Sassy Sue Hair bow Party

I hosted a great hair bow party on Thursday. Jessica Lafiso (maiden name Benson) was in town and so I hosted a party while she was up. Her company http://www.sassysueclips.com/ is based out of Utah so I was excited to be able to host a party here. Her bows are adorable and all made by hand. All the girls had a lot of fun getting all dolled up. Check out the website, it is a favorite of mine.

Our Big Project

We finally bit the bullet and purchased a nice camper. This would be camper number three for us and we are hoping we have better luck with this one. The other two have been old junkers but they got the job done. This one will be camping luxory so we are excited to get out and use it. . . too bad the weather is still not cooperating! Well, since we bought this we had a project on our hands. We had to make a gravel pad on the side of our house in order to park it. You may think this will be fairly simple. Think again...

First you must dig up all the grass that was already there. (not too bad for me since Scott got to take on this project while I was at work but I did hear about it all day and I am well aware that it wasn't fun) Next you cover the dirt with black tarp in order to prevent the weeds. This should be simple as well, but when you have a 7, 5 and 2 year old as your helpers and the wind is also there to assist you it doesn't make this an easy task. Note the shovels and toys that are laid across it. Apparently the ground is still a little frozen because I could not get the stakes to go in the ground in order to keep the tarp down. Grrrrr....

Scott finally arrived with a load of gravel in one of Dad's dump trucks. Hooray, we will just dump it and smooth it out, we are finally on the tail end of the project. (I forgot to take photo's of the dump truck stage, oops). Lacey on cell phone: hey Dad how do you get the bed of the dump truck to raise? Dad: Just pull up the red and black levers, make sure the p.t.o. is running, let off clutch. Lacey: shouting all instructions to Scott. Truck: no thanks, don't feel like lifting this much today. Dad: Sorry, maybe it is to heavy, better start shoveling. Scott and Lacey: Grrrr!

2 1/2 hours later Scott and Lacey still shoveling, truck bed barely lifting. Dad calls: Do you need me to send your mother in to help shovel? Scott & Lacey: Nah we are getting pretty close. 3 hours later, bed raises a little but gravel not falling out...sticking to the bed of the truck not wanting to go anyway. Logan shows up. Hooorraaayyy! some help. 30 more minutes is finally dumps. Logan calls Dad: Dad, please bring the tractor in, there is no way we are smoothing or shoveling anymore. It is not going to happen. Please Dad, please. Dad: I will be there soon. Lacey and Scott: collapse with relief. Did I mention it is 4 o'clock at this point, Scott works at 5, I have 150 Enrichment invitations to make and I am also babysitting Rachel's kids at 4:30. Oh, and I hadn't made it to Porters to pick up the paper for the invites yet. No stress! Dad finally comes and saves the day. His tractor and handy scraper hooked on the back made this several hour project only take a few minutes. Thank you Dad, we really appreciated it! The hard working boys showing what it takes to make a gravel pad. This all occurred last Saturday but my muscles are just recovering enough to be able to blog this. Ouch! all the fund we had!

DISNEYLAND

Our trip started out on an exciting note. For those of you who watch all the dance shows on t.v., if you look really close (under the t.v. on the left) you will see Zach from the t.v. show Dance Wars Bruno vs. Carrie Ann. Zach was on Bruno's team who won the show. He was my favorite dance mostly because I knew he was from Saratoga Springs where Kliss lives. We did talk to him also. He was really nice. That was just exciting for me... The real excitement began when we finally arrived at Disneyland. Luckily I have no horror stories to tell about our travels the trip was pretty laid back (I can say that now that a week has gone by) for the most part the kids were pretty good. I was really glad we brought Brigham too. Everyone said he would ruin the trip but he was actually pretty entertaining. See, here are the girls happy as can be getting a long. This was Ashtyn's Birthday so she was really having a good time. I only include this photo because we stood in line for 2 hours to get it. Mickey's house looks a lot smaller than it actually is. We thought the line wasn't very long but then we wound around all over the place in his house and stood there and stood there and stood there. We had invested too much time at this point so we stuck it out. We rode one more ride after this and then had to call it a day. We were all sick of waiting in lines. I am also very happy to have this photo. We were standing in line and they kept counting down the time until Goofy would have to leave. 3 minutes....we are 7 people behind...2 minutes about 5 people behind (darn those stinkin' autograph books) 1 minute...we made the last phote just barely. Thank heavens, the kids would have been really disappointed.

Disneyland

We wore the kids out every day. I have a picture of Brigham at the end of each day. He would just plop himself somewhere and lay down. Do you miss the days when you could pull that off? I felt like doing that several times throughout each day The girls will say their favorite ride was Splash Mountain. Brigham would tell you Space Blasters because it involved Buzz Lightyear and a gun. I couldn't get him to look at me, he was too busy shooting the targets. Lets just say when the ride was over he was not a happy camper. We also went to a dinner show called Mideaval Times. It was a lot of fun and very entertaining. The kids really enjoyed it too. They feed you while you are sitting around an arena (no utensils are used to eat) and you watch Knights joust and do tricks on their horses. I would love to go back and do it again. We also tried a Pirate dinner show. This one was not as good, but the kids got to participate in the show as Soldiers. They thought this was awesome and think they are stars now. We couldn't be in California and not hit Seaworld! Here is Shamu showin' his stuff. That was a lot of fun. The kids liked the Sea Lion and Otter shows the best. They were very funny. Nothing is better that to listen to your kids sit there and giggle. That made the trip for me.

Packing for Disneyland

I was packing for our Disneyland trip and walked away from the suitcase for literally two seconds. When I came back I found that Brigham was being a helper and had packed ALL of his clothes for me. He is not about packing lightly.... Here he is so proud of helping out. I hope he is a big helper in Disneyland too. I do not want a big hinderer. Good luck to us! We will be back March 21st and I will post all of our fun pictures.

What a Winter!

Now here is an Idaho Winter. It has been a long time since we have had one of these. This is a Winter the kids are going to look back on and say "remember when..." The first picture is of Scott's pickup after sitting outside all night. I took the shot after I had swept the snow off of it but I had to shovel a little path to get there. This is one of the days I wish I had four wheel drive. I opened the garage door and didn't think the Van would get me out of the drive way so since Scott had the day off I ended up taking his pickup whic his lame because I had to dig it out of the snow first. If I still had my Durango, I could have left right away and made it out of my drive way. This is a picture of our swing set. Notice the slide..The snow is right up to the top of it. There are no swings to be seen which makes me realize I probably should have taken them off and put them in the shed. The canopy is missing from one of them...bummer. Can you find our mailbox? We can hardly either thus the hate mail the mailman leaves. From the front it looks a lot better. I do believe ours is the best paved path now that we fear the mailman. This is the veiw from our sliding doors to go out on the patio...we won't be going out on the patio any time soon. This mound has made a nice spot for veggi trays and pop that I couldn't fit in the fridge for the super bowl party. I may miss it come summer. This shot is from my front door. Scott is standing in front of our stairs. It took us awhile to dig out of this one but I am proud to say you can now come and visit us. This particular pile of snow was donated from the roof. I am glad it isn't all still up there. There are a few roof collapses occuring here. Mostly in sheds, spud cellars etc. but knowing my luck it would be my house. Spring will be welcomed here any time. Scott did borrow Dad's four wheeler with the plow in front as of yesterday so I guess it can keep on snowing. At least I won't have to listen to Scott complain about shoveling anymore.

The new Van

I never thought I would ever get to that point...the day I would drive a mini van. I guess I have finally grown up because I am actually quite thrilled with my new ride. The convenience factor way outways the "cool" factor. This van has all the bells and whistles. Want the door open, sure I will press a button for you. Going to put the groceries in the trunk...that button again. I am becoming way too lazy. I feel picked on when I actually have to open a door. I shut the trunk physically the other day and Scott was all mad. . . I took the fun out of the whole experience I guess. I was just annoyed because he was being slow and it was cold outside. Normally I may have washed it before taking pictures, but who washed their vehicle when the weather sucks? Here is an inside view. Scott and I installed the center console ourselves...I hunted down a bargain deal online and so now I have somewhere to stash all my junk. It has the stown and go seating so we have one of the seats that we aren't using put away neatly in the floor. The only thing I do miss is the four wheel drive. Maybe I am not giving it enough credit but I am afraid to pull into driveways with snow. Kliss you will have to give me more confidence and tell me some of your off road experiences. Next time you need a carpool, just give me a call! This van can handle it!