April activities

We bought some kites to try out when it was windy one day. The kids enjoyed it, but the wind was kind of off and on, so it was a bit tricky! And when you buy $2 kites, you get what you pay for.

This is the story of our lives right now. Dirt, mud, and yucky kids! We are in the process of working on our yard. We have gotten some dirt and moved it around to spots. We are working on our "design" plans and then we will have our sprinklers mapped for us. Justin is going to do the yard himself. The builder has given us a sod certificate for the front, but we will probably do seed in the back.

Molly lost another tooth! On the bottom left.

Super proud! The tooth fairy brought her $1.

And she has been doing a great job reading lately. She can read this book all by herself! She passed off her skill sets (something her school does) and now she gets to bring home books to read. It's a really exciting time!

We went down to Provo to see the art exhibit at BYU last weekend, called "Sacred Gifts".  

The paintings were of Jesus Christ by 3 different artists. The paintings were beautiful and what is interesting is that many of the paintings will only be on loan for this one exhibit, never to be loaned again!

After, we walked around campus. The kids loved running around and checking out all the interesting sculptures and things.

We thought this tree was beautiful!

We went into the BYU Bookstore. There is a little area for kids to read books. They had these large animals you could sit on. The kids loved them.

Then we had lunch in the Wilkinson Center. They have a Chick-Fil-A now! Lucky students :) we didn't have one when I was there! Unfortunately my favorite place to eat there was closed. So that was a bummer. They have a chicken caesar wrap that I love!

Not to worry though, we made sure and got some ice cream from the creamery. I think this is called earnestly chocolate.

It made for a really fun afternoon for all of us. It was fun to reminisce and think about the good times I had at BYU. I loved my college days. It's crazy to think how long has passed since I was a student!

March happenings

We had a few fun and exciting things that happened last month that I wanted to document. First off, we had these lovely shelves built in our closet upstairs!

I have to admit, I went about it in a really sneaky way. My neighbor across the street is really handy and has been finishing his basement. I texted his wife one Saturday morning asking if she thought her hubby would have time to come over and chat with Justin about putting in some shelves. She said she would send him over in a couple hours. Well, I never told Justin about it until the doorbell rang ;)

Needless to say, Justin was NOT happy with me when he realized I'd set him up! But I really wanted them done and I knew this might be the only way of it happening soon. I'm glad I did because 2 hours later, they were all finished! They had bought the materials and put it all together that fast. It was totally worth it!

My brother Ryan, and his family came for a visit/work at the end of March. My girls were so excited to play with their cousins.

We celebrated Justin's 31st birthday while they were here. We met everyone at Boondocks that day, followed by cake and ice cream after at our home.

Molly and Lexie were so cute. All on their own, they made up lists of ways to be like Jesus. It was so cute! They asked all of the kids for ideas and wrote who said what. Such cute girls! 

Typewriter

Today I pulled out a new short sleeve shirt for Molly. I often buy things for her a year in advance when I find things on clearance. This was that kind of a shirt. Anyway, it was a cute shirt that has an old typewriter on it and a bird. She asked me, "What is that?" I said, "That's a typewriter!" I told her that people used them before computers were being used a lot. I said that when I was growing up, we had a typewriter and I'm pretty sure I typed up a few reports on it.

She then starts thinking and says, "Did you have school back then?" I said, "Um, yes!" Molly says, "Did you have paper? Did you have pens?" I'm dying at this point! "Yes, we had all of those things! I'm not ancient!"

Too funny. Sometimes 30 seems old. But mostly, I think I'm young. I guess it just depends on who I am talking to at the moment :)

Bugged and embarrassed

Today I'm using my blog as a spot to vent. I took Alison to a dermatologist appointment this morning to have some warts on her chin frozen off. Why my girls have both had warts, and in noticeable places, I'm not sure. But anyway, I took Jackson with and Ali was awesome. We saw a woman dr. which I knew was key for her. She sat still the entire time and the dr. said it was a great, thorough treatment! Yay! We may have to go for a follow up for one more time (which is what happened with Molly), but at least we are going to get rid of them!

After we went to Walmart to get some cetaphil cream for Jackson. He's had super dry, red cheeks and so I asked the dr. about him and she suggested that. Jackson has a huge tantrum in the middle of our trip, my neighbor sees me and comes to my rescue! She holds Jackson and he calls down for her. Yay! So then I head to check out. This is the bugged part of my post. 

I see a light on, so I roll my cart over and notice a lady at the end, looking at gift cards it looks like. She says there is nobody ringing there. I start pulling back, but then notice an employee walking up, like she's looking for customers to ring up there. She says she will check me out. So I push my cart back and tell the lady that's there that I found an employee and she's going to check me out. I tell her sorry. She looks at me, chuckles, and says, no you're not. Then she walks off. 

Maybe I'm crazy and I don't know her, but I was pretty bothered by her response. I'm holding Jackson, Ali's in the cart and I'm trying to get out as soon as I can so we don't have another meltdown. This lady was probably 50-60 years old I'd say. It made me think she never had kids. It was much easier for her to move than it would have been for me. Am I totally in the wrong here? You can take a vote. If you think I am, that's fine. The irony was that she was wearing a sweatshirt that said, "Wicked" on it (obviously from the musical). I thought it was kind of fitting.

I had another fun situation yesterday. We went over to the park while waiting for Molly at dance. Jackson and Alison were playing and a lady sat on a bench next to the one I was and was watching her kids. We commented on a few things the kids were doing. Then she tells me that she recognizes me from The Children's Place when my daughter peed her pants. Wow. How embarrassing! Ali pees her pants and is freaking out and I'm trying to decide how to take 3 kids to the bathroom in the back and take care of her and if I need to buy new panties since I was totally unprepared. Now I will probably run into this lady all the time! I'm so embarrassed. I'm sure I was a crazy, frantic mom that day. 

It's been an awesome couple of days for me :)

St. Patrick's Day 2014

The leprechaun returned to our house a couple of nights ago! The kids found that he came in through the back door.

Then he got into the cupboard.

And that's where he left the Lucky Charms!

Molly made this cute hat at school!

I have a few St. Patrick's decorations. I didn't want to decorate the whole house in it, so I just decorated the entryway.

I found this adorable banner on jane.com this year. You just had to assemble it. It's from here if you are interested. My SIL actually loves her etsy shop, so when I saw it on jane.com, I called her right away to say I noticed it :) I had been thinking of making my own banner this year, but when I saw this one, I figured it was adorable and less work and trouble than getting everything to make my own!

So this isn't quite "finished" but next year I can work on that! I usually put 2 of my green salad plates in between the white ones, but I put my candles there instead. I think it would be cute to put a vinyl shamrock on the white plates or something.

I need something in my glass jar on top too.

 Here is my little table. Nothing new here.

Hope you had a nice St. Patty's Day! We had some neighbors over to make rainbow necklaces with Froot Loops. It was fun. I tried making some green popcorn too (from ourbestbites) with lime jello. To be honest, I wasn't a big fan and my kids weren't really either. But now I know! We had made some brownies the night before, so we had those with some mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert. Yum!

Catch Up

We went to St. George last month over President's Day weekend. We left on Valentine's Day around 3 pm. We picked up Justin from work on our way and headed down. Molly and Justin both had Monday off, so it was a good opportunity.

We had lots of fun, crammed into just a few short days. We went on a walk.

Found pinecones.

We stayed with Justin's grandparents. They come down from Star Valley and rent this house for 6 months every year. We try to come down at least once while they are here if we can! We have 2 bedrooms and a bathroom of our own, so it works out really well.

We tried out some yummy places, like Swig! This was our first time going. They have yummy treats and drinks. There were about 10 cars in line when we pulled up! Crazy.

We went to Dixie Rock and climbed around. The kids really loved it! (This pic was taken on my camera phone and there is something funny on the screen, so don't be concerned about Justin's lip!).

Jackson wanted to do everything on his own!

With a golf club in hand, of course.

Molly was our brave girl and wanted to keep climbing higher and higher.

They were excited to find this little "house" as they called it.

Great Grandpa teaching Jackson how to golf. The kids had so much fun talking to grandma and grandpa! It was really cute.

It was so nice on Sunday and Monday when we left!

There is a golf course in their backyard, so we liked to go out and watch the golfers.

The girls both wanted a picture :)

Another favorite for us is the Bear Paw. Breakfast is to die for!

The girls loving it too.

On our way out, grandpa took us for rzr rides!

Everyone loved it! We had such a great time, we just wished that we could have stayed another couple days! Thanks to Justin's grandparents for having us! 

A couple of weeks ago we visited a new member of the extended family...

Justin's brother, Brad, bought a dog he named Barkley!

His roommate also got a dog. This is Gage. The kids all loved the dogs. They are 7 weeks old here. They were really sleepy still :)

We celebrated my dad's birthday at Dickey's for lunch on his birthday, Feb. 28th. We love you so much dad!! We had all of the family who lives in UT here for it (minus my bil).

Sewing and Projects--

I made some new dress ups. Elsa and Anna from Frozen. My girls have been singing the songs like every other girl in America I think!! They love the movie and the songs.

These were really pretty easy to make. I got the Elsa one finished first and then a couple of weeks later I finally finished the Anna one! I made them pretty big so they can grow with the girls.

I've had this shamrock for I think 4 or 5 years now. I bought it at the Wood Connection and have slowly worked on it but never completely finished it. I hate it when I have unfinished projects! I decided that this was the year and I HAD to get it done! My sweet neighbor gave me the cute little balls.

 I wanted to use them somehow, but couldn't quite figure out just what to do to make them look good.

I finally came up with this. I went and found the gold tulle and the cute green chevron ribbon and had the balls hang on the wire at the top. I'm just glad it's DONE!!


We are getting new neighbors next door and there are about 10 houses that are going up right by us! When we moved in, nothing was happening, but now it is booming! The only window where we can see what's happening next door is this window in our master bathroom.

I put Jackson up there on the edge of the tub when I saw the tractor out digging. Little boy heaven!


Molly has been talking about wanting to cut her hair. I don't really blame her because I have to do it and it is so snarly because it is so LONG! It has been fun having it super long, but it was time.

She thought it would be a good idea to donate her hair to someone. So yesterday we went to Great Clips who happened to be having a hair cut sale and we did it! 

You need 10 inches to donate to locks of love. They put in a ponytail and then cut it off. I have the hair and we will mail it this week!

Here she is! I think it turned out really cute! She likes it and has been excited to show anyone she knows ;) Last night she was saying she was a bit sad, but I think it's because she is thinking it's too short to do any hairstyles now, but I explained it's still long enough to braid and do fun things.

That's what we've been up to the last month or so!