The house is ready

Here are some pictures I took yesterday of our house. It should go on the market by this weekend and then it will have to be this clean all the time!! This is going to hard. Any suggestions on staging? Besides my bedroom would look way better with a nice bedroom set (headboard).

A Nice Weekend

So this is the first weekend in a while that Cameron actually stayed home on both Saturday and Sunday without driving to Othello. Friday night Cameron took me to our friend, Ryan's, surprise 40th birthday party. Saturday he had to go to the temple for a few hours with the youth in our ward. Then he stayed home the rest of the afternoon to get some projects completed like reorganizing our garage now that the floor was done and beautifying the yard. Then that night he took me out again (I was feeling a little bad for our kids- Mia actually cried when we left). We went to dinner at Fiestas with a big group of friends. Afterwards we played volleyball at Sam and Meredith's building. It was the first time I think I've seen Cameron really play (other than in his parents back yard). He liked it and was good considering he doesn't have the skills but being strong and tall are helpful in the game. I loved playing. We played girls against boys for the first 2 games and the girls won! It was so fun. The games were close though for all until the end when we were playing couples and my team seemed to be getting too tired. But it was a nice date night. Sunday after a good nap we went on a family bike ride. Cameron pulled Chelsea and Mia in the bike stroller and Collin, Morgan and I all rode our bikes. We rode to Flat Top park and let the kids play for a little while before heading home. It was a nice ride and I can tell I'm in better shape then I was last fall on our last family bike ride. So I think we had a pretty nice weekend. I wish every weekend could be that nice.

Roses in my Kitchen

Again on a Thursday night I ran out the door to play volleyball as soon as Cameron came home. I came home 2 hours later to find roses sitting on my counter! No card (as usual) so I asked him what the occasion was and he said "just because." I pressed him for a better explanation but he said he wouldn't buy me flowers just because again if I tried to read more into it than that. So I stopped and am just happy I have beautiful roses in my clean kitchen right now! As you should know we'll be putting our house on the market next week and I've been working hard to make it "designed to sell." Also for those of you who haven't seen my latest kitchen table with benches I took a picture so you can see that too. I love the benches and I loved that our chair from the other table in the dining room matched perfectly and how we have it laid out here we can fit 7 people or when we can finally pull it out (at another house) it will fit 8.

Cleaning House

As most of you probably know we are preparing our house to put up for sale in the very near future. It's crunch time and I'm finally getting down to the nitty gritty making it super clean and hopefully - perfectly organized. Today I took some tips from some friends (Debbie and Gigi) and managed to get my bathrooms cleaner than they've been in years. The advice from Debbie: take off the toilet seats and bleach them. Boy was that disgusting - I won't go into detail but the kids bathroom made me want to hurl. Then Gigi told me about a Pumice stone which I know I knew about and have used at some point in my life but had forgotten all about. So I went out to buy one after she left today and my very stained sink drains and slightly stained toilet bowls became sparkling, white again within seconds!!! Why didn't I remember that pumice stone on my own? Here are a few pictures of the cleanliness going on in my house.

Bulldozer Stuck Part 2

So it took the huge rented excavator plus Cameron's case tractor to pull the bulldozer and excavator out of the mud!

So You Think YOU Had a BAD Day?

Here is a day in the life of Cameron:
So first Cameron's worker gets the bulldozer stuck in the icky sticky mud!





Then they bring out the excavator to pull it out.Then the excavator gets stuck too!! Tomorrow an even bigger excavator is being rented to try to get them both out! Stay tuned for what happens next. . .

Tooth Tunes

Mia loves the tooth tunes that Cameron bought the girls a few months back. This is how she usually brushes her teeth with it. Hers plays Hannah Montana's song "Pumpin up the Party" and if the bathroom door is left open during the day I have found her numerous times in there with her toothbrush to her ear listening to her "ipod." And obviously she likes to listen to it while she brushes her teeth. She doesn't actually brush much with the tooth tunes since the head is really WAY to big for her mouth! Boy is she cute. I think her eyes look really green in the first picture.

Playlist

So I finally got around to making a playlist for my blog. Nice that it's free. I have some of these songs on my ipod but not all. Eventually I'll get around to most of them. I'm spoiled to have sat. radio in my car and get to hear lots of good music and no commercials on that. Anyways, my kids came to help me make my playlist so I got lots of imput from them on what to put on.

Another hairdo

Those of you without little girls are probably sick of these posts but me and my girlies are enjoying making up new hairstyles. This is what I forced upon Chelsea today for her first day back to preschool after spring break. I haven't done one of these upside down french braids in forever. So I did 2 of those and the pulled together and flipped the pony under and then curled the ends. I still need to get some fancy flowers and bows. I went to Kerry and Bonnie's yesterday and their girls have tons which my girls happily modeled for me. I need to get to Michael's and start making my girlies an assortment.

Sunday Hair

I do love to do my girls hair and here today's church hairdo for Morgan. It's a twisted bun. I put Morgan's hair in a pony tail and the seperated it into 2 sections and twisted them together (in opposite directions) and then pinned it into a bun. I still want to go invest in some pretty flowers to finish the cute hairdos but this time we finished it with a pearl clip. Morgan thinks she looked pretty as a princess. This was after getting back from Stake Conference where she rubbed her head against Cameron's scruffy face so it's a bit fuzzier than it started out this morning!

Garage Project

As you all should know we're getting our house ready to sell. Cameron has always wanted to paint the garage floor and finally started the project on Friday and got the first half done with Collin's help. It is tan with paint flecks of black, brown and cream. I think it looks great and it was very easy. Next he wants to at least prime the walls and this is all before we list the house - hopefully next week! He's very ambicious!

Spring Break

Mia, Megan, Chelsea, Morgan and Sydney on the merry go round at the supermall.

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Swimming at the community center.

Playing at the park! I haven't seen one of these spinning things forever at a park. My girls loved it. I have fond memories of playing on these as a kid. Seems like parks got rid off all the really fun toys like this and the teter toters.

The girls and I drove to the Seattle area to visit Rebecca and her family for spring break. I think we have done this almost every year for spring break over the years. We didn't do anything super exciting. . . just hung out, let the kids play, a little shopping at the Supermall (with 5 little girls so didn't get much done there), swimming at the community center, $1 movie, the park and just Bec and me and her friend, Angie - a zumba workout (which I loved and highly recommend if your fitness center has them). I ended up staying an extra night and the girls loved playing with their cousins for so long. Chelsea cried on the way home because she missed Sydney already! I missed Bec already but I didn't cry about it. I just call her everyday practically to tell her I bought socks! or whatever it was I did that day.

Othello

After Morgan's soccer game which she scored her first goal, the girls and I drove out to Othello to get new tires put on my car. Yes, I only have 15K on it and it's less than a year old!!! Since Cameron does so much business at the Othello Les Schwab it was cheaper to take it in there than in Tri-cities. He got busy and didn't make it into Othello until the car was almost done so the girls and I got to sit in the store for over an hour while our tires were being replaced.

Cameron at one of his pump stations (Collin told me what it was called) in Othello.

Afterwards we drove out to the farm where we will be building later on this spring. There are no houses nearby and we have nice views of the Saddle Mountains, lava flows, the town of Othello and lots of farm land. We are maybe 5 minutes from Othello if that and I think 15 or so to Moses Lake and 50 minutes to Pasco.

This is the barren land that will one day have our beautiful house on it. I think it's about 8 acres but we won't be using all that.

view of mountains (Mattawa is on the other side of them)view of Othello above and the kids on their 4 wheeler and the lava flows behind. That is a cliff at the edge of our property. This is the view from the other side. This is probably the way the front of the hosue will be facing. Mia played it the dirt from the test holes Cameorn dug and got dirt down her diaper!! Being a farm girl is going to be a shock to my little city girls.

Our Spoiled Hard Worker

"The farm" decided to buy Collin a four-wheeler to use for work this coming summer. I'm sure he'll be using it lots but so far he's mostly used it to give the girls rides around in circles in the back yard. He chose a 4 wheeler instead of a dirt bike (which his cousin Regan chose) so that he could give rides to his sisters which I thought was awful sweet of him. But how going back to "spoiled" - how many almost 10 year olds already have their second 4 wheeler. His first is smaller and hopefully will get fixed up when we move to Othello for the girls to use. Collin is a really hard worker. He works every Saturday on the farm with Cameron. Today he came in the house soooo excited to tell me the irrigation water finally got turned on and that he would get our sprinklers turned on - which was a job itelf since many were plugged. He came in drenched and happy that we have water for the yard! Collin also takes care of many small projects around the house that require the use of the drill he got for Christmas. He is sent to get tools and parts on larger projects (and I know out on the farm also) helping Cameron out from having to go get them or me who wouldn't know what to look for or where half the time. So really having a nice 4 wheeler is a little compensation for all the hard work (and free labor) he has put in over the years.

Inspired Hair

Rebecca told me about this great blog that shows cute girly hairstyles. So having 3 girls hair that I love to do but sometimes am in need of inspiration and new ideas, I checked it out! It's http://www.shedoeshair.blogspot.com/ and it's just a regular mom like us (I don't think she's even a hairdresser) that likes her girls to have good hairdos. I majorly need to invest in more ribbon and flowers to dress up the cute things I've done the past 2 days since first checking it out but Morgan and Chelsea really like what I've done so far. Here are some pictures of Chelsea's first new do:She is very into braids right now (she hates me to french braid b/c it hurts) so I did french braids to the crown and then big pony tails. It would have looked great if I"d had the perfect ribbons to go with her outfit but I was in a hurry that morning and could only find dirty ones that matched. BTW - I took this picture just before bed after she'd had the hairdo since early morning so it is no longer completely slicked in but it looked practically perfect before he many outfit changes. We got a few compliments on it. Maybe I'll show a few more dos over the next few days. I do love to do my girls hair!

Pictures from Last weekend

So I am finally getting around to putting on these pictures.

Chelsea's actual 5th birthday night blowing out her candle on a sugar cookie.

Chelsea in her new birthday outfit from Grandma Jane that she wore for preschool class pictures

Morgan singing with the 1st graders at her school.

SNOW and the horrible gas prices on the last weekend in March!!