11-11-11 Eleven superficial things I love on this super day

Things that are super in my life, in no particular order

11. I love my living room rug, I stole the rug from John and Robins place and they said it was ok that we copied them, and I believe them because that's the kind of people they are (in this photo it looks like there is spots on the rug but Anna just spilt water, the rug is really forgiving)

10. Because i mentioned the rug I need to mention the tile. The reason we needed the tile was my friend Alison.The reason why Alison helped with the tile is because she had a baby. The reason the baby helped was because of the gift. The reason the gift helped was because of the onesie. The reason the onesie helped was because of the fuchsia paint. The reason the fuchsia paint helped was because of Adrianna. The reason Adrianna helped was because she splattered the paint all over the carpeted floor. Love that girl and hated the carpet, but wait this is a superficial post no family, friends or lasting things are mentioned. I love our tile.


















10. I love the window bench in my front foyer room. In the winter time it is the best place to read a book and in the summer time it is the best place to watch the lightening storms.















9.  I love the Cat picture in our bathroom, I see it and it makes me laugh (it reminds of when Parkin saw  it in a magazine and for like 10 minutes he would pick it up and laugh out loud, he loved it so much, oops there I go again)

  
8. Speaking of the bathroom I love the handmade wall art that Jen made, it instantly classes that room up. When Our renters  left our place they took our bathroom decorations that Amy gave us after she moved out, I was really sad cause I loved the wall decorations. But Jen's artwork is original so I way love it (darn it those family and friends keep sneaking in).

  
7. Our living room couches. They get washed once every tow weeks, because someone pees on them, spills milk on them, grinds crayon on them, and no I am not talking about Benjamin. Those couches can take a beating (there is a picture earlier).

 
6. My five dollar frame from the thrift store.  A large charcoal drawing of a dog was inside it, a pretty good drawing I have to say, but it is the perfect size for a family picture. If I am going to have a drawing of a dog it is going to be of the best dog ever Luke Two Howe.

















5.  I love my Holiday tree. The kids love decorating and no matter how lame the decorations are we always have our tree decorations up.

4. My never ending supply of paper.  The best YW's president, the model I use when I am serving in our churches young women's program, Meridawn gave me a truck load and I mean truck load of card stock, poster size paper and every type of paper you can imagine. She got it from a friends paper business that was going out of business and she thought of me because of my preschool business. I have so much paper I have to hide it in random locations like under Anna's crib.

3. Our massive dining room table, is large and not my favorite wood choice, but I am sanding the chairs down one by one and will repaint and recover the chairs. Benjamin did some computer work for a nice lady and she traded his work for this table. Its sturdy and big.

2.Another awesome thing for the preschool. My friend who is in the military is moving over seas again. She use to be a felt distributor and she has been hauling around a big supply of felt that she hasn't used. Shed didn't want to ship it again and she thought of me. I got it two weeks ago and  I am still going through all the lesson plan ideas.






1.Hot water. I have always loved hot water. After tens months on "the land" with out running water let a lone hot water, there is not a time when I take a shower especially in the fall and winter that I don't flash back to taking a tent shower under the stars, I am still shuddering....

Life is good.

This is what happens every time we play "Real in Rio" from the motion picture Rio.

She has the moves like Jagger.

My moment in the sun

This year for the ward chilli cook off I decided I would bring chilli and cornbread instead of corbread and a dessert. I actaully thought about what would make good chillii and went to the store and bought the ingredients. The fact that I thought ahead and went to the stroe instead of just making due with what I had was quite the effort. I decided that the key to good chilli was sausege and velvetta cheese, those two would make a beautiful combination.  They had three tables set up "hot", "medium" and "mild" I turned to Benjamin and asked where I should put it, with a laugh he tells me mild. Unfortuently we got there just before it started and the mild table had the most entries, my pot was at very end. It was a great turnout with a lot of people and the best table decorations I have ever seen at the annual cook off.

There were were 5 categories:
Best mild chilli
Best medium chilli
Best hot chilli
Most unique chilli
Overall favorite

When they announced that my chilli won for  fan favorite I was so shocked and embarrisingingly excited. I shot out of my chair like a girl at a family reunion and danced my way to the announcer. I then asked for the mic to give a speech, yes thats what I said, I asked to make a speech....As soon as I did this I realized this wasnt a family reunion and what was I thinking. I then just said "I win." Yeah a real graceful winner. I would never catergorize myself as a good cook so this was so exciting, what added to my victory was that I didnt vote for myself neither did half my children. A true victory. peolpe afterward kept asking me which pot was mine so they could get a taste,  I had to suppress a laugh, like chilli  that good would have any left, hah. It was licked clean.

The next day I woke up to find the kids watching cartoons. I told them I had the most fantastic dream that I had won the ward chilli cook off , then I said oh wait, that was reality!! They asked how long I would keep talking about this and all I could say was, quite some time.

Sadly this gave me such a smile for like a week, what a happy diversion. One sweet boy from church came up to me with a pipe cleaner ring he had made me for winning the chilli cook off, how sweet is that! He must have known how excited I was by my dance  :)

40 Years of Wedded Bliss

For my parents 40th wedding anniversary we had them over for dinner, we celebrated their years together with a "home made game" called Nanpaperdy, based off the Jeopardy game (my sister in law Melissa did this for her birthday once and it was so much fun).

Each of their four kids made a category with questions and answers.

Hillary did "Take me to Ajo" a category about family vacations.

John did "Lemon-aid" a category about family cars

Lindsey did "mi casa es su casa" a category about family houses we lived in.

Lesley, I did "creature Feature" family pets.

We also had a potpourri category with random questions.

We had a ton of fun watching my parents battle it out for the best memory. It was close but mom pulled it out (in large part because dad missed the double jeopardy question, it was hard! They had to tell us the license plate number of a car they had over 10 years ago!How John remembered this is beyond me). Bella announced the winners and she said it best, "Papa did great and Nana did better."

Benjamin made little cake toppers for their lemon anniversary cake too funny.

We love you Mom and Dad, your example of love, forgiveness and especially laughter are all things we admire and look up to.

First Day

School has been underway a couple of weeks now and between piano lessons, swim team and pickups I am in the car for way too long. Glad school is here and grateful preschool has started, I like routine it helps me from becoming lazy. Parkin (4) and in his last year of preschool sniff sniff. Holman (6)is in 1st grade in a class with 10 boys and 19 girls, almost 2 to one people. Olivia(8) is in 3rd grade and is a great big sis to Holman. Bella (10) is in 5th grade and at middle school, yikes. It feels like fall is just around the corner, can't wait for football season.... just kidding.

Adrianna at nursery

Adrianna has turned the coveted age in the LDS church, she is 18 months. This means Benjamin and I can go to class without having to entertain her in hushed voices. Unfortunately she has been less than thrilled to be going to nursery. This picture was taken closer to 20 months. The girls and I occasionally watch a show called called toddlers and tiaras, it is a train wreck show, that makes you feel like you are doing a good job at being a parent because these moms can be a bit wack-a-do. Anyway we having taken to putting hot rollers in AJ's hair and she loves it, its really funny. So this is her all dolled up.

Swim Champs

This swim season was awesome. Our kids had both sets of cousins on their team, Benjamin's sister Melissa and my brother John. The kids loved knowing that despite having to wake up early on their summer vacation they at least knew they would be spending it with their cousins. We also had good friends of ours from the ward the Mendell family on the team, who were our adopted cousins. Their daughter Lyndsey and Holman plan on getting married, they talk often of their future and how they will name one of their children chocolate chip, true story. The two of them are too fun.

Holman did great. This was his first official swim team season. He managed to swim backstroke individually and for the medley relay. He also cut his breathing down to only 5 breaths in a 25 meter race. Great job H-Man!

Olivia did awesome perfecting her butterfly stroke. Her underwater stream line is picture perfect. She rocked the finals winning herself the County Champ in her age division. She loved being on a relay with her cousins Madison, Bridgett and Kate.

Bella was awarded the coaches award for her "outstanding attitude and work ethic." The coaches said she was relentless in trying to perfect her individual medley race. She walked away with a 3rd place medal in the IM, a 3rd place medal in the medley relay, and missed 1st place in her favorite stoke the backstroke by .03 seconds. It was a photo finish. She did great

Swim team really helped to get the kids out of bed and do at least one thing productive a day. I will miss that for the reaming weeks of summer. I will also miss meeting, Robin, Melissa and Kim at the park as we entertain our kids who are too young to participate.

Oh I almost forgot at the championship meet there was a parents relay. I had so much fun racing, mostly because it was so dang hot and any excuse to get in the pool! Next year Benjamin wants a parents competition to see who "qualifies" for the race, hey man I am up for that!