Thank you for the music ABBA!

My parents LOVED Abba, so naturally all of us kids followed. I think we ended up enjoying it even more than they did! I brought my own collection to college, where we had many a jamming sessions to "dancing queen", "one of us", "waterloo".... For Halloween, my roommate Steph and I dressed up as ABBA - silver spray painted boots, white mini skirts and huge belts, and partied at RETRIX in Logan :) When I started dating Frank, the ABBA fever even rubbed off on him. This is a card I got with some flowers! (...and it WASN'T my birthday. He just liked to give me any old random card "happy retirement", "sorry for your loss", "it's a boy"...you know)

ANYWAY.....

My mom and dad had tickets to an ABBA show at the Sandy ampitheater last night, so Stacy and I were more than happy to attend! Good Times :)

Summer Checklist

Hike to Elephant Rock...CHECK!

We're lucky to live about 2 miles from Mueller Park Canyon. We have started the hike to elephant rock a few times, but never actually made it...UNTIL NOW! The kids were troopers. I think we were out about 4 hours. Carly and Logan led the way, and Chase struggled as the caboose. He fell a few times, and we helped him up, cleaned his wounds, gave him a little encouragement. But after about FIFTEEN falls, we'd had it! We wondered how he could possibly trip over every little thing (rock, plant, root, pebble, blade of grass, air....) He likes to expend the least amount of energy at everything he does, so even picking up his feet becomes something of a task - we love Chase...we really, really do! He was all bloodied up and MORE than ready to go home, never to return again. I see bribary in our future...

Summer Checklist

"Bumble"Bees Game - CHECK

That's what Carly called it. We had so much fun hangin with Frank's old buddy Phil and his family at the Bee's game. I'm not sure the kids really watched the game (they get that from me). They loved the train ride, the bounce house playground, running the bases at the end of the game, and TREATS (they get that from me too)!

I decided to let Logan have this one...he's thinks it's super cool that he looks like he's flying!

Sandy Split Staging

The agent on this listing called me on Monday, and I had this baby staged by Friday! I'm SOOOOO tired...Here's the before & afters

Budget was $1200 on this one. I didn't make any money because I bought:

Leather Sofa & Love Seat - $500

Kitchen Table & Chairs - $200

Desk - $100

Microfiber Chair - $30

Night Table - $30

Coffee & Side table - $50

Accessories - $300

BUT...they're mine to keep when the house sells, so the next one will be (hopefully) 100% profit!

Carly's 5!

THESE invitations were put in balloons with the kids names on it....

They had to pop them to get the invite. There was supposed to be candy and ribbon in them too, but I just couldn't figure it out :)

There were a bunch of booths like a carnival. They were:

Bounce House (rented)

Slam Dunk (Make a basket, and win a ball)

Hot Dog Stand (Lunch)

Super Soak 'em (Buckets of water with colorful sponges to throw at eachother)

Fruit Loop Fashion (Fruit Loop Necklaces)

Colour (I made mini coloring books with a picture of carly eating a cupcake on the back with "Thanks for coming" printed on it.)

I would dare say that the SNOW CONE booth was the most popular. We rented it from the bounce house place. It cam with two flavors, and the snowcone cups. Everyone came back for seconds...thirds...fourths (you get it) Baby Sienna even enjoyed a little fruit loop snow cone! Frank managed to sneak a few too...

Since I was sure there would be some adults, I made sure we had "grown up" food too.

There ended up being 28 kids and 11 adults at the party...I think the biggest one we've ever had, and probably the biggest we will EVER have! Still...It was surprisingly kick back :)

Happy 5th Birthday Carly!

In Loving Memory

Vaughn D. Lancaster

January 8, 1934 - July 5, 2010

You will be missed greatly!

4th (or 3rd?) Festivities

First we headed to the Kaysville parade with my mom and dad, and my sister and her family. They throw TONS of candy...enought that the kids didn't notice that I ate HALF :)

After the parade, we had lunch at the park. Kids played with their cousins while me and Frank actually dozed off for an afternoon snooze (we must have been really tired to fall asleep at a park)! We woke up and the kids were gone...my mom and dad had taken them to the pond for a canoe ride - thanks mom and dad!

When they weren't on the canoe, they were busy fishing. Frank REALLY tried to have them 'man up', and get their own fish off the hook. The boys would have none of it...Carly, however, was all over it! That's my girl :)

The crazy day ended with Frank putting on his own firework show in the driveway. It's tradition now I guess. He's been the official 'firework guy' for a few years now. I don't think they'll ever let him retire. The kids were great at taking turns! After that, we headed to the Kaysville fireworks show. Crazy busy, but still crazy fun!

HAPPY 4TH!

Summer Checklist

Backyard Camping....CHECK!

We were planning on going to the ward campout, but when we heard that news that Grandpa Lancaster (Frank's dad) was going downhill fast, we decided that we should set up camp a little closer to home....in the BACKYARD! It was actually pretty fun. The kids were SO excited. They helped Frank set up the tent, and very dutifully loaded it up with all the camping gear. We took the tv out under the deck, rented a movie, and had tons of treats

....I might actually be able to handle this kind of camping!