one extra long weekend + me with a camera = the following post

On Thursday, Brent and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. Ya, we're getting old like that. So in honor of the day (or rather in honor of not wanting to work), Brent took Thursday off and I got to go here:



with him:



It's been a while since I went to the temple, please don't ask how long, I'm too embarrassed to admit it. The Draper temple is so pretty to me. They have the best couches there in the whole world. I had to stop in the hall and sit in one just because I couldn't resist and I got a prolonged, confused look from one of the temple workers. I'm not sure why since it WAS a couch and it WAS just sitting there at the top of the stairs looking all nice and cushy and inviting, begging me to sit on it. That's what couches are for, right?

Friday we worked in the yard and then we worked in the yard and after that we worked in the yard some more. Then we went to Leslie's house for Chinese Chicken Salad (best recipe ever, I haven't had in at least 10 years) and went out for icecream for dessert. Jane got to go to a Hawaii birthday part that afternoon and has been sporting the take-home attire ever since.



She got sick of me for some reason and decided that my punishment would be to NOT look at and/or pose for the camera:



I think it was harder on her than on me.

On Saturday I recall an early morning bike ride for Brent followed by two moves and yes, more working in the yard. After that is when our weekend really started getting good. Cameroon invited us all to head over to the lake at Daybreak and enjoy an evening of live music, rootbeer from the the bottle and pulled pork sandwiches, and I was all too happy to oblige. My family didn't have a choice, but I think they liked it too.



Charlie was there, in all his glory.



Lizzy was there with her customary crusty face.



Brent is always a champ with this kind of stuff. Did I mention that I've been married to him for SEVEN YEARS? Sorry, I know that in real life it isn't all that long, it's just been a long, hard, good seven years.



This picture reminds me that I need to
A) stop wearing flip flops every single day and
B) get a pedicure.



Ben was having so much fun, he didn't want to leave. I love Ben. He's my special little buddy. I like to think that he remembers all those months that he spent at my house and he loves me for it.

No?

I'm going to think so anyway.





These are for Cam. If I had set the scene (and was an actual photographer that took decent photos) he could use these for their website. Seriously though, how pretty is this setting?

Which brings us to today. Absolutely gorgeous.





Charlie went flying.



Lizzy became embarrassed when Jane pointed out her soggy diaper. She then sheepishly made her way inside and stripped off said diaper, climbed up the stairs, scaled the changing table by herself and waited for me to come change her. And yet, she won't use a toilet. Can you tell that I'm very anxious to get on with that?

I know she's not ready because of a certain incident that occurred yesterday involving sprinklers, small children, a swimming suit, NO swim diaper, a serious mess, some gagging and hosing off in the back yard. Nope, I don't think she's ready yet.

This week is going to be hard. After a long weekend last weekend and an extra long weekend this time, I don't think anyone wants to see Brent leave for work in the morning. Back to the real world, I suppose.



(p.s.) Cam - did I get enough Daybreak links in there for you? I tried very hard. I've got your back like that.

The must see action film of the summer...

Charlie Stationary
Starring

Charles Stringham

I was talking a lot this weekend with my family about Charlie's surprising lack of mobility. For those of you that doubt his inability to even roll over at the ripe old age of 8 months, I am providing you with the following documentation.



Nope, no mobility at all. Just lots of screams. I'd be more concerned if I didn't spend most of my days chasing his two older sisters all over the neighborhood. It's kinda nice to have one that stays where I leave him.

And Brent and I were amused by this little video as well. If you know my baby at all, you'll know that he's a total monster when it comes to going to sleep. Just a few days ago, he was booted from his beloved swing and is now sleeping in his crib. He's been demanding to be swaddled and swinging all these months and finally we decided he was just too dang big. Anyway, considering how finicky he is about the conditions under which he'll sleep, I was amazed to see this:



I'm not sure if it is the astonishment in seeing him sleeping in the jumper or the customary 10:00 exhaustion that has set in, but right now, I have no words.

Mi Casa

My kitchen is so close to finished, I can taste it and it tastes de-licious. I thought that I had the photos of what it looked like before we moved in, but I can't find them anywhere, which is a total drag. Not that they really served a purpose, I just liked to look at them to remind myself of how much better my house is now. This is the closest thing to a "before" photo that I could find.



This photo was taken almost exactly a year ago and I apologize that my blurry, pregnant self is in the middle of it.

Can anyone tell me what's wrong with this photo?

Well... if you're looking at it through my unnecessarily hyper-critical eyes, everything. The cabinets were a very peach-y color that didn't appeal to me and they had picked the counter tops and floors to match, which made me feel like I was in a beech wood cave. The blue tile was too much for me and my more traditional taste plus, it was poorly installed and looked bad on the wall. I had replaced the hardware by the time this photo was taken, so the bar pulls were an improvement over the junk that was on there before. I know that plenty of people out there think it was great just the way it was, but, I'm sorry, I just didn't like it.

This is WAY more my style:



For the new (and improved) kitchen, we replaced the doors, added the island and the crown molding, splurged on the hardware, refinished the old butcher block counter tops and bought a new Brent-approved faucet. I think he spent too many years cleaning dishes at McDonald's, but ultimately, he got what he wanted because he does the dishes. I went from really not liking my kitchen to really REALLY liking it, a lot. Me feel happy.

And while I'm posting photos of my house, is there anyone out there that HASN'T seen my silhouettes? Well just in case...



...here is a photo of my silhouettes. Can you tell I like those too?

winner winner chicken dinner

Emily Call, come on down! You won the clips! Congratulations, now you have one more things that you can pack and move... twice :) I should have done the drawing this morning, like I said I would, so that I could have had Brent take them to Justin.

That was kinda fun. I think that I'll be doing more of these in the future because who doesn't like free stuff. I mean, it's free!

Note to Self...

Dear Laura -

I'm asking you nicely, don't buy these again.





Please.

Sincerly,

yourself

I've been holding out on you

Hello friends and family. Long time, no post. For those of you that are bothered, please accept my apologies. You see, I've been spending all my time working and by working I mean holding children, making hair clips and putting my (awesome) kitchen back together. All this work has left little time for blogging. In an effort to make it up to you, I'm going to have a giveaway.

I was surprised how many of you entered the one on the boutique blog before. I feel so pleased that you all care and I suppose it's time that I start sharing the hair clip wealth.

Here's what's up for grabs...





I didn't have the ribbon I needed to make another set like the one I already gave away, but rainbows are so pretty, so I made a tone on tone set.

I'm giving away another set like this on my Lou Lou blog and please feel free to enter that one too.

This is a set of mini clips. They are 1.25" long and are best for holding back thinner hair and bangs. I also use the "bitty" clips that are .75" long and are fab for baby hair or the alligator clip that's 1.75 inches long and work best in thicker hair or clipped into a ponytail. If you'd like a modified set on different sized clips, leave the size that you'd like in your comment and I'll make it special for you because you're special and you deserve it.

Enter for yourself, for your friend, for your grandkids, for your child to be, for whoever you want to give them to. The contest will close on Wednesday at midnight and I'll try to get the winner (that will be randomly chosen) posted Thursday morning.

Good luck!

Coming up for air

It's been a long week. I signed up for one of those boutiques on Monday and had to be ready by Thursday, and since I had almost sold out at my last show, which is awesome, I had a lot of work to do.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, allow me to explain. These shows are really popular around here. Usually what happens is a woman or group of them get together and invite lots and lots of vendors to come sell their goods. There are hats and baby things and clothes and food and art and jewelry and home decor and craft stuff and on and on, TONS of stuff. They get in touch with a real estate agent who has a home they want to sell and then for a couple of days, all of us vendors set up in the home, hawk our wares and make a couple of bucks. It's weird. I know. I've entered some sort of Utah women's subculture and I'm not entirely comfortable with it, but I keep getting invited and I keep making money, so I keep going with it.

Anyway... It's been a long week. I was telling my mom that I had originally thought that every time I sign up for one of these things, it just so happens to be at the worst possible time, the kids are sick or the house is torn up or it's just a rough week or all of the above. Now, I'm realizing that it has nothing to do with me picking bad weeks, my life is just always that hectic and when I throw in another variable, it pushes me over the edge.

So here I am, scrambling to put my house in order today so that we can make a mess of it this weekend when we start working on the kitchen again and I have another show next weekend, so all my spare time for next week will be taken up by barrette making, again.

I wanted to post a couple of photos that I've taken this week though, so here you go...

This one made me laugh



Courtesy of Jane



Charlie is cute and this is as happy as he's been for me all week. Poor baby just hasn't been himself



Jane putting on her lipgloss or "makeup" and she always refers to it. She keeps it in her back pack and today on the way to school she said...

"Mom, look at me"
"What's different, Jane?"
"I put on my makeup. Today I decided to wear to Hello Kitty makeup. I usually like to wear my Hanna Montana makeup, but sometimes I like to do things a little different."

She never ceases to amaze me. Or scare me. Ya, scared is a better description of the way she makes me feel. For the record, I am very anti-Hanna Montana. She only has the purple shimmery chap stick because we were in Target and she found it at the dollar spot and then I had to listen to

"Mom, can I have this, can I have this please? I really need this make up. Please can I have this, Mom? Please? I need it!"

Over and over and over again until I succumbed to the request just because I couldn't tune her out any longer.

And I don't have any photos of my darling Lizzy. I can't get over how much I love Lizzy. I'm sure I'll have something to post about her soon enough.

So there you have it. Now I've got to go pick up Charlie who has been crying for about a half an hour in his room. And I thought I might get a nap today, what was I thinking?

Feeling Generous

Want some of my hair clips... for free? Head over HERE to enter to win a set of these.



The blog is for one of the shows that I am a vendor at. I thought I was done with spring shows and then I went at signed up for four more, including one this weekend in Farmington (ahem, Eryn, if you are reading this and not holding a newborn baby. I wouldn't know.)

I thought I'd let you all know in case you wanted to enter.

... and release

Most of my mornings begin with children either screaming or poking me into consciousness. My days rarely start out pleasantly. There is the occasional day that I wake up in a good mood and immediately want to spend time with my children, but mostly I just hide my head under my pillow and swat at them, telling them to go downstairs and watch TV. Usually, I end up walking down the stairs, setting them up with some sort of "breakfast" (which generally includes little more than a box of Froot Loops or Nilla Wafers on the table and a couple of water bottles) and then going back upstairs to crawl in bed for a couple of unsatisfying minutes. When I'm really super lucky, they just go down themselves.

The other morning was one of those lucky ones. The girls got up together, came into my room and harassed me together and then went downstairs to watch cartoons and raid the pantry together. When I finally pulled myself out of bed and came down to check on them, I found them both sitting on the couch with glazed over eyes and dropped jaws. Immediately I turned to see what it was that had them so captivated. This is what I found...




I started laughing as hard as I could that early in the morning (I use the term "early" quite loosely) until Jane stopped me with an offended look on her face.

"MOM! These are REALLY good stretches for pregnant women!"

My apologies. I had no idea.

I asked her if she wanted to watch cartoons, but both she and Lizzy refused and so I was forced to watch some (unstable) woman sit and stretch on public television while I sat on the couch eating a Nilla Wafer and wondering why I had gotten out of bed for this. It made qubo seem downright entertaining, I'd have much rather spent that time learning what kinds of quirky problems Postman Pat and his trusty cat, Jess were resolving in Greendale that day.