Category: Uncategorized

Look at that smile! Happy spring!!

Eli had a week off for spring break. We did everything. We went hiking, fishing, bike riding, played at the park…it was non stop.

He went running with me in the mornings.

He’s my little coxswain. He would ride his scooter as fast as he could and encourage me to run. “Faster mommy, faster!” My speed increases when I’m with him.

He has great theatrics. This is what he does after he reaches the top of the hills.

His energy returns we get to the park!

Learning how to skateboard.

In honor of spring break, Eli wanted to take pictures of the spring flowers. I thought that was appropriate. This is what he took.

See his shoes 🙂

Every picture! He is such a cute boy, he makes me laugh.

The Easter bunny gave Eli a new switch game, Animal Crossings. This game is kind of fun, and addicting. What is fun is our characters are just like us. Paul and I walk around logs and make a relatively straight line to where we need to go. Eli takes the long way, and runs around and around, and over logs, sits on logs, jumps over logs… it’s been quite fun to watch him play.

Another thing that is fun, is watching Eli decorate his tent. His tent looks just like a 6 year old tent. He needed to display all his fish he caught.

No room for his bed so it went outside. Of course.

This was just the beginning of his fish collection! We spent a lot of hours playing.

We took a day and went to Crystal Hot Springs. Sadly, no pictures. The day we went was snowy and cold. Perfect to sit in hot pools! After several hours in the water, we went to Maddox for dinner. My usual is the salmon with about 30 rolls and cornpones. Too full for dessert, a coconut cream pie always goes home with us.

It was a fun spring break!

Eli arranges the bunnies almost every day! Today he was pretty creative by having them sit on the Easter sign 🙂

While the eggs were boiling, we made some bunny cars. We glued the wheels on with the frosting from inside the twinkies. Eli LOVED eating the glue!

I must be the worst mom ever, because this is the first time Eli has had a marshmallow bunny. He couldn’t believe all the sugar that was covering the marshmallow. Neither could I! 🙂

Eli was waiting ALL week for this. And now the time came!

We started writing secret messages on the eggs to each other. I used the classic white crayon and dyed the egg.

Eli used red. I love his message. He also has wonderful handwriting!

The next day the Easter bunny came!

Copying the pictures over to put on the blog, I came across this video. This is what Eli made. It was a fun to see a little bit into Eli’s world and what he is thinking 🙂

Paul made our usual Sunday breakfast. Dutch apple pancakes.

It was a fun and enjoyable weekend.

What does a Kindergartener learn at school??

Deciduous.

Eli asked me if I knew what kind of tree that was, and I told him it was a pear tree. He then told me it was a deciduous tree.

What? This is what they are teaching Kindergartners? What will he be taught in first grade?

We had plans to drive to Heber to ride the Heber Creeper, but they were closed for maintenance. So instead of riding on a real steam engine locomotive, we went on …

The UTA. Ha! We rode trax downtown and ate brunch.

We went to Eva’s Bakery.

Eli had the stuffed french toast. Paul and I split the Boulange Benedict, with ham on the side. Then Eli finished what we didn’t eat. 🙂

We walked around downtown for a while and headed home.

Popped some popcorn.

And watched a movie.

Although we didn’t get to ride the train today, we will for sure ride it in a few months. Looking forward to it!

My life is never easy. I also never finish a project. I have many sewing starters, but not a lot of finished products.

Today I have decided to make my life difficult and relocate my sewing room across the house.

Ugg! This is my sewing room. I’m embarrassed to even show this. My tables are covered in unfinished projects and piles of material that I have dug out of my cabinets to work on a project.

Yes, my exercise bike is in the middle of the room. I have pictures of the other side of the room, but I just can’t upload it due to the mess. Those pictures were moved to the trash bin. 🙂

This is my family room. Again. Yes, that is a vibraphone in the middle of the room 🙂 I’m practicing for a piece that I have volunteered to play in sacrament meeting and the basement is too cold to practice in 🙂

The couch on the right is a heavy beast. I have convinced Paul to help me load it up on the trailer to donate next week.

This the arch I want to hang the barn doors on. I have measured and remeasured, and of course every door out there is either too tall or not wide enough. I have to make my own doors!

Paul is so not happy with me 🙂 Over the last week he helped me load up the couch on the trailer, and move my both my cabinets and desk into the family room for me. They are not the lightest furniture. Sturdy and great for an embroidery machine, though!

I looked at several pictures of barn doors and drew plans for the doors I would like to have in my house. Checked and doubled checked my numbers. I drew a new design, more measurements, and another plan. This is my first door 🙂 I wasn’t sure what I was doing.

I Went to Lowes to look at wood and then dropped in at my parents house to announce my new project. I wish I had taken a picture of my father when I told him we are making barn doors.

We cut everything.

We glued pieces together.

We drilled pocket screw holes.

We measured, and measured, and measured!

We clamped.

We cut some more. 🙂

And crazy enough we had a frame of a door!

Of course I couldn’t just have a plain door. I wanted texture and light to come through windows.

I ordered plexiglass through a local company who cut them to a specific size. We had to carefully slide the glass through each panel.

It’s looking like a door!

I filled the holes with putty and started painting. I came back the next day to put a second coat on the doors and the doors warped! I cried. I didn’t get pictures, but we clamped the frames of the doors to straight pieces of wood and by morning they were looking pretty good.

Ready to head over to my house!

Paul was not happy with me this day either 🙂 My rails were delivered. Paul had to find the studs…

Screw in the back board, which if I were to do this again I would use a thinner board. I was unsure of the thickness of the back board, because I didn’t know how heavy the doors were going to be.

I was also worried about the looks of the door and what side of the arch I should put them on. Front or back? I tried to imagine what it would look like both ways, finally I chose the back of the arch.

Adding the pully wheels to the top of the doors.

And we have a door.

Lulu came to help.

I removed the paper from the plexiglass and couldn’t stop opening and closing the doors.

They need a bit of cleaning, but they look great! I absolutely love them. I love that I can shut out my mess.

When we move I want to take them. I worked so hard on them I want to keep them. The new house will have barn doors to the entry way to my workout room, so I will install them there. Paul is going to be thrilled to help me install these doors a second time!

Woke up to this. It’s going to be a nice day.

40′. Perfect running weather.

I went running at a different park today and parked here. Nice! Starting to get more chargers around the valley.

We went up to Thousand Peaks Ranch and took the four wheelers out.

It was a little cold up there.

Eli started a snowball fight. Paul missed Eli 🙂

We saw a bunch of pine needles on the ground.

And a bunch of twigs with the needles stripped clean, we though maybe a Porcupine?

On the way down, Paul let Eli drive. He is waiving his arms showing me Eli is in control and driving himself. Starting him young!

On the way home we stopped for ice cream.

Our skookie was a little on the toasted side, but Eli gave his ice cream a thumbs up!

That wraps up our Saturday.

We went to a different Airborne this time. I don’t know why this place is so scary, but it is!

Is it because little kids can throw themselves and not think about the bones they will break or the muscles they will pull if they land wrong??

All slides are scary, but this one was 15 feet tall with a 90′ angle. This goes straight down, and then curves into a slide.

Paul went down it many times and tried to get us to go down. I refused, but as a great mother I am, I encouraged Eli into going down telling a lie that it wasn’t scary 🙂

So I had to go down to show Eli it wasn’t so scary. Don’t mind my screaming 🙂

Finally a little fear in a 6 year old. Eli gets it how scary it is!

Eli finally went down. He cried a bit 🙂 It was scary!

Eli had a little motivation to go down again.

After that we couldn’t stop him from going down. He must have gone down 50 times. Did I go down again? Nope! Once was enough!

We had fun. Paul really had fun!

We finally received a great snow storm so Paul and Eli went skiing.

Eli has been asking for weeks to go skiing. He is starting to turn, and almost did a parallel turn. I don’t know what that means, but Paul says it’s pretty good 🙂

He is growing up so fast. I remember having to ride on the carpet with him, and now he is doing it by himself!!

He also doesn’t have fear. Fast the better 🙂

A few days later the weather was perfect and Paul had to get out again. He went skiing with Jeremy and spent the day on the mountain.

Not many skiing days this year due to the lack of snow. Hopefully we get more next year!