Washing Clothes the Old Fashioned Way.....

....just couldn't resist, could ya!! Rissa loves the bath a little too much...or maybe she was just really upset about spilling that ketchup on her pretty pink outfit:) Her expression makes me laugh, b/c when we walked in, that look on her face totally showed that she wasn't quite sure if I'd be upset with her or not.....

...I must say, it was nice to have her bathed already by the time we got back to G'ma's house!

These were from our trip to Utah that I never blogged...and they are definitely blog worthy!! We were at my cousins house and Rissa just couldn't take it anymore that Ashley was in the bath and she wasn't, so she took matters into her own hands!

Swimming Like Fish

I'm being trained by my brother to teach swim lessons and so I've been working with some kids to get practice with some of the teaching techniques. In the Spring, I will be getting hands on training as well as certification from him, so that I'll be ready to open for business this next May!! Here is a video of Sara and Rissa swimming! They are both 2 yrs old! The 2nd and 3rd clips are of Brennen & Ethan, both 3yrs old! It was so much fun working with these kids and I'm sooo proud of them!! All of the kids were swimming in 4 days!!

Happy Birthday Marty Dear!!

Happy Birthday Marty!!! Well, actually it was Yesterday, but it was one of those crazy days during the week full of school, work and running around busy, so I do feel like we weren't able to celebrate to FULL CAPACITY! That's ok though, b/c that gives us all the more reason to stretch the celebration into this next weekend, right?!!

I did manage to get his favorite cake made! It's one of those, "family recipes that have literally been passed down from generation to generation". I must say, however, that I don't bake each layer in the ol fashion skillet, like my mother-in-law and her mother and her mother did:) Same homemade recipe though, and same delicious taste!! I got 6 yummy layers on there this time!!

Happy Birthday to you Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you!!

AAaahhhhhhhhh WWWhhhhooooooooooooooo!!!

He did get some gifts too! The kids were excited for him to get a mini frig to put in his office...we also got him lots of goodies from SAMS to keep it stocked up!! WE LOVE YOU DAD!!!!

Snuggling, Family & Doughnuts

The last of our Utah pictures.....

rest

relaxation

Snuggling with Grandma

FAMILY

My cousin, Lee! They had us over for dinner one night and it always so much fun to spend time with them!!! Thanks Jenn & Lee!!!

I LOVE Jenn!! She is one of my favorite people!! We had such a great time, sharing crafty ideas, eating and laughing!!!

Every time we visit, we make Julia give us a concert! She has an AMAZING voice, seriously, she has the singing voice of an adult (ok, well that sounds funny, huh?!) ....so maybe I should say that she has the voice of an Angel, which she definitely does, but it's more the voice of...an adult angel! I only use the word adult, bc she has a more mature voice than other kids her age.

Anyway, this visit she entertained us with many of the songs from WICKED!! I really should've recorded one of her songs!

Rissa and Ashley had the BEST time playing together!!!! Actually all of the kids loved playing together and I loved that they each had a cousin that was the same age.

WE spent one whole, entire day ...from sun up to sun down:) at Seven Peaks Water park! We met the Christensen's there and played all day long!! I only have this one picture, to remember it by...well, actually, I do have a couple more, but they include ME in a BATHING SUIT, so they did not make the cut for the blog!!

MORE FAMILY...THE JOYNERS

Rissa and her little baby, Austin!
All of the kids LOVE Aunt Angeline!!
So we all played this game....well, I don't even know the name of it. Basically, you throw the balls across the yard and try to ring it on the bar. Each bar is different points, top being the highest. This is a picture of my balls-lol-all three of mine made it on the TOP bar!!! My niece, Cara and I, were teammates, and this was my last throw of the game!! ...we won and beat Angeline and Brittany!!! I liked that ball game, I need to find out the name of it though!

Some of the guys lined up to watch the 'competitions' that were going on.

Janell, G'ma @ Dana enjoying the beautiful weather! We LOVED the cooler weather, that's for sure!!

I love our nieces and nephew's!! This is our niece, Cara. LOVE HER! The only thing that we were sad about was that we didn't get to see Brett...BRETT, WE LOOOVVEE YOU TOO...next time we may just have to bombard him at work!!

Krispy Kreme

Does anyone else just love these doughnuts?!! We took advantage and went, twice I think, b.c the ones close to our house have shut down so we have been Krispy Kreme-less for a couple of years now! YUMMY GOODNESS!!

Ok, so to be perfectly honest, I went a third time...without the fam! I was soooo excited to get to see one of my good friends that I haven't seen in 18 years!!! Minta met me at my sis-in-laws house, and then we ditched and went to KK!
and just for the record, we did not eat all of these doughnuts ourselves!! we did take them home to our families!!
....or maybe we did eat them all!! lol---really! MINTA!! I had ssooo much fun with you!! It was so funny b/c from the second she got there, we were chatting and laughing non-stop like little school girls!! And even after talking late into the night, we still have so much catching up to do!! I can't wait to see her again....but until then, we'll have blogging and facebook, right?!!

I Love to see the Temple

I am really trying to get the rest of our Utah trip blogged, and I seriously need to be leaving for YW's RIGHT NOW :) so here are some of our pictures from our visit to the Beautiful, Salt Lake Temple!! I love the peacefulness that you feel when visiting the Temple! I am thankful for the Temple and pray that I always go often and never take advantage of having one close to our home!!

In all truthfulness, it wasn't the most peaceful trying to snap a shot of the kids at the fountain!! We were just about done and we were hot and ready to go eat, but life is good! We got this shot, smiles and all:) Good times, kids, good times!! We adore these three!

The Living Aquarium, Sandy, Ut

WE had the BEST time at the Living Aquraium while we were in Utah!! I think we all agreed that "Flappy" the Stingray, was our favorite, however, this picture of Brant and the Octopuss is definately my favorite photo of the day!!!
One of Jacob's favorite foods is Lobster & crab!! He was sooo excited to see this gigantor lobster...he wanted to cook it up and eat it!

Tiger Shark

Lost in the Swamp

cute kids in a cave

Rissa LOVED these fish!!! I think our next pet will be a fish or two for her-it was so fun to see her and listen to her in all of her excitement---"FEEEESH!". Oh, and to a two year old, feeesh are very interactive with you!! She loved that they play 'Peek-A-Boo' with her...popping out from the rocks and stuff

Brant must be wearing some good Worm smelling Cologne!! These fish followed him to each side of the tank, but they wouldn't follow anyone else! Maybe it's the red:)

FLAPPY!!! The kids gave this Stingray the name, Flappy, b/c he would litterally pull himself up the wall and flap, looking for someone to pet him!!

I started petting him and he just sat there, seriously, for about two mins! It was kinda like our dog-lol!! We all fell in love with Flappy!!

"Here Flappy, here Flappy!"
"....good boy, good boy Flappy!"

Day 1 in Utah....Declutter thy Mother's Shed....

When we go visit G'ma, we always tell her to make a list of things that we can all do together to help her around the house. Well, boy did we get to her!!1 We were so excited that we got to help clean out and organize her shed!!! Marty always likes finding "old memories" stuff!

G'ma rigged up a cool trash bag despencer--clever clever!!
Brant helped tons with keeping Rissa occuppied when she needed breaks from "hepping"! G'pa's old walker did the trick most of the time.

I just had to get a shot of this! JB White!!! I loved finding this box bc of two reasons: 1-for the longest time I shopped there (man they had good sales!!) and got my hair done there ...along with the fact that they were bought out years ago and no longer exist!! 2-When I was growing up, my dad was a Supervisor there, in the warehouse and so we ALWAYS had JB White gift boxes on hand! This was just one of those things that sparked a lot of memories for me.

We found Marty's Dad's Postal Jacket. Along with being in the Air Force, he was a Mailman. Our kids love the fact that G'pa was a Mailman....the old school kind, ya know! He didn't wear t-shirt and shorts and tennis shoes like ours! He was a hard core Mailman who dressed in the uniform and walked from door to door devlivering mail to the people of the world! It meant a lot to come across many memories of Dad.

OK----SSoooooooo...here's something else we found!
And upon ripping up the linoleum -- here's what we found!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING?!

So it wasn't before too long that Marty and I headed off to Lowe's to buy supplies for a NEW SHED FLOOR!! This was the first time we've ever replaced any type of floor by ourselves, so we had to do a little research at the "Do It Yourself" counter, but it didn't take too long before we had gathered our supplies and were heading out the door!


It was exciting to be taking this project on....but what if we TOTALLY SCREWED UP G'MAs shed floor??!!!! That thought did make us a slightly nervous, but didn't stop us!

Jacob was oh too eagar to saw something!!! We had even brought his Scout book with us, so it worked out well that he could knock two birds out with one stone!

We figured that since there was some water damage in the past, that we should water proof the wood, so Brant took on the job of weather proofing the wood. He actually took on many jobs, and his work was GREATLY appreciated!!!

I know that the Lord hears our prayers!! Our last two boards were, seriously, 1 inch too big! And G'ma had no power tools..only a hand saw! I just couldn't figure out how we were going to get the long, 1 inch strips cut with that tiny little saw! So I offered some very serious little prayers, and then I went and just started digging in all of G'pa's tools!!

When I saw the blades I just knew there had to be an electric saw of some kind - somewhere!! I think I also saw the Pearly White Gates of Heaven at about that same time!!! Not too much longer and I found this hand held saw, attached the blade and started cutting awayQ!!! I made sure that everyone got a chance to experience the joy of Power Tools!!!!

LOVE IT!! That was SSOOOooo much EASIER!!!! (Thank you G'pa!!!)
So here's the floor before Lanoleum
Nailing the Lanoleum down...I really liked the design I picked--I think it really brightened the place up! (G'ma loved it, so I'm happy about that:) ...and I am aware that there's a slight ripple in the middle....(huummmmmm...don't really know what to say bout that....I will probably use this picture in a lesson someday--talk about how sometimes there are ripples in life, or something weird like that?)
So here's the finished product!! The ripple isn't so obvious when 'stuff' is in there:)