Goals: Update 10

1- Sew at least one new item of clothing for me. -- I've mostly finished one.  I'm not quite happy with it yet, though.  Needs some color.  I hope to figure it out this week so I can wear the dress next Sunday.

2- Make great room (and/or family room) curtains.-- Perhaps I'll just change the rest of the family room curtains into roman blinds?  

3- Go one mile (run/walk) in 12 minutes or less -- No.  But I've done some good work on a stationary bike and I've been brilliant and doing the lawn mowing.

4- Clean out and sort jewelry boxes

5- Catch up one year of scrapbooks-- Oh my.

6- Read the entire Book of Mormon
 
7- Get a new family picture taken
 
8- Clean out my bedroom closet

9- Sort my craft type items (including sewing) -- I'm making progress!  Getting things sorted slowly back into useable place.  Phew!

10- Make a new temple dress (does not fulfill goal #1) -- I'd better get to finishing the one I found in my sewing things!

11- Be involved in at least one PTA project at the elementary school --  PTA meeting this week.  If Sabrina is doing better I might even make it there!


12- Get last year's blog book printed and bound 
 
13- Make some nice hair pretties for MY daughters
 
14- Read some classic literature -- In the last several weeks I've been reading some great things through the Reveal Reader (free app on my droid phone).  I use the reader to do my scripture / Ensign / Conference Report reading.  Recently I've also used it to read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Scarlet Letter, and currently about 1/3 of the way through The Journey to the Center of the Earth.  Great stuff!
   
15- Plant something and keep it alive -- We've been enjoying the harvest of our tomato plants and the yard is still pretty green and nicely trimmed.  Yay!
 
16- Improve dysphonia to be able to sing again with less pain 

17- Learn two new hymns on the piano -- 
 
18- Plan and enjoy a family vacation (even if it has to be in Utah County) -- For this year, we'll have to count our day at Snowbird as our "vacation".  And along with that, all our evenings toasting marshmallows in the backyard.  We've had some wonderful family together, we just didn't get to do anything anyone else would probably call a "vacation".
 
19- Back up all digital photos on new DVDs (or other storage device) and store safely  -- I found my external drive... and now it's lost again.  *sigh*.  Hopefully it will show back up when I finish with the craft organization.

20- Participate in fruit and vegetable co-op when possible and learn new ways to enjoy produce -- We haven't done the co-op as often as I would have liked, but I think we're doing pretty well anyway.  We've enjoyed more fresh produce this year, even though it has been store-bought.  This last week, though, I did get to pick some pears from a friend's tree.  I've made some killer fruit leather!
 
21- Create a 7 generation pedigree chart

22- Finish quilts for the girls' beds -- 

23- Take a class through the community programs -- Slight variation on this one: I am playing with the American Fork City Symphony.  I was convinced to join them again after 10 years of not playing.  Yikes!  It has required a lot of practice, but I am enjoying it.  The biggest problem is that the overuse injuries from my high school years came back immediately.  If I don't use a neck strap (ridiculous with the oboe!) I have severe pain in my arm all the way from my shoulder to my fingers.  You can bet I'm being good about the neck strap!
 
24- Follow FlyLady principles to get/keep the house in a happy state.  -- Getting back into the swing of things now that we're into the more structured life of the school year.

25- Read a book by a church leader -- Read "The Coming of the Lord" by Gerald Lund.  Fabulous book about the last days and the Second Coming of the Lord.  I highly recommend it!
 
26- Spend $1,000 to improve financial outlook (pay off debt faster, put in savings, etc.) 

27- Look at the stars more -- I've really added the joy of taking an evening walk around out yard with Michael.  Just tonight we took a little wander around.  We checked which parts need more weeding, where there may be a blocked sprinkler, where there are a new batch of flowers popping up, and how many more cherry tomatoes will be ready to pick tomorrow.  Very restful.
 
28- Clean the Sharpie "artwork" off the playroom walls 

29- Update our family's emergency preparedness --  

30- Learn to use the lenses and settings on my camera -- Still been working on this.  I have loved everything I've been learning!  

31- Return and report progress on my goals -- Better late than never, right?  I only have 2 months to go until my birthday!!!!!  I've gotta get crackin' on the rest of these!

August in a Flash

August was Amazing.

Amazing movie night:
The Jarbh family got together for a special movie night.  The little girls worked as ticket takers and concessions workers.  Everybody got their own ticket and a voucher for popcorn and a soda (fancy ones in a bottle!)  We watched the movie "Despicable Me".  Best theater in Utah County!

School Registration.  Amazing!
How did I end up with a 4th grader, 2nd grader, and kindergartner all of a sudden?!  The girls were thrilled to go find out about their teachers and get back inside the school building.  I love that they all enjoy school!

An Amazing Game of Quidditch.
Oh yes, we did.  It was fabulous.  The teams were Hufflepuff vs. Ravenclaw.  Kids of all ages had fun, from the dads down to the young'uns.  A couple of games were for more limited age ranges and every single one was a blast to watch.

The Amazing Harry Potter Party.
One of my nephews turned 11 while on vacation here from Nebraska.  He woke up to a letter inviting him to Hogwarts.  The game of quidditch was a preamble to a celebratory party at Grandma's house.  Through "connections" they were able to borrow a set of very well done decorations.  We all enjoyed a grand feast indeed including Cornish Pasties.  Various goodies were arranged around the house.  Everything from cockroach clusters (Macadamia nut clusters) to licorice wands (red and black fines).  My sister in law even made chocolate frogs for each of the kids complete with chocolate frog cards (made from pictures of each of the cousins).  It was ended up with a birthday trifle.  Magical!

More of the amazing party.
Do you see the wand?  My brother made it.  Holly, 11", pheonix feather core.  Harry Potter's wand!  It's absolutely beautiful!  Everybody chose a character and wore a name tag at the party.  Celebrities from Rita Skeeter to Lee Jordan were there!  I wore a plaid shirt and my plaid sketchers and came as Minerva McGonagall in muggle disguise.

I admit, there is one more huzzah from August, but it is going to get its own post.  Yes, it is picture heavy.  That's just how it works here.

I hope you all had an Amazing August too!

A Few of our Favorite Things

I took these pictures of each of the girls on their first day of school.  We then worked together to make a list of various "favorite things".  I love these!

First Day of School, take 2

Today was Sabrina's first day of kindergarten.  Wow!  She has been counting down the months, weeks, days, and hours.  It's half day kindergarten and she goes in the afternoon.  She gets picked up by the kindergarten bus after lunch and comes home on the regular bus with her sisters.

Sabrina was up and dressed by 8:00 this morning (lately she's been sleeping in an hour later than that).
I reminded her that she didn't leave until after lunch.  So she ate lunch at about 10:30.
By an hour before time to go she was dancing around so much I just finished getting her ready and we went outside to take some pictures.

The bus was a few minutes late (not a surprise) and after checking the mail she proceeded to pick a couple of weeds nearby.  She had a wonderful day and is looking forward to tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day......

These pictures are from Sabrina's kindergarten assessment with her teacher last week.  She was amazing.  I was working at a table on the side filling out papers, but I managed to take a few surreptitious pictures under my arm without disturbing their work.  Sabrina was excited to see that even though she isn't in the same class time as one of her favorite friends, they sit in the same chair -- one in the morning, the other in the afternoon.

Here are some of the pictures we took this morning, including her fancy finger nails.  Last night she got her turn taking a bath in our huge tub with jets and everything, then I painted her fingernails ans toenails just like I did last week for the other girls. Sabrina picked the pink rose to take to her teacher.

After at least 6 years of waiting (yes, I know she isn't even 6 years old yet...) she finally got to ride the bus!!!!!

And it brought her back finally in the afternoon.  She got her first-day-of-school flower and skipped back home.  I admit, there was some drama about the fairness of homework, but when she had rested a few minutes and reasonable again, she did it quickly and happily.

It was a huge change in life when Kate started in school.  This is a whole other huge change.  I still think I am a "young mother", but perhaps I'm now a "mother of school aged children".  Crazy.

During the few hours I had to myself today I went and ate lunch with Michael at his work and watched part of an episode of a tv show with him on Netflix.  Then I went shopping.  Cool, huh ;)

Now it's time for me to learn a new routine.  Time to figure out how to be a "mom of school aged children".  And finally, time to get the rest of my house organized so I can do some things I want to do!

Relish

(To join Ketchup and Mustard)

Okay, let's see if I can finish up July in one epic post!

I loved all the yard in bloom.  The colors and richness were delightful.

Kate's Birthday

 For Kate's Birthday Activity she invited two friends.  We went and saw Kung Fu Panda 2 in the movie theater, then went out for ice cream.  It was a whole lot of fun on a hot July afternoon.

For her birthday Kate got a new bike.  She actually "got it" a couple of months ago so it would be useful all summer, so she opened a couple of little gifts on her actual birthday.  She chose clam chowder for dinner.

 This is actually from the ice cream parlor (thus the blue colored lips).  Sabrina had a bug bite on the bridge of her nose and was trying very hard to see it.  Yes, I laughed.  I still giggle at these pictures.

Lizzie's Pneumonia

 We happened to have Michael's sisters come over for a visit one evening.  Lizzie went from doing okay (remember that long fever she'd had?) to just crashing while they were here.  One of them happens to be a pediatric nurse and just happened to have her stethoscope and a sat monitor in her car!  Lizzie was seeming really borderline -- maybe okay, maybe not.  We finally took her in to the after-hours and ended up in peds at the hospital.  Lizzie's oxygen sats kept dropping just low enough to make you worry, but not quite low enough to REALLY worry.  They put in an IV, which was a real job as Lizzie is VERY afraid of needles.  They gave her a dose of IV antibiotics, did chest x-rays, took blood for labs, and let her go home for the night.  She ended up in hospital jammies anyway because she threw up after the IV was placed.  Awesome.

 The next day she was still really borderline but we finally just took her back in.  She sounded worse than she had before and just wasn't improving.  So we went and were admitted at the hospital.  She only required one night and a few more rounds of IV antibiotics to kick it and get onto the path to health.  It was a while before it was all gone, of course, but it did turn around then.  She got to play lots of nintendo while in the hospital.  They brought in an extra bed so I could sleep in it that night with Lizzie.  The other girls were happy to come visit the next afternoon.  Another x-ray showed that her lungs were starting to clear, so that was good news.

 Daddy stayed with Lizzie the next day for a while until they let her come home.  We were so happy to be home in our own beds!  The hospital, while not ideal, was a good thing.  The nurses were wonderful (helps that we'd brought our own for the check-in night since Janice works with them all there!), the doctors were great, the food was decent, and the room was HUGE.  They even gave her a blanket she got to bring home and keep.

Fun with Cousins

 While Lizzie was busy in the hospital my sisters family came to town for a few days.  We don't get to see them often so we were sad to miss out on some of the time they were here.  While Michael was with Lizzie in the hospital I got to take the other girls to play with their cousins.

 The cousins even got to come see out house.  The sun was beautiful and I played with a few pictures (cause that's how I roll, ya know).  The teenagers were less intrigued by the Barbies and bitty bikes, but they took down that dead tree in our side yard in no time.  Those boys were FAST!  My brother in law helped them not remove any human limbs and they had the whole thing tidied up with the wood in logs stacked for fires.  It was incredible!

 The kids of many ages put on a stellar play complete with costumes, side effects, and a director (grandma).  They did a version of Cinderella.  Sabrina was the Cinderella-in-rags and when Cinderella zings into her fancy clothes they just swapped actresses!  Cousin Naomi (similar in age to Sabrina) was the Cinderella-in-finery.  It was very funny.  I did get a video of it, but you can barely hear a word of dialogue.  When I have the time (ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!!) I'll go through and subtitle it.  It's really worth it.

 Temple Square

 We went for a day at Temple Square in Salt Lake.  We got to ride all the way to the top of the Church Office Building where there's a spectacular view.  We even got to eat in the special employees only cafeteria in the basement (since we were there with one of Michael's sisters who is, in fact, an employee there).  We even ran into Grandpa and Grandma Southern there and walked around a bit.

Cousin Birthday Party

Happy First Birthday!  Celebrating another cousin's birthday.  This coming January the 50th cousin is due.  Well, that counts our three girls.  So technically our girls "only" have 47 cousins as of this coming January.  There is no shortage of insta-friends!  This was a brilliant birthday party where we played all of the birthday boy's favorite things: water, sprinklers, squirt bottles, etc.  A fabulous time was had by all.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Oh, I wish I'd made a big deal out of it!  Happy Birthday to my sweetheart.  It was kinda lame with everything else going on.  Sorry.  I love you anyway!  

Sadly,

A big part of the reason Michael's birthday was so lame: I managed to pull a humdinger of an infection in my foot.  Dumb foot.  All those circled areas got swollen, red, and awful looking.  I was given a shot of one antibiotic and put on two others orally.  When it continued to spread I was also put on a buff anti-fungal.  Apparently the combination of the meds made my anxiety soar, so I had it checked it out yet again and it was declared starting to improve.  Phew!  We were SO close to having to do IV antibiotics for me too!  Thankfully we avoided that.  The infection finally cleared.  I think I've had two sinus infections since then.  So bring on the antibiotics!  My foot is 98% better.  It keeps getting a bit red and irritated, but hasnt' been swelling any more, so we're calling it good and done.  I hate getting in the way of a good party!

Thus we come to the end of July.  It was a busy month!  In fact, you should be grateful I fit everything in so concisely.  Trust me, I could have stretched this out a lot more.  I have over 900 pictures from this month alone!  Stay tuned for August. ;)

First Day of School 2011-2012

Today was the first day of school for Kate and Lizzie.  Sabrina doesn't start until next week.  The girls were up every 5 minutes ALL night!  It was worse than Christmas Eve!  

First, last night:  I let Kate and Lizzie each take a tub in our big tub with jets and everything.  As soon as they were well wrinkled, they chose a bottle (well, two) of nail polish and I did their finger and toe nails.  They got a good hair brushing and headed to bed (theoretically.)

This morning I woke up to the alarm, climbed carefully out of bed (Sabrina came in to sleep on the floor next to my side of the bed, apparently) and went to wake the girls.  Kate was curled up on her bed but Lizzie was... nowhere!  I checked the floor in her room, all around our bed, even under the rumpled sheets at the end of my bed.  No lizzie!  I walked out to the kitchen and found her like this:

She woke up early (no idea *how* early), got dressed, made her own lunch, set her backpack by the stairs, then lay down in the chair and fell asleep.

We had chocolate chip pancakes, then walked together to the bus stop.  I was grateful to not feel like the creepy mamarazzi -- there were at least half a dozen other parents with stalker lenses on their cameras at the bus stop.

Sabrina and I had a relaxed day, ran a few errands, and I soothed a lot of sad feelings because she doesn't start school until next week.  We got the usual flowers for the first day of school and went to the bus stop to watch for the bus to bring our girls back.  It was about 100 degrees outside and Sabrina's bare feet were burning.  So she sat in my shadow, literally, to keep cooler.

We all walked home (with a friend too) and are settling in to our after-school routine.  By the way: dry erase markers are great for making signs on the front of a stainless steel fridge :)

The whole thing went much smoother than last year.  Thank heavens!

Happy New School Year everyone!!!

Mustard

(A Companion Post to "Ketchup")

More catching up:
Lizzie's 7th Birthday!  What a cheerful girl she is.  She got special pads and a new helmet for her crazy bike riding (and skating, once I found her some great roller skates at the thrift store).  Then, of course, she got a jewelry box and plush puppy with carrier also from us at her friend party.  She actually ASKED for frozen Salisbury steaks and frozen corn for her special birthday dinner.  Good thing, since I was kinda sick on her birthday and our A/C hasn't worked well at all this summer.  I wasn't up to fancy cooking so frozen Salisbury steaks was just about perfect for everyone.

Around this same time we discovered a barn swallow that liked to hang out on the loop of the cord for the ice melter thingies above the walkway.  First he (we called him a "he", but I don't technically know) hung out for a day or so, then started building a fancy little mud nest.  Kate and I sat on the bottom stair inside with the door open and took lots of pictures.   You can kinda see how close he let us come.  See Sabrina standing right below him?  Wow.  "He" never finished the nest, but we still see him every now and then.  I assume it's where he hangs out when he's in the "dog house".  Fun to watch!

This was during one of the worst stretches of heat inside the house.  Those pictures are taken at the same time as proof.  At 8:44 pm it was 90 degrees in the house.  It was next to impossible to sleep.  We spent a fair amount of time outside because at least there was a cool breeze in the evening.  So we'd start up a fire (burned up the branches left from chopping the dead tree up) and sit outside to watch a movie.

Independence Day Fun, part 1:
Lizzie was sick on Independence Day.  She had already run a fever for several days and the 4th was on a Monday so it was another day until normal office hours and she didn't seem sick enough to worry about emergency care.  She stayed home with Daddy while I went with the other girls to the Jarbh family brunch.  It was a momentous day: Sabrina can finally climb up into grandma's walnut tree by herself!  The rule is that you can climb in the tree as long as you can get in there without help (no using stools or chairs for a boost).  Sabrina is finally tall enough that her acrobatics can get her onto the branch.  Yay!  My sister, her husband, and their teenage daughter ran a race that morning and were in their racing shirts.  None of them came in last :)  (they all did very well).  Joe broke out the alp horn and he and my brother Pete played it for us.  Then, of course, they had to all measure it so they can make one out of PVC pipe.  This is normal procedure at a family gathering.
We spent a while that afternoon at Daddy's office (where it was air conditioned) and noticed that Sabrina had an infected bug bite.  So we had to mark it and watch.  We dosed it with essential oils and miracle of miracles... it resolved itself.  Phew!

Independence Day, pt. 2:
Top row: The food at the brunch was delicious.  There were such specialties as Quik chocolate milk, tater tot hashbrowns, fruit, pancakes, crepes, whipped cream....  it was good stuff.  Sabrina was trying to pop her box of snaps and discovered it was easier to sprinkle them on the concrete and jump up and down on them to make them pop :).  We made a fun sprinkler toy that was a great way to cool off in the afternoon.
2nd row: Sick Lizzie cuddled up with Daddy watching something on tv.  A view of our pond through flames from another fire in our firebowl in the evening.  The joy of sparklers.  Daddy making the sprinkler toy.
4rd row:  Roasting hot dogs and sparkler "candles" on a festive cake.  My girls in their festive shirts.  Kate.  The rain drops that made us worry about having to run for shelter.  The solution: I put the sprinkler toy to an alternate use.  One tarp flat on the deck above us to keep our heads dry, then another bungee corded over the sprinkler toy to keep the tv dry.  The party continued!
Bottom row: Sabrina and Kate watching tv too.  Watching Treasure Planet in the rain.  Our very own daisies and pink roses -- that combination makes me smile.  Lizzie.  And finally: another view of our beautiful evening.  Independence indeed!