What mountains will you tackle today???

I will be tackling the mountain of laundry I have to fold. I have what is in the picture plus two other very full baskets to fold also. I have been washing it which is good but as soon as I take it out of the dryer I just throw it into a basket or Olivia's crib. I thought if I posted about it this morning I might be more likely to get it done. I will post an after this evening. I also hope to post some pictures from our last week, I took quite a few!

My Day

So, yesterday was a great day. John and I took the girls to VBS and then he and I (and Olivia, of course) went and ran errands. He was sweet to go to the fabric store with me just for fun. We looked all around and I got so many neat ideas, we then went to a cute little cupcake shop and Costco and lunch, it was like a day date! Fun!

A couple weeks ago I made a cake and cupcakes for a birthday party for a friend's daughter. It turned out pretty well and I really enjoyed doing it. I worked at TCBY in college and I often decorated cakes there, it was one of my favorite parts of the job. I am always thinking of ways I can bring in a little money and I am thinking that maybe making cakes and cupcakes for party's and such would be a great way to do that. That is the reason John and I stopped by the cupcake shop. I wanted to see some what some professional cupcakes looked and tasted like. They were cute and good and got me inspired. While at Costco I got Martha Stewart's cupcake cookbook and had so much fun looking through it. I even tested out a recipe. I made the chocolate chip cupcake last night and then went online to find a chocolate butter cream frosting to go with. Yummy, they turned out so good. I really want to make the cakes and cupcakes from scratch so I am going to be practicing a lot, not sure how that will go with my trying to lose the last of this baby weight. If you are my friend I may be bringing you my experiments so that I do not eat them all. Also, if I know you, give me a call, I will make free stuff for your parties while I practice!! Better get me now, I may become Martha Stewart someday and charge $40 a cupcake!!

I also sewed yesterday. I finished an apron I have been working on and I made a taggy blanket for Miss Olivia. I made a big mistake on the little blankie but that is ok.

With all the errand running and baking and sewing, my house was very neglected yesterday, so today I am catching up on housework. It seems like I can never find a balance in life, I either have a clean house and neglect everything else in my life or I act on every whim I have and then neglect the house.

Here is a picture of the kids and I goofing off yesterday, I look horrible, I was laughing hard, my girls look cute though.

Miss Liv is here with the little blankie I made her. I found the tutorial for it on the neatest blog. I will share more about it later.

Here are a few pictures of my messy house! It is already looking better! I worked on it while the girls were at VBS today and I should go do more now! On my kitchen counter you can see all the yummy goodness John brought in from the garden that day!

A Trip to the Zoo

Over the weekend the weather was so beautiful and I decided that I better take advantage of our last nice weekend. The heat will be here full force by this weekend. The girls and I headed to our local zoo. It is a small little zoo but we really enjoy it and even though there are not a lot of animals we don't seem to grow tired of it. On Saturday they were running their little train, we had never ridden that before, we normally go on weekday mornings and it does not run then. We had so much fun. We sang every song we could think of that was about train in our five minute ride. I love that my girls love to sing. I can't carry a tune to save my life but they do not seem to mind. We got there at lunch time and got see the snakes eat, my kids loved that.

All in all it was a fun trip. I am so thankful that we get a free membership there from our charter school!

Well, here are some pictures of our trip.

I will end with a picture that has nothing to do with this post. Emily loaned me her Bumbo and I got this cute picture of Liv in it.

We have been having so much fun enjoying our second week of summer. We have been hanging out with friends and spending a lot of time outside. I started a new summer Bible Study at a church near me that I do not attend but my friend is teaching the Bible Study so I thought I would try it out. It has a garden theme and it is going to be great. I loved it yesterday. I also found out that their regular study in the fall is on Wednesday which is perfect for me because I can go while my big girls are at enrichment class. I may try it in the fall.

We have had some exciting events going on here. Olivia went to the nursery for the first time yesterday. I tried to have her in the Bible study with me but she is just too loud. Not unhappy loud, she happily screams at the top of her lungs and blows raspberries. She loves to blow raspberries on my arms which makes very loud toot sounds, not really what I thought the other women in Bible study would want to listen to. So, I took her over and probably looked like a first time mommy as it took me forever to actually leave. I was so happy when they called me though because she was crying. My fear is that she will cry forever in there and they won't call me. She was just hungry when they called so I fed her and then went back to Bible study. When I came to pick her up she all smiles. I think this is the earliest I have put a baby in the nursery.
Ellie learned how to ride a bike without training wheels. She did not even need any help. I went out for a run, came back and she was riding around the driveway training wheel free. John said that she asked to have them taken off then got on and rode. What a big girl. Emma tried too but she is not quite ready and she was fine with that. John put the training wheels back on and Emma rode forever, she loves riding her bike. We may need to get another bike soon since we only have one.

I have been trying to get Olivia to take the pacifier and she is actually taking it. She is my first baby to do so. I have to say it is quite convenient. I first had her do it because she loves to suck her thumb and to me it seems easier to take away the pacifier than the thumb. I am not sure that it is working to keep her from her thumb but I will keep trying.

Well, I have been all over the place with this post. I will leave you with a few pics.

Here is Miss Emma with her pacifier. In the picture below, you can see I may be losing the no thumb battle.Ellie riding her bike. Emma giving it a go with Daddy's help.
The picture below is of Olivia trying to figure out how to get her favorite toy.

I Love Summer

So... I am loving our summer break so far. I love having nothing that we have to do. We have had lazy mornings and lazy afternoons and they have been great. We have also had uncharacteristically cool weather that has been wonderful. I have all my windows open and that makes things wonderful, normally by June everything is closed up and the air conditioner is blowing full blast. It will be that way soon and I am going to eat up every minute of this nice weather.
This morning Emily and I walked to a nearby donut shop with the kids for National Donut day. What a great excuse to eat a donut. I love living so close to my best friend. I went to a reunion for my old youth group last week (Emily could not make it) and many people asked if Emily and I were still close friends (we were inseparable in high school) and I said yes we are, we live half a mile from each other and we married best friends. They all thought that was very funny.
This morning when we got home from the walk the girls and I were sitting around talking as I nursed Liv. We got to talking about the future and Emma said that she was going to live with John and I forever. I told her that ,while I would love for her to live with us forever, I am sure that she will want to start a family of her own some day and get her own home. She decided that she would move into the house next to us and I could help her take care of her five babies. Ellie let me know that it would be her husband who stayed home with her children when she grows up because she will be a veterinarian. It is fun to see how the girls picture their future, I need to write down what they say because when they grow up they will love to hear what they thought would happen to them. I am sure that their plans will change many times over the years.
Well, I am off to clean house because the lazy afternoons and mornings do not a clean house make!!

Picture Update

I have been so bad about blogging lately, just have not seemed to have the time. I thought I would do a quick picture update.

Miss Olivia turned three months on the May 10th, she is almost four months now, can't even believe it.

We went to the school carnival for our charter school, it was a lot of fun. I love the charter school we go through. In the picture of Ellie and Emma they are standing in front of a strawberry patch, there is a farm at our school, complete with goats, chickens, bunnies and other fun animals.

The girls had their Spring Fest for gymnastics. They both did so well and I was so proud of the both. I love that picture of Emma. The second is of Ellie on the beam and I think she is so brave to get up there and do her thing.

This last picture is of John and his sister, she came for a quick visit. John is so close to his sisters, I hope my kids will be that close some day. My girls love their Aunt Bekah!!

The Mission

I realized as I wrote that title it must sound like I am going on some great missions trip or talking about some beautiful California Mission that I just went to. But sadly it is a much more trivial mission of which I am speaking, or writing as the case may be. It is the mission to redecorate my babies room using what I have and $40. Lets see if I can do it. I had all these grand plans to decorate Olivia's room in the theme of Olivia the book and I will still do that someday but for now I need to not be spending money that I don't have. John has plans to redo the floors and take off all the walls and add insulation (as our house has none and we add it room by room) so it would be silly to spend a lot of money to paint and do all I want to do anyway. Sooooo.... I am going to deal with the blue walls I painted just over a year ago and decorate with what I have. I am excited about this challenge and can't wait to post pictures. For now Olivia sleeps with us so her room- to-be is just a big storage room and it is quite a mess. The challenge now will be just to clean it up!