When Life Gives You Lemons…

Yesterday Kate and her cousin opened a booming lemonade stand for the second time now. It’s mostly darling. Of course, these two girls WANT to be out there alone, but since they aren’t capable of making change, or even pouring a pitcher, the mom has to sit back, far, far away, appearing only when customers arrive.

A few observations I made during my “alone” time:

1. I love how the vendors, themselves, need to continually drink lemonade as they sell (got to sample your product, right?).

2. I love watching these girls jump up and down in excitement each time a car pulls up. Seriously, so dang cute. That image is just all-kid; I love it!

3. I love how Kate will fearlessly yell to each passerby asking if they want lemonade (even if they are out of hearing range). Even more so, I love how she yelled to a zooming car of teenage boys with windows rolled down, music blaring, and heads banging. Afterwards, saying, “Boys are for losers. And those boys are losers!”

4. And last, I love that Kate would sit outside selling all day long if I’d let her. “I never want to stop, Mom,” she’s said both times now. She’s got a strong work ethic for being such a little spud!

Farm Jaunt

We traipsed around a farm today; a real one. I don’t much love farms. Dirt, flies, and stink aren’t really my thing. But this visit was so fun, not just for two little sweeties, but also for their adoring mom.

Our ward playgroup set this one up. It was a very close farm, just off canyon road, and the lady hosting was very generous to let us come. There were so many cute moments and pics that I had a hard time narrowing, as you will soon see.

Feeling sheeps’ wool…

Kate feeding, Porcelain, the horse….

Cole admiring the horses…

Such an angelic face!This one’s funny to me…Cole looks like he’s getting his
"brave” on before petting the horse:

“Why am I closing my eyes in that picture?” Kate asked. I don’t know, but I’m glad she did. It made for one cute picture:

Riding the horses…

Cole’s first time on a horse. A “Remember This Moment” moment for me!!!!

Petting the barnyard kitty….

Kate looks meant to be a cowgirl, doesn’t she?

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

That’s one way to sum up our weekend.

Friday night we got to tend Miss Addi, the daughter of one of Dave’s co-workers. She was darling and gabbed all night about princesses. We took her and the kids to dinner where we were entertained by a balloon artist.

Addi and her balloon…two dainty butterflies

Cole wearing his “baseball cap” and Kate walking her dog

On Saturday we got our Spoonful of Sugar at Mary Poppins. We left Cole at Grandma and Grandpa’s house for his dose of Brimstone and Treacle (joking):


Half the fun is eating a giant-sized rice krispie treat and gummy bears at intermission, but the show, too, was "practically perfect." And that Mary was quite “tricky”, as Kate put it.

After the play we ate at Buca with the Pope. The kids enjoyed their anatomy lesson:

The Great Un-Cleaner

I’ve been thinking…

How many times can a person unload a cabinet, pull tissues from boxes, and remove dvds from a shelf before growing tired of it? Well, as the person doing the opposite of those things (reloading cabinets, refilling tissue boxes, putting away dvds), I’d say it gets really old, really fast.

I can’t say that for Cole. Books off. Books back on. Pans out. Pans back in; this little bear thinks that’s one fun game. He is such the un-cleaner, that boy. He’s so busy! I sometimes wonder why I can’t have a clean house at the end of cleaning up all day long. The answer is Cole. Sweet, cutest Cole.

Speaking of busy, let’s talk about the past couple days…

Miss Kate finally made a choice between being the unicorn for Halloween, or Rapunzel. Tough choice, but in the end, Rapunzel and her hair won (which was nice, too, being that we already had the dress from her Disney Cruise souvenir).

The only problem with that choice? The dress. It’s Kate’s favorite dress-up, and the whole back side was un-stitched from lots of wear. It was either buy a new dress, or suck it up and learn how to use my brand new (4 years old ago) sewing machine. I reluctantly chose the latter. I cracked open the instructions, did a little reading, and as it turned out…sewing the dress was a piece of cake.

Truly motivated like never before, I decided, “Let’s make a blanket!” Weird, I know. I’ve never once sewed a single project since the ugly days of junior high so to start now, well, that’s just nuts.

Anyway, after cutting, piecing together and sewing the front side, I was on a high. Everything went swimmingly; not a single problem! In my head you might have heard stuff like this going on:

“Wow, Ashley, you’re really good at this!”

“Mmmm, someone definitely has a knack for sewing!” and

“What’s so hard about this sewing business anyway!?”

Well, on Day 3 I decided I was going to figure out how to bind this blanket with a mitered corner, using the backing (am I impressing anyone yet with my sewing linguistics?). This was not the easy route, but I knew I could handle it (being the up and coming expert sewer that I was).  Nnnyes.

Anyway, it took tears, real ones; as well as hours, my sanity, and ultimately, some help from Sherrie to figure it out. Should have gone with the way I knew, but it’s done.

There are many imperfections, but when I gave it to Kate she squeezed it and said, “It’s perfect!” She later told me, “When I’m a mom and I have a little girl, I’m going to give this blanket to her.”

Oh, I just love my Kate! She is such the little validator and it just made my day! I think her reaction made it all worth it; I can say that now that I’m done.

I love these kids. Life is busy, but I certainly wouldn’t have it any other way.