Painting Rocks

Tonight for YW, we painted rocks for the activity. One of my YW loves to paint rocks and although the rest of us had never tried it before, we gave it a go. I went for simplicity, because I'm not a great artist haha.

Now I put it on my doorstep and it's a great greeter!

Book Club Night

Tonight was my first time hosting my new book club at my house. I chose the book myself, The Orphan Keeper, and it was actually pretty good. Then for the treats, I tried to keep an Indian theme, since the main character and place of the book was Indian. I chose coconut cupcakes and an Indian rice pudding. Then I set up the table and was ready.

It makes me feel strangely adult to host a book club!

Epifanio Again

Just more pics of tiny Epifanio...my favorite tiny baby

 This was taken this way...upside down...since this is how he was on the blanket. Look at this dramatic child.

He's starting to look like a real human.

Youth Conference Weekend

Yesterday, my ward started Youth Conference, and it went until today. We drove down to Cedar City and ate some lunch at a park near the temple there, and then took a picture on temple grounds. We originally had wanted to head in and do some baptisms in there, but we didn't have the time.
I took a "wedding pic" with one of my YW, we had so much fun.

After the CC temple, we headed down to St George, and did some temple work there, it was a delight. After more pics (Which I haven't received yet - hopefully soon), we headed to the house we had rented. 

After we got to the house and all that jazz, we had a Chopped-Style cooking show, which I was the judge of. I had to give them specific ingredients, and then they had to use them all. They did a great job! 

 (Ah a sideways pic)
The one with the longer treat - that one is a roller coaster. The other one is sushi - a Cali roll and some sashimi haha

Then the next morning, I went for a run and snapped this pic before the sun rose. It was beautiful and quiet and so peaceful. 

Then, after the morning spent at Sand Hollow Reservoir, we came home! We were tired but we had a lot of fun. 

Happy Pioneer Day

Today is Pioneer Day, which in Utah is a holiday. I'm not even sure how to celebrate it really, so we just treat it as a second Independence Day. We started the day with the Temple to Temple Run, an easy downhill 5K. 

 After the race, we spent the day just enjoying each other's company and enjoying the nice warm weather.

For dinner, we had chicken pot pie, pizza (pie), and for dessert, cherry pie bars, apple pie and peach pie. We know how to celebrate PIEoneer Day. 

Hope everyone had a great day! 

Tiny Epifanio

Epifanio has finally gotten to the age where he can actually smile on purpose, he has some awareness of people and he generally is just getting so cute.

Happy Birthday, Darth!

Y'all, Darth turns 5 today! He's literally just growing up like a weed, so fast, I can't even. Look at this dork.

We had a birthday party for him and we bought him those trick relighting candles...they were amazing. 

He starts school in the fall, I can't believe he's already this old!

Ouch Ouch Ouch

Well, y'all, as I said yesterday, the lake was so cold and cloudy that I didn't even think of doing any sunscreen.

My mistake, y'all.

Lake Day

We went up to Silver Lake Flat Reservoir today as a group, with the fellas. We had been planning for like a month, and when we got up this morning, we saw all the cloud cover. Come on! It's been clear and hot for weeks, and then one day we decide to enjoy, it's cloudy and cold? Come on!
So we had heard that the clouds would leave by 1:00, so we headed up. Unfortunately, that was a lie, and the sun never came out. It was actually pretty dang cold, and although it was fun, I wish it had been warm enough to enjoy getting wet. But hey, we'll go again in a few weeks and hope for sun. But we did get some good pics.

Darth loves the water, he would never come off it if he had the choice. He got on the stand up paddle board with PJ and was standing and trying to paddle in no time. 

Of course, we have Gecko in his element here...outside the water with a snack.
It was so much fun! Can't wait until we go again.

Darth learns rollerblades

Darth is too small for this, and he's wearing my rollerblades and not ones made for his foot size, but this was the funniest thing to me. 

He'll learn sometime.

A Gecko Appreciation Post

Now that we've appreciated Darth, it's time to appreciate Gecko.
This stout fella is just too sweet for words. He is a sweet spirit and he's so good at snuggles.

 We made s'mores the other night, he situated himself right in the front of it.

 He's just so happy and smiley all the time.

And a cool looking fella in sunglasses.

Time for New Cards

I realized yesterday that this upcoming weekend is card swap, so I better get to it! The theme for this month are :
Yellow & White Card
Girl Birthday Card
I think I did pretty good on them, and I'm glad to have the stress of them over!

A Birthday Fiesta

Today is Husband's birthday, and we were ready for celebrations. Alas, the celebrations during the day were few, since I had to work, but hey, we did our best. We had a delicious dinner and then the fam came over for the birthday cake and fun.

 I know what you're thinking...does that cake make sense? And the answer is no. No it doesn't, but we were cackling at it when we got it.

 Then we had some small children snuggles,

and even this guy stayed awake for some of the festivities.

Happy birthday Husband!

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Freedom Day! I ran the annual 10K despite the bronchitis, which was probably not my best idea. But I survived!

Then the day was spent with family and food, and plus, this tiny baby and I were dressed very similar. Of course I had to take a pic. 

 (He's so slouchy, we tried so hard to get his shirt to be visible but he would not work with us)

One of our fireworks at the end of the night caught fire and burned for a while, so we just sang the Star Spangled Banner, and called it a night.
Happy 4th! I hope you all had a great day as well!

A Darth Appreciation Post

This nephew of mine is such a dang weirdo. He's found a new style that he likes to wear, long pulled up socks with his shorts.

 He looks great!
I recently bought some tiny Adirondack chairs for the house, they were on clearance at Target for $3 apiece! Of course, he wanted to sit in them and test them out.

They got the thumb of approval.
What a character, I love him.