12 on the 12th--May Edition

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1. I made a Cleaning Mix to help me while cleaning at the Sykes' house.
2. Aargh dishes!
3. Deluxe bathroom set up.
4. Cutest cat.
5. My toes match the grass.
6. Allium season.
7. Michelle came to me for Creative Friday.
8. I cut out stuff for my primary lesson.
9. We discussed our Accountability goals for the week.
10. Randy left for a YM camp out.
11. Landon has a hickey!
12. Good Hell, time to turn on the air conditioning.

Miscellaneous Monday

Over the MLK weekend I cleaned out our pantry, this is one side of the finished product. It took a long time and meant throwing away A LOT of canned good (the oldest having expired in 2005). We have a can rotation issue that I'm hoping will be remedied now that everything is current. Good grief!

I also cleaned of the desk in my room and dusted this tray Claudia gave me awhile ago which houses my necklace chains and pendants; so pleasing.

While cleaning I unearthed this frightening find from 1994!

These are the supplies I carry with me to Michelle's every week for Creative Friday. I usually have them dumped into 2 or 3 different bags and it drives me crazy, so I emptied the bags out onto my bed so I could weed out and organize everything.

This is the finished stash! It all fits into one large bag and is divided up into Ziploc bags so I can find things!

Whitney joined me for to eat lunch in the car one day last week, that was a first.

One of our new office aides (a great, 9th grade boy) showed me his phone cover, I was impressed.

I tried to help Whitney with her math homework and it nearly did us both in. I have since hired Landon to be her official tutor (for $5 an hour with the expectation of finished assignments and good test scores).

I also found that most of Whitney's math assignments are covered with drawings like this, so it's no wonder she may be missing quite a bit of class instruction. I was telling Randy about this and sharing my desire to have her hands tied to her desk so she couldn't draw but he said she was just draw in her head (like he used to as a kid)!

Landon has been playing Rec. basketball on a losing team, but they finally one a game (by one basket)! 

I made cookies on Friday (since Michelle was too sick for me to come over) and ended up taking her family a plate of them, putting a bag of them in the freezer along with 2 logs of dough for future use.

On Saturday I went to the annual Stake Relief Society Women's Conference with my visiting teaching companion Jill B. We have become good friends over this past year or so of teaching together and I am so happy about that.

Changing Things Up

Randy flew to California last Thursday to attend a Conference. He hardly ever travels so it's kind of nice when he does. I think I just like to change things up around here, even though having him gone means I actually have more to do.

For example, I made the kids' lunches on Friday and this is the lovely artwork I came up with for their sacks.

This was Whitney's reaction to my attempts.

I also had to stay up later than usual to go pick up Landon from a friend's house on Saturday night. It's so nice that Randy always does this since he doesn't mind staying up late. I'm usually dead asleep when Landon gets home.

I don't know why having Randy gone made me want to clean the office, but it did. My never-ending goal is to thoroughly clean and organize the office/studio, but it is an overwhelming job because there is so much good stuff  that I don't know what to do with. I don't use a lot of it anymore but don't want to just get rid of it. I keep thinking I'll list stuff on KSL or ebay, but that's a whole other task to tackle. Blah.

I did manage to rearrange and clean the work table in an attempt to free up more work space since Landon does most of his homework in here. Just having this area cleaned up a bit has been a big boost to me.

Whitney's addition to our shopping list cracked me up; she's a phonetic speller.

Here's the sign Whitney made for Randy. He returned home Monday evening and was greeted us standing at the door to welcome him plus we had dinner ready for him. Not too shabby.

Spring Break So Far

We have Spring Break this week (woohoo) and have almost no plans (woohoo again). A couple months ago I started to plan a little trip to Mesquite, NV for Spring Break, but just wasn't excited about it (I hate the 4.5 hour drive) and felt giddy about staying home to putter (oh how I miss puttering at home now that I work).

So yesterday was officially day 1 of Spring Break but it was a cloudy, rainy kind of day which meant the universe was telling me to spend the day reading in the cozy. It just so happens that we're reading a fabulous book for book club this month so I was completely sucked in and read over 200 pages. The kids did their own thing all day, so other than surfacing for bathroom breaks and beverages I was all about reading...I LOVE days like this so much!! I do wish we had a more comfortable set up though, maybe an excellent chair/ottoman combo as opposed to our lumpy bed and my crazy pillow configurations.

Today is Day 2 of Spring Break and it is rainy again...I'm okay with it though because I'm still in homebody mode and this kind of weather is very conducive to staying inside.

I watched a couple episodes of "Monk" with Landon (Whitney was at the Draper Temple with the YW) and then cleaned and reorganized our laundry room shelf. I have no idea why this task has been on my mind (in an excited way) lately but I really wanted to get to it. I took everything off the shelf, washed it down, then relocated a few items that didn't need to be there. The casual observer wouldn't notice a change, but the astute observer would be delighted.

The YW President sent this photo of the kids at the temple. We thought only the girls were going, hence no Landon.

I'm pretty sure my visiting teacher left this little pot on my porch last Friday (there wasn't a note) and I can't believe how fast it's growing; it has doubled it's size in 4 days. I'm not sure what my long-term plan is but for now it's pretty cute in my kitchen window.

Some of our daffodils have bloomed, but I'm bummed because I thought we'd have quite a spread but instead have a few small smatterings instead.

The tulip foliage is going gangbusters though so I'm optimistic that we'll have a glorious array in a few weeks, oh how I love tulip season!

Miscellaneous Monday

 Andrew and my parents came to watch Landon's basketball game last Friday night.

 We didn't know how Andrew would do in such a setting, but thanks to Netflix and my mom's new iPad he did just fine watching Dumbo.

This is Landon's version of mopping on his hands and knees. 

Another dinosaur still life by Whitney.

We've been trying harder to have family meals together (we have a tendency to forage and scatter) so we've been making a menu plan and committing one of us to being in charge of the meal that night. It is working out splendidly and has meant much better dinners and lots more time together. 

I've been wanting a little speaker set up for the kitchen and I found this one at Walmart today. It was originally priced at $19 but was marked down to $11 but then rang up as $5.50 woohoo and it works great!

I got a thank you note from the girl I gave things to as her Secret Pal at work. I found the note on my desk and immediately said, "Who's Gail?!" I thought someone had left it there by mistake, but it turns out the note was for me. The poor girl overheard me and was so embarrassed, she said "I know you're name's not Gail." (Apparently not.) Huh, Gail that was a first time for me.

Palate Cleansing Miscellaneous Post

A big thanks to my 4 commenters for sticking with me through my birthday getaway posts. I know that sort of thing can get boring, but I gotta document. And now we return to our regularly scheduled miscellany.

I found this on the table, that girl can make art out of anything!

I failed to include Whitney's bedroom redo to-do list, but it's funny so I'm sticking it in here.

Michelle and I met for lunch at Los Hermanos on a random Friday several weeks ago, it felt like we were getting away with something.

The day after seeing Neighbor Jane's post including this handy dandy tip from Pinterest I was spared the mess of a boiled over pot while making Mac-n-Cheese for dinner...who knew?

Whitney has begun creating miniature accessories thanks to some YouTube videos by MyFroggyStuff. She made this Popsicle stick easel, mini paint canvas, mini paint brushes and the brush holder.

Several weeks ago I had an hour and a half to kill while Whitney was at an art class so I took myself to Kneaders for a tasty lunch and some book time. It felt like a treat instead of a frustrating fill-time situation.

This is the back side of the rabbit ensemble Whitney made with my mom on the 12th. Those are embroidered paw prints on the shirt.

Need I say anything?

I had another lunch date with myself the week before my trip when I used the Mall Gift Card the book club girls gave me to find a couple things for my trip. The gift card is good for the surrounding restaurants outside the mall as well so I had a super tasty lunch at Which Wich, I'm so excited to have one nearby...though it's probably good it's not too nearby.

I had the lamest 4th of July ever thanks to having a cold! I went with Randy and the kids to the cheap theater to see "The Pirates! Band of Misfits" but then went home while they went swimming with my family. I joined them later at Robyn's house for dinner, but then went home again and skipped fireworks...so lame.

Landon is going to be playing tackle football this fall...yikes! I thought we'd agreed years ago that  flag football was the way to go (less chance of getting concussed) but he's got a burning desire to play.

I don't know what happened to me, but I suddenly felt the need to clean out our bookshelves yesterday. I ended up giving all of these bags of books to D.I.! This felt like big progress for me since I like to keep my books, but it turns out I had a bunch of duplicates (probably because of D.I. purchases) and then a moment of reason realizing that I won't be reading these again and many of them aren't worth keeping anyway. It felt so cathartic to clean things up and pass these on to other people who will be happy to buy them...too bad they aren't paying me.

Sixish for Saturday

Whitney shnockered me into taking her to the cheap theater to see "The Lorax" the other day while Landon was at a friend's house. She doesn't have as large a pool of friends to choose from (he has a lot) so the summer days can get long and lonely if no one else is available. I tell her often that she needs to be resourceful and play by herself, but sometimes I'm the friend and we go out together.

It was our family's turn to put out flags for Flag Day (along with 2 other families) so we met at the church at 6:00am to load up the car and drive around the neighborhoods. There was a learning curve involved so it took longer than we expected, but it was kind of fun too. The kids especially liked driving around with the back open.

I like this sideview mirror picture of Randy and Landon placing a flag.

We got a good look at our neighbor's gnomes. 

My parents were moving this week, so the kids and I went over on Thursday to help with some cleaning and loading and unloading some stuff at the new place.

Landon cleaned all the fans in the house!

I went back on Friday to help my mom while the movers were there. It was crazy to see everything going out the door. I was able to get a 30 minute visit in with Amie, so that was a bonus to all the cleaning and lifting going on.

I went outside with my mom to feed the chickens (there are 2 sheep that live there to eat the weeds, but they actually belong to someone from the neighborhood). The chickens get to stay with the new homeowners.

Since I was gone all day the kids had a lot of freedom. They both did things with friends (and left each other notes).

I came home to this crowd, Landon had 4 friends from church over and Whitney had Madison here. The girls had taken orders and made sandwiches for the boys and everyone seemed happy about the gathering.

Landon is going to Scout Camp next week and needed his numbers sewn on his shirt because they were falling off. My mom usually does this sort of thing, but she was a little busy this week. Though it took me a long time to wrangle the clear thread and line the numbers up, I was actually successful! I am so pleased with this I can't even tell you! This gives me hope for future patch sewing.