Camping!!

So we want camping, last open weekend before they closed the campgrounds. It was uncle Thad's great idea and I tagged along with my girls. Leaving Calvin home with Ben was the best decision we made. Not having gone camping a lot in the last 6 years, we forgot some things that would have been helpful, but I think we had lots of fun anyway.

S'mores

Cuddling up in the tent. Eliza did actually spend most of the night in my sleeping bag, in fact she spent the last several hours with her head down at my feet. At least she was warm. I had to take a significant nap later that afternoon.

Thad took more pictures. We were not alone for our trip, uncle Jethro and Anders came up for an hour in the afternoon, we did some exploring. Then Ben and Calvin came up while we were cooking s'mores to throw rocks into the fire. Then cousin Lizzie and her friend Sarah S. came up as we were getting ready for bed. They camped overnight with us and joined us for breakfast and packing up in the morning. 

It was pretty fun and the girls enjoyed it, I hope we will do it more next summer.

Gramma Day

Once a week or so we spend the afternoon at Grammas house, yesterday was a very good Gramma day.

We pulled up to see all the leaves on the grass. We just HAD to rake them up and do some leaf jumping. Then we finished up by burying Grampa and Anna in leaves.

After dinner, Gramma had a special surprise for dessert - caramel apples! We got to dip them in caramel and chocolate then roll them in Oreo crumbs! Delish. Just like Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

We love our Gramma Zoo and Bampa Bus.

Birthday Day

For her birthday we planned an extra-fun filled day. After lunch we went to the Curiosity Museum and Children's Garden. For these two little ones, the museum is about an hour and the garden was about an hour. The outdoor classroom - or whatever they call it, is a highly underrated part of their establishment. Despite the chill in the air, they had a blast.

After school got out we got in the car with Anna and one neighborhood friend and went down to Kangaroo Zoo where the cousins met us. They ran and jumped for a solid hour and had so much fun. We came back to the house and had pizza and cake - my sister makes amazing cakes, and this one blew us away.

Rainbow Dash Piñata Cake

Isn't that awesome?! And it tasted amazing!

Last Day as a 3 year old

Today was Eliza's last day as a 3 year old. Lets be honest, she's a pretty amazing 3 year old. She has really hit her stride this year, it will be sad to go almost a whole year without a 3 year old in the house.
So today as her last day as a 3 year old, here is what she did:

• ate toast - asked for additional breakfast foods that she didn't eat
• took snacks to Preschool
• got a birthday present from her teacher
• ate all the candy in the birthday present from her teacher
• played outside - hit wiffle balls, swung, jumped on the trampoline, helped me pick weeds
• played a card game
• reminded us all 50 times that it was her birthday tomorrow
• sat through 1/4 of a reading lesson
• scrubbed toilets and shower door
• watched TV
• ate dinner (tikka masala with rice and naan) followed by ice cream
• brushed teeth and went to bed

Pretty full schedule, if you think about it.

So on to tomorrow, where we will have a 4 year old and entirely new dynamic in the family. I hope we can handle it. It has been quite a long time since we had a 4 year old around.

Hanging Elk

Safety first!

I conned Thad into helping me hang my giant elk. He is the very best.

Doesn't it look smashing? It is fantastic.

Busy weekend, house pics

We had a very stressful week and a very productive weekend of getting the house into living-shape. So here are a few pics with explanation

This area shall henceforth be known as the Command Center it is a built in desk kitchen-adjacent - the center of everything, so mom doesn't forget everything - just occasional things.

This is our new living space, also kitchen adjacent, we are so happy to finally have some seating, a tv and how about that rug! Love it.

We got the long lost other half of our couch - I recovered our half of it in the gray fabric 6 months ago, now it looks like I have another project to start on. This is the "front room" aka the home teacher room. But that couch is one of the most comfortable in the house.

Behind the couches are new bookshelves and the piano. (And a pile of unhung art) Not pictured here: boxes and boxes of books to unpack.

In conclusion, Ben also found time to bake cookies for us today, which I used in place of making dinner - win-win!

Back to IKEA

Now THIS is what you can accomplish when you don't have kids with you. Boo-yah!

At Ikea

It was very AMBITIOUS of me to take two little kids to IKEA with me.

It was very FOOLISH of me not to take a stroller to IKEA with me.

It was quite ADMIRABLE how I was able to make accurate decisions with two little kids at IKEA.

It was UNBELIEVABLE that I loaded up 4 heavy boxes of shelf-pieces into a cart at IKEA while two little kids had to trail behind.

It was GENIUS of me not to try to buy a couch while I had 2 little kids, 4 boxes of shelving and no stroller while at IKEA.

Another day I will go to IKEA with no kids and try to buy a couch instead.

Old video of Eliza

This is Eliza about 10 days before she turned 2

remember how she only said "blu"? and slurping for a drink? so cute

Summer Picnic

These pics are from our first week in our house - we took a break from unpacking and Anna made us a picnic to share in the backyard under a beautiful shade tree.

Playhouse

So our new house has this awesome 2 story cottage playhouse - but it needs some work, so this is the "before" picture. It has a broken window and was basically a bug and spider habitat for a few years. And weeds all around in the pavers.

First assignment was vacuuming it out. It has carpets on the floors (main floor the carpet is laid on top of brick pavers) and upstairs I had never seen quite so many fly/bee/wasp carcasses, but they all vacuumed up and it is no longer scary to go in. Thank goodness

Next was blocking the window. Eliza helped me tape up some plastic. 

There is lots to do- I am planning to let the girls make a lot of design decisions, so it may end up looking worse, but at least they will feel included.

Space

"Mommy look! I drew space!"

Upon further questioning she admitted that space is actually blue. But I still like the picture. And the artist.

Craziest First Day

This little munchkin started preschool this morning! She was so excited. We had to spend 10 minutes looking for her backpack, then she couldn't find one of her new shoes so we spent 20 minutes there and still didn't find it. Then I had to scramble to write her teachers check and take the obligatory picture and get her in the car. I left Calvin and Anna home - and gave Anna instruction to leave at X:XX figuring I would be back before then. Unfortunately, I was not and when I got home the garage door and the front door were left open. As I began gathering my own breakfast I noticed Anna's lunchbox still on the counter and her backpack still on the stairs. So I grabbed Calvin and a hair elastic (remembering what she looked like when I left for preschool and hoping she had at least changed her clothes) and we jumped on the car with the backpack. We found her walking towards us at the end of the block. So I did her hair, gave her the backpack and drove her back to the school. Then I finally got home to have my breakfast and enjoy 2.5 hours home with just Calvin.

Picking Eliza up from preschool was one of the most redemptive moments ever. She came out of the door, scanned the crowd of moms and spotted me. She shouted "MY MOM!" to nobody in particular as she started running as fast as her short little legs could carry her and I stood on the sidewalk- arms out ready to catch her as she jumped into my arms. We were both smiling like crazy, so happy she has entered a new chapter in her life, and so have I.

1st grade

My first child is off to all day school, she is so excited. She has a few friends she knows in her class, but I'm sure by the end of the day, they will all be besties.

And I hope by then end of the day she will be exhausted.

New House

I haven't been blogging because I feel like I should post something about our housing adventures - they were not great.
We moved out of our house in the first week of July and went to stay in my awesome aunt and uncle's basement. They are incredible for letting us do this with no indication of when we would find a house and move out. It was great.
We were there for 5 weeks. About 3 weeks in we decided to go for broke on our dream house and we got it and closed in record time and were able to move in last weekend.
This is a truly thrilling account, is it not?

Anyway, what is important is that we are here in this beautiful house and we have no regrets. Prayers were continually answered and I look around and just think about how much I love this house and I hope we can stay here for a long long time.

Today is not the day for pictures, but maybe later.

Works every time

Bucket of water + sidewalk chalk

Works every time 

Calvin

Calvin is so cute and hilarious lately.

He is getting the hang of talking, so all day he learned new words (eat, hug), and tried to make up some of his own. He likes talking. A lot.

Whenever the phone rings or the doorbell rings he says "HI"

Whenever he gives a hug (which he can do on command now), he says "oooooh"

He is a wanderer, we went to a friends house for a BBQ, there were over 10 kids there and it was pretty crazy. suddenly a concerned neighbor yells over the fence "are you missing a little guy? There's a little guy running down the sidewalk" I knew immediately it was Calvin. I ran out of the house and he was just a speck in the distance - 7 houses later, I caught up to him. He was unrepentant.
Today I took him outside and just followed him as he walked down the street, through an alleyway to the track behind our house, across several soccer fields to the elementary school playground. After he played we started back and after walking that far, he expected me to carry him all the way back! He was disappointed.

Girls camp 2014

I went to Girls Camp last week at Heber Valley and it was the best. Great weather, great young women and leaders, fun, spiritual - all the good stuff.

I got to organize the 2nd year hike for the stake - they are supposed to go 5 miles, so I planned this big hike and according to the numbers on the map it was just under 5.5 miles. Nobody got lost, everybody finished, it was beautiful, we hiked up and down two mountains. When we got back, one of the leaders with a gps watch said it was over 6 miles. -oops. But the fact that they all did it without complaining was amazing.

I <3 girls camp.

Mixed bag

So yesterday was a mixed bag.

Chronologically: a fish died-

Our house finally got an offer-

Ben came home from a work trip-

Anna threw up right before I had to leave-

We found out the house we were eyeing was already under contract-

We have a full month planned without house hunting, but I feel like if we can survive June, we might survive anything.

Face painting

After helping me in the yard one Saturday I took the girls to the craft store as a reward. We had a hard time finding two things under $5 so they decided to pool their money and get a face painting kit.

This had been a long time coming, since we went to the circus and I told them if they would stop asking to get their faces painted, I would buy them their own face paints. 6 months ago.

So Anna painted Eliza's face first

Then Eliza painted my face

And I painted Anna's face.

The next day we took the paints to Grammas house and Anna painted her cousin Lincoln's face, she did a very good job turning him into Spider-Man all by herself. We may have praised her a bit too highly because on the drive home she decided she could set up a face painting booth on our driveway and earn a bunch of money painting all the neighbor kids faces. She went to school on Monday ready to tell all her friends to come over after lunch to get their faces painted and -

They did. Anna didn't charge them anything and she even let them paint each other. It was a solid 3 hour face paint extravaganza. 

Eliza kept her witch face all day until she could show daddy

This was from another day, she let her friend paint a goatee, it was pretty funny.

So if you need something to do this summer, set up a face painting booth! 

But not on our street, this is our turf!