I have a secret...

Garden. And that is exactly what I call it. My Secret Garden. The children even ask me if they can go into my secret garden. Ryan put a lot of excess sand over here on the side of the house, I planted some wild flowers,
and some Iris' from my friend, Mitzi.

I got this bench for Ryan. He's wanted a stone bench in a garden ever since he read the Children of Gebelawi in college. I think it is neat that this bench has 'chiseled' on it "Be Still and Know that I AM".
It is an enjoyable place to sit, smell the flowers and think.

Fire! Fire! Fire!

He looked out the window and what did he see?


Roderic was playing on the computer and saw a Fire Truck parked in front of our house! He just had to go outside and see for himself. The firefighters were doing a check on the hydrant in our side yard. We got to talk to one of them. He gave the boys "knuckles" because his hands were too dirty to give high-fives, then he gave them Junior firefighter stickers. He even invited us to come up to the fire station any time for a tour!

I don't think the week could have started any better for my 2 boys.

Waxing Nostalgic

A decade, when you've only lived through 3, is a long time. I started thinking about the past decade a lot when Sabrina turned 10 last month, but even more recently I've been thinking of the major milestones that have happened 10 years ago...

April 23, 1999: Ryan graduates from BYU with a degree in Electrical Engineering.


April 29, 1999: We flew (standby) to Boise to sign the closing documents for our first house. Since we had hours until the next Delta flight left Boise, we went to the mall and bought a washer and dryer.

May 7, 1999: Ryan, my dad and little brother drive the Penske truck to Boise, unload it and then fly back to SLC. (We were so lucky to have flight benefits from Delta AirLines!)

May 9, 1999: Sabrina is given a name and a blessing in our ward at BYU. Sacrament meeting began at 8:30 am. Lots of family members and some friends came down. We ate waffles in the basement room of our Wymount Terrace apartment block.


That afternoon we drive to West Point and have a 4-generation picture taken of Sabrina, me, my mom and her mom.


May 11, 1999: We take our first (of many) family drive from Layton to Boise. Our Kia Sephia was filled with the remainder of our stuff. We barely had room for Sabrina's car seat in the back.

May 12, 1999: Sears delivered our new washing machine and dryer (really early in the morning, like 8:30 am, especially since we arrived in Boise at 11 pm the night before). They awakened us by ringing the doorbell. Ryan got to answer the door in his PJs. We found out immediately that Sears does not install gas connections. And there wasn't a Home Depot anywhere near us then. (The housing bubble was in its infancy, relatively.)

May 18, 1999: Ryan began work as a Junior Test Engineer at Micron Technology, Inc.

THIS IS NOT MY MOM!!!!!

A friend and her husband are in Hawaii for the week. While they are out of town, I get to bring their kindergartner home from school. Finally the weather has turned nice, so we're bicycling. She doesn't know how to ride a bike by herself, however, I own a Novara Afterburner.

On Friday, I picked her up right on time. She told a few of her friends that I was not her mom, but that she had to go with me anyway. Then, she started shouting from the tops of her lungs, "THIS IS NOT MY MOM!" And continued shouting. All. the.way. home. (It took about 12 minutes.) No one stopped me. No one questioned me. (A mom from the ward (who incidentally has a degree in Criminal Justice) told me today that she looked and saw that the shouter was with me, and didn't do anything further.)

If she does it again, I think I'll tell her the story of the boy who cried wolf...

What day is it?

8:30 a.m. My bed is full - crowded. Hyrum and Roderic had both earlier climbed into our bed to warm up. I still keep my eyes closed, trying to eek out a few more minutes of sleep. Ryan said, "Oh, Sabrina!"

I opened my eyes and saw Sabrina standing silently next to my bed with a tray full of food. Waffles, muffins, syrup, milk.

Roderic asks, "What day is it?"

I reply, "It's a day so special that Sabrina brought me breakfast in bed. What's a mom to do?"

Hyrum states, "Do lawdy (laundry)."

Then, everyone left my bed and I got to eat, alone.

Happy Mother's Day!

The Internet is good for my creativity!

STOP! This may just be the absolute CUTEST 2 year old on the planet!

A few weeks ago, JoAnn's fabric store was having a sale on all of their clearance fabrics (it was an additional 50% off!). I couldn't resist picking up the final 1.75 yards of this thermal fabric. Hyrum needed pjs, afterall. I didn't feel like making a top, just pajama pants for him. And they were cute. And he loved to wear them! Then I was doing a dangerous activity...
I was browsing through lots of different crafty blogs. Inspiration, you know. One lady added thermal sleeves to some onesies. Brilliant! I just happened to have onesies in Hyrum's size I was doing nothing with AND I had just bought all that thermal. I guess Hyrum could have a matching shirt for his pj bottoms. The shirt looked great, but the body of the onesie was so blank. No. Excitement. At. All. On the internet again...

This time, the lady on the blog was talking about making your own stencils with freezer paper to then paint on shirts. I was hooked! I found a coloring page of a stop sign, traced it on the freezer paper. Ironed the stencil on the onesie and painted. Ta da!

The result is a huge success! He calls them his "Stop Sign Jammies."

(the place I go for crafty inspiration is here.)

Roderic's humor

Knock-knock.
Who's There?
Fisherman.
Fisherman who?
It's a good place to be.


Ryan made this next one up for him to tell me this morning:
Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Hutch.
Hutch who?
Don't sneeze on me.