Happy Pioneer Day!

Happy Pioneer Day! In honor of the pioneers, we are all sick (mine has turned into a lung infection probably because of asthma, and I hope M's doesn't, since he has asthma too) but despite it have been doing some fun things here and there. Last week was the annual primary bike parade. The boys had fun decorating their bike and scooter. M was way out in front and enjoyed it a lot. This was way different from last year, where I pushed him on a trike. We should have just pulled E in a wagon again this year, because he didn't even make it out of the first cul-de-sac, and the DH had to carry him and his scooter several blocks to where I was watching in the shade to drop off the scooter and helmet. Oh well, I'm sure next year he'll be tearing around on a bike. Last Saturday, my awesome dad, husband, and dad's friend moved my shed to the cement pad that was once a dog run. It makes way more sense than having a shed on rocks and an empty cement pad. THANKS guys!

From Saturday until Wednesday, we were in Boise enjoying Grammy & Pops, cousins, and all the fun activities there. The kids enjoyed a playzone called Rafiki, Carl's Jr. with a great playplace, swimming in the neighborhood pool a few times, and the boise zoo. We had a great meal with the family there and it was good to just have a few days of not cleaning or worrying about my home and yard. Of course, the MIL and I managed to fit in a few quilt shops during the visit.

We have slowed down since coming home (mostly going to dr. visits) but managed to buy a box of sparklers and light them in our backyard tonight in celebration of Pioneer Day. The boys each managed to burn themselves, leading me to re-evaluate how smart it is to give burning sticks to little kids. (not that the tradition will be squelched at all, I'm sure) And in case you are wondering how I am feeling at 30 weeks pregnant in July- the answer is VERY HOT.


Pre-parade jitters
M getting ahead of the flag scouts and motorcycles because he knew ice cream was waitingThe scooter and boy being carried several blocks on a VERY hot day

Moving the shed using pipes and boards and rolling it across the yard

There it is! (Please ignore the weeds, it's too hot to weed!)
Seeing if he's taller than an emperor penguin, decides he will be when he's 6 like cousin E.
Driving the cool jeep in the Africa area- E was very patient waiting for his turn after the other 4

These are the 5 cousins (out of 8) that went to the zoo, it was a fun time!

M and his cousin B are very close and had a lot of fun- they are only 8 days apart in age


Little Pyro #1
Little Pyro #2
Pyro #1 icing his neckPyro #2 running cold water over a burnt foot

July Happenings

It's been a usual busy July here, with 4th festivities, swimming lessons, a lot of bike riding and Popsicle eating, and a ward camp out.

Fireworks at Grandma & Grandpa's and the Centerville Parade.
The annual picnic where my brother Chase's band, Bandolier, plays each year.

Davis Fireworks, complete with chicken fight, and the Farmington Festival Days parade.

(below): Swimming lessons last week and this week, lunch at McD's, chillin' at Grandma's while Daddy installs a ceiling fan, and the ward camp out.


This month there is still a lot more to come with a trip to Boise, a bike parade, pioneer day fun, and my birthday! I have been doing a ton of sewing on top of it all (and growing a baby) so not much on the blog side of things. Maybe I'll get around to taking pictures of the millions of things I've been sewing and post them here, but usually I give them all away before I remember. I won't forget to post a picture of N's quilt when I'm done with it, though.

See my vest, see my vest, made of real gorilla chest.....

I just had to do a whole post dedicated in its entirety to THE VEST. We were shopping at the DI a week or so ago and E saw this from afar and shouted "Mommy, you have to go over there!" It was love at first sight. I told him it was too small as he promptly whipped it off the hanger and started wrestling his right arm into it, but he couldn't hear me, he was in another place.

That place was apparently somewhere where he envisioned himself wearing said vest 24-7 with anything and everything. Pajamas, basketball shorts, church clothes, swimsuit, clone wars undies, nothing, you get the picture. The DH could not refuse the purchase, and at the register it was even unexpectedly 1/2 off the $4 touted on the price tag.

He is proud to wear his vest, and protests loudly when forced to wear a shirt underneath, as he feels it should count as a top unto itself. He even creatively requested a tank-top undershirt under it this morning. He wasn't happy when I told him that didn't count either.

One night (he was wearing the vest of course) while hiking in a cemetery with my parents and brother (I know.?) it started to rain violently and his vest got soaking wet. After that near-fatal incident and subsequent drying period he is now very protective of it and even took it off today at the farmers market when it was getting a bit wet.

This vest is niiiiiiiiiiiiiicccccceeee! (while rubbing it up and down repeatedly)


And the backside


He says that when it gets too little for him (ha) he is going to give it to M. The funny part is that actually makes sense, since M tried it on and it was a whole lot easier to snap up.

But not a real green dress, that's cruel.....

Ignore the fact that I'm big as a house and have no make-up on and focus on the dress. This is what I spent most of yesterday doing. I made mock-ups of two dresses I had using an old sheet that had torn. The first looked like a mu-mu, and it is now my new nightgown. The second was just crooked and bizarre looking. Finally, out of sheet, I decided to do the third and final dress using the green linen I had gotten to make the dress. It was kind of scary, since if I messed up the fabric was shot. I used a pattern I had gotten when I was 18. It was several sizes too small and definitely NOT a maternity pattern. It was a lot of cutting up the pattern and reshaping, measuring again and again, etc.. I made the front way longer and it still goes up in the front! Oh well, in the end I was pretty happy with how it turned out. E said it was a Peter Pan dress. I think it looks better in real life, but maybe I just have a better image of myself in my head!

Happy Birthday Hon!

I just had to post a quick Happy 30th birthday to my DH. He turned 30 yesterday and we had a great time celebrating with him at a LEGO-themed party. Here it is:

The Elves, the Shoemakers, and the Mosaics

So, the other day DH and I got our shipment in the mail from the shoe company Simple. We had found a whole bunch of shoes for $4-6 each, and since they run wide enough for us, we ordered 5 pair, 3 for me, 2 for him. Anyway, as I looked into the box, I realized we had not read the fine print on a few of the pairs. We each had a kit that looked like this:


Apparently, we were going to be sewing our own shoes. (probably why they were under $4) If you know us at all, you'll realize that this was not really a problem or disappointment for us, and the DH wanted to do it that night. It was harder than the instructional DVD made it look, and one of mine looks much worse than the other, but it was fun and they actually do work and fit. By the end of the night I had both finished, but was really bruised and had some blisters. DH finished his other one the next day (his are a tad bigger than mine) So now if you see our lights on late at night, you know that we are probably staying up late doing something awesome like making shoes. Here are a few pictures of us doing it.




Today the kids wanted in on the family arts-and-crafts and I decided to teach them about Mosaics. We read a bit about them, checked out some famous examples, then they tried their hands at making their own out of barley, rice, and pasta we had dyed. They did a great job and had a ton of fun!

Memorial Day Weekend

Yeah, I'm just getting to that now. I'm sure most of you have, by now, forgotten about Memorial Weekend altogether. Since then, my kids were sick with some sort of gross thing probably caught at a local pool. Needless to say, I have spent my last while doing amazing amounts of laundry and buying pull-ups and Pedialyte. Enough said.

So, Memorial Weekend we got to hang out with my Aunt and Uncle and cousins from Olympia whom we haven't seen in quite a while. When we lived in WA, we saw them all the time, so it's weird that it had been so long. We had a cookout on Friday night, then breakfast on Saturday. After breakfast, we headed up to Park City where everyone (except me- I opted out) rode the Alpine Slide. It was the first time for most and they really liked it. We had a picnic at the city park, which has a really cool playground. Shopping on Main St. was cut short mostly due to pouring rain.
We went back to SL, where we met Aunty Ann for some baby shopping (we got a clip-on high chair for nameless one) and a nice dinner at the Dodo in Sugarhouse. The kids were pretty beat by the end of all this, but still wanted to go to the ward swimming party. We rushed home, changed them into their suits, and got there right as it started. It was that night, a few hours after they got to bed, that all the mayhem began. DH taught EQ the next day, so I had to scramble and get a sub (for the second week in a row) for my assignments that day so I could stay home to do said laundry.

By the next day (Monday) we decided M was okay to go to the graduation for our preschool (which was at our house) We spent pretty much the whole day cleaning the house and getting balloons and such ready for the graduation. I made a video of their school year (we moms took a lot of pictures- how convenient!) and we watched that, did the whole hat/certificate thing, and enjoyed a Sundae bar. Unfortunately, the one girl in their class got stuck camping and couldn't make it. E was sadly trucked off to Grandma and Grandpas house to be sick over there so we didn't infect anyone. It was a fun night.

(I think H, the middle boy, learned a few poses from some teenage girls or something, he kept looking over his shoulder like that and making serious faces just like I've seen my sister do!)


It took the boys really the rest of the week to begin eating again, and E lost a lot of weight and was easier to carry around for a bit. He is now back to eating during all waking hours like normal. This past weekend, we worked a lot on the yard, getting bark and flowers in and chopping down 3 cottonwoods and buying a peach tree. Someday our yard will be much more how we like it!

I had to include this, although it has nothing to do with anything. E was watching me get dressed this morning and when I had on my panel pants, but no shirt he asked what that dark thing was on my belly. I told him it was a special stretchy part of my pants so my belly could grow. He said "For my next birthday, I would like some kids sized ones of those." When I asked him why he replied, "Because then everyone would think I was so funny, mommy." M has said a lot of really funny things lately, but I have been forgetting to write them down, and darn if my pregnant brain can remember anything at all these days!