Archive for the ‘All in the Family’ Category.

Savanna’s Sixth

originally posted at http://mommychevon.blogspot.com/2012/01/savannas-sixth.html




Last year after Savanna’s birthday she told me “Mom, I am so excited because next year I will be six!” I started to correct her, “No dear, you will only be five. Wait. You will be six!” Six seems sooo old! My babies are growing up so fast I can’t believe it! We are having fun though. With the kids getting older it is much easier to go out and do things and we are getting much more sleep! Savanna is loving kindergarten and is a star student. She just advanced to reading level H, which is just about where kids should be at the end of first grade, I am so proud of her! She brings her readers home every night and it’s exciting to hear her read a book she has never read before, she is learning new words everyday and really reading, not just reciting memorized stories. She is the most creative kid I know. I have stacks and stacks of cards and pictures she has made me. Her Aunt Bubbas gave her a huge pack of scrapbook paper and stickers and pens and glue and markers and she spends most of her time making creations. She is my big helper and is always fetching things for me and entertaining Miles and Avery. She is a very good big sister. When she started school her classmates started losing teeth and she would come home and tell me all about it. One day I told her we should check her mouth to see if she had any loose ones yet. She told me “I don’t mom, I check all my teeth every night and none of them are loose.” Eventually she came to the conclusion that she would have a loose tooth when she turned six. The morning after her birthday she came into our bedroom and announced her first loose tooth! She is so excited to lose it and have a visit from the tooth fairy!
After Miles’ pirate party last year I decided that we would do birthday parties every other year and when we didn’t have a party they could choose a family activity. Savanna chose to go bowling! It was so fun, all the kids really liked it and were good the whole time. Avery even packed around a ball and rolled it down the lane. Miles kept intentionally pushing the ball down the gutter but it didn’t matter because he ended up winning the game! After bowling we came home for cake and ice cream and presents. I had taken Savanna shopping for clothes a couple of days before and she got Hello Kitty slippers and undies on her birthday. It was a great day!

Baby Shower for my SIL

originally posted at http://melbeea.blogspot.com/2012/01/baby-shower-for-my-sil.html


My newest sister-in-law, Mandy, is having a little girl in March, so we decided to throw her a baby shower. Everyone is excited for a new little baby in the family.
Mandy and her sister, Ashley…Mandy is the cute girl in the hat.

My mother-in-law, Lindsey, made a delicious lunch.
We prepared a few little shower games, but the main activity was a craft. We decorated little onesies. I bought fabric glue, but Lindsey had this amazing stuff called Wonder Under. It worked out very well. Everyone seemed to be having a wonderful time! I even bought iron on letters for the not so crafty people.

Savanna and Marissa even decorated 2 onesies. They are very crafty little girls.
Savanna even got to assist her mom.
We hung the onesies on a string, so that we could all see the finished products. The one with the skirt was made by Lindsey prior to the party. We did not have a sewing machine available at my house.
Here are some more onesies. If you look closely, you will see that I even mod podged the clothes pins. Little Adalynn will have plenty of outfits, and thankfully these onesies are all different sizes.
Allie is Mandy’s sister. I think she is trying to be the best aunt.
Here are most of the Bayless girls! We all had a blast! I can’t wait to hold little Adalynn (in March).

I made a project then I blogged about it!

originally posted at http://mommychevon.blogspot.com/2012/01/i-made-project-then-i-blogged-about-it.html




So, in an attempt to decorate my bedroom I moved a beautiful bookshelf that James made me for my 19th birthday up from the basement and put it in our room. It’s so pretty and it has been sitting in the storage room ever since our “office” became Miles’ room. I made bookends for it out of wooden letters, paper, and mod podge. I still need to pull up most of my books from the basement but, you get the idea. Pretty!

And…It’s over!

originally posted at http://mommychevon.blogspot.com/2011/12/andits-over.html





Christmas has come and gone and the wrapping paper and toys are finally cleaned up! As the children grow older Christmas is becoming more and more fun. Savanna woke up at 6 excited as can be! She laid down on the floor in our bedroom playing games on the IPod until 7, then we woke up Miles and Avery and started the madness of present opening. They were so cute and excited. Avery was especially sweet, she was so animated and excited about everything. She had a smile on her face the whole day! After opening presents we had breakfast at home. Every year since we’ve been married we have gone to James’ parents house for Christmas breakfast but we shook things up a bit this year and stayed home for awhile. We had eggs, sausage, cinnamon rolls and orange rolls, it was yum. After breakfast we went to church. We figured this was going to be difficult, how were the kids going to behave for and hour and 15 minutes on such an exciting day? I have to tell you, they surprised us. They did just fine and I actually got to hear some of the talks. It was a really good experience. Our Bishop spoke about the first Christmas Eve he worked as an EMT. He said that he thought working that night would be super easy, it was Christmas, everyone would be with family and loved ones and taken care of, nothing bad would happen. He said the first call they went on was a heroine overdose, the next five or six calls were attempted suicides. He realized then that not everyone had a happy Christmas and that there were a lot of people who were in need of compassion and help this time of year. It made me remember that Christmas is just another day and to be grateful for what I have and to remember others. It might seem like that story would have been depressing for a Christmas morning, but I thought it was something we all needed to hear.
After church we headed up to the Bayless’ for presents and games and a wonderful Christmas dinner. The entire day was wonderful. Our whole family was together. Something that struck me at the end of the day was how well behaved my kids were. They were just sweet as pie all day. Like I said, Avery’s smile never left her face. James’ brother commented on how good they were being for such a crazy day, maybe that was my Christmas present, happy kids! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

originally posted at http://mommychevon.blogspot.com/2011/12/its-beginning-to-look-lot-like.html












Yay Christmas! Although I always loved Christmas as a kid, as I got older I became sort of a Scrooge. Christmas just started to stress me out! All the money being spent, the zillions of family get-togethers, and the unavoidable let down when it was all over. But this year something is different, I am so excited for Christmas and I’m having so much fun with my kids! They are at a good age, Christmas is so magical and fun and they are starting to remember our family’s traditions and are excited to start new ones. Yay! We have jumped right into the season with some fun stuff! The day after Thanksgiving we went to the annual Christmas Lights Parade here in Spanish Fork. We have gone for the past few years and it’s awesome! It has this very small town feel with homemade floats, inflatable Frosty the Snowman tied to a Jazzy, and a Elk head dressed up like Rudolph attached to the front of a truck pulling a trailer full of snowmobiles wrapped in Christmas lights. Like I said, awesome! The kids loooove it! One of the floats was a trailer that had a light up Nativity on it. When it passed us Miles shouted out “Bye Baby Jesus!” After the parade we went home and set up the Christmas tree. We pretty much let the kids do it all and we have such a mish mosh collection of ornaments that it looks a little like Christmas throw-up, but it’s cute. The next week I took the kids to see Santa at Macey’s grocery store. I am too much of a wuss to brave the malls at Christmas time so I thought it was a good option. He was a very convincing looking Santa I thought and both Savanna and Miles sat on his lap for the first time. Avery was too shy, maybe next year. The next day my mom came down and we baked and decorated Christmas cookies. This was really fun, the kids really got into it! Avery loved rolling the dough with the rolling pin. We also made ginger bread men. I don’t know why I thought to make them so big, they puffed up so much in the oven! And finally, my oh-so-creative daughter made herself a crown and skirt out of wrapping paper. ‘Tis the season!

Christmas Decorating!

originally posted at http://melbeea.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-decorating.html


Last Sunday, November 27th, Andy and I stayed home after church instead of going to the in-laws. We made some turkey rolls, using the left over turkey, and enjoyed a quiet dinner. After Andy went through some of his old boxes, we started to decorate our house. I actually put up the tree the day before. We got it from a teacher at my school, who got a new one that came pre-lit. Andy did have to help me fix part of the top that I broke off when he got home from work. It sure is nice to have a handy husband.
So on Sunday we decorated the tree with our ornaments. I’m glad that my mom has made it a tradition to give all of us a new ornament every year because it was nice to have enough to decorate the tree. However, I did have way more than 29 ornaments because I’ve been given some by other people as well. Andy also had some ornaments that he has collected through the years.

As you can tell, it was a very relaxing Sunday. We didn’t dress up to decorate at all. Andy even made us some hot cocoa and we had Christmas music playing on Pandora.
I had a few decorations, but I also bought some from Dollar Tree and Deseret Industries. I like getting cheap things.
Here we are in front of our tree.
We aren’t putting lights on the outside of our house, so we put some in our front window.
Don’t worry, Mom! We didn’t forget to put out the Christmas bears. Only 2 of these were mine as a kid, but my mom gave them all to me anyways. Sorry Trisha and Mark! If you want them, you will have to come and get them!
In the background on the left you can somewhat see our Nativity.
I love the holidays so much! It is really nice to have a husband to be with this year!

Woah. It’s like… the whole internet is at my finger tips…

originally posted at http://shovelfu.com/node/1063


For the last 6 years I have struggled at home with poor internet. When I first moved into the Cambria townhomes development, things were pretty good but already outdated. We had 2 T1 lines into the park shared over a cable TV system that delivered a wacky bundle of internet service and Dish Network TV over the coaxial cable plant in the neighborhood. This was a poor design choice on the part of Trophy Homes (the builder, since gone out of business I think), since coax has been a second place to fiber for at least the last 10 years when it comes to any kind of wide area network design.

So, of course, after a year or so went by and the houses were filling up, the bandwidth was choking. The provider for the network, a weird Mom+Pop company called Whyr’d, upped the connection to 3 and I think at some point, possibly a 4th T1 line. Each T1 is about 1.5 megabit of capacity so at peak we had about 6 megabit of capacity for the neighborhood (over 200 family units). Of course this wasn’t enough. Not to mention the fact that somehow, despite T1 lines being ultra reliable, in my experience, they couldn’t keep the system working for more than a week or two at a time. Constant outages and poor performance were the norm. Basically I just got used to not being able to use the internet at home for more than the most basic tasks of logging into my work computer or checking email etc.

So after a couple years, Trophy Homes turned over management of the HOA to the owners and bowed out. Soon after the new owner managed HOA took over it started trying to push Whyr’d to adhere to their contract which stated some penalties for outages and stuff. Basically Whyr’d told us to fly a kite and kept coming back with excuse after excuse but never did anything to improve the situation despite numerous options for improvement.

Eventually things got really bad and we decided to cut them off and bring in a new provider. Veracity got the low bid in I guess so they were chosen, mostly because they promised to bring in a 100 megabit fiber link for everyone to use. At the same time it was decided to bring in a real satellite provider and put a dish on each building so owners could have proper TV choices. Unfortunately, at this point, Whyr’d tried to bring up some legal thing about them owning the cable plant between the buildings. Besides being illegal and ridiculous, it was basically the last straw for that company because they went out of business at pretty much the same time we decided to fight it in court. It went to arbitration and, long story short, we won. Unfortunately that process took 2 or 3 years, so in the interrim we had Veracity providing internet service to the park over a huge shared wireless network covering the whole place with like 100 wireless access points and stuff all over. It was terrible. Constant, pervasive packet loss of 5% or more. Even when it was working well, I could only get about 3-5 megabit. The worst part was that since it was all wireless, I either had to have a wireless card installed in every device I wanted to use in my home (expensive and cumbersome) or get a wireless router with 2 radios in it to act as both client to connect to the Veracity network and as an access point for my own use for my wireless devices.

I felt I had no choice but to buy the expensive 2 radio wireless router. I found a good deal on a Linksys E3000 refurb for $99 (normally $160 at that time). It worked well enough but it was basically bombarded with constant traffic from the wireless network everyone was connected to (over 200 other devices I would bet) so it would overheat and freeze up on occasion. Consumer devices just aren’t designed to work in that kind of network. Nothing is really.

So, finally after the arbitration was declared in our favor, a plan was put in place to do fiber connections from the clubhouse to each building. After several months of work, they got the fiber in and sent out word that we needed to schedule to have a tech from Veracity come to our homes and wire in the new connection from the network switch in each building to our network port of choice inside the home.

I jumped on that and scheduled for the next day. I waited with bated breath.

The tech never showed. I called and found that he had gone home sick. So I set another appointment and waited for him again.

Another no-show. Grr. Set another appointment and again, the tech never showed up.

Now I was angry. It had been almost 2 weeks trying to get a simple wire connected into my house. I called and chewed out the customer service rep since they not only had failed to get the tech to show up 3 times in a row, but it turned out that they had no record of ever actually setting any appointments for me!

Well, the 4th time was apparently the charm. Last night he finally came (an hour late though) and took all of 5 minutes to put the connector on the cable and plug the other end into the switch downstairs. Would have done it myself if I knew that was all they had to do.

Anyway, it works:

Great Success!

That’s some serious speed.

Power! Unlimted Power!!

Best part is that is seems very reliable so far. I just hope it stays that way.

So 3 thumbs down to Veracity for failing to properly schedule a technician 3 times in a row, something that should be very easy.

One very big thumbs up for finally providing the speed we were supposed to have 2 years ago.

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What I’m Thankful For This Thanksgiving

originally posted at http://mommychevon.blogspot.com/2011/11/what-im-thankful-for-this-thanksgiving.html



My husband, Savanna, Miles, and Avery. My home, my car, food on my table, Savanna’s school and teacher. My mom, dad, Charles and Trish and Asher. James’ family and the two new sister’s we got this year. James’ ability to work like a mad man everyday and be able to pay every bill that is thrown at us. The great gift I have to be home raising my kids. My Heavenly Father and Jesus, my church and all the people in my ward who teach me and my children the gospel. My best friends’ baby girl that she is being blessed with after four sons. My health and my family’s health. My exercising buddies and the motivation I get from them to stay in shape. In addition to these and many, many more, I am utterly and extremely grateful that I am not going shopping on Black Friday. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Top Shot

originally posted at http://melbeea.blogspot.com/2011/11/top-shot.html


My sister-in-law, Chevon, and Andy planned a surprise for her husband, James (Andy’s brother). James and Andy love watching the show Top Shot. This is a reality, shooting show. On this show the contestants have to complete different challenges. The week before we went shooting, Andy was busy building things for the different challenges. We went shooting last Saturday morning. It was cold, but the wind made it freezing. The wind also made it a little difficult to get a good shot at times, or at least that is my excuse for missing some shots.
Enjoy the show!
(Hopefully this works.)

My 3 Ducks

originally posted at http://mommychevon.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-3-ducks.html




For memory sake I wanted to post the pics of each of my kids as The Duck for Halloween. So Cute!