Today Was Good!

This morning I did four things that I have never done before in this house. I got in the shower this morning, I can hear you now, Dad. That was not one of them, I have taken a shower since we moved here in July. However, the fact that I got in the shower within about 15 minutes of bathing Kel is something that I have never done before. Only one shower within a two hour time period was feasible. This, of course, made Sunday mornings, shall we say, exciting! Second feat...while in said shower, I steamed up the bathroom. Third...I took a shower longer than seven minutes...aaaah, the luxury! And finally, I actually was able to get warm in the shower! Oh, how I love hot water! I've been missing my dear sweet friend, but he is back!!! I've been complaining to Aaron since we moved here about the lack of hot water. Well, let me clarify, usually I could get hot water for about five minutes, if I was really lucky and had been praying for three weeks. He, not having to do dishes, laundry, or shower the kids, thought I was just trying to find something to complain about. Finally, in desperation (he couldn't handle the wailing every time I took a shower) he bought new coils for the water heater. However, when he went to put them in the water tank was so full of hard water deposit that it bent the coils as he tried to pull the old ones out and then spewed deposit all over the floor. Oh, baby, now he believed me! No fixing it, the hot water heater was shot. So, I went without even luke warm water for one day, and now I have a brand new water heater, and I'm in love! I was amazed at how hot water in the shower just makes my day happier! I giggled, and Kel brought her cracker into the shower and tried to eat it before it dissolved and we were both thrilled! The little things in life are what makes it so worth while! Anyways, I just had to share my happy news! So go enjoy your hot water!
In other news, Kessie got her cast off today. It has been four weeks! Kids are so amazing and resilient. She has to wear it in a sling for a week so her muscles can strengthen, but she is doing well. They re-x-rayed it, and said it looked fabulous. They gave us her cast and the pins to keep. She has been so brave through the whole thing, but today, you would have thought someone had chopped off her arm. She screamed through the x-rays, through the consultation, through the pin removal (I probably would have screamed during that too), through the car ride home. She screamed some more when we put on big band-aids, when we put on small band-aids, when we told her she had to go to school tomorrow...etc. seriously...that child can handle pain like I've never seen, but when it comes to fear and embarrassment the world is over for her. Give her a day, though, and I think she'll pull through!
One more thing. Since, apparently, no one has any clue about Louie's dress...I'll tell you all....I know you've stayed awake at nights. Her dress was made for my sweet niece to wear at our wedding reception thirteen years ago. My sis-in-law was getting rid of tons of clothes and asked us if we wanted any. When I saw the dress, I knew I had to have it for Louie! She was pretty excited to wear it, not as excited as me, but still, we were both smiling!

Hand-Me-Down with Meaning

So I need to get Lanny's birthday pictures, and then I'll be posting about his b-day celebration. I think it went well, but whether it did or not, he is now 10 can you believe it?!?

This is just a quick post. I want to give 100 bonus points to whoever can recognize this girl dress! I'll give you a hint, it was handmade thirteen years ago and didn't originally belong to my daughter, but doesn't she look pretty in it? What do you think? Anybody? Anybody...and Mom, you don't count! Have a happy week!

Life

Louie had a field trip today. They were going to Grover Park (the mountains) to eat lunch and then to a farm. She wanted me to come. So I said sure. Let me clarify something. We live in Grover!!! Here's where it gets complicated. With the name of the lunch location I, using my supreme intellect, assumed that it was in Grover. So I waited for the bus on the road that leads to Grover Park, or so I thought. That's when the bus went screaming past me. I had to flip around and by the time I got out on the main road the bus was gone. Great! I called the school, no answer. I called Aaron, no answer. Seriously, people! So I just kept driving. I saw a bus heading to Auburn, so I followed it. Yeah, not the right bus. I finally got a hold of the school. The lady didn't know where the bus was heading, so I called the bus garage. They told me they were at Grover Park. Of course, what was I thinking. Turns out there is another entry to Grover Park, besides the one I was at. So you tell me, why would you drive for three minutes when you can drive through Grover, through the Narrows, through Bedford, through Turnerville and then pass the "Road Closed" sign and end up at Grover Park? Yeah, I thought that much longer, convoluted route was better too. Anyways, after losing two buses, I finally found them, and with them was my Louie. We had a good time at the Farm, I missed lunch however. I also am in desperate need of a baby piggy. We saw some three day old ones, and wow!!! I need one!

In other news, here is a picture of Goliath. I was trying to take a picture of him with his tennis balls stuffed in his mouth and he was uber helpful.

 

Aaron took the kids grouse hunting on Saturday and they got a few. They were really excited! Kel had to touch them. Seriously, I was hoping for one normal child. They actually are pretty good eating.

Here is my dustpan yesterday morning. I want you all to know that I had swept the day before, and I still get this much garbage off my floor. Lanny likes to tell people that Kel has a secret stash of food. She keeps is on the floor. Oh, the joys of a one year old that likes to feed herself, and when she's done, she chucks the food on the floor!

 

I also wanted everyone to know how far I've evolved. I was taking the patches off of Lanny and Aaron's scout uniforms so I could put on the new ones. As I was taking the ones off of Aaron's I got something slightly sticky on my finger. Yeah, when I had put his patches on last time, I had used scrapbook adhesive to keep them in place while I sewed them on. I'm so cool!!! This time, however, I have needles, fabric glue, applique fabric stuff (that's the technical term), etc. Yeah, sewing's just not as fun when you don't have to improvise. Oh, well!

Kel and I are now Lone, Lonely, Loners!

At 7:12 this morning I walked in my front door and wondered what in the world I was going to do for the rest of the day. The kids started school yesterday. They were super excited and they all returned home with huge smiles, so I'm thinking they had great days! I took them to school yesterday, but today they rode the bus. I would still like to take them myself, but it doesn't really make much sense because Lanny is in a different school than the girls, so I have to leave at the same time the bus comes to get them all to their schools on time. Still, I felt guilty standing at the end of my driveway waving. On a side note, Goliath was also quite disappointed, considering he tried to get on the bus with the kids.
I took some photos yesterday. I was amazed at how much my Kindergartner needed me when we walked into the school and approximately 6 seconds later she was good to go and embarrassed by me. Lanny and Louie also cringed when I tried to kiss them, seriously, does anyone else see a problem with Mommy's kissing their kids good-bye, yeah, me neither. I even got dressed to take them, so I don't see what the problem was. Kessie has a friend from church in her class and immediately hugged her and began chatting away, kinda concerned me. She was already cracking jokes and getting out of control. Hope her teacher can handle her. The only thing she didn't like was how often people asked her what happened to her arm. She told me she just stopped answering them, wonder how that came across to people. When she got in the car after school, she told me she wanted cold lunch today. Then in her cute voice, she said, "Mom, what's cold lunch?" She is so cute. This morning I packed them all a cold lunch in their new lunch bags. Aaron got a bit mad because there were only three bags sitting out on the counter. I told him I'd get right to work on making him a lunch bag for him to carry to work. He just grabbed the cheese and grapes I had in a baggie and ran for the door.
Even though the kids all loved their new teachers and seemed very positive about the school year, they didn't want to get up this morning. Go figure. I used to get them up at 7:30 for school, now we get up at 6:00. Ouch!

• Normal is overrated right?!?

This is Lanny's "I'm a fifth grader, stop embarrassing me!" look. He also didn't appreciate me singing a made up song about fifth graders as we walked through the school.

Louie and Kessie wouldn't let me take pictures of them in their classrooms, but they let me take this after school. Anybody else thinkin' I'm in big trouble when my second grader looks like that!

They did it! They made it through the first day! We're goofing off in Grandma's office. She's the secretary at Lanny's school!

Braggin' a Bit

Let me start by saying that when I was young my mother tried to teach me to sew. Oh how she tried. She is a fabulous seamstress, but alas, I got none of those genes. I couldn't sew then, and I definitely can't sew now. (Side note...I just typed in swear instead of sew, which I actually can do, but try not to.) Anyways...I saw this great tutorial for lunch bags on the Fiskars website, and thought, "I can do that...and I'll be saving money and showing my kids how much I love them." Uh, huh...the pattern is nothing but straight lines so no problem. Okay, first problem was when they said to use stabilizer, really? What is exactly is stabilizer, apparently they thought I should know. I went to the fabric store, discreetly asked around (okay, I was moaning loudly at Joann's) and then bought the thickest stabilizer they had (I didn't know that thicker isn't necessarily better)...uh, how was I going to pin it? Not to worry, I had extra long straight pins, which are now all bent at funny angles and in my garbage can, that stuff is tough. Then I had to get bias tape, duct tape wouldn't do. So I got it, the wrong stuff (bought it in Logan, UT at 11:00 at night). No worries, there is actually a store that has some in Star Valley. Then I had to sew on the Velcro, I tried hand sewing it, but wasn't strong enough to push the needle through the stabilizer (I am saying stabilizer like a swear word in case you were wondering.) So I had to roll the lunch bag like a cuff, and then try to fit it under the presser foot, or whatever that thing is that goes with the needle. Anyways, I actually managed to finish them, today. School starts tomorrow. I started them three weeks ago and I didn't want to clean up the fabric, etc. until they were done, so that tells you how long I've been without half a kitchen table. Although the tutorial calls for nothing but straight lines, I thought that was boring, so mine squiggle and wiggle and jump in a few places. But overall, I feel extremely proud of my handiwork and so I had to share it. Are they perfect? Yes! Could I sell them on Etsy for $50 dollars a piece? Yes! Am I a pathological liar? Yes! Oh darn, I just told the truth! Anyways, they are far from perfect, but the kids were pretty excited about them. We'll see how they hold up in the wash?!?




Kessie's is the one laying down. Louie's is folded over like there is food in it. Lanny's (ya think?) is upright showing the Velcro used to fold it over. Oh, they make me smile! I am amazing! (and if I have to tell you that was a joke, you don't know me very well).

Oh yeah, and one more thing...don't try this at home, that $10.00 lunchbox is waaaay cheaper, it's got Superman on it, and no stabilizer!!!




The Elbow

Eating lunch in the rain.

Aaron took Lanny scouting for his ram this weekend...more on that later, so the girls went up the canyon. Snake River Canyon is between Star Valley and Jackson. Kessie and I got to drive through it to go to the hospital, she was out of it, and I was a bit too worried to enjoy the beautiful canyon. So I wanted to take the kids back up there to see how pretty it is. We went up to a place in the canyon called "The Elbow". It is a boat ramp and so the kids were able to go right up to the river. I told them not to get in, so they immediately got in. They were having a blast wading up and down the bank. I took off Kel's socks so she could stick her feet in the water. But noooo, that wasn't good enough, soon her pants were off and then her diaper. I tucked the bottom of her onesie up into the collar. She thoroughly enjoyed splashing and sitting in the river.  Kessie realized there were baby fishies all over and so she decided her mission was to catch one. That proved a bit more difficult than Kessie expected. I promised I'd help her after lunch. So we took a plastic bag down and after a few failed attempts we were extremely surprised when we finally caught one. Kessie was super  excited to tell Lanny, since he is the minnow catching king. We only stayed for a short time, but it was super fun and a nice break.