Flashback Friday

Because of stress levels reaching an all time high, my posts will be few and far between. At least until we have sold our house and bought another... oh.. and moved.... and started school... I'll get to it as soon as I can!! BTW, the funky gifts from my grandmother?... They were rugs! Good guess, Jen! You get... to be my friend forever! Love ya guys!

Cloth Diapers

I'm getting rid of all of my cloth diapers and covers! If any of you are interested let me know before I sell them online!

When I get a chance, I will take some pictures of my covers (wraps) but until then... aren't these covers SOOOO cute?!

I have some cute ones but they're really coming out with some cute stuff!!

I did find this picture of one that I do have (it's Noah's Ark):

Flashback Friday

I almost forgot all about Flashback Friday!! I have been so stinkin' busy!! But here goes!

This picture was taken in the fall of 1999. It's of me and my nephew Matthew. I think he's like 3 or 4. His preschool class was having some kind of 'Bring a Visitor Day' and he invited me and Geoff. We're playing with the puppet theater here!

 

 

This next one was of him doing his favorite thing (as I remember it) - Dress Up!!

This little guy is now almost 13 and a GREAT young man! He is good at just about every sport, plays the piano, performs in community plays, and is on track to get his Eagle Scout very soon (if he hasn't already)! Love to you, Matthew!!

We really have some great memories of living in Michigan! But, I'm still really glad to live near my family!!!

Till next week!

 

 

Wouldn't It Be Great If...

Wouldn't it be great if while you were gone for the weekend embarrassing yourself on The Water Ride of Death and The Roller Coaster of Torture, Sis. Jones and Sis. Smith broke into your house through your bedroom window (unbeknownst to the house key hidden by the front door) and dug around in your nasty overflowing garage for some paint while calling you and lying about someone from the ward wanting to give you some extra paint but they thought that they weren't really your colors and by the way what are your colors because we're secretly in your house right now and can't find the paint that you wanted to use to paint your entry way and hallway. And wouldn't it be great if they find it and paint the entry way and hallway and then they proceeded to clean the rest of your house and finish all of your laundry! Man, wouldn't that be great?!! Of course this didn't really happen because they might get in some trouble because they're missionaries and because breaking and entering is against the law... I'm just sayin'!

Names have been changed to protect the guilty innocent!

**Side note: Wouldn't it be awful if they used your high dollar paint that was meant for your cabinets because they weren't able to find the $5 gallon of mistint that you picked up from the local hardware store specifically for this job? Nahhh, who cares!

At The Break.....

So, today I kicked it into High Gear. To be honest, around here it's either No Gear or High Gear! But since we're hoping to move very soon I decided High Gear was needed in order to get us where we need to be!! It took me all day but I went through every square inch of Asher & Andyn's bedroom getting rid of all of their clothes that don't fit, toys that they don't play with, and trash that was no longer in need of being stored under their beds! I'm going to be having one heck of a garage sale very soon!!!

I usually spend WAY more time on the computer than is healthy but all day today was spent on the kids' room, cleaning the kitchen, and doing a couple of loads of laundry except when I sat down to eat a bite of lunch I checked my email, created a short post for the blog about us moving, and whipped out this super-duper cute... thing. It's actually a cover for an empty can of Italian Style Bread Crumbs. Last week when I spent THREE complete mornings with the girls in THEIR bedroom, I noticed that they had a butt-load of pens and pencils but really nowhere to put them. Enter... cute cover for empty container!

Here's the finished product:

NOW I can go to bed and pick up where I left off in Gone With The Wind!!!

Good night!

These graphics/papers/elements were made by Amy Sumrall from www.lilbitsandberries.blogspot.com.

It's Official!

Geoff had his oral exam in front of the licensing board at the state capitol in Little Rock on Friday. He passed!!! We will be moving as soon as our house sells and we find a new one in The New City! We're pretty excited! It's so beautiful there with it's rolling hills and rivers! Not to mention, we'll be a lot closer to family! Interestingly enough, I have some painting and de-cluttering to get to so we can actually put our house on the market! Have a great day!

Happy Father's Day!!

Man, I love this guy!

Flashback Friday

Whoa, Nellie! My grandmother made these for us for Christmas 2002:

Can you guess what they are? I'll give you a hint... they're not meant for your head... or your back!

Photographed: Top photo (L) Me, (R) Terra (my little sis)

Center and bottom photos Aspen.

Hee hee hee... this will be fun. Come on everybody... play along!!!!

I'm a Barbie Girl in a Barbie World

Aspen got a Barbie Girls MP3 player for her birthday. My husband, loving all things techie, just had to be the one that helped her fill it with music! I think he just liked how the fake earrings from the ear buds looked on him!

Hi.

La, La, La, La....

The other morning at breakfast Ainsley started singing the scales and Andyn (without coaching) responded:

Where Have You Been?

States That I've Visited Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

States That I've Lived In Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

State That We're Moving To Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

State Shelley Lives In - Tsk, Tsk! Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

State Shelley SHOULD Live In! Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

Summer Movie List Update

FYI, I've add these movies that people have suggested that were not on the current list:

Father Goose To Catch a Thief Wait Until Dark People Will Talk The Day the Earth Stood Still My Fair Lady Operation Petticoat Roman Holiday

I'm actually looking into buying a projector so that we can watch some of these in an 'outdoor theater' type setting. If anyone has one that they want to bring over and watch one of these movies with us that would be great!

Also, I predict that we will not be able to watch all of these by the end of summer. Not only is the list extremely long but we also just got word that Geoff's written application for licensure was accepted and he goes to Little Rock on Friday for an oral examination before the licensing board. If we can sell our house before school starts then we will be moving! I have a feeling a lot of my extra time will not be watching movies but packing and showing the house! Wish us luck!

Aspen's Birthday

Man, am I behind!! Aspen's birthday was the the first of May but I still haven't blogged about it!!! Well, here it goes!

Aspen really wanted to go to Papa's (my dad) for her birthday party because he has a really nice pool. Works for me!! No kids (except family). No stress. But I still like to do fun cakes for them even when they choose not to have a friend party. I asked Aspen what she would like and she said that she wanted a 'girly' pirate party! So I got online and researched and I'll be... there is such a thing! But in order to do a cake that I felt happy about I was going to have to learn to work with fondant icing since I have never used it before. I called my partner in crime (Terra) to see how she felt about trying it and she was game so I made up some big batches of this recipe that I found online. We got to work... and this is how it turned out: We were both pretty proud of our creation. And Aspen LOVED it! For party hats we all wore 'girly' skull and cross bone bandanas. These photos were taken when Terra and I were trying to pose for a picture but do it so that we were both showing off our tatoos! We were having some trouble with it and opted for the last photo in the collage! Man, we have a lot of fun together!! Me and the birthday girl herself!! I love you, Aspen! I can not believe that you're already 9!

Flashback Friday

Today's Flashback Friday is dedicated to Halloween 1999.

Aren't we adorable?!

It was in these days that I was trying to be sooo Martha Stewart! I made Aspen's bunny rabbit costume... I actually sewed it all by myself. I hate sewing. Both my mother and grandmother are excellent seamstresses. And I myself have taken many a Home Economics classes in my day. But, I still hate sewing. I hate it because it never looks exactly like I think it should and I end up using a seam ripper and tearing it all apart and starting over. I digress...

So, Aspen was a rabbit and I wore Geoff's tuxedo to be a magician and Geoff made a top hat out of poster board. Cute, huh? This 'costume' won us our first of 1st place ribbon in the entourage category at the Historic Charlton Park All Hallows Evening Event. That same year my brother-in-law, Brad, won 1st place in the individual category for this great get-up:

Can you guess what he is? If you guessed a bird watcher you were correct! He was hilarious!! He even painted the bird poop on his shirt!

This next picture was Halloween '00 at the same Charlton Park where once again we won 1st place in the entourage category!

L to R: Me (Wicked Witch), Aspen (Cowardly Lion), Geoff (Scarecrow), Brother-in-law Brad (The Great Oz), Sister-in-law Karin (Dorothy), Nephew Matthew (The Tin Man), and in the stroller - Nephew Sam (Toto).

This was a close-up of us in our get-up:

And finally, the last year that we entered the annual contest we won 2nd place (I think 1st place went to some stupid family dressed in Star Wars attire - how dare they).

L to R: Sister-in-law Amber holding baby Allen (Ghost), Sister-in-law Karin (Velma), Aspen & Ainsley in the stroller, Me (Daphne), Geoff (Fred), Brother-in-law Brad (Shaggy), in the Mystery Machine Nephew Sam (Cute Puppy), and Nephew Matthew (Scooby Doo). A few features to note: Geoff bought a can of hair paint that he thought was yellow... it was 'glowing green', Brad used black eye-liner to draw 'scruff' on his chin (notice his swanky bell bottoms), and the Mystery Machine was made by little ole me! I was so proud of that! We attached it to the boys' wagon. Good times!

 

He Has Redeemed Himself!

Several months ago I posted about my "Handyman Husband". Since that post he has worked on a couple more projects around the house that warrant me highlighting!

First is the tub in our main bathroom. This is what it looked like before:

This is the only picture I could find that showed the wonderful gold tile to match the beautiful gold tub!

This was the next phase:

Note that this destruction took place in March. Geoff finally got around to painting the tub in May! This is where we are at now:

Now, unfortunately, the paint we bought was almond color instead of white and the tub enclosure we bought is white! You can see how this is a problem in this picture:

This just will not do! So, now I've gotta go buy some more paint and wait till Geoff has some extra time to paint yet another coat on this glorious tub! At least there is progress!

Next up is something that was so daunting for Geoff to even get started that we had to call in an expert - my brother-in-law Jeff! The rain has been coming down the peak on our house and getting underneath the shingles on the other part of the roof. Therefore, rotting out the wood! This is what it looked like:

Thanks to Jeff and Geoff:

It now looks like this:

Isn't that amazing!! It looks SOOO good!

This is why Geoff has redeemed himself!!!

And a huge Thanks to Jeff!