Whos life is this??

I ask the question in a happy-go-lucky, wondering sort of way :D It is so wierd how the constant changes and adjustments creep up and then you look around and think "wow, things are different! Where did the life I used to know go??" I suddenly have a constant house full of teens and pre-teens (and other random kids, for that matter) having weekend parties. I wish I was a cooler mom (or less busy or had different priorities or somethin) and had fun treats and food for all these kids but I'm lucky if I even know who is coming and going these days. I am grateful though that everyone enjoys hanging out here and I am in more control what is going on with my kids. I am also very fortunate that my kids have such good kids as friends. I complain, but deep down I do like it. :D Personally, so far I think teenagers are pretty funny. When I walked in the door from Utah the other day, there were about 7 of Cades friend upstairs playing Xbox and pool. I yell up there "I'm HOME" and I hear a chorus of "We missed you sister Lamb! We missed you SOOO MUCH" LOL Har Har, suck-ups!

The usual weekend and afternoon scene in my boy loft. There are usually twice as many though. As you can see having it nice and decorating are loooow on the priority list.

Speaking of coming home from Utah, I need a brag moment. My house was all picked up, and Mark really hit it out of the park. He was at work when I got home, but he had completely cleaned our messy bedroom (I just didn't get to it before I left) including changing the sheets, putting away mountains of clean clothes, cleaning the bathroom (even the TUB!) and leaving me a "todo list" which included catching up on TV shows, taking a long bath, relaxing, and several other things that I can't list since this is a family blog and all :) It was nice to be missed. THEN to top it off, he had spent probably a good 2-3 hours pulling all my coupons AND nesting them and dating them for me!! I about fell over I was so shocked and happy!! BIG brownie points for that one, I was 4 weeks behind!! I love that guy!! I seriously could not be luckier!

My mom sent me the craft book "Hello Cupcake" and this was Sadies first venture into it. I thought it was so cute!

Utah trip #2 recap: Good times! We had a great time catching up and spending time together. I honestly have THE BEST SIL's ever. I love them. We had so much fun at Christine and Steves (as usual!) and got everything done that we wanted to and on schedule so we had alllll day tuesday to shop ourselves silly. I wish SO bad I could open a Rodworks franchise here in AZ. They are looking to do one here, it would be so up my alley. Oh well. We hit Cherry lane for accessories, and Kneaders. Have you been there?? Its probably good that we don't have one here...


They have a cute little boutique and you can gift wrap anything you buy there at this station, that is if you can pull your face away from your french toast....


Yes, that is whipped cream butter with strawberries and a little tub of warm homemade maple syrup! Oh. My. Heavens.



I found Home Fabrics to fuel more of my fabric obsession. I have been home 3 days and have already gone to the mesa location! Wait till you see what I made!! Yes, I need help. LOL I even shopped at the SLC DI and got a couple of treasures. I met up with my friend Karenna and it was so great to catch up. The drive home was so crazy, we hit a downpour of rain in Utah (Like SHEETS of rain with low visibility) then a monstrous dust storm through the Res, it was super scary. Then in Flag it was Sleet, hail, snow, and then more rain. Oh well, at least it wasn't hot and I'm an awesome driver :D LOL j/k

Father and Sons Campout. Mark always gets good pictures of the kids for me :D

Since I have been home I have been doing lots of hair, and that is a big blessing. I did some sewing too, I'll post a bunch of pics soon :D

Random

*I'm tired....too tired to go to bed

*I just made my list and schedule to be ready to go to Utah on Saturday.....Ug. I scheduled some sewing though! I am DYING to dive in to my new fabric!! Its adorable! FYI Scrapbooks Etc. now carries fabric, need I say more??

* I'm going to Utah with my SIL Maureen to visit Raquel and help her move. Looking forward to everything but the drive. And Sadie gets to come this time, she deserves it!

*Homeschooling is going great, just the 2 older ones, they are working hard. Its amazing how much they do, but it seems like our days just fly by!! They are liking it and workin hard and it has been good having them here. Mostly.

* I am beyond addicted to home decorating blogs and food blogs. Mostly decorating and sewing and projects though. I added a few to my sidebar, but the list of sites and projects I have come across and saved in my favorites is long. Really really long. I'm dying to try some stuff, there are some unbelievable talented people out there!!

*My top priority craft projects when I get back from UT are: A burlap wreath for summer, a burlap ruffle runner for summer, recovering a chair I have, Making aprons and these super cute headbands, 3 new kinds of fabric flowers, a braided fabric headband, and I got the cutest skirt pattern to make skirts for Sadie and I for summer. I kid you not, that is just the high priority list. I even have most of the stuff for all of it! Then there are about 2 thousand other things I would love to try.

* I took the boys with me for a quick stop at the Hob Lob today, and Dayton insisted on getting a little green sewing kit. He is wanting to sew SO bad! How can I resist that?? I got the little 5 dollar kit for him-honestly, there is a lot in there! And he says the first thing he is going to make is a fabric flower for me. Awwww. I helped him make a little black ribbon flower for me, and then I made him a superhero wristband. I need boy projects that are fun and easy :D I'm thinking pajama pants or a pillow case or a little church bag with cool boy fabric. He wants to hand sew though. All by himself. Little cutie. He saw some music printed fat quarters and wants to go get them and make something for his piano teacher, miss Wendy. Don't you just want to squeeze him?? LOL

*I need a maid DESPERATELY

SO thats my random stuff going on now. Later, skaters

The best time to wear a striped sweater......

Is when you make it into a pillow!! So I have been bitten by the crafting and even more so the sewing bug lately. I have been dying to make something, anything!! Today I took a little side trip to Goodwill and I picked up a couple of sweaters. It was actually hard because I saw a lot of adorable sweaters that i would wear, from J Jill, Colwater Creek, Talbots, seriously cute ones! I had to keep moving, I had a mission, but lets say, I need to find some more fun things to do with sweaters! I need to live somwhere colder so I can wear them more! anyway. I grabbed a couple, I had to keep telling myself "There will always be a thousand (literally) sweaters at Goodwill, they will always be 5.99 or less, you can always come back!"

I got this one because it matched Sadies new room perfectly

The pillow I originally wanted to use, ^ but it ended up too big so I changed to this one: An oldie that is too fragile to wash, but too dingy to actually use on a bed

I cut the sweater body to the size I needed

And sewed it just like a regular old pillow like in 7th grade Home Ec, except its a cute ribbed chenille accessory.


This was literally a 30 minute project! And I'd say 15 of those minutes were spent hand sewing the little hole after it was turned and stuffed. I am a TERRIBLE hand sewer. I have to work on that one.

Since it was so easy......I decided to do another one :D

> This was a Lane Bryant sweater, so it had a little more chenille to work with.......4.99! But what to do with the edging.....I didn't want it to go to waste!

YEAH! I love it! Hopefully since I have lots of red in my house it won't seem too christmasy, and I might add more of a cluster of chenille flowers, but I think its a good start. YAY me! I finally crafted!

Spring Review in Pictures

Whew! What a crazy season! I am just so amazed that I made it through in one piece. Here are some random look-backs to what we have all been up to :D

Beware: This is a marathon post!! It will not hurt my feelings if you just look at the pictures! If you read this whole thing, you are my hero! :D

EASTER:
I am super sad that I didnt take pictures of Easter. Bummer. I was just too busy having easter to document any of it. It was so stressfull getting all ready, because I worked too so it was tough to do it all. I couldn't even begin preparing until after 3 on Saturday! Yikes! And yes, the kids had enormous chore lists too! Sunday everything came together though. We had lots of family over, and we started off the morning with deeeeeelicious crepeswith allllll the fixings! I love making crepes! I have to say, we made some with nutella, sliced bananas and whipped cream........GETOUT they were heavenly! Ahh! So yummy. Then we started on a traditional Easter feast of spiral glazed ham, yummy potatoes (my personal fave-esp. with sharp cheddar in them!) and salad and rolls. sooooo I kinda forgot the salt in the rolls (the sugar too for that matter, but I kneaded it in :) but I salvaged them. Between sessions everyone played Settlers while I made this:




for my SIL sister Deb's rehab grad that was taking place later that night. I feel bad because I completely threw it together in less than 2 hours but at least it tasted really good :D The butterflies were a significant theme, so that was fun, and it was really cheerful and girly, just like Deb. It was great to have it done and ready to go so I could chill and finish conference, and watch the Blind Side with the fam before we left to the graduation.

We went to the Grad meeting, and then to dinner at Debs rs presidents cute home for dinner on the patio. It was a gorgeous evening, and the orange blossoms and petunias were SO fragrant, I loved it so much. Boy did I come home and crash!!

DAYTONS BIRTHDAY:

My baby is 7!! I never never thought I'd have my youngest be this old! He is just my little sweetheart! He is so huggy and sweet, he loves to talk to me, he tells me such funny things all the time. I'm so glad we have this amazing, super smart sweetie pie to love every day! I feel bad his cake was so messed up, I had a 2 hour window for his party and was late getting the cake done so it was warm and not really frostable, and he really wanted the lego like Wyatts. Since Wyatts was such a pain I thought I could do better just with buttercream.......not so much. Whoops, well now I know, right?? Sorry, Deets. Better cake next year :D It was yum though. After his little family party Grandma Lamb took him and Wyatt for thier birthdays to Build a Bear, where they picked up some new BFFs. They had so much fun and were totally into it. I love Daytons, its perfect for his Shamrock birthday.

COOPERS BIRTHDAY:

Of course, as every year, Cooper gets the most rushed birthday. I feel terrible. Don't tell him though, as far as he says (and from what I can tell, anyway) he had a great birthday. I was working so Mark went and picked out just what he had wanted, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and a UFC game for the Xbox. Plus 2 grandmas gave him 20 bucks and a new outfit AND a bionicle. Not shabby, but considering nothing but my moms gift was wrapped and we sang happy birthday with a store bought cake and sang to him at a wedding reception for Marks cousin in Casa Granda, in a moms eyes it was pretty pathetic. I really think he could have cared less about the cake and singing, he just wanted to be home playing his new game, not at a wedding reception. He's 10, I can't blame him! He was trying SO hard to be patient! Sweet Cooper! I hope someday he will overcome all of this! LOL

He's getting so grown up! His face is getting that Lamb shape......and the retainer makes him look like such a pre teen!

OK he was a little embarrassed when 50 people started singing to him......

TRIP TO UTAH:

I got to go to UT with my mom and sis Katie to visit Em! She was super homesick and needed some fun family time, so we drove to the rescue! I have like no pictures of that either, I was so tired the whole time! But it was great staying at Christines (Watching bride Wars in the home theater eating Olive Garden dessert, pretty hard to beat it!) and I think we pretty much talked our faces off. We found shopping paradise, it is known to those on earth as Taipan Trading! We also found shopping heaven, it is known as Cherry Lane in Provo. Love Love Love!! We finally just started laughing, because halfway through the day we realized that every 10 to 30 seconds we were all sucking in our breath at everything! I have no clue how many times I heard or said "OH! LOOK at this!!" but it had to be in the hundreds! I have so many fun ideas of things I MUST make! Plus I bought the purse of my dreams! It was fun getting to see Em at beauty school, she is doing great! Poor Katie is newly preggo and not feeling good at all but she was a trooper. We looked at houses, visited Temple square with Raquel, slept, talked, laughed, and shopped. Pretty much perfect! Hopefully next time Bri will be with us!!

FINALLY:

I got the "real" wedding pictures back, the ones of our family, and the cake I did and the cupcakes look so much better in these so I thought I'd post them.

I have been going nonstop, I did hair all day yesterday again (which was fun, really, but tiring) and I am so excited to be taking today OFF! Woo hoo! Mark got the kids off to school so I could sleep in and veg, then I went and got a really great mani pedi with a hot rock massage. I'm hoping that I can schedule my hair trade massage for this week, too. Woo HOO! Believe it or not, there is more I could update, like Homeschool, summer plans, new crafts in the works, etc but for now........Janel.......OUT