Boys Room

I think many moons ago I mentioned I was working on a big project. Well, as often happens with big projects....I lost steam. I got one quilt finished and the other three quilt tops sat on my sewing table waiting for me to get a Round Tuit. Well, I decided to give myself some rules. I have a few friends having babies soon that I want to make stuff for. I am also into some good books (culinary mysteries - right up my alley!) and have been spending every free moment reading them... So I told myself no more trips to the library until all three quilts are done. Also, no new baby projects until they are done. Sooooooo. The last three days have been spent at my sewing machine, and here they are!!!!

guest/stuffed animal bed

Payton's bed

Kegan's bed

Zander's bed

And the color coordinated closet.

We built this into the room and boy is it great! It's been done for several months and the organization is working out wonderfully. I did have to straighten the shoes for the picture, but generally, it stays this neat. I still want to do some pillow shams for each bed and I'd like some curtains instead of the ugly blinds....but all in good time. See what happens when you give yourself the proper motivation?

Somewhere Over the Rainbow!

My niece had a Wizard of Oz birthday party. So here is her cake! Complete with rainbow, ruby slippers, yellow brick road, shrivled up witches legs, poppies and lollipops. Oh, and I had a moment of genius when I was picking up the foam core board for the cake plate. What if I glued scrapbook paper on it to make it prettier? And lo and behold, they had some that was blue gingham! (The pattern on Dorothy's dress). Too perfect!

Some darling child stuck his fingers in it before I got a picture. GRRRRR!!!! Considering it takes much yelling and shooing away of my kids to keep cakes perfect before delivery, I was very frustrated when some other kid got to it. But it still looked great and tasted great, so all was well in the end.

Awwww! and AHHHHH!!!!!

Awwww! moment:

So a few weeks ago the kids and I were at the dentist getting our biannual teeth cleaning. Kiara came out in tears. "I have two cavities mom! I knew I should have brushed my teeth when you told me to instead of playing around." I wisely refrained from the I told you so and just comforted her. Well today was the day for the fillings. She has been worrying about this ever since. Payton also had some cavities, but he could care less. So on the way to the dentist this morning Kiara (who was quite pale) asked me to turn off the radio. "Why?" I asked. Well, she wanted to say a prayer! What a sweet girl! She went back quite calmly and did wonderfully. She was only slightly shaky when she came out declaring that it was only like a small pinch and she shouldn't have worried about it!

AHHHHHH!!!! moment:

At the dentist I decided to read a parenting magazine after I read the newspaper and caught up on all the Lincoln County shootings and accidents (my home town dominated headlines today). Well, one article caught my eye. It was about talking to your kids about puberty. I skimmed the article thinking "glad this is not eminant in our house yet, but it'll be good to see what it says." Well, it gave an age range of when different things start happening. Ages 9-15. "Hmmm." I thought. "Nine seems a bit early, but ok, whatever." It wasn't until in the car on the way home when Kiara reminded me that we need to plan her birthday party that it hit me. You see, this would be her NINTH birthday. AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

When is it time?

Parenting is full of questions. When is it time to __________? is a common one. One I am once again contemplating is "When is it time to end naptime?" For every child it has happened at a different age, but I do have an answer that is universal.... When it takes more than 5 minutes to clean up the mess they made in their room while they were supposed to be sleeping....

For example. If they empty all their drawers and sort their clothes into piles by color, that's a quick clean up. If they convert their bed to a slide (move the mattress half off.) That is a fairly quick clean up. If they found a crayon and very artistically decorated the walls/dresser, that a quick clean up, (if you have a magic eraser, and they are magic). If they line up 100 or so diapers into a train, that's a quick clean up. With these examples you must continue to insist on nap time. For everyone's sanity!!!!

However, anything requiring you to get out your carpet steam cleaner and clean the ENTIRE carpet (a spot clean would be different). Well, perhaps nap time is no longer worth the battle.....

Anniversary Trip

So for our tenth anniversary this year we took a trip. Paul got to ride the STP (Seattle to Portland) bike race. Well, bike ride, I guess for him. I sat in the motel with a stack of books to read and movies to watch on cable. I mostly read. I met him at the finish line. Then the next day we played around Portland. We ate at a really good restaurant called Papa Haydn's. It was yummy. When you walk in they ask if you are there for dinner or dessert. Heh. ;)(I researched it before hand.) We had both. Dinner was good. The menu is one page - double sided - just paper. The DESSERT menu is leather bound and two pages, with an extra page of seasonal specials. Oh HEAVEN!!! Paul got a fallen chocolate soufle and I got something I can't remember the name of, but it was 3 or 4 layers of meringue that had whipped cream and assorted berries in the layers and it was all drizzled with chocolate. I will be trying to replicate that sometime for sure!

100 miles into the ride.

175 mile into the ride

Just before the finish line - 200 miles

THE END of the ride!

The last day before driving home we drove out to the coast in Newport and went to the Aquarium there. It was quite large and they had tons of sea life. I got to pet a shark, sting ray, star fish, anenome and some other stuff. Paul did touch one thing, but it took some coaxing. And reasurring that they had hand sanitzer available. Heh. We then drove up the coast to Tillamook and saw them make (well, package really) cheese. And sample the cheese, fudge and ice cream. I have always love Tillamook ice cream, but WOW it was so much better there. I don't know if its a different recipe or if it was just fresh, but YUMMMM! I got the Caramel Butter Pecan, if you're interested...

Kegan loves all sea life due to Grandpa Thueson and of course Sponge Bob. So we took tons of pictures for him. We had to include the Jellyfish thanks to Sponge Bob...One kid asked his mom is he could bounce on the tops....thanks Finding Nemo!

the shark and sting ray tank

That's pretty much it, but we had a great time and it was good to come home to the kids. They had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Kilie and Uncle Brad and clan. Thanks for all their help!

Arrington Reunion at Bear Lake

We had an extended family reunion at Bear Lake with Paul's family. There were about 60 people and we only missed 1 husband who had to work and 1 mother and newborn baby. We had a ton of fun catching up and playing on the beach. Everyday was a different holiday. We had Halloween and Thanksgiving (complete with the tradition meal) and Christmas. (We had Paul's BBQ pork instead of another turkey/ham dinner.) We made a Christmas video of a Christmas story from one of Paul's ancestors which I had a role in...not my favorite thing being in front of the camera....I much prefer being behind it!

Normally pictures of me do not end up on my blog, but today is an exception I guess....
Bear Lake is famous for its raspberries....which happen to be my favorite berry...so we snuck off one night to get famous raspberry shakes. They were delicious. There were two fast food places across the street from each other. One had Famous Raspberry Shakes and the other had "Famous" Raspberry shakes. We had the Famous ones and some other cousins got the "Famous" ones. The ones with quotation marks were MUCH better. Weird.

We stayed at a HUGE lodge with 15 bedrooms. We got two of them, one with a king size bed and one with two bunk beds. The bunk beds were very tall, I had to stand on my tip toes and raise my arms to get this picture. Sleeping was rare on this trip.

A Halloween pinata instead of trick or treating....

Beach time!

Sleep time!

I wish I had a picture of everyone, but they haven't been sent out yet, so I'll have to share later.

Zander's B-Day

Today is the day I catch up on blogging. So a month + ago was Zander's 2nd birthday. His favorite things at the time were trucks so that is what he got for his cake. A Truck! He was so excited for his " 'ruck cake."

A fun time was had by all.