Life Changing

 

The title may be a bit exaggerated, but I was thinking of random things I have wanted to post about and it seems like the overriding theme of them all is that they have changed my life. Okay, only one really has (my great friends) but the others have definitely made my life awesome so I wanted to share!

Best.DI.Find.EVER. I love rocking chairs and have always wanted one. I came across this beauty at D.I. for 25 BONES! Are you kidding me?! Love at first sight. It is in awesome condition and extremely sturdy. And we were even able to shove it in the Accord without too much incident. Don’t worry, the gold grandma designs on it are just painted on so I plan on re-painting it at some point. Hopefully I will use it to rock my babies some day!

This is the only real life changer. I love these gals and always will. Shelley came to visit and her and Bre came over for dinner without their cute kiddos. I missed the kids but loved talking to them like we have since high school. It’s weird how much has changed in our lives but how exactly the same things are when we get together. I can’t believe how long we’ve been friends and they are amazing people and have truly changed my life. I love skyping with them too!

Another shout-out to Breanne for introducing me to Lemi Shine. My dishes have been looking pretty awful for quite a while now. They are grimy and have a film on them. I always end up re-washing them. I tried a few things but Lemi Shine was a game changer. No joke, this was incredible. My dishes looked brand new and I am so happy! I followed the directions (use without dishes first) and I will try to scale back and use the least amount as possible but wow, I am a happy camper now.

Along those same lines, I have been making and using my own laundry soap for a while now! I know it seems pretty hippie/granola/weird but I love it! I heard about it a while ago and dismissed it, but saw it again on a blog and decided to check into it. There are a lot of benefits including saving money and using less harmful chemicals.

The ingredients were all found at Walmart in the laundry aisle and I have made and used an entire batch and I can easily say that it does the job as well or better than Tide or Gain which I have used in the past. It cost about $8 for these and it lasts a while and then you just have to replace the Fels-Naptha which are only $1 per bar (the other ingredients will last forever). Here is how to make it:

1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
1 bar Fels-Napth soap (I’ve heard Ivory works as well)

The only hard part is grating the soap which takes forever unless you have an electric grater but it’s not a huge deal. Mix them together and use 1-2 tablespoons depending on the size and dirtiness of the load. I made one batch and I loved it so I’m going to make a triple batch which should last me several months. I feel hippie-ish doing it, but I love it!

I have mentioned perkstreet before and I really love it still so I wanted to share. I think everyone should go and get a perkstreet account IMMEDIATELY. Really. We first heard about it from Dave Ramsey and we have been using perkstreet exclusively since November. It’s an online bank (backed by the FDIC), and it’s not a credit card. You use the Mastercard for anything and everything and if you run it as credit, you will accumulate rewards and you get 2% back on EVERYTHING. Really, everything. When I say “you get 2% back”, you can get it back on a Mastercard giftcard which you can use anywhere you can use a Mastercard credit card. Groceries, gas, bills, shopping, etc! Sweet! We used it to pay Dan’s tuition which was awesome! We have earned over $600 back since we opened it in November!

It took a little while to switch over all our automatic bills to the new card, but most of our bills (except mortgage and few others) accept credit cards so we earn 2% on those. The only stipulation is that you have to have at least $5,000 in your account to get the 2%. But even if you don’t, you still get 1% back! Currently they only have a checking account, but they keep saying a savings account is coming very soon. I have my perkstreet account linked with my Zions Bank account so once in a while I can easily deposit checks to Zions and transfer money back and forth to perkstreet. We use our perstreet card everywhere and you can set a pin and run it as debit if need (but you don’t earn the 2% on debit). We set up direct deposit into perkstreet as well and it has been really awesome.

I HIGHLY recommend looking into getting a perkstreet bank account. It is a great idea and the people who work for perkstreet seem to be genuinely great people who want to encourage people to live within their means and avoid credit. There is also no annual fee or any fees unless you don’t use the card at all for a month (not a problem if it’s your “regular” card). They have a facebook page where they respond to questions within minutes and I’ve heard their customer service email and phone is also great. If anyone has any questions about it, let me know and I will be happy to answer them!

We are still really into Dave Ramsey and love his theories and overall philosophy about avoiding debt, saving money and living frugally and within your means. We are totally debt-free except our house and we’re working on building a comfortable 6 month emergency fund. Dave suggests waiting to contribute to your 401k until you have your emergency fund, but we are still each contributing a small amount to our 401k’s through our work because our company each has a good match that we’re taking advantage of.

I feel really strongly that people should take control of their finances, make a budget, and live within their means. Money isn’t everything, but having bills you can’t pay creates unnecessary problems and stress in your life. If you can avoid that, then why not? It’s hard to not get everything we want right now and not easy to drive old cars (harder for Dan in that department), but it’s so worth it to not have debt hanging over our heads and know that we have a good plan for our future. I also think that there are a lot of women who are completely uninvolved in financial decisions, budgets, etc and this is a huge mistake. I would die if something happened to Dan, but it’s important to think about the future and so many women wouldn’t be able to take care of themselves or their families if they lost their husband. This needs to change and women need to take control of their lives and become empowered by learning about their finances and making decisions for their futures. I’m not even going to get into the importance of getting an education but too many women rely on their husbands to always take care of them and this doesn’t always happen. You need to be prepared for any possibility and by sitting down with your spouse and discussing your budget, savings, and future financial plans is a great start. I also recommend looking into life insurance and making sure you have a term life insurance policy. Don’t just take your life for granted and think that it will never change. Being educated is the best way to be prepared for the future and the feeling of comfort that you have in knowing that you are financially secure and knowledgeable is priceless.

Sorry for my little rant there, but it’s something I feel strongly about and something I want to share! It’s obviously my opinion only and if you know me, you know that I have a lot of opinions  

Yellowstone

 

Every year, we go with Dan’s family to Yellowstone and his family has ALWAYS rented a teensy tiny cabin. It’s fun, but very crowded. Last year was pretty rough with all 29 of us and a few newborns! This year, his parents were great enough to rent a big cabin that fit our huge family much better. It was really nice to have a washer and dryer, multiple bathrooms, and 2 kitchens!

We stayed in Idaho Falls on Friday night at Mark & Carrie’s house. Then we all drove the rest of the way to the cabin in Island Park. Lissie, Alex and Brigham squeezed into our car and we had a good time on the drive up to Island Park.

This is a good picture of the great room in the cabin. There was a lot of room for all of us and with 13 kids age 9 and under, we needed a lot of room! The mosquitoes were absolutely horrible this year with all the water so we didn’t spend much time outside at all and we spent a lot of time killing mosquitoes in the house and reapplying bug spray!

The kids had fun eating on the deck even though the mosquitoes were swarming!

Dan and Ben posing with their nurf guns…the boys had some fun shooting each other and getting nurf darts everywhere.

We were quite the caravan while we drove around Yellowstone. 5 vehicles and tons of people…we took over everywhere we went but it was a blast! This was at lunch in Mammoth and the kids were enjoying their sandwiches on the grass. There are still 5 other grandkids not in this picture! Mia, Katelyn, Emmy, Lissie, Sarah, Wellyn, Addy and Brigham. Love these kids.

     Lissie, Ryan and Emmy checking out the geysers and hot pots.

Wellyn absolutely adores Addy and this picture proves it! He follows her around everywhere and just loves her. It’s really cute. Mia is showing me her blue tongue from eating an airhead!

  Dan and I chillin’ with Everett while we were waiting for Old Faithful to start. He loves his Lightning McQueen jammies so much he wouldn’t let Julie change his shirt! So he wore it all day. This is a funny picture of him too, he’s a sweetheart. 

Grandpa and Everett. Marty loves his family and especially his grandkids so much and they love him! He spoils them and is so sweet with them. The little boys especially love him and are always asking for Papa! Everett is also helping Amanda push Ryan in the stroller.

The fam set up for lunch near Old Faithful and grandpa handed out treats and ice cream sandwiches.      Enjoying the rocking chairs with ice cream sandwiches. I love Everett’s blue eyes and chocolately face!

      I’m such a lucky girl…I seriously love this boy!

  Addy showing off her cute sunglasses. Brigham was the only injury of the week and he sliced his shin open on one of the bedrames. Carrie had to take him to Idaho Falls and he ended up with 16 stitches! But he was back the next morning and ready to rock. What a stud.

 

Dan with the newest member of the family (Matt). Dan was making him laugh really hard and it was so cute!

Dan and I had to leave on Wednesday evening because he had to work on Thursday. But we had a blast with the family and enjoyed the cooler weather and just being outdoors in Yellowstone! We already have plans to go back with just the two of us over Labor Day to celebrate Dan’s graduation. He loves it up there and dreams about having cabin there someday!

Summertime

 

I have a lot of catch up to do…we had a fun 4th of July, we went to Yellowstone with the ENTIRE (29 people) family, and I have been finishing some projects I need to show everyone! But here are some pics of our 4th of July weekend.

Dan and I wanted to do something on the 2nd, but didn’t know what to do so we found out West Haven was having “West Haven Days” so we went on over there to check things out. It ended up being awesomely awesome with loads of crazy redneck/white trash people roaming around, and we had a blast! We love living in the “country” (at least it’s country to us), and some of the people really make it interesting! We at some gyros and watched a FREE rodeo! It was a really good rodeo too and we ended up staying for a good fireworks show at the end and meeting up with Jon and Julie.

On Sunday, we had our usual fast Sunday dinner at Dan’s parents house but we stayed late and did fireworks. We ended up getting into a HUGE water fight and we all got pretty soaked. It was really fun and felt great since it was soooo hot, but none of us had dry clothes to wear. Luckily, Debbie came through with her incredible Mumu collection and we all borrowed one for the evening.

I think we ended up liking them a little too much and all of us kept them on the whole night! It was freaking out our husbands a little because they kept thinking each of us was Debbie. Sweet.

Let’s play “Find Julie!” She is blending into the quilt…amazing camouflage in her Mumu.

I have a lot of cutie cute pictures of Mia. She loves to make this angry face and does it a lot, but she’s really a sweetheart and smiles and laughs a lot.

Mia’s popsicle face and Addy with her sparkler.

Grandma and Grandpa with Mia enjoying the fireworks show. Dan and Jon bought TONS of fireworks and had a little too much fun with the new laws about aerial fireworks. But it was great and we loved it.

These last two pictures are the epitome of summertime for me. My adorable niece and nephew (Everett and Mia), barefoot, eating popsicles. Seriously so precious.

Dresser makeover

 

I have seen a lot of really sweet dresser makeovers in blog-land and when we got our new TV several (like 10) months ago, I went back and forth about what I wanted to use as a TV stand. We thought about a fake fireplace, and a “real” TV stand but they were pricey and it would be a while before that happened. We have been using our old coffee table since we got the TV and I finally decided I wanted to make over a dresser to use like some of these I saw online:

I have scoured Craiglist and KSL for the past few months trying to find something that wasn’t huge or too pricey or in Provo (or somewhere too far away from us). Finally I found this beauty and got it home. Here she is before I got my hands on her:

And here she is now!

Here is our family room before the dresser with our old coffee table (also from KSL several years ago):

And now here is our family room with the newly made over dresser:

I also stenciled the top with a stencil I got at Hobby Lobby and I LOVE it. I used the same pearlescent craft paint I used to stencil our master bedroom wall here.

Here is a quick run-down of what I did:

1. I sanded the entire dresser with my electric sander. I just wanted to get the shine off so this didn’t take too long, but it was messy.
2. I filled in some cracks, the drawer handle holes and a swirly design on one of the drawers with wood putty. Then I re-sanded those areas.
3. Washed it down with a damp rag to remove the dust.
4. Sprayed the entire dresser and drawers with 3-4 light coats of KILZ primer.
5. Sanded the entire dresser and drawers lightly with a sanding block.
6. Wiped down the dresser with a damp rag.
7. Sprayed everything with several light coats of Rustoleum’s Heirloom White spray paint.

8. Stenciled design on top using craft paint and a stencil brush.
9. Sprayed everything with gloss enamel protective coat.
10. Put on new hardware
11. Removed one of the drawers to store our Blu-Ray and Cable box (I also drilled holes in the back for cords and venting).

I love the dresser and it fits really well in the room. With our darker couches, it brightens the room and there is tons of storage! We love it and it really wasn’t very difficult. Here is the cost breakdown (approximate):

-Dresser on KSL: $45
-3 cans KILZ primer: $12
-2 cans spray paint: $8
-1 can gloss paint: $4
-stencil: $10
-craft paint: free (leftover)
-hardware: $36

TOTAL: $115

It would have been much cheaper if I didn’t buy new hardware, but I love the look of it and that is still a great deal compared to buying one brand new. It’s a sturdy dresser and I’m sure I’ll do something similar for a future nursery/bedroom.

Wasatch Back 2011

Dan and I ran in the Wasatch Back last weekend and we had a great time! We did it for the first time last year and Dan also ran the Ragnar race in Las Vegas.

I have been running a lot this year and really enjoying it more than I ever have. I run with some women at work during our lunch breaks (before it finally got hot this week) and that has made it even more enjoyable.

It was mostly Dan’s family but my sister ran with us this year as well which was really fun. Dan and I were in separate vans but Steph and I were in the same van so we partied it up together. She is a great runner and did awesome.

The other people in our van was Julie (Dan’s sister), Joe (Dan’s brother), Tyson (Dan’s cousin), and Tyler (Tyson’s friend). We had a good time together and got really friendly really fast (that tends to happen with you’re in an SUV together for 30 hours).

I was a little worried about the weather because it has been so cold and there is still so much snow, but those 2 days were ideal for running. It got pretty frigid at night and we almost froze to death, but other than that, it was awesome! The temperatures were low and there was a nice breeze so it wasn’t too hot at all. Dan ran the “Ragnar Hill” up Guardsman’s Pass and there was several feet of snow that they had plowed just for the race!

What a crazy goofball. Joe is the tallest, skinniest person I know but that makes for a fast runner . He was a speedy gonzalez and even got this sweet sombrero and a free meal to Café Rio during one of his legs! The short shorts were hot too. Julie kept telling him to change them!

My sister is a hot mess and she just kept adding on clothes as the day went on…put sweats on over her skirt, then a jacket, the socks (but kept the flip flops), and finally the safety vest that you have to wear after 7:30pm. And her sunglasses broke so she decided to wear them like this. I was proud to have her and Joe as teammates. Hot mess.

This is me at the end of my last run down Heber Canyon which was beautiful. It was in the morning and the weather was awesome and I really enjoyed it. I knew there was a bit of a hill at the very end because I ran it last year, and I’m proud to say I ran the whole way up the hill (didn’t do it last year)!

Here is Steph finishing her last leg and handing off to Dan’s cousin, Tyson.

Showing off our medals at the finish line. We were exhausted and glad to be done!

The hardest part of the Wasatch Back is the lack of sleep. It’s hard to run, but it’s much harder running in the middle of the night, a few hours after your last run and doing it all without any sleep at all. I don’t do well without sleep and I can sleep anywhere at any time so I took advantage of my wonderful talent and I definitely got the most sleep out of our whole team! Being in van 1, we were able to have about 4 hours to sleep outside from 3-7am and I was out that whole time. Everyone else was too cold or uncomfortable, but I was fine! Then at the finish line while waiting for van 2 to finish, my sister and I zonked out on the grass for 3 more hours! It was heaven and definitely helped a lot.

The race was definitely a success and I am proud of myself and Danny for training and doing a good job. We had fun and will probably do it again next year. I have a few other races this summer that I am looking forward to and as long as I enjoy it, I will keep running!