A bit more...of Utah

We had such a good time in Utah.
Just hanging out with good friends.
Totally chilled for several days
While Nathan and his friend sweated it out at basketball camp
and survived on sugar for 4 days.
Normally, that boy's a wreck when I pick him up on Thursday.
So I planned to head straight home assuming they would sleep the ENTIRE way.
We spent the next 6 hours listening to their sugar strung giggles and jokes and farts and all around completely obnoxious behavior.

I was not a happy mom by the time we pulled into our driveway at 11:30pm ;(

But check out this happy girl....with her very best friend in the whole wide world!

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The girls are on track break right now...

they get to go BACK to school in July. yay.

I kinda wish other persons (who shall remain un-named) had to go back to school too.

They are on each other like flies on honey.

Not a good combination.

Calgon take me away............................

Kristen taught family home evening last week and she chose a lesson about love at home. Because we need it, she said!

The message appears to have not sunk in.

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On another note,

I have had tests, and more tests.....that have led to more tests.

I have become an important patient at my drs. office.

And that's not necessarily a good thing.

Things seem to be coming to a head and by summers end I expect to have some answers.

Forsyth Farms

{on a side note...i sure hope i didn't offend anyone in regards to fb. that was not my intent. we were just lamenting at all the friends we've lost to fb. i know there are wonderful things about it, i have found many old friends because of it. but it's just not a forum that works for me. i can't seem to express myself in one sentence...apparently i have way too much blabbering in me for that.}

A few weeks ago we were up in Utah and spent some much anticipated time with our good friends. They have joined the coolest craze since sliced bread...raising chickens. Apparently, that's what all the cool kids are doing.

My kids couldn't get enough of these baby chicks.
I just hoped they would survive our visit ;)

Their new home came with a dog run and this super cool dog house.
Which has now become a cool chicken coop!

Jack was in chick heaven!

I did not bring enough clothes to keep this one clean. He spent most of his time sitting, and crawling around the dirt trying to catch chickens.

After posing for some shots he let his chicken go and picked up this big rock. He posed it on his shoulder just like he did the chickens.

With all the little babies running around I was worried he would carelessly drop the rock.

I said to him

"Jack, be careful with the rock, don't hit the chickens with it"

his response....

"I know mom, cause that will make the blood come out and we don't want the blood to come out of the chickens."

...........riiight.

glad he's got that straight!


Kristen and Anna. Kristen is surprising me a bit and turning into quite the animal lover. She adored the chickens and played with them almost as much as Jack.

Samantha on the other hand, not so interested.

We now anxiously await some pictures of the cool eggs these chicks are supposed to lay...{hint, hint}

Dance Recital

It was the annual dance recital this weekend.
And as usual, it was fantastic, their studio puts on a killer show.
Kristen did a tap dance to "You'll always find your way back home" from the Hannah Montana Movie. It was right up her alley, all blinged out and very girly.
She is a natural on stage and SOAKS UP the attention!!!
She did a great job!!

Though apparently, she's not so much into posing for me anymore!
I could hardly get these photos out of her and if you look real close you can see it in her eyes.......

Samantha on the other hand has taken her place and was totally hamming it up for me.

She danced to "Hoe Down" from the Hannah M. Movie. It was sooooooo cute. This is her first year dancing in quite a few years. She is very shy and it took her awhile to decide to do this again.

It's funny though, cause she would come out of dance and say "Miss Janelle was yelling at everyone because they are not paying attention and learning the dance, but she doesn't yell at me because I already know it."

I love her confidence, she really does seem to be able to learn her routines quite easily. She was the same back when she was 4 and took dance.

When it came to rehearsal she was soooooo nervous. And before the recital, again, super nervous. But she told me when she got on stage she was ok. She did great. She totally knew everything and danced with a huge smile on her face the whole time.

I'm so proud of her. This was a big step for her.

You know, I've never been much of a crier in my life.

But I'm finding as I get older, the tears seem to come easier.

I can't even watch my little girls dance without the tears filling my eyes!

What is that??? I'm such a baby.

Flashback Friday....

So a few of us "blogging" girls were having a discussion recently, about......blogging.

Why doesn't anyone blog much anymore???

and most of all...what the heck is so GREAT about facebook??????
We came to the conclusion that fb is lame and we want to see more blogging.

Now this lecture was as much for me as anyone else, I can't really hide the fact that I'm a big blog loser! Well, I'm here to say, I'm going to try harder. I mean, I want to be able to look back on this thing and see more than just birthdays and holidays. I want to see the daily events, my thoughts on things, you know.

I'll admit, sometimes blogging feels like a popularity contest. Does how many comments we get determine how cool we are???? Not really, but sometimes we can feel a bit dejected if no one responds to our posts. I know we ALL feel this way. We can't help it. But we shouldn't. At least not me, this is my journal, soda speak ;). Certainly, my children will know all there is to know about growing up in our home, for the most part. Can you imagine, if our parents had something like this. Nothing would be cooler than to have such a look into my childhood.

Anyway...off my little soap box. I am going to try harder to be a better blogger. For myself and my family, not for popularity. Though comments are much loved ;)

So on to my flashback Friday event. Us girls, challenged each other to a flashback post. Sadly, my topic is not what I planned for. I was gonna rock ya'lls world with an 80's hair picture. But my scanners not working, so I found some pictures from last year that I never posted.

Nathan had his first scout camp experience. And I couldn't have asked for a better experience for him. His dad was able to go with him and from what I hear they had some amazing things happen up there.

But for fun, Nathan got to scale the side of a mountain.

There's my little boy!!!!

p.s....i haven't seen anything from them yet.......hmmmmm????

Down Memory Lane

I haven't shared anything crafty or scrappy around here in a long time.
I'm still scrapping all. the. time.
Lately, I've been pulling some old pictures and scrapping them.
It takes me back.

Makes me long for those easy and beautiful days of childhood.
I miss having little ones.
Granted, mine are still little...but my youngest is 4.
They're not THAT little anymore.

I'm always trying to absorb the moments with them.
I know someday, I'll miss them like they are right now....little.

One thing I love about scrapbooking...it allows me to throw some love
behind all those pictures. To share how they make me feel, how much
I love them. Each page is like a little love letter to my family. I may not always
journal on every page...but i really try to.


I've adored these pictures of Kristen for like...7 years now.
I finally scrapped them. She was a flower girl for her uncles wedding.
I made that little dress for her and I thought she was so big.
But now...oh my goodness, such a tiny little thing!
Makes my heart ache!

(this photo removed for publication)

I love how precious and tiny this page feels.
Those little baby parts. I remember the day we took those pictures.
Seems like yesterday and a lifetime all wrapped up in one.


This little girl...just makes me happy and crazy all at once!
I love those long legs with just enough chub at the thighs ;)
Can't I hold her again???????


Now these were pictures I never thought I'd scrap.
I used to not think they were "good enough".
But I've kinda gotten past that.
Just look at those amazing faces looking up into the sky....
they're soooo little!

Dang, I sure had a lot more to say about some little ol' scrapbook pages than I thought I did!
Here comes Monday!
It's gonna be a wild week!
I've got several dr. appts. and it's recital week...busy busy busy ;)

Warning...there's a teen-ager in DA HOUSE!

May's an eventful month for us.

This one here.....turned 13.

I don't really know how that happened.

I mean, I know I've had 13 years to prepare for this,

but seriously....it just snuck right up on me and said BOO!

It seems like yesterday he was this cute little chubby cheeked

boy with a perfect little bowl haircut.

Dressing up in all his little costumes,

pirates, army, knights, star wars....

he was the KING of costumes.

Now...well, lets not talk about his wardrobe...or his hair :)

This birthday couldn't have come at a better time.

Doug and I were struggling with what to get him.

The things he wanted, WE didn't want.

Then came the dog and solved all our problems.

6 days before his birthday...he ate Nathans ipod.

Big, crocodile tears were shed.

Until he saw the light....and realized, hey maybe I can

get an Ipod touch outta this??????!!!!

We felt sooooooo bad about what the dang dog did.

So we agreed to his request...though he would have to contribute some mula towards the item. We do not give such grand birthday gifts ;)

So because he wasn't really getting much else for his birthday, we bought lots of little things, like candy and itunes gift cards. We found the biggest bag we had and stuffed it full of clothes and hid all the presents in the clothes to find.

Hee Hee....we're sooooo cruel.

But it made the magic last a little longer and he had fun finding everything.

And as tradition goes for him...we had brownies.

Actually, he got his own pan of brownies.

What more could a 13 year old growing boy want....

but an entire pan of brownies for himself!

Paper Garland

Since we are on the birthday theme around here....
I thought I'd show you how I made the garland for Kristen's party.


Did you know you can sew on paper?????
It's super easy, easier than fabric!



First off... I cut bunches of circles with my circle punches

One is 3" and the other is 1"...i think, i can't really remember what size they are.

And I mean a bunch. I should have taken a picture of them stacked up, it was several inches high ;)



I started by laying them in order by size and color, the way I wanted them strung. (though in this picture I was mostly through my piles before I thought to photograph it ;)


Then I just sewed down the middle, leaving a space between them (sewing nothing, basically)
I did a straight stitch about 2.5 in length. Nothing fancy.


These are my circles piling up behind the machine.


All done, I laid it all out on the floor for you to see.
I had no idea how long it was going to be, I just punched circles till I was sick of punching circles and had used all the paper I pulled.

Amazingly, it turned out to be the perfect length to string above the table.

I also taped a few strands of ribbon from the center to add to all it's cuteness.

There are loads of ideas you could use for something like this.

I've seen paper, crepe paper, tissue, fabric.

You could use anything you can get your hands on for cheap {or free!}

I've also seen them done in squares too.

Totally random shapes are cute too.

Just have fun with it.