Wednesday

It is Wednesday and it really isn't any different from any other day except for one thing.  Today my garage door decided to let me know that it doesn't like me.  When we bought the house we could see that the top panel was slightly bent but it worked just fine.  Well today when trying to park in the garage I didn't pull in far enough and it stopped on my bumper and then went back up.  Then it wouldn't go back down no matter what I tried.  It bent and crumpled a little.  I had to call the garage door people and it was so nice because they didn't think he was going to be able to come until tomorrow and he came within 30 minutes. 

Turns out he didn't install this garage door.  The past owner must have bought it at Lowe's or something and traded out the doors.  The garage door guy helped me get the door to close and is going to come back Friday to replace the door.  I feel so blessed that he came when he did because I was starting to worry about a night with the door open. 

Other than that not much happening today.  I didn't make it to the sewing room because of the garage door issue but it has been a good day so far.

Have a great hump day.

Memorial Day BBQ

This weekend was a good one.  We got a lot done.  We finished power washing our fence and got it weather proofed.  It looks much better now.  We also got several of my husbands projects in the garage finished and then we cleaned and organized the garage so are vehicles will fit in it again.  We went swimming at the pool when it opened on Saturday and then we had a great BBQ with good friends on Monday.

Two families that we have known since before moving here to Oklahoma are moving again so it was our last BBQ here.  We decided at the last minute to buy a pool for the kids and they had a blast.  There was a lot of good food and great company.  None of the kids wanted to get out of the pool even though they were shivering and had blue lips. 

 Yana didn't like the cold water so she wouldn't stay in it at first.  Eventually my husband got in and walked around with her and she had a blast and didn't want to get out.  We had a lot of fun and will miss our friends a lot.

 These are just some random pictures from the last few days.  Sarah put her dad's socks on and then gangster posed for a picture.  She is so silly.

She got this doll the Christmas before last and very rarely played with it.  I am happy to say that it is now one of her favorites and she plays with it all the time.

I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend with friends and family.  I hope it was safe as well.  Have a great Tuesday.

Pregnant and running

Pregnant and running.  Well I wanted to run while I was pregnant with Yana but I was so tired I couldn't get myself to do so.  This time I have been biking and ran here and there but it had been over a week and I was starting to think to myself that I just should let it be until after the baby comes.  So instead of biking last night I decided to run with the thought that if I only ran for 5 minutes and then grabbed the bike at least I would have tried.  Well I ran and I ran and I ran and it felt great.  It was awesome.  I'm slower than I was before because I was tired and hadn't ran in over a week possibly 2 but It felt great anyways. 

It gave me the determination to keep doing this.  I don't care if I run barely faster than I can walk while I'm pregnant I will keep running.  Today I will ride my bike and tomorrow I'll run again.  It felt great and I feel wonderful this morning.  A little tired but not bad.

I hope that you have a wonderful memorial weekend.  I'm gonna sign my daughter up for swimming lessons today and I'm so excited.  She is getting so big.  I haven't even had the heart to tell her that her best friend is moving in less than a week.    Well we are going to have a great weekend.

AWOL

Sorry I have been AWOL lately.  I haven't felt very good all week.  I wake up feeling ok and then as the day goes on I start to feel worse and worse.  I don't know if it is normal morning sickness or if it is because I'm so congested.  I didn't have bad morning sickness with either of my girls.  I seemed to have gotten my husband sick as well.  He has completely different symptoms and when we took him to the doctor they couldn't find anything so they just threw a z-pack at it.  Tomorrow is my first doctor's appointment.  I'm hoping my doctor can come up with something better.

My girls ran through the sprinkler yesterday.  It was cute.  Sarah had a blast and ran right in but then Yana would only get close enough for her legs to get wet.  She just wouldn't run in and since I don't feel good and my husband doesn't feel good neither of us ran through the sprinkler with the girls.  We just sat and watched.

Well I'm gonna relax.  Have a good night.  I'm hoping to feel better soon and I'll get back on the "blog" wagon.

This last weekend was good

I have a friend who is moving at the end of the month and is due with her 4th girl at the end of August.  I threw her a baby shower Saturday and it was a lot of fun.  I also made the cake and this is how it looked.

 I made three white cake mixes and left one white and used purple and pink food coloring on the other two cake mixes.  Then I used a checkerboard pan set that I bought a while back.  It has rings that you set in the pan and pour the different colors.

 Then I stacked the cakes and started frosting them.

 I decided to use purple and white frosting on the top of everything.

 This is what it looked like when cut.  The box shows the colors in solid squares not slanted like this but we thought it looked cool and it tasted really good.

This is the gift table.  We just put balloons on it to add decorations.

We played a few games.  The first was one where you put a paper plate on your head and then draw a picture of a baby.  It was pretty funny.  It is hard to draw when you can't see.  The next game was the guess the mother's waist size and then we ended with a memory game.  I brought out a tray with 9 baby items and they had a few seconds to look before I removed it from the room and they had to right the list.  It was fun.  There was a lot of visiting and it was so much fun.

My husband was awesome and kept Sarah entertained in the garage the entire time.

Then Sunday we Mother's Day.  I hope that you all had a wonderful day.  My husband made me a jewelry holder that hangs on the wall.  It is awesome.  I love my family. 

Caving

This last Friday was flex day and quite a day.  In my ward(church) I was called to serve in the young woman's program.  We meet every Wednesday and every Sunday.  We have fun activities that help us learn and grow and are hopefully fun.  Well every year there is also girls camp.  Here it is in June.  As you get older in the young women program you also advance in the stages or levels.  The same goes for girls camp.  There are levels and each level has certain things they are supposed to certify for.  Like building fires and putting them out, CPR, first aid, and many other things.  They are supposed to build on top of each level.  Here they want you to have all the certification done before camp in June.

So this year we decided to have a camp out and try to get it all done during that camp out.  So we decided to go to Alabaster Caverns State Park in Western Oklahoma.  They have caves to go through and we have a Sister in the ward who knows them very well who offered to take us through them.

Some of the girls didn't have school Friday but most did so they had to wait for the girls to get out of school before getting on the road.  It is a 4 hour drive and they had a couple of stops to make on the way.  They figured that we wouldn't get to the camp ground until about 11 pm.  So we opted to have my family take whatever tents needed to go brought to our house.  We left Friday around 10 am and found a camp ground that we liked that would hold the 4 tents.  I say 4 because although we had 15 girls go on this trip they wouldn't be sleeping in tents.  They slept in a cave.  The cave wouldn't only hold so many and since I took my children and so did the other leaders we opted for tents to let the girls have the cave.

 We got there and set up.  Here are two of the tents that I set up.  The one on the left held a leader and her daughter.  The one on the right held a leader, her husband and their daughter.  If you notice the pole in the back ground than you did better than I did.  For all my camping I don't think I've ever camped somewhere where there was a light pole in the camp ground and I set up their tents right under the light.  The one on the left was protected because it was under a tree and the other one...well lets just say I offered to move it when they got here.  The other thing about the tent on the right is that they woke up in the middle of the night wight a scorpion in their tent.  They joked about how much I must not like them to set up their tent under the light and on top of a scorpion nest.  I felt horrible.  They survived and the adventure was just beginning.

 Here is the camp before anyone else got here.

 Here is our spare tent that we set up for another family that was coming.

 There is our tent and Yana sitting on the picnic table.

 This is the creek that ran right next to our camp.

This is the camp kitchen we got for Christmas and we just had to use it.  We were so excited and boy was it great to have.

 The other nice thing is that there was a swing set in camp so it came in handy with the little kids.  My girls practically lived on them.

 I did say caving right?  Well the first cave we went to was called Hoe Handle cave and it was really muddy.  I made sure to mention muddy right.  We practically spent the entire cave crawling in mud.  I guess it was muddier than normal.  It was still fun.  I took my hard hat off for the picture.

We went through two caves.  The first one was a beginner cave of sorts.  It helped us determine who shouldn't go through the next cave.  After the first cave we came back to came, grabbed a snack and hiked up to the next cave.  It was quite the hike and loads of fun.  This cave wasn't muddy at all and it had a lot of climbing and narrow spots and one particularly fun spot where we had to swim in very cold water.  The water was only about 1.5 foot deep but the hole was only about 2 feet.  So we to crawl which was hard so it was one person at a time and when it was my turn I just lifted my feet and swam.  It was so much easier.  It was also a lot of fun.  When we made it out of that cave we took a long hike around to see more pretty scenery.

It was a lot of fun.  After the caving was all over we ate and packed up camp.  My husband and the other guys in camp had pretty much taken down most of camp by the time we got back.  So it was a matter showering.  First you had to go to the field house and rinse the mud off your clothes and then you could go to the actual showers.  It was kind of odd.  You showered but they didn't want you getting dressed in the showers because of how many people needed to use them so you showered and wrapped up in the towel.  Then you stepped out the door, grabbed your bag and walked around the building to bathrooms to get dressed.  Talk about uncomfortable.  We had a great time and I discovered that I really enjoy caving and I was very thankful for the hard hat because I hit my head so many times.  I hope you all had a great weekend.  We sure did.

Zoo time fun

A little over a week ago while my husband was in Texas I took the girls to the zoo.  I've been trying to get them (us) out of the house more often and they have a new seal exhibit so we went.  The girls had a blast.  Sarah took her camera and took lots of pictures. 

 Here they are looking down on the seals from the spot above the water.

 They have a place where you can look at the seals from under the water and it was fun.  We missed the show by a few minutes but they were still a lot of fun to watch. 

You can see her camera as she is just watching the seals.  It was a lot of fun.  We didn't see all the animals because we got a late start but we saw a lot and they had fun. 

Have a great day.  I'll be back to share pictures from caving this last weekend. 

Life

Life has been so hectic lately.  Yesterday was good.  I got into the sewing room and almost finished the project I was working on and then brought an alteration downstairs to pick while I watched Sarah play on her ABC Mouse program on the computer.  I just need the right type of thread to finish the alteration.

Today has been good.  Girls are still waking up way too early for my taste.  I'm going to make some dark curtains for their room so it wont get light so early.  We drove to Tulsa and had lunch with their dad and Sarah drew him some pictures for his office.  It was fun.

Today I wont have much time to sew because Sarah has a friend coming over to play for a couple of hours and then we need to go to the store to get a few groceries for tonight and this weekend.

I hope you are all doing good.  Have a great day.  I wont be posting again before Monday because we are going camping and leaving tomorrow morning.

Big Surprise #3

Ok so I need to go back and change something I said earlier in another post.  I was telling you about a big surprise.  I was telling you how I had won the Biggest Loser contest and had said that I was not pregnant.  My sister in law had asked if I was and at the time I believed I wasn't.  I found out Sunday, however, that I am pregnant with number 3.

So there is another big surprise to add to the list. 

Going for a hike

For starts this first picture is of my girls.  Yana loves to sit in Sarah's doll stroller and Sarah pushes her around the house.  It was just too cute to pass up a picture opportunity.

 Ok on to today's activities.  This morning after breakfast we drove to Tulsa's Oxley Nature Center and went hiking.  I didn't know if I could take a stroller so I took our child back pack for Yana.

 Here is Yana in the back pack on one of the trials.

 I realize that you can't see what she is pointed at but there is a caterpillar right there.  That plant is covered caterpillars.

 A caterpillar

 We took this picture going up the ramp to the observation building.  Isn't it pretty.

 We had just started on our hike coming out the other end of the observation building.

 This is my first attempt at a picture of Yana

Out walking around.  We walked probably less than a mile today but it was fun to be in the "woods"  There were tracks of different animals in the muddy part of the paths.  Sarah even got to feed some of the turtles and fish before we left.  It was a lot of fun and we will definitely be going back again and a again.  It is pretty and enjoyable.

"Before" and "After"

Well this last week we got a lot of work done.  We wanted to do some stuff to our front yard to make it look better and to make some flower beds.  I forgot to take some "before" pictures but I have plenty of "after" pictures.  Take a look.

 This is the tree in  our front yard.  We added the brick and while doing so made it a little bigger.  Then we planted flowers and added dark brown mulch.

 This is the hedge in front of our front window.  We trimmed it up nice and neat, removed all the old red mulch and added the brick.  We also made this section a little bigger than it was previously.  Then we added flowers.

 The red tree in this picture we added.  There was a bush there that we weren't too fond of.  We are moving it else where.  Right now it is in a pot waiting for us to determine where we want to put it.

 A little closer view.

 Here we didn't want a muddy mess so we put some flat bricks down and put rock around it to help prevent a muddy mess under the water spicket.

These are my hanging strawberry plants.  I was so excited to see them at Walmart.  I have a couple of strawberries almost ready to pick right now and I can hardly wait.

We think our yard looks much better.  Not that it looked bad earlier.  We just like it more now.  We have plans for the side of the house and the back yard but as you probably know it isn't cheap so we will wait for a little bit before tackling those projects.

So what do you think?  Do you have yard projects this year?

Surprise number 1

Well my in laws left this morning.  It was so nice to have them here.  We got a lot of yard work done, played cards, visited and just had a good time.  It is always sad to see them go.

I figured I'd stop in before the weekend and at least tell you what one of the surprises was.  Since my last post I've been asked if I'm pregnant and just to let you know I am not pregnant. lol.  The surprise is that I won this round of the Biggest Loser that my family did.  I know I haven't posted about it in a few weeks.  It was supposed to end on the 1st but no one sent in their weights and everyone was busy so we ended it this last Sunday and I won by 2 ounces.  I told my sister in law to re due the numbers to make sure because I really didn't think I had a chance after the first half was over.

So I thought I'd share that with it.  It was very exciting.  I'll share the other news with you on Monday so I can share pictures.

Have a great weekend.

Home but away.

I know that I am home and no longer on vacation but my in laws came to visit.  I am sewing and working hard but I haven't had much time to spend on the computer.  I've been working on a purse that was requested so it wont be going on my store.  I have replaced a zipper on a skirt and have enough material left over from the purse to make another purse, hot pads or place mats.  I haven't decided which yet.  I'll share pictures when I get them finished and I'll let you know.  Have a good week.  I'll try to stop by again.  I have some wonderful news to share with you when I get the time to sit down and really explain things.  Have a great day.

Home again

I love going on vacation and seeing my family and the state I love but it is always nice to come home.  t is good to be back to our routine, not having to depend on others for the day's activities and not having to worry about not spending enough time with anyone.

It was odd going home this time.  I was born and raised in Idaho.  I love it there.  I love the weather, the mountains, the rain, the snow, the sunshine, the dry air, hunting season, snowmobiling, my family, my friends, the familiar, the fact that it takes longer for the world's trends to reach us there, the vocabulary, the fact that there is no tornado season, hurricane season or earthquakes, the open spaces, the fesqu grass, the spud cellars and the smell of the potatoes, the slower pace of life, the bugs (the bugs here in Oklahoma are plain scary looking compared to the ones I grew up with), the fact that most of the steeples you see are on LDS chapels so you always know where there is a ward family, and so many more things.

With all that I love there it is still so nice to come home.  We have our routines, our belongings, not living out of a suitcase, not rushing to visit everyone.  If people want to see me they can come see me.  I can do anything I want since it is my home (including make a batch of cookies and then eat half the batch in 24 hours).  I don't feel guilty when I let my girls watch tv so I can get something done.

Don't get me wrong I love vacation and I miss my family and Idaho already but I'm glad to be home other than the fact that it is Tornado season here.

I'll tell y'all a little secret.  When I married my husband I told him we could never live anywhere that had a tornado or hurricane season...the very first project was in Texas and it has both.  Luckily we now live in Oklahoma and only have to worry about one of them.

Anyways I'll stop rambling and just say that it is good to be home and to have my home in order again after unpacking and cleaning again.

Our vacation

Well we are back from our vacation.  I love going on vacation but I also love coming home to our home with our routines.  We went to Idaho for our vacation.  I know, what a shocker, right.  What can I say?  We love Idaho and that is also where are family is at so it is nice to go home to visit them.

We spent the first weekend at my dad's house.  While he went jeeping we ran some errands of our own and then hung out with my brothers and my mom.  Sunday my sister put together a birthday party for Sarah/get together.  It was a lot of fun.  I love hanging out with my family.  We met also got to meet my brother's girl friend.  She fits in well with our family and I really like her.

 This is a picture from that get together.  Yana was a little shy of everyone but not so shy as to not be able to play.  Towards the end of this party we left to head to Rexburg where we met up with my husband's parents to help them unload their uhaul.  Their project just ended and until they know where their next project is they decided to put their stuff in storage.  Then we went up the hill to the cabin.

Monday I felt like Idaho hated me.  It felt like my allergies (which Oklahoma has created) were trying to make me miserable.  It was a busy day though.  I got up and ran although my throat was sore and I am still regretting that because it killed my throat.  The rest of the day my body ached and hurt and I had no energy.  I was sneezing, and just felt miserable.  We decided later that I had caught a cold.  Anyways we were getting things ready upstairs to build a wall so we were going through closets and found some really cool things.  Really old black and white pictures, movie projector screens, old computers, old calculators (which weighed a ton for a calculator), and a bunch of random stuff.  After that was cleaned out we moved the bed around and my husband and father in law started on the wall.

Tuesday was valley day.  We had to get some more supplies and I had an appointment with my chiropractor.  I only go home 3 times a year so I go to see the chiropractor each time we go.  I always feel so much better afterwards.  It was a long and busy day.

Wednesday my girls and I rode back down the hill with grandma.  After shuffling vehicles around I continued past Rexburg to see my family and have a sleep over at my sister's house for our kids.  I have a lot of memories of sleep overs with my cousins growing up so we decided to start that for our kids.

 The kids had a lot of fun and didn't want to go to sleep.  It was good to visit with my sister and her husband and to see how they are doing.  We left Thursday morning and headed back up the hill.

 While in the valley we bought great grandpa an early birthday present.  My husband used the box to make a house (we started calling it a rocket) for the girls to play in.  They had a lot of fun in that little house.  It snowed.  Man I love the snow.  It snowed a lot.  We got 7-9 inches and everything was so beautiful and white.  I miss snow storms like that.

 Since it snowed we had to go play.  The snow that was there was hard and yucky so we hadn't really been interested in playing in it but this new snow on top was perfect.  We got the girls dressed up and went out to play.  We pulled them on the sled for a while and then started making a sled hill and had a blast.  Yana loved it.  That outfit was almost too small but she loved playing in the snow.  It was up over her knees and took a lot of effort but she managed.  She even loved the sled.

Saturday after the wall was built and the upstairs was all painted and finished my husband and I had a date night.  We drove down the hill and watched "Hunger Games"  It was nice to spend time together.  It made for a late night but it was worth it.  I love date nights.

 Sunday my mom had an Easter BBQ planned for the family and friends.  I made a cake.  I've wanted to make an Easter cake since taking my class.  I didn't really have anything particular in mind but I think the cake turned out really cute.  The only thing I wish I would have done differently was the words.  I should have used a larger tip.

 While at the cabin we had the DISH updated to include HD but the trees block the third satellite, the HD satellite, so we needed to trim some branches.  It started out on a smaller ladder with a different saw but after we had cut so many branches off and still couldn't find the 3rd satellite my husband pulled out the big ladder and his fathers harness and up he went again.  The things we do on vacation.

 This is the view from the back porch.  The lake is still froze over.

 Have I mentioned that I don't like clouds?  Well at least not when I'm flying.  They make for bumpy flights.  Nice pictures but nervous flights.  Our flights went well except for the clouds.

You must be thinking that I'm a wimp since I don't like clouds but they make me nervous.  When I flew home (the first time) from my mission in Russia it was during Hurricane Katrina and we were landing in Atlanta.  There were a lot of clouds and a very nerve wracking flight.  So since then I don't like clouds.  I'd almost prefer that the pilot go around them.

Anyways.  We had a great vacation.  When we got home we noticed that our tree is alive and well.  We thought it was dead but it is now nice and green with lots of leaves.

I hope you all had a great week.  Talk to ya later.