Disclaimer: Skip this if you're squeamish

I pride myself on my iron stomach. As long as I'm not pregnant, I don't really get that grossed out by things. Blood. Guts. Nothing fazes me.

And then I woke up yesterday morning to find these in a Rubbermaid container on my kitchen table.We came home from a weekend away to find our sprinklers inexplicably turned on in the evening. After an hour, we decided there was something wrong with the timer. After Brian got the water shut off, he cracked open the timer box and we immediately backed off because there were hornets everywhere in there! It was still pretty light and warm, so Brian waited a few hours before going back out to kill them off (thank you, thank you, thank you wonderful hornet killer spray). I didn't really think about it after that.

And then I found them on my kitchen table. That's exactly what you want to see first thing in the morning, right? After trying really hard to make appreciative noises while Brian excitedly showed me the dead larvae (ugh!), I made him take the container to the garage because apparently we can't just toss them in the garbage. He wants to keep them. And he took pictures. Unfortunately for any who are interested in these things, I made him take them outside before he got a picture of the container. These are the moments when I realize that all men never really get rid of that inner boy who loves bugs.

Picture Vomit

Sorry for the gross title, but it seemed rather appropriate for the amount of catching up I have to do. I promise we haven't just been sitting around twiddling our thumbs for the last two weeks! Brian took advantage of the break in rain to finally wash his motorcycle and recruited Colby as a grunt to dry it off. I don't think Colby minded, though. He was pretty proud that Daddy finally let him touch the darn thing!

But on to the big news -- Colby finally sat through a haircut for the first time in 2 years without screaming. Thanks to the very helpful hint from a friend of ours, we took him to Cookie Cutters (http://www.haircutsarefun.com/). Thank goodness for those wonderfully talented people with the motorcycle seat and the video games! He got an actual haircut with layers blended, instead of the all-over buzz we had to give him when we had to hold him down and put safety goggles on him so the hair wouldn't get in his eyes. Trust me, it was a huge ordeal, so we all wanted it over as quickly as possible.
But I think he looks pretty dang good with the new one. Based on the pose, I think he thinks he looks good too. He's trying SO hard not to smile!

His other highlight was a day camp at Thanksgiving Point on horses. When I first asked him if he wanted to do the horse camp, the answer was an emphatic "No!" so I didn't really think he'd enjoy it - but he totally did! They brushed and combed a pony, toured the tack room, learned about saddles, rode on a pony and did some crafts. We're doing frogs next month. That should be interesting.Now the motorcycles and horses are really cool and all, but they can NOT compare to what is coming up next. That's right, the big event of June was. . .I learned how to use my Cricut to cut out vinyl letters!
Isn't it adorable? Colby has one for his art supplies too. I'm so in love with them. I love them almost as much as I love my bookcase. It was kind of a letdown, though, because now I really want to cut out some cute sayings for my walls - but I don't want to waste the effort since I want to move soon. So. . .maybe I should because I know as soon as I make my walls all cute, we'll have to move. Hmm. Food for thought.

Up, Up and Away!

I'm not sure why, but during June most of the towns in Utah have city celebrations, and Springville is no exception. For the last two weeks our town has been celebrating Art City Days with lots of fun events like baby contests and children's parades and art contests. However, the top of our list for Art City Days was the balloon race. Colby and I had never seen a hot-air balloon up close, and Brian has been regaling us with tales of the one in New Mexico for years, so we definitely had to go check this one out.Ah, but notice that fake smile. We got tickets to take a tethered balloon ride and Colby was having none of it! Watching the balloons fill and take off was pretty cool, though, so we had to satisfy ourselves with that, albeit from a safe distance so Colby couldn't hear or feel the fire :)
The giant piggy bank balloon from the Bank of American Fork was my favorite by far, and now I'm really excited to see the balloon festival in New Mexico because Brian told me they have a huge cow, which I'm sure is really funny to see next to the giant hamburger balloon.Colby finally got excited just as we were leaving, after all the balloons had lifted off, when he noticed the face painting booth staffed by.....Springville High School cheerleaders, of course! I was surprised that he requested a balloon, but I think what really made him smile was how many times this one cheerleader told him he had adorable cheeks (he really does - they're so kissable!). What a fun morning!

Who needs room to work? But, books - they need their space.

Plainly, I love books. I'd buy a book a day if I could, and it absolutely kills me when I have to get rid of one. As you can see, that doesn't happen too often :) It does mean that I ran out of room in our bookcases. We had two 5-shelf bookcases, side by side, in our office, and there was absolutely no room to add another magazine, let alone another book. To make matters worse, the shelves were starting to bow in the middle. So I've had my eye on a new bookcase for a while, and on Saturday we were finally able to go get it!
We got this at IKEA, and Brian finally got it assembled at about 9:30 Saturday night. After another 2 hours of rearranging and measuring, we finally decided on a spot for it in the office. I had to sacrifice my scrapbook table, but it's worth it because....... I have room for more books! You probably can't see but most of these shelves have books stacked two deep, but there's actually room to spare! This made my week.