Hello, Goodbye

It wasn't suppose to be this way, we had a plan, 3-5 years tops, then we'd be moving on up....oh how naive we newlyweds can be. No one expects to loose both incomes a year after building a new house while 7 months pregnant, or the time and expense of a Bachelors degree and Masters Degree while working full time, or twins....seriously no one expected the twins, but it's all good, I wouldn't change a thing. Jer and I built this house together eight years ago while we were engaged, moved right in after the honeymoon, our first house, it was amazing. Jeramie took pictures of every single board, nail and fixture, every project, nearly every moment of construction....for those of you who actually know Jer, know I am not exaggerating. We've had eight amazing years here, but the time has come, it's time to move on....or so we'd like to hope, the actual Hal House is up for sale.

Blue Eyeballs

Addison: "Mom, can we have ravioli for dinner?"

Me: "No honey, we don't have any"

Addison: "Yes Mom, we do, I saw them with my very own blue eyeballs!"

Me: laugh, laugh, laugh. "OK then, ravoioli it is!"



Oh, how I love my little princess!

Sneak Peek

-------------------------------My beautiful TWINS!---------------------------

----------------------------BLONDE, BROWN, and RED-----------------------

---------------------------------------My Kids-----------------------------------

As I'm sure most mothers can attest, family pictures are exhausting. First, you have to pick out outfits and make sure they coordinate in some fashion, something I have no talent for. Then, you have to get everyone in their best clothes to the site, without wrinkling the shirts, crushing the skirts or messing up the hair in anyway. Needless to say, we made it through the two grueling hours of posing and tantrums. Our poor photographer was a trooper, she took hundreds of photos, and it's a good thing too. It's amazing how with only four children someone manages to close their eyes, poke their sibling or pull a face in every picture.....especially frustrating when EVERYONE looks great, except that one! Thank goodness for editing, I'm happy to say we have a family picture I feel good about hanging on the wall, for now I'm keeping that one to myself but, here are a few of the outtakes....enjoy!

My Muddy Buddy

I guess you really have to love mountain biking when you're willing to get up at 5:00AM Saturday morning which also happens to be your birthday, drive nearly an hour and a half up the canyon and spend the next 4 hours in the driving rain, covered in mud. Happy Birthday honey, YOU rock my world!

Pumpkin Pickers

For family night this week we went to an amazing farm not too far from our house. The kids had a blast, they slid down the grain slides and straw hills. They rode barrel cows and pigs, jumped in a giant pumpkin, played in a pile of corn (who knew this would be fun?). Lastly, we all rode a tractor that took us way out into the pumpkin fields, everybody got to pick their own, it was great. We finished up just as it was getting dark and headed back to our house for some chili and fresh baked rolls. YUM!

The Blame Game

Whew.....I thought it was me. Suddenly my dishes were coming out of my dishwasher.....DIRTY, gasp! I noticed it a month ago or so, an icky white film covering my dishes, silverware, and pots.



I thought maybe my "cheapest appliance on the market" dishwasher was on it's last leg, after all we've been in this house exactly 8 years and have the original appliances that came with the house....well with the exception of that water heater....anyway, it got worse. I began rinsing my dishes when they came out of the dishwasher...kinda defeats the purpose right? Lately I've had to actually scrub them to get that white gunk off. I also took a mental jab at my less than functioning water softener, thing hasn't worked properly in years, I assumed the white stuff was hard water residue....anybody know an honest plumber? So, would you believe I actually considered just yesterday bypassing my dishwasher all together and just hand washing my dishes instead? GASP!


I run that thing twice a day on occasion....nope, never gonna wash that many dishes....yep, my pioneer ancestors are rolling their eyes at me now....sorry ladies, I am a MODERN woman, and have all the modern appliances to prove it. So you can imagine my relief when I ran across this little article in the local news this morning....whew, it's not my dishwasher, it's not my "piece of crap" water softener, it's not me! It's the phosphates....or more specifically the lack thereof in my dish washing soap. Within the last 6-8 weeks, all dish washing soaps across Utah (and 16 other states) have been quietly replaced with their phosphate free versions. For those of you who need a more in depth/reasonable explanation, know this. Phosphates along with nitrogen have long been known to induce growth in algae, when drained out of our washers, sinks and pipes into the waterways, lakes, rivers, streams and oceans, we create an environment where algae grow and grow out of control creating algae blooms sucking the oxygen out of the water.....no oxygen, no life. So while my science infused brain completely understands the need for this new evil doppelganger of my favorite dishwasher soap, my tired, lazy...MODERN brain is very sad and misses her phosphates desperately. So to all those of you out there playing the blame game like me....a bit of good news, it's not your dishwasher.....it's your soap, and for the bad news...it's here to stay.

It's all FAIR

I'd been looking forward to going all summer, I love the fair.....although I can't really remember why. Should have know better than to go the last Saturday night, we got there late, and it got even later as we drove around looking for a lot that was not full to park in.......45 minutes and about a dozen swear words later we are parked and squeezing in the gates with thousands of other people, a serious lack of deodorant all around.....could have been the pigs I guess, the actual pigs, my kids loved them, laying all fat and pink on their wood shavings, I had to resist a strong urge to slap them on their pink little butts. Don't worry I didn't, I just wandered through the pig house concentrating on breathing in and out through my mouth....pigs stink, even shiny clean pink ones.

Jack tackled the climbing wall....made it nearly to the top, that kid has no fear....I was a nervous wreak until his feet landed safely on the ground.
Ten phone calls and texts and another hour or so we finally find our friends, the kids are in heaven. A few more stinky animal houses, cows, rabbits, chickens and we're off to get what we came all the way down here for.....funnel cake! I'm a bit ashamed to admit I've never had one before, but Jeramie swears by them, and he was so right, it was described to me as a bit of "deep fried gooey goodness" yum, we devoured ours! Overall I'd give my fair experience a 4.5 out of 10, crowds, lines, smells, and a general "people I'd rather avoid" knocked the score down a bit. However our good friends and their kids saved the night, we have so much fun with them, my kids were in heaven.