Move that Bus!

Extreme Makeover Home Edition is in town and we decided to go check it out today. I called my sister and mom this morning and we decided that it would be fun to go out for the last day and see the house and yell,"move that bus!" Unfortunately about 5,000 other people thought it would be fun as well. We drove about 20 minutes to Middleton High school where we knew we had to catch a bus that would take us to the home sight. When we got there we saw buses lined up and thought we would be able to just hop right on. As we approached we realized that there was a HUGE line. You'd have thought we were in line to ride Indiana Jones at Disney Land. We waited in 100 degree weather for an hour and a half. Every one there was in amazingly good spirits though. I had brought lots of water and a squirt bottle so the kids were entertained.

Right before it was our turn to get on a school bus and drive out we started talking to people that were returning from the house. They were saying that there were so many people you couldn't see anything and you just had to stand in a field. They only had 5 buses and therefore we knew we would have an even longer wait to get back. So we made an executive decision to ride the bus to the house, stay on the bus, and head right back. We sat by a girl on the bus that was in the family's stake. Yes, they were LDS. She decided to ride back with us as well because she had 4 little girls with her and the youngest couldn't have been more than a few months old. So we got some pictures from the bus, we didn't get to see Ty. We were very hot and sweaty but I still think it was kind of cool. I think we would have stuck it our if it weren't for the 4 children that were accompanying us. We were also told when we were dropped off that there weren't going to be any buses bringing people back to the high school for hours. So good decision on our part! Plus we came home and went straight to the water park so we were nice and refreshed in no time. FYI the show will be airing on October 14th...so watch it!

This jumble of people is a small portion of the line to get on the bus, doesn't really even look like a line does it?

Here we are looking at the house from the bus. We just had Ains yell "move that bus"right before our bus started moving, she'll never know the difference right?

Feet

Why the picture of my feet? I got a pedicure this evening! My parents gave one to Kort and I for our birthday's, then they also gave one to Syd for Valentine's day, and then my dad got one for my mom for mother's day. So tonight we all went together and got our pedicures...finally. This is only my second one ever and they are WONDERFUL!!!! It was an hour of getting my feet massaged, buffed, cleaned up, and nails painted. It's so great. I always thought I would feel weird getting one and having someone else rub my feet, maybe because I hate other people's feet, but I have to say that there is nothing better. I have never had a massage though, maybe that would be better.

I took a picture of my feet in the ridiculous shoes they send you home in. As I was taking a picture for the blog I realized that my feet aren't pretty. I don't think I ever thought my feet were gorgeous, but I thought they were okay looking. As I snapped pictures I realized that they are actually ugly. Maybe I have just gotten used to looking at them? My friend Karalenn always felt like she had long toes, and I have to agree she does (her middle toe is the size of an average person's pinkie finger), and I think that my toes are up the same alley as hers. Maybe not monkey toes but close. So while I realized tonight that my feet are a little on the funny looking side I don't care because they feel great!

Productive

Today we stayed home all day. While this makes Owen a little stir crazy it was good for the rest of us. I took time to do some things that I normally don't do. Call me little miss homemaker because I really went above and beyond my motherly duties. And the children were only mildly neglected in the process. I decided that my day of homemaking was blog worthy since I'm sure I will lose the title by 7:00 tomorrow morning.

I had homemade spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove that had been loaded with shredded veggies to sneak health food to my family.

I had all of my scouting supplies ready to go for scout tomorrow. Usually I spend a good chunk of Tuesdays planning but we were going swimming with some people in the ward tomorrow so I took advantage of today to get prepared. Aren't I a fine example of preparedness.
I had zucchini bread in the oven (you can only cram so much zucchini into spaghetti sauce and I had to do something with the leftovers), and sweet potatoes baking for Owen.

I even had a our family home evening lesson prepared (this hasn't happened for a while, we've been slacking). Tonight we will be learning about reverence due to Ainsley's behavior at church yesterday.
And the highlight of the day for Ainsley was the sprinkler under the trampoline. I have tried to get her to do this before but she wouldn't. I'm not sure why, maybe she thought it was to ghetto of a summer activity for her. But today she tried it and loved it. She stayed out there for a long time, which was what I wanted because I was busy baking and cleaning (I'm such a neat freak that as well as my "projects" today the house is also currently clean and there are no dishes in the sink...this is not unusual for me but required extra effort today...I'm not saying this to brag, it's an annoying thing I do) . The only problem with Ainsley's love of the trampoline was that I heard "MOM" every few minutes so that I could go outside and see her new trick. While this slowed down my cleaning and baking, I got these lovely pictures of her doing her "tricks" which were: putting her hair in the water and bouncing on her knees. A very talented little girl!

I just stuck this last picture of Owen on because I took it today after Ainsley dressed him up and I thought it was cute and didn't really have much to say about it, except AAARRRR!

For Good Reason

This picture is of a pile of clothes that are sitting in my sink right now with stain remover on them in an attempt to remove various stains. Unfortunately for me 2 of the shirts are mine. I now realize that it is for good reason that I have a $5 rule. I can't remember the last time I bought a shirt for the kids that was more than $5. It would be even more depressing to have an item of clothing ruined due to a stain if I spent more than that on it. And I usually don't spend much more than $5 on shirts for myself. I try to stay under $10 and it is extremely rare for me to go over that (like less than once every year or two). So I might be cheap but the pile that currently sits in my sink reminds me why. Too many clothes in this family get ruined so it's just not worth spending more on clothing than that.

The Prayer

Ainsley's prayer on dinner last night went something like this...

"Heavenly Father,
Thank you for this day,
Thank you bless the food.
Thank you for mom and dad.
Thankful for our bodies.
Thankful bless Owen.
The End."

John and I couldn't help but laugh. I guess prayers follow story format now. We seem to have lots of laughing moments over dinner time prayer ever since Ains joined the prayer rotation. For a while she had a weird high pitched voice she used and now we just get weird lists of things she is thankful for.

Daddy Daugher Date

Last night John took Ains to the Hawks game. It sounded like they had a lot of fun. They had a big inflatable obstacle course for the kids, food was a dollar, and they had all the kids come out onto the field to sing take me out to the ball game. I guess Ains was obsessed with getting some of the yellow drink that adults had in clear plastic cups. John kept telling her no and then finally explained that we don't drink that. She then explained that we did to drink apple juice. Wouldn't that be funny if the drink of choice at baseball games was apple juice!

What's Next???

This spring/summer we have had to replace/fix the following: the sprinklers, the water heater, the vacuum, the computer, and now the dryer. For quite a while now the dryer has been leaving brown streaks on our clothes. They wash out, for the most part. Lately it started ripping holes in clothes too. Poor Ainsley got hit the worst and has had 4 shirts ruined. So I guess it was high time I got someone out here to look at the dryer.

I hate having to do repairs. I keep saving up money for my extra projects around the house (like painting and decorating Owen's room), a chest freezer in the garage(so I can make freezer jam and buy in bulk at Costco), and a new kitchen table (for those of you who have sat at our table you know that we need a new one soon seeing as how it fits no more than 3 comfortably and we now have 4 in our family). Every time I get close to getting what I have saved up for the money I have saved gets cruelly taken away and I have to spend the money on something not so fun. Like new felt seals for the dryer. What a load of fun those new felt seals will be! Not that paint is fun but at least it makes my house look nice.