My handy husband and Merry-Go-Round Juice

It's been quite the week. Fall is so very HERE and winter is coming fast so I've been trying to get my To Dos done - and wearing myself out in the process. I'm exhausted today. But I thought I'd share a few highlights of the past few days while I'm sitting around watching Sam make pot stickers :)

Sam has decided our closet needed an upgrade. And quite frankly he's right - I didn't take a "before" photo because it was too embarrassing with the clutter spilling out of it onto the floor. But the mess is no more (well almost - I don't have it all put away yet). Sam and his buddy Lance (thanks Lance!) spent Saturday making and installing new built-ins for my closet. And they are so good at their job - it only took them about 4 hours to do it and it looks so professional.

In order to keep the kids out of the way I ended up taking them to run errands with me then to the park. We also went to Grandpa's house for a 4 wheeler ride to kill some time. And this is the construction zone that greeted us when we got home.

And my finished closet! Double hanging and cubbies on the Right, drawers and long hanging on the left. And check out that detailing! (Ignore the ugliness on the back wall. We didn't take the time to touch it up after removing the old closet organizer. But we will get to it - eventually.)

And what (you are asking) is this de-lightful concoction? It's Kaitlyn's "Merry-Go-Round Juice." She spent about an hour the other day making it. Ingredients include water, apple pieces, nectarine pieces, carrots and frosting :) How does it taste? No idea - and I bet you wouldn't have dared try it either!

And one last photo to leave you with - Tyler laying on Sam's arm during the NASCAR race today where he had thankfully fallen back to sleep today after a short nap in the car on the way home from the city. Awwww :)

Butterfly Fairies and a Flying Horse with One Eye

Playing dress up is one of our daily activities this week. Kaitlyn usually opts for Butterfly Fairy Princess and tries to insist that Tyler do the same. The other day I had a fight on my hands until I could convince Katy that the yellow hard hat Tyler wanted to wear would work just fine if she PRETENDED it was a crown :) But as you can see, at other times he is perfectly happy wearing the wings and high heels. Too cute right? Sam says at some point Ty is going to hate us for taking these kinds of photos. So while none of us think it's a problem if Ty wants to dress up with Kaitlyn, I will however be shopping the deals after Halloween to find them a few more "boy" options.
The photos are from last night. When Kaitlyn talked Sam into wearing the wings he wouldn't let me take a photo. But when she added the eye patch and turned him into a horse he said it was too funny to pass up and that I'd better get a picture :)

Laughing

I don't know where she got the idea, but yesterday Kaitlyn decided she and Tyler were going to have potato sack races with her pillowcases. They laughed and laughed as they hopped/ran up and down the hall. I thought it was a bit dangerous for a toddler but Ty didn't seem to have a problem with it.

Cute Katy Quotes

I've been trying to write down some of the funnier things Kaitlyn has said and thought I would share a few with all of you.

-"I had the Bless Yous all day yesterday" (sneezing and runny nose)
-"the fairy did it!" (when I asked why she colored her leg with a green marker when she was supposed to be taking a nap)
- (trying to avoid brushing her teeth for bed) "Awww, it's no fun when bedtime's every day."
-"Here Mom smell this flower. It smells delightful!"
-as we were outside roasting marshmellows:
K: The fire is pretty. Even prettier than my hair.
Me: Prettier than your hair??
K: Yeah, when you do my hair it's beautiful and the fire is even prettier.
-after twirling and twirling in circles Kaitlyn says "Do you know how dizzy I am? 40 miles dizzy!"
-"I can't be patient! I'm not a good waiter!"

Sunday Drive

Once again we have had a great weekend. Sam invited a bunch of his buddies over for a BBQ last night and despite the cold weather and the firewood that was too soggy to give us much heat, I think everyone enjoyed themselves. Get togethers with most of that bunch are few and far between so we were happy to get the chance to spend a bit of time with everyone. Kaitlyn, of course, provided much of the entertainment until it was time for her to go to bed. She liked Cheyann in particular and spent much of the time racing, teasing, playing board games, or cuddling with her. Poor Cheyann had to cheat at Memory so they could finish up in time to eat while the food was still warm. And as usual, Sam planned on too much meat and will now be eating ribs and steak for lunch all week :)

Our fun activity for today was a drive up the Mirror Lake Highway. Our original intent was to see if the leaves were changing yet (not many yet - guess it's just the road by Joranelle that changes early) and to show the kids the waterfalls. They both LOVE anything to do with water. So this morning we met Sam's mom (who wanted to tag along - because who can resist an outing with our kiddos? :) ) and headed up the canyon.

First stop was Provo Falls, which even though it's fall and most of the water has come down from the mountains was still flowing nicely. We spent a lot of time hiking up and down along the falls and had a lot of fun...

Except Sam had a minor mishap. He had gone under that log fence thingy to take the previous photo and on his way back through he cut himself on the log. Sorry Sam, but I had to take a photo - you can see that he didn't really mind my silliness. I cleaned him up a bit before I do so - he looked kinda scary with the blood dripping off his nose. Poor guy spent the rest of the day with a wad of gauze stuck to his head with a bandaid (like the Boy Scouts, this mommy tries to always be prepared - but didn't put any med tape in with the little gauze pad in the car) and still has a headache. However, once we got him cleaned up we all happily went back to exploring and having fun.

After we finally convinced Kaitlyn that there was more to see than just the falls we headed further up the canyon stopping at the Hayden's Peak Overlook and then at one of the many small lakes up there - Moosehorn, I think. There was a bit of snow up there on one of the side hills - not unexpected at 10, 759 feet (that's what the sign at the top of the pass said) I guess. Probably due to the storm we had on Labor Day. Anyway... The kids started throwing rocks in the lake and we had a really really hard time getting them to get back in the car so we could go back home for lunch. Kaitlyn kept insisting that we had to walk all the way around the lake, throwing rocks in as we went. Oh to be young and have boundless energy! We were all tired after the morning outside. Ty slept for most of the ride home then actually went down for another nap after lunch time. The rest of us grabbed a bit of a snooze then too. Why is having fun so exhausting?

We took a ton of photos. Hope you enjoy the slideshow. I am very proud of myself for narrowing it down from over 80 to just over 20 (Audrey is laughing at me as she reads this, I know it!) :)

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Back to School

Kaitlyn has been SO excited to start her "new school." From the time she woke up this morning she was asking (every 5 minutes!) when it would be time to go to school. So after 3 hours of that it was finally time and Kaitlyn couldn't be happier. She marched right into the room, put her backpack away, and went to play with the other kids without even stopping to tell me goodbye. She was excited to see me when I picked her up. As soon as she say me she screamed "Mommy!" then ran at me to get a big hug. Then the next words out of her mouth were "school was SO fun!" And she proceeded to tell me and grandma )who had been excited for Katy's first day too and stopped by the house so she could ride with me to pick up Kaitlyn) all about the frog puppet that made the kids laugh and laugh because instead of saying ribbit he said things like moo :)
She LOVES her Hello Kitty backpack.
And this is the quick shot I got in the classroom. She was smiling but I guess I was slow catching it and didn't realize I caught a funny face until just now.
Oh yes, one of the things Kaitlyn did to try to distract herself from thinking about school was to do Tyler's hair. She mowhawk'd the front and forgot to do anything about the cowlick in the back LOL
And here is Kaitlyn showing me the homework folder she decorated. The 2 people on the right are her and her teacher, Miss Myndi. The one on the left is Talking Tyler (as opposed to Tyler her brother - this is how she differentiates). She had drawn him because they "were supposed to draw a picture of one of their best friends."

Makin' a Splash

Kaitlyn LOVES to splash in puddles and was very excited to see it raining last night, and that the puddles were there, and bigger, this morning. Tyler of course followed his big sister's lead - so much so that he had to go straight into the tub after splashing this morning.