Forgotten Pleasures

Recently, I was invited to go a community yard sale. It was so much fun. We found tons of great stuff, some of it was even brand new, in the boxes and everything. I had forgotten how much fun it was to do this. You find some great things at a great price. I have big plans for the stuff I found. I loved it so much that I went this week again. Check out some of my finds.We found two ex consultants, one for Lia Sophia and one for Pampered Chef. I loved the jewelry. The red necklace is still in this years catalog and retails for $110, I got it for $10, Score!!Brand new Pampered chef stuff, all this for $5Found these remote control cars for my boys, for Christmas, Shhh, don't say anything. They were a steal.Several knick knack stuff.Practically new stadium seat. All three for $6. This is too much fun.This week's finds: these cute shelves......cool scooter for the boys...... and this awesome table for my room. I'm so excited, I might just finish my room. I'll show you later.
I got a few more fun things, but these were my favorites. I love going to garage sales.

Why...oh why do people like to suffer...

The kids are on fall break this week and we decided to go to the fair. The Paynes, McLaws, and the Davis all went. We went on Wednesday for $l ride day. We had lots of fun the kids liked getting on the rides and just being crazy. Okay I have to say that Lanette Payne is CRAZY!!! She loves to get on all those wild rides. Now, you would think that a thirty something woman would not be subject to peer pressure anymore, but Nooooooooo... I for some insane reason agreed to get on a stupid ride called G Force. I am not a ride person. I get sick, my head hurts for a week after and I just really don't know why people pay to be tortured that way. I have to say that I did it. The kids saw and heard me reduced to a bumbling idiot, screaming bloody murder and well, with absolutely no dignity left at all. I will NEVER get on a dumb ride again. And, my head still hurts!!!

Can you believe I was on this stupid thing!!!! Never again. And yes, I'm a huge chicken.

BUNKO

I had bunko tonight. It was at Melody Williamson's home. Cute home, great food and good friends. My night started as any other bunko night, I was on my usual losing streak. Then, the stars aligned and lady luck decided to throw me a bone or dice anyway. I had 7, seven, count them SEVEN bunko's. Now those of you that play bunko know that that's just crazy. I still can't believe it. Things like that never happen to me. I a loser!!!
Here's my proof. I haven't yelled so much in a 48 hour period. First the SYTYCD show and then Bunko, I'm losing my voice. I ended up picking the gift I brought because I loved the jar so much. Guess where I found it...Hobby Lobby. It was a good night.

So you think you can dance, dance, dance...

I have a permanent grin on my face. I got to go to the 'so you think you can dance' tour last night. My sister-in-law Heather called me a couple of days ago to ask if I wanted a couple of tickets to the show, because she had a concert to get to. Mmmm, let me think about that? Umm.. YES!!!!!! Thank you Heather for thinking of me. I absolutely loved it!! I invited my friend Amy that is such a huge fan, but she couldn't come so I called my friend Kim (also a huge fan) and she "sacrificed" and was able to come. We were on our way when my sister Adriana called and asked what I was doing, as soon as I told her I knew she would freak out and sure enough as soon as she found out where I was going, she began to scheme how to get there. So before I ever even arrived she was able to locate tickets off of craig's list, get them and get to the Jobing Areana before I ever even got there. She's crazy!! But I'm glad she was there. Here are some of the highlights. The Jobing Arena was packed. Kim and I went a bit early to get a bite to eat and everyone had a long wait.So we ended up at Sweet O. It was very delicious, I would definitely go back. We had a great paninni, salad and caramel pecan chocolate cake. Here's my crazy sista, with her kiddo's. I'm sure she wanted to be on stage with them, she's a great dancer.It was a full house, every seat was taken. Joshua and Katie are...like they like to say on the show... Sick!!! They are so good, in such good shape and the dancing... GET OUT!!!Gev and Chelsie's dance, amazing. I do have to say, he's very tiny. The guys are all good. The three best dancers are definitely Will, Joshua and Twitch.Even though it was three hours, it felt like 10 minutes. I wanted it to keep going. I could have watched them all night. Joshua and Katie in the very fun jazz number.I love the very weird and quirky dance that Mark and Courney did. Mark is a lot taller than he seems on TV.Twitch and Katie's door dance was insane. They are so good. My definitely favorite dance of the whole season was Joshua and Katie's Balliwood dance, so I felt a little jipped at the group dance. It was still awesome. It seemed to be over way too fast. I absolutely loved the show.
Thanks Kim for coming with me and making it a fun night. All the the good pictures were taken by Kim and her amazing photography skills. Thanks for sharing. I think I'm going to have to make this a yearly tradition. Ammon was definitely bummed he didn't get to go. Next year Ammon I promise.

What's gotten into me...

So unlike my usual self, I have been on an organizing kick. Surprising I know, I'm a self admitted slob. I'm a messy crafter, cooker and doer of all things. Organization is not one of my talents or strengths. So for me to organize stuff is a huge accomplishment. My closet was one of those things I kept putting off. There was a small path to our clothes and if I needed anything from "the pile" I had to go diving to find anything. So here are the results of my weeks worth of work (and help from good old Amy)...

It's mostly my craft stuff. It's the only room I have to put stuff in.
I know exactly where everything is and no more diving, for now anyway. I have to say that I have a lot of crap. I kept only what I use and gave away what I knew I was not going to need. The Achievement day girls in our ward got most of the stuff. I expect to see some cute stuff soon girls.
But the organizing didn't stop there, oh no, the garage was also organized and in much need of cleaning and purging, and did we ever purge. We got a trailer full of garbage and a truck load of give away stuff. Funny story about the trailer. Josh was at work, Eric was at work, so that only left me to take the trailer to the dump because it had to be back to the rental store. So after a 45 minute wait at the AJ dump I was assigned a spot to "back into"... well I don't know about you, but I don't know how to do that. So after several unsuccessful attempts to back-up with the trailer I gave up and was going to have Dallin and his friend Chas carry the garbage over. The lady came over to me and said "you can't dump there"... to which I said "I know"... to which she then hit her intercom walkie talkie and informed the driver of the tractor that was compressing the garbage..."we need help backing up here"...I wanted to die!!! And every guy at the dump was laughing at me...so the guy comes over backs up my trailer so we can throw our garbage away. It was quite embarrassing, but worth the humiliation to have a shinny clean garage.

Now I know where all my tools are at. And I can actually park my cars in the garage...

...Oh wait no I can't, the boys now think they have a man den they can "work out" in and get all buff......including a workout board and everything. What am I going to do with these boys.Today's project was making peach jam and replenishing my year supply. I think I probably need a few more boxes.

Halloween is in the air...

I had card club at my house this week, so I made sure to have all my Halloween decorations out. I had a blast getting my stuff out and displaying some of my new finds this year. Love the glittery cat I found at Hobby Lobby (only $10) along with my stuff I already had from last year. Found the cute orange balls for my apothecary jars at Designer Boulevard, 40% off.
Last years clearance skulls I glittered...

...and my cute signs, with glitter of course. These were my very simple Halloween cards, I just ran out of time to do very much to them.They open up to write a spooky love note. Don't you just love the holidays. Starting in October I just have way too much fun. I feel a costume party coming on..
This is some of the fun we had last year playing fear factor, marshmallow stuffing contest and costume contest.
We had some good sports willing to do some wild things, oh like see how many raw eggs you could crack in your partner's mouth, Gross!! but, so much fun.

Conference weekend

I have to say that I love conference weekend. We get to hear the best messages from the Prophet, we can do it in our PJ's and we spend time with our kids. We love this family time. Like President Monson likes to say... It's time to make some memories... We have a few traditions we do for the Sunday session. I try to always have a notebook, or some kind of coloring packet for the kids. The older boys take copious notes because they play conference trivia the Tuesday after conference against the YW in the ward. They make sure to record all conferences and even go back and review the broadcasts. I'm grateful for good youth leaders that have these great traditions for the youth in the ward.
I make Cinnamon rolls for every conference and the kids love them.

I wish I could say that they are all sitting quietly listening and learning, but more often than not, this is the scene in our home. Bodies strewn about everywhere and enjoying whatever stuff they got for conference. It's a good day.P.S. Our ward did a conference kick-off this year on Friday. They had a pot-luck dinner and several activities for us to do. The YM did a cute video about all the ward happenings. It was a lot of fun and such a good idea, I hope we do it every conference weekend.