Random thoughts......

It is official I am getting worse and worse at blogging. I am now so behind and have so many things I wish I would have recorded. 

  I guess I will start with the highlight of my day. As many of you are aware it is general conference weekend. A time to hear the words of our beloved prophet, and spend time with your family. As the Saturday afternoon session started the primary children's choir started singing I am a child of God. The girls were upstairs playing and had sat through most of the first session. As they started to sing Madelyn came running out of her room and almost forgot to stop at the top of the stairs. Grinning from ear to ear saying "dats my song"!! She came down and did not move while the kids sang that song. Kaitlyn and Jenna weren't far behind. 

  I guess I just found myself really loving my family this weekend. We went on a little family outing last night with some friends. We thought it was A corn maze, turned out there were 3. They had so many fun things a big slide, a train pulled by a 4 wheeler, these Go cart/bikes and a petting zoo.  I remember sitting on the train holding Madelyn and hearing all of the little kiddos laughing hysterically from all of the bumps. the sound of laughter filled the sky. (It really was a lot of fun!) I honestly don't remember the last time I laughed like that, and really just enjoyed myself. My kids are growing up so fast, it makes me so sad. 

  I realized today that I think we have reached the next phase in things. As Joe headed off to the priesthood session, ALL us girls went shopping! (Well window shopping at Toys r us!) My 2 oldest girls have left the dolly and make believe phase for make up, Hannah Montana, and electronics I know nothing about! I kept saying this is fun.... and they would reply "yeah Madelyn would really like that Mom"!  Just the other day Kaitlyn said with a look of disgust "Mom... Your WEIRD"! I am sure it isn't the last time I will hear that, but it stung just a little. I realized I only have a few more years before I won't KNOW anything, and won't be COOL enough to hang out with them anymore.  So for now I am trying to savor every moment I have.....

I'm MOVING....

Okay not really but if the bugs in this state get any bigger, I am moving!!The giant caterpiller like thing the kids found. I think it might be a tomato worm, or at least that is what we called them as kids. The spider, I had the priviledge of finding in my garage! It was huge. I think it is a wolf spider. Whatever kind of spider it is it is huge and creepy. By far the largest spider I have ever seen in nature. The funny things is that Joe has been telling the girls that if they kill bugs outside, they will have to eat them. (of course not really) So he let it go!! Can you say NIGHTMARES..... I really hate bugs. Especially HUGE ONES!!!

School Already.....

Where did the summer go! I cannot believe it is over. School started today for Kaitlyn and Jenna. That just leaves little Madelyn at home with me. We had a great day. I couldn't help but to get a little teary eyed as I said good bye on the playground this morning. My kids are growing up so fast! They both kind of had that deer in the headlights look too, as they turned and looked at me before they went in. It was a little different this year. Kaitlyn started in yet another school. Because of our move we were not able to register them until just a weeks ago. We found out who her teacher was the day before school started. Fortunately, we did not miss the kindergarten open house for Jenna. That was really good for her to see where she was going, and who her teacher was. To our surprise there are 2 little girls that she already knows in her class. YEAH!

I remember when I picked Kaitlyn up from Kindergarten her first day. She climbed in the car and said "That was the best day ever", and then she broke into tears.(Is she my kid or what!) She was so overwhelmed. Jenna was much the same only she fought it a little harder. She saw me and gave me a huge hug. I thought I was going to have to carry her on my leg to the car! She was a little teary but did great!

We will be adding the bus to our school adventure soon. But for now School was overwhelming enough for both of them without worrying about the bus too.

My little Kindergartner

My 2nd Grader

And my Future Kindergartner

Aren't they cute!

** Notice Kentuckians: it is already jacket weather here!!

Celebrating Kindergarten

We started somewhat of a tradition when Kaitlyn was getting ready to go to Kindergarten. We "celebrate" by going out to dinner. With Kaitlyn we had Wicks pizza and celebrated with the Borders. This year we went to Red Robin to celebrate kindergarten with Jenna. Red Robin is a yummy hamburger place here in billings. It was a tasty treat complete with milkshakes, and Jenna was thrilled. It was yummy that is until they brought us a basket of fries with a fried grasshopper on top of it!!! Gross!!
The things that really grosses me out is that I know they DIDN'T run right back and drain the grease that apparently they are cooking bugs in. So that means they continued to serve fries cooked in bug infested grease! Yes, I am sure the temperature is hot enough that any creepy little germs would be killed, but it's still very gross! The Manager was nice enough to buy our family one persons meal. He also seemed very impressed that we were not furious and yelling at him! Even though this was pretty gross, I was more grossed out and furious with McDonald's when they served me a RAW chicken club sandwich and I took a bite!! They were completely rude in dealing with it too! So my question is what is the grossest thing you have found in your FOOD!!!

I am so behind....

So I am not sure what happens to my time. I have good intentions and the next thing I know a whole month has gone by again!

We are all moved in! I am afraid my house pictures are pretty boring. The color doesn't show up nearly as well as the magenta! We painted mostly white ( I am pretty plain I know, but it looks so clean!) The wall that was Magenta we painted a "Smokey oyster" which turned out somewhat of a taupe color. We still have no decor up. After feverishly painting for every minute of the day for a solid 7 days, I can't bring myself to put holes in my pretty walls just yet.

I got a sweet deal that only a Mom could really appreciate! This LG Tromm washer and dryer set sells for $1700. I got this for a total price of $963.00!! Thank you HOME DEPOT!
Home depot has a price match guarantee which they will match the price and then take an additional 10% off. Well Sears had this set on sale for 15 % off . Home depot matched it and gave me another 10% off. Then I opened a home depot card which saved me another 10%!! Can I just say I love them!! I washed all 3 of my girls beds in 1 load!! Amazing!

This post would not be complete without adding a picture of Joe's "Man Cave"!

Right now it is also fully furnished with yard sale furniture ( Bye bye Mauve couch! The coke machine came with the house and Joe was so bummed that it didn't work! As luck would have it the day we closed on our house, as we were picking up our babysitter, we saw the Pepsi machine at a yard sale! Needless to say it goes quite nicely in the "Man Cave"!

A sneak peek....

We are moved in and starting to see beyond the cardboard! I love NOT hauling groceries and 3 children up 3 flights of stairs! In fact I turned in the keys today and I was so excited to say good bye forever (I hope) to apartment living. I can't help but to think how very blessed I am! It was quite a chore to move out of the 3rd floor, mostly just time consuming wating for the elevator! We are so blessed with great friends that came and helped us. THANK YOU GUYS!!

Last week we painted almost our entire house! The people that lived here before us patched the walls with the wrong color of paint in almost every room! ( Very Annoying) And yes they really did have one wall that was magenta. The entire living room was grey! Did I mention they loved sponge painting as well.... Needless to say I have had my fill of painting for quite a while, we even painted the vaulted ceiling!! I can say this is one of the few homes that we looked at, that didn't have "MT" blue paint, somewhere on the premises. Can you guess what color we painted......just kidding.

Here are some of the before pictures. And again my camera doesn't do them justice, you will just have to believe me it really was magenta!

Our new house!

Bad news grey walls and sponge paint job (yuck)

Magenta Be GONE!! ( the primer)

I will post some "After" pictures as soon as I find the camera.......

Can't catch my breath

We are still alive in "Hannah Montana" ! I can't believe I have posted nothing since Father's Day! Life has been so crazy, more details to come, but we just purchased our very FIRST home on Friday!! We are so excited and I promise I will post more. But for now we are frantically trying to get the ENTIRE inside of the house painted by this Friday. (Magenta just wasn't working for me!:) Anyway I promise to catch up on all our crazy adventures very soon! But for now visions of paint and empty boxes that need to be filled are taking over my thoughts!!!