Moran Family Fun

This Saturday was our Stake's annual Day to Serve and, like last year, all the volunteers met at nearby Serenity Farm  to harvest food that would be donated to local families. There were a ton of people there to help -  approximately 840 men, women, and children.  We harvested potatoes, tomatoes, corn, and sweet potatoes, weeded cabbage, painted fences, stained a barn, and planted flowers. After all was said and done 150 local families in need were given fresh produce. When we arrived early in the morning it was foggy and cool but by mid-morning the sun was shining and the skies were a perfect blue. We got ourselves signed in, donned our Mormon Helping Hands vests, and were given some instructions. Madison headed off to complete her assignment of assembling the 900+ lunches for the volunteers while Samantha, her friend Anna, and I climbed into a wagon for a hay ride out to the potato fields. Our job in the potato field was the gather the potatoes in small bags and ...

It's Madison's senior year and she has a sweet school schedule. Half days every day baby! It's great for her to be able to get her required classes out of the way and then hit the road instead of filling the rest of her day with electives she's doesn't need or even want to take. Her schedule does require me to pick her up at lunch time every day because she can't yet drive on her own and we still need to buy her a car. But once those two things fall into place she'll really be living the life. I know Madison loves her schedule, and surprisingly enough, I love it as well.  It's really fun to have her around every afternoon.  We run errands, watch TV, take naps, and talk about life.  She's my afternoon sidekick and it reminds me so much of when she was a toddler and she and I spent our days together running errands, watching TV, taking naps, and talking about life.  Post-run selfie with my new running buddy Madison. Our not very lofty goal is...

Today marks the one year anniversary of us signing a million papers and closing on our house. In that time we've done lots of work, most of it in the yard, to get this place looking more like our home than someone else's.  This spring we focused more inside the house when we redid the downstairs bathroom (see this post ) and shortly after that project was finished we moved across the hall to the master bedroom. So here's the before shot: The same curtains that were here when we moved in, bedding we've had since 2010, the walls  AND trim painted the same sad off white as the rest of the basement, and the ugly closet doors. Not pictured, the ugly bedroom door!  And now the after pictures! This room was actually a bit of a piecemeal project. We bought new curtains and bedding in February but didn't get around to choosing a paint and getting it on the walls until April. We owe a big thank you to Jared's mom who came for a visit and got roped into helping me...

Continuing with our recent tree theme - we built a treehouse! Jared's dad come for a visit in April and Jared mentioned then how with all these trees we should build a treehouse. The kids jumped on that idea, especially the younger ones, and this month their handy grandpa came to see us again and helped us build a treehouse. He started by having the kids draw their dream treehouse and then he made a plan based on their drawings. We headed out to our local lumber store and bought a truck bed full of supplies and then started building.  That first day was spent cutting boards and framing out the walls. In the beginning, everyone was outside helping but as the day wore on only Samantha stuck it out. She was measuring, marking, hammering, and working right alongside her grandpa.  I'm pretty sure she slowed down the work but he was so patient as he showed her the building ropes. The next morning the girls joined their grandpa outside again and worked together to add out...

The girls and I gave Jared a chainsaw for Father's Day. It's a gift that will get plenty of use in our yard that is mostly trees. In fact, he's already used it twice in yards not belonging to us and a few weeks ago was able to use it at our own house. We had a sad looking willow tree close to the bottom of our driveway. It had a quite a few dead branches just hanging around and the entire thing was leaning at a rather precarious angle. So we set out one Saturday morning to put it out of it's misery. Jared did all the heavy lifting and cut the actual tree down while the girls and I offered our encouragement and support. The most exciting part of the whole endeavor was watching the tree as it fell. Because we were pretty sure the tree would fall into the street I was posted on the other side of the road with the assignment to watch out for cars. I was to warn Jared when cars were coming and to get the drivers attention and have them slow down as they passed. I d...

Last month we had an extended family picture taken with my parents, all of my siblings, and their spouses and children. Being there for the big picture day was one of the main reasons we traveled to Utah this summer. It took quite a lot of logistical work to get all thirty-seven of us in the same place at the same time and in coordinating outfits to boot! It took so much work in fact that we were actually all together for only as long as it took to take the pictures, so for about two hours. Of course the finished photos were lovely, but my favorite shots of the day were the many candid pictures that were taken as we waited to take the actual pictures. The weather was a bit rainy as we were first arriving at the shoot location so we waited it out under some trees and kept our fingers crossed that our hair would stay pretty. Natalie loved the umbrellas that our photographer so kindly thought to bring to the shoot There was even time for the kids to play on the playg...

I'm trying to get my head working and write up a few more memories of our trip to Utah last month, but it all seems like so very long ago that the words just won't come. So, this post will be heavy on pictures and light on words. No trip to Utah is complete without a day in Salt Lake City so we made our plans for a fun day and headed south. Really the main thing to see was Temple Square and the other church sites there but we also added in a few stops at a couple of yummy food places. Lunch was at Bruges Waffles and Frites  where we enjoyed so-so waffles and really stellar fries. My sister Becca and her sweet family joined us there and I was reminded how thankful I am to be past the little kid and baby stage of parenting. She and Louis are right in the thick of it and really do handle things wonderfully, but I like not having  to worry about diapers, strollers, and nap times anymore! After lunch we headed over to Temple Square, parked under the Conference Center, ...