Luckily I've been in a crafty mood lately. I've had the opportunity to use my creativity.

Call me crazy but I volunteered to help Ashley's class make costumes for their play.

The fish hat was my favorite.



I saw the prototype for this hat online for $20 so I printed out a copy and did my best to recreate it. I already had the felt and used ping pong balls for the eyes. I love trying to figure out creative challenges...especially without a pattern. It just makes you have to think harder :)



I also used the ping pong balls for the tadpole costume...how do you make a tadpole costume??? I didn't really know but this is what I came up with.



The dollar store and material I already had pretty much contributed to all the costumes.
I took T-shirts from the dollarstore and glued tails and stomachs on them. Here's a lion body (the head is at school).



I think I pretty much spent $20.00 for the whole classes costumes (some supplies we already had). Pretty sweet.

This week I also helped Taylor assemble his bookshelf for his Eagle project...



On Monday we worked on a scrapbook to give to the Allens who are moving. We found lots of fun pictures of their kids and our kids going to all kinds of things from scouts to church, preschool, elementary school, the beach, museums, skating...it was a fun trip down memory lane and sad at the same time now that they'll be farther away. My kids got to write notes to their kids and hopefully they'll remember all the fun memories we had together. (I forgot to take a picture of it.)

I've also been working on baby shower blankets...another fun excuse to do something crafty :).






The only down side with all this crafting is that dinners haven't been so great...if at all....and I need to go start cleaning up my messes. Good thing for a patient, loving husband!!!

Highlights of life...

THE BEST KIND OF THANK YOUS!

The best kind of thank you's are ones like these. Jeff brought back these boys a souvenier from Hawaii and look what he got. So cute! Just made his day!



HELPING HANDS AT THE BISHOP'S STOREHOUSE

Our ward was supposed to have 6-8 people come help at the bishop's storehouse this last week. This is the crew that showed up!

Along with the other volunteers we were done in record time. They said they had never have gotten done that quick in the morning!



A few of us stayed longer and got to help up front in the store and then they fed us lunch at the end. Nice for a change of pace and to feel like you are serving :)



SLICK REPAIRMEN AND SHADY SALESMEN

The next day I was stuck home all day manning the revolving door of repairman. The bug guy came, the gardeners, the piano tuner and a tree trimmer.

The tree trimmer was a new guy that talked Jeff into letting him come while I wasn't home. He offered to come take out our dead plum tree in the front of the house and clean up our forever growing Eucalyptus. (We just had it trimmed last year)

Jeff told me "You know that tree in front of our house is dead?!" (I've been telling him that for months!) He asked me "How did you know it was dead?" Well I pointed out it hadn't grown leaves in over a year and a half, it's almost black and all the limbs are splitting.

This wasn't our normal guy but I was just glad to get rid of the dead tree. I could see why Jeff was talked into it when I met him. Boy was he a talker!!

He talked and talked and talked too much telling on himself...so much so that I started thinking he was making himself sound suspicious. He told me about our gardener who just got his brand new blower stolen (he said it had already happened when he pulled up), he told me the whole story about how his license expired and it wasn't paid up (after the job was done) and how there was a hole burned into the invoice...and on and on.

Well in the end he worked hard and did a decent job. I had to resist his attempts at getting me to pay more money though. He had to tell me at least 10 times that he did WAY more work than what we were paying him for. He kept hinting at an amount twice what we agreed on. So I gave him praise telling him his efforts would earn him referels in the future for working hard and then gave him the amount we previously agreed on.

I didn't think he was too bad until I saw our ladder that he didn't put back....



and all kinds of bush pieces left all over including his soda can from the soda I gave him!



When Ashley got home she was very upset that we had cut the tree down. Despite the fact that it was dead and dangerous to have around. She cried and pouted and was very mad at me. By the next day she realized it was her new sitting spot.

I had to laugh when literally two days later I had a different tree guy try and tell me the Eucalyptus needed to be trimmed. I was on the phone at the time but he still handed me his card and tried to go on and on about trimming it. I tried to tell him we had just got it cut. He insisted and went on to tell me how dangerous it was and it needed to be cut.

"DANGEROUS!" he said. "It was cut 2 days ago!" I said. Geeze these guys don't let up.



VOLUNTEER TEA

The next day I attended the volunteer tea after school. This is the time where we get our preprinted certificate printout for all the time we volunteer in the classroom. There were snacks and soda and the teachers hanging out with us giving us long stemmed carnations. I just realized I should've taken a picture of Jacob and Ashley's teachers!

I love it when a teacher gives a personal hand written note expressing their appreciation that always means a lot to me or something that is unique from them. Mrs. Bowyer painted me this canvas that has the Korean words for thank you on it.



Mrs. Hall invited Jacob to play the piano for the event. He was flattered that he was the only one asked out of the school. He played his two recital songs over and over for about an hour. He got a lot of practice in that day and this morning his teacher was impressed at how well he was doing on them. (I'm sure it was all that practicing)



MEALS ON WHEELS

Jacob, his friend Adam and Ashley have officialy started their snack store. They call is "J and A Snacks" (For Jacob and Adam. The A is for Ashley when Adam is not around)

They are selling slushies, gum, chips and popcorn from the campout that wasn't used...



Kettle corn (thanks to Piper's recipe) and brownies. They keep adding items that they find in the garage that I've bought from Costco. I think I need to start taking a cut! :)

So far Taylor has been their best customer since I gave the last of the brownies to their store and he had to buy them to be able to eat any more.



SERIOUS SOCCER SIGN UPS!

"SERIOUSLY?!?" This is the line I was met with as we got to soccer sign ups. I got there at 9:00. It opened at 9:00. And the line was already forever long. That building way in the distance is where we had to go.

Jeff and I had a temple session at 12:00 for his cousin that was going through for the first time. I immediately started stressing. Am I going to make it? I said a prayer that somehow I would be able to make it to the temple.

This was the last day of sign ups so I was stuck. We waited and waited and it wasn't long before Jacob told me the line went all the way back to the fence.

Almost 2 hours later I finally got inside but then there were two more lines. One to look at your paperwork and another to pay. I quickly had Jacob run over to the pay line to hold our place.

I'm stressing at the time. It's now 10 minutes before we are supposed to leave our house for the temple and I'm still here at the soccer field stuck the pay line.

Jeff is calling me asking me where I was. I tried to tell the helpers I had to go, Could I mail my check in? That would cost an extra $40.00. She said "The line will go fast now that I'm here".

Ok that was a joke it crept along and it was now 5 minutes before I was supposed to leave my house. There was a good 20 or 30 minutes left in line. My mind is racing...all the sudden it occured to me to ask if I could have someone else pay for me. They said I could. I spotted Cheryl Kretz I gave her my place in line in exchange for her turning in my checks. Score!

We made it just in time for the temple session!



JENISES'S SEX PARTY (aka gender party)

Jenise had this great idea to have us all over to her house for a swim party and BBQ to find out the sex of her first baby. Since we always get together for someone to open their mission call she thought it would be fun to get together to celebrate her big news. I thought it was a great!

(I had to try hard not laugh when Steve kept innocently calling it Jenise's Sex party.)

Her plan was to get the sonogram have the results in a sealed envelope, Tahna brought these results to the cake baker. She baked a cake with either pink or blue and none of us found out what the gender was until they cut the cake. What a cute idea!



We started the party with some good food. (Steve and Tahna doing lots of hamburger flipping.)



Yum!

Pretty much only the kids were brave enough to hang out outside. It was cold up in Yucaipa! A lot colder than Riverside.



It didn't keep these guys out of the pool however. They had a blast. Crazy kids!

(They said the water was warmer than the air.)



We also got to observe Jared's haircut. Hey grandma and Jared were at the same place so why not do a haircut.

The only disadvantage for doing a haircut at a family thing....you get comments about it from the whole family. Lots of people suggesting how it should look. Ha ha ha.



I think Jenise was worried about how many people would come. There ended up being a lot of us. Not just family from our side and Shawn's side but friends, and a couple of families that she babysat for. I think she was happy with the turn out.



Of course the most exciting part was the cutting of the cake! It was the most anticipated cake cutting I've ever seen :)



They stalled....and we chanted..."CUT THE CAKE"..."CUT THE CAKE"

Taaaaa daaaaaa taaaaa daaaaa duuuuummmm....



Whoo hooooo. IT'S A BOY!

Congratulations Jenise and Shawn!



6TH GRADE SKATING

Monday I was set to chaperone at Jacob's end of the year skating party.

We've been skating before as a family at the roller rink but most of the kids there didn't know how to skate. It was so fun to watch them try. There was a lot of falling going on for awhile and nervous laughs as they hastily tried to get back up again.

I didn't see any serious injuries (suprisingly) but a lot of kids had a lot of fun.

Of course as a chaperone I am primarily a wallet...so Jacob can get things like Slurpies.



Actually he was really good and came and ate lunch with me and hung out some.



Most of the time he was out on the floor skating. He did great!

This was the wipeout game where they would tell you to wipeout and everyone would have to fall to the floor. He thought this was the most fun.



This was red light/green light. (looks like the same game :)



They all had fun and talked about it the whole way back to the school. And then they got to watch the family life video.



I asked Jacob how the family life video was.

"Awkward" he said.

Jarek's homecoming and other happenings

I'm starting out this post with a picture of Taylor showing of his muscles because....he came home telling me a funny story about school and his friends discovering that he actually "has muscles".

He said that everyone assumed he didn't have any because he looks so skinny. But then they saw his muscles and now they all want him to flex to show off his muscles.

I just want to know how they saw him flex in the first place...hmmmm.



This is Jacob's new friend Adam. Here they are planning their "store". Adam just over a week ago was a kid that kind of was weired out by Jacob and Ashley a little bit. Jacob was telling us about him on the ride home from school and of course Ashley then decides to roll down the window and roar at him to scare him as we are driving home to tease him. Ashley?? whose kid are you??? Ha ha.

So later that I took Ashley and Jacob roller skating in the neighborhood. It happens that Adam was rollerblading in front of his house which is down the street and now Jacob and him are good friends already planning business ventures and all. (I had to tell Ashley to stop roaring at him when he was over).

Jacob is often trying to think of a business or a way to make money...hmmm I know whose kid he is.



This weekend was the father and son campout...oh excuse me priesthood commemoration campout.



Jeff and the boys packed up along with Ricky to go on Friday late afternoon.



Jeff was in charge of the Friday night program stuff. He put on a fireside, had snacks for everyone and then brought a screen, generator, laptop and projector to be able to show everyone a movie.



I got calls from him throughout the night as he went back to K-mart 3 times to buy things either he or someone else forgot.

The next morning they all got to go out on one of the 4 or 5 boats that were brought to the lake by ward members.



I think this was their favorite part.



Ivan Lauritzen brought them out and let them jump into the lake and swim around.



They were having fun swimming in the lake...





when the lake police came over and told them that they had to go back and swim in the designated areas. So back to the boat they go.



Well that was fun while it lasted!



While the boys were having fun at Lake Perris Ashley and I were having our own girls weekend. We started out on Friday night going over to Piper's for dinner and a movie night. (We passed on the Mark Twain movie night of craziness)

Piper, Ann Marie and I hung out while the kids watched a movie and ate pizza. I was glad to finally find out how to make kettle corn from Piper. I'm going to try it soon :) Thanks Piper. After we got home Ashley went to bed and I sat up watching radom shows and sewing a baby blanket for the next day's baby shower.

Saturday morning Ashley and I got up early and brought Jeff's car to the wash. (He had mine and I got to drive his all day...I have to say I like driving his car better than mine). I know he likes his car washed and he was having a busy weekend so we went and got it washed and then came home to clean the house. Jeff is always the best about having the house clean whenever I'm gone so we worked hard to return the favor. Especially since I knew that we would be gone all day.



It wasn't long before we were off to Ceecie's Pampered Chef party. I've been invited to a few and I've always had plans to come but always have had something come up so I couldn't go. Today I finally got to come along with about 25 other people. She had a great turn out and it was a lot of fun. The demonstrator was smart enough to let us try out the gadgets as we helped prepare the food. I now will own items that I never knew I wanted largely because I got to use them myself. Ha ha. Smart.

I think Jeff even has plans to get me the roaster that I didn't want to spend the money on as my mother's day present from him. How sweet. (It cooks a great whole chicken in the microwave in 30 minutes I'm thinking summer time :)

She even had a babysitter for the kids, since the Dads were all gone. Ashley was in heaven with all the puppies in the back.



From Pamper Chef we drove out to Jeff's cousin Angela's baby shower. Her baby was born a couple of months before (3 months early) and was still in the hospital but were able to see pictures of him.



It was very nice to hang out with Cheri again at the shower. It gets us excited for Olive's arrival too. (Ashley's favorite part of the shower was getting to feel Olive move in Cheri's stomach.



We got to meet all of Angela's friends that I'm sure will help her with the baby once he's home.



After Ashley and I got home we hung out as a family and then as the kids were getting to bed Jeff and I ran up to catch a quick movie together. We saw Letters to Juliet. It was a really cute movie. A romance set in Italy which Jeff loved to tell me all about the buildings that had been at while he was on his mission :).

The next morning we left at 7:30 to make church in Palmdale for Jarek's homecoming!

We were all excited to see Jarek! He did a wonderful job on his talk. He's grown up to be an articulate and talented young man. You'll do great Jarek on whatever you pursue.



It was fun to hang out with Jeff's family and eat good food.



Ashley got to hang out with Cheri feeling Olive kick some more.

border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473047717088164178" />

We enjoyed hanging out and telling crazy stories from the past...



and of course honoring mothers. (We celebrated our family mother's day today)



Of course if it got too busy downstairs the kids had no problem finding a place to relax.



Jeff ended up getting a raging migraine and had to lay down to try and get rid of it. I came upstairs to check on him and here he is surrounded by video game players. Jacob was even bouncing on the bed as he played! I was amazed that he was able to stay asleep. He felt a little better when he woke up but his migraine stretched into the next day before it was completely gone.



So for my Mom Moments lately. I guess all of Taylor's shorts were in the wash so what to do but wear your dad's pants! I can't believe he wore these. (Jared got the biggest kick out of it)

What got me is that he ended up wearing them to school the next day too! Crazy kid.



And for some more Mom moments...

• Taylor doesn’t have a screen protector for his new phone yet so he walks around with a Kleenex wrapped around it.

• Jeff was supposed to be getting Ashley a drink before bed. I had just got a phone call and it was late so I wanted her to get to sleep. When Jeff got up to the room he didn’t see her anywhere and called for her and she didn’t answer. So he left, out the door drove off to do an errand left. I guess Jeff figured I’d take care of her when I got off the phone. By the time I got off the phone Ashley is nervously out of bed looking down the banister asking where dad was. I got her to bed and then asked her where she had been when he called for her. “Under my covers hiding” I thought it was funny that Jeff hadn’t thought to look there!

• When I was picking up the kids after school the other day Kaitlyn Paige asked if her friend could use our bathroom. I guess she had to go really bad. I told her she could and the little girl said “No way! I don’t want to use anyone’s bathroom!” When Kaitlyn asked her what she was going to do (it was a long walk home) she said “I’ll just pee my pants and change when I get home.” Sounds like a good plan to me.

• Taylor’s texting limit was 250 a month when we checked how many texts he had at it was 300 for 4 days we figured we better change it to unlimited texting. Crazy kid has entered the world of teenagerhood.

• Taylor broke one of the piano strings while he was playing his recital song. It’s an often used string since now Jacob’s piano songs sound crummy and tingy too. The tuner is coming today to fix it.

• When I was up visiting my aunt she told me a funny story about Grandma Hovey. I guess she used to hide candy from herself in the house. Elaine said one time she found candy in the linen closet and Grandma said “ooohh that’s where I put it!...do you want some.” It was old gumdrops and things like that. She passed. Grandma’s favorite was the chocolate covered orange sticks. Elaine said when they were cleaning out her apartment after she passed they found candy in every room except the bathroom. It was in drawers and all over. I guess she had about a 50% success rate of hiding it from herself. So now I know where I got my sweet tooth from.

• Before Taylor got his own phone with texting he was using mine a little bit. So now I keep getting random texts from a 661 number (I’m thinking it’s my niece) they are “pass this along or you will be cursed” texts. My favorite (not) was the one that showed a picture of two girls that were supposedly killed right after the picture was taken by the demon that you were supposed to be able to see in the background. Of course IF I didn’t pass this text along I was supposed to be killed by said demon too. And then it went on to tell a cautionary tale about the person who didn’t believe this text and then they were killed by the demon….delete. Nothing like forwarding cursed texts to endear your friends and family to you. I actually thought it was funny but nothing gets me to delete something faster than a message trying to guilt trip me/scare me into forwarding it to someone else. So supposedly I am officially unpatriotic, hate kitties and puppies, flowers, inspirational quotes, support terrorism, don’t support our troops, have friends and family that will die from mold from old boxes of pancake mix, and other such warnings … and now will have demons after me because I refuse to forward messages that tell me to forward them. Just be glad that I didn’t send them to you so you won’t be as cursed as I am!