Share quickly....

Then I'm heading to bed! It was WAY too early this morning, and I am seriously dragging! I found this wonderful kit over the weekend and I've had tons of fun doing some layouts. I love it when a kit can go the distance and you still love it!

Then these few are ones that I've done since the fourth of July, but never got around to posting them.

I hear my bed calling my name.....AND Andrew brought home Battlestar Galactica from the library and he's been watching it with the kids.......my clue to check out....before I start going off on how LAME that show is!!

Little Vent

I just had to jot this down, cause I KNOW that I will forget when I can enjoy walking to church! We've been dealing with lots of construction noise and MESS for over a year now getting this church finished, and are at the final stages, and everyone is excited and very anxious to get into the new building! HOWEVER......the disadvantage of living across from the church is that the trucks arrived this morning at 5:30AM to dump loads of rock for the landscaping!!! Yes, you read that right....5:30! I probably would have slept right through it, but my loving husband had fallen alseep watching Seinfeld (again) and the noise from the trucks woke him up, so up he came to bed. That would have been fine, but he decided that at 5:50 was the perfect opportunity to converse about this. Well, NOW I'm awake and the trucks are just idling in front of our house! I come downstairs to see what they are doing, and the drivers are just talking!!!!! So I decide to go out and tell them to leave..........and they tell me that "we're just trying to do our JOB"!!! Like the 7am noise rule doesn't apply to any worker that has been told to "get the job done"! I mean REALLY!!! I probably wouldn't be SO grumpy, but I was up until 1:30 scrappin (which really is past my limit....but hey I was on a roll!) and now Carissa is starting to wake up.......Yup at 6:15AM!! Two grumpies in this house is NOT cool....and let's not even talk about the teenage grumpies!!! So everyone that will be jealous because I can walk to church, please understand there was a price to pay for this luxury, and it wasn't cheap!! (I'll post pages later...gonna try and rest my eyes! We'll see how long that lasts)

290 pictures in 4 days!!

It's not that I have my camera out ALL the time, but when we have a busy, busy 4th, it's easy to take that many pictures! We had a great 4th of July weekend. On Friday we made it down to the parade. We got there pretty late (well relatively late for getting front spots) and managed to find a spot on some grass and under a tree. We were kinda in the back, but as the parade started the family in front of us moved up and opened up some space so we moved up too. We were pretty much in the shade the entire time, which was awesome.....cause it was HOT!! Reminds me of years past when I use to march in the parades when I was in band!! Yikes, that was a LONG time ago!! When Carissa got tired of the parade, Andrew took her to McDonald's and got her some lunch, and she had a great time playing while Nikelle and I watched the rest of the parade.

The funniest thing happened later that day. I had taken Nikelle down to Wal-mart to pick up some last minute things for her camping trip next week during Carissa's nap. As we were checking out, (I guess we'd been there awhile!) Nikelle tells me that she hears a kid that sounds JUST like Carissa. I just thought it was funny and laughed it off! Then she tells me she hears it AGAIN...so this time I look.....and there is Andrew and Carissa picking up fireworks!! Funny to me that I didn't even hear her...yet Nikelle did! Just goes to show you that I really do tune her out!! So we lit off some fireworks later that night. This year there were no fires in the neighborhood, which was REALLY good! Carissa wasn't too fond of the loud ones, and pretty soon she was very tired! But that didn't stop the boys from lighting off as many as they could. Check out Donavan lighting one while the other one is still going!!! I could have shot him myself....crazy pyro boy!!

Then on Saturday morning Carissa slept until 10am!! So we knew she would never take a nap, so we decided to try out the new Splash Pad in Herriman. When we got there, there weren't very many people there and she was quite hesitant to get wet. She just wanted to play on the slides (which were hot!) then eventually as more kids got there, she sort of caught on with splashing in the puddles, but she REALLY didn't like it when the bigger boys splashed her. But she didn't freak out too much......just mostly had a good time! We will definitely be going back there again!

And the very best news of all.......they announced today that we will be in our new church building in 3 weeks!! (of course it has to pass all the inspections, but we are all very excited to have our very own building!!) And the best part will be when they clean the street!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More!!

Guess I was on a roll, and just didn't know when to stop!

Things are still quiet around here (at least until tomorrow!) So I may as well get as much done as I can right??

Scrapbooking again!

Decided to spend some time scrapbooking today....and got a bit carried away! Seems I like to use the new pictures and not so much the old ones! But here they are! The big kids are away at Trek until Saturday, so things are dramatically more quiet (even with Carissa!) around here! We've had lots of fun today, I managed to get the dishes done, and put away the laundry! Besides I couldn't sit here ALL day right??

So glad it's finally summer!

I took Carissa and Nikelle to the park (she called it "play park") to meet up with some friends, let the kids play, and some adult conversation (which is why I brought Nikelle...so we could talk & visit!!) Carissa had so much fun going down every slide, going across the wiggly bridge (she wouldn't do it at first, then decided to try it, very carefully, saying the whole way, "I'm doing the best I can", until she got safely to the other side!), and then she found some friends to play with in the sand box. She had a great time, and I will definitley have to take her back there again!

Then as it's gotten warmer (finally!) I went to look for the pool from last year.....and couldn't find it ANYWHERE! Guess I know now that I need to be involved when Andrew "cleans" the garage! So I got out a little sprinkler thingy, thinking that she would enjoy it. WRONG! Donavan tried to coax her into it.....tried to lead her up to it.....then just picked her up and ran through with her......and she squealed a really high squeal! You can see from the picture, that she was literally trying to fold herself in two! Then she got a little adventurous and tried sticking her toes into the water "ninja style"! She wasn't getting any closer than she had to, that's for sure!!

But the sprinkler was exactly what Andrew wanted after driving home without AC (getting it fixed this week!) So he was more than excited to run through them...........and I say.......anyone who runs like THAT........is just begging to have this pic go public!!! I warned him!!!!! And he did it again!! So both pics go up....................Don't mess with me honey!! (And I publicly apologize to all who have been violated with his whiteness and lameness!!!) But it is the ultimate payback..don't ya think???? Anyone out there pity me yet????????

Then Nikelle had to try it too! And then the two of them had a nice super soaker fight!! Thankfully Carissa didn't want to have anything to do with that game!!

Now don't ya just love little summer time bum cheeks?? Just couldn't resist this one! And look Jen....NO baby legs here!! She NEVER had them :(

And this last picture Nikelle was talking to Carissa and was getting her to make cute "princess faces", but because of my angle they didn't come out very good, but I did like this one of her smiling....such a rare occurance when the camera comes out! So this is my official "favorite" of the night!

Yesterday, I got a phone call from my dad. Apparently my mom had been experiencing some belly pain over the weekend which took them to the ER on Monday. They didn't find anything and sent her home. Then on Tuesday she was still having tons of pain, so they decided to go to their regular dr. She ended up doing a CT scan and determined that her appendix had ruptured! Yah, I know, how did they miss that one??? But everything is going well. She had the appendectomy and is recovering well. She's feeling "great" (a little loopy too!). So glad everything went well and you'll be back to your old self in no time! And not too shabby if you ask me....first surgery in her life! Love ya mom! (enjoy the pics!)

Enrichment night Luau

Here's Mary and Aislinn waiting to meet the ladies as they arrived with a traditional "aloha" greeting! The ladies really enjoyed being greeted, and the leis really added that extra touch that made it special.


Here's the display of the fun glasses we had for punch! Only at a Luau, can you get the ward to buy these types of glasses!! And the baby is little Brandon Castro, who's about 6 weeks old, but he's still so tiny and slept through almost the whole party!

Then we all sat down and ate some dinner. There was lots of yummy pulled pork with delicious salsa (click on the picture, the recipe is on it!) and lots of salads and yummy desserts to enjoy! And check out the pineapple getting grilled! Yummy!!

And this here is Darla, our enrichment leader (on the right) and Emily, who is one of our sunday teachers. They tried running from the camera, and then realized that I wasn't afraid to post a "backside" picture just to teach them a lesson!! (I wish others had been this quick to learn the lesson!)


The Maoriachis.

The whole group!

Enjoying the show!

"Yeee-Hawww"

When dinner was over, we were entertained by a trio of New Zealanders, who called themselves the "Maoriachis". They were really fun and sang some beautiful music. New Zealand music differs from Hawaiin music in the sense that rarely use instruments, but lots of body slaps and stomping to keep the beat. They even taught us a little dance, but I don't remember the name of it, but it was really fun. Everyone loved the part where you swung your hips and yelled, "Yeee-hawww"! Then they showed us the Haka, which is the war dance that they perform before traditionally going to war. But mostly they do it before sporting events now. It was fascinating to watch and I found that I was missing alot trying to take pictures. They sorta go into a trance and their eyes look a bit glazed while they are chanting the Haka. The picture shows a bit of what the eyes looked like, but a video would have been so much better. We all really liked the Haka, and most of us could have listened for hours, it was just entrancing to watch!

Julie, Michelle & Caroline! See it wasn't so bad!!

And here's our sweet Tina, our RS pres. She and her husband (and their two boys) are leaving for Italy tomorrow. We are all a bit jealous, but she will be missed and I hope you guys have a good time!

OK, when someone poses for a picture LIKE THIS....it BEGS to be posted somewhere! Thanks Kristine!! Made my night! And finally, you know it was a successful party when the glasses are empty and people are still smilin'! What a great night!

And to finish off with my favorite pictures of the night. I just couldn't stop from snappin' pictures of this little cutie. But my absolute fav, is the one of the back of his head. They always have those awesome little wrinkles on their heads, but so hard to get a good picture of!

Thanks everyone for making it such a fun night!