Breakfast Fav......

Yep...this is one of my favorite breakfasts! Chocolate muffin from Costco, a handful of chips (I must have large hands), and a tall glass of ice milk.....um...we were out of ice today, so I had to hurry and drink it up. I'll make a run to the store today. Also, a heart I found on Wednesday. I had cooked hamburger for taco soup and wha-la.....there it is.....

Bottle warmers

Awhile ago - I think it was in last years Christmas magazines that I am still trying to get through - I saw these cute bottle warmers. They were made with sleeves from old, stained, too small, just plain ugly thrift store sweaters. As you know, on Thursdays here at Goodwill, they have $1 day. Pink tags this week. And there were LOTS of pink tagged sweaters. I was looking for texture in my sleeves and found 4 good ones. So, for fifty cents a sleeve + extra craft stuff that I already had, we have these:

I guess I need to add in the cost of the sparkling cider - $7 for 4 bottles at Costco. The total cost $1.75+.50+.25(extras) = $2.50, a gift for friends/neighbors. I love them and I still have two more sweaters to chop up. This time I think I will buy the Welch's grape juice that comes in a bottle like these. They are a little more expensive but kids will like them better. Have a good day!

Bouquets & Ice Cream

A long time in the thinking process, but just couldn't make myself get around to it. But this morning I had to do it. It was time to throw the bouquets away. They held on for quite awhile, but today they looked sad.

So in the trash they had to go. (This is one of the main reasons I DON'T LIKE getting flowers. Although they were nice for a time). So the wedding is over and Jill has gone home :( It was fun having her here, and Jonathan - anytime you want to head home after August is great! Fun times will be had when you are around. Yep, yep, yep!!!

Two new hearts to add: A pretty serious burn on Shannons arm- (I should have taken another photo about an hour later, because the top streaks went away a little bit more and the heart was more prominent). Also, I can't remember what this was, but it was in a cereal bowl and I took it right before washing it out.

Lastly, a few funny photos with Camden. After Katie went through the Temple on the 15th, we went out to eat at Rosa's. Yep, one of my favorites. Their salmon tacos are to die for. Anyhow, someone put several straws in his drink and here he is trying to get a sip. It was pretty hard work! Silly Camden. And one day he was at my house and we heard the ice cream truck going down our road. An ice cream truck in November? What's up with that? I sent Shannon down to my room to get some money and Camden and I went running for the truck. Here's what we got...A bullet bar for me. I LOVE THEM! Shannon got a Spiderman ice cream and Camden got a Tweety-Bird. Both of theirs had eyes that were bubblegum. Doug, Kevin and Allan got there a few minutes later and got the truck for a fun snack of their own.

The Tuesday before we left to Australia we had to make a quick visit to the doctors office because it looked as though Doug had 'cellulitus' (sp?) symptoms again and we didn't want to end up in a country that does not like tourists needing hospital visits. Doug did have it and luckily all we had to do was take two medications daily as near to the same time each day AND without eating any dairy products 2hours before and 2hours after taking the medication. That was the hard part for Doug. (That was 8 hours each day that Doug had to worry about whether he could eat certain things or not). Long story, I know - but the real reason I'm telling you this is for this....in the lobby waiting for his appointment, I was reading this magazine and it was highlighting Elizabeth Taylor for some reason. I didn't pay too much attention to the article because I nearly broke out laughing out loud right there in the waiting room! I wanted this picture so badly that I took the magazine back to the examination room so I could tear the page out! Shame on me. But I think it was worth the theft! If you take your eyes off the beautiful Liz and look at the man taking her photo on the right hand side of the page you will nearly die - I promise! I don't know if you can zoom in or enlarge my photo I can't figure out how to make it bigger and post it, but I'll keep trying. If you can look at his bum side! Oh, my,........bun cheeks and saggy swim trunks....would you call them trunks? If you can't get a good look at this I beg you to go to your local library and hopefully they will have the Entertainment Weekly magazine dated 5.6.11 I might even have to frame this picture - I might even cut everyone else out but him and hang it by our pool! LOVE IT!!

Fast blog - and Jill and Jonathan should enjoy this one. When J & J headed off to Hawaii they left me an ironing board so I could have an extra one in my bedroom. Jill had warned me that it was broken and that Jonathan had fixed it so it should work okay. Nope. It didn't. Once it was set up, you couldn't put it down. We lived with it for awhile but one day I just broke and bought a new one with my 40% off JoAnn's coupon. I removed the old one from my room and left it in the living room and told Katie I couldn't put it down so I'm just going to put it in the back of Dad's truck and have him toss it in his work dumpster. Katie, being the Katie that we love, took it upon herself to 'brute-force' it down. And wa'la!!! Kudos to her. So, we (meaning Shannon, Katie and Allan) did the victory dance.

Wait a minute....where's Kevin....why isn't he doing the victory dance?... Oh, maybe he's still eating breakfast.....um...no.......what's that your eating Kevin? Cookies?! Are you gonna eat all those by yourself? We found out he was planning on it. But he did get up and do a little 'ditty' with Allan... But now the other kids want cookies too. They can't wait. And I heard they won't be sharing with Kevin at all!

I guess my body clock is still trying to figure out where I am. I have laid in bed now for 1 hour, keeping pen and paper close by to 'rid my mind' of things that are floating around in there, and finally decided to get up. Two full sheets of paper are filled with things to do, make, finish, or buy. I'm not sure I'll be posting every day because I get so busy during the day, I forget to make it a priority - however, if I continue to be awake at 1 in the morning, then I will take advantage of that. I still have not downloaded our Australia trip pictures, but they will be coming. Right now Katie's wedding and reception are all I can think about. Yesterday, most of the day, I used to sew these adorable material/ribbon/lace flowers onto some tulle material that will be going around the chairs at the reception. I forgot to take photos, but you know me, I'll make sure to get a picture of them and post them soon.

WE'RE BACK!

Good'ay Mates! Yep. I never heard that once while we were over in Australia. Hmm... a lot of dearies and lovies ('lovie, can you pass the vegemite?', or 'what would you like to order dearie'. Oh yeah, and a lot of ma'ams, but with their accent it sounded better).
Well, it was a massive whorl-wind of activity and I don't think we ever had one day of down time. Yes, we got to go to a free-roaming wildlife park so I guess we could consider that free time, but to get there was nearly 1 1/2 hours drive. I didn't care too much for the driving, but we did it ALOT! We drove so darn much that I kind of got used to the driving being on the left side of the road. And yes, I did do some of the driving - although the round-abouts made me very nervous....so most of my driving (or maybe all of it) was out on the divided thorough fares where I couldn't get into too much trouble. I have tons of pictures to post, but I need another day or two to get my brain back into America time. I have been awake since 2:30 this morning and read so magazines thinking that would get me tired, but all it's done is made my brain think of a hundred things that need to get done before Katie's wedding!! Yikes - 11 days!?! We are working hard on chair decoration flower things (photos to come) and these lampshades that she is covering in doilies (also, picture to come). It should be darling - my only concern right now is the weather. It only got up to 58 degrees yesterday! Brrrr...... Zip up my cardigan - throw on my super-soft socks with my flip flops! It's cold! I hope it warms up for her reception because its an outdoor one.

Happy Anniversary to Brian and Celynda!

I think it's been 8 years for Brian and Celynda! Thank you Celynda for loving Brian and especially for putting up with him. (we all know what I mean, right?...) Okay, and thank you Brian, for loving Celynda as much as we all do! We love you both and can't wait till you are a little closer!
ps- Jill, let Jonathan know he is in my blog today. I know he doesn't read them unless he is mentioned or in it.

I don't know how pretty these pictures will be to you all, but when Allan and I were driving home from a race - the sun was setting and it was gorgeous! Enjoy.... Here's how Allan felt about me taking all these pictures while driving.....
I will say that these are only a FEW of the photos. I just kept clicking away all the way home. So Allan's look probably saved you from looking at ALL the pictures I took.

Okay. Here is a funny blog. Monday night I was fixing dinner and the boys were playing games and Shannon was playing the piano when the lights started flickering and the electricity went off and on quickly a couple of times. Doug came in and asked if the lights went off and on and we said yeah, and he told us that the electical box (on the side of the house) was sizzling. I suggested rather loudly to get out there and turn it off. I was afraid it would start a fire! So he pulled the switch and when he pulled out the main breaker - it had fried right out the side of the box! This was about 7pm. Luckily, I had barbequed some steaks and salmon, but we had nothing left to eat with them but rolls. (we were in the process of boiling water for potatoes and stuffing when he pulled the switch). I told the kids they couldn't open the fridge or freezer until it was fixed so we wouldn't lose any of the cold that was in them. It was dark and so we lit candles but I can tell you here and now - I need to buy 'unscented' candles. By the time a few hours went by I had a headache from all the different scents that were burning around the house. We loaded the kids in the car and went as a family (minus Katie who was at a b-day party for Brandon's brother) to Home Depot to get a new main breaker. No luck. So, we all drove down to the shop to see if Doug could get a parts store to open for him and we get the part that night. No luck. The only place that would be able to open was Graingers and the part was about $3000! So we decided to spend the night with the electricity abscent from our home. It was not a pleasant night. The weather had not quite cooled down like it is today. In the morning I only let the kids open the fridge for the milk and they had to do it one time quickly. Doug had left early to go clear into Phoenix to get the part and then worked on it all day - eventually haveing to replace the WHOLE panel because of a broken stem (or something). We didn't get our power back on until 2:30pm Tuesday afternoon. 19 1/2 hours of no electricity. We hadn't dared to open any fridges (we have 2) or freezers (3) so we were not really sure of what it was going to be like inside of them. Luckily everything faired well. The ice cream was very soft, but other than that it was good news.

Now the funny part. I had made these special 'head flashlights' (check my July 26th blog), 25 of them, for our wards girls camp play. They came in handy once again. We all wore them around the house for the rest of the night. There wasn't too much to do, so we read, threw things at each other, and actually went to bed at a reasonable time. But here are some pictures that I made Shannon and Allan pose for because we forgot to take some on Monday night.

Just one more quick one for today. Last Friday (Happy Birthday Kevin), Allan had a Cross Country meet. It was way the heck out to Queen Creek, actually at the same campus that Katie went to school, Poly-Technic of ASU part of the Chandler Gilbert campus, anyway - it was a HUGE meet. There were schools there from Alabama! Yes, Alabama. (where did that school get their budget?) There were so many kids that each individual group of kids ran separately. Like: small school freshman girls, large school freshman girls, etc. Sometimes they even had to divide the groups: sophomore boys from large schools into two separate races. It was crazy big. They even had independent schools run - so some races had well over 100 kids and other races had 10 or so. They would start the races every 15-20 minutes which was nice, but it was a long race. Here Allan is looking down. I had just handed him his cleat shoes that the coach suggested he wear, but it was a big mistake and I think Allan could tell right from the get go. Allan here at the very right edge of picture....And this is a photo of as much of the boys that I could get at the start. Mesa High (purple) is pretty close to the middle and Allan is the second kid back. About a third of the way through the race: At the end with a good time - although he has gotten a better time than that, but the shoes were not his friend. At the water station. We had to run home because we were having a group of people over for games that night and with it being about a 25 minute drive home from here we left as soon as Allan's coach let him go. She is NOT making this a fun year for Allan. I'm not even sure he'll run next year which is sad because he used to have what it takes to run but this coach has been, in our experience, not a very supportive one. We miss Coach Nissen.

Bathroom updates

Here's a quick update on our bathroom redo. We took advantage of this weekends conference time and worked when we could. (Even painting some while Elder Ballard talked....oopsie). This will be the last that you see of our disgusting linoleum flowered flooring. Hallelujah! I hated that floor. We quickly painted the two walls and ceiling by the washer/dryer and got them back into place. They had been 'ousted' to the family room for a week and laundry had been building up - especially for Kevin and his work clothes. We put them back into place and got a batch of laundry started before the next sessions started. I went out and bought just the right curtain on Monday and 'walla' - the one half of the bathroom is done. I guess I should finish the toilet room next. Although it is very functional it, lacks the finishing touches. I did a base coat of white to cover up the yellow.....yep, here is the last of it:

Oops - one tiny little speck left to get. We still need to add the mirrors and lights, but the shower, toilet and sinks work so folks can actually use the downstairs bathroom. Here are a few of the accessories that we will be using down there. I love the square look because of the windows that we've put in. It should look good. I'll post the finished project by next Monday. I think we'll need to work on it this weekend to get it done. Big story for tomorrow - stay tuned.