Random tidbits

Today was my first day in my new calling: Primary Chorister. It went okay. Junior Primary was great, a little loud, but everything went smoothly. I even got them to sing "We'll Bring the World It's Truth"(the primary version of the Army of Helaman hymn) really well by talking a bit about the Stripling Warriors and how righteous and strong they were. So I had them all sit up straight and tall and sing loud by pretending to be the Stripling Warriors; they were great. Junior Primary was a whole other story... I didn't know the songs well enough - and neither did the kids. Also, I didn't realize that I'm pretty much running the show in Primary. There's a 5 minute talk and a short(maybe 10 min?) sharing time...other than that it's all me. And if we have any extra time...it's all me. Anyway, things were a little insane, but so am I so I think it'll work out in the end. :)
And for your viewing pleasure, here are some random pictures from this past week.

My best friend of 11 years, Kelli, is moving to Arizona so we went out to lunch with her and her 1 month old baby, Mia. Here's a pic of Mia and David (he's 5 months now).

He reached out and grabbed her hand...I think she was afraid of cooties.

Emma has been picking out her own outfits lately. Usually she does a pretty good job, and she always tries to make them match. Here's my favorite one so far: Easter pants(from Taya) and a winter shawl (no shirt underneath). It took a long time to explain to her why this outfit wouldn't work to go out in public...besides the fact that the pants are very nice and only to be worn with the Easter dress - ON Easter.
The girls got a hold of my camera the other day. Ok so they asked and I let them... But after taking 90 pictures, these three are my favorite:

Hope you all had a good week.

Happy Birthday Emma!!

My big girl is 5 years old!!!

Here she is eating her breakfast cereal...continuing the Somes' tradition she got to go to the store with Dad and pick out whatever sugar cereal she wanted (she chose berry flavor Lucky Charms).

Out to lunch at Applebees where they sang to her and she got a hot fudge sundae.
And just for kicks here's the other kids at lunch:

Party!!

Emma's Barbie Birthday Cake

As per Emma's instructions the inside of the cake was a very unappetizing blue color with blueberry filling and purple frosting.

The Stash

Shan and Jodi
Studly BBQ man, squinting in the smoke

Shannie and Kenna

Emma (and friends) blowing out candles

In the invitations to her party we enclosed pink and purple confetti. Emma's friend Hailey thought it would be fun to put the confetti back in the card on her present. Emma cracked up like it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen!

Emma and Hailey
Mckenna attacking Jed

My new best friend.

So I was telling my friend Amy how much I dislike sweeping our downstairs floors and she suggested I get a sweepvac like our neighbor Dawn has. I looked it up on Amazon and found one that got pretty good reviews and then went to the store and got one. I was a little nervous because a lot of the reviews said that it didn't have enough power and it was only good for picking up hair and dust, but I figured it was worth a try. LOVE it!!! Not only does it pick up hair and dust, but it picks up cheerios, small pieces of paper, craisins, and all of the other stuff under our dining room table. It did run out of battery power before I was done with our downstairs, but now knowing that I can probably just work faster and get it all done on one battery charge. It's way better than sweeping though because it picks up every little thing - no pushing dirt around and throwing dust in the air. Yay for Swiffer!! Thanks Amy!

Also we've been using "WOW!" floor cleaner for wood and laminate floors and it is so much better than mopping - I even use it on our kitchen and entryway tile. No more having to deal with buckets of nasty water. We just attatch a small towel (Costco sells a pack of 24 for cheap) to the bottom of our mop(Swiffer style) and then throw it in the wash when we're done.

Books

Just thought I'd give a little update on some recent books.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer - Awesome!! Loved it, couldn't put it down, highly recommend it, can't wait to read the sequel.

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky - Great book, but wouldn't recommend it. The author wrote two short books but was planning on this being a series of books. She was killed in WWII at Auschwitz, so she never really finished the story. There are many loose ends.

I am a Mother by Jane Clayson Johnson - In the process of reading - highly recommend it for those hard days. It is empowering and an entertaining read. Lifts me up when I feel frustrated and overwhelmed...which is often.

Next on the list are Water for Elephants and Harvesting the Heart. I'll let you know!

Megan B. Would Be So Proud

I just thought I'd share some good bargains with you all - and especially with Megan B. because I know she'll be proud. :) Monday Ian and I went to lunch with the kids at a restaurant next to his office. As Ian was leaving to go back to work he took David out of his carseat, and we discovered he'd TOTALLY blown out of his diaper. I hadn't brought a change of clothes so I sat there looking helpless as Ian left to go back to work. He came back not more than five minutes later with the cutest little outfit. There's a really expensive (but super cute!) little boutique a couple of stores down. I've been there before but never bought anything because it's way too pricey. When he was walking back to his office he noticed they had a clearance rack outside. He bought an adorable sweater vest with a button down shirt and plaid golf shorts for $7!! It was so cute! So I went back after lunch and spent $60, but saved $180!!! Most of the items were about $30-40 and I got them for $7-10. It was a good day.

Also, I got an email from Gap yesterday saying that if I spend $100 I can use their coupon code to get $20 off my order (plus if you spend $100 you get free shipping). So I went into their clearance stuff and luckily Ian is an uncommon size (XL Tall) and they had plenty of polos for him. I also got David, Mckenna and I some stuff. I saved $310. :) Another good day. That made up for the quilt I want being on backorder till the end of September. I don't think you can reuse the code, but it's worth a try if anyone wants to: PQGRBKWT2BHT And the shipping code is FREE100 I think. I don't remember for sure, but if you have $100 in your cart they'll say something about being eligible for free shipping and you have to click the link to get the code. Let me know if anyone tries it!

Camping!!!

We went camping in Big Bear last week. It was so beautiful and the weather was awesome! My aunt Tina and Uncle Bill came up for one of the days so we got to go swimming in the pool at the cabins they were staying at. Here are some pictures

Peencons!!(Mckenna-talk)10 minutes after getting to the campsite, Mckenna was covered head-to-toe with dirt...

And Emma too!!

Hammering the stakes

Snuggling to keep warm at 6 0'clock in the morning

Playing baseball with some kids from the neighboring campsite:

The "neighbors" were awesome. The kids saw us playing baseball and asked if they could play. They were so good with our kids and they themselves were very well behaved(I'm guessing they were aged 7, 10, and 12). They had a beautiful golden retriever who was sweet as ever - such a good dog! And their parents were great too. One evening when we got back to our campsite the kids had left the girls a sweet note. And as we were packing up to leave they came over and gave us their phone number so they could play together sometime. What a great family!

OK We have now discovered THE PERFECT S'MORE!!! Graham cracker, toasted marshmallow, Reeses Peanut Butter Cup, toasted marshmallow, graham cracker. *DROOL*

My little happy camper. David had a very strenuous "hike."

Our first hike was 1 1/2 miles. Emma did the whole thing, Mckenna rode on my back for about 1/4 of it, and as you saw above, David slept. They did a great job though. Half was uphill and minus some whining, they were troopers!

We did it!!!

When Bill and Tina came up we visited for a while at the campground & had lunch. Mckenna put her bread crust over by a tree and a little squirrel came over to eat it. Kenna kept whispering to Bill to "Be Ky-yet!! You'll care the curl!!" (be quiet you'll scare the squirrel). And anyone who knows Bill knows he is not a "Ky-yet" person, so she probably told him 20 times! :) So cute!!

The "Champion Lodgepole Pine." One of the largest trees in California. It was over 400 years old. We had to "hike" to get to it, but the hike was 1/3 of a mile, downhill. :) We were in a hurry because we wanted to go make a birdhouse (see picture below) so Emma and I ran and Ian had David in the front carrier and Mckenna on his shoulders. But to get to the hiking spot we drove for about 20 minutes on a super windy/bumpy dirt road...I was grateful for our Durango!

Emma coordinated this picture. :)

Building the birdhouse:

All done!

Adventures in babysitting

Ian and I came home from Shan & Jed's bachelor/bachelorette party to this cuteness: Molly(the babysitter) is on the left with Mckenna on top of her, her brother Hunter is on the right side of the couch(his parents went out and he didn't want to stay home alone), and Emma is asleep on the floor. Apparently Mckenna started screaming after being in bed 45 minutes because she missed me. :) So she came down to snuggle with Molly. Then Emma came down because of course it's just not fair that Kenna gets to be out of bed. :) Anyway, it ended with us coming home to a big sleepy house.

How sweet is this?

New callings

So I waited to post them until I was officially called (although I'm still not quite sure why you're supposed to wait...especially if the person being released knows...). Ian's new calling is President of the Young Men's organization (woohoo for him!!). And my new calling is Primary Chorister (da da da dunnnnn). I was so sad because I had to be released from the calling that I loved the most!! I love all those young women so much!! Someone told me yesterday that I was released from YW because I liked it too much and if I start to really like Primary then I'll be released soon, but if I keep whining - they'll keep me in it forever. :) I actually was kind of bitter for a while, but I just kept reminding myself that when Ian was called to YM, I felt a confirmation that this is where he needs to be, and in order for him to be in that position, they had to release me from working with the youth as well. And Bishop emphasized that they were sure this was the right calling for me. I feel like a flopping fish out of water, but I know that I can do it(or so I keep telling myself!). I'll save you all from my reasons for being terrified of this calling because it'll just be more whining. Luckily the past chorister has been amazing, and though I have large shoes to fill she's definately been a great help and confidence booster. Thanks Susan!! So yay for Ian and a delayed yay for me! (I'll let you know when the yay comes around...)

I heart you all!!!

I just wanted to thank everyone who posted such helpful and loving comments the other day. I (obviously) was just having one of those days and you all had such great things to say. I need to especially thank Carrie because her advice totally helped...I did just start with(and finish) one room at a time. I started with the smallest room in our house (the downstairs bathroom) and cleaned it top to bottom before I moved onto another room. It was encouraging to have part of my house spotless so that I didn't feel like there was too much left to do. Then I moved on to another room and on and on... :) I actually got a lot done, so thanks! And thank you to everyone else who said such nice things. Luckily, Emma hasn't had any more accidents, so I don't think it's an infection, but that was a good thing to watch for, Amber! From reading everyone else's blogs lately it seems like we all just have our days. I love you all!!!

I am overwhelmed.

Today Emma peed on the floor (for the second time in two days). She didn't just have a little leak. She PEED ALL OVER the kitchen floor. And the chair she was standing on. Yesterday it was the bathroom stool and the bathroom floor. I cried when she did it today. I just have so much house to clean and we're going camping tomorrow. Add that to my new (unannounced) calling and then she had to go and pee!! And the worst part is, our house is only messy because I'm lazy. I spent all weekend (after the wedding) being lazy. Then yesterday I was planning on cleaning but there was a bunch of stuff outside of the house I had to do (primary stuff, errands, etc). So when I got home I sat on my butt and read all afternoon. At least I made dinner, that's good right? Anyway, I didn't do anything so my house and laundry have been getting worse. Oh, and this morning there were 3 trails of ants leading into the trash can. UGH. I'm now on my second run of the same load of laundry because it stunk from being left in the washer. Anyone have any advice on motivatiing myself? I have great ideas of ways to clean and organize things...I'm just too lazy.

Wedding!!!

OK The long awaited post... Unfortunately Ian and I were so busy that we didn't even take the camera out once! There were a few other people there with cameras...most importantly the photograper... so I'm sure there are plenty of great pics. For now, you'll just have to be content with the few that some people have sent me. First - the rehearsal on Thursday:

Rehearsal dinner:

Ian and Emma eating black linguine "Lady and the Tramp" style:The day of the wedding, getting pampered:The wedding!!! Ian walking Shannon down the aisle with the beautiful flower girls:The wedding was right next to this beautiful Koi pond...which some of the kids threw flower petals in...so the fish were sloshing all around during the ceremony trying to eat the petals...Isn't this a cool picture??They found the fondue...and the fondue found their dresses. :) Auntie "Kiss." The girls were so excited to see Jodi and Chris!Me...

BYU BabesShannie and Jed!!! She was so absolutely beautiful and the whole day went just perfectly. It really was an amazing day.