Birds, trees, girls, and more.

 A few days ago we came home from running some errand and discovered a poor lost bird in our garage!  It took some work to use the broom to gently help him find the open doors.  I was afraid maybe his wing was hurt because he wasn't flying but once he got outside he took off up into a tree.
Then just last night we stepped outside in the evening and there was a little bird perched on our porch.  He was determined to not leave either.  You can see how close he let us come.  Clearly this is a favorite perch for birds, as is evidenced by the poop on the porch. *sigh*

 I collected some clear soda bottles (such a sacrifice to drink the IBC) and use them as vases hanging around the front porch.  I want to add a few more.  I love that we have about a gazillion rose bushes in gorgeous bloom to fill the vases!
We've got strawberries getting ripe!!!  Can't wait to start eating them.

Here are the girls playing "Dead woman".  I love the grin on their faces.

Lizzie got to make up her sleepover at grandpa and grandma's house on Friday.  When the other girls got to do their sleepover Lizzie was sick, so she went with some cousins.  While she was gone, though, Kate and Sabrina (with generous help by moi) made this tent to sleep in.

A few weeks ago I lopped the lower branches back on the big evergreen in our side yard so it would quit biting me while I tried to mow around it.  In less than 2 weeks it was DEAD!  Fortunately we aren't so attached to this particular tree and would be happy to use this space for fruit trees eventually.  So I took the loppers and went to town!  The tree is a good 20 + feet tall.  I pruned as far as I could reach on our little 6' ladder.  So now it looks like a one-ended Q-tip.  With the girls' help I was hauling the branches off to a little nook where they'll be out of the way while we figure out how we want to dispose of them.  In so doing, I turned and leaned over to pick up a new branch and my back quit.  It was done.  It has been over 48 hours and I can almost move comfortably-ish now.  MAJOR improvement after yesterday when I couldn't bend, twist, move, stand, sit, or lie down.  I'm grateful to be feeling much better now.  Hallelujah for a jetted tub :)

And these are just some new pictures I took of my girls for fun.  They're wearing their swimming suits after playing in the water.

Pictures are now caught up! 

I will continue doing the "open house" pictures as I get parts of the house looking good, but I'm going to post them on facebook as notes instead of on here just for more privacy, since this is public but my facebook profile is not.  I'll mention here when I post something and if you aren't on facebook and want to see, let me know and if I know you I'll email you the stuff instead ;)
<3

Happy Birthday (yesterday) to Lizzie!

Yesterday our little sunshine, Lizzie, turned 7 years old!  I was going to make her a cake and do all sorts of fun thing, but I injured my back on Saturday and could barely walk.  So we stopped by the store on Saturday night and let her pick some store bought cupcakes.  A few days before I'd let her choose whatever in the world she wanted to have for her birthday dinner.  She chose frozen Salisbury steaks.  At least it was easy!  Again, I was going to make some great sides, but in the end we just had canned corn.  Not thrilling, but she was pleased.

We got Lizziie a nice new helmet and elbow/knee pads for riding her bike.  Grandma got her the book Mercy...uh, something-or-other.  Shoot, I forgot right now.  It's a very silly chapter book by Kate DiCamillo (author of Tale of Despereaux).  By noon this morning Lizzie had finished the whole book.  Twice.  She was delighted by everything and we had a wonderful birthday celebration.

Happy birthday Lizzie, I love you!

Sidewalk Chalk Party

This evening we went to the library family sidewalk chalk activity.  Our family got to choose a square of the sidewalk around the city buildings and decorate it.  We each got a cookie and a soda on our way out, but they ran out of pizza.  We had to get our own on the way home since we'd been counting on pizza for dinner.

The wind was BLOWING like crazy.  We didn't end up staying long since we were getting a little chilly -- and hungry.  We did have a lot of fun, though.

Open House: Great Room (part 1)

 Welcome to the seating area in the Great Room -- the room that is adjacent to the kitchen.

This room isn't really "me" yet.  It has beautifully done draperies, but they're not my style.  I haven't decided how I want them, though, so they're waiting for an epiphany.  

Honestly, the green chair sticks out further into the room, but I wanted it to look nice in the picture ;)  The furniture isn't quite the right... something in this room either, but at least it's comfortable.  In fact, I'm sitting in the big green chair right now!

I particularly love the big beautiful, uniquely shaped windows.  The cathedral vaulted ceiling is also very open and spacious feeling.  The ghastly huge television is handy for turning on Pride and Prejudice or something like that while working in the kitchen.  And loaded bookshelves are a standard item in our home. 

You can see this nook full of shelving is between the kitchen and the french doors onto our deck.  I like having a beautiful place to put out things I care about.  There are a few assorted pictures of my girls and the family.  I like the look of clear glass items displayed (the pitcher and dishes).  The dried flower petals have come from a variety of special flower arrangements.  The cut glass candy dish is from Michael's grandmother.  The clay lamp and sling are from the Holy Land and like the sling David used on Goliath and the lamps referenced in the parable of the 10 virgins.  Etc. 

I adore this round window.  I do wish it didn't have the criss cross in it, but it is beautiful anyway.  I enjoy the view and the angle of the sunshine.  What I really want to do here is cut a piece of plexiglass to fit the space and do some faux stained glass.  That's why I don't like the criss crossing.  It gets in the way of the stained glass.  Oh well, I can work around it.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll get the other half of the great room cleaned up so I am willing to take pictures of it.  However, there are still a couple of complicated-to-unpack boxes there.... so maybe it will be a while before I get to the next part. ;)

Open House: Kitchen

For those of you who haven't had a chance to see our new house, I thought I'd share bits of it here and there.  In other words: my kitchen is clean today.  Hooray!  But I always seeing the way things change over the years, so I'm sure I'll get a kick out of this in a few years.

My kitchen is indeed smaller than my last one.  That is not difficult.  My last kitchen was HUGE!  I kinda miss that.  I definitely miss the pantry.  Overall, though, this is a nicer kitchen and I still love working in it.  I just can't have my girls doing "sun angels" all over the floor while I'm cooking in there.

 We store a lot more food in the storage room than we ever would have had to do in our old house.  The cabinets aren't big enough for holding everything without a pantry.  Also, there are dividers in the middle of the cabinets between the two doors that open for each cupboard.  So it's impossible to fit my big bowls in places.  That's a little awkward.  In the loooooooong term picture I'd love to redo the cabinets.  I love the granite counter tops, though.  There is enough light through the huge window that the black counters aren't too dark.  They just sparkle!

The trash compactor is another thing I didn't think I cared about much, but actually love.  We used to haul a couple of grocery bags full of trash out each day.  The compactor, however, takes more than a week to fill!  Good thing, since we have so many grass clippings in the trash can every week.

The little "appliance garage" in the corner is very useful.  It holds the electric can opener, blender, and toaster.  Plus the squishy butter.  Keeps them tidy and out of the way while keeping them still handy. 

Frankly, it's a little silly how much I love the range.  But the truth of the matter is, if I could pick any stove/oven in the world without money being an object, this would be the one!  The range is gas with 5 burners.  It's easy to clean and wonderful to cook on. 
The stoves are electric(!) which is easier to bake in.  The small one heats in about 4 minutes and doesn't heat up the whole house so much when baking a frozen pizza or a sheet of cookies. It also has a "keep warm" feature that works well for pancakes for the whole family, or even just warming up a plate to serve the meal on.   The large oven is standard size and has lots of features like convection, proofing (low heat with the fan on to help dough rise faster!), drying (fruit leather, anybody?!), and more.  Turkey in the large oven and rolls in the top?  Yes, please!

 These are a few close-ups.  The candle is in a nook just outside the kitchen.  We light the candle and have it burning while we read in the evenings (when I remember it).  It's a fun way to bring a little more quiet, reverent atmosphere to scripture reading time and helps us calm down towards bedtime.
The other two signs are just very "me".  They are on either side of the sink.

This frog is just cute.  Michael bought him for me several months ago and he hangs out (literally) on the mini-rosebush pots on the windowsill.  I got the mini rosebushes around Valentine's day in little 2" pots.  My how they've grown!  They'll be ready for a place in the yard in no time!

Finally, one of my favorite things about my kitchen is the view.  I have always been a big believer in an inspiring view above the sink.  It helps me want to be there.  And considering how much I dislike doing dishes (though I do love cooking and baking) it's good to want to stand at the sink.  I love the view right up Hobble Creek Canyon!

All in all, it's not the kitchen I thought I'd love.  It is, as someone once put it, a "one bum" kitchen.  I prefer the idea of more like a "four bum" kitchen (four people's bums can be in there at the same time without running into eachother).  We're learning how to make this one work, though, and with the stools in there we still get some good mama-daughter time going in the kitchen. 

Right now I'm about to go in there and make dinner.  I'm preheating the small oven to bake a crusty baguette while I whip up some spaghetti sauce and boil noodles on the stove top.  Then I'll pop some green beans into the microwave.  In the mean time, Lizzie and Sabrina are sitting on the stools playing a game of chess at the island.

This is MY kitchen!

Goals, Update 8

1- Sew at least one new item of clothing for me.

2- Make great room (and/or family room) curtains.-- I *have* finished curtains for the big kitchen window!
 
3- Go one mile (run/walk) in 12 minutes or less -- I've lost 5 lbs already by doing so much work out in the yard (mowing edging, trimming the hedges of many small villages, etc.).  I don't know about my 1 mile goal yet, but at least I'm getting more active and being successful at it!

4- Clean out and sort jewelry boxes

5- Catch up one year of scrapbooks

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) -

10- Make a new temple dress (does not fulfill goal #1) 

11- Be involved in at least one PTA project at the elementary school --  Last week I got to be a helper at the school field day the next-to-last day of school.  It was fun working with tons of kids and ended up being really helpful for the people in charge too.  Yay!
 
12- Get last year's blog book printed and bound
 
13- Make some nice hair pretties for MY daughters
 
14- Read some classic literature
   
15- Plant something and keep it alive --  My yard is so pretty!  I'm by no means perfect at this "yardwork" thing, but so far, so good!  It will be fun next year to know what to expect instead of this guess work I have to do right now.  I hope I'm not pulling out too many non-weeds!
 
16- Improve dysphonia to be able to sing again with less pain -- Work in progress.

17- Learn two new hymns on the piano -- I have been playing some!  So I'm making progress here.
 
18- Plan and enjoy a family vacation (even if it has to be in Utah County)
 
19- Back up all digital photos on new DVDs (or other storage device) and store safely
 
20- Participate in fruit and vegetable co-op when possible and learn new ways to enjoy produce
 
21- Create a 7 generation pedigree chart

22- Finish quilts for the girls' beds --  O.o

23- Take a class through the community programs
 
24- Follow FlyLady principles to get/keep the house in a happy state.  -- You should see my kitchen this week!  I got it organized and did a good job on the cleaning.  The new chore chart is working well for all of us so routine cleaning is better organized.  Phew.

25- Read a book by a church leader --  I just gotta finish!
 
26- Spend $1,000 to improve financial outlook (pay off debt faster, put in savings, etc.) 
 
27- Look at the stars more -- First we'd have to have an evening without mega cloud cover and rain!  I swear the earth has shifted so we now live in the Pacific North-West instead of the desert.
 
28- Clean the Sharpie "artwork" off the playroom walls 

29- Update our family's emergency preparedness --  Had a lesson about this in combined priesthood/relief society.  I have had it done before, but need to update foods, medicines, sizes of clothing, current information, etc.

30- Learn to use the lenses and settings on my camera
 
31- Return and report progress on my goals

FIRE!!!

DON'T MISS THE POST FROM LAST NIGHT!

I'll bet you know I like to take pictures.

One of my favorite things to catch is something that is normally fluid or constantly changing and see it in a frozen state where you can really examine it.  Kids work great for this as they're rarely still and ALWAYS changing.

Last night during our "camping" in the back yard (as a side note, after the girls were asleep I soaked in our jetted tub to get the campfire smell off.  That's my kind of camping!) I played a lot with photographing fire.

I took probably 50+ pictures.  I'm going to show here the few I couldn't resists sharing.  In some of them you can see flickers of the color changing flames.  I love the sharp focus on the crumbling, burning logs.  Since it's gray and cloudy yet again, here are some pictures to warm you up!