Sophie Writes a Book

Sophie wrote her first book. She drew all the pages separately, showed me the order they go in, and helped me add a front & back cover.

Sophie and Sam Melt
by Sophie


Sophie and Sam melt.

Sophie and Sam melt and melt.

Sophie and Sam melt and melt.

Sophie and Sam melt and melt.

Sophie and Sam melt and melt.

Sophie and Sam melt and melt.

Sophie & Sam get tiny.

The End.

Vacation Recovery

We're back from a WONDERFUL vacation to San Diego, and now we're in recovery mode. Catching up on sleep, doing laundry, sorting through everything we managed to stuff into our van, and figuring out exactly what we did with our time before last week.

We stayed for a week at one of our favorite locations: Coronado Island. Jake and I vacationed there by ourselves 3 years ago, and had decided that it would make a great place for a big family vacation. So we recruited Jake's whole family to come along with us this time and all stayed together in a big beach house.

Part I: The Beaches

Coronado has 2 beaches: A "kid beach" in the bay, where the waves are small and the water is slightly warmer, and the main beach that faces the ocean. We went to both.

Part II: SeaWorld

Part III: Balboa Park

An afternoon with nothing to do found our family of 4 at Balboa Park. While it's not an action-packed place, we all had a really great time. The scenery is beautiful and the kids loved looking at the flowers and fish, and playing in the fountain.

Part IV: Family

I'm 30

So, I'm no longer in my 20's. I'm a thirty-year-old person. It's strange.

Anyway, I had a great birthday. I got some gift cards for restaurants and shopping, a cuckoo clock (something I've been looking to get for about 2 years now), and even a gift card for my very own orange tree! (you'll have to wait until winter to see it purchased and planted)



Jake also got me some light reading material:


so I can be a pro using my new camera. I'm a lucky girl.

A Word on Goals

My birthday is next week. And I'll be 30.

If you recall, last year I made a 30x30 list - a list of 30 goals I wanted to complete by my 30th birthday. I've been working on them all year, and I've been updating my list on the blog as I went along, for anyone interested in my progress --->

Well, I've come to the point where I'm as done as I'm going to be before my birthday, so I thought I would do a little review.

So here's the list:
(all CAPS = completed; red lower case letters = didn't accomplish)

1. GROW MY HAIR LONG

2. PLAN A BEACH VACATION (Heading out soon!)

3. PLAN A BIG PARTY (Jake's SURPRISE 30th Birthday Party)

4. READ 5 BOOKS

5. GET A BACK-TO-SCHOOL PLAN (Pretty much figured out that now is not a good time for me to go back to school, and I'll revisit the thought in another decade or something)

6. BUDGET FOR A CAMERA (This involves next year's tax returns and using up all of our Christmas budget for me AND for Jake. Don't feel bad for Jake, I did it a couple years ago when he wanted a big TV)

7. WEEKEND GETAWAY WITH JAKE (Scottsdale resort over Memorial Day)

8. READ THE BOOK OF MORMON

9. Make a good friend. Here's the first goal on my list that I didn't complete. BUT, I do have some good once-a-month girls night girls, and Jake made a good friend this year, which I think counts for something good.

10. MAKE & SELL SOMETHING (new art listed in my shop)

11. VISIT GRANDMA WEEKLY

12. Write a book. Non-finished goal #2. I worked on this a little in the spring, but nothing good came to me, so I put it on hold.

13. DECORATE MY MASTER BEDROOM (seen here)

14. Be stronger. #3. There's no excuse for this. I started an exercise program TWICE in the last year, but I was lazy and gave up both times.

15. Plant an orange tree. #4 - Our back yard was never ready for a new tree in the last year. It's getting closer. The pool is gone and we are brewing up great ideas for the space. We just need the funds for it.

16. PLANT A FLOWER GARDEN (Oh, I planted it alright. I worked really hard on it too. That doesn't mean anything grew.)

17. HAVE ONLY ONE MORTGAGE

18. ATTEND THE TEMPLE REGULARLY

19. GET LIFE INSURANCE

20. HAVE A WILL

21. PLAN A 3-MONTH SUPPLY MENU

22. TEACH THE DOG A NEW TRICK (Ah, no more dog jumping up on the bed at night. Next "trick": stop barking when the doorbell rings!)

23. HELP SOPHIE READ A BOOK (She's a smarty pants. This one was easy.)

24. EAT AN EXPENSIVE DESSERT (Crème Brûlée from Ruth's Chris. Mmmm)

25. BE PREGNANT (I'll be 6 months along on my birthday)

26. BUY A SCANNER (thanks, Jake)

27. EXPAND MY BUSINESS (They're both doing great)

28. SEW SOMETHING AWESOME (new pregnancy skirt)

29. Find Temple Art. And #5 of the non-finishers. But believe me, this one was not for the lack of trying. I have SCOURED the internet looking for something I like. I wanted art, not photography. I almost bought this a couple of times, but I think I can do better. This is nice too. I need a talented cousin or something to come up with a solution for me. Or try something myself.

30. FINISH THE FILING

And there you have it. My 30 by 30 list. Too bad I'm not turning 25 this year, cause then I would have completed it. Oh well, 25 out of 30 goals is not bad. And I did TRY to complete all 30, so I think I did pretty good.

Here's to my 30's!

Happy Fourth!

A Shower for Baby Evelyn

This weekend, I put on a baby shower for my sister-in-law Pia. With inspiration from her nursery colors and a little help from my new friend Pinterest, I was able to put it all together.


We had a buffet table full of orange and pink treats including a large assortment of fruit, candy, pretzel bites, and the biggest hit - cake pops.

























I also set up a craft table where guests could make felt hair clips for baby Evelyn and take some home too. They all turned out really cute!

Yay for baby Evelyn!
Now stay cooking for a couple more months please.

Going . . . Going . . .

About a month ago, I mentioned on facebook that we were considering taking out the pool. I got an OVERWHELMING response to it - more facebook comments than I've gotten on any post before. And nearly 100% of the responses were telling me to keep the pool. Funny, a lot of the responses were to the tune of "we like that YOU have a pool".

However, we didn't receive any positive responses in the form of monetary contributions, so it just wasn't possible. We'll have a pool someday, just not today.

Going . . .


going . . .


going . . .


(Sam's permanent location for the past week)

going . . .



going . . .

gone.

We thought long and hard about this decision, and we know it's the right one for our family right now. Now who wants to play in our dirt?

Three

For those of you (like me) who don't always watch videos when they're posted on blogs, you may have skipped over this video about 2 months ago, which may mean you don't know about this:

Baby #3
20 weeks (1/2 way there)
Due in October

Swingset

Last week, we found a swing set on sale for a great price, so we decided to try it out.

And it's been awesome.

Slippery

Somehow, we're still able to be outside in June. So we're taking advantage of it while we can. (105 degrees is still very manageable to an Arizonan)

Slip-n-Slide Modified