Bonjour!

Bonjour!
I’m a 51 year old mother of five amazing daughters and wife to a caring, sensitive AND sexy husband. I adore my family. I’m dedicated to my faith. I enjoy a good laugh. I'm nostalgic and love to reminisce. "Remember" is my favorite word in the English language. I love life! I’m passionate about music, food and {dreams of} traveling the world. I wanna be a castle and waterfall chaser. I’m fascinated with anything European. {PARIS! Hello!} I love celebrating anything and everything! I love to read, especially a good biography, mystery, Regency Era Romance or Historical fiction novel. I love thoughtful gift giving. To me the gift wrap is almost as important as the gift itself. I have a bit of an obsession with gift boxes and gift bags. As well as old world maps & globes, apothecary bottles and jars! I love being creative…bolts of ribbon, coordinating scrapbook papers, producing a table scape, or planning décor for a themed party puts a smile on my face. I love the details! I’m a freak for anything theme oriented. I enjoy event planning, but oddly enough do not like to host or entertain. I enjoy fashion, but have to really be in the mood to clothes shop. I love purses and funky costume jewelry. Especially big rings! I’d rather wear wedges or heels any day than flats. I enjoy decorating and searching for the perfect decorative pillow or picture. However, you’ll never see me frequent high-end stores. I'm more of a Ross, TJ Maxx, Tuesday Morning kind of gal. My favorite decor style is an old world rustic Italian chateau/Spanish Villa look with a hint of bohemian! OR a vintage shabby chic French country cottage/English cobblestone farmhouse. My #1 cookie-Molasses! Autumn is my favorite season. I’d go through childbirth a million times. I enjoy biking with my man, Pilates, and power walking. You’ll never find me in a gym working out. I love movies, whether watching them in the theatre or cuddled up on the couch with my family. I enjoy a good chick flick or real life drama! I'm a sucker for movies on the Hallmark & Great American Family Channel. I have a tender heart for the elderly. I adore Disneyland. I enjoy being in the canyon on a summer or fall evening at dusk. I love my friends. While I have some extroverted characteristics. I’m a self proclaimed introvert. I’m generally quiet, calm, reserved and pretty darn private. Why in the heck do I blog? It’s a creative way to record family history. I enjoy photography. I really don’t like to write, although I write in my journal often. My journals, patriarchal blessing, scriptures, quote book, and beloved Christmas tree filled with ornaments of family memories are among my prized possessions. I love the beach. I enjoy WWII history. I love a clean, orderly house, but ours usually looks lived in. ;) PBS Masterpiece is my friend. I adore Jane Austen films. They transport me to another time and place. If I had to choose another time period in which to live, early 19th Century England would be my pick. "Sense and Sensibility" is my all time favorite movie. My 3 favorite TV series are...BBC's Larkrise to Candleford, the 1950's Spanish Drama "Velvet," and the travel/food show "Somebody Feed Phil." My biggest pet peeve is people who blow their noses in public. So gross! {Take it to the bathroom people.} I’d go on a wine tasting vacation if it wasn’t against my religion. I’ve always wanted to adopt a baby from a foreign country. I’m an avid BYU football fan. I'm a Educational Support Professional. I tutor elementary kids in phonemic awareness, phonics, reading, fluency and comprehension. I love our campfires at Scofield Lake. I have a 'thing' for fairy gardens, Gallic French roosters, fresh flowers in a vase, pretty bowls & plates, and yummy smelling candles & soap. I love summer rainstorms and warm baths. I'm a scripture podcast fanatic. I'm also a fan of several Fox News shows; Hannity and Dave Ramsey Talk Radio. I very much miss Rush Limbaugh! I hate when my kids have homework. I'd rather clean 20 toilets than give a talk or prayer in church. I have quite a collection of Madame Alexander Dolls, children's books, Disney pins, and quotes. My favorite quote is "Don't underestimate me. I know more than I say, think more than I speak & notice more than you realize." True True LOL! I always prefer sitting in a back row versus the front. {I'm sort of a seat snob..yikes} I also have high expectations for my lemonade, salsa, and french fries too. HA! I work well behind the scenes. I love a good Dateline, 20/20 or 48 Hour Mystery. I’m a night owl. I'd rather be cold than hot. I love to budget our finances! I enjoy being a chauffeur to my children. I'm not a huge fan of social media. I don't snap, pin or tweet. All I want for Christmas every year is a ticket to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. It's my FAVORITE. I’m an Anglophile…a royal watcher who loves anything English! Especially tea parties! I would like to serve a church mission to England with Jaren someday. I'm queen of paper towel, used kitchen dishrags and sponges kinda make me squirm. You’ll rarely find me out of the house not ready for the day, except when driving the kids to school on the days I don't work. I feel naked without lipstick or lip gloss. Mismatched socks, chipped fingernail polish, chapped lips and brownie crumbs on the floor drive me nuts! I like to organize and BE organized..but not saying I always am. ;) I enjoy hiking to waterfalls, ATV’ing with my family and snowshoeing with the hubs. Although I enjoy collecting recipes and occasionally watch cooking shows... (Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade, Paula Deen, Jamie Oliver, and the Pioneer Woman are my favorites) I’d rather not cook. Eating out is so much more fun. I'm a foodie. I live to EAT! LOL Trying new foods and restaurants is a favorite past-time, and believe it or not so is intermittent fasting. I'm not good at a lot of things... but gosh, if you need help with a themed celebration or someone to enjoy good food with, I'm your girl. I love the joy of anticipation and the celebration of holidays. Family traditions are important to me. I'm a memory preserver. I'm a pathological picture taker ;) a visual storyteller, and a lover of happy lists!

My Fam!

My Fam!

The Hubs and I

The Hubs and I

My Girls!

My Girls!

Kyleigh Dawn (28)

Kyleigh Dawn (28)

Emma Abigail (26)

Emma Abigail (26)

Hannah Isabelle (23)

Hannah Isabelle (23)

Brielle Olivia (19)

Brielle Olivia (19)

Kate Evangelene Lyllie (13)

Kate Evangelene Lyllie (13)

Mr. Charles "Bingley" Wentworth III (4 yrs.)

Colonel Edward Fitzwilliam "Darcy", Duke of Westridge (3 yrs.)

My Man!

My Man!

Good Times!

Good Times!

Wedding Day 5*17*22

Lillian "Lilly" Belle

Disney Food Fun! 2019

Disneyland Tips

What I Believe!

Our Missionary

We Bleed Blue! {Except for the Poppi}

My list of favorite movies!

Learn more about Dyslexia!

Music To My Ears!

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

What's On My Happy List?


Holy Toledo..this is going to be an epic dump load of the camera roll...hang on.....

Scofield Trip over Memorial Weekend


Dad and Ashton went fly fishing...


Atv'ing to one of our favorite spots...



"The Hills Are Alive" initiation..Poor Ash!







....Kyleigh had a whirlwind last few weeks of school..


The drill team ended up performing at Arts Fest and one last time at Spartan Spec.


Her job at Harmons came to an end too. This is how she felt her last day working there. She was uber excited, altho she can't complain, it was the perfect little high school job. She worked there for a year and they were pretty darn flexible around her crazy schedule. But it's time to move on to bigger and better things. She has a new job thru IHC, which started the Monday after school got out.   

Saying goodbye to her cousin who, in a matter of days, graduated from high school, went thru the temple for his endowment and left for Georgia to work for the summer until he leaves for his mission.


Her favorite girls!

Locker Clean Out!


We had two lovely luncheons to be to on the same day. This one was at Little America for the LDS Volunteers.


Kyleigh and her cousin, Emily, were recognized for their volunteer service..


This was the MAG Senior Daughter/Mother luncheon 




These are the Senior MAG officers Kyleigh got to serve with this year...


 Baseball games! Murray went to Sate Competition. 



We had so much fun cheering for our team! 

We lost a close one..it was a heartbreaker!






We still get to watch Ashton play in a summer league. We've become quite the baseball fans...


The last day of high school!...


Here's a priceless before and after pic of Kyleigh and Kenz, a neighbor and bestie.

This is the FIRST day of 7th grade..

and the last day of High School...kills me..

Kyleigh would often drive her sisters and Kenz to school...

my neighbor took these pics on their last day driving together... totally caught Emma off guard...hilarious!

On the last day I was waiting in the school parking lot to pick up Emmsie and I was able to watch these two walk away from Murray High together for the very last time. The whole week was just bittersweet for Kyleigh. {me too!} No other way to describe it. I think she wishes she could stay another year. 


Morning of Graduation!
We are super proud of this girl! She graduated with a 3.87 and two Honors {one from the National Honor Society as well as a Honor Cord in the Arts Career Field.} AND just less than 6 classes shy of her Associates Degree from Salt Lake Community College. She got accepted to BYU, but will finish her Associates at SLCC first.  She was awarded three scholarships: an Honors at Entrance Scholarship from SLCC, {which will pay for the rest of her schooling there.}, one from the Volunteer Advisory Council at LDS Hospital, and one from UVU, which she won't be using, obviously, but still awesome to get acknowledged for your hard work.


445 graduates....
B and Kate were all smiles at first, but we all know how graduations are.. so flipp'in long and BORING 

We survived..barely.


YEAH!!



With her bestest friend!

With her good friend Blake!


Shaney-Bott!

With her girlfriends on their first official day as Seniors, and their last.

With some drill friends and coaches..
Kyleigh and these two drill team mates are three of only 6? girls from Murray that got accepted to BYU.  You go girls!


Seminary Graduation
Was the same weekend as high school graduation. Kyleigh here with Grandma and Grandpa Bell. Her good friend Blake played THE most beautiful piano piece during the program that reduced me to tears. I think the reality of everything that took place this weekend, with my firstborn actually reaching this milestone, finally hit me.


She and Kenz are the only two Seniors from our ward.


This is how they really feel about Seminary being over.

The YW's had a little graduation party for the two of them..


Some of Kyleigh's Senior Pics....






Her graduation announcement!


Our little Spartan Ad to Kyleigh for the yearbook.

The ALL NIGHT graduation party. Dad and I survived. More on that later...


Emma
Emmsie and her best friend on the last day of school!

Emmsie's drawing of her bestie...who is going to St. George for the whole summer to work.

She put together a little going away survival gift for her...


Emmsie did really well this year in school, but she is so glad to have school out and the homework OVER! I swear she ALWAYS had homework. This is just a sample of her AP World History notes. There are pages and pages. She took the AP test for that class a few weeks before school got out. They don't find out the results til July! She took the ACT for the first time on Sat. Blah! So not fun. 

She and her friend Megan started their 3rd summer volunteering at LDS hospital. They are working in the DayCare.


Hannah
Hannie's b-day was the same day as graduation. BAHAHAH! It was a doozy of a day at our place! {Like the beginning of a 23 hour gig for me..}

On her way out to catch the bus, {the last day of 8th grade was on her birthday...now isn't that THE best birthday gift ever?! } we surprised her with her birthday gift. 

She's been wanting a tandem bike for a while! Her reaction tells it all!! PRICELESS

We've already had a ton of fun riding this baby all 
over the neighborhood
Emmsie made her birthday pancakes!

Dropping girlfriends off after the 8th grade swim party. Hannie had a great time.. One of the Junior High teachers is like our third cousin. He's Hannah's favorite teacher and she's never even had him before. He's armed and staked out below at the party...



Dance tryouts!

I don't even think I posted about the dance recital earlier in May. {I believe something called the roadshow was possessing us at that time.} But this is about all I got of Hannie on recital day. She wouldn't even think of getting in one of her costumes for me to take a picture. She was spent. She had to be at the high school at 9 am that morning, she danced in 6 shows. Tons of costume changes, and got done at 8:30 at night. So ya..


Hannah's last choir concert...
Brie

Little end of school year treat!
Recital



 Teacher Appreciation Gift gave to Brie's teacher and used for Kate's preschool teachers too...
                                                                             
printable online at crj design inc.


Brie's 3rd grade teacher is retiring after 42 years of teaching! I put this little end of year gift together for her. Got the idea on line, adapted it a tich to fit our needs...
That last week of school her teacher taught the class how to make a god's eye craft. Brie loved it and was going crazy making them at home too. 

Catching Brie walking home from school that last week....we gave our favorite cross guard lady a little thank you gift card to sweet tooth.. 



Kate

Last Day of Preschool for the year....

They had the cutest program. She got the best artist award!

Here's a sample of her artistry...Hannah helped her make it...
It's a picture of Kyleigh, Ashton and Kate! 

Ordinary days...
playing with lady bugs, twigs, flowers and rocks....

making chocolate chips cookies with grandma...

a little picnic at the park...

running through the sprinklers..

 waiting for the dance recital to begin...She starts dance in August!

 Me!
So what have I been doing lately?....Involved with everything you see above and then some. Seriously the month of May I could earn a Masters in Coordinating and Logistics Management. {I think any mother of multiple school age children could.} I about did a happy dance on the day I took a picture of making school lunch for the last time for the four older kids. Making lunches first thing in the morn has never been my favorite thing to do. I'm barely awake, and I have to remember who would rather have a meat and pesto sandwich over a pb & j?  Who likes wheat bread vs. white. Half or whole? Who doesn't like chips, who would rather have an apple over a cutie orange. Who needs their fruit cut up.. It's like I'm taking an exam at 7:10 every school morning. haha!


K so food prep has never been my favorite thing but healthy, colorful dinners like this in the summer make my heart smile!



Trying to be creative with the kiddos...Making a river out of tin foil and the hose...

Making the hubs feel loved on Father's Day! Printable on line from Happy Home Fairy...

My latest project...
I was put in charge of decor for Project Graduation night. So I went from the roadshow to having this baby on my shoulders. I'm telling you, I'm saying NO to anymore huge projects for awhile. Just say'in. Those last few days of school and all that entails..{anyone with teenagers knows what I'm talking about...the kids are every which way}... it's nutso! Add Hannah's b-day and hello... Graduation, that alone is a huge event.  I seriously could not have pulled this project off without my two good friends. We were there at the school for hours the night before graduation...the morning of...and that night again setting up! These ladies saved my behiney. {Emmsie and Hannah were good to help too, and even Emmsie's friend... and others.}  We had hundreds and hundreds of balloons, tulle, and blown up pictures of the students coming out of our ears....I even went and got pictures developed of graduation from the morning of to display. Thank you 1 hr Costco Photo.  Dealing with the pictures alone was a time consuming project. The theme was LIVIN' THE DREAM. It was fun undertaking..although I don't think we want to see anymore white cloud formations anytime soon.








We had windows and halls filled with pictures...


 On top of decorating Jaren and I were asked to help at the all night party. So I was basically doing project graduation stuff from 6:30 that night of, til 5:00 in the morning! {yah you read that right} The project graduation committee put on quite the party in the wee hours of the morning.  From 10 PM to 5 AM Murray High was hop'in!  Cash cube, bounce houses, magician, casino, hypnotist, food galore and more. Thankfully we had fun, entertaining people to work with.  A few of us couples were wrapping gifts at 2:00 in the morning, hid away in the weight room. Oh gosh...quite the memory for us. Some of the prizes these kids went away with were pretty darn awesome! ipads, big screen tvs, little refrigerators, bikes, mopeds...Kyleigh walked away with perfume and a toaster oven. :)

I don't think I've pulled an all nighter since Kate was born. Jaren and I got home and crawled in bed as the birds were chirping. It took a few days to recoup.

In more graduation-ness...
A little graduation gift I put together for my niece...Got the idea and printable on line.


Made this graduation money lei for Kyleigh in Spartan colors!

Phew!! I think I'm actually done with this doozie of a post. {Anyone non family that made it to the end of it..I'm beyond impressed.} Gotta know I do this blog solely for my kids. They love to look back in the blog archive two, five, seven years ago and see what they looked like and what we were up to....this blog has become quite a family journal for us. 

                                                        Happy Summer!! 

1 comment:

  1. I always feel like I need to take a deep breath after I read your blog! I don't know how you do all you do! SHHEESSHHH LADY....you are A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!!!
    I really admire you and the mom you are! Lucky girls!!!

    ReplyDelete