Creations From Everyday Life

Ancestor Square

There is a really cool place in Downtown St. George called Ancestor Square. Basically, old old buildings have been gutted and updated to accommodate modern day shoppers and diners. The location provides an excellent place to take photographs. Lots of trees and open shade at any time of the day. Lots of green... Lots of cool textures...

I've been wanting to take my kids there for a long time. But, I needed Jared to go with me so that he could help keep a reign on the kids while I took pictures. Monday we finally went. The plan was to get a couple of good pictures of all the kids together. It backfired big time! Like it usually does. Luckily, I did manage to get good pictures. Just not the family picture I had envisioned.

Jocelyn & Noah

This is Jocelyn with our cute little neighbor boy Noah. He's actually Katelyn's age, and I think he plays better with Katelyn... but Kate is taking a nap so this is what he gets. Jocelyn wants to play "house." Jocelyn wanted me to take a picture of their "family." The little pony is supposed to be their "baby." Obviously... Noah doesn't care to be the father of a pony.

I thought these pictures of them peeking in the kitchen window were cute. And I will be running to clean the windows as soon as I am finished with this post because they are n-a-s-t-y!

Jocelyn wanted a close-up of her new haircut.

And I just think Noah is cute, so I had to take this one...

Makes Me Happy...

Baby Bubbles

Tasty Apples

Little Giggles

Sisterhood

Silly Friday (Part II)

About 2 minutes ago, Jocelyn discovered the joys of a little sister stealing her clothes.

Jocelyn came to inform me that she had just noticed that Katelyn was wearing her shirt. I told her that I knew that (as she has been wearing it all day). Then Jocelyn wanted to know why I put the shirt on the wrong side of the closet. I told her that I didn't put it on the wrong side... Katelyn took it from her side. Jocelyn seemed disturbed, so I told her: "welcome to the joys of having sisters!"

All the while, Katelyn looked pleased for pulling one over on Jocelyn.

Then Jocelyn exclaimed that she was going to steal Kate's clothes tomorrow (which will be hilarious since Kate's clothes are smaller).

Kate wasn't amused at the prospect of having her clothes stolen.

Silly Friday...

Jared's out playing golf... again...

So, I was just having dinner with the kids. We had omlets, cleverly re-named "egg tacos" by me for eating appeal. My kids don't necessarily love eggs, but they love tacos. It worked.

Anyhow, after finishing our meal... Katelyn was showing off her newly learned skill of crossing her eyes. So I showed her MY skill of crossing my eyes. Jocelyn couldn't figure out how to cross her eyes...

...so feeling left out, she reached over and gave me a wet willie...

What?!

Tess Today

I think it's fun because you can see a silhouette of me in her eyes and my flash bouncing off of the ceiling. She was fascinated at the flash bouncing off of the ceiling, hence the look on her face.

My 6th True Love...

My true loves include:

1. My family
2. The place I live (area of country... not necessarily this specific house)
3. Hobbies (scrapbooking/gardening/photography/quilting)...
4. Money (which I both make because of and in return spend on my hobbies)...
5. Big Red soda
6. (see below)

IN-N-OUT Burger!

And they opened their doors for the very first time in St. George yesterday! I was super eager to be a part of the madness. Jared was not. So when he got home from work, I left him with the kids and went alone. Well, not exactly alone. I took my camera as my date.

When I got there it was madness. People and cars were everywhere. The drive thru lane (which I would be taking) began very far far away from the actual restaurant. Behind Best Buy for those of you who know the area. Employees were everywhere chatting it up and making the wait pleasant. At one point I was told that I was #43 in line (after I had worked my way half way through)!

50 minutes after getting in line, I was finally handed my greasy goodness! And it was yummy. And everytime I burped that evening and tasted dinner I smiled. <--- TMI I know.

Here are photos from my journey!

Finally in view of the restaurant, and in view of the girl taking orders from way back in line so that they could attempt to keep up inside. I was a little over 20 minutes away from getting to the window at this point!

My order slip for 2 number 1's (double double value meals), and 2 cheeseburgers. I was to hand this to a guy a little further up in line and he gave me my total.

Finally to where the drive-thru should start!

I felt compelled to take this picture because it looked cool...

Other crazy people like me waiting in line to get inside...

People frantically working inside. I lost count at 25...

Jared enjoying his Double Double after I got it home...

MY Double Double...

Jocelyn enjoying her cheeseburger (with her short hair)...

THE END

Observation

Why is Dora the Explorer screaming all the time?

Layout Share.

I felt compelled to do a digital layout last night while Teslyn was wide awake and Jared was asleep.

The brown cardstock, and the leaf with the stitching are my own creations. I plan on making them available sometime soon for download.

Caterpillar Cont...

I'm reminding myself of my friend Beka when she did her posts about the birds building a nest in her backyard. In her series of posts... she made an account of a young bird family making a home. Tragically her story ended, however, when the birds abandoned their home, leaving us loyal readers to wonder what happened!

I just feel like this story will end tragically too... but here goes...

Yesterday I posted about the horde of caterpillars found by my daughter and her neighborhood friends. We placed her pick of the litter in a jar... Jocelyn hoping for a moth, and me hoping for her to forget about it so that she wouldn't be crushed when it died. This morning she found it... and lo and behold, a chrysalis!

Shocked the pants off of me!

My Niece Dallie

I took these photographs of my niece Dallie on Friday who is two weeks older than Tess. She's such a cutie.

Her daddy is a volunteer firefighter, so when Calvin brought us this firetruck... we knew what had to be done!

And here she is Kung Fu Fighting... in her blessing dress...

Caterpillars Aplenty

Jocelyn, Katelyn and Calvin were playing across the street in a neighbors backyard when they found this:

The mother load of caterpillars! The jar above is being held by Judy. Jocelyn's (much older than she) friend. But they play well together, so I let it slide (Judy is 12).

Here is Jocelyn showing off the caterpillar that she picked for herself:

Judy again. And Judy's niece in the background wearing a dress-up from our house...
*note - she is much braver than I. I'm totally fine with one caterpillar on my hand. Maybe even 2. But 7+????? Not a chance!

Calvin's not too sure what to think about those fuzzy long things crawling around. We tried to get him to hold one, but I think he would have rather dropped dead on the spot. He declined BIG TIME.

Instead, he showed off his sidewalk chalk for me.

Baby Boy

I took photographs of the cutest little baby boy this morning! He was so sweet, and really loved the flash on my camera. Which was good... because I flashed him A LOT!

Here are some of my favorites:

I took like a billion pictures of his feet. Not exaggerating...

Q.T. Pie

Coolest Field Trip Ever!

How many kids actually get to work the fire hose on a field trip?

Yesterday I was a mommy helper on Jocelyn's field trip to the fire station. The kids got to take turns with the hose. Then they had a little fire safety education.

Then they went back outside to learn about all of the "features" on the fire engine.

oooh... shiny...

And then for kicks, the fire men turned on the truck and fired up the sirens. It is an understatement to say that the kids LOVED it... despite the noise and covered ears!

A+ Field Trip!

Cyclops Rock

If you have sound enabled... you probably know that I usually have music playing on my blog. If your sound is currently enabled, you may be wondering WHAT THE HECK I'M LISTENING TO!

I feel myself slipping into a They Might Be Giants phase. This happens to me every so often.

...and I know it isn't their best work... but I really really love their "Mink Car" album. The current song "Cyclops Rock" is the second track on that album, and is one of my favorite songs on Mink Car. My FAVORITE song is a cover song called "Yeh Yeh," but unfortunately it wasn't available for my music player.

... so enjoy a little crazy music.

You'll probably be graced with something by the Aquabats next (thanks Beka for getting me on that kick)...

Project

I've been working on a quilting project for about 3 weeks now and I finished it last night. The quilt is for a friend who just had a baby. I can usually punch out a quilt quicker than 3 weeks... especially a small crib sized one... but having 4 kids makes that difficult! So I did what I could in my spare time. I love how it turned out. I'm actually quite bummed to send it out, but I guess I could always make another one for myself. Which I'm actually considering doing. Just with maybe blue and brown for MY bed!

Unfortunately my sewing machine went on the fritz, and I ended up doing the binding by hand! The end result is very cool... but it was oh so time consuming! And I don't have a thimble (yet)... so my fingers are a little sore... but that's okay! This quilt rocks!

Jared took a few pictures of me putting the binding together:

And I took one this morning of the finished quilt... ready to be delivered!

Sweet... huh?

Milk Drunk Love.

*Photography by Beka Bracken

This is Teslyn and I right after a feeding. You can even see a clothing pattern still smashed on the side of her face. She is usually this way right after a feeding. Very alert, and looking all over. She thinks she can hold her head up on her own. But it usually just bobbs around, smashing her nose against my shoulder... (kind of like a chicken pecking for grain). So I always try to stabilize her with my face.

Truthfully, I really enjoy smelling her, and feeling her soft hair against my face.

It's one of those things I will miss about having babies.

That's One Big Weed!

Last week, Katelyn and I were in the vegetable garden pulling weeds. I took her to a corner where nothing was planted so that I didn't have to worry about her pulling something she wasn't supposed to. As I was pulling weeds from between the lettuce, I heard Katelyn say,

"That weed came up easy!"

I looked over to see, and noticed that she had made her way to the carrots. Indeed, that "weed" did come up easy. Especially since it was a CARROT. Not really a weed at all...

So I reminded her softly not to pull up any more carrots. Then we went inside to wash it.

Then she ate it. She shared some with me.

It was the yummiest carrot ever!

Insomniac

I bought this onesie at Old Navy yesterday. I found it hilarious. And I knew it would be perfect for taking pictures. Especially when she gets her crazy eyes going (pictured above).

I laid her in front of a big window to take the picture, because I knew she'd get excited about watching the leaves. I was right!

Are You Kidding Me?!

Trailer

New Kids dish on tour, album

Scrapbook Hall of Fame

calls were made this morning.

For those of you who were sure that I'd get a call...

I did not.

**just a public service FYI**

One Month Ago...

... I had been awake for WAY too long due to laboring to get this girlie here:

And boy has she grown a lot in this last month. And it's hard to believe how fast time flies. She is already awake more during the day than she sleeps, which is sometimes annoying.

She thinks that she is big enough to hold her head up on her own. Really she just bobbs it around, but she tries and that's what matters!

Finally she sleeps great at night. She usually goes down for the night between 11 and 11:30pm. Then she wakes at 3:30am and 6:30am to eat, going right back to sleep after every feeding.

Contrary to most newborns (I guess I can't call her that anymore huh), she loves to be naked. Every diaper change is an opportunity to stretch and happily kick around without the restraints that diapers provide.

She smiles when we talk to her, and cries real tears.

She loves the shower. It may have something to do with the being naked thing. I foresee some interesting situations once she learns to undress herself.

She looks fabulous in blue:

Happy One Month Tess!

OUCH!

Last night when I was on my way home from "girls night" my gas light came on. First I thought that I would just wait and get fuel in the morning after taking Jocelyn to school. But by the time I made it close to home, my truck said that it was 2 miles until empty! So I just decided to make a visit to the pumps at 1:30am. Now usually, the diesel cuts off at $75.00. If I need more fuel, then I have to re-swipe the ole card and make another go of it. Lately $75 has been nowhere near enough for a full tank! But, I guess the gas station realized this, and it didn't cut off like usual. Now... I have only been filling up to $75 lately, which usually yields a little over a half tank in my truck. But this time I decided to let it go. I was firstly curious how high it would go before cutting off. And secondly, I just wanted a full tank so that I didn't have to worry about it for longer.

Well, it never did cut off. Instead, it went all the way to here:

HOLY CRAP THAT's A LOT of DOUGH!

Remember back in the good ole days when you could get gas for 0.99 a gallon. Sigh...

This Is The Place...

Meet our new building lot.

As of Monday (I guess) the lot was put in our name. The picture above was taken from on our lot, so this will be our view to the North. Yes that is a golf course. There are 2 golf courses that wind throughout the community. Another thing about this place is that no one will have obstructed views, because all of the houses have to be the same height. If you want 2 levels... you have to build a basement (which we are doing). We will most likely have an "observation deck" on the roof where we can chill out and enjoy the view 360 degrees around.

All of the sewer and hook ups are in place and ready. They were just waiting until the weather warmed enough to lay asphalt. And it is now. They said that they were going to start on it on Monday (4 days ago)... so I'm curious about the progress.

Above is our view to the North East. The sand dunes are close so Jared will LOVE that! There won't be any houses directly behind us, because it will eventually be a park! Score!

We are getting our house appraised on Monday. The appointment was set today. So I have a long weekend of painting and base board sanding ahead of me. I know it shouldn't do much for the appraisal price, but it couldn't hurt. I just don't want someone to come in to value our house... just to walk in to see half finished projects.

The back of our lot slopes down. This way, the block wall from inside our yard will be about 3 feet tall. But from the park it will be around 6 feet tall. Because of this, we can look down into the park if we wanted to... BUT the people using the park won't be able to see into our yard (without climbing up our wall that is).

Eventually we would have a gate in our wall so that we could walk directly out into the park.

Now lets cross our fingers that the loan process goes smoothly, and we can actually move forward with the project!

Chaos.

First, I'll insert this cute picture for its calming effect:

There is so much going on around here...

• I'm in the process of making two quilts. One is a mini crib size for Tess. I'm also making a bumper pad to match to go in her crib. FYI it is impossible to find a reasonably priced mini crib (aka portable crib) bedding set... which is why I'm making my own. The other quilt I'm making is a gift for a friend who is supposed to be having a baby anytime now. It is a full crib size AND ADORABLE and I'm kind of bummed that I will be giving it away!
• We are in the process of getting our house appraised. First and foremost so that we can get our mortgage insurance dropped... and second because...
• ...we will be selling our house pretty soon.
• Because we will be getting our house appraised (probably next week), the pressure has been put on us to finish up our multiple projects... like new base boards (laid, sanded, caulked, painted), and finish up the painting on the walls. I'm actually bummed about selling our house, even though it means moving on to bigger and better, because I just put all of that work into customizing it for our family. If I knew that 2 months later we would be selling, I would have just added a fresh coat of paint to the whole house, and did everything the same color. None of this multi-colored rooms with wainscoting paneling and cool baseboards. Sigh.... maybe it will be more sell-able now? Who knows...
• We are trying to get the yard looking nice (for the reason stated above).
• We bought a building lot, and as of yesterday it was officially put in our name.
• We are penny pinching, and basically living on bread and water while we try to fatten our bank account to make the loan process go easier.
• Plus I now have the stress of having to possibly live in an apartment for several months. If the loan people tell us that we need to sell our house first (because of the crazy housing market) in order to get the construction loan... Jared plans on doing so and moving us into an apartment until the house is done. I am majorly stressed about this because I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE IN AN APARTMENT... if only for 4 or 5 months, LOL. I just enjoy my yard and extra junk too much. If we were going to move into an apartment, most of our stuff would have to go into a storage unit.

And then there is the simple stress of everyday life... living with 4 young children.