Thayne's 3rd Birthday!

Thayne is now 3! While my mom was watching the kids apparently Thayne became

interested in their weed-wacker. And asked "Weema" for 

a weed wacker cake...

The anticipation is killing him

Grandma also brought some poppers that made both babies happy.

 Presents...

Thayne is in love with his new bike. He actually has to have it parked next to his bed

in order to sleep. After all that cake we had to get outside to try it out.

 Adam's parents were able to visit us for a short while we are glad they 

spent time with us and were here for Thayne's birthday. 

 Thayne had a great birthday. We tried to plan a party with friends but the weather pooped out. 

I feel like having a family party was just what he wanted anyway.

He was very worried about both sets of grandparents being there for his birthday.

This boy is teaching me so much. He enjoys the simple things and I would say is one of the happiest guys I know. If you ever need anyone to start the party he is your man. 

He makes everyday fun and helps me out in his own little way. 

Happy Birthday Thayne!

Havasupai trip. 5 year anniversary!

Back in 2008 I went on this awesome backpacking trip that I kept telling Adam about as soon as I met him. Finally I was able to take him for our 5 year anniversary.

Or he was able to take me really. 

Most people would probably go to a hotel or on a cruise. 

Nope not us. Backpacking is our kind of adventure. 

This post is kinda crazy because I actually started it while 

we were down at Havasupai. I hope it makes sense. 

Friday night we had to stop in at rei to get a few last minute things and we had to exchange an air mattress they shipped us that had a hole. Good thing Adam checked. Saturday we spent the day road tripping it up. We do have a few pieces of advice for anyone who is doing this trip... Whatever bloggers said peach springs has everything you need... Apparently has no idea what needs are. Stop in Kingman for food and gas. We drove to peach springs only to find out all they have is a hotel and restaurant. There is a tiny store but it closed at 3:00pm. So we didn't get to check it out. We did get to back track a bit but luckily we got some extra water. Which we desperately needed. Even if we had to pay extra. Made for an adventure. Another tip is to buy lots and lots of water at a grocery store. We stopped at the speedway exit at Vegas and got a huge jug of water. I wish we would have bought more water there. Or just had it already that probably would have been best. 

Expensive gas station water. We left a few bottles in the car for when we made it out. 

We slept in our car at the trail head. Here I am saying good bye to the babies for a few days.

Oh and sorry for the quality of the pictures. We took our nice camera but forgot to charge it... oops.

About to hike 10 miles with our backpacks on.

We made it down in record time. I wore my byu shorts. Aren't the cutest but definitely comfy. They came in handy while looking for a spot to camp. A lady stopped us and said that further down camp there were some heavy party people. "I don't know what they are smoking but wow. I noticed your byu shorts and thought you would like to know". 

I love that we had wrist bands obviously people were trying to stay without paying. That was a cool surprise. haha

We also got to go to church. We had a misunderstanding about the time change and thought we had a 1/2 hour to get there but really we had a hour and a half. We ran probably a mile (after already hiking 10 miles) and were so tired and luckily we asked a local for the time. We laughed as we hear 9:45 and not 10:45. Which was the time we thought it was. We got to spend an hour talking to a lovely couple from michigan. They told us of their love of backpacking and the adventures they had been on. I hope we meet up again with them tomorrow. The church meeting was packed! I was disappointed in the dress of some of the hikers. Some only wore swimsuits. I myself was not in Sunday best nor a skirt for that matter. But both of us tried to look presentable as we went. We met Lynda and Annamae. They were so sweet to us and told us to come back again to Supai. Lynda told us about a fresh spring that we could drink from. I won't tell you where it is. You have to get to know people. The speakers who spoke in church had to be helicoptered in. How cool is that? I wonder how many other wards that happens. 

After church we found this sweet spot to swim. I called it the natural swimming pool. This is actually Navajo Falls

Swimming at the famous Havasupai Falls. The picture to the right is going to Mooney falls.

Today we did the hike down to beaver falls. Getting to mooney falls is quite intense. And to be honest I almost chickened out. Adam was so sweet and patient with me. He didn't even complain when I said I didn't want to go. A youth group passed us on my way in and I told Adam that if everyone from the youth group did I to would go. They did it so we went. Thank goodness it was absolutely beautiful. A few pointers is that there is more than one way to beaver falls once you get to mooney. If you hang to the left of the river (as you face down the canyon) then you are probably on the right path. We choose a 5 mile way. And on the way back were shown the 2.5 mile way. Oops. Either way it was great. 

I did make a crazy fashion statement while I was there. A one piece swim suit. Yup. I wish you could have seen The looks I got. All the bikini babes looked at me like I was crazy. Boys gave me confused looks. (Do young girls even own those anymore?) I even caught one rolling her eyes. I don't have anything against different swimsuits in fact my main suit back home is a tankini. I just wanted to see what people would think of a one piece and it was lighter. I did hiking in it and I had zero problems. In fact held the girls down a heck of a lot better than most the other swimsuits I saw there. No one said anything but I wish I could have read minds. It was an interesting social experiment. 

beaver falls. (google pictures of all these beautiful places to get a better idea of what they look like)

This guy loved hanging around our camp site I had to get a picture of him.

We also moved camp after some bombarding campers tried to move in the area. And succeded. Here is our new camp which we are secluded and have an awesome view of the river

lots of crosswords to keep us busy.

4:30am Tuesday packed up camp and headed out. We ended up meeting up with our friends from Michigan and got to hike out with them. Adam had a goal to make it out at less time than 4 hours and 7 minutes. We made it in 4 hours and 2 minutes. Haha. That included our breaks.i had imagine dragons "I'm on top of the world" stuck in my head so I started singing it the last 1/2 mile. It felt amazing to accomplish backpacking our stuff in and out. No helicopters or mules. Just us and our stuff. 

At the trail head happy to be done!

We got to hike out with our friends Eric and Lynn from Michigan. Thanks for the good times!

Hello again minimalism...

...minimalism has been a huge part of my life right now. I didn't dare say it because I was afraid people from New York would parachute into my parking lot and come chew me out on how NOT minimalist I was. Which is totally true. I'm working on it. My minimalism is not their minimalism. Isn't that cool? Just like we all parent differently. 

I could make this blog post really short and say I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff and want to get rid of more stuff.

The end.

But if you want to read a bit more than I guess you can.

Lately I have been focusing on crafting stuff.

I have one tote of craft stuff to some thats a lot. To others thats a little.

To me its a work in progress. I had a tote just for fabrics. Some I didn't even really care for

I just didn't know if I might need it some day. 

What did I get rid of?

Fabric lots and lots of fabric

Scrap book stuff all of it

(other than the book which now is out so we can look at it) 

Yarn 

knitting needles

Random goggly eyes

BEADS

buttons

ribbon

...

I could keep going. 

I just kept my favorites and decided I can't craft everything I see on pinterest. 

What gave me great courage was this blog post found here. 

She gave a great idea to just buy a cheap kit for kid crafts and when they are done get rid of it

all of it. Don't save pieces just in case you might sort of need them 20 years down the road. 

WHEW! It helped me so much it was hard to get rid of things I had even started to make, 

like a jean quilt I finally gave it away. hopefully it will make someone else happy. 

Every time I looked at it I just got frustrated. 

I still have a long way to go but for now I have found much more time to enjoy things like this...

and this...

hiking around beautiful Cache Valley.
Thayne walked 4.5 miles all on his own. We are so proud of him! He finally let us carry him when there was only a mile left. He loves being outside... I wonder where he gets it from?

Less stuff=less cleaning/organizing time.
Less cleaning/organizing=more time outside
more time outside=happy family
:)

Spoiler alert next blog post is going to be about a big outdoor adventure... stay tuned!

My 1/4 of a century birthday!

I just celebrated my 1/4 of a century birthday. Or 25th. It was the best birthday so far. It was also the first birthday I wasn't so focused on things. Although I did buy a cute outfit... That doesn't count right? I got to see a lot of my extended family which I can not even express how amazing that was to see everyone. That was a huge gift all in itself. 

My woderful husband Adam gave me the best birthday present ever... A real date! I should throw this out there that we do date a lot but most of them are at home or with the kids or I planned them. Which is totally cool for us and works most weeks.  But for my birthday I wanted him to do all the work just like before we were married. So he did. He spent weeks trying to figure out the best date for us and I think he did a perfect job. He kept it a surprise even during the date. (Which is what I wanted. ) 1st part of the date we drove to down town salt lake. And then suddenly ended up at the Salt Lake City cemetery. I made a joke that for my 25th birthday we were going to pick out head stones together. He actually had me going that this is what we were doing. Instead he pulled out a list of clues and coordinates. We went geocaching! 

Each coordinate lead to a different prophet. And at each head stone there was a clue you had to figure out. all the clues put together made the coordinates to the geocache. 

Which we somehow found! And if you decide to do this geocache that picture will give you a huge hint. All we needed was an app for our phones and we were able to geocache. 

After our geocache adventure. We went out to eat. Adam told me to dress up. That's all I knew... 

Yup totally changed in some bathrooms at the cememtary. I didn't take any pictures at the place we are but it was amazing. He took me to the Market Street Grill in salt lake. Oh man best.crab.ever. I didn't take a picture because I was busy stuffing...uhhh... Politely eating my food. After dinner we went to smiths and bought a cake and watched a movie with my brother and thayne. Which I guess sort of ended the "real date" part but we didn't care we snuggled anyway. It was a fabulous day. Thanks honey for not buying us matching headstones maybe when we are 1/2 a century. 

Oh and this was too hilarious not to share apparently at the wedding I hit the talk to Siri button because this came up on my screen. 

Hehe. 

3 ways to simplify your life without getting rid of anything

I don't even know where to begin with how to give you motivation to simplify your life but I know some people who do. The word minimalism has been floating around for a while now. I used to be really scared of it. I thought if you were a minimalist it was a competition of who could have the least amount of things. Who could live in the smallest box, who could drive the smallest car. 

But it's not!!!! Thanks to a blog called becoming minimalist I have realized that it is for families and that it is different for every family. I have enjoyed getting rid of things and realizing I don't need as many physical things. Sometimes though it's just too scary to take things to the thrift store. If you need a jump start to spring cleaning try getting rid of things that aren't things. 

Yup you heard me right. Here are 3 ways to simplify your life without leaving your house. 

1. Simplify Facebook. 

I know you check it only 3 times a day... But do you really need to know what your cousins, sisters, aunts, dog is doing? What about that kid you had one class with and never talked to but still keep around as a friend because you don't want to hurt their feelings but they post crazy things? 

Ya we all got crazy people we somehow ended up friends with on Facebook (hey I might even be one of them!) checking your Facebook is so much easier if you FOLLOW less people. See image below...

You can stop following people (ps I still follow becoming minimalist.) by following less people I spend less time on Facebook. My news feed is way smaller. 

How did I choose who to stop following? I simply opened up my Facebook and immediately noticed my news feed bogged down with things I didn't need to see. 

People I don't follow... 

People I don't actually know and post inappropriate things/weird things... ya...

The constant complainer. 

The every 10 minute updater 

I'm sure you thought of a few people to unfollow. 

The people I do follow:

Happy people. 

People who post recipes, news updates, interesting articles. 

People I actually know :) 

If you aren't sure who to stop following here is a song to help you out…

the best part is they can't see if you aren't following them anymore.

2. Simplify movies! 

Adam and I used to have a lot of movies. But guess what we realized? Everytime we want to watch a movie we never reach for our library of movies. It's usually a redbox or a Netflix. 

The movies we kept are kid movies for our children and classics. You know like nacho libre and princess bride. Now sorry I know I said things you didn't have to get rid of. But stop collecting movies. You'll thank me later. 

3. Simplify your phone. 

How many apps do you have? How many do you use? How many are you getting notifications for? 

I just shut off notifications for my emails. Life changing. Now I see my email when I want to get to it. That also works great for me because I eBay and I get seriously probably at least 20 emails a day (I've never actually counted) just for that and I'm a stay at home mom. Your email can wait. I read that after checking your email often or even texts it takes you 7 minutes to get fully back on task... How many times do you check it a day? 

Hopefully these were helpful. Again simplifying is totally changing my life. I'll do a post soon about getting rid of things. The castle of Hassell is thriving with less and feelin even richer! 

Ah spring!

Is it really march?!?? Time is passing by so quickly. I'm writing this at 3:00 in the morning because my babies don't want to sleep so if this doesn't make sense I'm sure I'll edit it sometime tomorrow. 

First off I had a makeover for my rocking chair... 

And here is the after. ..

There is a awesome lady close by who has a house and paints! Someday I'll have a house an be able to paint! But for the mean time I did not mind paying her to paint my chair. I got the cushions from target :)

Adam spent his "spring break" working on his CNA. He is going to be completely done with all the certifications this weekend. We feel so much better about PA school than we ever did about vet school. It's crazy how we were led to this path. 

This past weekend we also got to celebrate our March babies in the family! It was the only time we could all be together this month. It's amazing how everyone becoming adults does that. 

Happy birthday mom! 

And Garett! 

And Joslyn! 

During spring break we got to go to the park a lot. Although in bountiful it was pretty lonely Thayne liked to take pictures. He loves selfies. 

I am still decluttering and feel like someday the house will be just right to show off. I have come such a long way it's amazing. I love getting rid of things. 

So that's what we have been up to and hopefully I'll get to go to bed soon...

Valentine's and painting crafts

I've missed my blog. 

I always feel I don't have anything cool to write or anything to show.

These two babies keep me pretty busy.

Don't mind the iphone pictures...

this is our Valentine's day. Adam and I got to celebrate on Wednesday together. 

We aren't much of V-day people so grandma (and grandpa) bringing the cake was very exciting!

Thayne had to get frosting everywhere. He smeared it all over his little face and even put some on my nose. I made him this "big dada" heart on his tummy. 

The kids are growing up too fast. I have tried my hardest to enjoy the moments while I can.

Life gets chaotic but in all honesty I wouldn't have it any other way.

I love crafting but lately I have been decluttering and minimizing. 

Crafting=clutter + lots of I-might-need-that-for-something-I-saw-on-pinterest's. 

But I have to create. So I struck a compromise with myself. What if I do crafts that I already sort of have? Or get rid of ones I don't want anymore to finally make room for new ideas?

I'm doing it! 

I have taken pictures of our apartment but I keep changing it. 

For now this is my latest craft.

Painting! I need to be better at before and after pictures. Because my fridge looked ridiculous. Its amazing what frames can do. I will probably change it up again but for now this is what it looks like.

I saw this on pinterest and thought it was so cool I have Adam's schedule (I have to have it up I can't ever remember when his classes and labs are). I also decided I am in love with this blue right now so I brought it through out the living area.

Thayne and I painted this star and Lindsey helped me make the paint chip calender. I am in the process of moving these especially the calender so I will use it more because I decluttered and now that isn't my "command center" anymore. 

I also (with the help of Lindsey :) ) did this pinterest find. I love being able to display all my bracelets and necklaces. I want to make it more orderly I'll probably get rid of more things too. 

It's just two thrifted china plates and a candlestick holder. I don't even have it glued together :)

So for now I am trying to live a simplier life I read a great decluttering book, Clutterfree with Kids:Change your Thinking 

You can find it here on Amazon.

Every time I picked it up I had to quickly put it down because I wanted to get rid of things. It gave me some great momentum. Right now my goal is to get my kitchen minimized. What do I really need? If you think minimalism isn't for families this book will definitely change your mind. If you think minimalism is crazy this will change your mind. If you are scared to try it this will give you some strength. Our whole fam has some new friends (shout out to Taffee!). They are teaching us so much about simplier living and a clutter free life. They have 3 1/2 babies!!! and live in an apartment!!! I don't think I will ever be able to get rid of as much stuff as them however this book helped me realize that needs are an individual thing. And that I can choose my own level of minimalism if you will. 

So far I have gotten rid of toys lots and lots of toys and guess what? Thayne my 2 1/2 year old plays with toys better. He also reads more books BY HIMSELF. He and Joslyn both still have a ton of toys but getting rid of toys is actually much harder than I thought. 

I will have to tell you more about my journey in simplifying my life. I feel like I finally have some real momentum I don't want my stuff to own me.