3 of my favorite spots

3 new and old blogs that i love to check out. first off, from magpie and cake, this friend has some seriously cute stuff. like these smocks that are perfect for the kids when they want to paint. they are plastic so they are easy for cleanup. that's just one thing. be sure to check out everything else she has!

an awesome new blog called see it! love it! win it! tons of giveaways, and of course, there is a giveaway coming up from someone you'll recognize! so if you love to enter giveaways, this is a great blog to do that at! and chances are pretty good you'll win something as this blog has just started up!

remodelaholic is one of those super clever people that has an eye for redoing things. wow! i could spend hours looking at everything! (and maybe I have!)

super fun event for the whole family!

A big huge party at Cherry Hill - I think admission is $4 each but I am not totally clear on that quite yet. My dad and Brian will have a Scentsy booth there and there will be tons of other booths like: Clark Planetarium, Fat Cats, Classic, Applebees, etc... There will be free Applebees kids meals and Creamies. There will also be some princesses and super heroes there too!

So grab your kids and go check it out!

another fun day at TITP park!

we picked up a couple friends and met a couple other friends over at This is The Place Park again. These are a couple of really cute shots of all the kids on the train. We look forward to spending lots of time there this summer with all of our friends! We now have a pass and can get 3 in for free each time. Yea!

kitchen update

here is an updated view of our kitchen. we still have just a few more things to do, but it's almost there! we added some bead board around the base of the kitchen counter (still have a couple other areas to put bead board up), more moulding, and then need to paint the bead board and moulding. any suggestions on the color for the bead board?

i love bead board! what a great look!

we are SO pleased with our redone kitchen. should have done this YEARS ago.

i will post final pictures when it's 100% complete.

brave boy

it has been a really rough week for this lil' guy.

tonsilectomy and adenoids removal 1 week ago tomorrow.

when logan got his tonsils out, he was better by the next day.

i was hoping for the same recovery for jackson.

no such luck.

he is trying so hard to feel better.

if you know jackson at all, you know that not much keeps him down.

but this has.

6 days down, hopefully only 4 more days to go.

he keeps a towel by his mouth (like the above picture) so he doesn't have to swallow.

he sleeps with an ice pack on the back of his neck.

he didn't eat or drink for the first 3 days.

i was worried that he would wither away.

almost done... i hope.

so brave.

i o-fish-ally did it!

for years, i have looked at creative blogs (the whole long list to the right) and been so amazed and impressed with these girls creative skills! i wish i could be that creative. i wish i had the time! i always have good ideas but they never turn out very cute (ask any of the girls in the card club i used to be. for sure, my cards were the ones they all threw away!)

so i usually resort to giving scentsy for gifts for birthdays, to teachers, etc...

this year, i decided to "think outside of the box" and go for it.

i found this blog last week: www.eighteen25.blogspot.com and the gal had the cutest teachers gifts on there.

i decided to copy the swedish fish one. this is one i knew i could do.

i made about 12 of them tonight - one for all of the kids on brian's soccer team that he coached, 2 for kaitlin's dance teachers, and then i will make the remaining 8 for the kids teachers at school next week.

i bought the 3" circle punch and that was an awesome purchase.

then i cut the scalloped papers on my cricut (another awesome purchase)

filled up the bags with swedish fish, tied on ribbon, and put on the tags.

voila!

i thought outside the box, and i think i did a great job!

for once! ;)

to see the project i copied, go here

new 'do!

Kait's hair has not looked so hot for the last several months. She's wanted to grow it out but then she cut it herself about 3 months ago. I told the hairdresser to keep as much length as she could, while fixing the haircut Kait gave to herself. So she ended up with alot of layers and it's just been so hard to style. Then she is SO independent and wants to wear it down but it drives me NUTS that it's in her eyes all.the.time. So, I finally took her over to Cookie Cutters today and they did a perfect job. Even though it's really short, it's just what she needed. Now she can wear it down and it won't drive me crazy! SO CUTE!

first recital

Kaitlin's first dance recital. She is 3rd from the right. Of course, I got all ready to take pictures and realized that I forgot the memory card in our printer at home so luckily, our friends were there taking pictures of their little girl so she graciously take pics of Kaitlin for me.

She did such a great job!!! There were so many people in the audience and she said she was so excited, not nervous at all! Oh to be 3!
2nd from the right, pointing her toes! ;)

She is 2nd from the right in this picture. So cute and poised. I almost cried when she walked on stage, I seem to do that when all of my kids are in a performance of any kind. My heart jumps with excitement and I am so proud of them for all of their accomplishments.

Logan sat next to his buddy, Finn at the performance and they shared candy. Finn's mom said they were such good dates for each other! ;)

spring programs

The kids had their darling spring programs at school this past week.
lots of songs, singing, and dancing. Kaitlin only has 7 kids in her class but next to her are 2 of her friends - Kimi and Peyton.

Logan's class is the biggest of my 3 kids classes. To his right is his future wife, Marin. They talk about each other constantly.

Aren't they a cute couple?

Dancing together

Love this cute pic of Logan

Jackson's class was a western theme. This is Jackson and his buddy Case.

Jackson was so thrilled to hold up the HISS sign!

Jackson's class all decked out in their western garb.

Jackson square dancin' with the good ol' boys! (but when there is only 1 girl in the class, there isn't much of an option!)

shoes & bread

Carli, like Kaitlin, is addicted to shoes.. except Carli doesn't like to wear them on her feet, she likes to wear them on her hands!

She can often be found sitting by the shoe bin, trying them all on.. her hands.

Every 2 weeks, I have bread delivered to my house for me and some friends. I know this doesn't look like much, but this is 180 loaves. It's the best bread and it's all natural, no preservatives.

School Pictures 2010

Jackson - Kindergarten at Challenger 2009-2010

Logan, 4 yr preschool at Challenger 2009-2010
Kaitlin, 3 yr preschool at Challenger 2009-2010

If you are a grandma and grandpa, aunt or uncle, you will be receiving copies of these pictures in the mail. I thought they turned out pretty cute, despite the fact that I forgot it was picture day for Kaitlin and so don't love the shirt she is wearing. But oh well. Still cute! ;) And the picture you will be receiving of Jackson is in color despite what is shown above.

Indigo Bunting

cute bird, huh?

today, logan and kaitlin has their little friends over to play. logan and finn came inside and said they saw a bird and named it "Jenny." that was it. just real matter of fact.

i didn't think anything of it. thought they saw a bird and named it. cool.

fast forward about 2 hours and cousins come over.

their mom leaves them to play while she runs some errands.

niece diana, comes inside practically in tears with the above looking bird in her hand.

logan says, "it's jenny!"

logan and finn found a HURT bird in our backyard except they didn't quite mention that part.

it couldn't fly, and it was definitely in distress.

so i called a couple of neighbors who are good with animals and one of them started looking on the internet on how to help hurt birds.

that gave me an idea to look up bird rescuers in salt lake and i found one.

i called her and told her that i had a hurt blue jay (what do i know about birds?) in my backyard and she said she would come and pick it up and help it.

phew!

my niece kept holding the bird and i kept thinking that i hope it didn't have any diseases on it. i'm not a germ-a-phobe but i was a little nervous about that.

so she did. super nice lady. actually she is a realtor who helps injured birds on the side.

she gasped when she saw this bird and said, "that's not a bluejay, that's an Indigo Bunting!" and she looked at me like i should realize how special this bird is.

like, duh! (duh, I'm 5! -said Jackson to my uncle when he asked how old he was! same expression)

she realize i was had no idea what she was talking about.

apparently indigo bunting birds on rare for this area. they come in flocks (packs, whatever it's called- again, i have no idea about birds) and they'll stay for about a year and then they all fly away together and we don't see them again for a long time.

my niece said, "will you bring this bird back when it's all better?"

thankfully the woman said she would not. she'll let it go back into the wild when it's feeling better.

i'm not a bird person. but i did feel bad that this little creature was hurting.

she said that the bird probably flew into the window and broke it's spinal cord.

yikes.

i hope it feels better soon!

spitting

Yesterday we were driving in the car and Kaitlin said, "ewww Logan! Stop spitting on me!" No, Logan wasn't spitting on her on purpose, he just has explosions going on 24-7. Like shooting imaginary guns, cannons going off in his mind, etc... It's unreal. He can turn ANYTHING into an explosive device. Seriously. Like a straw, a spoon, a wrapper. It's the funniest thing ever. We all always laugh when he starts up. But he entertains himself for hours!

getting the kids to stay in bed

I think I've come up with a GREAT solution and in the last 2 days, I've shared this idea with 2 friends so I think I will share it with all of you! Remember I posted several months ago about how to get my kids to stay in bed? I got tons of great ideas. But I think I came up with this one on my own (I think!) and this has worked WONDERS for my kids.
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I put in books on CD from the library, kids meals, etc... into their CD player and they listen to the story as they fall asleep. Sometimes we do just regular music too. This doesn't take the place of us reading to our kids because we do that all day long too. But at night, we have our routine, and getting into bed after the routine and falling asleep to a story has saved us. Brian still forgets to turn the CD and he'll struggle with the kids getting out of bed, so I go in their room and turn it on, and not another problem. I also have found that leaving their door open so I can hear them helps too. If they are really hyper and don't want to go to bed quite yet, leaving their door open helps also because they know I am right down the hall.
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So for those struggling still at nighttime, give it a try. You might be really surprised!