Mini Vaycay

Peter had to go to Porterville which is about 4 hours away overnight for work. At the last minute, we decided to tag along for a little adventure. His work put us up in a nice hotel and the kids thought it was the best slumber party ever. We got in pretty late, played a couple of games and went to bed. The next morning we stuffed ourselves with the hot breakfast provided and enjoyed the pool, which we had all to ourselves. We spent some more time in our room watching PBS and then we went to the next door play land at Burger King while Peter went to turn in a bid for work.

Once Peter was done, we found a theatre and saw Harry Potter. It was a little too long for their attention spans, but we enjoyed it. Then we headed home. One of the best parts for me was the drive because we could talk and enjoy our time together.

I am so glad we went on this little trip with Peter. It was really last minute, but great family time.

LOL!

Oh Yeah!!!

Dallin the Game Boy

Dallin LOVES to play games! He goes through phases of which is his favorite and plays it 10 times a day with whoever will play for a good week or 2. Uno has been his favorite for a while now. Thankfully, one of his therapists brought "Sorry" over a couple of days ago and now he has a new favorite. Some of his other favorites are Hungry Hank, a random pirate board game, and Monopoly Jr. I can see that this is really good for his development. His math is better, maybe even his strong area. He is also better at reasoning and strategy skills.

Dallin has been having 6 hours of therapy a day this summer. Academically, he is way ahead of where he needs to be going into first grade. His conversations skills are always improving and his behaviors are very good. I think he will have a successful year. He will still have his aid there, but hopefully he won't need the extra support very much. I am so interested and hopeful for how he will do socially when he starts school again. He is such an awesome kid, I am so proud of him. I can't believe first grade is only a month away!

House Update

We have been dangling for months over what was happening with the house that we are renting at the moment. We found out it was for sale "short sale". Then we thought it was going into foreclosure. That is really frustrating to know that you are paying your rent to someone who is not paying the mortgage! It has been hard to really know what is going on, but Peter calls the listing agent about once a week or so to make sure things haven't changed.

So there is a short sale still pending. From what we hear, we will know in the next couple of weeks if that will go through. We really hope it does, because the buyer wants renters. We have not had anyone view the house at all so the buyer finally has an appointment to come see it. That means I am working like crazy to get this place looking shiny. (I can't believe how many people have just knocked on our door hoping to see the house! I just tell them no, and to contact the agent, duh!) I spent the whole day yesterday cleaning our carpets on the main floor. Seriously, we were not meant for carpet, but I can't believe what a difference a clean carpet makes. If the sale goes through, I guess it will still be 4-6 weeks before everything is final and then if we do get evicted they have to give us 60 days. So for now we are just hoping the sale goes and that they want to keep us. Moving is the pits so we are hoping to avoid it until we move back to Oregon.

Preaching to the Choir

The ward choir sang a beautiful rendition of America the Beautiful in church today. It was lovely, until they finished and Tanner decided to add his own song to the complete silence.

Tanner:"Thomas the Tank Engine(in shock, my hand covers his mouth for a few seconds. I let go thinking he got the message) HURRIES ALONG!"

Portraits

We did a quick portrait session at the temple a couple of weeks ago. I think they turned out well.

Where did my happy baby go?

Carter finally started getting teeth about a month ago. My kids usually start getting them late and they come in very slowly. I never knew what it was like to have a grouchy teether...until last week. Carter now has a total of 6 teeth. I was amazed at how quickly he got 2 bottom teeth and then a top one at first. Then last week he got a pretty bad fever for 2 or 3 days. No one was sick and I could see another top one coming in so I assumed he was teething. He was so grouchy and hard to please. Poor thing, I can't imagine how painful it must be. I began to think it must be more than this one tooth so after fishing around in his mouth I discovered a molar coming too. Ouch! Even Tylenol didn't totally help him. By early this week Carter was back to his happy self and then today I felt around in his mouth again and realized that he has 2 molars poking through now. So apparently 2 molars and one front tooth in one week is very painful. No wonder he was so miserable!

Pretty Pretty Princess

What nice brothers to play this game with Eden! I think the boys like it as much as she does. It was pretty funny.

Provident Living

I got this quote in my Daily Gem email today and really liked it. I highlighted my favorite part.

“All of us are responsible to provide for ourselves and our families in both temporal and spiritual ways. To provide providently, we must practice the principles of provident living: joyfully living within our means, being content with what we have, avoiding excessive debt, and diligently saving and preparing for rainy-day emergencies. When we live providently, we can provide for ourselves and our families and also follow the Savior’s example to serve and bless others.”
Robert D. Hales, “Becoming Provident Providers Temporally and Spiritually,” Ensign, May 2009

Laundry Soap

After reading that you can make your own laundry soap for very cheap, I just had to give it a try. It was so easy (about a 20 minute project) and kinda fun. I was doubtful that it would really turn out, but after letting it set for a day, it gelled and truly became a liquid detergent! I was able to find these 3 ingredients at Winco believe it or not. I also had to buy a 5 gallon bucket at home depot. My initial investment was about $10, but the actual batch of soap cost less than $3. It should last at least 6 months, maybe longer and then for the next several batches, I will only have to spend $1.50 for the bar of soap. Amazing!!! Sorry I don't have a review for how well it works yet, it is still too soon to tell. I am so excited to take out expensive laundry soap from my budget. I wish I had a front loader, it would last forever!

Here is the recipe from the Dugger Website if you are interested:


Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap- Front or top load machine- best value

4 Cups hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup Washing Soda
½ Cup Borax

- Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.

-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.

-Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)

-Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.

-Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.

-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)

-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)

4th of July Weekend

We have thoroughly enjoyed our 4th of July weekend. Friday we got an early start and went to Six Flags. Getting there early paid off and we quickly got through a couple of the rides that usually have the longest lines. Dallin of course loved the roller coasters. Another favorite is the wihte water rafting. We did it early enough that there was no line at all and so the kids did it 5 or 6 times. Tanner barely makes the height so it is fun to have an exciting ride that all 3 oldest kids can go on. These are my high quality phone pics.

Eden checking out a dolphin.

Tanner thinks Thomas Town is a dream come true. He got to meet Top'm Hat again. As we were waiting to ride on Thomas he said "Mommy, I saw Thomas's wheels moving!" I guess that was pretty exciting for some reason. He also tried to ride in Thomas where the driver sits and was very dissapointed that the passengers only get to ride on Annie and Clarabel. He was still as happy as a clam though.

The elephant show. We also saw the killer whale show and a wildlife show with unique animal.

On the fourth we hung out at home most of the day. Here is Dallin with the baby praying mantis that the kids found. They thought it was great to let him crawl all over their arms. We bought a package of small fireworks and spent a good hour doing that. The kids liked standing inside and watching the show from behind the slider door.

In the evening we went to a place called Lodi Lake to see if we could see a good show. Is this picture of Tanner just epitomy of a happy kid on the Fourth of July or what?


I thought it was cute to see Dallin being sweet with Eden so I had to capture that moment.

This was our view of the sunset. We were only about 6 feet from the water. There is just something more magical about a fireworks show on the water. Its the closest thing we could get to being on Grandpas boat on the lake.



Carter loved the park area. Peter played with him a bunch on the slides and he got pretty brave. I love his messy lolipop face and belly in this.

These two had so much fun. Carter was squealing with delight.

The kids were so into the fireworks show, it was fun to watch their faces. I remembered how 2 years ago Eden hid under the blanket the whole time. My, things have changed since then. Outings like this are becoming more and more fun and feeling like less and less work as the kids get older. So here are a few of my attempts at firework photography. I did not have a tripod and had kids on either side of me so this was the best I could do. It was fun to experiment with shutter speeds and such.

German Apple Pancake

I wrote about this on my last post so I thought I would add the recipe. You can click to enlarge it. It is our favorite Sunday breakfast ever! Just imagine something like crepes with apple pie filling. MMMM...it is so good, you must try it, you will be in for a real treat. Note: I didn't have half and half one day so I used whole milk and I couldn't tell the difference.This is from my favorite America's Test Kitchen Cookbook.

Special Days

I wrote about Carter's birthday barbecue a while back, and now I have pictures to show for it. This of course is the traditional 1 year old cake demolition. He really went for it.

A little awed by the fire!

This cake never had a chance!



This is my favorite picture from that weekend. One night the kids were wired and we just let them fall when they couldn't go anymore. This was probably 11 or 12 at night. This is what it is like when we visit home, they play hard and sleep hard.

At the BBQ, Dallin went on every boat ride.


Peter, Miranda and Eden fishing in the dingy.

Flash forward: A couple of weeks later when Dallin got to come home on an airplane for his birthday. Peter's family really made him feel special and even threw him a birthday party.

Dallin referred to this as his Train party. Someone put a trick candle on the cake and he got a big kick out of it.

Dallin got some Star Wars legos from Grandma and Grandpa D and they spent the whole evening puting them together.

Before coming home, they enjoyed some time on the water.

Now on to Tanner's birthday. Tanner was really looking forward to a Thomas birthday cake. He also wanted "snow" on it. This is what we came up with.

Powdered sugar worked great and Tanner loved it.


Tanner got all things Thomas of course for his gifts. He had requested specific characters for his collection of wooden trains.


Harold the Helecopter

Terrence the Tractor, Harold the Helecopter, and Bertie the Bus. Even after all of these, he still keeps coming up with characters that he still needs. Guess he will have to wait for Christmas.


Tanner sang as loud as everyone else. He was pretty excited that it was for him this time. Carter and Dallin are right before him so he was definitely ready for his turn.

Eden also had a special day in June. After watching Dallin get to go on an airplane and all of the birthday festivities she counted the days to the father/daughter campout. She was so excited that it would be just for her this time. They had a great time together and she felt so special.

Eden's favorite part was roasting marshmallows. Peter said she ate more than anyone.

Cute daddy.

Peter got a special day too on fathers day. The kids and I got up early and made our favorite breakfast, german apple pancakes. Peter was very happy to see it accompanied with bacon and OJ. The kids made a card and loved delivering the special treat to Daddy in bed.

At Church the kids each got a tie with candy on it to give to daddy. Peter was very proud to have 3 ties around his neck. I think he felt special too.

I don't really have a special day for me here, but how can I look at all these special people and not feel like the luckiest girl in the world! I got the whole last post too so I am definitely not lacking.

Utah Wedding

This last weekend I went to Utah to go to my past room mate's wedding. What a blast. I feel so lucky to have such great memories with all of these wonderful women. Even though some of us haven't seen each other in 5 years, it was like no time went by at all, we just picked right up where we left off. Now all eight of us are married!

I arrived late on Thursday evening and met up with a couple of girls at the airport. Then we went to Salt Lake to one of the Mother in Law's homes to stay. We met up with the other girls and partied to the early hours of the morning. We enjoyed giving Heather a little bridal shower and chatting the hours away.

Friday morning we slept in a bit, had a yummy breakfast (Thanks Lindz!) and headed to our old stomping grounds at BYU. We did some shopping and even ate at the good old Cougar Eat. It was wierd, like almost coming home.

The Wilk

After BYU we went to Heather's new married apartment to check it out and then over to our old apartment at the Glenwood.

Here it is, good old 129! We knocked on the door to discover that boys live there now. They were more than a little overwhelmed by our enthusiam over their place. It was very funny, especially the nice boy that had just gotten home from his mission.





Friday night we had fun at a Luau for the bride and groom. It was fun to meet the groom for the first time and see how happy Heather is. It actually started to storm so we were hoping that would pass, luckily it was beautiful the next day.

Saturday morning we went to the Draper temple for the sealing. It was a great wedding and especially neat that all 8 of us girls were together and in the temple.

The beautiful bride


We were honored to be her bridesmatrons. 3 of us are pregnant which made it even more fun. I just love all of these beautiful ladies! I am so blessed. After the temple we had a fun time at the luncheon together with super good food. Heather was just glowing the whole time. The rest of us managed to chat the whole afternoon away before going to the reception.





The reception was so fun and of course very detailed. Since Heather teaches first grade, she invited her students and told them that she would have a cotton candy machine there! Isn't that just so cute? It was a big hit with all the children.

There was a DJ at the reception too. I really don't get into wedding reception dancing usually, but since we were all there together, we went all out like we were 18 at a BYU dance for a good hour and a half. Oh my, it must have been quite a site with all the bellies too. We laughed so hard and had a blast.

Sunday morning I was sore and hoarse from talking so much, and ready get back to my sweet family. It would have been fun to stay and visit with other friends and relatives but I just couldn't be away another day. I can't wait until we get together again.