The Latest and Greatest

I don't have a ton of pictures to share, but we've had a fair amount going on.

Loofa had his week of summer soccer already. Thankfully it wasn't rainy that week. This summer has been so much wetter than usual. Loofa enjoyed his soccer again even with his typical complaining. He'll be doing the regular fall season this year for the first time. The park we were at had a spray park (new this year) and some pretty cool play structures. Now that Ephant is old enough to watch the kids at home I usually leave her while taking kids to activities, but she is still enough of a kid that she wanted to go to soccer everyday and play. I kind of wish she hadn't so I could leaver Feefers at home. That child is quite the momma's girl.

Fefe had an aborted potty training event. Between peeing on my iphone and refusing to poop on the potty, it just wasn't happening. I'll probably wait a couple months till school starts and try again. She mostly had it down, but she is so STUBBORN. At one point, I was forcing her to stay on the potty to poop and in the midst of her tears she kept saying "I'm freaking out!" You really have to hear her say it in her little chipmunk voice to truly appreciate it. No I get to deal with her telling me every time she pees her diaper. Silly girl.

Ephant is in the middle of her first theater class. It is a two week long class. They are making up their own play and at the end of the session we'll get to watch it. She is truly enjoying the experience. I'm sure we'll video her play for everyone to see later.

Brother B hasn't done much, but he is really looking forward to cub scout day camp. That boy will really make his Grandpa C proud with how much he is enjoying Scouts.

Both J and I had our birthday's the last week or so. We got J a deep fryer and J got me a computer chair. We haven't tested out the deep fryer yet, but we are very excited to have fresh french fries and scones. One of these days I'm going to attempt deep fried snickers and twinkies. I'll have to get my cholesterol checked soon and in a year to see what affect it has had :) I just updated my recipe book. You can download it here. The computer chair has been awesome. I had no idea I could be this comfortable while sitting at the computer.

We are finally out of our warranty period on the Odyssey. Boy does that hurt. I took the van in last week to get the air conditioning fixed (the front blower had gone out). That cost $350 to repair, just to replace some relay pack. The front brakes had to be replaced at another $350 and the tires were worn down. I'm never getting Michelin tires again. Les Schwab's tires cost the same, but they gave us an 80,000 tread warranty. Thank heavens because the Michelins lasted only 35,000 miles. The tires cost another $700. I'm not sure how much of an inheritance the kids are going to get.

Speaking of spending money. We finally got a NEW couch. Not a hand me down or a Goodwill find. The kids destroyed Grandma Morgan"s couch (okay, maybe my elephant behind played a role in that too) and J had had enough of the cushions not fitting properly anymore. We checked out a few furniture stores and Costco too and ended up with a leather reclining couch from Costco. It has been so nice. I was grateful once again for the hitch on the back of my van so we only had to rent a trailer to haul it home. I'm hoping they'll get the loveseat back in stock soon so we can get that as well.

Hip Hop Till You Drop

We've finally found the perfect match for Ephant's dance skills. She was always so so about ballet, but she loves hip hop. She's pretty good at it too. It's great to see I can produce a child with skills I don't have. This is from her dress rehearsal last night. The actual performance is tonight. You might see her cousin S in some of the video, but I mostly focused on Ephant.

One Big Family

Aunt J's youngest son just left on his mission to Sweden. The weekend of his farewell she had all her kids and grandkids so we decided to do a massive photoshoot. Luckily the pictures turned out great. This picture was a composite of probably 5 pictures. Thank heavens for photoshop and lightroom.

Loofa's Big Week

Loofa graduated from preschool last month. I love these graduations mostly because it is fun to see how your child will react in front of a large crowd. There weren't really any laugh out loud moments like with Ephant and Brother B, but it was still fun.

Who can guess what Loofa is holding in this picture?

Funny Girl

This is how I discovered Fefe one day:

Another day:

She really loves playing outside. One of her favorite things to do is find potato bugs.

Tie Dye Muslin Backdrop Tutorial

1. Save up several milk jugs (the number depends on how many colors you plan to use).

2. Purchase muslin (I dyed a couple very large pieces - about 10x20). Joanns is a good place to get this, especially with a 40% off coupon.

3. Sew edges of muslin - make a rod pocket at top if desired.

4. Boil water.

5. Shake the Rit dye well. Pour dye into milk jugs. A general amount is about 1/2 of a container of the Rit liquid dye (I do not recommend the powdered dye). It does take some experimentation to figure out how much you need to make it as dark or as light as you want.

6. Pour boiling water in the milk jugs. I used a large measuring cup. The jugs were in the sink while I poured to avoid messes since the water didn't go in all that easy.

7. While the jugs cool for a minute, lay your muslin flat on some grass. Soak it thoroughly. Scrunch it to about 1/3 it's size using grasping motions with your hand.

8. Shake the jug(s) over the muslin to coat it. You will need to wear oven mitts while doing this as the jugs will still be quite hot. Be careful, you will most likely get dye on yourself and the mitts.

9. Pull the muslin flat and shake dye over any bare spots. Other websites suggest putting it in a spray bottle to fill the gaps.

The red is before the first washing the and the gray is ready for it's second dyeing.

10. If you like how it looks, let it dry outside before washing. Washing will cause the color to bleed. I like this effect so I put it in the washer immediately. Use the rinse cycle with cold water. Once it is done put it in the dryer. I usually dye it a second time for a darker look.

11. Soak the grass afterwards to rinse out the dye, it will kill the grass otherwise.

I can't say I'm super happy with how this gray turned out. I'd like the blue I put in to stand out more, but it's at least a nice basic gray.

I was really worried how this red/brown was going. It is not at all what I was planning, but I like it nonetheless. My next project will be a true brown which I might actually achieved based on what I figured out in the tips below.

A few tips I've learned:

The rit brown dyes all tend towards a red tint. I discovered this the hard way. To combat this, add green to the brown. Rit's website has "recipes" to achieve the colors you want. It really does take some trial and error. You could probably try and be precise, but I didn't feel like wasting time on that. Hence my backdrops will probably always turn out not quite the way I planned, but ciest la vie.

Some people suggest adding salt to the rinse cycle to fix the dye. I've also read somewhere suggested soaking it in a tub of water with vinegar. This is definitely still a learning process, but it is so nice to have something beyond the standard black and white.

Horning's Hideout

After the groundbreaking ceremony we decided the day was too beautiful to waste. My friend has told me about a great place to catch salamanders. So, we packed up a lunch and headed out. The lake was positively teaming with salamanders. We spent about 2 1/2 hours there and the kids probably could have stayed the rest of the day.

Loofa's hands are covered in fish guts in this pic. The adults were having a hard time removing the hook and Loofa didn't mind getting his hands dirty. Yuck.

There are a couple play structures there. The first time Loofa slid down he launched and did quite the roll. I wish I had that on video. You can see the potential for it in this video though when J catches him.

Finally, A Stake Center

Our stake was created 3 years ago and we finally had the groundbreaking ceremony for the new stake center this past Saturday. It was pretty exciting. I hope we live here for the rest of our lives so it was fun to think about being here at the beginning.

*Explanation for the non-members: Yes, for the non-mormons reading my blog I did spell stake right. Our church is divided into units. The local congregations are divided into wards and then those wards are grouped into a stake. A few wards will meet in the stake center and the other wards will meet in our current building. We have stake meetings twice a year so it will be nice to have a building all our own to finally meet in.

All I wanted..

...for Mother's Day was a family picture. Out of 107 pictures we had 2 somewhat use-able ones. I was in quite the bad mood the rest of the day, partially since my older children were half the problem. I got over it though and now I'm glad we have updated pictures.

Once again, this one with all of us was a composite of 3 pictures.

Another Good Use

Fefe came up with this idea all on her own.