[Shabby] Apple a Day

[Shabby] Apple a Day

OH MY GOODNESS. I didn't realize it has been that long since I last posted. I gave myself a video camera for Christmas so I take a ton of video now and few pictures. I've got to get back on here!

New picture

This post is so I can show mom where I put the picture she let me take. I've known this picture my whole life. It's nostalgic but I didn't appreciate it until recently.

Marta's new baby is SO CUTE!

We LOVED Marta's new little baby girl. Ava. Her first child. She is just 3 weeks old I think. I got to bottle feed her and I loved it! Sweet, sweet, sweet. The kids really loved her and wanted to hold her and Laci followed her around.

Awards ceremony for PTA Relfections Art Contest

I would've labeled this post, "Brigham's Major Award", but it would be unfair to Laci who recieved a certificate of participation. Brigham won 1st place in his age division for visual arts. He won a trophy which was no doubt one of the most exciting moments of his life thus far. Brigham had just told me the night before that he wanted to win a trophy so bad. He had no idea it would happen the next day. He's just had this child-like obsession with wanting to win something. It stems from the fact that Nephi often comes home from races with all sorts of awards including trophies and it's made Brigham for some victory in something....anything. The picture above is my favorite. It shows Brigham after he recieved the award and he can hardly contain himself. It was so fun to see him that excited.
Brigham's artwork goes to the next level for judging now. Eventually we'll know how that goes I guess.
Laci is on the front row wearing the polka dots. She won a certificate of participation. Laci could almost not have cared less. I pretty much had to force her to enter the contest in the first place and she was not jealous AT ALL when he placed higher. They are so different. :) I was proud and excited for just the same though.

Trick or Treat!

Ready to head out....
Regarding the costumes: I didn't want to fork out the money to buy expensive costumes. Also, the kids have dress ups at home so I had an idea. I told the kids weeks ago that they had the option to wear stuff that they had around the house already and I would pay them $4 each. They thought it was the greatest thing I'd said in a long time. So I pay them $4 bucks, but I'm saving at least $30 bucks! Genius, heh?! P.s. if you can't tell, Brigham was a ninja and Laci was a fairy!
Brigham sorting all of his candy afterwards. Check out the amount of candybars!! When I was a kid we were lucky to get 2 or 3 minis and now it's all they get! He even recieved two full size. Who in their right mind would buy a case of full size candy bars to hand out to strangers?

Before and After bathroom remodel

This is my master bath" before the remodel. It's a really cramped space with original tiled countertop and badly (my fault) re-glazed (originally baby blue) sink. The original (1969) tiled shower is a cave. The grout was really stained when we moved in. I previously regrouted over the top to give it a fresh look and the new grout is beginning to peel off. The pergo floor has gaps in the boards allowing water to seep through and the shower threshold has gaps in the grout that had let water seep through for who knows how long.......

The old tired sink.

Redone!!! It's still a small bathroom of course but we had the shower wall taken out so now it's a nice big shower with a more open feel. I shopped for very contemporary tile and I really like this. The pictures really don't do the bathroom justice. The porcelain shower tiles have almost a grass like pattern. Very zen I suppose. The floor tiles are called "Urban steel" and they have a bit of a metallic feel and sheen. Very cool. I purposely bought a vanity that wasn't as deep to give a little more floor space and we got a taller toilet. It goes out into the space more than I'd hoped but there's no way to take away the fact that it is simply a small bathroom. I think this is a real improvement over the old. I can see in the picture that the tile still needs to be wiped down more and I'll be sealing the grout in the next couple days.

Magic on a Saturday afternoon

Laci refusing to come down for a while. She was nervous! I convinced her to come sit and we would go stand away as soon as it got scary.

The magician in the guillotuine. I seriously wonder how dangerous this really was. It felt pretty lame when it was all said and done, but Brigham and Laci bought the danger of it.

Just a few people gathered at the Ogden ampitheater downtown to see the magician do a few tricks. More people did come as the show started. This was a real low key performance. The magician was celebrating Houdinis birthday and I guess all magicians in their national organization are supposed to perform an escape that day to honor the memory of Houdini. Nephi was gone at a race so this was a fun little distraction.

Laci's Halloween party

(The photo comments are publishing all wierd so for whatever reason they're all stacked at the end of the photos)

This litte girl, Lexi has this obsession with wrestling Brigham to the ground. Luckily he likes a good wrestle because she was relentless!

Oh....so cute! I had made Halloween cupcakes for Brigham's party then froze some for Laci's party the week after but when I tried them they were gross...did not freeze well. So off to the store for treats. The kids are clearly easy to please. They all thought push pops were awesome. Some of them were seeing them for the first time. I thought EVERY kid knew what a push pop was.




The girls doing their crafts. They painted unicorns and rainbows. How fitting, huh? This little girl in the front is only 3 years old. Her older sister is Laci's friend and feels sad that she gets left out of things, so we invite her along to anything. So cute!

This party was another success! I'm not going to lie. I patted myself on the back after pulling off two Halloween parties for my kids. I hope they remember that I really try.

Brigham's Halloween Party

Lots of Wild fun.
Afterwards my kids said they'd had a good time and I think all the friends went home happy so it was a success!































Our crafts. The kids painted monster figures and made "smores" Frankensteins and Draculas. The boys were so funny. They literally entertained themselves spontaneously. As they painted they took turns standing in front of everyone and retold their favorite Halloween story. Really, they were giving us blow by blow accounts of their favorite cartoons! Hilarious!

EXTERRA trail run and USA Championships

Today was a gorgeous fall day at Snow Basin ski resort.

We ended up missing Nephi running in by 10 minutes. He ran the half marathon trail run. It was a very uphill course but compared to his usual ultras, he thought it was pretty manageable.

The BIG event of the day was the EXTERRA USA Championships for the triathalon. Now that was fun to watch. This was the transition point for when they hop off their bikes, throw on their running shoes and take off. It was a lot of fun to watch. I was mesmerized by it all and stayed cheering until Brigham told me everyone else was tired of waiting for me and we had to leave. I decided right then and there that if there's anyway I can volunteer next year, I will. I wanted to jump over the barrier and start handing out the water. Maybe next year.

Today seemed to be a BIG day for Ogden athletic events. I passed a bike race in downtown (tour de France style) and also a kayaking event when coming through Ogden canyon. Boy, if I was the outdoorsy type, my new hometown would be heaven on earth! :)

First day of Kindergarten

Waiting in line for the first time! She was nervous but went with no problems!

Ohhhh.....so cute.

Taking the Front runner train to downtown Salt Lake

We mostly visited Temple Square and the visitors center.
The kids really
liked it.

Of course Laci took a turn with the camera.

The train was very exciting for them. It cost only $10 total for us roundtrip. BARGAIN.

misc. photos

Laci took this one of me pulling weeds.
Laci loves close ups.

Brigham and Laci with the Guevarra kids at their house. I babysat them this summer. We loved them.

Anybody want an apricot?

I took the kids to the elementary playground this evening. They were basically begging. So anyhow, we were there and we saw a tree that had signs on it. It was in a neigboring yard with tons of huge branches hanging over the fence (someone really needs to prune that tree). We decided we needed to find out what the signs said. Brigham thought right away that they would say "something bad". So we got to the signs and they were basically encouraging people to pick the fruit. They clearly had WAY more than they could handle. We were so excited and ran across the school yard to scrounge bags out of the car. The limbs hung so low that Brigham and Laci could easily reached and as you can see we got quite a few and there were still a TON left on the tree! Once we dumped out our bags at home I realized that I didn't know what to do with them all. So I called grandma and she told me how to make apricot jam and we talked about fruit leather. I have so many memories of grandma and her jam so it was fun to call and get her advice. Man, I love grandma. So I think on Monday I'll work on that. I just don't know what containers I'll put it in....

Our annual (well at least 2 years running) Lagoon weekend

It was so fun to host a bbq in my back yard. It's not very often I have so much family visiting!

Going for a walk. On our walk it started downpouring (we WERE NOT very close to home) and we had to run all the way home. Everyone including the kids were laughing so hard and running that we all agreed it was the funnest "walk" ever. Even the littlest baby Brooke was really wet! She was too surprised by the commotion to even cry!

What a cutie!

Getting ready for pictures.

Laci loves taking pictures now. I'm holding Brianna. My brothers daughter.

Grandma with ALL of the grandkids!

Lagoon

No way. Out of our whole trip to Lagoon these are the only photos I took????

Snowbird

We all went to Snowbird last weekend. Nephi ran the Speed goat 50k. I was going to go with him and leave the kids with Nephi's parents but when we thought about it, it just made more sense to take them with us. Geez, they love hotels. They'd move into one if they could, why not take them. I've never seen a hotel like the ones at Snowbird. It's like they've built them to survive an avalanche. Concrete everywhere. But actually really beautiful. Everything is on a grand scale. The kids loved the pools and here we are exploring in the morning while Nephi's out running. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of Nephi's race. It was a long hot day and I had my camera in the car by the time he finished. There wasn't much to see at the finish. But Nephi did great. I was really proud of him.

I was determined that we were going to ride the tram with kids panicking or no kids panciking. We went while Nephi ran. The kids really did fine and it was an amazing view at the top. Quite a long way up the mountain.

The view of the hotel upon reapproach. How magnificent! Right?

What a view. This is at the top. Poor Laci couldn't find her sunglasses. (They were in the car) Nephi's race actually came through this spot. You can see why it's considered possibly the hardest 50k in the world. They started and ended back at the bottom folks. shudder...