Mission Completion

We are there. Though the journey has been long and hard and tiring and terrible and happy and lots of tears shed. Lily has been potty-trained. Done. Well, not exactly done. I still have to put Lily on the toilet and leave her there, mad because she doesn't want to have a bm, until she has one. But, other than that, it's done. At least she's going, right? We haven't had ANY accidents for about 4 days straight now! Hooray!!

In other news involving Lily, she can now dress herself. It's so simple in the mornings now. I just lay the kid's clothes out and they put them on! No one needs help from me! Which, I do have to admit, I'm a little sad about too.

I Had No Idea

Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Yesterday at church, we sat down in the chapel, getting ready for Sacrament Meeting when all of a sudden, I looked to my left and saw Elder Dallin H. Oaks.

Me: Matthew, is that who I think it is??

Matthew: Naw, it can't be Elder Oaks. He looks too young.

Then Elder Oaks proceeded to sit down by the Bishop.

Matthew: Maybe it is him. Man, he looks pretty good for his age.

So, I have never been in a meeting that an Apostle was in (except for General Conference, but you always expect them there!). Of course, the only place that was open after waiting for the parents to come get their children from nursery was the front row. Of course, we were sitting directly, and I mean DIRECTLY in front of him. I was hoping for a miracle beyond miracles that my children would behave, which they did.

My mind was wondering reasons why Elder Oaks would come to our Sacrament Meeting. But, we just got a new Bishop. The Stake President would take care of that anyway.

Then we had the opportunity to have a beautiful - and the cutest - musical number by a woman named Jenny Baker and her three daughters, which the youngest was probably around 4 or 5 on the cello. Are you kidding? It was awesome.

At the end of the meeting, Elder Oaks stood to share his testimony and said that he was proud of his daughter and granddaughters for the musical number. He then said that he knew that the church was true. Of course he elaborated on that thought, but I don't want to cheapen at all what he said. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life to hear an Apostle proclaim the truthfulness of this church, the realness of Christ and the purpose of the Sacrament. It was great.

Little did I know until I spoke to my mother in law that Jenny Oaks Baker is an incredible violinist. She was the first violinist in the National Symphony Orchestra! You can check her out here or here. She has cds out and stuff. I had no idea! I guess her husband's family is in our ward and they visit every summer from Virginia or somewhere.

No, I didn't shake Elder Oak's hand because there were so many people wanting to do that. I figured he wouldn't mind shaking hands with everyone in the room, but the thing he wanted to do the most was to go to his family that he doesn't see too often.

Needless to say, I'm glad we didn't skip out on Sacrament Meeting yesterday.

Not that we do that....

Carwash

If you know Matthew at all, you know that ever since we have gotten our new car, he has been itching to wash it. Not just "wash" it because of course the dealership did that before Matthew drove it home. I mean, like, WASH the car. Matthew has his own level of cleanliness- and he married me?? I know... - where he gets every nook and cranny in the car. He cleans the air vents out with Q-tips for crying out loud.

Don't get me wrong, it is really nice to have a husband that cleans things, and believe it or not, he has rubbed off on me. I'm not a clean freak to the extent Matthew is though.

But, this past Tuesday, Matthew had no work, so he let the kids help him wash the car. They loved it! And Skiddy is all shiny...

Did I put a mental picture in your head?

Free Time

And this is how we spent our Saturday afternoon.

The West Side

Well, I believe that this sums up our Sunday Drive yesterday.

Matthew decided to take us to Magna because it's somewhere that we don't know too well. This is on the west side of the valley. So basically, there's nothing really out there. It was too hot to have the windows down. Nothing too special about this drive!

I'm pushing for something cooler next week.

Paintings

Welp, we ended up having to skip out on a baby blessing today due to the fact that Matthew was sick to his stomach early this morning. That's always the worst. So, with the unexpected free time that I have, I decided I'd put up this post!

I had fallen in love with this paisley print that I found online and I wanted to have paintings of them in my casa. I was planning on doing it when mom came out, but it ended up not happening because I came to find out that LeeAnn is a freakin' artist! She took a look at the prints that I found and came to the conclusion that she could do them. The above picture is the result of her work! I have them in our front room on the right side of our patio door. I love them and couldn't be more happy with how they turned out!!

When I was asking LeeAnn to do these, she asked what size canvas I wanted and we made a joke about the tiny canvases (because, seriously, what are those for??). I was laughing hysterically at the idea of having a small canvas over a person's couch. Well, I guess the joke is on me because, LeeAnn totally made one for me. I hung it by my door for a day - before Matthew made me take it down because it looked too bad. It now resides on our cork board.

But, here is what it looked like:

What happened to the pictures of the kids that were hanging where the paintings are now?? They are now on our entertainment center! I am LOVING the way that this is looking!!

Retracing Steps

There can only be so many #2 accidents in underwear before I get the hint. Well, not really "accidents" more like "skid marks".
Lily's still been struggling with this and in turn has developed a TERRIBLE rash which makes her want to hold it even more. I have found a burn gel that helps her rash immensely, so we're starting over!! No more diapers is still our motto. And naked days have been reinstated.

To Infinity and Beyond!

We went to see Toy Story 3 while my mom and dad were here!

It was a really cute movie. William talks about the huge flying pig at the beginning of the movie and Buzz is his fave. Lily just really likes Jessie and "Hoody" aka Woody. I have to say that Ken was my favorite. Great movie! I totally recommend this movie to anyone!!

Sunday Drive

Our little fam LOVES to go on drives. Especially on Sundays. I don't really know why, but we do. There's nothing more relaxing than driving around with the windows down as the breeze flows into the car. - did I mention that the kids love that they can roll their windows down in the versa? Well, they do.

Something that I personally love about our drives is that Matthew always takes me somewhere that's beautiful. Which is usually up in the mountains, overlooking the valley. That's my favorite. I usually never have my camera either, which I hate.

So, in commemoration of this tradition, I've decided that I want to start taking my camera on these excursions and take at least one picture to share our adventure.

Now, yesterday, Matthew did take us to see these houses in the mountains that are gorgeous, but I didn't take any pictures until we were closer to home. We always pass this street, and I finally had my camera, so I took a pic.

I Like Martha Stewart Books

Matthew thought that I was joking when I checked out Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts from the library. No, it was not a joke. That woman, although a felon, has some pretty great craft ideas. I didn't buy the book, I just wanted some cool ideas. The reason for this post being one of them!

I bought these picture frames (with plain white mats) at Walmart for $3. To spice them up at bit, I bought a pack of scrapbook paper and covered the mats. I am SO happy with how they turned out!

Here's a close up of this one. I also took a close up of Lily too, but no surprise, my camera wouldn't upload the whole thing onto the computer. Lame. I have more ideas for projects that I hope I can do soon!

The Third or Fourth?

Lily and her sparklers

Will and his sparklers (and my neighbor Kristi being hilarious)

I read in Matthew's Men's Health Magazine that Salt Lake City is the second most patriotic city in the USA.

This really got me thinking.

I think Utah is the only state that instead of celebrating the 4th of July on the 4th (because it was on a Sunday) we celebrated on the 3rd. Now, don't get me wrong, SLC really can show patriotism well. There are parades with taffy and activities through out the day at the park that leads up to the fireworks show at night. Lucky for us, we got to enjoy the Murray fireworks show from the comfort of our own side yard. A lot of our neighbors got together to make s'mores and do sparklers and such. This was actually the first year that my kids loved watching the fireworks! Can you believe that??

So, we did celebrate on the 3rd. But, because the 4th of July is a pretty awesome holiday - you know, with America being free and all - we celebrated the 4th as well. Carrie and Nathan and their girls and mom and dad came over for dinner. Then we went out in our parking lot to do Pop its and Sparklers. It was so much fun!!

I guess I just think it's a little funny to celebrate a holiday on a different day than it's supposed to be. But, I suppose that just happens. We'll see how Halloween goes... the 30th of October this year.

Golf (Of)Course!

So, by now, you all know that if my dad was out here, William played golf with him. Will first showed him the ropes of where we play outside of our apartment. After fashioning a blister from Will's golf clubs, dad said that he needed to get a glove.
Matthew, dad, and William all went to the golf store and they all came home with a new glove. Will has the smallest that they could find, which is still a tad big on him. But, a few days after, they all went to the driving range.

I know you can't see the glove in these pictures, but you can in the video! Will looks like a little Pro!

Skiddy

There are many posts coming soon of things that we did while mom and dad were in town, but this one, I'm too excited to wait to share!!

I HAVE A CAR!

After two straight years of not having a car (and some years before that also) Matthew and I bought a second car. Nissan Versa. Espresso Black. Can you tell that I am in love with this car? It was exactly what I wanted and the kids have SO much more room. I don't feel William kicking the back of the seat anymore. Me likey. We finally have our Sentra paid off. I guess you can say that this is how we celebrated.

Because of the Chocolate Brown color that my car is, Matthew has so stylishly named this gem "Skid" or "Skiddy" or "Skid Mark" or "Skids".

Thanks to mom and dad for helping us at the dealership so that we could get this beaut. We miss you guys!!