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June 15th, 2011: The Little Mermaid at Tuacahn

Grandma Mindy took Dodge and I to see the Little Mermaid at Tuacahn. It.Was.Amazing. Dodge loved every minute of it. I had never seen them flood the stage at Tuacahn before. It was so cool. I loved everything about this play. The music was awesome, and I love how they used water, a lot of water. Sebastian's voice was amazing. He had the most ridiculous range I've ever heard. Seriously, amazing. The boy who played flounder was only 11. Dodge got to meet him after the show and he was so excited. Dodge wants to be in a play now. Thanks Grandma for a great night!

Dodge loved baseball this year. Though they don't keep score at the games, coach kept track and they only lost one game. The kids were so excited when they got trophies after the last game. It was hilarious! Dodge is so proud of his trophy.

I can't believe Katie is a high school graduate. It seems like just yesterday she was putting cats in the freezer to cool them down! Katie, I am so excited for you to go to college. I am glad you will be close enough to visit often. You are an amazing and beautiful woman and I have no doubt that you will do everything you put your mind to. I love you!

The kids love making s'mores at Grandma and Papa Johnson's. Dodge will toast a million marshmallows and only eat one s'more. Addison prefers to eat the chocolate and marshmallows separately. One of the blogs I follow posted some great s'mores ideas that we are going to have to try this summer. You can check them out HERE.

Must be summertime...

We have been taking advantage of all the splash pads around town. I took my camera and thought I would get a bunch of great summer fun pictures... yep, I only ended up taking about four pictures, and only two turned out at all. Oh well, at least I try. The kids love the splash pad by the library. It has a bunch of rocks and a waterfall. They would spend all day there I swear. If I don't blog much this summer, you can assume we are out swimming trying to keep cool in this St. George summer heat.

The Nap Time Debate...

Addison is a great napper. She will nap for an hour and a half everyday. She started waking up at 3:00 am and not going back to sleep for an hour and a half. Not.Fun. I decided to try and (Gasp!)wean her off of nap time. I figured we would try with napping only every other day and see if that helped. I love, love, love nap time, however, I don't love missing out on sleep at night because of it. The waking up at night has completely stopped since we have changed her routine. On the days that Addison doesn't get her nap, she usually ends up falling to sleep early in weird places... I thought I'd share a funny one.

I remember falling asleep holding my head in this same position after working a night shift then heading to class. Makes me wonder how I ever made it through Nursing School.

Dodge's Last Day of 1st Grade

Today is Dodge's last day of 1st grade. Dodge has done so well this year in school. We are so proud of him. He had such a great class and an amazing teacher. We are looking forward to a fun summer before moving on to 2nd grade. I'm not looking forward to saying I have a second grader, that would make me, like, really old.

First day of school, and last day of school. Our little man is growing up!

In love...

I am in a serious burlap and jute phase. I just dressed up some pillar candles by printing on burlap and wrapping it with jute. Now I'm wondering what else I can wrap in burlap and jute...

(I apologize for the pic quality, as this is my first cell phone post)

so....

I just got a call from the first counselor... I get to speak in church on Sunday, like this Sunday, as in I only have two days to prepare my talk. Pray for me... no, pray for those I have to speak to, those poor poor souls...

Since I fixed the blog, here is the last of my posts that should have been done yesterday...

 First up, Easter. I think I am the worst at taking pictures when it comes to Easter. Not only
did the kids get up and devour half the candy before I even got out of bed, but once I was up I only took one picture. Notice Addison's mouth, stuffed completely full of jelly beans. She had probably ten eggs worth of jelly beans, and it wasn't even 7:00 am! Dodge found a Lego game and it was all over. Who cares about eggs when you can play Robo Champ? The kids seemed to enjoy loading up on candy before heading to church. Grandma Mindy had a treasure hunt at her house for each of the kids. Addison did really well finding all the spots. She had fun with it. Maybe next year I will get a picture of them in their Easter Sunday Dress.... I wouldn't hold your breath though.

Ryan finished Spring League Softball. Monday night, the Johnson Appraisal team took 1st place again. Wednesday night, the AAA team took second place. Ryan has played amazingly this last season. He has been hitting a lot of homers. It has been fun to watch when we can.

Another notable achievement of Ryan's recently: he shot a 76 golfing the other day. He was only 3 over par for 18 holes. It was awesome. Don't worry, the scorecard is being proudly displayed on the fridge. I doubt it's coming down anytime soon.

Lastly, Dodge's soccer season has wrapped up. He enjoyed playing soccer but now that baseball has started, he assured me that soccer was fun, but baseball is his favorite. Papa Dan is coaching and Ryan is assistant coach. Ryan has been pitching to the kids. He prefers to pitch during softball, but he does a good job with the kids too. Hopefully I can get some video on here if blogger will work with me, it is pretty funny watching Dodge play 1st... he throws his glove in the air, jumps on the base, talks with the people on the sidelines. That kid cracks me up. Well. I guess that is about it for my updates. Hopefully it won't be another big break between now and my next post, I'm not making any promises though.

Excuse me while I toot my own horn...

I have a billion things I need to post, but first, I have to show off my latest project: The entryway to our home. It needed a serious face-lift so I got super obsessive and did a few things on my to-do list. Here is the finished entryway:

About my monogrammed acid mirror. It is so hard to get a good picture of a mirror!  have to give credit to Mandi @ Vintage Revivals for the mirror tutorial. I loved her acid mirrors so I made my own version. I found the mirror for $8 at DI and added some trim to the inside.  It took a lot of time, patience, love, and even a bloody knuckle to get it done but It was so worth it.

I got the idea for the "console" table from ana-white you can find it here I started with the console table plan and made a bunch of changes. I added ten inches to the height, and 3 inches to the depth, two shelves, and trim around the top. I distressed the seams on the breadboard top to shanty it up a bit. It was actually really easy to build, only took me about an hour and a half after winging it with the changes I wanted to make. The sanding and painting took for-ev-er! I guess that's what I get for buying super cheap lumber. This project only cost me $37 to make because I only needed the wood and paint. Much better than the $150 and up it would cost to buy a similar piece. The awesome thing is, it is exactly what I wanted and is 100% original.

So there you have it, my revamped entryway!

Dixie Escalante Electric Kite Festival - April 16th, 2011

Dodge's school sends home reading calendars for the kite festival each spring. If they read enough minutes, they can get a free book or kite at the Kite Festival. They give out really awesome kites too. This year, my Dad's family was down to visit during the festival, so we went and enjoyed some deep fried twinkies, free kids games, and a few rides. Of course there wasn't any wind while we were out there, so we didn't even fly kites. The kids didn't seem to mind though. I think my favorite thing was the massive tennis racket they had at one of the booths. If only we could hook up the wii remote, I am sure it wouldn't take long to break every single thing in the front room with it!

The day of epic posting goodness...

Because I don't feel like leaving the house, because the weather calls for thunderstorms, because I can... I am going to be catching up on my blogging today. I am all about fair warning, so be warned, I will be loading up your dashboard with posts today. mwah ha ha!! (that was supposed to sound like an evil laugh)

Monte L. Bean Museum

While up North for Spring Break we went to the Monte L. Bean Museum at BYU. They had a reptile show that  had lots of animals for the kids to see and touch including a huge tortoise and a snake. Addison was pretty upset that she couldn't hold the snake all by herself. That girl is fearless! My favorite display was the butterflies. They had a ton of little butterflies that made up one big butterfly display. It was really pretty. We followed up the museum with ice cream from the BYU creamery. It was delish!

Thanksgiving Point

More spring break fun was had at Thanksgiving Point. The kids got to feed the animals, ride a pony, and enjoy a wagon ride too. 

Flying Kites

One of our highlights from spring break was flying kites. My kids would do this everyday if I had the energy to take them. Luckily we only ended up with one kite in a tree. Dodge had fun getting our double stringer all sorts of twisted. Good thing I got mad untangling skills :)