Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloweenie!

We had a halloweenie roast in our backyard. I wasn't the one who sent out the email but the person that did made costumes a requirement. We had 3 dragons and a princess. I couldn't believe all the dragons.
Halloween is my friend Brandi's birthday. She throws a fit if we don't make a big deal out of it. ;) Well years ago Erin made a pinata of her head that we used, so a pinata has kind of become a Halloween tradition. She said we couldn't make a pinata of her head so I found this pinata and since this is her unofficial title in the dance community it worked.
Luckily Erin was there to break open the pinata with her flailing. I think we all about lost it when she whacked herself with the bat.




Joe even showed up to the occasion. If you are in need of a dentist call him, he's a great dentist - Willowcreek Dental.


Thursday, October 28, 2010

Logan's Pirate Party

This month we had Logan’s 3rd birthday party. It was a pirate party which if you have an October birthday I recommend because it’s easy to find lots of pirate décor.

For his party I was going for simple. I guess this year I’ve kind of gone over the top on some parties and just wanted something pretty simple. I made the garland with patterns I found online or Paper Crave or the blue stripes and red polka dot, I just created in PowerPoint. Easy. Then I had my mom sew them together since I was busy and she’s nice.

We mostly just had a lot of skeletons because lots of the pirate décor is very cheesy. Most of the stuff came from Dollar Tree.

Even some of the guests dressed up for the party and Logan loved it.

Is it just me or do 3 year olds have too much stuff? I had no idea what to get him. I felt pressured that we had to get him something huge but honestly I can’t think of anything out there that he’d love or need. He loves everything he got and was so excited he wouldn’t nap and got up at 5:30 the next morning because he just wanted to play but I’m glad I also went simple on his gifts. Now I need to rack my brains for Christmas because he seriously doesn’t need anything.

I got a Diego digital camera off eBay. He loves it and uses it all the time. I’m just glad he’s not using my camera. It was brand new but I got a sweet deal so I won’t feel bad if it doesn’t work in a month or that it takes crappy pictures. He loves it. We also got a bunch of books (his all time favorite things) and Paint with Water books. He loves to paint and Nan has run out of pages for him to paint from our books when we were kids. I got them on Amazon but it’s crazy how expensive some of them are.

Then we had a piñata filled with more candy and prizes and the kids loved that.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

PaperCrave/Domestifluff

While preparing a post about Logan's birthday and looking for a link I was checking out Paper Crave again. Paper Crave has some of the cutest downloads and crafty ideas. Like seriously isn't this 13 Day Advent calendar the cutest. Actually the nest would look great for an upcoming baby shower and those book paper trees - so cute (might have to rethink the church Christmas party).

Domestifluff is the craftier/recipe side of her graphic design site. She has tons of yummy looking recipes and a lot of them are gluten free. Usually gluten free stuff doesn't look worth it but her recipes looked awesome.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Halloween Advent - Crafting Chicks


I had this idea last year to do a Halloween advent. I’m sure it wasn’t my idea but honestly can’t remember who inspired this. Well like most projects I didn’t finish it in time for last year. So this summer I finished it up so I could use it this year.

In case you want some more Halloween ideas check out the two following blogs.

Crafting Chicks

Eighteen25

Both blogs have been posting a Halloween craft almost every day since the beginning of September. Also both these blogs have tons of fun kid projects and crafts throughout the rest of the year that I’ve used. Enjoy.



Saturday, October 16, 2010

Summer 16 List

I really should have change the tag to Summer 16 because it wasn’t all around Utah. This was seriously the best idea I had this year. I loved how we had all these places we wanted to go so it kept us from just staying home and working in the yard or doing nothing. We got out and did something. Okay so here is our list (two things we didn’t get to but they are on the top of our list for next year).
Bear Lake
Yellowstone
Jackson
Cecret Lake
Zoo
This Is the Place

Eat a frozen treat at Pace’s Dairy Ann
PCMR/El Chubasco
Legacy Parkway
Castle Park
Ogden Dinosaur Park
Eat China Platter in the park (my new favorite place to eat Chinese food)
Snowbird
Silver Lake
Ensign Peak

Salt Lake County Fair

The two places we didn’t get to that we’ll do next year are Red Butte Gardens and bike the Park City Rail Trails. Although our list changed a little bit from when I first wrote it for the most part we did everything I wanted to do.

I picked up Brandon Grigg, Utah Curiosities, at the library last month that if you wanted to come up with your own list, this book would totally help. This book is great and Tad even read the whole thing. It doesn’t have your typical places in Utah that you’ve all been to but odd places you’ve probably never heard of. I’ll probably check this book out again to come up with my list for next year. I know Gilgal Gardens is on our list (it just sounds too weird not to check out).

I loved this idea and loving the mini book I’ve been making so much I’ve jumped on the December Daily album that Ali Edward’s has done for the last few years. I always watch and think it’s a great idea but this year will be the year I participate. Even though I’ve got a trial and vacation planned during that time I’m still going to do this.

I’d love to hear places out and about that I should check out for next year’s summer activities.
Gotta go I've got a pirate party to attend to.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Snowbird - Octoberfest Edition

This was the last of our Utah 16 Summer activities. So we didn’t make it there till September but I’m counting it. We made our annual trip to Snowbird. We usually go with Teisha’s family but she was too busy her last trip to Utah so we went with my parents.

Oktoberfest was going on up at Snowbird so there were a lot of people up there but surprisingly they were only in the tents/eating area.







Yes, that would be my parents on the zip rider. Logan was so sad he couldn’t do that but it just gave him more time on the alpine slide.


















We went to the top and while up there they had alpine horn players. I like this photo even though it’s out of focus. It kind of makes it more like they are straight off the Swiss Alps rather than college kids in lederhosen (one of the guys reminded me of my neighbor Chase, I’d totally see him doing this).

We’ll totally be back to the bird next year. I’ll post a list of all our Summer 16 activities tomorrow.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Weekend In Zion

First weekend of October we went down to Zion National Park. I’d never been to Zion (being 3 doesn’t count), so I was excited to try something new. Last minute we invited my parents which ended up being a wise thing to do.

We stayed at Sand Hollow (Sandpit) Campground. There isn’t a tree for miles but it has flushing toilets and hot showers. Actually it was a very nice campground, I just wouldn’t go if it was any hotter and it was actually in the 90s when we went. Also it was a good thing my parents were there because while we were away at Zion, our tent blew over with the cooler inside. We have a Springbar tent and in order for it to stand you have to stake it in. The campsite is all sand and when the sand was wet there was just no way of getting the tent back up so the second night we stayed in their tent trailer. Also if you ATV or boat you can ride your ATVs from the campground and the reservoir is right there.

Thanks to Tiffany’s blog she went to this cool splash pad in St. George a couple months ago. I knew Logan would love that so we went there first thing. It seriously is the cutest park; this splash pad is surrounded by historic buildings. Wish my city had something cool like this but that’s a whole other issue. If you need directions, click here.






The next morning it was off to Zion. On the drive out there we saw that the Red Bull Rampage was going on. Search on YouTube for videos because those guys are seriously crazy. Tad totally wants to go to this some day.

I was a little apprehensive about the shuttles but I shouldn’t have been. There is always one ready to go and actually if there was a petition I could sign to support this in Yellowstone I would. It was so nice not to be stuck in traffic in the park and also while we were up hiking not to see/hear a stream of cars the entire you are looking out over the valley.

First stop was Weeping Rock. It’s an easy walk up to the “mountain that’s raining” as Logan calls it.











Second stop was the Riverside Walk. This is a longer hike but we hit it so we were in the shade most of the time and its flat so Logan did most of the hike. We ate lunch here and I wish I’d packed water shoes but I assumed with the shuttles we wouldn’t have time to walk a little bit of the Narrows and I’d all ready be carrying too much stuff. Both ended up being totally untrue. We’ll remember this next time.



Last stop in the park was to hike to Lower Emerald Pools. We had a little melt down with Logan over ice cream in a cup rather than a cone but it was a score for me since I ended up getting to eat it all myself. Someone was very tired so he was asleep within minutes of starting our hike. We thought we’d just hike the Lower Pools but it was so pretty we continued on. Middle and Upper Pools were glorified puddles because of being so late in the season plus the hike was a little more intense. The weather was perfect for us while we were in the park other than some huge wind gusts at the very end of this hike. Little did we know wind and rain were tossing our tent around back at our campsite.






On the way back from Zion we stopped in Grafton, a small ghost town. It was locked up and getting dark so we didn’t get to look around. Logan’s eyes couldn’t have been any bigger though because he was sure we were going to find ghost. No ghost but we saw a tarantula. Yuck!

Before we drove home we stopped at the reservoir to play in the water. It was so clear and warm. I wasn’t feeling well so we didn’t stay long and started the trip home. It rained the whole way home. It was a very fun trip and Tad says he thinks it needs to replace our annual trip to Yellowstone because he liked it so much. Hopefully next year we can find some friends to go with us so Tad can hike Angel’s Landing.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Ana-White

Last night while sitting around the campfire cooking smores with some girlfriends the subject of home décor came up (along with other topics that will never be mentioned ANYWHERE). I was telling them about this site I love to look at Ana-White. It recently changed web addresses and got a huge face lift. Ana White lives in Alaska and she’s an engineer turned BAHM (build at home mom) that loves to take designer furniture and create easy to use plans that anyone can build their own furniture.

I’ll admit when I first was checking out her site it seemed like lots of the finished projects were cheesy and poorly done. I honestly believe it was just bad photos now. Since her site has grown the photos and the projects have gotten so much better.

Some day I hope to have this desk built by Tad in my scraproom (yep it’s just like Pottery Barns). Yes that photo is an actual desk built from her plans.

I’ll admit I don’t think her site is very well organized but it’s better from her old site. So check it out there might be something you might want to try. The best way to see all plans is click on "Plan Catalog."

Below are links of items I’d love to make

This outdoor sectional (not sure where I’d store it in the winter)

I so want a single lounger like this. The thing that kept me from making it is how expensive the cushions are.

This kid’s kitchen is so cute. Too bad there is no need for it in my house.

The Farmhouse Bed – I so want to replace the oak bed we have with this.
Also totally unrelated but HWTM has a cute free Thanksgiving download. Proceeds go to Operation Give Thanks.