Look Who's Five!

Gwen turned 5 today! What a big birthday! Five just seems like one of those milestone birthdays to me . . . it is just right up there with turning 8, 12, and 16.

Gwen had a GREAT day today!

Her day started out with the traditional birthday breakfast. She wanted "toast with JUST butter", eggs and sausage.

Her birthday dinner request was grilled ham and cheese sandwiches "made with the sandwich maker".

Gwen spent the day doing her birthday photo shoot with me, playing with her presents, riding her bike (which no longer has training wheels on it . . . pics on that to come) and going to lunch with dad.

She had a "princess" birthday party . . . which was such a big hit.

This party of hers was actually the most tame party any of our kids has ever had. These little girls were so wonderful and well behaved . . . or just really scared of me!

We colored princess crowns, played a ball throwing game and musical chairs. The party was completed with pink cupcakes with pink frosting of course and ice cream!

Gwen had her last soccer game tonight. She scored a goal! It will be nice to have our evenings free up a little bit . . . but I am sad to have soccer season end. It was so fun.

Here's Gwen with her after-game treats and medal!

All day long Gwen talked about how this was the best day! She loved the phone calls and attention.

Happy Birthday Gwen!

Painted Countertop

Here is my newly finished painted countertop. I can't believe I actually tried out this project. But I think it turned out okay. I'm not in love . . . meaning I will probably eventually still replace the whole countertop one day . . . BUT . . . a definite cheap project to make it look more how I want until then. I still need to re-stain the wood trim . . . but I'll just do that when I'm ready for another project.

I got the idea of painting countertops from this site. All the instructions/video are there.

Before the make-over.

This is the really scary part. There is no turning back after putting kilz all over your countertop!

This part might even be more scary than the kilz! You just keep going though until you get the look you want. After it is done, you realize it can't really be messed up.

I'm a pretty sloppy painter so my countertop isn't as smooth as I would like it . . . so I'm glad I didn't do my kitchen . . . but I think it worked out okay in the bathroom. And since I already had some of the materials needed for the project, it gave me the new color I wanted for under $20!

The Dirty Dash

Ben (third from the left) did the Dirty Dash last Saturday with a group of EMBA friends. Check out this link to see what it is http://www.thedirtydash.com/.

Ummm . . . I am so doing this next year!

Thirty Something

I have decided that Ben and I are now just in our "thirty somethings".

More on that later.

I made his requested birthday dinner and packed it all up in the car before he got home. Once Ben got home from work, I had him help me throw all the kids in the car and off we went to Rock Canyon Park for his surprise birthday dinner.

The weather was perfect, the kids were so excited to celebrate a birthday . . . it was fun. Happy Birthday Ben!

Soccer Stars

Halle and Gwen are both playing soccer this year. Halle is going on 4 years and this is Gwen's first! They love it! And they are both really good and competitive.

The soccer schedule is a little crazy, but has been so fun for them that I am sad to see it end at the end of the month.

Family Theme

School has started! Summer has been fun . . . but I really like the routine of school, the cooler weather I know is coming, the holidays. I LOVE fall. I can't wait for it to come back as soon as it leaves.

This year we decided to try something new in our family. There are so many things out there that have "themes". There is a yearly Young Women theme, EFY has yearly themes . . . so I thought . . . maybe our family should have a yearly theme as well. I am hoping that this will add some focus on what we want to teach our children and bring unity to our family.

So . . . this year . . . our family theme is "I Will Go and Do". This comes from 1 Nephi 3:7 in the Book of Mormon. To kick off our theme to the kids, I gave them each a "fancy" journal with the theme written inside the cover. I'm hoping this will help remind of them of our theme throughout the year.

Our plan with having a "theme" is to refer to it once a month . . . maybe by using it as the focus for a Family Home Evening once a month. The idea is to come up with many ways throughout the year to teach the idea that "I Will Go and Do". Hopefully this will be fun and memorable . . . and hopefully our kids will learn something too. I'm hoping that in time, once they catch on to what we are doing, they will look forward to our new theme each year. I'm keeping an ongoing list of future theme ideas!

Happy New School Year!!!

No Kids Week

My sweet mother-in-law took my four children to her home in Wyoming after Ben's graduation weekend. The house was unusually quiet . . . and it stayed clean! For 5 whole days!

This break was exactly what I needed. A vacation at home. I went to education week at BYU. My parents had stayed in town for this event as well. It was SO much fun! I might just need to make it more of a priority to go every year.