Merry Christmas! (and happenings of late) :)

I have been so busy lately that I can hardly think straight! Regardless, we have been able to take some nice breaks as a family and do some fun things. For Thanksgiving, we went to visit hub's family and while we were there we went to Monterey for an afternoon. It was heaven! Perfect weather and clear skies. The kids had a blast playing in the sand and climbing around the rocks and investigating the tiny crabs and other sea life hiding about. 

My brother was able to join us and I think he enjoyed the get-away as well. :) Not sure what little boy is doing in this picture below. Being his little goofy self. ;)

Older brother is part of a preschool co-op group and he sure loves it. Every Wednesday the children come to our house and we enjoy having circle time, music time and doing crafts and occasionally science/nature study and experiments. Little brother loves that he gets to join in. I get Mondays off where we rotate through all the moms. 

Of course, I can't do a post without a little house progress update. ;)

I convinced hubs that board and batten would look nice in the entryway, so he lovingly helped

me put it up one Saturday evening and then I did all the finish work over the course of the next week. He liked it so much that he suggested doing the living room/dining room as well. I think we will stick with the entryway for now.

Before

 After

We also had to give back the couch in the above picture to hub's aunt and uncle, so we finally bought a real set. I love them!

Enjoy some Christmas photos!

Other things to fill our time these days: gymnastics, piano lessons, school, homework (I am surprised at how much more homework oldest has now that she is in 3rd grade, and I know it will only get worse. Ugh), volunteering for the girls' classes, babysitting swaps (so that I can volunteer :)),
 late work nights, being primary president, and of course, the endless projects on house and yard. ;) I think this next year we will do the counter tops in the kitchen and then really focus on the yard for the rest of the year, as we pretty much haven't done anything outside yet (other than ripping things out, which doesn't really count).

Merry Christmas!

Kitchen Changes and the Zoo

This was the kitchen upon moving in.

Here is the kitchen now.

 As you can see, we don't have a ton of counter space so this table I got for free off Craigslist works perfectly as an island. We also use it to serve dinner on. I line up the food and the kids can help themselves. We have a fairly small dining table and with my older brother now living with us, plus 6 other people, it gets a little squished if I try to put all the food on the table.

  A little personal artwork.

 Pops of color. :)

 Done:

Paint the existing cabinets.

Clean and spray the existing hardware.

Spray paint the pantry doors.

Prime and paint the brick.

Tile the floor.

Add a toe kick and molding to the cabinets.

To Do:

Replace counter tops, cook top, sink, and faucet....someday. ;)

I took the boys to the zoo last week with some friends.  Older brother loved the tigers and little's favorite were the elephants.  They loved carrying around their own personal maps and older brother directed the way. :)

A Two-room update

As promised, here is the progress on the girls' room. I put together a little wall collage, which includes a doll that I had hanging in my room when I was a child, a ceramic puppy that oldest daughter painted at a birthday party, a silhouette of the Salt Lake Temple, the girls' feather collection, and a picture of the two cuties themselves.  The lamp was given to me by my voice teacher when I was a teenager. I plan to redo the top of the dresser to match the stain of the bunk beds...eventually. Oh, and they still don't have a door knob. :( Their room is painted a very, very light pink.

 These pictures come from a copy of one of my favorite books as a child, "Flicka, Ricka, Dicka and the New Dotted Dresses".

                                                                  It is hard to tell unless you are in the room in person, but I applied a stencil to this back wall and sewed some fabric to the end of these Target curtains. (Update: I have since painted the baseboards white, and the outlets were replaced).

 This beautiful rug was made by my very talented sister, and she gave it to me as a birthday present this year.  I think it looks so good in the girls' room!  My sister has more rugs for sale at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/socuteandfumps?ref=search_shop_redirect.

Room Number Two:

If you remember, I showed this picture of the family room awhile back.

Here is what it looks like today.

 We painted it a light gray, added new base boards, crown molding, window molding, a rug, and a window treatment. I ordered this fabric from Fabricguru.com and sewed them.  I still need to redo the coffee table, but other then that, this room is done!

 This green chest holds all of the boys' cars and trucks and it is perfect for them to get into while I am making dinner. Oldest used my little button pins on the cork board to make a smiley face. It is painted with chalkboard paint, so the kids can draw on it as well.

 This old crate holds the kids' collection of marbles, and rocks and shells from the beach and it sits atop the toy/book shelf. I also finally found a little place to hang our growth chart. The kids all have measurement marks on it and love to check how much they are growing. (Oops: Still need a switch plate for this light switch. The switch is so old and gross, but we can't remove/replace it, like we have been doing to all the others, because there is a mirror (painted over) that covers part of it. What to do? Just paint it too?).

 Next up, a reveal of an almost done kitchen. Here is what it looked like when we moved in. So lovely, I know. :) Half-painted brick and sub-floor.

A trip, a bedroom, and two birthdays!

We were able to spend a few weeks in Utah with my family and had a marvelous time! We bounced around all over the state, starting off with a great family reunion in St. George with hub's family! We went swimming, played games, painted t-shirts, hiked in Zion National Park, went to the St. George temple...all-in-all, a great gathering of folks and fun!

Zion National Park, with cousins!

 Painting t-shirts!

Next we headed up to Provo to spend time with my family. The kids enjoyed picking cherries in the backyard with their Papa and while youngest was napping, we made a couple cherry pies.

We enjoyed a fun-filled 4th: parade, barbecue, water fight, fireworks, lots of good food, and good company!

We were able to visit Cascade Springs-one of my favorite places on earth!  The weather obliged for a short time. We also went up to my parent's cabin and the kids had a blast!

 We also spent a few days in Moab, but all the pics of that ended up on hub's phone. It was roasting, but the kids still had a ball playing with all the cousins and running back-and-forth between homes.

 I have been working on the girls' room lately. I think is coming together nicely. 

I will show more next post.

 The two boys celebrated their birthdays a week ago. Favorite gift was a Thomas the Train set and they have almost run out the batteries letting it go all over the house. Littlest bro is obsessed with trains, planes, and helicopters (which he calls a "cock-a-ter"). Big bro is growing so fast. He already out-weighs his bigger sister and loves numbers and trying to read words.  

Summer is going by way too quickly! Not ready to let the girls go back to school in a few weeks. :(

A Birthday (a few months ago) and some projects

 Our oldest turned 8 back in February! It was an exciting time for her. Some of our usual birthday traditions include breakfast in bed and a party with family. But since this is a big year for her we decided to give her a fancy party with friends. She wanted a "tea party" type celebration.  This is where my mother-in-law played a vital roll. She had all the fancy dishes, napkins, napkin rings, table cloths, dishes, etc. we could possibly need. We got to use real teacups and saucers and the girls were in heaven.  She was there to help at the party and it turned out great!

 There were 11 girls there, including our two, so we borrowed a few tables from hub's parents and a bunch of chairs to make one long seating area. The roses all came from one big Costco bouquet. Not pictured were a bunch of streamers all hanging from the ceiling and balloons inside and outside.  

 If you notice in the first picture, there were also cupcakes. We served those to the girls while they were playing a "Cake Walk" game, and saved this cake for the family party on Sunday night. Hubs saved the day on this cake as I must have followed the directions wrong because when I went to put the doll in, the dress came up to her thighs instead of her waist.  So hubs suggested using one of our old barbies that had removable legs and I saved the new one I had planned to use and gave it to her later.  So this barbie is actually sitting with legs off on top of a toilet paper tube wrapped in plastic wrap. :)

 Baptism day was very special. My dad and step-mom flew out for the occasion which made it even better!  Someone obviously didn't want to join in the picture-taking fun. ;)

 I made this sign to fill the big wall space in our entry way, so anyone visiting our home wouldn't have to question whether we are religious people or not. ;) The font ended up looking bigger than I had wanted, but there is no way I am making another one, so oh well.

 There was a little bit of extra space at the bottom, so I added some scroll work.  You probably can't see it in the pic above, but the edges of the wood are painted a turquoise-blue, for a little bit of color.

 These boys of mine love to pose for the pictures.

This table sits in our entryway and was a garage sale find for 3 dollars. I didn't take a before picture, but the wood was cracked on top and had a nice orange colored wood finish on it. So I fixed it up a bit, and it looks much nicer.  The entryway will be receiving a board-and-batten treatment in the future, along with some cute oil-rubbed bronze hooks. But not until we finish the dang kitchen, which I will show pictures of soon.

:)