Halloween 2014

Jessica - Elsa from Frozen

Andrew - Batman

Andrew - Indian (no masks at school so he wore this for the parade)

 April - BYU cheerleader

 Krista - robber

Kylie dressed up in one of her dance costumes and a red cape as Little Red Riding hood and looked gorgeous but didn't give me a chance to get a picture.

First Day of School

There should be an award for this awesomeness.

So we're driving home after Jessica's birthday dinner and I spot this piece of awesomeness on the car in front of us.

  I of course yell, "Squirrel!"

The reactions of my various children were priceless and thanks goes to Krista for snapping this pic with her phone.

Jessica Is 4!

This year, happiness is a Barbie with an ORANGE dress.

She wanted Mickey and Minnie on her cake.

Ogden Temple Open House Family Picture

Family Picture

We were asked to bring a family picture to church for the bulletin board.

I think we took a dozen or so.

This was one of the best.

You'll notice almost everyone is paying attention and smiling.

The kids are calling the fuzzy guy in the background "Fred".

Cartoonist Sighting

Cartoonist Cal Grondahl at the Hill Aerospace Museum.

He also has coloring pages at the Dinosaur Museum.

Very interesting man to talk to.

The North Ogden House

The Orem House

about moving from Orem, UT to North Ogden, UT

In April of 2014 we started getting serious about selling our house in Orem and buying a house in the Weber County area.  With the way Ogden and surrounding cities are growing we had A LOT of options for housing developments and houses for sale within easy driving distance of Eden, UT.  Eden itself had very few available places, the prices were much higher, and I'm just too much of a city girl to live in a semi-rural area (no matter how gorgeous it is over there).  We drove up a bunch of times, worked with the amazing Shauna Jensen and found a few houses we liked well enough to talk numbers on.  Then we put our house in Orem up for sale through the awesome James Crandall, who we had worked with a few times before and SURPRISE! we had a couple of offers in less than a week.  So, with Jared working crazy hours and pretty much living two hours away I took on the last couple of months of school, packing, cleaning, small repairs, and the other little bits of life required by my five kids, church, and community responsibilities.

Just a tad insane there for a while.

I have to admit I felt like the Orem house was in less than fantastic shape when we sold it.  Other people told me it was fine and it's just that after living there for ten years I was familiar with every carpet stain and chip in the paint.  Factoring in the cosmetic stuff and the new roof we had put on the year before, we arrived at a number that seemed fair for everyone.  It was less than the appraisal value but more than the appreciated value since we bought the place so I think everyone was happy.  I hope the new owners are the kind of people who enjoy redecorating.

The North Ogden house was high on my list and after Jared ran the numbers it was his first choice.  It's in a great school district, is about 15 years newer than the Orem house, is almost the same square footage, has a great view of the valley, and is only a fifteen minute drive from the ski resort.  We moved in June 1st, the day after school ended.  We closed on the North Ogden house, then a couple of weeks later, we signed over the Orem house.  Boy am I grateful the financial end of things all went so smoothly!

We were incredibly blessed to have lots of help from family and friends and to have one of my sisters working in a shipping department so I had access to an endless supply of used cardboard boxes in ideal shapes and sizes.
The new neighbors are just as wonderful as the old neighbors and we'll end up being blessed to know all of them.

about the husband's new job

Jared was hired back in the middle of 2013 to try to come up with financing options for a group of investors hoping to buy a ski resort in Utah and develop it into something with "international appeal".  They found a resort in Eden, UT and Jared went to work.  By November the investors were the proud owners of a used ski resort.  Everyone was so delighted with how smoothly things went that Jared was asked to stay on full-time.
Oh, did I not mention that Jared was working on this project while holding down a full-time job in Draper, UT for a health supplement company?
The health supplement place was on the decline and the ski resort idea had great prospects so he switched jobs (only working both for a month or so).
This brings us to the two hour commute.
Yes, that's each way.
The investors have a ten year plan and it involves Jared doing a lot of financial work for them.
two hours x ten years = our entire budget going towards gasoline
Jared looked at other options, checked with a few other companies, even went to a couple of job interviews, but we arrived at the same conclusion; it was time to move for the job.

about updating

Every other week or so I click on the link to my blog.  Not so much to write anything, just to see how it looks.  Not sure if I'm expecting things to have changed since I last logged in or if I'm looking for something I may have added while sleep-walking one strange evening.

I clicked on my blog today and realized I haven't updated since January and that wasn't even my own original thought.  So here I am, actually updating.  Except I'm not able to type into my blog because our new internet is kinda not-so-much functioning about half the time so I'm typing into the notepad as I wait for my blog to load.

We've actually had tons of changes in the last few months so updating should have been easy.
There was actual news!
But I was so busy I didn't have time.

I'm going to go switch the laundry then see if the page has caught up with me yet.

(5 min. later)

Oh good!  It's up!

Tooth Fairy Time for Andrew

Behind The Bed

I moved our bed to look for something and this was what was under my husband's side.  Finders keepers totally went into effect at this point.

Orem Library Puppet Theate

If you get a chance, take some children and go play with the adorable puppet theater at the Orem Public Library.  I say take the children only because playing with the puppets all by myself was getting me some funny looks.

Theater with convenient puppet storage.

A parrot wearing a Jessica.

A snake wearing an Andrew.  Notice the matching tongue action.

Krista as Coppelia in Coppelia

Krista dancing the part of Coppelia.

Krista dancing the part of one of the maidens.

Krista auditioned for the Utah Civic Ballet Company production of Coppelia and got the part of the title character.  She was also able to dance a few other company parts when her character was tucked away somewhere in the shop.  She did a great job, worked really hard, danced until her feet were bruised, and made me very proud.
If you aren't familiar with the story of Coppelia, don't worry, we weren't either.  We checked out a lovely illustrated version from the library.  It's a bit of a Pinocchio meets The Bachelor kind of deal.

acyrologia

You can tell a book is real...

Denim Quilt I Helped Make

So this is actually something my mother, sisters, my kids, and I finished about two years ago but I wanted to put it on my Pinterest so I'm sticking it on my blog.  Ah, the wonders of technology.

It's actually a King size quilt which was a great present for my husband as he's a big guy but it can pretty much squash a small child with the weight.  We won't make one this large ever again.  The kids and the grown-ups each pieced together a square or two so it's got lots of individual touches.  It came out really well  The back we made from cheap flannel blankets we found on sale.  There is no batting or filling.  We used my mother's Bernina sewing machine and the denim foot attachment to put it all together.

To get uniform shapes we used a few pieces of cereal boxes cut into a square, a triangle, a rectangle, and a long rectangle, all measured to fit each other and leave a seam allowance.  Then we traced those onto old jeans of various sizes and colors and cut them out.  We messed around with the design a lot and had a great time voting on what squares were "artistic/creative" enough to add to the quilt (submitters ranged in age from two to senior discount so there was a lot of variety).

It turned out out so well we started on another SMALLER quilt and have plans to make one that is sort of a chess board with pockets for some kind of stuffed or beanbag chessmen or just checkers...  Check back in a few years to see if we finish that project.

Park-Bark Beetles

Last week when we went to the Orem Rec Center Park near our home, to play on the playground, we found dozens of these beetles.

Jared grossing out the kids.

This picture is oriented the right way on my computer...

Anyway, Jessica and Andrew holding the beetles they caught.

The paper cup method was a lot safer than picking them up as they could both cling and pinch.

April with the cup-o-bugs.

I held it but it was not a pleasant experience.  They have sharp little clingy feet and avoiding the pincers was not easy.