Tidbits

• First and foremost, I am not dead, or ill, or on vacation. I've just been busy. It's amazing to me how fast life can fill up with things to do, things that need to be done, and things that are just plain fun. I didn't take a break from blogging intentionally; there have been many times over the last couple of weeks that I've wanted to post, but never made it to the computer with time to write. One of the reasons for this is because we've been keeping the computer turned off and have only been turning it on as we need it, instead of just keeping it running all day long. If I want to post, I have to plan a time for it, which is a good thing, but it takes away a little bit of the spontaneity of things, and usually I save things for the end of the day, but by the time the kids are in bed, Brian and I drop into bed, exhausted, and go to sleep. But I want to post more often. I feel like blogging has been slipping away from me a little, and I don't want to lose it. I love how it captures little moments of our life that I wouldn't normally think to put in a journal.

• We went camping with my sister's family to Mt. Rainier a couple of weeks ago. We camped at Ohanapocosh and hiked to Silver Falls, then drove over to La Wis Wis to see the Blue Hole. The water was freezing cold, but Brian swung off the rope swing anyway. He wasn't prepared for how shallow the water was, and we're lucky he didn't get hurt. He even swam across the river, only to find that it was actually shallow enough to walk the whole way. Then he went back and forth, helping people across. Megan, Michael, Ethan, and I were the ones that went with him, though Ethan didn't get wet since Brian carried him on his shoulder. Did I mention that it was cold? Like, ice cold? It was fun, though. I wore my flip flops, because Brian said that the rocks on the bottom were hurting his feet, but every time I took a step, my shoes would get caught in the current and start to pull me back. I'm glad I had Brian to hold on to.

• We planted grass in the back yard on Saturday. There was some grass back there already, but not much, so hopefully this will take even though it's the wrong time of year to plant. We used the grass clippings from the front yard as a mulch to cover the seeds, but we didn't have enough, so Brian ended up mowing our neighbor's front and back lawns. It was funny when the mom came out to say thank you, and she mentioned that he sons was concerned that he wouldn't get his allowance, sine someone else was doing his work for him. I hope the seeds take, because it would be so fun to have good grass back there for the kids to play on.
  

• We've been having a great time looking at houses and lots to put houses on, and talking with different contractors. The plan right now is that we'll either build or buy next summer, so right now we're still gathering information on different areas and builders, but mostly we're just dreaming, and it is so fun. We've looked at a few different houses that we'll never be able to afford, just to get ideas on floor plans and whatnot. Half the time we set out in the car, we end up driving around looking for a place we might want to end up. Brian and I are having a wonderful time planning our dream house - listing what we want, then paring it down to what we really need, and trying to figure out how to get what we both want and need in the best way possible.

• Brian's dad went to Prosser to pick cherries last weekend and brought back a whole bunch, which he shared with us. Last night we made cherry cobbler with homemade ice cream, and it was so yummy.

• Marcus is talking up a storm, but half the time he's speaking Gibberish and expecting us to understand. I love when he lets out a string of nonsense syllables, then looks at me with an expression that says, "Did you get that? I couldn't have made myself any clearer...Why are you not doing as I've asked?" He's also saying a lot of words, and it's fun to hear him talk.

• Alyssa's losing teeth left and right. If our tooth fairy wasn't so cheap, we'd be broke right now, but luckily our tooth fairy believes it's the novelty, not the amount of money that makes it special, and she's never upgraded from the classic quarter. There was one time, though, that she went to bed without exchanging the tooth, and Alyssa woke up to find her tooth still under her pillow in the morning. The tooth fairy gave her two quarters the next night, and she hasn't missed a tooth since.

• Ethan is doing very well with potty training. Part of me is kicking myself for not taking the opportunity more seriously when he was potty training himself last summer, but the other part of me realizes that the situation wasn't ideal last summer, and it was nice not to have to deal with accidents through the winter while Brian was gone. Ethan is also doing amazing with the alphabet. He knows all the letters, and their sounds. We play a letter game with his flashcards every day for summer school, and he loves it.
  

A Fairy Tale Reception

I didn't get an official picture of it, but in the background of this one you can see the arbor as you walk into the back yard. On the front it has a board hanging from it that says, "Once upon a time...," and on the way out it says, "...they lived happily ever after."


Each of the tables had a different fairy tale centerpiece on it. Months before Kimberly became engaged, I was at Big Lots with my mom and Christina, and Christina found the pumpkin we ended up using for Cinderella, and she joked, "Hey, when Kim gets married she can have a Cinderella wedding, and we can put glass slippers in the pumpkins and put them on the tables." We talked about how to do that in a cool way and add other fairy tales into it, but mainly we were joking, and Christina bought a pumpkin for an Autumn decoration. Then, when we went out looking for centerpieces with Kim, we weren't finding anything that she wanted, so on the way home I mentioned Christina's idea. Kim loved it, and things just took off from there.

It was so fun putting these together. A lot of the things we bought, like the swan and Snow White's cottage, were lucky finds from Value Village. It's not a whole lot of bride's that will let you shop for their center pieces at thrift stores, but Kimmy was so excited. The bed frames actually originally had snoring Santa's on them that we had to pull off. We sewed miniature quilts and mattresses, and then about a week before the wedding, we put together each centerpiece on Mom's kitchen table, and then ran around the house looking for things to add to each one. With Beauty and the Beast, we laid out the vase and the mirror, and we knew we needed to lift the mirror onto something, so I started looking throughout the rooms, trying to find a jewelry box, and on my third or fourth pass down the stairs, I saw a few old children's books on the shelf and grabbed those. Perfect! So yeah, we had a blast putting these together.

It was Christina's idea to put the open books with each one. Each book contains an excerpt from the actualy fairy tale. She and my dad put them together, and they turned out beautiful.

Sleeping Beauty


Cinderella


Repunzel
This was one of Mom's brilliant ideas. We took a glass vase taped off the window, and spray painted it with rock spray paint, so it was textured. The roof to the tower is actually the top to a wind chime that had some pretty ugly chimes hanging from it. Mom painted it a distressed gold, and used it as the roof.


The Frog Prince
My mom searched the entire Tri-Cities for weeks until she found the perfect frog. She said she wanted one that you could just hold in your hands and give a big kiss to.


The Little Mermaid


Swan Lake
This was the head table that Kim and Brian sat at.


The Princess and the Pea


Snow White


Beauty and the Beast


And this is the finished dress, before the wedding. It was a huge chore sewing it together, but it was fun to do, and like I said before, it went together perfectly.

Brian and Kimberly McCann

The sealing was beautiful. Kimberly was gorgeous - she looked incredibly happy. I'm sure Brian was happy, too, but I was watching my baby sister.

A few of the cousins. Derek, Ethan, Tegel, Callie, Alyssa, Emma, Merian, with Michael behind. All of the kids looked like the Von Trapp family, running around the temple grounds. Christina said that it felt like they would start singing any second. It was also hard to keep track of them all. I would be looking for Alyssa and have to closely look at five different girls before I would find her.

The ring ceremony. They had Brian's dad and Brian's bishop speak, and then they talked a bit about the traditions in their families that they want to implement in their own family.

Brian's children, Quiana and Elijah, sang Kimberly a song called, "Welcome to the Family."

Derek, Asher, and Marcus

Sharing the cake


Saturday was so hot! Notice all the people lined up under the shade of the fence instead of sitting at the pretty tables? It was hot! At one point I saw 104 on the thermometer, but someone arriving at the reception said it was 112.

I Love To See The Temple

My sister, Kimberly, is getting married tomorrow, and she went through the temple today. It's been a crazy couple of months what with sewing the dress and getting together decorations for the reception, and I almost didn't make it to the temple. (I'll tell you now that her dress is gorgeous. Kim designed it, and Mom, Kim, and I sewed it. It was actually pretty complicated, and there were many times that I was amazed at how smoothly it went together. Plus, the centerpieces for the reception are definitely the coolest centerpieces of all time. Each table is different, and I can't wait to see it all put together.)

Yesterday my "mom planner" came in the mail, which I was so excited for, because I've been wanting a planner for a few years now, and it's taken that long to find one that looks like it'll work for me. Brian brought the package to my parent's house when he came home from work, then I brought it home with me yesterday evening. After tucking the kids in bed, I went downstairs to do some laundry and clean out my purse to make room for my planner. As I was going through my purse, I thought to check my temple recommend just to make sure everything was good, and sure enough, it was expired. "How did that happen?" I thought, then remembered going to the temple in late April and thinking that I needed to renew my reccomend before it expired in May. Then, the wedding dress and reception centerpieces happened, and I didn't give it another thought until last night.

So at 10:30 pm, I called Brian's cell phone as he and all the other male members of my family were on their way home from the bachelor party, and cried, "I can't go to the temple tomorrow. My recommend is expired." He quickly remedied the situation by waking up both the bishop and one of the counselors of the Stake presidency to get emergency interviews this morning. He's my hero!

Then, this morning, as I was getting ready and running out the door for my interviews, Marcus and Ethan (I put Marcus' name first, because he was the one on the counter, and Ethan was just below, watching) decided to dump out every bag of cereal we own onto the kitchen floor. Brian had a great time cleaning up while Marcus and Ethan had a great time in time out while he was cleaning.

We dropped off the kids at the church, where Brian's mom volunteered to babysit all the cousins with a couple of girls fro our ward. That was so nice - it made our day so much easier. Then we headed to the temple.

Kimberly is the youngest in our family, so she was the last one to go through the temple. We were so fortunate to have all of the kids come home and be able to be there with her. It was incredibly wonderful to have our whole family in the temple at the same time. I was looking around at all of my brothers and sisters while we were in the Celestial Room, and I thought how blessed we are to all be together in the temple. I loved it! I know my parents loved it, for sure.

For Your Fourth of July Viewing Pleasure

The Old Red, White, and Blue...Sort Of

Girls (and boys) Night

Alyssa has started calling Girls Night, "G.N." around the boys, because she's afraid they'll find out about what we're doing and be jealous. It's so cute when she's talking to me, and then she'll say, "And I was thinking that maybe for..." whisper, "...G.N..." normal voice, "we could do our nails and our toe nails, and then we could - Ethan, don't look at me. You didn't hear that. You didn't hear what I said."

So last night for Girls Night we had a makeover night. We actually let the boys join in, since they both took late naps and weren't ready to go to sleep at a normal time. We soaked, scrubbed, and lotioned our feet; did Mary Kay's Satin Hands, then did each other's make up. (We didn't put makeup on the boys, though.) Following the tradition of Girls Nights everywhere, we used way too much eye shadow and blush, and we got mascara on each other's cheeks and eye lids while trying to put it on. By the way, have you ever had a six year old apply your mascara for you? It's an experience you'll never forget.

Here's our finished product photos we took of each other. I wanted to get one of all of us together, but the boys wouldn't hold still.