The Many Faces of Turner........

What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon?

A few weeks ago we went to Torrey, UT for a family reunion. My grandpa retired in Torrey before he passed away and is now buried there. I love that place! So many childhood memories.

We camped with our family in an awesome campground that has a swimming pool, a park, a store, showers, and full hook-up's. It was my kind of camping for sure! We were able to pull our trailer for the first time since we got it last year and fixed it up. The trailer did GREAT and it was so nice to have our own place to sleep.

We had a few adventures along the way which included a blown truck tire, and my brother and I getting stranded on a mountain with no cell phone after his sand buggy broke down. Luckily we were saved by some nice bikers who let us use their cell phone.

Let the pictures roll:









Mmmmmmmmm....that squirt gun water must taste good. :)



Cute flowers near a waterfall we visited.





My niece Melissa fell out of my parents trailer and scraped up her face pretty good. Poor thing!



We visited a couple of different lakes for fishing. This was taken at Johnson lake near Fish lake. It was freezing cold up there and the wind was blowing like crazy so we didn't stay here long.



Since we are all super smart, we didn't bring jackets and quickly realized it was really cold. Thankfully my uncle Scott saved the day with Questar jackets he had stock piled in the back of his truck. There wasn't one small enough for Turner so he got to wear Melissa's extra pink jacket. There was some MAJOR convincing done to get him to wear that pink jacket. Lots of crying too.



Turner and Melissa





After we realized Johnson Lake wasn't happening, we headed up to Fish Lake where it was actually a lot warmer. We were able to stay and fish for a while and caught a lot.

a>





A HUGE thank you to my mom who watched the kid for us so we could fish.







And last but not least, a cheeser from Turner

For father's day weekend, we were able to go to Aurora and visit Justin's family. It was a really good trip! We love fishing and so we gathered up the family and went to a lake called Mill Meadow. With out boring you with all the details, I'll go ahead and post some pictures of our adventure.

Mill Meadow







Most of the group fishing...



This is the smile I usually get when I ask Turner to say cheese for the camera. He's always too busy to stop for a picture so he'll give this cheesy smile while continuing to do what he was in the process of doing.





The only way I can get him to look at the camera is if I yell something very shocking at him so he'll look my way. Right here I probably yelled something about how a moose just pooped on my head.




And here he is completely ignoring me. Those rocks sure were interesting.



Kenzie, Savanna, Sam, Amy, and Turner



Kassie and Emmett



Emmett



Justin loves fishing





And last but not least, let's not forget my very own catches. I heart fishing.

DIY Sunburst Mirror

I have wanted to make a sunburst mirror for a while now and finally had the chance thanks to repainting my entire living room. Almost all of my prior decorations won't match in the new living room, so I'm basically going to make all new decorations. Yay! Stay tuned to follow my journey of crafting and decorating. I'm so excited!

So to make this sunburst mirror you will need:

-Mirror
-Bamboo sticks
-glue gun with LOTS of hot glue
-spray paint (optional)

If you google "sunburst mirror", you will find a TON of different mirrors you can make. I was going for something that looked good and was cheap. I visited my FAV store Hobby Lobby and found a 10" mirror for $3.99 which makes up the center of this creation. A lot of other people out there went to Walmart and bought 14" bamboo sticks and that's what they used for the "burst" part. I was planning on doing this but then I remembered that I had this bamboo table runner that I bought a hundred years ago and never used. So I dug and dug and dug through our storage closet and found the runner. I clipped the strings that kinda tied the whole thing together and there were my sticks for the mirror. Yay! You can buy the bamboo sticks at Walmart for like .97 for 100. From what I read, if you go this route you'll want to buy 2 packs because some of the sticks are broken or can't be used. I think they're basically just bamboo skewers for bbq-ing.

First I used a ruler to mark and divide the back of my mirror into sections.



Then I layed the sticks out to figure out what pattern I wanted. After I figured out the pattern, I started gluing.



and gluing.........



Until I finished. Here is my final product. I absolutely LOVE how it turned out!



I quickly found a previous nail hole and stuck it up on the wall so I could take a picture but I'm not sure where it will end up. That's why it's not totally centered on the wall.



If you use the bamboo skewers from Walmart, you'll probably want to spray paint the sticks to the color you want. You do this after the mirror is all glued together then cover the mirror face with plastic wrap or press n' seal before you start painting it. Does that make sense? If not, google it. There are a ton of tutorials.

Happy gluing!

DIY air freshener

Check out this cute little DIY air freshener! I made two of these in about 2.3 seconds. Okay maybe it was a little longer than that but seriously they were fast and they smell soooooooo good!

Here's what you'll need:

-Small jar (I used baby food jars)
-Baking soda
-Scented essential oil (I used a lavender scent that I found at Hobby Lobby with the soap making supplies)
-Scrapbook paper
-Ribbon
-Hot glue/gun

I went in search for cute little jars and honestly ended up using a couple of baby food jars. They were cheap and practical. I even bought applesauce baby food and my 3 year old ate the applesauce today for a snack.

First you'll need to clean the jars and remove the labels (if you use baby food jars). Then you're going to fill your jar with the baking soda until it is about 1/3 full. Add a few drops of your scented essential oil. Depending on how large your jars are, you may need to add more or less. For my baby food jars, I only added about 5 drops of the oil. Then take a spoon and stir the oil into the soda. Top the lid with a little scrapbook paper and glue a ribbon around it to make it look nifty. Then poke holes in the top of the jar so the smell can escape and VOILA! You have a home made air freshener!

Do you ever get the urge to do a project? Like a big project? I get these urges frequently since I've been a SAHM (stay at home mom). Before I was a SAHM, I was an escrow officer for a local title company. It was a very (I repeat VERY) fast paced job. Very high stress as well. I think that some how my phsyche was changed by working this way day in and day out (sometimes until 11:00 at night).

Let's face it. I'm an addict for keeping myself busy. This can be good and bad. Trust me. My husband will agree. He usually just goes along with my ideas and lets me do what I want which is one of the reasons I love him. However, most of the time he gets dragged into my scheme and helps to calm the stressed- out -beast that has arisen from inside me. "WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF IN TO?" I will usually say. Just the other night as we lay in bed I said to him, "Why do I get myself into projects that are waaaaaay outside the realm of my capabilities?". He is so good to reassure me and keep me motivated. Thank you husband!! I love you!

Why am I talking about this you say? Well......the other day I was reading my friends blog. Her latest blog post was a DIY tutorial for how to paint your own wall paper. She included a picture of her finished wall and I drooled. All over my keyboard. Then I impulsively decided to do this paint-your-own-wallpaper thingy on my wall.

Before..........



See the ugly brown? I do. YUCK!! I was so sick of that gastly brown living room.

After.........





Ah! Now lets all take a breather and thank heaven (and my husband) that I made it through this one.

P.S. If you want to do this to your wall, go here. I did a couple of things differently to save time (and my sanity). First of all, I blew up the template so that it fit on four 8.5x11 papers taped together. Then I transfered the paper template on to a blank make-your-own stencil plastic paper stuff that I got at Hobby Lobby next to the stencils. Then traced in onto the wall with chalk, then painted. I measured the wall and marked it to make sure everything would be center first. That helped out alot. Good luck!

I need a nap.