Discovery Gateway

Yesterday, was quite the busy day! First of all, Hali had a school field trip and I got lucky enough to go with her. We went to the Discovery Gateway children's museum at the Gateway center in Salt Lake. I was in charge of three girls:

Treasure (yes, that's her name), Kamree, and Hali.

This place was really cute with all sorts of things for the kids to do. They had a little farm area with plastic veggies, a rock climbing wall and this lovely horse.

There was a construction area with puffy blocks and cranes.

They even had a real Life-Flight helicopter on the roof that the kids could play in. The helicopter made the sound of taking off when you hit a button and at first the girls looked at me really nervously, like they thought it was really going to take off. I laughed so hard!
It was a really cute place and the girls had a great time. They got to wear those yellow vests to show which group they were in and as soon as Hali put hers on, she looked at me, struck a pose and promptly asked if it made her look fat. She sure didn't get that from me! I don't EVER ask that question, because I know what a bad liar Scott is.

I just had to take this picture, because I was running around after these girls, who were so excited and wanted to take the whole museum in all at once and I was exhausted by this time and looked out (while they were playing in the helicopter) and saw the mall. So close and yet, so far away. *sigh*
After school, we had to get Hali to dance (it's competition time and mandatory) at the same time that Regan had to be a Bingham High School for the choir performance. She had to be early, because she was singing in a small group number. Then, while Scott sat and saved seats, I had to rush over, pick up Hali, get her changed, and back to Bingham in about a 15 minute time frame. She was late. So then we had to sit through 2 hours of elementary school program with Porter, whom I am finally potty training, and Zoey. Some of the solo's were really good, but the majority were pretty painful. Gotta love them, though. We did get video, but won't make you suffer as we did. We'll just post Regan's group and leave it at that. Don't say we didn't ever show you any love, got it?

Oh No! The Singing Measles Have Struck Again!

This time those pesky measles have struck our house! Porter and Zoey are covered in dots!
I guess this is what I get for getting organized. Now it's easier to find things. This last weekend, Scott and I cleaned out the office. And those of you who've seen the office will understand what a HUGE undertaking that was. We bought that shelf behind the kids and organized all my sewing and church stuff. The room looks so big now and clean. Unfortunately, now Porter can find my Primary bag easier and can rummage through it more easily. Who knew that you could find a good reason to be messy?

The Latest Smocked Prodject

When I saw the picture for this one, I knew I had to do it. All the bright colors just totally sold me! I love it. This dress is for Zoey, but I do have the material to do this same dress for Hali and possibly Regan, too.

Here's a close up of all the stitching. This one was actually quite easy. The dress (minus the smocking) took me maybe two hours to make. Very simple and SOOOOO cute!

OH! I just noticed that this is my 100th post! Yea, for me!

Cake Decorating 101

OK, so last week with the whole cake disaster (not to mention I botched the icing, too) I didn't post, let alone take, any pictures of attempts at decorating. But this week was totally different. First of all, we only had to bring cupcakes. So when Porter ate 5, (well, more like 2 1/2, the rest was crumbled all over my floor) it wasn't that big of a deal. I had plenty left. And I practiced the right consistency for the icing. You can't just use the canned stuff. So, here are the cupcakes I made for the kids to eat. Pretty cute, huh?

Witchy Cheers

Dress up starts early. Zoey LOVES hats! She gets it from me. I used to wear LOTS of hats. Not so much anymore. But she sure is cute!

My Son, my son, my son....

I guess I should have known that the boy wasn't going to be satisfied with two relatively minor(at least for Porter) incidents. Most of the time, I laugh them off, but every once in the while I get really MAD. Today was such a day. I'm taking a cake decorating class and had to bake a cake and bring it frosted to the class TONIGHT so that we could work on the actual decorating. So as soon as we got home from taking the girls to school I got right onto the baking. And I must say, I used the tricks I learned and the cake came out nice and flat. It was a thing of beauty. Yes, WAS. I went upstairs to shower, (which I will obviously never be able to do again, cuz that seems to be his time to strike) and came downstairs to this:

Yes, my really pretty cake got scalped. *sob* I screamed. I yelled. And little stink boy cried. And tried to hide behind a basketball?!
Scott and I had just talked about this the night before and Scott was calling me a procrastinator for not making the cake yesterday. And I said that I couldn't because then Porter would never stay out of it. Can you imagine how many cakes I would have had to go through between then and now? I'm just hoping that the next one survives!

American Idol

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!

Kristy Lee Cook is gone! Hallelujah! I've wanted her butt gone since she massacred Eight Days A Week during one of the Beatles weeks. Would it be terribly rude to do the Snoopy Dance now?

A Normal Jackson Week

So, the girls are back on track this week and the house has been pretty quiet. I expected Porter to be WAY out of control, because he's been having a great time with someone to play with. Of course, this wouldn't be my house if SOMETHING didn't happen. And both incidents are pretty gross.

A couple of days ago, I walked into the family room to find crumpled up baby wipes all over the bench. This is a pretty normal occurrence, as Zoey loves to get into them and pull them ALL out. But wait..... Zoey's upstairs taking a nap. Hum. I pick one up to throw it away and quickly realize that it's been used. EEWWW!!! Porter had pooped his pants and decided to clean himself up. He got himself new pants and removed the old. I guess I should be glad that he knew enough to clean himself up before he put new ones on. But he used like 20 baby wipes! Let's just say I used a lot of soap!

Then today, I'm getting ready to run out the door to take Hali to dance, and it's always really hectic. I have to get Porter and Zoey in the car, make sure Hali's hair is pulled back, we usually have to hunt for shoes, you get the picture. And Porter is hanging on my leg and being whiny. So I pick him up to put him in the car and something smells off. He smells like campfire. Huh? What have you been eating, boy? Turns out it's bacon. Raw bacon in my refrigerator. Now anyone who knows me, knows I HATE bacon. Fried, greasy fat just makes me slightly ill. Course, I did eat the meat drippings you find on the bottom of the pan, spread on a piece of bread like butter, once. It was one of those "When in Rome" (or in this case, Austria) kind of things. But I digress. Am I going to have to deal with the salmonella poisoning of my son? As it is, we had to put the kitchen stool in the garage, because I caught Porter using it to get into the medicine to eat those Pepto pills like they were candy! This kid has a death wish. I quickly called Scott, because he's the one who bought it and he'd know if we were lucky and it's the pre-cooked kind. His answer to me is, "Well, its some kind of processed turkey stuff that doesn't take a lot to cook it, so he should be ok." Sheesh. I suppose that means, yes, dear, it's the pre-cooked kind. Let's hope we aren't spending the night in the emergency ward. Although, with Porter I'm sure it will be a common occurrence.

And just in case you were wondering, the meat drippings thing tasted just like the pan.