When Mama is not on the ball....

this is what happens.

We have a tradition each December of buying the Lego advent calendars for our Christmas countdown.  The boys absolutely love them and love building something new every day. Well, we have learned in years past, that they often sell out and if you don't buy them early in November you may be out of luck.

Well, mama hasn't been on the ball lately, so about 3 days before December 1st, I started looking for one.  They were sold out online and I started the hunt in local stores.   I did find one...the last one at a Red Balloon toy store in Sandy.  There is only 1 problem with it.  It is the girl version.

I bought it anyways knowing it was this one or none and all and took it home, all the while wondering what my boys would say when they saw a pink, girlie version.

They looked at it for a few minutes, questioned me on why I bought the girl one, shrugged their shoulders and thought it was just fine.

Phew!

Another Tree

Last Christmas I had this great idea to buy a smaller, skinnier Christmas tree that would exclusively display all of the kid's hand made ornaments.  I was all gung ho on the idea and went looking for a fake tree.  At some point in this process, my enthusiasm started to wane and I decided that I would just wait and buy a tree after Christmas and get it on clearance.  End of that story.

About a week ago, my idea re-surfaced, but instead of buying a fake tree I decided that we would cut down a tree from our property and bring it home.  We have this area right behind our cabin that we affectionately call the pine tree nursery.  It is so thick with pines of all sizes you can barely walk through.  And honestly, some of these trees need to be thinned to let others grow to full size, so I don't feel too guilty cutting one down.

We decided to pick a nice, small skinny one, about 5 feet tall to take home.  Here you see Scott eyeing a nice "small" one.  You can tell how thick these trees are.  We found this little trail that meanders through them.

 The boys waiting for Scott to cut down the tree.

Scott lopped it down and we hauled it home.   Well, our 5 foot tree, turned out to be an 8' tree once we brought it into the house.  However, we did manage the skinny part and it looks very Charlie Brownish.  That tree is sucking down almost a gallon of water a day.

I bought some fun lights for it and now it is happily displaying all of our hand made ornaments.



I love it.

But that is not the end of the story.  As I was taking out all of my Christmas decorations, I came across a large garbage bag stuck in the corner of my storage room.  Imagine my confusion as I pulled off the bag to see what was inside, only to find a skinny 5' Christmas tree that I had bought last year on clearance.  I had totally forgotten about it.  So now, I have 3 trees and this one is sitting next to my piano with nothing on it.  That is the end of the story.

This and That

It had been three weeks since we had been up to the cabin to see what, if anything had been done.  Really, we hadn't been up since it started snowing and the roads now are slick and dicey at best.  It is now a requirement to have 4 wheel drive and chains to get up there.

Scott tried going up the hill with just 4 wheel drive and it didn't go so well.  So, he backed down and put on the chains.  You like how I took a picture from the warm cab?

 After some slipping and sliding on the roads we got up there.  A few things have been done.  Painters are finished and I love the army green doors and the shake shingles!  I know it's hard to tell in this picture, but the sun was fading quickly.

The inside is coming along as well.  We are so close!

Except for the fireplace.   It will be usable this winter, but will not get stone until the spring.

The real hang up is the cedar siding hangers.  They have not come up to finish the job.  They keep claiming they work in all weather, but I look at the slippery snow on the ground, the siding that is covered in a foot of snow and the ladders they have to climb and both Scott and I have grave doubts that they will come up and finish. 

We also had another task we needed to do while we were up there.  We had our appliances delivered months ago and they have been sitting in the garage ever since.  Our garage is detached and sits a little ways away from the cabin.  It was quite the ordeal pushing a washer, dryer, oven, and dishwasher up the hill, on a dolly, in the slick snow.  That was fun. :)  We still have the fridge that needs to get moved as well. Oh and by the time we left it was a balmy 14 degree outside.  My kind of weather.

That's the update.  Our builder is still hopeful and hasn't shut it down yet.  Scott and I are in a wait and see mode at this point.  So, we wait and see.

I'm still around....barely

October was a wild month.  And not necessarily in a good way.  Honestly, I'm glad it is over and I'm hoping November will be better.   I'm not quite sure what happened but here is what I managed to do and not do.

-Worry, stress and fret about our cabin getting finished before the snow falls. That's always productive right?  Especially when you can do nothing about it.

It's coming along and our builder is optimistic...but now we are literally going day by day and watching the weather.  I'm not sure though....although the stuff that needs to be completed on the outside is making progress it is still not completely done. 

-Spending an unbelievable amount of time on the HOA board for our cabin development.   It has turned out to be an absolute nightmare trying to deal with all the issues and problems up there along with having to work with different personalities on the board, some harder to get along with than others.   To be honest, it has taken a lot out of me. 

-Volunteering my time working with a refugee family from Rwanda.  Although I am very grateful for this opportunity that I have, it has been a challenge to meet with them once a week.  Initially I thought I would be going up to Salt Lake in the mornings to help them when my kids are in school, but they like me to come late afternoon when their children are home to help translate.  The parents know very little English and my Kinyarwanda and Swahili are a bit rusty.  Late afternoon is not an ideal time as my kids are also home and needing to be parented.  So, I try to make it work.

-Being a mom.  That's right.  I do have 4 kiddos that need me around to help with school work, carpool them here and there and everywhere. A house that needs to be cleaned on occasion and laundry that needs to be done.  Home lunches?  Nope not a chance this month.  Even dinner has been pretty sketchy lately.  Kids that struggle being responsible and like to throw fits.  Yep, got that as well.

-Soccer x 3.  Just finished our last soccer game of the season last Saturday.  I will admit.  I am relieved.  No more games, no more practices for now.

 

-Halloween - Sketchy this year at best.  Chase's costume consisted of a last minute stop at Smith's and grabbing Captain America off the rack.  Owen settled on wearing our black morph suit that we've had for 3 years.  I didn't even get a picture of Owen.  The other 2 boys were on their own.

This is a downer post I know, but October wasn't a great month for me.  Simple as that.  The good news is that the HOA board just made a few decisions that have taken a huge weight off me and even though I have no idea about a finish date for our cabin, I feel so much better.

Here's to a better November!

Halloween Craft

Between my regular duties, building a cabin, being on an HOA board and doing some volunteer work with a refugee family, this fall has been crazy for me. I didn't plan it this way.  The volunteering was supposed to start last spring.   The cabin was supposed to be done in the summer.  And I had no idea how time consuming this board position would be.  But, sometimes these things happen and you just have to roll with it and do your best.

Despite my schedule, I had a crazy desire to do a Halloween craft.  I don't have a lot of Halloween decoration because every time I decide to go buy some I come home empty handed because everything I find is either cheesy or gory.

I saw these adorable ghosts on my beloved Pinterest and decided to make them with the boys on conference weekend.  They were quite easy to make and turned out really well.

Now, I can put my crafty side to sleep again.

Cabin Update

Are we done yet?  No.  Not even close.  The combination of super slow county departments and inspectors and workers that won't show up, we are in desperation mode now.  The snow is coming soon and if we can't get the outside of the cabin complete and the septic and propane installed we are in big trouble.

We finally got our cedar siding delivered a few weeks ago.  Guess who got to stain it all?  Me with a very amazing helper.  We stained over 400 boards in 3 days.  I haven't been that sore or tired in a very long time.

We had quite the system going.  A staining area followed by a drying area that continued down our driveway.

This is a lot of wood drying.  The worse part was not the staining.  It was moving all that wood to the different areas and then stacking it back up. Those boards are heavy!

 

All was going well until we got a call from the builder telling us that we are required to spray flame retardant on pretty much everything up there that could possibly start a fire.  Not only is it outrageously expensive, it makes all your stained wood look like painted wood.  Not what I want in a cabin.   But I won't go there anymore as the story gets even more ridiculous.  Let's just say we are required to follow application instructions that are not even on the bottle.  I was close to tears at one point.

 

 

 

The hangers finally showed up to hang the siding.  Yeah!!  It looks really good and was going
smoothly,  until another worker doing another job decided to dig up the main power line to the house. Everything came to a halt until the Rocky Mountain Power people decided to come up and re-pull all the power line and inspect it. But of course, they had to get lost which set us back another day.  At this point, nothing surprises me now.

 

  

While I'm working like a dog outside staining wood, Scott is working like a dog inside laying down flooring (which looks great) and hanging cabinets.  He was going up after finishing work, working until the wee hours of the morning and then driving back home.   We didn't want anyone telling us we were the ones slowing down the process.  There were a few hiccups (of course) but those 2 jobs are complete.  

So that is where we are at.  The hangers are still hanging.  Our builder is putting up trim.  We've got another guy who is working on the septic and propane outside and the weather is supposed to turn bad this weekend........ To be continued.

The Magic of Tidying Up

About a month ago as I was perusing Pinterest, I happened upon this delightful little book.  It looked cute and was on a subject that I have no fear of....tidying up and purging.  Plus it had the words "magic" and "life changing" in the title.  For only $10 how could I not buy such a book?  With about 3 clicks on Amazon it was mine.  It was only after I read it and googled it online that I realized it is an extremely popular book right now with quite a cult following.

I'll spare you a review on the entire book, but let me tell you what I found life changing and magical.   It's a fairly simple idea.  I have always folded my clothes, stacked them on top of each other and then put them away in either a drawer or shelf.  This method is different.  You roll/fold your clothes in a "special" way and line them up in your drawer so you can see all of your clothes at once.  No more rifling through your drawer trying to see what is in there.  Your drawer stays neat all the time!

Example 1: Chase's shirt drawer.  Before I started rolling his shirts,  his drawers were always messy.  I would put the folded clothes stacked on top of each other in the drawer and by the end of the week they were a mess because he couldn't see all of his shirts.  I have been rolling them like this for about a month now and his drawer stays neat.  All he does is open the drawer and pick out his shirt for the day.  He can see them all at once.  Amazing!  And I can say that for all of my other drawers in the house that I have converted.

"What if I have too many shirts to fit in the drawer?" you ask.  You know the answer to that right? It's really the key to keeping anything tidy. 

 I am seriously blown away by this idea.  How on earth have I never thought of this?

Is it a perfect system?  No.  There are a few things I've had to tweak a bit, but I am completely sold on this idea.  I will not fold and stack anymore.

Although this lady focuses more on drawers, I have a lot of clothes on shelves.  I decided to fold my jeans and sweaters the same special way and line them up.  I know these shelves aren't that bad to start with, but what do you think?  Better?  Yes!  And I don't disturb anything underneath. 

This lady has a very specific way to fold things and there are a multitude of YouTube videos and websites devoted to her method.
Google either of these and you will be overwhelmed by the information out there.  Happy Folding!

The Marie Kondo method
KonMari folding method

Laundry 180

Have you ever done something a certain way, convinced it was absolutely the best way to do it and then all of a sudden you realize maybe it wasn't the best way?   That has happened to me a number of times.

Here is the latest one.  Laundry.  Up until a year ago, I was completely convinced that doing a load of laundry a day was the best way.  I was always caught up and I never had to look at piles of dirty laundry growing almost minute by minute.  In fact I almost felt snobbish at how good I was at doing a load a day and getting that load folded.

But here is the bad part.  I hate putting away clothes.  Hate. It. So. Much.  Although I was great at washing and folding I totally sucked at getting them into the drawers.   Add to that hate was the justification that I was just going to do another load the next day so why bother, the folded clothes would just stay piled up in baskets in the laundry room.  2 things happened.  My laundry room turned into the changing room and every day I was faced with the reminder that the clothes needed to be put away and I didn't want to do it.

Last year on a whim I decided to try a different way.  I picked Monday as my laundry day and I did all of it on this day.  Dreamy I tell you.  It makes for a lot of folding but it gets all done and put away.  I can totally put away clothes (or have my boys do it) once a week, knowing that I won't have to do that awful job for another 7 days.   I don't even think about laundry for the remainder of the week.  I initially thought the piles of dirty clothes would bother me.  Nope not at all.  Couldn't care less.

Now, all those crazy people that do laundry every day.  What are they thinking?  Clearly this is the best way to do laundry!!



 

A punishment

The other night Owen got in trouble and was not allowed to play with friends for the day.  I thought this would be a punishment for him because he loves to play with friends and doesn't seem content if he doesn't have one over. 

After a few minutes of casting about trying to figure out what to do, he decided to look up a Lego gun tutorial on YouTube and build one.  He spent most of the evening building and finished it right before bed.  It's quite an impressive gun.   I don't think that was really a punishment at all.

A much loved recipe

Many years ago, we received a Christmas gift from one of Scott's old mission companions and his wife.  It was a small bag of granola with the recipe attached.  We loved the granola and still make the same recipe to this day.  Can you tell it's been used a lot?  It is such a good basic recipe.  One that you can add things or take things out or exchange one thing for something else if you feel so inclined.  And it always tastes good.  We make it often and have found that we still stick with the original recipe except for a few small changes.  We add 1 C. unsweetened coconut and instead of sliced almonds, I buy whole ones and chop them up.  I love chunks of toasted almonds.

The best part is how easy it is to make.  I buy a lot of the ingredients in bulk and store them in my freezer.  When I'm ready to make some it take me no more than 3 minutes to dump all the ingredients in my kitchen aide and mix it up.  It is on the cookie sheet and ready to go in the oven in 5 minutes.

Legos

I gave up years ago trying to keep Legos contained to one area in our house.  I knew it was a battle I could never win.  Consequently, they are everywhere.  The places that I have found them and continue to find them no longer surprise me at all.  In my purse?  Sure.  In my underwear drawer?  Why not?  Makeup drawer?  Of course.

This was a first though.  Right in my drinking water.  Did it bother me?  Not at all.  I didn't even give it a second thought.  In fact, why shouldn't I find Legos in what I eat and drink?  It's really just the next step in their quest for household domination.

School lunches 2.0

Remember last year when I posted about my new lunch strategy?  Let me tell you what happened.  We did fantastic for the first half of the year.  Almost every Sunday we would get together with the boys and prep lunches for the week.  It took us only 15 minutes and we were done.  It was great!

At some point though, as we were bagging stuff left and right I realized how many sandwich bags we were using each week.  A lot.  I started to feel guilty about how wasteful we were being.

So, sometime after the start of the new year, I bought these lunch boxes and started using them instead of baggies.  The problem with the boxes, is that it is a little harder to prepare lunches ahead of time.  So other than a few things that I bought that already came in individual servings, I started making the boys sandwiches again each morning.  Blah.  I don't like that.

I recently started about how I can make this easier... at least when it comes to making sandwiches ahead of time.  That is the most time-consuming part.  I remembered taking a cupcake decorating class a few years ago from a lady who bakes/decorates cupcakes professionally.  She told us that she will often bake a batch and put them directly into the freezer.  She claimed that they will last a month in the freezer uncovered and not dry out.

If that is actually the case, then surely I can make sandwiches, put them in a sealed bin and have them still be edible for only a week right?  That is what I will find out.  I found some freezer containers at Smith's, and have made 2 levels of sandwiches with some wax paper in between.  Each morning I can grab a few and put them into their lunch boxes. We will see if I get any complaints.

Fail

I tried so hard.  I really did.  I went out early, bought the boys a bunch of school clothes from Old Navy, threw them in the corner of my laundry room and forgot about them until the day before school.  I checked that off my list and put it out of my mind.

I should have had the boys try on the clothes to see if they actually fit right after I bought them.   Instead, I decided to wait until the day before.  That was a big mistake.

Owen tried on all of the clothes (size 8/9) and rejected them all.  Keep in mind he will be 10 in a month. They were too big for his taste.  He prefers skimpy clothes.  This shouldn't have surprised me in the least.  I cannot buy anything for him that doesn't involve a tear or two from him.  He is incredibly picky and once he finds something he likes, he will reject everything else and wear the same 2 things over and over and over.  Fail.

So, with my frustration mounting because Owen is refusing to wear clothes that are his size and that fit him, I move onto Chasey.  Fail again. The clothes labeled size 6/7 are way too big for my 7 year old.  I should know this.  I do know this because he is a little guy and he has always worn sizes that are smaller than his age.

We move onto Bennett.  Can you guess the result?  Fail.  The jeans I bought him were too low in the back when he sat down.  Why on earth do they make boy's jeans low rise?  I don't understand this at all.

So, I drag them into the car and head back down to Old Navy to exchange clothes and buy them a few things that they like and that actually fit.  Just me, my kids and the rest of Utah County.

Something to Remember

Bennett started 7th grade today.  It's a big transition going from Elementary school to Middle school and Bennett was a bit nervous about it.  So was I, to tell you the truth.  He was worried about opening his locker, getting lost amongst all the kids and having hard classes.

I was excited to hear about his first official day today when he came home, and was relieved (I think both of us were) when he reported that he didn't get lost and he was able to open his locker without help.

The next big question I asked was who did he eat lunch with?  He told me that instead of going over to eat with his friends, he saw a new kid that was eating alone, introduced himself and sat down and ate with him.

One of Ben's strong points is his ability to make friends and his sensitivity to other people's feelings.  Unlike his introverted mother who would never feel comfortable doing this,  Ben has no problem putting himself out there.  Even when he was nervous himself and could have easily gone to eat with his friends.  So proud of him.

When Boredom Hits

Just have your friend duct tape you to the wall.

Back to School.....

Haircuts in the morning

Waffles in the Evening

The Hair

At the end of school last May, Taylor decided to grow out his hair for the entire summer.  Out is the operative word here.  It grew out and out and out.  The longer is got, the more I could see his hair trying desperately to curl.  Oh how jealous I am of that.  Taylor, not knowing what to do with hair this long would try fighting it to stay down and combed for church, but other than that he pretty much just left it alone.  He had a good 3 inches of height with this look.

"Taylor, what's the plan with your hair?" I would ask every few weeks as he was really trying to work the bedhead look.  He just shrugged and said "I don't know."  I even made suggestions to him about not fighting the curl but embracing it.  He didn't go for that.  I can't imagine why he wouldn't listen to his mother's suggestions on hair styles.

   

Demolition Derby

Even though we were an hour late to the derby due to a terrible accident on the highway, we still made it in time to see lots of crashing and rollovers.  The perfect end to summer!

The Fire Marshall

When building a cabin, you know you've got a lot of work ahead of you when the fire code documents are bigger than your cabin plans.  That's what our builder found out when he went to apply for our building permit last year.

Ever since,  he has had to put a lot of effort into figuring them all out and making sure we are compliant.   The rules are plentiful and yet a bit vague,  so our builder has asked a lot questions to make sure we are doing everything right.   I think he and the Fire Marshall are on a first name basis.  Not only do we have regular building inspections from the county, we also have the Fire Marshall coming up to inspect as well.

Here are 2 examples.  See the beautiful neon green color?  That is exterior sheet rock.  We are required to put sheet rock on the cabin before we put on the cedar siding.  Why?  Because sheet rock is not flammable.  Makes perfect sense right?  Once the cedar is on, we have to apply yet another product to the cedar to make it flame retardant.

Example 2
Here is Scott in the giant forklift trimming trees that are right near our cabin.  The rules say that you can't have any branch closer than 10ft to the cabin.  Scott hopped onto the forklift and I lifted him up about 30 feet, so he could trim.  We haven't even gotten to the shrubbery yet and there are another set of rules for those.  We have learned that all these rules are in place because they don't want your cabin burning down the forest.  Not vice versa.  They could care less if your cabin burns down.

What's next with the fire code rules?  I think the next thing on our list is what we can use to build our decks.  Of course, they need to be made of some product that is fire proof, and if not fireproof, you need fire sprinklers on them.   Metal or Trex maybe?  Here's the crazy part.  They consider redwood to be fireproof.  How bizarre is that?  Hence the many questions that our builder gets to figure out.