I realize I have failed at blogging lately. The sad thing is, I LOVE blogging. I love thinking about our days and looking at my pictures. I just can't find the time or energy to do it lately. So, for now, I am taking a blogging break. I hope to return soon.

Soelberg Fall Break

My sister's family came to town for their Fall Break. We had SO much fun! More details will follow...but I wanted to get this picture up for our mummy. We missed Josh and Dana's family and Nana and Papa!!!

Ali's Band Performance at Contest of Champions

Hobby Lobby, Home Depot, Fall Party and Friday Night Lights

Friday brought even more fun. Ali and Luke announced that they HAD to go to school. Really? I understood the high schooler needing to be in school. But the fourth grader? Ok, so, he had a fall party. In the long run, Kat was the only kiddo that decided to play hooky with us!

Sara brought a fabulous idea for a fabulous picture frame she wanted Matt and Joe to make. So, after five hours at work, we swept in and kidnapped Matt :) Don’t forget, we had an awesome 7^th grader home with the younger cousins. Man, that was a stroke of genius on my part!

So, off to Home Depot the adults went. I guess somewhere during the morning Sara and I decided to make a little stop at Hobby Lobby. As we walked into Hobby Lobby, Joe announced that he felt a little duped. He was sure he heard us say Home Depot not Hobby Lobby!

After Hobby Lobby and Home Depot, we grabbed a quick bite to eat. Joe is in a MBA program at Kelly School of Business. So, we were happy to have him each moment we could. After lunch Joe was into a conference call and Matt and I ran to Luke’s Fall party.

Is Luke not the cutest fourth grader?

After a Sorensen family dinner of Aunt Naomi's Linguini and Grandpa Sorensen's Pistachio Salad, we bundled up and headed to the football game Ali was marching in. Sara lies about how cold it was. Seriously. Wasn't she raised in Utah and Idaho??

We were the visiting team. But, we wanted to be able to Ali's band AND there weren't seats left on the visiting side, so we were stuck with the home fans. I guess our school had deemed the evening a tribute to Breast Cancer Awareness. Partway through the game Sara noticed a peculiar sign hanging from our high school's stands. I didn't believe her. So, we each took pictures of it and enlarged them with our cameras. If you click on the picture below, you can see the sign that Franklin High was displaying. Pay special attention to the black and pink sign in the far right hand corner!

Sara and Libby. See? It isn't even that cold looking, is it?

My sister and her sweetheart, Joe. They are so stinking cute together! It made my heart so happy to hear them talk and laugh together.

Libby had the best seat in the house to watch Ali perform.

Jenna Dear wearing a pink and white hat. When we married Matt, it was HIS hat. But, we informed him it was NOT a boy hat. So, only girls wear it now :)

Aside from what I thought was a slightly disrespectful police officer, we all had a delightful, freeze your butt off night. (You may insert your own "ta-ta" joke here :))

Trunk or Treat

Thursday morning I awoke with great excitement. My sister and her family were coming to town! And just in-time for our church's Trunk or Treat. But first, there were beds that needed clean sheets, Friday dinner to prepare and a volunteer shift at the high school to serve. Not to mention running club and band. We were foregoing soccer for the big occasion.

Mrs. Weasley, Snape, Hermione (Holy Hermione!!) and a Hungarian Horntail beat me to the church! I was so happy to see their smiling faces. Aren't they adorable? They love Halloween ALMOST as much as the love Harry Potter. Much to my sister's dismay, I don't like either. For them to come to my house on their favorite holiday of the year was amazing!

Even though the cousins aren't together all that often, they always act like not a moment has past.

Introducing the boring Halloween couple of the night!

I thought the colors in this pictures were awesome!

Are these not the cutest little Halloween cousins?!?!?

This is Matt...

...but we call him Matthew.

Yesterday we took family pictures. If you look family pictures up in the dictionary, it will say, "a period of time in which you pay someone to torture you and your loved ones." Scouts honor :) Matt had a meeting that was scheduled to go a little long into the afternoon, so the kids and I met with the photographer and got started on their pictures before Matt arrived. Luke was a little crazy the whole photo shoot, but much crazier in the period of time before Matt got there. When I saw Matt walking down the long sidewalk toward us, I turned to Luke and said, "There is Matt!" Luke jumped down off the structure he was currently climbing and ran full speed ahead. When Luke got remotely close to Matt, he launched himself into Matt's arms. Luckily Matt has gotten used to this action and caught Luke in mid-air and threw him over his shoulder.

I counted my blessings as my two boys walked toward me. As Luke held Matt's hand, he introduced Matt to the photographer with, "This is Matt, but we call him Matthew."

I can't imagine our lives without Matthew. He has cared for and nurtured each of the children. They love and adore him. They tease him relentlessly. Nine times out of ten they will call or text him before they will call or text me. He talks to them. He listens to them. He offers his full, unconditional love to them. They have blossomed with his love and attention.

This is Matt. But we call him Matthew.

Dining Room

We are slowly getting our new home just the way we like it. Our current project is our dining room. We finally decided on paint colors a few weeks ago and started painting. Sadly, a couple hours into painting the walls I fell off the ladder. Talk about pain. I just realized if you add a "t" to pain it becomes paint. Rather interesting, don't you think?

Well, the walls are painted. Now what? Who wants to come help me do the rest of the decorating. Please, no ladders! I am finally able to breath, cough and sneeze without crying!

Above is the very corner I fell. Matt says it was a 4 or 5 foot fall. I landed on my left side, on top of the metal ladder.

We are currently undecided on the table cloth. I actually want a pink one...but not sure how that would work out.
The flowers are from my dear, dear friend Keeley. I love her!

Happy Birthday, Kat!

Happy birthday to the spunkiest thirteen-year-old I have the pleasure of knowing! She has a laugh and smile that is contagious. She tackles life with a determination that is unparalleled.

Kat recently decided she wanted the fourth generation iTouch. She crunched the numbers. If she took all her saved fun money and sold her current iTouch, she could buy the 8 GB fourth generation. So, we listed her iTouch on ebay. No buyers. We lowered the price and it sold. Well, the buyer ended up not following thru with the sale. So, she sold it to her brother. Don't worry, Matt and I brokered the deal. Signed contract and all. Hurray!

Matt and I decided our birthday gift to her would be to surprise her and make up the difference for her to be able to step up to the 32 GB. We know she is going to take scads of pictures and video. We worried she would fill up a 8 GB in no time. So, yesterday I asked a friend to pick up the iTouch for us from Costco. Last night Matt got it all charged and set up with her apps and music from her old iTouch. I wrapped it. We planned to give it to her sometime today. Sometime when we thought it would be perfect timing. Well, the iTouch decided when it wanted to be given...when her daily alarm went off at 5:45 this morning! When Matt transfer everything from the old iTouch to the new one, the alarm when right along with it. So, at 5:45 this morning, her present lit up, started vibrating and singing!!! We hurriedly gathered the family, sang happy birthday over the ruckus and had her turn it off!!! We didn't even get any pictures in those crazy moments!

All in all, it was a surprise!!

Kat, thanx for being part of our family. We love you!

Trunk or Treat

Thursday morning I awoke with great excitement. My sister and her family were coming to town! And just in-time for our church's Trunk or Treat. But first, there were beds that needed clean sheets, Friday dinner to prepare and a volunteer shift at the high school to serve. Not to mention running club and band. We were foregoing soccer for the big occasion.

Wedding Pictures

I am starting to work on an album of our wedding pictures...yea, me!! Hopefully y'all won't get tired of seeing my scrapping pages as I am a little addicted.

Today is a half-day at school. Seriously people. What a waste. The kids barely get to school and I barely get something done before you put them back on the bus! Kat is going home with a friend and Luke is bringing a friend home. Ali will come home for a bit before returning for three hours of band.

Happy 1/2 day to you!!!

Soccer Season

We finally got Luke signed up for soccer. Seriously, it was crazy with the time we moved here and all. But, he is on a great little team with mostly boys from his school. He L*O*V*E*S it!! Ali went to his last game and almost started crying she misses it so much. She just can't do everything she wants to do.

Garage Sale-ing

We live in a planned community. Lots of rules and such. One rule is there will only be garage sales twice a year...on two designated Saturdays of the year. We L*O*V*E garage sales. Why? Personally I love a good deal and it is just fun to go around and see other people houses...and crap!

On the weekend of the last garage sale in Fieldstone Farms, we were moving from our rental house to our very own house. I would not recommend trying to move on garage sale weekend. There are multiple reasons for this. The number one reason is your husband doesn't really want to load up your garage sale purchases along with all the rest of the stuff in your house. But, if he is like my husband, he is happy to do it anyway. But, why torture the poor guy? The second reason not to move on garage sale weekend is that people assume everything you are loading up is FOR SALE. Darling Kat finally got so tired of telling people we were NOT having a garage sale that she posted this sign:

The third, and final reason to not move on garage sale weekend is that there are cars everywhere and it is hard to navigate trucks, trailers, vans and cars full of stuff through all the craziness!

Ok, back to this past Saturday's sales. Kat was with a friend and Ali was already at band. So, it was just my boys and me off to find great finds. This time was a little disappointing. There weren't a whole lot of good things and a lot of stuff was SO over priced it wasn't even funny. We did end up with a few treasures and I thought I would share them all!

This lovely skirt is from Talbot's. It is made from Italian silk. We bought it for Ali, but surprisingly, she doesn't like it. It is a size 2. If it were only 2 inches longer I could adopt it! It was only 50 cents.

Hands down, the best single garage sale was Franklin High School's Project Graduation. This group of moms, Project Graduation, spends all year raising money for a huge party after graduation. Ugg. I am not looking forward to Ali graduating in a few years. Here are the finds from that sale:

1. 19 pairs of socks for Luke that cost us 75 cents. I was questioning Matt as to whether to buy one bag or two. He told me to go for two since we seem to go thru socks so much. I asked him if I was supposed to WASH the socks or just throw them away :) I remember my mom telling me about when my cousin got married. Before they got married, her husband had just been throwing his underwear away opposed to washing it! I guess Matt caught me and now I have to wash stuff!2. We bought two book there for a dime each. We got this great Webelos book. Luke is now a Webelos. Where does time go?!?!? Luke also got Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. They are reading it in school and he wanted to get ahead!

3. Eight pizza pan so we can make personal pan pizzas. How fun will that be?!?!? Anyone want to come do it for me?

4. Franklin Athletics shorts. We bought these for Ali, since she runs track for Franklin. But, she doesn't like them. Luke wore them all day yesterday.

Wasn't that a great garage sale? Good stuff and good prices!

This is just a little toy Luke had to have. It is very easy to get the ball into the cup...you just pick up and ball and place it inside the cup. See? Easy!

My favorite purchase is below. It is a cat toy. I thought Oliver would be SO excited. Well, he was about as excited for his purchases as Ali was for hers. The cat toy is lined with something that makes crinkling noise. I thought he would go crazy. Well, he climbed into it and laid down. Then, he never looked at it again. I was so sad :(

With soccer and band, we always seem to need BIG water containers. 50 cents.

And an old time, metal edge ruler. Seriously people. What is up with the stupid, crappy, plastic rulers?!?!? These rulers can actually make a straight line!

We also acquired two camping/soccer chairs for $5 and the book Uglies. I can never seem to get my hands on that book at the library! All in all, aside from getting really tired and really hungry, we had a great time! Thanx Fieldstone Farms!

Chihuly Nights

Our Relief Society Sisters enjoyed an evening at Cheekwood for Chihuly Nights. The weather was perfect and the company delightful. I wish Matt could have been there. He would have loved it. One sister was pushing her mom around in a wheelchair. I told her to let me know if she needed any help because I am a professional wheelchair pusher. She wanted to know what qualified me to be "professional." Ha ha. It was pretty funny!

These are a few pictures I took. I realized, after I got home and looking at the pictures, that my filter was spotty! It has since been cleaned...no worries!

Darling...

...just so you know, this is our schedule for this afternoon!

11:00-1:00 Sunni volunteers at the high school
1:30-3:30 Sunni volunteers at the elementary school
2:37 Ali gets out of school
3:00 Ali has flute lessons
2:56 Kat gets home
3:30 Ali has march band
3:30 Luke has running club
4:00 Luke finishes running club
5:00 Luke has soccer practice
5:15 Kat reports to play in the band for the jr high football game
5:30 Ali finishes band
6:30 Luke finishes soccer
7:00 Luke has Cubs--where he will be awarded his Bear
Ali and I have YW
(Have we figured out how to be in 3 places at 1 time?!?)
7:30 Kat finishes at the football game
8:00 Cubs and YW finish
9:37 You and I can fall into bed...dead or alive yet to be determined!

Got it? Good!!!

Digital Scrapbooking

I currently have a new love...sorry Matthew! I have started dabbling in digital scrapbooking. It is pretty fun! Here are a couple of my first pages.

Sabbatical from Blogging

For the past 100 weeks, ok, only 6, I have been sick. I was sick before school started and parent teacher conferences are now upon us. See, I was sick forever. I am happy to report I am beginning to feel better and think I might live. So, I will try to get back to blogging and interacting with the world outside my bedroom!

Rocket Launch

For Luke's birthday last year, we gave him a rocket. He and Matt worked on it for many weekends. And then we spent MANY months trying to launch the thing! It may not be a NASA rocket, but the weather conditions still need to cooperate AND most importantly the family schedule needs to cooperate! Finally last Saturday the stars were aligned.

We went to the parking lot at Matt's work. This way Matt and Luke would be able to make any last minute improvements to the beloved rocket. If you have never launched on of these rockets, let me just tell you how FAST it all happens: itt happens very, very fast!!! I was lucky to capture the picture of the smoke of the launch :)

We had two successful launches. The rocket is still in one piece. Afterwards Matt commented that he was surprised that the rocket wasn't ruined on impact with the ground. I asked him if he had told Luke the rocket might not survive. When he responded that he had not, Luke piped in with, "Well, that is just mean." But, it was very funny!

We are glad the rocket lived to see another launch. Maybe we can do it in slow motion for mom?!?!?






In theatre, after a production is over, they have something called a postmortem. This is the time they talk about what went right and what went wrong. I believe these last two pictures are Matt and Luke having their postmortem. Aren't they darling?