Doh!

We did manage to change out of our pajamas this week, I swear.

We have kept the craft room open and in use off an on all week, I think we'll just keep everything out all summer. It's been fun to be stickering and glittering. Yesterday, the kids found play dough in the craft supplies and they pulled out the bag of vintage cookie cutters I have and spent two hours playing with play dough.

These are teenagers we're talking about, teenagers who also have access to four big game systems and Nintendo DS games as well as i pods, the internet, Netflix and Cable TV.

They chose play dough.

Very cute.

The girls made memory boxes to keep momentos and ticket stubs fromthe things they see and do while they are here.

I finished three more layouts.

Just simple layouts, getting my feet wet again.

I am in love with this photography themed paper line from Die Cuts With a View. They use to be our biggest competitors when I worked at Deluxe Designs. I guess they won the day because they are still making cute stuff and Deluxe has been gone for years.

 I still think we had nicer people in our company. ;)

I remember one of the reasons I stopped scrapbooking though and it's because I feel like my layouts all look the same. I have a handful of techniques I always seem to use, a handful of design elements that always appear no matter how much I try to change it up. The layouts look just fine, but to me, they all look like different versions of the same five designs and I need to find some inspiration to change it up and leave my comfort zone there. I think I'm going to register for an online class and see if they can't help me stop using my 'formula.'

If I'm going to get back into the craft, I want to feel like I'm making pages that I'm not just happy with, but that I feel show a higher level of technique and creativity. I need to change things up.

Matt is taking the girls into the city today, I'm staying home with Grey.

 He hates the city and we have to choose the times we drag him out carefully. They are going to go and check out the Brooklyn Museum and see if it's a place that we could take him to in the future and not have him shut down.

I also need a little bit of a break from all of the noise to just catch up on some house cleaning and make sure Zane's room is void of any evidence that we totally let people sleep in there while he was gone.

Crafty

After three days of too much, we're all taking a break for the rest of the week.

We also went to Hershey's Chocolate World and the shore last weekend and we're all pretty pooped.

Matt went to work and I declared it "craft day" yesterday. Nobody had to get dressed, we ate cold cereal and chips and watched some movies and got glue and paint under our nails.

I had seen this project on Pinterest:

DIY blue jars.

It was crazy easy and the results are nice.

There were a lot of different ways to do it, but I chose the project that only required food coloring and modge podge, since my jars were not going to be used to hold anything but sunlight.

You just mix some water, modge podge and a little green and blue food coloring, then you paint either the inside or outside of the jar.

I painted the inside and let it dry.

Some people who do this project complained that it looked streaky. I think they were just using too much goop at once. I coated the jar pretty thoroughly and didn't have any issues with drips or streaks.

I didn't go as dark as some of the ones on Pinterest, I only wanted a light tint to my glass. If I had wanted it darker, I only needed to apply another thin coat of goop after the first one dried.

I think they look very pretty.

It took me entirely too long to finish this simple scrapbook page, but I haven't done any scrapbooking in almost 2 years. I have a great craft area in this house and I'm hoping to get back into it, but I'm rusty.

The big gift Romy asked for?

A "pack-it."

She falls in love with some of the weird stuff she sees on infomercials and has always had a weakness for weird ways to bring lunch to school. This one has the gel packs sewn inside. She got some cute clothes and even a video game, but the "pack it" was clearly the biggest hit.

She'll use it once, mark my words.

I also finished a gift album that I've been trying to finish for months, I'll post pictures after it's been given to the person I made it for.

Times Square With the Teenagers

On Friday, Emma, Kate and Jane flew up from SLC to spend the rest of the summer.

They will be back for UEA weekend, Christmas and Spring Break this year so we'll have lots of time to do some city exploring before Emma graduates high school next spring and spending time together will probably be more difficult.

We've done so much this weekend, I'm going to split it into a few posts.

 I'm also going to do that because everybody looooooves when you extend the "look at pictures from my vacation" experience.

 Times Square

 Some day, Kate, it will be you on the marquee

 This is the closest thing I've seen to famous-land since we've moved.

It's the totally NOT famous for anything Korilla Food Truck.

They were on a TV show, competing in The Great Food Truck Race.

Not famous, but it's not like I'm bumping into Katie Holmes and Donald Trump out here.

For a Food Network Nerdie like myself, it was still cool to see people I watched on TV. It's not anywhere near as awesome as when Tom Coliccio was catching the same train as us in Washington DC, but it made me smile.

We'll always have the subway...

I didn't go to the truck though because I wasn't hungry and I wasn't going to go up there and say "hi, I saw you get kicked off your show for cheating on TV. Smile for a picture?"

I think the girls had a great time in the city. We've got some museum trips planned and I got tickets to see Evita with Ricky Martin next week.

I don't care what you say, I still love him and Evita has been one of my favorites forever.

After three days of sightseeing,  we are taking a break and doing a pajamas/craft day today.

Glitter will be spilled and photographs will be hacked as I sit and chatter with my girls while Greyson ignores us and plays video games.

Three cheers for craft day!

Happy Birthdays

Happy Birthday to my adorable husband.

cards from Grandma  H. as well as Mom & Dad O

I love you so very much and I still can't believe I'm married to such a hot guy.

My wildest dreams from the time I was young did not come close to the feelings I have about you and how much I love you and our relationship.

Happy Birthday, Schmoop.

Matt's ipod was stolen when our cars were broken into last April, so this is going to help a lot during his new, pain in the butt commute.

Also, Happy Birthday to my little firework, Romy.

You aren't here right now, and I miss you.

I'm so glad I decided to go ahead and 'try for a girl' after your three brothers had filled the house with Pokemon and Power Rangers.

Being your mom is a joy and I'm just too lucky.

For Matt's birthday, I didn't want to heat up the whole house to bake a cake, and there are only two of us here today anyway, so I made a pie.

Every type of pie I wanted to make I was missing one ingredient for and Matt has my car today, so I looked at what I did have and invented my own pie. I think it's going to be yummy.

It's an Oreo cookie crust butterscotch cream with chocolate ganache and salty pretzel crumble pie.

"Pantry Pie."

If it's good, I'll post the recipe.

 If it's gross, we'll just pretend this never happened.

My Review of the Temple, post-sedative

I started this pose much more lucid than I am now, but my body isn't quite ready to give in to my sleeping medicine just yet.

I may need to delete this post in the morning based on whatever random weirdness I post.

Fair warning.

I had nowhere to go but up from yesterday....

Matt had the day off today and we took a bus to the city. I've been feeling a little bit sick of the city, to be honest but part of the thing I hate is the driving/parking situation. We decided to see if the bus was a good option, as we were told there was one that picks up locally and will take you all the way to the PATH station near Times Square.

For $6.50 one can go to the city from our town and not worry about driving, honking, merging, being killed or finding a parking spot and then paying 40 bucks for it.

I think I have found my new primary way in and out of Manhattan. I actually wasn't so wound up by the time I got there that I wanted to cry.

Today's mission was to locate the Manhattan Temple and see if that was worth taking the kids to go see.

We found it and it isn't really.

Self portraits always look awesome, don't they?

It's neat to be in the city and all of a sudden you find that one of those grey buildings has an Angel Moroni on top, but the kids won't care, so we will spend our city time doing things they will enjoy more. You have to pick your activities carefully when you have so many kids and one of those kids makes Sheldon Cooper look relaxed at times.

Times Square is nice in the mornings, horrible in the evenings, IMO.

Central Park is gorgeous, always.

It was good to see the temple, too. I don't mean to make it sound like it wasn't great, it's just not a big NYC destination we're going to take the kids.

Look into the sky, to the right.

 Do you see the Angel Moroni in the big city?

They have a family history center there.

Oh Betty Fail, you'd smile at it. It was just one tiny room with a couple of computer set up, as small as that room you taught Family History in. There were 3 guys in there on the computers and one woman who had come in off the street because they have a sign from the church saying if you wanted to learn more about your family history, inquire within.

It was very different from the huge Family History Center we went to, Betty.

That reminds me, I never did find who Georgianna Barrow's parents were..... I need to do my family history work on days when I feel so lost and freaked out. I need to remind myself of bigger pictures I am a part of and those eternal bonds that time and distance can't take away.

I don't think it will make me miss you any less, but it may keep me from having my hope fall off like chunks of a melting iceberg.

I don't know if that was a good analogy or not, my sleeping medicine is starting to kick in.

Realizing that, I REALLY should stop blogging before I post something even stupider than my "the heart is a melting iceberg..." drivel.

I'll leave you with tomorrow's birthday boy and his doughnut.

Proof that today was a better day, for everyone but the doughnut.

nom nom nom.

Bleah

Bleah.

Rough day today.

The new family moves into the Utah house on Saturday.

I'm very happy that it sold so quickly, I'm very happy that a new family will love it as we did, but this step has been very hard to take for some weird reason.

A wave of grief and fear have swept my heart out to sea and I look around me and here I am, drowning again. I'm having many good days, but I'm also doing a lot to keep myself from hitting the ground about how hard this move is as well. If I stay busy, maybe one day I'll look around and my heart will have mended. Some days I am filled with so much hope, but today was not one of those days.

Today I kind of crashed and cried the big broken tears and said I wanted to just go home.

Today, I do.

Today I miss my house, I miss the street we lived on, I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss the sound of our yard and the familiar feel of summer in Salt Lake County. Union County, New Jersey does not feel like Salt Lake summer. Today I miss the familiar and I just couldn't keep busy enough to outrun it and today I bawled my head off and I'm very fragile tonight. I sit here, listening to the boom of the city fireworks and feeling the breeze of the ceiling fan I hate but need on me and my soul is struggling.

Shelbi B. said that when they moved to Chicago that it took 4 months for her to feel okay about it and 6 before she felt like it was home to her, but nobody ever told her that. It helped give me some idea of how long it's going to still be okay for me to adjust, and it's only been 4 weeks, if that.

Why do I feel like I haven't been home in a million years and such tremendous longing?

Yeah, I hit bottom hard today and I don't even really want to get back up right now.

Sleep will help and do some triage for my sore soul, but tonight..ugh..it sucks.

And I'm going to let myself say that and write about it, because it's my blog and I reserve the right to post more than pictures of things that make me fat.

Speaking of things that make me fat...

This, my friends, is salt bagel with cream cheese.

The bagels here are chewy and amazing and they have so many flavors and they don't all taste like dense Wonder Bread like they do at Einstein's.

This was so salty, it was almost too much.

That's saying a lot from a girl who literally dips her scrambled eggs in a pile of salt on the side of her plate. I love salt.

Zane is going to love this.

New favorite.

Matt had a craptastic day today, his wife was an emotional wreck and just before we were supposed to head out to go on a picnic with some folks from the ward, he cut his finger.

Like do we need to take you to the emergency room or just wrap it up in a whole roll of toilet paper bad. Since it's a holiday, we decided to just treat it ourselves, it's a deep cut, but he will live. I don't know if it would have warranted stitches or not, but we've got a butterfly bandage on it, some neosporin and 30 bucks worth of Fancy bandages made for people who about hack their fingertip off.

Power tools are hard.

There you have it.

Happy 4th of July.

I'm grouchy, mopey and feeling sorry for myself and my husband has a owie.

Bleah.

Home?

My house is so quiet.

All of our kids are scattered about, spending time with other family.

This happens every so often when you have a "your's" "mine" and just -call- them- "our's" family.

We kept things orthodox Brady Bunch here and did not have a mini version of Matt and Chris. The world simply cannot handle that much sarchasm, and can you imagine if we had?

We'd have a 3 or 4 year old child now

. That's something to shake your head about.

Romy is  Alice, always

We thought about it, we seriously considered it and prayed about it. We even looked into a specialist to see what our chances of having a baby would be if we had some 'reversals.'

 It never felt 100% right, but for awhile, the idea of it made my heart squinch with longing.

One day I was sitting in Relief Society and Ruth was giving her lesson. She was talking about the joy she gets from her grandchildren and the fun she has in being able to spend a day or even a week with one of them, just caring for them and being in a season of life where she can say yes to every little idea a child can think up, the ideas that make Mommies feel guilty that they have limits sometimes

Ruth had peace and as she spoke I was filled with peace.

We were not supposed to have an "our's."

Life was going to take us places where we needed to be able to move and do things and we were supposed to move towards the grandparent part.

It isn't that part yet, thankfully.

My oldest baby will be 19 in a few weeks, the youngest will be 11 in a few days.

There is still plenty of time before that part begins.

But they are all gone right now, and I can't hear Spongebob, or legos being dropped or giggling.

This weekend I did hear that cry from the concrete and Matt and I followed it.

We went into the city to the Cloister's Museum.

Matt, admiring the frescos

Mormon in a sundress....

I do get double takes when I'm wearing a tank top with a t-shirt under it.

I  pretend they just think I'm fashion forward and looking fine....

This was original structure from a stable.

 Cows and pigs an stink.

 Incredible.

The Book of Revelations, one of Matt's favorite items at the museum

The stained glass was breathtaking. Some had scenes that made no sense, like one had a scene with monkeys building a table. I have no idea what that had to do with any religion, but it was interesting and gave me something to research.

Beautiful, amazing and perfect.

It's a building that was donated by Rockefeller to the city and it is filled with Christian artifacts. There were elaborate sections from ancient monasatries that have been incorporated into the architecture, a stunning mideavel garden and so many tapestries, sculptures and sanctuaries.

I am a museum junkie and this one was spectacular.

If you're ever up here and want to go, get there before noon so you can take advantage of the free parking, it filled up after lunchtime.

The kids start returning on Friday, everyone will be here for Parker's Birthday.
 It's been strange having the kids scattered everywhere, but it's nothing we haven't been through before, it was just that I felt more like WE were not scattered as well.

It's not home yet.

 The house is feeling more and more like "us" and I don't feel like I stick out everywhere we go. I'm driving places and running errands, even exploring but there is nothing about New Jersey that feels familiar except church right now, and even church is missing the faces that I love and miss so dearly.

I spoke to Doreen this week on the phone. I haven't been good at calling people in Utah for fear that it would break my heart too much and when I got off the phone with her, sure enough, I cried and cried.

I miss my friends, I miss my neighbors and I miss my kids.

I know this is where we are supposed to be, I get these reminders and glimpses and moments where the Spirit peeps in and says "You'll see, I promise...it will feel like this only bigger..." and sometimes I chase him right back out and tell him I'd rather mope.

I need to reach a place where it's okay to be 'big' happy here, but I'm not there yet. I have great days and happiness, I'm not trying to say I'm miserable, but I'm not really open and feeling like baby bird can spread her wings and fly yet.

I know I am where we are supposed to be, I know that God has brought us here, but oh, it's so very hard to be so far from the home I love.

......and watching this makes me miss my Dad, the Texan Tevye.

 :)

Excuse me while I go hide in the closet and eat a cake today.