Thanksgiving Week vacation in Utah

We're driving home from a wonderful Thanksgiving Week vacation in Utah with my family.

What a great week it has been! Some of my favorite memories will be swing dancing with Michael and my mom, Riding a motorcycle by myself, shooting guns, Seeing my brothers in all their motorcycle gear, the gorgeous light and the mountains and staying up late with my mom cooking.  I loved it all.


I love the desert.
I love the hot sun,
the bright blue sky and the smell of the dust.
I love the dry desert plants and the rocks and wide open spaces.
I love the old crumbly buildings and piles of hay and that you can find rusty metal altoid boxes along the side of the road.
I love the black cows in the dry yellow grass and how the mountains can be any color depending in the time of day and lighting
like the stunning deep purple of yesterday.
I feel right at home here and love to be by my family.

Paul took all the boys on long 4 wheeler rides. Joren asked if he could drive. Paul was surprised when he let Joren drive that he was pretty good at it. After that Jake and Eirik got to drive too. They all got to try riding Dave and Tera's little kid motorcycle. Eirik preferred the guns. Joren loved the motorcycle and did a really good job. Even when he crashed he got up and rode again. Paul loved the dirt bikes and shooting guns with my dad. Teig loved playing in the dirt and watching all the action. Juni liked being held the whole time. My mom brought a yummy tail gait picnic of leftover Thanksgiving food to our excursion.

Paul enjoyed seeing our kids play with cousins. Ole Ab Elsie and Zinnia were so nice to our boys. Eirik and Joren slept over and did not want to leave. Ab helped Joren and Eirik build a quiver for each of them.

 We loved a too quick stop in Idaho with our besties Kit and Basil and their adorable girls. They will always be like going home. I so love them.

I enjoyed seeing my wonderful grandparents Bonnie and Stan Williams. Grandma is still sharp as a tack and doing her best to help Grandpa with the things he forgets. Grandpa is a bit confused but still teases me and laughs at my jokes. I love these people.

Eirik got to ride to Utah with my Dad and Davy and Michael. He was so excited to road trip with them that he woke up my Dad at 3:20 am and then at 5:20 and 6:20 until my dad finally got up. They had a great time and riding 13 hours with 3 kids was easier than 4. In fact there wasn't one fight our whole trip. The kids were great!

Soaked cute

Teig started to believe that the word 'so' is really 'soaked' so he's been saying things like, "I'm soaked hungry" and "I'm soaked tired". I just heard him singing to Juni, "and you are soaked cute!"

Best brothers

I just poked my head in my boys room as they were about to go to sleep. I asked if they were telling secrets like best brothers do and they said they were telling who they think is the cutest. Then they listed who the cutest people are. For Eirik it goes: 1. Heavenly Mother 2. Me 3. She-ra the hamster 4. pillow pet 5. Stuffed animals 6. Himself
Jorens list goes 1. Me, 2. himself, 3. little mermaid, 4. Juni 5. She-ra
Isn't that flattering that I'm on the list!
Eirik told me last week that he wished he could ride in a time machine back to when my mom and dad had me and get them
to wait so I would be his age so he could marry me.! I love my little guys!

GOODSKIN DERMATOLOGY- Remodel complete!!

 After over a year of planning, I am happy to announce that our office remodel is finally complete!

 Here is a collage of some before shots:

As you can see, we had a lot of pink and purple everywhere. Every piece of cabinetry in the whole office is a soft rose grey color. We could not change it all, so I did my best to work it in. 

 We chose this color scheme: 

We wanted to play off of natural beauty and to reference the Northwest. 

Paul wanted the office to be warm and comfortable.

Ta Da!

 This is our wonderful team. There is a great vibe in the office and it is a fun place to work! 

Nate Smith is our PA 

 

This is Leah, our aesthetician. She is wonderful. 

We feel so blessed to have been able to achieve this dream. Paul loves his work. It is challenging and new everyday. I am so proud of him!

Christmas preparation:

"I am going to give you a polar bear skull for Christmas. And a polar bear fur and even a baby polar bear. I am going to go catch a baby polar bear wif my net and ven I will bring it back and put it in a big box for you." Teig

Eskimo Joren

I built Joren a Teepee for his birthday last year. Last night Joren decided he was an Eskimo and wanted to sleep on the floor in the teepee.  You know Joren so you know that once he decides something, fighting is going to be a major battle so I told him yes, ONLY if I could make his bed in his teepee for him. He hated it because he wanted to sleep on a towel with no blanket, but he let me put a sheepskin blanket down that is soft enough to be comfortable and give him a brown (animal skin) blanket. I tried his red down blanket, but there weren't geese as far north as he was as an Eskimo and there were no berries growing that far north to dye the fabric red, so it had to be brown. He wanted to sleep naked, but I told him Eskimos live in the cold and needed long johns. He would not wear his black ones, but I finally convinced him to wear his white ones, but they had to be inside out because they have a pattern on them right side out. I crawled in his teepee and sang him a made up eskimo song called noni noni and we talked about the stars over the cold tundra. He told me the story about how his whole village went whale hunting and he used the whale fat to make his teepee waterproof. It was pretty sweet. The kid has an intense imagination and he just comes to life at night. I started calling it the art bug because he gets it as soon as it gets dark or as soon as I say it is bedtime and he gets all kinds of ideas. He did some of the coolest drawings this weekend. I like the weekend nights when I can let him stay up a little later and let him do his thing.

November is already here!

I also got my first pair of rain boots in the mail from amazon. I am officially an Oregonder now.
Tomorrow we are installing and painting the last of our remodel at the office. I think it will go into just one more weekend for final touches but I am so excited to have it finished. It has truly been way more consuming than I expected. I can't wait to post photos. It is looking so beautiful. I am proud that Paul gets to work in such a nice office and by doing tons of the work ourselves we have saved a lot if money.

My parents bought a house in Lake Oswego and I have been designing it as my brothers and a few other contractors remodel it. It is going to take until the first week of dec to finish but I think it is going to be pretty special. I have learned so much on this project to prepare me for many upcoming remodels and hopefully our own house someday. We have been on the search for a house in our ward. We found an AMAZING home across the river with a waterfall and trout pond and barn and shop and chicken coup, but it's not in the ward and not in the school district we moved here to be in. We are still considering it because it is so absolutely dreamy. Plus we are not even qualified for a loan yet. We are hoping to move around march/ April. I just want to be settled for good.

One thing about Michigan is that there are no mom2mon sales. I am going to miss this this Christmas. No more steals for Christmas presents.  EVERYTHING is so much more expensive here. My grocery bill has doubled! I still can't stomach buying enough produce because it is so much more than I am used to spending. I thought I would stop couponing when Paul got a job but I am considering getting back into it, even though it is such a pain.

Eirik discovered the joys of amazon wish list. He is now a very proficient Internet shopper. I know.. The horror.. I mean I just learned how to shop online in the last few years and before then there were way less choices. Now it is so easy to want everything because it's all right there. His wish list included over 200 things at one point. He has narrowed it down quite a bit and it has actually been really handy! When he has earned a reward by some particularly great accomplishment or behavior I have gone to his wish list and just bought something small. It comes in the mail and he is thrilled. I went ahead and paid for amazon prime and I have been using it for everything. I will do all of jorens bday and Christmas on Amazon prime. I am looking forward to the after thanksgiving day sales. Eirik mostly wants outdoor and hunting gear and camouflage stuff. His wish list also includes lots of camo face paint and soap that deep can't smell and other things you would never think of if you weren't a 7 year old boy. Joren wants a parrot and as usual is never happy with what he has for long so I won't invest in anything for him. He had his class start calling him Alex when he moved here and now he wants them to call him Mark. He has very intense, short lived interests. I'm not sure what I will get him. Teig loves toys of all kinds. He is so easy to buy for because he is genuinely pleased with everything. He is all sugar. Juni gets whatever she wants. There are still only 2 girl toys in the house so I plan to spoil her a bit.
I'm so excited for Christmas this year. All my boys believe in Santa and for the first time I feel like we have enough money to not stress about gifts. My intent this year is to see delight and joy on their faces! I can't wait!

Teigs strength

Did you kno I have via reawwy strong fing inside myself? It's cawed a bone. It's right here and it petects me." "that's your rib Teig". "you were right. It was my rib and it makes me reawwy reawwy strong see?" (to show me his strength he lifts up his elbow and makes a scary face and says "see how strong it is!" then he starts elbowing hard objects and pretending it does not hurt him!

Halloween 2013

 This year I let the boys order ninja shoes and new nun-chucks, swords and shirakins for their Halloween costumes. Of course, the night before Halloween, they all decided to be something else besides ninjas. Good thing we have a gazillion costumes and they could pick whatever they wanted. Eirik decided to be a Boy Scout one night and an Army Spy the next. Joren was one of the Fantistic 4 one night an a ninja the next. Tieg was a dinosaur both nights, but he talked a lot about being Wolverine. Poor Juni got to be a cutie with an owl hat. I did not get much more of a costume for her than that, but she was still the cutest ever.  I had fun decorating for Halloween as usual. I just wish i could keep my gourds and ravens up all year.