A bowl we can both agree on

Lily has never been a big fan of the traditional bowl. She prefers to use a hat or sometimes a toy school bus to eat out of. Since our kitchen table was overtaken by our business long ago, we rarely eat breakfast at it, so it's easy for Lily to transfer her breakfast from the bowl or plate I've provided to a shoe or sometimes a little purse which she carries around eating out of at her convenience. We've finally been able to find an option we are both happy with... an ice cube tray. Please try not to judge my alternative parenting skills, especially if you ever happen to see Lily trying to eat rice. We hope to rectify the situation when we move (if that ever happens) and regain our kitchen table.

Autumn Leaves

Looking for some judges

I am looking for some volunteers who would like to judge this years Reflections Entries. If you are interested, you will be Judging the 3-D category, which includes things such as jewelry. It should be pretty easy & fun. The entries will be at my house Mid-October & you can come at your own convenience to judge them. I'm going to need 3 people to help with this. Please let me know if you are interested.

Caught being bad

Ella: I know what dad wants to be... a cop!
Me: That would be a fun Halloween costume for him.
Ella: No, not for Halloween, for real life.
Me: Dad wants to be a cop for real?
Ella: Yep, want me to tell you why?
Me: Why?
Ella: Just so he doesn't get caught being bad by the police.

the Zoo

Today we met the cousins & Nana for a fun afternoon at the Zoo.

Mini Golf

Ella loves to golf. Lucky for her, my mom and Trisha planned a fun outing where Ella and Cait got to invite a friend to come Miniature Golfing with them. Ella brought her cousin Katie, and Cait brought Jane. It looks like they had a lot of fun!

Benefits of building your own home

The picture above is our house. It's a paper model that Tyler built to scale (Please ignore the colors). From the time my sister Emily started building her house, this is what we've accomplished on ours. She's ready to move in to her house in just over a week, and we hope to have a loan by then. I'm trying to focus on the positive side to being the builder. It's difficult for me to do, I keep thinking about all the problems we had while we built our last house.
For example, the excavator we hired decided not to finish digging our hole. Tyler, his mom & dad, and I had to go out with shovels & finish digging the hole ourselves. Then there was the time when we rented a drill. The drill bit (if you can call it a bit) was slightly thicker than myself. Tyler tried to hold the powerful drill steady while I was supposed to jump on it in attempt to drill a very deep hole into our thick clay-like ground. That was really fun! Digging a 7 foot deep hole from our house to the street so we could connect to the sewer really wasn't my thing either. There was also the time when we spent over 24 hours to install ONE measly window in our basement. Seriously 24 hours for one window? I think we went through at least 5 framing crews until we finally found one who actually decided to frame our house rather than wasting all the wood we bought to build boxes & tables for themselves. Then there's all the swearing. Lots and lots of swearing and yelling. Sub-contractors don't like to be told what to do by "little teen aged kids". We weren't taken very seriously since we looked so young at the time & since we aren't licensed contractors. I could go on and on. I could probably write a book on all the things that went horribly wrong when we built our last house.
So why are we building a house ourselves again? That is an excellent question! You'll have to ask Tyler, because I have spent the last 3 years pleading with him to have a builder build our house for us.

I can however think of a major benefit to building the house ourselves. We can have all the upgrades we want for dirt cheap!

Check out this chandelier we purchased for $25. Tyler's dad who spent many years as an interior decorator thinks the retail price on this would be over $700. He's also the one who found this for us, Thanks D.J. We also found some fabulous flooring for $1.50 per square foot. When figuring out the price for lumber, we discovered that 10 foot ceilings are the same price as 8 foot ceilings. We can build our kitchen & bathroom cabinets for less than 1/2 the price of the cheapest cabinets at Loews. And the cabinets we are building are going to be very nice. Thanks to the internet we can get all the upgrades we want for fantastic prices. Basically we will be able to build our house with all the upgrades for the same prices as a much smaller home with no upgrades at all. So, If I start to get ornery as it comes time for me to haul big and heavy pieces of garbage to the dumpster each day... just remind me that it will be worth it in the end. Right? I think I still want a builder.

Oh... and we need your help on where we should put this Chandelier. Tyler thinks the Master Bath room above the tub would be cool, I agree, but maybe the dining room would be nice? Ella wants it in her room. What do you think? Vote to the Right.

Thanks to everyone

Last week was kind of crazy trying to fit in work & church & extra activities.

I have so many people to thank for their help.

Tyler's parents for watching my girls (on their Anniversary) so that Tyler and I could go to my cousin's baby sealing in the Salt Lake Temple. I've never been to one before, and it was very cool.

I have to thank Tyler for working extra hard & extra, EXTRA late last week so that I could meet my favorite Entrepreneur, Heather Bailey. I have to thank him again for watching the girls while working Extra late on Saturday as well, so I could go to our Saturday church activity.

I also need to thank Trisha and my mom for watching my girls while Tyler and I participated in a boutique.

And I want to thank O'scrap for inviting us to participate in the Scrapbook Expo at the last minute Free of Charge.

Thanks everyone!

Family Photos

Ella playing in the field.

Ryan playing with the little girls.

My mom, aunts, uncles & grandparents.

Grandma & Granddaughters.

Swiss Days

I had to take this picture before the kids got tired and whiny. See how happy they look?
What could be better than over sized scones, live yodeling, & handmade goods? I don't think the kids were too impressed with Swiss Days. But I had a good time.

Ella takes the bus

Ella didn't originally qualify to take the bus. Since our house is 1.47 miles away from the school, we lived .03 miles too close. We've been driving Ella to and from school, since we thought it was way too far for a Kindergartner to walk, especially since it's up a steep hill, and past tons of construction work. We applied to get Ella on the bus, and found out yesterday after school that Ella along with most of our other neighbors have finally been approved. YAY! Ella was pretty excited to walk to the bus stop this morning. Too bad she doesn't get to take it again for another month since this is her last day of school. She's off track for a while.

A Fancy Meal

pictured above: Ella putting cereal into a cup.

Ella: Mom, dad hasn't eaten breakfast or lunch today, so I'm going to make him breakfast just so he isn't late for the post office.
Me: That's nice of you.
Ella: I'm making him a fancy meal like they have a Crab Lobster (her way of saying Red Lobster).
They put food on the side of cups at that restaurant.

Pictured above: Tyler's fancy drink with a dried peach on the side.

When ever we take our kids to a nice restaraunt it's usally Red Lobster. We found that Ella freaks out at most nicer eating establishments, but tolerates Red Lobster quite well. We don't go there very often, usually once a year. Twice at the most. It's been a while since Ella has been with us. Tyler and I think it's funny that she noticed (and remembered) the lemon on the side of the drinks, as we always order water instead of soda, and our water does not come with a lemon on the side.

Outliers

Tonight I hosted our neighborhood book club. It was fun to get to know everyone, and discuss the book "Outliers". We all agreed that it was an interesting book to read, and although none of us agreed on every thing he discussed in this book, we felt there was a lot of truth to what he wrote about. So, if you are looking for an interesting read, I'd highly recommend this book. It's one of the most interesting books I've read in a long time (and I read a lot of books, as my kids are nocturnal.) Now that we are all finished reading it, there should be plenty of copies in the library system again.