THE PARK IS DONE!!!

Where to begin...  in November of last year I attended a meeting at city council and before I knew it, I wanted to improve 18th street pocket park (the little park by our house).  I was very fortunate to work with the city, and they were so supportive.  The city said they had $7,500 for this little park, and if I wanted to make something of it, go for it.  I started looking into new play structures and applied for a grant.  If I purchased a play structure by December 17th I would be eligible for the grant. 

The Florence Dental Clinic wanted to join the city in making this possible, and donated an additional $7,500.  When the order was placed, I received $11,500 in grant money.  So, a month after the meeting the $33,000 play structure was ordered, and I needed to fundraise only $6,000.

The city gave me a deadline in February, which was a little crazy.  I applied for local grants and received money from several of those.  The newspaper did an article in the paper about what we were doing and people called to make donations.  It was such an amazing experience and I felt such a feeling of community.  We not only met the $6,000, but exceeded by several thousand dollars.

July 21st was the exciting day.  In our stake we celebrated Make-a-difference day and this park was on the plans.  It was so amazing to see the city's reaction as, we fundraised, and then had volunteers to put in the park.  It was so amazing, and I am so grateful to be part of this project.  Now that everything is said and done, I really feel that Heavenly Father was behind all of this.  It has been something special.  My kids are so excited !  Afton doesn't have a very large vocabulary, but Park is definately one of her main words. 

Starting the first few posts.  What a sexy man holding that post!!

My REALLY messy and dirty kids after Day 1.  On Friday we were there 9:30 - 6:00, I could not get the kids away from the park, they wanted to be there the whole time.  We got home, ate dinner and the boys and Justin returned at 7:00pm to set up their tent, and camp to protect the equipment and tools.  The boy scouts showed up at midnight and dug holes until 1:30 am. Camden woke up at 6:00 am excited to see the park.  I think he thought someone came and put it together while he was sleeping. (santa and the tooth fairy arent that good :)

It finished at noon on Saturday.  The cement came at 3:30 pm and we were all so excited.  What a fun day. There are so many thanks for all of the volunteers who helped make this possible.  Especially Brian Lacouture, the contractor who was lead on the project. 

This is the before picture.  The play structure is made out of wood and was built in 1985.  Do you think we could use something new? 

The best part is seeing all of the kids so excited about it.  So many people have been at the park, and my kids have been so excited to go all the time.  We opened it on Tuesday about 1:00 in the afternoon.  I was amazed at how many kids came to play. We still have a few things to straighten out, and a few more things to put in at the park.  This has been a fun project that I hope we will remember for years to come. 

Spring Clean with ME!! Week ONE

Spring Clean with Me!!

One of my friends has invited me to listen to tapes every week to learn tips on cleaning, and organizing. Of course this is something that I could always use. So, as I thought about this, I thought it would be fun to write out my notes and then people could do this too if they want to.

Week One: The master closet....

A. Make sure we don't believe our items are our identity.
B. Get started with a system with boxes/containers
1. Biffer box- out of here, and out to charity
2. Rubbish- Trash
3. To do box- return box, mending, or whatever
4. Elsewhere box- If something belongs somewhere else in the house, don't take the time now, take it around later.
5. Memory box - things that are memories
6. Keeper pile
7. Notebook- write down things that you need...things that you notice. - I realized that I don't have any khakis right now... weird

NOTICE: There is no room for things that are not for now...

C. Take every single item out of the closet, make decisions quickly on EVERY single item. Place them in a pile or box. One thing I learned on the tape was that we only need 7-8 outfits for every different part of our life. For example: 7-8 outfits for work, 7-8 outfits for the gym, 7-8 outfits for play. Then my question is, how many outfits for the stay-at-home mom who perpetually has buggars smeared on my thighs by my teething toddler?

D. Questions to ask:
1. Have I used this in the last year?
2. Do I like it 75% worth? (would I wear this 7 out of 10 days?)
3. Do I want it ? Do I have room to store it?
4. DO NOT LET THERE BE EXCUSES..

E. Where does it all go now?
When everything was out of the closet, wipe down the walls, shelfs, and vacuum. Clean it out.
1. Only clothes go in the closet
2. You are the heart of the home, make the home run smoothly-- give everything a place.

* get all matching hangers, make them all the same kind and same color.
*Get matching containers
* Color coordinate Dark-light
*Socks: buy packs of socks that are the same.

This is week one, good luck!!

Hair? What is that?

Why does my little girls grow hair like this? I have never wanted hair so bad, but then again, I have never had a girl. Most people complement my cute little boy, and how much he looks like my other little boy. NO it is my GIRL!! I finally put two and two together... this is how she gets around.

no wonder she doesn't grow aything on the sides...

GO UCONN!!

Okay, we went camping this weekend, and when we got back we looked up the basketball games, and I CANNOT believe that it is UConn and Butler. Every year Justin and I do a NCAA bracket and this year we decided to include the boys. They both filled out brackets, and it was so much fun. This is who we had winning: Justin : Ohio State Erin: UConn Brayden: Duke Camden: Butler Yeah, can you believe that? I was floored that Butler and UConn are going against eachother.

Christmas and more...

Well, time flies... I guess I need to write some of the events and things that have happened over the last few months. This picture is Christmas in a nutshell... 21 people, our house- TWO weeks!! One might thing that we are crazy and a little nuts, but it was SUPER fun. We hosted Christmas this year and we loved having everyone here. I kept thinking that I would have a hard time with 13 kids, but in all honesty, they all loved to play together and the hardest part was my own kids. Brayden and Camden loved to push the limits with mommy and daddy busy. Another part that was hard is the meals... 21 people 3 meals a day gets a little difficult, but somehow it all works out. We had so many outdoor activities planned but for the luck of it we had the coldest weather ALL year. Today as I am writting this we have had 2 weeks of 55-70 degrees, and no rain. While everyone was here we hit our lows of 35 degrees. Justin and I would just laugh about it.

Some of the fun stories and memories for me:
Camden sat down at the dinner table and everyone else was in the living room playing. Camden said "Mommy, I see a fire!" I jumped up and sure enough there were 15-20 foot flames. It looked like our neighbors house was on fire. We quickly called 911, and had all the kids put on shoes to get into the cars for a quick evacuation. Ended up they were having a fire, and it got out of control. Scary..

The funnest was watching all the kids run down the stairs for the Christmas tree and all the presents. The night before, the kids acted out the nativity and it was so ADORABLE!!

I loved teaching my Torrey, Denali, and Whitney how to play Settlers of Zarahemla. Which ended up playing over and over again.

THE BOUNCY HOUSE AND KIDS... NEED I SAY MORE?
oh, a friend is at the door... will write more later.

Fun Sand Dune Pictures to share

Click here to view these pictures larger

October UPDATE!

Due to the extended absense on the blog, I think it is definately time to do some updating. I think I will start with October... In October, we had two birthdays, a baby blessing and Halloween parties.

The boys had a boys only party, and only superheroes were welcome. The birthday present for both of them was a bouncy house. It fits in the garage and it wears out their crazy energy even if it is raining. Super fun. For the party we had villians take over our house and the superheroes had to get them. One task was to spray them with silly string, another was to chase them around the house and then put them in jail (bouncy house). That is where the fighting took place and they had to pop them all... Lots of fun.
This year I made a batman cake and I LOVED it... oh and the boys did too.

For the adult party, we all dressed up and had a murder mystery dinner party. I couldn't believe how much fun it was. I think its all about the fun people you invite right? Well, I was so excited that all my friends got into character and played the part most of the night.

Another highlight of October was definately my mom and dad coming out to Oregon for Afton's baby blessing. They came to spend time with us and share this special occasion. My parents dog had puppies 5 weeks before, and brought them. The boys fell in love, and called them the fire dogs. It was fun to have puppies for a few days, and then to send them ALL home. :) (newborn in the house... not ready for a dog YET!!)

This is my beautiful Afton, in her pretty dress that Grandma made for her.
I loved how it turned out and I am so grateful for my mom's talent.

That is most of the update for October. WE also had the ward party, and I cannot find the pictures for it now, so maybe I will post those later. For now, this is the biggest thing I can get done for now.