It's Been Eleven Years

It has been 11 years since this little munchin joined our family!

Jessica May was born on Sept 22, 1997

and made us Mom and Dad!

She came eight days early, much to our surprise.  The Doctor was leaving town for a week and wanted to induce and told us to think about it over the weekend and let him know when we showed up at our appointment on Monday morning.  We stressed all weekend trying to decide.  Finally on Sunday it came to my realization that this would be the last time in our lives EVER that we would be without children.  Never again, no matter how old we were would we ever not have kids, so why rush what nature had planned.  We went to bed comforted and happy knowing we would not be induced, until my water broke about 30 minutes later.  Instead of us meeting the Doctor, the Doctor met us at the hospital and Jessica was born on a Monday morning.

Because she was born before we owned a digital camera, we don't have a lot of pictures of her growing up on the computer.  They are in those old dusty photo albums you have to open up to look at!

We have scanned a few pictures, but apparently the quality wasn't that great.  We'll have to get on that project!

And finally we reach the digital age in our house when she was six years old.  Here she is at her Aunt Melissa and Uncle Will's wedding in October 2003.

And here are all the kids in Nov 2003.  

Jessica always seemed to trip over her own feet and stumble a lot as a toddler.  Being our first child we thought that was normal.  She broke her arm when she was 18 months old by falling down the stairs.  Then broke it again when she was 5 and climbing out of her sister's crib.  Finally on her six year check up the Doctor did an eye test and we all realized she could not see!  Oops!  She has an astigmatism and can't see deepth.  We felt like bad parents.  But now she has had the chance to wear lots of really cute glasses.

Our good friend, Lori S, drew this picture of her when she turned eight years old.

Last year for her birthday we went to the hairstyling college and got their hair done.  We thought they all looked so grown up.

But for some reason, we just can't stop her from growing up and looking older every minute.  Here she is with her favorite cousin, Rebekah just a few weeks ago.

She is such a joy in our lives.  She is responsible and a great organizer.  She has always gotten a straight A report card in school.  For the Primary program yesterday she did a piano solo of 'Called to Serve' and she did awesome!  Both Mark and I cried through it.  We can't believe it is only a year until she enters Young Womens.

We Love You!  Happy Birthday!

Our Forever House

As I mentioned earlier we sold our Townhouse a year ago and bought a house in a cute little neighborhood just 2 miles North of where we were.  We have fallen in love with our house and feel like we will be here the rest of our lives.  Our house was built in the 1970's so we wanted to do a few fix ups before we moved in.  So I thought I'd share some of our before and after pictures of what we did.  But as I'm looking at our before pictures apparently a child was in charge of taking pictures that day.  I don't have as many as I thought we did.

Here is what the outside of the house looked before and after.  We removed the white thingys on the front even though they were one of Mark's mom's favorite accents to the house!  And as I posted before we have painted the shutters and door to remove the baby blue.

The biggest change we made was removing all the old carpeting, stripping wallpaper and painting EVERY wall in the house.  Don't you just love the Teal carpet and the 80s wallpaper that was here!

And the baby blue bedroom with rose carpet!  Trust me when I say NONE of the wallpaper was easy to strip.  Lori S can testify to that.  She was such a gem and helped with so many hours of stripping.    And I now realize we never got pictures of the half walls in the living room that we took down.  I think that was one of Mark's favorite projects.  Who knew he had so much pent up aggression in him?  Of course that project was not as easy as we had hoped and required an Electrician to come in and move the light switches to the wall.  But we do not regret that choice.  It really opened up the living room.

And here are some pictures of our house today, literally!

We have so many compliments on the color of the living room.  I'm no decorator, but I do really love this room.  And someone else did pick out the colors for me.

And our kitchen is just a little bigger than the townhouse kitchen, by about about 3 times.  We took out the light over the table and installed the ceiling fan which was great during the summer months.

I'm not good at visualizing things that aren't there so I was really excited when I came up with this idea.  The bathroom off the laundry room and kitchen had this not so beautiful tub in it (picture on the left)  Since we had two other tubs and another shower we didn't see much use for it.  So we ripped out the tub and installed these lockers on the right.  You can't see in the picture, but there are 3 lockers where the tub used to be so each child has their own spot.  It has turned the bathroom into a great mud room for the kids.  We were able to customize the insides with shelves and baskets.  Don't look closely, they all need cleaning out.  But you have no idea when the doors are closed how messy they are inside.  I LOVE it!

And I love my yellow office on the main floor.  Especially the built in shelves in the closet left from the last owner.

And we don't miss the blue master bedroom.  We think ours is a little more calming.

And if you have ever toured the house with John you know about his Captain Midnight bedroom.  We were at the paint store and I was trying to convince him he did not want a black wall and when I told him this color was called Captain Midnight he fell in love with it.  I think I had to put 4 layers of paint on the wall.  And I'm sure the day I want to paint it lighter I will have to put another 4 layers, but for now it is a fun accent wall in a little boys room.

And the girls have a fun Lilac room.  One day they may have doors on their closets (but don't ask Mark about it).

We didn't do much with the basement besides adding our hand me down couches to the family room.  

But you can't tour the house without seeing our incredible food storage room.  We are grateful for the rolling shelves for cans on the one side and narrow shelves on the other side of the room.  We only pray the toilet above this room never breaks and floods the house.

I hope you enjoyed the tour.  We love our little piece of heaven on earth.  And I'm glad the pictures don't show ALL the projects still waiting to be done on the house.

I LOVE a good Quaker Sale!

Okay, I know you are probably sick of hearing from me this week.  I don't know what has happened, but I just can't stop posting.  So please feel free to skip this if you don't care.  But I just had to share.

I've been waiting and wondering when it was going to happen and it finally did! Albertson's has a Quaker sale this week!  It was the only thing that got me out of bed on time this morning.  I was ready to drop after working a booth at the Taste of Home Cooking School for two days. But Mark and Jessica had spent the time the night before matching my coupons to the ad for me so I could not disappoint them.

I know, I've turned into true geek when I have to organize and take a picture before I put my goodies away.  This is what I came home with all for just $49.65 and please note there is a $10 jug of EVOO in there.  I saved $163.80 over regular retail.  Who can pass up granola bars at 40 cents a box.  And I had run out of Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies several months ago.  I came home and immediately opened a box and enjoyed.  These puppies fill you up and are enjoyable.  The best purchase was the boxes of Electrasol Power Tabs for just 9 cents a box.  20 loads of dishes for only 9 cents, you can't beat it.  This time last year the Quaker sale was much better, I think I paid 25 cents for granola bars, but I'm so excited to get stocked up with food my kids will eat.

I have to give all the credit and thanks from my couponing craziness to Amy over at The Savvy Shopper.  She opened my eyes to coupons and how to use them effectively.  Thank You!!!

It's been a year, really????

It has been a year since we said good bye to our

Townhouse!

I bought it in 1994 when I was single, had two great roommates for awhile.
The three of us got a puppy together.

Here is Lady Theodora Thompson better known as Teddie being used as a pillow.

We all got engaged and married within six months of each other.
Mark moved in after our wedding.
Mark and I added 3 kids to our family while living here.
Said goodbye to the dog after 12 years.
It was a wonderful home for us, but after almost 14 years of owning it,
we were ready to move on.

Things we loved about this place . . .

The openness as you walked in the front door.

After we stripped wallpaper and painted after all those years,
I loved our family picture wall.
The vinyl above the pictures said
'Once in awhile, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives you a fairy tale'

Our HUGE master bedroom with the walk in closet!

And a few things we don't miss . . .
the tiny bedrooms the kids had

I think the girls quadrupled the size of their bedroom!

The small kitchen

And boy was this picture staged.  The counters NEVER looked that bare!
You can't even tell I stuffed things in the microwave and oven for this picture!

The basement that rarely got used.
And especially don't miss the laundry room in the basement

But we really miss all the good memories and incredible friends we had in the townhouse over the years.

Next I'll have to post some before and afters of our fix up of our new place!

Zim Zam Championships

Do you remember Zim Zam???  It is a tennis ball tied onto a poll that you hit around and see who can get it to the top or bottom firts.  Well, Sunday afternoon turned into a viscous Zim Zam Championship in Santaquin.  Did you miss it?  Let me give you the highlights.

It started as something fun for the grandkids.  

But then apparently the champions of the 80s had to prove they still had it

Rumor has it there was some fierce games between these two siblings.

Mark insisted that I had to play.  I remember the game, but don't ever remember playing it.

We thought it was beginners luck the first time I beat him.

But somehow I did it two times in a row!

He must have been playing easy.

John insisted everyone had to play him.

And he will tell you HE is the Champion!

But the ones that really got into it were . . . 

Robert & Carole

There may be another tourney coming soon.

Watch for it at the party house in Santaquin!

What Happened???

I'm not sure how mentioning to my Mom that if her expert gardener friend had any extra tomatoes 

I would like some turned into this

and this

and this

and this

Yikes!!!

But I now have a freezer full of my favorite homemade Marinara Sauce.  I made eight batches of this stuff in two days.  Needless to say my kitchen floor is a little sticky.  My friend Jeanne shared this recipe with me a few years ago and normally I don't justify all this cooking for something I can get on sale at 75 cents a can, but this is worth it.  So if you have a few tomatoes you don't know what to do with, enjoy!

Marinara Sauce

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

1 medium yellow onion, finally chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

5 lbs fresh plum tomatoes, chopped (about 8 cups) (though I had juicer tomatoes so I cut back on the juice)

2 cups tomato juice

1/2 cup chicken stock

1/2 cup slivered fresh basil or minced parsley (or a combo of both)

3/4 cup tomato paste

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp thyme

1 bay leaf

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (add more if you like it hot)

In large pot heat oil over moderate heat.  Add onions and garlic and saute 5 minutes or until tender.  Add everything else and bring to a full boil.  Lower heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.  Uncover and simmer for 30 minutes.  Remove bay leaf and enjoy.  I add an extra step and let it cool and then process it in the blender so there are no chunks.  If you have a family that doesn't mind a few chunks then an immersion blender will work to get it smaller.  If you want it thicker then add more tomato paste.  Package it in ziplock bags and store in freezer.

I think two days later my house still smells like onions and garlic, but it was worth it.

Timber

On Wednesday our Lilac Bushes went from looking like this

To looking like this after six long hours and a lot of sore muscles

I think Mark's claustrophobia was getting the best of him.  And I don't think these bushes have ever been cut back.  They were probably 14 feet high with lots of little starts at the bottom.  I didn't get a picture before Mark started thining out the bottom, so the first picture already had a bunch of stuff removed from down below.  He started the project and then found out this probably wasn't the right time to trim them, but he just could not stop.  So he took a day off work to get them done.  Of course I could not let him do it alone, so I pitched in and helped.  And our sweet neighbor helped out too.  We had to ask permission to go in his yard to reach some of it and he came out and helped us load up the truck and trailer, thanks Karl!  It took THREE loads to the green waste dump to get rid of it all.  Now lets hope the grass doesn't go into shock from suddenly seeing the sun again.

We found the bird house again in all our trimming.  When we moved it we did not know this exsisted and didn't discover it until the Spring after the snow had melted away.

Sorry to the other 3 neighbors behind us who probably hoped it was the Chinese Elm on the other side of the yard that was coming down when they heard the saw.  It is probably 40 feet high and dumps trash on the yard in Spring AND Fall.  But when the first bid we got to remove it came in at $1800 we have kept looking around.  Now no one will even come bid on it and they haven't even seen it.  I'm afraid one of these days Mark is going to rent a lift and we may end up replacing everyones fence when he is through.  That could cost more than the original bid.  So if you know of someone who likes to cut down trees for cheap, let us know.

School's Back, YEA!!

Yes, my kids have really started school.  Everyone else has posted, but I guess I haven't gotten around to it yet because John doesn't start until Sept 2, so it doesn't seem real yet.  Now don't get me wrong, I love my kids, but I would make the worst homeschooling Mom ever.  I can barely help them with their homework sometimes.  Jessica has started 6th grade math and when she has me correct her homework I've already had to ask her how she figured out some of the problems so I can even correct them! So I'm very glad to have school back in session.

Here are the cute girls on their first day.  Jessica is starting 5th Grade and Ashley is starting 3rd Grade.

Jessica has decided to run for Scholar Council Secretary

And Ashley is going to run for Scholar Council Member for 3rd Grade

Any chance I can go and stuff the ballot boxes???

And I love this picture of John.  He was in his school uniform for his Kindergarten Assessment. 

I think he looks so serious and smart here.

Hard to believe he is starting Kindergarten on Tuesday morning.

Anyone want to go out and celebrate with me?

Lesson Learned

I've been meaning to write this ever since it happened, but I finally have a moment I can think and write.  Saturday morning our Stake (A group of congregations or wards, generally about three thousand to five thousand members in five to ten congregations in the LDS Church.) had an Activity Day for all the 8 - 11 year old girls.  So I took my girls along with several of the neighbor girls over to the Stake Center and figured I would just stay since technincally they haven't released me yet as Activity Day Leader. 

They had 4 outdoor activities set up for the girls.  I was asked to help with the 'Blind Ball Retrieval' game.  The girls were divided into two groups and one girl was blindfolded.  Then the other girls in her group had to direct her to where the ball was in the field and direct her to put it in the basket and then the next girl would go.  I was in the field and would throw the ball out once the girl was blindfolded.  As I stood there it was interesting to hear the girls try to direct the one blindfolded.  Sometimes she would follow directions exactly as she was told and sometimes the girl did what she thought the girls meant, even though it wasn't what they wanted her to do.  Often the girl would get close to me without ever knowing I was there.  At first it was really hard for me not to help her out especially when she was way off track.  And sometimes the girl would be right over the ball and had no idea where it was.  I wanted so much to reach out and help her or give her some direction, but I had to just stand there and watch her struggle.

As I stood there I started thinking about our Heavenly Father and how this must be how He feels.  So often in our lives we are wandering around blindly and He is right there, if we would just ask.  But if we don't ask He has to stand there and watch us struggle.  He wants to help us so much.  And sometimes we ask and think we know the answer we want to hear and we go in that direction when really He meant for us to do something else.  At that moment in time, standing in the hot sun in the middle of the grassy field I felt my Heavenly Father's love for me so strongly.

I know these activities were put together for the girls to learn something and to be together, but it was me that walked away with a new understanding.  Thank you!