Home Decor

I'm not that much of a home decorator, but lately I've had the itch to do stuff with the house. I want to make it look good, but I don't want to spend a ton of money either. I have great ideas, but it always seems that we say "oh, let's just wait until we move." Well, we've been in this house for 4 years now, I would like to decorate something.

So these are two quick things I put together. I love this 'candle holder' that Doug's brother welded for us. I had candles in it on top of our book shelf, but I thought it would make a fun holder for a flower display. So I got some flowers at the dollar store and this is what I came up with.This other I found at the D.I. The flowers were put together in a different container. I changed it to this glass one, then added the beads and ribbon. I think it turned out well.
My house just seems so random with little odds and ends everywhere. Maybe one day it will all blend and seem organized. Oh well, it's fun to do little projects and try and brighten up the house a bit.

New Blanket

So Tyler's baby blanket is now retired. It has been loved to shreds. He probably could live without a comfort blanket, but it comes in handy when he's upset - it's the quickest way to calm him down.


In Logan we went to JoAnn's and Tyler picked out some new material. I'm glad we found some he liked. So here is the new and improved blanket for Tyler.It's a thicker flannel, and it's bigger, so it will be a nice one to cuddle up with.

24th of July Weekend

We took a trip over the 24th of July. First we went to Logan to do some work at our apartments and run some errands (new blanket for Tyler). It was a long travel day, and then we went to a park with Tannie and her kids. It was a fun splash park, but my boys weren't in the mood for getting wet. So we didn't stay too long.
Then we picked up Doug from the apartments and went to Willow Park. We all had fun looking at the animals and feeding the ducks.


We played at the park too.

Christopher had fun pushing the stroller around.

On Friday we drove up to Bear Lake for my extended Datwyler Reunion. The family had rented a cabin for us, but many brought their campers too. We walked down to the marina and checked out the boats and threw rocks in the water.

Later that day we went up to the North Beach, it was the only one with any beach at all since the water was so high. The boys had fun jumping the waves and playing in the sand. We didn't stay too long since we got there sort of late.

Friday night we played Balderdash with some of my cousins and siblings. I really enjoy this game when you have a good group of people and everyone is in a crazy mood. We were laughing so hard. The word that we learned from this game was: hodmandod - a snail moving back into its shell. The reader stumped us on this one. So much fun!!

Saturday morning we hiked the Limber Pine trail at the top of Logan Canyon. Grandpa Datwyler explained the difference between a Pine tree and Fir tree by looking at the pines and cones. We also learned some new flowers. The mosquitoes were present, but not too bad. We didn't have the kid carrier for Chris so Doug and I took turns holding him. He did walk a little bit and would have walked more - but toddlers are just too slow sometimes.
At the cabin the boys discovered a 'secret passageway' that they had fun crawling through, again and again and again.
We left Saturday around 4:00 and went home through Wyoming. There are a lot of wide open spaces out there, and I will say that Doug got us home quicker than MapQuest estimated :) It was a fun break.

We were also in charge of the float for our ward in the parade this year. We weren't there obviously, but we got everything ready with help from others. We had as many men possible and other members dress up like men to march as the Mormon Battalion. Then we had some women and children ride on the float ahead of them to be waving. Everyone said that it went well, so that is good.

Random pictures

Here are some more pictures of late.

Two fun boys:3 Fun boys:
This what our FHE usually looks like: Tyler slouching, which it's good if we can get them to sit on the couch at all. Damon is doing better lately. Chris is usually the worst with him trying to climb all over us or pushing cars or just being silly and trying to distract Tyler. But at least we're trying.
Chris coloring our FHE activity.
Chris likes to push cars like Damon.
Christopher leaned too far into the tub - probably trying to get a toy- and fell in. Whoops!

Damon finished his summer connections on the 14th. He had a lot of fun. He loved being with his best friend Riley Smith. This is the little hip hop number they learned. Damon actually did a pretty good job.Our raspberries are starting to get ripe. I found this HUGE one and just had to document it.
Chris loves this Panda bear.

Visit with Grandma and Grandpa

On July 7th and 8th the boys and I went to Park City to visit Grandma and Grandpa Datwyler. We played at parks, had a picnic, swam in the pool, had a tea party, played arcade games, and had a lot of fun. This was Chris's first time in a pool and it was a good one for him to start in since it was so warm, like swimming in a bath tub. He was a little bit nervous at first, but once he discovered splashing he had a blast.

The night was long, the power went out, then the smoke detectors starting beeping since they didn't have power. Thankfully that stopped, but all the commotion work up Chris, and he stayed up for 2 hours. I tried having him sleep with me on the bed or the couch, but finally I got him back to sleep in the pack 'n play.

We spent the night, then in the morning we went to the zoo. We hadn't been in a long time so the boys had a lot of fun. I was excited to take Christopher since he loves animals so much. He hadn't slept too well so he was a little tired, but he still loved it. He was more in ah of all the animals, like he couldn't believe he was seeing them in real life. He would make their sounds if he knew it - it was cute. This is him roaring at a dinosaur - they had models of lots of Dinosaurs, it was their new exhibit right now.





Thanks for the fun time grandma and grandpa.

The driving back and forth was ok. I just had the boys watch movies. I had them listen to a few stories as well. Tyler threw up on the way back, going through Parley's canyon was too much with too much punch in his tummy. :(

Fourth of July Weekend

So we had a great Fourth of July Weekend. First we started out by having our neighbors the Roberts over on Saturday. We had some grilled chicken and I tried doing dutch oven potatoes in the oven. They turned out well, but just took longer than I expected. We had fun visiting and we threw a few snaps afterwards.

Monday morning we went to the parade. It was pretty hot and I actually walked over to the grocery store (it wasn't far from where we were sitting) and bought some popsicles and baby wipes. I think we all had 3 during the parade. The boys got enough candy - they are not aggressive enough yet to get more, but that's just fine with me. Chris liked the horses at the end.

We had lunch and quiet time and I went to the grocery store (without the boys :) and Doug did some Halliburton stuff from home). Then we went to another neighbor (the Watt's) for a BBQ. We had Elk burgers and salads and fruit. It was a great get together. The kids all had fun with squirt guns and their playground equipment. Chris fell into the slip 'n slide pool trying to get his sippy cup and got his front all wet, it was pretty funny actually.

After the BBQ we decided we should get a slip 'n slide, so we went and got a basic one at the store and went home and tried it out. The boys aren't quite old enough, but Doug helped them slide. Chris got on after the water was turned off and pushed himself backwards and said 'weee,' it was pretty cute.

We had an easy dinner then went and got some movies from Red Box. We watched Despicable Me, it was pretty cute. Then we put Chris to bed then went out for some fireworks. It was raining on and off, but not too hard. We just did some more snaps and sparklers. Doug also bought some fountains and some trucks that moved a bit as they shot off sparks. The boys had more fun playing with the trucks after they were lit. A bunch of people in our neighborhood bought a ton of firework - the kind that go in the air. So we had a pretty good show provided for us. The boys did pretty good staying up late, I watched the city ones from our backyard. They were ok, not as good as Logan. "Oh I love my wife, but why does she take pictures of us lighting sparklers every year?"



Then, as if that wasn't enough fun, Doug and I stayed up and watched Salt. It was a good movie, but very violent. Whew, what a day - and we also got the laundry done and a big sink-full of dishes washed.

A very fun Fourth of July! We love our Country.