Free Building Workshop at Lowe's

We discovered that our local Lowe's offers a free building workshop twice a month. The kids loved working on a fun project! They each made a ball toss, so now we have 4 of those and 12 balls all over the house.

Before and After

I wish we had taken "before" pictures of our home. Or maybe the term should be "between". As in, when the movers dumped everything all over our home, stirred it up with some giant spoon, and left us to figure out the mess. For example, I had the toys separated perfectly (I am an organizational nerd) and I guess that when they packed they dumped everything in a couple of large boxes. Little star wars lego pieces with all other dinosaurs, cars, large legos, wooden toys, strawberry shortcake... all mixed together, this time perhaps with a whisk. Why did I organize everything so meticulously BEFORE we moved? We had to do it all over again when they dumped. Talk about tornado rooms. I mean, we had the bookshelves assembled and where did they put the books? On the floor next to the shelves. Not neatly piled, but bent flaps and paperbacks. And we have a lot of books.

No more complaining. AFTER a lot of work this past week, we are moved in.

I like the built in shelves

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom

Bookshelves in the landing, one of my favorite areas of the house

Our stairs wrap around, so at most, this cutie pie could fall down 5 stairs...

The stairs and landing look over a large dining room/piano room.

And I love my happy poster.

Mamma's weekend visit

My mom came for the weekend. It was great to see her again (I know, it has only been a couple of weeks...)! Highlights of our weekend included:

*giving her a tour of our new home

*being dropped off in the middle of the desert so Bob and I could run 12 miles back home

*Macaroni Grill and Lowe's (yup, we know how to show off our city)

*lots of bike riding (Micah learned how!)

*sharing our new ward with her

*helping her feel better when she was sick

*playing Connect 4

*reading lots of books

before the 12 mile run (we won't show the after...)

Micah rides his two-wheeler!

Mmmm, donuts...

Watching the donuts being made

The donut "glaze"-fall

For our Family Home Evening activity and treat, we took the kids to the Krispy Kreme store/mini factory. It was a blast, and of course, very yummy! We loved picking out specialty donuts and watching the conveyer belt and the donut making process. The waterfall of glaze was a highlight!

Choices, choices...

You mean I can have some of these?!?!?

Oh yeah...

Mmmmm, donuts!!!

From Utah to Texas

We did have lots of fun times during our move. Here's a handful of pictures.

Barf Humbug and a Happy New Year

Note to self.

Do not attempt to move at Christmas time, do a "moving vacation", and above all try really, really, really hard to not have vomiting children during a move. Experiencing all three at the same time is too un-fun.

We had a great Christmas season, despite having barfing children. After New Years celebrations, we left Utah for a fun trip to Las Vegas. We wanted to visit temples along the way to Texas, and we thought we could do a kid-friendly version of Las Vegas. There are a lot of fun things to do there, but we had to play the "close your eyes until we get there" game. We cut our vacation short after Leslie sprained her ankle for the second time in a week, and when the kids started throwing up (again). We needed laundry facilities! We camped out in our empty rental home for a few days (but at least had a washer and dryer) and now we are in the chaos of unpacking and finding a place for everything, even if it is the dumpster or donation pile.

We enjoyed our first week at church, even though it seems like a very small chapel (6 rows of pews in the chapel). The people were super friendly and the peace that the gospel brings is constant. I love that.

Here is to a productive and un-vomiting week!

This is me, in my true form, being a dork. Enjoy.