Magnet Board

My friend Sarah gave me this great idea to make magnet boards for the kids rooms for them to hang up all their many drawings and projects.  We got MDF boards, and the sheet metal at Lowes, and had Arthur help us route and cut the mdf to make the frame.  After the frame was built,  I just painted it (took a few times to get it how I wanted it, since I'm an amateur) and inserted the sheet metal and oila!  The best part is, Sarah and I each are making two of these 24" by 36" magnet boards for $15 each!  I love it!  Hope Dallin likes it too.  

BYU/Airforce Game

This past weekend we went up to the BYU/Airforce game in Colorado Springs. We drove up Friday, and stayed with my cousin Lamont and his wife Melissa in the Denver area. We had fun playing games and visiting with them. And our kids had a great time playing with their boys Carter and Mckay. Saturday was the game.

We caught a picture with Cosmo just as he was leaving the BYU tailgate party.  Hayden wanted to pet him.

Here are the kids, all bundled up, in front of the stadium.

The comfortable bleachers can't be beat.

They have a good color scheme.

Go BLUE & WHITE!

Hayden looked like a little eskimo--He was warm though!

The Airforce Academy is a great stadium to watch a football game for a number of reasons:

Before the game, the cadets march onto the field in formation and salute as the national anthem is played.  Then they run into the stadium seating.  Next, they have Airforce skydivers parachute into the middle of the stadium.  It's awesome to see how they maneuver their parachutes.  Then, just before the kick-off they have a fly-by.  This year they had three F-15s fly right over the stadium and I tell you what--you can feel the rumble in your chest.  

It's AWESOME!  

Then at the end they play "I'm proud to be an American!" and just makes you feel so patriotic and grateful to live in this great nation.  I am proud to be an American.  God bless the USA!

 

6 quirks (tag)

1.  During the summer I can't go to bed without washing my feet first.  I think it's wearing flip-flops all day and getting my feet all dirty and sweaty.  Sometimes I'll be so tired and think, "it's no big deal-I'll skip it tonight."  I lay in bed until eventually I have to get back out and wash my feet. 

2. When I take a deep singing breath, you can hear a strange gurgling in my abdomen.  I don't know if there is any merit to this theory, but I think it might be because of being pregnant and getting my organs all squished and moved around.  The result of the resettling organs is a very strange gurgling when breathing with my diaphragm.  

3. I will eat any kind of dough.  Not just cookie dough- bread dough, pie dough, biscuit dough.  I like it all. (Although I must admit the yeast-based doughs  do give me kind of a tummy-ache.  It's not enough to kick the habit though.)

4.  I hang up empty picture frames because I know where I want them to go, but I haven't printed the pictures to go in them yet.  I have had one of my frames hanging on my walls without pictures in it for almost two years.  There was another collage frame I had hanging that still had all the "picture models" in it from the store and I used to get comments on it all the time: ( "Wait, whose family is this?")

5.  I wear myself out.  Sometimes I fall asleep while reading aloud to my children.  

6.  I hate running errands in the afternoon.  For whatever reason, if it doesn't happen before lunch, it doesn't get done.

Funny how many quirks we have.  I'm sure there are better ones I could have listed but my brain shuts down after 9:30, so I should probably just have done this later when my brain is running at a higher capacity.  

Anyway, I tag my blogging sisters, Amber Gariety, Natalie, Jenny, Julianne, & Melanie

Family Pictures

You have to see these:

to appreciate these:

Ah, the drama of family pictures. Good thing they're only once a year.

And thank goodness Erin is so patient with us, and Steve is there to make the kids laugh.

Halloween Festivities

Ward Trunk-or-Treat

Oct 24th

The kids wanted to do Harry Potter again this year.  This is the first time I have recycled costumes from another year.  At first it felt like a cop-out, but then, when I wasn't stressing out about finishing costumes in time, it felt REALLY GOOD!  I only did one new costume (if you can call it a costume--)  I added some feathers and wings to one of Hayden's white fleece hoodies so he could be "Hedwig."

Ron, Harry, Hedwig, Snape, Hermione, and Trelawny (who was taking the picture.)

October 25th:

Sugar Cookies on Saturday night. 

October 29th:

Wednesdays are short days at school--so they had all the class parties and costume parade on Wednesday.  Dallin and Arthur made Harry's "Nimbus 2000" out of branches from our recent pruning projects.  Dallin was so proud of it.  Daphne is dressed as a scarecrow because all the kindergarten classes dressed as scarecrows together.  It was really cute!

The Hubert Humphrey Costume Parade

October 29th evening:

Carving Pumpkins

October 30th:

Sean dressed up as Woody for his preschool Halloween Party.  Sometimes Sean likes to go to preschool and sometimes he doesn't.  It just so happened that Thursday was an off day--I barely got him to stay for his Halloween Party.  ???  I can't figure this kid out.

October 31st:

Me with my little ones who are ready to head out for trick-or-treating.

I stayed home to pass out candy this year, and start the home-made donuts for when they returned home with their sugary spoils.

Here they go!

And now they're back!

Hayden wasn't about to miss out on any of the treats. 

 He scavenged and found anything left unattended for more than 2 seconds.

Despite all the sugar, Sean is still looking forward to the "circles!" 

We enjoyed donuts after changing into jammies and watching "Harry Potter."

Happy Halloween!

You Are So Beautiful To Me . . .

1. Dishwasher update

Before:

After:

"You are so Beautiful to me!
Can't you see? You're everything I've hoped for!
You're everything I need.
You are so beautiful to me!"
~Joe Cocker

Ode to a Dishwasher
By Sharee Gariety
(To be sung to the tune of "Bicycle Race" by Queen)
Dish-washer!
Dish-washer!
Dish-washer!
I love to load my dishwasher,
I love to load it up,
I love to load my dishwasher,
And fill the top rack with our cups!

And that's why I'm not a poet. However, my heart is so full of joy whenever I look upon my beautiful new dishwasher, I simply had to sing its praise somehow. I hope I never take that blessed machine for granted again. I really do love loading and unloading my dishwasher--so much, that I haven't even made Dallin & Daphne resume responsibility for that chore yet.

2. Here is Hayden. He loves the music class I do each week that is actually geared toward 2 & 3 year olds. Sean frequently boycotts the class, but Hayden shakes the instruments and bounces up and down while we sing songs. It's really cute.



3. Dallin lost another tooth. This one was unique because he lost it at recess playing "tackle football." He told me, his friends Bobby and Jacob both tackled him and that's when he felt his tooth floating around in his mouth. Unfortunately, it popped out and for all their searching, they couldn't find it. Thankfully, the nurse sent home this special note indicating that he'd lost a tooth on the playground, which he put under his pillow in lieu of his tooth. The tooth-fairy mercifully accepted such note as adequate proof, and he was rewarded with a dollar.



4. Venting: So I have been asked to help the youth with a Christmas song for them to sing in Sacrament meeting. I picked this great arrangement of "With Wond'ring Awe" that I think they will have a lot of fun with once they learn it. Well, last night was our first rehearsal (I get 20 minutes at the beginning of YM/YW) and since Arthur is out of town, I got coats on everybody, loaded up all the kids and drug them all down to the church with me to hang out while we rehearsed. Kind of a pain, but that's what a good person I am. ;)

Well, when I got home, I was going through and stapling the music so it would be easier to use for next rehearsal, and I come across this on the back of one of my pieces of music:

In case you can't read it, it says: "This is so boring."

I'm not gonna lie; it hurt my feelings, because I put thought into choosing a song I thought they'd enjoy, and I try to keep things moving and fun for the youth. Also it was a sacrifice for me to get my children over to the church when I'd rather have been putting them in bed. So it was kind-of a slap in the face.

Well then I got angry. (Robert: "Oh I'm angry." Giselle: "Angry. . ." Robert:"Angry, yes, have you ever heard of it?" Giselle, "Oh yes, I have heard of it." Robert "It's a very unpleasant emotion." . . . name the movie.) So I'm angry because it's my music. I bought and paid for it, and I don't care if you are bored, write on your own stupid piece of paper.

So now that I've gotten that off my chest, I am giving myself the advise I know my mom would give me if were here:

"Consider the source."

It's probably an insecure youth who was actually having the time of his life, but would never admit it because he wants to look cool for his friends. :) Alright maybe he wasn't having the time of his life, but he probably is insecure . . . (and thoughtless, and ungrateful, but we'll just go with insecure for now.) And I'll admit I often feel insecure myself. Case in point--this probably wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't feel so vulnerable myself, right? So if you've read this far, it would really help my self esteem if you could all leave comments about how awesome I am and how you would love it if I was teaching you a song to sing in sacrament meeting, and how if you were rich, you'd send me on a cruise to Tahiti or something along those lines. :)