Thursday, September 27, 2012

Snickerdoodles and backsplashes

Some of my favorite posts to read on other peoples blogs are the ones where they just talk about what they are doing lately. So I figured I would give a post like that a try.

Monday night was FHE. Parker was assigned the lesson and when I asked him what he wanted to do a lesson about he said trains. So in an effort to keep his attention for more that 25 seconds I had him help me do a lesson about determination featuring the little engine that could. I think it might have held his attention for at least 3 minutes. For a treat we had snickerdoodles made from store bought dough which the kids really liked. It reminded how yummy homemade snickerdoodles are so I will probably be making some in the next week. I also think I will be making my aunts famous oatmeal cake because it also sounds really tasty and its not the kids favorite so I can eat most of it myself.

Tuesday during the day one of my friends volunteered to watch my kids while I did my grocery shopping. So I got to go grocery shopping, in the day, without any kids. It was awesome. Tuesday evening we drove up Provo canyon to take some pictures with pretty leaves as a backdrop. The trees that turn red were out but the ones that turn yellow were mostly still green. I think it might be worth another visit in a week or so.

Tuesday I also started reading Unlikely Heroes: Ordinary Men and Women Whose Courage Won the Revolution. It is a compilation of small stories and has been pretty good so far.

Wednesday turned into laundry day which usually goes something like this. I try to keep rotating through the machines during the day but don’t ever have time to fold it when it comes out of the dryer. So baskets of clean laundry pile up until after the kids go to bed. Then Michael turns on a episode of MacGyver (MacGyver is great laundry folding TV,) spreads a few big blankets out on the living room floor, folds our laundry and sorts the kids laundry into piles based on what drawer in will end up in (shirts, pants and pjs/underwear.) We gave up actually folding the kids clothes once they started dressing themselves because once they dig through a drawer to get what they want, folding becomes pointless. Usually the last load is coming out of the dryer while the rest of the laundry is being folded. I put the piles of clothes in to laundry baskets for each kid for them to put away the next morning.

Michael thought we needed a treat to eat while folding laundry so I made peach milkshakes which we ate out of the cool parfait glasses my grandma gave me this summer. I don’t think there is a treat that is more reminiscent of my childhood than peach milkshakes.  Chop up some frozen peaches, add milk, sugar and vanilla, blend. One of my favorite things in the world.

Today I am going to the park because it looks beautiful outside. Either tonight or tomorrow we are going to home depot to buy the tile for my new kitchen backsplash. Once it is completed my kitchen redo will be completed and I will post before and after pictures.

So what have you been doing this week?

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Mud Run

Way back in the spring my awesome friend Amanda asked me to sign up to do a mud run with her. For those of you not familiar with mud runs they are basically a regular run (the one we did was a 5k) with a bunch of muddy obstacles thrown in.

I had been looking forward to the mud run all summer long. Mostly because as adults we don’t get many chances to play in mud. The particular mud run that we chose was called Kiss Me Dirty and was an all women mud run. Mud runs tend to attract a different group of people than your typical 5k. It really isn’t about speed at all so get a lot of people who would never want to do a normal 5k running in a mud run.

Shortly after we signed up Amanda said we needed to make some sort of costume. I thought it would be fun to stand out a bit from the crowd but it ended up that there were more people in costume than not.100_2495

It is hard to tell from this picture but we had capes on as well as knee high striped socks. We are the ones in the middle with the yellow shirts.

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Crawling through a mud pit.

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In the soap suds at the finish line.

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We got pretty muddy but there were people even muddier. Overall it was a very fun run.

Kathryn and Parker were pretty jealous that we got to get completely muddy. Stephen was glad he didn’t have to get muddy. Amanda had a waterproof camera with her we used to to take pictures during the race. But it was a film camera and I don’t know if the pictures are developed yet.