we will break ground on Monday.


While we may not have a whole lot of furniture in the house these days, we are leaving a dressers for our friends who are purchasing the home. The boys have been using it is as their little boat. It's really fun to see them play together.

Here is a pic of Shayli and Me at Silverwood the day before Mike and Candi's wedding. We were on "Tremors". It was a fun day full of funny faces.

Ha Ha, so Rad keeps bringing me little toys and saying "Look Mom! An early birthday present for you!" Where does he get these things? Something else he has been saying to me lately, when he gets in trouble, is "Mom- I am mad at you. I just want my Daddy" then he gets a huge hug from mommy.

Hello from an empty house in North Idaho. We are mostly all packed and ready to move. Before Derrick left for Alaska he, Solomon and I loaded up our semi trailer with as much as we could. Derrick, being the super hubby he is, didn't want me to have to move without him here to help. And Solomon is a super friend (which is why Cade SOLOMON is named after him) that really helped us out... and continues to do so. Thanks Sol.

We have been having a lot of fun in our empty house. Rad and Cade have been having a blast crawling in and hiding in empty closets and cupboards. Shayli and I bought giant coloring books and we spread out on the empty living room floor and color up a storm and giggle. It's been really fun keeping things SUPER SIMPLE.

Shayli is not liking her new school. She may not be liking it but she is rocking the grades. She is doing great. She had a couple of projects to do this week and so we spent a lot of time on those. I say we, but she did the work. I did the cutting and shopping for her. :) She did a great job. I'm attaching some pictures of the posters that she made. Shayli also gets a dragon. Yup- a dragon. For and early Christmas gift we purchased her a bearded dragon. They are supposed to be great pets. Actually, my cousing Makenzie has one and loves it. Shayli is really excited about it.

Rad has had fun working on his own projects. He uses some of the stickers that Shayli has for her projects and he decorates his cars with them. He makes them "so pretty". I'm attaching some pictures of those as well. Rad took a pretty big tumble off the concrete steps in our driveway the other day. I didn't see it happen I only saw the aftermath all over his face. He still has a pretty nasty scab under his nose. He's a trooper though and if you ask him about it, he will give you a play by play on how it happened. It's quite funny.

Cade... poor baby cade. He cut FOUR new teeth this last week and at the same time he had a "horrible" ear infection. He was miserable and I felt so bad for him. He is doing much better today. He was so glad to be out of pain this morning that he was just laughing for the fun of it. It was fun to watch and laugh with. He is walking like crazy and growing like a weed.

Derrick and I are doing well but really disliking the distance between us. We are just looking forward to when he can come home and when we can be a family in our new home. We should officially own our new property tomorrow and then hopefully it's smooth sailing from there.

Heidi and Meri Kate were here over the weekend and they went to a football game with Mom, Bob, Valeri and I. It was really, really cold but it was a great game. I love watching Shane play. And I love when Heidi comes to visit! It is so fun when the three of us sisters get together.