Utah: day 2 (long day, long post)

We started our day at the hotel, swimming in the indoor pool. The kids loved the echo (they yelled a lot) and the novelty of swimming inside. The hot tub was the favorite, because the other pool was freezing!

Just look at my muscle man. He lifts weights every day :)

We eat waaaaay too much fast food on road trips.
I'm craving green vegetables and fresh fruit.

Hotel rooms are so boring for kids :P

We spent the afternoon at Discovery Park to celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday. Lots of family came from several different states to be there for the event, because how often do you get to turn 90? Ember and Ben found the tennis courts at the park and managed to make up a game without any racquets. Thank goodness for all the discarded tennis balls!

My darling parents

Four adorable sisters, Marian, Jenny, Katie and Amy.

Grandma looks so sweet holding one of her great-grandkids, Lucas

Dad & Austin enjoying some peach mango salsa

Grace continually sprayed Aunt Cindy with water... it was a very hot day.

Ember makes friends easily, and today she latched herself onto a group of boys who were more than happy to dump cups of water on her.

Back at Aunt Sandy's there was an inflatable water slide, which was a big hit!

Grandma's sister Marian came for the party, the two were telling great stories. Grandma said in 90 years the thing that has changed the most is technology, and the one thing that has remained constant and not changed at all is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She is an example to us all.

At the end of the day we had a program / variety show and Grandma encouraged us to sing and recite poetry we had memorized. She's always encouraged her kids, grandkids and great grandkids to be educated and articulate, and because of her influence her posterity is full of talented people. It was a fun program, Grace and I even sang the itsy bitsy spider :)

Happy 90th birthday Grandma Shipley!

Utah: day 1

We're visiting Utah for my grandma's 90th birthday party and today was, unfortunately, a twelve hour travel day.

Grace was so helpful and drew us a map!

She drew the Great Salt Lake...

We went from point 'A'...

... to point 'B'


We drove past some old volcanoes

And we even stopped at a Target :)

She didn't miss a single detail, her map got very crowded. Thankfully the drive went smoothly (no running out of gas or blown out tires) and the kids are staying in their first hotel! It has an indoor pool and everything, I think they want to live here.

The birthday party is tomorrow, and we can't wait!

summertime, and the livin' is easy... and cranky.

I hate summertime. It's hot, and all I do is play chauffeur. The kids are easily bored and they fight a lot. Getting them to do chores is impossible, and I'm accused of being a terrible mom. OTHER mom's don't make their kids clean their rooms in the summer. I've scheduled different summer programs for them to help with the boredom and keep their little minds and bodies active, but all that means is that I've scheduled myself too. I'm tired and hot and cranky.

But look at how happy they are :)

I guess summertime isn't so bad.
But August 11 can't get here fast enough.

My handsome boy

We picked up Ben's new suit today that he will wear for his baptism. He looks so handsome, so much like Austin!

I'm working on the invitations now, but the baptism is scheduled for Tuesday July 20 at 7:00 PM at our Stake Center. Ben can't wait!

Getting older by the minute

Ember will be 10 years old tomorrow, but since I have to work we celebrated today. A whole decade! Her age will be double digits for the rest of her life! She's halfway towards being old enough (maybe) to get married! 6 more years to driving and dating! 3 more years until she's a teenager! 2 more years until Young Womens! 2 years left of Elementary School!

My baby girl is growing up before my eyes.

She's also old enough to hold her baby niece Adria while standing up. Aunt Noelle was Ember's age when Ember was born and it was a big deal for her to be able to hold the baby without sitting down, and here's Ember doing the same thing! She tells everyone that in just 2 years she'll be an expert babysitter. Start making your reservations now.

Ember is such a darling girl, so full of personality and the spirit and some other stuff I'd rather not mention. She has a testimony, she has talent, she has a sense of humor, and she's a great big sister. She's growing up fabulously, despite my bi-polar parenting.

Love you baby girl!

Grace got to hold baby Adria too... babies holding babies :)

Priorities

Want to know why I love to crochet so much? Because it's something that I can do that won't be undone. Not like cleaning my house.

I've set some new goals for myself since our home is getting out of control with dust and clutter. I use Fly Lady to keep my tasks reasonable and organized and I did a great job working in the kitchen and dining room yesterday, my targeted zone for the day. I even shined up the kitchen sink with windex.

Today it looks like I wasn't even there. Dirty dishes everywhere, coloring pages and crayons on the table and floor, wet towels from swimming lessons and flip flops kicked casually in the middle of the floor, food crumbs and cold cereal on the counter and carpet, toys scattered where the dogs can chew them up, video games not put away from yesterday, and lots of unidentifiable junk.

I'm trying to take this one day at a time, one 15-minute project at a time, but it's an uphill battle. 'Cleaning the house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling snow while it's still snowing.'

So I'm not spending today doing more cleaning that will be undone by tomorrow, I'm spending my day crocheting a new baby blanket pattern that I love. It won't get undone, and maybe the person who buys it will treasure it and I can give a little bit of my creative joy to someone else.

The dishes will still be there tomorrow.

The best son ever

This just made my day.

(click to enlarge)

The circus is in town!

I saw this yesterday and did a double take, I had to circle back around so I could get out my camera phone.

It's a man on a motorized wheelchair that's hooked up to three wagons and he's holding a giant rainbow umbrella.

It was like being at the circus watching a little clown train.

Somebody voted in my poll that they don't read this blog, and would never read it if their life depended on it.

Well you had the read the poll in order to vote, so HA!

Sucker.

Extreme Makeover bedroom edition

This year we decided to give Ember and Ben a room makeover for their birthdays instead of presents and a party. In April we began the task of redecorating Ember's room.

First on the list was scraping the old popcorn ceiling. It's 25 years old, a dust magnet, and our little angel has allergies and asthma so it had to go. Austin got to work on it while I was in Utah for BYU Women's Conference. It was all done when I got home, a really nice surprise! :)

After the old popcorn ceiling was scraped, we had my Brother-in-law Steve come and do the texturing. Then Austin painted the ceiling and we were ready to move onto the walls!

We let the kids help with the painting and they did a great job. Ember's favorite color is blue so we picked a pretty light-teal color that matches her new bedspread.

We had to rip up 25 year old carpeting in order to put in a new allergy-friendly floor. The carpet was surprisingly easy to pull out, the hard part was scraping off the glue. Austin did the scraping while I was in California with the kiddos on vacation. Austin didn't have any vacation time to spare so we traveled without him. After he got home from work every day he worked in her bedroom scraping that horrible glue. Once again, I came home from a trip to find that a nasty stage of the project had already been done. Austin, you rock!

Laying down the new floor! It's just a high quality linoleum since we were running out of money, but it turned out really nice and it has the texture of real wood. Ember really likes it.

Once the floor was finished we were finally ready to start moving in her furniture and accessories. I really love this flower arrangement I did. Gerber daisies are so cheerful, and that vase is metal so if she ever knocks it over, it won't shatter!

We found the dresser in someone's front yard and refinished it using a high gloss spray paint. It turned out great, and included with the dresser was this great mirror.

Finished Product (sort of, still awaiting window treatments, a chandelier from IKEA, and closet doors).

I think she likes it :)

Next up? Ben's room!

The Classics

I was in Fiesta Mall with my girls this week sitting in the food court, and we were watching the music videos playing on a continuous loop on the ceiling-mounted TV's.
Then I read the words: Up Next, The Classics!

Oh, good! Some Bon Jovi! A little Journey!

Do you know what the mall crowd thought the classics were?

Brittney Spears, "Oops I did it again." Seriously.

To me, the classics are 70's and 80's music. The 90's are forgettable, and the 60's and prior are oldies but goodies. I guess it depends on perspective. Brittney Spears released that song in 2000, 10 years ago.

I feel really old.

What is classic to you?

Scrapbooking my Blog

I know I've mentioned this before, but I've switched to digital scrapbooking and I've never looked back. All my pictures are digital anyway, so it just made sense.

However, all my family albums and all the cute journaling were being done...

on BLOGSPOT!

What to do??

People, I've scrapbooked my blog.

I simply took my uploaded pictures and fun posts (and the comments I thought were worth keeping), and put them into my scrapbooking software. Now my blog will be a tangible thing that my kids can thumb through and enjoy!

And regardless of what happens with this bloggy thing in the future, all those bloggable moments will be preserved.

Thrifty

I hate this picture of myself. I just wanted to make an observation; a blouse I haven't worn in years can be made fabulous again just by purchasing a $5 belt.