New to You Furniture

My awesome brother (who gave us the big gray couch in the basement) gave us more aweomse furniture this weekend that his 16 year old is done with. Apparently she decided she's too old for furniture with porple flower knobs on it. We were happy to take it! The best part is that it was all built but another awesome brother-in-law. He's amazing.

Anyway, we put it all in Mabel's room and I think it turned out pretty good. Doug think's it's a little crowded (and I agree) but I keep telling him that the rocking chair will only need to be there a few more months and then we'll have a little more space. I love how it all looks in there now.

Don't mind that the chaise still does not match anything. We're still debating how to refinish it. I like the big new bookcase though! Here's a close up of the little nightstand table thing. The top of it is plexiglass and it comes off so you can display things under it. Like I said, my brother-in-law is amazing! I'm still trying to decide what to put in it. Any ideas?

Here's a close up of the cute dresser with the cute flower knobs.

Thanks again J for letting us have this and thanks again Brad for building it! Don't worry Liza, when you move back to Utah all of this is totally yours!

The rest of the weekend

Saturday night we headed up to my 10 year high school reunion. It was fun and weird all at the same time. We had 17 or our graduating class of 42 come and it was good to see everyone again. We missed everyone who wasn't there so you all better come to the next one (that I hopefully won't have to plan!) The 5 of us (plus a few more who weren't able to come) all started in Kindergarten together at Waterford Provo. We like to call ourselves "Waterford Originals" because we're nerds like that. It's weird to think how long ago that was and how we all were just tiny Kindergarteners once! It's especially weird since I have Kindergartener this year! It was a good time though and I'm grateful to everyone who came.

We also found out about a sad thing this weekend. For all you old Provo people who remember Janeece Bean, in case you haven't heard, she passed away from cancer last week. You can see her obituary here. She was such a good neighbor and friend and she truly will be missed! Doug and I went to her viewing last night and we were surprised at how hard it was. She really was such a neat person and it was obvious last night how many lives she touched. We love you Janeece, Josh, Livy and Logan.

What's wrong with this picture?

Fun Things

Sorry for all the posts lately! I'm trying to stay on top of the blog.

Fun thing #1: Last night Sophia and I went to see Payson Community Theatre's production of Joseph. It was so good and so fun to go to. It was so nostalgic too! When I was just older than Sophia my brother was Jacob when his high school put it on. I swear I saw it a dozen times I loved it so much. Anyway, a cute friend in our ward was one of the wives and she was amazing! I also discovered a fellow freshman ward member was the narrator and that was fun to see as well. I know it's probably against the rules but I had to snap a quick picture at the end of the coat all spread out. Again so fun for Sophia to see. After it was all over she told me she felt really happy in her heart. I love it!

Fun thing #2: I went to pick up my Bountiful Basket this morning and it had these fun champagne grapes in it. They're so cute and tiny (and soooo flavorful)!

See aren't they cute?

I still can't get over how tiny they are. This bottle was the closest thing I had to reference the size. So cute and yummy! I definitely still love getting Bountiful Baskets. Totally worth it for me!

Fun Thing #3: not sure it really counts as a "fun" thing but tonight we're headed to my 10 year high school reunion. It will be good to see everyone and good to have it over with (I had to help plan it).

Soccer Time!

Sophia had her first community soccer game of the season. Her team is the Cougars (go Cougars!) this year. She was pretty excited about that. There are only two girls on her team and the other girl was on her team last year so she's excited about that. The team they played last night had 3 kids from our ward on it. That was fun for her too. Sorry I didn't get very good shots of her. I'll do better next time.

Also, I forgot to post about the best part of my mom's game quilt. The fabric she used for the back is awesome! It full of names of all sorts of different games. So fun!

Seriously, it has every game you could ever think of (plus some!) on it!

My cute mom - Game Quilt

After some inspiration from my cute friend Nancy's cute mom, my mom decided to make her own game quilt. I think it turned out pretty cute! She did an awesome job. Here's the games she put on it: Don't Eat Pete!

I Spy. This one has sets of matching triangle fabrics. You can play this lots of different ways: look for ones with red, looks for ones with flowers, etc or you can match the pairs.Tic Tac Toe. The purple pocket on the right holds the bean bags and marbles for some of the games.

Close up of Tic Tac Toe. She got some jacks and dinosaurs (and big dice that I forgot to take a picture of) to use as the x's and o's.

Checkers.

Close up of checkers. I love the licorice and popcorn fabric! She got red and white flat marbles to use as the pieces.

Mancala

Close up. Again, she's using flat marbles for the pieces. I love the marble fabric. So cute!

Bean Bag toss

Close up of the game.

Close up of the bags.

She's so awesome! Way to go mom! I think this may be up there with one of your best quilts yet!

P.S.

I forgot to mention one thing about Sophia's birthday. This was her first time celebrating her birthday in a classroom so it was exciting for her and me (I'm a summer birthday and never got to celebrate my big day at school). Her school has a wellness policy (that I love) that suggests not bringing in treats on your child's birthday. Instead they suggest you bring a copy of your child's favorite book to read and leave with the class. I love that idea! We picked this one that her grandma recently gave her for her birthday (we got another copy - don't worry). I love it! It doesn't have any words so it's so fun to make up the story. The pictures are amazing! I highly recommend it!

The actual day!

Sophia had a great birthday! We had French toast for breakfast at her request, and she got a few presents. Before she went to bed I told her if she was good the birthday fairy would come to her room. I put balloons and presents in her room in her bedroom before she fell asleep and she was pretty excited when she woke up. I could here her telling Lilly about everything and she even asked Lilly if she wanted to open some presents. She walked upstairs and looked around and said, "Huh. It still looks pretty plain up here". Sorry the entire house was not decorated to your liking. The birthday fairy only does bedrooms sweetie. She also kept asking why she only had 5 presents. I kept reminding her that it was because she was only 5 (and remember the big party you had last week honey?"

After school we made her a puppy cake. My awesome sister gave her a Big Top Cupcake (which she has wanted since forever) and it really does make some pretty cool cakes.

Just don't look too closely into the possessed dog's eyes or you might get sick.

For dinner we had Sophia's favorites: Egg salad sandwiches, chips and cheese sauce, melon and cucumbers.

After the celebrating we had a little too much fun with Mabel. I love this baby!

Here's another creation we created with the Big Top Cupcake. This one's a cat (just use your imagination).

Phew. I think I'm finally caught up on the blog! (for now).

Hiking

Last weekend we hiked to Battle Creek Falls up PG canyon. It was so fun and good to be out in nature exercising again! The kids had fun too and the scenery really was beautiful. Sophia at the falls.

The sun got to be a little much for Mabel.

What do you think Mabel? Do you like the falls? mmm. not to interesting.

Afterward we went and played at the awesome Discovery Park in PG. Mabel wasn't too sure about being the Queen Bee.

She wasn't sure about the swing either (for some reason this picture didn't transfer completely. Weird).

It was sure a fun Saturday and we hope to have more of them in the future!

Mabel's Blessing and Pictures

Be warned that this post has A LOT of pictures. Now you've been warned.

My brother took these shots at Mabel's blessing. I thought he did a great job and that they turned out great. It was a great day and we're so happy to have Mabel with us!

And now for more pictures of Mabel (because I'm sure you haven't had enough).

My awesome friend Erin took these pictures of Mabes. You can see more here. I thought she did a great job and I'm so happy with all of them. I love this one.

I think this one's my favorite.