Round-up of missed moments - February through June 2015

Buckle your seatbelt. I am going to catch up. It won't be impressively creative or insightful, but it will be done.

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In February the girls and I attended the Rogers & Hammerstein broadway show Cinderella.  It was really amazing, especially the two times when Cinderella twirled around and somehow completely changed her gown mid-twirl. Mind blowing!! Before the play we had dinner at the Laughing Planet, a very Portland-esque eatery.

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Mid-March we celebrated when we completed our last Pinewood Derby. Joseph wasn't thrilled with the performance of his car, but we were all happy to be done.  

Ha ha ha ha . . . . have I mentioned that as of August I have a new church calling, and as part of my calling I am now over Pinewood Derby for the stake?  Oh, someone up there has a great sense of humor.  

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The following pictures are visual proof that I am a good mother who bought a egg dyeing kit, boiled eggs, and provided the opportunity for my kids to color Easter eggs. Not one of them cared about it whatsoever and only colored an egg and posed for a picture under duress. I think I am at the end of my egg dyeing days.  Whew.  

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Mid-April I was able to spend a weekend in Moses Lake with my Grandma Palmer, who just celebrated her 87th birthday. I had a truly wonderful time taking Grandma shopping and to lunch and seeing her home in an assisted living center. I also loved spending time with Aunt Lora and Uncle Brent, who let me stay at their house. They are such genuine people, and it was a treat to spent hours talking to them about their life histories. We typed up an outline of their lives and posted them on familysearch.org.

I love the stuffed animals Lora sets on the guest bed to welcome visitors.

Funny story about this picture. I handed my iphone to Aunt Lora to take a picture of me and Grandma by a pretty spring-flowering tree.  Because Lora has an iphone, I thought she would be comfortable taking a picture. Unfortunately, instead of a picture she accidentally took a 5 second video. I had Brandon pull this very low quality picture off the video, as proof that I was with Grandma that weekend.

When I asked Grandma where she wanted to go to lunch, she said "let's go to this really good pizza place in town for a lunch buffet."  I drove us there and found that it was the Pizza Hut. And the lunch buffet was over. So we ordered pizzas. I thought we might each get a personal pan pizza, but Grandma said she wanted to get a LARGE, and she wanted the meat lover's combo on her half, with extra cheese in the crust.  I guess when you live to be 87 you are entitled to as much meat lovers pizza as you want!

And then I took Grandma shopping for white pants to the new store in town, Ross Dress for Less.  We found a pair that looked good until I spotted the bedazzled rear pockets. We laughed ourselves silly at the thought of Grandma wearing her blingy pants around the assisted living center!

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Around this time also, from Mid-March to Mid-may, we put an offer on and then purchased a triplex in Provo, Utah. My parents had been helping us out and looking for a suitable property for us for the previous 9 months. It was pretty intense and frightening to buy an investment property from afar, but I think it will end up being a good investment. It is also a nice option for our married kids to live in while they are going to school.

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A project that Bailey and I tacked in the spring: re-doing her bedroom (just in time for her to move out of it!)  She had been ready for a change for awhile, as the choices she had made as a 13 year old didn't really reflect the young adult she had become.  

It took some serious painting to cover the bright fuschia and orange paint on the walls! Bailey did lots of patching on the walls to cover holes from where she had hung pictures and Christmas lights.

I tackled a sewing project and sewed a yellow band on the bottom of the curtains Bailey and I found at HomeGoods on clearance. It took a lot of measuring and re-measuring. At the same time, I sewed a panel to the back of one of Bailey's new dresses, making the low-cut back more modest.  I was pretty proud of my sewing finesse!

Bailey had a certain shade of greyish greenish blue in mind for the wall, a color which would evoke the ocean. But when we painted what we thought would be the perfect shade, it turned out to be the exact color she had on her wall for much of her early childhood!  That had to go.  

And the finished project.  I am still trying to figure out what to do with the walls, especially on the wall behind the bed. 

photo to come

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I put this picture into a file labeled "FHE" on my computer. I cannot remember why Dan was standing on his head for family home evening, but it's definitely a  picture was worth documenting!

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I really love this quote, on one of the rocks outside Aubrey's high school. 

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Joseph performed in his 6th piano recital on the late afternoon of Bailey's birthday in June. It is so fun to listen to him play both piano and cello!  Even more fun than listening to him play Minecraft.  

 

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And another Joseph picture - a spy outfit he put together one day in the midst of graduation craziness.  I'm so glad that he still dresses up in costumes now and then! 

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And finally, we spent as much time as possible hanging out together as a family of five before Bailey left to college, even gathering all together on Bailey's bed. And Bailey looks very thrilled that we are in her room, right?