Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Easter

In keeping on track of being a pathetic blogger, I'm gonna post about Easter, which was roughly 10 days ago. 

Here it goes

Before I show all the fun secular things that Easter is about, we really tried to push the real meaning behind Easter and teach Avery about Christ's resurrection. 

The week before Easter, each day, we told a different story about Jesus's life.

I think she kind of gets it. At least she knows how to woo us when she tries to pronounce the word, "resurrection."

Now to the meaningless but fun parts of Easter

I saw this cute idea on a blog to make for the kids
Avery was so excited, she said, "what a cute kitty."

We dyed the eggs. 

I think I was tired that day or something, because I just wasn't feeling it. But after I dyed 2 or 3 in just the lame pastel colors, something inside me turned on and my ingenious and creative juices could not be stopped.





Travis says that I think that I'm pretty awesome
I just might be

Here is one of Avery's creations

And one of Trav's predictable BYU eggs


And of course, we had the hunt...


They had to search pretty hard for those eggs as you can see!

Brooklyn was so cute. She was the kid who found an egg, opened it up, left it and all of its contents on the ground, and moved on to her next victim.
Avery was just as intense about it as usual.



My cute little bunnies

One Saturday, I decided to take the girls to see the Easter bunny. I asked Avery, "Do you want to go and see the Easter bunny?" She replied, "the Easter bunny is a man wearing a bunny costume." 

She is a pretty smart girl, but I took her anyway. She and that Easter bunny had a very deep conversation about how its really a person inside.
Brooklyn loves all things fuzzy.

Then Easter morning came and that bunny left us some good things.


We had a great Easter dinner with friends. We had ham, cheesy potatoes, rolls and the best carrot cake ever!

Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend, you know, two weeks ago.



Friday, April 6, 2012

The Change

I needed a change in my house. I didn't want to paint. I didn't want to spend. I didn't want it to take all of my time. 

I wanted to have my cake and eat it too OK. 

And I kind of did. 

My brilliant friend, Angela, came up with a "get it done" group. This group of eight women get together 2 times a month and we get it done at one of the eight's home. When it is your turn, you get 3 hours straight of ordering around. We clean, we organize, we paint, we garden. We do it all. 

So I decided to put them to work on redecorating my front room.

I did all the planning and prepping, and when they arrived; they sewed curtains, sewed pillows, hung pictures, gave input, sawed, etc.
Here are the results

Before
After 
I HATED this part of my house. Everyone would always put their crap on the piano, because it was the first flat surface you see when you enter the house. I also hated the huge awkward shelf with all the nasty cords running down. My friend Tara and I had to figure out how to use a power saw. It was scary. But I am proud to say I have all 10 fingers after. We cut that nasty shelf just big enough to hold the speakers and we lowered it.

Before
After
 I added blue to the big red room

Before (sorry its dark)
After
I didn't want to buy new curtains, so we just added an accent color to the red.

Before
 After
Thank you Pinterest
 I don't have a before pic, but just imagine a nasty wicker basket with about 67 pairs of shoes in it in the spot of the bins.

Yes, another Pinterest invention... I have no mind anymore.

And here are the pillows we sewed

These shelves were originally black, but I spray painted them and found most of these trinkets at the thrift store or made them

And this is now our new and improved living room.


There was no painting, no furniture arranging, a small amount of whining (on my part) and one happy customer! 

Sometimes living on a budget makes me feel like I'm being held back and even a little ghetto, but it makes me have to get creative; which is a good lesson in life. 

But I'm not going to lie.  Money could buy my happiness :) Ha!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

March Madness

Can you believe March is over? I can't. I really was going to be awesome and blog after every blog worthy picture, but now its just too late and you get one fat, sloppy post about nothing but us really.

You are welcome.

These are the following things I felt I should blog about

1) Weather
Lets start with something interesting and refreshing... like the weather. Ha.

A bunch of new people from the west moved into our neighborhood last Fall. I couldn't warn them enough about how miserable the winters are here.

It wasn't bad at all.

It snowed once. Maybe one ice storm. The temperatures were not cold.

I'm not mad, I just think my new neighbors think that I am whiny.

This Spring has been amazing! One thing that I love most about the Midwest are the warm rainstorms. This is Brooklyn's favorite activity.





2) St. Patties day



We aren't Irish. We don't even know the real story behind St. Patrick. However, we do like holidays, candy, BBQ's... oh and the color green is flattering.

3) Tea Party

There was no reason for it. I Avery was just was in the mood.




This is her first of many




Jude is comfortable with his manhood. I respect him for this.


3) Lazy Sunday
We just hung out in the backyard...

Blew some bubbles







Sat back and enjoyed the finer things in life...

Oh yeah, and started training for this race (also acts as an energy burner)


4) Brooklyn

This girl is getting some 'tude these days. She is turning from the mellow low maintenance kid, to the tantrum throwing, needy kid. She is EVERYWHERE! For some reason, Travis and I manufacture busy kids. I can't take my eye off of her. 

She all of a sudden has separation anxiety. Sorry to the girls who watch her at the gym! She really likes me. Makes me feel like a million bucks because anytime I enter the room, she tackles me and full body snuggles with me. I can't complain too much about this one!

She knows what she wants, and usually gets it. We have to work on this on.

She is a vegetarian. She doesn't really like meat, but will eat any veggie we put on her plate. She picked some cauliflower over a cupcake the other day. I'm sure this won't last forever though!

She says a lot of cute words, along with lots of gibberish. Its hard keeping up with her older sister's word quota for the day. Her favorite word is "NO" and she uses it with authority.

She gives really dirty looks, but as soon as she knows who you are, she will come to you with no hesitation, unless she sees her Mama, of course. 

She sleeps for about 10 hours at night, then wakes up for a little drink and sleeps for about 1 to 2 more hours and also takes one 2-3 hour nap.

She loves anything furry, and thinks anything furry is a "doggy."

I still want to eat her most days.







This is her dirty look




5) Avery 

Avery is the coolest girl. She is 3 going on 16. Sometimes I fear for her teenage years! She is the most social creature. Between Travis and I, we have no idea where she gets her guts. She is not afraid of anyone! At the grocery store, at the gym, at church, anywhere, she will meet new friends, and most of them are adults.  

She is still a spitfire, but we can handle her. Eventually she will do the right thing, we just have to coax her a little bit. 

If she is not asking you a million questions, then she is singing. She is always singing! She makes up her own songs. Watch out Taylor Swift. We will be driving in the car, and a random song will come on, and after the song is over, she asks me the meaning of the song. I really gotta watch what I am listening to these days!

She is an emotional little girl and is not afraid to show it. 

She is deathly afraid of bugs and spiders.

She is obsessed with fashion and clothes right now. Her average wardrobe change is about 5 times per day. I love it, because if I am ever wearing a cute shirt she will notice and tell me.

She knows how to make her own oatmeal in the morning. Not the package kind, the old fashioned oats. She only eats her oats with milk, agave, Cinnamon and vanilla and would eat it for every meal if I let her.

She started ballet and loves every thing about it. She made a friend (and doesn't know her name) but every class Avery and cute blond girl with glasses are hanging on each other, telling secrets and laughing.

She loves to read books.

She loves Caillou.

She loves hearing stories about Baby Patty and the monster.

She never gets out of her bed. I can only remember maybe 2 times. I think she still thinks she is in a crib even though its been a year and a half, but every morning she calls for me when she wakes up. She actually sings a song that goes, "Mama, I'm awake!"

She is definitely turning into a Daddy's girl. She runs into her Dad's arms the second he gets home.

She is getting more cuddly after all of these years.

She is my little buddy and loves helping me cook especially because she knows that I give her the spoon to lick.

I love my crocket!









They are buddies


6) Oh yeah, we still exist too!

Trav and I are doing well. I'd say our biggest struggle is who gives whom the massage when he gets home from work. I feel that chasing after 2 busy and crazy girls all day long trumps giving random people drugs all day long. Ha! Trav works really hard and totally deserves the massage but in the end, my hair is always being tickled. 

We still like to have fun.

Brandi aided our hobby by having a 30th birthday. Her husband, Jim rented a limo and we cruised to a nice restaurant on the Plaza. With the Church's and Bangerts too.

These folks know how to party.

It was a blast.

The limo was filled with sparkling cider and soft drinks. Whoa.

Happy 30th birthday Bran! We are so glad to be friends with you after all of these years!






So, that is us so far. I have been so lax in documenting things. I used to already have a blog post written out in my head with every picture taken. 

Stay tuned for more awesomeness. I do have more material a comin'.