He's a single man

While driving in the car today, we were jamming out to "All the Single Ladies" by Beyonce.

However, it was not until 2 minutes ago when I did a search to find out who sings it that I discovered it is "all the single ladies" not "I'm a single lady," as my girls and I belt out each time we hear it on the radio.

So, we were driving along belting out, "I'm a single lady. I'm a single lady...," when the only boy in the car, who happens to be 2, spontaneously added...

"I'm a single man. I'm a single man. (giggle, giggle)"

That's right, ladies. Hard to believe, but he is still single.

Siblings with benefits

What does it mean when your older sister gets her tonsils out...

Popsicles...

Milk shakes...

And movies all around...

Siblings with benefits.

On a more serious note, I had a profound realization the day that my first born got her tonsils out. Although a tonsillectomy isn't a huge surgery, of course there is always worry and concern when your child has to have any medical procedure done. It is a good thing those nurses know just how to make the separation quick and unexpected, because I am pretty certain there would have been tears if there had been time to say goodbye and give a quick hug. And those tears would have been mom tears. It was tough to watch my 8-year-old walk away down the hall with some lady we've never even met before (okay, she was a nurse, and a really nice nurse, but still). Although Ellie was extremely brave and seemingly calm, no doubt there must have been at least an inkling of fear as she lay on the bed surrounded by unfamiliar medical personnel in funny outfits and masks. Although I had total confidence things would go smoothly, the wait in the waiting room was not the most pleasant. I just wanted to be there for Ellie and I couldn't.

It wasn't until much later that day, after Ellie was home and recovering well that I finally remembered to offer up a prayer of thanks. After all, everything HAD gone smoothly, and except for a few minutes when she was first coming out of anesthesia, there hadn't even been any tears or much pain. It was during this prayer of gratitude that something really hit me... Ellie was never alone. She had a loving parent with her the entire time she was in that surgery. Kyle and I couldn't be there by her side, but her Father was right there the whole time. And He always will be.

I broke down for a few minutes as the reality of this profound truth struck me. To the core. Of course it is an idea I have always known, but to understand the implications of it, really blew me away. As much as I love my children, I simply can not be with them all the time...even in times of need. Yet, they don't ever have to be alone. They have a Father in Heaven who loves them even more perfectly than I do. He is always there. Always.

What parent could ask for more?

FHE Lesson

FHE= Fire, Home, Earthquake

This week our family home evening lesson focused on fire and earthquake safety in the home. We have been meaning to have a serious talk about these things since we first moved in, but I have been putting it off for a couple of reasons.

First, quite frankly, it scares the beegeebees out of me. One of my greatest fears is the thought of not being able to get to or help my frightened children during an earthquake or fire. I am generally not a worrier, but these thoughts have kept me up on a number of nights during my time as a mother. In the past, the fire/earthquake talk has been known to freak my kids out for several days also.

The second reason I was putting off this discussion is because I just didn't know what to tell my kids concerning earthquake safety. A while back I received an email, as probably most of you did, concerning the "Traingle of Life." In short, it is a theory that basically goes against all the old earthquake safety ideas. The "triangles of life" are small areas that are found next to large objects when a building collapses. So, instead of hoping for safety by getting under things, this theory says to get beside big things so if the roof collapses and objects are crushed, you can be left unharmed in the small pocket of space formed next to the large object.

I didn't know whether to tell my kids to get under something sturdy or next to something big.

Well, I finally decided that neither of these reasons was good enough to put off some much needed instruction. I knew my fear would only be eased by becoming prepared and I knew I had to dive in and try to figure out the real answer to earthquake safety.

After doing a lot of research on the Internet, it became clear to me that all the major, respectable organizations such as FEMA and the Red Cross, still go with the old "duck and cover" earthquake safety guidelines. After reading this over and over on several websites, I was starting to believe that the "triangle of life" must not be as amazing as the email I received long ago made it sound. However, everything became even more clear as I read from the link below and other websites that challenged the "traingle of life" theory...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_of_Life

Basically, in America where buildings are built following strict codes, the chance of a building collapsing is much slimmer than in third world countries where the author of the triangle theory did most of his "research." Most injuries and deaths during an earthquake occur when things fall on someone, so being next to something large that could potentially tip over, is not the safest place for a child to be.

Yes, this post is not the most exciting thing in the world and there are not even any pictures to look at, but I thought this information may be helpful to someone else out there. Unlike all other family home evenings, I hope my kids NEVER use any of the information we went over at family home evening this week. Yet, I do feel a bit safer knowing that we at least have a plan if disaster strikes.

If it does strike, let's just hope it happens in the summer so my girls don't have to climb out their window into the muddy window well.

Because, as they stated over and over, that would just be too gross.

It's a...

Can you see it? On this counter sat a very important item pertaining to the future of our family... Look closely.







In that envelope sat the answer to a very big question...GIRL OR BOY???
I had my 20 week ultrasound this morning and to add a little excitement to the suspense, we had the ultrasound tech take a picture of the "important part" on our baby, while we weren't looking, and put it in this sealed envelope.

The envelope then sat on my kitchen counter for hours.

Staring me down.

Daring me to take a little peek.

I held strong.






When the girls came home from school, we took the envelope for a little shopping trip. After much debating and lots of ooohing and ahhhing, two tiny outfits were finally chosen. One pink and one blue.

We then took the two outfits up to the register where we left the clerk with our precious envelope and a $20 bill. As we roamed through the store a bit longer, the clerk became the first person (well 2nd, if you count the ultasound tech) to find out exactly who will be joining our family next. She put the appropriate outfit into a box, as well as the opened envelope and some change, and sent us on our way.

We hurried home and together as a family, opened up the box to discover this...





Ellie's face says it all. Let's just say that this truly was a SURPRISE!!!

Looks like another round of ruffles, frills, and bows.

And you know what? Despite some shock, we couldn't be more thrilled!


(This post was simply going to be the video of us opening up the box, but with uncannily "good" timing, when we tried to upload the video to our computer, we realized that we did not have enough space on our hard drive. Beautiful. After spending an hour trying to erase documents and unnecessary programs, we finally had enough space to upload the video, only to realize that we can't figure out to make it the correct format to be able to post it here. Beautiful. Hence, the delay in the post and pictures.)

How was Christmas???

How was Christmas, you ask?

Well, take a look and see...

We had a live baby Jesus,


And a baby that drinks (but doesn't pee).


There were cool new watches,


And new books to read.


New jammies,


pillow pets,


And surprises indeed.


The day was a good one,

No doubt about that,

but the real fun couldn't fit in Santa's sack.

It was left on the back porch,

And has proven to be better...

Than all the gifts combined,

Used no matter what the weather.

And let it be said,

That the Standifirds big and lil',

Were definitely born with,

Killer Trampoline Skill...

My Baby gets Baptized

8 years, 8 days, and about 21.5 hours ago,
this chubby baby made her appearance;
filling her parents with more pride and joy than they
thought humanly possible.

Her parents were a couple of young hoodlums.
Thought they knew it all about parenting.

Luckily, this little chick made things pretty easy.
From the get-go, she made it easy to be a Mom.
She made her Dad think HE was the MAN.

Suddenly, life was all pink tutus, princesses, and dress ups.

Mostly, life was WONDERFUL!

8 years, 8 hours, and 21.5 hours later,
this girl prefers her soccer ball over a tutu,
dressing down over dressing up,
and she's rolled her eyes a few too many times to be a princess.


Yet, no doubt about it, she is still making life WONDERFUL.

She chose to be baptized this past Saturday.
She was poised, calm, and totally prepared.
It's pretty amazing how this girl just gets "it."



Her mom and dad wish they could claim some ownership in the way she is,
But anyone who knows her knows
she came this way.
Her parents are just along for the ride.
And what a joyful ride it's been.

Ellie, we love you!

For Julianne...

This post is entirely for Julianne, my dear friend who is planning her future dream house and wants pictures, pictures, pictures and opinions of ours. I figured I could have sent her 18 emails with all the pictures and answers to her questions, or do one long blog post. Easy decision. I am lazy.

So, here you go, Julianne...



Our master bedroom is on the main level. It is the open door down the hallway in the pic above. Deciding whether to have the master on the main or to do an upstairs with all the bedrooms, was a tough decision for me and Kyle. In the end, we decided on the main level for two main reasons...

1. We want this to be our FOREVER house. Old, gray, decrepit, can't do stairs house.
2. We know there will come a time when our kids will want some space (and we just may want some space too)

I do not regret having the master on the main floor, but I do wish we could have figured out a way to have it a little more separated from the rest of the house. Because we wanted our stairway open, with a railing instead of a wall, the mater bedroom is pretty exposed to noise and the other goings on in the main living area. However, I wasn't and still am not willing to sacrifice a big wall in place of our banister, which is one of my favorite things.

We would have loved to have a smaller upstairs made from the trusses of the house. I love the idea of having a loft area and a couple of bedrooms upstairs, but once we decided we wanted the master on the main floor, that also meant we wanted another bedroom (baby room) on the main floor. Because the basement is the cheapest part of the house, we knew we wanted to have the same square footage downstairs as the main level. Adding an upstairs on top of all the other square footage would have grown our home more than we were willing. So, we had to nix the upstairs idea. However, I still love the idea of an upstairs.

Picture taken standing right in front of the white bench in other picture.
Half bath door on left and garage door straight ahead.

In my opinion, the mud room is one of the most important rooms of the house. Its functionality is crucial. In our original plans, we wanted our mudroom to have built in lockers for each child. As we got nearer to completing our home, we realized that custom lockers just weren't going to cut it in the budget. So, we opted for some Ikea cabinets and a two long rows of hooks on the wall (less than 1/4 the cost of custom cabinets).

I think a mud room should be as big as you can realistically make it and full of lots of natural light. Our mudroom is definitely sufficient for our needs but I would not complain if it were at least a little bit bigger.



Shoulda-woulda-coulda...
One thing I would change in our house is to have more seating at the kitchen island. I wish I would have cut out some of the cabinetry space in the island and had an overhang for stools on the back and one side of the island. It is so convenient to have people sitting right there at the island, and the more that can fit, the better.





The above two pictures are taken right in front of our kitchen sink. So, the kitchen opens up into the living room, but not completely. We really wanted to have the great room feel a part of the kitchen, yet separate also. The partial window wall to the left and the lone column in the middle really help to keep it separate but together.




This is the stone we finally decided on. That was quite a process in and of itself, but I am really happy with how it turned out. We wanted the stone to look old. The installers did an "over-grout" technique, where they bring the grout right to the edge and sometimes over the edge of each stone piece. This really helped achieve the look we wanted.







Here is our completed window wall. The window openings stayed bare for about 2 1/2 months after we moved in. We had the windows and frames for a good 3 months before that, but due to some poor choices by the home owners, the frames ended up stuck together in a hot car, totally ruining their paint job....TWICE. Oh, those frames have had lots of love given to them with hours of sanding and painting. Kyle hung the windows and frames a few weeks ago, and I could not be happier with the way they turned out.




This was my "deal" for our new house. Rather than buy a cheesy pre-made vanity for our main upstairs bath, I decided I wanted to find an old dresser and convert it into a vanity. After looking and looking at several antique stores, and not having much luck finding the right type of dresser, Kyle and I stopped by an antique dealer's shop in American Fork. As we looked around outside, I spied the beauty in the picture above. Actually, there two identical beauties right next to each other. I was flabbergasted! Here I had been looking for a dresser that I could spend hours and hours converting into a vanity, and there in front of me were two vanities.

I asked the owner how much he wanted for one and he responded, "Free! As long as you take them both." So, I took them both home, used parts of one to fix up the other, sanded, painted, and voila...





These three pictures are of the girl's downstairs bathroom. We would have loved to have a Jack and Jill bathroom, but the layout of the basement wouldn't accommodate that. So, we ended up doing a room with the vanity and a closet, then a separate room with the toilet and bath. I really like this because one girl can be using the toilet or bath, while another is brushing her teeth or getting ready. It just makes the bathroom more usable.





When you are standing at our kitchen sink, the pantry is just to the right. It has two, double doors. The left set open to slanted shelving for our canned goods. This makes rotating food storage a breeze, because you can load the new cans from inside the pantry, and use the older cans right inside the doors. I LOVE my slanted shelves. The doors on the right open up so you can walk in the pantry.

So, there is enough house stuff to bore most of you for the rest of your lives and to appease Julianne for at least another week :)