Return of the Tumble Weed

Every year I wonder when they are going to show up. It's usually sometime in March when the wind really starts to blow. Last year they showed up when we were at church. We went to church, no tumble weeds, and when we came home, there they were waiting for us. Today when the wind really started blowing, I knew they were going to show up any moment. Sure enough, I went to Walmart and when I got back there they were. All of the houses on our street look this way, although the neighbor just next to us always seems to get it the worst. If you can imagine anything worse than the picture above. We hate the tumble weed, they are the true tumble weeds too, big balls of thorny twigs. The only fun thing about them is after we clean them up, we get to burn them. You can't imagine the huge bonfire this many tumble weeds creates.

Meet Lu Lu!
Yes, its true we have a new member in our house! A cute little puppy named Lu Lu. We have been thinking about getting a dog for quite awhile now. We got pretty serious about it over Christmas, but decided that it would be better to wait until spring, when it would be easier to house train it. We went out looking for dogs today, and fell in love with this little cutie.

Kaylee showing off Lu Lu, she it taking over roll of boss of the dog. She makes sure everyone is taking turns and treating the dog right.

In kindergarten, Brianne had to draw a picture and write a sentence to go with it, about why she loved her family. She drew a picture of a dog and wrote, " I love my family because they are getting me a dog." I will rest a lot easier knowing Brianne loves us now.

I don't know if you can imagine a little girl who loves animals more than Sydnie does. She is never without a stuffed animal, and when she sees a dog, even a extremely large dog, Sydnie is never afraid to go and pet it. Her older sisters don't know it, but they have Sydnie to thank for this dog. Shaun never even considered a dog before Sydnie, but seeing how much she loves animals, finally turned him around.

So wish me luck. I know I've got a tough job ahead of me. Especially these first few nights. Not to mention potty training, so far no accidents but its just the first day, so I better prepare myself. Does anyone know of a good cleaner for accidents? I'm sure I will need it. And what about Shaun, the one we had to talk into the dog? He had had to have his fair share of turns holding it, and the puppy took a two hour nap on shauns lap. So I'm pretty sure he likes her.

Sydnie

I think one of the things I love best about blogging is it gives me a place to write down those silly things your kids say and do. I didn't have a blog when Kaylee and Brianne were little and I didn't get around to writing down all of the cute things they said when they were little, you think you will remember them but even a month later you can't remember exactly how they said it or did it. So here are two cute things about Sydnie I thought I would write down before I forget.

Sydnie calls churches castles. I don't know exactly where she found out about castles, probably from Dora, but one day when we were going to church, she got so excited and pointed to the church saying, "mommy castle". Kaylee and Brianne tried to correct her, but she just kept insisting it was a castle. I of course don't correct her because I think its cute. So when we passed one the other day and she started saying, "mommy castle", I just said, "yep, its a castle". Then she looks at me and shakes her head, "no mommy, church".

Yesterday I caught Sydnie in the bathroom dumping out the air freshener I have for a decoration. This is the second time I caught her doing it, so I gave her a tiny spanking. Evidently it wasn't hard enough because she didn't cry, she just glared at me and when I turned around to leave I felt a little slap on my bum, she decided to spank mommy back. I tried not to laugh, but Briannne and a couple of the neighborhood girls were in the bathroom when this was going on and they thought it was hilarious. So wish me luck with this one. Now in Sydnie's head, spanking mommy equals everyone laughing and paying lots of attention to you.

Can you tell I'm avoiding spring cleaning?

Three posts in a week. My life must be pretty exciting, or there is something else going on. Could it be that I am suppose to be spring cleaning? Well like it or not I have to get started, but I will do one more post before I do. We did do some fun things this weekend:

Kaylee's first Piano recital

Kaylee preformed in her very first piano recital Saturday morning. She did a good job. She played three songs: I'm a Little Teapot, Bear Necessities, and Campdown Races.

Kaylee concentrating on her piano piece

Taking a little walk

On Sunday it was so nice we decided to go for a little walk behind our house. This is where we ended up:

You can see our house way down below. We didn't go all the way up the mountain behind our house, but we did go all the way up one of the smaller foothills. Kaylee and Brianne have their pockets full of treasure. Brianne thought almost every rock was a treasure, we had a hard time convincing her to drop some of them.

Sydnie resting at the top. The only thing Sydnie brought home was a TICK!!! We didn't find it until it was half way embedded in her neck. Shaun tried to pull it out with the tweezers, but it's head broke off in her skin. I took her to the doctor to get the rest out this morning, and you will be surprised to know, (at least I was) that they don't get all that concerned about ticks in Utah. They say that Lyme disease isn't a problem in Utah and the tick usually has to be in the skin for at least three days for you to even have a chance of getting it. They didn't even take the rest of the tick out. They just said it should come out on its own in a few days. Who knew? Unfortunately I do now.

On our walk (hike) we were on the look for fossils and we really lucked out and found a rock jam packed with fossilized seashells. Not just impressions of seashells but the actual shells. Here is Kaylee and Brianne holding a portion of the rock. Shaun broke it into a few smaller more manageable pieces to take home.


Here is a close-up of one of the fossils if you click on this picture you can get a good view of them.

Wall Decor Ideas

I have this spot above my bed that I have had a really hard time finding something that I think will fit there. I saw some framed photos at Ikea that I liked, but I just couldn't spend the $50 bucks they wanted for it. I'm a do it yourself kind of girl, so I decided to go out today and just take a few snapshots of some landscape near my house and see what I could come up with. The photos themselves weren't anything special, but I found this really cool editing technique on Photoshop Elements that I thought I would share. It is so easy and it makes just an ordinary picture of a tree seem special.

So this what you do: Open your picture in Photoshop editor(by the way if you don't have a photo editing program and are looking for one Adobe Photoshop is definitely the way to go), then in the photo effects section find the old photo icon and drag and drop it onto your photo. You can stop there, but in the photos below I also dragged and dropped the Sepia tint on it as well, because it matches my room. You can get a 16 x20 print at Costco for around $5. Of course you also have to have it framed, I plan on keeping my eyes open for one at Ross or I might just make my own frame, (I know how I just don't want to). Costco is now printing photos onto canvas, so you wouldn't need a frame but it is pretty pricey, but I think it is a great option for family photos because it has a cleanable finish on it. I plan on getting our next set of family photos printed this way.

Here are a few of the photos I took today:

This tree was just in the parking lot of the place I went to take photo's. Who knew it would be one of my favorites.

Cancun

Shaun and I celebrated 15 years of marriage last week in Mexico. It wasn't our official anniversary, but we wanted to go to Mexico in the spring, so we decided to go now before it got too far into spring break season. I don't know if it was the hotel we chose, or I was right about going early, but it really wasn't too crowded. We had a great time our Hotel was nice, the food was okay. It was all inclusive, so it was nice just not to have to worry about trying to find somewhere to go to eat unless you wanted too.


Our first day there we went to Salvatica. They have zip lines through the canopy, and then at the end they take you to a cenote (cave filled with water) to go swimming. Here I am at the cenote ready to zip line into the water.

Day two we drove to Telum to see the ruins, we were close to a place called Xel Hah so we decided to go ahead and go snorkeling there. This is Shaun at Xel Hah, he doesn't look too thrilled about getting his picture taken. We had fun snorkeling. There are tons of cool fish to look at out there, but we kept getting sea sick and having to take breaks. Who knew you can get sea sick snorkeling.

Everywhere we go Shaun is wanting to steal fruit. In Florida it was oranges, in Oregon its the black berries, and in Cancun it was coconuts. Here is the thief running with his prize. He opened them in the hotel of course they were still too green to eat.

It was suppose to be cloudy the whole time we were there but the last day cleared up and we had a great day on the beach. We played in the waves, which were actually quite big because it had been windy, found some really neat seashells, even a large conch, and then rented jet skis. We had fun on the jet skis, but I got really sea sick and Shaun had to finish up on his own while I recoverd on the beach.

Our last morning in Cancun we got up early enough to see the sunrise. This was the view from our hotel room balcony.

Spring Show

I made the long drive to Idaho by myself to set up for my Spring Show. Both Nancy and my mom were gone, so Shaun decided it would be easier to babysit at home than in Utah. So I just drove down in the morning, set up, then drove back home, all in one day. I moved to a smaller booth, so I had a little more to do than usual. I had some new shelves to hang, and the big shelve I made to put in. Everything fit fine and looked good, and what a relief to have this checked off my to do list.


My new booth at the show, I told Nancy I would post this picture so she would have an idea of what it is suppose to look like when she comes to clean up for me. Thanks Nancy.



Here is a semi new item. I discovered some new chalk board vinyl and it has been fun figuring out ways to use it. This is a chalk board and a magnet board.


Another use for the chalkboard Vinyl. These cute clip boards can go on a refrigerator or a wall.


Mini initial blocks, the smaller size is a little more manageable.


My eggs were popular last year so I did them again and the candles are on a block that says "spring has sprung."


I got a little crazy with flower hair clips. I made some cute vintage look flowers, crochet flowers, frayed flowers and some really unique zipper flowers. I am excited to see how they do.

Saying Goodbye
We have a sad day tomorrow. We have to say goodbye to our good friends the Moulton's. They are moving to North Carolina and we have to say goodbye to them tomorrow. Each of us are loosing a good friend, Kaylee and Maddy were best friends from almost the moment we moved in, and Isabelle and Brianne are practically like sisters. They have been friends since they were two, even before the time they can probably remember. And Audrey has been one of the best friends and neighbors I have ever had. Even Sydnie will miss her little buddy Micheal. Needless to say it will be a hard transition for our family. We wish them luck in North Carolina, but not too much because we still have are hopes on them coming back in a few years.


I got to finally use my digital scrap booking on a going away present for the girls. I made a little miniature book of all the pictures of them together throughout our four years together. This was the cover page.