The shiner and the sunburn

This is my new sunburn! I need to stock up on new sunscreen asap

My little rough neck lost her battle with the trampoline springs and is left with her second black eye in 2 weeks

I hope nobody turns me in to Child Protective Services.

She is still smiling and thinking of new dangerous activities to hurt her other eye.

Happenings

Jaxon had his first 2 games this week. He absolutely loves playing baseball and is getting so much better. The Tigers lost their first game and won their second. I am cracking up about how serious he is about baseball and what a little rule follower he is. I am also cracking up about where in the heck he got the rule follower gene (not from his parents)!

The Mr. and I went out to some strange Irish pub on Saturday night where we found an array of colorful characters. Most patrons were wearing plaid, just escaped the Renaissance Fair,  even playing bagpipes. We had a surprisingly good time and I got to show off or (embarrass) Roscoe with my River dancing skills.

Pallet Gardens Rock

This Is the start of my salad garden made from a recycled pallet! I can't wait to fill in the holes with different lettuce breeds and slather them all with homemade Ranch dressing!

It was so easy.. All I did was direct my husband and take a trip to the local nursery for some compost and lettuce starts. That Teton Valley living for all those years must have turned us Eco-Rangers after all. Who would have guessed?

A plea to the BEIB

Look at this nice shining innocent face! This is my little bro Matt. He is pure roommate material in every sense of the word. He is clean, loves mormon boys, can get down to the Justin Beiber's Christmas album, loves his mom, and can out calculate most Asians. He is looking for a roomie!

Justin beiber.... Won't you be his roomie?

Easter in the hood

Laynie secretly loves me more than most people. She lets me hold her, snuggles me, and gives me love pats. I am convinced we have a special bond. I am working on teaching her to sign, "Aunt Afton Rocks".

Ivy loves to swim and sported her floaties with  pride.

This is a picture of the Easter swimming crew (minus Laynie) 3 of them belong to my sister, Breanne who conveniently forgot her bathing suit. Good thing all of her kids are great swimmers!

I do have a long pony tail blowing in the wind that you can't see in this picture. I did not bob my hair as you may think from this picture. We had a great Easter at my mommas. I kept my hair long and we hunted more eggs than I care to mention.

Ross and Ivy fed the geese stolen rolls from the brunch that we enjoyed at the SHILO

The kids loved the live Easter Bunny that randomly hopped into our room while we brunched our hearts out

I have been collecting proof that I live in UTAH

This one speaks for itself

Sadly I have become the one in the middle since I have been living here. Well, sorta.

And my personal favorite.... The stuffed missionary

Tough Chick

Check out Ivy's eye in this picture... I may be guilty of letting my little girl wear a way too small Cinderella costume all day long but I don't abuse the poor girl.Her newest battle wound is from falling off of her bed. She is collecting new scars and scrapes everyday and I am embarrassed to say that I don't know how most of them even happened. This girl is a rough neck in every sense of the word.

Do you see how dirty her feet are?  They go perfectly with the scrapes on her knees. I have sadly said so long to my dreams of a little princess that begs to have her hair curled that wants to wear sparkly dresses. This chick is rough, tough and meaner than any little boy I've ever met.

Nailed it! Pinterest projects gone wrong

This one is my personal favorite!

This one makes me laugh out loud!

Humpin Adam

This morning I hear Jax saying, "Come on Ivy, Humpin Adam". He said it a few times as he was trying to get her off her bed and into the living room.

Turns out that's what he has been hearing from me when I say, "Up and at em" to him in the mornings. I had to write that one down before I forgot it forever.

Sunny days

Jaxon had baseball tryouts on Thursday. I do not understand "tryouts" for a kindergartner but I am told that it's the norm around here. Jax had a lot of fun. Ross and I were nervous wrecks. This poor little sucker was teamed up with Jose Canseco jr. as we watched him catch one outta 10 pitches. Ross has since got him all the gear necessary to compete with Canseco jr. and they are going to practice every night. This really was one of the more stressful events of my life as a mom. It was cute, sad and hilarious all at the same time.

Ivy and I having been spending our afternoons at the park lately. She is so quick to make a new best friend everyday and play with them all the games that Jaxon won't play with her anymore.

And then.............He practiced and practiced again..

Drake and Bubba came to visit this weekend. The kids and I loved every minute with these two.

She really wore the visor Jax made for here. I told you she would.

She even wore it to the park. She ended up really needing it there when she proceed to show Jax the old "UNDERDOG" trick on the swings. She is standing next to me as we were pushing the kids on the swings. She says, "Hey guys, wanna see a cool trick?". Next thing I know she is running under the swing Jax is on, falls flat on her visor while her grandchildren watch and several family picnickers stand in awe. We shamefully left the park asap and I don't think either one of us has laughed that hard in well, Never..

Ross shaved and got a haircut! That put the cherry on top  of the whole weekend.

hop on the sock bun bandwagon (Ivy and I just did)

What You Need:

    1.A sock

  2.A hair elastic

   3.Scissors

 DO IT!:      Cut the toe off of the sock to create a tube.     Roll your tube into a ‘bagel’ shape.     Make a ponytail in your hair where you want the bun.     Pull your ponytail through the center of the sock bagel and spread your hair around the sock.     Roll the sock down the length of your ponytail (towards your head) and wrap your hair around it as you go. Make your you’re covering the sock as you go.     When you’ve reached the base of your ponytail, tuck in any remaining ends and make sure the sock is covered with hair.

Scroll down and check out some Russian princess doing a video tutorial for those that need video instructions (I DID). Now everyone around here is wondering who keeps cutting up their favorite socks. 

The sock bun secret (no remaining hair!)

Kitchen table artist's

Ivy takes after her great-grandpa Dan (Rock painting extraordinaire)

Rainy Sundays mean we create art on the kitchen table. We are armed with crayons, paper, paints, glitter, pom poms, pipe cleaners, and surprise gifts for Grandmas.

This wooden birdhouse doesn't stand a chance. Soon it will be purple with googly eyes glued all over it.

Happiness in a homemade visor

This one of a kind visor was handcrafted with love, by Jaxon for my mom AKA Bubba. He remembered that she is 51 years old and so he added that nice little foam reminder of her age (So she won't forget how old she is). The best/worst thing about this visor is that she will actually wear it.

Dress up

I am both sad and happy that his days of dress-up are almost done. He now just dresses up like his DAD.

My Mom Moves

Have you ever hit "reply to all" on accident? Haven't we all at some point? I was recording the kids dancing and sending them to Grandmas phone a while ago. Then I got behind the camera with these hideous moves and thought I was sending it to Tasha with the the words, "CAN YOU DO THIS?". I sent it to my new neighbor instead. I was mortified! I waited for her to reply... She never did.Whats your embarrassing story?

A Happy Girl

Let me share with you you an amazing friend of mine! She is my neighbor and super mom to a real life miracle

Girl. She is inspiring in every sense of the word and blogs about her journey so beautifully. She has a rare

story. Like [1 in millions} kind of rare.


She shares it with bravery and honesty. She is a modern day mom, advocate, daughter, and lover of the

Good Stuff that we all have all around us everyday...... yet somehow fail to recognize as "awe inspiring"

She is simply inspiring to me and everyone she touches with her shy smile or through her blog. Click here to

find out for yourself.......

This is  Tahnie and her baby love....SOOKIE

Tahnie has no idea how much she reminds me of the precious moments in life. She doesn't know how much

she reminds me (without saying a single word) to breathe in the NOW of the mundane and find a way to

make my own mundane into miraculous. The last and pretty much only significant snow we had

here I walked outside to see something I will never forget.  Nothing super unusual at all, but the way it touched

me was incredible. I walked outside late at night and heard 2 year old giggles and a mommy's voice

ho-humming a song while she twirled he little girl around a hundred times in her driveway. Just the two of them

in the late late hours of the night. It's things like this we all imagine doing all the time but get busy with every

thing else that keeps us from enjoying simple things like late night big flakes and dizzy spins in the driveway

with our own baby loves. I kept Jaxon home from school the next day just so we could enjoy the

snow. I assumed she was taking full advantage of the big flakes just in case they would never come down like

that again. I did the same thing after watching her spin and listening to her song.

You can find Tahnie at www.ahappygirl.com     (You'll be glad you did)

The Tooth fairy Saga

To make a long story short, Uncle Randy gave Jaxon a full deer skeleton last weekend. Jaxon has been admiring it lovingly everyday since. Last night we walked in the door to find it chewed to pieces on the living room rug. Our dog Lucy must have mistaken it for a treat. I knew Jax would be crushed and so I had Ross distract him while I cleaned it up and threw it in the trash. Not 5 minutes Later Jaxon comes in the kitchen and tells me that he thinks someone came inside while we were gone and stole something really special to him. I had to come clean and tell him what had happened to the stinky deer skeleton. After he was done crying and telling me how much he hated Lucy, he had me go through the trash and save him the biggest tooth. I did it and later found him writing this note(above) to the Tooth Fairy. In case you can't decipher the words here is the English translation: Hi, I am Jaxon. I want a deer skeleton if you can get it. Thank You, Jaxon

 

This is the big stinky tooth I had to pull out of the garbage that went under his pillow with the note to the Tooth Fairy.

This is the letter the Tooth Fairy left under his pillow. Translation: Thank You so much for the lovely deer tooth. I have never seen one so big and yellow before. I don't have a full deer skeleton in my bag tonight. I normally just carry money and glitter. Please accept this money instead and I will be working hard this year to bring you a skeleton.
             Love, The Tooth Fairy

Utah.. Home of the greatest snow on earth

I finally snowed in Utah! It was gone in a flash but we made the very best of it while it was on the ground. Jaxon insisted on wearing ski googles while he built his little snowman.

I am constantly saying this to my kids! Today was an exceptionally HAPPY DAY!

Happy Birthday Papa Smurf

My Step dad Leo just had a birthday! This guy has been a huge part of my life. He met my mom when I was in Jr. high. He had never been married and didn't have any kids. I remember when he came to pick my mom up on their first date. My sisters and I were peeking through the window when he pulled up in a silver Lincoln Town Car and whisked her away to dinner and a viewing of the strangest first date movie anyone could imagine, Schindler's List. I will never get that one but I am glad the first date led to the date at Pizza Hut where my sisters and I got to meet this smoother operator. I quizzed him down with a list of questions any young girl might have for a man who has caught the interest of her mom.
1. "Have you ever been arrested? if so what for?
2. "Who was your last girlfriend? Why did it end?
3. "What is your credit score"

He had never been arrested. His last girlfriends name was Brodie and so my little sisters and I chanted the name, "Groadie brodie" a few times. I never really asked about the credit score and luckily didn't need to.

He is "PAPA" to my kids and does it better than anyone ever could. I am so happy that he has been such a great constant in my life and am very grateful for this other dad that I have been blessed with.

I will never understand why Leonard does this..

I am so amazed at the way he does THIS

Happy Birthday, Papa Smurf! I could tell some of the best stories about Leo that are so funny and sweet. I will save them for next Birthday.. For those of you who have not yet met Leo you can probably find him riding his Piaggio with a basket full of rechargable batteries and a pocket full of MRE's.  Follow him to the North Highway Cafe and give him a hug for me.