Pioneer Day Celebrations

This was my first Pioneer Day actually in Utah and our first holiday that Eric and I hosted! Eric's Grandparents and brother William came down for the whole weekend until Pioneer Day to celebrate. It had been a while since we has seem them...actually before Mia started fully walking so we were really happy they came to stay! Every day included some fun event and of course yummy food, all of which Eric and I made except for our trip to the Chocolate.

Eric's family came Saturday afternoon. After dinner we took them to the lake at Daybreak to enjoy the beautiful evening. Mia and William played in the sand and water while Eric and I kicked around a soccer ball and relaxed with his Grandparents. Then they took us out for dessert as previously mentioned to the Chocolate dessert cafe.

Sunday we made are usually rush to church in the morning, trying not to be too late. Since they released my teaching partner for my class of 8-9 year old boys Eric came with me this week and boy was I glad! There were 7 boys in my class that day including William who came to class with us. I've finally given into bribery with treats to get the boys to behave regardless of feeling guilty for what their parents will think about stuffing their kids with sweets. After church and Mia's nap we decided to pack dinner and take a drive up to Temple Square. William had never been and we've been wanting to enjoy a Sunday afternoon up there since we moved. Walking around Temple Square brought up a lot of memories when my Grandparents served their two missions there and we would go visit. 

Monday we took a trip to the Seven Peaks in Salt Lake. The boys and Mia went swimming while Eric's Grandma, LaRena and I sat and visited. In just my 3 years of being part of Eric's family I feel like I have learned so much from her! She is definitely an amazing example to me and I enjoy our chats. We came home and Eric and I made homemade pizza for dinner with banana boats in the grill for dessert!


Tuesday we celebrated Pioneer Day by driving up to Salt Lake again to go to the parade. I have never seen a "real" parade before with "real" floats and that lasted for longer then an hour. Even though it was a really hot day, we got a front row seat on the curb and we all enjoyed watching the parade. We had a BBQ that afternoon before Eric's family left to home. That night Eric and I sat on the back porch and watched the fireworks going off all over the valley while we roasted marshmallows. It was a beautiful sight and perfect location! 

The Square Top

May I just start off by acknowledging that this post is my 100th post on the blog and I'm just a few more views away from having 10,000 page views! So a big thanks to people who actually take interest enough to at least look at my pictures and want to keep up on our family! I've come to really enjoy blogging and documenting my thoughts, family events, crafts and pictures.

This week I got in the sewing mood and one morning decided to make Mia a shirt. I've been wanting to make this square shirt which I originally found on pinterest from a tutorial from Cotton and Curls blog. It looked super easy, but I wanted to try it out in a little smaller scale before I did mine.

Just as expected it was super easy and turned out really cute and minus a cranky kid this project would take less then an hour to make! My suggestion...make this!

Finally I got some smiles out of this girl on camera! I love capturing her fun personality!

Link up to: http://www.imtopsyturvy.com/category/link-parties/great-pinterest-challenge/

A Trip to the Library

One of the many things I love about where we live is having a library so close. It's just down the street and since moving here I got my first library card since moving away from home! (This was very exciting for me believe it or not haha.) I remember going to the library a lot when I was young, going to story-time and even when I got my first library card. I felt so special to have a card all of my own, like I could go to the library and have endless options for stories that would sweep me away as I read them. Who knew a library card could do that! Haha. Needless to say I love to read, but it was definitely  a love my mother helped nurture. My mom always encouraged us to read, especially in the summer when we were home all the time. When I would go stay at my Grandma Bohn's in the summer she had this reading chart of a tree and for every book Sara and I read we got to put a leaf sticker on the tree and when it was full we would get a have a little party with the three of us. Since then I have spent my summers catching up on all my "fun" reading that I normally don't get to do during the school year because I am reading text books.

Anyway, I want to instill my love for reading in Mia so off to the library we went. Mia actually has a ton of book that I bought all at once off KSL so I wouldn't have to read the same book to her day after day, but they are all still packed away until I get shelves to put them on in Mia's room so we've been checking out books for Mia at the library. I'm going to be honest in that this last trip to the library wasn't the "magical" experience I remembered them as a child (mostly because Mia is still so young and I tend to remember things how I want to rather then how it actually occurred). Instead Mia enjoyed pulling all the books off the shelves and climbing on the kids tables and when I would try to hold her hand to move along with me she would just fall on the floor and scream until I let go. Got to love toddlers! So I ended up carried her, a stack of books, my wallet and keys which was quite the handful! However, once we got home Mia wasn't so distracted with all the new things to see that we sat down for the next half hour and read the books we got.

Now she brings "Go Dog Go" up to me to read to her about 20 times a day, mingling the other books in between. So overall I would say it's a success not to mention I got to try out my new lense Eric got me for my birthday while taking these pictures!

Robertson Reunion

This last weekend we went down to Provo for my dad's family reunion. It was all of my Grandpa Robertson's sibling and their families. The reunion was actually up Hobble Creek canyon and included around 100 people. The best part of this reunion was getting to see my Aunts, Uncles and cousins. I grew up having family reunions every year when I was young with my dad's family and many good memories were made! We spend the evenings catching up with everyone while the kids played. It was another great weekend with the family. Here are a few pictures from the weekend!

This is my Dad's family with spouses

Just my Dad's family

How could I resist taking these cute pictures of Addi's smiles! Love that girl!

All the girls of the family. (This babies weren't sure why all our heads were smashed together)

At the reunion there were 4 sets of twins so of course we had to take a twin picture. Without planning Sara and I managed to wear similar things both days of the reunion. haha

Kitchen Crafting

As I mentioned in a previous post when my sister came and stayed for a week we did some serious crafting including doing some things for my kitchen. I wanted to bring a little color into the kitchen and some display pieces. Two things I love for kitchens in a country styled kitchen and china hutches. We weren't doing a complete kitchen make-over or anything, but I wanted to add some of the elements I like into the kitchen we have now so one day when I can have my "dream" kitchen (wishful thinking) I'll already have my inspiration pieces. So we started by looking on KSl for china hutches and found this one that was in great condition and wouldn't be hard to give an updating.

They were selling it for $50, but as I've learned people are always willing to come down in price if you just ask, especially if they really want to get rid of it. I ended up getting this hutch for $30 and we managed to fit it in the back of my car! Double score!

I really wanted to paint it a fun color to add a "pop" to my kitchen and make the hutch itself a display piece. We decided to take the easy route and spray paint it. We were educated on how to paint this from the blog All Things Thrifty. She writes great tutorials on painting and glazing furniture. So after 5 cans of primer and 5 cans of yellow spray paint, antiquing glaze, some new knobs from Hobby Lobby and some learning along the way this project was complete! Some things we learned that the best spray paint primer is the KILZ spray from Lowes. We started out with the Krylon spray primer because it was cheaper and it didn't cover nearly as well. We probably would have saved money if we just started out using the KILZ spray. We did use Krylon spray paint for the color which we got at Walmart and that worked perfectly after priming the hutch. The total for this hutch came out to be around $70!

We filled the hutch with things I had around the house. We also made the "EAT" sign that seems to be the craze for kitchen signs now. We just got these 4 pieces of wood, painted and distressed them, screwed the wood together and added painted chipboard letters. A total for $3 for the sign!

I still have a few little things I would like to do in the kitchen like hang an old window that I have with a wreath and would love to try refinishing a larger dining room table sometime too, but that will have to be down the road. For now here are some pictures of the whole kitchen.

These bar stools I also got after KSL for $50 for the 5 of them!

A big thanks to Sara for all her help! Can't wait to see what we come up with the next time she comes and stays! :)

A day at the beach

Ok, so we didn't really go to the beach considering we live in Utah, instead went to the lake at Daybreak Friday evening. We were really impressed with how nice everything is in that development. They have a man-made lake with sandy beaches, nice parks and beautiful homes surrounding it all. One of our favorite families, the Lord family, joined up for a picnic dinner (aka KFC) and playing in the sand and water. We love hanging out with the Lord's and the two girls are only 3 months apart and play really well together. They are actually moving up to Daybreak in August so I am really excited to have a friend so close by as I've been feeling a little left out with everyone being in Provo. Here are a few pictures from the evening!

The girls playing in the sand.

The cute miss Emma.

Look at what the girls built! Haha just kidding this was already here, but we were really impressed with these kid's hard work. There was even a garden to this "sand-city". Then Mia came and destroyed it!

It didn't take long for Mia to bee-line it to the water clothes, diaper and all. 

The Lord Family

Annual Robertson 4th of July

Most years since Eric and I have been together we have gone home for the 4th of July. We originally planned this year to stay in Utah and enjoy the festivities here since I have never done that, but everyone else was going home so we decided to go home as well so we could all be together for what I believe is the first holiday we've all been home.

The weather in Ely was beautiful...so beautiful that I got up in the mornings with my mom to go walking and we enjoyed every evening visiting on the back porch. There is nothing like the mornings and evenings in Ely with the peace and quiet and fresh air! By the second day in Ely Tyler, Annelise and Sophia came and Sophia and Mia played from then on until we left. Those two were so fun to watch play together. It was basically Mia following Sophia around where ever she went. It was the cutest to see them sitting together and they would just start looking and giggling back and forth at each other. They even enjoyed an afternoon in this kiddie pool my mom got while us women got some sun on our legs as we watched them.

Mom, Annelise and I also enjoyed some girl time by painting our toe nails for the 4th. Sophia of course already loves getting her nails painted, but when we decided to try it on Mia she acted as if we were torturing her. More evidence that I think we have a tom-boy on our hands! Sara, Collin and Addi arrived late Tuesday night so we had Wednesday to celebrate the 4th together as a family as well as my Grandpa Bohn and Grandpa and Grandma Robertson. It was so fun to have everyone there!

We started the 4th by going to the annual ward breakfast where they do a little program and serve cinnamon rolls and fruit. Then we went to Ely's 4th of July parade. To be honest I would never recommend just going to Ely's parades for the sake a seeing the parade, but more for having fun with the family as well as seeing the kids enjoy it. Mia clapped and pointed as all the floats and cars went by and enjoyed some candy that was thrown.

We had the three girls in there adorable matching outfits and had to snap some pictures of them all together.

I love this one of Grandma with her Grand-babies (even if the girls weren't exactly cooperating!)

After the parade we had our annual BBQ with all the yummy food we only ever seem to eat on the 4th of July. We changed in up a little this year by setting up a table on the back porch and actually sitting around a table instead of doing it buffet style and all sitting where ever there is a chair. Annelise and I got a little creative with the table settings to make it more festive. The rest of the afternoon was spend enjoying the weather outside, the girls playing with Grandpa on the swing set, visiting and eating food until we couldn't possibly eat any more!

The Grillers

Since Eric had testing for work the next day we heading home that night so we missed the fireworks, but we were able to see all there different fireworks going off across the city on our way into town which was fun to see. We had such a fun time with everyone! It's made me see how crazy it's going to get once we all have more kids, but also excited for when all the cousins can play together!