Fun and busy days

Wow, I forgot how fun it is to be party central! We had lots of friends over yesterday and (since I scored a GREAT deal on the required-two-packs-of-play-dough-for-the-year at the Black Friday sales) we opened up the last of last years play dough supply:

 But the most exciting thing happened yesterday!!
We paid off the van!! (aka Fancy Nancy)!!!!!!!!!!

 Welcome home Fancy Nancy!!!

 Also, today being our Lazy Day, Ashley wanted to dress up for her crepes-for-breakfast:

And Ellie worked hard on her FOUR pages of 1st grade math. Go Ellie!

Oh yah, while I am blogging...I have been stocking the fresh turkeys at Maceys. (Because, really, who doens't LOVE turkey sandwiches??? Communists, that's who). And yesterday night, they were on sale! So I bought a 30-pounder!

It barely fits in the oven. Come over around 6 for all the turkey you can eat!!!

And Monday we partied even more!

Well, a nice family-type of party - with our friends with Korths! We went to free day at the aquarium, and then the SLC library, which we all LOVE. Here are some pictures:

Then, Monday night after a VERY short Family Night (Ashley wanted to go to bed- so we set up part of the Navatity set), Josh fixed the toilet in the laundry room! It has not been flushing/filling well for quite some time. Josh took it off and found out the seal was totally smushed (which means no nice hole for everything to drain down).

And he totally got a new one and put it all back. You are wonderful sweetie!

Then my family came to play

So we shopped a bit on Friday, and went to the Logan Temple. Then we came home and on Saturday, we set up the tree and got holiday-ee!

Stop by and I will light the pine-y smell-y candle for you! That afternoon, the Lewis family stopped by on their way back from the Idaho-mecca.
Then Holly and Matt came by to play on Sunday!
Oh, let me mention here that on Saturday night I was running up to help  Ash stop coughing and tripped on the little stairs and wacked (REALLY HARD) my hand against the wood banister. So my two left pointer and next to it fingers/knuckles were all bruised and ouchy.

Then on Sunday morning, because my fingers were slow, I totally closed the curling iron on my left thumb. OUCH. Let's just say that organ playing on Sunday was painful at best (in many different ways) and several people mocked the huge wet spot on my skirt due to my leaking ice-pack. I had ice on the thumb for like 10 hours and today it is WAY better! And it is generally way way better today.
Baby Ben, was of course, a HUGE hit. Aunt  Holly explained "over stimulation" to the girls (can you see why?) I heard he slept real good last night:

 And Emma was as cute as ever. Her hair is getting so LONG!

Well I am tired. I will have to write about Monday tomorrow. Have a nice sleep!

Turkeys with the Herrons

That is right, there were TWO turkeys (regular and smoked) at the Herron Thanksgiving Festivities! Here are some random pictures I remembered to take to show that we were actually there:

Then Turkey day I took a WONDERFUL three hour nap/thinking in bed time, and everyone was fine! Ashley has grown QUITE a lot in her social skills since last year. She went around talking to everyone and spent quite a bit of time explaining things to Grandpa. It was awesome!
We also took the plunkos out on their first-ever Black Friday/Thursday night shoppping. We were after some Barbies, race cars, race traack and squishy toy thing. Also Legos. We camped out for about an hour, heard a fight in the $5 DVD line, Austin almost got smushed, Brackson had a bunch of lady friends around him in the Lego line but after the word "Go" he reported it was a mad-house of pushing and shoving. Cass and her friend were not injured, but pretty hyped up after we finally found them after the melee. Austin did report two small cuts. It was GREAT!
But, surprisingly, no one wanted to go with me at 6 a.m. to Joann's for fabric! Cassidy and I hid fabric on Wednesday night, and all our stuff was right where we left it! AND some wonderful woman traded me her cutting number, because I was ready and she was still selecting fabric! Yah!
Also, I scored the needed-the-the-year-two-cases-of-play-dough, so we are set for guests! Happy shopping!

What do you do with a WHOLE WEEK off!!?!

Josh took ALL of turkey week OFF! Here is what you can do with a weird school schedule and a handy-honey home all week!
You go shopping at a cool educational toy store and get, um, gifts for next month... Then you go to IKEA and get a desk for Ashley's room AND a cool toy car map/rug!

 And you play LOTS and lots of board games with the girls:

 Then you make CUTE turkey cupcakes for the Herron Turkey Day festivities:

 I made yummy, yummy Portuguese salted cod with cream: (it takes a long time).

 And, to show you just how relaxed I am being these days... We were in charge of pies for the festivities.... and I used FAKE PIE CRUST! That is right, no sweating, no rolling pins, it was GREAT! (and the pies were yummy too).

Exciting visitor!

Josh came home from church last week and told me that he had 'gotten me off the hook playing the organ for next week" and of course I wondered why. It turned out we were suppose to have a special visitor this week. No clue WHO.
So TODAY, we found out it was going to be....

Elder L. Tom Perry, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles!! This is a pretty big deal! Josh said I could't call extra people and tell them about visitor, so it was just like an average church day! Only Ashley's little RA breathing has gotten worse and she was definately sick this morning. So I found a sub for Primary and was seriously considering staying home for everything, but brave little Ash said, "Let's go." So we went off to just Sacrament Meeting (arriving JUST on time) and she sat on my lap the whole time. We came home right after church.
Elder Perry told a funny story about how his dad was a country attorney and one client who was a turkey farmer. Every Thanksgiving he and his brother and dad would get in the car and drive out to the farm and pick out the fattest turkey. THEN he and his brother would sit in the backseat WITH the turkey and drive home. They would unload the turkey and then the "excitement" of dad chopping off his head and plucking it.
Bugs and I were rolling our eyes at each other with gladness about NOT having turkeys (the animals) in the back seat of our cars! Also, I gave Ruth (the other organ player) a big squeeze for being the organist instead of me!
We came right now and Ashley just got up from her two hour nap (yah!) We are going to sit on the couch and chill.
Josh has ALL week off. We are planning some fun desserts for the Thanksgiving feast at the Mortensen's - I do LOVE making desserts!
And maybe Heather and Jason will come down and play on Friday afternoon. Yah family and yah thankful-week!

Two bedrooms

I realized after posting today, that I forgot to tell ya' all that Ellie and Ashley have seperate bedrooms now! Yes, the day after Ryder left, I mentioned to Ellie that maybe she would like to move into Ryder's old room. She got up, THAT SECOND, and started moving herself in. She arranged things just like she wanted and is VERY happy to have her own room. Here are some pictures:

 Her own nightstand with CD player (she loves Christmas music)

 Ellie's 'work table.' She LOVES sitting her making elaborate creations and projects and plans. Also writing notes to her friends. Note the school clothes laid out for tomorrow!

Also here is a picture of the brussel sprout plant we got at Whole Foods this week. Ashley LOVES brussel sprouts - even today, ASKING for some for lunch and EATING them.

And Ash is enjoying having more space for her Polly Pockets and Smushy toys she got for her birthday: (there on the spotted rug is her favorite place to play)

Also in Ashley's room - our ant farm (with real ants from an ant farm - they are MUCH more ambitious than the ants we tried to catch ourselves).:

Wow, two posts in one day. I better take a few weeks off or something. Have a nice Friday!

Christmas lists

If case you have been wondering (or calling me about) Christmas wish-lists for the girls, here are some ideas:

Art supplies and paper (any kind)
Stickers
Craft books
They both love puzzles and geography
Craft kits
Books
CD's (both girls have a CD player in their room)
     Ellie LOVES Christmas music and anything nice to listen to while she goes to sleep.
     Ashley loves a story to listen to (book on CD, but not like hours and hours long, though) while she goes to sleep.

Ellie's favorite color is yellow. Ashley's favorite color is red.
Ellie is a size 6x/7 in top and a 6/6x in bottoms. She is a size 13/1 shoe.
Ash is a size 6/6X in top and 6 in bottoms. She is a size 13/1 in shoe.
Josh and I like to cook and bake together and go on dates.

Another lost tooth and a wonderful day

Ellie lost tooth #2 at 8:36 p.m. on Sunday. Here she is with no bottom front teeth (the new one growing is in HUGE!)

 And here is the little tooth.

She took is to school in our tooth box and reported "Mrs. Dye said she loves glitter too!" So it was all good.
Monday after lunch, we Herron girls headed to SLC to the library. We had a lovely time looking at books (I found like three books each by three of my favorite authors!) and the girls had fun playing downstairs in the childrens area. Then we went to the new D.I. in Sugarhouse and found some darling dresses for the girls. Here is Ash in her new FAVORITE dress (note it is red):

Then we were all hungry, so we went to the Whole Foods and looked around and had a healthy snack. We are going to have these Brussel Sprouts for dinner tonight!
There was 35 minutes left before the Tracy Aviary closed, so we stopped by to see the birds. It was quite delightful looking at the swans and ducks and stuff.

I LOVE being lazy!

Well the lazy-ness has continued through the weekend! Did I post this pic? It is not only of our 'own' pumpkin, pumpkin cake, but it is my first "Seven Minute" frosting (it is sort of like meriguine). It was pretty good, and we shared some with the neighbors!

Also, here is my new nightshirt. Kellie (my sewing mentor) helped me (by which I mean she put it all together and told me where to sew), we did the collar, sleeves and buttons!  It looks big ( because it is a bit bit), but Josh said it looks WAY too much like a mummu, so I am going to take it in a big, shorten it by about 6 inches and wear leggings underneath.

In case you were having "cute girl" withdrawal, here are our cute girls! In this picture, they are going on a treasure hunt (hide candy and then make a map and find it again).

And here is a picture of how much my sweetie takes care of me:  

He cleaned the oven! (Well, technically I think the oven cleans itself, but he cleaned the glass and the outside!) He is such a great guy. AND we are done with his busy season at work - so we are going to get to see a LOT more of him this hoilday season - yah!
Yesterday we went and ran errands in SLC after school. We went downtown and checked out the new Deseret Book store downtown, walked around, had dinner at the Lion House. It was just lovely to be walking around in our cute little family and checking stuff out.
The fun night of the week was Thursday - when we went on a date! (Josh had Thursday off, for Veteran's Day). We went out to dinner and I had a yummy steak. Then we went to the arcade at the bowling alley and played games! I won some candy at the "Snuerk" game, we both played skee ball, I got sick on the motion-riding motorcycle game (and the shooting game, ugh movement). Josh also tried to win me a big stuffed animal out of the huge "claw game" machines, but since it cost $2 a try, he would only try once ("I will just buy you one if you are desperate!") Then we got some yummy cheesecake from wally world and came home - and the kiddos were in bed! Yah Camille!
Looking like another nice, lazy, not anything vital happening week coming up. Come play!

Being lazy

Yes, I am continuing on with week 3 of being lazy. It is LOVELY!
I wonder how many days I can be happy to lay in my bed and think (and maybe sleep a bit) and not get bored - has NOT happened yet. Maybe next week.
Now, after two weeks, I lay there with my eyes opened and think and stare at the wall. It is good therapy. I am glad I have this time to mentally recover from 40 years of being so busy.
I am really happy where I am now. We have so many wonderful blessings and two fabulous little girls to help grow into fabulous women. I have time to do what I want.
I thought I had some cute pictures of the girls to add to the blog, but what I have is just me, being "lazy" and loving it.
We had a lovely day today, being lazy and watching some cartoons after school. Tomorrow...more of the same! Plus, maybe some crafting with friends.
Did you know you could google "Broadway running playlist" and find lots of stuff? What did we do before the internet? Have a nice, lazy day!

Pumpkins and awards

Today Ellie was awarded the "Builder of the Month" at school:

She was very excited and even got to wear a badge all day long.

Here is a pic of me and Ashley as we clap for the Builder of the Month:

(man, I DO have wrinkles, dang it!)

 Today I set a new record for number of trips to the charter school before noon - three! (Once for Builder award with Ash, back to walk with the kindergardeners for their fundraiser, once to pick Ellie up after school). Ah, my exciting life!

So to be more 'homemaker-ie" today (and not just living-in-the-mini-van-momma), I decided to cook up our pumpkins from our VERY fruitful $2.49 Home Depot pumpkin plant. It started like this....

And after I baked it and scraped it and even put together the new fancy fruit strainer by myself and strained stuff, we ended up like this.....

And then I just mushed up about four more pumpkins and got more pumpkin and froze it too, but I was too tired to take a picture.
Here are all our awards (our certificates from the governor, telling us good job on the state summer reading program arrived today also).

And the girls voted for pumpkin cake, so I made that today also and shared some with the neighbors.

Tomorrow night Josh is going camping with the Scouts (it is suppose to snow), so the girls and I will be going to family swim night.
Yesterday (since this is obviously going to be the report of the week so far) I dejunked a LOT. Cleaned out the crafty drawer, re-did the homework corner, cleaned out two cupboards and sorted a TON of baby/kid clothes.  I made the girls their own bin for stuff like: presents from birth families, cute clothes of signifiance, etc.
I am feeling WAY calm and happy. I do still have a list, but I am WAY more open to doing stuff that I just want to that day. And am doing more playing with the girls.
 Today Ellie made a candy-walk game for us and would run over and pound on the piano while Ash and I went around in a circle and stopped on a  number. Then, surprise, our numbers would be called and we would win CANDY! (since then all children candy has been confiscanted by mom).
And here is a random pic from my cell phone (since Josh just spent 50 minutes getting the new phone to talk to the computer), of daddy and the girls at the park:

Have a nice weekend!