Room Makeover

I wish that I had thought about this post before. I just redid our old office into my own little sanctuary (i.e. craft room--or as we say, Mommy's Office). However, I never took any before pictures. So unless you were one who saw it before you will not be wowed by the transformation. I am proud of it so I thought I would post pictures since that is all I was able to focus on last week.







This week I am redoing my old craft/storage/trashed room into a new bedroom for my oldest son. Maybe I will take some pictures of its bareness before I decorate it up and then someday when I have finally got all the bedding, curtains and pictures made and put up I will post another blog of a transformed room.

Farming 2008

This is my husband "driving" the tractor in the field behind our house. In case you can't tell what is going on in the picture, he is reading while driving. This tractor is hooked to a GPS device so that all my husband needs to do is turn it around at one end of the field and line it up to head down to the other end of the field and then the GPS takes over until he reaches the end of the field again. He has read a couple books this way. Not that my husband doesn't have other, more difficult and even unpleasant jobs at other times. But when it is his time to drive this tractor around for the day or a few hours I don't really feel sorry for him and his long day away from home (and the mess and the fights and the stresses, etc.) He is happy that at the time of this picture he was reading his scriptures and so was doing something worthwhile and productive. : )

Thanks Ashley for giving me the idea from this post. It never crossed my mind until you mentioned it. I guess I have gotten used to seeing it over the last year or so when they first got it and didn't see anything unusual about it. It took a fresh perspective for me to see the blogging opportunities. : )

Terrible Two's

The photo is kind of blurry and has nothing to do with this post, but it is a favorite of mine. He is doing "Chubby"

Joshua has really settled into being two this week. One day this week, I was in my room reading my scriptures, and it dawned on me that there was water running somewhere. I went into the kitchen and there was Joshua at the edge of the kitchen sink (that is when I discovered that he can now climb on my kitchen counters) and was running water everywhere! Our faucet pulls out from the stand and he was having a great time. I got him down and went to work soaking up all the water. As soon as that was done I turned around and discovered that he had pulled the butter down from the other counter and dumped some on the kitchen rug and was spreading it on his legs. I got that mess cleaned up and he decided to give me a break for the rest of the day. The next day I am again reading my scriptures and he comes in with his hands covered in syrup! I am thinking, "Oh great." However, I go in the kitchen and there isn't any syrup there. I check where the syrup is stored (hoping that it is there and he only just got a little on his hands). No syrup. I go to the family room and there it is. Empty. Sitting in many puddles of syrup! All over the recliner, in the girl's laundry basket (luckily it was empty!), and all over the floor!!!!!!!! I was able to clean up the chair, the laundry basket, and his car garage (forgot to mention that one) and tried to get it out of the floor. We need some major carpet cleaning over here! Yesterday he managed to spill the brown sugar and white sugar all over the kitchen floor while I was trying to get ready to go to town. I am going to have to tie him up or something whenever I need to let him out of my sight! On Saturday when we were doing the chores I got some Windex from under the sink for Emma and the dish soap fell out. I thought I would come back and pick it up when I finished spraying the mirror for Emma, but when I got back Joshua had squeezed a large puddle on the floor. When I took it away he screamed, grabbed the spray bottle we use for hair and started spraying that as fast and frantically as he could knowing I would be taking that away as well. I wish now that I had taken some pictures but at the time I didn't think of it. Just as I was writing this he crawled into the tub, turned on the water and then turned on the shower (much to his surprise). I rescued him and tried to take some pictures of that one, but you can't really tell what is going on in it since I saved him before he was really soaked. Hope you all get a laugh out of this and keep me in your prayers that I will be able to keep my sanity through my son's Mr. Curious phase! I look forward to the adventures of this week!

Summer Days

Far too much has happened this summer to be able to do a reasonable size blog so I thought I would just write a few lists to give a brief recap of summer and maybe add a few favorite pictures. I am burnt out and extremely brain dead right now and so apologize for my lack of creativity. I will try to improve in future blogs! (Key word: try)

Favorite events/things from summer 2008:

• The Hansen Family Reunion
• The Garner Family Reunion
• The Jensen Family Reunion (as you can see, we were pretty busy with family this summer and it was so good to see relatives we only see every 2-3 years.)
• Our little overnight vacation to Leavenworth, Wa with the kids
• taking each of the kids on a special before school/school shopping date (though we were both a little sick of Chuck E. Cheese!)
  
• watching my youngest just get in and LOVE the water
  
• watching my other children work on and improve their swimming skills
• Baby showers, card parties and other times with family and friends
• Hyrum enjoying learning how to cook and Hannah enjoying being his assistant--they made me a yummy scrambled egg and orange juice breakfast in bed one day.
  

Some of my least favorite things/events of summer 2008:

• Trying to get through the insane scheduling for dental appointments (here in Mattawa there aren't a lot of options in town for dental work--one place--and the way they have you set up appointments is often beyond frustrating!)
• Having to do the aforementioned scheduling most weeks out of the summer (either because we couldn't get in or because there were numerous cavities to fill)
• Having to try to get work done with 4 children underfoot and trying to get the older 3 of those children to help clean up the messes they are constantly making! Anyone with children knows what I am talking about and the frustration levels that can be reached when working with children
• Cleaning up the messes that Hyrum made while learning how to cook.
• Becoming pregnant as planned and then miscarrying (this was not something that I was going to post but I think I have healed from that time and it is something that added stress to my summer days. So, there it is. I don't want anyone worrying about me. I am completely healed and just waiting a few months before trying again. If you have a new baby and live by me make sure you give me some time to hold them. It really helps me!)
• Having a two year old with almost no fear of the water.
• Children who can't seem to get along and were fond of telling me how bored they were as if it was my responsibility to entertain them constantly and falling down on the job!
• Finding baby-sitters since my youngest sister finally grew up and left home for Arizona and is no longer here to help us out in this capacity.
• Having to do Sharing Time for the month of August which is a busy month anyway and also a very long one (5 Sundays) and one in which we had our Stake Primary Presidency come visit our ward!

So that is our summer in a nutshell. I am hoping to find a little breathing room again to accomplish more projects now that two of the kids are in school. I just need to take a small breather first and get up some motivation!

Here are a few favorite photos from our summer:


My little toga trucker--he would live outside with his trucks and dirt if we let him!


My fearless swimmer


My sweetie


My handsome husband and me in, I think, the only picture taken of me this summer--luckily it looks good!


My oldest. He is actually mad at his parents in the first photo (for being "unfair" or something) but isn't he cute?


Playing in a mud puddle. His shirt was actually a white onsie to start with. It took a lot of rinsing and scrubbing to get that mud out of his hair and quite a time to get all that dirt down the drain!


Miss Photogenic. She seems to look cute in almost every picture we take of her! That is the watermelon that she grew from a seed, started in her Kindergarten class.


My two year old clapping and cheering on his birthday. : )

There are too many favorites! I better stop now so I can go get the kids in bed. Enjoy this post!