Nice Day

Today has been a nice day. The kids have been relatively happy and good natured. Carson has been learning how to spin a penny on the kitchen floor. Every time it doesn't work he says "Yo Diggity!" It cracks me up!
I tried to get a nice picture of the boys by my sprouting hyacinths, but Parker wasn't too into that idea.
Then we went for a long walk to get rid of cabin fever, and as we arrived back home the boys did the ritual "sit down and take off the shoes" routine.
The only thing that would make today better would be if I could get my back to stop hurting. It's been killing me for the past 4 days! I'll take any sympathy I can get. :)

Vintage Carson

I ran across this picture today and totally started laughing. This was taken at James' (Sam's brother) surprise 40th birthday party last year. It's no surprise how much Carson loves hanging out with his cousins. Here's a great one of Carson and Nick (James' son). I'm pretty sure Nick knew he was getting his picture taken, but Carson was WAY out in left field somewhere.

Rainy Day

Today it rained all day. The kids were pretty annoyed because lately they have gone outside to play quite a bit and today they stayed in. I kept finding Parker on top of the coffee table just staring outside.
I'm sure the kids were wondering when the rain would stop and I kept thinking "I wonder how much Curtis would charge to come clean my windows!"

Here We Go Again

After working in the yard yesterday in beautiful weather, I was a little surprised to wake up this morning to lots of snow. My poor planter pots looked a little chilly! Don't feel too bad for me (not that you ever would!) because the snow has already melted and I think our nice weather will return for a few days. Good thing too because I have the work-in-the-flower-beds BUG! I love cleaning out the dead plants from last year and seeing what is growing underneath all the dried up foliage. I have TONS of tulips popping through the dirt. I am pretty excited to take pictures of those when they are in bloom. I also have hyacinth, day lilies, iris, hollyhock, mums, phlox, creeping thyme, dianthus, peonies, and junipers beard all growing nicely. My 5 lilac bushes are full of new buds too. I fertilized my lawn a week ago so hopefully my grass will start to green up soon. Everyone who reads my blog will be pretty sick of my gardening posts this summer because it becomes an obsession of mine every year!

I Love Saturdays Like This...

Today is my favorite kind of Saturday. I started the day by cleaning out the old plants from last fall in my front yard. It was really windy (check out the fly-away hair!), but I didn't care because it was about 60 degrees!
Then we decided to make a trip to the landfill. We got rid of our old toilet, Sam's basketball with a hole in it, Carson's cracked swimming pool, our Christmas tree, and a bunch of other trash that has been collecting on the East side of our house.
At the landfill I took this sweet "Grizzly Bear Area" photo. I guess employees of the landfill have a sense of humor with other people's garbage.
Now it's only 3:00 PM. I wonder what the rest of the day will bring?

Swinging In The Sun

Today we spent some time outside. The snow had melted and our thermometer told me it was 50 degrees outside! Heat Wave! Parker and Carson love their swings. The only way I could get them to come inside was to tell them we'd make chocolate chip cookies. So, I have cookies at my house if anyone wants to come play!

Day Off

Sam took Monday off from work. I love it when he takes days off! He went to Lowe's to buy some moulding and also came home with a new swing for Carson. Now Parker and Carson each have a swing on the "clubhouse". Parker was enjoying this ride from his dad as well!

Typical Mom

I know everyone feels the same way about their kids, but DANG my kids are cute! Here are a few shots from the last few days.

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

I have a confession to make: I have never made banana bread. I really like it, but it never crossed my mind to make it. We had some overripe bananas so I figured I'd give it a whirl. Fern gave me some of her bread pans because I didn't own any (thanks sis!). I made the bread this afternoon. It looked SO good when it came out of the oven. I was feeling pretty domestic. Then a few minutes later I looked at it and it had totally sunk in the middle and was full-on GOO!
I'm so glad I took before and after shots because I keep laughing! I told Sam "this is why I don't even try!" He just rolled his eyes.

March 16th - Elephants

Every day on Carson's school calendar it tells me what they are going to learn about that day. Today they learned about Elephants. When I went to pick Carson up, all the kids from his class were wearing Elephant hats. They were pretty dang funny!

Clean Oven!

Yesterday I made a lasagna for our Enrichment meeting. I don't know what happened, but some of my lasagna EXPLODED in my oven! This happened right before I took it out of the oven. I then had to go to Enrichment so I couldn't worry about cleaning it up at that time. This morning I tried to scrape the burnt cheese out of my oven. It was no good. Then I remembered that I had a self cleaning oven. I've had the oven for 4 years and have never used this feature. Trust me, it's not because I'm a clean cook, it's because I don't cook. :)
So, at 10:30 AM I set the self cleaning mode and then went to pick Carson up from school. When I arrived home, I was welcomed to the suffocating smell of debris in my oven being incinerated! It was pretty nasty, I had to leave my kitchen window and sliding glass door open for 4 hours while my oven did its thing! Remember, it's not even 40 degrees outside... Anyways, I suppose it was all worth it because I wiped out the ashes and I have a pretty clean oven now. Isn't my life exciting!!!???

Home, Family, and Personal Enrichment

As some of you may know, I'm the 2nd Counselor in Relief Society. Yesterday was our Home, Family, and Personal Enrichment meeting that I was in charge of. It went great! We had a great lasagna dinner and for dessert...a CAKE buffet!!! I wish I would have taken a picture of the cake buffet. There were 6 or 7 different kinds of cake. People could have a piece of each kind if they so desired, it was a buffet after all! Everyone in attendance brought something that represented themselves that they would be willing to give away. We used it as a "get to know you" activity. It was a huge success. I gave a little Willow Tree statue that was the "angel of gardening" because I collect Willow Tree statues and I love to garden. We then had a Readers Theatre, "Living up to your privileges" which was about some of the early Relief Society sisters. It was awesome. Here is a picture of one of the tables.

Which Restaurant?

What Restaurant is this? Whoever answers correctly first, I'll send you a dollar.

Will He Ever Learn?

It's sad to say, but Carson is quite clumsy. He was at Fern's house yesterday and ran into her kitchen chair and split his eyelid open. I was explaining to my niece Melissa how clumsy he has always been and right at that moment he walked into a door jam and smacked his forehead. Oh boy...
Even better: that night I was talking to Fern and she was telling me Melissa had a big red mark on her shoulder. When she asked Melissa what happened, Melissa said "I walked into the door jam of the office."
Sometimes it's scary how much alike Carson and Melissa are!

Happy 30th B-day Sam!

Today is Sam's 30th birthday. He opened his presents this morning and tonight we had Sam's mom, my parents, Curtis and Shandy, and Nalani and Jed over for dinner. I actually cooked a big ol' meal for everyone--shocker, I know. Then we had a pinata in honor of Sam's big day. It was a dinosaur because Sam's as old as a dinosaur. When I told him that he said "what does that make you, the dinorsaur's uncle?" Oh yeah, I'm older than Sam. hee hee.
Dad was the one to break open the pinata, it was pretty funny watching adults scramble for the candy. Good times, good times.
Happy Birthday SAM!!!

New Job

Well, almost. I (Sam) was offered a new position as a Cardio-Vascular Buyer. Intermountain Health Care's purchasing department is restructuring and physically moving to downtown Salt Lake (Same building as Carrie's work!). With the new structure they added some specialized positions and this was one. It's a nice move up and I assume my degree helped. My biggest worry is that I spend seven years and thousands of dollars for nothing. Looks like it's paying off, thanks Carrie for all the encouragement.

Boardin'

Friday I (Sam) took my niece and her friends snowboarding at Brighton. For one of her friends, Julietta (hoolieta), it was her first time. She did a lot better than I did at that stage. I took this one picture and after that my camera froze and wouldn't take any more. I feel bad because how is anyone going to know how much fun we had?! When we were parking we saw my nephew and his friends getting geared up. He said, "come find us and we'll hit some kickers". I didn't see him the whole night and consequently did not hit the kickers (I found out from some other boarders that kickers are the slide rails and jumps you see people doing tricks on). Maybe next time.

Outside Day

This morning started out normal. I took Carson to school and then I followed Fern to a collision repair company so they could erase Melissa's tragic experience with driving before she had her license. On the way home, Fern and I drove straight into a blizzard. It was crazy! So much for the signs of spring! During the blizzard I went back to Carson's school to pick him up and noticed the sign on the door saying it was an Outside Day, which means students couldn't stay inside during recess. I thought that was pretty funny. When we got home Carson decided he wanted to play outside with his rocket ship, which is white. I warned him of the hazards of playing with a white toy in deep white snow, but he didn't care. About an hour later he sadly told me he buried his rocket ship so it would be safe and now he can't find it. I handed him a snow shovel but he never did recover the toy. So, now I have tulips and lost toys to look forward to as spring arrives!

Happy Birthday and Congratulations!

I'd like to dedicate tonight's blog posting to my niece, Melissa Anderson. Today is her 16th birthday and she received her drivers license! She passed on her first try, which is more than I can say about myself! Who knew you had to yield turning left on green?
Anyways, happy birthday and congrats to Mel! We love you!

I Want To Take A Bath...NOW!

I was trying to multi-task tonight. I ran a bath for Carson and let him play in the water while I was finishing dinner. I went in to check on Carson and realized Parker, who still had his pants on, couldn't wait a second longer to take a bath. He climbed in the bathtub all by himself and was happy as a clam. I should have taken a picture of his water-soaked diaper I threw away...that was impressive! It probably weighed 5 pounds!

Security Device Enclosed

SO THAT IS WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM!

Great Saturday

Today was a great Saturday. I had to work for a few hours in the morning, so Sam took the kids to the park. Sam told Carson to wear some gloves so Carson found these great gardening gloves I got for him last summer. It takes a stable person to not care what others think. Either that or it just takes a 5 year old boy who doesn't think about caring.
Tonight we went to dinner with some friends to Ruby River, oh man I love that place! Jacketed baked potatoes rule! We went to dinner with them because the guy who sold us our Odyssey, also sold our friends an Odyssey a month before. So, they got a $100 referral bonus. They took us to dinner to spend the money, which I thought was really cool. So, if anybody is looking for a Honda, and you buy one from our salesman, I will take you to dinner to spend the referral bonus! For real!

Spring Is Almost Here

I went outside to get the mail today and realized my tulips and daylilies are starting to grow! I can hardly wait for spring. I'm way sick of being cooped up in the house... I planted at least 100 bulbs last fall so I'm hoping to enjoy the fruits of my labors... Here are a few snapshots I just took.