Summer Fun!

Jarred and I have had a great summer so far!  Here are a few of the highlights:

We went to Bear World with Jarred's family in June.  We had a blast with the kiddos as they rode the rides, played at the petting zoo, and fed the bears!  One bear even figured out how to open one of the car doors!  Jackson didn't really like the rides and either cried or didn't care.  Hopefully that changes in a year when we head to Disneyland.

We bought a new car!  Well, new to us.  We bought a 2005 Buick Terraza.  Yes, it is a minivan.  No, we are not pregnant.  Even though it is a minivan, I really do love it.  It drives very smoothly and has tons of space.  We also had the great joy of buying this vehicle off of EBay!  The van was located just outside of Memphis, Tennessee and we decided to have Jarred and his dad fly out there and drive it back rather than ship it to Rexburg.  This wasn't the first choice because apparently shipping companies don't want our business even when they say they do.  Oh well, water under the bridge now. Jarred had quite the adventure getting this car.  He ended up driving to Salt Lake, flying to Phoenix, flying to Charlotte, and then flying to Memphis.  It literally took him all day to get from Salt Lake to Memphis.  However, it was worth it because we saved mega $$$!  He made it back in one piece just in time for July 4th fireworks!

This summer was also Jackson's first "real" July 4th celebration.  Last year he was only a few months old and we didn't do anything, probably due to sleep deprivation.  We bought a bike trailer about a month ago, so I loaded Jackson in it and we saw some of the parade.  He loved any of the big trucks that went by and kept pointing to them with a big smile.  Then we had lunch in the park and checked out all the vendors and tents set up.  Later that night we had a BBQ with Ashley, Andy and their kids.  Afterwards we let the kids throw some "Snaps" on the ground before we started the "big" show.  Jackson loved to throw them, but he usually didn't throw them hard enough because half of them didn't pop on the ground.  Oh well, he still loved it.  Then we lit off our fountains that we had purchased.  The kids loved them, even when they didn't really work.  Jackson kept saying "Ohhh!!!"  Super cute!

We recently had a lot of fun with my family at our first official Karlsven Family Reunion.  My family is just starting to get big enough to do our own reunions.  We ended up renting a couple cabins in Island Park (about half an hour south of Yellowstone).  We had fun riding four wheelers, riding our bikes, site seeing at Yellowstone, and singing/chatting around the campfire.  Speaking of campfires, if you haven't tried s'mores with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, you simply haven't lived!  Try it, seriously!  Anyways, Jackson loved riding on the four wheelers with us.  We went super slow and held onto him really tight, and he just loved it!  He also loved the dirt and playing outside.  He even wanted to play outside when it was raining.  Crazy kid!

The most recent adventure was a Bookstore conference Jarred went to and I tagged along.  Our families watched Jackson and we had fun at the Zermatt Resort in Midway.  I didn't plan on going to the conference classes that Jarred went to, but I actually found them to be really entertaining and interesting.  We just enjoyed the classes, the good food, and being child free for a couple nights.  It felt so good to sleep in past 6:15am.  It was glorious!

Jackson also loves playing at the Rexburg Splash Pad and being a little cutie.  Hopefully we keep having fun like this all year round!

July 4th Decorations!

So, I was getting out my decorations for Independence Day.  That's when I realized my collection of decorations for this upcoming holiday is dismal at best.  I had two things!  How did I let this happen?  So, I started perusing Pinterest to see what I could do about this.  There was a tutorial I had pinned to make 3D stars into a garland.  I also, came up with something of my own as well.

Here is what I did:

1. cut scrapbook paper into 6in x 11in pieces. 

2. Fold a piece of paper in half (hamburger style).  

3.  Fold in the same direction 2 more times.  

4.  Unfold and then use the fold lines as guides to fold accordion style making sure to press folds firmly.

5.  Staple the middle perpendicular to the folded edge.

6.  Measure 1 inch from each short edge.  Cut from the folded side diagonally to the opposite corner.

7.   Unfold and tape or staple ends together.

8.  You can be done here, or apply a layer of Mod Podge to make it a little more sturdy and shiny!

9.  Instead of threading ribbon through the points to make a garland, I superglued the stars onto a wreath circle that I had wrapped in ribbon. 

(after step 6 it should look like this)

(step 7)

(Step 8)

The finished product!  I think it would look good with some holiday themed ribbon coming off in random directions from all around the wreath.  However, I live in a town that didn't have stores with cool ribbon like this and I was too cheap to add anymore.  Maybe another year.  

 Okay, so here is the thing I came up with on my own.  I've seen a lot of things similar to this, but I decided to just make my own.  I bought everything for this project for about $5 because everything was on sale!

The items I used were some very cheap 5x7 wood frames, cheap wooden letters, scrapbook paper, ribbon, paint, and a drill and small screws.

1.  I drilled 2 holes into each frame.  One on top and one on bottom.

2.  Drilled holes into the backs of the letters so I could attach each letter to the frame with screw.

3.  Paint the frames and letters.

4.  Cut scrapbook paper to fit into the frames.

5.  assemble the frames together with the paper and letters.

6.  Thread ribbon through holes to attach the frames to each other.

Finished product!  I thought it turned out really well.  I may cover it with Mod Podge to help protect it from the elements. 

 Here is the latest family picture we have had taken.  My in-laws had the big family pictures taken at Camara Shy in Utah, and each child got their own little family pictures there too.  I just love Jackson's happy smiling face in this one!

Idaho Falls Zoo!

Jackson and I headed to the Tautphaus Park Zoo in Idaho Falls the other day. They had just opened the previous Saturday, so we decided to check it out.

It was a lot of fun! Jackson's favorite part was when we went to their petting zoo. He especially loved the goats. The goats would stick their faces to the fence and Jackson would try to touch them. Then, the goats would lick his fingers and Jackson would laugh and giggle every time! I wish I got video of it, but unfortunately I didn't act fast enough. We also were able to see a news crew there doing a story on the zoo. We came just in time for us to see one of the penguins hopping down some stairs and walking around while they filmed. The little penguin was so cute! Jackson wanted to touch it and kept reaching out to it. So Cute. Jackson also finally figured out how to wave while we were at the zoo too. We were looking at the emus and I was waving to it, trying to show Jackson what to do. Then all of a sudden Jackson started waving to it too! Yay! Now, if only we could get him to wave bye-bye to Daddy when he goes to work. Maybe I need to get Jarred an emu costume.

The zoo was just perfect. Not a huge zoo with tons of walking, but just the right size. We only spent about an hour and a half there and we got to see everything and Jackson didn't get cranky! Win Win! I loved it so much that I decided to get a membership there so we can have a lot more adventures at the zoo this summer!

Another Pinterest Creation!

Well, I've made something else from pinterest, and I'm so excited about them! I love them so much and needed to share some pics!

My inspiration for these was this. I thought they turned out so great and a big plus is that they are so EASY! Seriously! My mom came up to visit during her spring break and one night after Jackson went to bed, we made all of these. So here are the supplies:

glass vases

Permenamel Surface Conditioner (I got mine from Amazon,

but you should be able to get it from a craft store like Michaels)

Permenamel Paints (I got this from Michael's. the 2 oz bottles were on

sale for $0.99!)

Paint brush

We cleaned the vases with hot soapy water and dried them completely. Then we poured some surface conditioner in. Its like the consistency of water, so you only need a little bit. We swished it around until all of it was covered and just poured the leftovers back in the bottle. Let this airdry completely. It is alcohol based, so it dries pretty fast. Then add some paint in the bottom and swirl it around, using the paint brush when needed until the entire surface is covered. Most likely you will have too much paint. I let it drip out into a cup as I swirled it around. I also used just the back of a plastic spoon for some of this because it doesn't leave any weird brush strokes. On one of the vases I had the vase drying right side up and as the paint gathered at the bottom, I simply spooned out the excess a couple of times. It worked great. I'm not sure if I would feel comfortable putting water in these for fresh flowers because I didn't use any kind of sealant on the paint. I don't even know if thats available. Some of the vases were a little scary looking on the inside, but they all looked great on the outside! I'm so happy with how this turned out. I feel like my kitchen is ready for spring too!

Happy Birthday Jackson!

Okay, so this is a little late, oh well. Jackson turned one on March 28th! We decided to celebrate it early in Utah with family. We headed down the weekend before his birthday and had a blast with both families! He had a lot of fun enjoying his piece of cake all to himself too! He was hilarious when he first ate it too. He has had all sorts of nibbles of cake, cookies, chocolate, etc, but this was the first time he had an entire piece to himself! When he was presented with the cake on his tray, he looked at it for a second, picked a tiny crumb off and put it in his mouth. Then he held onto the sides of the tray with both hands and dove his face right down into the cake! He has never once done this for any other food! It was great! Jarred was able to get some video of it, but last time I tried to upload a video, it never went through, so no video for blogger. He ate pretty much the entire piece. The only bits he didn't eat were the little crumbs and the little pieces that fell to the ground. Don't worry though, that wasn't wasted cake. Jackson's cousin, Gavin, took care of that and promptly ate those up! Jackson was especially lucky this weekend because he got another birthday party at my parents house the next day too! This time with the cake he grabbed the whole piece and tried to shove it all in his mouth at once. He was so funny and we loved that we decided to just spend time with family and get great pictures of Jackson eating his cake! We had a lot of fun visiting and spending time with our families and Jackson's cousins! It is so fun to see him interact with the other babies!

Jackson also got a table and chairs for his birthday and here was his first piece of artwork he has made using this table.

He loves sitting in his little chair and he had a lot of fun painting for the first time. Good thing I bought washable non-toxic paint. If you look closely, you can see that he tried to eat it. I'm really excited to see what other masterpieces he makes with paint and other mediums! At this point, paint is all he likes, well he does like crayons, but not for drawing just eating.