Sebastian in the works

Well, I am the worst procrastinator. I suppose my new motto is "If it weren't for the last second, I would get nothing done." I was asked to make a Sebastian the Crab (from The Little Mermaid) costume for our elementary school's Disney Program in a few weeks. I was asked 2 months ago. The costume needed to be done last week. I started it last night. I sewed my little heart out until around 1:00 and then went to bed. I need to go finish it now, but I am trying to find more excuses to not go sew. I bought 2 yards of red pleather, 1 yard of red felt, 1 yard of red lame, 1 yard of some other shimmery red stuff, some Styrofoam for eyeballs, Velcro, ribbon, and stretchy sequin stuff. I sure hope Sebastian looks like a crab when I am finished!

noggins

Last Monday we were all playing in the basement 'man cave' where Kendal and Emmitt were jumping off of the coffee table onto the bean bag and into my arms. Yes, I allowed this activity to occur against my better 'mom judgement' but we were having a blast. Until Kendal slipped. And cracked her head. On the coffee table. Hard. Really hard. This is the result. 5 days later. OUCH! She is such a tough little trouper though, wow she is amazing!


Okay, and once again I post more horrible pictures of myself. But I really couldn't help it. It was just too stinking funny. Kendal, Emmitt, and I put some old knee high nylons on our heads. We were laughing so hard we could hardly stand up. Kelsey was not a knee high participant, but she was the one that laughed the hardest.

Emmitt was scared of us at first, but that only lasted about 5 seconds and then he wanted a knee high on his sweet little head. When I first put it on him, he was breathing really funny out of his nose and he kept touching it. Oh my goodness he thought it was hilarious to look in the mirror!

Matt took these pictures when I asked him to. He took one and said "Rach, honey, you look bad, really really bad." I said "I know, take some more!" He shook his head, smiled, and snapped a few more. I do look bad, really really bad, but it will be worth the memories when we look at these pictures in 5 years. I love my little crew so much, they are great.

how much wood can a woodchuck chuck . . .

Matt had to work today until around 4:00, so when he got home we all went out for a few loads of wood. Emmitt and I hauled it into the garage. He is such a helper! He is a pleaser, he does things just to please me. I love him - such a sweet little boy. But BOY is right, and a busy one at that!

Look at sweet Emmitt's dragon gloves. They are seriously so stinking cute and he loves them.

I am not sure why I must post a horrible picture of myself for the world to see, maybe just to prove that I was really there!

Kendal and Emmitt spent a little time on the swings, but that didn't last long. Kendal ran after Kelsey when she saw the MONSTER snowman she was making and Emmitt thought Matt needed a lesson on how to swing that ax!

Matt split wood from our dwindling woodpile, but I think we will have enough to get us through most of April and then SPrInG better show up!

Kelsey talked Kendal into pulling her back to the woodpile from the garage and didn't even land on her head! It really is blissful when they decide to be friends.

I sure enjoy afternoons like the one we had today - giggles, runny noses, squeals of delight, working together, getting along, snow boots, getting a job done, and hopefully memories made of enjoyable family time together.

we are family

Last week after church we took a few silly pictures. Whenever I get the camera out and tell the kids to smile for me, Kendal break out in song "We are family, all my brothers and sisters and me." She is such a crack up.


Poor Matty, he got squashed by all of us, but he secretly loved it!


Before Kelsey blew out the candles on her birthday cake last week, she made a wish and her wish was "That Kendal and I will not fight on my birthday." I wish for that everyday of the week! I love it when they get along, it is music to my ears!

9 years old

My Kelsey turned 9 years old last week. WOW!! NINE YEARS! She is such a sweet girl and I love her so much. She wanted to get her ears pierced for her 8th birthday, but her dad talked her out of that one with a digital camera instead. This year she was not going to be bought out so easily!

I don't do friend birthday parties for my kids every year, and this year for Kelsey's birthday it was a family year, meaning just our little family. In the past we have gone miniature golfing, swimming, went to Build a Bear and things like that as a family. So when I asked Kelsey what she wanted to do for her family birthday party, she said "Just a stay at home party with a movie and popcorn." I was all for that! The Proctors came over for some cake and ice cream later that evening. It was a good good day.

Here are all the girls and their Valentine Dragon gloves in Kendal's class. They did a great job, and they thought they were so cute!

These 2 pictures are the boys and their spiffy dragons. I talked to Kendal's teacher this morning when I went in to to fluoride rinsing with the kids, and she said they all love their gloves and wear them at recess. That makes me happy. I guess that makes the craziness of 20 Kindergartners with needles and thread for an hour all worth it!

dragons

I have taken pride in the fact that I have not helped with any of the parties at my daughters' school, like the Christmas Party or whatever. I love to help in the classrooms, but I don't like thinking about and planning things for a party. I teach art every month in both of my daughter's classes and I do fluoride every Wednesday and I call that okay. Well, none of the other moms volunteered to help in Kendal's kindergarten class for the Valentine's Day Party, and since I can not say no, I will be doing that in about 1/2 hour. Wish me luck.
I bought 20 some-odd pairs of gloves last week.


I glued googlie eyes on them on them this morning and now I am getting ready to go see how well the kindergartners do on making Valentines Dragon Gloves. The piles of red are the wings and spines the kids get to sew on to make their dragons. Yes, I am giving 5 year old kids needles. Cross your fingers that all goes well!

Ladies Auxiliary Afternoon Tea

Utah Civil War Association's first Ladies Auxiliary Social and Tea

We had a wonderful time at the Beehive Tea Room in downtown Salt Lake City. It was our first gathering and so many of us didn't even know each other. It didn't take much time to feel nice and comfy with our big skirts taking up most of the seating, those delicious little tea sandwiches, and all of our chit chat for us to become friends. We had a business meeting and talked about the events we would participate in this year and also elected some positions to help our ladies group run smoother.

This is Amanda and Cindy

Victoria, Jane, and Heather

We made quite a lovely scene in downtown Salt Lake City. Many people were driving by and I am sure there were some 'polygamist' comments being made!
But we just smiled and waved!

Here is Amanda and I
We are so grateful to have more ladies interested in portraying the American Civil War with us and have already made some wonderful friends.

This one shows my new cage crinoline! I love love love the shape!

Emily, Amanda, and me

We truly had a wonderful day. I was on some strange happiness high the rest of the day as I thought about the great times in store for our new group. If anyone is interested, we would love to have you!

skiing again

I went skiing yesterday, the first time in at least 10 years. I went with my friend Jen, whose husband arranged for us to go while tending our 7 children. Park City Mountain Resort has this deal going on to Utah residents called START NOW. You get a 3 hour lesson, all the rentals you need, and a lift pass for $25. What a deal. The kicker is, you get to do this for 5 times at this price. NICE!

I thought we were going to freeze our little tails off since the high around here for the last week as been in the teens, but I was surprisingly warm. It could be all the layers I had on or the fact that we were moving, but we were snug as a bug.
I grew up skiing only once a winter with my family at either Brianhead near Cedar City, or Elk Meadows near Beaver. We would go during Christmas Break and we always had a blast. We were not very good, but good enough to get us in trouble. I remember going down some random black diamond run with my dad and brother and my dad cussed loudly the entire way down, and then totally wrecked at the bottom, it was hilarious! Anyway, when we went skiing we all wore Carhart or Walls overalls. We didn't have nice snow clothes, so we wore our warm chore clothes. It didn't matter that much at Brianhead or Elk Meadows because they are small town, rural places, but if would have shown up in Park City dressed like that . . . I can only imagine how sweet we would have looked with all those designer snow bunnies! We would have been laughed out of town. But since I could care less what people think, I wore my dorky hat, stupid sunglasses, sweet fuzzy scarf, and my Cabelas down coat just to make a Park City statement!

This is Jen and our instructor Paul. He was a nice enough guy but WAY too chatty! We just wanted him to stop talking and let us ski. Jen finally told me to stop asking questions that were off the topic (like where was Sleepy Hollow, Oregon) because his answers took too long! Jen and I wanted to ditch him and just go ski after the first 2 hours of our class, but I have what I call an obedience problem. I am just way to obedient sometimes for my own good!

We had a great time and topped it off with Chinese take out on the way home. Thanks Jen for a great afternoon and thanks Brian for changing Emmitt's diaper and all that went on with my kids!

cages

I ordered a new cage from Originals by Kay a few weeks ago. It came in this cute little box. I was worried.

Well, when I undid the box and started pulling it out, whap - it came out and popped all over the kitchen. I was expecting it to do that, but still it made me giggle. I wish I could fold it back up the way it came! So excuse the horrible lighting, but here is my new cage. It is a 7 bone cage and has a circumference of 130", which is large for a cage. I am thinking I should have gone with the 108" cage! This cage also has a noticeable back thrust where the back of the cage is bigger than the front and sides. The cage gives a better civil war era shape than the hoops I have do, so I am quite pleased. I wore it over the weekend to a ladies social and I will be posting about that soon.



But in the meantime, here is a my little man. The other night we were getting ready for bed and he was totally wired. He is such a good time and we love him. I can not believe he will be two years old soon. By the way, this shirt reminds me of my friend Brian. Whenever I wear it he says "Colonel Mustard in the kitchen with the candlestick" because I am pretty sure this color does not appeal to him at all!

kitchen

I saw these very unassuming packages of pasta a few weeks ago on sale at Smith's for a dollar. I love my carbs, so of course I bought them. I decided a few days ago that I would make some soup with this cute little pasta. I threw in some chicken broth, cooked chicken, carrots, celery, red potatoes, and some onion. It was looking pretty good. I then added about 1/2 box of each cute little pasta. It didn't look like much so I put a little more in the pot. I put the lid on and came back 5 minutes later to take a look. The pasta had gone crazy! It ate up the entire pot of soup!

Lesson learned, a little bit goes a LONG ways! The soup turned out pretty darn good for an early February day and my family loved it.


Another bit of excitement in my kitchen - a new faucet. My old one has been looking pretty nasty for quite some time. I told Matt the other day that I wanted to get a new one and that the little hardware store here in town had some inexpensive ones. He said "great." The next day I found a nice sized puddle of water under my sink so I decided it was perfect timing. I took the girls to school and headed to the hardware store. They love me there. I spend alot of time and money there and they are great to help me with all my crazy ideas.

I got home and attacked the faucet. I must admit, I am quite the plumber. I have replaced a few hoses in the bathroom sinks and one of the faucets. I was very confident going into this adventure and that my new faucet would be ready in no time. Wrong. I forget that I am not as strong as I would like. After I disconnected all the hoses there were a few collars that were holding the actual faucet onto my sink that I could not get loose. I could barely fit under my sink so I knew there was no way Matt could. I needed a tough skinny person - Derek my neighbor came to mind. I remember when I used to be stronger than him, but now that he is 18, those days are LONG gone. They were actually gone a few years ago but I hate to admit it because I still threaten him with a 'Wayne County Whoopin' when he needs it! He was at school so I did the only thing a poor lady can do - called the nice plumber. Fortunately Matt works on his horses and he is a nice guy, so a few hours later, my new faucet was installed and I didn't have to crawl under that sink again!

It is nothing fancy, but not nearly as dingy. I still need to clean around all the nasty hard water stains that are left from my old faucet, but that is cake compared to crawling under the sink. It is funny what brings us such joy - a new faucet for me does the trick.