Memories Part 4: Grandma Saggy Skin

Growing up my Father’s mom, Grandma Murphy, lived in Salt Lake City Utah. We lived in Provo so that meant that we got to see her pretty frequently. I loved visits to grandma’s house. She lived in a little apartment on the West side of Salt Lake and it had a very distinct smell, like raisins, cheap dish soap, and medicine. Grandma Murphy was always taking photos; most of pictures of our family growing up came from her.  She also loved to put ice down people’s back when they weren’t expecting it. But my favorite thing about my grandma when I was young was her droopy saggy skin. I loved to sit on her lap and pull her skin up and down and stretch it from side to side, to run my fingers up the cracks and ridges. She was really patient with me and let me mold the skin on her arms and neck without complaint. Grandma Murphy was such a great woman, I love her and miss and can’t wait until I get to be with her again.

Birthday Bash

Thursday I celebrated my 26th Birthday. 

I am sure I have mentioned before but I am not a huge celebrator these days. I have hopes and dreams of being this great party thrower and planning ahead to do nice things for those I love on their special days, but I'm just not there right now. So the day wasn't too eventful, but I dig low key and easy too.

I did what I have done for most birthdays during my life, we went swimming! We went with my dear friend Christie, and my mother-in-law.

 Here I am only six more weeks to go, haha let's cross our fingers for five. She loves the pool and moves a lot while I swim and I love the exercise, it feels so nice to use my body for exercise.

 Kacen has really stared to take to the pool. When he wears the little floater in the lower picture he will push himself off the stairs into the pool and then kick around and come back to the stairs. I can't believe how athletic he is, he does all sorts of crazy things at the park and after only three days of practice he kicks with really great form in the pool. We do spend a lot of time without the floaters working on blowing bubbles and he is pretty comfortable with hanging out on the stairs.

And today he was walking along a rock wall with about a five foot drop and of course he wouldn't hold my hand, and against all hopes he fell off the wall, like tumbled down rocks into weeds! He just looked up at me and I told him to walk up the grass hill, but he turned right around and CLIMBED UP THAT WALL! Man I think he is so cool, an athletic artist. Well for now. And I can't wait to see what other fun things he starts to enjoy. 

Then we went to Shady Maple Buffet with Perry and Valarie, and Christie watched Kace, so nice. But seriously $17 per person for a buffet, that's nuts! But you eat free on your birthday. It was pretty good, but buffets aren't really too great these days, my stomach doesn't hold as much and I really miss the leftovers the next day. But it was still a great relaxing time and a really fun time hanging out and chatting with the grown ups. We had one picture outside the restaurant but I didn't look nearly as good I did above so it didn't make the cut.

And the celebrating will continue with a ladies lunch this Tuesday around 12:30 at Tulsi in Lancaster. If any of you want to come celebrate my life, haha, please do, it will be a blast. 

Memories: Part 3 "Even if I have to go bathroom?"

My all time favorite line from the movie Annie is when miss Hannigan comes into the orphan room after Annie is smuggled away in the laundry and asks, "Where's Annie?" And one of the girls replies, "She had to go bathroom." Then miss Hannigan mocking the girl in a really nasally voice mimics back, "She had to go bathroom." Check it out real quick on youtube here. I always thought I would play that little girl really well.

Probably Summer Time 1991

My parents were leaving for the night and told us children to wash the dishes, “THEY HAD BETTER BE CLEAN BY THE TIME WE GET HOME.” I don’t know whose idea it was, siblings feel free to comment here, but somehow we agreed to just hide the dishes in the oven so when our parents got home they would think the dishes were done and ran off to play.

Weeellll later that night my parents came home and being the intellectual people they are, they found the stash. Oooohhhh we were in troouuuuble. My dad was fuming, “Now you kids had better stay in here and wash these dishes, I don’t want anyone to leave the kitchen for any reason until the dishes are done.” I asked my dad, “even if we have to use the bathroom?” He replied, “I don’t even care if you have to use the bathroom, you stay in here and finish the dishes.”

I don’t know how, but this came off as a challenge to me, so I stood there and wet myself. Yeah sure I knew it was sick, and it felt awful as it ran down my stretchy pants into my jelly shoes. But that was all put aside because I knew that at any moment I would get one of these, “oh Heather I am so sorry I didn’t know you had to use the restroom or I would have let you go.” But instead I got one of these, “Well now you have to stand there in your pee and do the dishes.” Luckily my mom inserted with a voice of reason, “Jerry that’s unsanitary.” So I was forced to clean up my own pee, wash my clothes, take a bath and then do the dishes.  

Oh Just This and That

Soooo where to begin? So much to share and only 15 minutes til bed. Speed round:
Habitat for humanity toilet crazy
all lids up....

all lids down....

Goggles

Fun at our new found park in Bainbridge

And kayaking on a warm Saturday night

Activities like this remind me of how our lives used to be back West, lots of recreation. I am so grateful to all of our friends and family, both here and there, who always make/made doing fun outdoor things like this possible. It rejuvenates us to get out and do active things, I have been swimming a lot lately and eating better and I have so much more energy and strength and I love it.

This little adventure wasn't flawless though, I pinched my finger in the ore as I snapped it together and took off a huge chunk of skin it looks sick and hurts badly. I also rubbed the skin off thumb because I was such and intense paddler, haha or my hands have become week and sensitive. Only three years ago I frequently ripped quarter sized pieces of skin off my hands while rock climbing and didn't think about it at all, now all of the sudden one tiny rip makes me whine.

By the way Kacen loves the boats.

I want to give a special thanks to my in-laws because they indulge my silly wants, like: kayaking, sister wives, hot fudge, ice cream and Papa John's Hawaiian Pizza, they are soooo good to me and what do they usually get? An ornery pregnant woman.  I love my in-laws so much and don't really express it too well. They are such good people, and great parents. A special shout out to Perry on this Father's Day, he helped my husband become the amazing man he is today, through his example of love and compassion. He never reads this and I always joke him that I write about them on here so if he ever does read this at least he will find something nice.

A special shout out to my daddy-o, Jerry. He is a great dad, I talk to him at least once a week. He loves his grand kids so much and just likes to hear what we are up to. I love my parents so much too. My fav memories of my dad is when he used to take me out of school to go fishing and told me if I told my mom he would not do it any more. So we would sneak out of town, get some junk food and go fish. I hate fishing, but loved the time with my pops.

And last but not least a special shout out to my Ky Ky pie. I love this guy so much. I don't like to even think of my life without him. He not only lead our family in doing correct things, he works hard, he cares about becoming a better person, he takes care of Kacen and he does the laundry and dishes. What a man! Oh and he is so cute. One time when we were somewhat newly married he skated down to Winger's, where I was working, and some hostesses were near the door and said, "Oh man look at that hottie out there, I love a cute preppy skater look." So I went to see and it was my Ky, haha. Yeah he is a hottie. And also he makes me laugh and motivates me to get out and to things I know I love even when I feel lazy and just want to sit around eating muddy buddies witting blog posts (hehe I am doing that right now).

Happy Sunday.

Child Art Work Father's Day Card

Have you ever wondered what to do with your kids abstract art, or yours for that matter?

 Because Kacen loves painting I decided to use his paintings for our Father's Day cards.

I am sure you can be much more creative and artsy than me but I just cut the paintings up into little tiles and used them to go around the border of the card. I was trying to make more masculine cards.

And there you have it, a super easy re-purposed Father's Day card.

  

I think that in addition to this card I will be making lemon cheesecake too! Yumm!

A Good Dinner

I made a pretty darn good dinner the other night: Lime cilantro peanut pesto pasta salad, found here, glazed Asian chicken found here, and grilled zucchini and asparagus. And then to top it all off I made my first ever chocolate souffle found here. Ok there was a tiny bit malfunction when I took the collar off but it was so good, like so tender and delicious and gooey and we served it with homemade chocolate sauce.

Design Updates

We are going to graduate Kacer-roo from his big boy toddler bed into a big boy big bed, there just isn't room enough in his room for both, but this bed is quite a jump for anyone, especially Kacen and I.

 So Ky just busted out some saws, sanders, nail guns and stuff and went to work being a manly man. He just whipped this thing up, so cool huh?

 Now Kace and I can get up to big bed easier. We are letting Kacen keep his old bed in his room for a couple days and will try to get him more used to being on the big bed.

Side note: later Tuesday night I whooped my manly man in a game of Horse.
My Score:
His Score: H-O-R-S-E
What, what?

We are also working on re-painting our baby crib. It used to be just brown, so we covered it in beige paint and are thinking about antiquing it. Give us your feedback

Here is the plain beige, sorry the pics aren't the best. 

 And here it is antiqued. Ky wanted a dark brown but I am not sure, I think it might look good with a darker glaze like a black. I am also very very simplistic in my style and like my furniture generally solid and the fabrics to be more accent pieces so I don't know how I feel about glazing it in the first place. Any opinions?

She IS a GIRL

Ok for those of you who caught my mistake I am correcting myself now, I am having a baby GIRL not a baby boy. Haha well funny mistake sorry for any confusion.

Baby Shower and Poop Horror

Saturday two ladies from my ward, Ellen and Lisa, threw me and a friend in my ward Vai a dual baby shower. They are just so nice and so wonderful to do this for us, I really am surrounded by such kind and generous people.

Vai is due July 4th, with a baby boy and for those of you who forgot I am due August 1st with a baby girl.

Look at this delicious brunch spread! It was so good. 

 We played the melted candy bar in the diaper game, the snickers seriously made me almost gag, it looked too real. PS I won, ok it was a five or six way tie and I swayed the win by being the only one who was pregnant.

 Everyone was so generous. Our shower was a "Well Loved" baby shower. Because this will be both of our second children we invited people to give us recycled baby items, it was so great. I now have nearly everything I needed and the other stuff I need people are getting for me. I have such great family and friends I just feel so blessed. Seriously if any of you need anything that I can do for you, please let me know. I owe you all so much.

 We also played a game where we all had five safety pins and if you said the word "baby" someone could steal one of your pins. Alyce won, I am too competitive and really wanted to win.

 Here I am licking baby poop out of a diaper, haha jk it is just the candy bar.

 As our thank you's I made cookie pops, that had a note attached saying "Thank you for your love and support as our families GROW."

I don't think they read my blog but I am so grateful to Lisa, Ellen and Valarie for all they did to bring this show about, it was wonderful.

It was such a fun morning, then we spent the evening hanging out with our friends celebrating birthdays, an overall wonderful day. 

Oh not to put a damper on this wonderful day but I totally have a horror story. Friday night, Ky was at work, I was solo on mom duty. I put Kace down to bed, and went to check on him a half hour later and to my horror and shock he was laying in bed naked with his poop all over the bed, his feet and hands. And he was just fast asleep. Oh, it was just horrible, I so wished that Ky was home to help me with it but I toughed it out and survived. 

Just as a side note: This was the third poop out of the diaper we have had in two weeks, I think we need to tape his diapers on. The last time it was during a nap and actually I was gone and Ky was solo, he freaked out when he found the turd neatly on ground, but he cleaned it up no biggie. Well later that night Ky was tucking Kacen in and I noticed there was poop on the floor like smeared in so I tell Ky to check his shoes, thinking that he stepped in dog poop and tracked it inside, well after some investigation Ky realized the poop was in our room Kacen pooped in two spots and Ky only found the one while he was cleaning and stepped in the other one later. The third poop was a tub poop, not so bad but still sick.