Random August Happenings

 

 

Ready for school, I love buying school supplies. As soon as they hit the shelves I am there!

 

 

Cute cousins, Lilli and Joslyn are great friends! Luckily we have got to hang out with these guys quite a bit this summer!

I thought this picture was funny, all the boys were dressed up having a nerf gun war.  Love the shades Brod.

Poor little Brody had to get 5 teeth pulled.  We took him to our good friend Jeff DaBell who is an oral surgeon in Pocatello, because he needed to be put out.  He had an extra tooth called a mesiodens behind his two front teeth, they had to cut the roof of his mouth and dig around to find it but we got it out. (the little trouble maker) (the tooth ;)) plus 4 baby teeth pulled. so 5 in all.  Poor little buddy. So now he has stitches in the roof of his mouth. makes eating not so fun.  He is sick of yogurt. Do you want to know what surprises me? This picky little eater loves himself some CHOBANI!!!

 

My mom kept the rest of our kids while we took Brody to his appt. When we got home they were playing on the slip n' slide.  Notice Joslyn...she thinks she is one of the boys! Hilarious.  They were all wearing shorts and no shirts so that is what she wore too!!! :)

And...I got a new calling. I am the Mia-Maid advisor.  I am nervous/excited.  It will be good for me to study these lessons each week.  I gave my first lesson on Sunday, it went good, I have some great girls in my class.  I didn't even use 1/2 of the stuff I planned but that is good to have too much and not enough.  So here we go, It's been about 7-8 yrs since I've been in young womens and a lot has changed.  Here's to a new learning experience.

First Days of Summer Break

 

Here are Hudson's hands after 4 days:

 

 

Those blisters are huge! I put Silvadene on them and bandage them morning and night.  One night after I got done fixing him up he started to sing, "I feel better, so much better, thank you Doc for taking all the ouchies away." It's the little song they sing on Doc McStuffins. So cute! It made me tear up!

 

Here's his hands after 7 days! Looking much better!

 

He missed his first T-ball game, we didn't think that would be very fun for him, swinging a bat and such.

 

Baseball starts full force this week, so for the next 4-5 weeks we will be at the ball park every night of the week! Braiden and Brody's games are Mon/Wed and Hudson's games are on Tues/Thurs.  It should be an interesting year, it will be Brody's first year of pitching machine (and that takes some getting used to) and Braiden's first year of Live Pitch, so we will see how it goes.

 

So if our evenings are spent at the ball park our mornings might as well be spent at the pool.  I signed the older 2 boys up for swim team this year. They are not quite sure about it yet, so far it has been pretty chilly at 8:00 a.m. low to mid 50's , good thing the pool is heated right? It will be SO good for them!!

 

We got signed up for the summer reading program at the library and have already checked out a good stack of books.  Joslyn picked Barbie and Disney Princess, go figure. :) It is part of their daily routine after swimming it's home, shower, chores, reading, lunch then free time.  Mean ole mom!

 

 

 

This is the tree,

This is the tree that Joslyn looks out the window and says, "OH CUTE!"

This is the tree that Braiden says is "infested with bees."

This is the tree that STINKS to high heaven!!

Every year for the first few days it's in bloom I walk around the house and I wonder what is that smell? Then I realize it's coming from the tree which is surprising because a tree that is that "cute" should not smell like that! :)

 

Only 5 days until the relay!!! Holy Smokes!!!

We got our start time the other day...2:45 a.m. It's gonna be a party!!!

Our shirts came in on Friday, you just wait until you see them, they are awesome!!

The forecast is looking very promising (knock on wood) YAY!

I've revamped my playlist a bit. (it's about time) It needed it bad.

I am running the down hill portion of the race. Lets see... I loose 1,401 feet in elevation and gain 0 ft. in 6.02 miles, YIKES! I had my mother in law drive me up Pomerelle mountain 6 miles then I ran down to the car, just to see how I'd do. I think down hill is my thing!?!  I think I should do fine, time will tell. My second leg should be easy, that is if I can move after my first leg. 

Wish me luck! On the bottom of the page I put up a playlist of a few of my favorite running songs, what do you think? What's your favorite workout song?

 

 

A Bittersweet Day

OK-I'm a week behind, but it's been a crazy week.

 

Last Sunday I was released from the primary presidency, I knew for weeks that it was going to happen and I was fine.  However...when I was sitting in sacrament meeting last week and Brother Bailey got up and started releasing us I just started sobbing!!! I LOVE primary and I LOVE the sisters I was able to serve with and I grew to LOVE the kids, each and every single one! So it was hard, a lot harder than I thought it would be! We got lots of hugs and little handmade cards from our little kiddies that will be cherished forever! So it's back to Relief Society for me It's been a LONG while since I've been. Like 5 years long...So today was my first Sunday back in Relief Society and it was good, the lesson by Sister West was awesome!! That's the wonderful thing about the church, it's great no matter where you are!!!

I was in charge of the food for the ward Christmas party last night, this has consumed me for the last month, I'm sure my mom was sick of hearing me talk about it! Love you!  Side note: My favorite "Keep Calm" poster that I've seen to date is:

  Keep Calm

 

   and

 

   Call Your MOM

 

 

Any way, All I can say is that the Lord's hand was helping me yesterday because everything went SO. GREAT! I kept thinking yesterday, man this is going so great but I'm sure once 5:00 rolls around everything is going to get crazy, well 5 came and went and everything just went so smooth! I had a

lot of help behind the scenes and I mean a lot! I don't think I can thank everyone properly.  Nate did

SO (like probably more than me) much work, he was amazing. I am so lucky to have such a supportive husband.

 

 

I decided that the old blog needed to be changed up a bit, I mean Hudson's picture says he's 3 and he

will be 5 in a few weeks! (except his is the only pic I didn't change out...didn't have one that was

"sidebar worthy" We'll work on that tomorrow!) I mean how hard it is to update your profile? Come

on! It was 2 years old!

I had a ton of suggestions on how to fix my problem (thank you!) my sweet friend sent me this message today..."as I was doing a little research I saw that you can add a second admin (second email) to the account and it will give you another GB of space for that user" So I did and It seems to be working!!! Thank You Krissy!! So that will buy me some time for now, then I think I am going to make some blog books.

 

Pinterest: I recently joined pinterest...I know I'm a little late to the game but better late than never.

Right? I am loving it, I've already tried a few things.  The sugar cookie bars were just OK unless you

make cream cheese frosting, don't even waste your time. ;) We are doing a cute little Christmas countdown that is fun for the kids too. I love looking at all the creative things people do and most of

the time I just dream about being creative.

 

A note on journaling:  A couple of weeks ago I got out my old journals from when I was first married

to about Brody as a baby, and I realized how much I enjoyed going back and reading about my thoughts and my life. I was laughing so hard I was crying, and in awe of how positive I was, boy I've

turned in to a grouchy old fart! I was AMAZED at the crap we went through with Braiden, with his

severe allergies and asthma, it's amazing that the poor kid is alive! Anyway that is the reason for this

long boring pictureless post, I want to remember these little things, about the time I was released

from primary and the time I was in charge of the ward dinner. And I will read all of these old posts

and think, man, I was so positive! I've turned into a grouchy old fart. haha! So here's my attempt to

document more of the little things.

 

I put a few of our new family pictures on the sidebar, the family one and the kids one, I love love

love that one of the kids it is adorable!!! The river was so low that they are actually standing on the

riverbed, cool!

WSWS

What She Wore Sunday...Two weeks ago anyway : /

My sweet little Valentine!

Lately:

* I don't know if I ever mentioned that my bro-in-law and his family moved to town, they live just down the road.  It is so fun to have them around, we have 3 boys and a girl, they have 3 girls and a boy. Kylie and Brody are 2 weeks apart Hudson and Jacob are 1 year apart (almost exactly) and Joslyn and Ashley are 4 months apart. The kids have fun together, A LOT of fun.  I love Natalie, she just might be the sweetest person on the face of the earth.  It's fun to have someone to share our Chinese take-out with. ;)

* I saw a recipe for homemade laundry detergent on a blog a couple of weeks ago.  I was interested because of the cost savings, these kids of mine make A LOT of laundry.  So I went to Wal-Mart and picked up all of the ingredients, called up Natalie and we got to work. 

The most "time consuming" (which wasn't all that time consuming 15 min tops!) part of this project was grating the pink Zote soap.  Then it was; dump a box of this and a box of that, mix, mix mix, done!

Here is the recipe if anyone is interested:

1 (4 lb 12 oz) box of Borax

1 (3 lb 7 oz) box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda

1 (3 lb) container OxyClean

2 (14.1 oz) bars of Zote soap (pink or white)

2 (2 lb) boxes Arm & Hammer baking soda

Total cost about $20! Even better split it with a friend and it only costs $10.  $10 for all of that, the best thing it will last about 4x longer than your other detergent because you only need 1 1/2 -2 TBSP for 1 load!!

A few things:

I used a fine cheese grater to grate my soap, it dissolves better that way.

The OxyClean drives up the cost a bit, but is well worth it.

I bought the Downey UNstopables, it's an in wash scent booster, because I like (good) smelly laundry.  This is also a little bit pricey but 1-2 tsp does the trick.

Safe for sensitive skin

Safe for HE washing machines...I found the detergent didn't rinse out of the detergent tray very good, so now I just put it straight into the drum, it seems to work great.

I am a liquid detergent girl but this was worth a shot... there is a recipe out there for a homemade liquid detergent...maybe that will be the next experiment...I'll let you know. ;)

* The boys finished basketball on Saturday...it was fun. I actually like watching basketball. We are not skipping a beat though, now it's on to wrestling.  GAH! Wrestling...I know. Not my favorite sport but we are all about letting them try everything until they find their "thing". So the next 2 1/2 months are going to be crappy.  Practice Mon-Thurs between the two of them, and matches every Saturday...believe me we won't be to every one.

* Insanity is kicking my butt!!!

* In less than a week my oldest will be 10...10 Gah! Double digits! A Webelo! What! He just started scouting! He still has enough fingers to show his age though...fewsh!

* ONE of my kids decided my makeup brushes needed a "haircut" GAH!

* My poor sweet Grandma is in the hospital, sad, sad time. Tears every time I go see her.  : (

* Off to entertain my kids...no school today.

December Ramblings

OK this has gone on long enough, I need to blog about SOMETHING! ...


~ This is the scene of Christmas tree hunting, we were very successful this year. We picked the worst day  to go because it was a BLIZZARD on the mountain. Needless to say I wasn't very picky, I walked around for 5 min and then said,  "yup that one looks good", and it paid off!

~I stink at decorating a Christmas tree, or maybe it is my decorations that stink? Or maybe it is the fact that the tree is so Charlie Brownesque that makes it hard. ???

~ It was my birthday on Saturday, it was a great day!! My mom and I went gallivanting around Twin all day and finished up most of our Christmas shopping. Nate got me The Help, so when the kids went to bed we sat down to watch it..I love that movie.  I was crying so much that the tears were running down my NECK...crying in a good way.  Best. Movie. Ever!

~I also got the Our Best Bites cookbook for my birthday, now I have a grocery list a mile long.  There are so many things I am excited to try!!!

~ Been waiting for this day to come so that I can call my Christmas shopping done! There's a certain movie that comes out today, that is on someone's list.

~ Hudson asked Santa for black boots...little kids are awesome.

~ The Christmas cards officially started coming! I think there is NOTHING I love more than getting Christmas cards in the mail! (hint hint :) )

~ Speaking of Christmas cards... I haven't even started on mine.  I just picked up the picture CD from the photographer last night at about 5:00.

~ I am really disappointed in the pictures this year. Joslyn was not interested in getting her picture taken, in half of the pictures she was bawling and in the other half she was looking away.
But I ordered one anyway because the last family picture we had done Hudson was about 9 months old.  The pictures are a blurry mess, they looked fine in a little 4x4 proof but blow that up to 11x14 and.... grrr!

~Brody has been laying around, ill for the last 3 days, I hope he snaps out of it because tomorrow is his birthday!!

~ My niece is dancing in the Nutcracker tomorrow, I'm so bummed that I have to miss it, I just don't think that would be Brody's activity of choice on his birthday. Good luck Kailey!!!

~ On the 3rd  we got to see my other sweet niece be baptized, now Hudson is talking about when he is 8 he is going to get baptized,  Emily thank you for setting such a great example.

~ After the baptism we met up with some dental school friends that we hadn't seen in a couple years, we had a great time catching up, and I had a great time loving their sweet baby girl.

~The funniest thing...Joslyn sings the clean- up song all the time.  Her version goes like this, "dee-yup dee-yup, evbody dee-yup" If she sees you cleaning up anything (the bathroom counter, dishes off the table, papers off the floor and toys for sure) she breaks out in song.  It makes cleaning a whole lot more fun!