silence

Shhhhhh. Do you hear that? It's the sound of nothing. The sound of no one calling my name, no one fighting, no one to cook for, no one to ask me to take them somewhere, no one asking me where something is, no one to harass about doing chores.
It is also the sound of no laughter, telling jokes, hugging, tickling, saying I love you, praying with and tucking in at night, talking about random stuff, and being a mom.
I miss my girls
Can't wait until they come home
7 days is too long
(am I really saying that?!)

The Watson's

My sister Rebecca (from Bakersfield) and her family came for a visit this last week. 7 whole days of fun-she left this morning and I am already missing her. Our days were packed with fun and laughter. We went to Lagoon, Park City, grandma's pool, the Rodeo, did lots of canning, ate tons of good food, told stories, rearranged my parents home, swam and did the slip and slide. Here is some awesome footage of the slip and slide (keep your eyes on the two little boys). I love my family and the fact the when we are together it is always a guaranteed good time!

Color Me Mine

FUN FRIDAY!!! That's what today and every Friday is. We go on an outing and do something fun as a reward for staying on track all week and getting stuff done. The girls picked Color Me Mine - a fun little place where you pick out a piece of overpriced plaster figurine or pottery and pay the equivalent of a mortgage payment to use their paints. Color me Expensive or Color me a Sucker is more like it.
Here's what you're gonna want to do should your daughter decide that she would like to visit this pricey potters/painters playground. Visit your local Michael's where they have $ .69 plaster figurines then hit the paint aisle and buy their craft paint for $.89. Take it home, put on some fun music, serve some snacks and BOOM you got yourself a FUN FRIDAY activity at a FUN price!
Color Me Mine-seriously? "When a loaf of bread looks like a meal" . . . no one has the right to charge anyone $50.00 for 30 minutes of fun (legal fun that is).

donuts

we ran into albertsons really quick yesterday to get bread, carrots and celery. On our way out the bakery caught my eye and so I thought it would be fun to let the girls each pick one treat. Anna picked a glazed donut. Kirsten picked the mother of all donuts. Man if they had these when I was a kid-forget saving up all my money for the "SEV"- the neighborhood baker would have known my name instead of Abu the Sandy 7-11 clerk of 10 years.

We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet

Sunday was Anna's big day!!! She was the primary pianist at the beginning of primary. We have started a new thing in primary: kids who want to play a hymn or primary song on ANY musical instrument will be the prelude music as primary begins. Anna was the first one to do it and she played We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet. She did an amazing job and I am so proud of her. All of the leaders were dying when I told them she had only been playing for a little over a year. She's really good and is learning so fast. I love that she can play so well and play something other than the first three bars of the Star Wars theme song.
Kirsten will be playing in 2 weeks and I'm really excited for the boy who asked if he could play a primary song on his electric guitar! ROCK ON!

slip-n-slide

Jim took Anna to the Journey/Cheap Trick/ Heart concert last night. Kirsten was feeling a bit left out so she and I planned a girls party for her. She invited all of the girls in the neighborhood who were her age and she made invitations that said "You are invited to a slip-n-slide party!"
She was so excited and so were all of her friends. Slip-n-slide, new cool pool, hot dogs and then a movie afterwards-pretty perfect huh? That's what I thought too until I found out that the Target, Walmart and K-mart all happened to be out of slip-n-slides.
So I went old school and made a slip-n-slide the way it was done in "da hood"=Sandy, Utah. We used plastic sheeting found in the garage and tent stakes to secure it to the ground. We ran sprinklers along the side of it and put dish soap all over it for maximum slide-ability.
The party was awesome and the home made slip-n-slide, a total hit! Next week I might even build a soap-box car for the kids and tell them race it down a really big hill.

7/11

just when I didn't think life could get any better...it did! Today's date is 7-11 and so guess who is giving out FREE Slurpees all day long?! That's right, the 7-11. I would like to thank Addie Cragun a little neighborhood girl for telling me and then begging me to take her and Kirsten. We were out running errands and she shouted from the back of the burb: "Hey today is free slurpees at the 7-11. Let's go get one, who's with me?!" I laughed and thought "well I am the coloest mom- so I think I'll oblige her. The 7-11 is on our way home- what will it hurt?"
So we got there and saw an unusually high volume of people walking out with slurpees. hmmmm We walked inside and I went up to the man sporting a red smock, pierced ears and a long pony-tail. I asked in a "this probably isn't true but. . ." tone: "is it true you are giving out free slurpess today?" He replied "yup, all day long". You would have thought I was 10 years old and I had just ridden my bike to the SEV with my pockets full of all the spare change I could find in the station wagon risking my life to cross the busy road all in the hopes that this rumor was true.
I yelped "Really? Oh my gosh I can't believe it. I love this place! I love slurpees! It makes me proud to be an Amiercan I almost want to break out in song! Girls, this is what it means to be an American!"
What made it even better was that they had my two favorite flavors: pina colada and banana. We got our slurpees and basked in the knowledge that 7-11 comes again next year and we will for sure be taking advantage of our inalienable rights to a free slurpee!!!!!

we're back!

It's been a while. . . I know. So much has happened that there is no way I could possibly blog about it all SO if you want to know more about: Jim's knee surgery, our road trip to the Grand Canyon, our 1 night stay at Jacob Lake (also known as "the dump" by kirsten), the plethora of snacks we packed for the trip, swim lessons, kirsten jumping off of the diving block for the first time, Lilly taking her first steps and is now walking, the Stadium of Fire Hannah Montana concert, Anna puking twice on the side of the road, Fireworks show with the Erickson's that was out of this world and uncle Scott nearly getting hauled off to jail; you can call us and we would love to tell you the story.
But today I am back on track. I can't believe it is July and here we are in the thick of summer. Last night I tried to resurrect our little inflatable pool. It served us well last summer and even a few weeks into this one but last night it gave up the ghost. No more little summer pool.


SO I did what any cool mom would do, I bought us a new summer pool-new and improved summer pool. Here she is:
Yup that is indeed a bench that you see and did you notice the cup holders on the side? If I could just hook up a TV out there, rig the cable and fill my cooler with drinks. . . ladies- get a babysitter cuz summer has officially begun!
Oh but I will be sure to fill the pool myself since Kirsten thought it wold be a good idea to add soap as it was filling. I mean who doesn't want a gigantic bubble pool?