The dress.

Score!
Found this lovey beauty of a dress on clearance at Dillard's for $24.99.
I think she looks fabulous! Not that I am biased or anything like that......

Bananas.

Before.

After. Yes it was a yummy as it looks. (I put two loaves in the freezer, so someone better come to my house and help me eat this problem.)

Activity Days

Lip Gloss. (homemade)

Feather woven into the hair.

I am wondering what exactly its going to take for Lauren's activity day leaders to believe that I am a 10 year old girl eligible to come to activity days. Seriously. They do the coolest stuff.

I WANT TO PLAY TOO!

Last week Lauren came home sporting a feather woven into her hair, and they made homemade lip gloss. The theme was grooming, and learning how to take care of yourself.

Sometimes being an adult sucks. (Ok, well at least they sent the lip gloss recipe home, so if lip gloss mysteriously arrives on your door, you know I have been playing......)

My new cleaning lady.

She does sinks.

She does toilets.

She does not complain.

As I mentioned last week, I am a busy person. I have lots of demands on my time. I hired a chef, and now I have a new cleaning lady. Although she is a little young, she is always willing to help, and with supervision she is actually pretty good.

The compensation is the best part. She is willing to work for sugar. Any sugar will do, whether its in the candy form, cookie form or ice cream form.

Now if I could find a child willing to do laundry......

Needing some imput....

4-H grand champion clothing construction, August 1985.

First place, Humorous Interpretation, National Forensic League, April 1986, (Qualified me for the national tournament)

4-H grand champion fashion review, August 1984

In high school I was know to have a trophy or two, between speech and debate competitions, and 4-H. I have long since parted with all my trophies but three. I am now trying to decided what to do with the remaining three.

Recently I have been working on down sizing my life. I have been sorting and cleaning like no-ones business. I want to live with less stuff. I want to manage the stuff in my life and not let stuff manage me. I want to live a more simple life. I want to focus on the moments, the memories, not the stuff.

So in the process of cleaning I came across these three trophies. They have been in a storage room in my basement, basically collecting dust, and over the course of 20 some years have become broken and scratched.

Of course in high school I had them prominently displayed in my bedroom, and was quite proud of my accomplishments. But since then I have gone on to do all sorts of other things, and while I am still proud of my accomplishment, it does not define me as it did in high school.

So what the heck do I do with these trophies????!!!!!

Clearly its not something I use. Clearly its not something I show off. But they do represent a memory, a memory whose value is primarily to me.

So I am asking you, what do you think I should do? The way I see it I have several choices, although I am open to any other ideas that anyone else may have....Here they are:

1. Throw the trophies away.
2. Keep the trophies in the storage room in the basement, waiting someday for my kids to throw them away.
3. Throw the trophies away, but use the picture to write a story about each trophy and the memory associated with it.
4. Give the trophy to the Deseret Industries, and let some other person re-purpose the trophy and wonder about the story behind the trophy.

What say you?

Fingers

Fingers are good for a few things....including puppets.
How many can she get on?

Oh, yeah Mark needed to be involved too.

A personal chef.

I am a busy woman. I really dislike having to cook and fix food. I decided to employ the services of a personal chef. (We are still negotiating compensation.)

Here is the breakfast and lunch menu choices.
Of course, drinks, and the sides. This chef is a little particular and temperamental. She refuses to make desserts. I am on my own for treats.

Meet my chef!

This is the first meal I ordered. A lunch of peanut butter toast. Complete with a floral garnish. I am so stinkin spoiled!

The fort.

The Fort.

Ingredients: Chairs, blankets, couch cushions, and pillows

Directions: Arrange chairs in a circle, place blankets over the top of the chairs. Carefully arrange couch cushions, and pillows on the bottom. Invite friends and siblings.

Don't forget the snacks!

True Colors

The end of summer always brings new crayons with the start of school. Well I decided the start of summer should bring new crayons. So Lauren, Mark and Katie all got a new tray of crayons for the summer. I do have to admit it was an obscene amount of money to buy three separate trays of crayons, but I weighed that against all the disputes I would have to mediate, and decided the price of my sanity was exactly $14.99 per tray. And trust me at that price the tray contains EVERY color made by Crayola.

This is my favorite, purple mountains majesty. Every once in a while I can swipe it out of someones tray and fulfil my own coloring fantasy.

It has inspired all sorts of creativity. This is a mask Lauren made.

These are Katie's self made scriptures, stapled together of course.

One side effect I didn't anticipate, the amount of letters I would receive. And of course the funnest part of the letter is putting in the envelope and sealing the envelope.

On to Staples, I need more envelopes.....

Butterflies.

One of the gift the kids got for Christmas was a butterfly garden. However because it was December it was a gift that had to wait for summer and warmer weather. Recently Rick sent away for the caterpillars and helped get them going upon arrival.

They formed chrysalides

The kids loved watching them hatch. I thought it was a bit disgusting. They had this red fluid that got everywhere during that hatching process.

Finally they all hatched. We are keeping them in the butterfly garden for a few days and anticipate setting them free this weekend.

More summer fun.

On Monday night I decided to let the kids choose what to do for Family Home Evening. On the top of their list, a trip to Toys r Us to ogle toys. (I did specifically tell them I would NOT be purchasing anything, and I stuck to that!) We spent about an hour, and let me tell you after an hour of three children simultaneously wanted me to see their "favorite" toys, and being upset and demanding when I was paying attention to another child, I felt as if my head was going to explode. Now I am good a multi-tasking, but this outing pushed me to the limit of my sanity.
Katie fancies herself a race car driver. She would have really liked for me to bring this home. I don't quite think the neighborhood is ready for Katie on wheels. I am not ready for Kaite on wheels.

After Toy r Us, it was on to Sonic for yummy ice cream Sundays.

We were all quite the sticky mess after.....

I skipped the ice cream Sunday, after the Toys r Us experience I needed 44 oz of a cold diet coke...Yes!

After a brief break....

Last week was CRAZY. Hence my brief break from blogging. It started out on Tuesday with one secretary on vacation, and 43 cases to be scheduled for following week. Which normally is not a big deal, that is unless the copy machine is broken for two days. It threw off my entire weekly schedule.

Next it was DANCE. On Tuesday night the girls had company showcase, which was the last dance performance of the year, and after helping the girls through six costume changes and trying to entertain Mark who would basically rather do anything than have to suffer through a dance performance, it left me feeling as if I had just completed an Iron Man competition.

Oh, but dance was not over on Tuesday, it continued on to Wednesday. Wednesday began two days of summer intensive, which is where the girls are at the dance studio for the good part of the day, learning their dances for company try outs. Summer intensive consumed us on Wednesday and Thursday. Laure then had try outs for ballroom dance late Thursday afternoon, with Katie having jazz tryouts Friday morning, and Lauren having Jazz and Hip Hop try outs Friday afternoon.

We concluded the week Saturday with an end of the year pool party with all our dance friends.

Did I mention that Lauren also had an activity for Activity Days that required me to drive her up to Hobble Creek canyon on Wednesday late afternoon?

In spite of the craziness, we decided to ring in summer by breaking out the kiddie pool. Mark and Katie thought it was just grand. So from Wednesday to Friday every chance they could get they stripped off their play clothes and put on their swim suits.

They were in and out of this pool ALL day long. (And we have the sunburn to prove it)

On Friday we went across the street to a real pool.

Yes it was a crazy week, but it was a good week!

The drums....

First it was the air guitar in the grocery store, while singing "my butt is on fire."

Now it is the drums with chopsticks and stools.

And of course singing at the top of her lungs.

At least drums with chopsticks on the stools is a LOT quieter than the real drums.

Green Belt

Mark earned a new belt in karate!

Showing off his punches.
Showing off his kicks.

Grabbing that new belt.

Group photo.

Oh, yeah he is proud!

S'mores

What's a better summer time treat than a S'more?

Our trick to making them is using our gas stove top.
Quick, easy, and fun.

But the real fun is eating them.