TV stinks

Well.... I have found the down side to my kids going back to school so early. Every year when my kids go back to school that is my cue that all the new shows are starting and the repeats end. Only my kids started school earlier than normal and I am ready for the good shows to start and I am still having to wait. In fact, today as I walked by (I wrote walked by just so you knew I wasn't just sitting and watching tv all day) the tv I saw a commercial saying they were announcing the new people for Dancing with the Stars on the 17th of Aug. What? Why even put the commercial on yet. I know they wanted everyone to see this commercial and say Oh good Dancing with the Stars is back, right? That is what I wanted to think, but I thought Are you kidding me that I have to wait that long to just find out who is going to be dancing. I am excited for any show to start right about now. And daytime tv is horrible. I watch AMC and that is about it. If you have to ask what AMC is than you must work during the day. Luckily I have some work projects to be working on this next week to keep my busy. I am going to be showing one of my new projects for Christmas very soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

Hi my name is Heather

and I am a control freak.

Thayne tells me that all the time but I hate to admit it. I have given up some of my control by letting my kids ride the bus to school. I hate the buses. I think that kids learn bad things from other kids there and I don't even think they are all that safe. I like to drop my kids off at school and pick them up. This way I can see what friends they walk out of school with, if they forget something I can take them right back to pick it up. If there is a problem at school I can walk right inside to talk to the teacher. When I drive them I can stop by Sonic and get a yummy drink.

However, I have stressfully decided to let my kids take the bus. With 4 kids at 3 different schools and I hate to bring it up but have you seen gas prices lately? I hate spending my whole day in the car. My car seat has taken on the shape of my butt and I am not impressed.

So today I find myself antsy thinking I need to be somewhere getting someone and there is no place for me to go. I know I have issues. I need to start focusing on cleaning out a closet or something. I know Thayne is saying "clean your office". It is only the 2nd day of school and hopefully by next week I will be thinking the bus thing is fantastic, but for now I feel like there is a school parking lot and a good magazine calling my name.

1st day.... alittle late

So here are my kids on the first day of school. I actually took TJ and Sam's picture after school because I forgot.

Everyone said they had a great day. Jess is the only one who took the bus. Today they all took the bus.

The one thing that I heard about the first day that I thought was cute was...

TJ realized his friends had a different lunch than him. He was walking towards the cafeteria and was walking by a girl he knew from his old school that he talked to once in awhile. He said hi to her and said I don't know anybody here and she said neither do I. So he said do you want to eat lunch together and she said sure. So they ate lunch together.

I guess I should finish

I need to finish the last half of our vacation. I am going to make it short and sweet.

After several days in Logan we got back in our car and headed down to Alton, Utah. Every year Thayne's mom side of the family has a family reunion. We rent a huge cabin and spend about 3 days with a whole lot of people. We usually bring our trailer but this year we took a room and it was so nice.

Every morning the boys woke up and did what? Fishing!
They actually caught enough fish that they fed almost everyone on Saturday night with fish and hot dogs. For those of you who don't know me, I don't eat fish. Yukerooo! So I drove TJ and his cousins to Kanab so they could go to the skatepark, and I went and bought myself a juicy little hamburger.

Alton is a very small town, maybe I should emphasize the word small. On Saturday night a cute girl from town came up to the cabin and asked if we had any teenagers. Of course we did. She invited them to the town hall for a church dance. They were very excited. We had about 17 kids we shoved into a 15 passenger van, and then myself and my sister inlaw and cousin took the kids down to the dance. Our group of kids just about doubled their numbers, so I know they were excited to see us there. It was a blast watching them learn all the fun dances. They all had fun.

A reunion is a reunion is a reunion.

There was not a huge exciting event that happened just the fact that we really enjoyed visiting with family. The boys played alot of football and we ate alot of food.

Thayne's grandma has been diagnosed with lung cancer and we knew this would be the last reunion with her, so there were alot of tears as everyone was packing up and leaving.

It was a fun time and the whole week of visiting with family made me realize how lucky I am to have alot of family that I enjoy spending time with.

We spent alot of time in our car traveling and in the end we still like each other.
Thayne and I get along great when we travel as long as he has a coke and a bag of sunflower seeds, and I have a warm blanket and I can sleep.

Next year I am thinking Hawaii!

school happiness

Do you want to know what my favorite part of my kids

going back to school is?

I love

school supplies!

Now I do want to make clear that I hate the extended list of school supplies that each teacher makes and then half of the things on the list that I go out and buy they never use. That just drives me crazy.

I just like buying school supplies for myself. There is something about seeing a box of crayons for .24 that is just exciting. There is no way you can buy just one. So I have enough to last the whole school year.

My kids are starting school tomorrow and I have a bunch of giddy kids thinking they are ready to go back to school. There is just something neat about the first day of school. New clothes, new shoes, new backpacks seeing old friends and of course the school supplies that I am so happy about. I also love taking the first day of school pictures.

Now what am I going to do tomorrow after they leave?

piddling with pictures

Because I have nothing better to do with my time, I have been playing around with some vacation shots. I really should be catching up on laundry or something motherly but I am not.


So tell me what you think.

This is a picture of TJ fishing in the river..

I have not done anything with this picture.

Ok now here is the same picture with a few

special touches that I added all by my very self.

Which one do you like better?

what's for lunch

Just like everyone else I have been getting my kids ready for school. Since they are all starting new schools I have been taking them and getting schedules and walking around the schools with them so they know thier way around. Yesterday I took Sam and TJ to the high school to get thier schedules. On the way back it was 12:30 so I told them I would take them to lunch. We were driving by a new shopping center with a Paradise Bakery and a Chipolte. I like both and didn't care which one we went to. So I asked them what place they would like to eat.

Sam said: I want Paradise because last time Chipoltes taco's were to spicy for me.

TJ said: I want Chipolte because last time I ate at Paradise I didn't like it.

Sam said: Well why don't you find something you like.

TJ said: Well why don't you find something that's not spicy.

I knew this could go on forever. I gave TJ some money to go buy himself Chipolte and Sam and I would run into Paradise. Problem solved right. Nope.

TJ handed me the money back and said he would go to Paradise because he didn't want to go into Chipolte by himself. huh? what?

He is 15 going on 1 6 and he can't go into a place to get something to eat by himself. I will have to work on that little problem

Anyways, we all went to Paradise and just like his dad, TJ has yet to find something he likes to eat at Paradise.

As for me and Samantha we had a good lunch and left full. By the way my favorite sandwich there is the Chicken Walnut. Delicious!

So I am not VERY SUPERIOR like Rachel but I think she cheated on the smoking questions. That is just my opinion though. ÜOK you all know I am kidding she doesn't smoke, YET.

75 As a 1930s wife, I am Superior Take the test!

vacation part 1....again

Day 3 & 4

Let me try to sum up the last 2 days in Logan.

The boys got up bright and early to go fishing with grandpa. If I were to title the boys part of the vacation it would be "fishing". They did a ton of it.

The girls were still over at Aly's from spending the night. My mom and I decided to just go out and shop at some of the small home decorating stores they have in town. We stopped for lunch at The Great Harvest bread co. It is only my favorite store in Logan. They have a turkey pesto sandwich that I can now only dream about. It is delicious! Of course I also had to buy some of their cinnamon burst bread which is also yummy. I did not buy anything at the home shops but we had a fun time.

Later Thayne and I went to pick up the girls and we even brought Aly back with us to spend the night.

So what did we all do as we hung out that night.

Well Thayne cooked a pork roast in the dutch oven for dinner, he is a better cook than me.

My parents have a river that runs behind their house. Thayne caught 2 fish in it the first night which made everyone excited about trying to catch one too.
So we all gave it a try without any luck.

My kids really enjoy fishing and every single one of them puts the worm on themselves.

This is Samantha and Aly putting on a worm.

Later that night we let the kids do sparklers. Why? Because we don't have sparklers in Arizona and when I saw them at the store in Logan I just had to get them to let my kids have fun.

We went to bed the next few nights with Jessika scared out of her mind. She was told there was an old Lady named Agatha that died at grandma's house and she walks around at night shaking doors. That was all it took and she was in tears.

Last day in Logan

The last day we were in Logan it was Cody's birthday. He wanted to go to the skatepark and pizza and then later we had fun hanging out at Ethan and Shannon's house for birthday treats. Ethan got out his quad so everyone got a turn to ride. Thayne and I went out for a nice little ride by ourselves.

There are just to many pictures so I am going to make a slide show of our trip. Thanks to all the family in Utah for letting us come and hang out. We need to do it more often.

Vacation first half

Day 3 and 4 will be combined and added tomorrow.

WHY?

It is 10pm and I am going to bed.

Besides I haven't even gone through my pictures of the Part 2 of our vacation. It is really exciting stuff. We had a family reunion on Thayne's side of the family.

Vacation 1st half ... yes there's more!

Day 2

Now I didn't get alot of pictures on day 2.

Day 2 was Samantha's 14th birthday.

The boys got up and went to do yard work. My grandparent both passed away this last year so their house is sitting empty. They did irrigating and mowing and even some weeding. Sounds like a blast I know!

The girls headed to the mall to take Samantha shopping for her birthday. If you never experienced the Logan mall you need to go a least once. It is kinda sad. We did have some fun and even bought a few items. I sure wish I had pictures of the mall to show you.

Later that night we had everyone over to my parents for taco's and rootbeer floats. We did not want to do a cake for Sam's birthday so we did rootbeer floats.












It was a nice easy going day. To end the day Jess and Samantha went to their cousins house to spend the night. Jess, Sam and Aly were a bunch of giggly little girls the whole time they were together. The were doing camp songs and crazy little acting things that you just have to laugh at. I am sure the drove grandma crazy, but that is part of visiting grandma right?

Vacation- 1st half

Well I am going to start with my update of the first half of our vacation. Our vacation was broken into 2 parts. The first half of the week we spent with my side (The Poppleton's) of the family. Here is kinda how it went.

Day 1

We arrived in Logan on Sunday around 1pm. A few hours after we arrived we loaded up the car again and headed up to a Sunday afternoon picnic up the canyon with all the family from Cache Valley. My parents, my sister Tauni, my brother Adam and his family. my brother Ethan and his family and my brother Travis and his family all joined us for this fun picnic.

I must say it was so nice to see everyone. I didn't realize how long how it had been since I had seen them all. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the picnic.

Ok so this really isn't one of my favorite pictures but I just wanted to show you the funniest thing. You see this boy sitting or laying on the merry go round with Jessika and Aly? That is how he is was sitting in every single picture we took on the merry go round. I really think he was sitting like that for 20 minutes.

Look here he is again in another one!

Ok so enough with him .

My girls were excited to see all their cousins. As you can see I think they were just as excited to see them too. They followed them around the whole time.

I do not have alot of pictures of the little boys because they took off to play as soon as we got to the park. The adults stood around and visited which was nice since we hadn't seen each other for so long.

I just cracked up when I saw these pictures because nobody is looking at each other in the pictures so it looks like we are not enjoying each other at all. We did actually talk while we were there.

TJ having no cousins his age there hung out with the adults which he may have found kinda boring but he didn't complain at all.

That was the end of our first day in Logan. I have so many pictures.

One thing that happened at the park

that made me laugh was.....

I don't remember who but when I was standing by the adults talking someone walked up to me and asked where Wyatt got watermelon. I didn't even look over to see Wyatt I just said " I am sure he found a friend who gave it to him". I am thinking he is eating a piece of watermelon. NOPE! He was carrying a whole big watermelon that he was so excited about that he found in the river. It was a watermelon from another family who put it in the river to keep it cold. He nicely handed back the watermelon and with an OH SHUCKS attitude walked back over to our picnic area with a grin.

finally home

Well I am back from vacation. We actually got back yesterday and it was so nice to be home. I will post about everything we did soon. I have just one week to make sure all 4 kids are ready to start new schools. I am also trying to go through over 500 pictures from vacation. I promise not to put on all of them, just my favorites but it is going to be so hard to chose. Thayne left this morning for Quebec Canada. I can't say I was excited about that.

While on vacation and when I arrived home I received some sad news which is kinda got me alittle sad.

Anyways I am back and ready to blog my little heart out.

I just had to do it

I went to pick my girls up from Rachels house today. Rachel had just left for a moment. I walked in and saw all of her pillows PERFECTLY placed on her couch. I am sorry but I just could not resist. I took all of the pillows from her couch and chairs and rearranged them on the couch from tallest pillow to the smallest. It looked horrible. I asked Hannah if she thought her mom would notice right away, and she just looked at me with a crazy look shaking her head yes. Oh if I could be a fly on the wall to see who takes the blame for that one at her house until she finds out it was me. I am laughing just thinking about it. If only I took a picture, darn it.

Oh to be 14...... almost

Sam is counting the days until she turns 14. Because her birthday is in the middle of summer she is always celebrating on the road. She has had birthdays in several different states and even had one in Canada. So this year since we will be in Utah we decided to have an early birthday party for her with some of her friends. It is so hard to believe she is 14 not just because she is so small but because I can't believe that much time has gone by. So here is how the night kinda went.

Sam, Jess and Hannah talked me into painting their faces before everyone came for the party.

When all the girls arrived they modge podged some picture frames. Some of them turned out really cute, and some where kinds scary.

Before swimming and before hair got messed up I took a group picture. Whitley's face just crackes me up in this picture. She is the one in the back on the right with her mouth wide open. She is such a fun girl.

Then they went on to swimming and because we just irrigated, some even decided to run around in the irrigation. Can you believe how tan that birthday girl is? One should be so lucky.

Girls this age entertain themselves. This party was by far one of the easiest. The older they get the more parents don't have to be involved. I love that part.

Sam loved every gift she received. I know I shouldn't pick a favorite but I loved the small travel bags. She has such great friends and she loved having them over last night. I think she would have them all over every night if I let her.

They finished the night with a movie "27 dresses", which ended just in time for parents to come pick them up. The big bonus for Sam's party was when Rachel called and said Hannah could spend the night. That is a huge NO NO for sleep overs for that family, but I kinda knew they didn't want to drive that far at 10:30 at night. So I was not totally surprised when they called and said she could sleep over. Extra birthday bonus for Sam and she liked it.

Loser

I saw this thing that said the 10 books you must read before you die. I was sure I must have read one of them. So I went to peek at them and see how I did. The only one I have even touched was the Bible. I have read parts of it, but never sat and read it cover to cover. Here is the list. 10 book to read before you die


Hope you did better than I did.

OH Crap

I know not a nice word for my title, but that is my exact words when I woke up and realized I lost my new blog design. I was up designing a new one last night that I liked so much better. I was in the middle of it and decided to go to bed and finish today. When I sat down at the computer this morning I saw that it said "your computer has been updated". Huh? What? OH CraP! I lost it all because I saved non of it. So that stinks for all of you too because you have to keep looking at the ugly green and orange mess that in on now. So hopefully sometime today I will have some time to start over. Any color ideas before I start again?

we did it

We decided at the last minute to sign Wyatt up for football again. We didn't want to move him up to the next division because we didn't like the coach. We found out he just makes the weight for the lower division so he is now going to play with his same coach as last year which we are excited about. I am not excited about the 2 hour practices that will be starting soon. I am excited that Wyatt's friend Trenton will be playing on his team so that will be fun.

So here is to another season of "GO EAGLES"!

this is why

Do you see how often I change my blog design? This is why I do not decorate my house. I would be changing it every week. I cannot afford to do that, so I sit and stare at each room trying to think of ways I could do it. When I actually decide what I want then I go for it. Thayne and I have mixed our ideas for our room and I must say it is having some growing pains but I think in the end it will look great. Do not think my blog will stay in this design for very long, it is already driving me crazy. I will say that it is really relaxing for me to sit and create new designs all the time. So maybe I will relax alittle tomorrow and get a design that I like.

So boring

As busy as my summer has been, today it seems so boring. I could probably do things on my list but really it is so much more fun watching Thayne paint my bedroom and tile our shower. I did get to the gym which I really needed to get back to. I started some laundry but only to make myself feel like I was accomplishing something today. Maybe what I really need is to go out and lay by the pool and finish reading "Twilight" again. I am going to re-read the series before the new book comes out. Our vacation to Utah is kinda in limbo right now so we are waiting to find out from Thayne's work what he is doing so we can figure it out. All I know is that I really am ready to go on vacation soon. Let's not even think about all the things I should be doing to get my kids ready to go back to school at the end of the month.

Did I mention I was bored today. Ü

not the norm

I can definitely say that the 4th of July this year had a completely different feel then past years. Our annual party was alot more quiet than normal, which this year I kinda found perfect for my mood. I was more relaxed and had fun being with the family & friends that came. Usually by the time everyone leaves to go see fireworks it is to late for us to go find a good spot to see them so we just stay home. This year we were able to get out and join the rest of Queen Creek at Schepf's Farms to see an amazing firework show. It was fun watching Wyatt. We didn't realize it has been so long since we had actually gone to see fireworks that he had never really remembered seeing fireworks right above his head and feeling the explosions. It was so great to see it again and to watch my kids enjoy it. I lost my brain somewhere because I forgot my camara and did not take one picture yesterday. I let TJ skip out on family fireworks and go to the skate park where he was able to watch them with a friend while skating.

I also want to share some news that I found out yesterday. A few weeks ago when I dropped Wyatt off at his Mimi and Papa's house for his trip to Utah we sat and ate dinner with them. I was holding my niece and noticed her eyes darting back and forth. I asked my SIL if she thought that was weird and she said she was going to take her in to get it checked out. My niece is only 6 months old. Well yesterday as we were heading out to see fireworks my SIL told us that they had Elli checked out and they had been told that she is blind. This news caught me off guard. Not what I was expecting and I know not what they were expecting either. They have been able to go to the blind institute here in Phoenix and they feel much better about giving her a normal life. This will be a learning experience for the whole family but if you know our family you know that she will be treated like she has no disability at all. I am looking forward to seeing how our family grows from this experience.

ok seriously

I do have a picture of Thayne from last 4th of July I just can't remember what disc I saved it to. I will post it and Thayne will not even care, he is so proud of it. I really have not looked as hard today as I should have since we spent most of the day running around town looking for a cover to the drain in our pool that is broke. We finally found it and now I am back to party mode. Or at least getting ready for party mode. To much to do and I procrastinate like crazy so I have tons to do before tomorrow. I really want to get most of my dips and salsa made tonight. I just needed to take this small break to blog. It helps declutter my mind. I promise a picture of Thayne and my painted kitchen very soon.

they really do care

Isn't it just amazing how your kids seem to act like they just don't like each other at home. It is the "don't touch me", "that's mine", "you didn't ask" and "get out of my room". That is when I think to myself "self you did a horrible job at teaching your kids to love one another".

Tonight TJ called from work and asked if he could go to the bike park with a friend until 9pm tonight. I told it would be fine.



I took the other 3 kids to Costco with me to pick up a few items for the 4th. Looking at the clock seeing it was 7 :30 one of my kids sounded alittle concerned and mentioned that we had forgotten to pick TJ up from work at 6. Hmmm I said. "I am sure he will be fine". Then Samantha said, "should we go by his work to see if he is still waiting?" I said "no I think he can figure it out". Well this just set in a whole lot of panic in my kids who already worry to much. I heard them make comments like, "do you think he is riding his bike all the way home?" "Maybe he called and we didn't hear the phone ring". "He could walk to Rachel's house if he had to". It was kinda funny but mean that I didn't even tell them where he really was because it was nice to hear them actually showing concern for their brother. As I am typing this, Samantha just walked in to ask me if TJ was home yet.

Ü Hahahaha. I am finding alot of humor in doing this to them.

Boy do I just love the Love under our roof right now.

Blogging in red, white & blue

This week we are getting ready for our annual 4th of July party. Some years it is big and some years it is small. I would like it somewhere in the middle this year. Every year we get a blow up water slide for the kids to play on because our pool just is not big enough for everyone. I am thinking of getting a pinata this year and maybe playing some fun picnic games with the kids. I guess it depends if we can weather the heat. Usually around 4pm our front yard is all shade so I am hoping it all works out. The 4th of July is my favorite holiday. I love everything about it. Well except all the cleaning I have to do before everyone comes. I do kinda stress about the outfit Thayne picks out for himself every year. When my kids were little I would always get them 4th of July shirts and bathing suits. Now they are older they won't always wear what I buy so I just tell them to try and stick with red white or blue. Thayne's outfits are quite scary at times. Last year he cut one of his shirts into a muscle shirt that was cut above his belly, and then cut his jeans into Daisy Dukes. I do have pictures but I don't think you want to see them. SCARY! I am sure his parents were so proud as they showed up to the house to see him greeting them like that.
I am showing my American Pride on my blog. I hope you all enjoy this holiday and remember how lucky we are to live in the great county, even though half of it is kinda confused!

Ramblings of Girls Camp

ok I am just going to break this down to the good and the bad. The things I liked and the things I didn't like.

Good.

- We didn't have to drive we took charter buses.

- The camp ground. We slept in bunk beds in a cabin.

- The bathrooms were perfect for camping, we even had warm showers.

- The food was very good and they fed us almost non stop.

- The girls I had in my cabin were great, even the one I was most worried about caused me no problems. One girl kept telling me she gets up every night to go to the bathroom. I told her not on this trip she doesn't and guess what? She didn't. Ü

-Seeing a rattle snack on Jessika's hike.

- Being proud of the girls in our ward who behaved themselves and were fun to be with.

- seeing deer walk right through camp.

- The yummy flavorings they had to add to our hot chocolate at night.

- watching Jessika and Whitley sleeping on the bus together on the way home.

- seeing Jess try archery for the first time.

- texting Thayne back and forth since he was at scout camp.

-being the first one awake and reading my scripture under the trees all by myself listening to the birds.

- having fun leaders from our ward go. We laughed alot.

-playing basketball with Julia even though it was HOT!

Bad

- having wards mixed up in different cabins.

- to many classes that the girls had to attend.

Kinda felt like school sometimes.

- not seeing Samantha alot of the time.

- the pranks that kept going on in camp. I mean the mean ones.

- to much food because I didn't stop eating.

- spiders

-listening to the girls scream about spiders.

- our cabin being at the very top of the hill and having to hike up it all day long. My calves hurt so bad.

- listening to the bunk beds squeak all night long.

- getting in trouble in the writing class. Witchy teacher.

Camp was really a fun time. The other ward that was in our cabin with us was not enjoying themselves very much so it put a damper on our cabin. We did the best we could to enjoy the experience but I would have rather been in a cabin with other leaders who wanted to be there and encouraged their girls more to participate. Kinda frustrating. The skits and the talent show were fun to watch. I laughed alot during the talent show.

It is nice to be home. Although last night after I got home from a play I went to get into bed and there was a towel folded on my bed. I picked it up to put it away and found it was only there to cover up blue powerade that had been spilt on my bed. It was like a camp prank all over again. I sure hope it washes out. I know my mattress will now have a forever blue stain on it. Grrr.

I am glad to be home and have enough time to recuperate before next year. I know I will go, because that is just what I do.