Summer Reflections

I can't believe it's already September. It sure doesn't feel like it, since it's still in the 90's around here. This past summer, has been quite the summer. I feel like it's been a real eye opener for me, in terms of life, family, relationships and I guess, really, my ideology of life.

My summer started off normal enough. Dan got done with work at the end of May, we hung out for a week or so, then headed out to Utah. We were there for about a week and a half, when I got a phone call from my mom, that my older brother had been shot in the head. It was quite shocking news. She didn't know what was going to happen to him. He was in the ICU on life support. I prayed really hard, that everything would be okay. After a couple of days, my other brother called me, and said things weren't looking good. And that basically, I need to come up to WA asap, if I wanted to say goodbye.

Luckily, my sister and 3rd brother live in Utah, and we were able to all get on the same flight to WA. I'm not going to give all the details, but man was it hard to see my brother for the first time. His head was all bandaged up, a machine was making his lungs breathe, which looked very abnormal, his right side was completely numb. It was a tough 3 days, trying to figure things out, decide if we should keep him on life support, etc. 

Plus, I was able to get a better glimpse of his life. He's struggled with drug use since he was about 15. The last year or two, he's been doing really well. He was working for my brother's company, going to church, had a calling, etc. Things seemed good for him. While I was in WA, I found out more information about his past and really his personal thoughts about his life and struggles. He was unhappy. He was still addicted to drugs, though it was an off and on again kind of thing. It really opened my eyes about how I viewed life and the gospel together. Just because you go to church, doesn't mean your life is great. Just because you have a calling, doesn't mean your testimony is solid. Writing this out, makes me go, duh, of course it doesn't. But I think we still think it does, in a way. I thought he was okay, I thought he was over drugs, I thought he had finally done it.

My brother is doing much better by the way. We really thought he was going to die, but he's actually walking now, and learning to use his right side. He still can't really talk, but he's making some progress.

Anyways, this experience just kind of changed the way I look at things. Things aren't exactly black and white anymore. More like differing shades of gray. It's not easy to say, if you do this, then you'll be happy. If you do that, things will work out. I guess I thought that way, and now I don't, at least to some degree. Everyone is different and so is their situation.

Then, a few weeks after I got back from WA, a close friend of mine told me that they didn't feel the church was true anymore and was even doubting the existence of God! That took me by surprise.

Then a month after that, another friend told me she was getting divorced because her husband was addicted to pornography and had been for years.

Then, last week a family member of mine, told me they and their wife, of 13 years were getting divorced. They have 4 kids.

I don't know, it just seems so much has happened to people I care about the last few months. You always hear of things like this happening and it makes you said, but it's never really happened to people I know personally.

I just feel like my ideology on life has been changed. It's hard to explain. Things that were a constant, aren't anymore. I know no one is immune to the challenges of life, but I sure wish they were. I obviously can't make choices for others, but it makes me sad and kind of shakes me when negative consequences occur to people I care about. 

I guess I'm done rambling. Here's to a Happy Fall!!!

Cardboard Letter decor (for free!)

I saw this idea online and have been wanting to do it for a while. Here is where I found this idea. She does a tutorial as well.

So all I did, was google the letter P. I found one that was just an outline. I printed it out. I didn't want to print a solid P, and waste a bunch of ink. I sized it a bit before I printed it to make it big. I didn't want it too huge, but figured the size of a piece of paper was a good size for where I wanted it.

Then I took a cereal box, cut it open and traced the P on the back, two times, and then cut them out. 

Then, I took the sides of the cereal box, and cut them to be about an 1 1/2 inches wide. I started taping it to the bottom of the P, to make the middle of the P. 

It was a little tricky, making the cardboard bend, but it got better as I went.

I then taped the second P on top of the outline I had.

In hindsight, I should have started with the top P to tape the middle to, and then added the bottom P last, instead of doing the top P last.

I noticed the P kind of bends ever so slightly, because the top P was harder to tape and make fit. I would have rather the bottom P not fit as well, so it wouldn't show.

Now, you are left with a cardboard P!

Next, I did a paper mache'. I had never done this, but it was really easy. You just take flour and water, a 2:1 ratio, and rip newspaper. I actually did phone book pages, since they are a little thinner than newspaper. Dip it in the mixture and spread it over the P. They lady's tutorial said to do it at an angle,  and to overlap a lot.

Let it dry 24 hours. 

I painted it the same blue as my TV stand.

If you look close, it has an aged, crackled look. That was just from the paper mache'. From far away you can't see it. I'm debating on glazing it to make the lines stand out. Not sure yet, if I will do that. 

I need to put something else on this shelf, to compliment my P. Maybe a candle or something...

Overall, a fairly easy project. And it was FREE! I had all materials already on hand. Most people do and the only thing you may not have is paint. You could easily use acrylic paint for $1 a bottle. 

Having fun with a Food Dehydrator

In my efforts to continue to keep up with our food storage, which is on and off again, I found out about the benefits of a food dehydrator. I decided that I REALLY wanted one. The main reason being, that we don't eat a lot of processed food. A lot of stuff that has a long shelf life, isn't always the best for you. We try to eat fresh fruit and vegetables. You can get canned fruits and veggies, but you miss a lot of nutrients and there is often added sodium and sugar. A dehydrator became a great solution for us to have food that we actually eat on a regular basis, stored in our food storage and have a healthy option, as well.

Dan got some extra income from classroom size overages. We put most of it in savings, and used some of it for things we wanted...like a dehydrator! I struggled with which one to get. I could have gotten a fairly cheap one and it probably would have worked fine. Or go for a nicer, more quality one. I decided to go for the gold and get a nicer one. From my research and in talking to people, you want to get one where the air flow is vertical, not going from bottom to top. You want one where the air goes from the back, where it can blow across the food evenly and have a better and even dehydration.

I got the Exaclibur 3500, five tray. I ordered it online from Harvest Essentials, though you can get it on Amazon, or other sites as well. You can get bigger ones with more trays, but I couldn't see myself needing to use 9 trays at a time. Right now the 5 tray one is working great for me. I usually use 3-4 trays, depending on what I'm doing.

Dehydrating is great and it's also a space saver! I did 3 pounds of carrots last week. Here is a picture of some carrots cut up (I forgot to take one myself).

Here they are after! They got so tiny!

This is 3 pounds of carrots. They all fit in a small ziploc bag!

Last Christmas, my brother got us a food saver, where you can seal your food in bags, to preserve them. This is an excellent way to preserve dried food. It vacuums seals it, thus protecting it from oxygen. I've read that dried food, if stored properly, can last up to 15 years!

So far I've done (in orders as you see them) carrots, strawberries, mangoes, apples, and peaches.

I did at least 5 lbs of strawberries, at least 12 mangoes, 10 apples, and 10 apples. These REALLY condense, especially with the food saver sucking out all the air. I've also done pineapple and tomatoes, but don't have enough to put in a bag yet.

I'm trying to take advantage of all the summer time fruits that I can get for cheap. I just got some nectarines yesterday for 33 cents a pound! 

Most stuff takes around 10 hours. It's great because I'll cut everything up before I go to bed, plug it in, it's about as loud as a box fan. Let it go all night and the food is usually done in the morning when I wake up. That way I don't have to hear a loud fan all day when I'm awake.

So far I am really enjoying my dehydrator. I still have A LOT more to do. But slow and steady wins the race, right? Haha.

I still need to experiment with rehydrating food and cooking with it, etc. For now though, my goal is to just build a up a large stockpile of dried foods.

Oh AND did I mention you can make your own fruit leathers (fruit roll ups) and beef jerky with a dehydrator? Yes, you can. I've made two fruit leathers and the kids absolutely LOVED them. I need to make more for my storage.

Homemade bead board frames

So many many moons ago, I saw a really cute idea, I believe on Pinterst. As soon as I saw it, I wanted to make it.


This is it:

So cute! This lady made all these bead board frames then attached them to the rod with ribbon. Sounds simple, right? Wellll, yeah. Here is the link to her blog, along with directions of what she did. 


I knew I could make this. I had a large section of beadboard left over from when I redid a bookshelf for Anna's room. 


I actually had a piece this size. I cut the piece into three pieces. 

I cut out a piece of paper to be the opening, traced around it, then started to cut. This bead board is actually like an extremely thick cardboard/pressboard. I had to take a utility knife and score out the middle piece. This took a long time. Like, longer than it should have. I think the blade was dull. And I have issues with my hand and gripping something for a prolonged time, so this took a few months to actually finish. As usual, my projects take FOREVER from start to finish.

I finally got out all the middle pieces and was left with this. 

The next step was to add some thickness to the frame. I took some extra MDF wood I used for the bathrooms and had Dan cut them to about 1/2 an inch thick. I got kind of sloppy here, because I was thinking the sides weren't really going to show. And I didn't plan ahead very well, with the placement of them, so they some of them don't look the best on the sides.

Next, was to put a smaller frame around the opening of the bead board frame, to cover the raw edges. This too, took a while. I bought some cheap, cheap trim at Lowes, then used my miter saw to angle them. Used wood glue and clamps to glue them in place, then filled in the corners with putty. 

Now, they were FINALLY done! Did I mention I started this project at the end of December and just got them up on the wall last week? 

When we were in Utah, we did family portraits with Dan's family. They sent me a CD of the pictures and I printed off a few to put in here. I got the background paper at Michaels, as well as the ribbon. I just hot glued the ribbon to the back of the frames.

The rod, is actually a curtain rod I got a few years ago at a garage sale for a few bucks. It was silver, and I spray painted it black. I had to go to Lowes to get the metal holders to attach the rod to the wall.

Overall, this was a pretty cheap project. It was probably about $10-12 total for everything.

Soon, I think I'll get the saying, "the most important things in life, aren't things," in vinyl to put above it.

Anna's Hello Kitty party!

I forgot to blog about my little girl's Hello Kitty party! We actually had her party a week after her actual birthday, since I was out of town longer than expected. We had to push everything back. I was originally going to make her a castle cake. But then a few months ago, I saw a Hello Kitty cake and thought, I could make that! Anna likes Hello Kitty, so I asked her which one she wanted and she said Hello Kitty, so thus it began!

Here is her cake!

I found an outline of Hello Kitty's face, printed it out, then cut it out, then traced around it, on the fondant. It's a pretty simple cake. I wanted to put circles around the side, but I used some of the batter to make cupcakes, so the cake was a little shorter than normal.

I decided to make her pinata this year. One of the blogs I follow has a tutorial for it. It's really easy. You just take a paper bag, cut about two inches off the sides, then fold over the top over a hanger and tape it. Put your candy in, then fold over the other side. I ran the streamers through my sewing machine to make it ruffle. Then I just hot glued the strips on. It took a little while to do this, but I actually had all the supplies on hand already, (minus the candy) so it was pretty cheap. And it held up pretty well for 3-4 year olds hitting it.

I found the Hello Kitty image online and printed it.

 

Some of the decor. I made three tissue pom poms. I love how fun they are.

The birthday girl! She is wearing a HK shirt, skirt, necklace, and hair bows!

I love her smile here.

Alex wanted to be in the picture too.

Her primary teacher gave her this crown for her birthday. She loves wearing it.

I made some HK bags to put the pinata candy in. I made these white and was going to draw the HK face on it, but I wasn't doing a very good job, so I printed off the HK face. However, they're both white. I wish I had made the bags pink instead, but oh well.

I decided to play some games this year. It was pretty funny. I had written numbers on some paper, and played music. When the music stopped, I would draw a number from a hat and whoever was on that number would get to pick a prize. Repeat until all kids get a prize. Well, it looks fine here in the picture, but it was pretty chaotic. Half the kids were going the wrong way, the papers were going all over the place. It was pretty funny.

Singing Happy Birthday to Anna.

Blowing out her candles.

So happy with her cupcake!

To keep up with the pink and yellow colors, I dyed the layers of the cake!

Anna hitting the pinata.

Alex making his attempt at the pinata.

Anna opening her gifts.

Overall it was a fun party. Anna had a lot of fun. After it was over, I gave her a hug and told her I hoped she had a happy party. She said, yes, mommy, it was a happy party.  It was so sweet and I hope she knows how much I love her. :)

Alex, baby boy!

I haven't really written much about my little babies lately. So here is the Alex update. He is 20 months right now. He weighs about 27 lbs. He's about 33 inches tall. This boy is growing so much lately! We measured him, I think in March, then again in June and he had grown about 1 1/2 inches! I look at him and he looks taller every day! 

He is such a silly little boy. He's so cute and sweet. I love hugging him, kissing him, and giving him little cuddles, when he lets me. 

He is learning to say more words. He knows his colors. He knows blue, red, yellow, green, yellow, black and pink. And kind of purple. However, he pronounces blue as blu-and pink as bing. It's pretty cute. He adds vowels to the ends of words. Then he'll add constants to the beginning of words that start with vowels. Such as Elmo, is Melmo. Ernie, is Nernie. Anna is Nanna.

He knows how to say no. it's really cute the way he says it, it's almost nasal sounding and it's still in a kind of baby voice. It's also very decisive when he says it. 

He LOVES cars. We have a bag full of them and almost every morning when he wakes up, he'll come out to the family room and want his cars. 

He loves his sister Anna. Every morning when I go to get him, or after his nap, if she doesn't come in the room with me, the first thing he says when he sees me is Nanna! Nanna!

He loves to do whatever she is doing. He really is a copy cat when it comes to her. If she starts to jump, he'll jump. If she starts to wave or move her hands, he will. If she wants yogurt, he wants yogurt. She likes to pretend she's a calico kitten. She'll walk around on all fours and meow. Alex has started doing this too. It actually works to our advantage sometimes. If Anna doesn't want to go pee, or change her clothes, we'll say, come on kitty. Let's go to the litter box, or to your room. She'll instantly drop to all fours and start coming. It's started to work with Alex as well. Hahaha.

It's cute, but I kind of worry a little. I want him to be his own little person, not another Anna. I'm sure this won't last forever, but it does concern me a little.

It's really hard to discipline him. Sometimes he doesn't listen. We'll tell him no and it's like we're talking to a wall. We put him in time out, but it doesn't have the same affect it does on Anna. His new thing lately is to stuff his mouth with food, chew it all up, then lean over the side of his booster chair and spit it all out on the ground. VERY annoying! We'll put him in time out, then back in his chair to finish dinner and two seconds later, he'll do the same thing. What to do???

He loves to laugh. In fact, when I ask him something, like do you want more? If he laughs, I know he does. It's really funny.

When I was gone in WA for a week, Dan starting bathing them together in our shower. We've been giving Anna showers for almost a year now, because she had a UTI. We bathed Alex in the bathtub. Now, they like to take a shower together. It's so cute to see them have fun together in there.

He likes to climb, like on the table or the piano.

A lot of times when we tell him not to do something, it's like all he hears is that word, and then he quickly goes and does it. For example, if I tell him to stop pulling the books out, he'll do it even faster!

After family prayer, we do a family kiss. We all put our heads together and do a big kiss. You never know what you're going to end up kissing! Haha. When he hears family kiss, he starts puckering his lips and leans in. It's adorable!

Alex loves to put a bowl on his had and call it a hat, or haf, as he says. House is also houf.

Alex at grandma and grandpa's house, going through the sprinkler. 

Playing with some outside chalk.

Alex, after his first haircut. Anna was so sweet during it. Alex didn't really like it and the whole time she kept saying, it's okay, Alex. It doesn't hurt. You're so brave!

Poor Alex got a lot of dirt dumped on him. We were watching Anna's friends, Brittney and Michael. Michael kept putting dirt on his head!

Playing around on mommy's phone.

Anna wanted to put socks on her hands to be a dog. Alex saw her do it, and he of course, wanted socks on too!

I asked Dan's dad to make the kids a little table. Alex loved sitting at it, at their house!

Alex was so cute here. We went out to eat with Dan's family, after we came outside. Dan and his brothers were sitting here by the fountain. Alex saw them and trotted on over to join them and be with the boys!

Alex meeting his cousin, Maddison, for the first time. He wanted to hold her. It was so cute.

Alex was so tired, he fell asleep at lunch!

 I love my little Alex so much. He really is such a little sweetie. I'm so blessed to be his mommy. He's such a joy to our family. :)

Alex's bedroom redo!

When Anna was about 11 months, I started painting her room and decorating it all cute. Alex has been in his room for almost 20 months and I just finally got around to actually trying to make it look cute. I was so tired of seeing this, every time I walked in.

Very blah, ugly dresser, plain crib, non matching lamp, etc. 

Now, granted for about 10 months, there was other stuff in his room that prevented his room from actually looking like a room.

I actually started this back in the end of May, but just haven't gotten around to posting about it. 

I decided to just paint an accent wall. I would have loved to have painted the whole room, but unfortunately there is still other stuff in his room that would have made it too much of a hassle.

I bought a quart of paint and decided to lighten it with some white. I did this for two reasons, I couldn't decide for sure on a color and I didn't want to buy a whole gallon of paint for just one wall, but needed a bit more than the quart provided. 

This is the color that I came up with. I LOVE it! It's the perfect blue, exactly what I was going for. 

I bought the crib off a lady in my ward, for very cheap. I seriously LOVE this crib. It's so pretty and nice. And a definite improvement from the other one (though I can't complain about the other one, since it was free).

Here is a close up of his dresser before. This was actually Dan's friend's dresser when they were roommates back in Utah. He moved to CA because he was in the air force. It was pretty beat up. There were sticker residue on a few drawers. It was missing all the knobs, except three. One of the drawers sagged on one side because it was missing a piece of wood. However, the wood and frame were still in good condition.

So I sanded down the drawers, not completely, but just enough to get the junk off. I fixed the sagging drawer. I filled in some of the holes from the handles, so I would only have to put on knobs. I then primed it and painted it white.

Before 

After!

I finally finished the wall decor. 

Here is some cute vinyl of his name.

I got the Wish sign for $2 or $3

The stars are metal and I spray painted them white. I got them on xmas clearance at Michaels from about $1.30 each last year.

The green sign was actually a fake canvas thing I found at the 99 cent store. I got a couple of them. I just spray painted it green and put vinyl on it.

Before 

After

This is now what I see when I enter Alex's room. I love it, I really do. 

He had a silver garbage can. You can't really see it in the picture, but I spray painted it the same green as the sign, so it matches. I really want to get a different glider, a white one, but we'll see if that happens.

And lest you think his room is "perfect," if you turn around by his crib, this is what you see. Haha.

Yeah, not exactly my favorite, but there is no where else to put this stuff. :(  However, his room is such an improvement from what it was, I can't complain too much.