Catching Up

It has been a busy month here at the Glenn's. We have been painting and re-siding the back of our house amongst other things. So glad I am not the one doing all the work but it is still tough. It seems like my days are spent running errands back and forth from Lowe's, watching kids, and coordinating meals while at the same time still planning for and attending our ward camp out,  women retreat, and other events. And all this while breastfeeding a newborn and chasing down 2 toddlers of my own. Lets just say the house work is suffering. But that will all have to wait.

Lots has happened in the last couple weeks and I needed to write it all down before I forget the details and got caught up in the big events of Ethan starting pre-school and sending my first born to KINDERGARTEN! AAAHHH!

We bought a new computer! No more worrying about the computer crashing and me loosing all my pictures again. Our old one was dying 1-2 times per day and was on its last leg. This one is so much faster and I can now use all my Adobe Creative Suite 3 programs to their full potential! Yay!

Kiera, Emma and I had a girls night out all to ourselves.  It was a lot of fun and included some very overdue haircuts for both Kiera and I. Post for that coming up soon.

The kids and I took a day trip to Jetty Island and played at the beach this past Tuesday. The weather wasn't the greatest but at least it wasn't raining. Besides who says you can't play on the beach in a jacket? We still had fun and it was the kid's first time riding a ferry. They thought that was the coolest thing. But the next time we go we're definitely taking daddy with us. Mommy struggled a bit trying to carry the two beach bags of stuff, carrying baby Emma, AND wrangling two others on her own. The last straw was as we were heading back to the car and Ethan said, "mommy I need to go potty." So thankful for friends we met there! Here's a few shots of that trip:

Well I decided I'd give you a sneak peek on some of the house improvements so far. I don't want to show you the finished product until it is all done. But I will show you what I did with the light fixtures.

The light fixtures on the house used to be brass. YUCK! You all know how much  I like brass. I was in no way going to put those things back on the house after we did all that work of repainting. It ALL needed an upgrade. However, all my trips to Lowes have been draining the pocket book pretty fast and watching all that money float away made the idea of purchasing new fixtures less than desirable. So I decided to DIY and give the existing fixtures a makeover. 

Here's what I did:
First I took apart the pieces and removed all the glass, then I took a wire brush and scraped all the gunk and dirt off, and roughed up the brass a little to prep it for painting.

 I then gave all the pieces a couple coats (drying time in between) of white Rustoleum enamel spray paint.

Don't they look better already?

Then I cleaned all the glass pieces with Windex, touched up a few spots and reassembled the fixtures. And Wha La! As good as new!

The neighbors even commented on how they liked our new lights. And what's even better is I only spent $3.98 on the can of spray paint for all three lights! Oh and I used the same can on the numbers for our address. Can't wait to show you!

New Sunday Tradition

We've started a new tradition here at the Glenn home. Two Sundays ago, church was cancelled due to a broken water pump in the building. There was no running water to have working toilets or drinking fountains. Pretty important with lots of families. So after sacrament meeting we came home. To pass time early in the afternoon, Dad and the kids decided to get out the race car track. We just inherited another set from the neighbor's garage sale (thanks Nicole!) and so we now have lots of track to make many configurations.

Before now this toy rarely saw playtime. It is one of those toys that is just a hassle to set up. It takes so much space, there are lots of pieces, and it's just a pain. But the kids LOVE it! So we decided to make Sunday our track day from now on. So instead of telling the kids you CAN'T do this you CAN'T do that on Sunday and making it a negative experience, this gives them something to look forward to. This past Saturday night we told the kids that the next day was Sunday and we'd be going to church. We then reminded them that after church was over they would be able to play with daddy and the track again.  It made for a very pleasant afternoon. And seeing the kids play with their Dad just makes my heart smile.  I love our new tradition, and hope it will be one they will cherish and talk about later.

Oh and to just keep things real...Did you notice that huge pile of laundry on the couch in the background? Now, now you don't need to scroll back up to look. I know you will though. That was there for an entire week before it was taken upstairs to be put away! Can you say SAD. It's a good thing we have another set of furniture in the front room to sit on. Or maybe its not such a good thing, I haven't decided. It took a whole other week of laundry to be done before I got the motivation to take it all upstairs. Why is that part so hard for me? But now you all know my dirty secret. Just keeping it real.

Home Improvements Take Over

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. We are in the middle of a couple big home improvement projects.  I will post as soon as I get the chance.

Beautiful Sunday

Today was a Beautiful Sunday! The weather was awesome! Our morning schedule was a bit different than usual though. We only stayed at church for sacrament meeting since the water pump at the church building broke and there was no running water for the bathrooms or drinking fountains. So we spent some extra time playing together when we got home and set up the race car track for the kids. That provided hours of fun! We need to get that thing out more often! We then had the missionaries over for dinner, and sat in front of our window air conditioner. Then Dan took Kiera out for an evening walk while Emma, Ethan and I hung out here. It was lovely. Sure hope the sun sticks around!

Oh, and by the way...I got our house colors approved today! We are good to go. Maybe we can start on it this weekend. YAY!

Grabbing a few hours to myself

Yesterday I was feeling the need for some "me" time. I don't get much of that these days; especially with two toddlers and our now 4 month old. But yesterday morning was particularly hard on me. The weather blues had started to set in and I was feeling almost as gloomy as the sky looked. YUCKY! Who know when or if summer will ever show its face here in NW Washington. So I decided I needed to take some time and do something fun just for mommy. Y'all know what I consider fun don't ya? Being crafty!

And to be just that I decided to go with a sewing project. I have been wanting to redo the cover for our baby swing for quite some time. The swing was a hand-me-down from a family friend when I had Kiera almost 5 years ago and it looked pretty sad. I have had the fabric to redo it for almost 5 months now. I believe I bought it before Emma was born. It was about time I put it to use.

The old cover was sun faded and worn but the padding still had a lot of wear left so what I did was remove the old bias tape/binding around the edges and used the entire old pad to fill the new one. I just used the old cover as a pattern, cut out a new one on my new fabric, and sewed it directly on top of the old cover. I then serged around the entire perimeter, and then added my own bias tape/binding. I love how it turned out!

Here's a before picture I took when I was halfway finished tearing the old one apart. You can see how worn it was. It originally was a very dark navy color.

And here's it is when the bright new cover. I absolutely love the fabric! It screamed at me in the store for the longest time and I finally gave in at that last visit to the store and bought some.

Now it's ready to go for 3 more kids! Oh wait... let's just get through this one first shall we.

Fourth of July post #3 and final

Our last night we had a farewell sort of party. We ended the night setting off fireworks we had originally bought in Boise but never got the chance to set off. The kids had fun with the pop-its and sparklers. I tried getting some fun shots with the smoke but am not sure how well I like the way they turned out.

 

 

 

We had so much fun in Utah. It seemed like such a short visit. We are happy to know we'll be seeing our cousins next month in August for our annual Glenn family beach trip.

On our way out of Utah we picked up some books on CD so that our "oh so lovely" ride home would be more pleasant. We ended up listening to the Hobbit. I had never read it and so Dan bought it so I could listen. Or so he says...wink wink. I was actually pretty good.
And since we were already in town we decided to stop by the Bountiful Temple grounds to get some family photos and to fulfill one of our goals for the year. We had made it a goal to take the kids to the temple at the beginning of the year.

We weren't exactly dressed for family portraits, nor did I have my tripod on me but I will take what I can get.

We drove the 6 hours from Utah back to Boise and went to a movie in the park with my mom that evening. We then drove the 10+ hours back to Washington the next afternoon. I am sooo not doing that again until we have a minivan! We're thinking about inviting everyone over here next year for the 4th. Family from both sides. Maybe even doing a multi-site camping trip up here. I wish I could say the trip home went smoothly, but it was one of those, "He's looking at me!" "He's touching me", "She's looking out my window!" sorts. Why couldn't it have been like the drive there and look like this?

Oh well. It was worth it and we now have some fun memories to share. Back to reality.

Fourth of July post #2

I was so bad at taking pictures while we were in Boise. I must have been busy enjoying my family. We had lots of fun with picnics and family BBQ's, parades, watching fireworks, going to the pool, and teasing my newly wed brother. I just wish I had whipped the camera out a bit more. I did however get some pictures of our trip to watch the parade. In Middleton they have a community carnival type thing with snow cones, bouncy houses, shooting ranges, face painting and eating contests. Its all free and so much fun!

Halfway through our trip we continued on over to Utah to see Dan's brother. We hadn't ever been to his house before and they had recently had a new baby so it was fun to see them and catch up. The kids were so excited to see their cousins.  They just played and played and played the entire stay. They got along so well and only had a few little spouts that dealt with sharing. I was impressed.

The weather was great! I was happy to see real summer weather!

The kids played on the slip n' slide and in the kiddiepool. 

It made for a great opportunity for some candid shots!

And here's the newest Glenn family addition! Luke is 2 weeks old.

 Later in the day Dan's brother got off work for an extra long lunch break. We went out for a picnic lunch at Bridal Veil Falls Park and went for a walk up to the falls to play in the water. It was a HOT day! The water felt so nice.

 

It was so nice to hang out at the house too. 

Here's the boys and Michelle enjoying a puzzle after breakfast.

The next day we had fun at the water park. At first we weren't sure if we were going to pull it off since it looked like a summer thunderstorm was on its way. Luckily the storm just missed us. It was so much fun! There was a splash park, kiddie pool with a little slide, a lazy river, and the kids had their first experience going down a big water slide with mom and dad. Emma even got her feet wet.

Ethan was a little unsure at first. Whenever he is nervous he has the habit of putting his fingers in his mouth while assessing the situation. It didn't take him too long to warm up to the idea though.

Don't really know what was going on in this picture. I think Emma had been crying and Dan put her hat on to block the sun out of her eyes when the wind picked up. Either way I think it is adorable!

After we all had a bit too much sun (for which my shoulders are still paying the price) we headed back to the house to change. Then we were off again on a new adventure. We went to The Mayan in Sandy, UT. If you've never been I highly recommend it. It reminds me of the Indiana Jones ride at Disney Land. While you eat they have divers jumping off cliffs and putting on a show every 30 mins. There is background music and jungle ambiance. It it really cool.