The Bunny and the Dinosaur/Bat

These two are the best of friends. Seriously, they love each other. They say things like "Addie, you're my best friend, right?" or "Trigger we're going to be best friends forever, huh?" "Cuz we are best friends."

It is so cute.

I don't remember this conversation exactly, but Dave took these two to preschool in their costumes and while he was driving he said "Trigg, do you know what dinosaurs eat?" Trigg says "Chicken." Dave says "Nope, they eat bunny rabbits" Trigg and Addie look at each other across the seat and Addie says "You won't eat me?!" and Trigg says "I'll just eat chicken."







This hug ended up in a heap on the ground!

Trigg was a bat for Halloween night. I wish I had a better picture of his costume. They were so perfect, the bunny and the bat, lightness and darkness, yin and yang.



I don't know why I didn't manage to get a family picture.


"Smile." "What?" "Smile!" "What?!"


Ah Saydie...the happiest, most laid-back hippie-chick ever!

Kylee and her friends worked in a haunted house for our ward party. They were doctors, sooooo scary!







This is a hit every year! A little optical illusion...

I do love Halloween, I really, really do. It's just fun and pointless. Next year I vow to take more pictures. I'll take pictures of our family party with the kids bobbing for apples and all of the soup and bread and carving of pumpkins...I'll take pictures of our neighborhood frybread party and the ward chili cook-off...I'll take pictures of the Mason's very scary Halloween house with my Addie begging not to go in and showing me how she's going to hide on my neck (oh, I love it) I will take pictures, I will!

Death-Day

SOME people, who shall remain nameless...think that it is morbid to gather on my Dad's death-day. But my Dad's death day falls in the perfect place, just 6 months from his birthday - so I love that we get to gather on that day and think of him. It's more than just thinking about him, it's aknowledging that we're all thinking of him together. Because I think of him a lot. And when I think about him I get a big knot in my throat, because I can only barely remember what his voice sounded like when he would open my front door and yell "Reb?!" Oh yes, I can still hear it.

One of my last memories of my dad was a hike he went on with my little family. We were practically out the door and he came over and invited himself along (not that I wouldn't have invited him, I just hadn't thought of it) I am so happy he did that! I'm so happy that he just dropped whatever he had planned for the day, pulled his sweat-band out of the car and came with us! He cheered the kids on when they started whining and even carried not-so-little Saydie (she was 5 years old for pete's sake!) I love my dad, and man do I miss him!!

We had a picnic on his grave. Not literally on his grave because it was in the sun, but instead we parked it in the shade nearby. We ate KFC and cookies and talked about life. He would have liked it and he wouldn't care if you thought it was morbid, so there!

Home, Sweet Home!

Joy, my sister, and I bought this house together. We plan on building 2 houses on the other side of the house (currently the back yard) and then demolishing this one - to the ground! Until then, we co-habitate. It's not what you think, we're not SHARING...it's a duplex. On 2.5 acres. WOO HOO! We Love it.

The door you see on the left is hers, and the one over to the right of the garage, that you can't see very well, is mine. At first we thought it would be convenient if we could get to each other through the house, so we busted a hole through a wall and built a doorway. Those were the days...

A few months ago, when we realized we were going to be in this situation for an undetermined amount of time, we closed the door, and blocked it off.

Peace ensued.

Somehow I got lucky, I'm in the big side. She is in the small side and I don't know how she does it! This post is just about MY side of scary house.

So, this is my house. When we bought it (RIGHT before prices fell away into nothingness - that's just the way we do it, we like to help people out) we knew we would have to live here, but we thought it would be just long enough to get a house built. In fact, technically, we didn't even buy a house. We just bought land. We procured a "bridge loan" covering just 1 year so that it could be converted to a construction loan asap. No home inspection, no warranty...that's just how we do it.

Check out the roof. Believe it or not, it doesn't leak. Yet. I took a picture with the garage door open because we only close it at night. It doesn't have an opener and it's too old to program a universal opener to so we just leave it open. Of course no one ever comes ALL THE WAY back here, to our property...so we feel pretty safe. You would have to be crazy to burglarize a home in a rural neighborhood like this. These people have WEAPONS, and TOOLS, and they are NOT afraid to use them...

You probably can't see it, but Greg is currently digging a big pit to sink our trampolines. We are doing 2 rectangle ones end to end and the kids are dying to get it done. The tractor belongs to our neighbors - and that is the kind of neighbors we have. They have lots and lots of toys and they are the most generous people in the world. It is Greg's dream come true! Just a man and his tractor. Seriously, we love this neighborhood.

There are so many pictures coming that I have to warn you. This post is mostly for me and my posterity. It is our chance to look back at the scary house with love. And even though we call it the scary house, it's not really "scary" it was just scary to think about living in it. That's how it got it's name. Like some things do, the name STUCK. LIKE. GLUE. Despite our efforts, and the fact that we may be living here for the next couple of years...it will always be the scary house. But now we say it with affection.

This is what we see just inside the front door (during Halloween.) In this picture it looks like a really nice hardwood floor. Wouldn't that be nice... It's laminate - and NOT the good kind that they make now. It's tearing back in some places and is stapled down into the plywood underneath it. So cool.

At the end of this hallway, it splits to the left into the kitchen and to the right to a hallway leading to bedrooms. It is a step down to go either direction. What we will ALL remember the most about this feature of the house is the number of times we would hear Dax's voice, the sound of 5 year-old feet running down the hallway, then SMACK. And 5 year-old crying. Like a recording. Every time. He trips on the step between the hallway and the kitchen, EVERY TIME. So sad.



This is the step and the rip that always gets Dax. Ah, poor little buddy!



Just to the right when you walk in the front door is the living room. Greg had to cut out the hole in the wall straight ahead because I was going crazy with the tightness of it. I like it much better now. We didn't paint any of these walls. The whole house is done in different shades of green. If I ever get to build a house, I think green will be banned. In every shade.

This is the living room from the other angle. It's too bad you can't get the full effect of the hanging light in the corner. It's awesome. Goes all the way up to the vaulted ceiling and hangs with a swoop. Totally vintage.

Just to the left of the entryway is my office. We try to share it, Greg and I, but he usually gets squeezed into the corner with his laptop. So sad.

Everyone is always surprised that we took the time to decorate any of the walls in this house. The fact of the matter is, everything has to go somewhere and it is much easier to put it on the wall than try to find a storage space for it. "The Creation" painting used to be in our bedroom. Hey, don't judge me.


Do you see my office through that little door? This picture is taken from the kitchen. Yep, stairs in the kitchen going down to the basement. Extra wide stairs that I love, if only they weren't in my kitchen.


This picture is blurry, but I had to include the coal-burning stove. It works, but we don't use it. To get perspective, that is my office door on the far far left - and the stairs. Straight ahead is a guest bathroom, and the door to the garage is just past the coal-burner. Looking straight ahead, you are facing Joy's side of the house. We got smart and blocked it off so that you have to access her side from her door. Too much togetherness.

Ah, my kitchen. Before the idea of greatrooms occured to anyone, they just made a big kitchen that you could plop your table in the middle of. It is so awkward. Anytime my children want to be around me, they have to sit at the table. No kicking back in front of the tv, or playing on the carpet...it's green linoleum for pete's sake. Shades of green, that is. Wood laminate countertop and fake brick wallpaper. NOT that there's anything wrong with it. Check out the hanging globe lights. Totally vintage.

I had to take a picture of the ceiling. Two of these flourescent lights, and 2 speakers that aren't hooked up to anything. I'm sure in the day they had some sweet surround sound.


The guest bathroom off the kitchen. No those aren't bricks.


This is the basement. Down the stairs in the kitchen. This basement is big and the kids love it. The back corner by the fireplace has a game table and the wall that's hidden (around the corner) has stacks and stacks of games on it. Also, the video games from the office are on the far left of the picture. The great thing about this basement is that the kids can disappear for awhile. (That is also the bad thing about it...)


On the wall that you can't see (on the far left) there is an entertainment center and 2 doors. One to Kylee's room and one to Kinsey's.

This is Kylee's room. Because that wall is solid concrete, we put sheet metal on it so Kylee could put stuff on it. Can't nail into it. It's SOLID.

That is a hammock seat hanging above her bed. Her idea, don't ask me!

Between Kylee's room and Kinsey's room there is a jack-and-jill bathroom. I'm pretty sure it's one of the first one's ever made! This is Kylee's vanity. Real bricks, painted red and white with green vines running up the side. Yep, vintage.

Directly opposite is her closet...


This is where it connects through Kinsey's room.

Kinsey's vanity and closet is just like Kylee's...minus the vine painting on the brick wall. Real bricks this time, painted white.

This is Kinsey's room. I don't know how I caught it clean. You usually can't see the floor. After she cleans it, 10 minutes and it looks like a hurricane hit it. Just a talent of hers.

Another view of Kinsey's room. All concrete walls. Impenetrable.


When we decided to move into this house, Kinsey begged to move into the bedroom under the stairs. Well, it is not a bedroom and it is not under the stairs - but since she wanted to...we put Saydie and Janee in the bedroom and moved Kinsey to this very special room. This rooms turns a sharp left at the end and has room for a bed. Here is the closet space...

Here is the bed, complete with ladder and slide.


Under her bed was some sort of cave. This is what we found on the walls...Graffiti!! I wish I could keep it.

When we moved Kinsey out, we turned this space into a toy closet. Much better!

That's the end of the basement.

Back upstairs.

Down the hallway to the right of the entryway is the kid's bathroom. I think they re-did this bathroom before they moved out of the house. Not EVEN scary.



Down the hall on the right hand side, sort of in the corner is a big bedroom that we put Dax and Saydie in. I took this picture when it was Dax and Jarem's (Joy's son) room. Now it is half boy and half princess. You'll have to picture that. It's pretty sweet.

Turn the corner and down the hallway to the right again is Addie's room. For some reason I didn't take a picture of the other half of the room with the dresser and armoir. Oh well. Those girl pictures above her bed are part of a set of 4 that I had hanging in my room when I was a little girl. My sister's and I would choose which one we were. I was always that snow girl on the left with the brown hair and the fluffy white headband. Every time I see those pictures I think of my sisters. I love it!


MY BEDROOM! Don't judge me...

All my favorite books, right by my head!

This bathroom is the best. That vanity has to be at least 30 years old. Jan, Joy, Sherry...check out MamaGinger's "dog" to the left of the picture. I know you want him!! It's a piece of petrified wood that my grandma (MamaGinger) loves, but when it comes right down to it, she wanted to kick him out of her house! But NOT GET RID OF IT! No. Way. So here he lives. Addie loves him and so do I.


A close up of the cultured marble coutertops. No this ain't your momma's marble (okay, yes it is. Swirls of blue and all.) Just in case you missed it, I'm going to point out the shell shaped sinks. Vintage.


My Bro-in-law was selling iron doors at a home show and afterward as everyone was packing up, someone was getting rid of a vanity. How could I pass it up? It doesn't fit, and it's a little WT (if you don't know, I won't tell you) but NEW VANITY. YES!!

Greg loves it when I give him things like this.

End of Tour!! I know how sad you must be! You bloggers, I don't know how you do it. I'm exhausted. Who knew that it would take so long to post about the scary house.

One thing I know, scary or not...these girls love it!!

Beach House!

Man, I love this place. This is the third year that I have decided to play hookey from life and just hang out in this little beach house for the month of May. Yes, I take the kids out of school. (Not all of them, and not the whole time.) But yes, they can miss 20 some-odd days of school and still advance to the next grade. They are KIDS. Greg comes up for long weekends. I LOVE, love, love it!
This is the porch:


My Project Table in the Family room (the only time you'll see it empty)


The Living Room Window (great place to work on a puzzle)


I love chillin' in my beach chair (that's my head)


I love the view to the left:


I love the view to the right:


I even love the rocks, (and so does Addie!):

and Dax...


I love that the kids always dig holes to play in:


I love that Addie thinks she's helping them with her very own shovel:

I love how she leaves a trail of little baby holes, like footprints, dug in the sand.


I love that she never gets tired of throwing little rocks into the hole and watching them splash.



I love dripping popsicles and smiling faces;


I don't even care that instead of being up in her bed where I left her, she's here instead!


I mean, if there's one thing I 'get' it's being lured by the sound of the ocean...it's in my blood, and I got it from my MOMMA!


I DON'T love sand-balls in the house:


But I do LOVE this girl!


Thank you GREG for letting me do this again!

I love you.

Yep, that's me!

For Spring Break, we always go to Utah for a ski vacation. Well, the first day we decided to board because...well, just because. Sadly, Greg was a little weary of his recently replaced ACL, so he decided not to jump. Or do trees. Or go down moguls. So, he pulled out the camera (which we almost NEVER do.) Don't ask me how, but somehow he got this picture of me jumping. It made us laugh so hard when we saw it. First of all, I've never seen myself jump...the arm straight up in the air, the little frontside grab, my jacket matches the sky...it's just too much. This one is even better:



That's me coming down from a backscratcher. Which is really a "backside" scratcher since you physically can't reach your back with a snowboard. It's more like a hiney kicker, I like that, hiney kicker can be it's new name. Do you like the arms straight up in the air? I look like I'm doing a hail mary! My board matches my outfit. Yesssss! That only happened because it was so HOT that I wasn't wearing a jacket. Yes I said HOT, it was stinkin' ARIZONA hot, (IN UTAH!) You know, I'm sure this jump was more attractive at the peak of the hiney kicker. Yeah, I'm gonna go with that.



Me coming out of the trees. I think Greg was bored of waiting for me so he pulled out the camera. What can I say? Those trees are treacherous...I was a little slow.

We skiied a couple times (no pictures) then got back on our boards. By then, Greg was ready to play!



Of COURSE, Greg is a better jumper than me. Too bad he's also a better photographer!



(Tree Hugger...)

We did catch up with the kids for a few minutes.



First time for Dax! He did awesome. Almost no crying. Almost. That might be a lie, I'd have to ask his instructor -- but he did say he loved it!





Kylee and Kinsey weren't very good about waiting for pictures so we had to catch them on the lift!



A little family pileup...this might be why we we don't ski with the kids all day. I have friends that ski with their kids all day. Maybe someday we'll be that old...maybe next year. Maybe not.

A common sight: Kinsey in front, Sadie following on her trail.



Then of course there's LUNCH. One of the best parts of skiing! Hot Chili in a bread bowl with tons of cheese. And a Diet Coke. Mmmhmmmm, even the wipeouts are worth it.





I don't even want to KNOW how much money these represent...and this isn't even half of them. I close my eyes when I pay the credit card bill.



Our BFF's Heather and Kurt Christensen went up to Brighton with us one day. One of these days they're going to figure out how to go up to Brighton with us EVERY day. I mean, come on guys...you LIVE there! Snow! Mountain! Wasted...



Of course, this is what my Mom was doing while we were partying on the mountain...(no that's not my tiny baby...it's Cassie's. She won't let me have her.)





Addie liked to "help" my mom with her puzzle by sticking random pieces together in random places. After a few days of this, my mom took her to Walmart and bought her a Diego puzzle of her very own. See her working on it right next to my Mom? Cutest thing ever.

I love my Mom, she's the BEST. Thanks Mom!

This is the puzzle in it's completed form. It was HARD. Took us a long time.



One final picture to leave you with. See, Kylee and I usually have a hundred layers tucked into our ski pants. But it was so warm...we had no layers. Just baggy, saggy ski pant. We were tugging at them all day long...like mother like daughter!

Sweet Diggs...

Yes, we were in Utah for Spring Break. With the rest of the mormon exodus from Arizona. EVERY year, we do a ski vacation to Utah. EVERY year, we stay in the cutest little cabin in Brighton. It's an OLD A-frame cottage right at the base of the resort. We love, love, love it.



Man oh man, I'm sad just looking at it. Sad? Yes, because they SOLD IT!

Ouch.

Check out this snow. (LAST YEAR)





This is out in front of the cabin last year.





Yes, that's Greg. Brilliant idea huh? Good way to tear your ACL?...



Who are these OLD people??? WHEN did that HAPPEN?

So this year, we stayed in a cabin at Sundance. We've never stayed there before, and our friends, Mike and Charlene Ford, let us stay there for a steal. The cabin was huge. I wish I had taken pictures downstairs because it had big stand-up video games (MS. PACMAN!) and pool, and ping-pong, and double-hoop (or whatever it's called.) Major full-time entertainment! It was so much fun.



Perfect cabin scene. I love it.

But the snow? Not so much... It was hot and sunny, EVERY day. Well, every day but Sunday (isn't that usually the other way around?) So we went to Sundance and took pictures! Of course!






















Sometimes Greg takes some weird pictures. What was he thinking with this one? I don't know, but I kind of like it. I love to hold this little girl's hand. I know my time is short, she's growing so fast! I still carry her around every chance I get.



I can't believe this beautiful girl is my daughter. I know she sort of looks like me now, but I didn't look a thing like this at her age!



Notice the lack of snow...

To find snow, we drove to Salt Lake every day. Deer Valley, Brighton and Solitude. Fodder for a new Post!

DISNEYLAND!

Saydie's dance group did a performance at Disneyland. I wanted to send Saydie with Joy and her family because they were doing the whole 3-day Disneyland extravaganza and I REALLY didn't want to do it. (we did a 7 day trip to Disneyworld a few years back and ever since...let's just say that Disneyland is NOT my happiest place on earth.) But I felt too guilty pawning Saydie off on Joy so I decided to hop on up there, just me, Dax and Saydie.







Guess what?...it was actually FUN! That is totally the way to do a theme park; just 2 measley kids, not too old for the classics (like Tarzan's tree house,)





and not too young for the bigger roller coasters (like Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain Railroad.)



We just wandered around without anyone spazzing out to get a zillion rides on their favorite roller coaster or freaking out because they didn't get minnie mouse ears (reference to Disneyworld trip.) We ate when we were hungry, shopped when we saw cute things in a store front...





It was pretty chill. And when you are buying things (like cotton candy) for 2 kids instead of FIVE...it feels downright CHEAP!






This is how Dax stands in line:







It only looks like he is sitting sedately on a rock...he's actually climbing all over it at a million miles an hour. I can't tell you how many times someone told him to get off something. Here's a video of Dax at full speed (on a surfboard in a little play area.)



Did I mention that I forgot to bring my camera? Yep, these pictures (and video) are courtesy of my cell phone. Pathetic, I know.

I'm just going to add this in there because it's funny. This is at Knott's Berry Farm over the summer. I told Dax that this roller coaster was "scary fun", not "scary scary" Watch his face, he starts saying "It's scary-scary! It's scary-scary!" so I tell him to close his eyes and he won't be scared.



Pay no attention to that crazy lady sitting next to him. I think it's one of my sisters...Yep, definitely one of my sisters.