the sprinkler disaster

the other day it was so warm that we decided we would try and find something fun for the kids to do that was not to expensive. our job hunt here has not been very fruitful and so we are living off our savings. it is so stressful for me. i always stress about finances. especially when i don't know when we will find a job. anyways I found t his sprinkler thing really cheap and thought it would be something fun for the kids to do. it was really fun. as you can see the kids were having a blast...then things started to go down hill.

all of a sudden the thing that turns our blinds fell off and into the track part of our sliding glass door. you guessed it, we were locked out. so garran went to go get someone to let us in. when he came back i heard him yelling to me to turn off the hose. when I came in and we had standing water in the kitchen, laundry room, bathroom, and pantry. apparently the pipe that went to that spigot had frozen over the winter and we were the first ones to turn it on. when we did POW! It burst. So it ended up being kind of a long day. But I got some pictures of the kids having fun, so I thought I would share.

Briea & her pretties!

this little girl is all girl. she gets very upset when her brothers touch her jewels. we are going to have to work on sharing! ;-) But as for now, she is just to cute for words.

doing some math!

1+1=2
2+3=5
5+1=6!

Pretty Easy 30!

garran's 30th birthday was a pretty laid back day. we woke up and had breakfast. then everyone got dressed and we headed out to spend some time together as a family. we spent a good portion of the morning out just hanging out together and then came home. by the time we got home we played outside and just relaxed. after a while garran decided to start the grill. he wanted to grill some bbq chicken for his birthday. IT WAS AWESOME!!right now we are just using this little portable grill, but are hoping to upgrade in the future!! the chicken came out amazing. it was such a good dinner.
the kids had made cards and we made a sign that we hung up in the house. i missed taking pictures of Garran opening his presents. He had said that he really wanted some shorts. So that is what he got!! I think he was pretty happy.
this year dessert was pretty laid back. the original plan was to make pineapple upside down cake. however, we realized right before we started, i realized that we had no brown sugar. so garran said we should just make it another night and stick with something easy. it was just that kind of day. so this is what I came up with instead.taa daa! nothing special, but it was yummy. the strawberries were really good. the kids were excited about the chocolate!! Anyways, I am glad that we got to spend the day together as a family. Thanks to the people that remembered to call and wish Garran a Happy 30th!!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Garran!!
We are so happy you are turning 30 and love you bunches!!
Pictures to come of fun birthday activities!!

the project

so we have started a summer project. i found this table two summers ago at a garage sale and it was in awesome condition. then i made a mistake and cleaned it with something that took the finish off. argg. so we have been dealing with the spotted up ugliness until we had a place that we could work on it. well we do know. I am so excited. here is the table before we started. I know it looks horrible.

here is the table from a distance. it doesn't look as bad when you are far away but still. it really needed some help.

 here is garran hard at work. he had already sanded down the legs. now to work on the really bad part!

 everyone got in on the help. the boys really enjoyed trying the sander out.

of course we took a Popsicle break - it was pretty warm yesterday!!

briea was really excited...can you tell?

here is the table after round one of sanding!! i think it already looks so much better. we are going to do another round of sanding today. then we just have decided how we want to stain it. it was originally light but all of our furniture is darker. i am not sure what we will decide but picture will come soon.

cute

she is just cute. so i decided to share!

friday...friday..friday!

on friday my handsome hubby will turn the big 3-0! i had all these great plans of throwing him a big surprise party when I thought that we would not be moving until august. however now we have moved and sadly it will just be our little family celebrating the big day! I still hope to make it lots of fun though!! the kids and I already have fun stuff in the works!!

big fella

he did it. congrats to our cullan boy!! one year of super fun preschool over. he had such a great time and made so many friends. i know he already misses this place!

chalk

today was overcast and kind of chilly so we played inside a lot but for a little while we decided to play outside on the back patio with chalk. they boys draw all kinds of things from spaceships to superheros! they really love the chalk and being out doors!!

 kael is always bringing me flowers. he is such a sweet kiddo.

brothers are great!! they sure love each other.

recently i have kind of fallen of the wagon with taking pictures of the kiddos. today after lunch we were sitting by the sliding door and we had some nice light, so i broke out the camera. this post is more for me i guess, but i just wanted to post some recent pictures of my sweet babies!

 she was so upset. she wanted to hold the camera so badly.

 i know this is pitiful, but she is so stinking cute.

 cullan was pretending to be spider man here.

 he did this all on his own. he just looks so handsome.

 cullan being weird.

 they really do love each other.

 he can look so innocent at times.

 can you tell who likes to be the star of the show. cullan looks miserable.

just some funny words

i always want to remember funny things that my kids say. so i thought i would just post a couple from yesterday so that i would not forget.

Cullan, after wrestling with Kael and getting a bloody nose was sitting on my lap. He had been sitting there for a few minutes and the bleeding had pretty much stopped. Cullan looked up at me and said:

cullan: mom i think the bleeding contest is over.
me: did you win?
cullan: yes

later that same night i had been promising the boys for a while that we would make something fun after dinner some night. so last night we made brownies. as we were finishing up this was the conversation we had in the kitchen.
kael: mom you are awesome for making these brownies!
cullan: (with a hug) yep mom, you are the best mom.
me: wow! if i knew i would these kinds of compliments we would make brownies more often.
kael: you are really cool mom.
cullan: yep mom your the best!!

out

while i was at the store, garran was cleaning up the kitchen. i guess he decided to let B have a snack while he mopped the floor. he said he came back around the corner and found her like this. out like a light!! he took a picture so i would not miss the cuteness.

love this!!

i hope i can be like my grandmother at her age. this is my 90 year old grandmother and my cousin on mother's day. she asked David to take her for a ride on his new Harley. I love that she is so adventurous. she always has been. I am sad we were not there to see it in person!!

weekend visits

This weekend my parents came to see our new place and visit. We had a fun time going to IKEA and just hanging out. The kids loved the fact that my parents hotel had a pool. So you can guess what we did for two nights in a row!! I thought i would post some videos. One is of Kael jumping off the side of the pool and the other is of little miss priss strutting her stuff around the pool!

make up

today on the way to church, i was putting on some make up in the car. Kael asked me what I was doing. I told him I was putting make up on so that I would not scare anyone away. (it was pretty light hearted)
then Kael says the following:
mom, if all those people ran away and were screaming, i would just say "just stop, don't run, its just my mom".
oh from the mouth of babes

Happy Mothers Day!!

I was going to post something sweet but decided to go with a laugh instead. Hope everyone including my mom has a great mother's day!!

polka dots

for some reason polka dots are comforting to me. i never wear them but i love them. so today i decided to go with polka dots on my blog. enjoy!

our bags are packed, were ready to go....

well we got everything ready and on Thursday morning this great group of guys showed up and had all of our stuff loaded in about an hour and a half. it went so smoothly i could not believe it. we really appreciated all of their help. it would have been much harder with out their help. thanks so much to the following fellas!!
mike j.
anthony n.
derek j.
phil c.
carl h.
elders
mike L.

Goodbye Parties!

some of our church friends decided to throw a farewell party for us at church the night before we left. it was hard to say goodbye to everyone. we have lived there for almost 10 years. that's a lot of fun and memories!stacy, briea, me and jenelle posing real quick. i am not sure what jenelle's husband is doing back there ;0)krista giving us a side view of her baby bump. she had her son the exact same time i had kael. so we were pregnant together and used to work out at the Y together during our pregnancy. her son is exactly one month older than kael!
these are just party goers...moana, joan, jean, jamie, melissa, baby hartson and josh!these are my friend jamie's children and my children. we wanted to get a group shot of them together. jamie and i have a history. i met her when i first moved to iowa. she was recently engaged and living in a house with three other girls. well when she moved out, i took her spot in the house and we have been friends ever since. of course we did a silly one too. please excuse Kael's gym shorts and Garran calls them. he had a small accident!