Spring Happenings

Just wanted to stop in and say hello. :)

Life has been pretty normal, just doing the day to day stuff: cleaning and making dinner, lots of laundry, piano lessons and going to meetings. Trying to set up play dates and wanting to lay in bed all day. :)

Kimball had his third birthday last month and it was so fun to see the stage he's in, he's finally starting to talk a lot more and with every present he opened he would exclaim "OH WOW!" or "OH MY GOSH!" kind of things, it was so cute! He loved getting presents, and was so excited about it. We ended up doing a bunch of different things with him, we opened presents with Dave's family and another day with my family and on his birthday we met Dave at work and took him to McDonald's for a happy meal, and that weekend we took him to Red Robin and they sang to him. It was hysterical because he had just taken a bite of food when they came over to sing, and the entire song he just stared at them without cracking a smile or anything--just stone faced! So unimpressed. ;) It was so great! But after that he got the ice cream and was happy to eat that up! Some pictures of that:

                                                 See that excited reaction?! Love it! :)

We love this boy so much and are so grateful to have him in our family! What a blessing and a joy!


We've been having some really gorgeous weather lately and been trying to take advantage of it! I can't believe how much happier I am just because the sun's out! But we've been laying out in the back yard reading books or playing games or mowing the lawn and its been fabulous!

Sam he said he was too hot so he was going to use his coat for shade, I looked over at him while I was reading and saw he'd done this! I cracked up because to me he looked like a turkey roasting! hee hee!

I saw a friend of mine had streaked her girls' hair and thought it was so fun, so I decided to do it with my girls! They were so excited to pick their colors and everything! I thought we were going to wait until summer to do it but we were all too excited. :) Its very semi-permanent, which means it washes out and fast. Its only lasted a few washes and is almost gone now. :)

We went to a friend's the other day and they had some baby chicks the kids got to hold. It was so fun and Sam was so excited about it! I want chickens so bad and this isn't helping my obsession! ;) Maybe someday soon! :)

We also went to the Point Defiance Zoo (and Aquarium!) this past weekend, but I haven't gone through those pictures yet and it will make this post waaaaaaaay too long! So I will have to do a seperate post all for that. Plus its Sam's birthday this week so we have that going on! PLUS Mother's Day! Sheesh! So much to celebrate, so much fun! Hope everyone's enjoying their spring as much as we are! :)

I'm Just Kind of A Halfway Person, I Guess

I know, its been awhile. Again. Shoot me.

So last year, I made a list of 30 things to do this past year before I turned 30. I tried pretty hard to stay on top of it, but I'll admit I'm a bit of a procrastinator so it was hard to do things when you think you have a year to get it done, and then all of a sudden there's only a month left and you have a bunch of stuff on your list not done! :) Really, I would have done a lot better if the buying a house/moving part of our year wasn't so crazy, it was a lot of off and on, stop and go and I was pretty stressed and during that point I was like who the heck cares about this stupid list?! :) There's a few things on the list I'm really sad I wasn't better about, and there's some that I think I'll still get to even though I didn't do them during the "30 year", and I'm okay with that.

                                                            30 before 30

 1- Learn to play the guitar: Didn't want to cross this off because although I've tried to self teach myself, and I did help play some music for a primary activity, I still am learning and can't really play a whole song myself. :)

 2- Exercise 3 times a week or complete "Insanity": I was doing really well exercising earlier this year, and then the whole moving thing happened and I didn't have a treadmill anymore and I tried to do Insanity but dude, it sucks. So this is sort of half way.

 3- Finish 1 craft project a month 

4- Buy our first house:  YAY!!

 5- Go to Forks: I'm really kind of sad that we didn't get to do this, but like I said, its still something we're going to try to get to doing.

 6- Run a 5k : I did this and was pretty proud of myself, I'm not a runner and I tried really hard to become a better one, I thought I was going to black out a few times (no seriously though), but I did it! :)

7- Watch 30 classic movies : I'm crossing this one off even though I'm a few short because I'm still planning to watch a bunch more (can I tell you how in love with Cary Grant I am?!).

 8- Go to VooDoo donuts 

 9- Homemake everyone's Christmas presents 

 10- Donate blood (plasma maybe?): still planning on this!

 11- Grow hair out--no cutting at all! 

12- Paint 3 paintings: I did a ton of painting this year--of walls! I think I should be able to count it! haha I'm planning on doing some paintings for my house but haven't gotten there yet.

 13- Decorate a cake for each birthday 

14- Take the kids hiking this summer 

15- Find a waterfall: planning on finding one this summer

 16- Go on a date once a month: this is one of the ones I'm sad about, unfortunately we didn't get out for a date every month and it wasn't as big a priority as I should have made it.

 17- Go to the Temple once a month: ditto above.

 18- Be a 100% visiting teacher 

 19- Advance my "photography business"/ get paid for a big event 

 20- Do 3 photography trips/creative shoots/ outdoor shoots: I had some fun ideas to do for this, but unfortunately I just felt like I didn't have time, I did do ONE photography project, just not three.

 21- Yell less / be more patient: I tried. Really I did. (Have you met my kids though?!)

 22- Keep an organized calendar & dinner menu (no procrastinating!) : I wasn't perfect at this, but I really did work hard at it most of the year, got thrown off after the move and have gotten back into it, so I would say it was mostly successful.

 23- Have an all girl's themed party: I wanted to do a fun dress up party, but I'm going to count the baby shower I hosted and call it good. ;)

 24- Go to a concert: I was DYING to go to the Neon Trees/Maroon 5 concert that came through here but at $200 a pop, it wasn't going to happen. :/

25- Make a slideshow/movie for each kid: I just...suck.

26- Get new family pictures taken: Will do that this year for sure.

27- Stick to a budget: This is my husband's fault. ;)

 28- Make more friends / have more playdates 

 29- Decorate new house on a budget / document it on a blog : blog here: The Mint Cottage

 30- Have a big birthday bash!: We did a Roaring 20's theme and it was so fun to dress up! Huge thanks to my beautiful sister for helping put it together!

So what do you think? Do I completely suck for not doing everything? Would you make a list for yourself? If you did, what would you put on it??

The Fancy Party

It was my lovely gal's 10th birthday yesterday and although I'm worn out and still wanting to recuperate from it today, it was a lot of fun! We did a small friend party for Bethany this year--just six girls (and that includes herself, her sister and her cousin), it had been awhile since she had a friend party (I think she was five last time) and since she's at the age where I'm pretty much the worst mom ever (seriously, I just can't win with this child), I figured I would throw her a bone and also throw her a party while I was at it. ;)

We talked about a few different things, like going bowling or roller skating, but it was a little too expensive to take even just a few kids and, well to be honest, I'm cheap. So then I came up with this brilliant idea of doing a fancy lunch and doing fancy hair and makeup and painting fingernails and it would be like a tea party, spa day kind of thing. :) She was on board so we went with it. First up, was the invitations:

(HA! I just looked at this and realized I didn't actually have cupcakes! haha Oh well...)

And then, we got ready for the day! I asked my sister if she would come help, because I wasn't sure how well it would go if I was trying to do hair, and makeup and fingernails for six girls all by myself. ;) She very kindly agreed. I like her.

And we decorated.

And the girls came, so we ate.

And then we did all the fancy stuff, but I was busy then, so no pictures!

And then we opened presents.

It was a good time had by all (thats what I'm hoping at least), they were good girls and all very sweet, if all friend parties could be this nice I would do them more often (maybe). :)

(Don't they look waaaaaaay too grown up?! Yeesh! She's becoming a mini-teenager already!)