Independence Day 2011

 For the 4th of July we took our kids and went with our good friends Justin and Dana (and their kids Justice and Olivia) and headed for the hills to do some outdoorsy stuff.  We were worried there would be a lot of people there but I think they all went home before we got there so it was actually pretty empty.   

It's gonna take a LONG time to roast that marshmallow.

The kids had a blast roasting marshmallows and then roasting graham crackers and chocolate
after all the mallows were gone.



The dads kicking back.

The pyro inside of me was able to be unleashed for a couple of hours and I got to build and stoke the fire. Love campfires.  It was worth smelling like bacon all the way home. 




The super strong kiddos holding up the mountain.

The falls were beautiful



What an awesome day.  Love these guys!

And for the record, my friend Dana wanted me to let all of you know that SHE was the one to discover the red shoes that I love.  She found them, I bought them.  (There, happy now??? ;)  lol

Me Encanta La Mesa Nueva



The old table.  Didn't really love the weird-back chairs.

 When Kent and I first got married I bought a table and 4 chairs at some clearance deal for 75 bucks.  It was pretty small and we grew out of it after we had a couple of kids.  Next my parents gave us a really nice table that had a leaf in it and 4 chairs.  We used those chairs + one stool for a couple of years.  THEN some friends of ours inherited a table from some family members and didn't really have room to store it.  It was in their shed and they were more than happy to let us store it for them (i.e. use it) until they had more room.  Well, they just moved into a bigger house and so we decided that it was the PERFECT time for us to finally get the new table we had been eyeing for several months. 

Here is our new table.  It is one of the new ones Deseret Industries makes and sells way below retail price.  I LOVE it!

Substitute Paper People

Some friends of ours have a paper route delivering the free weekly paper.  They went on vacation and asked us to substitute for them.  They earn 40 dollars per month delivering the papers and offered to pay the kids what they would earn doing the papers:  10 dollars.  I asked my kids if they wanted to do it:

Ian:  YES,
Adele: YES,
Elise: YES,
Emilia:  "If there are 4 of us doing it then we will have to split the money 4 ways. I don't think it is worth it to do all that work for only $2.50.  (And of course does mom get paid?  No.  Nice arrangement.)

They did agree that they wanted to do it and so we picked up the papers the night before, folded them and put them in the bags.  They were thinkin this was pretty easy, and that a paper route might be something that they would be interested in getting.  We loaded up the papers the next morning, got our water bottles and went to work!  We split up the route and the big girls went one way and I took Adele and Ian the other way.  We trudged up and down the streets, faithfully putting the papers on the porch like we were told.  Except for that ONE that Emilia threw on the roof.  (Oops.)  Oh, and except for the ones Elise was too tired to put on the porches and just just left on the lawns.  We ran from big dogs that were trying to eat us, or at least sniff us to death and we WALKED really far (especially for the ones with the shortest legs).  I noticed on the way back that some of the houses had 2 papers.  (WHAT???) and found out that Elise had a couple of extra papers in her bag that she wanted to get rid of so she just gave some of the houses another one.  On their lawns.  Ian and I had already been down that street and had gotten those houses.  So, of course, we had to get out and pick UP the papers.  And try to figure out why the heck we still had over 20 papers when we thought we were done at the end of the route.  We finally figured out that we had missed a street.  I have to make a note in Elise's defense, the previous week Emilia, Ian and I had gone on the route with our friends to see what we needed to do.  Elise missed the "paper route instruction inservice" so she was a little unaware of some of the expectations.  And I guess I just took it for granted that if a paper ended up on the roof the thrower would at least leave another one on the porch.  Nope.  Hopefully our friends won't get fired after the um, amateur job we did delivering the papers.  And I asked my kids after we were done with the papers if they still wanted a paper route of their own.  Nope. Good.  Neither do I.



Doing What We Do

I feel like I never really blog about anything except trips and birthdays and special events anymore.  Not the day to day stuff.  Not that our day to day stuff is exciting at all but I guess that is why it should be here.  So I can save for the record how ordinary my life really is.  Stuff like driving kids all over the place and cleaning.  And the fact that I swore the second day of summer vacation that I had to put up my white flag and surrender to the fact that my house was going to be MESSY all summer.  How can it NOT be messy when you have 4 kids (or more!) running in and out with water, sand, grass, dandelions, and all sorts of other creatures of nature.  So, anyway you have been warned. If you come over (especially without telling me) you get what you get.  And it will probably involve ants.
Let's move on to the other stuff we have done around here lately:

• My kids are obsessed with ants.   Probably because we have a million billion ants living in our yard.  The kids play with them, murder them, feed them, draw chalk circles around them and watch them run around, bury them, make ant soup with them, stomp on them and sometimes bring them in the house to show me.
• We are (sort of) enjoying the new aquatic center they just built here.  I say sort of because the last 2 times we have been we have only stayed for less than an hour due to poo in the pool.  They make everyone get out for 45 minutes when it happens and we have learned (the hard way, by waiting the OTHER 2 times it happened when we were there) that it isn't worth the wait. Obviously their new Nazi monitoring of the "3 layers on everyone under 4" isn't helping.  And yeah, my 3.5 year old who is totally potty trained DOES wear a swim diaper to comply.  I am not sure what they can do about this but I have NEVER seen this much pool poo in  my LIFE!!!
• It is fun having my kids home but I am really starting to miss my "alone" time.  I think they are all getting kind of sick of being with each other 24/7 too.  Just an hour or 2 every day would be heaven...  In fact, I think Kent is hiding from me tonight since I was crabby.  (sorry.)
• I have eczema on my eyelids.  That's a new one for me.  It makes me look like I use a lot of pink eyeshadow and I don't know how to apply it.  And one of my eyes is goopy. I can thank Adele for that eye disease.
• Adele is mortified by using public restrooms, especially those with automatic flushers.  We have been using a LOT of different restrooms lately due to travelling, going to parks, and without fail SOMEONE has to go to the bathroom whenever we are at Wal-mart.  Emilia also had an irrational fear of toilets when she was little.

• I tried a new recipe for Kent for Father's Day:  Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake.  That was a keeper for sure.  I took a bite of it and thought, I must take a picture of this and blog about it even if it does have a bite out of it.

• Emilia had a bump on her gums from a baby tooth that was dying and was creating some fluid or something in her gums.  (exciting huh?)  I always like going to the dentist though so it is something worth mentioning.  If it doesn't quiet down she'll have to get the baby tooth extracted. I swear, we have spent an inordinate amount of money on getting baby teeth extracted.  My kids' teeth just don't like to fall out on their own. In fact, more than once I have bribed my kids with toys if they would let me pull a tooth that the dentist was threatening to extract.  Much cheaper that way, and they get a new toy.  Win-Win!
• Tomorrow we are having dinner with some friends. I normally wouldn't mention this on the blog because it's not really that big of a deal-- except this time it is and I will tell you why.  Let's see if I can do this without being too specific so as not to incriminate anyone.  We have a neighbor who lives near us who likes to have parties.  BBQs in fact.  With lots of work friends and Karaoke.  For 4 hours.  We attended such a party last year simply because we were invited and wanted to be neighborly.  It was awkward, the food was quite a disappointment especially since our neighbor boasted about his (or her) great catering skills,  all the work friends were singing the great hits and love ballads of the 60's (Peter Paul and Mary anyone?) and we just decided that we just didn't fit too well into this scene.  Especially since we had all the kids with us.  So, fast forward to TOMORROW.  We are invited to go to another Karaoke BBQ and we just.  really.  don't. want to.  So we made other plans so we wouldn't be home.  I am feeling very evil now because I confessed this. 
• Ian's cute little "girl" friend has been BEGGING and begging to come over to my house to make sock puppets.  I guess Ian told her about a sock puppet that we have that my kids call "Socket Pup".  Adele could never say sock puppet so she would call it "Socket Pup"  (Kind of like how she calls Gobstoppers "BOBSCOTCHERS".)  So a couple of days ago I made good on my promise and we made sock puppets.

• I have 2 flavors of Ben and Jerry's ice cream in the freezer. It was definitely a splurge but since I had a COUPON it was totally justified.  I have been SOOO bad at coupon shopping lately and I had STACKS of coupons that I needed to organize.  Yesterday I organized ALL of them, cleaned out my coupon folder and TODAY I got online, found the deals and did a great cereal and cracker deal.  I think I am back into the coupon groove. I am going to try to stay up-to-date with it and not get behind again.

So, that's all the ordinary stuff I have been up to.

Elise Turns 9!

June 3, 2011- Elise turned 9!!!

Elise posing with her birthday strawberry.  We always put a candle in whatever we are having for breakfast.  Since candles don't work so well in corn flakes we used the strawberry and helped it stand up with whip cream.  My kids go crazy for whip cream.  They'd be happy with a candle in a pile of whip cream.

We don't do a lot of cake at our house for birthdays.  Elise wanted peach cheesecake.

Since her birthday is in June, Elise ALWAYS wants to have a water party.  And pretty much every year it is too cold, windy and rainy for her party.  This year since we had her party 2 weeks after her birthday we thought we'd be safe.  Not so. It was very cloudy all morning with some threatening clouds.  FINALLY about 30 minutes before the party the sun came out. It wasn't hot but it wasn't freezing either so I guess that makes it a success.

We did the "Heavy heavy hangover thy poor head" thing and I think I did the "bump on the head" a wee bit too hard... (she kept trying to dodge it so I made sure I got her... heh heh heh.)

Since I was worrying about impending rain I decided I needed a back-up plan in case we had to cancel the water party.  Elise said she wanted a pinata.  So here's my last minute pinata. I wasn't about to go to the store and buy one for 20 bucks.  This one did the job and it was super cheap and easy (wrapped an oatmeal container with wrapping paper and voila~!)

 We decorated cupcakes with gummy worms, Mother's Circus Animal cookies, M&Ms (all at the request of the birthday girl). (Friend's names going clockwise from Elise for posterity's sake: Liberty M., Emilia, Ian, Jeff & Jonathan G.  Kinley & Aria G., Malabry A., Cadey C. and Caleb S.)

And of course we played water games.  Even though it was a lot of work (like parties always are) I think the kids had a good time and I was really happy that Elise FINALLY got her water party after all these years. Next year I think we are limiting the friend count to 3 or 4.

Beautification

Today was a big day at our house.  Adele has once again started refusing most hair-dos and won't let me put any big pigtails or ponytails in her hair.  I say:  If they won't let you do their hair in pigtails there is no point in having long hair.  So even though I was planning on letting it grow out, I decided to get it cut into a shorter cut that will look cute since she has very little hair styling tolerance.  I took her to the beauty school (half price haircuts on Thursdays, score) and got her hair done. I was second guessing my decision however when the student chopped off a BIT more than I wanted her to and I was seeing it get shorter and shorter.  Ultimately the instructor was able to come over and blend things together and pretty much save the day.  Whew. It is still shorter than I wanted it but isn't that the story of haircuts? I think in a month it will look mostly how I wanted it.  Mostly.  I think they need to have a chart of hair cutting terms with accompanying illustrations at haircut places since they use all their lingo and say, "Do you want it stacked?  Long layers? A-Line, undercut, bevel? Do you want a weave, highlights, slicing, foils?  (I had a weave once that was supposed to make the hair LIGHTER and somehow it ended up darker.  What???)  So yeah, next time I go there I think I will just bring a picture of what I have in mind. 

And on to the second big story of the day:

My big girls got their ears pierced today.  Emilia has been wanting to for a long time but hasn't been able to get up the guts to do it.  Elise didn't plan to do it but Emilia bribed her with 3 dollars and "the rest of Emilia's gobstoppers"  (Let that one go down in history.  Almost as good as me bearing my testimony when I was about 6 years old for a COUGH DROP.)  They were freaking out the whole time we were driving and they kept pinching their ears and asking if it hurt more than when they pinched their ears.

Emilia went first and was really nervous. She was surprised at how fast it was done and was so relieved to have it done.  She said it didn't really even hurt that bad.  Elise was second and burst into tears as soon as she got hers done.  She said it hurt a lot and seemed slightly traumatized.  By the end of the day though they were both very excited about the new holes in their heads and they can't wait to change out the earrings in 6 weeks!

Temple Square

Fam Reunion

Kent's grandma wanted to have a get together with her kids, grandkids and great grandkids.  That was actually the main purpose for the ill-fated trip to Yellowstone from which we just returned.  As you have seen, we still had fun despite the fact that there was 12-16 feet of snow at the park and we had to cancel that part of our trip.  Kent's grandma has lived in Preston Idaho pretty much forever (as far as I know) and lives there still.  It's pretty much in the "middle of nowhere" especially where she lives, but it is so quiet and beautiful there. It has always held a special place in the hearts of all Grandma Jepsen's kids and grandkids (and why there it is a bit of a dispute about what to do with the mountain she owns after she passes on).

 It was a serious effort to get group pictures.  I tried to get a pic with the whole group. That didn't happen but they were willing and happy to round up all the kids for a "2nd cousin" picture.

 We played kickball, the kids swung, the boys played football, and Elise and a few of the other kids were in puppy heaven with the 2 puppies that were there.

 The kids were finally willing to participate in a family photo!

Here's the beautiful view from the park where we had our party.  So green!

The Foot Bath

 We were on vacation this week and were staying with Kent's folks in Idaho.  My mother in law told me I had to go get the camera because Adele was sitting on the counter with her feet in a sink full of bubbles.  She was giving her feet a bath.

Look at that pure joy!!  (trouble + mess = joy)

Lagoon!

We had been wanting to take our kids to Lagoon forever so we finally decided to do it.  The first noteworthy thing to happen was that when we were standing in line to buy tickets a girl gave us 4 discount passes which ended up saving us almost 20 bucks per ticket.  We were super excited about that because we both had been searching online everywhere for coupon codes or something we could use to make the tickets less expensive.  

The weather was kind of cloudy when we went (big surprise) and we got rained on a few times but we had a lot of fun. The kids went from ride to ride, so excited for some, and so apprehensive to try the others. After the big girls went on "Roller Coaster" they were pretty much ruined for all scary-looking rides. (And who names a roller coaster "Roller Coaster"? Really. Can't you think of something better than that?)


Another interesting thing that the kids learned is that they don't actually like ferris wheels.  For DAYS before we went to Lagoon they kept talking about going on the ferris wheel and how excited they were. I told them that I actually kind of hate ferris wheels because they go up so high and I hate it when you get stopped at the top.  They begged me to go on it with them so I did.  They hated it.  The one at Lagoon isn't a swing type chair but a round enclosed chair thing that you can actually spin with a wheel in the center. I didn't think it was that bad but they were TERRIFIED of the slightest movement or spinning, especially when we stopped.

This was Ian's favorite ride.  It was so funny when he rode it the last time instead of sitting by Elise and Emilia he went to the back row and started talking with the people back there.  I guess the back row is the most fun.  So much for teaching the kids not to talk to strangers.

Elise decided she does not like roller coasters

Tub

The blue tub is gone! Hooray!  We had to get one last picture of it before we said "goodbye".  We debated about keeping it for a planter in the yard (not).  It is funny how many people jokingly suggested that to us.  The kids had fun playing in it before the plumber hauled it off to the dump (or maybe he took it to put in HIS yard to add to his "old bathtub collection").

The empty space

Of course the box the new tub came in was a hit

The new tub!  The adhesive was drying so it had to be supported. 

We still have some more work to do in the bathroom before it will be done like new flooring and painting but we LOVE our new tub and shower!

Michelle's bag

I haven't been making a lot of bags lately but I made this one for my sister in law Michelle. We saw this fabric and LOVED it.  I might have to go get more of it so I can make a bag like this for myself too!