My new camera!

What a great Christmas and birthday surprise I received...a new Canon Rebel (thus the Christmas and birthday were mixed due to cost--Santa and Kelly went in on it together!) I have been coveting one of these cameras for years since some of my Tenn. friends introduced me to them. It makes it so much fun to capture the real event! Thanks Kelly! So I decided I am going to get back into blogging again to make every penny well spent! I loved all the Christmas cards this year. It is SO fun to see how everyone has changed and what is going on in their lives. Hope you all had a WONDERFUL holiday!

Ephraim having a good dream during church


A somewhat fuzzy pic of the new house, the stucco is nearly done.
The interior of the vault
dad tiled the master bath

Ephraim Daniel Checketts

We are loving our new addition to the family. He is very peaceful and emanates such a sweet spirit. The kids adore him and want to hold him every waking minute. I am trying to teach Enoch that he can't just pick up the baby by himself though! We are all doing well other than the initial adjustment--I've noticed the biggest change in Enoch, he has been really hyper and destructive and not sleeping well. Hopefully that will pass with time.

Ephraim Daniel Checketts was born at 5:41 AM on Monday, August 24, 2009. He and mommy are doing great and they are both home trying to rest. Haela and Enoch love to hold their new baby brother.

Here is one view of the house. it is right up against a bluff where there are supposedly a lot of deer. bishop pennington, you can come hunt from our front porch.



Here is the front porch. i am really proud of this feature because directly below it is our cold storage room. Also it looks great because i didn't pour it.
Enoch, perusing the classified adds. not sure what he was looking for.

Here is a pic of the house from about a month ago. We will try and get some more soon

We are slackers

Sorry we have been so far behind on our blog for so long. We have a lot of really great excuses, but thats all they are, excuses. Since our last entry we have been moving forward with a lot of things in our lives. We have started building my parents house just south of Rexburg. Since they will be in Hawaii for a few more years we will get to live in the house till they return. In exchange for free rent I am doing all the labor on the house for free. It is hard to work all day and then go and build the house at night but it is coming along. The pumber and electrician are starting and we are getting the siding on fairly soon so we will be prepared for the winter weather. Charity is working hard at the head resident position at our dorm. She is a great example to the girls and always goes the Extra mile. Luckily we will be done managing in a few weeks so then she can just focus on this new baby that is coming and our other wonderful children. Haela will be starting school in a month. THat is scary. Enoch is 2 and talking like crazy. He says the funniest things all the time and we get a real kick out of him. My little construction company is doing all right. The lord is always sustaining us and we are very grateful for the things that he has done for us. We always have enough and a little to spare