Random Millie pics

Since I take a llloooot of pictures of Millie, I figure I may as well do something with them!

Sometimes you just need to play in your princess tent.

Daddy would be proud to know she loves Perplexus almost as much as he does!

She makes all of Noah's animals kiss now. I have NO idea where she learned this!

Ready for a swim

First tri-pony hairdo

She puts pants on her head all the time lately. "Hat!"

I watered our neighbors herbs for a few days and Millie was obsessed with their slide.

How we spend our afternoons

She found some of my senior pictures and brought them to me saying, "Sarah?" I guess we do look alike!

Playing outside like a big girl.

Not sure if I like how quickly she's growing up, but she is so fun and sweet! This is a great age and we are enjoying every day with Millie.

Comings and goings

Life has been really busy lately. The phrase that has been going through my mind the last few weeks: "When it rains, it pours." It's pretty true. This summer we sent off two brothers to serve missions, and this last week we welcomed two others home!! We're so happy that Garrett and Mitchell are home. It's great to be with them and watch them interact with Millie and with each other. Happy times.

Unexpectedly saw Mom, Sarah, and Laura going into the airport

Checking out baby Jane

So glad I got to hold Jane and see Kerri for a few minutes!

Uncle Gare is home!

Telling us stories

Tyler saw him later that day

Getting to know "Gar-gar"

Riding the inter-terminal train on the way to see Mitchell

Passing the time with piggy-back rides

Reunited! I'm seeing double!

So much happiness.

In between their homecomings we had my family in town (Dad, Mom, Sarah, Laura, Tom, Kerri, and Jane). It was great to finally meet Tom! We had a great time with them Friday night and Saturday with Laura's endowment session, yummy lunch at Pei Wei, and her bridal shower later on.

Showing her book to baby Jane

Millie was really sweet with Jane. On Friday night before I put her down, Millie took Jane's binky out of her mouth, gave her a kiss, and then put it back! It was so cute. I thought she was going to steal it like she did before with other babies..

We are loving all this time with family, and are trying to soak it up before everyone leaves again! 

Trash bandits

You just wouldn't believe what some people throw away. From great furniture to toys to working Kitchen Aids, nice stuff goes to the dump all the time! A friend in our ward Bethany introduced us to selling trash. Yes, you read that correctly- selling trash. You can read more about it on her trash blog HERE, but basically: she and her family find things in the garbage that shouldn't be there, pick them up, and sell them. And then use the money for awesome things like trips to Disneyland/world. So we (I) decided to do the same, but in our neighborhood- you don't just take people's trash that someone else is taking. That's just standard trash bandit etiquette.

So here are just a few of the things I have sold:

Mirror- $20

Oversized lawn chair- $20

Water table- $15 (should have charged more... I had over 10 people in line for it!)

Bike- $20

Pool b-ball hoop- $15

Scooter- $10

Wrapping paper organizer- $20

Stroller- $25 (carseat never sold, so I donated it)

Scooter- $10

Thomas the Train table- $25

Pet carrier- $10

Water table- $15

I'm part of a facebook group where you can sell items- like an ongoing online garage sale. I try to price things pretty low so that they'll sell quickly (only so much space in our garage) and there's $0 investing from me, except for a little gas. I never take things that are cloth, like couches, and I never pick up electronics. But it's been really fun actually! I've met some really nice people selling the items, and have even found a couple things I've dared to keep.

So what do we do with the money? 

We have 3 categories: House Stuff (example: the instawall! Hence that jar only has $1 right now), Fun/Dating, and Food Storage. Someday we can save for awesome trips, but for now these are areas that we feel are important. I am keeping track of my earnings and paying tithing, but I do that all in cash- somehow any extra money deposited into our accounts gets put into savings. That's usually great, but we wanted to have some fun money too! 

So think twice before you throw away something of value! It's really a shame what a throw-away mentality we have today as a culture. This way, people get good deals on things they need, I earn money, and these items aren't ending up in a dump! Win win win.

Normal is pretty fantastic

So, I heard a really stupid commercial while watching something on Hulu the other day. I don't even know what the commercial was for- maybe a car or something. Anyway, it said that normal is boring and ugly and can never be fantastic or exceptional. What??

 I beg to differ. As one who, from many people's points of view, leads a very "boring and normal" life, I think it's really great! There's beauty in the least "exceptional" days, even if it's just that you're still chugging along. I get to worry about wiping off sticky hands, cleaning a little house, and whether my toddler ate enough for dinner. I'm grateful for people with successful careers in the workforce-- gosh, I am married to one! And I couldn't be home doing what I do without him. But I'm also glad we have separate, equally important roles. We allow each other to reach our potential by reaching our own! This isn't making much sense anymore. This note is just to say that I am so thankful for my normal, beautiful, messy, love-filled, tiring, exceptional-to-me life.

The instawall

When I saw the pin on Pinterest, I immediately knew that THIS would be perfect for our large, empty living room wall. I didn't hang anything on it for a long time because I wanted a statement piece- something big, and not multiple pieces. I showed Tyler and his words were: "Do it! I love it! Go!" so that was nice encouragement. It's not often that Pinterest gets such enthusiasm from him! 

So I followed the tutorial... mostly. I printed my pictures at Walgreens because they were on sale for 9 cents per 4x6. All 90-ish pictures cost just over $8! Not bad. I did have to cut them down to 4x4 by myself but it was worth it at that cost. I used an old sheet from my college days, and bought a 4x8' piece of drywall at Home Depot for $8. They cut it down to 6.5x2.5' for me. The tutorial says 7x3 but that just felt a bit too big. I was so excited!

I played around with a few different sizes with paper.

Stapling the sheet to the board. Thanks to Sharon for lending me her staple gun!

Arranging pics

I put coins over each picture when they were in the right place

 Do you know how heavy drywall is? It's pretty heavy. I just couldn't figure out how to hang it without big holes (which equal a big commitment, and what if I didn't like it??), so I was stumped. I slept on it, and Tyler came up with the winning idea in the morning. Styrofoam! So I went back to Home Depot and found a 4x8' styrofoam insulation board. PERFECT. It was more expensive ($12), but so worth it to me. I took the pictures and sheet off the drywall and transferred it over to the styrofoam.

Coming home with the styrofoam on top of our heads. Luckily styrofoam is light!

Arranging pics- again. Much easier the second time because I knew my dimensions already.

 When it came to pinning the pictures in, I made another change from the tutorial. I loved the idea of straight pins because that makes them so changeable, but all the straight pins I found were over an inch long, and the styrofoam is only 1/2 inch thick! I didn't want them sticking out. So I found shorter pins (3/4") at Hobby Lobby- called sequin pins, in the wearable art section. They were also cheaper than straight pins- win win! So I stuck them in at an angle and they totally disappeared.

Thanks to its light weight, I just nailed three brackets on the back of the styrofoam and three nails in the wall to hang it. SO EASY. I love it!!

Millie loves it too. I finished and hung it while she was napping, so when she woke up, she ran right over and started jabbering about the pictures. "Mama! Dada! Gigi! Wawa! Cookie!" and all the other things she saw. She's been spending lots of time on that couch, pointing and talking.

We love the board! I'm excited to change out pictures as we take more (not gonna lie, most of these are within the last couple months. We take a lot of pictures). Sometimes when I hang something up, I spend a lot of time looking at it because it's new and feels a little weird and I'm not 100% at first. With this, it just feels like it fits! So I look at it, but not because it's odd- because I enjoy it! Anyway, that's the story of our instawall. The end.