Elmo Shoes
I have a little guy who constantly wants to be on the go. He has started grabbing his "Elmo Shoes" and trying to head for the door to clue us in when he is ready to go outside. If we don't follow his demands he almost immediately has a melt down in front of the door.
Life with an almost two year old.
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May projects and a Freebie!
I try and work a couple of months in advance for all my assignments for Scrapbook News and Review so when I actually can share I often forget since I created them quite awhile ago. Here are some that I did in March/April for May.
This layout has been hanging around even longer. It is the first layout I used my Silhouette Cameo for clear back in February. Had lots of fun creating the circles background/title in Photoshop. Just love that machine!
I thought I would offer up the file if anyone would like to use it
One final share with some Fancy Pants Designs product. It's taken me a long time to want to scrapbook this picture. It was hard to look at since I was just so tired when they snapped it. I had been up for almost 26 hours straight and it's no wonder I have such huge bags under my eyes. So very glad now that I have this photo it's priceless.
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This is how we Sonic and a birthday boy!
I've started this post about 4 times: I get sidetrack with something else that is more immediate or I figure it's really not that interesting and end up deleting what I've typed. But since it's been too long I thought I should probably write a post I won't delete.
Last night Family Night ended at Sonic for half price shakes. It's becoming a really, really bad, but oh so yummy habit. I won't even tell you how many shakes we've sampled since summer started.
Chocolate for the little guy and Cherry cheesecake for the big.
Oreo cheesecake for the biggest boy.
Lemonberry cream slush for me.
Two boys hopped up on sugar at 8:30 at night.
Good times!
Also this boy turns eleven today!!! Unfreakin' believable!
He gets to spend half of the day at summer camp with friends but when he comes home tonight he has requested Navajo Tacos for dinner. The big friend party will be Friday.
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Family Fun Day - Salt Lake City
Another Family Fun Day!
This time around I did a little behind the scenes work for the three older kiddos. I put together activity/scavenger hunt books, snack, water bottle, and pen and placed them in some recycled t-shirt bags.
The t-shirt bags were made out of some old t-shirts Wes had grown out of and were super simple to put together. The books were filled with all sorts of activities to do on the way down: tic-tac-toe, word searches, and the like. The scavenger hunt portion was a list of 40 items. Some were places they needed to have their picture taken. Others were fill in the blanks or questions that they needed to find answers to through out the day. Each item had a point value some 1, 2, 5 and a few worth 10 points.
To start out our day we rode Frontrunner to Salt Lake City.
Apparently pay phones are such a novelty item anymore that Wes spent quite a few minutes looking at it, asking questions, and then played on it.
Checking out the items in their books.
Not great quality, but love this photo of the two goons.
Once off the train we climbed onto Trax and headed to downtown Salt Lake.
First stop the Church History Museum.
"Picture with flowers" was crossed each of their lists before we went inside.
In front of a covered wagon. Part of the exhibit about church history and the journey to the Salt Lake Valley.
Another item on their list - "Have a picture taken of you in the ship bunks".
Little guy was having a hard time and ended up having a melt down on the floor. We made our way to the new Children's Exhibit and life got a little easier.
The two bigs crossed off another item doing this dance.
The two littles playing with the large building blocks.
Fishing off Nephi's boat.
We finished up at the Church History Museum and walked across the street to Temple Square. Another item on their list was to "make a wish and throw a penny into the fountain".
We were short a penny and in the photo below Brandon went diving for one. lol! His sleeve was wet through lunch and for quite awhile after.
We walked through Temple Square and over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for lunch at The Garden Restaurant. We had quite the wait and Dad reminded us numerous times that we could have already been done if we had gone to JB's. While waiting we enjoyed the view of Temple Square and tried to keep the kids out of the fountain.
After lunch we walked down the street and toured The Beehive house. I'm pretty sure the sister missionaries couldn't wait for us to leave. ;) We really took our time creating our own tour along the way.
During the course of the day I was constantly helped with Thomas and the stroller. It was so nice. The older two often even argued over who was going to push Thomas around.
While waiting for a married couple to finish up pictures we took some of our own by the fountain at the Church Office building.
Once the couple had finished up we took pictures in front of the temple with a few props mom brought.
We walked to the reflection pond where the kids did a last minute scramble to get as many items crossed off their lists as possible. The gates to the temple were closed because of all the wedding parties so they climbed up to see if they could still count the number of steps on the temple.
After a few people got splashed with water (poor mom the innocent bystander) and to avoid the heat we escaped to a shadier area and the kids counted up their points.
Wesley was the winner and picked this puzzle as his prize.
Second place was Kiya (photobomb courtesy of Wes).
and Third was Taylee. She picked out a red glow in the dark mouth guard.
Wes pulled ahead in the end not by doing more than everyone but because he played the higher point questions. Two of which were asking Grandpa and Grandma their favorite childhood memory. Each was worth 10 points.
We headed out getting back on Trax and out to meet Frontrunner. Now what I didn't plan in all of my prep was to plan the trip home better. When we got to the train platform we had a 54 minute wait until the train would arrive. So what do you do when you have 4 tired kids to keep entertained for almost an hour? If you are lucky enough you have a clown for a grandma; she will pull out a bag of balloons and you get to sword fight on the platform with weird balloon hats on!
By the end we had 5 swords, a couple of guns, utility belts to hold all the weapons, a grenade, two shoulder parrots, nunchukes, two bow and arrows, two hats, a gnat, and a hook.
People that showed up waiting either a) walked past us and totally ignored us or b) stood at a distance and laughed hysterically. We had great fun!
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It's Friday and some Fancy Pants!
It hasn't been a bad week, just a rather long week. Glad it's the weekend and even though Wes ran in the house after school and was gone again in a matter of moments (those tweens!) it will be nice to spend some down time with the other two boys. Even hoping to squeeze in a little creative time tonight.
Before I scrounge up some dinner for the troops I thought I would share a card I put together for Scrapbook News and Reviews blog this week - it uses lots of Fancy Pants Designs goodies.
I've been inspired by all the mixed media and went out and purchased a jar of gesso. I was a little apprehensive to actually use it, but i really like the result on this card when paired with the Artist Edition Stencils. I think I'll be playing with that again very soon.
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Birdsong Trail
It's that time of year again when we head outside for Cubs. Our cubmaster found a little trail in Ogden and after looking through the reviews we decided to try it out. It's only a mile long and not too steep. We had to shush the boys a few times to actually hear them, but the birds are plentiful and you can hear them chirping along the whole trail.
One of the overlooks has a little meadow that is full of wild flowers, cactus, and sage brush.
For privacy reasons I'm not posting the crazy group shots of the boys, they were sure on one.
I really do enjoy this calling.
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I survived another Mother's Day
My feet hurt, I'm lacking in sleep, and I could really use a vacation.
I tried to figure out how many cakes I decorated this year. It's around 60 - 65 for Saturday, Sunday, and today.
With that said though I never really enjoy Mother's Day. I really never do anything to make the Mother's in my life feel special either and for that I'm sorry. Because I really have some great moms who look after and love me.
I even made this card (with plans to make a few more) and it's still sitting here.
Happy Belated Mother's Day to all my moms. Love you all!
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Happy National Scrapbook Day!
Yes, there is a day set aside to celebrate scrapbooking. I might not actually get anything done at my desk today thanks to the many Mother's Day cakes I need to frost, but wanted to acknowlege this wonderful holiday :)
Sweet Boy: As seen in the April issue of Scrapbook News and Review.
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Family Fun Day - Antelope Island
Or what might forever be referred to as the day the biting gnats attacked! I kid not.
Our second family fun day took place on Saturday. The plan was to meet and then drive out to the island for kite flying and picnic. I was late getting back from work however and the meeting up didn't take place until after the kite flying and even then if we wouldn't have received the voice mail we might have just gone home.
The warning at the park gate should have given us a clue: Warning, biting gnats!
After driving out to the island our family headed over to the north side where the picnic/campground areas are located. We drove around looking for my dad's car and after not seeing it we decided to get out and venture down to the beach to get a little closer to the small herd of buffalo. I wanted to get a better shot with the camera.
Notice how miserable they look. We had taken just a few steps out of the car when swarms started appearing around our heads. They went in our hair, ears, eyes, and even mouth. Thomas lost his shoe in the sand and ended up falling down. When we looked back he had what appeared to be a black cloud around his head. Poor kid was trying to swap them away and getting so frustrated.
I took this picture
and then we ran for the car.
Swatting and itching the whole way.
At this point I didn't know what to do. We realized that Brandon didn't have Mom or Dad's number in his phone. And cell reception was crap so what to do . . . we drove around a bit more and then headed back around hoping to find them. We finally got a voice mail and text of where they were and headed south to the ranch.
We showed up itchy and starving, but hopped out of the car and enjoyed a quick lunch (gnat free!!) before walking around the ranch. I'd never been here before, but loved the surrounding area.
You can go on a little walking tour and see the main house and outbuildings and even go horse back riding.
The kids enjoyed seeing the horses.
Then we did a lot of walking around and took lots and lots of photos.
Just look at the mountains in the distance. I would LOVE to go out again and do a serious photo shoot out there with some beautiful evening light.
What is Brandon doing? Good question, he tends to pose weird for pictures . . . often ;)
Pumping water with a hand pump.
Then Thomas was off with daddy in tow.
I went and grabbed the tripod and my family endured me getting a group shot.
Apparently I think I'm bigger than I am and left myself plenty of room in the frame . . .
Every time Thomas was let down he went running for the tractor.
Kirk, Kami, and Decklan had to leave but the rest of us stayed and headed into a woody area. The kids climbed all over the fallen trees. It was like a natural jungle gym.
The little guy wanted in on the action.
Dad and Gayle enjoying the "veranda".
The day had started warming up and sitting in the shade with the slight breeze blowing was heavenly.
Love this picture, but so annoyed that I didn't have a higher aperature since my dad isn't in focus.
Thomas getting cranky. Dad let him down and he took off again. I went to go follow him, but dad took over. Thomas headed straight for the tractor again and Grandpa followed him all the way down.
This, this is why I love our family fun days. My boys get to develop a relationship with my dad and mom. We haven't always been close, but we are more than making up for that now.
We headed out after this picture. But before we drove off we got the pleasure of watching three grown men try and wrangle gas into our car (Dumb me underestimated how much gas it would take to get there and back and Brian ended up bringing us more just to make sure we got home ok). It was quite the sight. :O)
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