It Can't Be

It can't almost be June.  It just can't be.

That means we are about halfway through this year and that's kinda crazy!  I feel like time is just flying by this year and I'm getting farther and farther behind on all the things I want and need to do.  Take blogging for instance.  I have a little list of things I want to blog so I don't forget and some of those things date back to Christmas.  Yikes.  Then I look around my house and notice things that have been neglected for days or weeks that make me want to run away and leave the job for the first unsuspecting person that encounters it.

Summer starts a crazy time for our household and this year will be no exception.  (It will probably be the worst yet.)  So to kick it off with a bang I procrastinated a little project until the very last minute to really ring in the busy season.  I was part of a Quiet Book Group.  We each made one page multiple times and will share them with each other and end up with a fun book that took way less creativity and time to make than if we had made it ourselves.  I've had probably two months to complete this little project but kept thinking I still had a little more time.  Since tomorrow is the day the pages are "due" I have been a busy little bee at the kitchen table.  (Thank heavens for a husband that had the day off and doesn't mind putting the kids to bed once in a while.)

Here's my first completed page.  I love it!

I've had the idea in my head for a while now, but it took some real urgency to get it all to come out.  The car "lives" in the little house while its not being played with and then the road winds around a little lake.  Haha.  It is actually much simpler than I thought it should be, but less is more, right?  Especially since these books are for kids and they wouldn't care if there were trees and stuff...  I'm so excited to get my other pages and get them all together in our very own Stratton Family Quiet Book.

FYI:  These pages only cost me the price of the cars and the black felt.  The background was from an old sheet that I've been saving for something fun like this and the lake and house pieces were just fabric scraps I had.  If I had really tried to scrimp, I could have done it for free by making the road out of just whatever fabric I had and salvaging cars from my boys' growing collection.  That might be an idea!  Make a quiet book for free... just imagine the possibilities.

On Kolob for Memorial Day Weekend

Most big holidays are a time when the whole family heads up to the cabin, which we all really love to do.  I'm easily entertained... I like to just sit and watch everyone interact.  There's always so many activities going on at one time.  The only thing I planned was to do an Insanity work out in the morning. I did that and a little Zumba in the crisp basement that morning.  Then we went about the rest of the day filled with eating and exploring. 

I thought it was cute to see my boys out there watching the bigger boys so closely.  

Tyler was allowed to pick up the air soft gun and seemed to know just what to do with it.

A natural...

... and a scary one at that.  He was quickly reminded of one important rule of guns.

NO POINTING THEM AT PEOPLE!

Yikes.

We went exploring around the lake to see the new spawning beds and stuff.  

Remember last fall when it was drained.  At its lowest, it was only about a foot deep... maybe two feet deep at the deepest points.  The precipitation over the winter filled it all the way back up to the highest it has ever been... at least for a really long time.

Here are a couple of the spawning beds that were built.

Tyler and Daddy.

Marshall and Grandma.  Marshall found a stick that he was carrying around like a gun.

Look how much water is there!!!

Colby had promised the boys they could shoot a little once we got back to the cabin.  Tyler loved it.

Marshall actually did too.  But he took it a lot more seriously.

And didn't really care for how loud it can be.

Telegraph Job :: Visit 3

Tonight the guys were working late, so Grandma called us up to see if we wanted to go take dinner to them.  They had a pour that had to get done and they didn't know how late they'd be there.  

We got there a little before Grandma, so we snapped a few pictures...

... and wandered around.  We were near Cottontown Village and Marshall spotted this rustic backdrop and told me he wanted me to take their pictures.  I thought a fun photo session was in store.  

But no.  

This is how they behaved the whole time.  Silly boys.

I did catch a calm smile or two.

Kind of.

Getting the job done.

Then we found a good spot to just sit and watch and eat our dinner.  

How cute of these kids... watching their daddy do what he loves.  

Maybe someday they'll love it too.

Telegraph Job :: Visit 2

We took another opportunity to visit Daddy at work.  They were setting the tops of the box culvert and Colby thought the boys would really enjoy seeing the crane.  They did too.

I love this little series where you can see how excited the three of them are to see each other. 

Daddy shared some of his pizza with the boys.

Notice Marshall at the top of the dirt pile... he never misses a chance to play in dirt.

We weren't the only ones visiting that day.

The next generation.

It was kind of cool to see the process of setting those enormous concrete pieces.

Construction is amazing.

This message means so much to me.

Thanks a million times to those that helped me make it what I wanted it to be.

Too Funny

Marshall has taken quite a liking to Lady Gaga lately. He has no idea what she looks like but has heard her name and associates it with "that style" of music.  Once, a little while ago, I pointed out that the person singing was Lady Gaga.  He thought it was hilarious.  He almost couldn't believe that she was a real person.  Another time he heard a song and asked me, "Hey Mom.  Is this Lady Gaga?"  When I said yes (it actually was...) he just laughed.

I felt fine about it because I was sure he didn't actually know who she was.  Then one day, not too long ago, he told me in the car, "Mom.  You know what?  I know who Lady Gaga is.  I saw her on the TV and I know what she looks like."  I was a little startled, so I asked him to describe what she looks like.  At first he wasn't sure what to say, but then he started describing her and I was sure.  He'd seen her.  He now knew who she was.  Heaven help us.  :)

On a happier note, he also has a little love for another musician.  He wants to be Justin Bieber when he grows up.  I love it.  I told him to go for it and he could be anything he wanted when he grew up.  Marshall can sing a handful of his songs and requests Justin Bieber when we're driving in the car.  I think its great.  He's been known to sing "Baby" over and over and over again- getting progressively louder with each round.  It usually only takes a few times through before he's yelling it and its echoing through the car and we're all wishing we could chop our ears off before our ear drums bust from the volume.

I really enjoy Marshall's love of music.  I'm planning to put him in a show choir when fall rolls around.  He's always singing and just absorbs it all, so I know he'll do great.  I'm really excited about it.

I think I'm easily distracted.

I was getting home this morning from picking up my Bountiful Basket, thinking of how I needed to get the produce inside to wash and sort it.  Then I figured I probably ought to do the dishes and wipe down the counters before I started anything else in the kitchen.  As I was unloading the truck, some neighbor kids were lingering around as if they wanted to play, so I invited them to play in the backyard with my boys.  Instead of heading straight to the kitchen, I went out back to supervise for a second (since the kids were a bit older then my boys and I wasn't sure how nicely they'd play with younger ones).  While I was out there, I figured I could make more efficient use of my time and weed the garden.  -WAIT A SEC.  I better pause this blogging session and go move along the laundry.-  So I gathered a few weeds and noticed my radishes were ready to harvest.  What!  I swear I was out there just yesterday and they still looked too small and now they're bursting from the soil!  Yeah!!!  

Check out how pretty they are...

Well, of course I was so proud of my first harvest that I ran to grab my camera and documented the moment.  Would you like to see my garden?

Everything is coming in nicely (except the carrots... we got crazy snow a few days after I planted and most of the seeds got buried or washed into little clumps, so I have a few trying to survive) and I'm gaining a lot of confidence and looking forward to the day I can say I've tried to grow all the things I've wanted to.  -Back to my distracted story- Well, once I was snapping photos, I remembered I have a couple trays of tomatoes and peppers in the garage that need to be planted and that maybe I should hurry and plant them before I share pics of the garden.  But I was overcome with excitement to harvest my radishes, so I'm still a little torn, but think I'll plant the tomatoes and peppers, take some more pictures of the full garden, then harvest more radishes.  But before I could do any of that I still needed to get inside and clean up the kitchen and put away the produce.  So I get inside, the kids start asking for breakfast, so I get them fed and all the while I was dying to blog about my garden.  So now I've completed this post, have only gathered a handful of radishes and unloaded the dishwasher.  Now I will get on with regular kitchen chores and hopefully get to my garden before the sun emerges from behind the clouds.  

A little practice in prioritizing and keeping focused might be good for me.

Where's the Baby?

I love the way kids sleep.  When I checked on Tyler during nap time today it gave me a little chuckle.

When he laid down he needed his doggie, lion, kitty and piggy.
Then he got settled with his arm up over his eyes.  

How sweet...

Mother's Day 2011

Colby has always been really good at surprises and I love that about him!  He does a fantastic job of thinking way outside the box which always leaves me speechless.  Perhaps the last little while he's been a little worn out because I have topped his gift giving skills a time or two.  But not this time!  He had me convinced that he had forgotten about Mother's Day but I wasn't too worried since I had recently splurged a little on some new clothes.  I think that all played into the surprise factor when he and the boys showed me this...

You are seeing correctly.  A large, incredible painted portrait of ME!  Like I said, he thinks way outside the box and this was the last thing in the world that I expected.  I was a little overwhelmed looking at a picture that size of myself but I was insanely humbled that someone would take so much time to do that for me.  (HUGE shout out to the ultra talented Brooke Phillips... one of my favorite young women in our ward!  She's a sweet gal and a dear friend.)  Colby asked her a little while back if she would do this for him and I'm so proud of her for taking on the challenge!  Now I just have to figure out where to hang it...

It's Getting Warm!

It's finally getting warm enough to play with some of the water toys the boys got for their birthday.
Cassadee and Brady gave them this slip and slide and it works great on our little slope in the front yard.
Here, Colby is showing Marshall how fun a slip and slide can really be with a little boost.

Marshall liked it.

Tyler wasn't so sure.  He mostly just didn't like being sprayed by the water.

Then Daddy had to join in.  What a cool dad.

Did he leave his shirt on?  It's hard to tell.  

;)

Tyler was actually a much bigger fan of the "slide" we created on the driveway 

when we drained the water out of the slip and slide.

By the end, Tyler had fun but was very cold.

Marshall hadn't had quite enough, so he ran through the sprinklers.

Telegraph Job :: Visit 1

This month is going to be a busy one for Colby.  IRP has a few big jobs that need a lot of attention in a little time so he's working a ton.  For the next couple weeks he's down at Willow Beach for the first half of the week, then spends his weekends working here in Washington City on the Telegraph Rd. project.  They are on a strict time line, so they're working on it as much as possible.  It's convenient though, that its so nearby, because we just jump in the car and go watch him work and sometimes get to eat lunch with him.

Today was our first visit.

They have many days of pouring lots and lots of cement. 

This made me laugh, like father like son... they love their Dr. Pepper.

Cute boys.  (I guess Tyler wasn't a fan of his hard hat.)

They are replacing this old bridge and building a big box culvert for the water to flow through.  

Like I said, lots of cement.

The kids sat right here for the longest time throwing rocks and smashing dirt clods.

After a while, Marshall got bored of that and thought he might be able to climb the giant wall of dirt.  

He worked on it for a good ten minutes I bet.

And finally made it up!