Lots to catch up on

September has been a busy month.

Aunt Kerri came out to visit us in early September.

Well, she came out to visit Keith Urban, but she couldn't get past security so she had to stay with us instead.

We had lunch with Jonathan at school on Thursday. Pizza day!

Friday was September 11. We planned to spend the day at Boondocks, but had to go to Costco to get the discount passes. Costco had 3 fire departments, the National Guard and a big cake so we hung out for a while. Kerri wanted to climb the big ladder, but they wouldn't let her. The American Fork Fire Department had this cute little dog in a remote control fire truck. It looked cute, but then you got close and it would squirt water at you. Not so cute.

This tire is almost as tall as Jonathan.

Saturday was Talk Like a Pirate Day so we dressed as pirates and had a party at Great Grandma's house.

Kerri and Jonathan

Looking for treasure.
Jonathan and Ben

Kathleen made this Pirate Ship in the backyard.
Walk the plank!
We even got our own Pirate names using a Pirate name generator someone found online.
Treasure!

Becky and cute little pirate Kazree.
X marks the spot. Even the adults had to play this game.
Christina made this Pirate Ship cake.

Stuff I've Made

Keychain
I forgot to take a picture, but check out the tutorial here:
http://theidearoom.blogspot.com/2009/08/fashionable-fabric-key-chains.html

Reinforced knees

Jonathan is brutal on his jeans and I usually end up buying a few new pair halfway through the school year. This year I used iron on patches to reinforce the knees. I hope it works. Cupcake Purse

I don't have any little girls of my own to make these things for so when I saw this I knew I had to make it for Jonathan's friend Hannah for her birthday.

I got the tutorial for this from: http://paper-and-string.blogspot.com/2009/03/500-posts-craft-day.html

Backpack Tag

This tutorial came from: http://sistersstuff.blogspot.com/2009/08/backpack-tags.html

Jonathan's name and phone number are on the back of the tag. MP3 player case
This is my MP3 player. It plays movies, music and audiobooks, and it is what makes the gym tolerable for me. I have been worried about the screen getting scratched in my purse so I made a little case for it tonight.

Free Photobook from Shutterfly

I got this off my friend Miranda's blog. I haven't tried it out yet, but I plan to. The code is SUMMERBOOK and it is for an 8x8 photobook. Expires Aug 26 so hurry.

End of Summer

Yesterday was back to school night and Karate camp for Jonathan. It was the perfect end to summer vacation.

Jonathan met his teacher, Miss Chappell. Her classroom is so cute. I loved the little green benches.

After meeting his teacher and seeing his classroom, it was off to Karate camp for the rest of the night. Jonathan got to break a board (using his foot) and was promoted to a Blue belt. They played war games, which Jonathan loved. When they got hit (with marshmallow guns) the person who hit them got to put blood (red marker) on the spot they hit. Jonathan did pretty good, only getting hit twice. Some kids were covered in red marker. Jonathan had a blast. I didn't think he'd want to stay the whole time, but he did.

Some Jonathan funnies from the last couple days:

1. Jonathan informed us that he did not want to get his hair cut right before school started because then people would always expect him to look like that.

2. Yesterday, Dollie was trying to reach something on the computer desk and Jonathan said, "You can play the computer when you have opposable thumbs."

What do you do without the internet?

Can you even remember life before the internet? I think I can vaguely recall it. What did we do all day? Especially in the summer. I'm getting blurry images of green grass and fresh air. I think we spent a LOT of time at the pool. Recently I found myself trying to explain life before the world wide web to my seven year old. You're not officially a parent until you've given the "When I was a kid" speech. When I was a kid we didn't have internet, or satellite TV or iPods or Wii's and we had to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow. This works right up until he remembers that I spent the last part of my childhood in Tucson.

Why did I feel the need to explain life without the net? I could say that I voluntarily turned off our internet access for two weeks so my family could learn how to have fun without technology or to force us to spend time together. Sure, let's go with that.

Okay, the truth is there was nothing voluntary about it, and we still had our TV and video games and we did play them. But it's amazing how much you miss something once it is gone. When was the last time you called the theater or bought a newspaper for movie times? All of a sudden we were thrown back into the 1980's. Well, not completely, but I couldn't use MapQuest and I had to dust off the phone book and I felt completely out of the loop without Facebook.

Jonathan took the loss of the internet particularly hard, which was strange since he is the one who uses it the least. You always want what you can't have though. I felt sorry for him, sorry enough to try and find ways to entertain him. Now that we have the internet back, my brain is once again fried and I cannot recall everything we did, but I do have a couple pictures that were taken during this time to refresh my memory.

We went to DI and got some new books to read. One of those was a doggy treat recipe book that came with a bone shaped cookie cutter. We made treats for our dogs and sent some to our favorite dogs in AZ.

Before we lost our internet access I had seen this lab coat idea on my friend Kelly's blog. She made lab coats out of mens' shirts for her son's birthday party. I was able to go online at the library and get her instructions. I made this cute lab coat for Jonathan. It's full of mistakes because I'm still not very good at sewing, but Jonathan loves it. We picked up a kids chemistry set at the store and did some experiments. We learned the difference between an acid, a base and a neutral and what happens when you mix baking soda with vinegar. Now that I have the internet back, I've found more fun stuff we can try.

Jonathan also lost his 4th tooth when he took an accidental elbow to the mouth in karate class. I think the other kid felt bad, but Jonathan was so excited and even thanked him for knocking out the tooth.

This has nothing to do with entertaining Jonathan, but we had our house painted inside. The kitchen is a pretty light green color that I really like. You can't see it too well in the pictures, though.

I would like to say we learned something from this experience and we're all better people for it, but I really don't think so. We definitely had some fun times, but for the most part we would have done that stuff anyway and it was a big pain dealing with the company that caused this problem in the first place. I like my modern conveniences thank you very much.

Our Guard Dog

At 3:30 am one of our smoke alarms started beeping. Not because there was a fire, but to tell us the battery needed to be changed. Russ and I woke up and he began searching for the offending alarm while I let our dogs outside to do their business. After Russ got the beeping stopped I went to let the dogs in. Pumpkin came trotting right in, but Dollie is always a little slow so I waited a few minutes. Still no Dollie. I walk outside and there she is sitting in the middle of the lawn, refusing to come in the house no matter how many times I call her. The big wimp was so scared of the little beeping noise that she refused to come back inside. Fortunately, she responds to bribes in the form of lunch meat. So much for our big scary guard dog. If there really was danger, she would be cowering in a closet somewhere.

Sorry, I've been neglecting the blog.

Ever since school got out, I feel like we've been going non stop. Sorry, but this post is going to be largely a photo dump.

At the end of June, Russell's sister Lori and her family dropped by to visit while they were here in Utah. It was good to see everyone and I can't believe how big all the kids are getting. I feel so old.

All of my family came to visit at the beginning of July. We went to Lagoon with Aunt Kerri, Christina and Kathleen. Jonathan was brave and tried new rides and even found a couple new favorites. I got soaked on the river ride making me question why I thought it was so important to dry my hair that morning.

I can't believe I didn't have any pictures of the 4th, but I think all those were on Kerri's camera so I don't have them. Kerri wanted to camp out in the backyard with Jonathan one night while she was here. So we set up the tent that we have for emergencies but never use because we don't camp. Yes, I realize that sounds strange. Actually, having all these people in my house almost required the tent as an extra bedroom. Lucky for Aunt Kristen, they had room at Great Grandma's house. (No, Kristen, I wouldn't have made you stay in the tent. We were considering putting Mom out there though.)

Note the extension cord. This is how we "rough it" in our family. With laptop computers and Nintendo game systems.While I'd like to think my whole family came to Utah at the same time just to see me, the real reason they came was for my cousin Christina's wedding. Christina and Nick were married July 8, 2009. Get it? 07/08/09? It took me a while to get it. I'm a little slow in my old age.

No, that's not the groom. Jonathan was the ring bearer. Good thing I wasn't the photographer. My pictures aren't great.

I have been so excited for months to see my little boy in a kilt. Apparently he grew a lot in the few months since he first tried it on because the kilt barely fit. It was more of a mini kilt, but he looked adorable. His cousin Alyssa was the flower girl. Don't you love their forced smiles? They were probably sick of people taking pictures.
Aunt Kerri was one of the bridesmaids.

The wedding ceremony was in Alta. I just love this background.

The professional pictures of this ceremony are sure to be gorgeous.


I'd like to say that we can finally relax and get back to boring everyday life, but our house is going to be torn up for painting this week so maybe not. I have a few pictures to post of things I've made and the bathroom I painted (which proved to Russ that my paintint the entire house myself was not a good idea). But those pictures will have to wait because it's nearly midnight and I have to work in the morning.