Gingerbread houses.....not of gingerbread!

Last week for Family Home Evening we made gingerbreadless gingerbread houses! A fun time was had by all, except maybe Dyllon. He had a hard time getting his graham crackers to stand up. Mindy's is the first on the left. (it is the best of course!) Kendall's is the next one. (he kept chewing down the graham crackers to get the right size!) Dyllon's is the Sears tower. ( the tallest of the bunch!) Madison's is next. (there is absolutely no more room for candy. She cover the whole thing!) Aushlynn's is roofless. (she took all the gumdrops!) And last but not least is Avery's. (he put a cannon on his!)

Always buckle up.........

So, last night I was sitting in the chair in my living room. Before I got up, I reached over to undo my seatbelt.............DUH!!!! I must either be: Losing my mind. Depraved of sugar to long. Or the kids are sucking my brain cells. But just so everyone knows............ I always buckle up...........apparently even in the living room.

Partners in Crime

These two little goofballs are butsted! Let me tell you that they are not the most careful when it comes to painting.......

Here is the remodel of Madison's room that we have been working on. It seems that we did not get the lid back on the paint all the way. I was in the bathroom for less then 2 minutes and this is what I came back to.

Hey Kendall, it looks like we are going to get new carpet after all!

Down 11

I told you in my last post that I was making changes. Changes to the blog design, changes to the living room, hopefully changes to the girls bedrooms soon, but the most satisfying change has been to myself. I am down 11 lbs! If you want to read how go and check it out. http://imreallygonnaloseit.blogspot.com/

Change.......

It time for change. A time for a new look for both me and my blog.

I wish......

That I could do this all day! Oh.....a dogs life!

Maroon head

Hey Pam, remember when you turned my hair this color?????

I know that I looked ultra chic and cool............and I know that I said I wanted something different........but thanks for fixing it!

Top ten reason how this could have happened:

1- I was abducted by aliens and they have ran tests on me.......

2- That was not a Advil liquid gel that I took last night.........

3- Can eating a pomegranate turn your hair maroon..........

4- Its something in the South Jordan water.............

5- My mom tricked me into eating elk meat a few weeks ago........

6- I had to drive carpool this afternoon.......

7- The kids I watch have been drugging me to get more cookies.......

8- I really had to go pee the whole time. I should have went before we started.......

9- It's my electric personality..........

10- Pam wanted me to match my new living room decor.......

Almost OLD!

Happy Birthday to the love of my life! You are 39 today. Looks like you have one good year until you are officially OLD! Ten reason why I love you:

1- Your hair is never messy! (your eyebrows are another story though)
2- You can just fall asleep when you lay down. (no fair)
3- You let me spend your paycheck every time that you get paid!
4- You cashed in your stocks so I could get a new floor.
5- You love to rub my feet or back whenever I ask.
6- You are understanding when you come home and dinner is not ready.
7- You will play me in card games and board games even though you hardly ever win.
8- You don't mind stepping around a playpen in our bedroom every morning.
(even though we don't have a baby!)
9-You always back the wave runners into the lake. (first time, every time!)
10- You asked me to marry you!

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO'S

New Floors!

Yah! We finally got our new floors. I really do not know what I was thinking 8 years ago when we put in WHITE carpet. I knew darn good and well that I was having daycare here. But I knew that I could keep the white carpet clean with 20 different people running around on it everyday! Like a lot of my swell ideas, it did not work out so well. The white carpet was borderline embarrassing everyday. I did have a good excuse as to why it was gross.

Well, Don't the new ones looks so much better?? We put the floor in the living room, dining room and down both halls.

I also needed new furniture. I think that is a requirement: New floor = New furniture right? The booger infest green ones were in need of a new home.



Here is a picture of our new rug. I love it and hate it at the same time. Take your shoes off and walk on it and you are in heaven. But, this sucker sheds, worse than Buddy. At the rate I am picking red fuzzies off the floor, this thing should be bald by Thanksgiving.

Here is a close up of the floor. It is called Tobacco Road. It is so pretty. (I hope that it is not against my religion to have a product with the word tobacco in my home. Just don't tell my Bishop, OK.) Hey, just one more quick thanks to my brother Charlie for laying it for me. Hopefully he will come back soon and finish the mouldings.

I am slowly getting used to the idea of the kids giving it "character". Do you know how hard it is to keep the 2 year old boys from racing trucks all over it? It is a losing battle. The cars just go so fast and far! To much of a temptation for them. They are also used to dragging toys all over my house. They just do understand why I want the toys in the toy room!

No Longer Friends....

Have you ever had a friend that you cherished. One that you loved so much that you interact with them at least 10 times a day? Has that friend ever let you down?

Mine did. In fact I think that we are no longer friends...
Did I not buy you your favorite? Electrasol Powerball Tabs? I gave these to you 3 times a day! Price was not a factor! Maybe you saw me use a coupon. Was that it? I also gave you Jet Dry! I never once asked you to load or unload yourself. (although, it would have been nice) I always made sure that others loaded you correctly. Why oh why did you decide to no longer clean the dishes? Was it something I did? Did I not give you a place to call home 57 months ago???

My friend, you forced me to do dishes by.........HAND...........this is not cool. This is unacceptable! How could you do this to me??? Once I was done, I found a little surprise...

This was in the stove. Must have been put there when the home teachers came. (you and the stove are not planning anything are you??)

This is how we roll.........

So, we had a chance to take the jet ski's out this past Saturday. They had both run awesome the following Saturday, so we loaded up the whole family and the cooler to spend the day on Utah lake. We had full tanks of gas and 20 extra gallons! We are going to have a blast! To start the day off we get there and the marina was full. They have a policy that one boat out and then they let one boat in. We had 4 boats in front of us. The Nazi ranger predicted that we would have a hour wait before we could launch. (insert kids complaining the whole time) We ended up waiting about 30 minutes. Yeah, we were off to hours of fun! So after backing up down the ramp, (it only took us 5 times today, we are getting way better) we finally got the jet ski's in the water. Dyllon drove one over to the beach/rocks and Kendall took the other. I pulled the trailer out and went to park on the recently vacated spot. (aka weed patch) I pulled out the tube and Ski bob and inflated them. We drug everything down to the beach. When I got there, I found out that Kendall was having trouble with his jet ski. It would only go about 10 mph. After a quick call to my dad, he said; "Change the spark plugs." Wow, we did this before the last time we went out. My dad had told use to have extras just in case and we did. However, we had no wrench or spark plug socket to change it. I am pretty sure that having tools is a rule of jet skiing. Ugh! After asking around, it turns out that nobody follows the rule or they did not want to lend their tools to strangers. Kendall decided that he would unhook the trailer and go buy what he needed. I, in the mean time, take Avery and Madison out to the middle of the lake to see if we can get Avery up on the wake board. It only took him about 10 minutes to get his feet in the wake board. We finally get him in the water and the tow rope out to him. I hit the engine and Avery lets go of the rope. I circle around (you know what is going to happen) and run over the tow rope and wrap it around the impeller. Nice! (inset a few words) I jump off and try to get the rope untangled. Right, it is wrapped around at least 30 times. (Kendall is going to kill me!) We are in a pickle. Me and Avery try to swim the thing to shore. Not happening. We try to get the oar out and paddle in. Not working either. Avery blows the can-o-horn about 50 times in my ear. Nobody can hear it and now I am deaf! Finally after being stranded about a half hour a sailboat comes by. He feels or pain, but he has no motor. He says that he will tell somebody when he passes someone. Dyllon has heard our horn and jumped into the lake and swims out to rescue us. When he gets out to us, a boat finally took pity on us and threw us a rope. I told him what happened and he just shook his head. I know what he was thinking! I was really grateful for the tow back to the marina. When he pulled us in , Kendall was just getting back, I held up both side of the rope and he knew without asking what had happened. He went and got the trailer hitched to the car and backed it in and pulled us out. We were able to look at it. Not pretty. Oh yeah, remember how Kendall went to get tools.....Well, he can't find where he put it. How can we change the spark plug?? This day is just not worth it anymore. We put the trailer back in the marina and pull the other one out. We deflate the tubes and load up to go home. After we are loaded up, I find the wrench that Kendall had just purchased. Just a nice day on the lake huh!

P.S. We don't want to talk about it!

Jr. High and Road Construction

This year Avery and Aushlynn are in Jr High. I do not know how it happened, but the only carpool that I could find consists of just Avery and Aushlynn. This means that I am driving them everyday! UGH! It only took me 32 minutes today. The school is like a half a mile away. I think that the kids could have walked faster. The road construction is ridiculous. Why they have chosen to close all the roads around the schools the week that the schools start back is beyond me. The road project manager is a moron! Finishing the roads around the schools should have been a priority during the summer!

Bear Lake and such........

Sorry that I have not posted in awhile. I seem to apologize alot for this very reason. I guess it does not matter anyway. I don't have a huge fan following! Well, the reason for no post is we were in Bear Lake. I wished that we actually spent more time in the lake, but that is a whole other story that I just need to get over. Can you believe that I did not take my camera out for 10 whole days?
I know!
This is how that last week went down for us:

Saturday, August 1st: We went to Mac's baptism. (I saw his dad hold him down extra long!) We also went to the Preston Rodeo. tip: Never, I repeat never sit on the front row! Yee Haw!
Sunday, August 2nd: We went to Mac's confirmation and Kai's Blessing.
Monday, August 3rd thru Wednesday, August 5th: We went to Bear Lake for the Brown Family reunion. Had a good time despite that fact the the waverunners were having issues. Can you believe that the one taking on water only had a exhaust pipe that had come off! GRR!! I hope that everyone had a fun time any hoo!
Thursday, August 6th: Me and Kendall went and spent the night at Anniversary Inn for, you guess it, our anniversary. Thanks Mom, it is nice to get away from the kidlets every once in awhile.
Friday, August 7th: Jeremy came and helped get the waverunners running. Thanks, I think that I owe him a seafood dinner!
Saturday, August 8th: We really wanted to take the waverunner to Twin Lakes, but it decided to be winter instead. way to cold. Came home!
Sunday, August 9th: Happy 18th Anniversary to us! Can you believe that we have been married that long? I love you Kendall, Here's to many many more!!!

and I know funny.....

Here is the quote of the day. Spoken by a 1st grader.
" Hey, you have the same backpack as us, 'cept it's different!"
I don't know why, but I just think that this is so funny! I will smile all day just thinking about it!

Cleaning.....

On Thursday, I had the opportunity to clean the Conference Center. Me and 3 other sisters from my ward had the assignment. We had be down there at 9:15 pm. We meet up with about 20 other people. My assignment was to vacuum the entire lower level. ( with the exception of in front of the seats) It took me 3 1/2 hours. I was sore, it is not often that I vacuum uphill and downhill. I was told that I burned twice as many calories for my service! ;0)

July so far...

I have been a really terrible blogger lately. My excuse, the kids keep stealing my mouse. I cannot run the computer properly without a mouse. I don't like mice, but I do love my mouse.
On, July 3rd, we had cousins come over for dinner and fireworks! We have a bunch of pyros in the Brown family. On, July 4th, we went to the parade in Park City. Ok, so you know, it is the lamest parade ever! Don't go unless you are drunk! (we know that nobody that reads this blog drinks, so, just do yourself a favor and hit a different parade) Parades are not supposed to have intermission right?? It was the parade that never ended! We also, hit the Daybreak lake and ended the day with the fireworks display at Sandy.
Kendall and Dyllon have been gone all week at scout camp. Me and the kids left at home have (gasp) eating dinner out almost every night! (side note: gotta love taco Tuesday!) It is Saturday and the boys will be home in about and hour so I better go and get the house picked up!
Oh, one last thing! I totally kicked Avery's can playing guitar hero!

I'm really gonna lose it!

Hey, for all of those scale challenged people like me, checkout my other blog! http://imreallygonnaloseit.blogspot.com/ If you want to post on it to (please say you do!), just send me a comment and I will add you!

Daybreak Park

It was a rare day today. I only had 5 daycare kids so we decided to head to the park. I know you are thinking only 5? I usually have 8 extra! We went up to the Daybreak park. It has a lake and a fun playground.
Here is a picture of Blake. It is kinda blurry, but I really like it. He was always trying to hide from my camera.

Here is Blake's twin brother Don. He likes the camera and will busta pose for me.

Brody figured out how to get up to the climbing structure.

Here is Kaylee. The sand was pretty hot. If she buried her feet the sand was cooler.

Kaylee on the slide.

Griffin and Kaylee on the swings. I spent a bunch of time pushing!

Madison and Griffin on the swings. Side note: Griffin is a swing hog!! ;0)

Here is Don being careful to not fall on the ropes.

I really like this picture of Griffin. He was taking a rest at the top of the climbing structure.

Madison at the top. Hey mom, take a picture of me!!!

Here is Brody. He is a cutie. Side note: He likes purkle (purple) M&M's!

Here is Blake conquering the top!

We had a great time until it started to rain!!

Destructive June

June was a really rough month for us. It seems like all of our stuff was breaking. Here is a list of stuff that I can remember:
This car is not ours. It is my sister Dani's. She has had her own tough June, but here is our contribution. Avery ran Grandpa's mule down the front of her brand new car. He broke some of the grill, ripped the fancy Menlove license plate cover off and put a nice scratch on the front bumper. Side note: Avery totally missed Grandpa's trailer! (this picture was taken after I rubbed off the black scratch and we put some touch up paint on) Sorry Dani!

Kendall's car had a problem with the oxygen sensor and the clutch. He also had to have the spark plugs and wires replaced. It was in the shop for 2 days. Lucky us, the check engine light is on again. **sigh**
My car had to have the exhaust manifold gaskets replaced on the right side. I had to have this done last fall on the left side. It took 7 hours to do. I took it down to the dealership where we bought it. Me and Madison were stranded. We did some damaged at the Old Navy, went and saw the movie Up and then went to lunch at Costa Vida. (oh, and we also waited, a long time)
Dyllon Broke this.............
Which lead to this............(it used to be a hole in the wall where the door knob went thru)
I think that just about everyone has done damage to my toes. First of all Dolly bit my toe and broke a nail. Avery jammed my foot and broke off the middle nail. Aushlynn, ran into my foot to finish off the damage to the big toe. Haung will be so disappointed that I did not take care of my toes better. I need to go and see him right away.

Now you can see why this got broke!!!

Exercising

So, all summer long I have been trying to motivate myself to exercise. I have many reasons why I don't. #1 Who has the time? #2 Who has the energy? #3 It's no fun! #4 I always hurt the next morning. The list goes on and on.............

I have decided to take a different approach. I have signed up for a fall semester Pilate's course. Maybe if I am graded on exercise I will be more motivated.

Problem with this is that I have no abs. I think that they might of disappeared with each child that I had. I have a difficult time getting off the floor from a down position. Since Pilate's focuses on the core, I need to find mine really fast. (I don't want my classmates making fun of the old lady now do I?)

This last weekend, I bought a new addition for my gym. It is called the AbCoaster. I am hoping that it will help me find my abs or create new ones. So now I have a treadmill, bike, elliptical, weights machine, free weights and the abcoaster. I should start selling memberships.

Kendall has agreed to get me up at 5:00 every morning to workout for an hour. I know! You are thinking: Right, Mindy get up at that hour! HA! Well, Kendall has gotten me up at 5:50 every morning for the last 3 days. Seems his internal alarm clock is malfunctioning. So you know, 5:50 is the time I get up to be ready for kids to come at 6:00. Thus no workout for me! Well, I have given Kendall a hard time about it. He is usually awake and ready to go....but if he has to exercise it is a different story.

I decided last night to just get a workout in while everyone was gone to YM/YW. I was able to get 20 minutes on the bike, treadmill and elliptical. I did the abcoaster twice for a total of 120 crunches.

I hurt so bad this morning!

Peace out...

Don't you just love our new sunglasses? Don't you know that it is cool to have the glasses cover your entire face? Also, neon is back!!! YES

Sometimes one pair of sunglasses does not protect your eyes from those pesky UV rays. If your eyes are feeling a little sensitive, put on two pair like Madison did.

Oh, and putting your fingers by the side of your eyes and making a pout face is all the rage too. My mom has a memory card full of us using this ultra cool pose.

This is the way we ride our bikes. We don't want to get to close to the road now do we? We would rather run into the the flower pots.

We don't ride our bikes nearly enough. We only like to ride them when all the daycare kids are gone and mom is trying relax on her chair on the porch. If mom is sitting there, we can make her time us while we ride around the block. We need to know how many one one thousand, two one thousands it takes for us to get back to where we started. We would not dream of letting our mom just sit there. Her mind always has to be doing something or she might dream up nasty chores for us to do.

Hey, is this my blog????

I have been a bad girl. I have not updated my blog in forever. (I have made my bed three time in a row though!) This is the summer. You actually think that I get a turn on MY computer?? Right. I think that the thing is on non-stop the entire day. Kari, you have made me see the wickedness of my ways and I am going to make a more conscience effort to update regularly. So much has happened since the temple incident.

It has rained so much. We have had the most beautiful rainbows this last month. I was able to catch this one with my camera. It had 2 arches and they were both complete arches. I wish that I had a wide angle lens, but I had to get the full rainbow in 2 pictures. I had to turn my sprinklers on yesterday. I love that I did not have to pay for water for the last month. I hope that my lawn, flowers and tomatoes are not going to expect me to drowned them everyday the rest of the summer.
I have read this series. It was really good. Now don't go thinking that I have been reading all month, it took me 5 days to finish the series. How many of you have read it? I have a feeling that this might be how it all goes down. I need to get my food storage updated.

Temple Open House

Last night, I had the opportunity to tour the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. Kendall was taking the Young Men in our ward and had extra tickets so me and the girls tagged along.
The Temple is beautiful. If was fun to see the girls reaction. They especially loved the chandeliers in the Celestial room and the Sealing rooms. Madison says that she want to be married here. Aushlynn wants to be married in the Hawaii temple. I mention this so everyone can start saving to attend her sealing!
You know me, I cannot go anywhere without drama. To start off the excursion, it was raining. Not just light showers, but it was coming down. No worries, we took a umbrella. So, can I tell you that I parked in the world's largest mud puddle in the parking lot? Me and the girls shoes were caked in mud. Just what you want before you enter the temple. I kept thinking, we need to get this off before we go through. Well, before you actually tour the temple, you get to go into one of the tents and watch a 12 minute movie. In the back of the tent there was a coat check and on the table was a box of tissues. This gave me an excellent opportunity to wipe shoes off, RIGHT??? I pulled the last two tissues out of the box, I am pretty sure that I need more than two. Oh well, it will have to do. I walk over to a single chair in the back of the tent and sit down. Well sorta, the chair crumpled to the ground. I don't know who many people saw. Kendall did and so did the girls and I am sure a bunch more people. How humiliating! I am not really even that heavy! I am sure that this chair was put in the back...alone.. for a reason. (why no Holy Ghost prompting???) Why don't I ever look before I sit???? So, the people who went through the tour with me, they got a bonus tour of the temple garment. Your welcome!

16

I cannot believe it! I have a 16 year old. Dyllon turned 16 on Monday. Who even gave my kids permission to age me?? Dyllon did not want a party. He is a party pooper. We did go to the Bee's game and Dyllon went too. Not with us of course. He went with a group of friends on my dime. I guess that we are not cool enough to hang with any more.

Beware everyone, Dyllon has his drivers permit. He is out on the road behind the wheel. Scary! He won't officially have his license until November. Tip for those who have kids coming of age. Get their social security card. They need to have it to get their permit. Oh, and when it comes in the mail, don't give it to them, they will lose it and you will have to spend another day at the social security office.

Last night Dyllon was a usher for the Oquirrah Mountain Temple open house. When I picked him and Scott up he was telling me how the sister missionaries we complaining about how cold it was. I made the comment: "So, you were hobnobbing with the ladies huh? " Dyllon laughed his butt off and banned me from ever saying that word again. Kids do say that! The older ones in the mall, I have heard them!!!

Smuggling Pineapples

Who knew that it would be so hard to get a few pineapples back to the mainland??? I had a grand idea that I would ship a few fresh pineapples back home and I ran into a few problems. I purchased 4 pineapples at 6 bucks a pop. I wanted to send one to my mom for mothers day, one for Kendall's parents for watching the monkeys and a couple for us. I went to the post office to priority mail them and found out that it is illegal to ship fruit out of Hawaii. I was told that I would have to get them inspected by the USDA and get a special stamp before I could send them. Where is the office, it is at the airport.
I called the USDA inspection office and they said that they need to inspect the fruit for bugs before I could get the approval. Like I am going to buy a bug infested pineapple! We decided to just carry them on the plane after the inspection to save the postage. I packed one of the carry on bags with pineapple. After we turned in our rental car, I told the shuttle driver that we need to be dropped off at the USDA office and he stated that it was right in front of the United Airlines check in. At the Check in point it was only for checked luggage, they were checking for smuggled fruits I guess. I told the guy that I had pineapples in my carry on and that I needed to get them inspected, he said that he only inspected the check luggage and that I would need to get them inspected somewhere else later. To make a long story short, the ticket lady for United did not know where to inspect them, Where I dropped my luggage off to the airline did not know where to get them inspected. I now had to go thru security. Keep in mind, I have told everyone my plight. I just want to get the @%*# pineapple's inspected! I passed security and we now were headed thru carry on scan. I put my bags on. I come out the other end. The man tells me that he needs to inspect my other carry on.

It turns out that you cannot put this in your carry on. I guess that I might want to blow the plane up with ravioli. We had bought a 8 pack from Sam's club in case we wanted to eat them over the week. You know, to save money. Well, we only ate 2 and I thought I would take them home to the kids. They made me throw the Chef Boyardee away and gave me a lecture about putting illegal items in my carry on and then sent me on my way! They said nothing about the smuggled pineapples!

Tasty Vittles

To be quite honest with you, I am not such a big fan of the foods offered in Hawaii. To salty for me. We did run across a few things that were scrumdidlyumpous. Let me tell you about a few.
This is a picture from Ted's Bakery. They have what are called "Glazies" (upper right of picture), they are to die for. They kick butt over any donut that I have ever eaten. Kendall really liked the chocolate haapia cream pie.

These shrimp are from a road side stand called Romey's. The sign said we are not fast food, just food cooked really good and sometimes fast. We opted for the mild sweet and spicy. They were really good. A few days earlier we had tried shrimp from a shrimp truck called Giovanni's. They were good too. Kendall had the garlic shrimp ( he had to sleep facing the window) and I had the lemon butter. This is the pig from the Luau. It was good. It was the the only item at the luau that I cared for. If you go to the Polynesian Cultural Center, trust me, skip the luau. They really need to work on the food. I would have rather went to Golden Corral. Here is my $10 fruit smoothie. It was yummy!On the weekends these chicken stands pop up. They have the best rotisserie chicken. I don't know what they do to those chickens, but its delicious! On a side note, Hawaii has a chicken infestation. Chickens are running around everywhere. I wonder if the owners of the stands collect wild chickens? Hence the reason that they are only open on the weekends? One of our favorites was shaved ice from M. Matsumoto's. They are located on the North Shore. The shaved ice is awesome. We went back twice. Somebody in Utah needs to make these.