T'was two days after Christmas (2009)

T'was two days after Christmas the Turkey's all eaten...
The presents unwrappened and the mess is a heap'en

One stocking is hung by the chimney with care.
In hopes that TJ soon would be there.

Trev and Ty all snug in their hats,
are out in the deep snow sledding...... the brats.

Tian and Trace so tired from Church in desperate need of a nap
Won't sleep or be quiet - where is the cage for a trap?

Mom on the couch reading the news
Dad on the floor trying not to blow a fuse

Nothing has changed, yet it still not the same
You are not with us and that is a shame!

We love and miss you Tj.
On Christmas eve in snowy and cold Iowa, and Christmas in paradise - New Caledonia, we enjoyed an hour speaking with Tj on the phome. It was an awesone early Christmas present. He is doing well. Weather is hot, hot hot - the bum. He is working hard and enjoying himself.

We had a good Christmas. We got snowed in - it was a much needed break! We were unable to make the 2 hour trek to Omaha to see my dad as portions of I80 have been and still are closed or recommended not to be traveled. We have had more snow in a short period of time than I can remember. I must confes we love the snow. It has been fun to watch and play with te kids outside - when they are not having heated discussions over who gets which sled. We do not have a shortage of cool sleds. We had a beautiful white Christmas and are still enjoying some snow. Ty and Trev are mastering snowboarding, Trace has a cool spiderman snowball maker. He does no want to throw them or leave them outside. He like to admire and sometime eat them. Yellow snow anyone???? Tian loves to sled but good to true princess form, loves for someone else to carry her and her sled back up the hill for another run.


We finally ventured out this mornng to church. Trev and I helped a girl puh her car back onto the road and miraculously still made to to church on-time...

All-in-all we have had a great week of Family an for the most part have enjoyed being stuck together!
Tom

Christmas Cookies again.....

THis is what happens when you have a blizzard and you have cobwebs on your house.....


Brace yourself....it is true we are insane, but it was fun...

Ty's special creations

Sorry about the head tilt...

Sampling of cookie decorating ...Turner style. These are Trev's favorites...( I like the guy with the broken arm

more mayhem

DO you like Mr Spaghetti

Ty busy at work

Trace showing off

Trev's guy with chicken pox

hmmm...I wonder if anyone is watching

Tian mid-creation ( I want extra points for the crown braid too!

Just practicing for Christmas :o)

Trace hard at work

Trace carefully evaluating the frosting flow

did we mention Trace likes, I mean LOVES to staple.

He makes many of these each and every day

Here he is showing off his work

week before christmas

Trace emerging from te frozen Quincy in our back yard. No one has even asked to sleep in it!

A pic from inside the snow cave



The Turner Family - Christmas 2009

The Turner Children - note the orange tan and cocoa nuts!

This week Trevor had his Final Eagle board of review. He passed and he is now officially an Eagle scout. Trev's went pretty smooth. They said he was one of the most prepared boys they had interviewed. Trev is pretty excited and I think relieved that the project is now completed!


This was a busy week for All. I went to one of the houses in Bondurant, I've been working on. I was greated with a massive waterfall in the kitchen. A water pipe burst on the second floor flooding the entire house. Carpet needs to be removed, all the laminate flooring needs replaced, and drywall and paint need to be repaired/replaced! I just happened to be there to install a final lockset for the front door and found the mess. Now begins the mad scramble to put it back together ( this one had been 100% complete and actually Sold ). They want to close on it ASAP so I have got to push to get things dried out!

The Church tenant improvement project in Winterset has started. The project is going well thus far! If all goes well it should finish by the end of January!

The houses in Van Meter are also nearing completion. They will be complete in early January.

I had to give the lesson today in High Priest Quorum.... I survived. It was plenty scary - old Bishops, Stake Presidency Members, lots of long-time "old" members to seem so much more knowledgeable than myself. It really was not that bad. I taught about the time just before and through Joseph Smith's martrdom. A fact that we seldom think about when we think of Joseph was that while he was the prophet - he was still just a man. He made incredible sacrifices for the Church - not the least of which was his life. It really must have been a comfort to him to know that he would not be taken from this earth until his job of restoring the gospel was complete. He was in a unique position to have to prepare the quorum of the twelve for change and continued growth of te Church. It was lesson 46 in the Joseph Smith manual. I was impressed with how sure he was of what he had accomplished, and what kind of man he had become. He knew he was going to the celestial kingdom to live with his eternal father in Heaven. Wouldn't it be great if we could all get our lives in order to feel that same surety of our position in the eternities.

News on Jake Brown: Looks like he will be going to Idaho to prepare to go to school, he will be getting the M. Preisthood this week, and is preparing to go on a mission. I hope this break from home will be a good thing for him.

The boys built a quincy in our yard this week, we took family Christmas pictures outside, was not quite the same without you - so we improvised!

We Love and miss you. We missed our emails and letters last week! Hope your doing well. We are looking forward to hearing about you and whats been going on!!!!

December 13th

Daisey loved the snow. We have been trying to upload a video of her catching snowballs

the mountain by the driveway

Family Home evening is always an adventure - we learned about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and the fiery furnace. Tian added Bhudda to the story. I will try to get the video uploaded at the library this week. They couldn't remember the names of the king or of the 3 in the furnace to save their lives. It is an excellen example of MIss Bossy in action

The boys + Ty Thomas playing their new favoite game - Frogger. It is very challenging mentally :o)

Tian - our cutest ballerina. they are already practicing for the recital in May. THey are avery cute

Can you believe the snow. They have to sled on the drivway since the hill snow is too deep!

Brother HAncock is an awesome Santa and Tian and Trace did not recognize him as anyone other than Santa and didn't even make the connection on sunday....

The week of SNOW and Cold....

TJ - you know what Mom always wishes for... /you know she loves snow but wishes it would REALLY snow... Well, last Tuesday we were predicted to have an enormous snow storm going into Wednesday evening. Can you believe it, the meteorologists were right!

The week started with a few inches Monday, @ 2-3". Then Tuesday night into Wednesday we got dumped on............an additional 18-24". It was so cool. Most of Des Moines was shut down for 2 days. The winds were pretty severe Wednesday into Thursday. We had blizzard-like conditions our driveway had 4-6 foot drifts. The snow was not the best for either sledding or for snowball fights. We are just now really starting to recover. Mom fnally got here wish where we were pretty much all snowed in together for a few days. Winterset even closed school for Thursday on Wednesday evening. Winterset got the most snow in the state.

Ty was supposed to have a camp-out at the Pence's house on Friday but temps were hovering @ 0 deg F so they canceled it - could have been just like the Quincy camp-out we did in Wisconsin. I was pretty relieved because they were just planning tent camping and had not really considered camping in this kind of snow.

Trev and Ty made a quincy in our back yard ( see attached pictures ). They have not even asked to sleep out yet. Last night it was spitting rain - turning into snow. We thought church might get canceled but NOT....

I've attached a few snow pictures for you to enjoy and share....

Mom & Dad

1st Week of December

finally there s ice - Tian is itching to go ice skating. Hopefully she will wait until it is a little thincker
our cute tree

the retaining wall

snacks and hot chocolate The poor man at the art center made coffee for everyone...imagine his surprise....

George working and Grampy directing

December is already running by at warp speed! We were able to get a beautiful Christmas tree this week and Tian is chomping at the bit to get it decorated.

It has been in the 20's all week. Trev really lucked out with his weekend he chose to complete his Eagle project Since that time it has be soooo cold. The pond is frozen over! We are expecting 1-3" of snow tonight with a larger storm looning for Tuesday/Wednesday.

Yesterday, Trace, Ty, Trev & I took a trip to Gilman Ciy, MO to ceck on the Busselburg compound. Gene Pomeroy as got the basement and first floor deck set in-place. The first floor walls are mostly built and ready to stand up tomorrow. The house is really going well and up really fast. We had a good trip. They are building just outside of Bethany very close to Adam-Ondi-Ahman and Far West.

This week I should be starting a repair project at the Saxton's house as well as a basement finish project at the Stubblefields. My other project should start up his week as well ( the one I sent you an email on !)

Things are good here. We will decorate the Christmas tree this week. We have attached a few pictures for you to see the events of the week ( Christmas tree, frozen pond, Trev's catapult base, pic of Trev's wall ).

Turkey day

Tian-ism of the week:
After an exasperating morning Tian is spinning on her seat in the kitchen and I say to her, "If you do not finish your lunch right now, I will show how angry I am young lady!" She continues to spin as she off handedly replies,
"Well then, show me!" Some days it is a miracle that she survives. Can you believe she spent the first year of her life in an orphange with an attitude that big?!?!

Today on the way home from church she is bubbling over as she tells us she learned Jesus Christ. We were impressed until she went on to tells us she also talked about His church of Aladdin day saints....hmmm wonder if they pass out magic carpets...

Trace's claim to fame:
He has been singing the Harry Potter song from youtube puppet video ( The Ticking Time Bomb)- modified to: Trace, Trace, Tian and Trace...Dumbledore


We had a great visit with the Turners over the holiday. It was great to have everyone here and I finally broke down and bought a coffee maker for them. Ty was completely fascinated by the contraption. We bought it Tuesday and all he could think about was when he should start the coffee. By Wednesday night he was beside himself that he need to get it started. I finally asked te question as to why he was so worried about it, to which he replied," Well, since it only comes out a drop at a time it will take days to make just one cup!!" Fortunately, Mr. Coffee is a lot more efficient than that :o)
Okay I will let Tom give the rundown of the week:

We spent Monday-Wednesday cleaning and preparing for the influx of the Turner's. We did whole house cleaning including carpets ( Tj as you know when mom gets in that mode we are moving furniture and re-arranging - my favorite!!! ) We survived and endured. We cooked and cooked and baked all day Wednesday to prepare the feast. We still have left-overs, including the strawberry jello thing - TJ you were missed. George, Stacy and kids all came as well as my Dad and Tessa. We all enjoyed great food and let our kids corrupt Georges and let George's kids beat our kittens ( George and Stacy are too smart to have many pets... ).

Following gorging ourselves my dad, George and I proceeded to play poker with Ty and Trevor. One might think my dad has a post-career opportunity as a dealer at a casino. We had fun playing versions of "Texas Hold'em" and "Indian". Has anyone out there ever seen a game of "Indian" where the players had the following cards Ty - 2, Trevor - 4, and George - 3, it was hilarious as a spectator watching all of them bet all the chips they had on that hand..... Tara later commented what a great Mormon event serving coffee and playing poker:-) No harm done the chips were just for fun and as far as the coffee went, only the Omaha Turner's sampled the brew.

Friday morning we all got up and participated in Trevor's Eagle Scout project. Yes, I said Trevor's Eagle project..... It is done! He organized an effort to spruce up the local non-profit Art Center. The tasks included: a concrete block retaining wall, misc. yard work, painting, drywall, acoustical ceiling work, and minor plumbing work. Trevor recieved numerous donations ranging from labor, block materials, plumbing parts, drywall, painting supplies, to donated pizzas from local vendors. The project started at 9am and was supposed to go until @ 3pm. The project similar to Tj's was well organized, well attended, and completed well ahead of schedule. Some local help even brought scouts from other troops and involved local community members. The project turned out great - the project is totally re-furbished. A scout event in an enclosed building that the Turner's did not burn down, nor was anyone hurt, injured, or arrested. As Mom would say,"We miss all the exciting stuff".

All-in-all an exciting an fun filled weekend. Don't know if we can survive Ty's Eagle project let alone Trace's.... Guess we'll worry about that when te time comes.....

Trev and Amelia whiling away the time as we wait for New Moon to start

Starting with Tian and Trace-isms of the week:

Trace took off his boot and puts his hands up in the air and sighs,"My sock has a crack in it." For those of you who speak English - he means there was a hole in his sock.

Tom and I went to run an errand together in Winterset and told Tian she was in charge. ( Okay, we admit it was a bribe to convince her to stay at home!) She of course is delighted with the power that has just been bequeathed to her. Very matter of factly she asks," Now, if you are not home in time for breakfast, what should I make?" Only a girl would think that far in advance!

Trevor was a good sport and joined a few of us to see the premiere showing of New Moon. I foolishly bet him $10 that he wouldn't get up and shout,"Oh Edward I love you!" when Edward first appeared on screen. He did and left the entire audience, especially me and Millie, rolling in the aisles.

Thursday we also had the chance to see a Lewis and Clark show at the civic center for school age kids. It was great. The boys assured me they know everything befor ethe show, but I didn't know Lewis had an air rifle that was powerful enough to shoot deer etc. and was silent. I thought it was fun and Tian didn't even tell everyone she hated it.

After the show we were able to have a tour of the Civic Center. IT was great. We got to see the lighting, orchestra pit, dressing rooms etc. It was really incredible. Tian even sang on stage :o)

The highlight of the tour came with lunch at Fong's Pizza. We went on a lark - I mean what kind of name is that for a pizzeria? The pizza was actually VERY good. We tried Crab Rangoon and Fongolian Beef. I can't wait to make Tom go back on a date! I HIGHLY recommend it!

Trev has been busy doing prep work for his Eagle Project this coming Friday at the Winterset Art Center. I am excited to see the project happen both for Trev and for selfish reasons :o)

Business update: Tom received Certificates of Occopancy on 2 more houses this week - wahoo! Things have been going very well for him and although the bank he working with is holding off on additional projects until they are able to sell a few of the houses he is currently working on, he is keeping busy with bids on some other projects. He missed out on the last two hard bids , but was the second lowest bidder ( I know always a brides maid....), but that tells us he is competitive even in this market which is good news. The third bid's the charm right? The next project bids the first of Decemeber...so we will see what happens...

He is also working with an investor to finish up a larger custom home in Van Meter. We are hoping that comes through since it would offer some good exposure:o) So life is looking better on the financial front and I guess we leave the powdered milk on the shelf another week :o)

Trees and Houses

Trace stuck - tree climbing not as fun as he thought when it came to the down part

Platform of the long awaited tree house

The boys ( and girl) trying it out. Tian even made a sign that said girls allowed ( or at least she said that is what it said :o) Her spelling is not quite....well...you know

We'll another week went by.... TJ you would be proud ( Mom pushed hard enough ) - Trev, Ty and I started a tree fort for Ty. I don't know why she was so adamant about us doing it it was only Ty's Birthday present ( remember his birthday is on May).... We have a solid platform started up @ 10'. It spans between 4 trees. We spent a few hours working/fighting over how to do it and who would get the tools. I will take a few pics - Mom will post them later.

I also had the experience of attending Tian's ballet class with her.. Your sister is a real cutie. She has a ton of attitude and spunk.

Trace has been sleeping in the tent in his room!

I will have 3 more houses complete with Certificates of Occupancy tomorrow!!!!


My turn:
Traceism of all time: Tian and Trace are sitting at the counter in the kitchen and Tian is reading a magazine. She is flipping the pages and Trace grabs it from her. Instead of her typical scream, Tian is saying "Mom, mom....mom..." I look at her and her she continues," Trace is being inappropriate." Being a good attentive mother I respond,
"Trace, be nice." At this point Tian is irritated with me and elaborates," Mom, Trace is looking at inappropriate." I look at the magazine that Trace now has his arms around protecting and leaning over it at the conter. It is a underwear ad featuring a larger woman in a modest ( as far as that can go) underwear and a bra. I give Trace "the look." He responds in mock horror to my accusation:
" I am just READING it!!!!"
IS that anything like buying Playboy for the articles?!?! Anyway, the ad is in the trash and the SUnday paper and all magazines are devoid of "inappropriate." Ahhh, life with boys huh TJ?

Tian had rough Sunday this week. She left Primary early declaring it was BORING. After about 5 minutes in adult Sunday School, she decided Primary wasn't "this super boring." I think after this week she will be returning to Primary ( I made her go to Relief Society ( another adult class) too)

During a "discussion" between Tom and I , Tian looks at us and says to Tom," You picked her - now deal with it." Needless to say, business decisions took a backseat to laughter. So much for thinking no one is listening to us.....

Sad day

It has been a long week, but we have enjoyed some sunshine and some beautiful days outside.

It was also a sad week as we said good bye to our dog, Kela, who has been part of our family for over 10 years.

Army guy, witch, Ranger and a monster OH MY

Halloween is always one of my favorite holidays...not special food to cook and no gifts to buy-

just silliness :o)

This was the best. Tian had some of the best reactions to pumpkin carving this year...

Trace was good with it and actually did most of the cleaning of the pumpkin himself:o)

Tian and Trace were especially fun this year. At 3 and 4 they are real participants and excited about decorating the house, carving pumpkins, silly dinners...okay everything. That is the BEST!

I like Trev's toothy guy - below is Ty's

The line up...Trev made a great Chinese latern...but Daisey liked it too

The crew at Trunk or Treat

Tom as his usual hillbilly monster hunter and Tian and Trace

Ok TJ this was for you - note the boots. I had a flashlight and flashed it at people since I was a "FLASHER"

Don't worry Amelia already told me how inappropriate I was :o)

The reign of terror continues - this year in the old pick up

Tian's latest pics - note the "crown 'do" and meet Vivenne Boom-bots ( Dad named her) she was one of Kassie Trimble's kittens. She is sweet, but naughty - just like everyone else..

Trace story of the week: Today Trace was in nursery, which he loves, and they came and got me to help him in the bathroom. I hurried in and opened the bathroom door and he was washing his hands. Keep in mind when Trace washes his hands he is ready for surgery - he does not spare soap, water or time. I ask him if he needs help. He completely ignores me, dries his hands, and walks past me back to nursery. I look at him and say "good bye" and he pretends he has never seen me before! After church I ask him why he didn't hug me or talk to me and he says," I was in MY class." Well how dare I interrupt :o) I pressed and said,"Well you could have said 'Hi mom'" He replies, " Well, I hate you. Now I love you." I think Tian is getting to him...