More Free Color by Numbers

OK, I drew another group of color by numbers for the boys and thought I would post those as well if anyone else wants some more.

http://portraitsbymel.net/colorbynumberB.pdf

There's a few more girly ones in this group for the girls out there. :o)

Hallelujah!!

A monumental thing has happened in our home.....our boys are finally starting to play nice together! Ok, yes, they have been "playing" for some time now, but it was usually a five-minute activity followed by a lot of screams and someone getting bitten or shoved off the couch. But for a week or so now I have actually found them playing cars together, reading books together, even racing or wrestling for long periods of time without any major fighting. I LOVE IT!!! Hopefully it lasts. :o)

Happy Birthday Dallan!

I can't believe my baby is three! He is growing up so fast and is already starting to look like a "little boy" instead of a toddler. I talked him out of the Teletubbies cake that he had his heart set on, and tried a recipe from a friend's blog (thanks for sharing Maria!) for chocolate dipped cupcake lollipops. I think he was very pleased with the results. Neither my husband nor either of my boys eat cake very well, which usually leaves the rest for me, but they all ate these up.

Home Sweet Home

No, we haven't been gone anywhere, I just thought I would post some pictures of our house and yard before the summer is over and everything dies. This is our place. I really love our house, not that I wouldn't change a few things if I could, but it's a great place for us right now. I'm a little sad that most of the flowers in my flower pots have given up, but they've been taken over by the sweet potato plants, which I love, and so I think they still look OK.

Our backyard has come a long way in the five years we lived here. Tom built the sandbox a couple years ago, then the swing set last summer, and this summer he did the shed. SOOOO nice to have! I did the mini-garden and most of the landscaping stuff. Still a few more things I want to do. We also finally put in our patio this summer.
I think our biggest accomplishment, though, has been ridding our lawn of the crazy puncture weed that we have around here. The backyard was full of these things when we moved in. If you have them you know they are deadly, can pop tires and seriously injure your feet, even with sandals. After religiously keeping after them (and even using the shop-vac to try and get all the seeds), we have them mostly under control.

Happy Birthday Derek!

Yesterday was Derek's 5th birthday! I can't believe he is that old already (even though he looks even older). For the last two weeks he has wanted to go bowling for his birthday, and I was proud of him for being a really good sport when we pulled up at the bowling ally and it was closed for "employee Lagoon day". Bummer! We settled for Slurpee's and a movie and a promise to take him bowling later this week.

Derek wanted a Transformer cake, or actually Transformer brownies. Since I am too cheap to buy a cake, this was my best attempt. I've never professed to be a great cake decorator, but Derek was pleased, although one friend said it looked like just some masks, and another thought it was a Power Ranger cake. :o) Oh well.

Last week we took the kids to the Museum at Hill Air Force Base. That was really cool! If you've never been, you should check it out (it's free). There are tons of great planes and helicopters indoors and out to look at. The boys loved it and I came away with a much greater appreciation for those who have participated in air force battle. I could never do it.

August Already??!!

Wow, I'm not very good at summer posting, am I? The summer has flown by and we have done a lot of fun things, I'm just not very good at writing about them!

Well, lets see..... last weekend was my 10 year high school reunion. Good ol' class of 1998 from Union High School in Roosevelt, UT. I helped some in the planning and was a little nervous about how it was going to turn out, having never actually been to a high school reunion, but it was really fun. Thanks to everyone who came and supported us. Many of my close friends from high school were able to make it, so it was great to see them and catch up.

Most of the old gang here (minus Amanda who left earlier, and Vanessa who was on her honeymoon) I must say it was kind of weird to be Melanie 'McKee' again, and go to the UBIC (Roosevelt's big annual celebration) and everything, but it was fun to take Tom and the boys and show them a little of my home town fun. I can't believe I haven't even been back to UBIC in ten years!

After the festivities, Tom and I were able to leave the kids with my parents and go on a little mini-vacation all by ourselves. The first one in five years (since Derek was born). It was fun, although I must say it was weird not having the house or kids to worry about for two days. We went up to Midway and stayed in a cute resort place called "Inn on the Creek", it is next to the Homestead Resort. It was very pretty. We pretty much had the place to ourselves for two days, and didn't really even see an employee until the day we checked out.
The first day we did some shopping and went up around Tibble Fork Reservoir. It's so beautiful up there. The second day we went up and rode the Alpine Coaster at Park City Mountain Resort. I'm somewhat of a scaredy-pants when it comes to heights, but it was really fun, and I actually want to go back and try the zip line sometime.

Tom and I before the ride started

Tom and I after the ride began

Let's see, what else.... Tom and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary a couple weeks ago. Eight years!!! I thought I would be a perfect wife by now, but I'm still having to work on that. Poor Tom! :o) He's very patient with me, and I'm very grateful for him.

Derek just finished up his second session of swimming lessons. He loves the water now, and I'm so proud of him for being so brave this year. Last year we could barely pry off his death grip when we were in the pool, and now he will go down the big water slide all by himself.


What else, hmmmm...... I am looking forward to the olympics starting. Tom says its the one time every two years when I will actually sit down and watch a sporting event on TV with him. It's true, I do hate sports on TV, but the Olympics are awesome!!!

Summer "Day-cations"

We've had a couple fun day trips with our kids I thought I would post about. First, Tom's mom invited us down to her firm's summer party, which was geared totally toward kids. They had a blast, especially on the 30 foot high shark slide. I think Derek went down it fifty times. It scared me to pieces (just the very steep and claustrophobic tunnel you have to climb up to get to the top!). And Dallan took a liking to the miniature golfing.


Then we finally took our kids down to the dinosaur park in Ogden. It's really nice! The boys LOVED it and I think we will definitely have to go back and explore more when the weather is a little cooler.

Derek digging up some "real" dinosaur bones.

Poor Dallan doesn't know what's about to get him!

Fun with Family

In the last couple weeks we have been able to see almost all of our siblings and parents at one get-together or another. For Tom that is tricky, because his family is pretty spread out (Holladay, North Dakota, Mississippi and Denver). For me that is also tricky, not because mine are very spread out, but because there are a LOT of us to get together. But it's been really fun for us to see everyone and for our kids to get to know their cousins and aunts and uncles. Here are some fun pictures:

Every summer my grandparents have a reunion at their "picnic area" on their farmland in Roosevelt. It is so much fun and a great place to have family reunions. Here are my cute grandparents, Laurence and Afton Brighton.

Here are my parents looking thrilled at having their picture taken! :o)

Every time our family gets together in the summer months, there is a 4 square tournament that is constantly going on. I'm talking all day long , before and after meals, in 100 degree heat, they just keep playing. I say "they" because I usually don't get into the game, Tom gets into it enough for the both of us!

And just this last weekend we were able to visit with Tom's family. His sisters came in from out of town, along with his Dad and Jan, and we had a nice BBQ on our new patio (OK, we ate inside because it was too hot). Here is a picture of Tom with his sisters: Amanda, Emily, and Jenny. If Tom had to be stuck in a family with all sisters, he couldn't have had better ones. They are great!

And here is a picture of the cousins, including our new cousin Katie, who was adopted into our family by Jenny and Richard recently. It was fun to finally meet her! We had them look into the sun for the picture, so there are a lot of closed eyes.

Back from Camp

So I survived my first girl's camp as a Young Women's counselor. I wouldn't exactly call it "camp", more like "Girl's Vacation Week" since we stayed in a really nice lodge with showers, ovens, TV's, etc..... but it was fun and I really liked getting to know the girls a little better. We have a great ward and some exceptional youth. I also love my fellow young women leaders. The camp leader did a great job and had many activities that focused on building self-esteem, giving service, building testimony, etc.... messages that were good for myself as well. It was super-cold and we spent a lot of time in the lodge, and by the fourth day there was a little too much estrogen in one place, but it was still a success, I thought.


Tom did a great job holding down the fort, of course. He and the boys had a fun week together, and he proved once again that he can do everything better than me, including being a housewife. :o)


Here are some fun pictures of the boys, since I haven't posted for a while....

Dallan as super flasher cowboy

Derek riding his bike with cape, boxing gloves and preschool graduation cap!

Derek enjoying the smores we made on our new patio fire pit (still waiting for the patio).

And here are some videos of Dallan singing. We love his cute little voice so we make him sing for the camera.

Ode to the Teacher

Yesterday morning, the principal at Tom's high school asked Tom if he was going to the school awards assembly that night. Tom wasn't planning on it, but the principal asked him to come, dressed up, and to bring me. I was very excited and very proud when Tom was called up on stage and awarded the Larry Findley Leadership Award! It is a brand new award that the school awards to an all-around, outstanding teacher who displays excellence in all areas: leadership, going the extra mile, being innovative, caring about student learning, being involved in extra-curricular activities, and all around being an outstanding teacher. (I wish I could remember all of the areas that the principal listed) There was even a nice cash prize from an anonymous donor. Way to go Tom!!!!!

I get several compliments a week from students who have been in Tom's classes, and from their parents. When I think of Lincoln's quote "whatever you are, be a good one" I think of Tom. We love you!

Free Color by Numbers, Anyone?

Derek LOVES to do color by number pictures! It has been a lifesaver at church and during long car rides. Anyway, I couldn't find very many quality color by number pictures online or in books, so I decided to start drawing my own. Then I got this idea that I could scan them and make them into a pdf booklet and sell the "email-able" documents on Ebay for like $1.50 for 10 pages, and I sold a few in the first couple days.....that is until Ebay sent me a not-so-nice email about how I was violating their policies. Apparently you can't sell things that can be delivered online or through email. Ooops! So if anyone thinks their kids would like these, you can download them and print them off here (they are mostly boy subjects, but could work for girls too):

www.portraitsbymel.net/colorbynumberA.pdf

I'm sure this is not the end of my color by numbers, so I'll post future ones as well if anyone wants them.

Drawing!

So I spent all winter trying to coerce my kids into coloring or drawing or doing anything that didn't include TV or computer (or being out in the freezing cold). And just this last month they decided that they now love to draw. Well, Dallan loves to draw, and Derek loves to do color-by-number pictures and sometimes he draws stories kind of comic-book style. Very cute! Anyway, I must say, they are pretty good! Dallan has used a couple reams of paper drawing our family members over and over, and although I hope my likeness is not quite that accurate, I think that he is amazing for a two year old! :o)

Dad

Mom, (apparently I have horns!! he, he)

Blog Makeover

So I finally sat down and figured out how to give my blog a nice makeover. Tom says it looks a little "girly", but I guess I need something girly in this family, right??

Real Portraits

So I broke down and finally got my kids professional portraits, and I must say they turned out very cute.
And I thought I would post a couple pictures from my sister's wedding (Alex). It was beautiful. Too bad this is the best picture we got of Alex, but we did get a cute one of some of the grandkids. Congratulations to Alex, her new husband, Aron, and their little family.


From left to right: Kayden (Toby & Kristi's), Derek, Gracie (Dustin & Rachel's), Dallan, and Gehrig (Dustin & Rachel's).

Family Frolf

Now that the weather has warmed a little, we have once again taken up our favorite summer pastime of frisbee golfing at the local course. OK, this is really Tom's favorite (because he is stinkin' AMAZING at it and places at all the area tournaments!), but he lets us come along and Derek and I are learning together. Dallan gets to ride in the stroller and play at the park when we are done.

If you are really savvy with a frisbee (like my Tom), you actually call it a "disc" and thus "disc golf", and carry a specialized bag full of expensive, varying weight "discs" including distance drivers, putters, etc... Yes, you would think that this being like and actual SPORT I would normally run and hide, but I actually quite enjoy it. Last summer I even bought a basket to practice putting in our backyard!! Roller blades here I come!!! OK, so I'm still scared of all sports that require balance. Oh, and balls. And teams. He he. But I am seriously thinking about trying to play in our famous family four-square tournment this year.

Derek celebrating after he makes a fairly long put!

Tom looking very serious about the game.
We thought this picture was awesome becuase of the way the sun is shining on Derek's frisbee.
Dallan the happy rider.
If any of you out there want to try it out sometime, come on up, we would love to take you! :o)

I'm old!!

OK, so I'm not that good at frequent blogging. Big surprise huh? I hope no one was waiting on the Christmas pictures. I did get them into scrapbooks in record time but forgot about the blog. I'll try and post a couple below.

So I survived my 28th birthday. Can't believe how old I am! I remember my own mother when she was my age. Speaking of my mom, she and my little brother Brock were nice enough to come up and watch my kids for a whole day while I went shopping and went to a chick flick with Tom. It was so nice! THANKS MOM AND BROCK!


Derek has started going to preschool and loves it. He is such a social kid and wants to play with friends all day every day. Dallan is getting to be a little "smarty" like his brother and has already mastered the fine art of clicking the mouse to play his favorite PBS and Nick Jr. games. I have to pull him off the computer several times a day.

Tom is back coaching track and is pretty busy at his other part time job as well (Academic Mentor for Achieve Online School). We don't see him much in the spring but appreciate how hard he works for us. It's nice that we have the summer together to make up for it.

I finally finished my brother's art website . It's not the most professional site ever, but I'm proud of it and he got it for free. :o) I also finished the 6th season of SMALLVILLE (great incentive to ride my elliptical each morning). I am now back to watching LOST and THE OFFICE. I haven't worked out so consistently.....well, ever! Thank goodness for good TV on DVD!

Dallan in his new gear

Derek as the cowboy Batman

Tom's step-brothers and their families