Mowed

In case you are unaware, my husband is a busy guy.

Which is why, when he recently complained about not having time to mow the lawn, I was like, "Ooh, pick me, pick me! Teach me to do it!" and he was like, "Okay."

And when the hour had come -- that is, when I had run out of excuses for actually putting my money where my mouth is -- I got all psyched up, swapped out my flip flops for Toms, and headed outside. I made Dallin stand out there with me and tell me what to do, because really, I had no idea. I think it's possible that I've mowed a lawn ONE other time in my life. And I might be making that up. 


So, as you can imagine, the whole thing was pretty entertaining. But now that I'm an expert, I've compiled a list of tips for any of y'all that might want to take up lawn mowing in the future.

-Your husband will tell you to "pull really hard" after your first, failed attempt to get the motor running. Do not tell him that you were, in fact, already "pulling really hard." Lack of upper body strength must not be admitted when doing manly things. 

-When you push the little handle thing, the mower will actually move! And it will actually cut grass! It's magical! But don't admit that you think it's magical. Manly things, remember.

-When you get to the end of your first row, stop to get advice on how to best turn the lawn mower at the end of the row...because, you know, it's a million pound piece of machinery with a swirling-at-a-million-miles-an-hour blade underneath it that will turn your feet into itty-bitty pieces of feet if you take a wrong step, so it obviously can't be as simple as just turning it.

-Actually, it is. It is that simple. Just turn it.

-When you feel the unmistakeable jab of ant fangs pushing their way through the flesh in your feet, drop everything to take a few swipes at the little devils. Try to make them lethal swipes, for reasons we'll discuss later.


-Put on your tough face and continue mowing, even though your foot is throbbing. 


-Do not stop, not even for a few seconds. In fact, don't even walk slowly. This will give the non-lethally-swiped ants the perfect opportunity to rally the troops they've assembled and lead them in a charge up your feet. 


-This time, when you feel the ant fangs, leave all your dignity there on the lawn and make a mad dash for the driveway, periodically hopping on one foot as you try to smash (we're done swiping) the black masses swarming your feet. That "black masses" stuff might be the PTSD talking. 


-Go soak your feet in cold water while your husband finishes mowing the lawn. 


Okay, okay. I should have worn full-on tennis shoes with real socks. That would have been smart. But goodness, how was I supposed to know that our lawn was basically one giant ant resort? I guess I'll keep that in mind for next time, which certainly won't happen until I stop feeling all these imaginary ant bites all over. 


So I was mowed by ants last night, and this picture is from this morning, and my feet are still red and I still get the occasional itch. I put little black dots on the picture to show you where each bite is. Yes, there are that many.

Also, sorry about the gross picture of my feet.

11 Months

You guys. It's impossible to get a clear picture of this squirmy girl. At least not with my iPhone, which, unfortunately, is the best camera I have. But I'm pretty excited about her pose in this one, because she's been sitting on her knees like this a ton lately. 

35 Things: June (plus some revisions!)

Hey howdy hey. Just a little update on June. And if your'e not too bored by the end of it, I've thrown in a couple revisions I've decided to make to my list.

First of all, I actually didn't do one of my monthly-repeats (GASP!). I didn't clean off our clutter desk twice this month. I did it once. So sue me. But, you know, I did keep up with my blogging (bare minimum style), so that's something.

Also done in June:

18. Get a fireproof safe. Just, you know, as a safety/preparedness thing. I'm planning on keeping our family emergency binder in there, which I'll be reorganizing later this year as another goal.

24. Make a pie from scratch. I made this pie from Emily's lovely blog, using her pie crust recipe and everything. I was actually surprised at how easy it was! I'll have to make pies more often.

27. Potty train Madelyn. I'm not sure I can say this is totally done. It's a process, people! But we have made so much progress.

30. Read 32 books. Dude, am I ever going to actually get caught up on this? I'm always just a little bit behind. Maybe more so, with only one book this month (?!?!?) In my defense, I've already finished a book for July and am halfway through another. Anyway, my book for June was:

The Lightning Thief: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1 by Rick Riordan. I was so entertained by this book. I've been meaning to read the series for a long time and finally took the plunge. They are really written for younger readers, like older kids or pre-teens, but I thought it was just so much fun to read, so I give it 5 stars for what it is. I think my kids will love these someday.  


And, just like that, it's July! And 1.2 million degrees outside!

Okay, so a couple revisions. They are actually pretty drastic, but if they prove too easy I can always add back on to them, right?

2. Re-memorize all scripture masteries and references. I've cut this down to just Book of Mormon scripture masteries and references. There are just so many, and I was surprised at how many I had completely forgotten. So this is way more realistic. Again, we'll see if it's too easy, but I think I'll have my hands full with it.

3. Learn to play all the hymn in the hymnbook (comfortably). I'm pretty sad about having to trim this down. It's always been a dream of mine to just be able to pound out any hymn at a moment's notice (which is sometimes what you have as a pianist). But trying to achieve this goal has made me realize how little time I have to actually play the piano nowadays. I mean, I can't play when the girls are awake, because they automatically want to play with me. But...I can't play when they're asleep either, because, well, duh. So it's kind of a conundrum. Anyway, I've cut this waaaay down to just mastering 10 new hymns. So, you know, kind of a let down. But definitely more realistic.

One I'm on the fence about is 15. Finish Maddy's room. Her room definitely needs some finishing touches, but I'm reluctant to do it because we aren't quite sure when we'll be moving Charly out of the nursery and into Maddy's room. So I don't want to have to redo the room twice.

All righty, I think you are all updated. Don't blow anything up tomorrow.

To remind you that I have another kid, too.

Some things about Maddy at 2 1/2 that I want to remember forever:

She has an amazing memory. I mean, it's unreal. Girlfriend could be an honorary elephant.

When she walks on the tile or laminate floors in our house, she slaps her feet down with each step so it's as loud as possible.

She is very polite. I do occasionally have to remind her, but she's usually good about it.

She had an AWFUL first week of swimming lessons, but now loves to swim, and claims to be either a whale or a mermaid when she's swimming.

When something's cold, she'll often say "It's really, really, kinda cold!" and then she'll shiver.

She loves to be the one to "get Charly" when Charly wakes up. She'll go open the door really slowly and say "Chaaaaaaawy!" and then they both start laughing and my heart explodes.

She loves to dance and has lately been requesting that we turn on music to dance to rather than a movie/show to watch (YES).

We bought a big box of the colored goldfish crackers, and whenever I give her some, she picks out all the red ones first and then asks for more.

She calls everything "special special," e.g. "Can I have some special special drink?" or "Look! It's my special special potty prize!"

She doesn't like to be told no, and will often ask the same question over and over (and over and over) looking for a different response.

She loves to open up my computer and take pictures of herself. Here's one of her latest:

I sure love her.

You guys gotta see this

Yes, that is a cookie.

Yes, it is bigger than my baby's face.

Yes, it has s'mores inside it.

Yes, it's delicious.


Here's the recipe.

10 months

35 Things: May

I know this is a couple days late...but you see, I was in Washington, D.C. when May became June, and I was much more occupied with things like watching money get printed and touring the Capitol and walking around humongonormous Smithsonian museums and such. Maybe I'll post some pictures in a day or ten two. But you wouldn't want to miss my May update on my 35 things, right? Of course right.

In addition to my monthly things (which, let's face it, I'm kind of rocking), I did:

7. Deep clean the dishwasher. Our dish "washer" was sometimes not really living up to its name, and Pinterest told me giving it a good deep cleaning might help. So far, so good! It was a bit of a chore, but it's done.

8. Redecorate the guest bathroom. Huzzah! New paint, new mirror, new light fixture, new cabinet, new towels. I was going to replace the hated pedastal sink, and then decided it wasn't bad enough to justify the expense (although still pretty bad). I still might change out the faucet on the sink, but only if it really starts to bug me. Also, there should be pictures here but I've been using Photobucket for my blog pictures and they just updated their editing software and its worthless. So I need to find a new blog pictures solution...

23. Make baby food. Charly is now the proud eater of some apple+blueberry concoction and some broccoli+sweet potato concoction. Actually, that's not true, because I made these right before we went out of town, so she actually hasn't even had a chance to eat them yet.

30. Read 32 books. I read:

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness. Book 2 of the Chaos Walking series (Book 1 was The Knife of Never Letting Go, which I read in April). Really liked it! 4 stars.

Insurgent by Veronica Roth. Another book 2, this one sequel to Divergent. Also really liked it. 4 stars.

Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness. Book 3 of Chaos Walking. 4 stars.

Hm. I think 4 stars is my default rating.

34. Donate to DI. I loooooved doing this. I have pack rat tendencies, so I feel extra super accomplished when I overcome those tendencies and get rid of a whole bunch of stuff I don't need and will never use. S'wonderful.

Woo hoo for progress!