Elfyourself.com

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Okay, this was too funny not to post more than one! We put my mom in there too so that we'd have 5 dancers. Hahahahahaha! Merry Christmas from the Lundahl Elves!

We were elved!

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Holiday Pictures

So we are low on the mula this Christmas (like everyone else right?) and so we decided to just take our own family pictures for our Christmas cards and such. We just used our timer on our camera. This worked fine until we decided to do a shot of just me and Shiloh. Ezra would watch us as the timer clicked down and then go over and pick up the camera and bring it to us just as it would take the shot! It was hilarious his timing was so impecable. I think we tried this shot 4 times before it finally worked. Oh my sweet Ezra!!

My crazy child

Ezra is now 20 months old and has really started to take on his own personality. He is an extremely happy boy with a lot of silly energy. He likes to do things to get people's reaction--like the class clown. Here he is just being crazy. I asked the kids to sing their "Turtle Song" and you can easily see the contrast between the two personalities. Eliza is so detail oriented, pleasant and princess-like (as she'd like to think). And Ezra is, well, really smart and REALLY funny. Take a look!!

Happy Thanksgiving (a little late)

We had a wonderful thanksgiving with Shiloh's family. It was at my house so I got the privilege of organizing dinner! Shiloh's mom helped a lot, but this was my first Thanksgiving dinner at my own house cooked by yours truly! It was really fun and we all enjoyed ourselves.

Christmas is COMING!

I was so excited for Christmas I couldn't bear another minute without updating my blog with Christmas music and decor. I also have a new spice candle brewing in my home (too bad you can't smell that on the blog). Mmm... I'll post some pics soon. :)

Halloween Trunk or Treat

Here we are at a Trunk or Treat! Shiloh is Lancelot, I am Gwenevere, Eliza is Tinkerbell, and Ezra is a Cowboy riding a horse! Happy Halloween!

Birthdays, birthdays, and more birthdays!

In the last 5 weeks we have celebrated 7 family birthdays! It has been crazy fun and we have enjoyed ourselves. My sister Bree came into town and we went to the Zoo with her kids, Eliza, and my brother Justin's family. The children loved it and so did we! The weather was unusually cool and so we were able to walk around for hours without breaking a sweat--and that's saying something for AZ! Here are some of my favorite pics & video...

GULP!

I found this lovely Black Widow on my doorstep this morning, complete with cricket breakfast! Gulp!!! This is how she looked just before I SMASHED her with the nearest shoe I can find. I HATE SPIDERS! If anything made me want to exterminate my home inside and out it is this...

A Fallen Tree

We had a really windy storm last week. It was quite scary. If it had any rain with it I might've thought it was a hurricane, but in the end it was just wind. Later that night we discovered that we had some wreckage from the storm. The tall and bushy Mesquite tree in our front yard had literally been blown over onto its side! The poor thing had been "leaning" for awhile because I guess the roots are pretty shallow on it, so it didnt' have a prayer. We considered our alternatives: 1) We could trim it down and take the risk of trying to salvage it. or 2) We could just scrap it and get a new tree. As sad as I was to lose the shade, I just wasn't convinced the uprooted roots would survive and trying to get it up straight and tied seemed like more of a task than starting again. Therefore, we opted to scrap the tree.

Shiloh has been so busy lately that today I decided to try my hand at real hard labor. :) So I got my new hand saw and some pruners and went to work! It took me about 2 hours to get it to this stage (piles of branches and one huge trunk left). Shiloh can dig it up and haul it off. Whew!

To bangs or not to bangs...

Okay, so I decided to cut bangs. I know, I know I've had bangs for awhile, but this time I decided to cut blunt, straigh-across bangs. It's a huge style change for me and I'm not sure I like it. I can easily grow them out, clip them, whatever, but I was wondering if all of you who look at my blog could give me some feedback. To bangs, or not to bangs??? You'll have to take my "before" picture with a grain of salt, I don't actually take many pictures of just me so this was the best I could find after the chopping happened. :) And don't worry, you won't hurt my feelings if you don't like 'em. I'm not sure if I like them. My hair is naturally wavy so they don't lay exactly straight. I suppose I could flat-iron them. Any suggestions anyone?? Hair grows, right? Hee, hee...

Labor Day

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Grandma and PaPa Johnson came and swam in the pool with the kids on Labor Day. They had a blast! And Grandma taught Eliza how to blow bubbles out her nose in the water (we are trying to teach her to swim). Take a looksie at the swimming fun!

Look-a-Likes

You can't tell me that these two don't look just alike! I took these pictures separately and then looked at them and thought, WHOA! Ezra is totally his father's son!

At least it's just shoes....

So, we were having some fun dressing up Eliza in all her many princess dresses. It was like a photo shoot. (She has about a half dozen more that didn't get pictured!)

Anyhoo, Ezra decided he wanted to be part of the action and brought me some of Eliza's shoes to put on. Sigh. He was so cute I couldn't resist him much to Shiloh's chagrin. Oh well, at least it's just shoes, right? Ha!

Eyes bigger than his Mouth

My son has eyes bigger than his mouth. He has this really silly habit of trying to cram as much in his mouth as possible while eating--no matter what the food may be. I can't tell if it is just that he's really hungry and can't wait, or if he just wants to get on to better things quicker--like toys. In either case, here's my future eating contest winner with his latest invention: The Graham Cracker Stack!

A fence for the pool... Oh, the relief!

We got a fence for our pool today, YEAH!!!!! It cost way more than I wanted to pay, but the result was far better than I expected. Take a look! It curves with the pool, and it has a magna lock which is child proof (has to be lifted from the top to open, and also has a key). It was custom painted to match our house. Now we can have some peace of mind when we go in the backyard to pull weeds, etc... (Which, bytheway are taking over our backyard so please ignor the overgrowth in the pictures--we're working on it!!!) Yippee for pool fences!

Haircutting time!

Ezra's hair was starting to look like a Donald Trump comb-over, so we figured it was time to give him his FIRST HAIRCUT!!

BEFORE:
AFTER:
And just for fun, I decided it was time for Eliza to get her first haircut... BANGS!!! Here she is, my little supermodel:

Our AZ home!!

We just got news that the bank accepted our offer on this house in AZ!!! Yeah!! We are so excited! It is located in east Queen Creek on Ironwood/Ocotillo in the Pecan Creek development. It's right across the street from the park and around the bend from the school. It's got 4 bedrooms plus a game room and loft area. Oh, and it has a pool!! We have to put up a fence around it, though, which I am sure will cost a pretty penny so if anyone knows anybody who does this let me know. :) We close August 11th! Arizona, here we come!

Graduation

Here's our graduate! He walked on May 1st, but won't be officially done until he finishes his internship in July. I am so proud of him and so is his family. His Grandpa came up from California and his other Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins from Utah came to his convocation. It was a really fun and exciting night for Shiloh. Yay!!

Condo for Sale

Okay, so I would normally think that advertising your home on your blog was a really tacky thing to do, but, since we are selling it ourselves for the first 30 days to see how things go, I need all the exposure I can get, right? So, if you know anyone who wants to buy a beautiful 2 br/1.25 bath condo here it is!

We just installed brand new carpet in the bedrooms last week (the flooring in the rest of the house is less than 3 years old, though) and we painted the rooms in a two-toned fashion to match the rest of the house. We have loved this place, but as you all know, we are leaving for Arizona at the end of the summer. Anyway some other perks are that we installed the UTOPIA fiber optic internet wiring in our home a couple months ago and it has made a huge difference in the internet speed! We have a pool, a kiddie pool, several play areas throughout the complex, and basketball courts as well. It's nice. Here's some pics, some of which didn't turn out as well as I would've hoped, but oh well. We are on the second floor by the way which I LOVE. No water puddles in the winter, and no extreme heat in summer. Just cool and temperate year round. :)

How Hot is McDonald's Hot Water???

On Thursday I went to McDonalds to get some lunch for my kids. Ezra still needs warm milk so I got a hot water as well to warm up the milk I bought from them too. Well, as luck would have it, as I put the milk in the water cup a little of the scalding hot water spilled onto my hand. What did I do? I flinched and dropped the entire cup of scalding hot water on my hand and legs. Keep in mind I was still in the car. Fortunately I was stopped in the parking lot in "park" because my foot immediately went to the gas pedal and made the engine rev as I was screaming and pulling my pants away from my legs. I couldn't help but keep from crying because the burning and stinging hurt so bad. As I tried to settle myself I could hear Eliza in the back say, "Why you screaming, mama?"

Thankfully, I had ordered and ice water as well and so I started dousing my hand and legs with it on the way home. When all was said and done and I was able to get home to assess the damage: I had what looked like a second degree burn on my left leg and a painful first degree burn on my left hand. What was ironic about it all was that after about an hour of cool water over my leg it stopped hurting altogether and was just fine, but my hand burned and stung like crazy for the next 14 hours until 4 am the next morning. In fact, I couldn't stand being without the cooling affect of water on it for more than 1-2 minutes or so before the effect wore off and it started burning again. I have never experienced this type of burn before but it was awful. As I laid there that night on the couch with my hand in a tub of water wishing I could sleep, I just began to really be grateful to Heavenly Father for the rest of my life without this type of pain. And as 4 am rolled around and I started to get drowsy and realized the pain was nearly subsided, I thanked God for His mercy in taking that pain away. This was His hand in my life because I am sure things could have been much worse. And to add to His grace, I had a lot of friends and family come to my aid during it all (Shiloh called our neighbor to come check on me as well as his mother and Aunt Kassie--who later brought me aloe vera gel).

Now that it has been a couple of days my hand feels more like a bad sunburn and my legs are doing just great. Sigh.

Editing, Schmediting.

Whew. Here is my first official attempt at major photo editing. This took me about an hour and it would have been longer but I was getting frustrating with not knowing how to do what I wanted to do with my PhotoShop program. As you can see by my jagged head in the picture that I didn't make it perfect, but I am somewhat satisfied with the final product. Maybe when I am feeling a little more patient I will come back and make it prettier. Until then, enjoy!

Happy Easter.. Happy Birthday!

Here's our Easter picture! We take one every year with our camera, mostly because we are too poor to pay someone. I plan to alter it and fill in a new background with PhotoShop. That should be fun. The day was a great day of family and candy. Yum!

Ezra's Birthday was March 22nd (the day before Easter), so we had a little family & friend gathering to eat pizza, candy, and cake as well as color eggs. It was alot of fun.

Ezra still sucks his thumb whenever he's tired or sleeping and has grown quite attached to this vintage blanket that was made by my grandma Lois for my older brother Justin. The date on it is 1976. It is still in great shape!


Birthday boy! He was so tired by the time we had this family dinner at a local Japanese restaurant that he wasn't as happy as we'd hoped. :)