New Summer "Do"

Allison decided that she needed a change and that her hair was just getting way too long. So we gave Lauren a call and wah-lah! Here is her new look. She got about 5 inches cut off and Lauren put in a few highlights for a sun-kissed look for the summer. Allison is in heaven and having fun doing her own hair, for the first time ever, finally! (I know it looks like she went out and got a tan too, but she didn't. It must have been the lighting).

Princess Bows

I have been doing hairbows as my little home business for 11 years this month and I have never taken a picture of me doing them until now! Anyway, here are a few pictures of me putting together my latest order.

Here I am putting on barrettes after spending several days making the bows. This is the fun part.
Sorting through the piles of bows to put them on cards and box them up.
Here is an order all boxed up and ready to ship.

It has been such a blessing through the years to be able to have a second income (kind of) and still be able to be home with my kids and not miss a thing. I can even do them on long car trips! When I first had Allison, a good friend of mine used to make bows and I would go to her and have her make one for each outifit for my little princess (hence the name Princess Bows). Soon after, she moved out of state to be a nanny and I was beside myself as to what I would do for custom made hairbows for my baby. I was also looking for a way to supplement our income. I had quit my fulltime job at WordPerfect soon after Jake was born. I had been doing daycare to help pay the bills since then, but it was not my cup of tea at all! So I had Elisa teach me how to make bows before she left (mainly for Allison) and then I thought to approach the store that she had been supplying, but was now leaving behind. I got an order immediately from the Lindon Kid to Kid. I was so excited! That is, until I went home and realized that there was no way that I could possible fill the order! I was not experienced enough to put together so many bows. I was seriously freaking out and in tears. I was about to call them and say, "Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking..." when Brendan was so great to encourage me and help me to do it all. Yes, he helped me make bows...other than giving birth, there is absolutely NOTHING that he can't do. But that is a whole other post. I LOVE MY SWEETIE! Anyway, long story short, I did my first order and it took me about two weeks. Now I could do it in about 2-3days. I remember my fingers and hands hurt so bad at first that I could barely turn a doorknob! I don't know if it's a good thing or a sad thing that I can do them with my eyes practically closed now. I have stayed up late many times and have made many bows half asleep. I ended up getting business from most of the Kid to Kid stores in the franchise which at one point kept me extremely busy! If it wasn't for the help of my mom and my old neighbor Michele (she's not old, she just moved :), I would have never survived! Sometimes I have been so busy that I get a little stir crazy sitting in front of my card table doing bows day after day after day. There is only so much TV I can stand! But it's kind of sad that my bow business has really been dwindling lately. There is just a lot of change in ownership in all of my stores and the competition is a lot harder to keep up with. It's been an adjustment to try to live on one income again, but we'll figure it out. Brendan and I are resourceful and have always been blessed to make ends meet. I hope to be able to keep it up enough that I can hand it down to Allison when she enters the stage in life where her little princes and princesses need her at home with them. It's been a long hard road sometimes full of its own problems and pains, but it has also been one of the biggest blessings in our family. I'm not ready to go back to the real world's workplace even though my kids are all older now. It seems that they need me more now than when they were little and I'm not ready to leave them either. But I'm always at my best when I have a million things going on so I'm sure I will find my next project or adventure before too long.

My little chef

Ok, he's not so little anymore, but he's still my little Jakers. I love that Jake always wants to help me in the kitchen whether I'm baking cookies or making tacos. He's always there eager to learn and ready to do whatever. He's going to have a very happy wife someday! So last Sunday I decided to try cinnamon rolls again. I only do them once or twice a year because they are so much work and usually don't turn out very good. Jake was there ready to volunteer. Using the floss to cut them was a first for him and he thought I was kidding when I showed him how to use it. He pretty much did the whole thing by himself with just a little guidance from me on the sidelines. They were fantastic!

Here we go...

This is from Brendan...

Leslie opened the newspaper Thursday, turned to the sports page and was greeted by this picture of Jordan at football practice. He's been doing great and will most likely be the starting quarterback this year. He will also play safety on the defense and even receiver sometimes. He's been looking forward to this year for a long time and is very hopeful for a good season. I told him Thursday night to be ready for the onslaught from the local newspaper. They will print good and bad about him this season. He needs to have a thick skin and just concentrate on doing his best, not worrying about what some reporter thinks. Here we go, this is the start of it. It's a cool little article about student athletes still working hard at school, practicing their sports over the summer. Football season starts when school gets out for us. Jordan lifts weights Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday's at 7am and he walks through offensive plays, watches film, and runs Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:30 to 9pm. On Saturdays he has 7 on 7 tournaments at every major college in the State and football camp in July. He'll also be running a football camp for the youth football program with some of the other seniors (It's very weird calling him a "senior"). Working at the car wash and going out with friends are how he fills the rest of his time. What a busy kid. We NEVER see him anymore. But what a FUN time of life he is in. Enjoy it Jordan, it will be over before you know it.

Family Preparedness

After weeks of preparation and planning, we were finally able to come together as a family to assemble our 72 hour kits. We live in such an amazing neighborhood and I was inspired by a goal that we set as friends to get our supplies and get ready! I thought we kind of had ones already only to discover that the only thing I was able to salvage from them were a few toothbrushes and combs. Why would anyone have a can of "potted meat product" in their kits. I wouldn't have fed our nasty stuff to a dog! Obviously it was time to re-do them after 10 years or so...even our lotion was spoiled. I won't let that happen again. I now have a plan and real stuff! I spent several days researching and organizing what we needed, where to buy it, what to do with it, how to rotate it, and how to pay for it. I won't go into the long story, but let me just say that our Heavenly Father really blessed us to do this. We have been really tight lately in the finance department, but miracles fell into place to allow this to happen. It was wonderful!
I could have just assembled each person's backback, but I felt that it was important that everyone do their own so they know exactly what's in it, what it's all for, and how to use it. I labeled plastic ziploc bags of different sizes with all of it's contents and then each person filled them up.

It was actually kind of fun! Jake said that it felt like Christmas. They were especially excited when I showed them the rotation schedule and when they get to eat the food that we put away so that it stays fresh. I know it's meant to sustain us for 72 hours, but in "real life" it's just a few snacks that will be devoured in a day!
I told them that even though it's kind of fun to do this and it was a lot of work to put it all together, I hope that we NEVER have to use any of it.

Yikes!

Last Friday night was our ward's father and sons campout. Jake had been looking forward to it all week! He was packed and ready to go when Brendan got home from work (it's just kind of an unspoken fact that Jordan has football all summer and won't be at many family events.) So they packed up the car, headed for KFC to pick up dinner and went to join in on the fun. Allison and I were having a girls night and reading together in my bed when we heard commotion downstairs at about 11:00 pm. Jake ran up the stairs and ran straight to his bathroom to wash up. Brendan was getting some Benadryl and came up to tell us that Jake was sufferring from a major allergic reaction to the grasses and pollen at the campground. He had been playing night games for hours in the fields and had been rubbing his eyes which made them even worse. They were so swollen that he could barely open them. Thank goodness the campout was just five minutes from home. I told Jake that he looked like Rocky Balboa after a fight! He could hardly see himself in the mirror and asked me to take a picture. Even in the deepest despair, boys just love to see their battle wounds, don't they? The picture doesn't show how bad he really looked. He washed up, took out his contacts, took his medicine and they were off again. He wasn't about to let a little thing like eyes swollen shut prevent him from missing out on the campout of the year!

Flashback or Flashdance?

Allison's 6th grade group did their dance festival routine to "The Evolution of Dance" which was made popular on You Tube. Anyway, they asked the kids to dress in clothes from the 50's, 60', 70's or 80's! Of course Allison "forgot" to show me the paper with all the details. She remembered to tell me about it literally 15 minutes before she was walking out the door to school that morning! She didn't want to wear her 50's costume because she had just worn it for the music program. So I started racking my brain and remembered that I had a box of all my old dance clothes from high school at the bottom of my closet somewhere. We ran up the stairs and tore through the boxes until we found it. You can't get more authentic than REAL 80's clothes. I found an old headband, leg warmers, parachute pants, and off the shoulder leotard. She was cracking up at the thought of people actually doing their hair in a high side ponytail. I went on many dates with my hair like that. SAD! I didn't have the "flashdance" sweatshirt so we found an old sweatshirt of Allison's that she never wears and put the scissors in action! Wa-la! Instant 80's outfit in 10 minutes! Another "Whew" moment --done! The only things we were missing were the Reebok high tops and big plastic earrings! I was so busy video taping the dance that I wasn't able to do pictures too. I got a few afterwards inside the school. Oh what we moms do to capture these memories!