All American

This weekend I officially felt like an American in the summertime. It's about dang time Eastern Idaho! I barely even resent you for the nice burn I got on my arms and face. It started off with a yard sale to get rid of some things. I'll admit I was expecting a better outcome, but I guess a few extra bucks is better than nothing for things you were going to take to the DI anyway. My friend Shelley stayed with me almost the entire time, she was such a trooper. It was nice to have some company. Richie had to stay at the storage units with Miles.



After we were all yard saled out, we took Miles to the splash park for the first time! He loved it! And we got there in just enough time to enjoy the sun and miss the oncoming storm. Leave it to Eastern Idaho to change the weather drastically in about .5 seconds. You can't miss me, I'm the one with the magenta arms. Ouch! I'm so glad I married Richie. He would go down the slides and through the jets of water with Miles while I was content taking pictures.





Since we couldn't have a hot dog roast outside, we did it inside complete with smores. First of the season. Tasted so good, even if they were roasted over the oven range. Allow me to present the evolution of a smore, starring Miles.





Sorry it's sideways!

We celebrated Father's day with a book of Richie and Miles from Shutterfly, delicious cinnamon rolls, french toast, bacon and oj (which led to a devastating diaper rash for Miles. My bad!) and sleeping in. It was a good day.

How to...

I finished this book last week sometime and I think that if everyone read it and lived at least one new principle that they learned about, the world would be a whole lot better. "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie gives common sense insight into how to communicate better with everyone around you. I think some of the advice is perhaps too idealistic. Some of the principles I thought, "yeah right, that would never work with -fill in the blank-. Maybe in an ideal setting." But for the most part, all of the ideas and principles seemed workable. I'll be trying them out for the rest of my life I think. And for a non-fiction book, it was pretty entertaining to read. In case you don't have time to read the entire thing, here's a brief synopsis in bullets:

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
*Don't criticize, condemn or complain
*Give honest and sincere appreciation
*Arouse in the other person an eager want

6 ways to Make People Like You
*Become genuinely interested in other people
*Smile
*Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language
*Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves
*Talk in terms of the other person's interests
*Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely

How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking
*The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
*Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say "You're wrong"
*If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
*Begin in a friendly way
*Get the other person saying "yes,yes" immediately
*Let the other person do a great deal of the talking
*Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers
*Try to honestly see things from the other person's point of view
*Be sympathetic with the other person's desires
*Appeal to the nobles motives
*Dramatize your ideas
*Throw down a challenge

Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment
*Being with praise and honest appreciation
*Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly
*Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person
*Ask questions instead of giving direct orders
*Let the other person save face
*Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."
*Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to
*Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct
*Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.


And there you have it! And because no post would be complete without some pictures, here's a few of Miles doing his absolute favorite thing in the world (driving any car) and showing off his new expression. He does it and then smiles or laughs. Love it.



In other news, life around the Garner house is pretty normal. I do have the opportunity for something exciting in the beginning of July though. Richie's aunt had an extra plane ticket, so now Miles and I get to attend the Garner family reunion in South Carolina! I'm so sad Richie can't come too and am more than nervous about taking Miles on a plane since he can't even sit through sacrament meeting, but I'm so excited that I get to have this little adventure and spend time with Richie's family!

The Nook

Remember this pallet shelf we made a while back? Well, we finally hung it up in it's rightful place in our nook.

Let me share a little daydream of mine with you. One day, I want to own a little used book shop/photography business. They'll be housed in the same charming building where I make/refinish all the furniture and sell it if people are interested. When I get really ambitious with my daydreams, I imagine a small bakery inside as well so that people can come in and peruse the books and eat a tasty snack. When I had photography clients come meet me there for a consultation, they'd get lost in the non-fiction side of the building for hours afterward. It would be called "The Nook". Can you tell I daydream a lot? Since it is a daydream, this small corner in our bedroom will have to be my nook for quite some time I'm afraid. We both are quite taken with it.


It seems like I start a lot of projects and have hard time finishing them. This shelf was one of them, so it feels great to have it done. We were thinking of staining it, but it's so rustic looking that it just fits in our not-on purpose country style bedroom. We plan on spending hours in that hand-me-down recliner during the winter, curled up with a good book and a quilt. Now all we need is a wood burning stove!

Oh What a night(s)!

Miles' teething episodes have never been so traumatic. At least that's what we think has been going on with him.



On Saturday Richie was teaching swing workshops all day, and that night we danced to a live band (so good!!) after we put Miles down and had some friends come house-sit. Here's Richie learning a new lift/flip. It's supposed to look like the girl is kind of beating him up, it's from "Hellzapoppin".





Meanwhile I was at the garden with Miles and he started acting strange, so we went home where he crashed for a few hours with a fever. Since then the days and nights have just been blurs. Over Saturday and Sunday night, none of us got more than a few hours of sleep and we've watched more movies than I care to reveal. Tarzan is still the cure-call for every tantrum Miles has; amazing. His fever lessened yesterday and was acting fairly normal until bed time. He cried for a straight hour and a half! Even when he was a tiny baby and we were teaching him to fall asleep on his own, he never cried like this. Of course we'd go in every so often, but we still had to really coax him to sleep. But he only woke up once last night and slept in this morning. I think we're over the worst!! Knock on wood!!

You might have the best husband in the world if....

He knows how homesick you are and plans a secret trip back home for your birthday and takes care of everything to get ready for the trip. :) Raise your hand if that's you... Me!!!
Richie kept telling me he had a surprise for my birthday which is fairly unusual. He's not big into surprises, and I had already gotten my sewing machine. So I was fairly curious. He was planning to give it to me on Friday, but I had a rough day on Thursday, so he called me from work and told me to look under the computer keyboard. Sitting there was a round trip ticket to St. George!! He probably had enough of my whining about how I missed my family and SG that he finally just gave in. :) I'm so glad he did. I don't know what it is about going back home, but as soon as I could see the red mountains, I felt relaxed. Like everything was right in the world. We didn't do anything spectacular while we were down, but it was absolutely what I wanted/needed. We bbqed on the balcony, sat and talked while all the kids ran around, played in the sprinklers, got some red dirt between my toes, smelled sunscreen (one of my favorites), played at a water park, felt almost hot, saw all my family in the area and some of my best friends, had my mom french braid my hair, slept in, stayed up late, and ate myself into early diabetes. It was so fantastic, I barely minded the 8 hour journey. I just hope and pray that sometime in the future we live closer to both families and closer to beautiful SG so that Miles can be intoxicated with whatever magic is there. I can't quite put my finger on it. Here are some pictures of my best birthday present ever. Thanks Richie!!!

Golden Birthday

I turned 24 on the 24th this year. It was SO exciting...not really, but it was a great day. This past weekend we went to SLC for Makenna's baby shower, not gonna lie, made me a pit pregnant hungry. Notice, I'm not baby hungry, I just like being pregnant. Call me crazy. As always it's great to see family, but holy cow, Miles' schedule was all sorts of thrown off. I swear he's not a demon child usually!! Why won't he perform when we tell him to?? :) For my birthday we got me a sewing machine so I can become a semi-proficient seamstress and make all these cool projects I keep seeing out there. We'll see how that goes. My patience level for perfection and sewing has a short fuse. The Garners of course made me feel special, and when we got back, the Christensen's even had us over for a little birthday shin-dig also. Such good friends. Miles gave me the best birthday present though. He slept in till 9 and then also took a 3 hour nap!! AND a flower finally bloomed on our flower plants. There are some flowers that I planted in a clear vase because I thought it would be cool to watch the roots grow all over. I was right, it is cool. Funny thing, I checked it today and there are some mushrooms growing in it! I always try to post a caption above a specific picture, but it never works, so I'm just going to post all the pictures and you can figure it out for yourselves. The on picture of Miles and his grandma Linda cracks me up! He was actually cuddling with her, but it looks like he's a giant child and is trampling her or something!

Come to my Garden

I don't think you can fully appreciate beautiful weather until you live in Eastern Idaho. It's finally nice outside and we're taking TOTAL advantage of it. Another advantage of the great weather is being able to finally plant in our garden. So now we've got peas, onions and potatoes. I hope they do well!! Cross your fingers! We also went and planted a bunch of flowers today. It feels delicious being outside.




Side note: For those of you with kids Miles' age, here's an idea for an activity. We just put water in an ice cube tray and then he helps me put drops of food coloring in each one. He thinks it's pretty neat to watch the colors change. Then we let it freeze and he chooses a color of ice cube to put in his drink. :)

Another side note: Our mother's finally got their mother's day gifts, so I thought I'd show you what I made. They are fizzing bath salts and I tried some of the leftovers, and I think they worked pretty well for being homemade. It was pretty easy too! If you want the recipe let me know, I got it off of Martha Stewart.

Father's and Son's

Richie is so cool. He saw in the ward bulletin that Father's and Son's would be this weekend. I didn't even give it a thought. "Miles is way too little" I said to myself. But Richie's eyes lit up and he started making plans. We decided it wouldn't be best to stay overnight since the weather can get nasty fast here and it would be a lot of work for Richie to set up the tent etc etc all while trying to keep an eye on Mr. Miles. But they went to the cook-out, the hike and all the other activities. They both came home tired. I was so wanting a little girl time, but seeing as all other girls I knew around here would be with their husbands and kids, I went to the gym and then had a nice bath and read. Good times. It makes me excited for the days when we have more kids and when the boys go off to Father's and Son's, us girls will do all sorts of girly things. You know what I'm talking about. Here's a few pictures Richie took. That mountain is the one the climbed!

Little Man

Miles got his very first hair cut today! My friend Angie offered to show me how to do it, since I was too nervous to just chop into it. You may not see a big difference in the before and after pictures because his hair is so blonde, but trust me he had a mullet/rat tail/ mowhawk goin on. It was kind of unexpectedly emotional for me! My little boy is growing up very fast, and he has the hair cut to prove it! Maybe we should call him "Big Hair Cut" from now on. (Andy Bernard)
Before:



After:

What a Productive Weekend!

I was at the DI finding a few things and ran into an old, blue, Samsonite suitcase. I'm not sure why, but I have this fetish with old suitcases and have been wanting some for Miles' room. I went back and forth, but when I saw the plastic balls, I knew the suitcase would be the perfect house for them. And since Richie wasn't there to tell me "no", I bought them both. :) Miles thinks is great. My plan is to buy 2 or so more colorful old suitcases and put blocks and tinker toys in there.

Richie got all "Handy Manny" on me this week and organized our storage unit by bending some rebar to hang our bikes on, and then building some shelves with some left over wood! Since we had already borrowed the saw from a neighbor, I had him build me a shelf I saw on "Knock Off Wood" (Amazing website) from an old pallet! Totally free, and turns out really rustic and cool looking. It will go in our bedroom probably above our self-proclaimed reading nook, and I'm debating painting or staining it.





I was lazy and ill-prepared and didn't get the Mother's Day gifts in the mail till it was too late to make it to them on time. So later, I'll post the neat idea I found for their gift, so as to not spoil the surprise, and the cafe rio salad recipe. yum!!