see saw swing

Just made the kids a see saw swing. It's so fun. They LOVE it!




I put full instructions on my new Project Blog

Lydia's scripture study

     Last night for Lydia's scripture study we read Mosiah chapter 19 in the Book of Mormon. This is about the wicked King Noah taking the men and fleeing from the approching Lamanite army, leaving the women and children and a few of the men (who refused to leave their families behind) to fend for them selves. They "caused that their fair daughters should stand forth and plead with the Lamanites that they would not slay them. And it came to pass that the Lamanites had compassion on them, for they were charmed with the beauty of their women. Therefore the Lamanites did spare their lives"


 A little while after we were done reading Lydia said "Mom, I'm pretty huh."
"Yes you are Lydia, you are very pretty"
"The Lamanities wouldn't kill me because I'm so beautiful"
(chuckling to my self) "Nope, they wouldn't kill you, you are very beautiful"

ha ha ha well, at least she is getting something out of the scriptures.

I'm not quoting word for word, cause I can't remember exactly, but that is how the  conversation went anyway, And while we are reading I stop often and make sure she understands what we are reading.

I built a Swing Set!

For my birthday I got to build a swing set!  Funnest birthday present ever. Once I FINALLY got it all done I realized just how crazy I really am. I really have NO CLUE what I’m doing. But once I get an idea in my head that is really the only thing I think about till it’s done. Kind of like a pregnancy craving, you don’t want to eat anything else till you get what you are craving. Well I have….Idea cravings .

My husband is so awesome to see how ridiculous I can be, and yet support all my crazy notions. I used 2 different sets of plans cause they both had things I liked. When you mash 2 things together like that, sometimes you get "holes". I used this one and one from Ana White. 

I wanted to make one completely out of wood cause when you start getting swing set brackets and braces you can double what you would have spent on just the wood. So with a little extra work I saved a lot of money. I spent a whopping $116 on this, and I got everything I needed. 

It's made out of 10 ft 4x4's (and here is the crazy part) I thought I could do most of it my self. And if you know me at ALL, you know that strength is not one of my strengths. :) It took FOREVER cause those things are huge and heavy. 

Day 1 last Monday (my birthday) (also the hottest day so far this year) I went to lowes and got the supplys and lumber. I got one A frame put together by my self, and the other one ready for assembly. Then my parents and siblings still at home came over and surprised me that evening. They helped me get it all put together. It took all of us a little over an hour to do what would have taken me all day. It was so fun to have them there working on it with me. We got down to the VERY last nut and bolt, and then we were gonna set it up. BUT the last nut was all screwy in the fact that it would screw on. 

Day 2 I went to ACE (just down the road) to get the last nut. Got the WRONG one, so I took it back (with all 3 kids in tow) And got the wrong one AGAIN. ANNOYING. Put the kids down for naps and worked on swings. When Rissa woke up I headed to Lowes and got the RIGHT one. Finally got it all put together and My brother Joe came over that afternoon to help me set it up. 

Here is the "hole". I only had one bolt in each end connecting the A's with the beam, so essentially I made a slight hinge. The swing set was swaying side to side. GRRR. So we set it down and I spend the evening figuring out how to fix it.

Day 3: Lucky for me I grabbed a couple extra pieces of lumber when I got the last bolt so I had what I needed to fix it. I got the braces on the ends and the front, I couldn't get them on the back cause that was the side it was laying on. 

 Mom and Dad stopped by that afternoon and helped me set it up. And it was STABLE!! Then later I had to climb up the side and finish screwing it all together while it was standing. Lydia got some puctures of me while I was up there. 


My favorite part of a project is seeing it all come together. It's still a work in progress. I have 2 seat swings up, and a partial baby swing. My original design didn't work so I found a better easier one. I will get it done this week. Along with a see-saw swing. I have everything I need for it except 4 bolts. The see saw swing will be more fun to make, but I should do the baby swing first so Ris can enjoy it too.

This is the gift that keeps on giving. Since it's all wood and I made all the swings, I can continue to change it and add. (not all right now) Some day we will make a fort to go with it...some day.

It was a lot of work but SO FUN.  Like I said, I have the best Husband EVER for putting up with all my crazy projects. My poor house suffered greatly last week. :)

Danton's 3rd Birthday (2 months to late)

We celebrated Dantons Birthday at Grandmas house and invited all the cousins that live close. I made him a motorcycle tire cake. 

It says Happy 3rd Birthday Danton like tire lettering. And Uncle Joe gave him a really COOL motorcycle so we put it on top of the cake. (the motorcycle was the biggest hit)

Love this one, you can see everyone that helped blow out the candles.

 See, the motorcycle was very popular.

 He was opening his Lightening McQueen shirt and Mater shirt. He couldn't see what they were yet

 He saw the, he LOVES them. (see the HUGE hug)

And he got his very own skate board. He seriously got TONS of new toys from his cousins. Enough for everyone to play too. It was a fun day.

Family Pictures

I haven't put our family pics up here yet. It's about time, I've had them for 3 months. These are not in any particular order, these are just some of my favorites. Marisa took them for us and we spent 20 mins at the park and she got over 200 pictures and they are all awesome!

Gotta love the outhouse pictures

It was Rissa!

We told her to pose

Show me your muscles Danton!

Easy to Please

My kids are easy to please Just now Danton said
"Mom, you are the BEST Mom EVER for buying food for us!"

stuff we are doing

Well it's been a couple weeks since D's birthday, so I need to get those pics up. My excuse? We got a "new" computer, and I haven't' moved everything over yet.....ok, that is a terrible excuse.

People always ask us how things are going, or what's going on, I never know what to say, nothing new, Mark is in school and working, I'm at home with the kids....never know what to expect with that one. :)

But I guess now that I think about it, there have been a few new things going on. Ris can walk now. She doesn't do more then like 5 steps at a time, and she still crawls everywhere, but she will stand up on her own. She loves L and D. And she will go where they are and play with them. She likes it when you hold her hands and let her walk. L does it ALL the time. And R has her mouth open wide with a great big smile every time.

D is starting to sleep better. A week or so ago we started a new rule. No drinks of water at night. He would get up 2 or 3 times almost EVERY night and wouldnt go back to sleep till he had a drink of water. And often it was a TINY sip and then he would lay down and go back to sleep. Well add that to R getting up 2 or 3 times a night, and I was DONE!

The first night with the new rule I got LITTLE sleep. It was a down right battle every time he woke up, and I lost count how many times he was up that night. BUT the next night, he slept ALL NIGHT, AND he slept in till 7:00! Un-heard of. I can remember ONE other time EVER that he has slept that long. I think I have gotten up at 6 only once since we started that. Usually it's more like 6:30-6:45. SO AWESOME.

He is FINALLY potty trained! All it took was he saw his cousin stand up and go pee, and he wanted to try it. Ever since then going potty in the toilet is cool. And he has had very little accidents. That was about a week before his birthday.

L is amazing. She is such a good big sister. She sets a great example for Danton. The theme in primary is Choose The Right this year and she has taken it to heart. She talks about it all the time, and since it's important to her, it has become important to D to. The Stake primary presidency aslo challenged the kids to read the Book of Mormon this year. L is 5, and she is doing it. (well I'm reading to her, but I read as much or as little as she wants each day) She loves it. In primary they have a chart to mark the kids progress. Every 50 pages they read they get to move their star to the next marker. On Sunday L got to put her star on the 100 page mark. The primary president told me that only ONE other kid in the primary has done that so far. (which is actually a pretty big deal too, cause that kid has actually read it on their own)

They also have a scripture to memorize every month. L has done that (and in so doing D has done it too) They can come pass it off at church and get to pick out of the prize box. So far we are 2 for 2! (so proud of my kids)

As for me I'm setting a few goals for my self. I have a journal for each of my kids so I can write for them till they are old enough to do it them selves. Only I'm not so good at writing in my own journal. My last entry was 2 years ago. So my new goal is to write one entry a night. I started with A, then I did D, tonight is L, and then mine. That is writing in each of them once or twice a week. I have a white board in the kitchen that I write the funny stuff they saw down when the say it so I don't forget. Then I will record it in their journals. It's a fun project.

Also I'm not a very good house keeper. mostly cause i would rather do other stuff. But this week I have been feeling over whelmed. I can do the dishes and living room just fine. If you come to my house, you wouldn't think I was a bad house keeper cause I keep the "public" areas relatively clean. But when it comes to laundry, bathrooms, bed rooms, as well as other things, yeah, not so great. PLUS on top of that I STILL have thoes NASTY Indian Mealy Moths. Yes I know EXACTLY what they are now. Turns out that I BOUGHT a bag of brown rice that was infested. YAY! And now I'm paying for it with my food storage. Lucky for me I have not been as good at keeping my food stocked as I should, so the number of things to be thrown out was less. But today I get to start pulling EVERYTHING out of my cabinets and pantry, vacuuming and wiping everything down and inspecting all my food. FUN HUH!! I decided against the big bombs after reading about them, they just repel the bugs (which means often they just go deeper in the house to escape the fog...lovely)

So that is pretty much it. The new stuff out of the every day stuff. :)