My attempt to publish from microsoft word....failed. and it's midnight so i hope this makes sense.

EASTER SUPRISES!

We had a great easter week! our most exciting discovery was that we more than doubled our animal count! Gary brought home a male baby goat that he is excited will grow big and procreate with one of our other goats....we are statistically barren here on the Westergard farmayard and so he was brining fresh blood into the mix. The next morning we wake up and go out to the bard and realize tha tone of our bloated goats just gave birth to TRIPLETS!! They are so cute!! Also both of our cats are pregnant again since we did not get them spayed in time..well one of them had their kittens today. This MORE THAN DOUBLES my animal count!! Good Grief!!



The Westergard Easter party was great!! we dyed eggs and visited. Lindsy thought that she would try some blue dye and so spooned a few mouthfuls in, she was proud of the color of her tongue.

LIndsy is in a gymnastics class and she loves to show off how she can do butterflies (stretching) and horsie kicks.

It was gary's 33rd Larry bird birthday this year so we all wore shirts that I made....NEVER going to sew again... it's all about the fusing and GLUE now!! :)

Lucy had her bithday and we went to her house and played. We also got to to ride horses which was awesome!! Justin wouldn't go to bed that night until we called and found out that his horses name had been Roho!

In the rough outdoors I feel like a homesteader
Gary had quite an experience tonight that he described as a “blogging moment”. I realized how involved Gary is in the blogging world when he makes statements like that. I will attempt to describe this event in my own words; I hope to do it justice.
Gary and I came home from a date tonight (first one in months it was great). I took the kids in the house to get ready for bed and he stayed outside to do chores and take care of the animals. I had Lindsy asleep with Justin on the way but Gary was still outside. Justin and I were on the bed reading a book when we hear 3 REALLY loud noises outside, that scared the heck out of us. We went to the back door to see what Gary had done; Gary was already running up the steps breathless and smiling. He had just won a battle and the adrenalin was pumping…
Gary was going to feed the cats in the shed when he realized he was not alone in the shed. Two beady eyes were looking at him and then it started to growl and hiss. A RACOON!!! They shared a moment, he drew his weapon, they looked each other in the eye and the raccoon ran away…fear had overcome him (the raccoon I mean). And yes it is sad my husband did have a weapon on him and had the option to shoot at will. Gary spent the next 40 minutes in a battle of wits with this raccoon trying to eradicate it from his precious shed. He sent his trusty dog in…who cowered and refused to flush out the vermin. He grabbed his shot gun, which he deemed safer than a handgun, less likely to shoot yourself in the foot. He called Blake to “get his stupid trap and dog down here...it might work better than my dumb dog”. He attempted to use a pitch fork which just made holes in the poor creature and made Gary use words like “okay this is personal” and “@#@!!$%”. Gary FINALLY flushed the raccoon out the door and ran after it with his shotgun. The dumb thing stopped in the doorway and Gary nearly tripped over it. He didn’t like being so close to a raccoon so he pulled a “chuck Norris” jump shot spin in the air and shot the raccoon. We then took this picture to document the event. What a great night in the country.

Holy cow I think I'm done



There are days when you are tired and want to go to bed early...then there are those days when you realize it would be better if you'd never woken up that day. Last Wednesday was that day for me. I have listed a few of the MANY issues I had this day.

1. Justin had a bloody nose on his way to toddler school....due to picking too vigorously. It's gross but it is worse becuase i wasn't driving, it was up to my friends husband to wipe the blood from Jusitn's face, coat, and pants. gross!

2. While at school Justin went tubing during the outside play time and his face and the icy snow met and he had two bloody wounds on his face when he ran into the school. He couldn't feel anything until he started to warm up and once that happened he insisted on bandaids. This resulted in one on the forehead and another over his lip which made it iimpossible to eat or talk normally...but it made it feel better mom ( i couldn't stop laughing at this!)

3. Right after school we headed over to the pediatrician for our well baby checks. So I show up with a bruised and bloodied Justin who i haven't had time to clean up or change his clothes...blood drips everywhere! Okay so it looks like I did this to my son, what kind of mother am I?!?

4. Justin is no longer an infant who I can hold down when it comes to shot time. He had to get two immunizations and I could barely hold down the snarling, screaming, crying, scratching, kicking formerly sweet son of mine. I ended up body slamming him down on the table and the MA leaned against his legs while she shot him. After it was done Jusitn just looked at me like I betrayed him, it was made better only slightly when i bought him the frosty.

5. Cub scouts at 4:30pm

6. Before i left for scouts I wanted to start dinner as much asIi could, so I made the sauce for a new recipe I was going to try for the noodle bowl I was making. the recipe called for a pepper, I got the one that looks like a jalepeno but a little smaller because i didn't need a lot. I minced it, added it to the sauce, and continued with my prep. I finished the sauce, cleaned up and then it happened.......(pause for dramatic effect) I wiped my eye with my CLEAN hands..or so I thought. the pepper that I had cut up previously left oil on my hands and I put it in my eye. I was sure that I put a seed in my eye with the pain that started at this point. AAHHH!! I ran to my bathroom screaming and started splashing cold water in my eye, trying my hardest to open it. I was yelling for Justin to bring me my phone. He was a little freaked out by how much crying, sobbing, and yelling was going on. He found my phone and then curled up on my bed to watch cartoons while I died. I called my sister who googled the situation, she told me to keep doing water and then to try putting milk in my eye, neither of us thought that sounded very smart to put milk in your eye. I then called my cousin Kristin and asked what her husband did when he got pepper sprayed in his eye. She looked up the situtaion on line as well and was a great resourse. bottom line: when you have pepper in your eye put cold water on and in your eyes and DEAL WITH IT it will not go away until it dissapates and goes away. it only takes about 45 minutes to make it bearable. I compare it to having a baby. It hurts so much and with such intensity but you know some how it will have to end you're just not sure when. This cleared up for me just in time for me to go to cub scouts. I gave them all a lecture on pepper spraying people...don't even joke about it, it's not funny!



That's my day. I came home later and Gary had thrown away all that sauce and made chicken and potatoes. I love my husband and kids they make my life so very eventful!

WINTERFEST HOFF FESTIVAL!!

Grandma and Grandpa are in Germany so we decided to go and experience some of their culture with this winter festival held at the fairgrounds. We met up with the Haggards and had a great time watching all the old people in their lederhosen and derndle's (with their funny little hats that look like Grandpa's), rotcol, spetzle, and PLENTY of yodling. I am realizing that i haven't got a clue how to spell any German word, thanks a lot Herr Jessop from 7th grade. Winerschnizel yum yum!!!Lindsy was shoveling in the spetzle, she wouldn't even let me eat off her plate. Such a passionate woman about her food!This was unfair...Haggards bought some yummy cakes and I didn't, I just drooled over them. :) it was such a fun day to hang out and play with family!

Our Holiday!
We had a great time visiting with family and friends. For Christmas eve we all went to Grandma and Grandpa Popcorn's house. it was fun to eat good food, laugh with our family, sing songs, watch grandpa play the cornet, play games, and OPEN PRESENTS!!!! yay! justin and lindsy had such a blast with their cousins running around in new jamies and "helping' everyone open their presents. It was such a special and fun night. This is Lindsy saying "cheese!"

This was grandma's great idea to make nativities with stickers, we had floating camels and wise men ha ha ha! the kiddos and adults loved it.

Christmas Day we went to Westergard's again and had breakfast at the cabin. The traditional breakfast of cherizo egg, french toast, and omelets. This year Boyd brought extra cherizo just to be sure we had enough...it is very traumatic for this family if we run out or forget this ingredient. :)After that we went to Heidi's house and played with more cousins. Well worth the drive as usual! New years was spent doing karaoke at Julie's and we had a party with Yuri. She spoiled all the nieces and nephews with her beautiful bags and purses. I can't believe how talented Yuri is to design those many bags, you are so creative!!Gary was over an hour late coming to this party because he had to go out and shoot a duck, then his truck got stuck in the mud and he had to get a tractor to pull him out....if i had a nickel for every time i heard that story.....oh wait this is actually a common story in my house sadly.
Gary and Maren at family night. what is in your mouth gary??

After Christmas Gary and I took the kids to temple square and the spaghetti factory. This used to be a tradition for my family to go here every year and since we have gotten old our family doesn't go anymore, so it was a great tradition to start with my little family. lindsy thought it was great, justin did too. we sat in the train and justin yelled at almost everyone who walked past us, and high fived strangers.

I hope your christmas was as fun and special as ours was. I really look forward to teaching my kids about Christ. The many nativities that we have at our house provides so many opportunities to talk about Jesus and the angels and why he came to earth. Every day their knowledge can increase and their testimonies can grow, and so can mine. We are truly blessed. Merry Christmas!

My favorite birthhday present!!!

So I just turned......old, and Gary got me my favorite birthday present EVER!! He found a trampoline at the DI and had it set up when I got home from work on Monday. I love it, my whole family gets on it and we wrestle around, watch lindsy try and run fast in a circle, watch the stars at night, hide from the dog when he's out and wanting to slobber on you, let Justin go outside and eat his apple on the tramp, it's got such endless possibliites!! :) Way to go Gary! I love you!!

My Justin

Every night we read Justin books, one book he loves the most is a Mercer Mayer book entitled "just a mess". In it there is a quote that talks about how messy his room is and how he asks his mom to help him clean it up, she says "you made the mess, you can clean it up". So today I am getting lunch ready and Justin is playing with the magnets on the fridge. He placed all his letters over the crack between the fridge and the freezer. I opened the fridge and they all burst off and shot around the kitchen. I yelled to Justin "you better come clean up this mess" and without missing a beat he replied " you made the mess, you can clean it up". ouch, quick kid.

Justin was being naughty tonight and got some time out. I went to talk with him and thought i'd throw some motivation his way. I asked him "Do you know who is coming to our house in 9 days?" he had no clue... "someone with a long white beard"..."BOYD!!!" I was talking about Santa and he thought it was his Uncle Boyd who usually sports a full beard. ha ha h!!!




Christmas time!


It is coming...I thought i was ready but I was wrong!! I also don't know how to handle to boy who's santa list changes daily.

Lindsy

She is getting so big! The usual position I find her in is clinging to her high chair tray holding on with all her might and her feet are on the chair. The whole tray could pop off and she would go flying, it makes me so nervous!

Her first true sentence was spoken last week when she said "Justin is being mean to me". I guess we say what we know. :)

My family!

We finally got family pictures last weekend! I was told by one of the photographers that I was smiling too big....."it looks too happy becki, my gosh" okay so I am cheesy...I'll admit it. :) I purposely didn't put the cheesy ones in here...do I look normal? :) I am just thrilled Gary is actually smiling and not doing the fake "i'm a man, and men don't smile" pose. yay!!

They are so cute it makes my heart feel great!

We also got to celebrate Grandma's 90th birthday that same day, it was great and we all took pictures with her. Justin was behaving and sat so well with grandma, he talks about her alot and loves to visit. He mostly visits with her toys he finds under her sewing table, but whatever it takes to visit with family is fine by me.

Our other big news is that my parents are going to Frankfurt Germany on their mission! we are so happy for them and can't wait to support them and enjoy the mission field with them. :)

Pesticide Bath...dun dun dun

I had a very "Plain City" moment with my family the other night. We got gung-ho and went on a family bike ride to the town square. We had the kids in the bike trailer and Gary was the only smart one to bring sun glasses. We were having a great time with great weather and visiting with neighbors as we pass, until on the way home we hear the faint buzzing of an airplane......... The mosquito abatement plane flew over our little route 4 or 5 times. It was spraying pesticide all in its path and it was bug spraying us as well. The chemicals hit our eyes and made our eyes water and BURN!!! so for about 1/2 mile we were stopping to wipe our eyes and tell the kids to stop breathing since it was EVERYWHERE!!! Moral of the story: don't go biking at dusk..EVER! :) ooh maybe i'll get to smith and edwards and get a gas mask. i would look so cool!

SO VERY MUCH...

So very much has happened and I am glad it has begun to slow down.

• Last night we finished rocking our fire place( amid alot of swearing and yelling at the rocks)
• finally named our 9 cats
• Went to the county fair and got to pet a pig!! and a waterbuffalo! "can I borrow your towel my car just hit a waterbuffalo" movie quote anyone???....it's Fletch :)
• got ready for toddler school but completely missed the parent orientation becuase I am a flake
• we got to ride on the bus with grandpa because he is a new driver and during his orientation we got this chance
• began to understand how cool garage sales are and what you can get for 50 cents
• realized how clueless I am with scouting still...i didn't give two boys their bear badge even though they earned it just because i didn't understand the requirements....yeah they brought their whole family to watch and I didn't give it to them...sorry grandmas!!
• Gary has begun his archery hunt..good luck babe!
• my coworker went to china and so I got to work more hours..good for the mortgage bad for the kids...I was a very stressed out mom, she is back now yay!
• After the dedication today realized i need to go to the temple more. It was wonderful to listen to talks about our blessings from attending the temple.
  Our swim slide she loved!
  

Annie, Jane and Lindsy with Reily

Grandpa in his new job... Justin liked the windshield wipers

Grandma on her birthday! Happy birthday!

County fair, this thing was HUGE!!
Justin's first milking...he thought it was pretty cool.

The only time we want to get into lifeflight
Before the transformation
During
And we are done with the rock which aside from the rest of the cabinet fronts...we are DONE!!!

We love baseball!!

Our family was able to go to opening night for our baseball team here in town. We got to go with my sisters family and we all had a great time. Justin was hysterical and wired, especially after the snow cone, nachos, churro, peanuts, and pretzel that uncle chris spoiled him with. He got his picture by Oggie and got to watch fireworks...yeah we found out he doesn't like those at all. He was petrified during the whole fireworks display. One of the funniest moments of the night was around the 8th inning when everyone around us was getting really wasted and began heckling the umpire and visiting team. They were yelling mean stuff and justin was mimiking what he heard, he turned in to a mean little 3 year old.

Justin lovs to play with his cousins and these two are very funny together. I talk to my mom a lot how Justin is the oldest but not really, he gets to be the youngest in all his cousins families.

Oggie still scared him to death but he stood by him this time and posed. I was so proud of him!

Gas Rodeo 2009

Gary has a pretty cool job and one of our favorite things about it is the annual gas rodeo. It is pretty unique because not many careers set up events like this. It is a whole day of relay races, digging, gas meter assembly and for justin....lotsa CANDY!!! This is one of the events, it is a sand dig. Four guys dig as fast as they can to get to the bottom of a box full of sand.

As part of the relay Gary's job was to take this backhoe and pick up an egg and put it in a small cup.

This part of the rodeo is where the whole team works together to cut a 6 inch steel pipe.

This is Justin and Lindsy at the beginning of the day, they had a great time...but notice how clean they are.

It didn't take long for Justin to get totally covered in popsicle, orange soda, cheetos, tootsie roll, licorice....etc.. oh you could go on and on with the junk he ingested. yikes I'm a bad mom!! We'll have nothing but vegetables tomorrow!!!!

Lindsy just couldn't take it anymore and fell asleep on Gary. She went to bed at 6pm tonight and thus far (knock on wood) is still snoozin'.

That little cat nap didn't last long. She had a great day!

Justin's favorite part was driving the backhoe. They got to move orange cones all over the place and he used the controls. He had such a blast...can you see the perma-grin?

This is our family by our favorite tractor. I maneuvered this tractor and came in 3rd in the "beginners" competition. I'm kind of attached. :)

Grandpa and Grandpa Great!

This past Monday my Grandpa past away he was a great man and a wonderful Grandpa to everyone. Grandpa always had time for everyone even if he had never met them before. I can remember a million times being with Grandpa at the ice rink (Weber Co. were he ran it for years) and he would measure people for skates by looking at thier hands and having these great conversations with them and I would ask Grandpa who they were and he would just say some nice people who came to go ice skating. He may or may not have ever met them before but he always made them feel like his best friend. It was always the same way when Grandpa would haul me, Ed and Blake up to North Fork, he was friends with everyone. Having my own children now I can fully understand the commitment that Grandpa had taken on by dragging us around with him all of the time it just goes to show how much he loved all of his grandchildren.

Grandpa always was a man who had a strong belief in being a good example and that someone was always watching. He would always tell us to remember who we are and to remember that we come from a good family and that we have a lot to live up to. I remember a specific trip to California where we made a stop in Nevada somewhere and we were walking through the town and there was this ginormous slot machine the size of a pop machine on the sidewalk. Well, Grandpa gathered myself, Ed and Blake together to teach us the lesson that gambling doesn't pay, he pulled a dollar out of his wallet and placed it in the machine and pulled the lever and much to his suprise won five dollars! Grandpa still gave us the lecuture but I'm sure he was smiling inside.

Grandpa was also a very patient person, WAY more so than anyone I know. He was able to sit through any first grade reading book, any type of performance (whether it be for real or just the front room special performance),listen to all of the grandkids stories and actually be interested in all of them. He always made everyone feel very special. I can think of a great example of the patience that Grandpa had. It all started so inocently with myself, Ed and Blake shooting our BB guns in the backyard and I'm sure some sort of dare or challenge must have presented its self and our usuall target practice turned into a actuall all out BB gun fight. Well everything was going great untill for some odd reason Ed and myself were unable to convince Blake that he needed to stop crying and that BB's will eventually work there way out from under the skin and that's when Grandpa came out and called us all into the front room. I knew that Grandpa was very mad but he never did yell at us although we did get a strong talking to. Grandpa would always let boys be boys, we were always encouraged to explore and learn new things. I think that is one of the great things that I will take from him. Grandpa was always bringing home new and exciting animals for everyone to play with, and I know that is one thing my family has had a great time with.

It would be easy to go on and on with all the great memories and experiences of Grandpa and I know that everyone has their own to share but this time we will all have to find someone else to share them with besides Grandpa.

We'll miss you Grandpa!