For Link

I wanted to do something for my nephew Link for Christmas! I talked with my sister to brainstorm some ideas to do in behalf of him. We came up with a few ideas but I ended up settling on Glass Etching ornaments to donate to the NICU. Link spent the first almost 2 months of his life in the NICU. Spencer was only in the NICU for 4 days but I SO feel for the NICU parents. Even just that short time there felt like forever to not hold my baby when I wanted and take him HOME! So, here's the pictures of what we'll be donating in behalf of Link this week. WE LOVE YOU LINK AND THINK ABOUT YOU ALL THE TIME! We know you are doing wonderful things for our family and others beyond the veil and know you love and care about those of us still here on earth!

This is the poem my Mom wrote to go along with the ornaments:


Instructions included with the ornament:


The ornaments (I hand cut stencils and stuck them on the glass ornaments. Then I used Armor Etch glass etching cream to etch each ornament. There are 21 in total):


Sending love to all the NICU parents and to Link! Love you all! Merry Christmas!

P.S. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year! We went to my Grandma's house and had delicious food and fun company, then we went to see the new movie "Frozen" with my family. It's a tradition with the Potts' side to go see a Thanksgiving movie-BIG THANK YOU TO MY POPS for that! Then we headed to Darrin's parents, did lots of online Black Friday shopping until wee hours of the morning, then we went to Walmart and Home Depot in the morning (MUCH less crowded), and then went to go see my in laws house being built in Lehi. It's going to be SO gorgeous! Then we hung out with some of Darrin's siblings last night. FUN times. I cannot believe it's almost December and we can decorate for CHRISTMAS NOW! I absolutely love this time of year! Each year gets more fun with the boys :).

Projects lately

I've been working on a lot of projects lately. Lots of crafts for Christmas gifts (can't show those just yet because it could give something away :), and lately, some furniture! Darrin and I have also been been busy taking out a wall! So, lots goin' on. PICS!

Taking down the wall that was separating our entry way/kitchen area. We chose to do this mostly to be able to open things up and make it so when we have family over we'll be able to put some extra tables up on the tile. I was hesitant but I'm actually really liking it. We still have finishing work to do but it's lookin' good :). The kids loved helping to hammer and take the wall down!


For the furniture, we were looking for a large shelf for our living room and I've been looking for an above my shampoo bowl cabinet for a while now. We happened to go to the "RE-Store" or another name is "Habitat for Humanity". I found this twin bed headboard that looked like a piece of crap. BUT I saw the inner beauty in it :). I wanted to cut off the legs and refinish it to make a shelf. Darrin didn't see it but I was persistent. It was only $5!! I also found the perfect but needed to be re-finished storage cabinet for my towels in the salon. Another project I have wanted to do is re-finish the hope chest my Aunt Al gave me when I was around 12.

I wanted to try my hand at Chalk paint. I've seen it all over pinterest how you can make your own so I did that. Here's a tutorial here:
http://www.iheartnaptime.net/chalk-paint/

Before and After Salon Cubbord:



Before and After Hope Chest (soon I will be making something to go above it in our room :)):


Before and After Headboard into shelf (I wish I had a picture of it actually as a headboard before I cut off the legs):


What do ya think? I really liked using the chalk paint!

Halloween Happenings

Happy Halloween yesterday! We had a grand time and hope you did as well! To celebrate the holiday earlier in the month, the boys and I went to a pumpkin patch close by which was so much fun! They had a corn maze, tractors and trucks to pretend to drive, wheelbarrows, fun photo ops and more all free! We'll be going every year :)


The boys and I also went to Gardener Village with our friends:


Last Friday we had a family pumpkin carving party at our place:


Last Saturday we went to our annual party at the Waddoups :). For Halloween Darrin was lightening, I was snow, Parker was a tornado, and Spencer was cloudy with a chance of rain (he carried around a spray-bottle "chance of rain" :))!


On Halloween day we had a little preschool Halloween Party in the morning, then went to Daddy's work for trick or treating and to show of costumes (it was so much fun to go to Darrin's work-both boys FILLED their buckets with candy there!), then we headed to our brother&sister in laws to hang out. At their house we had a nice dinner and then went out trick-or-treating. The trick-or-treating wasn't too great-soooo many houses with lights off. Lots of walking without much payoff so it's a good thing we went to Daddy's work trick-or-treating earlier. Later that night Lincoln, my nephew had bit into a glowstick. It was getting everywhere (it's non-toxic so we weren't too worried) but then my bro-in law started splatting the liquid everywhere! We split open a bunch of glow sticks and splatted. ONE OF THE COOLEST THINGS I'VE SEEN! It looked like outer space and when you walked on the "star" covered floor you felt like you were walking on stars! It cleaned up really easy and was just plain AWESOME! :)


HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!! I cannot believe it's NOVEMBER now! Time to focus on Thanksgiving :). I ABSOLUTELY LOVE this time of year!

Been BUSY

Well, yay for harvest time! It's fall and I'm LOVING it! I love the color of the leaves, the crisp crunch of fall, the smells, and breaking out the sweaters! Each new season is SO much fun with kids. Yes, we've been through Halloween and fall with the boys before. But each consecutive year is MORE wonderful because they're understanding so much more and with that comes more excitement! I realize I need to ENJOY this feeling though because once they start hitting early tweens and teens it will be "leave me alone Mom" time so I'm trying to soak in the MAGIC of each season now when they're in this season of life and loving it :).

A new tradition starting this year for us is HARVESTING! Our new home we moved into in March of this year has 2 MASSIVE apple trees. We had an apricot tree at our old house but never really did anything with them when we should have. I cannot fully explain how many apples we have got from our two trees. I'll show you a picture (that amount times 5.5!) but it just doesn't do justice. We've been very blessed with lots of fruit. So, now our falls will consist of PICKING, PICKING, PICKING, SMELLING LIKE COOKING APPLES ALL THE TIME (YUMMMM!!!! What better fall scent?!), giving away lots of apples to friends, family and neighbors, canning, juicing, fruit leathering, fruit dehydrating and cooking!

First picture of one of our apple trees, second picture our first picking but litterally that amount times 5.5 is how many we've had!


It's been a LOT of work but very fulfilling! Here's what we've got SO FAR:
Juice: 22 Quarts
Applesauce: 40 pints, 8 quarts
Canned apple pie filling: 11 quarts, 2 pints
Apple Chips: 4 gallon ziplocs ful
Fruit Leather: 8 pans worth
Salsa (our AWESOME neighbor has given us a ton of tomatoes): 7 pints, 2 quarts

To come...PEARS (our wonderful in laws have generously given us a bunch of pears from their trees and I'm eager to can them)

Parker loves to help me out and Darrin has been a big help too:


We also had the opportunity to go to the circus with my Pops and 2 nephews. My parents were going to take the three cousins but my mom got sick (blah :(!) so I got to go in her place! It was INCREDIBLE and we loved it! THANK YOU SO MUCH MOM AND DAD FOR TAKING US TO THE CIRCUS! Had a great time and Parker was in AWE.


I also hosted a PINSPIRED night and had some friends over to do 2 crafts and we all made pinspired food which was oh so good! I feel like it's been forever since I got my craft on. Here's the twig wreath I was in charge of (pictures aren't great-sorry):


And my friend Liberty showed us a glitter craft with mod podge and I'm super lame and was too lazy to get a picture uploaded after I thought I had one taken :(. BUT it's super cool. You mix equal parts of mod podge and glitter and can glitter anything. I chose to do some glitter pumpkins, a nativity scene and a reindeer. You cut out of freezer paper a sillouette and iron onto material, then paint the mod podge glitter mix onto it and peel off the freezer paper stencil. Easy and super cute. Then I framed my glittered material for holiday decorations :).

BUT, I've been decorating for fall and also made this Halloween wreath with my sister in laws :)


So ya I've been busy but having fun in trying to make the most out of fall :). Can't wait to carve pumpkins, put together costumes, go to a pumpkin farm and hopefully a corn maze!

ON ANOTHER COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NOTE Parker had a little surgery today. He was diagnosed with what's called Meatle Stetotis. In plain english it means he didn't pee straight. He peed waaay up and to the left in fact :). We didn't realize until we did potty training but it was really obvious when we went camping and saw him "go" in the great outdoors. When potty training we trained him to sit and I knew we had to point waaay down for it not to go everywhere but didn't really know what was normal.

The interesting thing is that he wasn't born with it. Apparently at some point he got a diaper rash as a baby and that caused the tip of his urethra to close up except for a pin prick hole. The doctor said there's nothing I could have done, but it just happens to some boys. Just like a hose covered by your thumb, this causes the pressure to make your pee kinda go skiwampous. Am I making sense?

ANYWAYS, he got what's called a Meatotomy today to fix this little problem so that someday he can stand when going. (My rule is that's not happening until he's tall enough to reach though :)).

Here's how today went. We woke up and all he could have until 9:30am was clear liquids, then after 9:30am nothing at all. I explained this to him the day before but the first thing he wanted when he woke up was milk and cereal. Of course! When he found out that wasn't happening because of his surgery he got these big ol' crocodile tears that broke my heart! He made it through though. Our check in time wasn't until 11:45am. My sweet mother in law watched Spencer and my sweet Mother went with me for emotional support since Darrin couldn't make it.

Not that the surgery/procedure was a big deal, it's supposed to be really fast and easy, but due to the nature of the surgery, they had to put him under general anathesiology. This was scary for me just because it was his first time under and you just never know how they'll react. All morning I kept thinking, "what if's..." you know... just because I couldn't help it! I just couldn't bear the thought of life without Parker. BUT everything went very smoothly and I'm so grateful! We were in WONDERFUL hands at PCMC (Primary Childrens)!

They took his vitals, gave him his special bracelet, showed him his mask and let him choose his "flavor" to smell with the special gas. He chose strawberry over root beer and cotton candy. Then they showed him pictures of what it would all look like. The bed he'd be one, the pillow he'd "sleep" on, etc. Such awesome nurses there!

When the time came, with monkey in arm, my little boy fearlessly laid on the table and I held his arm. They put the mask on and he just started to giggle and laugh. HAHA! Then he got pretty sleepy and his breathing got really strange and he was twitching (this was SCARY to watch but they all assured me it's completely normal). I was then asked to leave the room. It only took about 8 minutes and then I was able to come back in and get instructions on how to take care of it. Then I had to leave again until he was awake and vitals were taken.

They said he woke right up but I wasn't able to see him for about 15 minutes after. The first thing he said was, "I stayed so still!" WHAT A CHAMP! Seriously, he was so brave, so friendly to everyone and just perked right back up. AND HE WAS SO EXCITED TO FINALLY EAT! They gave him root beer slushy and chips right away :). Then we went to Wendy's for a kids meal after. They told me he'd be really tired and need to rest the rest of the day. It was quite the opposite though. He was super high energy ever since just bouncing off the walls :). I guess it was a bit of the opposite effect on him.

He's doing great still. It really hurts him to urinate but other than that he shows no signs of it bothering him. I need to put vasaline on it all through the day, but other than that he's good :).

I'm so sad it doesn't look like the video is working :( Who knows how to properly upload a video?? I don't see the video icon so I just tried uploading with the image icon and this is how it turned out!