D & B DeWitt Family

Remodeling continues...

2012-01-23T07:13:00.000-08:00

Bummer, I kinda lost track of the days that we worked, the many, many trips we took to Home Depot and Lowe's. So I will just have to post the photo's and let you have a looky-loo. It took about one week and 2 days -minus Sundays. First of all...I forgot to add this to the last post. I had cooked bacon to wake the kids up so they could come and help and there was a heart! Yes...I know most of you would 'scoff' at my heart-sitings but it's just for me anyways, I just like to share. Okay, now on to the bath.This is about the only picture with me working AND I wanted to keep a picture of the old linoleum. How did we live so long with that stuff? This new peel and stick tile is great! You can leave it spaced and actually grout between it so it looks like real stone tile. (Not really real looking up close, but darn near it). Side note:

Shannon had brought this book home from school, "A Child named It'. Allan and I read the whole thing before she got a chance to finish it - NOW we need book 2 to find out what happened to his mom/family! If any of you have read it you know what I mean. Also, Shan had a cold most of last week and this is usually how I found her Now for the bathroom pictures. It is nearly complete - we have to wait until Tuesday to put a sealer on our shower tiles, and a few spots of touch up paint! Woo-hoo! We are all out of bathrooms to do, so what are we going to do next? Oh, I've got plans...The accent tile we used in the shower area I love. It has the glisteny ones that are pretty in real life. You'll just have to come by and see them. The mirrored medicine cabinet you see in the far back is an honorable shout-out to Allan. I can't remember if I mentioned this or not, but he, on his own took out our old ugly one and installed this ! Four screws out, a little tug and then four screws back in! No problem. Also, we had some 'rough' wall area to cover up behind the toilet and I didn't want to use the bead board again so we used this mosaic tile and put it around the sink area. It turned out nice. Once again, better in real life. I can't remember the name of the Lowe's paint I bought....something 'mint', but I can describe it as 'seafoam green'. Uh, hu, the 1980's color. Doug came up with adding extra support for our towel racks. For some reason the racks did not like staying up on this wall. We must have had 8 'patched' towel rack holes pre-beadboard wall. I love it!This picture is not very pretty, but the curtain is great and the swirly-circles match the 'mint' paint that I used. I did not paint every wall but some some accent places. My least favorite part...clean-up. Stop by sometime and see our newly renovated bath. Sit for a while if you want. giggle-giggle.....

Remodeling begins.....

2012-01-16T07:36:00.000-08:00

Heart of the day - spilled milk in my sink. Sunday the 15th.

We have decided to finally get the last bathroom of the house remodeled.

Day 1 - Friday, January 13th. 1st trip to Home Depot. We picked out tile, new cupboard, counter top and paint. They couldn't find our cupboard in stock so we had go to another store. Second trip to Home Depot put off until morning, Saturday the 14th.

Day 2 - Actual demolition begins. 7am Good, its still dark outside.

The toilet won't be too noticeable yet.

Next step: tile. Most of it came down pretty easy. With a 30 year old (+) house, the wall board was a little messed up. Gross.

8am - kids still not up, so we had to do something.....

yep, bacon...it gets to them every time.

A few shots of workers:

Wait a minute - potty break.....

Added bonus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLT71m7Dog8&feature=youtu.be

10am - tile and wallpaper down.Goodbye kids at the beach wallpaper.

3rd trip to Home Depot - with a side trip to Goodwill. About 200 VHS videos to get rid off. Maybe 100 books too. While I went to the Home Depot by Doug's office, the boys went to the office to dump some items in the dumpster there and to pick up the trailer and saw for Jeff and Carolyn to use later in the day. They met me at H.D. to pick up the items we purchased (cabinet, counter top, 2 mirrors, over the toilet cabinet). On the way home, of course, we had to sweeten the delivery by going to Water & Ice or Sonic.

While we were gone Doug had his first trip to our H.D. (the one by our home, we call ours). He had replaced the old water piping with new. I needed to go look for 5/8 greenboard drywall - first MCD, no luck there, they are closed on Saturdays and our last chance, Lowe's. Yeah!! They had it. Home by 12:15pm. The mirror comes down next and I just can't throw it away!

Yikes-does anyone want a 7'x3' mirror?

Kevin helps to get the light up, but sadly we had to redo part of it. He was in a hurry to go pick up JESSII! Yes! She is here! So, Doug, Jeff and I worked on the light and although it is beautiful, it was a little more work than what I had thought it would be. Next we started tiling the floor. I love this new peel and stick tile. It actually can be grouted to look more like stone and it has the feel (somewhat) of stone, but we decide we want it down quickly - so we won't be grouting. I still love it though!
We needed to stop at this point to go to a wedding reception.

Tomorrow is Sunday - rest day, so no work until Monday. Hopefully we can get it all done but the tiling of the tub.

2012-01-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

About 2 years ago I found these 'trays' at Deseret Industries for $2 each. (thanks for modeling it Allan). Each tray was about 2 feet long and about 9" wide. There were 6 or 7 of them so I bought them all thinking that someday I would find a use for them. Last Christmas - yes, more than a year ago- I had this great idea to ModgePodge them with Christmas paper. We would then bake some loaves of bread or cookies or whatever, and put them on the trays and deliver them to our good friends. We got 1 finished and had 2 more started, but they didn't get delivered out.

So this Christmas, using three of them, I painted them Griffin, Kai and Treyson's favorite colors. I pulled out my dusty, trusty Cricut machine and found some vinyl sheets to cut out their names and the words 'art' & 'work'. I added some cork board squares on them for the boys to put their artwork.

I'm sure they would have preferred toys. However, I had fun making them.

aarrggggg.....

2012-01-09T09:31:00.000-08:00

Does anyone want a dog?

Shannon is 16!!!

2012-01-04T08:12:00.001-08:00

Today is Shannon's birthday! I decided to do a blog about her. I remember the day I found out I was pregnant with her and I feel terrible now, but I was a crying mess. I just figured we had our 'quiver' full of kids - 6 was a good number, and then to find out that another one was coming just as I was about to send #5 off to kindergarten?.......man oh man.....

I just want her to know how much we adore her and we are glad she was sent to our family! She has been blessed with a gift of singing, like her dad - and most of her other brothers and sisters - which they won't admit to. She enjoys being with friends, wants to be in more plays, loves her new IPod touch, and clothes. I can't tell you how much she loves clothes, but I will say that she and Katie changed a whole downstairs bedroom into a 'walk-in' closet for the both of them and when Katie moved out, we thought it would have been downsized, but nope, it still looks the same.....Katie, did you take ANY clothes with you when you moved out?

January 4, 1996 - 9lbs. 5 1/2 oz.

Grandma and Grandpa DeWitt were both at the birth of Shannon.

August 1996. Brian seemed to like her when she was born. He loved to be the one to take her out of Sacrament meetings if she cried.
Her first snow!! Thanksgiving 1996, Snowflake. Get a load of dad!
The only way she could get her share of ice cream! Summer 1997.

She did a Hawaiian dance class through the city of Mesa. Summer 2002
She tried and out made (!) it into a play put on by the East Valley Children's Theater.....It Happened in Hamelin. June of 2006. (I think she was the bakers daughter).

And here she is turning 12 and the

Young Women welcoming her with a 'heart attack'.
Out in the 'giddy-up' with Trey...

Spiking the ball on the Mesa High club team.... In the pool at BankOne Ball park watching a LA Dodger/Diamondback game. Thanks Jonathan! Jill and Allan are in the picture too!

And last but not least, one of my favorites..!
Sleep well Shannon. Sleep well.

Christmas Eve 2011

2012-01-02T03:55:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve and all through the house

Everyone was bored, the children, dad's spouse.

Then Kevin and Shan, just sitting around,

Said "Hey, let's do something really profound"!

"Give me some p'jams" - said Kevin to Shan

"I think I've come up with a wonderful plan".

'Mom's now 'nodding' and for sure in her socks,

She won't want to fix dinner - let's go to Jack in the Box.

"Yeah', replies Shannon, ' but what about Allan?

"He'll want to go, but pajamas, he's got none".

'Let's see what Mom's got, for sure she'll have something...

Maybe a moo-moo, a nightgown, or G-string!"

......NOOOO....(erase the image from my mind, erase the image from my mind)......

To the box of costumes is where they were sent

And wha-la pulled out pj's for Al and the big event.

Yes, there was some discomfort and even discord
Of the recruit, but for a free meal, he jumped on board.

First they did posing,

next, the clock they did check, They realized they better get on with their trek.

So, mom said she'd go , the pictures she'd take

While the 3 of them ordered food: fries and a shake.

Checking the order, and checking it twice -

they had ordered dad taco's, gee that was nice.

And they exclaimed as we drove from the parking lot that night..
'Merry Christmas to All', hey, this has been alright.

Breakfast Fav......

2011-12-16T08:28:00.001-08:00

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

2011-12-03T05:40:00.001-08:00

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

2011-11-30T06:26:00.000-08:00

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.

2011-11-11T21:25:00.000-08:00

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!!

2011-11-11T13:43:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-11-10T00:48:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-11-08T03:34:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-10-10T06:37:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-10-10T06:28:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-10-06T08:12:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-10-06T07:53:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-06T07:10:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-09-30T07:01:00.000-07:00

http://shop2.tuesdaymorning.com/_images/Grace-920.jpg Today I am loving these. Of course I would never buy them because of the immodest dresses - However, I think I will try my hand at drawing them and adding in a few sleeves and whatnot. LOVE THEM!

poor, poor, Driscolls

2011-09-28T09:33:00.000-07:00

Today I thought I would also share a lovely gift we found in our outside refrigerator. Driscolls. At first it looked as though they were frozen together, but after opening the carton we realized, nope, just molded together. I left them out on my counter for several hours thinking that they would somehow start to 'demold' themselves, one from another, but no, they held on all day long. So now they sit together in my trash bag, in my trash container, out on the curb by the road. Their day will be full of stops, bumps, squishes and eventually a dump. Maybe the birds that scour the dump site will find them and pick them apart, but I doubt even the birds will know what to do with you, our poor Driscolls. Have a good long life my Driscoll friends. Until I buy some of your cousins - Auf Wiedersehn.......

2011-09-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

Okay my dear friends. This blog is mostly for my children whom have left the 'coop'. As they all know we are remodeling the bathroom downstairs and it has been a doozy of a job. We thought things would all fit in to a nice little plan we had drawn up and after several 'discovered' pipe configurations we had to scrap what we had started with design-wise. Which is okay, it just sets your mind back a little. But here, for the sake of all of you needing to see the update (and we hope to be done before Katie's nuptials), are the pictures. This is a view as you first walk in the door. New toilet room and shower. The shower is where the water heater used to be. We had to knock down that wall and make it a little bigger than we started with. We are not doing the tiling - that is hired out - AND the red/pink is NOT a part of the final look. I guess it is some kind of sealant. Where the washer and dryer will sit (same place just a little more crowded now). Looking from the washer/dryer spot to where the new DOUBLE SINK vanity will be sitting. Yes, the new toilet room door will hit it, but we are hoping it will remained closed mostly. Looking into the loo. We added 3 windows into the toilet room so it can let the natural light in to the rest of the room. (2 in the shower area and 1 facing the sink area).

These two depict the loo area.

Looking out from the shower to where the original door is. It might be a little tighter than before, but with the addition of a private area (the latrine), and with 2 sinks now, it just might be more accommodating to a family. It's sad, now that we are on the count-down of children, that we are finally doing this, but someday we will be selling it and we are thinking of that. We still have 5 great years of Shannon and Allan around!

Brian's Day

2011-09-09T06:03:00.001-07:00

Grape Day

I don't know Day

ASU Graduation Day

Toe Day in Pine, Az. Day

Teaching Lukas to love the 'box' Day

Christmas 2010

Okay - I've worked all morning and my scanner is NOT working! Oh, they scanned into my documents alright, but it is now telling me that another window needs to open to allow it into by blog!! And it is not letting me move my pictures around, so you get the long column of photos.....Uuggggh!!!.....So, sorry Brian. These are some of the pictures that I have of you. The ones I scanned were of course your cute 'little' pictures and you were cute. Happy Birthday to you today - a big 30!!! Wow! And you were my 'square root' baby, being born 9/9/81 AND weighing 9lbs.7oz. Thanks for being a fun son! We miss having you around and your family around. Thanks Celynda, Lukas, Brook and baby Roxy for loving him!

Purple Person!

2011-09-06T22:30:00.001-07:00

I really don't have too much to say this evening, but I will say something. My Allan has been made a 'Purple People' at Mesa High this year. This is a big deal. In years past, this was NOT a club, boys would just show up to a football game with an M, or E, S or A painted on their belly and then the tradition grew to where they would paint their whole bodies and 'whoop' and 'holler' out in the crowd to keep spirits up. (I think it all started when a few boys who tried out for the cheer squad and didn't make it). just kidding... But - it got way out of hand, people getting crazy and probably hurt, etc., so the Student Council took it over and now there are try-outs to join - and....well.....we are proud parents of the one and only AND first freshman EVER that made the 'Purple People' - um - company? (just a reminder - this is the first year that Mesa High has 'actual' freshman or should I say 'official' freshman) So Allan will have this claim to fame for the rest of his life. Anyway, as most of you who read my blog know, Allan has always had school spirit - even back in grade school. (He dressed up as his 'hero', who was his teacher, Mr. Mann) Here are a few of his junior high photo's - just to stir up a few memories for us all:Dr. Seuss Day. Crazy Hair Day.Super Hero Day. And Decade Day. I can't remember what this day was, but it was while he was still in Brimhall Junior High. Remember Occupation Day? And finally Bobcat Spirit Day.......
This past week at Mesa High was Spirit Week and each day had a different 'theme'. Allan of course dressed up for them all. Crazy sock day, Occupation day again ( he wore one of Doug's work shirts), and these:Jersey Day, Crazy Hair Day, and finally Super Hero day: He is really wearing a SHIRT here, we just added what was needed to fake people out. Can you guess who he is? Oops! I think I already blogged about this, (check out August 19th) but oh, well.

Our bathroom remodel is going very slowly. Bummer, but we are replumbing, building two new walls, retiling, and everything else that goes into it.

AND I am obsessed with Donny Osmonds album (it's not new, 2005) - What I Meant to Say! I could seriously listen to it all day - especially tracks 1,4, 7, 9 and 12. LOVE IT! (deep breath) (Vayla, are you with me on this one?)

2011-08-31T06:11:00.000-07:00

I finally finished the next book that I picked up for $1. It was this: Now, I'm not sure I believe all angels have wings, however, the cover is a lovely picture. There are 12 short stories of people who have experienced an angel in their lives - usually during a time of their life being in danger. Really good. The kind of good that gives you goosebumps at the end of each story. I highly recommend it. And it's available from me if anyone in my area wants to read it. I am still in the 'slow' reading of President Monson's book. It seems like I'll never get through it, but I do enjoy the book during the times I'm reading it. Saturday I cleaned out my game cupboard - or cupboards/closets - I should say. We have a small stand up cupboard in our dining room area. This is where we store our 'more' played games. Next to the cupboard on the floor, is a pile that grows every few weeks, of games that I buy at my local thrift stores for $1 (okay, sometimes I splurge and spend $2 or $3 or even $4). These are games that I want to 'try' out on the fam, to see if we like them and to see if they will replace a game located in the coveted spot of the dining room game cupboard. Most of the time they don't and so they get taken to the first bedrooms closet shelves. And when I run out of room there, then the games get taken down to the family room cupboard. This is where the 'sort of liked games' are stored, but probably won't be played much - if at all. But I figure that if I only spend less than $4 on ANY game, we can play it once or twice and then return it to Goodwill. One of our favorite new games is this: I did not buy this one at the thrift store, I actually paid good money for this at Target and luckily it is worthy of a dining room cupboard spot. I think it was about $15. So after sorting through the games I offered them to my kids.....Jason and Stacey picking first, Kevin picking next and Katie with Brandon were last. Jason and Kevin (Kevin's pile next to his bed now) each took about 7 and Katie took 2. So, believe it or not, here is what was left over and they will NOT be returning to their cupboard, but they will be the lucky ones heading to Goodwill and then to a new home. Lucky because they will not be left in a dark lonely cupboard never to be seen or played with. They should feel honored that they were in our home!

Recipe turnouts....

2011-08-27T10:44:00.000-07:00

Here's what I woke up to this morning.....Sometime during the hours of 3-4am they found their way to my bed. Can you see the small sliver of bed I had to sleep on? No wonder I couldn't pull the covers over my whole body. Yeah, and they are both a little on the 'cloggy-nose ' sick side so I'm taking Vitamin C and echinacia like crazy. I'm gonna have to wash my sheets and pillowcases.......great.

Our party was great last night - lots of food, less of people, but what we did have was the perfect amount for playing a few of our favorite games. One of them being: Sort it Out. Play it with us next time your over.

Now on to the conclusion of yesterdays blog.

Here is the picture of what I was trying to make:

Here is mine: I will have to roll mine out thinner next time and maybe use strawberry jam instead of raspberry - but all in all, they turned out good and they got compliments of 'goodness'. As you can see I took liberty to 'criss-cross' mine because I had extra chocolate. I thought I had the instructions completely right in my mind, but one of the steps I goofed on - baking them first instead of spreading the cream cheese filling and stacking them together and then baking - but I hurried and put the cream cheese on the warm baked ones then stacked them and they turned out super fine.

Now, what was I going to do with the left over dough?...

as you can see, I had no problem finding a solution... Treyson really liked it. I hope his mom didn't see him eat more than just one piece!

Here are a few of my favorite things when baking -My Bosch-

Stackable magnetic measuring spoons -And my sugar holder - a small explanation of my sugar container: My mom worked at Sambo's Restaurant when I was getting married and for one of my shower gifts (I think) she gave me tons of kitchen items and this was the one to hold my sugar. It was a pickle holder or mayonnaise container from Sambo's. I know there were other large ones but this sugar one has been with me since my bridal shower! I think Mom wins for the most used and useful gift of all!!! The writing of the word Sugar has rubbed off over the years, but my kids have known nothing but this as our sugar jar.

My next recipe was Dill Dip. It too was very good and I loved the cottage cheese in it (I wasn't sure I would). I would, however, add only half of the dill. It was a bit too dilly for me. It looked just like it was supposed to. Phew!

So, four recipes, four thumbs up. Meaning, I would make them all again. One of the things I love about this book is little information on most of the pages. Here is the 'roasting your own red peppers" page I told you about earlier....and here is a little tidbit about 'spooning' flour into your measuring cups and not smashing it down in the cup to get your measurements right. I hear Doug jackhammering our downstairs bathroom floor again. I think that is my clue to 'Honey - come and help me', without the words actually being spoken. More recipes to come.

Oh, dress shopping was a success! I didn't take a picture but Katie has one on her phone. Text her if you want to see it.

Our Best Bites and now mine too!

2011-08-26T07:36:00.000-07:00

I have been 'devouring' (pun intended) my new book purchase of 'Our Best Bites'. I found it at Costco and I think I paid around $15. The two recipes I have tried, Almond Poppy Seed Bread and Roasted Red Pepper Dip, I have loved. And the 'homemaker' in me, actually roasted my own red peppers because the instructions were on the page right before the actual dip recipe. I would love to start at page 1 and complete each recipe through the whole book. Yes, I did see Julie & Julia. The recipe on page one, actually page 4 with all of the introduction stuff...., is Dill Dip. Tonight we have an old peoples game night at a home in our ward, so I might make it and take it there. That way if it's not good I'll conveniently leave it there and if it's in a throw away bowl they won't even know who brought it! Brilliant! But then I also thought......if I just start from the front of the book - appetizers - I might get bored and would end up not doing the rest of the recipes so I have decided to add a desert to the 'party list' for tonight. I was thinking about starting from the LAST recipe of the dessert section which is Cinnamon Bun Caramel Corn - sounds yummy but not so great for older folks who might have teeth dysfunctions......yeah, you know what I mean. So the next recipe was Stovetop Kettle Corn....hmmm...nope and the one before that is Easy Pretzel Turtles. Wow, all nut/kernel infested recipes. I will have to start with the first dessert recipe which is boring....Sugar Cookies. Looking here at the recipe though it does have almond extract, which I have learned from my moms 'DELISH' cookies, is the winner ingredient for sugar cookies. BUT because sugar cookies is slightly boring I looked at the next recipe and it is Jam-Filled Cookies. It still uses the sugar cookie dough recipe, but has jam, cream cheese (a component in recipes I can rarely pass up) and then a melted chocolate chip drizzle. That's the one I'll make. I guess I better go then to get these recipes done. I'll try to remember to take pictures and post tomorrow but Katie and I are wedding dress shopping today so my mind might be elsewhere!!!! Oh, I also scanned the roasted red pepper page to download here but it is not letting me add them - a copier malfunction I guess.

Birthday/Anniversary wall.......

2011-08-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

Many of you have seen my birthday/anniversary 'calendar', if you want to call it that, here on my living room wall. I love it. I'm not sure exactly where I might have seen something similar but I came up with the idea a few years ago and went to a 'late-night' scrapbook night (stays open till 11pm or something crazy like that) at our local scrapbook store with my sister-in-law, Julie. While others, meaning everyone else, were making their 12x12 scrapbook pages, I was doing these little 4x6 monthly frames. Believe or not, they were challenging! When I first finished the project, I think I had my at least 4 grandkids, but when I decided to have their pictures underneath there were 5 by then.
Today, a few years later, we have an updated wall:
Same angled view:

and a straight-on view!
I love it as much today as I did when I first made it. As you notice with the holes in the wall, I've had to move the pictures down because of the month of May and July. I think next time I rearrange the pictures will go on top!

Nacho......

2011-08-19T20:57:00.000-07:00

Howdy everyone! Yesterday, Allan decided to go Friday night to Mesa Highs 'Howdy Hero Hop'. This is the first official 'kind of silly' dance where you can get to know the new kids in school. After much thought and a few family concerns, he opted to go as Nacho Libre and not AquaMan or Wonder Woman, which were up for serious consideration. For those of you who have never heard of or seen the movie - here is the movie poster. Yeah, it's gonna take a little work to get this hero look. So, Thursday after school I took Allan to his Improv' class which is held in Scottsdale (I can't wait for it to be over.... 2 more weeks...) On the way we stopped by a Goodwill, which of course being Thursday, was dollar day. Orange tags, $1.00. So we found these great old ladies blue poly-pants that even have a little texture to them, a ladies pair of red exercise shorts, a body (kind of) colored t-shirt, all of which were a dollar each! Hello...SCORE!...and a red tablecloth that was $2.99. (We ended up NOT using the tablecloth because of it's 'stiffy' material and I dug deep in my material bins and found a 'flowy' red cloth that we had used for an Eagle Scout event decoration.) So, the two things missing was a wig - hmm....I have one of those....and boots. I went to Deseret Industries today (Friday) and found some great ones - black, size 10 1/2 (Allan's size) for a few dollars more than I wanted to spend, but I was desperate. So, I spray painted them red, left them out in the sun to dry for a few hours but they seemed to be quite tacky so I put them in front of my fan for the last few hours. Oh, that on the chair is my old lady wig that we sprayed brown (even though it is hard to tell in this picture). This was the old lady pants that I had to cut and sew the 'bell bottom' legs to a tight fit so we could tuck them into the red boots and then add the knee patches. Here are a few pictures of 'our' Nacho Libre....

Brown and gray eyeliner pencils filled in a pretty good mustache and brows. It might really look like Allan's tummy here, but it's just a tee shirt with some 'titters' colored on with a marker.

I think his buttocks are clenched in this photo. And for those of you who saw the movie, I know you just chuckled. One last pose before the dance.

Now, I'm going to go back to Thursday for a second. While we were out shopping - a dust storm was coming our way. I know this picture does NOT do it justice, but this cloud was amazing! It looked like it was exploding out of itself. It was great. And then we saw the sun covered with the dust cloud and it was amazing too. I tried to get a picture but it was while I was driving and the photos turned out terrible. Just imagine it. Beautiful, right?

Okay, now back to this morning, Friday. Another beautiful set of clouds - These were as I dropped the kids off for A-hour, 6:45am. I love cloudy, stormy days. Nothing could be better.

Bonus:

For those of you in my family who haven't had the chance to meet Brandon, Katie's fiance', here he is helping Katie with some painting. We love him!

2011-08-14T11:40:00.001-07:00

This morning I read my newspaper - cut out my coupons - made 6 loaves of Almond Poppy Bread - roasted some red bell peppers for a recipe later today - started my pork roast (no beef roasts at Fry's last night) - washed tons of dishes - showered - read some of President Monson's book - scanned the sale ad's - been up and down the stairs probably 10 times - helped Shannon find 'hair' for a school project - cut Kevin's hair - tried on two outfits -did 2 batches of laundry and ate 3 bowls of Multi-Grain Cheerios. Whew....I think I'm gonna sleep during church!

Off to school

2011-08-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

Today was sweet. I know I should be a little sad, but I'm not. I sent my youngest kid off to Mesa High School today. He will be my last and 6th child to graduate from Mesa and with that you get special privileges. During his graduating ceremony, Doug and I will be allowed to sit out on the football field and they will announce our name! With 2 Westwood 'Warriors', Carolyn and Brian, the rest will forever be Mesa 'Jackrabbits' and they are now, or have been, overruled on which school is best.

Here was Allan preparing for school time........ Yeah, facebook probably. And here was Shannon's first outfit that she 'modeled' for us last night making sure we all liked it.

Here they are leaving the house at 8am. Here he is twirling going to the car. We do a carpool with our friends the Hancocks. Wednesdays will be a day they call late start - but it really is just missing their a-hour and then making up for it the other 4 days, which will begin at 6:45am! Yeah, I'm a little nervous about how that's all going to go down. Tomorrow will be interesting.

So now you ask - 'Becky, what will you be doing during your stay at home time?' Um..I'm seriously thinking of getting a job earning money (thus, preventing me from spending money). With 3 weddings/receptions coming up, we need all the money we can get - right? But today I am going to go through my coupons, read my mail, check out some of the stories in the newspapers and of course get my crossword puzzles torn out of them. Also, we have to get a bathroom remodeled ASAP. That will have to happen before I get a job I suppose, because we will have guests here for a few weeks.

But then I think, maybe I should take a few more classes. That would keep my from spending some money, at least on frivolous things, but with the cost of books and supplies it can add up to a lot of money as well but I am getting an education.

Leaving Las Vegas - or Henderson, I guess

2011-08-08T21:50:00.000-07:00

A quick blog for tonight. We had a great day with Brookie's birthday. She didn't get a real breakfast in bed, but breakfast in front of a TV with a TV tray and a bowl of cereal is just as good. Maybe next year, if I'm around, I'll be a better grammy. So after I finished the book yesterday I needed something to read during 'downtimes', which there aren't too many of here, but when you add 5 minutes here, rocking the baby, another 10 minutes, in the restroom (and yes, I know you all take a book in there or at least a crossword puzzle), the time adds up and you can get some reading done. So, I scoured Brian and Celynda's bookshelves last night and aside from all of Brian's um..Medical books, I found this book by Glenn Beck. I started reading it last night and I finished it this afternoon. I love the story and how it sorta/kinda relates to him as a kid and the really profound way it impacted his life. (I promise it can be read in 2 hours). My favorite part is found on page 249 where the young boy is asking a 'man',
"Does everyone have to go through the storm?"
"Yes, sooner or later. But no one has ever been lost to the storm, just lost in it."
A small explanation - trials of life.
So, sadly we head home tomorrow. School starts Wednesday and Allan has already missed his Freshman orientation, which by all accounts that we've heard, was not that important. Mesa High has a Bar-B-Que something or other tomorrow night so we will of course be home for that. (Hey, free food) We hate leaving little Roxy, but she has 4 people here who adore her and will take good care of her. Thanks for sharing my bed with me Luke and Brook! (They didn't ever start there, but some time during the night they would both end up with me......I'm sure they thought I needed the companionship because Grandpa wasn't with me. We finally got some good pictures of Roxy, but I can't download them without the proper connection,whick of course I also left at home. Celynda is the official owner of the photo's but I will post some of them for you all to see tomorrow or Wednesday!

2011-08-07T14:34:00.000-07:00

I did find my little silver camera which I usually carry with me, so I got some pictures of Roxy to share.

As you can tell, she looks a lot like Brook. Here we were having fun in the pool - or I should say, Allan and the kids are having fun in the pool. I just sat on the side with my feet in the 82 degree water, brrrr, and took a few photos. Brian had some fun water pump guns that Allan, while at first were attacking the kids, but then, at my instance, had to let the kids get him. Of course he later took revenge and was shooting Lukas and you can see that Luke found a great shield for protection.

While here I also purchased this book and got it read in about 8 hours. It was an easy read and I might have been able to finish it in one day straight, but with all the other 'activities' going on, I would just get a short chapter in here and there. I enjoyed it very much. So any ideas on what I can read now? I'm still in the middle of President Monson's book but I like to have a few books going at one time. Another one I'm reading is 'I will not live an unfulfilled life' (or something like this (I can't find it on the internet). This is one I keep in the car for the times I am waiting for a child at practice or at a scout interview, so I know that this one might take me a really long time. Any suggestions for a new book?.....send them my way.

2011-08-06T07:39:00.000-07:00

I wish I had pictures to share with you this morning (of the new baby)- but I have forgotten my cameras battery back home in Mesa. Bummer. I am in Henderson, Nevada with Brian and Celynda and their kids. They just had their 3 baby and she is darling and they have named her Roxy Belle. She has a little bit of Lukas in her forehead/eyebrow area, but definitely more of Brook below that. Of course we can't tell what the eye color will be, but if they turn brown, that will be more like Lukas also. Here are some older pictures.....
Allan came over here with me and the kids are loving it! And we've been lucky to have Brian around a little bit more than usual too, which has been fun for us all. Brian is now doing rotations - in surgery. On his first day he got to jump in and help resuscitate a woman who was on the operating table - succeeded! Yeah!!! And he has been able to 'scrub up' and hand the clamps and 'tools' to the doctors! I think he is enjoying it. I'm not sure this is where he will 'specialize' but at least he is finding it interesting. He likes to come home and tell us what he got to do that day. Allan and I took Brook and Luke to the $1 movie theater yesterday where we watched 'Rio'. It was a pretty cute movie and kept them both mesmerized the whole way through. Celynda had warned me that the theater was not in the best of neighborhoods and guess what? She was right. As we pulled into the parking lot a police officer was questioning a guy. By the time we walked up to the ticket counter, he was shoving his face onto the hood of the car and frisking him; yelling at him pretty loud telling him he was getting arrested for jaywalking. I'm sure there was more to it than that, but it was pretty intense for a while. We had to be outside by them (probably about only 10 feet away) for about 3 minutes while waiting to get our tickets. It was entertaining, but I could have done without it. Luckily the kids said nothing about it and probably don't even remember it.
Congratulations to my darling daughter Katie who got engaged last night! I can't wait to give her a hug and then one to her betrothed, Brandon Overstreet. I hear the date is November 18th, so save that date! We love you both!! See you on Tuesday.

2011-07-26T07:23:00.000-07:00

I have let several days slip by being completely absorbed while reading this book. I found it last Thursday for $1 at Goodwill. It was so intense that I probably could have finished it in 1 or 2 days but we were in Snowflake for the weekend, Pioneer Days, and with all of the events that surround that, I had to sneak a few moments here and there just to get a few pages read.

I will say that I packed two of these....

What are they?... Yep, a headband flashlight. Mind you, I didn't make them especially for my Snowflake trip, knowing that it would be hard to find a few minutes to read and the only way I'd be able to finish my book was to stay up all hours of the night or early in the morning before the sun rose and would need these to help me with that, no...I had made these for my girls camp skit. (Each girl started with the light turned on, and if they chose to do something that might be wrong their light would go out and of course at the end of the play they had repented or chosen to do what they should and their lights came back on. Typical YW girls camp play). My intent was to remove the lights from the headband and just hold it to read, but I have to say, I found these to be an outstanding source of my 'night-reading' and hands-free I might add, you know, where you don't have to do the pinkie-thumb extension hold and you don't have to set down your flashlight to turn the pages....and decided to keep them the way they were.

This is how I looked while reading.

Here are only a few pictures at this years Pioneer Days Parade: Funny Boys view:

Front view and back view:

Cute view: Sharing candy view: Kai was very generous with all of the candy that was thrown his way. Although, he did struggle a little bit with giving up a tootsie roll. But I just did a Kai (or any kids) pout look and he gave it right over. Um....tootsie rolls are my favorite, okay?!

Wet from the firetruck view: But my favorite view of the whole trip was this: sleeping arrangement view. (what is Katie doing here?) We actually had two bedrooms assigned to our family for the married couples, Jason/Stacey - Jeff/Carolyn and boys - The rest of us were to sleep out in the living room area which was huge, but we all decided to squish into one room, (you can see how excited Jeff was to have us all in there). The walk-in closet is where the 3 little boys were put and then we got 5 mattresses to fit pretty easily. Doug was NOT going to come up, but later got talked into it and came up with carpool #2. Allan and I had ridden up earlier in the day with Carolyn and her boy-carpool #1. Doug, Jeff, Jason/Stacey, Kevin, Katie/Brandon and Shannon all rode up in the Suburban later that night. Jason and Stacey gave up the second bedroom for Doug and I the first night and then he left Saturday night so I traded it back to them the second night.

shannon avenue

2011-07-21T07:47:00.000-07:00

Here you go Shannon - another blog just for you. Thanks for 'running/walking' yesterday while I rode my bike. I think we will do it again today. These are some signs we found in San Francisco. I thought you might be able to use them on your facebook page. Allan, kudos to you also....you have ran with me for 2 days now - clarification - when I say run, that means biking for me and running for them.

I do not run. Period.

San Francisco

2011-07-18T06:28:00.000-07:00

Doug and I have spent the whole weekend in San Francisco. It has been nice and with the overcast (foggy) days, of course, I have really enjoyed it! We got here about noon on Friday. We enjoyed riding the trolley a couple of times; went to Fisherman's Wharf; saw the famous winding road; went on a boat cruise to the Golden Gate Bridge; at lunch at Boudin's; got to go to the Aquarium on the Bay; rode a city bus line (2 actually) to a science museum at the Golden Gate Park; and of course went to a Goodwill store. Hey, that's how I enjoy my vacation time, okay? Geeze.....

I will try to share a few pictures without going overboard....I just want you to remember that I had a huge blog about a week ago with only 2 pictures, so I might just be doing the opposite thing here.
Riding the 'BART', it's about a 30 minute ride from the airport. $8per person. Better than a taxi - right? First look at a trolleyFirst ride on a trolley - the view behind us: And in front of us... There are rules to follow on the Cable Car. Also, there was this public toilet facility that you would walk into and the door would slide closed and then it gave you 20 minutes to do your thing. After that time it would automatically open the door (it would give you a 2 minute warning bell). The instructions were on the outside. What was interesting is that once you came out - nobody could go right in after you - you had to let the door close on it's own and it would 'de-sanitize' itself before the door opened and the next person could go in. People really had to want to use it I guess because it was right next to the Cable Car line that seemed to never end. I couldn't get over the steepness of the roads and the tiny garages (can you even call them that?).A rare find , an alleyway with a beautiful garden, next to the houses that are built right next to each other - literally - their outside walls are NOT shared, but built right next to each other. An amazing feat I would love to watch! Lombard Street.We didn't eat here, but was interesting to me was that you would be walking along and all of a sudden find a familiar eatery just in one of these older buildings. No tall signs letting you know it's there. They were all like this; Subway, McD's, Taco Bell, etc. We tried not to eat at anything we could get back home. And, of course, we had to scout out a Supermarket( - no kids, not for sandwich stuff this time! Shocker, I know.) Not the corner ones in the downtown area but the big regular ones. They are hard to come by! We had to walk up 6 blocks to get to a decent one! And when I mean up - I mean uphill! But coming back to the hotel was a lot nicer. I will say, if I lived in San Fran, I think I would have amazing calf muscles and my thighs would be toned. Hmm....should we all move here? The bridge cruise: Fisherman's Wharf:Hey kids....should we buy one of these? We found Zoltar and Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant. A giant CLAW game;. These last pictures are of us at 2 different aquariums, both really nice. Dad is touching a stingray and a tiger shark.... You can't really tell here, but this fish was huge!What is this thing?You could climb under this tank. My favorite was definatly the jellyfish - and no - this picture is NOT upside down - that is how this particular jellyfish swim. I have a video but I can't get it to down load so I might try and put it one youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUd6I4TbCNU try this. And this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuI_2LoueG0 and this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q7Gr47qt7Q

oompa

2011-07-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, quick shout out to my daughter Shannon! She of course was doing the countdown to the day she could go and get her learners permit - sadly it fell on July 4th - darn the offices were closed, so we went Tuesday and then again on Wednesday. I'll let you guess what happened on Tuesday. If you look in the center of the picture - that is her hair bun. She is taking the test. Did she study hard? Here is her Wednesday picture - do you think she passed?Yep she did! Okay, while we were there we saw an older woman. I tried many times to get a shot of her and the few I got are not good - HOWEVER - her hair was so funny I thought I'd post them so you could 'try' to see just what we saw. I swear she had Oompa Loompa hair!! It was the funniest hairdo I've seen in a long time - possibly my whole lifetime. Take a gander......

You will have to enlarge these and then try and picture it - but I promise if you go back and watch the old Willy Wonka movie - she was definitely the inspiration for the 'coif'.

Here is what Allan did in summer school......Said he was bored.

The week of the wedding.

2011-07-11T15:36:00.001-07:00

This will be a long blog. Go potty, get snacks and a drink..... Sorry.

I can't really believe I posted a blog on Thursday morning. I don't even remember doing it and where I got time from.....I can't even guess.

Sunday the 3rd of July (just last Sunday) we found out that Jason and Stacey decided to just get married now instead of waiting for August. Within 5 days we succeded in putting together a small wedding. I made 70 chair back coverings, Katie made a darling cake, my girls and Jason really pulled together and made this event happen. There will be pictures later. Carolyn was real trooper and helped alot even though she was leaving for California the very next morning. (Her boys never letting her forget - asking every few hours when they were leaving). The funnest part of the whole event (besides the actual ceremony) was that secretly Jill flew in to surprise everyone. I was the only one who knew and I had to lie like crazy to cover any of it up! She called me about 11am on Wednesday to tell me that she would be out there the next morning at 7am and asked if I could pick her up. So, the lies began. Later that evening I told Doug that I needed to take one of my visiting teaching ladies to work (I take her often so that wasn't unusal, but the time - 6:30am - was the odd part). I wouldn't be able to do my usual carpool for summer school and asked if the rest of the family could work it out. He was a bit annoyed, but then suggested that I just take her and HIM to work at the same time - she happens to work by him. Um.........(Dang, how was I going to get out of this lie). Also, Jill was not going to bring her carseat and so I needed to borrow one from somebody. I called Carolyn hoping she might still have her infant carseat - she didn't, and then asked why I needed it.........um.....I told her that one of my VT ladies needed a ride with her baby somewhere and then SHE asked why the mom didn't have her own babyseat.....um....I came up with something about her husband had taken the car forgeting to get the carseat out and ......whatever....I was getting in pretty deep fabrications now. Luckily one of my REAL neighbors had a carseat that her toddler had grown out of and I could use it. Thanks Lola!!! Okay, so now comes Thursday morning and I knew I had to leave about 6:30 to get to the airport on time, well, I had made the mistake of saying to Doug that Michelle (my vt lady) said to pick her up anywhere between 6:30-6:45am and we'd make it on time. Doug was taking his time. Or at least I was so nervous it felt like he was. When he's ready I go down to Shannon and tell her that as soon as I back out of the driveway to count to 10 and then call my cell phone and just ignore what I say......um....yeah. So Doug and I are headed to pick up my lady and luckily Shannon does what I've asked and as I talk on the phone I lead Doug to believe that she, my vt lady, is canceling and got a ride from her husband instead......phew. Doug doesn't question me too much on what she said. Shannon has been on the other end, going 'mom, what are you talking about, mom, are you okay? mom, you know this is Shannon right?' Too funny. I drop Doug off and speed to the airport - luckily I'm only about 5 or 10 minutes late picking up Jill.

Now.....I need to go back a few hours. Brian and Celynda had decided not to come to Jason's wedding because Celynda was having a procedure to turn their baby 'in-utero' because she was breech. (thank goodness this didn't have to happen). And also Brian is really under a lot of stress for his boards that are coming up within a few days.......so I called him on Wednesday night letting him know Jill was 'sneaking in' town for Jason and I didn't want him to be mad that if he found out later she had come and we hadn't told him, he might have tried to come..... Oh well. I thought I'd left it as a secret - but I guess he told Celynda.

Okay, now back to Doug. He was at the office and needed to call Billie Jean (Celynda's mom) about some tax papers. Celynda's mom was over in Nevada with Brian and Celynda and when he found out about Celynda's doctor appointment he wanted to talk to her and she, not knowing it was a secret I guess, said how sad Brian was for not being able to see Vin and Jill.......oops. Doug asked her how did she know Jill was coming, he hadn't heard a thing! She said she wasn't sure, maybe she had ruined a surprise. SO...........he hangs up with her and calls me and asks....'I thought we were going to discuss big purchases'. (Okay go back to Monday or Tuesday - we had called Jill to let her know and she said she probably wouldn't be coming because of finances and they had a nephew visitor, so don't count on her coming.......but she was totally crying and making me cry, later that night I asked Doug if there was any way we could help fly Jill out by helping with the ticket price...) back to Doug (blue) and my (purple) conversation.....

'What are you talking about?

Did you buy a ticket for Jill?

What are you kidding? I did not! (luckily I hadn't ) Is she coming?

He goes into the Celynda conversation....asking me again....

Is she coming in for the wedding?

Doug, I haven't heard about this?

Are you telling me that you don't know?

I'm telling you, maybe you heard Celynda wrong and that Brian would have come if Jill did too!

Okay picture in your mind that Jill is sitting right next to me during this whole conversation and we were so worried little Vin would do his little screech owl sound. I looked over at her, mouthing the words 'Should I tell him?' She said no, so I continued to lie.....

'I did not spend one dime on a ticket for Jill - what are you talking about?

and it went on for a few more minutes....I was really starting to sweat in my pitters! And now we are only a few minutes away from Doug's office and we had planned on stopping by to surprise him and hopefully Jason and Kevin too. We walk around the corner and there is Kevin and he yells, "what are you doing here?" to Jill and then Doug sees her. It was awesome. Sadly Jason had already left for a job. We get home and Katie was awake - unusual for her at that time- and working on Jas and Stac - cake. Jill goes up the stairs real fast and surprises her...it was awesome. We all three pile into the car again and drive to Carolyn's sneaking in the backyard to hopefully find them at the dining table - the boys are there, but not her, so Griffin lets us in and we sneak upstairs to Carolyn. It was funny...both Katie and Carolyn did the exact same reaction as each other. I wish I'd have taken video. Later we made Jill hide down stairs and when Shannon and Allan were both home she came up and surprised them. Now, almost everyone knew except Jason. Dad arranged for him to meet here at home to pick up Kevin for the next job and Jill got to surprise him then. (We didn't time it very well, because when she came up stairs he was on the phone with a client and he couldn't do his real welcoming yell). It was wonderful and made all my lies well worth it.

I can't tell you all how happy we are and what wonderful kids we have. Having Jill here - missing Jonathan terribly and little Vin really missed his daddy- was great. Having a happy day for Jason and Stacey was also great. And little man Camden is just as much a part of us as any of our grandkids.....he totally fits right in. Thanks to all of you who made this a wonderful week and weekend. I love you all. Sorry about all the lies.....but you agree, they were worth it, right?

a day (okay more like an hour) at the beach

2011-07-07T04:58:00.000-07:00

It's 5am. I can't sleep. I know why, but there is not much I can do at 4:30 am. Costco is not open.....WalMart is, but I'm not wanting to get dressed and go down there. We will do family prayer and reading at 6:30am - Doug and Kevin off to work......Shannon off to summer school at Mesa High at 7:15 (3.43 miles one way).......Allan off to school at Westwood High at 7am (8.68 miles - one way). So the day will begin soon enough - but I found a few pictures of our sweet baby Vin and his first visit to the ocean. Thanks Jonathan and Jill for letting us crash in on Vin's first time!

2011-07-02T14:40:00.001-07:00

My new wallpaper. Or background. Or whatever it is called! I love it. And you don't need to mention how messy my desk is....I already know about it.

2011-07-01T05:46:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to Carolyn. Just a few of my favorite pictures. There were too many to scan - I'd have been up all night! If you can click on the first one and make it big - it shows her birth weight.....9lbs. 14oz.!! Picture #3 is a 4 generation photo. I love you Carolyn - you have been a wonderful 1st child and lovely daughter!

2011-06-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

Another blog later today for my daughter Carolyn who's birthday is today. Check back.

Just a quick blog to let you all know I'm still here. Carpooling to summer school - missionary work (my calling) - and shopping. I'm so bored with every day stuff. I like shopping the best, but can't really afford too much extra with 2 weddings coming up. Oh yep.....if you didn't know I'll let you in......Jason is marrying a darling girl, Stacie, August 23. Kevin is marrying a darling girl, Jessii, from Australia. We don't know much about their wedding, but info will be coming on both as time goes on. But for now, Allan and I decided to post a quick small visit with you. Yesterday at summer school he had a bummer day: being late, yelled/talked to by the security guard at school, and his teacher (whom he had in his regular Junior High school and didn't really care for him then), seems to pick on him now at summer school. So, on the way home from school I treated him to a burrito from Taco Bell $1.o8.

A heart of stuck-on cereal. Kudo's to Stacie for finding it.

2011-06-20T09:23:00.001-07:00

I'm sorry I can't figure out why I get this big space between pic's and words. I'll work on it.

2011-06-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures of our trip to the Grand Canyon. We missed the family members that couldn't come, but will do it again soon. We had lots of fun as usual for a DeWitt activity. Thanks for coming with us Jessii and Stacey - we can't wait to have you join our family - officially! We feel that you are already part of us.

Doug fixing us a fantastic breakfast of biscuits and gravy - YUM!! This last picture is us looking at Vin's first baby pictures that Jill and Jonathan sent us right after his birth.

2011-06-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

Sweet little Vin - or Vinster or Vinnie - as he was called by everyone. Here Grandpa took it upon himself to change one of his little messy pants.

I didn't notice that he was flipping me off until I came home and downloaded the pic's to my computer. I guess he doesn't like anyone 'exposing' him.

Just for that Vinnie, we're gonna kiss you when you don't want us to. Alright, he did give us one happy shot.

Can't hardly wait for August to come around! He'll be traveling this way!

2011-06-12T16:29:00.000-07:00

Hello to you all. My computer ac adapter died without us knowing it and so now my computer battery life is depleted and I am on Jill's computer. We have been working hard here and grateful that we, Doug and I, got to be out here at this time. We arrived Wednesday and mostly just chilled. Jill and Jonathan live in a studio apartment so the blow-up bed we slept on is less than 6 feet from their bed and totally consumed the kitchen area. If anyone got hungry in the night it was just too bad. However on our second day here, Jill received an email letting them know that they were being allowed to move into a 1 bedroom unit and had only 4 days to do it. So after spending some time snorkeling on Thursday, we started moving them out Friday, with most of the bulky stuff moved on Saturday. We will have to finish just the last little stuff today, Sunday and then the final cleaning of the old one on Monday. It has been nice to be here to help them do it (Jonathan working and Jill in no shape to lift and move heavy stuff) and we actually have had a real bed to sleep on for the past 2 days. And when they have to turn in their keys on Monday - we will not feel too bad about the blow-up mattress, because we will at least be 15 feet away and a wall away. AND not blocking their kitchen area at all.
We are having a great time with little Vin but I don't dare download any pictures to post because I am using their computer. First on my list of things to do tomorrow is to drive into Honolulu (about 1 hour) and buy myself a new ac adapter. I have to work on my girls camp video!!! We are giving Vin lots of hugs and kisses for you all. Grandpa has the magic hands that can calm!

new sub

2011-06-06T11:40:00.001-07:00

I suppose I should have warned all of you that I would NOT be blogging too much for the next few weeks. I left last Monday, May 31, to go to girls camp up near Payson, at a place called Sharp Creek. It was beautiful. There will be a small blog about that later- with a few girls camp pictures - be prepared. We got home Friday, June 3rd around 10:30am and after a long shower and a quick nap, we (me, Allan, Katie, Brandon (friend of Katie), Kevin and Jessii (friend of Kevin and who's mom or mum as she says it, served a mission in Las Vegas), headed to Las Vegas. It takes about 5 hours to get there so it isn't too bad of a trip. We stayed until Sunday evening and then got home here about 11:30 last night.

Now, this morning, we had Allan's volleyball camp from 8 -10am. Shannon's summer school class started at 7:30am, both of these are held at Mesa High. Next we will have to pick up Shannon at 12noon and I will have to drive Allan to HIS summer class, held at Westwood High, a twenty-minute drive from here. It will be an interesting 6 weeks of school. But Allan wanted, or I should say we talked him into it, take his 9th grade English class over the summer and get it over with. Summer school is a 4 1/2 hour 3 week class, with no homework EVER - and to take both semesters it is 6 weeks and then they don't have to take that class for 9 months in regular school!! It is really a great program. By the time Allan is a senior he will only have to take 2 or 3 classes and be out by lunchtime!

Okay, one more thing......Doug and mys (?sp) anniversary was June 1st. 32 years! He surprised me by giving me this......

2008 Suburban. This is what I gave him.....wow. I feel bad.

He surprised me on Monday afternoon - so it got broke right in by taking it to girls camp. And then again right away to Las Vegas. This week however, it will get a break. Doug and I leave for Hawaii to see Jill, Jonathan and new baby Vin! We can't wait. My blog will be lacking for a week or so - unless I take lots of pictures of Vin. I also will be working on a music video of girls camp. But I'll try to post something along the way of our darling grandson. Take care.

Billie

2011-05-26T06:08:00.000-07:00

We had the opportunity to babysit my mom's dog, Billie, for about 3 days.

Here are a few things Billie learned while she was here;

Pencils are not allowed to be chewed up.

Easter eggs can be.

Not to bark every time the front door opened.

Whinning does not work here - I had eight kids/5 grandkids.

If we let her sleep on our bed at night, she must lay vertical and not horizontal.

Your 'mom' left you specific food to eat. Don't beg.

25 feet of leash is enough.

Here are some things Billie taught me;

Don't scoot my desk chair back without looking first.

Doug gives in to whinning. And begging.

She likes gravy.

She can whine really loud.

Her collar makes a lot of noise when she shakes her head.

When we walk - she is in charge.

She can smell a bush for 2 minutes. Easily.

She is allowed to squish in on our bed.

And lastly, she is too cute not to love. Silly Billie.

2011-05-23T12:44:00.001-07:00

I have been very busy with a few things that I need to get done for girls camp. Only 8 more days before we leave - but we are taking a quick trip up to the Grand Canyon on Thursday and so I need to have most, if not all, of my girls camp things done and ready to leave next Tuesday at 7am.

Here are some necklaces that I made for each of the girls.

I will be taking pictures at girls camp so I will try and get a 'final' picture with the girls wearing them. I forgot to take the final picture before I packed them up. Good times.

2011-05-21T06:46:00.000-07:00

We were invited to go to a Diamondbacks game last night (Friday night) with Greg and Karla. This is kinda neat - the older gentleman sitting in the row in front of us is our old Stake President - then - the lady to the very left of the picture in the yellow shirt is our ward organist! Out of 28,000 people we sit next people we know.

The D-backs won and afterwards there was a fireworks show.

I video taped the fireworks, but can't seem to download it here. So just imagine about 11 seconds of the ending of a fireworks show and that would be it. Although the DBacks won, I was not really paying attention to the game too much....here is why..... Couple #1....

If you can't pull up the pictures bigger the words just say something to the fact that I tried to cover their identity by typing messages over their faces.

Couple #2 The poor little boy sitting next to me I don't think saw ANY of the baseball game. Anyway - we had an enjoyable time with the Hancocks! They are a great couple to be with - maybe next time WE can be the ones playing a game!!!! Thanks, Karla and Greg.

Luke and Brook

2011-05-20T06:29:00.000-07:00

This blog will be slightly boring to some of you - or maybe even most of you, but I am dedicating this to Lukas and Brook. Lukas loves when he jumps and I take pictures. That's all he asks me to do with him when he is here. And what is funny is, he can tell when I'm just holding my camera up pretending or when I'm actuallly taking photos. He'll say something like this.."Take my picture Grammy", and if he thinks I'm not taking pics he'll say.....'Let me see it'. And I always have to have the camera ready and aimed in case he does some 'cool moves'. I will say there is a lot of photo's to look at here, just be glad you don't have to sit through all of them.

Brookie thought she needed to be photographed also, just not as badly as Luke did. This is really for Brian to see what his kids do here, but please - sit back and enjoy along with Bri.

Oh, this is 2 different days of pictures here: Monday and Tuesday. (I already blogged about a previous jumping time with Luke and Brook).

I meant to leave these for the last, but do you see the hearts in these pictures? My neighbors vine thing?

2011-05-14T06:37:00.000-07:00

This blog will be a Happy Birthday page to Allan. He is now 14. Last December I bought a 'Groupon' for $99 for a chance to fly a plane at Westwind Aeronautic Flight School in Deer Valley. The person would have to sit in a simulator (lam-o....a room with 3 desks with 3 chairs...yeah, didn't work for me) for about 30 minutes and then get to go into the plane. It was supposed to be an hour of flight -but Allan's ended up being about 45 minutes. I think the guy was ready to call it a day.

Allan was, of course, treated to breakfast in bed and then our lam-o family tradition of grocery-sack wrapped gifts. Here were some of them: TGIF buffalo flavored chip sticks, a wind-up rubberband airplane, funny nose/uni-brow/glasses (I'm borrowing those for camp), another toy plane, candy, a birthday t-shirt and an envelope with a letter telling about the airplane flight. At first he didn't understand it, but after I talked him through it, he got excited about it. After school, I picked him up and the whole trip over to Deer Valley, a 50 minute drive, he kept asking, 'Are you sure I get to drive the plane'? It was a totally fantastic gift. Allan wants to be a pilot now. I'm all for that. I got to go in the plane and I was a little nervous because it was slightly - no, pretty much- a windy day. I had a small problem with nausea. No bags needed, but they were close by. Plane was tiny - I was nervous again. Thought of Nie-Nie. Now I'm really nervous. I asked the pilot if he were comfortable flying in this much wind. He had no problem. Yeah, but Allan was going to be allowed to drive. Hmm... still nervous.

I had a hard time uploading the video to my blog, so they ended up being on youtube. They are only about 45 seconds or less.

Oh - the exciting part was that Allan had control of the 'steering (?)' handle most of the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOnMDOoLQrM Taxiing down the runway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl3e-6KVlV0 Take off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDNhjO4hwtk Making a turn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsR0Acn8Fhs Some of his flying.

By the end of the day, half of his letters had loosened and he felt the need to peel them off. It's funny how it still ended up being a true statement. Happy Birthday Allan. You have been a great and funny caboose. I love you.

2011-05-11T05:50:00.000-07:00

I guess I should still try and blog every day because when I don't I have to tell a little bit about a lot of stuff and then my blog is crazy. I have been busy with girls camp stuff (no pictures). I leave in 2 weeks and 6 days, which seems like so far away, but we as a family have a few plans to do with Jessii that I need to hurry and finish the silly stuff just to be able to do the fun stuff.

Okay - a few weeks ago I colored my hair. I've been doing it since I turned 45ish. And with trial and error, I have found, with the help of Trudy, my favorite color.

L'Oreal Coleur Experte #80- Toasted Coconut. The past few times I'd been to WalMart, this particular color was not found. I went to Walgreens...not there. I tried Safeway and Bashas', but had no luck. I just assumed that it was no longer made so I bought, with a coupon of course, a different style of color - L'Oreal mind you, just not my Experte. Here is what I used instead.
After the dye job: Here it looks okay, but in real life, my family all stopped in their tracks. And Shannon audibly gasped when she walked in from school. I thought I would just leave it and get used to the darker 'blond'/reddish shade, but after her gasp, I went straight out and bought this: Now, I didn't have a whole lot of time because it was Wednesday and I was meeting with the girls for mutual to work on girls camp. This kit contained a plastic cap that you would pull hair through these little tiny holes and you could strategically place where you wanted your high-lights to be - um....no time for that, so I just took the mixture and started 'placing' it where I wanted my high-lights. Sadly, my hair turned out more like splotches. Almost like um.....leopard spots, with a few nice stripes here and there. On to mutual I went. Nothing was saiad, but I know I got a few funny looks. As time has gone by it has grown out/faded/I wear my hair in a ponytail. And the good news is, I've spotted my Coluer Experte in Fry's and once again in Walmart, so they just must have had a shortness of them when I needed it. Lesson learned? Have grey roots or stockpile.

Yesterday for school Allan had a presentation to do in his science class. The topic he ended up getting was smoking. He was supposed to argue both side. Yep. Go back and read that sentence again. After emailing his teacher with my silly concern, he said it was more of the smokers rights that he wanted than of the 'pro' side of smoking. Okay. Phew. So, Allan came up with a game using Doug's 'slap-box' (think of Family Feud), Doug's spin-wheel thing (think of Wheel of Fortune) and inside the covered can which is at the very bottom of the picture, are ping pong balls with letters (think of Lingo) that will fill in a word puzzle (think of Hangman). To be able to draw a letter out they must first answer a random question about smoking - Doug made a wonderful stand to hold his poster questions (think of a short easel). If they get the question right (all of them were multiple choice or true or false), then they pulled a letter and got a spin on the wheel which might give them another letter, or more time to figure out the puzzle. He put a lot of time into this. He didn't get the chance to do it yesterday, he is hoping today will be the day. Oh, yeah, he also added bonus wedges. If they land on this, they get to answer a pop culture question for a candy bar.

On Sunday we were playing Yahtzee Free For All. When it's you turn you roll your 5 dice and try to get what is on the 3 or more playing cards. Jason tried to cheat by using a 6th dice. I'm afraid the pink dice was a bit too obvious. Don't cheat on Sunday Jason.

Now for my hearts. It was a stretch on a few of them, but here goes. Allan was eating a Jimmy Dean sausage sandwich and said he saw a heart. I had to try several shots to get it.
Um, it was hard to see. I shouldn't really complain because I've heard from others that I'm pretty liberal with a few of my 'hearts'. (that's Allan's fingers. they kind of look old-manish. He needs lotion).
Make-up on my finger.
Elder Thomas' sore on his arm.
Some random girl at Shannon's volleyball tournament that had a 'pock' spot. I had to be brave to ask her if I could take a picture. My first one with a flash (dummy me) didn't turn out, so this was my second one. Too cute, right?!

2011-05-07T22:07:00.000-07:00

3 days down. Caught them smooching - yikes! Spied them smooching several more times. It's going to be a long 5 weeks.

Luckily Kevin starts work Monday morning around 7am. Jessii (yes, with 2 i's) has an apprenticeship at Diamondback Gymnastics starting Monday at 3:30pm. She has been coaching in her 'mum's' gym for the past 6 years. It might last the full 5 weeks, so that will be nice. One of them gone during the day - the other during the evening. Hopefully they will be too exhausted to 'smooch' to much in the night. Open door policy in total effect everyday-everywhere. (Okay, not the bathroom). However, if I see both of them go into the restroom together you can bet your bonnet that I'm inviting myself in there as well. Yep, I'll be the 'three's a crowd' person.

Happy Mother's Day to you all.......

2011-05-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

Enjoy our fun!!!

2011-05-05T09:44:00.000-07:00

Today I am filled with mixed feelings. A lot of them. Kevin is returning today from a 2 week vacation back to Australia. Happy feeling. He is bringing back with him - a girl. Jittery feeling. She will be staying for a 5 week visit. Interesting feeling. She wants to find apprentice work at a gym. Admirable feeling. She left her 'mum' for a long time. Sad feeling. Maybe she is my 'daughter-in-law' to be. Nervous feeling. Will they live here or there? Anxious feeling. Is it too soon to be thinking that? Perplexed feeling. Having them in my home. Comforting feeling.
Gotta run or I'll be late picking them up! Update soon.

2011-05-03T21:42:00.000-07:00

A few more jumping pictures from a few weeks ago.

A couple of Sundays ago, I had to teach the lesson concerning Adam and Eve and the temptation that they had. My opening 'grabber' was this:

This hat shows the 'wordly' distractions/temptation/vices..... TV, music, money(working on Sunday), friends, etc., that the kids and even ourselves can easily get tempted by instead of making and choosing better things.

And then I showed them this hat.....
I made Lukas try it on too. This, of course, representing the temptation (only one) in the garden. It was a good class opener. Silly really.

I am working on another video - my pictures of the egg bash: refer to Carolyn's here:

http://jeffandcarolyngardner.blogspot.com/2011/04/time-for-some-egg-basher-ey.html

2011-04-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

Alright - I have been warning you about a video coming....and here it is. Finally. I had a few problems with it. First of all it lasts 8:12. I love it but I'm letting you know so you can get comfy or put it off until you have time to watch it. Second, I could only download 2 songs, so one of them plays twice. It's alright again because I love the twice-played song. It is not my favorite version of the song, but none the less, one of my favorite songs. (You'll have to watch the video to hear the song). hee hee. Thirdly and lastly, the final credit screen -(watch all the way to the end) - has a few words cut off. The word for looks like fo, off looks like of, and the word just looks like jus. I did not misspell them.....I went back and checked my saved video, but on the youtube station they just didn't finish the lines. I hope you enjoy the show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJoqMAVyCLQ

2011-04-26T16:23:00.000-07:00

A video is being worked on, but as usual, my music is not wanting to cooperate and be 'converted' to the right format. Here are a few hearts that have been hanging around my camera for a while.

This first one is a door at the place that Allan's improv' troupe practices!

Then, someone ate a fried egg and forgot to rinse their plate off.
I usually am mad, but today I will forgive easily because of the heart!
Lastly, a group of Shannon's friends went to JumpStreet a couple of days ago and this was out on the sidewalk in front of the door. It is the bracelets that they wear on their wrists when they are inside the jump area.

I guess someone tore theirs off as soon as they left. Good for me!

2011-04-23T06:16:00.000-07:00

A few busy days have passed by. Sorry to all of you who look FORWARD to my blog! I have enjoyed reading everyone else's though. I'll tell you why I haven't done much - Monday the 11th we went to a place called JumpStreet. It is one huge warehouse type building filled with these massive trampolines right next to one another and they must be 30 or more feet long. It's an impressive sight...(pictures and video will be coming). 3 of our kids were able to go do their 'thangs'. That's what I was going to blog about but I haven't 'finalized' the disc yet and I hate finalizing if I haven't used all the disc space up - so that blog might be a while down the road. Actually, Shannon has a tournament today and I'll see if I can use it up on her. SO - I felt guilty about posting anything else because then it would have been out of 'life' order and......as you can tell I've been in a stupor of blogging. This morning I decided to blog before my day got crazy and just show a few fun pictures of things that have been happening since the 11th. Here are a few of Shannon's last tournament. Yep, she is a outside hitter! She actually plays the whole game, so both front and back rows, but she is a left front hitter and goes there after every serve. It's fun to watch her play.

We also had a sad thing happen to our good neighbors. Last Saturday their 3 year old daughter drowned in their pool. Today is her funeral. Both the mom and dad have HUGE (11 brother/sisters for the mom and 9 for the dad) families so they had to move her funeral to the Stake Center (a much larger church building than the one we attend). It will be a very hard day for them all. They have had a lot of their family here with them and so we offered our RV, which is now parked in their driveway, and our downstairs big bedroom (which they haven't had to use yet). Shannon has been asked to sing at the funeral with another young woman from our ward. They sound really nice together and it will be hard for me not to cry during the song I'm sure. Shannon's tournament will start at 7am: She will play for a couple of hours and then I'll go get her, we will attend the funeral, and then she will go back and finish the tournament. It's always so weird to me that life has to move on even though you'd like it to stop just for one day.

Lukas and Brooke were over to our house the other day and had a lot of fun on the trampoline.

I can't even begin to guess what this game was.

As I was taking pictures of them I noticed a HUGE piece of bird poop.Can you see how much bigger it is compared to the other ones? Yeah, click on that one for sure so you can see the size. When Luke first got on the tramp I saw some poop down there too and so I asked him to kick it off. I thought with him being on a soccer team he would do really well with that assignment, but he must have thought I said 'pick' it off. Ewww.....Gross.........

Big Toe Bruise

2011-04-12T08:35:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been a week since my last blog! I have been super 'couponing' these past few days and made a great run at Target yesterday. My next 'hit' will be at Walgreens today or tomorrow. I think I'll make a killing of savings. If any one who lives here close to me does NOT use their grocery coupons, let me know and I'll pick them up from you.

Last Wednesday or Thursday we, Shannon, Allan and I, were 'rough-housing' and one of the activities we ended up doing was throwing the large exercise ball at each other. As I was making my way down the hall to my room, Allan tossed the ball at me and it hit my foot just at a funny angle and I swear I broke my big toe. I only took the picture this morning, but it was swollen and quite bruised. Yeah, you have to really look for the bruising today, but it is there. And tender - ouch!!! See? It goes clear around my big knuckle (is it called knuckle when it is on the toe? I'm not sure, but right where the words are is where it KILLS!!! Anyway, if it's broken what can they do about it? I'm just not wearing high heels again and walking a little slower. Here is the first bouquet of the season with the roses from our rose garden (haha- can I call it that if we only have 3 bushes?).

Driving down the freeway on Saturday I saw this.... Enlarge it and look at the brake covers! Are they just too cute. I'm thinking I want a slug-bug just for those alone. I love it!!!!!!! And lastly.... Allan (ran) and I (bike) went on the usual 1.1 mile run and then I went 3 more miles, but while I was with Allan I thought I saw a heart on Clovis Ave. , so I circled back around and yep, there it was. (this is a very tiny heart). I took the picture and then tried to catch back up with him and I couldn't do it! He was booking it! And yes, we were close to home, but not so close that I didn't think I could catch up. Good job Allan!

2011-04-06T06:19:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I was a mean mom and 'demanded' that Allan start running again. He must run Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The first week he did well, with a lot of walking between running spurts. (I despise running and so I just ride my bike next to him). The first day I nearly had to just walk my bike because of the slowness, but day by day he would improve. We went about 1 mile. I would then continue riding on adding a little more distance in my ride. The second week we didn't do any running/riding because it was Spirit Week and that took most of our morning time. So, we began again this week and we are doing well. This is the view I see most. Anyway, I rode my bike Monday with Allan - Tuesday alone and again today with Allan. Today I ended up riding approximately 4 miles. Monday after my ride I decided to clean out my drawers and closet. Over 150 t-shirts, shorts, pants, sweaters, coats were bagged as well as shoes and books. Out to the car they went. It felt great. Tuesday Shannon was off of school for AIMS testing and where did we go? Yep, Goodwill. Now we really went there to drop off the bags but we had to go see what was on sale....right? I came away with 6 things....a meat grinder, a calendar, 1 new shirt and 3 pillowcases. Of course Shannon found several things she loved. Here is a cute picture of her last week at her Choir Festival: Also, my rose bushes are in total bloom..... During my ride today I ran across this funny um....statue?....I guess she's decorated for Easter. (I hope she's not bare). And lastly, one of our favorite missionaries serving in this area, Elder Thomas, got transferred today and so he came by for a quick picture last night. (We were all in a hurry here - we had to pick up Shannon from volleyball practice, Katie had a game to get to and Elder Thomas still had a few places to get to before 9:30pm. You can tell that as soon as picture #1 was taken we were all 'off' to our places as Elder Scott snapped this last photo. You're funny Elder Scott.

The return of regular Allan...

2011-04-03T21:10:00.000-07:00

Now the reversal of Bobcat spirit day antic's. First of all, I want you all to know that during Friday's Pep Assembly, Allan was voted most spirited and was given a lovely 'crown?' When his name was called the whole gym went crazy loud, cheering for him. It made him feel good about all the work. The award for most spirited? The top of a pinata that they had used earlier in the assembly. Cheers to Allan, well deserved. As you can tell, his painted body held up well all day long. A few minor scrapes here and there, but all in all I'd say it was a huge success. He wanted to shower in my house to 'scratch, abrade, chip, whittle and whatever else it was going to take', to get this paint off of himself, but, I banished him to the back yard. I offered him a choice - hose or pool - neither of which he was happy about. However, he knew the look in my eyes was not one he was about to argue with. (sorry I couldn't turn this one) He started to use Toby's water bucket, but realizing that it was going to take more work than just swishing - he relented to us holding the hose and we all scrubbing. And then he wanted to go it alone with the holding and scrubbing thing, because he felt 'uncomfortable' that his mom and dad were um....rubbing him down. Hey, okay with me....I can take more pictures now! For the haircut.... I was worried that the letters had been so closely shaven (? - is this even a word?) into his head he would have to almost be bald when we tried to even it out. But it really didn't turn out too bad. Okay, he is almost bald isn't he. Our heart for the day......the center of a scone that Doug cooked on Sunday morning.

space galore....(regarding last blog)

2011-04-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

What ever that big space is in my last blog, I can't remove it! Sorry.

Spirit Week at Brimhall

2011-04-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

Most of my kids have participated in Spirit Days at school. Crazy hat day, crazy hair day, super hero day, crazy sock day, etc. However, I have only had two kids that have gone to the, what I call, MAX on dress-out days. Kevin and Allan. Shannon holds a very close 3rd, and Jill an awesome 4th place. Don't be offended you other kids, I think you will agree with me on that statement. So this was another Spirit week at Allan's school. I'm not sure how many people dress out, but I do remember when Shannon and he were going together to these spirit days, they were the only 2 I ever saw dressed up. (And that means more than a t-shirt). Case in point - last year, Dr. Suess Day.

Jill's Brimhall Spirit Days....the 70's look, Crazy Hair Day, and Look like a Pilot Day....Just kidding Jill!

Okay, so now that Shannon has moved on, and yes she also supports spirit days at her school, they must not be so 'unusual' that I take pictures of her. Enjoy Allan's week of Spirit!

Day #1: High School Day....of course Mesa High..

Day #2:.......Hippie Day....

Day #3....Professional Day....

Day #4..Sports/Jersey Day......

Day #5.....Bobcat Spirit Day.....(Brimhall school mascot)

We started with a little shave/shape/cut?.....Then we taped over it to spray paint his hair...

Next came the body painting....Now..off to school. Uh, oh....first casualty...

I'm not too sure Grandpa believed he'd get out,

so he rode with us to Brimhall. Yep! He did it!

We love you Allan.....and I'm glad Spirit Week is over.

Saturday at Frys

2011-03-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

As is the norm with the LDS crowd, we hit the grocery stores on Saturday night to make sure we have everything needed to get us through Monday morning so we don't have to shop on Sunday. Doug and I did a quick little run to our local Fry's. I only needed 3 things. But as usual when I take Doug, we always come away with a few more items. My three listed items were as follows: potatoes, milk and eggs. We came home with more than that. The 10 lb. bag of potatoes were the first in my cart, we pushed to the back of the store and picked up the milk and eggs and after a few more aisles we looked down the freezer aisle at the ice cream. We pick up a Cookies and Cream flavor. At the end of the ice cream aisle was the juice and because Doug is our famous Smoothie maker (that is NOT a joke), we decided that he needed to have a few more juice choices for the next time he made us some. We looked through the glass doors and when he picked one out he went to open the door and it couldn't open more than about 4 inches because of a shelving unit of liquor that was right in front of it. Now, I'm not a store manager, never have been, but I can bet that having that shelving unit sit in front of a freezer door is really not good stratagy for selling the items that must sit in that freezer section. We could tell that the shelves had been recently moved because of the stain on the floor, so Doug, being Doug and a man, decided to shoulder move the unit back to its first sitting spot freeing the door for us to get the juice out that he wanted. In my mind I thought it would have been possible for him just to open the door next to first one and stretch through for his juice choice, but no. And then in my mind I could see all the bottles jiggle and sway while he moved the shelf - oh wait- that was in real life. Thank goodness nothing fell. (I have no idea how much that have cost us if one or all would have fallen)! Okay, so now for the fun story. When we got home we put away what needed to be and left the rest for in the morning since we would be using them. When I looked at the potato bag in the morning, I saw this humungous potato. Okay, not only 1, but the whole bag! It was crazy funny. If they weren't long, which most were, they were on the hefty side. So, I took Mister Mega Potato around my home for a few pictures....enjoy.

And of course the part you all look forward to....my heart finds for the day....Scrap of cornbread dumped in my sink.

Banana bread baking....In my dishwasher after loading the dishes. After I ran down the hall for my camera, the heart shape it wasn't too good.

Now these last two photos are of Doug. We were at Kai's 5th birthday party and we guess Doug was kind of tired because he fell asleep watching Kai open presents. Too funny Doug!

Love ya hon!

Spring Break 2011

2011-03-23T06:55:00.000-07:00

I can't get my video to upload here on my blog, so you all will have to go to this link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZEwqIqKW58

We had a good time with the kids and grandkids during Spring Break.

This is a private link so if you want anyone else to see it, send the link to them.

Sorry Celynda, that was the only picture I had of you. And also, to those of you who were on the boat with Carolyn as photographer, I didn't get any pic's of you doing your thing. I expect Carolyn to be posting some photo's soon!

Front seat rider? Yeah. Nobody wanted to be by him. He had rolled in cow dung the night before and even though Doug had washed him with our limited water supply, he still um...smelled. Thus, alone up front (by me), and sitting on an old tablecloth as to not infuse my seat with the odor.

Also, a heart was found this past week..... kudos to Kevin!

(Bottom of a hamburger bun. Who the heck ever turns their hamburger upside down to take a bite? Lucky for us Kevin did!)

Sunday game night.

2011-03-21T10:21:00.001-07:00

Here's a big shout out to my kids for last nights fun evening. We try to play games each Sunday night after dinner and last night was no exception. We had a few 'guests' with us - Stacy, Jordan and Brandon - an especially big shout out to them for hanging in there with us. And here are the games we played. First of all, Druther's. It is a game where you draw a card, read the scenario and then read the 4 answers on the card. Here are sample questions.... Please click to enlarge..... Each person playing has a set of 1-4 cards...(really 5, but we don't play that way). We all have to guess what the reader chose out of the 4 possible answers and if we match we get points. Our poor guests, unfortunately (maybe fortunately is the right thinking), don't know everyone in our family that well, so it was just a stab in the dark for them. Stacy did pretty well though. Congrats to her. Kevin won. I think he only missed two questions and then he had the nerve to challenge the people on whose question he missed. I think I heard the word liar a few times. Big no-no at the DeWitt home. Especially on Sunday.

Our next game was Blind-mans Bluff. We can not leave the living room area, although with a few extra people we added part of the dining room as part of the playing field. Our big rule is that once you touch you may NOT move your hand to 'feel' the person of whom you're guessing. So wherever your hand lands it must stay there. We forewarned everyone to be sure to use 'shields' in certain body areas if they felt the need to do so. I think everyone was It at least once.

Next we played the thimble game. I know that's not what most of you call it, but it's where we all sit in the living room and the 'It' person picks a subject/object, like a color, shape, movie, cereal, etc., and we have to go around as try NOT to guess it. If you say the item or repeat something that has already been said, you get the water from the thimble thrown in your face. We have tried all different things to hold the water and over the years have come down to a squirt bottle. You can only squirt the guesser one time. Legally. Sometimes our fingers slip and 2 or 3 squirts come out like, in rapid succession. It's crazy.

We also played Signs. Our poor guests. They hung around through all this silliness. True friendship is proven by how long you hang out at the DeWitt game night- Especially NOT knowing half the games we played AND the occasional new DeWitt rule that they might have to learn. So with Signs, we sit around in the living room and each of us has a 'sign' that we have. Doug has the flick off the chin sign, Katy is the gun sign, Shannon, the side of the nose touch, etc. One person is again "IT" and stands in the middle of the circle - covers his eyes counting to 10. During this time one person starts the signage (?). He has to do his sign and then someone else's. The second person has to 'accept' their sign and then do another person's sign. On and on. The person in the middle tries to catch the person with the sign that has not passed it off yet. It is easier to learn by doing than by telling. So if you're ever around our home on a Sunday evening, be ready to learn Signs. Here are a few signs that some of us used.

Jason's, Brandon's, Stacy's, and mine... Kids - are you surprise I found my sign online? Yeah, you all were teasing me, but now you'll have to think twice before you jest.

Lastly, we played Sardines. Indoors. Here, we turn off every light in the house - sometimes we even have to unplug radio's, toasters, any thing that has a soft cast to it. All but one person stands outside and counts to 30. The 'IT' person hides somewhere in the house and then everyone else comes in and, in the dark has to feel around the house for them. When you find the person, you join him in his hiding spot. By the time everyone has found 'IT', you are all smashed together like sardines - thus the name of the game.

Once again, Dad and I thank you for letting us be silly and playing with you when you probably wished we old folks had been in bed by game time. Love you all and missed those not here!

2011-03-20T07:41:00.001-07:00

I won't make this a long drawn out blog - but just be warned that one is coming. I have been busy with a few things and have taken a few (hee-hee) pictures along the way, but I think I have had writers block AND I have NOT had success in downloading a few videos and songs. My computer keeps saying that my 'codec' is not allowing me to do what I want to do, so I have been researching and trying everything it has told me to try, but to no avail. So, my dear sweet Geek for Hire girl, Vicki, might be hearing from me real soon. Don't give up on me.

2011-03-05T16:32:00.000-08:00

Wow! I look really tired in this video (or maybe old?). Thursday night we had a little scare with Grandpa DeWitt who has been staying with us for a few days. Wednesday night he took a pretty bad fall here in our driveway after walking we had walked Toby around the block. He was in pain Wednesday, but made it through the night and then felt like he needed to get up to Snowflake to see Alan, his doctor. I left here at 7pm and got to Showlow (where the hospital is) around 11:pm. Grandpa's blood pressure was 198/99!! Terribly high!! Alan was a little concerned he might be having heart problems right then. I stayed until 1:30am, then drove into Snowflake to stay at Alan and Linda's home. They weren't sure if dad would need to stay in the hospital, but he didn't and Alan drove him to his home around 3 or 4. All is well now. Dad had a few digestive problems that was wrecking havoc on his whole body and with the fall he went into some kind of 'trauma' or 'shock' thing. Scary to say the least. But he felt fine Friday morning and wanted to get back down to Mesa where he had a granddaughter who was having a birthday party!

Ladybug birthday

2011-03-02T20:04:00.000-08:00

Last week, on my birthday, I went to Scottsdale to have a facial. I had bought (or is it boughten?) a Groupon bargain for 3 facials. http://www.groupon.com/subscriptions/new?division_p=phoenix. Check out your own cities specials. Anyway as I came home I needed to run into WalMart for a few items and when I came back outside to my car, guess what I saw?
Yep, a ladybug. Some of you know that I love ladybugs. I have for as long as I can remember and some of you right now are saying - sure, she's just wanting something to write a blog about, which is true, but I wanted to validate myself and my love of ladybugs so I went digging in my old photos. And your in for a treat. I found one of my favorite outfits that my mom had made. Check it out. This picture was taken at my Uncle Sherman's house in July 1970. Now, I found another one taken with my same favorite outfit: This is at Glen Canyon Dam on our way up to Springville, Utah in July 1971. I guess I didn't grow too much that year, but my hair did! Anyway - I can remember taking this picture. We three girls had just had a fight about something and those two were on the same side of the argument so I had to grab Suzie, the dog, to at least feel like someone was on my side of what ever the quarrel had been about. I think Suzie liked me the most anyway- okay 2nd to Mom - but here's a few pictures to show that fact too. Yeah, who's she sitting by? Trudy and I had to share an avocado. Maybe she thought I'd share with her. No, way....That was a delicacy for us!

And wanting to cuddle with?

Who is she closest to in this picture? Yeah, maybe Carrie. But I'm sure she was just in my arms a few minutes before. And here was my #1 activity of all times....Dressing her up and walking her in my dolly stroller. And yes, she would take a drink out of the baby bottle. (I don't see her dressed up her, but believe me, she got it often. (Check out my styling shoes! Shannon would love to have those now!)

Here are a few more 'down memory lane' pictures... My 2 sisters, Trudy, Carrie and me at Springville for Aunt Kathleen's reception. And this one is once again on our way to Utah in1967.

Thanks for all the cute dresses and hairdo's mom!

2011-03-01T08:52:00.000-08:00

Sorry everyone. I messed around with the background/template and now I can't get it back to a normal looking blog. HELP Carolyn!! I'll babysit for free one day!

Snowflake doctor trip

2011-03-01T04:48:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I'm slackin' on posting - but we are having days that are busier than usual. Last Monday, the 21st, I drove my son Allan up to see Uncle Alan in Snowflake for a doctors visit. He has been complaining about his heart and he's had a serious cough for several weeks. The drive up was turning out more snow-filled than I thought it would be.

Our first glimpse of the snow to come.

Now more.

And lots more. Here was my traveling companion. The coat was up to block the sun.

Down to one lane open and then almost no lanes at all. Crazy. Okay, you Utah folks, I'm from Mesa (although we did live in Flagstaff for 5 years), and my snow driving is not used as much so it was a bit scary for me.
Now, the other thing I need to add is that I don't have very good windshield wiper blades. I had only two spots I could look through when I was following someone and the 'crap-ola' was flinging back on to my car. AND to top it off, my wiper washer fluid ran out about halfway up this mountain, where I stupidly tried to fling some water from my water bottle out onto my windshield. Most of that came back inside our car.
Oh, side note, you HAVE to watch one of our favorite youtube videos called 'Kid History'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80entLldZOg I hope this is the right one. We love it and my kids can quote verbatim the whole movie. Too funny.
It got down to 24 degrees. Cold. And here is a shot of my window once I ran out of wiper fluid and had been 'slushed' a few times by cars. (make sure you make this one big)Once we get to Snowflake, the first thing we do is stop at one of their two gas stations to clear my window and guess what? The little black containers that hold the window washer scrubie thing - the water was FROZEN !! I tried to lift it out of the container and the whole stinking container lifted right off of the beam it was connected to! I wish I'd taken a picture of that - but it was a bit cold standing there.
We finally get to his appointment.

So Allan has his heart checked out and he's fine. (surprised anyone?) But he does have a small extra nerve? clump that fires off at weird times so it makes his heart feel like it flutters a little bit. Now, don't quote me - but after Uncle Alan explained the real medical terms for what it was - this is what registered in my layman's mind and that's how I'm going to describe it to you.
Allan was so worried about her tearing these little tabs off and pulling the hair, mostly on his legs.

We brought Grandpa DeWitt back down to Mesa with us.

2011-02-24T11:03:00.001-08:00

Well, as promised a week and a half ago - I finally have the blog I was to post last Tuesday.

Make sure you click and enlarge this great drawing!

He really was more embarrassed than hurt, but as you can see, his nose was scraped up pretty good and a little swollen.

Kevin's chair

2011-02-14T07:16:00.000-08:00

First of all, I have a super funny blog coming tomorrow - but I need to draw a picture to go with it because we didn't have a camera with us when this event happened.

Nine days before Kevin came home I started to reupholster this chair that Kevin had dumpster-dove (?) for several years ago. I wanted to have it done before he came home, but I went slightly over that date.

Here's a few pictures of the reupholster process: Dirty, icky, disgusting - out to the trash.

Anyway, it's been done for a week or so now, but I just didn't know where to put it in my home. Here was the dilemma: Where should the chair go? I thought in the Living Room..... Nope. Too crowded. Covers my curio cabinet. How about our new piano bench? Cute, but, no? The new head chair at our table? In Allan's room? My bedroom? The girls dressing room? No, but the color kinda looks good with it.....At the computer? The Family room?Or the laundry room....which is our downstairs bathroom, so probably not. That would be a bit awkward. So this is where it is going to end up. Kevin's room.
I was thinking of leaving it in the garage, but here is what my mind envisioned after a day or so..... Get it? It wasn't going to stay in the garage. Speaking of my garage. As most of you know, we recently got a new garage door (12 yrs in the waiting), but it has two special features...(and most of you probably already know because you have a neat garage door) one.....a thermostat (lights up in the dark) And two, a light that senses when you walk in and it turns on automatically! Sweet. I love it!

Kevin at Shar's

2011-02-10T07:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to Shar's. Shar's Kitchen Center in Gilbert.
http://www.sharskitchen.com/

I enjoy her class most of the time and get a kick at how good of a salesman or woman, I should say, she is for her store. She is knowledgeable and a quick talker. I took Kevin with me, mostly because he was bored and hasn't started his job yet, and I told him he'd get a free mini loaf of bread - fresh-ground whole wheat bread. Almost every product she described as she was cooking, he would lean over and ask, 'Do we have that?'. I'd either nod yes or shake my head no. And if we didn't have it, he'd want me to put it on my shopping list. It was becoming a comedic thing.
Shar: Who has a Bosch?
Kevin: Do we have a Bosch?
Me: Yes.
Kevin: But do we have the 7th generation Bosch?
Me: No.
Kevin: Don't we need the 7th generation Bosch that has a new locking bowl feature and the suction cups on the bottom to keep it from slipping around the counter?
Me: (a stare - meaning no).
Shar: How many of you own a Mill? It is so healthy to grind your own wheat. All of the nutritious stuff is just taken out in the white flour process.
Kevin: Do we have that?
Me: Yes, just an older model.
Kevin: I don't remember a grinder mill.
Me: We have one, it is square in shape - not this round one she is showing.
Kevin: Don't we need the round one? I sounds like it works the best.
Me: (2nd stare).
Shar: Now to make the perfect loaf of bread - after you've used your freshly ground wheat - you need dough enhancer. This will help make your loaf of bread fluffier, lighter and have a better texture.
Kevin: Do we have that?
Me: Yes. (phew).

On and on it went. I would write a couple of things on my shopping list so Kevin would feel like I was listening to his concerns of our lack of kitchen appliances/gadgets. Things like; measuring spoons, super thin spatula for scrapping the Bosch bowl sides while it is mixing the bread, thermometer for the perfect meat every time, a strawberry/mushroom cutting thing, a new hand mixer with a timer built right in AND with 10 speeds! (actually, that was kinda cool), baking sheets with a cooling tray and so forth and so on. Most of these items she 'can't keep on the shelves of her store - they are just flying out the door and sometimes we have to order them to make sure we get one'.

Eventually Kevin took a short little nap. He missed the whole Quinoa Pilaf section. There were lots of gadgets for that recipe. Again, phew.
The recipes Shar shared with us yesterday were this: Macadamia Nut crusted Chicken with Roasted Pineapple Relish; Quinoa Pilaf; Whole Wheat Feather light dinner rolls; Strawberry and Almond Salad; and Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cheesecake. Everything was good. I could have done without the pilaf - it has peas and carrots. Not my favorite. Luckily the samples you get are really one or two bite sizes - so I swallowed without really chewing.

I did break down and bought two things. The magnetic measuring spoons and the strawberry slicer. Oh and I picked up some Ultra-Gel. This thickening agent that works really well.

Here is Kevin's loaf of bread and the gift I got (for bringing a friend)- a magnetic measure equivalent chart. (Shar - I can't keep these in stock - everybody wants one and for $1.99 you're getting it for cost). Phew! Good thing I got mine free. I almost felt I needed a body guard to walk me out to my car in case someone tried to mug me for my measure equivalent chart! Oh, wait.....I have Kevin.
My handy-dandy mushroom slicer. Sweet.