Sunday afternoon

Seriously, I didn't realize how yucky I've been feeling lately until I'm finally not!  It started out with a bunch of hormonal stuff since I've been messing with different medications for the past while...then it progressed into a cold..(which I'm still fighting, but am close to conquering).

While my kiddos headed to a primary activity yesterday, I cleaned out the garage.  Seriously, a huge undertaking.  HUGE.  Once the kids got home, they and my husband cleaned out the car.  I was amazed to find that my cello actually CAN fit in the trunk if there is room in the trunk for it!!  It was great to go to a wedding and not have to hit my elbow on my cello as I shifted gears for once.  :)  I was also amazed at the 5 extra loads of laundry I found hiding in the garage and car...and I was so close to being caught up.

I stayed home on Thursday and Friday of this week and cleaned out my room - top to bottom, closets included.  The study got completely cleaned (no more sheets of music floating around on the floor), and I've been doing laundry like a possessed woman.  I made my kids clean their room on Friday, and amazingly, my house (with the exception of the basement - that's on tomorrow's list) is organized and clean.  If you've been thinking of coming to visit...now would be a really great time.  I might not even stress about you coming, or about which doors your kids might open.  There you go...your open invitation to come and see me.  If your kids get toys out though - you will be held responsible - (and I might not be as nice about it as I'd like to be).

After finishing up the garage yesterday afternoon, I played for a wedding and then we headed up to see my husband's new office that his department just moved into.  Unfortunately, while we were there, something broke.  And we were there for another 3 hours - just waiting for them to figure out what was going on and try to fix it....we didn't get home until 11:30.  The kids weren't too happy about getting up to go to church early this morning.

Then the HT came this afternoon.  I was so close to falling asleep on him.  I could feel the heaviness of my eyelids and kept debating on how offended he might be if I actually dozed off during his message.  I've now hit the 5:00 debate.  Is it too late to take a nap?

Right now my husband is playing the guitar.  My oldest daughter is reading and the youngest is begging to go online to LDS.org.  I think I'm going to see if I can squeeze in that power nap.  Ciao!  Oh no... my child is asking us to play a game...how can I pass on playing Settlers?  Oh that elusive nap...well...maybe next week.

Campfire Sing-a-long: The Movie

I really don't generally video primary singing time...really I don't!  But my husband just 'happened' to come by to see if I needed help with anything right then and decided to capture the moment on his phone. 

Primary Campfire Sing-a-long

Today in Primary we had a campfire sing-a-long.
Thanks to the Elder who was able to jump in and play the guitar for us. He did a great job. My own children gave it between an 8 & 9 on a scale of 1-10 for how great it was. (Apparently, Spin the Teacher is the best review game that just can't be touched.)  Anyways...I put roasting sticks with marshmallows in the 'fire' (Christmas lights under red/orange material with wood makes a great 'fire').  The marshmallows had the names of songs on them, and the kids got to pick a marshmallow to choose which song we were going to sing. While the kids watched, I licked them all so that they wouldn't be begging for them (yeah, I know...gross, but it worked and I thought it was funny). Nothing like a fun primary singing time!

Our life - as we know it

Here's a quick update

• My husband and I have colds thanks to a nursery kid.  
• Thanks to actually being home one day this week (yesterday) I can now see ALL of my bedroom floor (yes, it HAS been a while).  My house is slowly beginning to recover from months of neglect and abuse.
• I have a box of crab apples sitting outside - waiting to become jelly...maybe today...maybe not. 
• I have a box of tomatoes downstairs waiting to be canned...
• I have several huge zucchini's waiting to be made into bread.
• The garden completely died on Labor Day.  We got back into town and didn't think to cover it and had a wickedly hard frost.  
• My kids may actually be ready for their spelling tests today.  
• I went to the temple this week - very quick, but great trip. 
• I went to the Dr. last week.  There was a chance that I might have had to have another surgery this last Tuesday, but I'm okay now and didn't.  (Thankfully)
• We went out last night to sell Butter Braids with our kids for their gymnastics team fundraiser.  They have to sell 50, and got 19 so far.  Anyone want some Butter Braids?  They are supposedly VERY yummy.  Those who have had them previously are very quick to buy them. 
• Our fall leaves are AWESOME up in the mountains. 
• My husband has been working A LOT of hours.
• Playing for my last wedding of the summer season tomorrow.  I've been arranging a lot of new contemporary music for this wedding.  I'm excited to have my weekends freed up, and starting to plan next summer already. 
• The Office is back!!!  I love Friday mornings again!! 
• For the past 4 weeks, we've been messing with my hormones and I finally am feeling nice again...not cranky, emotional, and downright mean anymore.  Everyone is heaving a sigh of relief with that one. 
• I picked up my guitar a couple of weeks ago, and am amazed at how much I'm enjoying it.  My husband has been playing it too and is almost caught up to me!  Our oldest daughter has also been playing around with it.  

Today I am: 

• Working on more cleaning and organizing projects - basement, laundry, and mopping floors and bathrooms. 
• Hoping to start sewing again.
• Finishing organizing the study.
• Taking the kids to gymnastics - possibly working on a sewing project while there.
• Heading to see my husband's new office.  He just moved to an outbuilding office building.  We get to help him get everything organized, and set up in the new office...after 10 years of being in the sub zero level of the building, he now has an amazing view of the mountain.  

That's it.  Gotta start my day. 

Cooking competition

Our daughter recently competed in a cooking competition with kids in the area in her same grade.

The kids had to prepare something and then present it to a panel of 6 judges.

Here she is explaining that she made a fruit pizza...sugar cookie crust, cream cheese frosting, topped with fresh tropical fruits.

 

This judge was really nice. Afterwards he told her how much he liked it...(I think they were really grateful for dessert)

 

Watching them eat, seeing if they have any questions and awaiting the verdict.

 

The entire group of kids and the judges. Because they didn't have as many kids enter as they'd originally hoped, all of the kids get to spend a couple of hours working in a restaurant with a world class chef, preparing dinner for their families. We can't wait!!

 

The bad news is that she didn't win. Nope - she came in last place we think. She said they had told them at school that it was supposed to be 'healthy'...however, the information we could find online about the program did not specify healthy, nor did it specify that it was supposed to be an entree or side dish - so she went with her beautiful creation. Unfortunately, no one seemed to think that fruit pizza could fit into the healthy or side dish/entree category.

Bummer. We blame it on a lack of information. We got a phone call at 8:00 pm the night before because our daughter had signed up last spring to participate. We didn't even know until the day of where it would actually be etc.. So - she brought the most un-healthy thing there. Like I said - I think the judges were appreciative of the sugar after all of the heavy (or maybe too light) entrees! Anyways, as soon as the judges finished, we were surrounded by all of the hungry sugar addicts in the room begging to try her concoction - which completely disappeared within 3 minutes! Too bad they didn't have a 'people's choice' category!

Quick update

I guess it has been a while. I spent some time last week blogging, but I guess it wasn't this blog - I was surprised when I saw the last post date. Shame on me.

What's new? The girls are in school...we are finally settling down back into the routine. They get up and try to get their practicing taken care of before school, come home, participate in sports three days a week, and stay busy with their piano lessons. I drive them around A LOT.

We headed out of town over Labor Day. Sort of a last of the summer get away. We headed to the temple, leaving the kids at a babysitters near the temple, and then to the nearest six flags resort (buying those season passes has really been a great thing for us this year - we've really enjoyed spending lots and lots of time there - all for the price of a normal daily admission ticket - amazing). We stayed over Sunday which was fun - we saw several people we recognized from the temple from the day before at church, and also found out that we had attended the ward of some of the parents or some of our friends. We always enjoy going to church in other places.

After church we spent some family bonding time watching the Sound of Music, and then headed out on a drive. We ended up at a state park, and threw rocks in the water and found some cool crystals, then headed back to our hotel.

On Labor Day we spent some early morning time in the hotel pool, and then after breakfast, headed out to our last MLB game of the season. We got to see an amazing pitcher pitch, and it was a really fun and great game. Fantastic weekend.

This last week was a really tough week for me, but I got through it...I guess I didn't have many other options. Some days are good, some, not so good. Just life I guess.

My brother and his wife came into town on Friday night, and we (probably unwisely) stayed up WAY too late (in the 3:30 am range), chatting and laughing. It was really great to have them come out and to spend time with them. We headed out to breakfast the next morning and then ran some errands. We sort of took the rest of the day off after that (translation - I couldn't function properly on so few hours of sleep).

Today has been a great day...and I really appreciate happy days. We napped after church, and then the elders came by for dinner. I tried a new cooking technique - I cooked outside on our grill's side burner. I made taquitos, and they are greasy, and hot, and messy. I really enjoyed doing them outside - the cleanup was so much easier, and my house didn't over heat and leave me sweating all night. What a novel concept!

I also pulled out my guitar last night and have been brushing up. My wedding season is almost over, and I'm excited to spend some time with my guitar. It looks like my daughter may be interested in playing as well - I'm excited to see where it will go for her.

So - there you go...that's our life in a nutshell. I'm hoping (really I am) that I'll have more time and gumption this week to finally get the house all back into order - we'll see if I actually make it or not. If not - there's always next week.

And they're back!

After many months of laying around reading, jumping on the trampoline, wrestling, playing on the piano, making hats and pom poms, creating cooking experiments and shirking their chores, it all ended today - we'll at least for another 9 months that is.

School started officially today and my house is very very quiet this morning!
Here are some pics as we sent them off.

Here are the kids as we set off
Crossing the street
I love that we are in walking distance and we didn't have to deal with the parking lot zoo this morning...

 

Our very cool oldest child...

 

Arriving at the school...definitely didn't want to walk in with mom and dad

 

This was supposed to be a photo but came out as a mini clip...hopefully it will work

 

You may have noticed their very cool messenger bags. Yep, the girls picked out the material last weekend and I stayed up until 2 am this morning finishing them. They both wanted something hand stitched on the front of the bag as well. Yawn!