20 May 2018

We got to see Grandpa Sunday and part of Monday last week. It's always so nice when he has meetings up this way. I was busy with a funeral in the ward on Thursday. Most people in the ward didn't know the sister who passed away, I had only met her a couple of times, but everyone was so willing to help and bring food for the family dinner. It made my job a lot easier! 

Stephen has been busy working at the same part time job he had last summer, yard work and other maintenance at a nice trailer park just outside of town. However, he has just about got a different job for the summer. He will most likely be fighting forest fires and be based in Deary, ID which is a little town about 20 miles from here. Unless they get called to go help with fires in other areas, he will still be able to live at home. If there aren't fires here to take care of, they work very hard at fire prevention. It will be good money and good work for him. He wanted a job like this, but didn't think he could do it because he won't be 18 till July. And they had all the fire crews filled up, but when a guy dropped out of the Deary crew, Stephen's Sunday School teacher who teaches fire management at the U of I and is an active firefighter herself, told Stephen he should apply and recommended him to the guy doing the hiring. Stephen has his application and everything in, and talked to the boss, just waiting for the final confirmation.

Stephen and Annie's last day of Seminary was on Friday and last night was Seminary graduation. I only cried a little bit! 

The girls all had their final concerts of the year these last two weeks. On Thursday evening the HS band and orchestra had their awards night and Annie received the award for most improved in orchestra. She just decided to play the cello this year and can now keep up with everyone else who has been playing for much longer. One of our ministering brothers, Mark Secrist, took pictures of each of the girls at a combined concert they had.

Annie had a good birthday on Friday. Her cousin, KatieJo, came for the weekend from Richland, WA. Then on Saturday, Ellen and Naomi planned and very successfully pulled off a surprise party for Annie. I forgot to take a video of her reaction though! 

Stephen went to prom about 3 weeks ago and I'll include a couple pictures of that. He took his friend Sam. Her name is Samantha, but goes by Sam. He asked her by making an ottendorf cipher using the scriptures as the key! (She is LDS) It that not the coolest? She answered him by making a bow tie for him that matched her dress. So fun!!

Ellen got braces almost two weeks ago now. Her mouth was pretty sore at first, but she says it doesn't hurt anymore. She's still getting used to eating some things a little differently, but she has been a real trooper! 

We are getting to the end of the school year! Whew!! Our last day is June 6th and graduation is on June 8th. We mailed out graduation announcements late last week. Everyone is excited for summer. I am too, I just can't believe how fast this year has gone by! So crazy!

Oh! One last thing. Our good friends, the Cooks, went to Salk Lake for General Conference in April and their picture is in the Ensign! They are on pg 82. Ryan used to be our Bishop, and is now our Stake President. They used to live just down the street from us, but they moved out to Troy at the end of last summer. Luckily they aren't so far away that we can't still get together with them. Their oldest daughter, Whitney, just left last week to serve a mission in Manchester, England.

Washington DC: Day 1

In the spring of 2017, we decided as a family that we wanted to go to Washington DC. We had saved a little bit of money from selling paper airplanes, and figured out that if we could sell enough airplanes we would be able to go in the spring of 2018. And we did it!

We left home on Wednesday after school and work. Annie drove us most of the way to Spokane, where we stayed in the Peppertree Inn, right near the airport.

We hung out and watched a couple episodes of the Andy Griffith Show. We learned that six kids can all fit on a king sized bed. Luckily they didn't have to sleep like that!

We woke up at 2:45am so that we could take the hotel's 3:30 shuttle to the airport.

Our flight left Spokane at 5:45... 

...and landed just after 8:30 in Denver. It was kind of fun to walk off the plane and smell DIA. It brought back tons of memories for me! I hadn't realized till then that DIA has such a unique smell. We just had time to walk from gate to gate, with a quick stop at the bathroom. Thank goodness for the moving walk ways! We got right into line to board our next flight when we got to our gate. 

We landed at Reagan National Airport around 2:50pm. We grabbed our bags and headed upstairs to the Metro station. We liked the Metro!

We made it to our Airbnb around 4pm. It was just a short block and a half walk from the metro station. We explored the house a bit, figured out where we would all sleep, and got the tv figured out. Then Annie, Ellen, James, and I walked two blocks to Safeway and bought groceries for the next few days. We weren't sure we would be able to carry it all back to the house! But, between the four of us, we made it. We ate a quick bite, and headed back to the metro station and went to Union Station where we got on a Big Bus Night Tour.

photo cred: Naomi

Big Bus Tours are all on double decker busses that have open air tops. James, Stephen, and Noah decided they wanted to sit on top. It was COLD! But they were stuck up there because all the seats inside were full. They did survive. James had said that he would rather go bear hunting than go to a big city like DC. Sitting on top of that bus was just about as cold as sitting in the tree stand while bear hunting. He managed to get both experiences all in one trip! We saw most of the major monuments all lit up.

photo cred: Naomi

photo cred: Naomi

photo cred: Ellen

Because Stephen was on the upper level of the bus, he definitely got the best photos of the evening! The following are all his!

Surprise Babies

I've been feeling the need to record our family history - our family's story.  Even if it comes in little bits and pieces. 

Yesterday I found myself thinking about the fact that all three of our girls were surprises and the boys were not.  That sounds weird, what I mean is that we knew the boys were boys before they were born but we didn't know the girls were girls.  Maybe it seems weird to write a whole post about this, but it is part of our family's story! 

Since Stephen was our first, we really wanted to know if he was a boy or girl and were quite excited to find out he was a boy.  It was a lot of fun buying a few baby boy things.  We didn't have much money, so we bought a little Moses basket at Walmart for about $15 and I sewed a little mattress and bumper to go around the inside.  Mom threw a baby shower for me, and that helped a lot!  James had known for a very long time that he wanted to name his first son after his Dad, Stephen James.

When I was pregnant with Annie, I had an ultrasound very early in my pregnancy and then found out that our insurance would only cover one ultrasound.  So we planned for either possibility!  As my due date got close, I was measuring a little small and my doctor was concerned that there wasn't enough amniotic fluid.  So he did a quick ultrasound in the office just to make sure everything was ok.  It was, she was just a small baby.  But he also checked her sex.  And asked if I wanted to know.  I told him I had waited that long, I could wait till the baby was born.  She was born the very next day!  And I was SO excited to have a girl!  Even though we knew she could have been a boy, we never did agree on a boy name.  We had only chosen a girl name, Anne Johanna.  A few sisters from our ward had a baby shower for Annie a couple of weeks after she was born.

Then when I was pregnant with Ellen, we purposely decided not to find out if she was a boy or a girl.  We had enjoyed being surprised by Annie so much and wanted to do that again. Luckily, we already had everything we needed for a boy or a girl, so that was not a concern at all.  And it was fun again to find out when she was born that we had another little girl.  Stephen was not quite so excited about it, but he got over it.  With Ellen, we had only been able to agree on a boy name.  We had decided, if the baby was a boy, that we would name him after our close friend Russell Osterman.  I don't remember having a middle name to go with it though.  We had discussed several girl names, but didn't settle on Ellen Margot till an hour or two after she was born. 

Next came Naomi.  We decided we wanted to know this time.  I had an ultrasound, but Naomi was shy and the technician couldn't get a good enough look to see if she was a boy or girl!  So we were going to have our third surprise!  Stephen really wanted a brother.  But he seemed ok with it when she was born and we had girl number three.  Annie was quite excited to have another sister.  I don't remember if we ever had a specific boys name picked out.  Boy names were a little harder for us.  I had been sure that we had decided on Naomi Fern for a girl.  I was so sure that when she was born and the nurse asked what we were going to name her, I said, "Naomi Fern Mobley".  And James promptly said, "We are?"  He did not remember choosing that name!  But he was gracious and let me name her Naomi Fern.  Life after Naomi was born was hard for us.  Ellen had just started her treatment for hip displaysia and was in a spica cast.  And I  struggled with post partum depression for most of Naomi's first year.  So we decided that we would be done having kids.



Then, SURPRISE!  I found out I was pregnant.  I was so nervous that I knew about it for two weeks before I told James.  He was very positive and encouraging.  But we were still both a bit nervous, so we decided to find out if we were having a boy or a girl.  It was a boy!  And we were all so excited!  Especially Stephen.  He was finally getting a brother!!  My sweet visiting teachers threw a baby shower for me since it had been so long since our last boy and I had given away quite a bit of our baby clothes.  We tried for a while to think of a name we both liked, and couldn't come up with anything.  Then one day James suggested Noah and we never looked back.  Twelve days after his due date, and after both Nana and Grandma and Grandpa Mobley had come and gone hoping to see the new baby, Noah Vernon was born. 

After Noah we again decided that we would be done having children.  Every now and then James would say, "Are you sure we shouldn't have another kid?"  And I always said, "Yes!"  But when Noah was three, I read a quote from Spencer W. Kimball in a talk by Julie B. Beck.  He said, "“It is an act of extreme selfishness for a married couple to refuse to have children when they are able to do so.”  And that morning I knew that we needed to have another baby.  But I wanted to make sure!  So we prayed and fasted and went to the temple.  And the answer was definitely yes.  I was soon pregnant, but after just 7 weeks I had a miscarriage.  James and our neighbor, Mike Dixon, gave me a blessing and I felt a lot of comfort and reassurance that everything was ok.

We were all excited when I found out I was pregnant again.  And we all really wanted to know if we were having a boy or a girl.  I went to the ultrasound by myself then afterwards called James to tell him we were having a boy.  I left blue sticky notes on Stephen, Annie, and Ellen's lockers at school telling them they were going to have another brother.  Noah and Naomi were at the Dixon's house and were so excited when I told them.  James really wanted to name the baby George, after his great-grandpa George Baugh Everton.  James and the kids were constantly talking about Baby George.  I just couldn't quite get used to that name though.  About a month before his due date, I started thinking really hard about other names.  James knew how I felt about the name George so he listened, but wasn't convinced to go with a different name yet.  Then I remembered the quote from President Kimball and suggested the name Spencer.  James wondered who we would be naming him after and I said, "The Prophet from when we were born." and he liked it!  Whew!  Spencer Everton was born a whole week before his due date.



And there you have the story of how we knew when we were having boys but were surprised by our girls.  Plus a little extra. 
 

Our 2015 Big Trip: Camping in Kilgore

Our trip started with Grandpa's annual campout at the Steel Creek Campground in Kilgore.  James had to work that week and Annie was at Girl's Camp with Katherine, so it was just me, Stephen, Ellen, Naomi, Noah, and Spencer.  I got to hang out with my sisters and Beth and it was just wonderful!

Spencer was not so sure about being away from home at first, but he was quite happy to be camping! 

 

It was COLD this year.  The kids and I didn't get to the campout till Monday evening.  When we got here we found out that we had missed hail and snow and rain and more hail and more snow.  Dixie and Zach and Mom and Dad made room for all of us in their campers so we didn't have to set up out tents and sleep in the cold.  When we woke up in the morning there was ice on all the tables!  Brrr!  We wore our jackets almost all day that day. 

Hunting for frogs with Uncle Kerry.

 

 Naomi holding a little froggy.

Hannah and Naomi

 

Stephen is VERY loved by all the younger cousins.

 

 

Card games with Nana!!

 

The big people card game.  We had to pause the game while getting everyone put to bed.  But we picked it right back up around 10 or 11 in Dixie and Zach's camper.  I haven't laughed so hard in a long time!  So much fun!!!

 

Cousins!  Wearing awesome shirts from Beth.

 

My Sisters!!!