What a happy day!

I've been on cloud nine all day! I decided a little while ago that I wanted to refinish the china hutch I was so lucky to inherit of my grandmother's, and today we finished it!! My grandma collected cups and saucers, and when I was just a little girl I decided I wanted a collection just like hers. I finally feel like I can display what I have upstairs in my living room. Brad helped me sand, prime, and paint it an antique white color, and we stained the edges. We removed the back panel of the hutch and reinstalled a bead board backing (which I love!). I don't have a fireplace mantel, an entry way, or a large entertainment center to decorate, so I was just in heaven actually having somewhere to display some seasonal things. Happy day!!!

The hutch BEFORE (I almost forgot to snap some photos - I'd already removed the left cupboard door as you can see):





And the AFTER (We bought new hardware, but I figured out that we could use our new knobs along with a decorative part of the old knob and it made our knobs look even better!):






I was already having a great day when I decided to FINALLY pull out my Halloween decorations. See, I really wasn't that excited since I didn't have anything but a tinsel black cat!! I opened up my Halloween decor bin and lo and behold "three tied up grocery bags with carefully wrapped items inside"...turns out I had bought after Halloween items last year (so they still had the tags), and I'd forgotten all about them. So I had new decorations after all. Here's a couple of them:


We had a great weekend. I loved watching conference, and really loved President Monson's message to us about being happy and positive. My dad ran the St. George marathon, so I was thinking of him Saturday, and he was amazing as always. During the two hour break between sessions on Saturday, Brad and I and the girls drove up to Strawberry Reservoir and saw the kokene salmon. On the way home we had a fun picnic lunch at a cool little spot we discovered for our first time called "Whiskey Springs". I'd checked out a library book for Megan called "Look what I did with a leaf", which made her want to collect leaves so she could make leaf animals, so we gathered leaves too. Fun day. Here's some pictures of our Saturday as a family:


Her first animal was this cat (which she made up without using the book):

Then she made this cow (which she made by looking at her library book):

And this was her bear... :)


Okay, this is turning out to be the longest post ever, but it wouldn't be complete without writing about HOW FUN it is to watch Megan play soccer twice a week. I never thought it would be all that fun spending a Saturday morning watching a game, but I guess when it's your child out there playing, it somehow magically becomes REALLY FUN. I absolutely love it. She's been having a great time. Here's a couple of photos. I love the second photo because it shows her in "sprint mode". When she decides to run fast, she sure has a good sprint with those super long legs. She's a little too timid and nice, but she's got a great run!

Paige (and I) Start Preschool!

Today was Paige's first day of preschool, and I taught the kids today. It was so much fun. I seriously was meant to do this. My teaching days just came back to me! I'm switching off with 3 other moms, and we do two days during the week (1 1/2 hours each time) and then we switch so that we only teach about 2 times a month. I did A is for Apple today and it went great! I set out Paige's clothes last night, and she came out of her room this morning at 8:00, and was not only dressed, but was wearing her backpack! She wore her backpack while we took Megan to school, and until preschool started at 10:00 (She did let me remove it while I did her hair however). I didn't get a picture of all four girls (one was in Disney World), but I did get a photo of her with one of her little friends that's doing preschool with us.

I also thought I'd post about a couple other things: So, over Labor Day weekend Brad took all three girls up to his parent's house and gave me a weekend ALONE (at my request). I was feeling like I needed a moment to "fill the well" so to speak, so I could do the mommy thing a bit better. Well, my sweet visiting teacher remembered that I was going to have this "scrapbooking weekend" so to speak, and she brought this by the Friday my family was leaving and she wished me Happy Scrapping!:Doesn't that just make you want to be a better visiting teacher?!

Ashlie is into EVERYTHING right now! She discovered where our toothbrushes were a while ago, and I had Brad put a child lock on the vanity drawer so we wouldn't constantly have her sucking on our toothbrushes, and what did she discover next? Well, if she climbed into the main cupboard on the vanity, she could reach inside of the toothbrush drawer! I have such a smart child!!! So now we have a child lock on the vanity cupboard as well! :) The other day I was ready to run errands with Ashlie and Paige when I just ran to get my purse and my shoes. I walk down the hall saying, "Okay, I think we're all ready to g....." and I see that Ashlie was covered in raspberry jam (which she reached on the table!)
It's fun things like this that zap your energy I tell ya, but I wouldn't trade my cutie #3 for anything.

I was telling my family about this just last night, so I thought I'd post a picture of it from about a month ago. Brad doesn't put a catcher on our lawn mower, so he doesn't have to dump the grass. This tradition started way back probably with Paige, but he almost always mows the lawn with Ashlie on his back, while I cook dinner or something. Isn't he wonderful!

School has begun!

This morning Megan went off to 2nd grade! I walked her into her classroom, and the teacher let them choose where they wanted to sit, so she got to sit by her good friend Lilly today. I'm sure that made her happy. I'll miss her being with me at home, but it was nice to have something motivate me to get up and get going this morning. Routines can be nice. She's a cutie, and here she is just before leaving for school this morning:

Brad took off work Tuesday so we could do one last summer outing as a family. We had a great day! We drove down to Thanksgiving Point for their $2 Tuesday deal, and went through the Museum of Ancient Life they have there. I took tons of pictures that didn't turn out because our camera takes terrible indoor photos, but we had such a great time.



After the museum we had a picnic by the Provo River, then we went to the movie theater to see "How to Train Your Dragon". Who knew there really were still dollar theaters around?! We found a movie theater in Provo that was $1, and on Mondays it's only 75 cents!!! The rest of the week it's a whopping $1.50. Isn't that great?! So they had about 8 movies to choose from, and I think for sure we'll be back. The movie was cute!

After the movie we went to Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon. The girls biked up the trail, and then had tons of fun playing barefoot in the water below the falls.
Megan just kept going higher, and higher, and higher (barefoot). Later she told me that she was trying to hike up to the rock that she's sitting on in this photo:

If You Loved Twilight, I Think You'll Love This Book!

I just finished "The Hourglass Door" by Lisa Mangum last night, and wanted to spread the word that it was really good. It reminded me of Twilight all throughout the book. It's almost 400 pages, but I read it in about a week. It's totally clean - no swearing or anything, and the author is from Utah. Anyway, that's my suggestion for a good read. Now I can't wait to pick up the second one in the series "The Golden Spiral".

Flowers, Flowers, Everywhere!

Okay, so I feel like I know somewhat what I'm doing when it comes to flowers, but apparently I don't know as much as I thought. I know that petunias are annuals. I mean, I did purchase them in the annual section of the greenhouse, and in years past I've had to repurchase & plant them yearly (that to me would mean "annual"). Well, this year we did the same. For the first time in three years we planted regular petunias instead of wave petunias, and what began to randomly start growing in our flower beds two weeks ago? WAVE PETUNIAS!!! This is too cool to us, so I'm wondering if anyone has ever heard of this happening.

The petunias I planted this year:


The wave petunias we planted last year coming up from seed (unfortunately I thought they were a weed at first, so I weeded out most of them). Here's what they look like:



Here's one of the wave petunias that grew and has mixed into my regular petunia plant:


So, speaking of flowers, I thought I'd show some pictures of two of the flower hair clips I just made this morning. I've been wanting to make some since before Ashlie was born, and I'm finally getting around to it. Most of the ones I made are much smaller than these, but the girls chose the big ones today!

Here's Paige:


And Megan:


Okay, I'm adding this photo in later in the day. I went crazy & spent 3 hours making flower clips today. So I made these plus Megan's currently wearing a blue one in her hair. Now I know why women sell these. It's so easy to make a TON! I have about 65 clips leftover plus oodles and oodles of flowers. I think I have a fun new addiction!

Ashlie Turned One!

We now have a cute little one year old crawling around! I can't believe she's been with our family a whole year. It was our first year having the three birthdays in eight days, and I think we did pretty well. It was crazy but fun. The celebration kicked off with a birthday call from her grandma & grandpa Woodward (which had her smiling and giggling while her grandpa sang to her over the phone). After church my parents, McKenzie, Shalyce, & Jordan all came up to our house for a little party for one cute little girl...

It was a struggle, but we did manage to get her to help us open some of her gifts:


Here's her playing with one of her new toys later last night:

And this morning:

BIRTHDAY CAKE TIME! We sliced the cake into three pieces (for Ashlie, Megan, & Paige), but I still think she did all right with her portion...

Here's the Before:



And the After:

And the In-Between:



Overall, I think this is what she thought: