LIFE

Playing the game of LIFE with Landon and Easton today put me in a reflective mood. I remember going the rounds of LIFE often with Keith. We would play for hours and keep going around the board a bazillion times, never wanting to end the game. Sometimes we would have so many babies that we had to use another car to haul them all. I guess that was before they had Suburbans and Expeditions! The poor farm always seemed to be my ultimate destination. Have any of you played the modern version of LIFE, it's WAY different that the version I grew up playing. Now you get LIFE cards that earn you extra money at the end. And you get paid if someone lands on a space that relates to your career choice. There are spaces where you can trade salaries with someone. Now I ask you....is that really the game of LIFE? We're all here on earth just going through this big game. We get our education or pick a Career path and start on our way. Along the path we may find a companion and then start making a salary. The bills come and the car can fill up with babies. Landon had twin girls today. You have some fun moments on the ride and have interesting experiences along the way. And ultimately I guess we want to go to Millionaire Estates....the Celestial Kingdom when our travels are finished. I hope to get there. Oh, and can I trade salaries with someone? I want to land on that spot!!!

Bonds of Friendship

I love my laundry,

a most loyal friend!
Always there no matter what is going on in my life.
If I'm busy it hangs around and waits for me.
If I'm tired it waits.
Feelings of despair.....it waits.
It will never abandon me.
Growing and flourishing,
ever increasing in size.
Great mounds of colorful clothing
waiting for the cleansing process.
Our bonds are strong,
We know each other well.
Fond memories of intimate times shared
Until we meet again,
Confidence knowing it'll never leave me,
my trusty companion.
My son is out of underwear....
I'll see my friend tomorrow!

Finished!!!

It's over, done, finished, completed!!!!! The Eagle has landed. Dallin finished his Eagle project today at 4:30. After five straight days of work and over 306 service hours from volunteers the three murals are finished and look amazing! This project has been quite the undertaking. It actually ended up taking more time than planned. He projected about 200 service hours (150 is the minimum). The bumpy cinder block walls made it very difficult to paint on. He could have had plenty of hours if he had only done two murals. Oh well. Dallin was able to recruit a ton of volunteers to help and thank goodness he did. We never would have been able to finish so soon without the amazing help from his friends and people in the ward. It was mostly done by the youth, with Dallin's art teacher helping and myself. Some of these kids were so amazing and such hard workers. (some weren't) Dallin has been sick since last Wednesday, probably Swine flu. He's had a horrible cough and I mean horrible. I think he turned the corner on it today. He's been quite the trouper even though he just felt lowsy. He presents his project to the principal tomorrow. He's been out all week so I'm sure he will be amazed when he sees it. Dallin should be extremely proud of himself because it just looks incredible!This mural is in the entry hall when you first walk into the school building. This mural proved to be the most difficult because it was so small. The lettering was hard.
Here's the big Daddy of them all. I took this picture way far away so you could get a feel for the size of it.
Dallin works on the mural in the entry hall.

Eagle Update

Here's the Eagle project update:
Thursday and Friday were spent drawing images on the wall.
Monday was mostly painting with orange and a little white. Had to draw some lettering over because Mr. Dallin quality control wasn't pleased with it.
Tuesday was another painting day. Almost finished orange, finished grey, most of white and still working on black. We're hoping to be done tomorrow. This project has been bigger than anticipated. We originally were going to do two murals but were concerned that we wouldn't meet the necessary volunteer hours of 150 so we opted to do a third. As of today 240 hours have been rendered...more tomorrow. I guess we were just a little over. Plus Dallin and I put in 50+ hours behind the scenes just getting ready. It's a great project and it looks amazing. The principal has been gone all week and will be back Thursday, just in time to present the finished product! Look for a post at the end of the week with final pictures.
Stephen is outlining the letters with white.
Landon and crew doing a bit of orange.
Dallin's feet are on the far right ladder.
Ashton graced us with her presence on Monday. A little funny out of my daughter's mouth:

The school is having summer school right now and Ashton was painting right in front of the cafeteria. As the kids filed out one snooty, full of herself girl asked Ashton if she was getting paid to do that. Ashton said no, she was just doing it for fun. The girl said she would die if she had to do a mural for fun. Ashton QUICKLY retorted, "I would die if I had to do summer school for fun." The snoot pooty was put in her place. She was bigger than Ashton and probably thought she was older than her. I guess she didn't know she was messing with the Mouth of the South!

Scones 'N Storms

Do you ever have a food craving pop into your head--just out of the blue? It happened this evening after coming home from visiting a friend. SCONES!!! The thought of hot, buttery scones slathererd with honey just popped into my brain, obviously inspired by my hungry stomach. I had to whip up a batch. I don't even know where the thought came from but it was so real that I could almost taste the sweet, warm scone melting in my mouth. The kids were in shock as they discovered and anticipated the delectable scones. It's seriously been years since we've had these babies! Ashton used to make them all the time when she was little, almost every Sunday morning. The table was set with honey, butter, powdered sugar and tall glasses of cold milk. It didn't take long before the dough was sizzling in the hot oil. Mmmmmmm! "Scones are ready!!!!" The crowd of my family tumbled down the stairs quickly and raced to the table. It was a treat as we downed a few too many.

After our tummies were filled to capacity we enjoyed watching a fantastic thunder storm from the front porch. It was a real downpour, but we stayed dry. It can be so peaceful watching a raging storm, especially when you're not wet. The kids were in awe of the downpour and the incredible lightening. Dad would have liked this one!

Starting the Eagle

The road to Eagle has officially started for Dallin. He has been getting ready to start his project for the last couple of months. And man is it a process! He had to plan and write the proposal to get it approved by the district scout people. Once approved he has had to plan when to start, who to recruit to help, gather supplies, and coordinate the volunteers. For his project he will be drawing and painting three murals for our local middle school. One mural in the entry hall and two in each of the gyms. They are adopting a new mascot this Fall so we thought it would be cool to put the Longhorn mascot on their wall. We discussed it with the principal and he is totally excited about it. We started Thursday with a crew of 15 kids. They were drawing the outline of the mural on the wall that was being projected from the overhead. After working Thursday and Friday the drawings are ready to be painted on Monday. All orange paint will be done Monday, grey and white on Tuesday, and black on Wednesday. Hopefully it will be done by next week. This is a big project, but very cool. I'm excited to see the end results! It's going to be something that Dallin can be very proud of. By the way, he did the drawings of the bulls and designed it. Our neighbor helped with the lettering since he is a graphic artist by profession. Dallin's art theacher is helping guide the process. Thank goodness for volunteers!!!!!! I'll keep you posted on his progress. I'm just glad it's Saturday and we don't have to go to the school. We do have to go buy all the paint and paintbrushes so we're ready to go on Monday. This mural goes in the entry hall of the school.
This mural goes in both of the gyms between the baskeball hoops. The bull on this drawing will be orange as well.

Lilburn Idol

It was a wild night in Lilburn, Georgia. Lilburn Idol hit the outdoor stage again. Dallin tried out a while ago to compete in the city of Lilburn's singing competition and graced the stage this evening. Singing "Dreaming with a Broken Heart" with his smooth sound, the place was mesmerized! Actually, he's been horribly sick the last three days with the kind of cough that sounds like a lung is coming up! So...it wasn't his best night. His voice kind of went in and out and wasn't his strongest. It was fun nonetheless to spend an evening outdoors in a beauitful park listening to amateurs make their way in the world. Dad would have raised a few eyebrows!!!! Makes you wish Simon was here to bring them back to reality. Dallin took third in his age bracket. Woohoo! And Easton won a prize because he had a star on his program and they called the person out of the audience who had the blue star on the top of their program. He ran right up to the stage to claim his prize, a cute little plaque that says, Live Love Laugh. He's quite proud of himself and is tossing around a few ideas about where to put his awesome prize.

Red, White and Blue

Back in the day, I went with my mom to be "color analyzed". I sat patiently while some woman draped various colors of fabric around my face--pondering and critiquing which colors were the best for me. It was decided that I fell into the Winter Chroma I category, dark, rich, true colors. My colors. Black, white, reds, blues, rich purples, hot pink....NO yellow, gold, brown or orange. These were the colors that I had always loved growing up and seemed to always choose when purchasing clothes. I was validated. I guess that explains my love of the red, white, and blue holiday!!!!! Those are all my colors and I think I am just psychologically drawn to the festive celebration of the 4th of July. I love wearing the colors, decorating with the colors, and feeling the colors. Parades and fireworks.....barbecues and swimming, flags....all reasons to display the colors of freedom. I love my country and am grateful for the men and women who fight to defend our freedoms and way of life.
Breakfast at 8 in the morning is a grand tradition in our ward. Pancakes, juice, and a sausage patty, now that's worth getting up for!

Landon strategically decides how to get his pancake in his mouth!

School Lunch

In the summer our lunches are often served on our school lunch trays. Years ago I bought these lunch trays at Restoration Hardware because I thought they would be fun for the kiddies. The older ones are over it now, but Easton still enjoys filling each little cavity with a healthy food choice. This meal shows one of Easton's favorite lunch choices, Mac 'N Cheese. A very unhappy Easton. He really gets tired of me snapping pictures for the blog sometimes. He just didn't want to cooperate.

Cooking 101

While Landon (Easton's bestest friend in the whole world) was at the beach with friends a couple of weeks ago Easton was dieing of boredom. I was just starting dinner and recruited him to help me to give him something to do. I guess because he's the youngest he has missed out on kitchen time with Mom. I just hurry and get it done so we can eat. We were having stir-fry and the vegetables needed cutting. With a quick lesson on knife safety Easton was ready to cut! He chopped carrots, mushrooms, brocolli, snow peas and the chicken. Mushrooms were his favorite, he was in awe over how soft they were. He did awesome and absolutely enjoyed the opportunity to cut. He kept saying over and over that he liked cutting! Then I put Easton in charge of cooking the creation. I told him when to add the right vegetable so that they would all be done at the same time. He was careful to stir gently and not get burned. He did everything under my supervision. He had a great time and we had a great dinner! He posed for this shot because he thought it was an important event to blog about! When dinner was finished he excitedly asked if he could help with dinner the next night.

Walk and Talk

Does everyone remember the Royal Lane walkers? These ladies would walk the loop a dozen times, a whole row of ladies blocking the entire width of the street. In my naive youth I would kind of chuckle as I drove by and was sometimes annoyed that I had to slow down and wait for them to walk single file so I could pass on the way to my important event of the day. My thoughts always wondered how much exercise could these ladies possibly be getting by just walking and TALKING?!? It didn't seem like they were exerting themselves or even breaking a sweat. Oh, the follies of youth. I was so judgmental and downright ugly! Having experienced the onset of middle age and the little aches and pains that come with it, I have resorted to walking and talking. And let me tell you that it is a great form of exercise. The boys (Dallin and Landon) meet the Cross country team every morning at 7:15 for summer practice and I, of course have the extreme pleasure of driving them to the various trail destinations every morning. Easton comes with me as well with his bike in tow to ride with his little friends. With sneakers in hand after leaving the boys I gather with my fellow "Cross country Moms" and walk and talk! We make the rounds for about an hour. I'm happy to report that I do break a sweat, my joints don't hurt, my mouth gets a workout and I get some therapy too. It's a productive hour spent early in the morning. I finally get it......walking and talking is good for your health. You should all try it.This is a horribly unflattering picture, but you asked for it! I'm blogging, I'm here and you get to see all of my life.

M.I.A.

To all my friends and family out there-----I know I've been missing in action. My blogging has been lacking. Sorry. I don't know what to say. I didn't know that I would be missed so much and talked about at the Sunday dinner table!!!!!! That's just wrong to talk about people that aren't there to defend themselves. (I'm just kidding you know!) I did so enjoy blogging and sharing my family with you. I guess the whole employment thing has dampened my spirits around here and it's sometimes hard to find the joy in the journey when it's just not fun. But, that is part of life too. Soooooo....if you'll all forgive my little unexpected blogging break, I promise to bring you a week of blogging. Get ready for whatever comes my way---hope my life has a little bit of excitement to brighten your day. See you tomorrow! It's going to be a great week.

Love,
Sheila