crafts, fall, family

      I got a little crafty recently. Both the burlap wreath and 'welcome' sign are of my own making, which is pretty amazing if I do say so myself. I'm not normally crafty and I generally find crafting quite stressful but I liked both these decor ideas, which I found on Pinterest, so I took a shot at it and I think they both turned out ok. I'm not too happy that fall is approaching but I love fall decorating. Now I just need to get a few more things and I'll have the front of the house all ready for fall.

       This past week Greg and I made a drive up to Conrad ranch to retrieve our ladders and also just to enjoy the scenery. The colors are starting to come on and this place is just as spectacular as ever!

     I also got all these fun photos to chose from, from the wedding photographer and I think all these kids took some great photos. I have seven, now eight, beautiful children and now my photo wall is all updated too!

Don't tell anyone, but McClane has to be my favorite! He's so stickin' cute!!

    So that's our week. I also spent last evening with Carter and his scout troop for the mom and son camp out, which was great but a little cold. I had every intention of sleeping over but our tent was not in good order when we finally found it so I decided to skip the sleep over aspect of the night. I felt bad about missing breakfast but wasn't sad that I had to sleep in my own bed. I never got any photo evidence of the night but it was fun and my 4th year attending with several more to go.

Bumps, tools, work and fun.

     Charlie had a little mismatch with the skateboard and the skateboard obviously won. She was sitting on the back of the skateboard while her friend was standing on the front of the same skateboard and when her friend jumped off the skateboard flew up and Charlie went forward causing this giant, nasty goose egg on her head. We cleaned her up and put some of this 'miracle' clay on it and it looks much better just a few days later.

So sad!

    Mark spent the better part of an afternoon buying tools for his diesel mechanics school and then putting them all away in his tool chest one afternoon.

The kid has a 'special' style! (What is he wearing, seriously!?)

     I also decided that Labor Day was the perfect day to put a few kids to work. We went from a messy circle fire pit to this much better stacked square fire pit.

Isaac disassembled, Mark and Greg rebuilt and McClane and Charlie cleaned up the debris.

     These two always have a good time together, at least until the one in pink jumps off the skateboard.

     And this afternoon these three put on a pretty awesome, tiny, tea party. The tea set is tiny and two of the three girls are tiny and Charlie's just the cutest hostess.

Fun girls!

     So that's our week in a nutshell. Now on to a nice weekend with Regional conference in place of traditional church, which means 'free' day!

Dogs & organizing

     Not a big week of photos. These two are new best friends, at least for the long weekend. So far so good. Cisco lives a few doors down and while his family is gone for the weekend he's hanging out with us.

      And have I mentioned how much produce we have lately!? Have I also mentioned how much I hate having a ton of stuff on my kitchen counters? I found the perfect solution, this awesome three tiered tray! It's also a perfect match for the drink dispenser I bought for Kayli's wedding reception so I'm feeling kind of fancy. This tray is a little taller then I envisioned so it won't fit under my kitchen cupboards but this spot works great too.
      Oh and we have the bedrooms finally figured out and my piano is now nicely tucked away in the back bedroom freeing up some space in the front room. And the four youngest kids are all situated in the basement thanks to my visiting teacher giving me her extra bunk beds.

        So that's what we've been up to this week. I don't know about the kids but I'm looking forward to having a three day weekend! I think we should get a three day weekend at least once a month throughout the whole school year.

Let the insanity begin!

     So a new school year is upon us! Not my favorite thing in the world but the more structured schedule is always a nice change. So far everyone is adapting well to the early morning routine. Honestly, summer already feels like a distant memory. It just goes way too fast!!

     We have had one little glitch with Mark's early morning diesel mechanics class, after only two days the instructor up and quit so the class has been postponed until after Labor Day. Lets hope they find a good replacement. For now I've deemed Mark my slave every morning until he gets back to his regularly scheduled program. (Maybe he can knock out some online classed in the next two weeks as well.)

Mark is starting his senior year and the diesel mechanic program in Spanish Fork, Isaac is in 9th, Carter is 7th, Brock is 4th, McClane is 1st.

    Charlie started preschool a day after the boys started school and she cried for a minute when I dropped her off but quickly acclimated and told me when I picked her up that she loves school, so happy day for me and her! I'm pretty excited to have an hour and 45 minutes all to myself three afternoons a week.

    And of course, with 5 in school all day, one married and out of the house, this little girl is going to get a lot of one on one time with mom and dad. Greg was pretty excited for the lunch date and especially happy for the coloring book and crayons!

The boys did all the coloring in this little Peppa Pig coloring book Charlie got.

     So we did switch bedrooms around but so far it's not going as well as I'd hoped. Apparently Brock is more of a 'scaredy cat' then I realized and he's dragging Charlie into his drama so they haven't been sleeping so well in the basement. Hopefully they can build up some courage soon because I'm NOT going to put up with too many more 'night time hysterics'. On a happy note, getting four kid's wardrobes in the two closets in Kayli's old bedroom has been so AWESOME! If all they do is keep their clothes down there but sleep upstairs I'm ok with that. Now to get a little painting done and some furniture rearranged.

Kayli's wedding!

   Well it's done! We are now the proud parents of our first married child and we couldn't be happier. We also are thrilled to be the new parents of a bouncing 21 (almost 22) year old boy! The whole day was almost perfect and the weather was PERFECT! I couldn't have ordered a better day if I tried.

Families are Forever! 

Here's a glimpse of the decorations, donuts and the perfect cake courtesy of Megan Baker! 

God wins the prize on decor though, this place, Conrad Ranch, is simply spectacular!

A full family photo courtesy of Kayli's new mother-in-law and my new friend, Roiann.

And Charlie loved having her grandparents here for a quick visit. She especially loved Grandma's farting neck trick.

     So there's just a few highlights from our big day and week. I didn't take too many photos because I was busy socializing and we did pay a photographer so hopefully in the near future we'll get all the photos she took and I can do a more thorough blog post. I really am happy with the whole experience and look forward to seeing Kayli and Tanner adjust to married life. I also want to thank my parents, sister Ann and brother Tad for making the long drive to be here to support Kayli and Tanner, we loved seeing you and thanks for all your help!
      Now the dreaded start of a new school year in just a few short days! I'm never happy to start school/homework/lunch making but getting back into a more structured schedule is always nice. We also just  moved bedrooms around and have a few kids moved downstairs in Kayli's old room, which I've really been looking forward to so we'll see if that works better in the coming weeks. Of course with change comes projects and now Greg is working on painting the old bedroom that just recently housed 3 kids, the walls were beyond trashed. We'll see how long it takes before some one decides to write on, dent or put a new hole in the freshly painted walls. You just got to love parent problems!

The girls!

     Greg and I enjoyed some yummy barbecue this weekend. It was also a great excuse to go for a motorcycle ride.

Hands down the BEST cornbread!!

     I also spent a little time getting photos printed and ready for display for Kayli's wedding reception.

Lots of cute photos and only some mild drama from Kayli.

       We're ending our week celebrating this cute girls 4th birthday. Friday she got to go on a little shopping spree.

She's only mildly spoiled!

Happy birthday balloons.

And a big thank you to G & G Baker for the card and cash. She was thrilled!!

We'll enjoy this cake tonight before fireworks.

     They even had a parade in Charlie's honor.

     So that's our week! Behind the scenes there was a lot of yard work done by me and I've had Greg working on a project or two. Wedding preparations are still going relatively smoothly. There was a little hiccup with the donuts I planned to order but I think I solved it and we should have plenty of yummy donuts for the guests at the reception. Tuesday can't come soon enough!

Kind of a lot of photos

    I put Greg to work on this amazing gate! I love it when he agrees to my ideas. I love anything on a diagonal!

Repurposed gates and fence wood!

They turned out better then I expected.

      While Greg was hard at work on the gate project I was getting a few things ready for Kayli's bridal photos.

Such a beautiful bouquet and this was thrown together by our local florist at the last minute. I'll be coming back to them for the rest of our flower needs.

     I took a few photos but cousin Rebecca did this couple real justice. Here are just a few she and I captured.

    I also managed to take the four youngest on a couple adventures this week. Here's photo evidence of our trip to Trafalgar. I didn't get any from Seven Peaks but we did a couple hours at the water park this week too.

It wasn't very crowded so this girl got the airplane ride all to herself.

Brock

Carter

McClane

     These three really do get along so well. This was an impromptu coloring project.

We traded Isaac for this big girl for the week and she hasn't had any problem making herself at home. 

     Isaac had the privilege of going on vacation to California with our neighbors, who's son is the same age, and from the photos I've been sent it looks like he's having a 'miserable' time.

Swimming, sunsets and outdoor movies.

A trip to the San Diego Temple to do baptisms, lucky!

    And the highlight of the week was attending the Brigham City Temple with Kayli and Tanner as they went through for their endowments. It was a great day and I'm so excited for this next phase of life for them.

    We had our own mini-photo shoot before our session.

When there's a drinking fountain on the temple grounds you get a drink.

Such a great day and a HUGE thank you to the family that came to support the happy couple.

      Only 10 more sleeps until these two are in wedded bliss!