I know everyone was worried that something had happened to us, but we are alive, no worries. Things have been somewhat crazy for us lately as far as normal everyday life, routines, our personal belongings. We are finally getting back on track though. Hence, the blog update.

Let me fill you in on some things for anyone who doesn't know what's been going on. We packed up our house in Pittsburgh and left for San Diego at the end of July. We left all of our stuff in our house so the Air Force could come, pick it up and move it to Cali for us. We stayed with my parents in San Diego for nine weeks. (Bless them for their patience!) Ryan left for Officer Training Camp in Alabama at the end of August and was gone for five weeks. While he was away the kids and I stayed with my parents and the kids (Parker, Easton and Creed) started school across the street at Sandberg Elementry School.

Ryan finished his training and came back to San Diego on a Friday at the end of September. His parents flew in the next day for Parkers baptism which was on Sunday. It was an amazing baptism by the way. Shanna Riches gave an awesome talk about the Holy Ghost and the spirit was really strong. The Buttons were able to stay for a few days to play with the grand kids and enjoy San Diego. They left on Wednesday evening. Ryan, me and the two youngest kids drove up to Vandenberg AFB the next day to see if we could find some housing. We drove back to San Diego on Saturday, packed up all of our stuff at my parents house and moved to the bases Temporary Housing Facility (TLF) on Monday. WHEW!

We lived in temporary housing for six weeks. The kids settled right into the school that's here on base and all we had to do was wait for them to finish building the house that we were to move into. It was a long wait, I got pretty sick of not having any of our things but I can't complain too much (we had housekeepers come by every day).

Finally, a week before Thanksgiving we were able to move into our new home. Things are still crazy and unorganized but at least we are in a permanent place. So without any more gabbing, here are some pictures of the house!

The Air Force takes care of our front yard for us. The sprinklers are on a timer and they come by once a week and cut the grass. We are in charge of our back yard but I've heard it's pretty serious. They can ticket you if your grass is too long. Yikes.

The other day I heard male voices right outside my front door so I went to see what was going on. Two men where standing in the garden bent over, weeding. Seriously!?!

Our lovely front door and mat that still has the tag on it. I love the bench. they have a thrift store here on base that I found it at.

As you can see, I only have half of our curtains up. I wanted to make sure they would look the way I wanted before I bought all of them. Now I just have to get them finished before any company comes over!

The kids decorated the Christmas tree all by themselves. I handed them the ornaments and they put them where ever they wanted. That is why half the ornaments are on the bottom branches. I love it.

The main living area is all connected so this is from the front window looking to the back yard. I'm not sure if I like the set up yet but so far it's working okay. At least it's easy to keep an eye on the kids.

We divided the carpeted area into living room (off limits to kids) and family room areas. This is the family room area. (Does it look like Parker and Easton are doing River Dance or what?)

This is the view you would have if you opened the door and walked in. We finally found a bench with cubby holes for the kids shoes, I love it! The computer area is right next to that and then what we are calling the library area.

Our backyard is a good size with a cute little patio. We put our old kitchen table out there so the kids can do homework outside on nice days, messy craft projects etc. The grass hadn't grown hardly at all when we got here so they asked us to stay off of it until it came in more. I've been watering it and it doesn't look much different. Did I mention they can ticket us if we let our grass die too?

You can look down and see the whole streets back yards in either direction. Not the most privacy but. . .

we were lucky to get the running trail behind our house. We have all these trees and wild area for the kids to play in and right after that is a trail that goes a couple of miles to the fitness center. The kids love it back there and in fact, now have three different club houses built.

This is our dining room and kitchen area. It's awesome, the fake wood floor they put down doesn't scratch. I'm so thankful!

This is the view from the kitchen to the dining area. As you can see they put the fire place on the other side of the table. Odd place if you ask me but we turned it into a cozy reading area.

We have a bar now, I love it. The kids can do homework while I'm cooking dinner (theoretically) and the best part about it. . . we found red bar stools! Heck yes!!

Okay so this is the kitchen. I know, it's a crazy mess. I'm still trying to figure out where I want all the food to go so it's kind of been a disaster. But, we have a dishwasher now so who cares what the kitchen looks like! Between the dishwasher and having a garbage disposal, I'm in heaven! (Oddly enough we have lived in places for the past five years that have not had either. I never would have thought that a garbage disposal could be such a plus about a house.)

We have a pantry and then a little walk way to the garage door and opposite the laundry room.

Since the laundry room is no longer in the scary, spider infested basement, I no longer have an excuse not to do it. Is that a plus or minus?

Connected to the laundry room is another little storage room that we are using as a second pantry/food storage room. If you have been watching Glen Beck at all you are probably gathering food storage as well. If not, START!

Okay, lets take a visit to the other side of the house where the bedrooms are.

First bedroom is the master. As you can see, our room has not taken priority in unpacking. Don't worry, we aren't becoming hoarders, I just haven't had time to find a place for anything.

Same with our bathroom so I figured this was the safest view for everyone to see. Haha. That's our shower curtain if you can't tell what you're looking at.

Check it! We have a walk in closet. After the houses that we have been in (especially our Pittsburgh house) these seemingly little things make me slap happy. Check out my shoes on the floor, they are zebra print and my new favorite pair of shoes.

Ryans side of the walk in. I'm so nice, I even shared the shoe rack. And can I just say that my husband looks hot in his uniforms! Woohoo!

Another thing that makes me smile just thinking about, a linen closet. Oh happy day. Beckham likes it too but for other purposes. If you can't find him, he's in there doing his business. I think I'm going to have to get some air fresheners.

Once again, we aren't secret hoarders. This is, or will be someday, my craft room. Right now it's, "anything we can't find a place for or need out of the way put it in here" room.

Boys room. Easton and Creed sleep on the bunk beds and Beckham is supposed to sleep on the toddler bed but lately he's been sneaking up to the top bunk with Easton during the night. It's made my heart jump a couple of times, walking in there and not seeing him in his bed.

Creed wanted to be in all the pictures, can you tell? He "organized" the toys in their toy bins and very proud of it.

Kids bathroom. It's so nice not having to share with them any more. They all mysteriously have to go to the bathroom every time you shower, what's with that?

And finally, at the end of the hall is the girls room.

So there you have it. Nothing extraordinary but we love it. My mom is coming up this week and I'm hoping to get her help in hanging some things on the walls. Then it will feel more like home I think.

I would like to give a special thanks to my parents who made those two months of living with them wonderful, (for me at least) and for everyone who has helped and supported us in getting this job. We feel so blessed to have a job right now and know that the Lord has definitely provided for our family.

Re-connect

Hello world! I feel like I'm back from the dead. Ryan, the kids and I moved out of my parents house on October 3 and headed up here to Vandenberg Air Force Base. We have been living in the on-base temporary housing. This is the first time I have touched a computer since leaving my parents house! Talk about being disconnected with the world.

So the computer that I'm touching right now is our new lap top. Ryan got a signing bonus from the Air Force so we got this and I have big plans for a new kitchen table. Once I figure out how to use this thing and download my pictures everyone will be able to see all the great things that have been happening to us her on the central coast. Peace out!

Accident Prone Makay

We have been in San Diego with my parents for almost a month now. Ryan left for Officer Training Camp on Sunday. He called me after his first day there and was proud to report that he hadn't cried yet. I am working on registering our kids for school which will start in two weeks. We have gone to the beach a couple of times, the pool and last weekend before Ryan left we went camping.

The camping turned out to not be so good. With five kids running around wild, out in the wild, an accident is bound to happen. And who would that accident fall upon? Our accident prone child of course, Makay.

It's the saddest thing ever. It was about 11:30 in the morning and the kids were playing with ropes. While no one was looking Makay lost her balance (we don't know if she tripped or what) and fell into the fire pit. There was no fire going but we had one that morning so there was lots of hot embers there. She landed on her right elbow and hand.

My mom was the closest so she grabbed her and pulled her out, Ryan and I were running over by this time. My mom tried to brush the hot ashes off and her skin started to come off to. Ryan grabbed the ten gallon water jug and took of the top so we could put her arm in it. Between Makay and my's screaming we had drawn some attention of the other campers around us. They were great to run and try to find a ranger. There was a nurse in the next camp site to he came over and tried to clean her up as best he could.

Ryan and I drove her to the ranger station and they gave us directions to an emergency care place about twenty minutes away. We drove back to our camp and decided that my mom would drive Makay and I and Ryan would stay with the other kids. We got to the emergency care place and they said they needed to send us to a special burn unit. Poor Makay was so good about waiting, and it's good because that's all we did for most of the day!

We drove to downtown San Diego, another 30 minutes, to UCSD Hospitals burn unit. We finally got in there at about 2:30 and they took a good look at her burns. First they gave her some good drugs, poor kid deserved them, and then cleaned her arm. The nurse took a cloth with warm soapy water and just started to scrub, it was horrible to watch. All the dead skin came off and then they cut off all the blisters that had formed. We found out that most of the burn is a second degree burn with is good because it will be able to heal by itself. But there is a small area on the under side of her arm near her elbow that stayed white, a third degree burn. We still don't know weather she will need surgery for that part. The skin is burned so deeply that the cells can't regenerate themselves.

They taught me how to clean and dress her arm so I have been doing that the last couple of days. We go back on Thursday again to see how it's healing. Things are looking good so far but the doctor is still worried about the third degree burn area. She is the toughest kid ever. The doctor and nurse couldn't believe how brave she was being on Monday when we went in for a check up. She hadn't had any pain medicine before hand and the nurse really had to scrub but she didn't make a peep.

It's so hard to see your child in pain! I want so badly to be able to take it away from her, she's so young and Innocent to be going through so much pain. It just proves how vibrant her spirit is though that she can still act like a normal kid and not complain about the inconvenience of eating with her left hand or not being able to go to the bathroom herself. We will keep everyone updated when we learn more and I think I may have some pictures to share. It sounds morbid but I thought she would want to see her arm when she grows up and has a big scar on her arm that she doesn't remember getting (cross your fingers!).

Parting with Pittsburgh

I have to make this post a quick one because we are piling into our car and moving out of here in less then 12 hours! (and there is still a good amount of work that needs to get done in that time. . . along with sleeping if we can) Our last two weeks in Pittsburgh have been . . . well . . . hell.

I know, it's terrible to say but it's true! The weather has been awful, in the 90's every day with humidity in the 90's too. Normally this kind of weather isn't fun but you just go to the pool and wait it out. We haven't been able to do that though because we have been packing and cleaning.

I don't think you can fully understand the misery of humid weather until you have actually experienced it. For instance, last night I was scrubbing our bathroom clean with a fan in the doorway turned on to high. I had to take my glasses off because they kept fogging up, the sweat was pouring off my forehead so bad that my eye brows weren't doing their job and I was sliding all over the place on the bathroom floor because my legs were sweating! Sick! Crazy! Yuck! I hate sticky weather!!!

One night at the dinner table we were all miserable. Finally it got to Ryan and he half grunted, half yelled (it was very manly) took his shirt off and threw it on the floor. Immediately all the kids were doing the same. It's like they were waiting for any excuse to take their shirts off. I laughed so hard, and then pulled out the camera. We had a hot, shirtless dinner that night!




On a better note, we are leaving tomorrow to a land of moderate temperatures, light cool breezes and no severe weather warnings in all seasons of the year!!! (sigh of pleasure)

We met up with some friends from the ward this last week at a great little park for some pizza and fun. They are the only other family that has five kids also and we just love them! We are really going to miss them when we leave.


I forgot that this park has a splash pad so that is why our kids are running around half naked (again), or a little more then that in Makays case. It looks like a lot of kids for only two sets of parents huh? It was a great evening.

The kids have been in the back yard a lot since Ryan and I have been busy with the house. As you can guess, when there is a lot of rain things grow like crazy. I don't know how long it took these plants to swallow the kids bikes but one day the bikes were there and the next, they were gone! (This is the only place Ryan and I have ever seen where there are no sprinklers. . . anywhere. No one needs them!)

They kind of look peaceful don't they?

The kids have been good about trying to entertain themselves. Their "trying" didn't always work but they gave it a good effort. This is Easton getting creative with triangle dominoes. Does that face look happy to you? Maybe he's trying to tell us something about the way he's feeling. It's been hard for the kids to have their lives so disrupted.

When the days get too long and the kids can't "try" anymore Ryan and I have to come up with something. You saw the plastic bags parade (see last post if you missed it). Well we were running out of materials because we were packing everything up. So what could we use to entertain kids? We had paper. So, Ryan got creative with the paper. . . and it worked!! A day and a half of entertainment, woohoo!!

Let's hope we can get that lucky with entertaining them in the car for seven days!

creeds buried treasure and other summer tales

So Creed just celebrated his 5th birthday and what a party it was! Berni decided to throw him a pirate theme party and spent many hours preparing for the celebration.
These invitations had many piratey words like "buried treasure, loot, ye, plunderin, sea dogs, and captain creed." (The kids wanted very badly to assist with the part where Berni burnt the edges).

Amazing! Thats what comes to mind when I look at the cake scene that Berni made.

She spent many hours on this beautiful masterpiece...and then I chopped it up with a knife...

Here's ole "mad maky", strikin' fear into the heart of many a brave folk...well, maybe if her sword were turned the right way...shiver me timbers.

Aye, whats a pirate party without "pin the patch on the pirate"?...

and a hunt for buried treasure...

Creeds presents along with other pirate bootie (chocolate coins, candy necklaces and ring pops) made for some jolly pirates mates...

Heres captain Creed, the ole sea dog himself, makin a secret birthday wish...Arrr matey...may ye delite in a wish come true. Many thanks to the fair maiden "Beautimus Berni" for a very satisfyin' and plentiful party!

Okay, back to a normal voice now...

This is what happens when bored children use their imagination...well, our children anyway: The recycle bin replaces the dress up bin. (As for our parenting, Warning: to avoid danger and suffocation...hey we warned em.)

The kids have been surviving the recent heat wave by spending many an hour at the public pool...Don't worry, Creeds just practicing...

Beckham lookin all serious in his froggy goggles. He loves the water and enjoys falling over in it, now we just need to teach him how to get back up...

For the third of July (since 4th was on a sunday) we bought some sparklers and let the kids run wild before bedtime...yes it is light outside, a little lame, I know, but they still had fun. And no this isn't trick photography, Makay is actually sticking the sparkler up her nose. Please don't try this at home, she is a professional.

This last shot is of me being commissioned into the Air Force. a good friend from church who is a retired marine officer was able to swear me in. This photo came from our phone and is a little fuzzy but you get the picture...looks like lueitenant Button needs to work on his standing at attention...and on spelling leuitenant...yeah no idea. :)