Goblin Valley

We love all of our trips with our trailer, but Goblin Valley is one of the best.  There are no services of any kind for 100 miles, so camping is your only option, and it just isn't as crowded because of that.  That also means that kids can just roam wild up and over all of the rocks they find.  Last year was fun, but the wind gusts were up to 50 mph, we knew it could be even better.

Plus, this time, we got to bring a little doggie!

It was his first camping trip with us, and he loved it.  Dogs aren't allowed in National Parks, but they are in many of our State Parks.

And now, a million pictures.

The kids figured out that the soft sandstone was easy to "write" on with a rock.  Tyler immediately wrote "famly" and drew a heart around it. He is so sweet.

My kids love their "room."

Hey look!  Proof I was on this trip!  Usually I take all the pictures, but Christopher took a few this time.

We hiked a slot canyon this first day, and I think that was our favorite part.  It was just so COOL looking! A bit of clambering over rocks for the kids, but nothing they couldn't handle.

They decided that this should be the official family pose from now on.

Ta da!

The next morning, we headed out to explore the goblins.

Christopher took the kids into a cave that he knew about.  There were some tiny spots to fit in, way up high, and . . . I have to admit I just didn't make it in with them.  I am a total chicken.

For added humiliation, they even carried the dog into the place I was too scared to go.

"Wait!  I know what this rock needs!  Go take my picture!"

That tiny little dog actually did a great job.  I think the sandstone gave him good traction, because he was climbing up and over all kinds of stuff.  He loved being on the adventure.

I'm just glad it wasn't too windy for this trip!

Jasmine's birthday

I'm behind on writing again, but I'm going to try and catch up!

Jasmine had a hard time narrowing down what she wanted to do for her birthday this year.  We eventually settled on "a party for all the princesses, but especially Moana.  And we paint our nails!" She wanted to invite every friend she has, but I told her she kinda had to choose between inviting boys and painting nails.  Not that boys can't paint nails, but . . . it usually isn't their thing.

I had asked the girls in the middle of February if anyone wanted a Moana dress.  They both said no.  I have to admit, that made me rather sad.  And then we were walking through the thrift store, and I found the perfect things to make a dress out of.

 The fringe!  And the perfect color of orange!  So I made Jasmine a dress anyway.

Which was a lot of fun.  Especially since most of the work was painting the designs on there. I was just glad she liked it, despite not asking for one.  I'm going to have to find kids to "adopt" and make costumes for soon, since both girls have passed the dress up phase.

In a fundraising auction months ago, I bought help from some teenagers for a birthday party.  And they were fantastic.  They made a princess scavenger hunt that led the girls all over the house for clues and prizes.

And of course, the luau theme was fun to decorate.

Moana boat cupcakes!

Thank goodness I had help with painting nails, too!  Movies helped to keep them still.  Mostly.

Our weather was even warm enough that they could go outside and play while parents were coming.

Jasmine was SO excited about her presents from us.  I told her we had to wait until Daddy came home to open them, and she stayed at the window to wait for him and asked me where he was every five minutes.

It was more about the opening than the actual objects.

A five year and three month snapshot, since I am that far behind:

*She is starting to read now, and really enjoys the antics of Sam and Mat in the "I See Sam" books.  She loved preschool at Kate's house all year, and while she never liked "computer school" from Upstart quite as much, I think it helped a lot, too.  Even if she still insists on writing her J's backwards in her name.

* She would stay on youtube all day if I let her.  Unless Avery can come over to play.  We have to check and see if Avery can play every day.

*She is still quite particular about her clothing.  She wears crocs every day, unless she is going to church or the swimming pool.  When we went to school to have her try on uniforms, she reminded me that "Mom, I don't wear pants."  Which is just too bad, since they are part of the uniform.  She might just try and wear a skirt or dress all year, though.  I always think that being cold will teach her that leggings and short sleeves aren't enough, but she just doesn't get cold often.  She wore long sleeves once or twice this year, though, so maybe that is progress.

*She is happiest when she is "big".  She loves being the only kid at home with me, or having younger friends over to play.  And no matter how much Tyler and especially Kaitlyn try to make her feel like their equal, she is still sure they are out to get her.

*I have to admit, I rarely let her sit on my lap because she is SO wiggly.  But she has convinced her teacher at church to let her sit on her lap every single week.  I can see the look of triumph from my spot at the piano.

*She loves to sing all of her favorite songs and dance along, no matter where she is!  I tried to put a video on here from instagram of her singing "I see the Light" from Rapunzel, but it won't come.  Most recently, she sings Moana songs all day.  All the skirts she tried on for fit the other day were tested for hula compatibility by singing "Moana!  Make waves, make waves!" (which isn't even the correct lyrics, but I'm not going to tell her.)

*Her favorite foods are pepperonis, entire cartons of strawberries, and sneaking candy, no matter who it belongs to or who told her she couldn't eat candy right now.  She also loves the joke that "Mom always says no to gum, but Daddy says yes."  I hate gum.  I don't like watching people chew it, finding it stuck random places, all of that.  Suckers are also evil, since everything the kids touches gets sticky.  So they beg gum off of Daddy. :)

*She LOVES swimming.  As long as she can touch the bottom.  She knows she can't swim, and will splash and play in the shallows for hours.

*She's my happy, sweet girl!! (Until she's not, and then you better duck. ;) )

Front room makeover

We put the new floor down in time for our Christmas tree, and left it at that until the holidays and birthdays were all over.  I've had an idea in mind for how I wanted it all to look for a long time, and I think I'm coming close.

A before shot from November.  I was most excited to have bare floor under the dining table.  I know that rugs underneath is the right look for a magazine, but with children, that means you cannot eat there.

Mainly, I knew it was time to redo the wall to the left of that picture.  The fake tree was cheap a dozen years ago, and toddler Tyler in particular thrashed it.  He ripped all of the "confetti" out of the bottom basket, so I saran wrapped it years ago, and then he ripped the leaves off higher and higher as he got older.  That wasn't even worth posting for free anywhere.  The credenza was in really good shape, but the drawers were empty now that the contents could fit into the kitchen where they belonged.  I needed more shelves for my ugly tutoring books. and the decor on the wall was fine, but hasn't changed in a decade.

Before and After:

My inspiration pictures were rather close,
    

except that I didn't get the walnut front to my credenza that I pictured.  I searched and searched, and even considered building the doors if not the entire thing from scratch, but it just wasn't meant to be.

I even bought a different credenza and refinished it.  It was a really orange shade of wood when I got it, so I thought that a dark stain would fix that.  It just went dark orange, so I did another coat, and another, and another, and when we finally carried it in, I declared it too dark and my husband declared it too flimsy. I never bothered attaching legs.  Just sold as is.

So I got the IKEA one that should hopefully last longer.

Anyway, more before and afters!

I am amazed at how much better the rug looks just by taking away the carpet that was the same color, and moving it over.

The kids love the picture wall the most.  I made each row grow chronologically, from wedding to family picture, and newborn to current for each child.  I love having pictures of my littles on the wall!

My math books were rather crammed in with kitchen supplies, so I love that they now have shelves to spare.  And there is even a shelf for piano music.  Now the basket next to the piano can just have the ones we are currently using, and the rest can tuck away. I love it!

Kaitlyn's gymnastics show

On my birthday this year, I got to go to Kaitlyn's gymnastics show.  She loves gymnastics so much!  This year, her class were the clowns in a circus themed show.

I always run her down early for the dress rehearsal, and save seats for my husband to come later.  I realized as soon as I got there that I forgot the SD card for my good camera, so I called him and asked him to bring it.  And then he forgot, too!  My phone was not really up to the challenge of capturing moving subjects in a dark theater. It even added a 3 second delay between when I clicked and when it took.  Yeesh.

At least I got a picture of her makeup at home, once I found a memory card!

She did a great job, as always!

Kaitlyn's 9th birthday

Kaitlyn LOVED planning this party.  Which is good, because there was no source of ideas on the internet for a Studio C themed party.  She watches skits on youtube constantly, and loves to re-enact them and wear her Studio C shirt.  She debated for a second about an American Girl doll party, but she had a couple of boys she wanted to invite, so she settled on this. And then she found a notebook, and made list after list about what we needed to have for this party.

First, decorations.  There is a skit where a man comes home to see that his wife has decorated for every holiday at once to test if he knows what they are celebrating.  So, we decorated with everything.

Next, we needed some food.  "Bisque" soup is a running gag, so we had sweet potato soup and called it a bisque.  We also had fruit with eyes that might eat you.

Kaitlyn told me that the one with 8 tiny eyes is a spider.

After snacks, we colored some pictures.  The pictures were actually clues to guess which skit it was referring to.  Only half of the group participated in this one.  Many of them seemed intimidated by not having every skit memorized like Kaitlyn and a couple of the others.  But they actually all liked just having something to color.  (There is a crayon skit, too.)

If anyone tries to recreate this later, the answers are: shoulder angel and devil, baby Spencer, lady Shadow, the diving competition skit, Scott Sterling, awkward avoidance viking, bisque soup, poker game, crayon song is ruined, the game of HORSE skit, batman (he's in a few), feelings board, worst Kindergarten teacher ever, and couchville. I just googled coloring pages.

After guessing those, we played pin the mustache on Jeremy.

And then tried to knock down ducks, since there is a skit about that, too.

And then, it was time for the main event.  I wrote out two skit prompts and we detailed out 14 characters (in case everyone showed up) to be in those skits.  We divided up, decided what would happen in each skit, and then acted them out for each other.

I put them on youtube, if anyone is curious. https://youtu.be/Xoxuo8N_5JQ and https://youtu.be/02dXbcuwBYg .  Neither of them quite went as planned, but that's okay! I think they all had fun.

On to presents and cake.

Since there aren't many Studio C themed cakes out there, we made cupcakes with little circle scenes on them (those were a hit) and Kaitlyn got a big cake with a C on it.

If anyone reading this ever wants to do a Studio C themed party and wants copies of what I created, please email me.  It took a ridiculous amount of time to make all of the pictures and skits and everything, so I would love for them to be used more than once.  It was worth it anyway, because Kaitlyn was in heaven.

That night, we went to Pizza Pie Cafe at Kaitlyn's request.  Also at her request, Jasmine and Kaitlyn both brought their dolls along.

Oh, and we went ice skating that week, too!

Birthday snapshot:

* She is the sweetest girl in the world.  I went on a late night errand as she was going to bed the other night, and when I came home, I found the cutest note by my pillow.

She often leaves me adorable notes like this.  In cursive, since she has been learning it at school and loves her new handwriting so much. I love having such a peacemaker in my home.

*A couple of weeks ago, we went to the thrift store to find more pants and leggings for her, since she finally grew too tall for the size 6 ones she has been wearing.  When we glanced through the shoes, she found a pair of Heelys, the shoes with a roller in the back of them.  She has been wanting a pair for so long that they flew into our cart (thank you, 50% off day at the thrift store, for making them $3).  She almost never takes them off now.  She can't wear them to school, so she puts them on in the morning to wear as she gets ready, switches shoes to go to school, and then puts them on again the instant she gets home.  She is pretty lucky that we just recently made the entire first floor of our house a solid surface for her to skate around on.

* She adores every stuffed animal or doll that comes into her life.  In fact, she has created so many little spots for each of them on her bed that she sleeps in the bottom corner, curled up in a ball.

 I've tried to help her narrow things down in the past, but learned the hard way that she loves them all too much.  All I can do is give her storage options, like the cabinet I got at IKEA for her wall.

*She is still my social bug.  She and Lily are constantly back and forth between our houses, and we are slowly adding playdates with friends from school.

*For her birthday, I got her a bunch of little things from American Girl.  A purse for her and a matching one for her doll, a school kit, and a bunch of homemade clothes.

The shirts above are made from newborn onesies, and the sleeper I just adjusted from when she and Jasmine wore it as babies themselves.

Her favorite might actually be the little book I found on their clearance sale.  The book is called "Is This Normal?", and it goes through all sorts of growing up concepts in question and answer style.  I love it, and Kaitlyn has read it multiple times. She is constantly asking me more and more detailed questions about everything in there, which is just perfect.

*She loves learning new things, and watching Studio C, and snuggling with anything soft and comfy!