Reconnecting

The past few days I have been thinking a lot about my grandparents. I was feeling bad that I hadn't really had any communication with them lately (besides birthday cards/thank-yous). I also missed feeling close to them. We had always had a good, tight relationship. I grew up living 30 minutes from both sets of my grandparents. They lived down the street from each other in Long Beach, so when we went to see one, we often saw the other too. And we saw them often. We used to have monthly family dinners at my G&G Olson's house. We would eat and visit and celebrate the birthdays of that month. We had an annual Olson Family Beach Party complete with corn on the cob boiled in sea water in a metal trash can over a fire, treasure hunt for the kids, smores, and plenty of playing in the waves and sand.

We got together for dinners with G&G Snowball out on their beautiful back patio on Sunday afternoons. Usually with cousins. When we were little we tried on all the costume jewelery, played the musical instruments, and watched one of the hundreds of movies G&G Snowball owned. We especially loved all the Shirley Temple movies. I rented "Heidi" with Shirley Temple from the library a couple weeks ago and had major flashbacks to my grandparent's TV room.

As a kid my sisters and I had sleepovers at our grandparent's houses. We always went to both their homes on Christmas Day--G&G Olson's house for Christmas brunch and G&G Snowball's house for Christmas dinner. My grandparents babysat us when my parents went on trips. We stayed with them for weeks while my mom was on bedrest because of toxemia while pregnant with my youngest sister, Melanie.

My grandparents loved us and we loved them. They were very involved in our lives. They came to Grandparent's Day at school, attended all our piano recitals, baptisms, birthday parties, and other important occasions and performances.

When I had Weston I was sad that he would not have the same experiences with his grandparents that I had had simply because we will never live close to both sets of them at the same time.

Flash forward to this week. I was missing that feeling of closeness with my grandparents. I thought about what I could do to let them know that I am still around and thinking about them often. I decided I would write a nice, long note to Grandma Snowball (Grandpa died in February 2008). Grandma likes to write notes so I figured she would appreciate that. I figured I would try to call Grandma Olson this next week and see what she is up to.

Yesterday I mailed my note to Grandma Snowball. After lunch we all went to the park to play. It was a perfect day. The kids had fun and so did Sammie, but she didn't seem to be a huge fan of being on the leash.
On our way home from the park my phone rang. It was Grandma Olson! She and Grandpa were driving down I-15 from Logan (they had gone to Grandma's 55th high school reunion) and wanted directions to my house. I was so excited. About 20 minutes later Grandma and Grandpa pulled in. They had never seen my house before, so they got the grand tour. We had a really nice visit and watched the slideshow of all the pictures from our most recent family reunion. Weston got to experience the awesomeness of a back-scratch from Grandma. They met the puppy, who snuggled right up in Grandpa's lap where they both napped. :)
Grandma and Grandpa's visit really felt like the answer to prayer for me. It was just what I needed. I am so grateful they decided to call and stop in! I am going to try to be more proactive in keeping up my relationship with my grandparents from now on. It makes me feel so much more connected to who I am.

On a completely unrelated-to-the-rest-of-this-post note, I had to share a couple of pictures from our week. Weston has finally learned how to play with Playdough! He made a spider this week.
Also, Elmo was thinking about cameras on Sesame Street the other day, so Weston wanted me to take his picture with Sammie. She was napping at the time, but I still thought it was cute. Can you tell that she's already getting bigger? She is.
Unfortunately we all have colds this weekend. I am starting to feel better, but Ian and Davin are just starting in on it. Hopefully it will pass quickly for us. Being sick is not fun. Last night between Davin, Sammie, and Ian's sickie snoring I barely got a few hours sleep. Sigh. Someday I will get to consistently sleep though the night, but it might not be until I am an empty nester.

The Fair . . . Take 1 and Take 2

I'm so sorry I left you all hanging for days with no post about going to the Fair! Well that would be because it turned into a little bit of a saga. Monday afternoon we decided to go to the Utah State Fair with the Matagi's. We were supposed to hang out anyway that night, then we thought we could go to the Fair. Later that afternoon a massive thunderstorm blew through. It poured down rain (and even a little bit of hail!), there was thunder and lightening and high winds. Hmm not ideal weather conditions for the Fair, but when it was time to leave it looked like the storm had blown through and the sun was even shining a little bit.

By the time I had dropped off the puppy, swung by the bank, and gotten to Tara's house we only had to wait for Ian for 15 minutes. Then we hopped in our cars and headed to the Fair. As we drove up I-15 the rain started again and it was raining hard. Just as we pulled off the freeway at our exit we called the Matagi's and suggested we do something else. We ended up going to the Gateway and having dinner at the food court and then exploring the Planetarium. It was a fun night, even though we didn't make it to the Fair.

(Weston got a balloon at Sbarro where he had dinner and would not let it go all night until it finally slipped off and sailed away as we were heading back to the car at the end of the outing)
Here's Tara showing you all the weather forecast. Rainy.
We already had our tickets for the Fair so we decided that we would just go on our own sometime during this week (since this is the last week the Fair runs). I wanted to go on Wednesday, but Ian wasn't sure he was going to be able to come home early enough for us to go. Lo and behold, he got lots done that day and came home right on time! We managed to leave the house at 6pm!

The weather was much more pleasant last night. We got parked and into the Fair and started wandering through the livestock buildings. We saw the Beef building then headed into the Sheep building. Davin loved the sheep. He touched every one he could reach. When we had almost gotten to the end of the building I spotted the Matagi's! We ended up spending the rest of the evening at the Fair together. It was so much fun.
We wandered through buildings, then went and watched the horse pulling competition. It was kind of weird, but some people were very into it. After that we headed over to the "Little Hands on the Farm" exhibit. It was so cute (and FREE!). The kids came in and got a mini bushel basket and a little apron, then they went through the grain silo and got a baggie of corn. Next they went to the dairy barn and dumped out the corn in front of the pretend cow and picked up a jug of milk (empty). Then they went through the orchard and picked an apple from the tree (all fake). Next they went to the garden and planted a seed, then harvested their vegetable on the other side. After that they drove a tricycle tractor and picked up some hay. Next up was collecting an egg from the chicken coop. Then they saw the pretend sheep and got to brush it and picked up a handful of real wool. Finally, they took their basket to the Farmer's Market and "sold" (put away) everything. On their way out of the Farmer's Market they got a pretend dollar that they then could buy something with at the General Store. They could choose a granola bar, cereal, a bag of chips, string cheese, chocolate milk, etc. Weston, of course, picked a bag of potato chips. It was a very cool little exhibit.

The kids eating their hard earned snacks after being farmers.
The moms hanging out and chatting.
Weston loves to poke his head through these things.
Davin was excited that he got a turn too.
The dads took the 3 year olds on the big yellow slide. They all loved it. Hopefully next year Weston will be big enough to go by himself. (Ian and Weston are on the left, Justin and Makenzie are on the right)
After the slide we got some Fair food and it was yummy. I got sweet potato sticks and Ian got a grilled green pepper stuffed with jalapenos and cheese. A little later we got some cinnamon roasted almonds and Weston tried Kenzi's cotton candy. Fair food success! We wandered through all the booths and went into one last building to see the sculpture of cows carved out of butter. It was cool, but Weston really just kept wanting to go back outside and see the pumpkin spider at the entrance to the building. He said that's what he wants his Halloween pumpkin to look like. I will do my best. :)
It worked out that we got to have 2 fun nights hanging out with the Matagi's and one of them managed to be the Utah State Fair. Definitely a fun Family Night and worth the wait!

***I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures. When I went to pull out the camera at the Fair the battery was dead, so these are all phone pics.

Pleasantly Surprised

We had a surprisingly pleasant weekend. Not that I was expecting it to be bad, but we were going to go out Friday night, but our babysitter fell through. I was disappointed. We ended up getting Pei Wei takeout and watching a movie together. Hooray for the at-home date!

Saturday we had no big plans, but we played in the yard while Ian puppy-proofed it, fixed a sprinkler head, etc. That afternoon we watched the BYU football game which was lots of fun since we completely dominated. Go Cougs! I got a few minutes of reading in too. I started The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It's quite the mouthful of a title. So far I have laughed out loud at least 6 times, so yes, I am enjoying it.

The boys both wore their BYU shirts on Saturday for the game. Here's Weston, Ian, and Sammie kickin it and watching the game.
After the game on Saturday Ian took the kids to the park so I could get the house cleaned. We had a youth fireside at our house on Sunday, so I needed to get some work done. It's amazing that what normally takes me all week to get done, got all finished in the hour-ish that I was all alone.

I was a little nervous about the fireside. It hadn't really been announced very much and I was hoping that we would at least get 5 kids to show up. Sunday we announced it in YW and in YW, then I had the Bishop announce it again in Sacrament Meeting. By 7pm there were already 8 kids there! We ended up with 10 youth there, plus a few leaders. It was a little bit of a tight squeeze fitting us all into our den, but it was fine and I was so excited that so many of the kids came. My friend, Jackie, came and spoke about overcoming adversity. It was lovely. She did a great job. There were refreshments after and the whole thing was wrapped up in about an hour. I was so glad it was a success. I hope we can do another fireside soon!

I have just a few more cute pics from the last few days to share. Davin was being all hammy and posing for pictures the other day. I hardly ever get good pictures of him because he won't hold still, but I think he is finally figuring out what the camera is all about.

This last one is a funny picture of Sammie napping. She had her legs straight up in the air. Weirdo.
Tonight we are going to the Utah State Fair, so it will have it's own post soon!

I Just Love It!

10 Random Things that I LOVE!
(tagged from my friend Delia's awesome blog HERE)

1. I love that Weston officially started preschool today and that he loved it too!
2. I love my new puppy. She is such a sweetie, even if she does keep me up half the night with her crying and need to be taken out several times each night.
**Here she is napping in her crate. She hasn't done this at all today though. Only wants to nap in the den.
**Yesterday Weston fell asleep on the floor watching Incredibles. Sammie curled right up with him and napped too.
3. I love Christmas shopping. I have already started for this year (in fact, Weston's is about done) and I get so excited about it all.

4. I love being in Young Women's. It's a lot of work sometimes, but it's fun to get to hang out with the girls and do fun activities with them. Last night we went to the batting cages.

5. I love sleeping in. I especially appreciate it these days because it's rare.

6. I love a clean house. I really enjoy getting the whole house done in one day. It only stays clean for about one day, but that night when the kids are in bed and the toys are picked up and things are clean, I really enjoy it.

7. I love not having to cook. I cook because if I don't then my family won't eat or will only eat junk/stuff we really can't afford, but I really love it if someone else cooks or we go out.

8. I love reading. Reading magazines (Real Simple, Parenting, the Ensign, Family Fun) and books (I just picked up The Kite Runner and The Guernsey Literary Society from the library yesterday)

9. I love going on dates with my husband. It's always fun and it's nice to get away from the kids. I wish we did it more often. I will have to work on that.

10. I love a good girls night. I haven't had one in awhile though. I think it's overdue.

Expect the Unexpected

I was so looking forward to this long weekend. We have spent so much of our summer without Ian around, but this long weekend we were going to all be together. It started out just as I had planned. Ian got off work early, came home, and we all went to the pool one last time before the outdoor pools closed. It was a beautiful, warm afternoon and the pool wasn't crowded at all. After we had our fill of sun, water, and splashing, we came home and had a yummy dinner of grilled pork chops, mashed potatoes, green beans, and peaches. The evening was topped off with Ian and I watching the movie "Australia." I loved the movie, by the way. It was like a modern Gone With the Wind. Long, but worth it.

Saturday we got up nice and early, packed up some snacks and the kids and hit the road. We drove out to Duchene, UT, about a 3 hour drive, to pick up the cute Springer Spaniel mix dog I posted about a little while ago. We pulled up to the trailer where the dog was (along with about 5 other dogs and a turkey, not kidding) and saw the little puppy run out to us. However, it wasn't as little anymore. Ian asked the guy how old he thought the puppy was. He answered that it was about 4 or 5 months old. Yikes. I quickly texted the owner and asked if when they got the puppy she was sure it was 9 months old and not 9 weeks. "Oh, my husband says 9 weeks." Yikes. Needless to say we came home empty handed. It wasn't a complete loss though since we got to stop on the way back and play at the park for awhile and we did spend the whole day together.

The sign at the park we stopped at in Heber on our way home on Saturday.
The redeeming thing about Saturday was the amazing BYU football opener against Oklahoma. Great game. Getting our cable for free=totally worth it. :) Go Cougs!

Sunday was nice and quiet. We made it through the whole 3 hours of church without incident. Weston bore a really adorable testimony. He is growing up so fast. We came home and had a restful afternoon. I attempted to make potato pancakes out of the leftover mashed potatoes to go with our eggs and bacon, but they did NOT turn out. Oh well. I also baked some cookies. That night we had some friends over and just had a really fun time visiting, laughing, and playing Settlers (even though I did the worst I have ever done).

All this time I had been continuing to look for another dog. There were lots to choose from, but only a couple that looked promising. Sunday evening Ian had planned with the sketchy tree guy to do the rest of our trees today. They were supposed to start at 9am again. Ian told him that if he was here by 9:30am then he would buy the guy lunch, but if he wasn't here by 11am, then the deal was off. Well, sure enough he called at about 10am and had just woken up. At 10:50 he called to say he had forgotten his ladder and had to go back home. Ian just said, well you have until 11. He didn't show up until almost 11:30, so no deal.

All morning I had been looking at dog listings. There was a really cute 2 year old dog at the shelter, a 1 1/2 year old dog someone was re-homing, and a litter of adorable puppies that had caught my eye and were in my price range. I called the shelter and didn't get a response. The lady with the re-homing dog was excited for us to come see her dog, so we planned to go check it out after Davin's nap. We decided not to bring the kids though just in case.

The moment we pulled out of the driveway to take the kids to our neighbor's house and go see the dog, the lady called to say an older couple had just come to see the dog and fallen in love. Sigh. Well, there was still the shelter dog. As we pulled back into the driveway, they called back and said that dog had already been adopted. Sigh again. There were still the puppies, so I ran in the house to get the directions, the ad was listed as sold. I called and the guy said that they were all sold, but that if the sale didn't go through he would call me back. We unloaded the kids from the car. Again. I was pretty disappointed. It looked as though getting a dog was just not in the cards for us at the moment.

We played pillow fight, continued checking dog listings and generally moped a bit. Ian had just left to run to Home Depot and Smiths when my phone rang. It was the puppy guy saying that the lady who was buying the rest of the puppies hadn't gotten back to him, so we could have one. I hurried and took the boys to our friends' house and met back up with Ian at the house. We drove 40 minutes up to Clearfield and met the cutest puppies. They are half Jack Russell Terrier and half Brittany Spaniel. They will be about mid-calf size dogs full grown. We had a little bit of a hard time deciding which one to take home since they were all so cute, but we finally decided on a little brown and white girl.

Sammie (5th from left) with her siblings. This picture was from the ad posted on ksl.
Just before we took her home.
When we got back Ian took the dog out back and I went and picked up the kids. Weston ran out back, so I missed his initial reaction, but he is loving his new dog, Sam. He sat there with her on his lap and petted her into a nap. He kept her company after dinner too. We bbq'd with the Severinson's and enjoyed eating on the patio for the first (and maybe last?) time this summer.
It's still a little surreal that we have a puppy. She is so adorable and I am already in love. We bonded during the car ride home.
So far Sammie seems really mellow and sweet. She hasn't chewed on me once yet. She has been whining a little bit. I think she's lonely. We borrowed an extra kennel that the Severinson's had so that we can start crate/potty training her. The kennel is huge for her, but we sectioned it off so she just has a little cozy space. Davin thought it should be his little cozy space.
Our little girl had a long, busy evening, so she was pretty tired by the time we came in from bbqing and playing outside.
On that note, let the great experiment begin! I'm pretty sure I'm in for midnight potty breaks, accidents, teething, etc., but you know, I am really not too worried about it right this minute. We will be fine. I have 2 kids, I'm sure I can potty train a dog. :)

Our first day with Sammie.

My Favorites

Well, first of all these two are definitely my favorites.
They are such fun boys. Weston is so intelligent and talkative. Seriously, if you call me, you will most likely get to talk to Weston too. He can chat your ear off if he's in the right mood. That picture was taken this morning. He was watching Playhouse Disney this morning and next thing I know he had made a Mickey Mouse flag. I helped him tape the flag part to the "pole" but it was all his idea. Note he is also wearing his Mickey Mouse shirt. Davin just snuck into the picture, but he was cute, so I let him be in it. As soon as I took this he grinned and started clapping.

As most of you know, another favorite of mine is home storage and organization. I bought a toy box this week. I had wanted one awhile back, but the one I wanted had just been discontinued. Sad. Anyway, I found this one at Target (it's by Circo) this week. It was on sale for $45. Not too shabby I thought. It is perfect for all the bigger toys. I have already migrated some stuff into it and it's still only half full. It has freed up some other space too, so we will hopefully have plenty of space come Christmas and Weston's birthday.

Finally, Ian is my favorite. I miss him. He has been working so much, but I am so excited for our weekend (another favorite thing of mine). We have big plans. He is coming home early this afternoon to kick off the fun. I will post all about it at the end of the long weekend. Happy Labor Day!

Coming Soon to UT . . .

That's right folks. It is officially under construction less than 5 miles from my house (in case you are local and wondering the exact location, it is on the corner of 7800 S. right by the Target at Jordan Landing). I can almost taste it. I am so excited.