Errands vs Online shopping

Sometimes I need to buy a certain objects that I would have to leave the house and drive to a specific store other than the grocery store to buy. Sometimes I look these things up online to see how much I should expect it to cost, what the packaging looks like and do some quick comparison shopping.

Then I sit back and try to calculate when I could go run this very quick errand. I could go with Eliza and Calvin, but that is so involved. We have a very nice, tailored schedule at home that we could go on living without interrupting and we would be very happy. Leaving the house involves sock and shoe finding, snack packing, whining, car seat buckling, question answering, debating answers to said questions, fighting over the radio and many other annoyances.

Then I think about when I could possibly go without them and the answer is - after bedtime IF my husben is home and IF i'm not too tired (which I always am) and IF I am still reasonably dressed and then IF that store is still open.

Then I order it online and it arrives 2 days before I could have ever attempted to leave the house.

Zoo day Monday

No school on Monday led to a trip to the zoo. Lovely day, lots to see, including a brand new baby orangutan! He is so cute.(not pictured)

Calvin was initially terrified but eventually totally enamored with the train ride. He keeps asking to go back to the zoo so we can ride the train.

7 year old birthday

Anna turned 7 last weekend and we celebrated the crap out of it. Her birthday party was really fun-

11 girls painting and creating and having fun together

And the really stupendous cake that my sister made her- four layers, each a different color, hollowed out and filled with hundreds of colored chocolate balls!

I wish I had a picture of us cutting it open  it was amazing and the girls were really liked it.

Here are all the artists with their original paintings.

Motherhood is

Motherhood is: collaboration on a Pippi Longstocking costume half an hour before school to celebrate literacy week. And letting her wear my basketball shoes to school.

Playhouse remodel II

With Anna's birthday approaching and the magnificent weather we've been having, I have been hard at work on remodeling the playhouse. I took the gross carpet out and found this- a pretty ok brick paver floor. I then set up a bug bomb and cleared out for the day. When we came back I vacuumed it all out and called in my reinforcements - my dad and brother to help me with the next phase-

Putting in a floor. Here it is all framed up.

Here it is after, needs a rug or something but I like it much more than the pavers. 

Today I replaced the rotting trim boards around the outside of the playhouse. I think it is coming along nicely, next step is caulking every crack to keep bugs out, then painting. Can't wait!

Bean Museum

I finally got around to seeing the new Monte L Bean museum at BYU. I like what they've done but there are not half as many stuffed animals to see as there used to be.

Here the kids were petting a stuffed (taxidermied) penguin that was being shown. They also got to touch a tiger head, hippo tusks, various skins, and porcupine quills.

My favorite was the insect display, that butterfly is made up of hundreds of smaller butterflies - even the antennae!

At the end of our visit they had a live animal program teaching us about the diversity of Utah. It was great for Anna, the others were less enthused. But they had a live box turtle, a snake and a tarantula! And Anna touched them all. List of lifelong dreams, you are now half as long.

Couch reveal!

I finally finished my big sewing project and I am elated, relieved and amazed that it is finally done. It has been on my mind every day since we moved in, like 6 months ago, and now it's done!

Before- (also before we hung pictures or unpacked books)

Very brown. And here is the couch last night at 12:30 am when I put it all back together-

It's done! It's not perfect but there is not a bit of brown floral scratchy fabric to be seen and I am so happy.

And I bought exactly the right amount of fabric and was left with only scraps. So perfect. So happy.

Love Test

Any time I am involved in something just for me, computer time or reading or just sitting for a minute, Eliza hunts me down, sidles up, evaluates the situation and says "I'm hungry". It doesn't matter if I just made her a lunch that she only ate half, or if there is food sitting out on the counter that she can eat. What she is doing is saying "Do you love me more than you love reading that book? Prove it."
However, her testing methodology is flawed because she doesn't actually leave me alone until she has completely derailed any of my me-time, gotten a snack and pulled me gently but persistently into her world to play dolls or whatever. She is, as I'm sure most 4 year olds are, totally merciless.

Instagram dump

I wanted to do a nice, subject driven blog post but have been short on inspiration. So here are a bunch of pictures mostly reused from other social media platforms, so sorry if you have already seen them.

We guerrilla decorated Gramma's Christmas tree while she was out of the house. Eliza got right in there and did the bottom levels all by herself.

Anna climbed her first tree! She had been asking to climb trees since she was a toddler but I always said she had to do it herself with no help. She did it over and over again on this day.

Hitting practice on December 7. Still waiting for snow 2 weeks later.

In the wind tunnel at the Curiosity Museum. Eliza kept going in over and over and turning it up and up.

Calvin in a bow-tie. So handsome.

I took Calvin to "Puppy Barn" just to look. If life were perfect, this little boy would have a 4-legged companion to run around with. But his parents are not willing at the moment.

Competing Goals

Are you the type of person that makes goals as a form of motivation? I guess I am, but at the moment some of my goals are at odds with each other.

My Fitbit drives me toward a goal of 10,000 steps a day with a higher goal of losing weight.

I have another goal to read X number of books by the end of the year that I am woefully far from achieving. These two goals are hard to reconcile. Because, silly me, I like to read curled up in a chair or couch, this cuts down on any walking or movement beyond turning the page.

I also have a sewing project that is borderline important (at least to me) that is getting put on the back burner because of these other two goals (also because it is intimidating).

These are what I turn to in the roughly 2 hours of free time that I have when children are in bed. I also have a husben I am quite fond of spending time with and talking to when we are alone.

The end of the year is a silly time to be trying to build motivation. 

Halloween 2014!

We had a very happy Halloween!

Vampire teeth from Gramma

Rainbow dash, lyddi-bug, Dumbo and Elsa

Our pumpkins - we put in glow sticks instead of candles. Unfortunately we only had a handful of trick-or-treaters come by to enjoy them.

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