Dougs (kinda) Excellent Adventures

Soooo....I let my husband out of my sight to go mountain biking in St. George for the day. This is only a portion of how he came back to me. Geeeeez...can't take him anywhere! Despite the 3 falls and 3 wounds/roadrash on his legs (oh and did I mention the cactus bush he plunged into his shoulder?) he had a great time and can't wait to do it again! As he lay there on the bed with his legs all bandaged and his shoulder tweezered I just had to laugh. Nice, I know, but seriously. Can he cut me some slack with the woundage! (BTW...he was laughing about it too.)

Apparently not, cause.....yesterday...he decided to attempt the removal of his thumb. Ya. Using some fancy slicer machine, it slipped and instead of the veggies getting sliced, his thumb got sliced. BAD. Here's how the last 24 hours have gone down:

*Nearly 5 hours at the ER, to get his thumb stitched back together.

*By the time he gets to bed that night he is in such unbearable pain that he doesn't sleep all night.

*Next day (today) goes to Quick Care in hopes of receiving some pain meds...after telling the nurse what he needed (AND PAYING THEM) he finally sees a dr. a few hours later only to be told "we don't dispense pain meds". ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME?????????????

*So then, yes, painfully, he heads back to the ER for the afternoon. He does, THANKFULLY, return with the goods. They are helping a little.

Do YOU think my hubby is a happy man???? The whole thing has been so terrible that I did not have the heart to have him pose for a picture for my blogging purposes. But, pretty sure I've painted a good picture for ya!

Here's to hoping he has a good night.

Birthday Girl

The birthday girl had a great day (and weekend)!

We started off her day with cinnamon rolls for breakfast and let her open a present. She got just what she wanted. How exactly does one get the wrapping paper off, but not the ribbon. She's got some skillz! Now if she could just get the top off!

Here she is modeling her new, big feet.

That night after dance we had dinner and cake.Her choice for dinner: crepes

I spent an hour at the stove making these bad boys, 23 of them to be exact!

Here's the recipe, if your interested, they are DELISH!

1 3/4 c. flour

1/2 t. baking powder

1 T sugar

1/2 t. salt

2 c. milk

3 eggs

2 T butter, melted

1/2 t. vanilla

Mix dry ingred., stir in remaining, beating with hand mixer till smooth. Pour scant 1/4 c. of batter into heated, non-stick skillet (6-8") immediately rotating until thin film covers entire bottom. Cook till lightly brown then turn and cook other side. (i spray Pam occasionally on the pan).

Butter, cover in sugar or jam or syrup and roll. The syrup will just fall out, so...maybe cut like a pancake!

Kristens favorite is granulated sugar and butter.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

Hope all you beautiful mothers out there had a great day.

I got a great surprise and was able to spend it with my mother. I love her! She's so much fun and spontaneous. She called me up Saturday morning and says "watcha doing?" you know the usual Saturday stuff. She asks if we are planning to swim, probably. Her answer "can we come swim too?" So yup, they drove up from Cali and spent the weekend with us. It was fantastic. They even babysat so Doug and I could have a date.

Realized when I looked at these that we shoulda grabbed Nathan, after all the others ran into our picture. Which, du, they are the reason I am a mother! But obviously, I have not been thinking clearly lately.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

My baby girl is 8 today!

Can't believe it's been that long since this sweet little thing graced us with her presence.

Growing up in a family of 5 brothers, I felt so blessed and lucky to have a girl.

She has been a complete joy to our family. Out of all my kids she stayed a baby the longest. All the others always wanted to be big. She had no interest in growing up. She loves to snuggle and be taken care of and has said she wants to live with me forever!

She is a sweetheart thru and thru.

7 THINGS ABOUT THIS SWEETY

1} She loves to be SURROUNDED by her things. Her bed is always covered in pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, you name it; and she sleeps amongst all that! She is the BIGGEST pack rat ever! She still has her valentine box and cards from kindergarten, along with lots of little pieces of papers and things, whether they are broken or not. (all this actually drives me crazy! but it is her)

2} She is very sensitive. Her eyes fill with tears at the slightest little thing, though she tries super hard to hold them back. Her feelings get hurt easily. (Which her siblings tend to prey on :)

3} She LOVES Hershey bars....and Ramen Noodles

4} She is SUPER crafty. Loves to scrapbook, take pictures, make lots of little treasures (that she can't ever bear to part with)

5} She's a very smart girl. Gets straight A's and LOVES to play school, all the time, much to her sisters dismay.

6} She is a social little butterfly, loves her friends to death. Wants to be involved in everything.

7} She tends to be good at everything she tries. Loves to Dance, sing, read, craft, and is now a world class burper. Thanks to some training from her little friend Blake :)

Elvis is in the HOUSE!

The kids school had a fund raiser concert...with Elvis!

Kristen BEGGED to go. I didn't commit to going till 30 minutes before it started.

Please, are you kidding me, I kept asking her!

So Nathan and Daddy went off to soccer practice, and me got to go see Elvis.

Here he is in a ALL his glory. He actually did a good job. Was a good singer and really got involved with the audience. The kids loved it. Some of the grown ups loved it (a little too much). Pandemonium broke out every time he walked through the audience to throw out scarves!

Here they are dancing in the aisles! This is a horrible picture, I was way too close but I love the look on Samantha's face.

Kristen, being the one who begged to go was very shy the entire time. Wouldn't get too excited and didn't want her picture taken with him. Though she did get his autograph.

These two, totally wanted their picture with him.

Jack called him Santa the whole night!

That chest, it's creepin' me out.

VIVA LAS VEGAS BABY!!!

Next Please

The next sewing project is underway! It's good too, cause I have like a mountain of sewing projects awaiting me right now!

This one, is white, obviously. It's a baptism dress, for Kristen.

She has cracked me up with this thing. She has said all along that she didn't want anything fancy. So when we went to the fabric store to "look", I envisioned some cute little cottony sundress or something kinda regular, ya know? But what do her little eyes glom onto? The fanciest thing I'd ever seen! So I ask her, "thought you didn't want anything fancy". She says I don't, "well what do you call this?" So she proceeds to find a pattern that is all covered in lace and tulle and some big hoop underneath, ya know, gaudy as all get out! That she says is "fancy". OH. Not at all what I thought we were doing!

The pattern, I must say, was NOT my favorite. I suggest we keep looking and can even look in the stores if she would like. She agreed to looking in the stores as long as we bought this pattern as well. Well, du, not buying a pattern and going to the stores too! So, she decides she can't part with this thing and must buy everything today. Great, we're talking taffeta or silk with lining and 3" lace and stuff, Ew, I'm thinking. But again, she surprises me. The first fabric she sees is a cotton................covered in embroidery and sequins! Not quite the fabric the pattern calls for, but I figure we can make it work. She is THRILLED!!!! Me, very unsure of this "special" dress.

So to make a long story short, I have started the dress. Will not be doing the poofy tulle lining underneath, and I think (I will admit) it just might turn out to be beautiful!

She is ecstatic to say the least at it. It's her dress, she should be!

A Week in Review

This week has felt super busy. Have been gone a lot and working on some projects. Haven't seen my soap all week! But I feel pretty good about the things I've accomplished. Lets lay it out, shall we???

MONDAY...exercised! Whew, that was a good one. Took Sam and Jack on a bike ride for quite a while. I love being out on my bike, why don't I do it more often? We actually loaded up the trailer and took some deliveries around to people. Finished up my auction dresses and delivered them to Garaghty. They turned out SO cute. Loved the fabric she chose and the skirts are so full and twirly! The two kids plus the stuff made for a rather HEAVY trailer and a harder work out. It was so exhausting that even Jack fell asleep on the ride home!

TUESDAY...Field trip with the 5th graders. Got to ride the stinky ol' bus with em too. Woohooo! We had a good time. Went to a 51's baseball game.

Doin' the YMCA; obviously he needs more practice with his moves, just a little unsure of himself!

Shovin' that popcorn in two handed! Hopin' to get a ball tossed his way, didn't happen

The pitch!

All the kids had a lot of fun and they were able to get some autographs too. Nathan took his dads mit and got it signed. When they all came bouncing back to their seats shouting that they'd gotten autographs I asked who signed it, and he said "I HAVE NO IDEA" with total excitement!

WEDNESDAY... Busy with errands and then spent the entire afternoon editing and downloading prints to Costco. Got Kristen to dance then met up with Doug to take some pictures of one of his clients scars and deformities from an accident. They were hoping to get some really good shots that showed it all well. I must have succeeded because they were all impressed with me. :)

THURSDAY... Take your kids to work day. Yay. The 2 older got to go to court with dad and sit in on a hearing and speak to a judge. They love it! Me, I lounged the whole morning in bed nursing a bad headache. Me and the little ones met up with the workers for some lunch at Johnny Carrinos. Delish! We were waited on by some adorable middle schoolers who came to work with their mom. We never had such good service! They refilled our drinks and bread without us hardly having to ask. I then spent another afternoon downloading photos to Costco. Their quick-up load won't install on my Vistas so it takes an ETERNITY!!!!

FRIDAY...Ya know that urge that we all seem to have right now to stock up on some food storage? Ya well, I took the proceeds from our garage sale a few weeks ago (and then some) and hit Costco today. We have a sorry supply of food storage and I'm feelin' the heat. Bought a bunch of canned goods and baking supplies (from walmart). Wanted some rice, but alas, there was NONE to be had. I know, can you believe it. The rationing they are talking about is true. It was all gone! I could hardly push my cart it was so full and now I don't even know where to put all this food and ya know what...it's hardly a dent in what we should really have. Quite frankly I don't even know what we should really have. But I intend to spend the next few weeks really trying to get a good supply going.

Also picked up my picture order while there and I'm pretty excited by some of them. Got some sepia ones enlarged to update my wall and did an 8x8. I really stocked up on some scrappin' pictures so I can't wait to break into those!!!

Now for the weekend, where to begin, what projects to do!