2nd Annual Super-Duper-Cooper-Looper Half Marathon

Things have been so busy that I just haven't had time to do any blogging, sorry!

Our 2nd annual Super-Duper-Cooper-Looper half marathon was on June 19th this year. We started off with a shot-gun start from Doug:

Here are a few other pictures:

(starting line)

(Kari, Oakli, and Ambri)

Here are the results. This year we had 23 participants. Here are the finishing times, in no particular order:

Bryce Burton: 1:55:40 (bike)
Ambri Burton: 2:31:40 (bike)
Chase Burton: 2:16:50 (bike)
Oakli Burton: 2:41:00 (bike)
Kari Burton: 2:41:00 (bike)
Brent Baxter: 1:46:09 (bike)
Karen Baxter: 1:46:08 (bike)
Preston Baxter: 2:16:40 (bike)
Kaeli Baxter: 2:16:07 (bike)
Caiden Baxter: 2:16:10 (bike)
Kate Merrill: 1:48:50 (bike)
Kyle Merrill: 2:24:06 (running)
Goldie Burton: (walking)
Michele Burton: 3:31:20(walking)
Nathan Tolman: 2:03:30 (bike)
Nick Tolman: 1:55:40 (bike)
Debi Burton: 2:30:38 (running)
Taylor Burton: 2:05:07 (bike)
Jace Burton: 1:56:40 (bike)
Garrett Burton: 1:55:50 (bike)
Jessica: 2:05:07 (bike)
Kendyl: 1:56:40 (bike)
Hunter: 1:55:40 (bike)

So that's it. Any questions? We'll be doing it again next year if you would like to join in!

Life...

So obviously life is passing us by, and I need a serious reality check. Here we go.

I missed posting about Ambri's 9th birthday, sorry babe! Here's a picture of the AWESOME cake! No, I didn't make it. It seems that our tradition includes Safeway. Our kids have come to expect the annual trip to the bakery to pick out their cake. Sounds good to me. This year Ambri adapted the Mother's day purse for her own purposes. It turned out cute. She also had a huge sleepover for her party. She invited a lot of friends, thinking only a few would be able to come, and I think they ALL came. What a bash!

Oakli is seriously my dramatic child, and she is hilarious! She has a sense of humor that is second-to-none! We were driving in the car 2 days ago (remember, she is 4) and she was looking out the window just talking to Bryce (who is 11, so naturally, he wasn't listening) and then after she made a random comment she said, "did I just say that out loud?" Um... hello??? I better watch what I say. Sheesh! She is freaking funny!

Okay. Other things on the agenda. We have been so busy! Doug just ran the Newport marathon again. He did so awesome! After working really hard to get ready training only (well, I shouldn't say) not as much as he should, he came in only 30 minutes after last year's time. That is REALLY GOOD because his goal was to finish before they stopped taking time and he blew that goal out of the water. I'm sure no one ever feels completely ready, right? This year's marathon makes 3 years in a row. We didn't take the kids over this year, so I got to go 8.5 miles with Doug on the course. It was great! I only got sunburned on one shoulder. Guess that is what happens when you only put sunscreen on once, and you do it yourself. Doug put it on like 4 times. Good for him!

Life has been super crazy with end of the year school activities, assemblies, field trips, and parties. We still have a few days to go, but I think we are going to make it. Ambri got the Academic Achievement award for the 3rd graders for the semester. Go Ambri! It was great to go surprise her at school. Chase had kindergarten graduation, and it was fun too. Just like the older two kids, and it was fun to see Bryce and Ambri singing the songs, even though they wouldn't admit to that. Oakli can't wait to be in Kindergarten next year! She has gone with me to help out in the classroom so many times, she is an honorary member of the class, and gets angry when I won't let her do the projects, because I know she gets to do them next year, even though Mrs. Graham would gladly let her do them.

The horrid spring rain hasn't stopped here in Oregon yet. It's pretty sad, actually. We had flooding last week. This is JUNE, people. This is worse than in the winter. Do you hear me people... FLOODING... IN JUNE!!! Oh, when I said that my shoulder got sunburned, don't let that fool you, that was at the coast. That doesn't count. That was FAR away from here. :-)

Bryce has been working really hard on his scouting stuff. He is one camp out away from getting his 1st class rank. (That camp out is tomorrow!) Yippee!!! He has been doing so great. He turned 11 in December, so he has been really working hard. He has also earned 2 merit badges. He is going to try to earn the 4 centennial merit badges this summer as well. We'll see how that goes. If he can do that, then he'll have his star earned before he turns 12. That is his goal. You go Bryce! He is also super busy with Soccer, still. All the other kids finished up, and Bryce kept on going. He had try-outs for a new team. He actually tried out for 2 clubs. He made both of them, and decided to go with VFC. (Valley Football Club, which is actually Soccer. - Think Spanish, people.) The team is very good and making great progress. It is kind of a new team because most of his old team is on this new team with him. So it is really a good fit for him.

Broken arm boy: AKA: Bryce. Don't tell the Dr. that he played soccer with a broken arm, or this mom will be fired. (YOU DON'T SEE THE CAST IN THE PICTURE BELOW... YOU DON'T SEE THE CAST IN THE PICTURE BELOW...) Bryce's coach even put him playing an offensive position, which is a position that Bryce normally doesn't play. Bryce got a chance to play up during this game because his team was totally creaming the other team.

Bryce normally plays defense, and is really good back there. Okay, back to the broken arm. Bryce was riding 4-wheelers with a friend and his friend was in front of him on a quad and stopped. Bryce wasn't watching and rammed right into the back of his friend on his quad and flipped off his quad, and fractured his arm. We made him go to practice that night and play in hi99game the next day with the broken arm, before we even knew it was broken. (It happened on a Friday.) We didn't take him in until Sunday afternoon, which happened to be Mother's day. The Dr. at the urgent care, said absolutely NO soccer. Um, I don't think the mom was there to hear those instructions, because she made him go to soccer try-outs on Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday nights. Actually, I think he played soccer 5 nights that week. Scratch that, make it 6, he had a game on Saturday and played with his card cast on. The ref came over to make sure he didn't have any weapons INSIDE his cast. Hello??? Whatever. The next weekend I took him to the game and that ref wouldn't let him play with the cast on. He said it was too hard. Luckily it was one of those hard casts that was just held on with a couple of ace bandages. It was Bryce's last game, so being the executive decision maker, I told Bryce to take it off, and play with just the ace bandages. Being the last game and all... you know, priorities. All was well, we never went back to the Dr. and he stopped wearing the cast after 3 weeks. Oopsie.

Overall we are stressed out, overwhelmed, and super busy, BUT, we are making it. Bryce now has soccer practice 2x a week in Corvallis (which is 30 minutes away) for 2 hours, and they call it "training". I guess that means you are big time. Well, no "guessing" about it. You know it is big time when your coach goes to England to get your teams uniforms while he is on his way to the World Cup. Kind of embarrassing when I had to explain to Bryce what the World Cup is. I told him not to ask anyone at practice training what the World Cup is, because they are taking the next month off of practice training for the World Cup. I guess they are hard core.

Blueberries are "trying" to ripen in all this rain. I guess the one good thing is that Doug hasn't had to run the sprinklers much.

Hunh.

Family Night Board (FHE)

Here's the board that we use for family night (FHE). It helps us rotate through to know who is doing what and cuts down on the fighting. Ironic.

I don't have any "production" pictures, but it was pretty simple to throw together. Here's a list of the supplies that I used:

12 x 12 pine frame

12 x 12 sheet metal

2" tiles (that really aren't 2". I never could figure out the way men measure their supplies - you know, how a 2 x 4 really isn't "2 x 4"? Whatever...)

strip magnets
hot glue
vinyl cut outs for words
black paint
clear paint or top coat paint
sand paper

I used coupons for the frames and sheet metal. The sheet metal I just picked up from the craft store and it was already the size I needed. I loved it because the magnets will stick right to it!

Paint your frame black. After it dries, give the edges a light sanding for some personalization. Give the whole thing a once-over with your top coat to seal it in.

Put your sheet metal in, so you know how much room you have to work with for your words. Depending on how many names you have, you can make the tasks larger or smaller, add a few or leave some out. We had to "make some up" so that we all had something to do. In the past, we did not have "Scripture" on our list, but now that our numbers are larger, I added that. Just do what works for your family.

You need to cut the vinyl to fit your space, or order it from your favorite vinyl source. You could also use stickers. If you need help with the vinyl, let me know. Add the names to your tiles, then hot glue the magnets to the tiles and you are good to go! I used 3 strips of magnet across the back of each tile. I wanted to be super safe. Now the only thing my kids fight over is who gets to rotate the names each Monday night!

2 of 2 New Projects

OK, here's another one for today... (truthfully, I forgot to list it in the last post.) I was at the dollar store yesterday, while hubby waited in the car. I just had to run in for ONE thing, (don't tell him...) and I found these babies: (Sorry for the fuzzy picture, but that is the least of these buckets problems right now, if you know what I mean.)

I know, I know... they are hideous. I thought so to. (um, I hope you aren't secretly in love with them because, I would really be embarrassed.) So anyway, I bought 3 of them. I am slowly learning to see the potential in things. I tried to look past the horrid orange and yellow flowers and see what they could become. (Again, not so much my style, I'm more of a black and white kind of a girl.) So... with a little Goof-Off... (hooray for the good stuff)... read on...

you get this:

then with a little more of the good stuff, you get this:

Keep at it just a bit longer, add your vinyl numbers, and then you get cuteness!

1 of 2 New Projects

Here's 2 new projects... I have so many projects that are half way done, I hope to have many posts coming soon!

First, here's some Easter eggs for you.

I was making these, intending to give these babies a dunk in some great color, and then peel the "stickers" off for a negative effect, but after I got going, I loved the black/white effect and decided to stop.

Here's what I did.

After hard-boiling my eggs (of coarse) I cut my vinyl to my desired size. This may take some trial and error. The first size was way too small. I tried 1" first. It will all depend on the size of your eggs. We have our own chickens and I've been saving the white eggs for weeks. (We have white and brown laying chickens - only 2 white and a lot of brown, so it has been a bit of a chore...) Our white eggs are HUGE! So I had to go back and change my vinyl to inches.

Tape the vinyl on your egg where you think you want it to go and make sure it is in the right place. (It's inside the tape so the egg won't roll off the counter) :-)

Then go at it, rubbing the vinyl onto the egg. Then Viola! I struggled with how I wanted to display the eggs, knowing that I couldn't hold all of them in my hand like this... but finally settled on those cute little candle holders. I picked them up at the dollar store.

Happy Easter! (Stay tuned!)

Thoughts from the 4-year old...

Today Oakli said:

"Steak is my favorite vegtable."

(short slience while she thinks for a moment)

"Mom, is it a fruit?"

Hunh.

Easter Family Night Treat

So once again, my pictures really are lacking, but I hope you get the idea. I guess I should take some photo classes. Anyway, here's what we made:

We just called them "Nests". Aren't they cute?

I just whipped up some "No-Bake Cookies", you know, from back in the day... and then I added 3 Cadbury Mini Eggs on each. Mmmmmmmm

Here's my "during" pictures. Stirring the sugar and butter...

I scooped out the mixture with my cookie scoop. I used a little guy and gave each "nest" 2 scoops. Then on the 2nd scoop I nestled it down in to make a little indentation for the eggs to sit. I did let them cool just a bit so that the eggs didn't melt. Then Viola!


I think they were a success!


"Die eggs, Die!" Only from an 11-year old, right?

Water With No Ice

I have a really great frend.

I mean, you know... how many people can go out with you and order your drink and get it just right for you? Your spouse? Probably. Your best friend? Maybe. If you go out with them a lot. But how many people order water. With no ice? Me. I know it's not that big of a deal, really, but just a random thing that I was thinking, here. In the wee hours of the morning. When I should be sleeping. As the train is just going by. But I am actually working on a project. But instead I'm thinking of my really cool friend. Who ordered my drink for me yesterday. While I parked the car. You are so cool. Thanks Jamie!

Scripture Fix-Up

I finally got around to changing the tabs on my scriptures. I had some that fell off and I couldn't find them to put them back on, so I HAD to replace the tabs, because I didn't want to replace the scriptures. I decided to shake it up a bit and make them PINK. Yes, I knnow, big surprise. I also decided to go an nontraditional way, and do it in my own handwriting. Several years ago, I had my handwriting made into a font, so I did not have to write them all out. Here's what I did:

sad. missing. labels.

Print out the new tabs onto fun colored cardstock. I couldn't use plain-jane black, that would just be boring. Plus I can't print on black. Make sure you test so that your words will fit in the small space.

Remove the existing tabs. I did this one at a time, so I didn't get anything mixed up.

Cut out each new tab with a circle punch and put glue on the back of each circle. I used a glue stick.

Put it in the right place and rub it down so it is secure.

Trim the new tab so it is flush with your page.

See the awesome progress?

Now it is done! Sorry for the bad picture, it got late and I had to use the flash.

It turned out so great! I am glad to have it finished. Now I have fully functioning tabs again.

My Tower of Cuteness

So in my house, we have pretty tall ceilings, and in the kitchen I have A LOT of upper cabinets that have nothing on them. Tall ceilings + lots of cabinets = funny looking empty space. I mean, seriously, we've lived in this house for what, almost 5 years now??? I dare say there is stuff up there that DOES NOT belong. Why do I write this you say? Well, I am in the (long) process of collecting items to go up on the tops of the cabinets. You know, to decorate it really cute-like. I've spent soooo much time searching the internet for pictures of decorated kitchen cabinets that I like, and I just can't find anything. BUT, I made this, and I'm thinking it is going up:

I saw one here, and decided I liked it enough to make my own. For my purposes, I didn't like the pictures hanging off in all directions, so I just left them off. It was super easy to make. Here's what I used: 2 x 4, scrapbook paper, modge podge, ribbon, and vinyl letters.

The wood pieces are cut starting at 10" (for the bottom) and then they decrease by 1" until I got to the top. If you have long names to put on there, you may have to go with longer pieces to start. I basically just figured out which name was the longest on paper, and then towered it up to the shortest name. (My 4 year old immediately told me that they weren't in "order". Smarty pants.) I put our last name on the bottom, knowing that it may or may not show, once I get it up on the kitchen cabinets.

The Room (finished!)

I have finally put the finishing touches on the girl's room. It seems like it took forever. I think that I painted last year, so one year start to finish, that's not THAT bad, is it??? OK, it is bad, but now at least it is finished AND blogged.

As a re-cap, here is what the walls looked like when I finished painting: Ambri and Oakli's Bedroom.

Here's what their room looks like now: (the walls in the previous blog post still look like that, they are on the other walls and I didn't get all of it in the picture.)

So I needed to get the bedspreads done and a different wall hanging, along with a new lampshade. The new lampshade provided a new challenge of a bed stand as well, so why not take it all on, right?

So here's the bead spreads that I did. I did a combo of lots of different fabrics on one side, and then on the plain brown side, I didn't want it to be so plain, so I did their names on the back.

Here is now the "underside" of the bead spread. It was supposed to be the top. I guess a girl is going to have, what a girl is going to have.

Here are the "tops" of the bead spreads.

They were supposed to be the undersides, and they could flip them over once in a while if they wanted to, OR simply to just tell which blanket belonged to which girl, but alas, all has changed.

The girls are so proud of them, that they both want their names showing all the time. (Sigh...)

This is what I put on the wall. While I was in Utah over Thanksgiving, I bought wood letters to spell out each of the kids names. The letters for the girls are fancy, and really pretty big. This was the only "plain" wall space that I had left. I covered each letter with scrapbook paper that was brown/pink/white, or brown, pink, or white and hung them from a curtain rod that we just attached to the wall. "Ambri" hangs from cream tulle, and "Oakli" hangs from brown tulle.

The girls have had a pathetic lamp in their room for a long time now. Of coarse, as kids do, they ruined the first lampshade that they had. It was a cheap paperish type of a shade. We never replaced it because Ambri was keeping the lamp in the window sill so she could reach it without getting out of bed, AND if we gave her a new one, it would just bang into the window. So if I wanted to "help" this poor lamp, I'd have to start from the bottom up. Literally. I found a used crappy-looking shelf type at St. V.d.P. Stopped at H.D. on my way home for some brown spray paint and headed home. It's nothing fancy to speak of, but it is doing the job. I also sprayed the base of the lamp. Here's the little shelf now:

So lastly, the lampshade. I just picked up the cheapest one that Target had, and took it home, traced it for a cover, added 1" to each side, just to make sure I didn't totally mess it up and then cut my pattern out of matching fabric that I used on their beds. I had the seam pretty well tucked under, but added the strip of ribbon just for fun and I love the way it turned out!

One last thing that I wanted to try for their room was one of these: Here's how mine turned out for the girls:

I made one for each of them and I think they turned out well. Instead of stuffing them, I just bought pillow forms and did a "fold and tuck" method on the back side. I know, really technical... just think of the shams that you get when you buy a bedding set...that's what I did, but I overlapped it a TON more, so the pillow forms are NOT coming out without a fight.

And there you have it. A year's worth of work (on and off) is finally DONE!

The boys want to know when it is their turn. (Sigh...)

Shamrock St. Patrick's Day Treats

I know, I know... I still need to post the pictures of the girls finished room. I'll get to it, I promise. BUT, I wanted to post what we did for our family night treat last night, in honor of St. Patrick's Day. I don't get WAY into St. Patrick's Day, other than making sure that I wear green so my kids don't pinch me, so this is a streatch for me. The kids loved it!

Here's the finished product:

Here's what I did to make them: First I added green food coloring to the marshmallow mixture (add the green food coloring BEFORE you add the rice krispies)

Then I dumped it all out on some waxed paper. It wasn't wide enough, so I had to double up the waxed paper (just a FYI).

Then I covered it with a layer of waxed paper (yea for waxed paper!) and rolled it out thin. I'm sure you could probably do this in the pan, but I was worried that I wouldn't be able to cut enough hearts out to make 6 shamrocks if I did a 9 x 13 pan. I wanted to have it a bit thinner.

Peel back the top layer of waxed paper and start cutting hearts with a cookie cutter. You could use 3 or 4 hearts for each. I used 3 because I thought it fit better. I used scraps and rolled out a "stem" like you would with play-dough.

Viola! They are so cute! My kids loved them, and so did I. (I love rice krispie treats!)


Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

I've been featured!

I've been featured!

I'm very excited to tell you that my etsy shop got put in a feature. I'm very excited because I've never been featured before. In honor of the feature (it was all about yellow), I'm doing my hi-lights in yellow today. It was for one of my watch bands, not what I would have thought, but it was a very bright and cheery blog post that Brandi did over at Fancy Buffalo. Here's the link for the post, and mine is #6... Fancy Buffalo.

What's Up?

I have had these pictures for so long, that I now feel guilty for posting them:

Well, it looks like only one turned out okay, so strike the "s" in pictures. It's a picture of my fabric closet. Why you ask? Well, it is one thing that I actually got done that I am supremely proud of. I saw the idea on a blog, and I feel terrible now that I can't find the link to share with you all, but she had this awesome download that you could print off cute labels to go around your fabric. After seeing her awesome closet, I went to my pathetic closet and my first thought was not that I should organize it, but where could I put more fabric. I didn't have more to put in there, but I wanted more. I wish I had a picture of it before to show you. It was so jammed full of fabric, the doors wouldn't shut completely. Guess what? All the fabric that was in there before, is still in there now! Too cool! I took it all out (boy was it heavy...) and found long lost fabric that I had forgotten about. I got my green cutter mat out...for measuring and set to work. It was more work that I thought it would be, but I am so happy that I did it! I started by measuring how deep my cabinet is (about 11" I think) so I folded all my fabric 10". I folded in all the raw edges and then rolled it up. I measured each piece and wrote on the cute little label how much I have of each piece. Then I taped the label around it and viola! I organized them all by color and put it all back. I put extra labels in an envelope and taped it to the inside of the door, so when I bring home new fabric I can just put it right away. It is so nice to just open the cabinet and see right away what I have. It made me want to go out and buy colors that I am missing, but I have resisted so far.

Other items checked off the list include:

Taxes
Cleaning
Girls Room ~ Blog entry to follow with pictures
Book Reports
Olympics ~ oh, it is finally over (we were obsessed)
Daffodills ~ it's finally spring!
Spring Cleaning
Etsy
First Aid merit badge ~ Go Bryce!
Cleaning ~ not really, but it's on the never ending list
Exercise

What I've been doing...

Well, because blogging about what I do on a weekly basis clearly didn't work, here I am today. I guess I can only do what I can do. Today you get pictures! Yea. I can't remember how long it has been since I posted with pictures. I guess I just could go and look. I wanted to actually show some of the things that I've been up to. I'll also tell what the kids have been doing as well.

First off, I'll SHOW what I've been doing, I'm super excited about this, and so are the girls. They are begging for them:

and

The problem for the girls is that they are too big because I made these to fit my wrist. I guess I'll be making some smaller ones for them today. I can't wait to make a black one too, that is next on my schedule. I'm thinking of putting them in my etsy shop, what do you think of them? Do you think they'll sell?

I have also been making more watch bands. These can be found in my etsy shop.

I also made these:

So that's the "crafty" stuff that I've been doing, at lest that I have pictures of. I have more projects in the works, so I can't wait to get started on those.

Other things that have been going on:

I'm still doing my 5 miles a day, every day. It is hard, but still worth it. I have a new cell phone (Yippee) that I don't know how to use (um, yeah). I got it for Christmas and it is awesome (I think), but I know it's better than the last phone I had. The kids love it because it makes the transformers sound every time I open it. I did get a hands free device (Thanks a lot OREGON) for it that I love/hate. All the kids are doing swimming right now. They all love it. Bryce and Ambri are having swimming lessons at school every day and Chase and Oakli are doing their lessons at night. It makes for a crazy Tuesday night, but it is worth it. Bryce has scouts on Tuesday nights and soccer practice just started up again for him on Tuesday nights as well. Ambri is loving achievement day (which is at night), also on Tuesday nights... did I mention that Tuesday's are our FAVORITE (not really - or crazy, or something like that...). Bryce and Ambri also continue to very well with their piano (thankfully that is NOT on Tuesdays). Doug is super busy trying to get all the blueberry plants pruned and it is taking a LONG time this year, but he is doing a great job with "Hose-A" and Hose-C". (For those of you that don't know, "Hose-B" quit a while back... really... hehe...)