Good Reads???

Okay, I got some really good movie suggestions. Now how 'bout some book suggestions. I'm looking to build my collection. I'm not real into Harry Potter or those sorts of books. Weird I know. But I'm open to most other suggestions.

PS, I'm already have an account on goodreads.com and occasionally peruse my friends books on there. But that is time consuming. I'm just looking for a few of your favorites to look into. :)

Missing

1 million cookie reward for his safe return.

So it begins. The life of the married, single mother. We rarely see Mike anymore. He leaves before we wake up and gets home just in time to eat dinner and go to bed. This morning he left his usual time, only he's on call, so we won't see him until tomorrow after we get home from church. I'm not looking forward to dealing with the kids on my own at church. BUT, I need to suck it up, because half my ward is Moms doing it alone while their husbands are over seas. I am grateful I'm not doing it alone every week. At least no yet.

Movie Recommendations???

My Queue list is getting a little short. But I'm a little out of it when it comes to movies. So if anyone has any family friendly movie recommendations that would be awesome! TIA :)

Hey There Dililah (I'm at the MTC)

It was no Richfield 4th of July...

But we still had lots of fun. We planned to go to a parade, but Mike had to work that morning and didn't end up getting home in time, and I didn't feel like battling with two kids in the hot sun by myself. That's assuming I would have found my way there without getting lost in the first place. So, instead I made sugar cookies and we frosted them. We did it the easy way. We just dipped them in swirled red, white and blue frosting for a very cool tie-dyed look.
Jacob had fun just making a mess.

And eating the frosting.

He wasn't real interested in the actual cookie. Lizzie on the other hand wasn't real interested in the frosting. She just wanted to eat the plain cookie. And she ate LOTS of them.

We saved some for Mike. He just ate the cookies as he dipped.
The tie-dyed cookies may just have to become a 4th of July tradition from here on out. They were fun to do.

In keeping with a Chidester tradition we dressed the kids up in 4th of July outfits. (Does that dress look familiar Colleen? Thanks again!)

Later Mike grilled us up some awesome steaks. They were so, so, so good.

Sunday night we made these...

Watermelon (virgin) margaritas. They would have gone perfectly with the steaks, but unfortunately I didn't think of it until the next day. I decided these too will be a 4th of July tradition from now on. They were so amazingly good. I like them even better than regular margaritas. And you know how much I love those. :)

Mike's weekend extended through today. So we decided to take a trip up to Raleigh and check things out. We spent most of the day at the mall. They had a fun little play area that the kids played on for HOURS! haha. They had so much fun. I actually did the driving. I was so proud of myself. :) And can I just say, NC drivers know how to drive!!! I felt like I was in Utah again. People actually reached 80mph speeds! It was awesome! It made me happy.

Wondering what to do with all those boxed up photos??

Well, wonder no more. I recently discovered that my friend Amber takes peoples boxed up photos, organizes them and puts them in to albums for you!! Such awesomeness. Now, all my photos that I've had packed away, with the intention of one day doing something with them, can now be displayed. haha. I will now be able to pull out my mission pictures and wedding photos and look at them in a nice album instead of having to juggle stacks of loose photos. She is also taking care of some of my digital photos. I have so many photo's on my computer. I may keep her in business single-handedly. haha. If you would be interested in having her take care of your boxed up photos and backed up digitals, let me know. SHE CAN HELP YOU!! And she does this service for a very reasonable price. Thanks Amber. Your a life saver. The end.

Almost There

I think I may almost be done. I have the kitchen, living room, bathrooms, and master bedroom ALL PUT TOGETHER, and CLEAN!!! The only room I need to work on now is the office. It's going to be a major project. It ended up being the catch all room. Anything that we didn't know what to do with we stuck in there. I need to figure out a place to store stuff. I hesitate to put anything out in the garage because of all the spiders. I have sprayed several times out there, and I am still finding them. Big ones and baby ones. I've killed two wolf spiders in there. Those suckers are just big, hairy and scary!! Not quite as frightening as huntsman spiders, but still pretty scary. I was hoping that after that pipe broke and flooded the garage that it would have washed them all away. But noooooo. They must know how to swim.



Anyhoo...I am now rewarding myself with some fun wall art for the living room. I think I have settled on this one. I'm very excited. Eventually I plan to purchase this cute little hutch. Only I will not be ruining it's cutenees by placing my ugly microwave on it. :) But that will have to wait another month or two.
The only thing that would make this funner is if I could rip down all the wall paper and paint. We have some pretty hideous wall paper in this place. Kinda makes me wish we would have bought instead of rented. One day, one day. :)