We bought a house!

Our house has always been small, which was fine when the kids were small, but they refused to stop growing and the house wasn't growing along with them.  We've been looking for a new place for over a year and finally we found one!  Chris and I are very happy,(it's almost twice the size of our last house) the kids on the other hand feel as though we've ruined their lives.  We tried really hard to find something in our area (I'm serious when I say we looked for a year) but we ended up about ten miles south.  It is still in Henderson, but a different ward, different stake and different schools.  It has been a really hard adjustment, but we're still working on it.  Speaking of working on things, we've actually been living here for a couple of months but I wanted to wait until I had decorated a little before I put up pictures buuut, buying a house takes mucho dinero!  There is a very slim budget for decor so fancy shmancy pictures will have to wait.  Luckily for us the house is in really good shape (just not my preferred color scheme) so it's ok to leave it how it is for a while.  Through the power (and inexpensiveness) of paint spray I have been able to make a couple of small changes.  It's not much, but I kind of love it.  Chris thinks my new mantra of "I can paint that" is amusing, but it's really kind of amazing the difference paint can make:)

I'm pretty sure these light fixtures were originally oil rubbed bronze, but after years of weather they looked pink.  I washed them down, cleaned the glass and gave them a couple of coats of oil rubbed bronze spray paint.  They look brand new and I love them!

This is still a work in progress. I want to stain the doors a darker color and I haven't figured out how to remove the middle part and peep hole to paint them and I want to stain the doors darker, but it already looks so much better. The previous owners left the doormat, but it's a good fit for us;)

#PINNING

You like that title?  I'm so out of date reference cool like that!  What do you do when you're facing outside temperatures of 115* and up?  Well you don't go out side if you can help it, that's for sure.  If you're me you spend a fair amount of time on Pinterest, sorry to all those who have to see all of my pins.  I probably only try like 10% (okay, okay 1%.  Sheesh call me out why don't ya) but it's free to look and I can do it inside.  Here are  few of the tip, tricks and recipes I've tried recently.

No Bake Watermelon Cake
from isavea2z.com

You all know Dalin loves watermelon, and lucky for him he has a summer birthday so he usually gets a watermelon "cake".  I found this way to fancy it up a little and it looked like it could actually be cake.  I only had strawberries on hand and he doesn't like almonds so it's not a fancy as the the picture, but it was a hit.

Crockpot Ribs

from mmmmisformommy.com

When Chris saw I was doing a post about pinterest he requested I add this recipe.  It is his FAV-O-RITE and he requests it for dinner weekly.  They are delicious but unfortunately for him when I made it for his birthday I was sick. Now it reminds me how blah I felt and it's hard for me to want to make them anymore.

Baked Taquitos

from menumusings.blogspot.com

My family thought they were tasty (well the ones that will try stuff) but I wish they were a little crispier.  It calls for diced chicken, but I had some ground turkey and figured it would be faster.  The recipe says you can fry them, which would help with the crispiness but not so much with the healthy.

Super Fantastic Grout Cleaning Trick

from happyhecticlife.com

This is probably my favorite pin ever!  This is my actual floor.   I was amazed at the results of this idea.  Just spray the cleaner on your grout lines then let it sit for a few minutes, scrub, then wipe it off with a wet cloth or mop.   I used a toothbrush and also a scrub brush on a pole so I didn't have to bend over.  The toothbrush fits just right in the grout lines so the results were much better, but they both worked great  We recently had an estimate for professional grout cleaning and it was about $350.  The can of Woolite...less than $5 and the results were better.  It sprays out in a stream, perfect for the grout line.  Make sure you shake it once and a while to keep the spray foamy.  We have maybe 300 sq ft of tile and I used 1 1/2 cans to clean it all.  And the Woolite smells good too.  I will admit that I don't know if this grout had been pre-treated with anything but I'm on week two after cleaning and it still looks great.

The summer heat is just getting started so stay tuned, I'll have more pins to post soon:)

Portland

Chris loves to travel, and he's always up for an adventure so when his sister needed someone to drive her car to Oregon, he quickly volunteered.  I have always wanted to see Oregon, and I like to hang out with Chris so I decided to tag along.  His sister and her husband paid for the gas, hotel and flight home so it was like a free mini vacation.  Aaaand it was still less expensive then if they had hired some one to do it.  It was a long drive, but Chris is good at driving and I am good at staying awake and thinking of stuff to talk to Chris about to keep him awake.  We had one day to hang out with Lindsay and her family and be tourists.  I think the thing Chris was looking forward to the most was visiting the food trucks.  He is a food truck fan and there are a few spots where several of them" park" (as in stay there all the time and don't drive around and use the truck feature of their food truck).  I couldn't believe it but Chris only ended up getting stuff from three places!  He might be losing his edge.  It was really short but a lot of fun!

Portland Temple.  It is so beautiful!  You can see it from the freeway and the neighborhood it is in is gorgeous.  Unfortunately the power was out in the area so we only got to see the outside.

Voodoo doughnuts.  It is pretty popular, I think this was on a food network show or something.  All the sites we looked up about Portland told us to visit.  It's open 24 hours, and there was a constant line.

The rose garden was beautiful.  It was pretty hot (for Portland) while we were there so the flowers were a little wilty, but it was still so pretty

I tried to be a photographer, but I was totally showed up by my niece.  This was the best shot I got .  I like it but I may have to get some copies of the ones she took

Chris and the Visentine crew.  They are pretty practiced in the art of the crazy face picture:)

Old Mormon Fort

I really don't want to be held hostage by the heat this summer so I'm trying to find things for us to do.  Chris works across the street from the Old Mormon Fort, but we have never been.  I decided to remedy that and we took a little field trip. It was more like an hour thing rather than all day, but it was interesting.  The Mormons who came lasted less than two years before they left due to heat and discontent but they paved the way for others to settle the area and the beginnings of, well, much more than the Las Vegas strip.

My grandma used to make us line up according to age for pictures.  It makes me laugh when my kids just do it on their own

We couldn't see the temple from the fort, just wanted to remind you that there really is so much more than the strip.

And Kaylee is 14!

It's interesting to have my oldest and my youngest's birthdays just a few days apart.  All of their birthdays kind of hit me hard.  With Kaylee everything is a first time and with Dalin it's the last.  Either way I feel old:)  Kaylee's birthday started out much the same as Dalin's, Chris and I being greeted by a little bum shaking.  For those of you who know Kaylee you may know that she is obsessed with very interested in Dr. Who.  This was a very Whovian birthday for sure.  She started with some family gifts which included Dr. Who t-shirt, converse, tardis cookie jar and her door decorated to look like a tardis.  She then went for a hair cut and style to look fabulous for her birthday lunch with friends.  After much laughing and eating she and said friends wandered the mall for a while before coming back to our house to "hang out".  (14 year olds do not have play dates.)

The case on my phone was causing my camera to have a red hue on all of the pictures...lame

Dalin is 7!

We have this unspoken rule (or maybe it's been spoken often and loudly) about birthdays and holidays.  Do not wake mom and dad up before 7:00.  Yes Christmas is the exception.  Dalin followed this rule for his birthday, but he and Kaylee were up early enough to make a plan that included some booty shaking when Chris and I came out in the morning.  Dalin is a great kid and of all our children his personality is the most like Chris.  I think that might be why he had to come last, to give his siblings, or most likely his mom,  a fighting chance.  He started with presents in the morning, then a play date and lunch with his bestie cousin Scott, then ended with a birthday celebration for all the June birthday's in my family.

Here's the 7.0 version of the favorite's

Food:  Watermelon
Restaurant:  McDonalds
Movie:  Despicable Me 2
Show: Gravity Falls
Toy: Magnets/ Legos
Place: The pool
Thing to do at school:  Recess

Rachel (11) Dalin(7) and Kaylee (14 in 4 days)

Concerts, Assemblies, Awards oh my!

Because I have super fantastic kids (yes I'm totally bragging...and I'd do it again) the end of the school year requires a lot of supportive appearances on my part as a parent.  I kind of love that they really do their best and it's even better for them when they get recognized for it.

May 16:   Ashton's final band concert. She played percussion so  she got to do the drum, snare drum and bells (I call it a xylophone but I am not the professional) I know I took video but I can't find it.  I'll have to post it later.  She also got and award for being a great math student, but that was a luncheon during school so no pictures:(

May 21:  Kaylee's final middle school orchestra concert.  She has really loved orchestra.  Again there's a video...somewhere

May 29(am):  Dalin had kind of a tough year that included a lot of changes, but it worked out for the best because he ended up with this marvelous teacher Mrs. Rodda.  I kinda wish Dalin could have her for the rest of his life.  It probably wouldn't help his issues with change, but I might be willing to risk it.  This was her first year teaching at Treem but she had a parent volunteer that helped in her class whose child had Mrs. Rodda last year at a different school.  That's how great she is, she has a following.  Anyway he received the super citizen (or something like that) and his improvement was awesome and I am so proud of him.

May 29 (pm):  Eighth grade awards.  I didn't have a very good angle to get pictures of Kaylee actually accepting any of the awards, but she dun good!  Even better is her group of friends cleaned up on awards as well.  It's nice to know she's hanging out with some good kids.

With Mrs. Bennett.  I know Kaylee looks like she's trying to get away but Mrs. Bennett is totally her favorite middle school teacher.

With Dr. Welsh.  He started as principal when Kaylee was in 6th grade and left for a different position around the middle of this years second semester.  He made a special appearance for the awards ceremony and was greeted with cheers and applause  from the students when he was introduced.  It's awesome to have such a great administrator.

Brains and beauty!  These girls are going to take over the world some day

May 30:  Aiden cleaned up at his awards assembly!  I think he ended up with seven awards.  He was involved in almost everything Treem had to offer this year and he loved it.  We've also really loved his teacher Mrs. Smead.  She's a teacher we wanted for all of our kids.  She was Kaylee's 5th grade teacher and we wanted Ashton to have her too but she moved to fourth grade that year:(  Luckily we picked her back up with Aiden and she is still as wonderful as ever!  It was a great year for Aiden

8th Grade Dance

I don't remember having a big deal eighth grade dance when I was in jr high but Kaylee's school presented her with the opportunity to attend "Skyglow" 2013.  Really Skyglow was the theme of the dance not what it is always called. I'm just trying to create an excitement for the event.  At first I was kind of against the whole thing (it cost $20, people were going as "couples", some kid even rented a limo) but Kaylee went with a great group of friends and even though her report was "it was okay", I'm going to translate that to mean she had a lot of fun.  Once I embraced the dance I probably got more excited than I should have and we went shopping for a new dress. Have you tried to find a modest dress for a middle schooler?  I tell you what it's a frustrating business and threatened to dampen my spirits.  We finally found one, and even better it was an excellent price.  The girls met up early at the school to take pictures and they were totally and unintentionally color coordinated! Cute huh!

Kaylee, Miya, Riely, Kyla, Lillian and Carly

I can never figure out why people think squinting straight into the sun is so great for pictures