Crochet business

At the very end of April I decided to put my crocheted items into a new boutique store that was opening up here in town, called No. 4 and Company.  I was really excited about this.  I paid a monthly rental fee for my spot in the store and then all the revenue from items sold was mine to keep.  Here is my set-up in the shop:

Here is the view from the front door.  My stuff is straight back against the wall.

I put together a book with photos of everything I had made so that people could place custom orders for items they wanted.

So, my items stayed in the store for the month of May at a rental rate of $50 per month.  I did mark up my items to cover the cost of the rental space.  However, the whole thing ended up not working out for many reasons, and I pulled my items out after only one month.  The women who opened the store specialize in redoing pieces of furniture, building new furniture, and chalk paint.  The people who came into the store were there specifically to purchase those things and not crocheted items.  The store was just the wrong customer base for me.  I think crocheted items overall work better on a custom order basis.  Also, when I made the decision to rent a space, I didn't know that the store would only be open Thursday-Sunday and with shortened hours on some days.  And the store was never very busy even when they were open (the terrible location that wasn't anywhere near anything else, I'm sure had a lot to do with that).  So, with the combination of those things, I only sold a few items.  I almost made back my $50 and was only out the time I spent making the items that sold, so it wasn't too much of a loss.  I have since then, on my own, sold most of the items I made for the store.  And I have continued to have a steady stream of business on my own, so I don't feel bad at all about pulling out of the shop.  It was fun to try something new!

Damon's 5th Birthday!

This is always an exciting birthday.  It's the "I'm old enough to go to school now" birthday.  Damon could not wait for this day to come.  When we went in to sing to him, he popped right out from beneath his covers (already awake) and held out his hands for his presents. 

Damon has been asking off and on over the past year for Skylanders figures.  He was pretty excited to get the whole game.

A present from Natalie and Kelton...

Natalie and Kelton used their own money to buy Damon a (used) bike.  I'm not sure who was more excited about it... Damon or Natalie and Kelton.   Natalie also let Damon wear her medal, that she earned from doing well on a test at school, for the day.

Damon has a few Transformers that he has been playing with a lot and he has also been watching cartoon Transformers episodes on TV.  So I decided to do a Transformers cake for him and get him a new Transformer to go with it.  This guy is called Heatwave--which is why there are flames around the bottom of the cake.

Damon really wanted a Lego set for his birthday.  He's never had one of his own.  Here he is with Nate putting it together.

Lego shirt and money from Grandma and Grandpa Webb.  Damon got a cool walking robot toy from Grandma and Grandpa Burgess.  I somehow forgot to take a picture of him with all of his birthday presents. 

April randomness

Conversation:  Me: "Kelton, did you write on your face?"  Kelton, a bit puzzled: "Why??"
Hmmm... I don't know.... maybe because it says "Kelton" across your face.  When I asked him if he did it looking in the mirror, he was amazed that I could know such information.  The fact that his name was written from right to left and in mirror image was a bit of a tip off.  I'm still trying to figure out what compels a child old enough to actually write their name to do so across their face in pen...

A proper princess always plays in the mud.  There was one spot of mud in the back yard.  One.  And I turned my back for one minute.  One.  Leave it to Arie, who by the way is very aware that she's not supposed to play in the mud.  She's also aware that she's the baby of the family and is very cute.

I played Yahtzee with Natalie for the first time.  The idea of getting a Yahtzee and all those points is always so exciting.  But after I explained the rules, I made sure to let her know that actually getting a Yahtzee is rare and it doesn't happen every time you play.  So, what happens on her first turn?  She gets a Yahtzee!  But then.... that was to be followed by my first turn, where I ALSO got a Yahtzee!  Yeah right mom, super rare.

Yay for Easter clearance and boys needing new church clothes.  By the way, Damon actually really likes the color purple.

This little girl.  This month she decided that changing her clothes about ten times per day would be a fabulous idea.  It was enough to almost drive me crazy.  It wasn't so bad until she found the stash of all of her outgrown clothes and started to put those in the mix.  So we ended up with a giant pile of laundry that ranged from about 12 months on up.  It was so fun to sort all of that out-- again-- and put it away.  I then moved all of her clothes into my dresser where she couldn't reach them.  I felt a little bad stifling her creative expression, but not really.  Of all of my kids, she is definitely the most talented at dressing herself.

Despite the outward facade, changing clothes so often is exhausting for her too.  Yes, she is asleep.

Damon has been learning how to read and doing a great job.  We've loved having these books that Aunt Erica sent us.  All of the oldest three have used them to learn to read, once they've learned sounds and how to put vowel-consonant-vowel words together.

Natalie loves to read.  And for some reason, Natalie loves to read on the couch (in this same position) while eating lots and lots of baby carrots.  So it was quite hilarious to find Natalie's little mini-me doing the same thing. 

Kelton's grade put on a musical performance called "Hats."  We couldn't really understand what the kids were singing, but it was a cute show.  Kelton even got to have a speaking part!  He's in yellow on the far right of this picture wearing his minion beanie.

Awesome conversation with Mom

I got this text from my mom back in April.  She was having a momentary mind blank... but it ended up being hilarious!  Mom is in gray... my replies are in blue.

Do you know what Damon's middle name is???



Wait for it....




Wait for it....




BURGESS!!!  As in my maiden name, which just so happens to be my parents' last name.  This still makes me laugh.  After all, it's not like I named him after my dad!  I love my mom.  :)

April 4--Easter egg hunt

The Saturday before Easter we had our traditional egg hunt.  As always, we did the hunt in our loft, because outside temperatures this time of year do not mix well with chocolate.

Arie loves her Natalie

These two pictures are from February/March. 

The power of example... Arie wants to be just like her big sister.

Disneyland, part 4-- Everything else

This is a picture from before we left, and I'm glad we took it then, because we never got around to doing one like it at Disneyland.  We bought these sweatshirts (for us and the kids) and Nate's mom embroidered them for us.  Each one is personalized with our initials. 

Jedi Training.  The kids were very excited about this.  Natalie and Kelton both got picked the last time we went to Disneyland and they still remembered it.  This time, Damon was old enough to do it too, but sadly, he didn't get picked.  Here is Kelton fighting Darth Vader:

And Natalie fighting Darth Maul

Damon got to be Darth Mickey instead. 

This is Natalie and me right before riding Thunder Mountain.  It was the first time Natalie had ever been on it because it was closed on all our previous visits.  Look at that face.  She isn't excited at all.  By the way, she loved this ride.

Thunder Mountain again with Kelton.  He really liked it too.  Damon went on this one, and Nate wasn't sure he really liked it.  But later he was telling us it was his favorite.  So who knows.

This picture is from one of the days in the later half of our trip.  Both Damon and Arie fell asleep in the stroller.  Arie's position was great.  She likes to sleep on her tummy and being in a stroller wasn't about to stop her.

I still can't figure out how this is comfortable.  I sat with the stroller so they could sleep while Nate took Natalie and Kelton on some rides.  I saw so many people point and giggle about Arie sleeping in a stroller with her bum in the air.  It was pretty funny.

These next few pictures are of the kids watching the parade.

Damon and Arie loved the Teacups.  I don't think Arie was old enough to understand or express what her favorite ride was, but I think this would probably be it.  When it started, she immediately started laughing.  And if we were anywhere near them, she would shout out "Teacups!"  The three of us rode this ride a lot over the course of our five days.  When Nate had the older kids, this was kind of our default location.  Fantasyland is somewhat central to everything and this ride pretty much had no line ever (meaning less than about a five minute wait).

I like this picture.  I think Arie is checking out the lanterns that hang above the teacups.

By the way, it is very hard to take a picture in a spinning teacup.  Especially when you are trying hard not to drop a small, expensive phone.

The two of them really would laugh the whole time the ride was going.

We managed to get in all of the rides in Fantasyland on the same morning.  Peter Pan was closed the whole time we were there, which was really sad because that's arguably the best ride in Fantasyland. (Just a side note, Splash Mountain, Soarin' Over California, and World of Color were also closed.)    But it was fun to go on all the other rides, especially some of the ones that we've always skipped in the past.  Arie did not like the darker rides.  Snow White's Scary Adventure really is scary. She didn't scream or cry, but she was very scared.  The poor little girl hid her face in her hands and refused to come out.  After that ride, she immediately hid her face in her hands on similar rides without even giving the ride a chance.  But, she did like this one.  This is all of us crammed into a caterpillar on the Alice in Wonderland ride--Natalie was in the front seat with me.  I'm not sure if I'd ever been on this one before.

Look at how empty the park is!  Not!!  The parks were much busier than we thought they would be at the end of February.  The first few days were fine, but Wednesday-Friday just got busier and busier.  This is us leaving after a long day at California Adventure.  Right before the park closed, we rushed to the back of the park to ride Toy Story Midway Mania.  We thought at that time there wouldn't be too much of a line.  We were wrong.  That ride is awesome.  It's fun.  It's really popular.  It always has a long line.  The end.  But after getting off, and the park was closed, there wasn't really anyone left in the park.  It was kind of strange to walk around without crowds of people, or any people really, all over the place.

Ferris Wheel

Pixar Play Parade

In Bug's Land at DCA, riding Flik's' Flyers.  Kelton liked this one.

 

So did Arie. 

 

The last ride of the day... Autopia.  Our kids had never been on this.  They of course had a lot of fun driving the cars.  Kelton got really worried that the car was "real" and was scared about driving it.  Nate explained that it was on a track, but he was still nervous.   

 

 Natalie, on the other hand, well... look at this picture.  It's worth far more than a thousand words.  What else can I say?  Let's just say that her father is going to be the one to teach her to drive. 

This was Arie's favorite way to travel around the park.  A lot of the time she would put her hands down around Nate's chin and put her pointy little chin directly on Nate's head.  He was constantly having to stop her because it didn't feel very good.  But it sure was cute.  I didn't get a picture of that, but his way was cute too.  She even fell asleep like this once on our way out of the park.

Later in the trip, Kelton really wanted to go on the Astro Orbiters again.  The line for this one can get really bad and we had already done this ride on our way into the park once.  But Kelton didn't get to drive the rocket the first time.  So we watched it and hopped in the line when it was a bit shorter.  He loved being able to control the rocket.

One of our many times on Star Tours.  I think this was Damon's favorite ride.  I really like this one too.

Teacups... again!  They still love it.

Christy, Tennyson, Hudson, and Easton joined us for one day.  Christy stayed with Easton until early afternoon.  Tennyson stayed all day with Hudson, but we took a hotel break in the middle of the day, so we weren't with them for the whole day.

This is us waiting for the rope drop at park opening, right at the entrance to Tomorrowland.  This was when Natalie and I got to be some of the first ones on Space Mountain for the day.  Again, it looks like there is no one in the park and that it's not busy.  But, we just happened to beat everyone there.  They are all packed in behind us.  We were just in the very front.  Because we are awesome.

Star Tours with Hudson.

Dads with cute 2 year olds.  Arie and Easton are only about a month apart in age.  This was in line for the Nemo Submarines.

Here's all of us in the submarine.  Nate, Damon, Hudson, Kelton, Natalie, Christy (pregnant with Landon), Tennyson, and Easton.  Arie must have been sitting on my lap.

Waiting for the fireworks!  We were all so tired, but they wanted to see the fireworks.  Actually, if I am remembering right, the boys were asleep in the stroller.  I think we tried to wake them up, but I don't know how much they saw.  This was on our last night, after five long days at Disneyland.  I can't blame them for falling asleep.  But not Arie and Natalie!  I Love this picture of my girls.  They are so sweet.

And they love each other a lot.

All week, the castle had been covered up because they were getting it ready for their diamond celebration later in the year.  But on Friday, they uncovered it!  Disneyland wasn't quite as magical when the castle was under a giant tarp thing.  I'm glad we got to see it on the last day.

We were excited to go back to the Animation Academy at DCA.  The kids had fun last time and this time they boys were old enough to be able to draw better.  We were anticipating many trips to the Animation Academy on our visit, until we learned that they changed the setup.  They used to draw several different characters throughout the whole day.  But, because of the popularity of the movie Frozen, several places in DCA got taken over due to everyone's obsession with the movie.  The Animation Academy was one of the casualties.  They now only have "Do you Want to Draw a Snowman" and rotate between two characters...Olaf and Marshmallow.  Clever, but a bit boring.  Oh well.  The kids enjoyed drawing Olaf.  I think Arie's drawing wins.

 

 Cute boys trying on hats. 

On Route 66 in Cars Land.

Tarzan's treehouse.

Whew!  And that's about it.  It was a tiring, yet fun trip.  I must admit, I am ready for a new vacation.  While this is really fun, because of the ages of our kids, Nate and I ended up being split up a lot in order to take older kids on bigger rides.  The entire family didn't get to be all together a whole lot.  Plus, Nate and I have been to Disneyland five times in the past seven years.  (Once was without kids, and there was even an additional short trip to Disneyworld on our honeymoon.)  So, we will see what the next family vacation brings!  Whatever it is, I'm thinking that all of the kids will be old enough to not need naps/strollers/etc...

On the way home, our car became a senior citizen.  100,000 miles.  Yikes.  I know it's not that much, but I really don't like high mileage vehicles.  Makes me nervous.  Oh well.  Hopefully our Durango has many more years life left!  :)