Random Stuff

The very next day after Easter, Charlotte was so excited to build her bird house. She wanted to do it in the morning before school but we didn't have time and so I told her it would have to wait until after she got home. She had activity days right after school that day and I had to make dinner, but we did finally get to it later that evening. I had to help her hammer the nails halfway down and then she would take it from there. She loved building this and can't wait to fill it with bird seed and hang it up.

I have since bought the bird seed but we haven't had a chance to hang it up yet. Curtis got right to work on our downstairs bathtub when we got back from our Easter trip. The night that I helped Charlotte with her birdhouse, he was busy applying this red waterproof stuff to the shower walls. It's a rubbery substance that helps keep water from leaking through and needs to be applied before doing tile. I had never seen this stuff until I saw the pictures of my sister's shower installation and they had used the same stuff.

He did most of it on Monday and touched up on Tuesday.

I was so happy to see these purple flowers blooming out front in our yard. There are more every day!

This was early last week and of course there are more now. So pretty and so far the only flower I have seen in the front yard (other than dandelions).

Before our Easter trip, we went ahead and had the boys move all of their stuff out of the bedroom upstairs down to the basement so that we can start work on the upstairs as soon as the bathroom is finished. I tried to get a few things done in both bedrooms (where the girls were and where the boys were) but there wasn't much I could do. I managed to take down the blinds and pull out a few nails and screws from the walls.

This is the room the boys were in. It will eventually become Garrett's room. We're going to fix it up as much as we can before Curtis and I move our stuff into it when we're ready to demo our bedroom and start remodeling in there.

The girls were getting ready to start softball and t-ball so I decided to get out the baseball mitts last week. I was a bit surprised to find mold and mildew on most of them because they were in a plastic drawer outside where it has been rained on and obviously moisture got inside but did not air out quick enough. Fortunately, the girls' gloves were okay.

Covered in black spots on both sides.

My first thought was to throw them away but I'm hoping I can find a way to clean them off. There was one that didn't have much mildew (white spots) on it that I used a mixture of vinegar water on and it looks much better now. I will have to try it on the others also.

While I was out back that same day, I discovered that we have bleeding heart bushes, 3 of them! I'm so excited because I had one in our previous house and I love them! I also saw a few other flowers blooming. I am learning that we have a lot of tulips and daffodils. Yay!

Lots of tulips getting ready to bloom by these daffodils.

There are little purple flowers on these by the pool.

Speaking of flowers. I did finally take a picture of the painting Whitney had done for me on our trip. I have it on our fireplace right now.

It's so pretty!

It just looks too small in this spot. I can't hang stuff on the walls until we're done painting. If you look close, you can see Sage sitting on the couch in the TV reflection, ha ha. The cats love that spot because it's right where the sun comes through the window. Sage gets unhappy if Cocoa gets in her spot.

Nikki had called early in the week and asked if she could come visit for the weekend. I said "of course!" She drove down Thursday evening and I made some Zuppa Toscana (Italian soup) and homemade French bread for dinner. I didn't get a picture of the soup but the bread looked so good that I had to. This recipe is so easy I don't know why I don't make it more often. It's probably for the best though if we ever want to lose weight, ha ha. That night Nikki, Charlotte and I went on a walk because we had eaten too much. We got both cats to follow us for our entire walk, which was about 1/4 mile one direction, so 1/2 mile total. It was took dark to get a picture of them on the walk but was super cute when they both plopped down on the floor when we got back. It was also cute that Sage would continually look back for Cocoa while we were walking. Then a different cat had run across the street and started a cat fight with Cocoa. Sage went back to check on him. By then, the other cat walked away. It's like she's his mother or just a really good big sister.

Yummy French bread!

Charlotte approved!

I wanted to show Nikki the view we have just walking down the road a little ways. Love these girls! (Alice would have come but she fell asleep on the couch.)

Me and Nikki

Plopped down on the floor after our walk.

While we were walking, Curtis was working on the tile for the bath. It took some time to figure out how to mix the mortar to the right consistency and other things, so he didn't get much done, but at least it's started!

We liked the tile we saw in grandma's bathroom and this is very similar to it.

This post has gotten long so I will end it here. Lots of stuff going on!

Spring Break Part 3 (Easter)

As I said before, there were more activities after we ate dinner when we got back from four wheeling. Easter was the next day and we were still going to paint eggs. Michelle used the Instant Pot pressure cooker to boil them up. We watched a movie while waiting called Shazam. I wasn't a big fan of that one. When the eggs were cooled enough, it was time to color them. I think Alice, Charlotte and Jack were the only ones from our family that colored any. The girls were having so much fun that I decided to just let them do it. I think most or all of Stillman's family colored some.

This is a machine that rolls the egg and you just press the marker down on the egg while it spins. I might have to get one of these next year.

The teenagers had their turn in the hot tub in the evening but I didn't get a picture. We stayed up late waiting for the kids to fall asleep so that the Easter bunny could do it's job. After the baskets were filled, we hid them upstairs. Hiding the baskets is something we always do but it was new to the Nortons. I wonder if they'll continue the tradition. We didn't get to bed until about 1am. It's a good thing church is at noon. Of course the younger kids woke up first and it took a little time for the older ones to get up. Someone had to finally go out to the camper to wake up Jack. They couldn't look for their baskets until after everyone was up. I think it was about 8:30 when they finally looked for their baskets and then had the egg hunt. The fake decorated eggs were hidden inside and the boiled ones they all colored last night were hidden outside. This was something new for us as we usually filled plastic eggs with candy and sometimes coins for the outside hunt.

We finally bought new baskets for our kids this year because I was tired of the old ones and I didn't want to pack them when we moved. I like the upgrade and I think they do too.

Charlotte got a blue bunny basket/bucket. It was filled with new sandals, a purple spring dress, stickers, a kit to build a bird house and some different candies.

Alice got a pink bunny basket. It was filled with new sandals, a pink spring dress, a small blue unicorn that you can build, stickers, a Bluey sticker activity book and a few candies.

Garrett got a blue bucket. His was filled with a large Reese's chocolate egg because Reese's are his favorite. Then a new Hawaiian shirt, new shorts, sandals, a model kit made out of sheet metal in the shape of a drum set and a few other candies.

Jack got a purple bucket because that's still his favorite color. His was filled with Dr. Pepper Peeps, a hat, shorts, Hawaiian shirt, a model kit made out of thin sheet metal of the Millennium Falcon space ship from Star Wars and a few other candies.

All ready for church wearing her new dress and holding her Bluey activity book that she already did.

The bottom of her dress has unicorns, which she loves.

Charlotte in her new dress.

Church was only an hour long because of it being Easter. We got to work preparing dinner after we got home but it took awhile because the roast beef took a couple of hours, plus they made twice baked potatoes and I baked up some rolls. We also had deviled eggs and broccoli salad. The adults played a card game called Trails while dinner was finishing in the oven. We had to pause the game to eat dinner and then finish afterwards. Right after we finished then we packed up to go home. It's a 2 1/2 hour drive for us so it was nice we could stay a little later. This time Curtis drove home. It was a great Easter weekend and we're so glad we could still spend it with family. It's probably the first time we've ever been out of town for this holiday. 

Pictures after church.

Stillman's family

I wanted an adult only picture right before we left.

It was a beautiful ride home.

Spring Break Part 2

Curtis wasn't able to travel to Nampa with me and the kids during the first part of spring break but while we were gone he got busy finding us a toilet and vanity for our downstairs bathroom so that we can have a usable toilet down there. He also picked up two towel racks, one for hand drying and the other for bath towels.

I'd say he did pretty well. I like them! The mirror came with the vanity but we didn't hang it up because we're planning on bringing the mirror cabinet down from our bathroom to be in this bathroom. We haven't figured out where to put that extra mirror yet.

We noticed a couple of bumps on the wall that we somehow missed. I will have to sand those down later and retexture them and paint. But we like this rack because it can hold stacks of clean towels and has the bar to hang a towel from, just like in hotels.

Originally, we were thinking we would have to drive separately to Lewiston, ID for our next trip because Curtis had a couple of work meetings over there he needed to be to on Friday, one was in the morning. I didn't want to wake up super early and my brother's kids were in school so there was no point in getting there early. Well, the morning meeting got cancelled and next thing you knew we were packing up to travel together. We still needed to leave by 10am though to make it in time for the afternoon meeting. I drove while Curtis attempted to work on his computer. This was our first time driving this way and it was beautiful! Because I was driving, I couldn't take pictures. You'll just have to take my word on it. Beautiful hills and fields!

We got into Clarkston, WA where the office is and dropped Curtis off to work with my brother Stillman and attend the meeting. Michelle wasn't ready for us to come over yet so the kids and I drove down the road to Costco to eat and then we roamed around looking at stuff, grabbing a few snacks on the way. We were going to go hang out at a park but it started raining. Fortunately, we got the call that it was okay to come over. Jayden and Alex were home by then so the kids got right to playing video games. I was so tired from driving two days in a row that I just rested on the front room couch upstairs while they were downstairs.

I forgot they had birds until Alice came to get my phone from me so she could take a picture of Charlotte with the two birds on her arm. They had moved the birds downstairs during Christmas time and they decided to keep them down there.

After the men got home from work and Michelle back from shopping, we all went to our favorite pizza place over there, Fazzari's. Then we went to the theater to see the new Super Mario movie. It was very popular and we ended up having to sit down in front because by the time we got there, there weren't enough seats in the upper part of the theater for our group. I think the movie might have sold out because by the time the movie started, even the few rows in front of us, right in front of the screen, were all filled up. It was a very good movie and we all loved it! Everyone in the theater clapped at the end.

At the pizza place. It was busy when we went but we were able to get all of the kids seated together and the adults on a separate table.

I had to get the little kids in the back to look toward me for the picture.

The adults were still close to the kids table. They did some photo bombing in the background.

Ready to watch the movie! The girls loved hanging out with their big cousin, Alex.

That night, the adults had their turn in the hot tub while the kids played their video games, except Alice who watched a movie upstairs. She really wanted to come in with us and I probably should have let her, but we didn't want all of the kids wanting to come in also. The 4 younger kids had their hot tub turn the next morning.

Swimming in the hot tub.

We had a big breakfast that morning and then Stillman had to go fix one of the four wheelers so that we could use it later that day. Fortunately, he and Curtis figured it out and got both four wheelers loaded. Stillman was called that morning to go to a baptism since he's in the bishopric and the bishop and other counselor are really sick. So he and Michelle went to that while Curtis and I took the four younger kids to McDonald's and the park. They were just finishing up an egg hunt when we arrived at the park, so it was packed but fortunately we came just as someone was leaving and got a nice close spot to the playground. Curtis went and practiced some disc golf while I watched the kids play.

By late afternoon, we were finally able to pack up and head to the hills for some four wheeling. This was something we had been planning on doing this weekend. Again, it was a pretty drive. I was surprised at how high we went up the mountain, high enough to find snow. I was so glad I brought my hiking shoes with me, just in case! There were some spots of road that still had snow/ice and I was nervous because I don't trust our van in slippery conditions! We finally had to turn around at one point because it was getting too slushy, but we found a good spot close to an outhouse (thank goodness). It was muddy and poor Garrett didn't want to get his shoes all dirty so he stayed in the van for awhile. Stillman and I devised a plan to ride a four wheeler right up next to the van so Garrett could climb right on. I know he's glad he did because I could tell on his face that he had a lot of fun on the four wheeler. We all had a lot of fun! And we also brought some shooting stuff and a portable campfire and chairs and lots of snacks. We had the fire on a drier area and so Garrett sat down over there after his ride. 

All ready to go!

Like I said, beautiful drive!

There's the mountains we're heading to.

Curtis was driving this time, thankfully.

We swapped a few kids around so cousins could ride together. Alice rode in Stillman's truck.

I was a little nervous at first because I haven't rode a four wheeler in years but I quickly adapted and had fun giving the little kids rides.

Curtis and Jack

My hands were getting cold, so I put some gloves on.

There's Garrett after his first ride. Stillman drove him around at first and taught him how to do everything and then they switched places and Garrett drove.

Michelle and Keaton

Our little campfire. It was nice to have it to help warm us up!

The boys doing a little bit of shooting at some pop cans.

Both of the girls went for a ride with Dad.

Jack, Curtis and Alice

Jayden and Alex

Everyone had such a good time and we left as it was getting dark. Our van got so dirty that Curtis went and got it washed after dropping us off at the house. He also picked up some Panda Express for our dinner that night. Yep, we love Panda and it looks like the Nortons do also! Yum! I have loved the orange chicken at Panda Express ever since my mom took me there as a teenager in the Boise Town Square Mall and that's what we ate. It took awhile for Curtis to come around to liking Panda but he does now. Yay! That wasn't the end of the activities for that day but I'm going to end this post and pick it up in the next post.