Books and goodies

It all started with a contest I won. I love Stacey Julian. She is a bigwig in the scrapbooking industry and I just love her approach to scrapbooking. I look at her blog all the time. I also enter almost every contest she has. Well, I actually won one. I didn't even know it until I got an email from Color Inc telling me how to redeem my prize. I have lost so often, that I never checked back when she announced the winners, but here is the proof I won!
This also give info on Color Inc and how to make your own book if you want. So I stayed true to my comment and made an "I can read" book for my nephew Beckham. His birthday was in April and I had wanted to do this for a long time, but couldn't quite put it together myself.

I can't wait to give it to him when he comes in a month to visit.

About a month ago, I got my blog from 2009 turned into a book. It is huge!

This book has made the rounds in the family. Everyone has loved looking at it. Talon kept it in his room for a good week and it stayed on the ottoman for a good month. I am so glad I blog and so glad I print them out into books with a years worth of my personal family history. If you're considering doing it, do it. Don't wait, they are worth the money!

I made these yummy treats for game night last week and my recital. They disappear quickly!

I know I'm behind the times, but we tried quinoa last night. It is a healthy grain that Garry heard about in the Friend about 8 months ago. I bought some and it's just been sitting in the cupboard. Well, last night I needed a side dish with our steak and so I sauteed some onion and mushroom and garlic with it and it turned out pretty good.

Random

Last night I was folding a load of laundry while watching Minute to Win it. When I took them out of the dryer, I found Garry's check stub from work all crumpled amongst the clothes. Luckily, he does direct deposit and so it wasn't really that big of a loss. So, he starts helping me fold clothes and he's folding a pair of his shorts and I hear "Oh crap". I say what and he pulls the Checkbook and ledger out of his shorts. They look like this: He had taken it to Tanner's summer volleyball tryouts to pay the fee for the travel team and forgot to take it out of his pocket!! Now, it just so happens that our credit union got bought out and is switching over THIS weekend and we are getting new account numbers and new checks and the whole shebang, BUT, it will be very difficult to BALANCE my check book without a readable ledger!!

Cynjyn got her hair cut after school yesterday. She loves it!! I think it's a good look for her too.

Tuesday, Garry had the scouts over to do the swimming and livesaving merit badge and this was Taz's audience as he attemted to take off his shirt and pants, blow air into them and float across the pool. Amanda (Tanner's "friend" had come over to get help with science and ended up staying for dinner and I took them both to mutual when we went). Cynjyn stayed here to swim and Tiffany and Talon came out to enjoy the nice weather. Taz didn't appreciate all the yells of help as he attempted his feat!

Talon is on a get in shape kick and has PX90. He's had it for awhile, but he's just now getting into it. His friend at work put him on a CRaZy diet where he has to eat something like 4000 calories a day and one day loads up on protein, the next on carbs and he can't have fruit. So, he was buying his own food. Here he is with Garry putting up the "chinup bar" above the garage door which has become his workout room.

He cooked up a huge steak and was eating it to load up on his protein. The plate was piled with steak, this is towards the end of his and Tiffany's eating spree. Luckily for all of us, he has done away with the diet and has decided to eat more sensibly, but last night while doing PX90, he came running in and threw up in the bathroom because the workout was too intense. Oh, he would make a good contestant on "The Biggest Loser"!! They love that throwup drama!!

Can you read this?

Last week the kids had their annual eye appointments. We knew Taz would need glasses, but we didn't think Tanner would need them. Cynjyn is sad because she is the lone Goon left that doesn't need glasses (actually Garry had lasik, so he's no longer in glasses, but I think she forgot that).

Here's Tanner in his new pair. They both only need them in school to see the board, so they aren't wearing them all the time.

Taz, can see so much better with his though, so he's going to wear his all the time.

Aren't they cute?!

Cynjyn's turn finally!

Cynjyn has sat by numerous times while her brothers have had friends parties. I asked her if she wanted to have an end of year bash and she quickly said "YES!" So last Friday, she had 7 friends come over. She'd invited 9, but two couldn't come. We partied from 6-9 and she had 2 friends from school, 4 from church and one neighbor. It was a good mix and everyone had a blast. We started out with a light dinner which Cynjyn picked out the menu. She was adamant about having finger sandwiches, crackers and cheese and a relish tray. I made PB&J and three layer ham and cheese sandwiches. We added pepperoni to the cheese and cracker tray and had pickles, olives and carrots for the relish tray. They drank soda.

After dinner, we took them to the park and Cynjyn wanted to play tag, so they did that while Garry and Tanner set up an obstacle course.

It was so windy that night!!

While they were waiting for Tanner and Garry, I made them divide into teams and come up with a team name and a team cheer. Cynjyn's team was the warriors. It was her and Kayla, Alexis and Autumn.

Bethany, Maggie, Tommie and Danielle were the Tigers. They did such a cute job and I got their cheers on video.

Here they are ready for the course. Maggie, Bethany, Danielle, Cynjyn, Tommie, Alexis, Autumn and Kayla.

We came back home and they played Mafia and Murder in the Dark, then we had a Sundae bar. I had put little cocktail umbrellas in their ice cream just for fun and they had SO MUCH fun with those. Most put a lot of goo on their ice cream and then didn't touch it.

Taz and Jaden were banned to the game room, but we let them surface to add toppings to their ice cream.

We ended up putting the box of umbrella's on the table and let them go at it. There were 144 and by the time they all left, there were only about 6 umbrella's left. As you can see, they were put to good use! If you want a cheap way to entertain kids, buy a $4.00 box of umbrellas and let them go at it!!

Tanner's eagle picture

Go over to the right side of my blog and click on the "Life as I Know it" This talented lady did Tanner's Eagle Scout shoot and she has a picture of him on her blog. She also has a link on #3 right below his picture. This link will take you to her photography facebook page and she has 5 pictures from his shoot there. Become a fan while you're at it.

FHE

We FINALLY used our fire pit this Sunday for FHE treats. It is almost getting too hot for it, but it was a fun way to end FHE.

Talon, of all people insisted on making the fire.
Then he was too impatient to wait for coals and burned at least 4 maybe 6 marshmellows.

Garry also made smoothies, so we all enjoyed those while we were waiting for coals.

He finally got a smore made and ate.

Here are the patient ones in the family, with our golden brown marshmellows, as we waited for coals.

The evidence of the goodness!

It was a fun night and afterward, Tanner, Taz and Cynjyn even took a dip in the pool!

Tanner's car

We had been looking for a car for Tanner for awhile now. We had cash saved so we could by the car when we found the perfect deal. We'd been concentrating on trucks because we've wanted one for a long time. The are pretty expensive though and so we figured we'd start looking now. All of a sudden, Tiffany decides she wants a new car. Actually, she's wanted one for awhile, but we are just hearing about it. She wants Garry to go with her to negotiate and she wants a VW Jetta, 2010. So she informs us that she's just going to trade in her car or maybe try to sell it. Garry, being who he is, does a bunch of research and her trade in value for her Toyota is only $3800. Blue Book is $5500. So we talk about it and decide she'd get a better deal if we buy it. She thinks she only has around $4400 left to pay it off. So, her and Talon have already test drove the Jetta she wants. Wednesday, her, Talon and Garry go to do the bartering. They get $3000 marked off the sticker price and get her 2.5% financing. Turns out, her Toyota financing was 16%, she got a terrible deal on that. Plus she has $5100 left to pay it off. So Garry and I pay if off and we'll give her an additional $400. She got her car Thursday morning and we got Tanner's. Here they are: Tiff's Jetta

Tanner's Matrix

Tanner happy with his new (to him, actually a 2004) Matrix.

I can feel the grey increasing!

Last Saturday, I took Tanner to the DMV to get his permit. He failed the test, so we were in and out in 20 min. Today was our first chance to go back and retake the test. We got there at 2:00 pm and walked out the door with a new official Nevada driver at 5:00pm. Here is Tanner waiting...and waiting...and waiting...I told him to bring a book or homework or something, but no, he didn't.

Here he is driving home happy as a clam,

until he noticed I was taking his picture when he yelled: "Mom, don't distract me!!"

He has to carry this big ole piece of paper around with him until they mail the official card in 7-10 greys, er I mean days. I did survive the ride home. It still amazes me how one minute he's illegal and then because of a little piece of paper he can drive. I made him go surface streets and luckily, he's only really ever drove Grandpa's big farm truck, so he didn't do too bad driving the big Suburban. When we got home, he said: "Wow, there sure is a lot to think about and pay attention to when driving". Ya think?? We also bought him a new car yesterday even though he won't be driving on his own till November. I'll save that post for later. I've got to get a few picutres for that.

Almost done

Several things to catch up on our week. Garry went to Sam's a few days ago and came home with these beauties. Just because...carnations are my favorite flower and purple is my favorite color!!

Last Tuesday, we bought fabric to make our curtain wall to seperate the garage from the game room. We didn't realize it would take two hours to pick out and find material, but we did and chose blue because it matched the floor. It took both of us to roll and cut it the right length.

Garry sewed them while I taught piano.

We got our new TV and it is mounted and functioning.

In between garage duties, Cynjyn had a big hole in her jeans, so I cut them off at the knee, hemmed them and put some fun patches on them.

She now has a cute pair of shorts for summer.

We brought two of the gaming systems into the "game room" and filled some bins with games and hung some guitars.

Garry put the mock wall up!

I had a wonderful mother's day. I got new cookware, and Cynjyn made me a cute bookmark.

Talon and Tiffany got me See's Nuts and Chews!!

It's been a good week!