Con-fernce weekend

Just posting a couple of photos (and their accompanying bizarre captions) from our weekend...

Remember how I mentioned that my mom's yard was more like a park? She's got the playground equipment and smiling, happy faces to prove it.

This is what Lizzy and I did while everyone else put together the playground equipment. I don't really like to get my hands dirty if I don't have to. Besides, Lizzy was dirty enough for all of us combined.

Did you know that my parents still have VCR? They do! They do! And it works! And my children don't know what it means to rewind! And they were wondering where the menu was! And I found myself saying "when I was a little girl we didn't have fancy dvd and bluray players and all we had were these tapes and blah blah blah" and I'm pretty sure that they stopped listening at "when I." So instead, Brent and I entertained each other by reminding ourselves of the Be Kind, Rewind signs at Blockbuster.

And now I'm feeling kinda, sorta, really old.

Moving on, my mom's backyard in Summit was getting jealous of the front and so she decided to give it a makeover. I'd have taken a picture of it, but I didn't have a camera (Brent had to take all our photos with his fancy shmancy phone) and also because it was a big pile of dirt and cement footings. It wasn't much to look at and there wasn't much going on over the weekend.

The workers had foolishly left their heavy machinery lying about over the weekend and Charlie was fairly certain that the world would come to an end if he didn't get to try it out for himself. As it turns out, I've been right about that child all along.

He's all bark, no bite.

His eyes are bigger than his stomach.

He bites off more than he can chew.

Ah, Chas. You are a total wuss. You are cute and lovable and fun and very, very wussy.

If you think this is bad, you should see him when the garbage truck comes by. His window is on the street and it wakes him up during nap time. He climbs up on his changing table, curls into the fetal position and cries. I actually kinda feel sorry for him.

Jane and I also made an excursion down to LaVerkin to visit two of our very favorite people.

Brooklyn.

And Brooklyn's mom, Sheri. (not pictured) (obviously)

Brooklyn made us her favorite meal and Sheri microwaved us some very fine rolls :)

We really loved being there with them in their new home. I think Jane and I both teared up a little on the drive home. It's not every day that you make friends as great as mine are.

All in all, our weekend was right, near perfect. Thank you again to my mom and dad for always having a room for us to stay in when we need a little break from real life.

Mum's Mums

My beloved family and myself took the familiar trek down to Summit to spend conference weekend with my parents. I love watching conference in Summit and did lots of sitting around and eating and sleeping and shirking my responsibilities as a parent. It was fantastic. I'll tell you more about it later, but right now, I've got more important things to focus on.

Flowers.

Last year (it WAS last year, wasn't it?) my parents landscaped their front yard in Summit and this year my mom has spent a great deal of her summer beautifying said yard. At this point, it looks more like a park than some one's front yard.

She's got all kinds of veggies and flowers growing...

but the best part is the mums.

She spent all week planting these mums.

I love fall mums, don't you?

I mean, I seriously LOVE mums.

Time well spent, Mother.

Time. Well. Spent.

A Sunday walk + LOOTD

On Sunday, Brent was lamenting that, as a family, we never do anything "Sunday-ish" after church.

Then I started lamenting because this, my friends, is a true fact.

But, instead of dwelling on our shortcomings as parents and people who should probably be doing more with our Sunday afternoons, we decided to take a stroll. Brent recommended that we head over to the Temple Quarry trail at the mouth of Cottonwood Canyon. Have you ever been there? Apparently, there's a mt. biking trail (hence Brent's intimate knowledge of the area) but there's also a little, short paved trail with markers all over so that you can stroll around and take in tidbits of information about the area and the granite that was used to build the Salt Lake Temple at your leisure. By the way, are you aware that the granite used to build the Salt Lake Temple isn't actually granite? It's quartz. Who knew? You learn new things every day. Especially when you spend that day reading markers on the Temple Quarry Trail.

So anyway, we told the kids to get their shoes and get in the car, and before we knew it, Lizzy showed up looking like this...

(I tried to get a good picture of her, mom. Honest, I did.)

And then she told me that she was wearing her "BYU sweatshirt," which, as a Ute, I found to be offensive on several levels.

Good grief. Where did I go wrong? I'm going to have to pay closer attention to who she's spending her time with.

And then she asked to go to the bathroom about 5 times. And all they had was a latrine. And it smelled bad. And there were flies in there. And I made Brent take her. Because it was gross.

Aside from the whole latrine thing, we had a really nice time galloping around and communing with nature.

And the kids walked away remembering that sometimes, they actually like each other.

I think that we're going to have to do "Sunday-ish" things more often.

JOOTD

Fact: the 80s are back.

Some of us love it. Some of us hate it. Most of us don't quite understand it, but it's true. Coral, brass, wallpaper, lace, big hair, mint green, skinny jeans, 3D glasses. It's all here.

(deep breath)

I've been telling myself that every decade comes back, but with a new, modern twist. Which makes it ok... right? Even still, I've been hesitant to let the 80s back into my life, which has turned out to be harder than I thought it would be mostly because my daughter, who has obviously never lived through the 80s, thinks its all totally awesome.

All in all, I felt like we were doing a good job with ourselves and mostly with Jane, walking that line between being trendy and being stylish.

And then it happened.

Leslie found her old crimping iron.

Leslie found her old crimping iron and brought it to our house.

Leslie found her old crimping iron and brought it to our house and Jane immediately fell in love with it.

Leslie found her old crimping iron and brought it to our house and Jane immediately fell in love with it and demanded that I crimp her hair today and then got herself dressed and went to school looking like this:

And as I watched my little munchkin trot off to catch her ride, I realized that the battle was over. I've lost. I'm fairly certain that I had that exact same outfit when I was in first grade, only I think that my jeans had alternating blue and purple threads to give'm that extra somethin' somethin'.

It's ok. I can do this. After all, I was born in 1980 and I didn't really hit my heyday until they were over and I was in high school. That's right, I technically lived through the 80s, but I'm a child of the 90s... and that's what scares me. Because as soon as we're all done with the 80s, we'll move on to the next decade and I know full well what's ahead.

It's called grunge.

And I DID live through that.

And I wore those jeans, only bigger. And I held them up with a rope tied around my waist.

And I'm nervous.

Very nervous.

Well hello, Fall

After spending a completely unreasonable 4 hours at home watching a Cake Boss marathon with my two daughters this afternoon, I needed to get out.

I think that you might understand.

I was kinda feeling like I was going insane.

Four hours of Cake Boss can do that to you.

No offense, Buddy, but those Jersey accents really start to grate on your nerves after a while.

Or a minute.

Or a second.

Seriously, Buddy, do you ever look at the females in your family and think that if they don't stop talking right that very second in time, you might just hit them? You shouldn't, that would be bad, but I can understand if you want to.

Anyway... I needed to get out. So I loaded up 2 of my small children and drove up into the mountains. It's one of the luxuries of living in the greater Salt Lake metropolitan area. We've got those mountains right there, just begging us to drive up into them.

I wasn't the only one with the idea. Little Cottonwood Canyon was packed. And we were all looking for this:

Greetings, Fall. It's good to see you, old friend.

JOOTD

Sooooooo... wanna see what Jane wore to school one random day last week?

Ya, I thought so.

Jane really wanted to have her hair crimped, so we put it into braids the night before I took this photo. Instead of a soft, natural wave that she was anticipating, it looked more like a lion's mane. She was almost in tears and wanted to wash it out, but we were in a hurry, so I tried to do some damage control with the curling iron. Anyway, her hair got really big that day. I found it cute.

I would like to point out that I paid $3 for her shoes. They came from the clearance rack at Wal-Mart.

I would also like to point out that I paid about the same for Charlie's tractor shirt.

Lastly, I would like to point out that my children are adorable.

That is all.

Taking 'Labor Day' a little too seriously

When Labor Day weekend started, our back yard looked about like this:

Only the grass was more dead and the kids were a year older. This photo was taken last August, but that's neither here nor there. Look at the trees. The trees, I tell you!

And this tree too. Look at this tree. Look at this beast of a tree.

Come the end of Saturday, the tree looked a little more like this:

It looks so wussy without its branches. You aren't so tough anymore, tree!

And your buddies on the other side of the yard aren't as big as they thought they were either! Brent wanted to make sure they knew good and clear who was boss by climbing them with a rope and swinging from them as they stood there, stripped of their pride and dignity.

It was cruel.

But the trees had to go. There are plans for this backyard of ours. Big plans. Plans that might be bigger than our stomachs. Plans that include a retaining wall to fill in the pit in the back yard that the kids fall in. Plans that include a sprinkler system that actually works, as opposed to the current one... that doesn't. Plans that include a level place for our playset to sit, so that it doesn't fall over and kill young children. Plans that DON'T include ginormous pine trees.

I'm sorry, pine trees. It's just the way it had to be.

So the pine trees went, old school, lumberjack style.

It was deluxe.

We had a VERY kind neighbor come over as back up and there are the boys, watching, waiting...

Jaime knew what he was doing. Thank goodness for Jaime.

TIMBER!

One down, two to go.

By the time we got to the the third tree, the kids decided to get involved. This photo makes me smile. I love how hard the boys are pulling in the back.

And once they were down, they needed to be cut into pieces and hauled off.

Everyone pitched in, even Chas. Everyone except for me, that is. I was too lazy to help, so I carried around a camera to make documentation look imperative.

If, like me, you feel kinda, sorta, really bad about ripping out perfectly good, mature trees just because we're moving in a different direction, try to take some comfort knowing that they made a noble sacrifice. They were chopped up and split into firewood that, when dry, will provide my young children with much needed warmth in the cold, dreary winter.

Waste not, want not... right?