Sunday Evenings

We went out for a walk tonight and met up with our neighbors that have kids the same ages as ours. They came over to try and give me some advice on my poor poor pitiful garden. Then the kids started playing and they played and played and played. So we just let them until almost 8:30. The girls had these backpack water guns that they were squirting the boys with... It was really fun...

Plotting...

Don't you mess with us!!!



Maggie happy as can be...

And what is she shooting at??



And of course we have to have an injury. It wouldn't the our household if there wasn't at least 1 clutzy thing happen!!

What a wonderful evening!

Korean Baby

Our friends had our kids last night and then this morning there was a Primary Around The World at the church. Dallin being in primary needed to attend. And Brian having been to Korea was doing a schpeal on Korea. He had picked up this little kid outfit while he was there and put it on Maggie so she was a live prop for him. She looks absolutely adorable! And I don't know HOW they got her to stay still long enough to do this to her hair - but it's adorable and I am going to have to try to do it!!

Then of course - we get her out of the special clothes and she goes straight for the dirt and then for the swings...

Planes

We live right by an Air Force Base. The planes are constantly flying over our home. I have days where I will just sit and watch them all day. My friend Lasca and I were at the park with our kids and the planes were out flying. I got a picture of them. And then today I noticed they were flying the same way but as I was driving by the runway and they were landing - they didn't. They just went back up into the air. It was really weird... But it was cool for Dallin to have the plane feel like it was practically landing on our car!!

Yesterday was our 9 year anniversary! Happy Anniversary Scott! We are celebrating tonight with a night without the children. They are staying at a friend's house. I am a little anxious about this and hope that I can actually enjoy the evening!!!

Lots Going On!

So much is going on lately! Where to start? I finished our quarterly Enrichment this week. We had a dinner and speakers on Tuesday night. That was VERY nice to get past!

I am taking a Medical Transcription course with an online school. I started doing that the day after Enrichment was over. I am learning Medical Terminology first. Very interesting! I am really excited about all I will get to learn from this! And I will hopefully be able to help in the financial department too!

I am going to go back to Indiana and Michigan to see my family in less than 2 weeks! I really really miss my family and it makes me sad that my parents don't even know my children (mostly Maggie). But I guess it WAS my decision to move out here to Utah... We weren't going to make a trip back this year since we went to the Redwoods, but my dad had some frequent flyer miles that he is letting me use. So Dallin, Maggie and I are off for a 2 week vacation! And the weird part is that we are going back to Indy to see my dad's fireworks display. That is where I started this blog in the first place! This year has gone by so fast - yet SO slowly!!!!! It will be fun to compare the pictures from last year with this year! And I hope to get to Illinois so my kids can see their Great Gramma Boyce!!!

Anyway - that is what is happenin' around our place!!!

Respect

As I was looking at my Flag Day post I noticed someone. Someone that I have never met. Someone that I will NEVER meet. But the look on his face - it almost made me cry. This is the picture that I was looking at.

This is when they shot their guns (whatever it is called) after ripping the flag, but before burning it.

Look at this young man...

He has his hat over his heart and such devotion and respect in his face. I want my son to have this look on his face when he is in a situation like this. Anyone know how to instill this in a child????

Flag Day

Wow! What a day!!! This is a warning to all - THIS IS GOING TO BE A VERY LONG POST! Most of it though is pictures. And Kevin from Texas - you may want to get tough for a little visual on the previous post that caused you to vomit in your mouth!!

So our friend Brian is in the Army. He does all this patriotic stuff that is pretty new to us. Sad - but true. (Shhh.... don't tell him that though - he might think less of us!!) This being Flag Day and all his VFW post was doing a flag retiring "ceremony" - I guess you would call it - today. They were folding 1000 flags this morning and asked if we wanted to join in the fun! Since I have never folded a flag in my life - or if I have it probably wasn't properly done - I thought this would be fun for our little family! So off we went. Dallin was sometimes interested and sometimes not. I learned how to properly fold a flag. (Are you proud of me dad???!!!) There were flags of ALL sizes!! There were several that had to be done outside because they were 20 feet by 30 feet or something huge like that!!

This is how huge it was AFTER it was folded!!

Dallin really enjoyed helping put the flags in the truck that was taking them to their end.

1000 flags is a lot of flags!!!

Then we came home and did a little yard work and other fun stuff!

This evening we went to the mall where they have a small version of the Vietnam War Memorial Wall like the one in DC. I really miss DC. It was SO neat to walk down this wall.

I have never attended anything like this before. There was a lot of talking. A lot. Which is fine for an adult - but difficult for children... Maggie got a little bored and decided to do her favorite pastime now (this is where Kevin from TX needs to toughen up a bit!!!)

She just looks at you when she sticks her finger in her mouth, like - "YA - whatchu gunna do 'bout it!!!!!" Little stinker!!

Then they took a flag and pulled it all apart. Maybe you all knew this - but this is totally new to me. They separate the blue part from the rest of the flag and then pull the stripes apart...

I am sure there is a title for what they are doing here - shooting their guns is what I am going to call it. Whatever it's called it was pretty cool.

Then they took the flag to be burned. After that everyone got to carry a flag to get burned... The main man speaker dude (aren't I just SO eloquent with words!!!) had talked earlier, during the lots and lots o' talking part, about how you carry the flag like a wounded friend...

When Dallin got up to the front, Brian was there to take his flag to be burned.

Did you notice that they UNFOLD the flag to put it on the stick to burn it?? Ya - but I'm not bitter that we got up early this morning to fold 1000 flags that get unfolded... Nope - not at all!!

What an amazing day! And then - on our way home we encountered this perfect sunset!!!! Now I edited most of the pictures from today to make them brighter - more contrast - whatever... BUT THIS PICTURE IS STRAIGHT OUT OF THE CAMERA!!!!! What a perfect ending to a magnificent day!!!!

This sunset is especially for my cute little sunset buddy - Karyssa! I love you girl!!!!

My Favorite Meal - This month anyway...

I make this Shrimp Pasta that is my absolute most favorite meal in the entire world right now! I got it off of the Pioneer Woman's website. It is SO good!!! So I made it last night for dinner.

Doesn't it just look wonderful!!??!!!?

Now I didn't think that there was a single thing that would make this meal any better for me. But then my cute BFF

Steph gave me this recipe for breadsticks. HOLY COW!! This meal just got better!!! These breadsticks are GREAT! And then to scoop up the tomato cream sauce with them... MMM MMM Good!

So for now - these 2 foods combined... they make my most favorite meal in the world! I think I might go heat up some left overs now!!!

Dallin's Room

We just finished doing Dallin's room today. We don't have the chair rail up in either room yet - but it will happen soon. Dallin's room was TONS easier than Maggie's. I got all the painting done in 1 day. His room started out the same as Maggie's. We have that same Desert Fortress all through the upstairs of the house. So I only had paint the bottom half of Dallin's walls.

But I am getting ahead of myself. We started out wanting to do a blue in Dallin's room with red, green, yellow and orange circles and squares all over the walls.

This is the paint that I wanted to do. Dallin kept insisting that he wanted green walls. I was NOT giving in! I did not want bright green walls in his room!

So we were at Lowe's and saw this camo sticker set while we were looking at Maggie's flowers. I don't know why I never thought of dark green!!??!!!?? So we decided to do Dallin's room in Camo!!! We got a dark green for the bottom of the walls and the top was already the Desert Tan color. So - like I said - his room was pretty easy. Except for the cleaning it out. But I don't want to get started on that. I will get way too grumpy!!!

This is after the painting.

This is after the stickers!!!

We love his room!!!

Kung Fu Panda

WHAT A TOTALLY FUN NIGHT!! Dallin won tickets at his Dojo to see Kung Fu Panda last night. They rented out the whole theatre. It was a really fun night! We got a sitter for Maggie so we could take Dallin out on his own.

We started out by going to dinner at Wendys. Then went to the theatre. It was sold out so we were lucky we got there early so we could sit together.

Each ticket included a kid popcorn and drink. Dallin ended up eating almost 2 popcorns. We haven't heard Dallin laugh so hard at a movie. It is absolutely hilarious! Definitely one that we are going to have to own.

Before the movie started, they had the Black belts doing tricks for us. I think to inspire the kids to let them see what they could become! It was SO cool! Now I didn't want to use the flash because I didn't want to distract them while they were doing their thing. The effect of the slow shutter speed is REALLY cool here!! You can see where their face was at one point and then moved to another point. These kids were flipping, punching, kicking, hi ya-ing - it was insane! I just keep thinking that my boy could be doing that someday!!!

We get home at 8:30 and hear Maggie crying. Weird, since she was supposed to be in bed at 7:30. Our poor little babysitter got barfed on. She had most of it cleaned up by the time we walked in the door. We got Maggie settled down and back to bed. Then got Dallin wound down and into bed.


At 3:28 Dallin comes into our room coughing. I knew there was going to be more barf this night so I jumped out of bed and steered him to the bathroom. As I jumped out of bed I felt something pull in my back. Poor Dallin got so sick. He just ate WAY too much popcorn and root beer!! We cleaned it all up and got him back to bed. At 5:00 he called to me from his room. He had thrown up in his bed. Didn't make it to the bathroom. Poor kid. So we got him cleaned up again and I made a bed on the floor next to our bed since I was TOO tired to change his bed.


On a positive note - The movie was GREAT and my kids slept until 9:00 this morning! That means I did too!!!!

Chair rails and boogers

For those of you wondering if we decided on purple or white... Well - the answer is neither. Yet. We decided that with funds being tight this paycheck we moved Maggie back into her room without a chair rail. We will wait until we get Dallin's and get them at the same time. We are going to paint part of one white and part purple - put it up to the wall and make the decision. Next paycheck.

Today - during Quiet Time Maggie woke up screaming. I think her arm fell asleep and she was experiencing those needles in her arm. So I rocked her for a few minutes. While I was holding her I looked down. She had just pulled this HUGE booger out of her nose, took a look at it and slurpped it off her finger. I almost puked right there in her room!!!! I don't know why this would surprise me though. She gets on her hands and knees to lick dirt off the patio!!!!

GROSS!!!!!!!!

Maggie's Room is almost done~

Maggie's room is very close to being done. All we have left is buying and painting the chair rail. I am still debating between painting it Grapolicious or White. What do you think? I need some opinions....