Rainy Day

Josh and Alauna building a dam on a rainy summer day.

Loving how nicely they are working together.  That's heaven.

This is Alauna showing me how dirty she is getting.  I think she needs to stop being such a princess and DIG IN!

That's my boy!  Dirrrrrttyyyyyyy!

Utah Weather

We finally got some GREAT snow in which to build a snowman and go sledding. Alauna and I built a Snow Kitty, but the little stinker knocked it down before I could take a picture of it. Oh, well. As long as she had fun. This picture is of her pulling her "Small Kitty" on a sled. She takes this cat along with her everywhere she goes. It was mine when I was in High School, but she kind of adopted it as hers.




This is a picture I took of Josh. I didn't realize he was trying to throw a snow ball at me, because I was focusing more on getting the pretty clouds in the background. What a cutie!



















This is one of my favorites! Alauna had fun making a snow angel, so of course "Small Kitty" had to make a Snow Kitty. Love her!








HOWEVER, 9 days later (yes, 9) we were invited to my brother Jayson's house to eat dinner and roast S'mores. The weather was SO nice (upper 60's). That is Utah weather for you. I got out all the kids' spring/summer clothes and started making room for them, getting really excited for Spring to come. And wouldn't you know it, 9 days after that (today) it snowed, AGAIN! I wish Mother Nature would make up her mind. I don't like being teased about the good weather.Ok. Enough ranting. At my brother's house again. They let Alauna drive their 4-wheeler. She had a blast.


This last one is Josh playing in the dirt/sand pile with his cousin, Caiden. We really had a great time visiting and enjoying the beautiful weather.

What's coming next for the Marshall's? Lots of fun things. We got a mini greenhouse to put in our kitchen so we can plant seeds for our garden. I set it up and it looks great. Now just to plant the seeds. So far, on our list of things to plant: corn, potatoes, tomatoes, raspberries, chives, parsley, cilantro, and the kids planted 2 pumpkins (to carve for Halloween). I am really excited. Especially since we are actually starting on time this year, so we may actually get a good harvest. Pictures to come!

Soooo busy!

I got on my blog just to see what everyone else has been up to and noticed it had been almost 4 months since I updated my own. Time flies when you are busy. And that's all I can say the last 4 months have been. B-U-S-Y!

So here's a small sample of what we have been up to:

We went to Ammon's parent's house in Caldwell, ID for Christmas. It was quite an adventure getting all the presents there, but it was SO worth it. This picture is of Ammon reading "The Night Before Christmas" to the kids before bedtime. Then in the morning, Great Grandma Marshall, and some cousins and an Uncle came over to unwrap presents. It was a glorious commotion. We stayed at their house for 5 wonderful days. It was a lot of fun just visiting and seeing Idaho through Ammon's eyes (since he grew up there).

I turned 30 in January. Period.



Here is a shot of Alauna blowing out her candles for her 3rd Birthday Party. We had Ammon's sister and her 3 girls over. We had cake and ice cream and played Just Dance 3. Loved it!









I watched my nephew while his mom and dad went to Texas for a week. It was quite the adventure. All remnants of what "Baby Hungry" ideas I had were washed away. He was a great kid, but I was SO busy - all the time. He was sick the whole time, so we didn't get outside much. So he was able to have the time to find everything I didn't have baby-proofed in my house. He and Alauna didn't get a long very well, but when they did, it was so precious. Not even a minute after he left, she said, "I miss Paxton."

I love being able to Home School Josh. He hates it, of course, but I do my best to make it fun. I am learning quite a bit as well. My favorite part this last week was being able to stick my own little blurb about Jesus Christ and beginning of Christianity as we were learning about the Ancient Romans. Bet they don't teach that in public school! Although I have very little time for anything else while teaching Josh, I sure enjoy being able to spend so much time with him. I love knowing how well he is doing and being able to take care of any problems that arise without having to hope a teacher is giving him enough individual attention. We go on outings with his "school" and Alauna is able to come with.


Last week, we were able to go tour the Utah State Capitol building. It was really cool inside, and we got ALOT of exercise.

Yesterday, we went to Don Quixote at the Ballet West Capitol Theatre. It was such a delight to watch Alauna "oohing" and "ahhing" at all the dancers. She clapped so wildly and loudly after each dance that I thought her hands were going to fall off. Josh mostly like it. I told my husband that he got bored after a while and wanted to go home, so Ammon said, "That's my boy." Like father, like son. On Wednesdays, I watch a girl named Angela from our ward. She just turned 5, and gets along really well with both Josh and Alauna. She is polite and quiet. I am able to take her along when we go on school Field Trips, so that's definitely a plus.

So, that's us in a nutshell. Busy, busy, and more busy. Hopefully when the weather warms up, we will be able to more busy, but outside!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is finally here. I love this holiday, especially with kids. This year, Josh dressed up as Roronoa Zoro. Not a whole lot of people out there know who he is, so I will enlighten you. He is a pirate off of the Japanese Anime "One Piece." It's actually a pretty cool cartoon (the English version isn't as good as the Japanese version, though). Anyway, this character has 3 very special swords and is fighting his way to become the World's Greatest Sword Fighter. Here's a picture to compare Josh to the picture from the cartoon. Ammon and I were up until 2 am finishing the swords and sheaths, and they look awesome!


Alauna is in love with everything Tinkerbell. So, of course she wanted to be Tinkerbell for Halloween. Her wings glow in the dark and light up, and her shoes light up when she walks in them. Here is a picture, even though I know most of you know what Tinkerbell looks like.


We have a lot planned for this Halloween week and weekend. We went to Story Time at the library this morning and they got to dress up. Then tomorrow, we are going Trick-or-Treating down old Magna Main Street. Then Saturday, we have Boo at the Zoo, Trunk-or-Treat at Habitat for Humanity, and then our church's Halloween Party. Then a dinner with some family on Sunday. Then on Monday (actual Halloween), we will be going to my mom's school to show off. And that night we will be joining Ammon's sister, Sue, and her girls to go Trick-or-Treating around their neighborhood. The kids will be so tired of going Trick-or-Treating by the end. Hopefully they will get a lot of candy that they will share with their mom and dad. ;)

What is Koda doing?

Ok, so my neighbors were telling me that my dog has been trying to commit suicide lately. They said they think he is just so depressed and bored out of his mind. And I don't blame him. Once school started, we haven't been going on our runs like we used to. And it is so hot outside, that I am usually not out there unless it is dark.

So, I asked my neighbors what he was doing that they thought he was trying to kill himself. They said he just lays down in the middle of the road in hopes that a car will run him over. I didn't believe them, until I saw this one day. So I took a picture.



And now to explain. I had Petsmart cut his hair really short because I am usually the one who cuts it and I needed them to fix all the mistakes I had made. Plus, I really didn't want to have to give him a hair cut for a long time. So, he gets REALLY cold inside our house. It is usually in the 70's in our house, but he still freezes. So this is him, laying on the road because it is black and it is very hot from the sun. Therefore, he is not trying to kill himself.

Secondly, yes, he is wearing his "Cone of Shame." That's because he likes to play with the neighbor dog who is at least 3 times his size until the dog gets so annoyed, she bites him. She always bites him on the neck, and I have had to give first aid to over 4 of these really bad bites. And of course, I have to put his medical collar on or else he will just scratch it until he bleeds to death.

However, if you combine his cone of shame and horribly short hair cut (he looked like a naked mole rat), it does appear that he is trying to kill himself. "Get me out of my misery" is what he could be thinking. But he is a healthy and happy dog. So don't worry.

Our Summer

We splurged and purchased another year pass to the Hogle Zoo. We live about 20 minutes away from it and I figured it would be a great addition to our Field Trip Fridays I have planned for Josh's Home School.


I usually take a picture of Josh standing by our front door on his first day of school (my mom did that with us kids by our front door of our house). But since he is doing Home School this year (maybe some more after) I decided to take a picture of him in front of his nifty new desk (we are still waiting for a computer for him).


This project has taken a while but is sure fun to do. Ammon is great with his hands and wood, so we decided to build a shed instead of move. It's a pretty big one (10x12) and takes up a bit of our yard. It has been hard work and we are thinking it may have been worth the extra $800 it would have cost to have Lowe's build it for us. There has been literally blood, sweat, and tears put in to this shed. I would show you a picture of my thumb, but this is a G-rated blog.


I fried the mother board of our computer that Ammon built, so we had to buy a new one. It isn't as good as the one Ammon built, but it will do. We kept the boxes and Alauna and Josh made Space Ships (or Pirate Ships - depending on the time of day you ask them). They have played in them quite a bit. Aren't boxes wonderful?



Josh celebrated his 6th birthday. We had a party the Saturday before. It was a pirate party, and we invited alot of his little friends and family. They had a blast! Then on his birthday, I made him a cake and he got to pick what he wanted to eat for dinner. He chose Chocolate Chip Pancakes, Bacon, Hot Chocolate with BIG marshmallows, and olives. Unfortunately he had the stomach flu that day so he didn't quite enjoy it as much as he would have. Poor kid.


Another picture from the zoo, but I don't have the patience to put it in the right order. Love the Zoo!

I just can't get over how cute my corn is. I planted them quite late, but I just wanted to see how green my thumb was. I have 4 cute little corn cobs growing on my very short corn plants. We will do much better next year once the shed is done and we have more than one garden box built. And I will start much earlier now that I know kind of what I am doing.

And these are my tomato plants. I think they are doing quite well for this being my first time. I haven't seen any tomato buds, but again, I planted them quite late.

And that's what we have been up to this summer! Hope you enjoyed reading and looking!

Half-Marathon #3!

Thought I would post this since I posted about the other 2. This Half-Marathon took place down Provo Canyon and ended in Provo by the Tabernacle. It is my favorite out of all of them. It was so beautiful running down the canyon, looking at the waterfalls, listening to the foot-fall of the runners in such quiet and pristine beauty. Don't worry. After about mile 7 I stopped paying attention to all that and paid attention to the pain in my feet. I was privileged to run with Ammon's sister, Sue. She was a great running partner. She had a watch that told us how fast we were running each mile. Without her, I would have gotten a lot longer time. In the end, we finished together at 2 hours and 6 minutes. Our goal was 2 hours or less, but we did our best and I am happy with the time. We had a lot of fun, laughing, making fun of each other, and sweating together. Will enjoy those memories forever.