Are you READY?

I believe I already blogged about losing Garry to BYU for fall, now this is how I found Talon after piano today. He came home from work at lunch time and "called" the big screen from 4:30 on. After I got done with piano today, this is how I found him.

He'd even put on his jersey for his beloved Panthers. Doesn't he know I GET THE BIG SCREEN FOR DANCING WITH THE STARS??!! I have a feeling I'll be banned to the bedroom. Oh, the sacrifices I make for my children!

Smellavision?

Too bad they haven't invented Smellavision! Look what I made today. It's finally cool enough that baking bread doesn't heat up the house. Love: the smell of homemade bread baking
Love: the feel of dough in my hands
Love: patting the loaves as they rise
Love: cutting loaves too hot to handle
Love: serving bread to these three as an after school snack!!

I'm so glad my kids like homemade bread. As Cynjyn said as she devoured her piece: "Tastes just like Grandma's!" (As I informed her that was because Grandma uses MY recipe!!

Sickness

It's funny how sickness affects different people and ages. Sunday after church, Cynjyn started feeling sick. She had a headache, sore throat and stomach ache. By 6:00, she had a fever of 102. She stayed home from school Monday, Tuesday and today. Monday, she had a really high fever all day and the sore throat and headache. Tuesday, lowgrade fever, still sore throat, slight cough. Wednesday, fever gone, throat still sore and headache. However, by about 2:00, she felt just fine and now only has a crackly voice and a slight cough. I started coughing Monday and have had a terrible cough since then. My throat has been a little sore, no fever, crackly voice. Tanner was supposed to have open gym Tuesday, but came home after school and went right to bed claiming he was sick. Around 5 I took him some water per his request and took his temp. It was 104 and he had chills. I gave him Ibuprophen and he slept most of the evening and was in bed for the night before 9. He did not go to school today. The fever was down to 100 this morning and his head still hurt. Now he is feeling much better but still has a cough.Cynjyn spent all day yesterday concocting with her spa factory and made an oatmeal mask for her face to make her "feel better."

Tanner spent the morning watching Season 8 of Smallville (I made him read Roots all afternoon for English though).
To top it all off, I'm half way through the above book about the Yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793, so not helping when I have two kids with high fevers! But the book's pretty good.

Christmas? Birthday?? Can't be, it's September!

A few weeks ago, I got an email from my sister Krissy informing me, my sister Ky and my mom that Cricut was having a sale and you could go to their website and get 10 cartridges and a Cricut Expressions for $400.00. I don't know a lot about Cricut, but I've had my eye on one for awhile now. So, I went to the website and couldn't find a thing on this special. At this point all I knew was that Cricut cartridges sell for about $60-$80 each and the machine is around $400.00. Finally, I did a google on the Cricut special and found out that I had to go to the educators section and it was a special for teachers. You had to put the name of your school in their and stuff to get the discount and the 10 cartridges were all school related. BUT, the expression is a big Cricut and can do 12x12 paper. The Expression alone retails for $499.99. Well, when you registered to get one, it had a section for preschool, so I gave it a try and put my own address and Kim's Preschool on the form and they accepted it and I was able to order one! I got it Friday, and haven't had time to learn anything about it (suggestions Carol?).

It felt like Christmas!

Tanner's birthday is October 5. We have already ordered his presents and they came Friday too. He was so excited and wanted to open them right away. We said no of course, but then Garry said maybe we should let him open 2 early because he'll be needing them in the next few weeks. So, Sunday night, we let him open two.

He was VERY excited to get Season 8 of Smallville and new Volleyball shoes. They have started having open gym at the high school and his other shoes were too small, so since he has open gym this Tuesday, we let him open them. And just so you all know, season 9 of Smallville starts this Friday and he hasn't seen Season 8, so we gave it to him to try to catch up so he doesn't get too far behind on Season 9! But, he has to wait till the 5th for the rest of them!

And to end on a lighter note, last night during FHE, Garry looked over at Mowgli and he was just laying there with his tongue sticking out!! He would not put it back in. Cynjyn even went over to him and touched his tongue and he still kept sticking it out. We ran and got the camera because he looked so funny!

What did we ever do without 'em??

It's Sunday, church is over, lunch is done. We've all seperated and gone our own way. Talon is at Tiffany's, Tanner is upstairs doing homework, Taz is watching a football game, Garry is emailing some scout stuff to the Stake, I am in the bedroom reading and Cynjyn is taking a bath. I leave my room for a minute to get a drink of water, as I come back into my bedroom, I hear that I have a text on my phone. So I pick it up to check, it is from Taz, whom I just saw in the kitchen. This is what the text said,
"Mom go to your phone!!!" Immediatly followed by another text,
"Do you want to play a game"
Me: Yes, do you have homework?" "Ask Dad if he wants to play too"
Taz: "Nooooooooooooooooooooop"
Taz: "Kkkkkkk"
"Wat game?"
Me: "Carcasone, Settlers or Rage"

At this point, Garry comes into the bedroom. I show him Taz's text and he starts laughing. I text Tanner who is upstairs:
Me: "Wanna play a game?"
"Tanner are u awake?"
Tanner: "Sure"
"I just answered you"

While this is going on, I get a text from Taz:
"O well is dad neer u because he is not in the kitchen"

At this time, Garry picks up his phone and starts texting Taz:
"Let's play sequence"
Taz: "Ok"
"Did you ask mom??"
Garry: "Let me text her" (he's sitting right by me and we're laughing hysterically)

While this is going on, I'm still texting Tanner:
"Sequence, carcasone, settlers or rage"
Tanner: "Settlers"
Me: "Come on down then!"
Tanner: "kk"

Taz and Garry are still texting at this point:
Taz: "Well, she wants to play cacosone settelers or rage"
Garry: "Ok"
Taz: "Ya so txt her!"

Seconds later, we were all at the table happily setting up Settlers of Catan. How did we ever communicate before we all had phones??

New do!

You know it is fall when I get a haircut. There is just something so refreshing about cutting off all the hair and feeling so light afterwards. I'd been contemplating the haircut for awhile. Garry claims he likes long hair, but I don't see how me with long hair is too flattering. It is weighted down and I never style it except Sunday mornings and I just hate it. Last week I asked Tanner if he liked me better with long hair or short hair and he didn't even hesitate and said short. So this morning I went. TAA-DAA!!

I love it and the stylist didn't even do a thing but cut it. I left with wet hair and this is how it dried. It's gonna be easy I can tell and thats my style:)

It'll make your day!

Need a pick me up for the day?? Go here!


http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/newmoon_movie.html

Labor Day

We had a fun Labor Day. We usually play volleyball on Monday nights with a few families from the ward. We decided Sunday to see if they wanted to play earlier in the day and then come to our house for a BBQ and swimming. They said yes. We met at the church at 11 am. Here's Cynjyn and Sydney warming up. Sydney usually plays with us, but C either stays home, or plays in the nursery. Today however, Sydney decided to play with C instead of playing vball!!

But, they had fun warming up together.

Tanner LOVES this picture, even though his pants are falling down. He is jumping higher than his dad and this makes him SUPER HAPPY:)

Taz is practicing hitting. He ended up getting a headache about half way through and sat down, so I made him take pictures that are coming up.

In't he coot!!

Here is us and our peeps playing together and havin fun!

My shoulder and elbow's are so bad now that I can no longer serve overhand. My arthritis diagnosis has really put a hamper on my thrill to play volleyball any more. I know how to play and the mind knows what to do, but it just hurts my wrists, fingers, elbows and shoulders to play "good" anymore. I am about ready to hang up my hat for good with volleyball and that makes me sooooo sad:(

Talon got a good block on Penina. Lewis and Lindsay are ready to back him up though!

Garry is still awesome and gets good hits when Lea's his setter!

Tanner really has good and bad times. He just needs to keep playing and get a little stronger and he'll do fine.

After volleyball, we got home and waited for our company to show up to swim by playing a little Guitar Hero 5!

I was terrible and took NO pictures of us swimming. I was too busy visiting. Mostly, the men and kids swam, us ladies sat poolside and visited. It is so nice to do that. I really enjoy it and I don't do it often enough. So these last pictures are of us eating after swimming for a couple of hours. We decided to eat inside and boy did we have house FULL. Above is Sydney, Cynjyn and Tanner chowing down.

We invited the Hollands even though they don't play vball. Taz has really become quite friendly with Hansen now that they are at the same school (Middle school) and carpool together. So he really wanted to invite them. We know how busy a bishops family is, but they squeezed us into their busy schedule and it was fun to get to know them better. Here are Peter and Cohen chowing down.

Garry, Zoli, Dave and Tiffany. The food was on the table, but a few people ate there, most of us found a place on the couch or ate standing up.

Taz, Jeanne, Rachel, Talon, Hansen, Zoli and Tiff. For a spur of the moment get together, it was pretty fun. The Miranda's and the Berenyi's stayed till around 7:30 and we visited some more and played a few games of Village Idiot. The Hollands left around 5:30. Too bad swimming season is almost over.

No more monthly dates

Being the Primary President, I have the privelege of attending the monthly stake baptisms if there are any children in the ward getting baptized. They are most always on Saturday's at 5:00 pm. Garry, being the good husband that he is, will always go with me to keep me company. It has become a monthly date night. Well, no more!! Now that it's fall, this guy has replaced me!!

Thanks to this awesome team, I went to the baptism by myself as Garry sat perched on the couch with the remote in his hand ready to rewind plays and cheer on his beloved Cougars. Now, I must say, I saw the beginning of the game and the end. That's all that matters right? AND, the end was the most exciting part!I am glad that he gets so into the game and his team, I'm sad to have lost my date night, but life goes on and...GO COUGARS!! (I will say that last year he did go to Twilight with me during an exciting game because we were going as a book club with our husbands, so kudo's to him for that!)

Projects

Garry likes (I say that liberally) to take on projects to keep him busy during the summers while we are in Oregon. The past few summers, he hasn't done much because with the kids being in year round school, we weren't gone too long. But now that they are all in 9 month school, we went for 6 weeks. I had a job for Garry while we were gone. But I'll post that later. It's still not quite finished. HE decided to tile the kitchen while we were gone. We'd been talking about doing it for a long, but with six people in the house, you kind of need access to a kitchen and the floor would take a few days to do. Well, the week before we came back, he decided to go for it. As a matter of fact, we came back a day early and he was just finishing up. So, here are some before and afters: I'll admit that I like stuff on my counters. If I want to cook a crockpot meal, I don't want to stand on my head to get the CP out of a cupboard, but one thing Garry did was declutter all the counters. He found a spot for everything. Now my counters are clear and it makes the kitchen look a whole lot better. I'm not to happy with some of my drawers though, because he just shoved some things in them, but it does look cleaner this way.

Before the fridge was put back in.

Cluttery

Organized and clean looking!

This was our peel and stick floor that was about 10 years old.

Now, we have adorable tile. It is the same tile he put in our bathroom when he redid it. We just really liked it. It actually has some "sparkles" in it. Hints of gold glitter.

Before,

After. Needless to say, we all love it and he did a great job. Thanks hun!! I'll be posting the other project in a few days, stay tuned...