Reason #583 that Dad's are the best

Hot Dog caterpillars for lunch while mom is out.

Really, does the life of a kid get any better than this? Apparently not because my girls were beside themselves with joy!

and the Slacking continues...

So, things have been a little crazy around here. Paul left town on a business trip and all three girls decided to come down with SEVERE head colds! This of course has thrown off the exercises schedule for this week at only two weeks from my race, so I am not the happiest. However, we are picking Paul up tonight (after a drive thru run- who wants to cook for three sick girls anyway) and then tomorrow I will get in my missed swim and Shamae and I will do the bike/run combo of our race on Saturday between Abby's kindergarten assessment (my mom's private school does that one on one with her, I can't be in the room. I hope she doesn't get too shy and can show then how supremely smart she is!!) and her kids soccer games in the afternoon. Boy, us mom's sure do get busy when we have things we would like to accomplish!! Oh and just to crap it out a little more, the Rec center is closing down the week before the race-to take the bubble off the pool- It will be great and all to have it off for the race but don't they know that some of us are nervous and NEED them to be open so we can keep practicing!!

On a more positive note (sorry people, sometimes I just need to vent) I have just been scrapping away my afternoons over the past two weeks, working on my dad's book and I have to say it is coming along fabulously!! I think it is going to be pretty great if I do say so myself (and this is MY blog so I can!). I was able to pick up two really great kits that I think have added that Island vibe they were needing. So here is another sneak peak because many of my family read this and I want them all to be surprised with my dad.Oh, and Shamae had a great idea, if any of my family members are interested. She thinks she is going to order herself a copy of the book at the same time that I put in the order for my dad to save herself the shipping. If anyone else wants to do that just let me know. I have tried to put the voice of this book from him to the reader. So the stories and narratives are all from his perspective and it really is going to be a great heirloom.
Until next time...

I'm a bit of a slacker...

It's not that I have been extra busy or my hands have just been too full lately. I haven't blogged for a while because, well, I just haven't felt like it. Do any of you get that way from time to time also? I know that I get upset when my list of people I like to check up on don't post for a while. So I apologise to those of you who have been missing my fun, amusing and inspiring posts as of late!!
As for a little catch up on us:

Abby has now lost TWO teeth and the new ones are already moving on in. I have forgotten that new permanent teeth start out all jagged and ridged until they get smoothed down. She gets very excited every time she looks in a mirror and sees the stubs!

Liv has some new wheels! For a while now she has been wanting to keep up with Abby on her two wheeler, but alas, she has those short Griffiths legs(sorry) and her feet can't reach the pedals of her big wheel. So the other day I was watching Good things Utah during my morning run and they had this Utah lady on showcasing her new bikes she was selling at various shops around the state. They are called BootScoot Bike's and it caught my eye as the perfect solution for Liv's plight! After a couple days of consideration Paul decided to pick one up for her and she LOVES it!It doesn't have pedals and the wheels are tubeless, so you just sit down and scoot along like on a kid bike! I think it is going to really help her gain the sense of balance she will need when her legs are big enough for a real two wheeler.

Eva, well Eva is just Eva! We love that smiling girl! She has developed a love for baby dolls and now insists on sleeping with a rather funny looking one that she found at the dollar store (we were there letting Abby spend her tooth fairy money!) and just had to have, she would not put it down. She walks around all day with it tucked under her arm and telling everyone "My baby". Silly girl.

Paul has been quite busy around the place. He initiated a battle with the banister spindles and won last weekend! Who know that taking out the spindles, painting them white and putting them back in would be such an ordeal, it was, but non the less he emerged the victor (as he always does, just one of the reasons I love him!) and I LOVE the new, fresh, clean look that they provide.I then proceeded to sand down all the remaining wood and giving them a fresh coat of polyurethane- love that final look.
Now, starting last night, Paul has decided that all the cabinets in the kitchen could use a new coat of polly as well, so guess what we will be doing on Saturday? Yep, removing all the doors and giving them a face lift as well. Got to love a good project to keep everyone busy and happy!!

As for me I have just been doing all the things that I love. Running, swimming, biking, scraping, and playing with my girls. Last night I had my Dad come over and comment on all his pictures. You know, give me dates, names, back stories. It was fabulous and now I have some great pages coming his way!!

Last but not least here is the layout I did of Liv with her new bike. Love how this one turned out. I used AmyLeigh's kit "Happy Days kit" to put it together, no template mind you! It was picked as one of the outstanding layouts in the gallery over the weekend!Everyone have a great one!

Project Dad

Some of you may know that I have accepted a job, well not really a JOB but more of a happy project, from my family to put together a Shutterfly book for my Dad of his mission. I just realized about a week ago that the idea is to give it to him on Father's day and that date is speedily approaching!! So I have put my own albums on hold, not hard since I am basically caught up(now you get to wince Audrey, hee hee!), and dive into this project, aside from putting out a layout for GDS about twice a week anyway!! So here is a sneak peek at the first couple of layouts I have done. I have decided to keep them very simple so that the photo's can do all the talking, because honestly people, they are great!! He served his mission from 1969- 1971 in Samoa. I can not believe the beauty of that place, and that his slides have held up so well over the years. I still need him to come over and comment about them so that I can include some of his thoughts and memories, but here you go:

Over all I am loving this project and if any of you have advice, or links to ideas that would help me in keeping the pages fresh and unique do let me know. This is my first ever "vintage" book.
Back to scrapping!!

Abby's Big Event

Last Saturday it was discovered that Abby had a loose tooth. She was so excited about this that she told everyone that she came in contact with for the next several days. Every moment of the day she was wiggling it, and reminding me that she did in fact have a loose tooth, just in case I had forgotten!
By Wednesday morning it was pretty close to coming out so Paul set to work convincing her that he should tie a string around it and the door to get it out. She was pretty excited about this idea until it was all hooked up and then she had second thoughts (really who could blame her, I wouldn't want to do it either!), non the less she was brave and Paul slammed the door, only to find that it hadn't been tied securely to the tooth and therefore slipped off without dislodging the tooth. So, second round began, this time her nerves got the better of her and she refused to do it. After some more father-daughter pep talking it was resolved that her treasured blankie would be a great help and it was placed over the tooth and Paul pulled it out in one quick pull!
Here is the very happy and proud girl with her new gap in the lower row of teeth!

She then decided that she wanted to take it to school on Friday for show and tell, but she still wanted the Tooth Fairy to come- what is a Five year old to do? Naturally a note was written informing the Fairy that while she wished permission to keep the tooth until a later date, she did still want the money!! She knows what is important!!

So one milestone down, twenty million to go!!

A little of this, a little of that

Again, another week of not that much going on around here. Friday Abby and I made the cards to take around for the Relief Society Birthdays (she SO loves doing them!).
I have been making different cards each month, mostly because I would get bored doing the same ones over and over, but if any of you have ideas of some simple but cute cards email them my way!!

After forgetting to set my alarm for my spinning class on Saturday, and missing for the first time in three months(I could have killed myself when I rolled over at 8:50am and my class started at 7:30am!) the day was spent out in the nice weather rebuilding our sandbox. The wood was falling apart and the liner had seen better days long ago. So, after moving the sand and taking it all apart, Paul did an excellent job of putting it back together MUCH better than before with new lumber and liner. And just in time for the snow storm that hit Sunday night. We had thought the last one had passed us and we were so lucky, not so much this time!!!

Today has been laundry and cleaning day, so not alot of excitement. But as usual on cleaning days while waiting for the laundry to process I was able to get some pages done- well one page for the GDS gallery using my friend Laura's little boy. I think it turned out pretty cute and I used elements from many of the before mentioned kits.
Next I made this layout of Liv. I find myself doing alot of these types of pages for her- I just can't help taking pictures of her cute face for no reason at all!! That day she had just awakened from her nap and her cheeks were so rosy and her eyes just sparkling as she knelt down in front of me holding her bunny and looked up at me and smiled, (melt) I had to document that face!!
I used the kit given to the Supreme Teams of several sites as a thank you for our work called "Grateful for you". You wouldn't believe the size of this kit, yes, 25 download links to be exact, and it has sooo many wonderful things in it from tonz of great designers. Yes, I have only touched the tip of the iceberg with this layout.
Then to follow in my tradition of changing the wallpaper on my computer I used this down loadable one by Eva Kipler as a template
and created this one:Then I sent this one over to Paul, yes he gets a new one from me every month with fresh faces of his cute girls to keep him company all day!!Finally I don't know how many or if any of you go over to GDS and check out the gallery but this is one that I uploaded a while ago using the Template challenge template by Andrea Gold and Shana's "Party!" kit- don't you just LOVE that cupcake!!!!
So all in all a pretty productive day and I will just keep scrappin and plugin away on the laundry! :)

All dressed up with too many problems!

After church on Sunday I wanted to take pictures of my darling girls all made up for the holiday. It did make us 15 minutes late for church, the least I could do was document it with a photo of all three sister's looking so cute together! Problem #1- bleak landscape. I don't have any flowers in my yard, but to make myself feel a little better about it, nobody else around me did either because the holiday fell so early this year. So my plan was to head up to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple grounds, brilliant I thought!! Certainly the grounds keeper had some secret way of forcing bulbs to bloom earlier than everyone else- wrong. Of course everything was nice and well groomed, and in two weeks it would be brimming with color, but alas all we had were some purple pansies that pretty much blended into the dirt around them. But my mind was set and pictures we would be taking! Until problem #2- beautiful bright SHINING sun in everyone's eyes so all I captured were squinting faces or shadowed faces, amid cries of "The sun is in my eyes"! Not the best, but they will work I suppose.
Good thing they have such cute smiles!

Then we come to problem #3- did you notice that I haven't put up the treasured picture of all three girls together? That is because the third one thought she was free as the wind!! She kept kicking off her shoes and RUNNING all over the place! She wouldn't sit still for a minute.and of course when she did, this is the face she gave me!I guess this will have to do, walking out of her shoes and losing her jacket set to the brilliant backdrop of the parking lot!!

(sigh)- The scrapbooker in me had VISIONS of all that the pages could be! Ok, maybe I am really going to do the mock photo shoot two weeks from now when the flowers are in full bloom like Paul said I should!! I won't tell if you won't!!! :)