Heaven Sent

Oh, Sara has been my angel this week.  She has gotten up every morning and made all of the kids' beds and then moved on to my bed - all without being asked.  We had the missionaries over for dinner last night and she cleaned up the living room, cleaned off the entertainment center, put away the clean dishes, and swept the kitchen floor - all without being asked.  I could not have gotten everything ready for the missionaries if it weren't for her.  She was heaven sent.

 

putting away the dishes

Focus on the positive.  That's what I try to do.  But to keep it real and so you don't think my life is way too easy, right now I'm about ready to ship #2 and #3 (Evan and Kamri) off somewhere for a few days, just to put some sanity back in my life.  I'm tired of the whining, screaming, stomping, yelling, crying....  Anyone want them?  Or would that be like a reward to them?  Who knows.  

I can do it.  

That's what I tell myself every morning. 

Back to the positive:   To reward Sara for such awesome behavior, I took her out tonight to get some new capris.  She's been needing some summer bottoms and has been wanting capris so I decided to use that as a reward for helping me out so much.  I know I can't go out and get her new clothes every time she does something good, but I wanted her to know how much I have appreciated it this week.  We spent some time searching and finally found some really cute ones at Old Navy (BTW- Old Navy is having a Holey Moley sale where everything in the store is 30% off.  We got her $20 capris on sale for $15 plus 30% off so we ended up paying $11 after tax) and then went to Barnes & Noble and got a book using her gift card she got for winning the spelling bee. When I thanked her and told her how much I appreciated it, she said, "I'm just trying to act my age."

Thank you, thank you Sara. 

Silhouette II

Another chance to win a silhouette.  Oh the possibilities.  Go to Thrifty Decor Chic.

Father's Day...

We're not really into expressing our love, appreciation, or admiration in the blogosphere.  So I will just say I'm so glad Ben is adored by his kids.  They love the kid in him.  And I appreciate it, too.

We wanted to make this day special for him so I made FAJITAS!  He mentioned awhile ago he wanted to have fajitas sometime. But, I won't eat them and I really didn't think the kids would either so I never made them.  So, I figured Father's Day would be the perfect time to make them for him.  (the kids and I had a frozen pizza.  They normally have to eat what I fix, but I really couldn't make them eat something I wouldn't so I made something else.  Maybe I shouldn't have, but I didn't want to go hungry either.)

 

I made them with green and red bell peppers and onions.  Doesn't that look so pretty!

  

Then I added the stuff to make them fajitas.  It kind of ruined the prettiness factor.
(Everything should look pretty, right?  Isn't that all that matters. )

 Even though I won't eat this, I can appreciate that it would look good to someone who liked it.  Oh, and it smelled up our house for the rest of the night.

  
I was going to buy a tortilla warmer, but I just couldn't do it so I invented my own.    Two plates with aluminum foil in the middle.  Pretty ingenius, don't ya think ;)


 
The toppings - yep, I even made guacamole for him



He looks happy.  He said they were good. 


Amongst his gifts, he got some homemade ones the kids and I worked on.



He was missing some pictures of the kids on his desk at work.  I thought he needed some so I made him these frames and took the pictures of the kids. I just got the unfinished wood frames at Michaels, Mod Podged some scrapbook paper on, added some ribbon, then got some door hinges from Home Depot and screwed them on the back to connect them.  We might end up moving the hinges to the front which might ruin the look but would help it fit better on his desk.




This was the wooden tag at the top.  In case you can't tell, I printed out the words "the world's best FATHER" onto the paragraph from "The Proclamation on the Family" that talks about Heavenly Father.  (idea from  Aly & Ash)

He also has a sweet tooth and needs something to snack on while at work.  I got these jars from WalMart, painted a square on the side with chalkboard paint, wrote "we love you daddy" on it.  We filled it with Hershey kisses so he could get a kiss from us whenever he wanted.  (Say cheese!)  Now he has candy at his fingertips and can change the saying to say whatever he wants or leave as is for another reminder that we love him.

 

According to him, this is what he's going to look like when we celebrate Father's day in 50 years - bald with no teeth. Lovely!!

We love you, Ben!

Silhouette

I really want a Silhouette.  I could do so much with it.  So...I"m trying to WIN ONE at Tater Tots and Jello.  I want it! 

Oh, yeah, and Oh, hello friend, too. 

And go to Thrifty Decor Chic to enter, too.


If you want one, go on over and enter to win.  If you don't want one, go ahead and enter and I'll take it off your hands for you.  :) 

This is the last batch of pictures - I promise. I just love them all I couldn't decide which ones to use.  I don't know how I'm ever going to narrow it down to just a few for our wall. Oh well.  

For those of you wondering, we used Jen Fairbanks as our photographer.  She spent 1 1/2 hours with us and kept the kids interested (mostly).  She was great and the kids absolutely adored her.  They got into her van afterward and wanted to go home with her.

WARNING:  

I told you there would be more. And still more to come.

 

I love looking at the ones of us blowing the white stuff off the weeds (what are they really called?).  Kamri kept getting the stuff in her mouth and trying to blow it out.  It was so funny.

Family pictures...

We finally got our family pictures taken.  I love them.  I really wanted to fine a professional photographer do them.  We've never done anything other than Target.  It took some convincing Ben that it was worth the little extra money, but he let me do it.  He hates getting family pictures done as it is, much less paying more than usual to do it.  But we had fun. I think he did, too.  After we got the picture CD back, he even said, "Now be too shocked, but I think it was worth it doing it this way."  I was glad to hear him say that.

WARNING:

Lots of pictures (and more to come).  I want to put these in our 2010 blog book, so you are going to have to bear it all (or just not look at them).  There were so many great pictures, I couldn't choose just a few.  I am still trying to figure out which one(s) to hang on the wall.

 

 Just an interesting way of packing and saving space in your suitcase.  This was a segment I found from someone else's blog call Power Packing.  Since it is summer and many go on some nice, long (or short) trips I thought this might be helpful.  Check it out. I think I'll try it next time I go somewhere.  Hopefully I don't forget since it will be quite a while before I go anywhere.

Mrs. Fields cookie tour...

Trista set up a factory tour for us yesterday.  we went to the Mrs. Fields gift giving factory tour.  It's always fun to see how these type of fun things (by fun things I mean treats) are made and packaged.  And of course we got to wear those stylish hairnet things.  

We usually do a Sweet's factory tour every summer, but this one was new and fun.  And of course, we all got a yummy cookie afterward. (But I have to say, I enjoy my homemade ones better.)

 

They have a huge freezer used to store all the dough.  It was 14 below zero.  Some of us ran in to feel it.  It was freezing!!  I think Sara was cold for 20 minutes after. 

In their shop at the end of the tour they have a bunch of clearance packaging items for sale.  They had a huge tin for $2 and a bit smaller ones on sale for $1.  I got a big one and two smaller ones that I'm going to use for something (still trying to figure out what).  I also got a cute Father's Day box to fill with some sort of yumminess and give to the bishop (aka - father of the ward) from the primary kids for Father's Day.