Aquarium

We've been wanting to go to the Aquarium in Sandy for awhile, but not wanting to fork over and arm and a leg for it. Then our realtor sent us a customer appreciation invitation to a free night at the aquarium to say thank you for our business, I guess. We were in. We also invited Aaron's parents to come with us. They moved to Utah at the beginning of the week, and have been up in Salt Lake with Stacey's and Kelly's families, so we hadn't seen them yet.

My kids thought the aquarium was about the coolest thing they'd ever seen. Then kept running back and forth from one display to the next as excitedly as if it were Christmas morning. Adelia kept saying, "Fish! Fish!" When I asked what their favorite part of the aquarium was they answered something like, "Oh the sea-horses, and the turtles, and the penguins, and I really liked the sharks, and that big snake. Remember the sea-horses Mom? They were so cool. And all the jelly-fish...." And they basically listed off everything we looked at. It must have been a hit. :) A free hit, even better.

Every Time

Adelia's feet have grown a ton in the last little while. It became obvious to us on Sunday, when she flat out refused to wear her cute shiny black church shoes --shoes are her favorite things ever, so she rarely refuses to put shoes on-- that she was in need of some new ones. We buckled up and went to Target today. I usually have really good luck at Target with kids' shoes. But we discovered today, that while Adelia's feet have gotten longer, they have also gotten proportionally fatter. So none of the slim, black church shoes would even go on her feet. So I had to look outside of my shiny black church shoe box....

We ended up choosing these gold sparkly ballet style slip-ons. I think they're cute, albeit a little bit more flashy than I'd like for church. But my other choices were all drowned in pink. And hey, you know me, if it's between golden sparkles and pink anything, I'll choose sparkles EVERY time. :)

Splash

It seems like lately, life has been one giant agenda, and I've been running non-stop from one thing to the next. So, it was a pleasant surprise when this afternoon showed up completely empty of plans. We managed to get all our school work in this morning. And I even got several loads of laundry folded and put away, so I felt like we needed to do something fun. We did an art project earlier, and my kids were just ready to be outside. Playing outside is a little difficult, because we have nothing but dirt to play in, and no shade to speak of. And it's been HOT. But that's where my trusty orange buckets come in and save the day. Back when we lived in an apartment complex, we weren't allowed to have a kiddie swimming pool because of liability issues, so I bought a couple of these big tubs, and we'd fill them with water and let the kids splash around in them. They work just as well on my driveway. So that's what we did today, and I think the kids enjoyed it. They were all three sopping wet by the time we went inside.

Shelves

My husband is pretty much amazing. He built these shelves in our school room closet. They turned out so nice, and did exactly the job they were meant to do. Once the shelves were dry, we were finally able to unpack the last of the school boxes, and take everything off the school table that had been piling up, AND take everything off the craft cupboard, and organize it all neatly onto these shelves. Even more amazing, we had space left over, so all the school books and everything else I'd been keeping downstairs in the kitchen went upstairs and into the closet. The nice thing about having all this stuff in the closet, is that I can shut the closet door and Adelia isn't able to get into it all, but Lincoln can if he wants to work on an art project or something during quiet time. Also, having our school room organized means that we are finally having school in the school room! Yay! It's amazing what a huge difference a few shelves can make.

Grandma Swan's Birthday Card

Lincoln has always really enjoyed making birthday cards for people. Usually he'll draw a picture, and then dictate to me what he wants it to say, and then he'll sign his name on the bottom. Depending on how much he wants to say, sometimes I write it down on a different paper and have him copy it onto the card. Lately though, he's been really into making people birthday books. He does several pictures worth, and then brings it to me and tells me a story he's made up at about a 100 words per minute and I frantically try to copy it down without missing anything. That's what happened today when he made Grandma Swan's Birthday Card, please enjoy the following in Lincoln's own words:

(oh ya, I should probably mention that he's been really into Greek mythology lately, which all started when we were listening to Story of the World and the story of Odysseus and the Cyclops came on and my boys begged to listen to it over and over and over until I couldn't stand it anymore, so I went out and bought another Jim Weiss CD called Greek Myths, which they also love, and that is what inspired this, I think...)

This is the story of Hercules. This is a purple hydra, it has 9 heads.

And Hercules was happy to King Eurystheus (I looked up the spelling after I'd already written on the card). King Eurystheus wanted Hercules to fight the hydra. His first adventure was fighting a golden lion that couldn't be cut by metal or wood. Now he was fighting the hydra.

The hydra ate some people but some people were hiding in their homes. Their homes were made out of stones and the roof was made out of tin foil, so it couldn't burn. This is a blue hydra with 9 necks.

The hydra was breathing fire on one end in the middle head. Then Hercules found a huge cave, and put the hydra inside and put huge boulders and rocks to cover the entrance to the cave. But fire and smoke still came out, but the hydra couldn't burn the rocks.

(This is Hercules' garden, labeled in the picture is an apple plant, cherry plant, strawberries, pickle plant, peach plant, tomato plant, soil, and Hercules. I know it's a little busy and hard to see, but that's what Lincoln said is there.) Hercules picked off a leaf that was dead because a tumble weed poked it. This is Hercules' garden. Hercules went this way and picked off some cherries, pickles, and tomatoes for his dinner.

(This page is probably my favorite. Lincoln wrote "Grandma Thes is a rocit" (this is a rocket) he also had me label all the people that were riding in the rocket with Hercules.)  This is Hercules and all his friends in the rocket.
Hercules
Elsesstis
Admetis
Mare (a beautiful woman but she's old)
Odudice
Lotis (a villager who didn't get eaten by the hydra)
Almoodice (he sleeps all day and night)
Kind Midas
King Polydectes
Perceus
Danihee (Perceus' mother)

House Tour

I haven't really posted much about our house since we moved in. I don't know if I've been trying to wait until we got it all set up the way I want, or until it was all clean, or what....none of that has happened, but I still want to give a small, incomplete tour of our house, because we have a lot of family and friends who are unable (or unwilling *cough, cough* JACKSON) to come visit us to see it.

The front, I have posted this picture before.

Right inside the front door is the living room

As of right now, we don't have any furniture to go in the living room, so we put the computer in there so it wouldn't be empty. Some day, I plan on putting a piano, a couple of small arm chairs, and a coffee table in there, maybe a even a ficus.

From the living room, you walk through a little hall-like area, into the dinning room.

Here's the straight-on view of the hall area.

Off to the right of the hall, before you get to the dining room is a coat area and half bath.

Half bath and coat closet. I love the oval mirror.

To the left side of the hall, across from the bathroom is the garage door and an under-the-stairs closet

Keep walking, you'll make it to the dining room and kitchen.

I love our kitchen. Counter space galore! And the island in the middle is my favorite. I don't know how we ever lived without it.

Dining room/kitchen

The family room is on the other side of the dining room, so really the whole area is a big great room, which a love, because we like to have people over for dinner and we wanted a place to put everyone without feeling squishy. We got it.

The family room. I am in desperate want of new couches, but we have to do the sprinkler system and the grass first. And we haven't decided exactly how we'd like the room organized either, so we don't know what kind of couches to get. 

A different angle from the family room.

The dining room looking at the front door.

Looking out the sliding glass door at our backyard. They're digging a foundation on the lot behind ours, hence the giant dirt piles.

We finished our garden box, yay! And even though we're getting a super late start, we planted some tomatoes and zucchini, just to see if we could squeeze out some produce this year. Next year we'll have more in there for sure. And yes, our next door neighbor to the east is a corn field, and that puts me in small town heaven. :) Even though we're also only 5 minutes from the freeway, which puts Aaron in city heaven, so the location was an excellent compromise for both of us.

The back of the house

The side by the driveway.

And that will conclude our tour. I didn't do the upstairs because there were kids napping. I'll have to do that another day.

We love our house. The space and the layout is so perfect for our family. It has everything we need, and gives us room to grow.  It also has a lot of potential for us to make it our own. We don't have to undo anything anyone else has done, so we just get to start fresh and make everything the way we want it to be. Granted that takes time and money, so it can get a little frustrating that I can't make everything exactly how I want it right this moment. But every time we make progress it feels so great. Aaron is upstairs right now, building shelves in the school room closet so that I can get our school room organized and functioning. I mentioned that we just finished the garden box, and we have plans in the very near future to put in the sprinkling system and then get the lawn hydro-seeded. So little by little it's coming together and becoming our home. I hope we're here for a very long while. I want my kids to grow up here, and make great memories here. I love our house.

Hair Styles by Adelia

My Day Today: