Projects, Projects, Projects!

Yesterday was a marathon of projects and to-dos.  We started at 8am and didn't really finish until 9pm.  First off was a ward service project.  We had to be to the church by 8 which meant that breakfast needed to be ready by 7:30 at the latest.  Luckily, biscuits and gravy isn't to time consuming.  After meeting at the church, Steve and the other members went around our neighborhood to pick up food for the food bank.  I went home because we were expecting a delivery of our new bedroom furniture between 8:30 and 12:30.

Steve left for the gym at 10am with Anna.  While they were gone, I worked on a project I saw on a blog a couple of days ago.  It's a fall checklist of fun things that we want to do.  It's not too hard, and because I put it behind glass, I can mark off what we do then wipe it off.  I'd like to do one for winter, too.

The furniture delivery arrived just before Steve & Anna got home.  I had to quickly get our mattresses and old dressers out of the way to make way for the new.  Luckily, the delivery guys set the bed up and put the box springs on.  I had to get the top mattress on and remake it.  We then had to transfer everything from the old dressers and nightstands to the new ones.  Now, where to put the old dressers?  Right now, they've taken up residence in the guest room.

Later that afternoon, after Anna had gone to bed for her nap, Steve and I got started on the garage.  We assembled four storage shelves, cleaned out one half of the garage, and started to go through my boxes of teacher stuff.  Steve secured the shelves to the wall while I watched the General Relief Society Meeting and Anna.

Stuff we still need to get put away.

Next project- closet.

 After eating, we loaded the shelves up with our newly boxed stuff.  We cleaned the other half of the garage and were able to put both cars in for the first time in over a year!  By this time, we were both exhausted and stinky so we took showers and gave each other massages.  Finally, we laid down on our new bed and fell to sleep.  What a day.

Snowbird

Steve and I bought Salt Lake City Connect passes earlier this year.  It gives you discounted rates on a bunch of activities around the area.  Today, we decided to use them to take the tram up at Snowbird resort.

We left at 9:30am and headed out.  There was a little trepidation because the weather was a little iffy.  But we made it up in time to take the first tram at 11:00am.  Anna really enjoyed looking out the window at the scenery.  I enjoyed all of it except the swinging every time we went over a tower.  We were surprised to see that it had snowed that night.  There was about one to two inches all over the top of the mountain.  Unfortunately, we weren't quite dressed for that.

The view from the top of the mountain was spectacular.  You could see down the canyon all the way to Salt Lake City!  You could also see that the snow hit one side of the mountain, but not the other side.

The trip down the mountain wasn't as fun because there were so many people jammed on the tram.  Those that had ridden up with us and those that had walked or biked up.  At the bottom, we ate our lunch and watched kids on the bungee trampolines.  Anna wanted to go on them so badly!  She kept ohhing and ahhing and saying, "Wheee!" as she watched.  She walked over to the gate surrounding them and started bouncing up and down.

Afterwards, we walked around Oktoberfest (in september!) and bought some kettle corn for the trip home.  We stopped at a little hiking area and took a little walk to the nearby river.  Steve enjoyed showing Anna how to throw rocks into the river and watch them splash.  It was a great day.

Organization!

I have been working on getting different areas of my home set up so they are easy to keep organized.  So far, I've done the laundry room and the pantry.

I finished the laundry room a couple of months ago.  Kudos to Peter for painting our laundryroom a nice bright blue.  Then, I got a shelf with a rod and a broom organizer as well as a wicker laundry basket to put kitchen rags, towels, bibs, etc in.  The final step was to make some curtains.  One for over the window and another (actually 3 parts) to hide the storage above the washer and dryer.  I have one finishing touch, some flowers for the vase.  I think it turned out great.  I actually don't mind going in there to do laundry.


Yesterday, I decided to tackle the pantry.  For me, this is one of the hardest rooms to keep neat and organized.  When I'm done shopping I'm tired.  I just want to get it all put away and not have to deal with it any more.  I also have trouble remembering what I have and what I don't.  I hate buying something at the store and coming home to realize I have three of them already behind the boxes!

So, I pulled everything out yesterday.  And I mean EVERYTHING.  I've tried organizing before by moving one thing and replacing it with another, not ideal.  Get everything out.  Poor Steve came home to counters, table, stove, and floor covered in cans, boxes, and bags.  Then I decided what would go on the top shelf, because that's the hardest to reach.  I then filled the two most convenient shelves with what I used most often, keeping like items with like.  Finally, I filled in the other areas with what was left over.  As I went, I entered into my phone app what I had and how much.  I'm hoping that I will have enough discipline to mark off what I use.  I have a couple of things that I need to get to make it complete.  A basket, hopefully with dividers, for my envelopes of seasonings.  You know- taco, fajita, chili seasonings?  I also have packets of gravy mix and ranch dressing mix.  They fall all over the place.  I also want to get a hook to hand up my aprons.  Right now they hang on the door knob.  In general, though, I think it looks pretty nice.  Let's hope I can keep it that way.

Our next project, Steve and I are working together on.  We bought some shelves to put in our garage so that we can get stuff up off the floor.  Steve hates having to scrape off his car during the winter.  We'll be working on getting that all set up next weekend!

Acrobatic Anna

Last week I was cooking in the kitchen and had my back turned to Anna.  I thought it was ok, because we've pretty much baby-proofed the downstairs.  She can play and run around to her heart's delight.  All of a sudden I heard Anna say, "Momma!"  I turned around and just about dropped on the floor because this is what I saw:

She seems to take it as a challenge now to climb on and over anything!  I find her on top of the coffee table and sometimes inside the entertainment unit.  She's even tried climbing on top of the piano.

Date and Super Saturday

Steve and I had a great date on Friday.  We got tickets to the Hale Center Theater for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  It was great!  We were lucky to get tickets in the first place.  It was originally only scheduled for August, but due to high demand, they extended into September.  Even with that, there were only 3 or 4 days available when we got tickets.

We went to a matinee showing at 4pm.  The costumes and sets were amazing.  The Hale Theater is a circular stage with seats 360 degrees around it.  They use that little circle to its fullest potential.  Sections can rise and fall and it has 3 rotating sections.  I especially loved the HUGE camel brought in by the hairy Ishmaelites.  It was controlled by 3 people and it sang!

My only disappointment, was that it was so short.  Only one and a half hours.  Afterwards, Steve and I stopped at the IHOP next door to have dinner and wait out the traffic.  Yum!

Halloween Subway Art

Initial Wall Hanging

The next day was Saturday...Super Saturday!  Yes, our ward/stake still allows us women to express our creative side through crafts.  Steve watched Anna from 10am-3pm while I was crafty with my friends from the ward.  It's amazing to me how I can have so much time, and yet still not get finished.  I had 3 big projects, one little project and I went to a class on teaching children reverence.  By the time I got home, I still had work to do on two of the big projects. You can see pictures of what I did to the sides.

 I got a lot of ideas from the reverence class.  It was taught by Katheryn Nelson, a lady in our ward with 11 children.  It is amazing to see their family during sacrament meeting.  The children are so good!  So, of course, everyone wanted to know her secret.

3 Holiday Banners

Christmas Star 1.5' diam.

This is it.  She teaches reverence first at home during FHE and scripture study.  They are expected to be reverent during these times.  At the age of two, all drinks, snacks, toys, crayons, etc. are put away.  They don't bring Sunday reverent books or anything.  They are expected to sit and listen.  If they aren't being well behaved then after church they need to 'practice' by sitting on the sofa for 30 minutes with their arms folded.  Her other two points were consistency and praise.  You have to be consistent every Sunday for every child no matter which parent is dealing with children.  Also, you need to praise your children for being good.

Miss Independant

So, Anna has decided that she no longer needs Mom to help her eat any more.  This means that anything she puts in her mouth has to be put there by her.  Even gooey, semi-liquid stuff.  I must say that I have to restrain myself from grabbing back the yogurt and baby food jars.  She really seems to enjoy it, though.  The two down points are that she makes a HUGE mess and that it takes her a looooong time to eat enough to make her full.  She hasn't quite figured out the scooping action.  Usually she just swishes the spoon around and hopes something sticks!  Here are a few pictures of her adventures in self-feeding.