Home on the range

We went to Cokeville to spend some time with our family there. Plus some other cousins were headed that way too. We decided to make a party out of it! We spent some fun time at the ranch playing (which is not what we did there when I was a kid ... wink wink ;)

 Nothing like getting good and dirty right?!

There are 4-wheelers to ride, and sticks to burn. Garrett and Jaxon helped grandpa Blaine and Papa while they were at the other end of the ranch on the backhoe and tractor. We went on a scavenger hunt, and swung on the tire swing. Yeah I took a lot of pictures of them on the swing, ha ha it was cute.

Also did some ditch burning that day, that is to say the adults not the kids. Who are these 3 old ladies on a 4-wheeler? he he wink wink



you know ...

So I have noticed that when your kids get sick each of them has their own "thing" that is worse for them, ya know? Like Garrett is my fever kid. If he gets a fever its going to be high and it will probably make him throw up at some point.

Embrie on the other hand is my rash kid . She tends to get a rash with most of the viruses that she catches. Maren so far is my healthy kid. I won't count on it forever but so far she hasn't been sick too often and when she is she doesn't complain too much. Weird how that works.

About a week ago the kids (even Maren but hers didn't last as long and didn't seem to bother her too much, go figure!)  had several days with high fevers and it just about knocked all of us out.

I knew they were on the mend when they started to bug each other again. But While Garrett was sick he was so sweet and loving! Not that he isn't a sweet kid but he generally doesn't stop to tell you he loves you or want to cuddle. That was the only cute part of being sick, I got a little down time during the day when we all look like this but at night no one could sleep for very long, poor babies. But on the bright side Maren slept through all of our night time activities.

Winner Winner!

Embrie is the winner of the Ugly Egg contest 2012!



I did it!

I've been talking about recovering my ottoman for over a year now. And I finally did it! This thing is only a few years old but it didn't take long for it to get ruined unfortunately by my kiddos.

Now here are my before pictures. You can't see all of the damage in this picture, but I will just inform that it was stained, by water and whatever else, as well as it had been jumped on leaving it flat and with baggy material, also the button holes were being ripped. Now don't worry we've since had a very long discussion about how we treat things (ok so we've had many discussions and I am sure not for the last time, but rest assured we don't jump on furniture anymore or even have drinks out of the kitchen.)

No damage on the inside

I wanted to do as little sewing as possible and I wanted to keep the inside the same and keep all the mesh material intactand usable. I just wanted to replace the foam and fabric.


So I pulled all the staples and out took the hardware off. Brad and I decided that though I had bought a foam pad to use as extra cushion, that it would need more reinforcement since we wanted people to be able to sit on it if needed. So Brad built a support using scraps we already had, a few support beams cut from a 2x2 or something and a cut peice of partical board. He nailed that into the seat and I placed the foam on top. I picked out my fabric at Ikea.

Ta-da! What do you think?

Now I don't think its professional grade re-apholstry or anything, but it looks better than it used to and it matches what I have been trying to transform my living room into for the past couple of years.

The only thing left to do is scotch guard. Because although we have rules, you never know right . . .

Easter Weekend

We spent down in Price with the Callahan side of our family.

First Grandma had the kids dye easter eggs. There were dozens of eggs, but I guess that is what you have to do with almost a dozen grandchildren.

Most of the weekend was spent outside.

(Alex holding Maren)

4-wheeling

how many clowns can you fit in a car?

cooking tin foil dinners and roasting marshmallows.

playing games and pretty much getting as dirty as possible.

Of course we had to have an Easter Egg hunt!

We stayed in a hotel so that the kids could go swimming and maybe share the pool with some cousins. And luck had it that the Easter Bunny found us there.

The Easter Bunny's biggest hit this year was that everyone got a tiny "Angry Bird" in their basket.

Picture of Grandma and Grandpa Callahan with all their grandkids! We love you grandma and grandpa!

The Ugly Egg Contest 2012

Please vote for your favorite! :)

#1

#2


#3

#4

The title holder for the last 2 years is Garrett.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Sweet Conference

Go ahead, call me crazy.

This was our new way of trying to keep everyone quiet and maybe listening for conference this year so that mom and dad could actually listen to conference. And because my son inherited my sweet tooth it actually worked quite nicely. For each time they heard one of the words that they picked out to listen for they got one peice of candy to put into a little bag, or eat. Surprisingly it didn't turn out to be as much candy as I thought although much more than one would usually eat in a day. However, conference only comes twice a year so I am justifying it a little. And they were listening! (Embrie did loose interest a little durning the second half, but she's 3 and doesn't like sweets as much as her brother.)

But we really did enjoy conference!