Just Some Cute Pictures of Luke

I keep thinking Luke is getting so big but I put my wedding ring on his finger and I realized how small he still is.

Peanut Butter Cookies

My family loves peanut butter cookies. I think they are the favorite by far and Walker really wanted to make some the other day. I thought about the pros..... yummy cookies, snacks on demand for a few days... and I thought about the cons..... possibly more weight gain on my already robust buttocks, having to clean up the mess etc... Guess which one won out? Yeah, my butts already big, whats another cookie or two? I told Walker he could help and we had a good time of it. It was a little difficult keeping Walker out of the dough and I finally gave up and let him go for it. The end result.... yummy cookies and snacks on demand for a few days, okay maybe they only lasted the evening, but dang it they were good!

Boys Will Be Boys

So I like to consider myself a fun person, up for whatever and willing to let things slide in the name of having a good time. Well the other day Walker found my old bag of balloons and a pump that I use to tie balloon animals and such. I haven't pulled this out for a while so I thought what the heck, lets make some cute little balloon animals. I made a nice little bunny, a parrot in a swing, some flowers and a few other cute things I thought the boys would like to play with.


Well, I was right about one thing.....they did want to play with the balloons. Their idea of play, however, was a little different than mine. With dad in the picture and being the boys that they are, the balloons soon lost their shape and became weapons of mass destruction. I can honestly say I was not surprised, just a little sad that my hard work ended up looking like this......

Hell, even Luke got into it!

The Real Estate Process Steps 2,3,4.......and so on

I am so far behind on my blogging it is ridiculous. At least I feel I have an excuse! So we put our house on the market in February thinking that would give us time to be sure to have a buyer by July when we had planned to be up in Canada. We have been told the market is very slow and we would need to expect to be on the market for a while. We had the real estate experts come through on two different occasions with the feedback the same both times. "Great house, great yard, great staging, be prepared to wait a while because things aren't selling very quickly right now." Well, we had only two people come through the house in the first couple of weeks and we figured the experts were right. That is until the second couple that came through asked to come through again, then again, then put an offer in. We were a little surprised to say the least. We kind of thought we wouldn't get any offer for quite a while. Even our agents were surprised. We thought that their initial offer was a little low and knew we had some time to sit on it if we needed to so we came back and said we wanted full asking price. They accepted! I think they really want the house, ok, I know they really want the house. They are planning to have their reception here in early May so we are closing the end of April and will be officially homeless the first of May. We are waiting for all of the final stuff to go through. The home inspector was here yesterday and checked everything out and the appraiser should be here before next week. After that we just wait until closing. Very exciting. Now we are in the process of cleaning the house out for a garage sale and getting ready to pack everything. (Anyone have any extra boxes?) If you are looking for a bunch of junk our garage sale is April 12th. Come on over! Actually we are getting rid of some pretty good stuff. The thought of moving it to Canada is inspiration enough to sell it though. Maybe we can make enough money to pay for the gas it will take to get up there, I doubt it though. So, as long as everything goes well, we will be out of here soon. Wish us luck!

Locks of Love

So, last Saturday Mike, Porter and Walker all got haircuts. I was a little jealous. For any of you that know me, you know I'm not a person to keep the same style of hair for very long. It probably won't surprise you then that I went out that same night and got a haircut myself. What might surprise you however, is that I got a whopping 12 inches of hair removed! My hair was at it's longest it's ever been and I chopped it! It was for a good cause though and I have no regrets. You see, I was able to donate my pony tail to Locks of Love, a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis. I have heard of people doing this for years now and thought, hey, I like short hair, I have all this hair I'm technically not using it, and I can make a difference in someone's life. I was so excited! I went to an awesome hair salon here in Springville called the Sage Creek Salon. It's an adorable little shop with great stylists. I had Ally cut my hair and she was great. We got to talking and I discovered she went to High School with my husband and knew a lot of the same people I did. That was fun. Anyway, she put my hair into a ponytail and said, "Are you sure you want to do this?" I was sure. I've had short hair before and wasn't concerned. Ally then took the scissors and slowly began removing my foot long ponytail. It was actually really exciting. You see stylists on t.v. makeover shows do this kind of thing all the time and it was fun that it was happening to me! So after the ponytail was removed she held it out and showed me. I never really realized my hair was so thick. The ponytail looked like a body part! She lay it in front of me on the counter and I just looked at it. I didn't realize how heavy hair can be! It felt great to have my short hair again. Ally styled my hair in a really cute stacked bob and kept saying, "You're handling this so well, I can tell you've had short hair before." I love it. I know some of you are going to demand pictures, (hi Melissa) so I have included some. I also wanted to include a link to the Locks of Love website so you too can have a chance to donate to this wonderful charity if you would like. The site gives you all the information needed to grow your hair out for future donations or if you qualify, donate now. If you would like to visit their site, click here. So for a wrap-up..... got my hair cut by Ally, donated it to Locks of Love, and love my new short style. Oh, and as an added bonus, I got my brows waxed too! Gotta love it!

Luke at Seven Weeks

The Bean Museum

It was cousin Tate's birthday the other day and he decided he wanted to spend some time at the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum. We had a lot of fun and the boys all got to see and touch a live snake, turtle and lizard. I think they liked the insects the most though. They spent a lot of time being grossed out by all the huge bugs and spiders.

There was also a huge piece of butterfly "art" made out of a lot of other moths and butterfly's. It was pretty cool and gross at the same time. There is also a little room that is full of toys and blocks and they had a good time there too. Well, at least until it was time to clean up. After the museum we went to The Creamery on 9th. Yummy food, including ice-cream, good company, and a fun activity. It was a day well spent!

The Real-Estate Process, Step One

Well, we just had about 25 real estate agents walk through my home to appraise it an give feedback for selling it. I must admit it was a little nerve racking. Twenty-five professionals picking apart our home that we love. You decorate your house the way you love and think it's great but someone else might not agree. I'm actually pretty excited to hear the feedback. Our agents told us they would call tomorrow with the comments. I'm interested to know what they think we can do to improve the house and increase our chances of selling sooner. Wish us luck!

You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone.....

So Porter and I had an interesting conversation this morning. I was getting the boys breakfast and asked them what they would like to eat. Corn Flakes or Rice Krispies? Walker promptly shouted out, "Corn Flakes!" Porter thought about and decided he would just like a piece of plain bread, nothing on it. I said are you sure? I could put some jam or something on it and he declined the offer. This sounded fine to me. It wasn't messy and frankly since I am usually pretty zombied out in the mornings from multiple wakings with Luke from the previous night, the easier the breakfast the better. Anyway, I thought he must really like plain bread to be passing up yummy cereal but his motives soon became clear when he asked if he could go into the living room and watch cartoons while he ate. Sly little cat thought he had a better chance of me saying yes if the food wasn't messy. He's a clever little boy but his plans dissolved when I said no. He asked why and I told him that our family sits together for meals. He thought about that for all of two seconds and replied, "Well, when you and dad die I will get my own breakfast everyday and bring it into the living room and watch Lord of the Rings, the cartoon." He didn't say this in a mean tone or anything so I said, "Aren't you going to miss me and dad when we die?" To this he replied, "No, you'll be in heaven!" Like, duh! I guess he has a great vision of heaven and at four years old already knows it's got to be pretty great up there. I think he's probably right but at four I would have at least missed my mom and dad. I thought I was a pretty decent mom and sort of fun to be around. It's a sad day when you are trumped by Scooby Doo and Spongebob. Maybe I'm not so great after all. Bummer.

Blue Man Group

So Mike and I had the opportunity to see the Blue Man Group this past weekend. I have to say they are very interesting indeed.
The first word that comes to mind is "awkward". They don't say a word the entire time but still interact with the audience a lot. They pulled audience members up on stage with them occasionally and then just stood there looking at them curiously. They had a band that was really good and they also had some homemade instruments that really were a lot of fun. PBC pipes with u-joints etc... made a great organ kind of thingy (for lack of better words) and they used vacuum cleaner hoses too for some pretty cool sounds. My favorite was a grand piano with the top removed. They tilted it on it's side and used a huge rubber mallet to bang out chords that actually sounded great with the rest of the band. They played some great classic rock music and some not so great original music.
After the show we had some "Meet and Greet" passes and got to see them in a more intimate atmosphere. I will say that was....well....weird. They still didn't talk and for those that wanted autographs, they had blue paint on their lips (of course) and kissed the paper instead of actually signing anything. I was kind of surprised at some of the groupies who were thrilled with this little display.
All in all enjoyed the show. It was definitely a random bunch of entertainment but if you ever get the chance to go I would recommend it. It was worth the experience.