Sunday Canyon Drive & Picnic

The Dirty Face says it all...

Claire

Elizabeth

McCall

Estelle (with Dad)

By the River

Daddy & his Girls

Sunday, right after church we headed up with our picnic to AF Canyon. We found a nice spot by the river up Tibble Fork way and picnic-ed took some photo's and played by the river, then completed the Alpine Loop. Can I just say Sundance area was AMAZING! It was so beautiful. Opportunities like this are so great for our family. That night when it was McCall's turn for family prayer and she talked about how beautiful this earth is and thanked Heavenly Father. Afterward as we talked it was a direct result of what she saw and experienced that afternoon. I'm so glad we did it and so glad that the Spirit represents itself in so many ways to us.

Great Grandma

Most of you probably are like me and have a grandmother who is dear to your heart.

One who has watched you from when you were a baby to the time when you are caring for your own babies.
Who's hands have changed hundreds of diapers, cooked thousands of meals, wiped away countless tears, and cupped your chin as she kisses your cheek. Those hands have been worn soft from years of work and service but are dear and as beautiful as ever.

She loves your children - her great grandchildren - with a special element that only she can add to there lives.

After 97 years she is so vivid and clear in her stories and experiences and we had the fortunate pleasure of visiting with her on Saturday and having her meet Estelle Lucy for the first time(Lucy named after her own dear mother).

Saturday Ballon Launch

I hate having ballons around the house, so after a day or two I pop or like to get rid of them.

So you can see we decided to let these go from McCall's birthday.

Erik says it's litering.

But we had fun.

Sometimes we just have to ignore Erik.

Up

Up

and Away...

HaPpY BiRThDaY

We had such a nice evening.... Dinner was nice...simple....pizza per McCall's choice....we had lots of pink on the table and then after dinner had Sundae's and thick fudge brownies. YummY!

McCall got a pink ipod nano that shoots video from Mom & Dad. Perfume from Libby, Watch from Claire and a "M" necklace from Estelle. She also got itunes cards, gift cards, ihome stereo and docking station from Grandparents. She loved it all and had such a great day!

9 years

I cannot believe it's been 9 years -- It has gone by so fast. McCall has continued to inspire, bless and shine in our home. We love her lots.

Household Items

You'll want to click on this to really read it, I didn't have time to figure out how to bring in my excel spreadsheet so it was print out and scan, then upload the photo! Lame I know!

Since conference last October, Erik and I have been wondering about our year supply. So at the beginning of this year we started tracking what we use. We listed common items on a list and then wrote the open date in the first column and when it was used up in the second column. We were then able to see what we needed... we were pretty close in our years supply but somethings were a little under and a couple things I had been storing way too much of. I thought I'd make my list available in case it might help any of you.

This said, let me just say that this is based on our families needs and uses (family of 5 - now 6). Some people may wash clothes more often, or less (I'm a fanatic about washing sheets once a week). And you would need to gear some items for what you use (we use JUMBO rolls of Charmin so you'd need to adjust your amount if you use a normal size roll).

Also, I store one more than what I need, so if I need 8 jugs of laundry soap I have 9 so that when I finish #9, I purchase a new one and thus always have 8 always in storage... or if I need 2 packages of Dove soap for the year, I have a third that is open and in use. Again when I get close to using that package I purchase a new one so I always have two unopened packages for our years supply.

Comprehend??? You could get quite O.C. about it but the idea is to just do your best to store approximately a years surplus.

Our church lists a lot of what to store per person for a year (like water, flour, sugar, salt, etc.), so we are relying on those figures for now, and a lot of the food storage changes from week to week based on what we are using for the meal, we have tracked some of our basics, like peanut butter, pancake mix, etc. and I'll be listing those amounts in the future.

For now this is what we use... it's pretty complete on the basic household & personal items we want to have. I always keep one extra case of diapers and wipes on top of one that's being used.

I haven't listed medicines, band aids, q-tips etc. cause it's too hard... I just store way more than I should because I'd rather be safe than sorry... right now I have 5 plus 1 opened bottles of children's Tylenol... More than I probably need but I never want to run out and make my kids suffer through a fever or something. I usually don't have this much but it's the beginning of flu season so I always stock up so by the end of the season I still have a years supply... and hey who wants to go the the store sick and contaminate everyone else to pick up medication. Oh and you have to stock up on Sudafed (behind the counter kind) 2pkgs over a distance of time or they will think you are making drugs or something!!!

Hope this might be helpful to some of you... we just totally revamped out 72hr kits too so I'll post about that soon too.

Oh and just to get this out in the air before I get the question ... YES my food storage room is VERY full.

SLR

I just went to Best Buy to purchase season 5 of The Office (which they were sold out of btw) and I ended up wandering over to their SLR camera's and I've wanted one for so long... and when I called Erik (to tell him they were out of the Office and as I explained about the Office being sold out and how I should have purchased it at Costco yesterday but Erik had seen an add for it at Best Buy... yada yada yada) So, as I'm explaining this, Erik came back with a "Honey, I'm busy--I don't care what you buy"... and right at that moment I was just standing there looking at that cute Canon... so I just figured I'd purchase it because Erik sort of gave me the okay with the "don't care what you buy".... RIGHT?!!
Anyhooo..... I am really excited and I hope I can figure out how to use it. :)

Estelle's almost two months

I cannot believe how fast time has gone. I wish it would slow down! Estelle is just the sweetest, happiest, most adorable thing. The other day I was nuzzling her and I just thought... it's not right to love someone this much!