Park City

Tyson had his final summer remediation this past week.  He studied his skinny little butt off!  It was a rough week for all of us.  

Studying in front of the fire - 95 degrees outside...

As soon as he passed that test we hit the road as fast as we could!  We headed to Park City for a weekend getaway with the Pages.

We shopped til we dropped and ate a yummy dinner at Baja Cantina.  I had been craving their flautas!  Everyone did the Alpine Slide while I got to babysit cute baby Kyler.

 Arlene, Cal, Crystal, & Hayden on the lift

Tyson & Easton on the lift - Ty said E was a little terrified and didn't have much of a smile in him!

 The boys all rode the carousel and airplanes.  This might have been the best part of the trip!  Callan made the FUNNIEST faces I've ever seen while trying to pull his throttle toward him and make the plane go up.  He was totally cheesing it.  He never did make it off the ground!

Easton got to jump again this year.  He did a couple good back flips with the guy's help.  He thought he could do it himself just by bending his knees so he did that on every jump.

When we got back to the hotel we went for a late night swim.  The boys were exhausted by this point so it was short lived!  Easton just loves the water.  The next morning the boys played golf.  Cal fell off the hotel bed and slammed his face into the nightstand.  He was not himself for the rest of the day!  While the boys golfed we went to Monkey Mountain and let the boys play.  I can't believe I didn't take any pictures there.  Maybe I was too caught up in relaxing in the parents' lounge...

We did a little bit more shopping that morning.  We didn't find much because it was the weekend before school started.  They didn't need any sales because it was packed anyway!  The boys each got to pick out a toy at the new Toys R Us outlet.  Easton chose some Sonic the Hedgehog figurines and Callan chose tractors.  They couldn't be more thrilled with their prizes.

It was another great Page getaway!  We're excited to do it again in a couple weeks with the Cooks!

Fun With Friends

We've done some fun things with our great neighbors lately.  We went to Farm Country on $2 Tuesday at Thanksgiving Point.  The boys loved the pony rides as usual.

 Callan kept saying, "Just put your hand on my back!" every time I stepped away for a second.

 The boys had quite a fascination with milking the cow...

 The next day we went to Trafalga.  We love having that nearby!

So grateful to have such good friends and neighbors to hang out with!

The Babe

This little guy is growing quickly!  Let me tell you, I feel more huge every day!  At the 20 week ultrasound everything looked great.  My due date was estimated to be December 2nd although I'm determined to have him before Thanksgiving.

Tyson gives me a progesterone shot every Tuesday to prevent preterm labor.  It's pretty much just a precaution because of Callan being so early.  I do worry about the bicornuate (heart shaped) uterus  theory because I only feel the baby on my right side.  He is never ever ever ever on the left and he is a wild kicker and mover.  So I hope he's not stuck up in there and running out of room because that's what would cause the preterm labor.  I don't want to do that again!

There has been some major nesting going on around here!  I'm feeling pretty good about things now.  Tyson worked so hard to organize the garage.  I've started fixing up Callan's room (soon to be baby's room) the way I want it.  I put Cal's crib mattress on the floor so he can practice sleeping in a big boy bed and he's doing great with it.  I went through all the clothes and have them in drawers.  I couldn't believe how tiny this little premie outfit was!

 I almost have the basement de-junked and put back together. 

 Even if this baby does come early, he's not going to catch us off guard this time!  We'll be ready!

The Boys

I kind of like my kids.  They can be pretty cute.  Callan had a long phase of not going to bed well.  It was so weird because he's always been our little sleeper!  He kept wanting to come downstairs and snuggle with mom and dad and how could we say no!

 He's our little snuggle monkey.  He told dad he just needs one more kiss!

He always sleeps with his arm to his ear!

 Tyson can't resist the snuggles.  They spent some good quality time watching golf together.  Callan loves golf and spent the rest of the day golfing his ball into the wall and saying he just made a thousand dollars!

Easton is growing up so fast!  He's such a smarty pants.  He went to a Spanish camp that someone in the neighborhood put on.  He had a great time playing with friends although I'm not sure if he learned anything!  He's kind of like his momma though...I think he just didn't want to say any of the words out loud at the risk of sounding stupid!  If I can't say it just right, I just won't say it!  His teacher said he was one of her best students. :)

We got to have Aunt Collette stay with us for a few days while the rest of the family was on Trek.  Unfortunately, I had to work most of that time, but I know the boys loved having her!  She helped Easton make the tallest Lego tower in the world!

Easton has been making himself peanut butter lettuce wraps for lunch... not sure where he came up with it, but at least it's healthy!

He loves harvesting the garden for me and is constantly bringing me things to wash.  I'm glad whenever he'll eat anything out of the garden!

August is Here!

The first weekend of August we camped up Payson Canyon with our friends, the Porters.  The boys had a blast and it was good for them to get out into nature!  We went to Payson Lakes and Easton was a crazy swimmer.  He was the only one in the water and he desperately wanted to swim across the whole lake, but we discouraged that since we weren't going in after him!

 The Jensens and Gordons joined us for dinner and campfire chatting.  It was so fun to catch up!

 The 6 boys loved to play together!  Between Tyson and his little group of friends there are only boys!  I think there's something in the water in Payson!

Callan could have been happy for days as long as he had his shovel.

That weekend we also celebrated our sixth anniversary.  Time flies when you're having fun!

Kitchen Nightmares

I once had this crazy idea to paint the cabinets white.  It was awful.  I don't recommend it to anyone.  It took FORever and was absolutely no fun.  Tyson was right.  There was really nothing wrong with our cabinets in the first place...

I started the project in March. I bought a Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations kit and did the bottom drawers and cabinets along with the bottom of the table that I was refinishing.  It took forever.  It didn't cover well.  I wasn't a huge fan, but it looked fine.

Then I took a 4 month break.  I needed one after the bottom half.  For the top I decided to try regular paint and see if it covered any better.  If so, I would take advantage of the 100% satisfaction garauntee on the Rustoleum kit.  It did cover better, but the yellow oak stain came through the paint even after sanding.  We started over using a stain-blocking primer called Gripper and it looked great.  We were spraying so we had the entire kitchen taped and tarped.  Highly inconvenient.  We were so excited to be done with it.  We sprayed a top coat of polyurethane and took off all the tape and plastic.

 The next morning we woke up to find all the cabinets had turned yellow.  Not manageable antique-looking yellow-- awful, drippy, nasty yellow.  Apparently polyurethane has this effect.  Nice if I would have researched that before hand.

So we started over once again.  We sanded them down and started from square one, this time finishing with lacquer.  The lacquer was much better although there was some very slight yellowing.  These boys were troopers while mom and dad spent weeks being angry over this stupid project.

 We had the cabinet doors out in the garage where Tyson was working on them.  The sprayer attachment broke so he decided to brush on the lacquer, but brushed it on too thick so the doors yellowed really bad.  So we started over on those!  This time we used polycrylic and found that to be the best choice in top coats for this particular project.

And now they're done.  Overall, it sucked.  Don't do it.  Even if Pinterest tells you you can, you can't.  If I had to do it over again, I would save my money and get new cabinets!  But if you're not going to listen to me, at least don't do white.  Do grey, or black, or stain, or anything that won't turn into a yellow mess!

Pioneer Day

The week before Pioneer Day we visited the church history museum with the Cook family and Anderson cousins for FHE.  The kids love it there!  If we lived closer I would probably go all the time.  They enjoyed learning about the pioneers and climbing into the bunk beds of the pioneers' ship.  Callan was really confused about the whole thing.  He kept referring to the pioneers as Nephites and the oxen as yaks.  It was actually dang funny.

 The next week for FHE we acted out putting things in our red wagon and traveling around the sidewalk pulling all of our stuff.  At that point Callan was calling the pioneers the missionaries.  So confusing for the poor little guy!

We went to the annual ward pioneer breakfast.  The kids played tug of war and sang primary songs to earn pennies to barter at the store.

That week we also went to the Spanish Fork Rodeo.  We stopped at the carnival for a few minutes before the rodeo and found Grandma, Amanda, and Crew!  Small world!  Having Crew made it a lot more fun for the boys!

 The rodeo was HOT and LONG!!!  Maybe won't be doing that again for a while...

 The boys loved it and Callan is still saying, "mom.  remember that bull? It had poop on his butt.  And it was green."  And they laugh and laugh.  Boys.

On actual Pioneer Day we celebrated Uncle Trace's birthday.  Katelin threw him a party at Soccer City and everyone had a great time!