I like welding, welding is fun...

I have a little spade that I use in the garden. It's a metal shovel tip with a wooden handle. Lately, the wood handle is breaking off because it has always been outside. I told Merril I need a new handle built for it. He had a piece of leftover pipe and said I could have it and weld it to the spade tip. He offered to weld it for me but I've always been intrigued by the welder and wanted to give it a go. The whole idea of passing electric current through metal and getting it so hot that it melts and fuses together. Very fun. Plus it throws pretty sparks. :)

(Welding helmets are important, we don't want burned retinas.)

And here's my new garden shovel. It'll take a million years for that handle to corrode off.

My bountiful basket ran dry this week...

So I've been participating in a produce co-op for a couple of months called Bountiful Baskets www.bountifulbaskets.org. It's been great for us because we get a lot of fruits and veggies for at least half of what I normally pay at the stores. Pick-up times are not negotiable, I don't get to choose the produce, and the website is a little wonky at times. That being said, I'm overwhelmingly satisfied with the amount of produce for $16.50. I can deal with the rest.

So fast forward to this week: The two volunteer gals who run the thing decided to take a week off for scheduled website maintenance and just because. I understand that. I see the need. If I were volunteering all those hours so a bunch of strangers could get a good deal, I'd be tired too. But ohmigoodness I went to the Wally World and got a package of blueberries and some grapes and spent $5! I felt so ripped off because I've really gotten used to paying $16.50 and getting an amazing amount of food. Amazing! So take the week off girls, but I need you next week!

Playing make believe...

Jack and Juliet love to play in the basement. It's generally a mess and there's cool stuff down there to get into. Today, they found a box of winter gear and a whole expedition was spawned. I'm not quite sure what it was all about but I know they were trekking long distances in the game.

Apparently Jack needed a walking stick to make it but Juliet was able to do it without shoes. This evolved from an earlier game where Jack was a farmer, thus the overalls. :)

Only a week and a half until school is out!

I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to the summer. Some of you may say, "What am I going to do with all my kids when they're out of school?" Personally, I'm focusing on the mornings where I won't have to drag myself out of bed in order to drag Maxine out of bed. I can tell she's done for the year. I'm looking forward to a few months without so many schedules. More time hanging out and less time screaming, "Get your shoes on RIGHT NOW, or we're going to miss the bus!!" True, we'll have to come up with more activities to keep the kids occupied, but......I.......seriously.........can't........wait!

Moabites...

Every time we go to Moab, I wonder if natives call themselves Moabites. (Ruth, Moabite daughters-in-law, etc.) Anyhoo, we went camping in Moab with some friends. I had the best time! I think some other people did too.

We got there late Thursday night and had a hard time finding a spot to camp. So we camped at an overflow spot and then changed to a nice camp spot the next morning. We decided to go on a trail in the Scout. Merril and I built this shade top to keep the kids out of the sun. That PVC would not hold up in a roll, believe me.

Since the Scout has run beautifully for a year, it decided to act up while we were in Moab. Urg. Darryl and Shauna towed us on a couple of occasions!! You guys are the best! (Seriously, if you guys don't ever want to camp with such needy friends again, we'll understand.)

The kids had a great time playing in the dirt. Juliet rarely had a pair of shoes on. She also stood a little too close to the fire on a windy morning and singed the back of her hair.

We went hiking to Landscape Arch and had a few meltdowns on the way back to the truck. They seem happy in the picture.

And of course we had to try Potato Salad Hill. The Scout kept dying because of the incline. It was battling a fuel system problem.

Jack and Will, Shauna's son, fell asleep in the back of the Darryl's Jeep at one point.

Then one night a bunch of friends came to visit around the campfire and burn smores. Good times. I've never seen so many flaming marshmallows and kids whipping hot, poker sticks. I think we all kept our eyes.

Maxine made me a Mother's Day gift at school. We brought it so I could open it on Mother's Day. Merril surprised me with an egg slicer as a gift. Yeah!! Some of you might be thinking, "Egg slicer? What's up with that??" First of all, I LOVE to make egg salad sandwiches!! A few months ago, Jack bent and pulled all the wires on my old egg slicer. I haven't purchased a new one since. Merril saw me making egg salad a couple of days before we left for Moab and knew it was the perfect gift! He's REALLY good at thinking of gifts that I really want!

We went to church the next day and came home. I feel bad for the people we sat next to in church. I'm sure we stunk like campfire smoke.

I LOVE CAMPING!!

I keep waiting for Spring to warm up...

Brrrr...Why is it so cold today?? It's May!! The sun was shining for a moment and I snapped some of my flowers in the front yard.

Learning something new every day...

I'm often surprised at how long I've been doing something incorrectly.

I realized today that I've been misspelling the number 40. It's not fourty like I thought, but forty (no U after the O.)

Just to make sure. I spelled twenty, thirty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, and one hundred into spell checker as well. :) I'm bound and determined to correctly spell 40 from now on.

District Science Fair...

Maxine advanced to the district science fair and competed today. She had to stay there from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and then I picked her up for lunch. Afterwards, the fair was open to the public for a half hour and then the awards ceremony. Maxine didn't win 3rd, or 2nd, or 1st place in her age division. So I gave her a hug and told her she did great! She seemed a little bummed. So I started to sneak back to her exhibit to clean it up. So after I got it cleaned up, I started to walk back to where Merril and the kids were standing around waiting for the rest of the awards to finish up. Then they announced the award for Best of Fair and Maxine won it!

Here she is climbing the stairs to get her award.

Here she is standing in front of her project holding the plaque and certificate.

She won a $100 dollar savings bond too! Seriously, that's why she looks so happy. She wanted to go cash it in right away but we had to head back to the school. Wahoo!

Merril's birthday and some other stuff...

Merril's birthday was last week. He turned 32. Merril and I, and Jared and Amy went out for all-you-can-eat sushi! Yum!

On Sunday, we had some friends from the ward over for pumpkin cheesecake. (Don't ask me, Merril wanted it for his birthday. I feel like pumpkin cheesecake is more of a fall dessert. Whatever.) Unfortunately, I realized on Sunday morning that I only had 1 candle. So I made these candles with kite string and leftover Halloween candles.

They were cute but didn't really work out. The flame would accelerate too fast. We were only able to light 3 or 4 before we had an inferno going. So he blew out 4 candles and we just ate cake.

I purchased the rest of my garden dirt today. I used to have on garden box that was 6 feet wide by 11 feet deep. It was too wide so this year I decided to enlarge it and split it in half to end with 2 boxes of 4'x11', adding 22 square feet of growing space.

I'm going to make a path down the middle. The path isn't quite finished yet. Hopefully I can plant tomorrow or Thursday. I can't believe it's almost May and I don't even have my garden veggies in yet. Urg.

Some people have a raised bed with boards or railroad ties holding them together. Not me. I use all the rocks I dug out of the garden. :) Half the trench needs to be covered back up too.

And on a happy note: Our boat cover ripped pretty bad over the winter. We spent close to $300 on it and I remembered that it had a warranty but figured it had expired by now. So I called the place and they said that it had a 5-year warranty!! They said if I ship the old one back, they'll send me a new one. And then the warranty period will start over again! I don't know if they realize how windy and sunny it is here. I could be getting a new boat cover every couple of years for the rest of my life!!

Feeling like a bonehead...

Our computers are aged. We've been limping them along for a while. A couple of weeks ago, the time/date battery started to die so the computer clock would reset when I'd cut power to it. Then it started freezing up so I uninstalled our web browser, ran registry cleaner and installed the browser again. Since then, everything seemed to be running smoothly.

Then I walked downstairs a couple of days ago and saw a weired box floating on the screen. It said something like, "Dell monitor check, digital input 2." and then had 4 colors green, red, blue and white. The computer seemed to be on and running but it wouldn't respond or wake up when I touched the mouse. So I started thinking, "Has the video card gone out? or worse, the motherboard?"

So I did what I usually do and just turned it off and left it alone for a day. When I turned it back on, same deal. So I left it alone for a few more days, hoping it would feel guilty and cure itself. I came downstairs today and started poking around, looking for some obvious glitch, i.e. kids pulled the cord out of the back or something. No dice. Then I started thinking, "The input to the monitor shouldn't be digital input 2. It's analog input 1." So then I just started pushing all the buttons on the front of the monitor (the ones so tempting to little children's fingers.) I found one that resets the input to the monitor and voila! I should've poked around sooner instead of ignoring the problem for days. :) It's my way.

Update on water line to the backyard:

Completed digging 120 feet of trench!

Glued 120 feet of pipe!

Only had to run to Home Depot and Ace 4 times to get all the stuff I needed!

Only soaked Merril and the kids once with 1 faulty junction!

System is now holding water pressure with no leaks!!

As soon as the weather gets a little nicer, I'll go cover up all the pipe. The inclement weather has given me an excuse to stay inside and clean my house, which has been neglected for weeks from the said project.

Have a great day!

It worked! I made cheese!!

Okay. Last girl's night, a friend of mine wanted to try making mozzarella cheese from scratch. Using a not so accurate thermometer, 3 different friends tried to make the cheese. All 3 failed and made more of a ricotta/cottage cheese. I mentioned that I had a digital thermometer at home that might be more accurate so I was sent with the ingredients to try again!

Six days later...

Okay, so I got busy and didn't run right home and make cheese. In the meantime, Shelly found some better instructions that made more sense. Armed with my digital thermometer and new instructions, I set to work. The results, a little ball of cheese!

And boy is it squeaky!

Remember This Pile? By merril

Enter the handiest woman alive(Shown here torquing the rod bolts of the jeep engine.(Google it if you need to))

Ta Da!

Science Fair...

The Science Fair was today. I thought Science Fairs were fun when I was a kid. I guess I didn't realize how much work they are as a parent. Maxine did the experiment but the board was kind of a pain to put together. (It didn't help that we procrastinated the board until the last possible second and then the printer ran out of ink half way through.)

Maxine loves rocks and crystals. Her experiment was to determine which rock from our backyard was the hardest. We collected 5 samples. Here's Maxine performing a scratch test with a rock and a piece of glass.

Here's Maxine in front of her board after we set up this morning.

We must have done a bang up job because she won 1st place in her grade level! Now she gets to advance to district level. I'm glad the board is already done! :)

Today...

Picked up basket of fruits and veggies from local co-op at 7 a.m.

Made waffles for breakfast.

Dug a 25-foot long by 1-foot deep trench for backyard water line with a pick ax.

Sold 1 Sega Genesis game system on Ebay.

Pulled out 2 dead bushes in the front yard.

Planted 2 bushes in the front yard.

Did 1 round of dishes.

Made dinner.

Made 3 batches of strawberry freezer jam.

Got 3 kids in bed on time.

Watched 1 movie on YouTube.

THE END

Bunnies and finished projects...

Around Easter, I was reading the baking blog that I follow and saw the cutest idea for a cupcake! Make cupcakes, frost with green frosting, dye coconut green for grass, make chocolate bunny shapes and add jelly beans! They were so much fun.


Maxine and I are were thinking about it later and the cupcake could easily be made to look like baskets, using licorice or something for a handle.

And today I dropped off some stuff to the D.I. and walked in to look at books and picture frames. I found one to fit Jack's Mini Cooper poster and laid down 4 bucks. We came home, painted it, and mounted it on the wall. Ta-da! Yeah, that's done!

It looks awesome hanging on the wall! But I boneheaded Maxine's soccer game this afternoon and totally forgot. We just sat at home when she should've been playing. So lame.

Renting woes...

I tried to rent Sherlock Holmes from Redbox tonight. It's totally unavailable. Not because they're sold out but because Redbox won't be carrying the title for another month. Apparently, Blockbuster video stores are close to bankruptcy and some suit in the corporate office is buddies with the head of Warner Brothers. So Warner Brothers signed a deal with Blockbuster to limit their DVD rental releases exclusively to Blockbuster for the first 28 days after it comes out. So places like Netflix and Redbox will not be able to carry Warner Bros. titles for a month so the guys at Blockbuster can catch a break. Warner Bros. is also hoping to boost DVD sales because if I can't rent it, I should just go out and buy it, right?

Personally, I think it stinks. Mostly because the closest Blockbuster video store is 2 hours away. There have to be at least 15 Redbox kiosks in my general vicinity but I won't be able to rent the movie I wanted to see for another month.

I noticed that Sherlock Holmes is still at the cheap movie theater in town and I'm seriously considering dropping the 2 bucks to go see it. Lousy, Hollywood producers. Out.

Who knew I was raising such a food snob?

For school, Maxine needed plastic eggs filled with candy for the class egg hunt. At Wal-Mart, I cheaped out and bought knock-off brand of foil-wrapped chocolate eggs. I had a few and thought, "These taste like shortening flavored with sugar and cocoa. But the kids won't notice." So I got all the eggs with candy in them and had a few left over for the kids to eat. Maxine had a bite and said,

"Mom, Hersey chocolate is way better than this stuff."

*sigh* I know, I know. I cheaped out!! So I downloaded a coupon so I could spring for Nestle NestEggs in ButterFinger and Crunch varieties. What I really want to get are those Kinder Eggs from Europe but I thought about it too late. They can't guarantee delivery by Easter.

And then today she came home from the Easter hunt at school and said, "I ate some candy on the way home. Not the jelly beans though because they aren't Jelly Belly's. The jelly beans I got were gross." So it seems I must purchase Jelly Belly brand jelly beans as well. When did she get to be such a food snob?

I guess it's hard to go back to single-ply toilet paper when you've been living the double-ply lifestyle. Happy Easter!

New plants!

When we moved into our house, I kept saying, "We'll finish the backyard some day and I'll plant my fruit trees then." This Spring, my next door neighbor put in a block wall and it added a finished element to that side of the yard. I got tired of waiting for the cash to "finish" my backyard. I saved up $80 and bought dirt, an apricot tree, a pomegranate bush and a grape vine. That was the easy part.

The hard part was digging the holes for said plants. Imagine my backyard as a huge boulder field. In between the boulders are smaller rocks, gravel and clay. The clay and gravel act as cement and holds all the rocks and boulders together. Yeah, good for house foundations, bad for digging holes with a shovel and pick ax.

But I was able to finish all the holes and only needed the Scout to pull out one of the boulders with a strap. (It was about 2 1/2 feet in diameter and about 1 foot tall.) Here's the apricot tree: (Notice all the small rocks in the background.) :)

Here's the grape vine. It's a red, seedless variety!

Here's the pomegranate with Juliet for scale.

The leftover boulder field that I'll move eventually.

The best part this adventure is that the apricot tree had blossoms on it when I purchased it from Star Nursery. It sat in the pot for about a week, waiting to be planted and meanwhile those blossoms turned into little apricots! I bet there's a dozen. I just hope the shock of transplanting doesn't make them fall off. I might eat an apricot this year! Yeah!

Jack's Mini Cooper S

A couple of weeks ago, Merril was gone for a bit because he was hanging out with some pals from Australia. They were in California and came up here to stay for a couple of days. The guys were gathering car parts from America that are otherwise unavailable in Australia.

Anyway, one of the guys, named Aden, draws sketches of concept cars for his occupation. While they were here, he was talking with Jack and asked what kind of car Jack likes. Jack said a Mini Cooper. So Aden, I'm guessing because he was itching to draw something, grabbed his art supplies and started sketching. This 12x18 sketch is what came out:

I was amazed because he did this completely from memory. I'm going to frame it and hang it in Jack's room!

Jesus and the one-armed man...

So anyway, a few weeks ago, Merril comes home from playing racquetball with his BFF, Jared, and said, "We played racquetball with Jesus and the one-armed man today."

I paused, blinked a few times and then said, "What?"

He kind of laughed and then said that He and Jared played another doubles team today and one guy was Hispanic and his name was Jesus (hey-suess) and another guy who was hurt in a motorcycle accident and only has the use of one arm. (I think his name was Brent or Brett) Technically, he has two arms but his right arm doesn't work anymore so he straps it to his body and has to play with his left arm. Merril says he's pretty good, especially since he thinks he used to be right handed before the accident.

So there you have it! Merril and Jared play racquetball sometimes with Jesus and the one-armed man.

A day of change...

It's that time of year again! The daffodils are springing forth from the ground, birds are singing in the trees and Merril shaved his head.

So this is how he looked Saturday morning.

By afternoon, he looked like this:

By evening he'd evolved to this: (The shaved head and beard was my idea. He didn't really go for it.)

By bedtime, he looked like this:

What can I say, he gets bored easily. At least he keeps things interesting! Hope you're having a great weekend!

Yeah Spring Break!

Even though we didn't go anywhere exciting, I still feel like we had a fun Spring Break. We roasted marshmallows and had s'mores for FHE with some neighbors and friends.

I think Maxine was trying to blow on the fire to get it going.

Juliet refused to wear shoes even though the ground was littered with glass and nails.

The fire could've been a little bigger but our Christmas tree just wouldn't burn after all the rain.

On Friday, I took the kids to see The Princess and the Frog at the cheap theater with some other friends. I had visions of my kids sitting and watching the movie without moving a muscle. And they all did great for a solid hour. Then Juliet had to go to the bathroom and when she came back, she didn't want to sit still anymore. About this same time, my friend Shauna gave up and took her wiggly kids home. Then Jack had to go to the bathroom. Then they were all switching seats and Juliet spent the remainder of the movie running up and down the aisle. We made it until the end of the movie but I was exhausted by then. Juliet needs another year.

On the last day of Spring Break, the kids and I took a picnic and went hiking. Jack perfected his bum slide. Then he found this hole and climbed up into it. I promise I didn't pose him. That's just how he sat for his picture.

And then Maxine and Juliet didn't want to be left out of the hole so they all climbed in.

Then we hiked up some narrows. I should've been in the middle so I could help Jack and Juliet climb up so we got stuck for a second until I told Maxine to boost Jack up. That place is skinnier than I remember.

Wahoo Spring Break! I can't wait for summer!

Enter the Easy Bake Oven...

For a couple of months, Maxine has been bugging me to get her an Easy Bake Oven. I have miniature cake pans and loaf pans and said we could make a little cakes in the big oven. I got an eye roll and was told, "That's no fun." But Christmas is over and her birthday is not for another 9 months. (Basically, I said she was out of luck.)

But then I came up with the idea that she could sell something on Ebay to earn money for her Easy Bake Oven. So that's what we did and she made enough money. Today we purchased the Easy Bake Oven and a clear 100w bulb. (Which was harder to come by than I thought it would be.)

She donned her apron:

Waited patiently for it to cook and cool:

And frosted her cake:

Apparently Lucky Charm marshmallows needed to be added:

I remember it taking forever to cook something but it only took 12 minutes. That's about as fast as my oven. So it's all good. I always loved my Easy Bake Oven as a kid.

On a side note the quality of the cake mix and frosting were, how do I put this, so extremely poor. I've already found a ton of Easy Bake Oven recipes so we can make home made cookies, cakes, brownies, and even pizza instead of the crummy, and might I add overpriced, Easy Bake mixes. Not that she noticed, it was just me. I guess my standards for baked goods have gone up over the years.

The Tahoe drove away...

The guy that was going to buy the Tahoe didn't work out but another guy came and looked at it on Wednesday night. He arranged for financing and drove it away Friday night. *sniff, sniff* I'll miss it. (No, the Jeep isn't ready yet but that's okay. I'll ride my bike or something.) As fun as it is to have a 3rd row seat, it'll be nice to only have one seating option. With 2 rows of seats, someone always wants to sit in the very back and then there's whining if someone gets left out.

I did fix the door on the Jeep today. It wouldn't open very well from the outside. For me, that's a frustrating issue. I don't like objects that don't function as intended. I'm waiting for the JB Weld to dry and then I'll put the door back together on Monday. I LOVE JB WELD!! If you've never used it, think of it like liquid metal glue stuff that bonds items for life. The only downside is it takes a long time to cure (15-24 hours.) I've used it to repair motorcycle fairings, a broken knob from the radio, chess set pieces, china and much more.

Sorry you had to suffer through that infomercial.

Crazy hair day...

This week at school has been Dr. Suess week. Yesterday was crazy hair day so we did this to Maxine's hair:

There's a u-shaped wire from a hanger weaved into the braids to make them stand up. I actually had to fix them around lunch time. I was in the library anyway for a PTA meeting. Other than that, they stayed up all day.

By the time I turn 30...

Last night, I was looking through my past blog posts and ran across one entitled, "What do you want to accomplish by the time you're 30?" It was written in December 2007. Now that I'm 30, I was interested to see if I'd accomplished any of my goals.

My first goal: To survive until I'm 30. (Juliet was a hard baby.) DONE!

Second goal: Finish the backyard and basement. Not so done.

Third (and my favorite) goal: No more diapers. All kids potty trained. DONE and DONE!

Two out of three ain't bad!

P.S. Can you believe it's March already??

Fixed window...

My bedroom window was replaced today. It cracked after a neighbor shot it with a BB gun. The whole thing was an accident and she paid for it so it's all good. And we're in the process of selling the Tahoe. *sniff, sniff* Cue the sad music.

I know she's a beauty but let's face facts, I can't afford it anymore. We've got a guy who's getting his financing together so for now, I'm still driving it.

Which is good because my new ride, a 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee, is sitting in the garage all torn apart.

What's that you say? You don't see the potential there? I know, I know...it's dirty, it's broken, and it's a little older. BUT, we've already got parts and it's going back together tomorrow. I've already detailed the interior and am waiting for it to roll out of the garage so I can detail the outside. It was cheap, $400. The parts to fix it were another $400. Not bad. Plus I won't have a car payment anymore! Yeah!!

The body is free of dents and the interior's in great shape. The paint could use some help but I've already got an idea for that.

Don't worry folks, by the time Merril and I are done with it, you won't even recognize it. (I love before and after pictures!!)

Three-zero...

Turned 30. Did a back flip on the trampoline. Decided I wasn't that old. Smiled.

Valentine's Vegas...

Merril took me to Vegas for Valentine's Day and my birthday.

We ate dinner at the Top of the World Restaurant at the Stratosphere. The dining area revolves so the view changes throughout dinner. It takes 1 hour and 20 minutes to make a complete rotation. (Apparently going that slow can still make some people sick.)

Then Merril wanted to ride the new ride, Insanity, at the top of the Stratosphere. 900 feet from the ground, they strap you in, swing the crane arm over the edge and then spin you around and around. Merril said the feeling is very similar to skydiving. (My pictures were either too dark or too blurry so I nabbed this stock photo.)

Can you imagine the insurance it takes to run that thing? I opted not to ride because it was really cold and I was really full. We'd just spent a bunch on dinner and I felt like keeping it where it was.

This was in front of our hotel right before we left. We were in the tall tower on the left, halfway up. It had a great view! It was great to have a night to ourselves without the kids! Thanks to all who helped out!