Laton- Clean up Hitter!

Laton has been hitting really well the past few weeks. I don't think I have seen him not get on base in the last 4 or 5 weeks. Today when we got to the baseball field I noticed Laton was batting 4th. The team we were playing had a great pitcher. He struck three boys out in the first inning. Laton struck out in the second and his second time up struck out as well- but only after using up about 15 of the pitchers pitches. We went to eat after the game and I asked Laton "?What happened, you were clean up hitter today." He said "I cleaned up, I said no you didn't you struck out." He said "after the game I took the stuff out of the dugout for the coach and got all my stuff cleaned up!" I had to explain to Laton what clean up batter meant. :)

Special Hands :)

This last weekend we had a special Stake Conference. Elder Bednar came and spoke. He is such a great speaker and I love to hear him. He always has such a powerful message for all. He started out by addressing all of the non-members that were there. He then went on to give us all such a wonderful message of Heavenly Fathers' love for all of us and our Agency. In the middle of the Conference, right before Bednar was to speak, the fire alarm went off. The entire building had to be cleared before they would reset the alarm. While we were waiting Laton went and walked around with some friends. They saw Elder Bednar and went over and shook his hand. Laton came back and was so excited to tell us the news. After the conference was over Logan said- "I will meet you at the car." Little did we know that he was going to see if he could shake Elder Bednars hand as well. He was able to get a handshake also. I was so happy to hear that my boys thought that was the highlight of the conference to be able to shake an apostles hand. This picture is of Logan and Laton shaking hands.

On a side note- we asked the kids what they had learned at conference. Logan and Meghan told us something they had learned. When we got to Laton he had to think for a minute then he said "He started to tell a story about a girl with a weird name and how people weren't nice to her- and then I don't remember what else he said because it made me think about a story I heard at Generel Conferece and I was thinking of that the rest of the time." He did remind us of the story he had heard at G.C. so we knew he wasn't bluffing. Barry and I laughed- at least he was thinking about another talk from General Conference and not something else- like picking daisies on the baseball field. :)

WARNING- this may be TMI

Barry was filling the mop bucket at work and the hose slipped and hit his foot. This is what happens when really hot water hits your skin. His skin kind of sluffed off. Make sure you check your hot water heaters settings. We had no idea ours was set as high as it was. This picture was taken 5 days after it happened- it actually looks alot better in this picture than when it originally happened. I couldn't stomach to look at it at first.

Patriotic Girls!

Meghan and Kylie wanted me to record them singing songs the other night. They did really well, I was surprised how many songs they knew.

Happy 9 Month Birthday to Jaidyn

Jaidyn turned 9 months old on the 6th. I can't believe she is almost 1. The time has flown by. We went for her doctors appt. yesterday and she is 14.11 lbs (3%) and is 27 in. long (25%). She is growing- slowly- but growing :) She is learning so many fun and new things like peek-a-boo, bye-bye, and waba-waba! She babbles all the time and loves to see her siblings when they come home from school- we always sing- oh, where, oh, where, oh, where is....... right before she sees them so she knows when I sing that song, someone will be popping in soon. She starts kicking and waving her arms in excitement. We still have set turns for each of the kids as to when it is their time to hold her, as the newness still hasn't worn off. Here is a cute video of her on her 9th month b-day.

Our California Trip

The boys had a break in baseball games this weekend, so we decided to take a trip to Ca. We drove through a blizzard to get there. We left here about 7:15 and got into Turlock around 1:30 a.m. We stayed with the Tilby's and visited with friends. We didn't get to see very many people, but will be back soon to finish the rounds. We really enjoyed seeing everyone. We got to go to church in our old ward and visit our old neighbors. We miss everyone so much! Jared and Jaidyn- sooo sweet

It started like this.............

And ended like this. Landon got Jared in a headlock. Notice the dads are in the background laughing and Jaidyn is looking the other way.

Yummy food at the Gauthiers

Our FAVORITE Bishop

Dalin let Jaidyn bang on the piano and she thought that was pretty neat.

I played with this photo on pik nik. Thought it turned out cute.

Kissy, kissy! They grabbed ahold of each other and kissed. I wait can't wait until they are older to show this pic to them.

Kinsley played mommy with Brody and Jaidyn

Jaidyn and Brody

Tanner was so cute with Jaidyn. He was so soft and careful. She loved to have him hold her.

What a cutie!! Brody was all smiles.

Jaidyn loved jumping in the Johnny Jumper! Nancy let us borrow it- thanks!

Landon and Jaidyn playing with the barn.

T.J. & Sunny's Visit

Laton got a bouncing top for his birthday. He and T.J. had a contest to see who could get it the highest. Laton won!

T.J. just chillin'

T.J. stretched out Logans throwing arm

Kalin swinging

T.J. playing ball with the boys

Meghan & Kalin

Kalins first owie

Kalin would take Meghans sucker and take a suck and give it back. T.J. had to look away.

Notice Kalin is wearing Jaidyns bib :) He fell asleep eating.

Sunny & Jaidyn

Kalin and Jaidyn playing together

T.J. "watching" Kalin

T.J. loving on Jaidyn

Jaidyn thinking she is a big girl standing up.

T.J and Sunny took a trip to Southern California and Monterey for Spring Break. They decided to come home our way when they were heading home. We were so excited as we love to spend time with them. I was telling a friend on the phone tonight how lucky I was to have 4 wonderful sister-in-laws. :) We had a lot of fun with them. Kalin is getting sooo big. He gets into everything. Jaidyn wanted to keep up with him so bad. We were sad to see them go. They actually stayed an extra day! I have been lucky to be able to see so many of my family members this year.

Happy Birthday Laton and Barry

We were out of town on Laton's birthday and Barry's birthday was 2 days after we got home. We decided to have a birthday party for both of them the same night. Laton got a new bow and alot of cool toys. Barry got the usual- cologne- and some other small things. Jaidyn was very intrigued by the candles.

Grandma Bass

Jared and Grandma Bass

T.J, Grandma Bass & Sunny

Kyle, Grandma Bass & Jessica- This is a funny pic. We had been visiting with her for about and hour and I wanted to get some pics so I told Kyle and Jess to go stand by grandma. When they got up next to her she looked over at Jess and said, "Well whhhooo are youuuu?" It was soooo funny we were cracking up.

This picture was taken in Aug of 2007. We had went to visit our family in Fl.

I am trying to use my blog as a journal as well. For Christmas I am trying to put together a book for my siblings that will be a short life history from each of them as well as little stories I have from different family members. I called my grandma Bass today to check on her and some how we got on the subject of retirement and she told me this story.

She started out telling me why my Great, great grandpa Bass had bought the dairy. He (Clint Bass) bought the dairy because he wanted his sons to move closer and work together. My grandpa Bass (Walter Van) was working in Orlando, Fl. laying pipe underground. He moved to Kissimmee, Fl. to work on and help run the dairy. My dad, as a teenager, helped on the dairy as well. He helped service the cows and take care of them. Vance, dads brother, helped out as well. He had wanted to be a vet. I have often heard my dad speak of loving working on the dairy and wanting to be a vet.

After the dairy had started operating. Clint would let different people come on the land to use it and camp. He didn't mind who used it as long as they didn't do anything illegal. (If I remember correctly my grandpa Bass was very good at doing illegal things ) :) My grandma Bass (Margie) had the idea one day to charge people a nickle to use the property. She got together with Clint and they went down to 1st Capital Bank and got a loan to turn the property into a Campground. The campground did really well for years.

The dairy slowly started losing money- come to find out years later - the man that was delivering the feed would fill the silo 3/4 full and take the rest down the road and resell it to someone else. Soon the dairy was making little money and they decided to sell. The dairy was sold to T.G. Lee- they are still selling milk today.

Grandma Bass decided she couldn't be with out a job and went down to the local five and dime to get a job. After working there for a few weeks one of her friends walked in and asked what she was doing working there and Margie told her she needed to make money somehow and her friend told her to go apply at the county. Grandma Bass went down to the county that day and was hired on to work for the school systems in the accounting department. This was right around the time that books were being converted over to computers and the county had hired a man to do the job. Well, he did a terrible job and lost all the information. Grandma was asked to fix as much of the problem as she could and when she had done this they decided she had a permanent job. The head accountant would come ask grandma to do things he couldn't figure out. She realized real quick she was a great asset! She worked there until she retired. She retired a year before Grandpa Bass died. She retired so she could spend time with him, as she knew his health was failing.

Missouri Spring Break 2009!

We celebrated Laton's and April's birthdays while we were there. Hey you have the same hair I do.

These are the fish the boys caught in the river.

Laton asked me to do a camera trick to make the fish look really big.

All of us after church on Sunday. We had a great lunch and then dad, Kyle and Logan went to play a round of golf.

Dad and Collette on Sunday- the day she was confirmed.

Notice the dogs get priority seating. :)

Meghan used to say that she loved grandpa "20" and he would say yes, how much is that and she would say that is a lot because that is the highest I can count. Dad and Collette tell each other that now and have it carved in one of the posts of the porch.

This is the one and only time I drove the Ranger. The kids begged me to take them for a wild ride. It is kind of hard to give them a wild ride when Jaidyn is with us. She loved sitting on the steering wheel.

Collette playing games with Jaidyn

How many people does it take to hold down a 200 pound calf??? Notice Logan is not helping at all.

I love how you can see Meghan in the background watching Logan and Jaidyn. This is on the front porch of the house.

Just a swinging! My dad had built this swing last time I came to visit. We enjoyed it this trip as well.

Cute Girl!

Meghan didn't have a hard time at all posing

Laton thought this was for the birds!!!

For our second leg of spring break we drove from Eric's house to my dads house in Missouri. This was another 4 1/2 hour drive. So we drove quite a lot to say the least! Luckily the drives were all very pretty. We would stop and try different restaurants along the way that we don't have out here. This is a picture of an old bird coop that is on the farm. I love the look of the wood.

Logan and Laton loved driving the Ranger around. They were hardly ever seen the entire trip. The Ranger was their best friend. At the top of this pic. you can see the top of the pond. It is a man made pond and I guess they "turn" every 7 years or so. The pond turned this year so all the catfish had died. The boys were bummed they couldn't fish. The pond did have frogs- or so we thought-! The boys wanted to go frogging one night so Collette being the good sport went along! She did take along her 410 for protection. The boys took pitchforks and pellet guns. They came home with a bucket full and were proud to show off their catch. My dad laughed as they had killed a bucket of toads not frogs. So we didn't have frog legs for dinner. Logan also had tried to "molly-hawk" a few ducks on the pond so Collette could taste duck, but had no luck! We did get to have fresh fish one day. My dad took the boys down to the river on Sat. and they caught a ton of croppy. We fried them up and enjoyed them for lunch!

Collette showing the boys where they can drive the Ranger on the ranch.

Logan and Laton hung out while Collette fed the cows. Collette is raising a heifer to milk and a steer for beef this winter.