Got it Mom!

Jasper is a delightful dog to have in our family!

His type of play is working, which is in his breed.

Actually, this is cheap entertainment for a dog!

He would catch it and then run to me like ....should I go get more Mom?

I'd tell him, "Go get it!"

And he'd run back to catch more flying snow!

During the summer it is the farm irrigation sprinklers that pump out loads of water, during the winter it's the snow blower....I think for Jasper, it doesn't get any better than this!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Headley's

Mary Did you Know?

My favorite Christmas song is Mary Did You Know?

And I love this painting of Mary kissing baby Jesus.

I often think of when my children were babies and kissing their sweet necks.

Who would have thought that they would grow up to be who they are today.

I think about Mary, and how I'm sure she kissed baby Jesus at that moment, not even thinking about how he was the King of Kings, and definitely not knowing that he would die on the cross for all of us.

I can just imagine that she lived in the moment with her sweet baby, kissing his chubby cheeks, uncurling his fingers wrapped around her hair, prying Joseph's tools out of his chubby hands, and playing peek a boo with his blanket. The King of Kings came to us so he would know us better before he was sacrificed for us....sinners. Thank you Lord for caring for us so much that you came to us as a little wee baby. Thank you for all the love and grace that we don't deserve but are given to us anyway.

Jesus is the reason why Christmas is beautiful! 

From the Big Guy

Who knew that Santa lived in our house.

No wonder why he is sneaking off to go work in the shop out back.

People are always saying that Kirk is lookin' more and more like Kris Kringle.

Now we have proof!
Merry Christmas Everyone!

Kaleb's Graduation

Kaleb graduated from Bridgerland Technical College with a Welding Certificate.

He is officially a welder and couldn't have gotten there without Poppa getting him started.

I think this is where Kaleb gets his genetic goofiness. He and my Dad are so much alike it isn't funny.

They both love to work with metal, and have a silly sense of humor.

We are really proud of him. He put in lots of hours to accomplish this and made friends for life with the instructors. He is in the Building Technology program right now but sneaks in to the welding shop and has hamburgers with them when the shop is BBQing. It's kind of funny. 

This is Poppa's Howdy Doodie Face.

Kaleb trying to shrink so Nana doesn't feel so short!

Winter Show

The Winter Show was awesome as usual. Victoria did not want to do a Christmas song....remember...she's 14. So she skated to Touch the Sky from the movie Brave.

And of course she needed a new skate dress to play the part.

I designed and sewed this archer's dress. It was a first with this type of fabric but it turned out wonderful and made Victoria very happy to skate in it. 

God's Love for us

Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever. Psalm 136:26

Who knew that our very old apple tree reminds us of God's love for us every year!

Thunder and Lightning

These two have a love hate relationship. The basket has come out for the winter and they both want in it. Lightning looks pretty comfy cuddled into his sister. It will be a matter of minutes before he decides to irritate her and one of them will jump out ticked off at the other. Then they will be back together all cuddly and cozy when they get cold again.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I guess our contractor works on holidays. I knew he worked weekends but I wasn't aware of holidays. I was busy working on Thanksgiving Dinner and came around the corner to set up the table when I saw this. I don't complain when I see this. I just change my plans. I am so grateful to have boys who are hard workers and will help their Dad and I accomplish and work through the challenges of this old house. We couldn't do it without them. They were about to put the insert in the chimney for the second time. Our roof is extremely steep. I don't remember the degree but really they need climbing gear to do it safely. Which is why Kaleb is on the ground with rope around the pipe so they don't lose it off the roof. Long story short, the pipe was too wide about 6 feet down! We returned it and cleaned up the old one that they took out of the OTHER chimney. 

Sigh....You gotta love this house!

Hiking with Kaleb

These pictures are from Fall break in October.

Kaleb and I were eager to get out before this area will be blanketed with snow.

It has already snowed and higher up the mountain there was still snow in the shade.

We took Jasper along with. He is such a good dog. He stayed close by and did pretty good off leash. All that training is paying off. It was early enough that shadows made a cairn look scary which made him very worried. It took a few minutes for him to finally approach it to see that it wasn't some weird thing that would hurt him. 

All the foliage was a beautiful shade of yellow.

 The beavers have done some hard work to get their dams rebuilt after their areas were flooded a couple years back.

I love to hike with Kaleb. He is my adventuresome child. I can always count on him to want to go out in the wilderness to get away from the hub bub of daily life. The down side is that he is a really fast hiker. At my "over the hill" age, I'm not that fast any more. So he purposely hikes behind me so I set the pace, which takes lots of patience on his part. I don't know if I could do that.

It looks warm but really it was really cold in the shade. All the little leaves had frost around their edges.

Jasper was watching a bird on a rock...he really wanted it but we were able to call him off it. If that were Henry he would have been long gone, and we would have been spending the next hour getting him under control.

Beaver gnawings were all over. They have been hard at work.

Sarah's Day

I think only a Mother's love can remember the exact date of her baby girl's 

Born into Heaven Day.

I think only a Mother's love can remember the exact feelings of a broken heart that feels like it will last forever. Knowing that it really won't. It just feels that way. I knew that years from that moment I would be able to look back and know that I made it through the most sorrowful time in my life.

It felt like I was the only one feeling that way as the rest of the family went on about their days. At first it made me mad that they didn't feel the same way but then I couldn't be that upset. It was a Mother's love for her tiny baby that was making me feel that way. It was me who connected with her sweet little soul before she was born and it was me who felt the world stop spinning when I didn't hear her little heart beating any longer. 

15 years. My sweet Sarah would have been 15 years old yesterday.

I purchased the most sunny yellow sunflowers I could find and placed them on the table.

Kaleb knew what they were for....bless his heart. 

The vivid vision that our Lord in heaven placed before me that horrible day when I wasn't dealing with my grief is still perfect in my mind. I can still see her playing ring around the rosies in a a sunlit field with another little girl, barefoot, wavy red hair, wearing a sundress, backlit with sun...absorbing the sunshine to it's fullest, in slow motion, with wildflowers speckled here and there.

It was that vision that God showed me that she was okay. 

That I was okay.

And I know that the day I die, I will get to see her again. 

15 years....it feels like yesterday.

Chimney Soot!

Kirk had the brillant idea at 8pm at night to take the cap off the chimney pipe to see what was inside.

We have been planning on doing the very thing but for some reason, he decided to do it when I was at a meeting and pretty late in the night to be starting a project....

though at the time, he didn't know it would turn into a four day project!

I arrived home at 10 pm and saw all the lights on in the house, all the windows and doors open and black dogs run past me. What? Black dogs?

When I pulled into the garage, Kirk bolts into the garage completely black!

I was like....What the Heck Happened to YOU!?

He just shook his head and said they are doing their best to clean it up as best they can and that I should have seen it two hours ago!!!

 Jared's first words were....Dad decided to look in the chimney pipe at 8 pm instead of just going to bed!!!! He doesn't look very happy. Six feet of soot poured out of the pipe into the entire house.
Thankfully, they moved Alex (the desert tortoise) out of the room and into the bathroom asap.
Everyone needed a shower, the dogs were being bathed at midnight because they had run through the soot and it poured on to them. We spent the next two days cleaning. We are still finding soot. Everything had to be washed. Curtains, walls, dishes.....A few things were destroyed. The air was so bad two hours after you could taste it!

 They were actually dirtier than what the picture shows.

 I had Mary Poppins running through my head constantly.

It took my Dad 4 Hours washing the floor!

YES! 4 hours! My Mom spent 2 hours cleaning the bathroom of all the soot!

It was horrible.

It even made it through the floor and into the basement.

So we found out why the chimney pipes don't draft. Both of them are plugged. Jared has since scaled the roof and removed one chimney pipe so we can replace it with a double wall insulated new pipe...soon to come. And unplugged another in the other chimney. Both chimney's have two chambers so you can run 4 stoves. Remember....the house is 112 years old. They didn't have a furnace until the 50's. Hopefully we can get the wood stove running and heating the house.

We have a big To-Do list!

Chillin'

Popcorn!

Kathy popped in unexpectedly for the night!

I love it when she comes to visit. We always have an improntu visit!

We made popcorn so we sent her brother Rich a picture of us eating popcorn!

He was bummed that he missed out.

Oven Cleaner

I love that I have a son willing to clean! He was waiting to pour 

concrete one day so he started cleaning the stove and oven. 

How AWESOME is that?!

Summer Visitors

We had the best visit this past summer from Kirk's highschool friend Steve and his family. Unfortunately the rest of the pictures that I took with our good camera was destroyed when T-Rex bit my hard drive. We stopped in Bear Lake to have a Raspberry shake on the way home!

 They also had their two children with them. We had a wonderful visit.

Chugga Chug

It isn't everyday that you see a tractor driving down the street.

Usually by the time I get my phone out to take a picture of the giant columbines driving down the street they are already passed. They drive pretty fast. This tractor, I am sure was at top speed chugging down the street. It gave me plenty of time to get out my phone to take a picture.

Cat Lover!

Jared claims to not be an "animal Person", yet I always catch the kitties laying in his lap or licking his bowl. He is usually the first one that they seek out if he is sitting down outside.

And Lightning still likes to ride in his hood first thing in the morning.

Overnighter

Kaleb and Jared squeezed in an overnighter. We dropped them off at Franklin Basin. They hiked over the mountain, spent the night at White Pine lake and ran into a family they know through scouts. Then hiked over another mountain into Smithfield Canyon.

I love that these guys can just pick up and go.

They told us to pick them up at 3pm at the Smithfield Canyon Campground. When we drove up they were sitting there waiting for us. They had only been waiting for about 10 minutes.

They said we were late even though we arrived at 3pm on the dot!

This has to be the most enormous Cottonwood tree I have ever seen.

Nana

I turned around and caught my mother on this ladder in Smith's Marketplace.

She is an accident waiting to happen. Of course she dropped something that bounced and made a bunch of racket. I had to practically pull her down before any of the employees arrived to catch this crazy woman on their ladder.

We were enjoying In-and-Out enjoying hamburgers. One of our favorite stops when we go to Ogden.

One of Nana's favorite places....Bear Lake on the beach "frying her brain" as she calls it.

Nana looking for me. 

ATV driving lessons

Nana gave Victoria a driving lesson.

I remember riding these as a kid. 

Nana drove over for a short visit.

You never know when she will just pop in.

Movie in the Park!

Part of living in a small town is having a movie in the park.

There is just something about walking to the park at dusk to watch a movie on a screen. 

You kind of forget where you are as the movie is played until you see headlights coming up the road.

It's actually important to get there early enough to stake your spot.

All the little kids come in their PJ's. They are so cute.

My phone doesn't take very good pictures. They are a little grainy.

School Pictures

Victoria

Bike the Bear!

Kaleb and Jared rode mountain bikes 50 miles around Bear Lake with a couple hundred other people.
I keep telling Jared he needs to get his own bike. He has been riding my Giant the past couple years. He says he doesn't need a bike when he can just use mine! Kaleb biked 50 miles in 4 hours and 5 minutes. He has a really cool watch that records incline, speed, distance....and more. Jared almost got a ride half way through because his knee gave him grief. Either way, they made it. It cracks me up how even tempered Jared is and how all over the place Kaleb is. There is never a dull moment!

Utah State Dog Show

Victoria and Jasper placed Grand Champion in both Obedience and Showmanship in Intermediate.

Victoria is in the process of Stacking Jasper.

In the Senior division, Kaleb and Samson won Grand Champion in Showmanship and 

First place in Obedience!

This was Samson's last Dog Show. He is officially retired. 

He whined through both events the entire time! Poor Sammy!

The second day was a fun event in agility. Sam in previous years has loved agility. I think because of his age he had had enough. In the middle of the agility course, he made a beeline back to his crate with Kaleb running after him.

He said "I'm Done!"