Father's Day

Happy Father's Day and Happy First day of Summer!! (I hope the summer things means that it will quit raining and start being nice!!) I was looking at a few web sites the other day and instantly fell in love when I saw these. I knew that I had to make them for Father's day here at our house. We are having a get together with my family this evening and also going out to visit Matt's dad and I thought these would be a fun little treat to celebrate the dad's in our life! I was surprised how easy they really were, a little time consuming because I had to make cupcakes, brownies, and cookies, but they went together really quickly and turned out sooooooo cute. I think they turned out quite well. I do have to give credit to Bakerella for the idea. I sure loved it, if you have never visited her site, give it a try, it might inspire you to try something like this out one day. (http://bakerella.blogspot.com) Oh did I mention they taste great too!!

Now I would just like to say what a great dad Matt is to our kids. I really am so lucky to have such a great husband and father to my children. He helps me out so much with them and plays with them and makes them laugh. I just love to hear the sound of my kids laughing and knowing that they are happy. Matt has taught Parker so much and I know he looks up to his do so much. I am glad that Parker has a good example on his life of what a great dad should be. I love you Matt, Happy Father's Day!

Dinosaurs

I have sure had a hard time keeping up with the blog lately. Today I am attempting to play a little catch up. Last weekend my kids and I went with my parents to visit some family. One of my cousins is having a baby and her shower was on Sat. and another cousin on the other side is going on a mission for the LDS church and spoke in church on Sunday. So we were there for the weekend. While we were there we decided to take the kids to a Dinosaur museum. Parker has really been into dinos lately and we knew he would just love seeing all about the dinosaurs. We had a great time and he especially loved the areas that he got to play in the sand and build rivers and streams and dams. He also loved the part where he got to excavate the dinosaur bones from the sand box. The museum was fun with a ton to see about dinosaurs, I think we will go back when the kids are older and can really walk through the museum and talk about each dinosaur and what they were like. Unfortunately Matt had to work that weekend so he wasn't with us, another reason to go back. The kids also loved the fact that we got to stay in a hotel and go swimming in the hotel pool. It wasn't very big, but we were the only ones using it at the time so it worked out perfectly. Parker said he wanted to stay in the pool "all night" good thing it was only open until 10, I for sure didn't want to stay in there all night. We had a really good time and the kids were really good on the drive there and on the way back!

Summer Lunch

In our school district they participate in a program called Summer Food Service Program and provide free lunch for children 1-18 years old. So I decided to take Parker & Paige to get them out of the house and hey you can't turn down a free meal. The program started this week and we have gone 3 days, it has been a fun time for the kids to eat in a lunchroom and then to be able to play outside on the playground equipment for a little while. Paige is sure an adventurous little girl and can play with the big kids. She climbs right up the stairs and goes down the slide all on her own. (of course I am right there with her) She would spend hours playing on the slides, climbing up the stairs, walking across the bridge, and playing in the wood chips. Today she started throwing a big tantrum when we had to leave, boy they learn that young. I am hoping that being by other kids and playing with them will help Parker learn to be more kind to others and to share. He seems to be doing good and really loving his time with friends. He doesn't really throw a fit when it is time to leave because he understands we will be back tomorrow. Today as we got home he said to me "today's a fun day" I am trying really hard to be a "funner" mom and to do more with my kids, to get them and me out of the house more often. On Monday we are going to sign up for the Summer Reading Program at our local library. It gets kids involved with reading, learning and activities. I think Parker will have a great time going to the library and having story time and then to be able to pick out a book to take home for the week will be really exciting to him. We will probably also do the Summer Movie Time at the Theater. Wow!! It is going to be a fun and busy summer. We are excited to have fun together and to enjoy the nice weather (when it decides to get here!) What are your plans for the summer???

This is what I'm watching!

This is what I will be watching on Sunday nights for the next few months! I am really excited about this season and something good to watch on TV. All of my other shows have ended for the season so I am excited to have something to follow throughout the summer. If you haven't watched it before you should check it out it is really good!! I am hoping this week I can get a decent picture of our garden and flower bed to post and show you all what we have accomplished, that is if the rain ever stops and the sun comes out!!!

What we've been up to

Well I sure have been a slacker when it comes to blogging. We are starting the busy time of year and I have realized that I will not be home as much and out with the kids more often, which is a good thing. The weather for this week looks really great and I am looking forward to being outside with the kids going to parks, playing on our swing set, and going for walks!
We had a great time on our camping trip, the weather was really nice the first 2 days and a little windy and rainy the last day, but we managed to stay warm and dry thanks to the camper Matt's parents let us use! Thanks again Chris and Kerry. We had a great time with family and enjoyed just relaxing and doing nothing. Parker loved playing in the dirt, swimming in the warm spring with the fishes and going fishing. He said he wanted to stay there forever. The only thing he discovered that he didn't "love" about camping was the outhouse. He was afraid he was going to fall in and let's face it the outhouse was a little scary!! Paige on the other hand stayed in my lap the entire weekend. She didn't like the dirt or the other people that wanted to hold her. I was glad to get home and let her be free and give my arm a break. She has been busy going going going since we got home. I was beginning to wonder if she still remembered how to walk while we were camping.

So the project that I just completed I had started with the intention of using on our camping trip and boy did it come in handy. Matt seems to always get holes in his jeans so quickly and I started a pile of jeans for a denim quilt. Well thinking about our upcoming camping trip I thought it was a good time to put the used jeans to a new use and make a quilt. So I spent a couple of days cutting up the legs of the jeans and about a week cutting blocks. Then my mom helped me one afternoon sew the blocks into strips. Then it took another day to sew the strips together and to tie the quilt together. Then my wonderful mom sewed the binding on and we were finished with about 1 week to spare before the trip. I was pretty happy with the way it turned out and am excited to have it for all of our future camping trips, reunions, picnics and other events.

Busy Busy Busy

So I haven't disappeared, just been really busy. We have been working in our yard trying to repair damages done from cutting down 2 humungous trees last fall, and trying to get our garden spot ready. On top of all that I have been working on a project that I will post about later and we are going camping this weekend so we have been really busy. Hopefully I will have a spare minute sometime this week before we leave to post some pictures.

Arggggggg!

No I am not a pirate, but very frustrated! Matt started mowing lawns again a few weeks ago (He has a side job of mowing residential and some business lawns) and I am excited that he has something to keep him busy and make a little extra money. But today wasn't one of those days!! While he was trimming a lawn here in town an elderly lady in a mini van drove by just as a rock flipped up from the trimmer and shattered her sliding door window!! What horrible luck! He told her he would do what he could to help out with the costs, well it ends up being $340!! What the *@*#!!! Don't people have insurance for things like that! I was pretty upset, because when a semi flips a rock on you and breaks your windshield you don't go chasing them down to get them to pay for it. Your insurance pays for it. Well whatever, Matt talked to a guy that sells insurance and said that if they turn it into their insurance more than likely the insurance company will come back after us to pay for the cost of processing the claim and the cost of the repair. So it looks like we are going to have to pull the money from off of our money tree and pay the bill. I am sure that the older couple has more money than we do, for sure now they do. I can say that we (Matt) is looking into contractors liability so that if something else like that happens, or worse, we will be covered. What a crappy day, and to top it off I have horrible allergies and can hardly breathe thru my stuffed up nose. Why do bad things happen to good people!!