My Toes!

This post will showcase some pretty nasty pictures. It says a lot about me that I am even showing these because there was a time that absolutely not would these pictures have ever seen the light of day. But I am pretty dang secure in myself at this point and now I say who cares. **And so it begins..

For a loooong time I had a gnarly toe or as some like to put it a fungus toe. It was gross and it was not pretty. I remember it first appearing around the time I started dancing in college. We danced barefoot and I think a lot of those germy germs landed on me and caused my toe dysfunction. But I also have to take into account that my Dad had some pretty gnarly toes and a lot of my tow problems were most likely hereditary. Thanks so much Dad. It was on the pinkie of my right toe. All that would happen was that it was discolored a yellowish color and it made my toenail super, super thick. I would have loved medication for it but the over the counter stuff would not work and the prescription drugs were really expensive. So I lived with it. I could deal with it cause I would just file it down and cover it with toenail polish. But then it spread. After 8 years the nastiness tarted to spread to the other toes. First up was the big toe and then a little bit later it spread to the toe next to the little one. Suddenly I could not deal. The big toe turned really nasty and gross and no amount of nail polish could have covered that up. So I went to the toe Dr. He gave me a prescription, suddenly the medication was super cheap, and I started the daily pill taking. It took a couple of months but I am happy to report that I have beautiful toenails that are happy to see the light of day. When I first started the medication my Dr. told me to take some before pictures so that I could see what my toes used to look like. They are pretty nasty but here they are in all of their glory..

so sick right?! Needless to say I have never had a pedicure done because with toes like those that would have been way too embarrassing. But Now that my toes are oh so pretty I went and got my first ever pedicure! Yay!!

Soaking in the foot bath felt really good. My nails look weird in this picture because of the water and leftover polish I had on my tootsies.

But look at the beautiful after picture! Can you believe after all that nastiness my toes now look so stunningly beautiful! I love it and I love pedicures! I think I will have to wait a while before getting them done again. As nice as it was it is just as easy to do it myself and loads cheaper too. But if I ever do want a professional to do my toes again I won't have to say no because of embarrassing gnarly toes!

Eagle Island State Park

One hard thing about living in Idaho is the lack of California beaches..well the lack of any beach for that matter. So when my friend Deena told me about Eagle Island State Park I was quite excited. It is part of the Snake River and they rope off a bit of it to make a fun swimming area. I could not believe I did not know about this sooner and it is only a couple of miles down the road from us. You can bet that as soon as we hit hot weather I packed up the kids and hit the beach! We had such a fun tie sitting out in the sun, digging our toes in the sand and splashing in the water. One great thing was how shallow and calm the water was. Rylee even ventured out up to her waist and loved it.

We met our friends the Warners there and they brought an inflatable boat that all the kids loved. My kiddos did not want to get out of it they thought it was so cool.

Rylee had so much fun playing by herself in this little "Wading Pool". This little one is very content to play by herself.

We had so much fun that we decided we had to go back and soon so we invited Mikell and her baby Brooke along with Brit and her kiddos Brielle, Qiana and Asher to come and have some fun!

I could not believe how much the two babies loved splashing in the water and crawling around in the sand. There was absolutely no fear in either of them. Check out Brooke's cute little fat rolls!

Asher loved fisting the sand and of course eating some of it. :0)

These two babies were so cute and fun to watch!

This picture makes Avynlea look a little double jointed!

This State Park is so fun and we will definitely utilize it in the summers to come. If I can't have my California beaches then this is good enough! :0)

Young Womens Broadcast

This event happened so long ago I don't even remember when the day was, but it was a looooong while ago. It was the Young Women's Broadcast and since at that time I was still in the Young Women's serving I felt the need to go. When I found out that I was the only Young Women leader represented from our Ward and that we only had ONE Young Women going with her Mom I was a bit disappointed. But I rallied and talked my good friend Candice into letting me crash her date with her daughter Courtney. :0)
We went to dinner at Red Robin before the broadcast. That was a lot of fun visiting with my friend and her beautiful daughter. I think I can say it now that I am not in Young Women's anymore but Courtney was always one of my favorites. Shhh no telling!

Here are Candice and Courtney. Aren't they a beautiful Mother/Daughter pair?

Courtney was so much fun to be around, she was always a great leader and example to the other girls. I am really happy that she knew the right choice to make when it was time to go to the Broadcast. It was a great Broadcast and we learned a lot from the speakers. Although it was, once again, so long ago I really don't remember anything that was spoken on. But you can bet that at the time I soaked it all in and learned from it. It's all there somewhere in my brains, I just need to find that dusty corner the information has been hiding out in. Ha!

Thanks Candice and Courtney for letting me crash your party and thanks Candice for letting me steal your pictures! :0)

Bedtime Snuggles

I was doing my nightly rounds of making sure the kids are all safe and accounted for in their beds when I came across Kenedy sleeping in her bed. Number one she had Rylee in their with her which she is not allowed to do but still does it more often then not. Number two I had to laugh and then take pictures of the way she was cuddling her bear. I thought she looked adorable!

After I showed her the pictures I took the next morning she told me that she was awake while I was taking the pictures! What!! Man that girl is a good faker, I never would have guessed she was awake. I still thought the cuddling was cute!

Dairy days Parade!

Closer to the beginning of summer we packed up some food and headed over to main street for the annual Dairy Days parade. Dairy Days is put on by the Dairyman of Idaho and the kids were so excited to go to the parade. They kept asking me all day long when it was time and finally the time came to pack up and ship out...the door. :0)

We got there pretty early to guarantee ourselves some seats and we were able to sit by some family friends the Giauque's and the Woodward's. Here the kids are anxiously waiting for the parade to start. I think we got there about an hour before the start time and we were closer to the end of the route so we had quite the wait. Luckily by this time the street had been blocked off so the kids could wander around without me worrying too much.

Avynlea is such a little camera ham. Actually I think we have learned by now that all my kids take after their Mom and love the camera! It's definitely in their genes!

Kefford is here talking with his friend Justin. He was still on crutches at this time and did not enjoy the wait for the parade but he was a good Dad and was patient for the kids.

It can't be a Dairy Days parade without the free chocolate milk. We also got string cheese. :0)

So here is a funny story. Both Camille and Brooke had babies that they were holding and at one point some people came by giving away free t-shirts. We were all screaming and yelling trying to get the t-shirts but the girl honed in on the two with the babies and gave them the free shirts. Oh the injustice of it all. :0) A little while later I took Camille's baby to hold for a while and I was sitting in the chair when the free ice-cream came around. Everyone was screaming and yelling for the free ice-cream but when the girl handing out the treat saw me with the baby she gave the ice-cream to ME!!! Yes that was the best ever! I knew holding that baby would get me something. :0) So I ate some of the ice-cream and then gave the rest to Rylee!

We only brought a blanket for our kids to sit on and they were kind of jealous of the chairs their friends brought. So my kids were quick to sit in any vacant seat they could find...limited to it being owned by someone we know! :0)

I think in this picture Ryker is enjoying some of the candy he had thrown at him. It was a fun parade and we will definitely keep on the tradition. We went last year but it started raining and we were not up to sitting around in the rain waiting for the parade to start. We were very glad to have nice sunny skies this year!

and even more sewing projects

I have a lot of material just sitting around taking up space. The material comes from leftovers from previous projects and material for projects I never got around to. So I decided to dip into the big box of material and start making things for my girlies.

Rylee loves to wear dresses and so after seeing a simple dress Brit made I decided to see if I could make one similar. I think it was a big success, Rylee looks adorable in this style of dress and I am really proud that i was able to do this without a pattern.

This was another one made the same way just different material. I think Rylee liked this one the best since she wore it two days in a row.

Miss Rylee loves to have her picture taken!

I then made these easy skirts out of leftover material from dresses I made last year. Kenedy is too old for the style of dress I made for Rylee and Avynlea has decided she is too old also so I made them skirts and they love them. Remember that shirt I added ruffles to? Well Avynlea informed me that it was really cute but she didn't think she looked good in it. I assured her of how adorable she looked but she just doesn't want to wear it. That's OK because Rylee is still young enough to be into that style.

So those are some of my creations. I am glad to finally be using up some of the material I have had lying around and I anticipate more fun projects being made soon!

Fourth of July Weekend Extravaganza!

Fourth of July weekend was lots of fun this year. we were able to go out to Nyssa and spend time with Keffords moms family with lots of fireworks and then the next day we went back to spend time with his Dads side of the family. Ryker helped out at a friends familys fireworks stand and after his "shift" they rewarded him with his very own firework. Yeah I was not too impressed, but he was excited about it. As soon as we got to the farm ryker jumped out of hte car and pulled at the smoke bomb string thing on his firework without the rest of us aware of what he was doing. Apparently he was too excite about his own firework that he could not wait for help. So of course he got burned and it was a pretty bad burn. The pictures will show somewhere in the middle of the post. Despite Rykers accident it was a weekend filled with good company, good food and lots of good fun.