Cross off #20

We decided we'd better get a head start on my lofty summer goals, so we went to the zoo today. I have never been to the zoo on Memorial Day. Let's just say, it was like a zoo in there! We had to wait over a half hour just to get in. We bought a pass for the year, so I'm sure we'll go back on a less popular day and actually see some animals. :)

The girls had a great time though. I made Maddie a notebook and she had to write animals in it and she loved doing that. Lindsay was terrified of everything there, and could be found cowering behind me at all times. Macie...she was a brat and deserved to be left with the lions...but there aren't lions anymore, so we kept her.

Our favorite animals of the day

Jeramy: the apes

Heidi: the penguins, and usual

Maddie: the tortiose

Lindsay: the car, far away from any animals

Macie: the baby elephant

One down, 20 to go!

Summer "bucket list'

I hate the term "bucket list."

Today I made a list of things that I want to do this summer.
If you want to join me for any, let me know
If you have any great ideas I'm missing, let me know, too.

1) find the "perfect park" with no swings and lots of shade
2) go to the splash pad in Highland

3) go to the splash pad in Herriman

4) Ward camp out

5) Island Park/yellowstone

6) Manti pageant

7) Castle Dale pageant

8) movie outside with the projector

9) drive in theater with friends

10) picnic in the canyon

11) hike timpanogos

12) run a 5K

13) run a 10K

14) Lagoon

15) hike to the "M" with Maddie...well, maybe just Jer and Maddie for that one.

16) Eat at that new pirate pizza place in Orem

17) hike to the Y

18) float the Provo River

19) 7 peaks

20) the zoo
21) This is the Place place.

The end

Today was the last day of school. I can't believe how fast it went this year. I really really really didn't want to send Maddie today, but she insisted - with tears.

School started at 8:45. School got out at 10:15.

And yes, I am that mom...I made this sign while she was at school.

(Go Huskies...I really didn't think about the colors until I hung it up)

After that riveting day at school, we headed up to Gygi's for a cooking class. It was actually a field trip for preschool, but we let all the "big kids" come since they were out of school. Heather was kind enough to get us in and she did an amazing job feeding our million kids. She had hats for them to color on, she had them make "magic pudding" which changed colors, then sandwiches on a stick, and smoothies. My kids had a BLAST!
Macie keeps talking about going back and using that knife again. She loved cutting stuff. At dinner she put her tortilla on the table and said, "Mom, can I save this and cut it next time we got that one place with the hats?"

So, it's time to bring on summer.
My next post will be my AMAZING list of things I'm planning on doing this summer.

Shelby

***There is music on my blog today, turn down your speakers!!***

I love this girl.

I love all my nieces, but this one lets me have a glimpse into her thoughts and feelings through her blog, so even though she is all the way across the country, I feel like I know her.

She is so strong!
I'd like to think that if I were a teenager again, and growing up in Florida, I'd be as strong and brave as she is.

She is surrounded by so much evil and so many people making wrong choices, I'm so glad that she's making the right ones!

I love her "modest mormon dress" for prom.

I love that she is a great leader at school and church.

I love that she blogs about her choices in life and openly talks about her religion and how grateful she is for the Lord.

I love that she keeps my sister in line.

I love that I know she hates gathering the eggs from the chickens, and that she loves her crockpot as much as I do.

I am grateful to have her as an example.

I learn from her daily.

Love you, Shelby Jean!

(the 2 songs on my playlist are some of the songs we're trying to decide between for our girl's camp theme song. Whenever I hear them, I think of all my beautiful nieces).

the battle of the blinds

The first thing I do in the morning is open all of the blinds. I hate having them closed. In years past, if Jer got up before me, he'd just leave them closed and it would drive me crazy that it didn't drive him crazy.

In the past few years though, he's taken to opening them like this:

What's wrong with that you might ask? He only opens them like half way, so you can't see out of them and not as much sunshine gets in. He has been known to quote the witch in Sword in the Stone that says, "I hate sunshine" so that probably explains why he only opens them half way. But it drives me crazy! He goes through the house and opens them like that, then as soon as he leaves for work, I go and open them all the way, like this:

Ahh...so much better.
Last Saturday as he went through and opened all the blinds half way, I just followed him around and opened them all the way and said, "Why don't you just do it my way?" He replied, "Because I like it better this way."

Isn't it fun to be stubborn?

I wouldn't know. I'm just always right.

A stern letter from Lindsay

A few days ago I bought Lindsay "the girl chipmunk song" on iTunes. She dances around and loves it (if I can figure out how, I"ll have to post some video of it), and she even learned how to turn it on by herself - which is a huge accomplishment for her. This morning she came down and immediately wanted it turned on. Much to her dismay, she couldn't find iTunes on the computer. Neither could I. In our house, that can only mean one thing...Dad has been making "improvements" to the computer.



Lindsay said, "Mom. I need to write Dad a letter and let him know that it's not o.k. that he took my song away." So she got her box of crayons and a piece of paper and went to work.

"mom, how do you spell "you can't get on the computer"?" I yell letters down the stairs while I do Maddie's hair upstairs. I came down to help when she got stuck on the "G" and had to take a picture, which earned a "mom, you're not going to blog this, are you?" As she tried to hide her note from me. Of course I'm not going to blog this...

And the final product, which she wanted to mail to Dad at work:

That'll teach him to mess with our computer.

The aftermath...

I woke up in the night sick.

So,

I took today off.

Maddie and Jeramy both offered to stay home and help me, but I said I'd be fine.

I slept a lot.

I read the entire 4th Fablehaven book.

That's about all I did.

I looked up the dictionary definition of "aftermath" here are the results:

1. A consequence, especially of a disaster or misfortune: famine as an aftermath of drought.
2. A period of time following a disastrous event: in the aftermath of war.

Today I had the misfortune of being sick. Tomorrow I will have to clean up the above pictured mess, plus do all of my "Monday things" plus my "Tuesday things" tomorrow will be the day after a disastrous event...me taking the day off.

Here's hoping tomorrow goes better!

(I love this kid, even if she demanded I get out of bed about a million times today and drove me nuts...and she caused 1/3 of the aftermath...more like 3/4 of it).

I spy...

Happy Mother's Day!

Do you see what I saw?

Happy Cinco De Mayo!

Or not so happy day.

I made Taco Soup.

Macie informed us that "this is the worst soup ever." And then sat like this through most of dinner.

She wanted a BOWL of sour cream to eat.

I said no.

I bought the most amazing guacamole chips at Costco.

Maddie wouldn't eat them because they were green.

Bought 4 pounds of strawberries at WinCo.

Discovered that Lindsay's eczema is aggravated by strawberries.

Lindsay loves strawberries.

I said no more strawberries for Lindsay.

I think I had every child in tears today.

That means I'm doing my job, right?

Going dutch

Most of you know that I grew up camping a lot. The dutch oven was always a part of those trips...until my Dad got his new fancy shmancy trailer with a microwave and stuff.

2 Christmases ago my in-laws gave us a dutch oven and I was excited to try it out.
2 years later it still sat in our garage with the Christmas bow on the box.
This week I vowed to use it, so I did.

It was pretty windy, so I did it in the garage - with the garage door half way open. I was surprised that no one came over concerned about the smoke billowing from the garage. Jeramy had to stay late at church, so we got a late start. I started my coals at 6:30, started cooking at 7. At 8 - when it should have been done - it wasn't. So I had to heat more coals which took another 20 minutes, then we cooked it for another 20 minutes.
The girls were super excited that they got to stay up late waiting for it to get done. (Gotta love the non-matching pj's that they picked out)

At 9, it was finally done! And it turned out great- if I do say so myself! I can't wait to try something else this week.

I told Maddie that I might try to make dinner one night in it, she said, "Mom, you'll have to start it like at lunchtime so it will be done."

So true.

When will I learn?

Don't you hate it when you have those little promptings in your head and you just assume that it's you thinking and not a more divine messenger?

Exhibit A: Tuesday was our First Aid night for Girl's Camp. We had planned on doing dutch oven desserts for our treat. About 4 times during the day I thought to myself "Go to Cabela's and buy one of those charcoal warmer things like Dad has, just in case no one has one tonight." And yet, I didn't go. When it came time to start our coals for the dutch oven - all we had was a lighter and a bunch of wind. Needless to say, we never got them lit and ended up having to take the cobblers to people's houses to be cooked. Had I listened, all would have gone MUCH smoother. (And yes, I went and bought a charcoal warmer Saturday).

Exhibit B: We were having some friends over for dinner Thursday night. All morning I kept thinking, "Just get Papa Murphies, it'll be easy and quick." And I kept telling myself, "No, I really want to make my Cafe Rio Chicken and dressing." So I went to the store, bought all the stuff I needed, drove past Papa Murphies and again thought I should just do pizza and shot down the idea. Came home, made guacamole, made the dressing, put the chicken in the crock pot and turned it on. Then I went to my mom's for the entire day. Came home about an hour before dinner and walked in the house and never got that amazing "whiff" of chicken. Odd. I went over and felt my crock pot and it was FREEZING! I thought maybe it had broke. Then I noticed that someone had broke into our house and unplugged it! Or maybe I never plugged it in. I guess we'll never know the truth. :)

Guess what we had for dinner?

Papa Murphies.
I made a mad-dash to buy it before our guests arrived. And well, we have been eating Cafe Rio chicken for the past 3 days because of the massive amounts I made.

Once again, had I listened, my night would have been a whole lot smoother, and we all wouldn't be sick of chicken.

We'll see if I have learned my lesson. Right now I'm feeling very strongly that I should go take my Sunday nap. I think I'll obey this time.