From Truck to Trailer

Yes it's true, we have sold the old truck. It was a good truck for weekend jobs, but having it on the street became a problem (we have to move it every 5 days or we could get ticketed). It was my Dad's old truck so it was special - good reminder of him. However, with the cutting costs and going back to school we decided to sell the truck and buy a small trailer instead. That way we aren't putting gas into the truck and we can still do weekend jobs if needed.


Jeff found this little home made trailer at a yard sale down the street. It is in good condition and fits on the driveway along with the merc parked in front of it. We usually have the tarp over it to protect it from the weather :).


Isn't it cute? It is nice to not have to worry about being ticketed anyways :).

Finally!!!

Yes, she is finally crawling at almost 8 months of age! She has been scooting a little and last week she started army crawling, but today, yes today she has crawled across the room. Look at her very focused...


She has come a long way now!


It is strange to me because this is the longest any of my children have taken to accomplish this skill. No, it is not her weight that holds her back (Grant was just as big and was crawling at 6 months and walking by 9!), it is her motivation. You can see here why she was so motivated... the cord! Talmage was playing with her and slowly dragging the cord just out of her reach. It definitely did the trick.


She is being happy here... waving her arms and making cute baby talk noises! I figured that if we used a cord, Mommy, or the computer she would figure it out. Those are her favorite things :). I think the baby toys are not marketed for the right age group... Talmage, Grant and Sandra prefer her toys over their own!
I guess now I have to watch out for the stairs and anything else she can figure out how to get into. It is funny to me that we spend so much time wanting our children to progress and then figuring out how to deal with them once they do!

Sewing daily sewing

I have inherited material from people over the years. I have also been admiring some cute sewing blogs. Well I have been putting the two together and have worked on a few projects recently. I made some skirts for little girls and some baby doll blankets and pillows. Then I decided to make Sandra a new church dress. I really wanted to make something for me, but somehow it is more fun to sew for a little girl than for me. She was very excited watching me sew it. When I was ready for her to try it on she said "I want to be a princess, mommy." She loves her new dress! I think she loves that it's nice and flowy too. She twirls great!
I think it could be adjusted and there are faults that I don't like, but overall it turned out pretty good. It's a nice feeling to be able to create something that someone can wear!


Such a cute girl!

A whole new world

Sandra has taken possession of one of Mhari's blankets (a play blanket with tags

to chew on). She likes blankets in general so I didn't think anything of it. Then she laid it out and sat on it like this and said "Mommy, magic carpet." It was just too cute! So now she has the blanket and pretends to fly on it. I love it. What a great inspiration Aladdin is! I just hope she doesn't get any ideas about flying off of things to make it work!

Summer sports

So this is a little late in the making, but better late than never. The boys did some classes at the rec center this summer. We started out with basketball and then went right into soccer. It was a nice introduction to the sports and gave our kids a good opportunity to get better at their skills. There were plenty of fun ladies (mostly from the ward) to hang out with during that time so that made it even more enjoyable for me. There are things I would've liked to have been done differently (teachers etc), but overall the kids had a great time.


Here is Talmage with his basketball. He thought he was really good! It helps that he was the oldest in the class by over a year!


Yeah soccer! Here they are lined up waiting to make a goal. Both boys were really good at each sport, but I think that soccer and Grant go well together!


Throw!


Oh and our little Chica (Sandra). She had to sit and watch every time they had a class (because I was too cheap to leave and pay the gas for just a 45 min class, better to sit and wait for them to be done). She really wanted to play basketball and soccer. The last couple of times I let her play with a soccer ball for a little bit, out of the way. She loved it. She was more enthusiastic about soccer than any of the kids that were actually signed up! One day she'll get her turn. For now, Mommy is glad it's over and that there is nothing big going on for schedules right now. Who knew that doing one class a week could wear you out?

All Boy

Grant and Talmage were playing on their bunk bed today. Grant wanted to climb down head first because he was being a kitty and have Talmage help by holding his feet. Talmage didn't quite follow through on the plan. Grant fell and hit his face on the floor. Here is a picture soon after it happened.

He's done just fine since the accident which is good. This is what he looked like during his nap. His poor face is just getting more swollen and his owies more red (even with the cold pack). I guess another lesson for little boys to learn about how not to get down from the bunk bed (or better communication in their efforts)!

It's been 10 years...

I've been debating how to start this post (sorry no photos). First off it's hard to believe, but it's been 10 years since Jeff has been to the dentist. I've been more recently, however I don't know that it mattered. Jeff had no real issues and was all to happy to chat it up with the Hygienist and our new Dentist. It is one of those lucky strong teeth genetic things he has inherited from his father (lucky him). I was not so lucky. I do not have cavities, but my silver fillings are starting to fail. I'm going to need 1 crown and 3 new fillings! Lucky me. I'm not very happy about it.
The kids have also gotten to visit the Dentist for their cleanings. Lucky Grant has inherited the Williams' teeth gene while Talmage seems to favor my teeth. Poor Talmage had 2 fillings done yesterday. He was such a trooper and did really well. At least there was no crying. He was sad when we left because he didn't have time to play the arcade game they had there. I think the pediatric Dentist is such a hit because they get prizes. After my appointment my kids all wanted to know if I got to play the video game and what prizes I got. I guess it's not so fun when we're adults. Maybe I can count my free tooth brush and floss as my prize, or maybe my new crown that I will be getting all too soon (it probably doesn't count because I'm paying for it). Being big is not so fun sometimes :).
One of the blessings of going to the dentist is that the kids are very excited about brushing their teeth twice a day and even love flossing. Hopefully it will last more than a few weeks!

Curly Girlies

Okay, so the boys had to have their picture taken too....


but this is the first curly girly. I have done my hair in hot rollers recently for church and every time I do Sandra wants her hair curly too. I bought some sponge rollers so we tried them out today. I know it's not the best photo to show off the curls, but she enjoyed them. I think she liked having them in more than having the curls :). It's amazing to see that she actually has enough hair to put in rollers!


Here are my lovely locks. I have done my hair curly to get some volume since my hair has really thinned out after having a baby. I'm getting ready to get a hair cut so curlers probably won't work after that. It is funny having my hair in rollers though because the kids start saying I look like Grandma (because she does her hair with rollers). I guess curls equal Grandma in my house. It is fun to have a little girl around to do girly things with :). Our future is looking very fun in that respect!

Tarzan

My kids have created a "vine" from which to swing from. They get the hose and drape it over the tree limb and away they go. It is quite entertaining. I wonder if they think they are like Tarzan (I'm sure Grant does). Here is Talmage getting ready to swing...


and here he has landed. He was too fast for my camera to catch him in the air :)


This is Grant swinging from vine to vine as he puts it. He is an agile kid :).


Being up high in the fort seems more like a tree house from this angle!


Sandra wanted a turn going from vine to vine, but she needed a little help. Thanks Daddy Tarzan for helping :)!
Talmage really wanted Daddy to get out his big ladder so he could climb the tree. I'm sure the ladder would've helped, but not the same thing as climbing a tree :). I think he would like it if our willow tree had lower branches for him to get started with. I'm glad he can't quite climb it yet. One less thing for me to worry about him falling from!

Two sickies

It all started last week with Talmage and a cough. It has turned into two sick little girls with bad chest congestion, coughs, and ear infections (Mhari is getting double ear infections). The Dr. was glad I brought them in and now we are on our way to getting well. The breathing treatments are so fun... ya, fun. They do pretty well with them and actually Sandra has been really cooperative recently. Mhari is not so fond of it though.


It's no fun to have sick kids. Overall they are still happy and eating well. I guess it could be a lot worse. I'm so grateful to have modern medicine to help our kids when their little bodies are suffering!

Outside stuff

For some reason my kids have not been playing outside very much recently, maybe the heat had something to do with it... Then it all changed this week and it was magic :). They were happy to go outside and asked to keep going outside. Here are just a few pics of some of the fun they have had.
The bricks standing up are supposed to be tall grass. They were pretending it was a jungle like "Jungle Book" ~ It's funny to me to see them reinacting movies, but I think that's what I used to do as a kid so it's fitting.
The wood lying down has little plastic pieces on one edge. I was wondering what it was for and then I saw what Talmage was doing...

This is an action shot of him about to catapult the plastic things off the wood. It's neat to see their creative minds at work. That entertained him for a couple of hours I think. I'm glad no one was hurt from it either!


Look at my pretty garden. I have been keeping up on watering it and trying to keep the weeds out. I can't say we have had much food produced yet, but there is still time, right? We do have a few ears of corn growing as well as some cucumbers so that is fun to see! Hopefully we will get to enjoy them soon enough (instead of them dying or the birds eating them).


Sandra likes to play with the boys outside. One of her favorite things is swinging. She is really good at hanging on the circle swing too. If she had her way I would spend every moment pushing her on the swings!


So our bird houses had not been put up yet and the kids were waiting for Daddy to have some time to do it. In the mean time they took the houses outside to play. They ended up making homes for the houses out of the excess brick in our yard. There are two in the bigger one and Sandra's is enclosed in the other one. They are trying to keep the cats out with the wood and such. I tried to explain that birds won't live on the ground, but I don't think they believe me.

Jeff successfully put up the bird houses today and the kids are very happy they are up! Sorry no photos of that :)

Shoulder bag

So I saw this bag linked on my friends site and it looked pretty easy so I decided to try it. I've really been wanting a new bag so making one sounded like it would fix that problem too. You can't tell, but there's a pocket inside and I added a snap to close it if I want.


If you want to see where I got it from click here. It didn't take that long to do (maybe a couple of hours from start to finish) and the instructions were really helpful with great photos to go along with it. I think it turned out pretty cute. I may make another one that is bigger for church. I have inherited lots of free material over the years so it's like making a free bag... even better right!

Bird Homes

We finally took the kids to Home Depot to do their kids crafts on the first Saturday of the month. This month was bird houses and the kids had such a great time making them. We made Grant's at Home Depot and the others later at home. Here is Sandra helping nail in the nails. She did good, but not much power behind her hammering :).

We figured that after putting them together we would let the kids paint them too. Well that was a good idea, but not enough time for the paint that night. We turned it into our Family Home Evening for that Monday night.
So the topic was what makes a strong house. Then we talked about what a home is. It was fun to see them learning that when we are nice and love each other that makes our house a home. Then they got to paint their bird houses (to make them into homes)! Here are some fun photos of the project!


Grant likes green :)


Talmage chose primary colors . . . too cute!


Here are the finished fronts. Can you tell Sandra likes pink and purple? We could've let the different colors dry so they didn't smear so much, but then it wouldn't look like the kids did it. The parents did help, but still totally the kids creations.


From this view you can see the blue on Talmage's bird house :). Now our birds can have their own homes instead of building homes in our eaves. That was another perk to getting birdhouses.

What is that?

So, I have all of these goals of keeping a clean home. I have realized with all of my good intentions that I think that my kids are secretly sabotaging my efforts. They just like to play and suddenly toys or animals or papers will invade my once clean space. I try to involve the kids in the cleaning process so maybe it will rub off on them. Unfortunately I don't think the house ever lasts more than a few hours (during naps) staying clean. So at the end of one of these cleaning efforts with the kids one of the boys gave Sandra a sock. I looked at it and realized that it was one left from Grandma when she was last here and that it wasn't Sandra's. I didn't think much of it until I walked by this door and saw the sock on the handle. Hmmmm. Is that why my house is never clean? Do they just not know where to put things (not that the sock had a home anyway)? See, sabotage!
I should not jump to such hasty conclusions. . . when I asked Talmage about the sock he said that he put it on the door for the next time Grandma comes to visit so we don't forget to give it to her. We can just keep it on the door until then (that would be next summer at the earliest). It was sweet to see him being thoughtful and trying to find a way to give the sock back to it's proper owner. I guess I should just enjoy the humor in it instead of fretting over my once clean home :). Kids really are great! (no the sock is no longer on the door knob)

Happy 4th of July

Look, we actually did something Texan :). We went to the Stockyards on the 4th as a family. They do a running of the bulls, or rather, walking of the steers daily. It was neat to see and I think the kids liked seeing the steers up close!


Here are the older kids enjoying some cute kid chairs along the walkway in front of the shops.


They also do a gun show with actors. I had to tour more shops with Mhari so she wouldn't cry the whole time (loud noises and cranky babies don't mix well). They looked pretty cool from what I saw. I don't think the kids liked the loud guns (blanks) though.


At the end of walking up and down the shops and restaurant area we were hot and ready for naps, but glad we got to see the Stockyards. Definitely something to go back and visit again sometime!


That afternoon Jeff went "swimming" with the kids. We blew up the kiddie pool this week and the kids have enjoyed spending some time in the afternoon cooling off in it. After dinner and some yummy 4th of July cupcakes (thanks melissa) we watched a movie together and ate popcorn. We even let the kids stay up late and watch the fireworks, on tv :). So much less hassle than driving forever and sitting outside with bugs, heat, and traffic just for 10 min of fireworks! It was a nice holiday and what a great day to enjoy being together. It was the first time that we explained about the 4th of July to the kids too. What great opportunities to start family traditions and teach about our heritage and country!