Merry Christmas!!

I finally got my tree up!! Yes only 10 days before christmas but its up and its beautiful. I finally got a big beautiful tree. I have wanted a huge tree for a long time and I finally have room for it this year!! YEA I am so excited!

If you cant tell the tree touches my ceiling, I dont even have room for my angel-so I had to put it on the little trees Sydney gave me. Thanks Sydney.

I Love Christmas and am so grateful for the blessings in my life!! I am feeling especially grateful this year!!

Thanksgiving!!! Oh what fun!!!

So my Mom pulled a recipe exchange, for any of you who don't know what that means its an OOPS when you are trying to cook a good meal, like Cinnamon in your hamburger when you are trying to make tacos or throwing pomegranates all over the kitchen! So my Mom dumped her banana cream pie all over the floor when she was trying to put it into the fridge! She didn't even say a curse word!! I would have been swearing like a sailor! But no worries, she picked all back up put in back into the pan and covered it with whipped cream, you wouldn't even know it had been dropped, then we sent it home with my little brother Joseph, HOPE HE LIKED IT!

Wow time flies....

Well I am home again for a few days. I happened accross a couple of pictures that are not that old and relized my baby is getting BIG!!

My cubby little baby!!

I missed my computer!!!!!!!!!

I have been gone to Burley for the last 4 days......I missed my computer, I could go to my sisters and use hers but I didn't even have time for that. We are working on a big remodel over there, and I am Brian's unskilled laborer. So I got to scrape popcorn ceiling, take off wall paper (word to the wise NEVER EVER put these two things in your house!!!) and caulk holes and clean up!! I am actually enjoying it if you can imagine having fun while you work. Shelby said to me "Mom you and Dad should work together more often, you laugh and talk more!!" I couldn't help but laugh cause it was true, we were having a lot of fun working on the house. We even put Shelby to work, she was floor sweeper and hole caulker, she was having fun with that one. Where else can a kid learn construction during her school day? My wonderful sister and sweet niece had my other two little people a couple of the days, otherwise they just got to stay in the trailer and be bored. I am home for a few days and then back to it. So I will be going back and forth to Burley for the next month or so being Brian's little gofer!!! I will post pics when we complete it. It will be so pretty when we are done.

FEEDBACK LADIES: Do any of you struggle with lack of visual progress in your days? I finished scraping the popcorn ceiling this week looked at it and went mmmmm I can see my progress of the last couple days. Now don't get me wrong, I love being a Mom and seeing my girls progress when they learn something new or just do something nice without my input etc. But I guess I kinda miss the work world where you get a pat on the back for a job well done or can see your progress visually. So am I the only one or is this a normal struggle?

You all know this is just my way to get comments on my blog!!! :) Just Kidding!

Done camping for the year....

I am very excited about that. I am about camped and fished out. If I could go motorcyle riding without kids more I would go do that but I always have to drag at least one kid, waiting for Shelby to catch up or hoping Ashley doesn't fall asleep on me before I get back to camp. Of course Kailey is too little to go at all so Brian or I have to stay behind at camp with her. So I can't ride too far away since I am scared of getting eaten by wolves or bears and I dont want to get lost. Maybe in a few years Brian and I will be able to go for a little longer rides. Without kids or be able to give them rides with us.

Anyway enough whining from me, I am too blessed to be whining so much, We are all healthy, Brians business is going really well, our house is beautiful, my garden did very well for a first year effort, and we actually got to go camping.

Couple of pics of my goofy, cute kids!! What can I say ya gotta love um.

I have 20 MINUTES to MYSELF....

So I thought I would post the "Fruits" of my Labor of this last week! Needless to say it has been a very busy week!!

I am learning to LOVE fall...

I got an over abundance of Cucumbers from my garden...... I got it in so late, (I was busy with a new baby, new house, trying to get a yard in ect.) I didn't think I would get anything this year. But my cucumbers proved me wrong. So what do you do when you have this many cucumbers????? I called my grandma for her yummy pickle recipes. I got five quarts of dills and a gallon of refrigorator pickles and I still gave two walmart bags away to family!!!
My corn also proved me wrong!!! I got enough corn to freeze 8 quarts!!!

I use to hate fall.... I ma slowly changing my tune!

EEEEWWWWW....

I am NOT a country girl apparently..... this is what was in my garage last night.....

In case you cant tell it is a gross, ugly, squeeking bat!!!!

MMMMMMMM Life at the Raber compound?.....

Is pretty good, we were in the parade this weekend, largest parade in the state of Idaho, but true to form, I forgot my camara. Over labor day weekend we went camping and motorcylce riding, I took my camara and the only pic I got was of the kids snuggled down in bed!

Cute anyway!

We have officially started our second year of homeschool. I know most people think I am crazy for undertaking such a task, but here are some bonuses to homeschooling:

Dont have to worry about missing the bus, we havent even seen the bus (we are still sleeping when it comes),

I didnt have to buy a whole new wardrobe before it get truly cold and they really need it, this is especially useful since Shelby out grows clothes within four months time.

School supplies, I get to make the list of what we need.

We all take a nap in the afternoon if I need it!!

We can start our day with a prayer and scripture study and I dont have to keep it seperate from the rest of the stuff I teach my kids!!!

I have to remember the bonuses to keep my sanity thruout the year, but I expect to have a GREAT year!!!

FINALLY.........

I Have been trying for TWO days to upload these pictures!!! We were making signs to welcome home my little sister from her mission, my MOM thought it was great fun to STAMP UP my baby in the process, I have to admit it was very FUNNY!!!!

HOLY COW......

Where does the time go? It has been almost a month since I posted. Summer is almost over :(. I LOVE summer, even when it gets unbearably hot! There is a coolness in the air tonight which means fall is almost here. I have had a busy month, My sister came home from her mission, we went to the Twin Falls Temple open house, we have gone camping twice, we are getting ready to start school, we had a BBQ to welcome home my sister, my cousin got married, Shelby went to Girl Scout camp. WOW What a busy month.

CHOCOLATE....

As a kid I always liked making brownies just so I could lick the bowl when I was done...Well I haven't changed any...I still LOVE to lick the bowl and have passed onto my girls the same love of CHOCOLATE!!!!

CHOCOLATE ON THE FACE AT THIS AGE SOOO VERY CUTE!!!!!

AT THIS AGE JUST PLAIN DORKY!!!!

I am soooo Ariel!!!

Headstrong and fiesty. You have a mind of your own that's full of romantic dreams about the world around you. Exploring exotic places is your ultimate dream, and although you can be a little naive you'll realize that there is something to be gained from your family's wisdom.

The countdown has begun......

My sister Boo Boo will be home from her mission in eight days.....and counting!!!!!

Life is a bowl of Cherries?

I have no good reason for posting this except I thought it looked pretty sitting there on my counter!

I figured out how to put a cute background!! Yea

I am so proud of myself, I normally don't have the patience to figure this stuff out. My sister fixed my Myspace page to be cute, cause I wouldn't take the time to figure it out. So this is sooooo cute!

JUST ONE MORE FOR TODAY

So I go from not blogging for like a month then look lots of fun things to blog!!

We thought we would plant them and see if they grow?

Brian has a new NAME!!

He is going out on his own, this is the name he chose, Kinda cool I thought!

New GAME

1. I've seen this on a bunch of blogs and it sounds like fun!Here are the directions:

2. 1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

3. 2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you.It's actually pretty cool (and funny) to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. :) If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

I have a patch of....

GREEN in the middle of the desert! My grass is mostly weeds but hey its GREEN. I have mowed it once and Brian thought I was crazy cause I told him... Dont mow it I get to mow it first!!

I also have TREES, well sticks masquerading as trees! Now you all have an update of my paradise in the middle of the desert!!

Nobody reads my blog! :(

So I get a hard time for not posting in FOREVER and now nobody comments!

Ok I am so over it now! :)

Can we say addicted to TV already

I was trying to get a picture of Kailey smiling but after ten pictures and no luck I said oh well!

Almost a smile!

And of course I cant take a picture of Kailey without taking one of Ashley, if you cant tell she is being a ballerina.

HOLY COW

Over a month since I last blogged, no wonder my friends were giving me a hard time! Lets see I guess I have had a few things going on. We went to roaring springs, all of us! It was a wonderful day. I took my camara and was so excited that I acctually remembered it, and guess what it stayed in the car the WHOLE day, the one time I thought about it, it seemed like WAY too much work to walk all the way back to the car to get it. So you just have to use your imagination as to the pictures I would have took. None of me, some of the girls playing in the water, sliding down the slides, ect. So since I didnt have any from roaring springs, I looked on my camara to see what I have that is new and guess what I found some cute ones.

Ok so here are updates for the little people, guess we will start with the youngest to the oldest



Kailey found her thumb, I am so happy about this right now, I am not sure if I will be happy about it in about two years? I love it right now I can lay her in bed before she is asleep and she will pop her thumb in and out she goes, It is a beautiful thing!!!


Ashley-what can I say I have no idea what she did? I remember thinking back when I had just Shelby, How can anyone not know what their child is doing, how can they get away, I always KNOW where my Shelby is and what she is doing (insert smug attitude ect) Now I have three and every so often I am looking around the house going mmmmmm where IS Ashley she should be around here somewhere. So I don't know if Shelby got her the ice pack or if she got it herself. Can anyone say INDEPENDENT children?


Shelby my little animal lover. She had to have something to carry Angel (Coyote bait) around in while she was riding her bike so being the duitiful mother, we found an easter basket, grabbed a couple zip ties (thanks to haveing a husband who is a contractor) wala we have a basket for CB.


Mys siter Amanda riding my bike, she is going to be sooooo mad when she see I posted this!! Lets see how long it takes her to see it!!:)

So we are driving...

to Grand View today, I have all three girls lined up in the back seat of the durango, Kailey was sleeping with Ashley in the seat right next to her. Ashley started to be a little noisy, so I asked Shelby is Kailey still asleep? Shelby says no Ashley woke her up. GRRRR Ashley promply replies "uh uh I only woke up one eye." Three year olds what can you say, they are funny.

WOW Two posts in one day...

That is a record!! So last night my mom calls and says "Do you want coyote bait" Since her and I have talked about this before I said I am not sure.. But Shelby really does so I guess I'll be a good mom and let her have it:

So here is coyote bait, So far its name has been sam, henry and angel so we will see which one sticks.

Only a week since my last post...

I am doing a little better, and in that time I have: planted a yard, started planting my garden made brownies about three times, made dinner about that same number of times, change about a million dipers, nursed about 50 hours, ran one kid to a least 10 different activites, watched about 30 temper tantrums from the other kid and got about 20 hours of sleep, wow what a week, and oh yea I made curtins, for all of you who sew this is not an accomplishment, but for those of us who havnt sewn anything since jr high home ec this is a HUGE accomplishment. And they turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself!!

Wow a Month to the day since my last blog!

How boring am I!!. I am sitting here waiting to wake up a baby in hopes that if I feed her now she will sleep for five hours straight like she did last night, First night in over 3 months that I got that many hours straight, I woke up before she did and was worried, I had to run to her room to make sure she was still breathing and of course to do that I had to put my hand on her chest, effectively waking her up!! Otherwise I may have gotten another half hour or hour. But five hours was enough that I didnt feel like a walking zombie with scratchy eyes.

I am putting in a yard. It has been disked, the grass seed has been bought, I have straw standing by that I am going to steal and use. So now all I have to do is rake it, water it, and throw some seed down and rake it, and water it some more! What an exciting life I have. :) I have my garden spot ready to be tilled, I am starting to worry that I might not get the grass and garden going before we hit 100 degrees! It would help if we had a few weeks of weather in the 60 or 70s instead of going from highs of 50s to highs of 90s in a couple days time.

Now didnt I name this blog so perfectly, because all I am doing is rambling!

Shelby lost a tooth and had to wait 5 DAYS before the tooth fairy decided to swap it for some money! Then I guess she dreamt that Dad was the one who swapped the tooth for money, at least thats what we told her is that she must have been dreaming cause we have no idea what she is talking about. Do we get parents of the year?? :)

Ashley has taken to sleeping on the couch in the living room for some reason, says something about a scary noise in her room. I guess she thinks the air conditioner is a monster. This girl gets away with soooo much more than Shelby ever got away with.

Kailey is growing like a weed, still doing what she does best: eat, sleep, poop, eat, sleep, poop some more. Elizabeth can atest to the poop part, I was sitting at her house feeding and picking up my other two (since she was soooo kind to take my bigger girls for some much needed time AWAY from those two fighting) and this little girl poops all up her back on her outfit EWWW they say when it is your kid you don't get grossed out. I DISAGREE, EWWWW anyway Elizabeth being the sweet person she is takes the outfit and washes it for me so it doesn't stain since I had to be in town for a few more hours.

Ok, now everyone is updated on my life that is so much the same as everyone else I know, Kids do things to make you laugh, cry, or yell, (Sometimes within ten minutes) and the only way to keep your sanity is to pray, cry and eat a REALY big chocolate bar! Now it is time to wake a sleeping baby, and cross your fingers for me that I can score five hours of sleep again!!!

My Garage is coming along.

My brother Jim and My husband have been working all day each weekend day for the last two or three weekends to try to get this garage done. My brother has been a real trooper!!!
The front of the house and garage, my brother on the redneck scaffolding!!
This is a much better view of the redneck scafolding!! They put osb on the rack on the truck and that was their makshift scafolding. They worked off of it the entire weekend.

Cutest Bows EVER!!

I have a friend who makes these bows that are too cute for words!!
Look she opened her eyes for like a minute.
She was just too cute not to take a picture of!!
Ashley couldnt let Kailey have all the fun, she had to get in the pics too. I havnt had a chance to thank Heather, so if you read this heather Thank you so much, I loved the bows when I saw your baby girl wearing them and wished I had some for my new baby girl, and now I do!! Thank you so much.

Kailey Aniston Raber

OK I finally took 5 minutes to upload some pictures of my new little addition.
She is still like a little kitten, she doesn't open her eyes much yet.

This one will actually take a Binky, does anyone know how happy I am by that fact???? I may not be very happy in a couple years when I have to break the habit, but for now: I AM NOT HER BINKY!!! YEA! So today was also the first day I ventured out with all THREE girls in tow. Shelby had a soccer game and of course I had to hit walmart. A couple things I noticed: First my belly doesn't hit the steering wheel anymore :) Happy day. Second if you can time your walmart trip while both little people are sleeping, its very calm and relaxing trip. However then you need a second pair of hands to carry the sleeping toddler to the cart, which fortunately for me I had today. I just got a sleeping infant handed back to me so off I go to pretend like I know what I am doing!

I now officially live in the middle of NOWHERE!

I Have moved into my house, well my Mom and my Sister have moved me into my house, thanks to them I have a kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom, all the things you need to live. And they even cleaned my old duplex for me! Three cheers for the two women who worked their butts off to move me before this baby decides to make her entrance into this world!!

Isn't Life Grand!!!

So I am making dinner tonight, which is a huge deal lately, my poor family has been getting soup out of a can or chilli out of a can or pretty much anything they can scrounge up by themselves, so Ashley has been eating a lot of sandwiches, because she can pretty much make them by herself. So anyway I am making Clam chowder, a favorite in our family, dicing up the potatoes and onions and doing ok. Then I need to open the clams, twisting with a hand canopener, did ok on the first one but the second one jumps out of my hand and dumps lovely smelling clams and juice all over my rugs I have only had for a short time. I dont even know if this rug will fit into my washing machine. So I am trying to mop up this big stinky mess, with my huge belly in the way and my husbands helpful comments of "Are you ready for a live in cook now" Well yea I have wanted one of those for as long as I can remember. I got the clam chowder finished and it did taste really good, and I was able to freeze half of it so now I have one more meal ready for when the baby is born. Now I figure if its this much of a mess for me to try to cook right now I will just wait until after this baby is born to cook again! Yea a mini vacation from cooking.

My House is coming along beautifully

I HAVE CARPET AND IT IS AWESOME!!!!!
I HAVE POWER, I AM GETTING SO CLOSE TO MOVING INTO A HOME!!!!!

CARPET IN ALL THE ROOMS!!!