A Sink Bath

We have had so much fun this week watching Little Warrior while his parents are in Florida! He is such a sweet, happy boy and he really hasn't been much trouble at all, except that when he eats anything, he manages to smear it in his hair and on his clothes.

That made daily baths a necessity and my favorite are when we put him in the utility sink in the kitchen.

So yesterday, I pulled him out of the high chair and got him ready to wash up. As I was running the water, it became evident that Twizlet wanted to have a bath as well. It's a good thing we have a big sink!

They had so much fun splashing and pouring water on Scout, it made me wish I had tiny ones again.

Stay Off the Sidewalks!

Remember I told you earlier this week that Sport turned 15? Well, on Monday we drove over to the DMV and he passed his driving test the first time! Way to go, Sport.

Then on Tuesday, we took Baby Doll to orthopedics to see if she would have to have surgery, but the answer was still "No!" and she got this lovely orange cast. It is already filled with signatures and I wish I could tell you she is out of pain, but as you can imagine, she is still hurting.

No surgery!

 Maybe because when she went in Tuesday they discovered another break near the first one in her upper bone on one of her lower bones. She is a very brave girl.

Guest Blogger: The Manti Trip by the Dog Walker

It's been recent that I guest blogged for all of you, especially blogging about Cat Lover's missing wedding ring. Well, she wanted me to talk about a fun trip that she and I went to over the weekend. As many of you might expect, we took a one night trip down to Sanpete County to go see the most exciting event that has been a legacy for my side of the family. 

I'm pretty sure that my Mom told you all about the Mormon Miracle Pageant and how it's been a fun event to attend. Cat Lover told me that she only went to see it once in her life. And I thought with requesting a weekend off from work, I would take her down to Manti to go see the pageant. We drove all the way down to Sanpete County after we finished packing for a one night sleep at my grandpa's old home in Ephraim. We did a first stop at the Terrel's grocery store in Mt. Pleasant. We always like to eat their doughnuts, especially with the ones that are shaped like a foot. Unfortunately, the doughnuts at Terrel's were all sold out! It's sad, because my Mom was hoping that I bring her home one of the apple fritters. Instead, we bought the different kinds of cookies that were still on display at the Terrel's bakery. I guess Terrel's doughnuts are popular on Saturdays down in Mt. Pleasant.

When we got hungry, we stopped at my aunt's entrepreneur-made restaurant called Dairy Freeze. It's like Dairy Queen, but this time, they serve bishop shakes in cups with a lot of different options of flavors for shakes. When Cat Lover and I ordered the shakes and they were brought to us, she tried it and she thought in her opinion that they're way better than the shakes at Sonic (no offense to the people working at Sonic).

After we made it to the old house in Ephraim and set up our stuff to spend the night, we just thought that we didn't have anything to eat for breakfast, so we stopped by a Walmart nearby in Ephraim to buy some cereals that we an eat for breakfast before we go home. When it was finally time, we drove all the way to Manti, which was only a ten minute drive from Ephraim. It was quite packed with a lot of people going into the Temple ground to settle down to watch the entertainment. We waited for a long time until it was dusk and that's when the Pageant started.

During the performance, Cat Lover and I were always lip-sing the scriptural messages that were being performed in the Pageant. It was because we have been studying the scriptures and we always do, so that we can build a testimony in our lives of what we believe in. Right after the Pageant was over, Cat Lover just told me that she enjoyed it and shared me a kiss of love and gratitude for bringing her to the event. We carefully went through the traffic back to Ephraim to spend the night and then depart home by morning. We both had fun down in Manti, just the two of us. But we both felt like we wished our families would've been there to see it, since it was the last performance of the year. I'm hoping by next year, we can convince our families to come with us to see it. I hope you enjoyed this story about our second mini honeymoon.

Field Trip! Visiting Camp Hinckley

Last Friday Bossy needed us to run to Camp Hinckley and pick up Taco for his baseball tournament. I think I told you already that he made the All Stars team and he had to be back on Friday or he wouldn't be able to play. Since Bossy and Gamer both had to work, we braved the High Uintahs to bring him home.

Curly need a day trip to finish his Bear for Cub Scouts, so we decided to make a day of it and enjoy some of the sites. We piled into my car at about 7:30 in the morning with the 3 youngest. It was a long trip and Crafty and Sport had homework, so they stayed behind.

Our first real mountain stop was this beautiful set of waterfalls. We took a small hike and enjoyed the slight spray and the dull roar of the falls before climbing back up to the car. Our next stop was Mirror Lake. Since Curly had to do a hike, it seemed like the perfect place. They had a nice trail that ran all around the lake and it was relatively flat and even.

The only problem was that they were cutting down trees and every few minutes we could hear "Timber!" ringing out through the magic of the clear lake. There were lots of people fishing and a few just hiking like us. When we finally made it all the way around, we got trapped at the edge of the parking lot while they felled another tree. It was fun to watch, but it messed up our timing a bit and we had to hurry to make it the rest of the way to the camp.

Then we had to actually find Taco, which proved to be much harder than you would think. We got back to home just in time to drop the girls at Day Comp... but that's a tale for another day.

The Mystery of the Missing Glasses

Curly and Scout started a soccer camp this week that I will tell you a little more about in the next few days, but I just couldn't wait to share this one.

They arrived a bit early with Drama Queen since it was the first day and they had to wait to be signed in. So they sat down on the grass to apply sunscreen. Scout took off her glasses and laid them on the grass beside her while she did her face.

Unfortunately, she forgot to pick them up again.

The campers were called over to begin their new soccer training. About the time the gigantic lawnmower headed that way and passed on through, she remembered her glasses. She and Curly spent part of their lunch hour looking for them with no success.

When we arrived, she mentioned something about them, but didn't seem quite sure of her story, so I was hopeful she had left them home or in Drama Queen's truck. Later, when it became obvious that she had not left them home, we loaded up six of us and headed back to the park to scour the area.

Scout was the first to spot a single lens tucked into the newly mowed grass and it just got worse from there. Have you ever seen what a pair of glasses look like after they have been hit with one of those park mowers? These are the pieces we could find...

Mystery solved.

Happy Birthday, Sport!

It's Sunday and you know what that means... another birthday party! Sport turned 15 on Saturday and we celebrated with the family today. It actually started on Friday when Sport requested tamales for his birthday dinner. Now this is not normally a request I would even consider, but Bossy got wind of it and decided that she and Gamer could make this happen.

My sweetie funded the venture by buying all the ingredients and the crockpots full of pork were set to cook by Friday afternoon. On Saturday night, Bossy invited over a bunch of her siblings to help make the maseca and do the rolling.

Then after church today we had to put the pots on to steam for a few hours. Honestly, it was way too much work for me, but Sport is definitely worth it! He is a good kid and an amazing student. We have had fun shopping together buying school clothes and spending some of his hard-earned money on other things. I'm pretty sure I told you he made a nice little pile of cash as an umpire this year for the youth baseball leagues.

On Monday we are supposed to go up to the DMV to get his permit so he can learn to drive. I'm just not sure how he grew up so fast.

Field Trip! Firefighter's Museum

Did I tell you Bossy is going to full time work starting next week? We decided it might be fun to do a few little things this week while she still had a couple of days off. Curly was also after me to earn a few more cub scout patches, so we loaded the kids in the car and drove out to Tooele for a trip through the Firefighter's Museum.

It isn't open on Thursdays, so Bossy made special arrangements for us and we were the only ones in the museum. The problem was that it was so hot inside since the AC was never turned on. The kids didn't care, they loved the old helmets and the dozen or so full sized engines they had in their large warehouse-style building.

Baby Doll was still in the early stages of her broken bone and was in quite a bit of pain so we had to sit for a while and let everyone else finish the tour without us. She has been a real trooper! I can't even imagine trying to sleep with only Ibuprofen to dull the pain of a displaced bone.

I have another fun trip to tell you about tomorrow. It's been a crazy week!

Guest Blogger: The Missing Ring by the Dog Walker

I thought it was just recent that I did a guest blog for you all, but my Mom asked me to write a blog post for her, because she's tying a quilt that she needs for an event. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to talk about on here that would be considered normal or new to all of you. But then it came to me that I remembered that today was my day off of work and I got to spend time with Cat Lover. She works a three-hour work shift at Village Baker and has lots more time to be around the house. On the days when I'm off of work, I go pick her up and we do something fun together. For example, I read a junior novelization of Inside Out from the Pixar movie and I just finished it to her. It makes her feel like she wants to see the movie again.

Not the actual ring, but it's kind of like the one she lost, but I found it for her.

Anyway, today was going really smoothly, until Cat Lover told me that she lost one of the wedding rings that they were both supposed to be welded together. She was in tears when she told me that she tried really hard to find the missing ring. I gave her a spousal embrace, encouraging her that we'll find it. Then at the possible second, for a random reason, I started looking in one of the laundry baskets and heard a ding inside. I dug through and found the ring! She was so happy that I found it for her and she's happy to have me as a husband.

I didn't think about taking pictures of me and Cat Lover today, so I just found some more of those happy moments we had as a couple together. She's really grateful to have me as a spouse to live with for her life and for the eternities. I don't know what she could do without me. I'm still trying to help her be happy with her life and I still want to teach her some good active skills that she can do, so that someday, our future children will be able to grow up and become like social people. And also to know that spouses can help each other with their struggles and lost items, like a wedding ring!

A Break For Baby Doll

Today was the team party for Baby Doll's softball team. We had pizza and breadsticks at the pavilion, and then the coach handed out trophies and team pictures. The girls were so cute and they had so much fun together.

We had about half an hour for them to play until it was time to leave so we could get the other kids delivered to their various destinations. That was all it took for Baby Doll to jump off a swing, lose her footing and crash to the ground on her elbow.

I took her to the Urgent Care and they took x-rays and confirmed the break. They also told us her fingers were numb and we had a 75% chance of needing surgery. We climbed back in the car and drove home to change her clothes and pick up my sweetie on our way to Primary Children's Medical Center.

Fortunately, we had been given copies of our x-rays so we didn't have to retake more. The specialist gave us the best possible news! She very narrowly avoided surgery (at least for now) and can get her hard cast the middle of next week.

We are home now and she is uncomfortable and in pain. Please pray for her.

Summer just got much more interesting.

1/2 Price Shakes at Sonic

The kids were so excited last night when my sweetie sent us on a late night adventure to get 1/2 price shakes at Sonic for all of their hard work disassembling and discarding the shed.

I keep on telling you... I married the best guy ever!

Taking Down the Shed

Today was a very busy and productive day at our house. The shed we have enjoyed and used for many years in our back yard was in need of demolition. The problem was that my sweetie was needed at work and couldn't help us. Fortunately for me, my little army mobilized and we got everything taken down and into the large dumpster in about 90 minutes.

The Dog Walker did an amazing job removing the roof with a crowbar and brute strength. It took 5 of us to carry it around the house and to the dumpster which was on the street. Once the roof was off, he knocked the walls down and broke them into smaller pieces so all the kids could help carry them.

Some of the boards and particularly the floor were rotting away and they would simply fall apart in our hands. It took many trips before we felt comfortable that we had done all we could do.

Then we cleaned up, had lunch, and took all the kids to the library by way of some of the interesting sites in our little city. Curly and Burrito were working on community merit badges and a hometown discovery patch for Scouts.

Sadly, I was so busy being the tour guide that I forgot to take any pics for you, but here is a cute selfie that Baby Doll took of us after we had showered up from the shed project.

Happy Father's Day

We had a fun gathering with the kids today, all except  Teach and Twiz who are in Florida with his parents. I had to convince my sweetie to stay upstairs and let the kids handle the meal and honestly, they did a beautiful job!

This is the first year as dads for The Beast and The Frog. Love watching them hit these new milestones. Both of them are so cute with their little guys. Beauty made The Beast and Little Warrior matching hats for fathers day. I wish I would have had a closeup pic for you, but they have a fist bump between a huge daddy hand and a little baby hand.

I gave Grandpa a new tie and a fishing pole with a matching smaller fishing pole for whichever companion he decided to take with him on any particular day. And my sweetie got new luggage so he could travel and a shirt and some shoes as well as a new tie.

Just so you know, Curly's baseball team lost their game yesterday by 1 point and now they are out of the tournament. That means baseball is officially over for us, but not for Bossy. Taco made the All Star team, so I spent a couple of hours yesterday embroidering numbers on their hats.

The last of the swimming lessons this coming week and Day Camp for the girls; other than that, mostly a normal week. I hope...

My Superman

Here's the guy. I know he looks like an unassuming Clark Kent sort of a guy and there is a certain part of him that fits that description. He goes to work for us everyday and plays the role of "nerd" very well, but what you might not realize is that he is truly Superman in disguise!

He gets up early every day to weed the garden or take the kids to school before he heads off to work a 10 - 15 hour day (it's supposed to be 10, but often stretches to 15). Then he drives back home (a good 45-minute commute, often more) to tackle all the house projects like making an apartment for Dog Walker and Cat Lover or planting the garden or help Drama Queen with something on her house or often sitting back down in front of the computer to work even more.

It's sometimes a thankless job and yet he does it day after day because he loves us and takes his responsibilities as a Father very seriously. So on this Father's Day weekend, Sweetie, I want to say THANK YOU and I love you.

You will always be my Superman! Happy Father's Day. 💕

Poor Crafty!

It's been a rough day for my poor Crafty. She had her wisdom teeth pulled this morning and yes, she had all four.  She was so nervous! about everything.

The surgery itself wasn't too bad. We checked in just after 11:00 and she was give an x-ray, a consultation, and then they pulled her teeth.

Honestly, we were driving away at just after noon. As you can see, she looks so cute with her little ice packs and gauze squares Get lots of rest, Crafty. Enjoy your down time!

The world starts spinning back up again soon enough.

Happy Flag Day!

On Tuesday, Chick-fil-A in South Jordan honored Veterans and Active Duty servicemen and women by giving them and their immediate family members a free meal. Grandpa is a Veteran, so Curly and I made arrangements to meet him between ballgames so the three of us could share a meal.

The place was busy and crazy as usual, but the franchise owner, Becky Pickle herself met us at the door with raffle and meal tickets. I can't say enough about how incredible this woman is! Chick-fil-A is one of my favorite places because they support our community is so many ways.

Grandpa had a great time with the Cow, and each time someone thanked him for his service, his smile grew a little wider. They even had Costco there with cookies and clementines for dessert. When we were finished, we convinced Grandpa to ditch his car and go back to the ball field with us for the second game.

Unfortunately, it ended with a loss as did the one tonight, but we did win the first game, so we shouldn't be seeded right at the bottom for the tournament. I'll let you know...

Cave Tools Has the Best Father's Day Gifts!

My sweetie is a barbecue genius (and a genius at lots of other things too!), and he has worked with many different tools and marinades, but he had never used a smoker box to make more flavorful meat until our friends at Cave Tools offered to send us one so we could try it out.

We were given the Smoker Box (wide) and it's a good thing my sweetie is in charge because I had no idea what to do with it! He dropped by the IFA and picked up some wood chips for a good price while I bought some chicken breasts.

He covered them with a dry rub and let them sit while he got the wood chips smoking. The box fit right down in the grill next to where he would be cooking the chicken. Rather than spending hours marinating for flavor, the wood chips could do it without increasing the cooking time (as long as we could keep the kids from trying to open the lid from the grill).

The chicken was delicious and definitely worthy of our Sunday dinner table. The part I liked best was that it was so quick and easy. I even threw the box in the dishwasher for cleaning afterward. It did require a little extra scrubbing to get back to the shiny silver, but it wasn't too bad.

It you would like to try out one of these awesome Smoker Boxes for your grill, you know I can hook you up with a good deal. Just enter the SMOKERBOX15 code on the Cave Tools website and it will save you 15%. Or if you prefer Amazon, you can buy any Cave Tools product from there as well, but the coupon codes don't work. The good thing is that if you order it with Prime, it only takes two days and that is still way before Father's Day!

**We received a smoker box (wide) for our open and honest review.**

Refrigerator Repaired

Did I tell you I have been having trouble with my refrigerator on and off for the last month or so? It's been so frustrating! Everything would start getting warm and the temp inside would drop so we would move everything to the upstairs fridge and shut it off. After a rest, it would spark back to life and we would have hope that it was fine.

Then within a few days, the same problem.

We priced out a new fridge, but ours is a built-in and they run between $8000 and $10,000, which is way more than we paid for this one 24 years ago. I finally got a repairman out last week and he told me there was a broken part... $250... should be here in a few days...

This morning he came by and installed the new part. So far, so good. I took advantage of the downtime and scrubbed things down and now it just looks so pretty I want to show it to you.

Weird, showing you pics of my fridge.

 I'm hoping the fix will last for more than a few days this time.

I should get $$ for product placement. 😉

Happy Sabbath

Today was a beautiful Sabbath Day. We drove down to my nephew's mission farewell and then had lunch with some of our family members from my sweetie's side of the family. The sacrament meeting was my favorite part. I love having my grandbabies around me and Tadpole, Twizlet, and Little Warrior were all there. At one point I had all 3 of them clustered around me until Tadpole decided that was a little too much togetherness for him.

All of the married kids came home after the luncheon except for us and the five youngest. We headed to Grandma's house for a little visit and some time adjusting her sprinklers. I did the visiting... my sweetie adjusted the sprinklers.

I finally finished sewing the patches on Scout's scout vest... wait, that sounds funny... and now I'm working on the ones for Curly. I don't think there will ever be a day when I have every patch sewn. One of the kids will just call and ask me to sew patches for grandkids.

Sorry, I didn't take any pics today, so here is one more from the recital.

There are so many things coming up this week. The kids start swimming lessons and Curly has a baseball tournament. Crafty is having her wisdom teeth out on Thursday and we start our nearly 3-week stint of being dog sitters. It might be a good time for Sport to earn the Dog Care merit badge.

It's only the first week of summer and I already have so many plans! I think we need to add a couple more months to the summer season. What do you think?

Dance Recital 2018

Tonight was our big end of year dance recital for C&C Ballet. I had 3 dancing this year, Baby Doll in the Lower School, and Crafty and Curly in the Upper School. They did such an amazing job and Prima Donna was able to capture it all on her phone for me.

The show started at 5:00 with Baby Doll's ballet. They did a great job. That's her on the far right.

I helped her make a quick change to her jazz costume so she could strut her stuff in this one. You may have noticed that's her cute cousin right behind her. They love dancing together.
 

Then we only had one number in between for us to change her into her tap costume. Crafty, Amanda and I made a great team and Baby Doll wasn't even ruffled when she got on stage. She is definitely a professional! That's her in the middle.

Crafty also performed her solo in the Lower School. Her costume is amazingly like this one of Baby Doll's.

After the Lower School, we just sat around for nearly an hour waiting for the Upper School to begin. Little Warrior was pretty tired by then, so after the first 2 numbers, Beauty and The Beast took him home.

Crafty's group opened the show and then Curly had his first number right afterward. Both of them did a great job.

Crafty is right in the middle.

Probably don't have to point out Curly...

Then it was a tap dance for Crafty.

Right in the middle again.

Then we waited a long time before we got to see Praying, my favorite dance of the night. It featured our church pew which is now finally home after a long competition season.

Second from the right on the front row.

Curly was so proud of his solo!

For the last part of the recital, they did a combined ballet number. Curly's group was first and Crafty's was last.

Crafty on the left.

Just one more...