Random Photos from the Summer

I need some roasted green chile in the worst way, so I improvised.

Our kids like beans, a lot. They think it's fun to sort and clean them too.

What a great big sister. Sarah loves to read to her siblings.

David cut down this tree limb that was hanging over our front yard. It looked so much smaller when it was up high. I took this far away picture so you could an idea of the size of that thing.

This is the "before" picture of our blue bathroom and our next project. As of today, the old floor is out, the blue tub is gone, and the blue toilet just came out tonight. So far, we only have the new tub in, but flooring and a new toilet are coming this week (I hope).

Look closely. David is IN the exersaucer with Rachel.

One of the few times he slows down during the day - nap time.

Awwwww...

David and I went bowling with our good friends Martin and Carrie and had great double-date night.

David found this awesome jacket that someone had left at the bowling alley who-knows-how-long-ago. He called it lucky and wore it for a few sets. He actually got a strike this time. =)

Chillin.... we had the entire place to ourselves. No joke. Who knew that 6pm on a Friday night would be so quiet at the Orchard Lanes? I guess everyone comes later for the cosmic bowling (w/ black lights and disco balls).

First day of homeschool - at "recess" 

The next Gerber baby? =)

New tub, in process

What kid doesn't love painting?

Last Friday, this little guy wore the same pair of underwear all day long. So I took a picture and bragged about it to my mom. Then 5 minutes later he peed his pants. Oh well. (And, there's the finished tub in the background...we've only used it once because the floor is all ripped up and it's kinda dirty in that room).

Updating our new-to-us house

Ignore the dying snowman, just focus on the backyard.

I really love our house - it's the perfect set up for us. There are 4 extra large bedrooms all on a single level. The kids' bathroom is huge and has a skylight to boot! The master bedroom has double closets and a private little deck with a hot tub (that needs to be fixed). David's favorite part is the shop in the back yard with plenty of space for anything a guy could ever want to do out in a shop. We think our yard is the best! It's fenced and private with plenty of room for the kids to run, ride their bikes, AND room for a huge garden. The house is set back from the street in a private little cul-de-sac so there's zero traffic and the only noise we hear is the occasional braying of the sheep next door. We live within walking distance to two grocery stores, a theater, gas station, library, and the CHURCH! Oh yeah, and the family room is over-sized with awesome, huge, passive solar (south facing) windows.

See all those awesome windows? (This is before we finished the floor).

After - the other half of the wall-o-windows.

There are just a few things that I'd like to update though. Can you guess what decade our house was built? I'll give you a few hints...

Exhibit A: Exterior Lights at front door and garage.

Exhibit B: Plain Jane flat panel doors and tiny trim.
The old carpet was sculpted blue.

Exhibit C: BLUE bath tub, blue toilet, and blue sink bowls in the
kids' bathroom with yellowed and stained linoleum.

Exhibit D: Pale blue counter tops and the plainest cabinets
you have ever seen.

Someone was obsessed with blue, I think. A later owner (during the 90's I'll bet) was obsessed with pinks and mauves. We have mauve blinds in all the bedrooms and the "neutral beige" wall paint had a distinct mauve undertone, I swear! There are other lovely things that tell the history of this house, but I don't have pictures of everything. Did you guess it was built in the 80's? 1984 to be exact and it hasn't seen too many updates along the years. The family room / sun is an addition that was added in 1988 (the year was stamped on the floor boards!) The wood laminate in the kitchen and dining areas is over 10 years old, and it sure beats the linoleum that is still underneath - we have remnants of it under the water heater and under the kitchen sink. The master bathroom was remodeled a few years ago to accommodate the previous owner who was mostly confined to a wheel chair. It's modern and clean-feeling, but I'm just not very appreciative of the roll-in shower because being able to easily roll-in a wheel chair means that the water can also easily roll out - and it does, unless we put rolled up towels along the edge. Besides, it also means there's no tub in there. Which leaves just the tub in the kids' bathroom as our only soaking option - it works, but it's tiny, permanently water stained, and blue. 

So, I do love the overall structure of the house, the layout, the yard, etc. but I would like to update a few lot of the little details. Here is one such project that I tackled today:

Before - our exterior lighting. I am beginning to think the person who built this house must have not liked anything fancy. He (or she?) chose the simplest, most plain, and stream-lined fixtures, trim, cabinets, counters, and accessory-type things throughout the whole house.

So, I've been wanting to update these lights (there's one at the front door, and two flanking the garage), since we moved in, but I didn't want to spend $30-50 per light fixture to do it. Well, this week I was browsing around the Salvation Army for something else when I came upon 3 exterior light fixtures! Two of them were identical and the other one was a close match. I snatched them up and was thrilled to find out they only wanted $2.50 each for these babies:

Isn't that awesome?! This is one of the twin/matching lights. Well, I had plans for these things. Sure, the white and brass was an improvement over what we had, but I thought I could improve on them. Meet my new friend, Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint:

It's great stuff if you ask me. I've used it on a few door knobs and a chandelier that I'll show you soon. This afternoon while the babies napped and the older kids were in school, I got busy washing down that fixture and taking it apart. Then I covered all the metal parts with a few coats of paint, let it dry, and installed it. (It was soooo easy to install!)

And now, here is one of our new exterior lights

The is the one next to the front door - so it's the odd one, but looked very similar to the others (white with brass). I think it looks much classier now, don't you? I just need to find some exterior house paint to touch up around the corners.

So, for less than $10, I'm going to have new looking light fixtures. =) I'm happy about that, especially since I stare right at this light fixture from the window across from my kitchen sink.

Another before:

And After:

Week 1 - Back to (pre)School, MLA, and "Uncle" Rory

Exciting events of the week:

1. Preschool started up again on Monday -- hooray for afternoon naps for everyone else! The college doesn't start until this week, so David was still off and spent some time at home, until...

2. On Thursday, David flew to Los Angeles for the annual MLA (Modern Language Association?) convention where he presented a paper on something about Juan Rulfo and Brazilian literature. You'll have to ask him for more details. Suffice it to say, the paper was very well received. David hated LA though -- too many people and very expensive food. It was $6 for the bottled water at his hotel, so he suffered and drank the nasty LA water from the tap. Ewww! I would have bought the water.

3. My cousin, Rory, arrived here on Saturday morning. He will be attending the law school just up the hill, starting on Monday, and is staying at our house until he finds an apartment. He arrived just in time to save my sanity. The kids loved playing with him this weekend.

4. On Saturday we also had a contractor come knock out a wall in Kathryn's room. Here's the story: her room is actually intended to be a "study", so the entrance to it was right in the middle of the living room -- it literally cut the best living room wall right in half and made it difficult to arrange furniture. Plus, it was annoying that her room was "off the family room" while everyone else's rooms were down the hall. My solution - close off that original doorway with a wall and create a new entrance from the hallway. We had to sacrifice a coat closet to do it, but it's going to be just fine and I'm excited for how it all looks. Right now we're waiting to get a new door so the old closet doors are still hung and you have to walk through them to get to the bedroom -- it's like entering Narnia.

5. Last night Rory and I painted the entire living room and dining room. It's awesome to not have all the spackle spots that the previous owners left, or the 3 shades of paint samples that I put up a month ago. Earlier in the week, David and I painted the ceilings in there too -- no more shiny, grubby ceilings!! While David was gone, I painted our bathroom and the half bath. Everything is painted in a neutral beige color. David was sad about our bathroom because he liked the dark brown that was in there. It was way too dark for me - the place felt like a cave. He doesn't use that bathroom anyway though (the roll-in shower leaks water everyone), so I went for it. He'll get over it someday. All of the this painting and remodeling is in preparation for new carpet that we're getting in the living room on Tuesday. I'm so excited! The old stuff is over 20 years old. It smells and it's filthy.

6. Sarah is worked hard this week at school and finished a few projects. She also decided that her bangs were "getting too long". She didn't have bangs before...but she does now. They turned out pretty good, for a 4-year old. (Sorry, no pictures, David had my phone, aka camera in L.A. all weekend). They look like a cross between baby doll bangs and 1980's bangs that just need some hairspray and a good tease. They look best when they're pushed back in a headband. =)

7. Joseph has been working furiously on a little preschool workbook because he wants to finish it and give the whole thing to Grandma Carol, who is coming to visit us on Tuesday. He also enjoyed playing outside on the swings and riding his bike this week when temps broke 45 degrees.

8. Kathryn is having an identity crises. She alternates between wanting to be a big girl who plays with the older kids and wanting to be a baby. She asks me to make baby food for her (rice cereal with pureed fruit, or yogurt and fruit) and wants to eat the same thing as baby David. Then at bed time, she throws a fit if I put her in the crib. She wants to sleep on her toddler bed, and I don't mind because for the most part she'll actually stay in her bed and go straight to sleep.

9. The little guy - baby David - is getting stronger and more coordinated everyday. He pulls to standing on everything and easily goes from sitting to crawling and back to sitting. He adores the bath! He splashes and swims around on his tummy, and doesn't mind the water getting on his head or face. He still wakes up at least twice every night, which is getting to be really annoying. I've tried letting him cry, but he seems to be ravenously hungry most of the time, so I give in and feed him. The kid isn't exactly chubby either - in fact he's around the 25th percentile in weight - so I figure that maybe he does need the calories. He does sleep longer on the nights when he eats 3 dinners (at 4pm, 5pm, and 6pm).

10. David got a new calling at church. He will be teaching institute every week. He's supposed to get released from his Sunday School calling so that means he won't have to travel once a month, aka I won't be alone at church with all the kids!

Well, that's all for now. I'll take some pictures in the morning of all the new stuff around here: hair cuts, holes in walls, paint & carpet, and maybe I'll throw in some of the babies too because I know that's the only reason people check this blog -- to see pictures of the kids!

A New House, a Forever Family, and a New PhD

Sorry for not posting any updates in the past two months. We've been extraordinarily busy. At the end of September we bought a house in Lewiston and starting moving in that day. Within 24 hours we had moved all our belongings to the new house and we set to work unpacking and remodeling all at once. Bad idea!

Sept 30 - Day 1 of moving - the kids loaded all their strollers & bikes

I spent my "free" evenings for three weeks repainting three bedrooms, the hallway and entry way (with multiple coats of paint - including the ceilings and closets). We've also had some new windows installed and changed up some doors in the family room. The largest project was installing laminate in the large bonus (play) room. It took a lot longer than we expected because we found some water damaged sub floor boards and mildew/mold when we ripped out the old carpet and baseboard.
Here are some before and after pictures:

The worst room was this neon green one--

Before

In Process...

Pinstripes under window in the green (baby) room

Joseph and Sarah's room - purple & brown to blue & light blue (sorry, I don't have a final photo)

Before

Almost After (the lower part is now a very light blue)

Here is the Bonus room / Play room -- I didn't get a true "before" picture with the old grayish-blue sculpted carpet before we ripped it out. Sorry!

Water stains...ewww! There used to be a hot tub there.

From another angle - we took out all those stained boards

Mold & Mildew

After - replaced old black sliding door

After (we had those exterior doors removed)

In late October our family drove down to St. George, Utah so we could be at Sterling and Emma's sealing. It was a long drive (1000 miles one way), but so worth it to see all of my family and be in the temple with them. The kids did really well considering the long drive -- thanks to my friend Cari and her portable DVD player.

All the ladies

All the gentlemen =)

During all this craziness of moving, remodeling and traveling 2000 miles David managed to finish writing his dissertation and submit it to his committee. On November 19th he presented his defense and passed with flying colors. Half of his committee members received low ranks though because they showed up nearly an hour late for the event. =) He spent a week in sunny Nashville finishing up all the last details before returning home, the triumphant new Doctor on Thanksgiving day.

Thankfully, I didn't have to be a single mom during that full week he was gone because my dad came to visit us for Thanksgiving. The weather turned sour the first day he was here -- snow started falling and hardly stopped for a week...what am I saying? It's still snowing here. We had recording-breaking low temps. Which means we spent most of his visit in the house washing mountains of dirty laundry, scrubbing floors, and preparing pies for the big dinner.

We tried to build a snowman, but no one had waterproof gloves or shoes.

We ate Thanksgiving dinner with some of our new friends here and it was a pleasant evening with plenty of great food to go around. Grandpa Chuck left the next morning and it was back to the old grind around here. David is still just as busy as always, especially since it's publishing time for Hispania (he's the managing editor).