My sweet MacKenzie

She woke up with a croupy cough tonight. Coughing, peeing on me, throwing-up all over... I'm okay with that. Just breath sweet girl.

We're both clean and she's sleeping. If I could just bottle up our time together, sitting outside in the cold waiting for the night air to work it's healing magic. I love those little moments. Makes me feel such a small comparison of what Heavenly Father feels towards me. Everybody. I know He's just whispering the same things to each of us, "Good job. Nice and slow. You're doin' it."

cars

Here we are at my LEAST favorite place in the world... a car dealership. (I had horrible experience at Tobin Doge in Henderson, NV. Never buy a car from them!) This is Valley Hi Toyota and I actually liked them after we were all said and done.

Here's the inside.

And here's Justin's new ride. That Mercedes did not last but what, one week? I guess he was tired of driving a drug dealer car. So far an awesome car. It's an '06, but still has that new car smell minus the 2010 price tag. Happy Birthday, Father's Day and Christmas for the rest of your life;)

YW self defense

What would you do? Really. This hasn't happened to me, but if it did... I can snatch that thing right outta his hands.

Last year was our first time introducing self defense to the Young Women. This year we did it again and my hook ups running the show were EVEN. BETTER! I'm telling you I wish I video taped some of these. I mean you've got to see me deflect a knife and then stab my attacker as I run away. It's SO easy and it looks like I'm right off the set of 24.

This is not the way you're supposed to do the knife thing, but the girls had so much fun attacking each other;)

We even invited the Relief Society. Here's our fearless RS President beatin' up the boxing guys pad.

We will definitely be doing this again next year. I said that last year too, but this year with the guns and knives... that was AWESOME! How often do other YW leaders get to pretend to shoot and stab their girls? Now that I put it that way maybe we should go biannually on this class:)

While I'm stealing pics off the internet

How about this? You like my inspiration for a new hair do?

True colors

My friend Liz showed me this pic last night and I had to share it!

Katelyn's takin pics

Katelyn had her first official photo shoot the other day with my friend's little girl. If anyone wants her to take pics for you let her know. Here's her new photo blog

www.kpcaptures.blogspot.com

Creativity at its best

We saw something similar to this, but with elephants at the Wild Animal Park. Last night Kennedy showed me her giraffe. All. By. Herself. I can't believe how cleaver she is. She's only 5!

Katelyn didn't know she was getting a roommate when she hung her hammock. She should've known better. That's screaming "come climb up here!"

Can you hear the joy in MacKenzie's laugh?!

Voila, here she is

Justin's been looking for another car. We even toyed with the idea of buying a new one, but we just can bring ourselves to go into debt over a want. So he found this.

1985 and it's a diesel. Not just any diesel, one that can switch over (while driving?) to run on vegetable oil.

Okay one more before on the hutch. I just enjoy the difference.

Here's my final outcome. You just have to see it in person to truly enjoy the colors. I LOVE it!!!

And I must give credit to Katelyn for running to Lowes to get purple paint and knobs for me. I gave her my debit card and all my confidence that she'd pull through with a great shade of eggplant and some fantastic hardware... she did not disappoint! Thanks Katelyn. Thanks craigslist.

We saw rhino's Brenden

Wild Animal Park is amazing. I can't believe I heard lame reviews from people I know such as, "It's way too big and TOO hot!" Or, "The tram thing isn't that great." Really? We loved it! My mom and Manuel were already in San Diego when Justin decided yesterday morning (10:30am) to go. So we called them up. They decided to join us at the park. By 2 we were getting tickets and checkin' out the animals. Fun trip. We'll be going back all year;) Thanks for coming with us Grandma and Grandpa!

My hutch is coming to life

The guy I bought my hutch from was worried about the glass being splintered in the middle door. Glass doors? In my house... I don't think so. Those doors were comin' off anyway.

Here she is in all her Behr "Raffia Cream" glory. Ask Rebecca and she'll tell you, Raffia Cream is always the perfect color.

And this pic didn't turn out so good this evening, but that's eggplant in there. Do you love it? I do! It's the one piece of furniture that can carry it off. 10 more coats of purple and some knobs and I will finally be the owner of my very first hutch. (I've been looking for 2 years).

Grayson's closet

While I'm on a roll and motivated to get things done I cracked the whip on this bad boy. (There were tons of boxes I took off the top shelf before remembering to take a before pic). And who makes closets like this?! Really? One rack to hang your stuff on. Who has one t-shirt, a dress and no shoes?

This time around I had ALL my kids with me. And helping, ha.

But by the end of the day it looked like this! And as you can see Grayson can reach his shirts. (which also means he wants to change 10 times a day).

And look what I finally found! A Hutch! And it's wood! And it was $65.

Kennedy shoots a gun

What?! This is how Justin entertained the kids while I was tackling that closet the other day. He took our 5 year old out shooting.

No, I'm not kidding. And that's no airsoft gun, it's a 22 (whatever that means). I'm living a whole different reality than the one I was raised in. Where I come from we weren't allowed to own water guns!!! Not a single gun in the house when I was growing up and now my husband takes the kids out shooting before they start kindergarten! Don't get me wrong though, I don't mind. A girl that cute better know how to use a gun.

Don't worry mom, it was totally safe. That blue cord thing hangin' around her neck, those are ear plugs and she had her special glasses on. Apparently she was really good too. Wasn't scared at all.

Closet reno for the girls

This might be embarrassing, but it's not my room and I forgot to take a before pic of the closet. Just imagine this mess inside...

of that sad thing. Justin took the kids away for 24 hours and I knew it was my golden opportunity to get this room situated. And then I realized.... Justin's GONE! Who's gonna man that table saw?! I hate the table saw. If you hold the wood wrong that mean ol' saw will kick it right back at you. Talk about scary. I still used it a little but the whole time I was cutting I had to scream at myself (inside my head of course, don't want to freak out the neighbors) "you can totally do this. You're doin' it. It's almost done. There! Good job! No get away from that thing before it eats you!" How pathetic is that? But anyway here's what else I did.


I bought this shelfy thing. Would have preferred white, but this color was $20 cheaper. You don't have to tell me twice. Plus I decided the girls will most likely end up drawing on whatever I get. This might camouflage crayon and marker a little better.

Then I screwed in some boards. When I was installing the little board it just wasn't firm. It was hanging off the wall on that side. So when all my other attempts to screw it in the drywall failed I grabbed the liquid nails and shoved as much in the crack as I could. Rebecca, didn't you say it's all about caulk and paint, right? I went with that idea and you can't even tell it looked like this! Okay well you can in this pic.

But not here! Well it's not as amazing as my closet, but my little (giant) pony on top is pretty darn cute. I thought I was doin' this for pretty cheap... then I bought those baskets. No coupon. No sale, but they needed to come home with me.