James loves haircuts

James has refused for months to let me cut his hair. And it was getting ridiculously long. Finally, I decided it was getting cut, whether he liked it or not.  On the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend I gave Shiala a pedicure then put James in the hair chair. I didn't put a cape on him or anything but took the clippers and took a strip off the top of his head. As the hair fell to the floor, I said, 'hey, look, James!' And glanced at the pile of hair... He looked down and said 'hunh.' I said 'let's do another one!' And ZIP off it went. And he looked at it again. Then he said 'I don't went hair on my shirt.' So we put a cape on and away we went. He just needed to see that it didn't hurt...I guess.

Gotta love his faces.

Good Things:

I can see his face!

He is a clone of his daddy...

Nice to not have hair all over m kitchen...

Community Talent show

It is not possible to get good pictures in the high school auditorium but I took these anyway to document my girls doing something that is really not in their comfort zone :)

Every spring Monticello holds a talent show to wrap up the year of concerts brought in by Blue Mt Entertainment. 

Hannah had just made the cheer/drill team again and they performed the dance they had learned at tryouts. She is showing so much improvement in her dancing over her first year. She did not have that deer in the headlights look!

Hannah-center

Then Hannah and Cambria both sang in a girls choir number. It was a song they prepared for Region Solo and Ensemble.

They did a great job and I was really proud of them for being willing to share their talents...

Hannah-3rd from left, Cambria-8th from left.

More Yummy things I've eaten on the THM plan

I haven't stuck to THM as much as I should have but I have enjoyed lots of new things. Here are a few of them...

I made Alfredo potatoes for everyone else and Alfredo cauliflower for me. It was tasty! I don't crave potatoes like I used to.

I made tostada shells out of cheese. So easy and no carbs.

Strawberry whey smoothie! I've never been a fan of fruit shakes but I LOVE this smoothie! I go through a lot of frozen strawberries these days!

Fruit salad made of one apple, mandarin oranges and strawberry slim belly jelly! I sprinkled a tiny bit of coconut on top. Mmmmmm…

This is a low carb cookie dough dip for the berries. It's made of cream cheese and it's pretty darn tasty.

Friday pizza night with a lo carb crust for me. Crust is made of eggs, cheese, almond flour, flax meal and seasonings. I really love this pizza!!

Mother's Day

I am so blessed to be a mother! I have some incredibly amazing children. They sort of spoiled me this year for Mother's Day. I love getting their handmade creations. I love their sweet sentiments. I cannot imagine my life without them...how lonely. Thanks Jordan, Montana, Ford, Cambria, Hannah, Sadie, Soren, Charlie and James!

I am So LUCKY!

Cambria got me this adorable mug. I loved what it says. It's so true! Hahaha!!!

My Mind Organization for Moms Set Up

I've been trying to implement Mind Organization for Moms, a brain-freeing organizational program from the Power of Moms, for over a year now. If you're interested in learning more about what it is, click here.
One of the hardest things for me was trying to decide where to put my 'machine'.  It seemed as if it was just scattered all over the house. One component that I particularly struggled with was the 'cubbies for my Current Projects'. I bought these wire shelves and assembled them and they lived in the computer/family room for a while and then moved to a corner of my bedroom. I liked that when they were in my bedroom they weren't visible to everyone who came into our house and weren't an eyesore in my family room, but I didn't love hauling my inbox (which lived on my kitchen counter) up to my bedroom to process when I held a weekly review. Which didn't happen weekly by any stretch of the imagination. It was all too disjointed to be efficient.
I looked at photos and videos of other people's desk setups and longed to have a little desk in my kitchen/dining area where I could keep all the components of my machine, since that's where I spend 90% of my day. Unfortunately, my kitchen/dining area is too small to put a desk anywhere.

My wire cubbies in my bedroom corner. They were full!
They worked well, it was just inconvenient to try to do my office work sitting on my bed,
away from all the chaos stuff going on downstairs.

One day as I was looking around at my space my eyes fell on this old antique desk that used to be my great-grandfather's desk. My parents brought it up from the ranch at Verdure to their living room and used it as a decorative piece of furniture. Since we moved into this house, we haven't used it for anything either. In fact the doors were hardly every opened and it still had lots of my mom's knick-knacks in it.

Great Grandpa Joseph Franklin Barton's postoffice desk

I opened the doors and studied the space and pondered the possibilities. After taking some measurements and researching letter-trays I realized I could fit my entire 'machine' into this desk. I got really excited and began clearing out the knick-knacks. On a trip to Provo I picked up the letter-trays I found that would fit and some very cute file-folders for my weekly review folders. Then I came home and got busy.

With doors open you can see the whole setup.
I did leave a few items that mean something to me as decorations.

This desk was used by my great-grandfather when he was the postmaster at Verdure, I believe, so it has all these built-in cubbies. This is where Curtis and I decided to put the incoming mail, as well as cubbies for things to be paid, to be mailed and receipts of bills to file. I have also designated one cubby for social correspondence and one for agendas for our Family Home Evenings. There are still many available if I find a need for them.

I feel so organized when I look at my labeled cubbies with papers in them.
I remember playing post office in first grade and loving to put papers in the cubbies. Now I get to do it for real. :)

I have put my main inbox (Red floral box) inside this desk. I love that I can quickly open one door, put items in it and close the door to hide the pile. Yes, it's really piled up right now, but I've been busy on vacation and potty-training James. On the two shelves below my inbox I have placed 6 stacking letter-trays from Office-Max. They fit perfectly and I have a small space on the side for storing other items or for a decoration.

I used sticky labels to label the sides of my stacking trays. The top one holds my M.O.M. printouts and info and extra file folders, etc. The second one holds my cute, new weekly review folders and the printout of steps to a great weekly review.
The third one is my beyond cubby, currently holding church job info and stuff for my nail business.
The fourth one is for my personal projects and education. The fifth one holds a folder for each of my kids and for things we're working on to improve the spirituality in our home. The sixth one is for home management and family systems. 

This is how I made my inbox. I looked for a cute one for a long time, but just couldn't bring myself to fork out that much money for one. So one day I got the idea to use a cardboard box from my food storage room and cover it in cute paper or fabric. I chose to use fabric since it's easier to stretch and bend around the box. I covered the sides first and then the bottom of the box. I really like how it turned out, and it cost me nothing!

Used a green bean or corn box...

all covered! Not too shabby!

There are a couple of drawers in the lower part of the desk. In the left one I keep my punched 3x5 cards that I use in my planner for my Immediate Next Actions list, some post-it notes and a stapler. In the right one I store my business cards and other items pertaining to my nail business.
Below the drawers is a shelf that is perfect for holding my Tickler File. I use a black plastic accordion file. It was the only place that it would fit and the doors would shut.
Below that shelf is the space where I put my planner when I'm doing a weekly review or any other papers that need immediate attention, such as the  DIY Summer Camp papers I needed to implement this week. There is a wire file holder there (placed on end) that holds my Some Day and Incubation files and some sticky labels. This is also where I store my 3-hole punch.

ready for a weekly review...

On the desk front, that folds down, I taped my laminated copy of the M.O.M. workflow chart to remind myself what questions to ask when I'm processing paperwork. I like that it's right there when I need to look at it and I don't have to try to pull it out of whatever safe place I may have put it in, never to be found again.

When I need to do a weekly review or other desk work I simply grab a kitchen stool and bring it to the desk. I have an extension cord hidden behind the plant so I can plug in my iPhone if I need to use it while I'm working, or for music. 

much better than sitting in a corner of my bedroom too far from what's going on...

The only thing I don't have here is my filing cabinet, but that's in my laundry room which is only a few steps away. It works for me.

Well, that is my desk with my M.O.M. machine setup and it's working marvelously. I feel so thankful that I finally realized I had the makings of a perfect place for it right under my nose, in a place convenient to the way I live my life. 

Good Things:

feeling like my brain CAN still work

connections and ties to my ancestors. Love them!

Power of Moms website

The rest of our vacation...

We finally got on our flight to Denver on Wed and then on to Atlanta. Since we didn't have enough time to drive to Savannah to visit Brandee, she brought her kids up to see us in Atlanta. It was so nice to see them again, they are getting BIG! and to meet Isaac for the first time. Brandee has always been a sweet girl and she is a sweet, lovely woman and mother. Wish we didn't live so darn far apart...
We left Georgia on Friday and drove to Mississippi that day. We did a bit of shopping there and stayed the night. On Saturday we drove to Oklahoma City and decided to stop there since there was a big storm brewing to the west. It came through in the night and it was a bit strange to be warned about what to do in the case of a tornado. In fact, as we watched TV that night in our 3rd floor hotel room, we watched a show on the weather channel that highlighted a tornado that had gone through a town just SW of OK City a couple of years before. Yikes! On Sunday we drove from OK City to home. It was our longest driving day but we needed to just get home.
It was interesting to watch the change in the land and trees as we drove west. It is so green and wet in the east. I love the look of it, but I think I'd go nuts living there, never being able to see very far. Being a Western girl, I like to SEE distances. I think my favorite place was Western Arkansas and Eastern OK. It was still very green, but not so many trees so close together. Lots of cows in lush green fields and there was usually an oil pump or two in the field as well!
New Mexico was my least favorite part of the drive. So much sand and rock. So desolate, particularly once we got past Albuquerque. We stayed on the interstate until Gallup. I hadn't ever been to Gallup before so I can check that off my bucket list. Haha!
As we drove north from Gallup to Shiprock, we got to drive through a small sandstorm. It was very strange to be swallowed up in a swirl of sand, but it made me realize you could easily be lost in one. It was hard to see if anyone was in front of us and I was glad no one hit us from behind if we slowed down.
I was never so happy as to see the Abajo Mts. in the distance as we drove from Cortez toward home. I love to travel and see new places but I love where we live and was happy to be home.

finally in the air...flying over the Rockies to Denver

Brandee and Curtis having a deep discussion

Alabama...rain and green trees

Piggly Wiggly- what a name for a grocery store!

my chauffeur...driving in the comfort of our new (to us) car

the console-check it out! seat heaters!!!! Oh, happy day!

Mississippi...more green trees

an outside shot of the new wheels. Pretty sporty for us!

crossing the Mississippi River and heading into Arkansas...

Such a HUGE river...

Tornado damage in Arkansas. It was amazing to see trees that looked like matchsticks. All their peripheral branches were ripped off. Buildings were just piles of rubble...I was really glad we weren't driving through when it hit!

More damaged trees and buildings...

How do people recover from this? It happens so often there...

Had to stop and eat at Popeye's for Ford. He liked eating there while he was in Basic at Fort Jackson in SC

Nicest hotel we stayed in in Oklahoma City. 

It had a separate sitting/TV area. We felt right uptown there. Curtis even ordered Room Service food...

We thought it was pretty cool to stay here, since it shares a name with our oldest daughter...

I forgot to get Oklahoma, but here's Texas....

New Mexico's sign was the most impressive....notice the lack of green trees....

stopped at a truck stop for a stretch and drink..
watched these swallows flying around, in and out of their mud nests in the corner...

Lots of sand blowing across the road

I mean, lots of sand...

we wondered what our paint would look like when we got home...

I've never been in a sand-storm before...

Ah, there are the Blues! Home sweet home!

Good Things:

generous parents who gave us their car

nice roads to drive on

air-conditioning

awesome kids who took good care of each other and the house