Twins

Matching brothers-in-law--by random chance they both own the same shirt and happened to wear it on the same day. Cool. Guess we weren't the only ones to find good stuff at the Park City outlets this summer :)

We met up with Heidi and Ben for dinner last night at Macaroni Grill--took advantage of their quick stop in SLC before they head back to Vegas.

Things

1) Bentley has this whole week off of school. I feel like we need to get out and do fun things. But we didn't go anywhere today (except for some errands with Joe in the evening.) And it honestly felt pretty amazing (to me anyway--I don't know if the kids agree...)

2) My cell phone died on me yesterday--goodbye trusty Razor. I had that thing for exactly 3 years--and in cell phone years that makes it about 75. My new beauty is pictured on the right...nothing fancy for me just yet (meaning "no iPhone")

3) I felt so productive last week--sewing a ton, cleaning and organizing, walking Bentley home from school, running errands, painting shelves and so on. So productive that I gave myself another breast infection. Those things hurt like crazy. But at least I am keen on recognizing the symptoms and calling my "on call doctor" (my wonderfully accessible Dad) for some antibiotics pronto. 48 hours later I am all but cured.

4) I am celebrating my 10th wedding anniversary this weekend. And I am still crazy in love with my husband.

5) I had a lovely Saturday night with my sister and her sister-in-law. We had dinner at the Gateway and then took Trax over to the Conference Center for the Relief Society Broadcast. Singing How Firm a Foundation with that huge congregation and powerful women's choir made my day. I love that hymn.

First Visit

First visit of the season. To Gardner Village. And yes--the witches are already out amid pumpkins and hay bales. Such a happy sight--even on an 80 degree day (mostly because I spy a very fallish 58 in next week's forecast!)

Big Top Kids

The circus is in town!
Grandpa Neil got tickets for all the dads to take their "big" kids. My big kids liked reminding me that there were "no babies allowed at the circus!" They had a great time on their daddy date and night out with cousins (even though the circus wasn't as impressive as expected :)

Laundry (and Everything Else) Room

Finally finished up this room late last night (after 10 days of kind of trying to sort of fit in time to get it done). You know how it is--impossible to make any real progress while busy, needy, accident prone (or is that just Cares?) kids are awake.

Bear with me on the before shots--they reveal how scary it was getting in there. But they also show a big change and how open and fresh the room feels now. It helped to actually 1) take DI stuff to the DI, 2) take dry-cleaning to the dry cleaners, and 3) wash the random/oversized items that needed to be washed. Amazing logic there folks, simply amazing...

Before...

After...

The hanging clothes are items that need ironing. And how I do hate ironing. So, I only do the kids' stuff and happily pay someone else to do mine and Joseph's. It's worth it for my sanity.

Before...

After...

A short note on the new shelves: I bought these for my laundry room at IKEA...2 years ago. How has it taken me that long to actually use them??
I stained them myself to match the cabinets in there...and I feel kind of proud of them (cheap, easy, ever so useful shelves that they are :)

Hooded Towels

Towels for the 2 big kids (haven't gotten to Livvie's yet...)
Cares opted for 3 different ribbons on her towel. She wanted it to match both Beans and Livs.

Bundled up after bath time last night.
The hood worked wonders at drying her hair
and keeping drips off her back while we put lotion on.
Her sweet little lip is slowly getting better from Monday's crash...

A Little Red Nose

Here is a picture (although not a very good one...) of my sweet Caresie this evening. She and I cleaned her bathroom for FHE while the boys worked in the yard--gotta love those good old fashioned working FHEs. The thing is, at their young ages, my kids love to help. So I have to capitalize on it while it's still fun for them :)

If you look a little closer at my darling daughter you'll see her beat up nose and swollen lips. She tripped on some rocks while we were walking Bentley home from school today--classic Cares right? Poor thing totally face-planted on the concrete and was a wreck for the rest of the afternoon. Eventually, she managed to pull it together for some oatmeal cookies and bathroom scrubbing--her favorites.

A shot of Caroline's less beat-up face. I love this little poser--although she looks way too grown-up for me in this pic...

New Projects

It is National Sewing month after all...

In the works: hooded towels with ribbon detail for all 3 kids and Halloween tutus for my girls.

Mary and Luci are my sewing mentors in these endeavors so wish me luck--they both said these projects were "easy"--and easy for them=quite hard for me (I am still a sewing novice. I almost typed 'savant' right then instead--ha! Wouldn't that be cool...) But I am excited to being sewing again. And to have a spacious and brand new work space in the basement. Have I mentioned that I am love with our new basement?

My Driveway

My driveway and I made contact way too many times yesterday. I am hoping that it was just one of those days and not the soon-to-be norm around here...My fascinating schedule:

9:30 Took Cares to preschool
9:35 Came back home (where we'd left our sleeping baby)
11:00 Picked up Cares and headed to Jiffy Lube (yes with all 3 kids--the sleeping baby didn't allow this errand during preschool)
11:50 Came back home and fed the kids lunch
12:15 Drove Bentley to Kindergarten
12:20 Came back home and fed Olivia
12:50 Drove to the Barnes' house and dropped off the girls--went back to the school to volunteer in Bentley's classroom
2:30 Picked up the girls, came back home and fed Olivia
3:25 Picked up Bentley from school
3:35 Came back home
5:25 Drove Bentley and friends to soccer practice
5:30 Came back home

Thankfully, my hubby drives right past the park where Beans has soccer practice so he saves me the drive home on our carpool nights. I was so over my car right around 5:30 last night. And sad that the whole day had slipped away and I hadn't made any progress on my laundry room (a project I started Monday night--got the whole thing cleared out but now everything exists in my hallways. I need to get to the organizing and setting back up part pronto...)

The scarf--my new fall accessory which accompanied me during all the driving yesterday. I am loving the crisp morning air these days...

A Dinner, A Date and A Doctor

Those just about sum up our weekend. And it was a crazy one this time around...

1) A Dinner with Mary and Seth. We celebrated Seth's birthday (on Thursday night) with Joseph's impeccably decorated cake, and then played trains...you'd think we are addicted or something :)

2) A Playdate at Discovery Gateway. My mom met us downtown and it was so fun to see her again after her 2 week vacation in Europe. Bentley had the day off of from school so we spent several hours playing. We even got our hubbies to meet us for lunch at CPK and then walk us down to the fountains to see the kiddos let loose.










Joseph and I also had a date night last night and saw The Time Traveler's Wife. Oh, did I love that one--talk about a teary movie! But I cried and cried when I read the book too. I honestly loved the movie adaption which is rare for me. I am usually annoyed with the casting and the many things that are changed from the book version, but that wasn't the case with this show. Maybe because they focused on the love story so fully and seemed to allow all the other characters and events surrounding it to mesh so easily with that main theme.


3) A Doctor. For Cares. Just a few hours ago. And now she is fine and sleeping peacefully. But earlier this evening she and Joseph were dancing around and as he swung her around she suddenly slipped out of his grip and dislocated her elbow joint--a condition known as nursemaid elbow and a frequent thing for kids her age. We knew what it was as soon as it happened (thanks to the same thing happening to my niece Maddie a few years ago) and took her right over to the new clinic near our house so the doctor could pop her arm back into place. Poor little Caresie--she was in so much pain--and the quick fix really hurt her too. But luckily, there is a quick fix and about 3 minutes later she was much much better.

Sweet Bentley watched the doctor pop Cares' arm into place and was a little stunned with how hard she cried right after. The doctor left for a few minutes to let her calm down and Bentley turned to me and said "I just had a few tears when that happened to Cares." He really loves her even if they can really drive each other crazy too. I am happy my girls have such a loving and concerned big brother.

On our way out. See--she is all better!

And that was our weekend...so far anyway. We did get Beatles Rockband--a gift from my parents for my hubby's birthday last month--but it was just released on Wednesday and arrived on our porch Thursday. And it is way cool. Like super duper fun. I need to finish this post and then head to the soundproof basement with Joseph so we can belt out some great tunes and pretend we know how to play the drums and electric guitar. It's good stuff people.

Caroline in Preschool

Caroline had her first day of preschool yesterday. We are doing things like we did with Bentley when he was 3--in a joy school like format with the moms rotating as teachers each week. I had the first week and things went really well. It helps to have done this several times with Bentley's little group--and realize it won't always be smooth sailing and that some kids will be very into things one week and totally aloof the next. I was proud of them for doing so well on the very first day.

Cares and her preschool friends.
I had to post this picture because it cracks me up--they are all so cute but each made a random face all at once. And our little friend Luke just felt too shy to join the group for pictures...

PS--I love this date--09/09/09. My dear friend Alyson is pregnant and due very, very soon. I have been hoping all day that she would go into labor and get to have this for her daughter's birthday...but no news yet...

I do have a friend who had a baby boy back on 08/08/08...so I'm just saying...

Labor Day Hike

To Stewart Falls with the Horsley family.
(We left our tiny one with Nanny back at the cabin--brilliant plan I tell you!)

The kids were amazing hikers. Bentley simply wanted to keep up with Ethan and Will and therefore had zero complaints. He was such a trooper! Cares hitched a ride in the backpack for about the last third of the hike but we were super proud of her for lasting that long. Her sturdy cousin Maddie did the whole hike--yay for strong little hiking legs!

One of my favorite views. Thanks to my hubby for introducing me to it (the first time I hiked Timp was with him on Labor Day 10 years ago...)

Brave waterfall boys

Love these posers!

Sundance Cabin

The first signs of fall. I love that my kids were way excited about the changing leaves. I wonder if I wear off on them at all...

Olivia and I drove home last night and left Joseph and the kids to sleepover (my baby girl has had a mean runny nose and waking several times a night because of it--we weren't going to wreck everyone's night of sleep...just mine ;)

Hanging out this morning

and checking out this little guy on the railing