While John is away....

John took Jack camping this weekend up in Wyoming.  The night before he left I mentioned that I kind of wish he wasn't going so he could stay and hang out with me but he said he's afraid that he's starting to get a favorite spot on the couch and he's been spending a little too much time in it and that makes him feel old and lazy.  So he told me that if he has a free couple of days to take his boy up in the mountains he just has to do it.  I respect that.

That doesn't mean that me and the remaining kids aren't going to live it up while they're gone!  Day 1 we decided to do something I've wanted to do as long as I can remember - we went and rode the Heber Valley Railroad.  We missed the first train by 9 minutes (stupid slow white truck in front of me the whole way)  so we had to hang out for 4 hours for the next one.  Now normally that kind of stuff would make me crazy but my mom is so awesome she just took over and we had a really fun and relaxing day.  We went to a park and had a picnic, then we went to "Dairy Keen" and got ice cream cones, then we went over to the Homestead in Midway and looked around, then it was time to make it back for the train.  It was such a fun day and my kids, especially Charlie who is obsessed with trains, just loved it.  Lottie kept saying to me "oh Mom, this is just so great. Great, great, great."  

Day 2 my mom suggested we tackle my kitchen situation that has been such a nightmare lately.  My pantry was such a disgrace.  Everything was just piled in there and whenever I would put something back I would have to just shove it in somewhere and then quickly shut the door before 5 other things fell out.  Also, I never knew what I had or didn't have so I kept re buying the same stuff.  Turns out I have 14 jars of peanut butter and no bread.  So first we took everything out of the pantry.

And bought some storage bins.  I wanted to buy them from the dollar store like so many have claimed to do on Pinterest but the dollar store had nothing at all to choose from.  So Walmart it is.

Then divided everything up.

 

While my mom painted the pantry white.  (it used to be dark brown wood paneling)

Then we moved all the spices out of the cupboards and mounted them on the door.  (Huge space saver)

Put down super cute contact paper.

Then filled it back up.

Ahhhhhh, so much better.  ( I have made cute little chalkboard labels for everything since I took this picture)

I love organization.

I must say if there were no children involved this would be my absolute favorite way to spend a day, but there ARE children involved and that sometimes makes an all day project like this kind of stressful and tricky.  Between the 3 of us (me, Mom and Dad) we tried to rotate the kids around so we could get stuff done but in the end most of the work happened from 7:30 - 12:30 pm.  Also, by freeing up a lot of my cupboards everything got moved around and relocated.  I'll post my cupboard pictures as soon as we finish them.  Today (day 3) we spent up at Ikea getting a few more organizing things.  Oh boy, nothing sets my heart a flutter like an organized house!

Also, I just have to say thank you to my incredible mother for all the help she gives me while John is away.  That first morning he left at about 4:30 a.m. and at about 5:00 I heard my mom whisper right next to my bed that she was going to climb in with me so that I wouldn't have to do the morning stuff by myself.  She must have heard his truck out her window and decided to come over.  She has been here through every meal, every bath time.  She is such an incredible blessing to me, and to my kids.  Especially Ivy who I think has decided to switch over to being her daughter instead of mine.  I don't blame her.  Being my mother's daughter is awesome.  

John comes home tomorrow.  I'm happy because I really miss my Jack and of course John too, but sad because my mom will go back to her own life when they get here and I kind of like her life being my life.