By-And-By

It wasn't until we were sitting in church one Sunday that the texture of Eli's "church pants" caught my eye. They looked so much softer than I remembered and I stared at them with perplexion for several seconds. The look of the texture just was not matching with my memory of what he usually wears to church so I eventually leaned over to give them a feel to figure out what was up with them. 

Eli sheepishly looked over at me and waited with much guilty anticipation for me to connect the dots. Once he saw my eyes grow bigger and heard the small gasp escape my mouth, he whispered with a smile in a sing-songy, staccato voice, "Pa-ja-ma Pants."

The mad man did it. He snuck-wore his black pajama pants instead of his black church pants in the ultimate comfort move. You win this round, Eli. 

Carson gets as excited about Jenga as Eli does about his PJs. 

And we all know baseball is this boy's excitement generator. 

We tried out the magic-word-candy-giving-out-during-general-conference game. It was as fun and as noisy/distracting as one would predict. 

A surprisingly quieter activity was crafting gigantic paper airplanes. 

There are only two times a year I will endure the mess of Perler beads. 

Jonah discovered the joy of Vegas landscape. 

We did a Sunday lesson one week about the Armor of God. The manual had little (don't tell my boys this but basically paper doll) guys for them to color and attach different pieces of armor onto. We read the scriptures about each piece of armor and they added that armor to their guy. Then I came around with arrows (cooking skewers), and attacked their guys. They were delighted to see the armor keep their guys safe and screamed in fear if I approached before their armor was properly pasted on. Once the guys were fully armored, Jeff laminated them and the rest of the day they paraded around the house with their warriors. 

They even joined us at the dinner table. 

And a whole week later Lincoln and Jonah were still carrying them around the neighborhood on our walk. I'm calling this one our most successful lesson!

Eli's becoming quite the Chess expert and he loves to play with whoever dares to challenge him. 

One day Carson came home from school with a paper flower craft he had made at school. Just before dinner he was rummaging around the house for a water bottle and as I went to set the table, I noticed he had replaced my centerpiece with his floral arrangement. What's hard to see is that he cut a hole in the top of the water bottle so he could stick the pipe cleaner stem into the water. So cute. 

We had a little time one Saturday to do an activity from our POGO Pass. We went go-karting and Jonah was thrilled to get a ride on the big karts.

Another successful lesson (with the floral arrangement still present in the background), was when we learned about a soft heart and a hard heart. I cut a heart shape out of a diaper and put that in a bowl with a rock in another bowl. We poured water on both and saw the water drip right off the rock and get soaked up by the diaper. Object lessons have proven to be effective with this bunch. 

Carson and Eli brought home a haunted house project they did in art class. I thought they were both so cute and loved all the little details in both of them. Carson's is the first one. 

One day Jonah cuddled up next to me and wrapped his little arm under my arm. He rarely slows down enough to snuggle anymore so it was a sweet moment. 

We enjoyed Veteran's Day by going to Red Rock Canyon. We were thrilled to find out once we got there that it was a free entry day. The weather was beautiful and we had a blast exploring and adventuring!

We saw two real, live tarantulas out in the wild! I hadn't ever seen a tarantula not in a cage before. Eek!

This is the face I make when I'm trying to convince you Jeff is really this much taller than me.

This is the face you make when they say, "Suuuuuuuuuure, Sarah."

Red Rock Canyon or bust!

Eli has endured his first (and probably last) basketball season. He was not super excited about the sport but he was a sport about the season and gave it a good effort as he stuck it out to the end. We were so proud of him when he made a basket at his last game. I may have teared up a little bit. Their whole team grew a lot during the season and it was fun to see Eli try something new. 

We'll end with today, the primary program! This is the picture I took for Instagram that turned out less than Instagrammable. You get our memory scraps, old and faithful blog. 

The boys did such a good job! They all spoke clearly and loudly and with conviction. They wrote their own parts so that made it especially sweet.

Eli shared about how he had faith in Jesus Christ when he moved to Las Vegas. It was hard at first but he prayed and he was able to find some friends the first month we moved in. Then he shared his testimony that he knows Jesus Christ will help us in our lives when we are going through hard things.

Carson shared that he is preparing to be baptized by going to church and learning more about Jesus.

Lincoln said, "I show my love to Jesus by going to church and wearing nice clothes to church." He perfectly delivered his line. And then he boldly stayed at the microphone as he eyed me and Jeff with a devious smile. After a brief pause and a moment of inner debate, he went for it and quickly said, "Bye, bye." into the microphone before being escorted back to his seat. 

That's a wrap. In the words of Lincoln, "Bye, bye!"

Home Improvements

I've sufficiently recovered from my initial home makeover of painting the whole house. In fact, I've missed the busy-ness and satisfaction of the job. So I've made myself busy finishing off the smaller details of the house that I didn't get the first time around. But first let's appreciate the juxtaposition of my life. 

The first makeover started in the downstairs bathroom. Here's the before:

And here's the after! I am eventually going to add two thick, wooden floating shelves above the toilet, but until then let's appreciate the hours of Sharpie-ing I endured. 

That's right. The design is done in gold paint Sharpie. I'd like to thank my sponsors, level, top knot, and touch-up paintbrush for making this project possible. 

Next up: Laundry room! I was so excited when I saw this house had an actual laundry ROOM and not a laundry closet. Granted, the room could be bigger to be considered more of a room and less of a walk-in closet, but this was a tiny step up from our last in-the-basement-walls-weren't-even-finished laundry closet. I had great dreams to make it cute and a place that would maybe have the power to make me smile while completing my least favorite household chore.

YAY! I'm obsessed. It should be noted basically all of my ideas have come from Classy Clutter. Do you guys follow them? They're adorable and I love them and all of their ideas. 

This project started with pink walls. Because if there's a room I can paint pink, it's this one, and then I paint brushed black squares onto the white accent wall.

I realized I could create a faux thick shelf look pretty easily by putting a couple of pieces of wood over the shelf that was already there, so Jeff got that project done for me lickety split. Then a mere 2 hours at Hobby Lobby later and I officially had the "Babe Cave."

As much as I loved the "Babe Cave" sign and thought it was hilarious given my house of boys, and my ability to only be able to claim a small corner of the house as my own that I could guarantee wouldn't be overrun by boy-ness, I decided "Babe Cave" was a little...non progressive...and debatably offensive. So I replaced the babe cave laundry room dungeon sign to instead say "loads of fun" which I think portrays a better message to my flock of growing boys.

I've been on the hunt for a piano because Carson has shown some interest in music and I would love for all the boys to learn how to play. We were so excited when Jeff's brother said they had an extra one they would be willing to give us!

I had a friend who had painted a piano with chalk paint, and I couldn't shake that idea as soon as I saw the new addition. After many hours of YouTube and many dollars of chalk paint later, our piano had a little bit of a facelift!

My proudest moment with this piano was the whitening of its keys.

I had low hopes of being able to whiten the piano keys, but after a lot of internet research, I learned that a hair bleach product called Salon Care 40 and a lot of sunlight can actually whiten plastic. We ripped all the keys off the piano and gave them two full days of a sunlit bleach bath.

We went from this...

To this! I'm still not over it!

Next on the to-do list: Pantry and closets! Stay tuned! Oh sorry, I was talking to the piano. We just got it tuned and it was like $200. So I really need it to stay tuned. Okay bye. (I was talking to you this time. What are you still doing here? The post is over. Bye.)

Electro-Cuties

The best thing about Las Vegas is its endless supply of parks. This is one of our favorites. Lincoln is wearing his electricity soccer ball shirt which reminds me of my favorite thing he says right now. Whenever he is trying to say electrocute (which is more often than one would think), he says electro-cutie. I love it every time I hear it. 

Here's another electro-cutie minus the electro. 

And another one!

I'm not sure why my phone blurred Jeff out, but it's currently my favorite picture of us....or at least it was until we made things right with this picture.

My favorite hike!

Carson had been begging us for donuts, so one Sunday I mustered up the energy to make them. Fun for all! Until my floor was covered in flour. But right up until that moment it was buckets o' fun. 

Jonah's TV viewing positions are often endearing. 

Carson's school projects are also often endearing. I gave him a hard time because he wrote "loves dad" on his list of things about him but not "loves mom." 

I also particularly loved, "never sleepy." He knows himself well. Another cute thing about Carson is he LOVES art. He has an art class at school every week and for the first month of school he always made sure to wear his "creative" t-shirt for art day. 

Here's another hike! 

Look! Vegas has green things if you know where to look for them. 

 Please note all the sticks my boys are holding. They are weapons and/or tools. My boys could turn absolutely any wilderness item into a weapon or a tool and were constantly in caveman survival mode for the entire duration of our outdoor excursion. (Carson has a wrench.)

Gun. Obviously. 

Tool crafting station. 

That's a wrap!