Harry Potter Party

Just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Such a great book! Beautifully written and a perfect end to the Harry Potter series. I highly recommend them to anyone. I also just got hooked on another series called Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer. The 2nd is called New Moon and there is a third book (coming out august 7th) is called Eclipse, which i can't wait for! Even if fantasy isn't your genre you will still enjoy these books, so give 'em a try!

Ok enough with the book reviews...we went to a Harry Potter Party at a friend's house to kick off the release of the movie (which i did NOT let my toddler see in case you are wondering) and the latest (and last) Harry Potter Book. Aaron of course attended the party dressed as a Muggle, because he is a stick in the mud, the girls wore witch costumes and i wore a Hogwarts uniform. We had a blast. Reese got to make potions, do an owl craft, play Quittich, and make a chocolate wand with sprinkles. We ate chocolate frogs and drank butterbeer, played a Harry Potter trivia game (which the smartest kindergartener i've ever met ended up winning)

Where's Quincy?

Peek-A-Boo!

Reese with her friend, Rachel (the really smart kid)

Reese won the costume contest and got this little pack of bubbles.

We Did It! We Did It We Did It, Horray!

Well as my good friend Dora the Explorer would say, Lo Hicimos! I FINALLY ordered my 1 year supply of food storage. Of course, tornado season is coming to an end...but I am finally prepared for whatever may come our way in terms of emergency, so 'bring on the rain'....but not for at least 10-14 days because that's how long it's going to take for my food storage to be delivered :o)I have put it off for waaaay too long, and even though we have a flourishing vegetable garden and have always kept a small surplus of canned goods, I can hardly say we were living providently. Anyway, for the benefit of my many faithful blog readers (and all you blurkers out there, afraid to show yourselves) if you are not familiar with the idea of food storage, here is what you need to have stored for 1 adult for 1 year. This is just bare minimum what would be needed to sustain life for 1 year.

Grains (wheat, rice, corn, oats, pasta) 400 lbs (that is 72 #10 cans)

Legumes (beans, peas, lentils) 60 lbs (12 #10 cans)

Powdered Milk (along with some Nestle Quick because in my opinion, powdered milk is even more nasty tasting than regular milk) 16lbs (4 #10 cans)

Sugar or Honey 60 lbs (12 #10 cans)

Cooking Oil 10 quarts

Salt 8lbs

2 weeks of water (it's not exactly possible to store a year supply) 14 gallons

wheat grinder

additional items: powdered eggs, butter, fruits and vegetables, soup bullion


"If ye are prepared ye shall not fear" (Doctrine and Covenants 38:30)

Mommy, I Want My "Nuther Grandma"

Reese sure had fun with her grandma's on her vacation. She keeps telling me she wants to see her "nuther grandma" (FYI, in "reese talk" nuther = another) I tried calling my mom and aarons mom so she could talk to them, but finally figured out that Nuther Grandma was MY grandma, Grandma Tenney-MiMa, wo we kept referring to as "another grandma for Reese". Poor kid, she has so many grandma's to keep track of. All she knows is that they were placed on the earth to keep her happy...so she'll take as many grandmas as she can get! Quincy is quickly catching on to the game and after having a fever and the runs for 5 days, she is probably thinking she could use a little Grandma TLC herself. Grandma's...we miss you!

In My Defense

Ok Scotty, I REALLY didn't want to have to do this, but after the many phone calls I have received in the last 2 days as a result of your blog...it looks like I have no choice.

Reese rushes to use the potty before bed

She makes a poop.

And gets a new care bear.

Well there you go...physical proof that i reward my child for making poopies.
Tyrannical dictator I think not!


Also...consider the first 2 pictures of the bathroom the "before" pictures. I'm going to scrape the ceilings, tile the floor, build up the tub wall and add a shower, and install a white toilet...eventually.

Potty Prizes

Well It was an eventful day. Yesterday, Quincy started crawling...and she is ON THE MOVE! Life with a dirty floor is over as I know it. It's crazy to think that just two weeks ago I had loose screws, razor blades and barbie shoes on my kitchen floor. It's no longer safe to leave things lying around that Quincy might eat. Exciting day for her, sad sad day for me.

In other news, Reese potty trained herself yesterday. I put her in underwear and told her not to pee in them. Then I told her i had a bag of prizes in my closet and every time she "made a poop" or "went pee pee" in the toilet, she could choose one. But if she peed in her underwear, she would have to put the prize back in the bag. One accident is all it took. (yes it was a SAD moment when i pried one of Ariel's mermaid sisters from her kung fu death grip and put it back in the bag)

Now we are on day two and have successfully made it through a play date at a friends house with 4 potty uses, no accidents and no prizes either. horray!


I had a picture of reese on the toilet saying "ta-da!" as well as a picture of her first little dookie in the toilet...but decided to spare you all the graphics. Just know that it has been a very exciting two days!

Civil War at the Farmers Market

We went to the farmers market on Saturay morning. We had fun walking around the different booths looking at the crafts and produce that various vendors had brought it. The farmers market happens every saturday morning, but this was our first time to go check it out.

Reese in the fountain again. Her tutu was pretty much soaked by the time we left.

This week also happened to be the "sneak peek" show of the upcoming Civil War reenactment scheduled for october. How about that? I might have paid attention in history class if I'd had one of these guys teaching instead of freaky old Ms. Ghezzi. It was actually interesting.

These guys are hardcore...and quite proud of their confederate history. We will, of course be posting photos of the actual reenactment in October when we attend.

AnyTown USA

It's official. Bentonville, Ar is AnyTown USA. Either that or Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls. Every Friday evening until an hour after the sun goes town, all the local musicians gather together in the town square for "Pickin' On The Square" Basically everyone pulls out their bass, fiddle, guitar, banjo and harmonica and have a little bluegrass jam session. There is a great big fountain in the center of town square that keeps the sound from traveling very far, so little groups gather at each corner of the square and can play simultaneously without disturbing one another. It was incredible! We ran into a bunch of people from aaron's work (no surprise there) and several members of our ward. Reese also pet her first dog tonight...without being pressured to do so! Maybe having Sundance and Gwen around last week left a positive influence on her. Anyway, here are some pics we took tonight...hope you enjoy them as much as we do. Anyone who comes to visit will have to experience an evening on the square. My description just doesn't give it justice.


How about the guy on the far right? What's that hat all about? Anyone know the name of the instrument he's playing?

Reese had more fun playing in the fountain than listening to the music!

These guys sang a few songs that everyone (but us) seemed to know and a lot of people sang along. All i can say about that is 'when i get ta heavin' i gonna sing sing sing'.

If you look closely, you can see the famous Walton 5andDime. It was Sam Walton's original store, where Walmart was born. Next to that is a great art studio, and next to that (and most important) is the Station Cafe, which is a burger place that has the BEST chocolate milkshake I have ever had in my entire life. They make a mean grilled ham n cheese as well.

For the record, Aaron hates these sunglasses, but Quin was too cute in this picture not to post it.

These people had a 10 yr old kid that would sing and yodel for them. The "lady" on the far right in the trucker hat smoked about a thousand cigarettes tonight and would sing with one hung out on her bottom lip at all times. Two of the guys played harmonicas and spoons (yes, spoons!) and people got up and danced once in awhile

Reese gives me a private performance of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. How 'come none of those banjo guys joined in with her? She was a lot better than some of the glory glory ladies.

We took this photo early in the evening...after another hour this view would have held a little quartet on the bench, and two other groups in the far corners-we were in front of the "smoker lady" group when this was taken.

This fiddle guy was awesome. Plus, he would sing and play at the same time!

Reese tells daddy a "secret"

Quincy is sitting up and trying to clap.

Yellowstone and Old Faithful

While out west on our family vacation, we took a little drive through Yellowstone. Reese and Quincy really enjoyed seeing all the birds, elk, buffalo, rivers and geysers.

Here we are in very windy yellowstone. Quincy was asleep in the van with grandpa.

It was such a beautiful day!

Old Faithful. Hey Dad (grandpa), is that a bald spot I see?

Here we are in front of Old Faithful as it finished erupting ..which wasn't as big as I had remembered it being, but it was incredibly windy that day and i guess that can affect the geyser as well. We had a nice little day trip-even though aaron didn't get to go flyfishing (that day) and i missed out on Annie Get Your Gun at the playmill theatre in West Yellowstone we still just really enjoyed having another day to spend with family. It is so fun to watch our girls discover the world that is around them that we almost forget that we've been there before! And Aaron didn't get us lost once! (he did manage to get himself lost in the Madison River flyshop for about 40 minutes on the way home though! Luckily, new hat and t-shirt came to the rescue and helped him navigate his way to the register and eventually back to the car)

Almost Done!

The grout is in! I am more than extatic to say that my tile project is complete. Horray! All i have to do now is put the light switch covers back on the outlets (with the power unnecessarily turned off...better safe than sorry, again) and paint. I have a few surface cracks from settling, etc to fix first....and if aaron and i could ever agree on a paint color this would be much easier. The grout dried darker than anticipated but i am still very happy with it! I can't wait to decorate with my lettering above the cabinets now!



The blue tape is there because I still need to paint the kickboards black under the cabinets.


Any suggestions for what to do about the window casing? I can't decide whether i should stain it to match the floors, paint it white like the rest of the door casings and baseboards, or black like the cabinets.



This probably doesn't look much different than the picks without grout...but trust me, it's fabulous! ...and hard as cement, it should last a loooong time. My friend just got her real estate license and said that a tile countertop adds $2000-$2500 to the value of your home. Plus your house will sell faster without yellow laminate. Cost of doing it myself: 300 bucks! woop woop!

Mommy's Helper

As many of you know, I have a small obsession with old windows and old doors. It started after owning a near 100 year old home. When our home in Green Bay was built, a door wasn't just a door, it was something beautiful to look at before you entered a room and windows weren't just functional elements to let in light and fresh air, but beautiful frames for the views they created. Anyway, i found this particular crusty old door and fell in love with it...broken window and all. I'm sure it's full of lead paint and will poison my children if they suck on it, so they'll have to stick to the old teething ring instead. I had to find a place for it in my home, but old doors do not fit the door frames of homes built in the late 1970's, so I turned the door into a chalkboard and added a cute little vinyl bistro sign. Here is Reese checking my measurements (with her own tape measure) for the chalkboard to make sure they are right.





Here is the (almost) finished product. I'm going to anchor it to the wall after we paint. Quincy is creeping everywhere and i don't want it to come down on her, it weighs like 40 pounds! I haven't tried out the chalkboard yet, hopefully it really works!

Not Enough Chocolate In the World

I am home. We left Boise at 8pm last night and drove to Salt Lake City where we flew out of this morning. Yesterday was our 6th anniversary. For some odd reason, Aaron and i are never actually together on our anniversary. Last year he was in Omaha on a job interview, the year before that, I was in California...and so on. So THIS year we had big plans to leave the kids behind and go out on a REAL date. (you know...not a "fork over tons of cash for babysitters date" or a "we'll watch your kids tomorrow night date" or a "put the kids to bed and have a date at home date"....I'm talking about the best kind there is date...a leave the kids with grandma date! Because we live so far away from both sets of grandparents, we have yet to experience the probably-over-rated kind of joy that we imagine can only come from dropping your kids off with your folks for a night. I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, things just got crazy, and there was just too much (fishing) to do and too many people (my sisters) to see, and our big anniversary date didn't happen this vacation. We'll celebrate another time, so that's not a big deal at all. What kills me is that since we vetoed the big night out, it's like worlds collided to make the rest of the trip home as miserable as possible ... in a sick ironic way to remind us of why we needed a night out to begin with. Here's how our ended up instead:

We left Boise at 8pm, much later than planned We had a hotel booked in SLC near the airport because we had a 6am flight this morning and didn't want to make the almost-4 hour drive from boise in the crazy-early morning hours and result with grouchy kids. Instead we got INSANELY grouchy kids....but it was ok, because we made great time into Utah and could still squeeze in a decent nights sleep before a long day of traveling.

Until we were 13 miles outside of Salt Lake City. It was 11:30 when the construction cones and blinking merge arrows appeared. It was 1:30 am when we got into our hotel room 13 miles away. It was 3 am when Quincy went to sleep. It was 3:30 am when Reese went to sleep. It was 4:30am when we got our wake up call. We drove to the airport, returned the rental car, checked in, miraculously got through security ("excuse me Miss, but your infant needs to remove her shoes as well...yeah those elastic socks with the pea pods on them...and the bow on her head....put them through the scanner please.") Followed by a 2 hour flight to Phoenix, a 2 and 1/2 hour layover there, a 2 and 1/2 hour flight from Phoenix to Tulsa, and a 2 and 1/2 drive home from there to bella vista. That is 21 hours of traveling with a 2 yr old and a 7 month old...and a 31 yr old who has to go back to a weeks worth of work tomorrow.

Needless to say, I'm exhausted...and there is not enough chocolate in the world to help me recover from my travels today.

OH! And Quincy cut her first tooth yesterday...so that was fun.
And the airline sent our Luggage to Philidelphia. yes Philidelphia ...seriously.

Four Generations

Sam with Myrtle (Hatch) Tenney, Lynn (Tenney) Lawrence, Meg (Lawrence) Willardson with Aaron Willardson, and Reese and Quincy Willardson at The Homestead in Rexburg, Idaho.