Day 58 (2/27/11) - Birthday Treats

Tonight we had a committee meeting for our Stake Women's Conference, but it was also our 2nd counselor in the Stake Relief Society's birthday. Nothing worse than a meeting on your birthday. So I made mini lemon bundt cakes with a little glaze and put some strawberry fans on top. Lemon and strawberry just seem to go well together!

Day 57 (2/26/11) New switches

Matt spent many hours on Saturday afternoon switching from the old fashioned beige outlets and plates to white. They look so much nicer now. The one thing I learned from all of this? I could never be Amish. So hard to find things to do without electricity!

Day 56 (2/25/11) - Hmmm.....

Look what's still sitting out after a week. Although I can't say much because look what else is still sitting out:

Oh yes, that's right. Our dining room table is full of stuff I need for the Stake Women's Conference coming up. I have a 5 minute talk to write and a 50 minute talk to write. When did I become a procrastinator? Ugh.

Day 55 (2/24/11) - Migraine

This is how I would describe a migraine, although that bright light should be more piercing and the edges should be more hazy. I don't get them frequently, but when I do, it's just a couple of hours of my life that I will never get back. Plus the next day, I feel completely wiped out. This one was especially crazy because after it left, I had a bad headache for two days to follow. Bleh.

Day 54 (2/23/11) - Sunshine Family

My parents are painting the bedroom closets in their house and decided to get rid of a few things. My mom asked me what I wanted to keep and for the most part I am happy to get rid of anything and everything. For some reason though, the Sunshine Family holds a special place in my heart. I had just been talking about those toys a couple of weeks ago and one of my kids described them as "the hippie family". That may be true, but I love them just the same. Kendall was thrilled to see them in our house and has been playing with them ever since.

Day 52 (2/21/11) - Pink Jasmine

This is what greets me when I open the front door. Pink jasmine. When it is in full bloom like this, it makes me happy. It is not only beautiful, but it smells WONDERFUL!

Day 51 (2/20/11) - Chocolate covered cinnamon bears and gummi bears

Another thing we learned from Shannon....you can make your own chocolate covered cinnamon bears. The recipe calls for good chocolate chips so I bought Guittard. I may never go back to Nestle again! Messy, but yummy.

Day 50 (2/19/11) - Cafe Rio!!

This picture was taken with my cell phone which is not the best for photos....or anything else for that matter. Matt had other plans for Saturday night so we decided to go to dinner to one of his least favorite places, Cafe Rio. We LOVE it! My card was filled up, so we got a free meal, plus Kendall always gets a kid's quesadilla which is free with our meals. What a bargain!

Day 49 (2/18/11) - Movie and Popcorn Night

Friday nights are great nights for a family movie and Matt's favorite - theater style popcorn. I just wish he had picked a smaller size. Oh, that and I also wish it would get cleaned and put away from time to time.

Day 48 (2/17/11) - Open House

Tonight was Huntington Seacliff's Open House. Kendall looks a little bit like a homeless child her. You would think at least we could brush her hair before going out. She is into doing her own hair these days, which I applaud, but I would applaud louder if she would take it upon herself to brush it.

Here is Kendall with her teacher, Ms. Baker.

Day 47 (2/16/11) - We ♥ Shannon

I just came across the most amazing blog. This woman is a super-scriptorian. She keeps amazing journals of her thoughts and things she learns in the scriptures. She shares a lot of other information as well. While scrolling through her blog, I decided there is nothing she can't do. She is everything I would like to be, but am not....yet. Matt tried to make me feel better by saying she doesn't have kids yet and that's why she has time for all of this. I think she is giving me some great ideas and actually just a push to start being that kind of person. Oh...her husband can do it all too. They are a super couple. At one point in the blog, he was painting a wall and painted "I ♥ Shannon" on the wall. So today while Maelen and I were painting, she decided to paint that on the wall as well.

BTW - I love my painting time with my girl. We chat, joke and listen to music. She asked if it was ok to listen to Yaz. Really? I think a tear just trickled down my cheek. I raised her well.

Day 46 (2/15/11) - Paint-o-rama Continues

So today's job was to tape all the trim so I don't paint the carpet. Knowing me, that won't stop me. This is the front entry wall with color! It is taking some getting used to, but I think I like it.

Day 45 (2/14/11) - My Truck

The thing I hate about rental cars is that they always only have one random thing left on the lot. Can I just say my kids were thrilled when I came home with this truck? Me....not so much. I have been trying every day since to trade it in for something else, but to no avail. Everytime I go in or call, all they have is some big huge 4x4 truck, mammoth SUV's or a cadillac. I just want something affordable, that gets good gas mileage and can fit in the garage. Is that so wrong?

Oh and it was Valentine's Day. We already had a party with my extended family, but we had to do something for our little family too. Dinner was lasagna and heart shaped breadsticks.

Day 44 (2/13/11) - Scene It

As much as I hated, kicked, screamed, whined, moaned and murmurred about X-box, it's days like this that I think it might not be so bad. After playing Scene It for X-box in Utah, Matt decided we needed this game. So not only are my kids having fun playing in this picture, but they are all getting along. Very rare. Much needed. I love that Kendall doesn't know most of what they are talking about, but she still wants to play.

Day 43 (2/12/11) - Couch Covers

I really am unsure what we were thinking when we were just starting our family and bought couches that were blue and WHITE striped. Huh? Yes, they were cute and yes we got a good deal, but man do they get dirty easily. At some point, they stop being stain resistant as well. I really do not want to spend the money on new couches, especially if we don't plan on living here forever, so I found a deal on slipcovers. I was really worried about them looking like slipcovers, but these ones are not so bad. They are two piece so they look a little more couchy instead of slipcovery. They will look much better once the room is painted.

Day 42 (2/11/11) - Not a Great Day : (

Today started out good. Matt had the day off and we went to Home Depot to buy paint for our paint fest we have planned (living room, dining room, front entry way, which leads into the hallway upstairs). We did some prep work and then Maelen helped Matt paint while I went to lunch with some girls in the ward. When I came home, Maelen needed to get to a babysitting job. I kept thinking I should take her, but I told her to just take my car. Why don't I listen to promptings? While I was sitting and waiting for Jared to get out of school, Matt called and said Maelen had been in an accident. It was bad enough that the airbag deployed and possibly broke her thumb. She had hit the accelerator instead of the brake and ran right into a brick wall. The people she was babysitting for had to get to the temple for a family members sealing, so she was stuck there feeling miserable. We ran over to get the car taken care of (towed to repair shop since it was undriveable) and I went in to make sure she was ok. Her thumb looked horrible so I called to get her in to the doctor if at all possible on a late Friday afternoon. The receptionist was so sweet and squeezed her into the schedule so she wouldn't have to be in pain all weekend. My wonderful parents saved the day too. My mom stayed with the kids while my dad took us to the appointment. It turned out to be a sprain along with some scrapes and burns from the airbag. She also had a seat belt burn on her chest. But I feel she was really lucky to get by with just that. The car wasn't as lucky. $6,000 of damage and 3 weeks later, it will be back to normal and back in our garage.

Day 41 (2/10/11) - More from Wood Connection...

Remember how I NEEDED the countdown blocks? So I think I needed these birthday blocks as well. We are big into birthday decor...everything down to the pillow case. I love these metal pieces at Wood Connection and the sanded wood blocks are about $1 each. No birthdays around here until June, but we will be ready and waiting with our birthday blocks and our countdown!

Day 40 (2/9/11) - Metal Railings

So since we are not able to afford replacing the metal railing, it was time to paint it. It was originally black and then my in-laws had it painted off-whitesh. Well several years took their toll and they were getting a little chipped, so it was time to paint. I had in my mind what I wanted, but was having a hard time finding it. My amazing brother-in-law, Brett, is my guru when it comes to home improvement. I think he knows it all. If he doesn't, then it is something that doesn't need to be known. The end. He told me to use an oil based paint on metal. Apparently that is not so easy to find these days, but I did come across a Rustoleum product that would give me the bronzy look I was dreaming of. First off, it required a major amount of prep work. Secondly, true oil-based paint is of the devil. It is the hardest thing I have E-V-E-R worked with and made me want to cry several times during the extremely looooooong process. All in all though, the outcome was pretty cool. I like the look and got a kind of hammered, faux texture look without doing the whole faux process. Yeah for Brett and yeah for Rustoleum. (oh and p.s. the picture at top is the new color and the bottom picture is the 'before' shot.)

Day 39 (2/8/11) - Visiting Teaching Conference

Ahh the joys of attending a visiting teaching conference instead of having to put one on. It was fun to actually listen to the talks prepared. We have found the formula that works with our ward. We have four mini-lessons on visiting teaching and then another station for visiting teaching interviews. The new RS President apparently liked this and continued on. The theme was "A great many things can be resolved with kindness, even more with laughter, but there are some things that just require cake." So the classes were kindness, laughter, cake and frosting. So cute. The wonderfully talented Nora Koch taught the kindness class and had all sorts of glass bottles and plastic bottles with flowers on her table. We each got to pick one to take home.

Day 38 (2/7/11) Gift Boxes

Kendall found this great idea in The Friend magazine. You take a little cereal box and cover with scrapbook paper and then tie some ribbon on as a handle. We hung these on our doors and then people can leave little treats or notes in the boxes. We had so much fun doing this and I even received a coupon from my honey for a dinner and a movie night! Yippee!

Day 37 (2/6/11) Ugghhh!

So no judging here. A day without a picture is like a day without sunshine. Since I spent the bulk of my day at church and at church meetings, no pictures. Wah.

Day 36 (2/5/11) - Countdown

One thing I always and I mean ALWAYS do with Mother-in-law is to go to Wood Connection when we are in Utah. Whenever we go, we find darling new projects and the funny thing is she tells me, "Oh Chrissy, you NEED this." Well how can I argue that? Unfortunately this time she had just had foot surgery and had to wait in the car. I am pretty sure if she had gone in, she would have told me that I NEEDED these countdown blocks. Right? Who wouldn't need them? So I hurried and finished them in time to count down the days until Valentine's Day!

Day 35 (2/4/11) - Waffle Cones

Santa was kind enough to bring us a waffle cone maker. We gave the machine a test run tonight and I have to say they turned out pretty well.

Day 34 (2/3/11) - I ♥ my Crock Pot

Yummmm. Crock pots are the best invention ever. Tonight's soup was Tomato Basil Parmesan. Even Jared liked it and he is not big on tomatoes.

Day 33 (2/2/11) - Hearts!

Maelen found this piece of waffle that was heart-shaped. She is always the one to find cute things to make people happy.

Day 32 (2/1/11) - Sick Day?

Not really sure if Jared is actually sick or if he just missed his X-box. This was a good day to miss though because the second semester just started. I guess he deserves a day off after getting straight A's again. Funny thing is that he asked me to contact his math teacher to see if we could pick up his homework worksheet. The rest he said he could get from friends. His teacher was kind enough to e-mail it to us so he won't be further behind tomorrow. I guess that leaves more time for....you guessed it, X-box.

Day 31 (1/31/11) Finished!

Finally! It is finished! After weeks of cutting out, piecing, quilting and finally binding, the quilt is finally finished. The jury is still out on whether I love it as much as I thought I would.

Day 30 (1/30/11) - Looooonnnnng Day

After a ward conference and three other Sunday meetings, I arrived home at 10:45 p.m. feeling exhausted. My kind hubby made me some hot chocolate which sounded so good since it had been raining and cold all day. Unfortunately, I promptly spilled it all over my lap which is why you don't have food and drinks on the couch. Oh, also, hot drinks spilled on your legs can tend to be a little painful.

Day 29 (1/29/11) - Native American Report

Kendall and I worked on this for quite a while on Saturday. She didn't quite have all the information ready, which made it last a little longer. I was just grateful not to be doing a sugar cube mission or building a replica hut. All in all, this was an easy project, but even the easy ones take time. At least it is time well spent with my cute little girl.

Day 28 (1/28/11) - Boy Scout Campout

Campout weekend! This month was supposed to be the Klondike Derby but it was cancelled. The boys were still determined to camp in the snow, so they headed up near Big Bear. Unfortunately there was still no snow. However, I guess that is better than last year when they had sleet the whole time, their tent leaked, etc. Jared's sleeping bag came home weighing an extra 50 pounds from how much water it was holding! I have to give a shout out to Matt Jones, their fearless Scoutmaster and Baker Morphy, their Deacon's Quorum Advisor, for putting up with these boys and keeping them busy doing good things.