Project 365: 1/31/12

Guess which one I chose?



I was shopping alone and needed help so I texted these pictures to Emmy who was at home to help me decide. We both liked the last one. And it only cost me $2 thanks to a punch card from last season and incredibly low close out prices on last year's styles. Kind of takes the sting out of swimsuit shopping!

Project 365: 1/30/12

Got this idea of Pinterest, among many others!

Project 365: 1/29/12

Buddy trying to eat my eyelashes. She likes earrings, too!

Project 365: 1/28/12

We had the idea to do a big picture collage for the wall behind Emmy's bed. Ikea has some basic white frames that aren't too expensive so we loaded up on a bunch, not knowing exactly how they would all fit together. I should have known that Zach could make a masterpiece out of them. He used iStock photos (website where designers can buy pictures of just about anything) to find some cool nature prints for half of the frames which we printed at Costco, and turned some of her favorite pictures with friends into black and white for the other half. Before we had it all put together, Zach was able to create the scene on his computer to see if we liked our selections and if the colors went well with her bedding before we actually went to print them. We took a picture of her wall with the empty frames hung, and he digitally dropped the photos we chose into the empty frame spaces. Here's what it looked like on his computer:

With just the nature shots dropped in...


With the friend pictures added...


And the actual finished project on her wall. Looks exactly like it did on the computer! It isn't really as faded out as this picture makes it look. The sun just messed with the camera.

Project 365: 1/27/12

Zach is on a home improvement kick since starting Emmy's room. Now he has moved onto our room. I came home from church one day to find his dad had completely painted my bedroom the same warm grey we painted Emmy's room which I love. And new lighting fixtures to boot!

Project 365: 1/26/12

I saw this dandelion wall vinyl on Pinterest and absolutely loved it. I don't love the real things, mind you, but I loved the feeling of it, like a gentle breeze had just wafted through Emmy's window.


Here's what it looks like on her grey wall. It's a lot more subtle than the red wall, but that's what I like about it.

Project 365: 1/25/12

I took Simon and his buddy Ezra Heath to Classic Fun Center to bounce the afternoon away. They bounced themselves silly and left two very tired and sweaty little boys.

Project 365: 1/24/12

New daybed! I love the bedding she chose. It is such a peaceful room with the colors she chose. I'm kinda glad we waited a year to re-do her room because she used to want black and hot pink. I'm sure it would have been cute, too, but this is definitely more my style.

Project 365: 1/23/12

Carpet for my bedroom came a week after Emmy's and Simon's carpet, so I had the thought to let the kids draw on the old carpet with Sharpies. Now THERE is an activity that all ages enjoyed!

Project 365: 1/22/12

New light fixture from Ikea. Love the shadows it puts out at night! Those flowers are paper, so I doubt this will last for years but it is pretty cool in the meantime.

Project 365: 1/21/12

Emmy's birthday present was a bedroom makeover which began with new carpet. Ahhhhhhh! Nothing beats the feel and smell of new carpet after 14 years of the same old gross stinky hairy stained matted-down carpet. (I know there are lots of missing commas there but I did it for effect).

Project 365: 1/20/12

Connor taking advantage of a nice warm spot for a nap after school (Emmy's room before her bedroom transformation soon to come!).

Project 365: 1/19/12

The ACTUAL birthday. Nothing much special happened on this day since all the hoopla had already happened.

Project 365: 1/18/12 Emmy's birthday door

Project 365: 1/17/12

One of Simon's preschools - Miss Karen's. Karen DeMann is a Murray institution or at least she will be by the time she is done. She has taught art classes for kids after school in the past, and this is her first year teaching preschool but she should have been doing it all along. This morning I actually gave Simon the choice to stay home and play with me or go to Miss Karen's. He chose her. I'm not heart broken. I got to finish reading a really good book.

Project 365: 1/16/12

This is the most likely thing you will see Zach doing at home these days. Since I got a new iPad, we downloaded a recommended game called Plants vs. Zombies that you can only play on the iPad and not iPhones. So between me, Zach, Connor and Simon (Emmy hasn't really gotten hooked like the rest of us), the iPad is in high demand so we can protect our homes and brains from the coming Zombie invasion.

Project 365: 1/15/12

Our friend Tucker Dansie works for the LDS church creating videos called Mormon Messages that are found on YouTube like this one here. They are short recaps of talks given by church leaders in a creative and touching package. Being friends with him on Facebook means I get to hear when he needs help producing the next one and volunteer my children if they fit the need. He actually came to me on this one and said he needed a girl about Emmy's age to do some audio and video for a message they are doing taken from Sister Elaine Dalton's Oct. 2011 general conference talk titled "Love Her Mother".

For the audio portion, we went to a sound studio underneath the Conference Center which is also where they film regional conferences and other church productions. There was a set that looked like it could be President Monson's office. She just read portions of the talk while recorded her voice to be used later in the video. A few days later, Tucker and his crew came to the house to film a short scene of Emmy texting on her phone at the kitchen counter with Zach coming into the picture to redirect her to her homework.

I have no idea how long until the finished product will be on YouTube. He says that it can take months to go through the approval process.

Project 365: 1/14/12 Emmy's 13th birthday party

To celebrate Emmy officially becoming a teenager (who I feel like has already been one for years now), we planned an overnight getaway with some of Emmy's friends in our favorite local town of Ogden. A few boys were invited to come along for some indoor surfing at Flowrider, but then Zach took them home while I took the girls to the hotel. To get all the kids in Ogden, we thought they would have more fun riding the FrontRunner train all together rather than split up into two cars, so we got them safely on the train in downtown SLC and drove two cars to meet them at the Ogden station. High effort, I know, but they all said it was so much fun.

We were a bit early for our reserved time at Flowrider, so we camped out next door at Costa Vida while the kids gave Emmy her presents, mostly gum and candy.


Jolly Ranchers - still her favorite candy after several years.

Jaxynn Smith and Abbie Coburn

Caden Davies, Jared Horton (her current love interest) and Will Thackeray

Emmy and Alarie Anderson


Only two of these kids had been Flowriding before so it was a totally new experience for the rest. A few were really hesitant to get out there, but I think they all had a great time by the end. Emmy's friend Jaxynn is fearless and she tried surfing standing up (most do body surfing) on her first turn.


Jaxynn taking a rough fall after bravely trying to surf (the falls are why I haven't tried surfing standing up. They fall hard!)

Abbie

Jared (poor kid is so light weight that the force of the wave just pushed him up top every time before he ever had a chance to really do anything!)


Corissa Leffel

Lexie Hymas

Will

Emmy

Alarie

Caden

Connor has done this probably 5 or 6 times now so he was showing them a few tricks, like pushing your board out in front of your body then catching it again before you get swept away.


Back at the hotel, the girls wanted to go swimming in the hotel pool, even though they were all still dripping wet from Flowrider. They were excited to find two boys their age from Wyoming in the pool with their grandma who tried to play matchmaker and get the girls to give her grandsons their cell phone numbers. Um hello, Grandma! These girls don't need any more encouragement in this area... So needless to say, those boys became the topic of discussion the rest of the time.

After swimming, we watched Mr. Popper's Penguins in the hotel room. There was a misunderstanding about how many girls could actually spend the night, so I had cancelled a second room we originally booked. But we ended up with 8 including me which meant two girls in one bed, three in the other bed, two in a rollaway and me in the chair. Yikes. We survived the night even though I had to get a little firm with a few who didn't know when to stop texting and giggling and go to bed.

Project 365: 1/13/12

New playdate buddies Jackson and Joshua from Simon's preschool class at Miss Debbies. He has been telling me for days that he wanted to play with these boys that I don't know and definitely don't know their moms. This isn't the kind of preschool where parents go help and get to know each other. So I had to watch which cars these boys got into when I would pick up Simon, then get brave enough to go up to the car, knock on the window, and ask if they would let their boys come play at a total stranger's house. It's an awkward scenario I've been through a few times. But we moms work it out and after the initial awkwardness, Simon comes away with a new friend to play with after school, and I've met a few new moms in the process.

Project 365: 1/12/12

Cuddling with Handsome