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Today was Crystal's first day of First grade. We had blueberry pancakes for breakfast. I was really excited this morning because we were all up, fed and dressed and even to school early, and the best part was that it was very stress less. We just picked up on our routine from last year, with the exception of James is an addition to the morning routine that we have some kinks to work on. Thanks to my great husband for the help with James this morning. It was raining so Crystal had inside recess. It was a little sad for me seeing her walk into the school, but she was so excited and ready to start school. She is much more ready to grow up then I am to let her grow up. Clayton was upset because he didn't get to go to school today. He has to wait two more weeks before he heads off to pre-school. They are all growing so fast. James will be 4 months old the end of the week and he has been rolling over for about two weeks. Joe and I are just busy keeping things going and working on the garage. We now have two sides of the garage completely done and the third is about 90% done. I can't wait until we are all done and start parking in it.

Hey all, it has been a while. Here is an update on the garage. After much delay we have the roof done, we only had to order additional shingles 3 times. the walls are all complete, the doors and windows are all in. Now all we need is the siding then the exterior will be finished. Then we have to wait for more money to insulate and sheet rock the inside, we already have some wire and Iknow a good electrician that work for cheap, for me anyway ;) so we can be working on that during the winter. I can't wait to park in there, just imagine not having to scape the hundreds of windows on the suburban. Thanks to all the friends and family who have come and helped on our project this summer.

Crystal is preparing for 1st grade, she starts in two weeks.
Clayton is so excited to be getting ready for pre-school he starts the 10th of September.
James is just growing and getting cuter by the day. He is now 25.5 inches long and even.
Joe is on his last week of his summer hours and will be grateful to be having work start at 8 next week.
I am busy keeping things together and running, getting the kids to their activities, feeding the helpers on the garage, taking care of all the sick kids we have had at our house this week.

Busy as ever and hoping that school starting and the garage wrapping up will help slow things down a little.

We have been to multiple reunion this summer, and as much as we loved seeing everyone we are grateful to be home and on a some what normal routine. We love you and appreciate all our friends and family.

Hey all.. We have been crazy busy building a garage, doing summer reading programs at the library and just trying to stay above water with all the rain we have been getting. The day that we had the concrete came a down poor as the guys were finishing up and we had a beautiful full rainbow, it was a double but I didn't get a good shot before the upper rainbow disappeared. in June we got 2.5 inches of rain, our average June rainfall is .25 inches. Here are some pics of our life.

James had his check-up at 9 weeks and was 24 inches long and 11lb 11 oz. He has grown 4 1/2 inches he is getting very tall very fast. He sure is a smiley little boy. He is the light in all our lives. The kids love telling every person we see (Clayton "this is my baby brother James Allen" Crystal " This is my baby brother James Allen, I am the only girl kid in our family and I am getting my own room soon") they are a handful but I love then and they make me laugh, even when I feel like they listen like brick walls. All our love to all.

It has been a long month since I last posted. James is now 6 weeks old, James was blessed over memorial weekend. Linette made James Blessing outfit. She always does such a great job.

Crystal is done with kindergarten. They had a kindergarten circus it was great, Crystal was a tight rope walker

Crystal got 76 Accelerated reader points, we are very proud of her for all her hard work this year.

We have been busy we spent 6 days in Casper and Douglas with my parents. The kids loved the pool at the hotel in Casper and the playground that looked like a castle
We are now busy working on getting our garage built, and I am learning what it is like to have three kids at home all day every day alone. I got the garden planted and lots of things are coming up and doing good, my flowers are looking great, I will have to get my camera out in front and get pictures of my flowers for the next post. The kids summer reading program in full swing. The kids sure love James and are always trying to help.

J

Crystals school has been working with the kids on fitness. So this year those who wanted to ran a Marathon. Yes 26.2 miles, but since it is elementary kids they ran the miles over the school year. Each recess the P.E. teacher would be out checking off laps that the kids would run.. On the 24th they ran the last couple laps to complete their miles. Crystal was very excited. She even got a really cool metal and a t-shirt.

Here are some more pictures of James. He is two weeks old on the 12th.. He is doing well and getting better at the sleeping during the night thing.

We found this super cute shirt at the store the other day.

Crystal loves to read and her new favorite thing is reading to James. So this is bedtime stories a couple nights ago.

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Hey all I know you have been waiting for this. James Allen Emmett was born Tuesday the 28th at 4:33 p.m. He weighted 8lb 5 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. Here are some pictures of him in the first couple days. We are both as well as can be expected. The kids are completely in love with him and were so excited when we brought him home today.

Joe got his motor bike up and running the other day, So Crystal got her first ride. Joe's Dad use to give the kids rides on their birthdays and so I gave in and let Joe give Crystal a ride in the alley. She LOVED it. Clayton just loved wearing the helmets. Joe had is Birthday this week so we had a party with lots of food and friends. We had a really good time. We even wrangled the Elders into coming in for some Cake and Ice cream.( we saw them walking past the house just at the right time).

A couple weeks ago Clayton was looking scraggly so Joe cut his hair and he just wasn't that happy about it.
We are all doing well. Just waiting for the baby to come now. Hope everyone is enjoying the spring.

Hey all, I keep getting asked so I thought I would put out the word. I am 38 weeks today. No baby yet.
Spring is starting to come. Last night we went on a flower hunt around the yard to find all the tulips that have started to come up. Crystal is so fun, she had to come in and get paper and pen so she could make a chart of how many tulips we found. She checked out 4 science books from the library so we were also looking for the moon to see what shape and color is was but there was no moon to be found when we looked at 8 o'clock.
We had a great weekend with Joe's cousins in Lovell. The kids had a great time playing with some cousins (both kids and adult). Clayton found a quick friend in Jordon and Ryan (both over 20). We had fun finding candy, shooting, 4-wheeling, playing kick ball, going to the park and assorted games.
I am busy trying to get things organized for when the baby comes. One thing I need to get done just in case is writing a talk to Clayton for Primary (his first). He has to give it on the 26th which is two days before my due date. I also am hoping the baby doesn't come between the 22nd-25th because my doctor has to go out of town for a conference. I guess babies come when they come and I can wait until it is ready. This is one thing you don't want to rush. Joe is getting very impatient. He wants the baby here now so he can hold it. Crystal is getting very excited and Clayton is still just not quite understanding the whole thing. He thinks we all have babies in our tummies and after the baby is out of moms tummy he is going to trade me my baby for his.
We love you all and will keep you all posted on all updates that happen.

I am dying for spring to be here. I am trying my hardest not to be deceived by the happy chirping of the birds. I went to take crystal to school the other day and the sun was shinning and I could hear the birds chirping. I thought this might be a really nice day, Then I stepped out into the 1 degree morning and wondered what on earth the birds could be chirping about. We keep getting warm spells, followed by a week in the single digits. I am ready for the warm weather but a little anxious about all the things we have to get done between spring and fall. The news paper says spring is coming soon because there are a lot of dead skunks on the highway. I guess that is a better indicator of spring then the groundhog shadow. All I know is the drive to Cody has been kinda stinky that last couple times I have been. Well whenever comes "HAPPY SPRING"!!!

Hey all, I thought I would add this to the blog. You have to know what you are looking for though. We have a great friend that hooked us up last night with a FREE ultrasound. Thanks!!!!! But as it goes with our kids this baby was most uncooperative so We don't have any amazing shots. Here is a video of the heart beating.

We still could not tell the gender due to the baby moving continuously and keeping it's legs tucked up nice and tight. But it was fun anyway. We took the kids and they thought it was pretty cool. This baby wouldn't even give us a good face shot. Every time Tom tried to get a good picture or video of the face the baby would put one or both hands in front of it's face. It wants all aspects of itself to be a surprise I guess. We are very grateful for this blessing in our lives, we could tell that as far as could be assessed with an ultrasound it is healthy, all the organs are there and the blood is pumping great. That was the coolest thing was when Tom would put it in color and you could see the blood in the umbilical cord, pumping. They have it colored in blue and red. It was nice to see the heart and the chambers and see that it was all working as it should.

Here is a little from our weekend. Crystal turned 6.
Now she is a "Grown up" according to her, but only when it works in her favor, although it make it had to take her to serious when she opens her mouth and you see those missing teeth.
The kids are all dressed and ready for church. While at the store Saturday I found this cute shirt with matching tie for Clayton and deemed it his "Sunbeams" shirt and tie which he could only wear if he would go willingly to sunbeams. It worked like a charm. If I would have known it was that easy I would have bought it for him for the first Sunday January. The dress was made for Crystal by her Grandma Emmett. She loved all her gifts.

She really liked the lady bug clips Aunt Carene made for her.
Yesterday was a beautiful day. Clayton played outside for hours. I went to check on him because the neighbors dog was barking like mad and this is what I found. He is only about 15 feet from where our elderly half blind neighbor dog sits all day. So when ever she can hear Clayton but can't see him to figure out what he is doing it upsets her and she barks like a crazy dog. Our neighbor who is in his 80's came out and asked if I had tied him to the tree with the garden hose. The answer is this was self inflicted.

I am always being accused of never having any pictures of me anywhere so here is one I took yesterday. It isn't the best picture sorry, but I have had a bad cold for two weeks now. I am now 31 weeks pregnant and between that and the cold this past two weeks has been interesting. I have been up with the cold 3-8 time each night either coughing of not being able to breath due to stuffiness. Without fail every time I woke up during the night the baby woke up and it took longer to get back to sleep then normal. You just can't fall asleep very quickly with someone inside you doing the mambo.

Hey it has been a busy couple weeks and not done yet. First Crystal lost her second tooth. She was pretty excited.

We have make one hundred mini cupcakes and decorated for Crystals Valentine party, helped with the food for a funeral, went to a birthday party, wedding and had family visits (from both sides of the family) and canned (est.) over 200 #10 cans of food. That was all between Thursday and yesterday (Monday). Oh ya we also had a little valentines day fun before we left Saturday morning. Crystal will be 6 on Sunday so she is "Grownup" So she got flowers and Chocolates for valentines day this year from Dad. The White ones were for me and the pink were Crystals. We still have another birthday party tonight then Crystals birthday Sunday, and because her birthday is this weekend she is in charge of snack on Friday for her birthday. More cup cakes. We are having lots of fun though. Last night My brother Dave and His wife Heidi and the girls came for a visit. They also had Heidi's sister and little boy with them. Soon after they arrived Joe's brother Chad arrived with his little boy. We had 6 kids under 7 years old in our house. It was great they all had a great time. The kids had a great time. They kids were very excited to have been able to play with so many cousins this weekend. We are greatly blessed with wonderful Family and Friends.

Hey I have been a slacker this week with the blog. We had a great Friday night. We had a family camp out. Clayton told EVERYONE at the store that we were going camping. They all looked at me like I was crazy so I explained we are camping in the house. We set up Clayton's little tent and had make your own pizza for dinner and watched a movie. The kids loved it! It was really a lot of fun, so I think we will have to start doing that more often. Kinda like a family date night. The kids slept in the tent, Mom and Dad went to their bed to sleep. I just can't do a night on the floor right now. This is a really cheesy picture of me but Clayton took it and I thought it wasn't to bad of a picture for a three year old. He is always taking the camera and taking pictures of things. I guess he gets that from me.

So this week started off with about 7 inches of snow. That was fine because it was very light and dry so it wasn't bad driving or shoveling. But then the change came. We woke up Monday morning and it was 0 degrees not great but doable, they Tuesday morning it was -25 degrees. That wasn't nice. So I called my mom to see if they were as frozen as us and they were -30 with strong wind and 1-2 feet of snow. So she won the who's town was colder. They have been out of school for two days. Here is our yard. The frost in the air made a pretty ring around the sun.

This morning while I was working online I asked Clayton to come and talk to me (he was being pretty quite while playing). When he arrived in the office he was covered in Hot Coco powder. When asked what was on him his response was "I don't know". Then I asked if it was Coco and he responded "Maybe".