Family Home Evening Board

After a trip to Hobby Lobby a couple months ago, I whipped up this Family Night board for us.  I'd been twirling around ideas in my head for quite a while about how I wanted to do this and then I just went for it and I really like how it turned out. 

I started with the blank chalk board, measured out the spaces and applied the gold washi tape to make the lines.

Then I hot-glued the clips onto the board and added the cute arrows on top of those.  I kept thinking in my head that I'd like to have the clips on magnets, but the chalk board isn't magnetic and I wasn't about to complicate things by getting magnetic paint or finding a different board.  Glue it was.

Next I ordered up some wallet sized photo of each person in our family.  I cut them to be square and put them on heavy duty cardstock to sturdy them up.  Plus I really like the white border around them. :)

Then I used a chalk marker to write everything on the board.

I like that it's clean and simple.  And I really like that it's done!

We keep it in our kitchen so we see it all the time.  And that's been really great because the kids are always excited to see what they get to do for our upcoming family night and they are thinking about it during the week.  Mostly they count how many spaces away they are from being in charge of dessert.  :)

This week

Brett got sung to in primary for his upcoming birthday!  He was so cute up in front of all of the kids.  He was doing his cute open mouth smile thing that he does when he's just so excited he doesn't know what else to do with himself.  :)

I'm so lucky to be a primary teacher so I get to see my boys every Sunday during sharing time!

These beautiful Utah peaches got cooked into an amazing peach cobbler for Sunday night.

After dinner at Keith's parent's house, Tyler was getting really tired and was staring off into the distance.

He nodded off to sleep pretty quick.

I love it when Ty puts his feet together like this.  It's like he's praying with his feet.  So cute!

One of our many snuggle times of the day.  I sure do love this boy!

Popcorn, smoothies, and a movie for lunch.  I had a lot to get done this day and this lunch kept these two happy and entertained very well.  (It looks like Brett is trying to put his straw up his nose here, but he really isn't.  :)  )

My favorite breakfast ever.... soaked oatmeal, plain yoghurt, and fresh peaches!  Yum!

Many of my mornings lately have looked like this.  If it's not too hot yet, and I don't need to hurry home for something, I stop here after my jog and get Camille going high on the swing.  She loves it so much!  

Such a fun girl!  And look at those amazing clouds!  I can't get enough of the gorgeous mornings we've been having here.

Camille was (carefully) kicking the soccer ball in front of Tyler and he was laughing his head off every time it went by!

A late night with Tyler.  He hasn't been feeling well this week and needed a late night snack and snuggle.

I found this selfie of Grant on my phone.

After dropping off Grant at school, we pulled off to the side of the road to watch a hole being dug at the park.

I think they are digging a new drain.  The drill went way deep down and then plopped a big bunch of dirt on the pile.  Brett could've camped out there all day and watched!

Sweet cheeks!

Watching the garbage truck come by our house.

Another picture for daddy.

I love how Tyler always puts his hand up on my chest when he's sleeping.  He's done this since he was born.  He's so sweet!

Grant made these pennant flags and then hung them up by his bed.  I think he made enough, don't you?!  He's like a little coloring factory lately.  Reminds me of me when I was a kid.  I came up with all sorts of paper creations.  Just ask my mom.  :)

Happy Weekend!  I'm working hard to get everything done today so we can enjoy staying home and watching General Conference together.  I'm so excited!

A trip to the zoo

Last Saturday we took the kiddos to the zoo.  We loved seeing the animals, but were super excited to discover that there's a Lego exhibit there right now also!  

Check that zebra out!  That's all Legos!  The boys were in heaven!

Hat? Check.  Water bottle?  Check.  Map? Check.  Bubble shorts?  Check.

Such a darling zoo goer!

This was a fun photo op made out of Legos.

Ha!

A bunch of dodo's.  ;)

This was our favorite.  Simply stunning!

This dragonfly was REALLY BIG!

Incredible butterfly!

Flamingo watching.

The new tiger exhibit is great!  It was amazing to see this beautiful creature an inch away.  Wow!

Again...Legos!

Monkey watching.

Lego peacock!

We had a great time together and look forward to going back soon to find the rest of the Lego statues (there's 27 altogether).  And to see the real animals of course!

Ty's photo shoot

Each baby of ours has had their closeup pictures taken at about 6 months.  Today was Tyler's turn.  My friend Shari came over and got to work getting closeups of his face, hands, and feet.  Tyler was a great little model!

I tried to hide behind the dining table so he'd stop looking for me, but that only worked for so long.  I love how much this boy loves me!

Most of the time I was crouched behind Shari playing peek-a-boo with Tyler and an orange Care Bear.  

We got some really great shots.  I can't wait to see them all!

A Fall Garden

Last Wednesday my mom came over to help me plant our garden.  We've never really had a super successful garden.  And we really never knew the right way to go about preparing the soil and keeping it fertilized.  But my parent's raised garden bed has been doing amazing for the past couple years, so I begged asked her if she would teach me her ways.  :)

This day was unusually hot so we made sure to pull up plenty of umbrellas for shade!  I don't think much would have happened without them!

Brett came home from school just in time to help with the planting.  He's such a great and eager helper!  His preschool is right behind our house and we got to chat with him over the fence while he was having outside play time.  He was so excited to see us out there preparing the garden for planting.

Camille kept herself busy digging around and playing in the yard.

All done!  We kept our 2 pumpkin plants (even though they were planted way to late and we probably  won't have pumpkins before Halloween), and a cherry tomato plant that has survived the summer.  I didn't have the heart to rip it out.  I think it's going to be a happy little plant now that the weather is cooling.

After my mom left I whipped up a yummy lunch that the kids ate most of while I put the finishing touches on the garden.

I love making muffin tin lunches like this.  The kids think it's so great and they eat it all up so fast.  And it's so easy for me and faster than putting together sandwiches!

And Tyler fell asleep in his jumpy thing.  :)

Shortly after that, Grant came home from school and showed us the wound on his bottom lip (the rug-burn on the nose was already there) that he got from playing tether ball at recess.  Good thing our family pictures aren't until next weekend!  As of today he's already looking much better.  :)

Just yesterday I found this cute little broccoli plant popping up in the garden already!  And today there were several more plants popping up!  I am just amazed at what can come from a tiny seed!!!

I have high hopes for the success of this garden!  I can't wait to see how it turns out!