Hope

This past week in 12 Step the focus was on Hope. This picture captures my Hope perfectly. I hope for a happy future for my brother. I hope we will have a good relationship with him. I hope he will one day wear a white shirt. Hope thru the atonement of Jesus Christ is the motivating force that keeps me going one day after another.

Happy Things

This month my sista' Amy and I were able to spend an entire day together. We drove up to Sandy for a friend's wedding reception and while we were up there we did a bit of shopping together. It was so much fun and I miss having Amy around more often. I can't wait until she is a stay-at-home mommy so we can party every single week together.

I love, love, love having my own garden. This was taken looking out our front door during a summer rain storm. Plants make me happy.

I finally got brave enough this month to color my own hair. This first time wasn't perfect, but now I feel confident enough to keep on doing it by myself. I will always be grateful to my good friend Diane for teaching my how to do it. I just wish she hadn't moved to Texas which forced me to learn this new skill.

Don't really need to say much here - he is so good (and very generous) to me.

I've started attending their family support group meeting. It has been such a healing outlet for me. I've been going to help me become a better person and to help me understand some of the things my younger (but not youngest) brother is going through right now. I will forever consider this program a miracle in my life. It has changed my heart and every fiber of my being. I highly recommend it and would love to tell you about how wonderful it is. Just ask me and I'll tell all.

SMA Trip

The boys and I had a delightful trip today to the Springville Museum of Art. In fact, we had so much fun on our trip that we had to go back tonight and take Dad with us to see all of the fun things. This time we didn't see as many amazing quilts (they are having the annual quilt show right now), but we did get to see some pretty amazing art made out of scrap metal. If you have the chance go and enjoy it too. Peter and Luke loved it!

I'm not perfect...yet

This month has been a very important one for me. You see, I came to the realization this month that I have a addiction - a very serious one - spending too much time on the computer. Haha, I know you'll laugh, but it was getting really bad. For example, I would wake up and instantly head to the computer to find out what everyone had done during the night. Then, I would check for updates at least 10 times a day. Ridiculous. Anyway, I finally came to the conclusion that something must be done to get me back to being a sane person who spent more time with her kids and less time on the computer. So, I asked Brandon to please put a password on every one of our computers and to not let me on unless I really needed too. It's been such a blessing and most night I don't even get on at all.

Amazingly enough, I've seen drastic changes in my happiness level and the cheerfulness level in my kids. We are enjoying each other in ways we never have before. It's been wonderful! So, if you realize I'm a little behind the times with news, etc. you'll know why. For you see, I'm off having fun with my boys or cooking something wonderful in the kitchen.

Peter the Wizard

Each night at bedtime I tell Peter a story. Most nights the story has something to do with Buzz Lightyear, Woody, and Andy. However, the other night he asked me to please tell him a story about when I was a little girl.

I decided to tell him about the time when I learned about the Vikings in Homeschool. I told him all about how the Vikings lived a long time ago in Iceland and Greenland. I told him how they had to use boats to carry all the men away so they could find food for their families. He thought it was really neat that they wore fur for clothing. Then I told him that we made viking boats out of paper after we learned about the Vikings. He thought that was REALLY cool.

So today I thought it might be fun to make Viking boats. It turned out to be the perfect day (rainy and a bit humid) and we settled in with our craft supplies and had a blast. Peter ended up naming his boat Peter the Wizard and asked if I would please help him spell Wizard on the boat. What a cutie pie.

Luke, was all sorts of crazy during the craft and he did more hindering then helping. However, we all had fun so it was worth all the screaming.  I even made a boat complete with oars and a sunshade. I almost wonder if I had more fun then Peter did.

While Bran was away....this wife did play

Brandon left me for a few days this weekend. Since he was away I decided to play. My best friend, and pen pal from my home school days, Erica, brought her girls down for some fun. It honestly was a glorious weekend of enjoyment. Her daughters are amazing with the boys, and I got a break from constantly chasing after my youngest son. It was simply delightful. Hopefully we'll be able to get together a few more times before the summer is over.

Peter too

At 4 1/2 Peter is now starting to be more excited about learning. I love that he can recognize the letters in alphabet. For a few weeks we had a little game going. Every morning I would write him a message on our white board. Then, whenever he was in the mood, he would tell me each letter in the message and I would tell him what it said. Games like that one get me excited for all the things we will learn together in  home school. He is such a cutie boy and one day soon I will post one of his drawings. They really are getting so cute. Most of his drawings include his friend Blake plus Woody or Buzz from Toy Story.

Lukey Boy

This kid right here wears me out. Luke is now 2 1/2 and we working so hard to get him potty trained. These pictures remind me that all the accidents are worth it because this is one cute little guy. I am so lucky to be his mommy.

The Mother-in-law apartment

I honestly had so many hopes and dreams about all the things I would get accomplished in June. However, when it came right down to it, the only significant thing we got done this month was finishing up our shed/playhouse.

Seriously, this thing has taken over our life for the past two months. Brandon and his amazing Dad built this thing from the ground up. I am amazed at their ingenuity and "figure it out as we go" attitudes. This thing isn't going anywhere in the next 50 years. It's as solid as any house I've ever seen.

This is the area of our backyard where we started. We began by plotting out the area where we would need to take out the grass. Ugh, that was the worst part. We were too cheap to rent a sod cutter, so we took it out with a shovel. Thankfully, we were wise enough to buy a good quality shovel for the job.

 

After way too many hours of digging we finally had this spot of 'crap'. It was ugly and so very bumpy. Thank goodness I have an amazing Dad who was willing to haul over a rototiller.

This is that amazing Dad of mine doing his favorite job in the entire world. He loves the smell of fresh dirt just as much as I do. Thank goodness he was willing to do this for us so we could at least attempt to have a level area to start with.

A few days later Dad T. came over and the project began in earnest. 

The first few days of this project seemed like a millennium. I kept wondering why it was taking the guys so long to get the walls up. Dad and Brandon kept wondering why they were having to redo so many of the studs. 

Then, once the roof was framed all the neighbors really started to ask us what we were building. Brandon always would respond with: We're building a mother-in-law apartment. Most days it felt like it. Brandon and his Dad worked so hard on this thing. Most days there were both so sore and sunburned. I'm just glad we decided to start the project in April instead of waiting until the really hot weather arrived.

Once everything was roofed all the trim needed to go on, and the drip edge needed to be installed. Once that was done, it really started gaining it's own personality. Dad T. made these amazing doors (which are super de' duper heavy) in his garage at home and then brought them down. The trim on the bottom will always remind me of my Grandma Burr's old home in Orem. I love sentimental things and Dad T. gave me a sweet reminder of my childhood without even realizing it.

Looking at this beautiful building out my back door every morning made me so happy. Yet, I knew there was still many things that needed to be done. The messiest job of the project was caulking all the cracks (so the bugs wouldn't get it), and getting the massive thing painted. Brandon and I procrastinated really, really bad because it was such a ginormous job. The only thing that got us back in gear was a visit from his sister. Her visit gave us the motivation we needed to "get her" done.

We still want to add some carpet to the boys playhouse and touch up a few spots with paint. But, even before we do that we want to get all the stuff we are storing in our garage put way into this new space. Whew, what a job well done.

Thanks so much to everyone who helped us along the journey. Without you, this shed would have taken us a whole lot longer to build.