A work in progress

After the successful painting of our bedroom I wanted to get all the painting done.  However...just the thought of how much work that was going to be was enough to make me change my mind.  I put off choosing colors for the rest of the house but thought about it constantly.  There came a time however that I realized I could no longer put off painting the rest of the upstairs (minus the kid's rooms.)  What made me get started?...it was the fact that we are fortunate enough to get new flooring for the entire upstairs (minus the bedrooms again.  They will have to wait until the basement is done.)  We are getting a really nice carpet for our front room and a beautiful tile for the rest.  I wasn't crazy at the thought of tile throughout until I had to constantly clean the messes on the carpet.  Now I can't wait to get rid of the cheap carpet that came with the house and put in beautiful new tile that does not have to be constantly guarded from the mess that comes from 5 kids, 2 cats, and 1 puppy.  I figured that while the furniture was moved out and the floor was all tore up in preparation for the tile it would be a great time to paint.  We kept pulling paint sample cards from the paint isle when ever we were there and finally sat down and chose the colors.  We would have a light olive green on two walls in the front room, a cream on the third wall in the front room that would also go throughout the entry way and into the hallway.  The kitchen/dining room and living room would share two shades of blue (a little lighter than the bedroom) since they are one big common room.  Now that the colors were picked all we had to do was begin.  Since we were getting the carpet in the front room first that is where we started.  We moved all the furniture out (a task that I was totally dreading) and began to paint.  I quickly realized that the colors we got from the paint cards were not exactly what we had envisioned.  The green was more of a pastel not light olive, and the cream was more like bright yellow butter.  The blues also turned out to be darker than hoped for too.  At this point there was nothing I could do but except it and move on.  It wasn't easy because it didn't really look as I had hoped but the colors aren't bad so I just let it go and now enjoy what we do have.

The last items to be moved from the front room.

White walls soon to be bathed in color.  It was so hard having to take my vinyl lettering off.  I can't wait to get them back up.

Megan gets to paint this time.

Green done and yellow started.

Hard at work.

The finished arch.

The hallway.

The entryway.

The two colors together in the front room with the old carpet.

 After the walls were painted it was time to install the new carpet.  I was excited because this new carpet is so soft and plush.  Not to mention it has a stain guard on it.

The new carpet.





You can't see it in the picture but the new carpet is much higher than the old one.  The old carpet is almost as flat as the linoleum.  The old carpet is only two years old but it looks about 15.  The quality of the carpet really does matter if you want it to look nice for a long period of time.  This new carpet should look good for many years and is so soft that everyone wants to sleep in there.

I haven't started on the rest of the upstairs yet because I wanted to wait until the holidays were over.  I didn't want to have my house all tore up during Christmas.  So after the new year I will start painting again and we will also begin to tear up the floor for the tile.  Good times.

Thanksgiving 2011

For Thanksgiving we were excited to have CJ's mom, or Grandma D to the kids, stay a whole week with us.  We always have fun with Grandma D, and to have her for a whole week was a special treat.  She loves to relax, read, and watch movies while she's here.  We also played games and went to see the Festival of Lights in Spanish Fork.  She even rolled up her sleeves and was excited to paint the walls with me.  She had just bought herself a fancy new camera and let me take all the pictures I wanted with it.  I was in heaven.  Here a just a "few" of the pictures I took that week.



Lizzie making her traditional trifle.





CJ and his mom.

 



Festival of Lights

 

First big snow.

Halloween this year was one of the mildest I can remember in a long, long time.  The sky was beautiful and the kids didn't need coats with their costumes.  It was perfect.  The next day was a very different story...we got our first snow storm.  About an inch of snow stuck to the ground.  Rascal went out in the snow and had so much fun he wouldn't come back in.  It was crazy.  Thank goodness it didn't last and the temperatures went back up for a little while.  Well, autumn has been coming on and today our little city of Payson got snow.  Just 3 miles up the road it is dry as a bone but we got a good 3 inches.  The little kids were dying to go out in the snow...the bigger kids weren't as excited but went out to shovel the walks anyway.  Here are some fun pictures from our first big snow of the season.

Megan gathered the snow to make a snowman on the porch.

Alexander worked really hard shoveling the walks.

Megan, Alex, and Gavin went out and had fun in the snow throwing it in the air and at each other.

My hard working men.

It was so cute to see Alex working hard with his daddy.

This is a busy crew.

Halloween 2011

I couldn't resist starting with these cute pictures of Xander playing with the pumpkins.  He couldn't get enough of pumpkins and they were every where he looked. 

He loved that we let him play with the pumpkins.

Strong man.

Their pumpkin snowman.

I was trying on Xander's dragon costume for next year (he was a monkey this year) just to see how cute it was on him.  I just wanted to eat him up he looked so cute.  Who can resist a little teddy bear carrying dragon.

His roar was the cutest.  It sounded exactly like little Simba's roar in "The Lion King".

 I have given up trying to get a family picture of everyone in their costumes.  With the older girls' busy schedules I just have to be happy that I can get a picture of them at all.

Lizzie was a sleepy girl in her pajamas.  Her friend Cassity spent the day with her and helped her pass out candy to the trick-or-treaters before they did a little trick-or-treating themselves.

Rebecca was a young Professor McGonagal from "Harry Potter". 

Dakota went as a little girl playing dress-up with her mommy's clothes and make-up. 
She went around our neighborhood with her friends again this year even though she knew she wouldn't be able to eat most of the candy she would get because of her braces.

Alex was a monkey and Megan was a little dalmatian puppy.  She had so much fun helping her little brother get to each of the houses since she is a pro now and this was his first year walking by himself.

Just before trick-or-treating a family in our neighborhood had organized a free carnival for the kids.  Rebecca, Lizzie, and I along with a few others from the neighborhood ran some games for the kids. 

Lizzie's friend Cassity ran a plinko game while Lizzie had a wheel of fortune game for the kids.

Rebecca was totally excited to do the face painting.

Megan enjoying the cupcake walk.

Xander enjoying the cupcakes from the cupcake walk.

In the background of that last picture you can see the tick-tack-toe bean bag toss game that I was in charge of.  We had a really good turnout from our neighborhood as well as many from nearby areas.  The carnival went very well and so it will become an annual tradition.  We were very glad to be a part of it and look forward to next year.

Trick...not a treat.

Right after Dakota's friends went home from her birthday sleepover she went to the doctor for her regular check up.  The check up went well but the doctor heard some extra heartbeats when listening to her heart.  An extra heartbeat now and then is normal but he heard quite a few in the short time he was listening.  Just to be safe he ordered an EKG and had her scheduled to see a Cardiologist.  The EKG was normal so her doctor said it was most likely nothing but to still keep the other appointment so now we just waited for the visit with the specialist which happened to be Halloween morning.  The Cardiologist said the same thing as the doctor...he can hear the extra heartbeats but said the "plumbing" of the heart was fine (meaning that all the valves were working normally.)  Just to make sure that the "electrical" part of the heart was working good too he needed more than just a 30 second look at the heart that the EKG gives.  He sent her home with a 24-hour monitor.  She was hooked up to a little device that measured her heart beats like an EKG but constantly.  While the device itself was small the wires were cumbersome.  The technician who hooked her up said that she should go as a robot for Halloween since she had all the wiring.  It wasn't uncomfortable but it was a little hard for her to keep answering all the questions it came with since it was pretty hard to hide.  Some of the teachers didn't believe it was real at first since she had to wear it on Halloween.

She was a good sport and did a great job keeping the wires safe and stickers in place so that she wouldn't have to wear it for another 24-hours.  Now we just wait for the results.

Note: A few weeks later I called the Doctor to find out the results.  He said that everything looked good and we just need to keep an eye on it for now but there is nothing to worry about.  Whew!

Pink

For crazy hair day this year at school Dakota wanted to wear Rebecca's pink wig.  I think it looked really cute.

Darin's 2nd Visit

My cousin Darin loves to come and visit the girls on their birthdays in July every year, and we love having him visit.  This year he had so much fun in July that he decided to surprise the girls with a second visit in October for Dakota's birthday.  They had no idea that he was coming.  When he got here he hid in the basement and I asked the girls to go and clean up the toys down there.  When they were all down there I turned off the lights and they kept asking me to turn them on.  I was not the one however that turned the lights back on, it was Darin.  They were very surprised and so glad to see him.  He loves surprising them so he had fun with the trick as well.

He was able to get some fishing in which is his most favorite activity.  Dakota goes fishing with Darin because she loves to fish too and doesn't get a chance to do it any other time.  They only caught one fish this time (sadly they didn't take any pictures) but apparently it was very big.  The rest of the fishing he did here was on his fishing game for the Wii game system that he taught everyone how to play.  He also made us one of his favorite dinners...upside down apple french toast.  It was yummy and the whip cream topping was the best I have ever had.

We are looking forward to his next trip out to visit with us which he is already planning.  Here are a few fun pictures we took while he was here.


Megan covering Darin in toilet paper.




Now he's being attacked by both rugrats.




He had as much fun being covered as the kids had fun covering him.



Darin and Dakota with her pink hair.



Darin modeling the pink hair.  Its been a long time since he's had any hair on the top of his head.