Book page paper flowers

A long time ago I made this wreath. I thought I was so crafty and that it turned out so super cute. I did really like it but when I got it out the other day to hang on the door it just looked a little old and sad and dated. It's those flowers. I decided I didn't like them anymore. I have seen cute flowers made of felt but then my sister mentioned making flowers out of sheet music and that made me think of my book page wreath which made me think book page paper flowers. So I looked on Pinterest and found this tutorial on making paper flowers and I set to work. I ripped pages out of a book I knew I was never going to read again and started making my flowers. The first few came out a little crappy and weird, but the more I did the better they looked. I always say I'm not crafty but I can sure follow directions well and appear to be crafty. Once my flowers were all made I used a blow dryer to heat up the glue on the wreath, carefully took the old flowers off and glued the new book page paper flowers on. I now have a cute back to school wreath. My kids and Dave liked it okay but they never get very excited about my crafts or decorations. Men. Check out my new and improved wreath!

Our super fun and exciting Summer Vacation

Last year I wanted to take the kids on a really fun summer vacation. We had some money saved so I planned a trip to Lego Land (technically it was the weekend after Labor Day so it really wasn't a "summer vacation") and had a great time. We stayed at the Lego Land hotel, got hopper passes for the theme park and water park and had a really fabulous time. The kids still talk about how much fun that trip was. Well this year was a little different. With Dave starting his own business we've had to be careful spending money and decided we would not be taking a summer trip. We had other fun things planned, but a vacation was not in the picture. Then a sweet friend of mine offered us a free place to stay in St. George and we planned a fun little family weekend. I know St. George does not sound like the most fun and exciting place to visit but on our way home, when we asked the kids if they had a good time, Logan's response was, "It was as fun as Lego Land." What? Huh? And that was when it hit me. The kids don't care where we go or what we do or how much money it costs. All they care about is that we do something and we do it together. Here are some of the fun things we did:

Our first stop was the Wildlife Museum. The boys love looking at all of the animals.

This was Logan's favorite part of the trip

A treat at the Sweet Tooth Fairy. Colin used his spending money to buy Lego candy

We visited some Church History spots - the Tabernacle was the first and the boys like hearing how it was built and taking a tour inside

This was the first store in St. George. The shoes on the top shelf are original shoes that were sold at the store.

Brigham Young's Winter Home. 

A sister missionary from South Africa took our family picture at the temple's visitor center. Colin loved that this statue is just like the one he saw in Salt Lake (but the one in Salt Lake is bigger)

Walking around the temple