Getting Reacquainted

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit with my grandfather from Florida. I haven't seen him in almost 15 years. My grandpa and his wife flew to Utah for a visit. My parents were able to come up and we had a nice BBQ at my aunt's house. It was nice to see him after all these years. This was the first time he met Aaron and our kids. I'm not sure if I'll get to see him again any time soon but it was good to be able to document our visit with pictures. My Mom, My Grandpa John, and Me

I also had the opportunity to see my mom's half brother. He's my uncle even though he's only a year and a half older than me. The last time I saw him, I was about 2 or 3 years old. It's been a long time and it's been good to get to know more of my extended family. He drove down from Idaho to visit with my grandfather. My Mom, Her half brother Joel, and Me

10 Months Old

Emily is officially 10 months old. She is such a good baby and is so happy most of the time. Emily has a high pitch squeal to let you know when she needs something. Of course, she's a mommy's girl but she LOVES her brother and sister and hanging out with Daddy. Emily is standing on her own and has taken a few steps. She's not walking yet but I'm sure she's pretty close. She prefers crawling. Emily says Mama, Dada, and something that sounds like cracker. She has a favorite "silky" she likes to sleep with and she is so much fun. She doesn't have any teeth yet but she's eating mostly people food now. We love her to pieces and she's been such a joy to have in our home!

Logan's Haircut

I buzzed Logan's head today for the summer. He looks like a different kid! His hair was getting shaggy and I figured now would be a good time to cut it. His birthday is at the end of August and I would like to be able to comb it for his pictures. This was the first time I ever cut his hair. After it was all done he kept saying, "I look like Daddy!". It's pretty short. I used a #2 guard but his hair is so fine that it looks much shorter.

Kaya's Graduates.....Preschool

Kaya had her preschool graduation this afternoon. She really learned a lot this year and enjoyed her time there. She is looking forward to kindergarten. I'm excited for her too! Here are a few pictures from her ceremony!

Trip to the Midwest

I had the opportunity to fly to Wisconsin this past weekend to see my brother graduate from the University of Wisconsin La Crosse. I took Emily with me and left the big kids with Dad for a long weekend. Aaron kept the kids busy doing fun things like going to Tracy Aviary, Liberty Park, and Wheeler Farm. I had a relaxing few days with the rest of my family!! Jeffrey & Brittany have a cute house in WI and it was fun to travel somewhere new. Emily LOVED looking out the window.

Me & Jeffrey (Congrats again!!)

The view of La Crosse, WI from Grandad Bluff (A geocache, of course)

I had a 4 hour layover in Chicago on the way home so I did something a little crazy: I rented a car and drove into the city to visit the Hard Rock Cafe! I collect guitar pins from the HRC and get credit from the pin club for each cafe I visit. Aaron sent me with his GPS and off I went. I made it to the city and back with a stop at the HRC and a drive through stop at a local Whitecastle restraunt in just under 2 hours. (Emily slept the WHOLE time!!) The ladies at the rental car office thought I was out of mind and said there was no way I could make it there and back in enough time to NOT miss my flight. I was willing to risk it and was glad I did. It was a little surreal to think I was driving through Chicago. This isn't a very good picture (Hey...I was driving) but I tried to snap a shot of the Chicago skyline. Of course I forgot to take a picture at the HRC. Dang it!

It was a fun trip!! Thanks Jeffrey for having us!!

Our Sunday Best

Kaya
Logan

Emily

Keeping Busy

It's 11:51PM on a Friday night. Here I am. The house is quiet. Everyone has been asleep for hours. I am exhausted but I've neglected my blog long enough. Plus I might as well stay up 8 more minutes now to wish my friend a
Happy Birthday on Facebook! :)

It has been an adventurous couple of weeks. Kaya has been playing Tball and I offered to help out as the team mom. Who would have thought they'd have 2 games a week AND a practice. C'mon - it's TBALL for the love of all things. It's been fun but go go go. Kaya had her kindergarten orientation today. I'm excited for her. The past 5 years have totally flown by. I look at Kaya every day and am in awe over her growth both phyically and in her personality. She only has 3 more weeks of preschool and we should find out by the end of the month what track she'll be on for school.The stomach flu bug (not to be confused with the swine flu) hit our house this week. Emily kicked it off sometime Monday night/Tuesday morning. We didn't even know she had gotten sick until the morning when I went in to get my happy girl at her normal time. She got sick during the night and we didn't even know since she didn't cry. It was a lovely mess but she was in good spirits.

(A cute picture of Emily's CLEAN crib!)Aaron came home from work on Wednesday afternoon since he wasn't feeling well. He was only home a short time before he was officially stricken with the flu bug. Approximately 2 hours after Aaron got sick, Logan came to me in the kitchen complaining that he didn't feel well. I didn't even have enough time to react. Poor guy. We ended up throwing away the kitchen rug. In the midst of cleaning up Logan's episode, Kaya got sick. All I could do was laugh. My poor family was falling apart. Even Nick wasn't feeling well. We lost count of how many times Kaya and Logan got sick. Poor things. They both slept well that night and rebounded the next day. Aaron stayed home a day from work and is starting to feel better. I'm the lone survivor at this point. I cleaned, sanitized, and washed every possible germ carrying item in the house. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

In the midst of the craziness I've managed to work on a few projects. Aaron and I built a train table for Logan to use with his Thomas the Tank Engine set. The kid needed a designated area to play trains. I was tired of him using my kitchen table and he was getting frustrated with Emily playing Godzilla to his train city on the floor. I got the design from my Aunt. I was pleased with the end result. So was Logan. It was totally worth it.I also managed to designate a day to sewing. After sewing some patches on Aaron's scout uniform I decided to FINALLY sew a new bedskirt for our bed. The skirt that came with our comforter was not very well made and fell apart the first time we washed it. It was tolerable and I just left it. That was until Logan decided to make the barely noticeable hole bigger. I used the flat sheet that came with our set to make the new bedskirt along with a twin size white flat sheet I had bought a couple of years ago to make ghosts out of our trees in the front yard. It worked and I didn't even have to buy anything!!

So here's a BEFORE picture: And the AFTER picture. Not too shabby. (Just don't look TOO closely!)In addition to building and sewing I've been cleaning, fixing, and organizing. I was able to fix our dishwasher with the help of our cousin Brian over the phone in Washington. We also purchased an external hard drive for the computer to back up and store pictures and important documents. We decided it was time to protect ourselves in the event the computer ever crashed. With all the digital pictures now - it could be tragic. One more thing checked off the to do list.

Here is a picture of our family outing to find a night geocache.
As far as cleaning goes, I've been working on cleaning the grout in my home. I have A LOT of tile. Long story short - It's gotten so dirty in 4 years and the only way it's going to get clean is for me to get down on my hands and knees and SCRUB it. It's working. It's just time consuming. Especially with 3 little kids. We paid somebody to professionally clean and seal it 2 years ago. By the time they were done, it looked worse than when they got there. A TOTAL waste of money. So I've included a picture to give you an idea of how much tile we have. (This is about 1/2 of it) I've also included a sort of before and after picture. It's really kind of gross to look at. You don't realize how dirty it is until you start cleaning. It's a work in progress...Well, it's late and I really need to call it a night. Please forgive me for the long update and the terrible run on sentences. I write like I talk and I could NEVER make it as a professional writer!! Hope this post finds you well! Sleep tight!!!