The rest of May...

Sophie and 2 of her friends did a Battle of the Books for the 5th grade. Their team got 3rd place and were a bit disappointed but quickly got over it when they saw the medals given to the 1st place team were only plastic :)

 We had a 84 degree day with 70% humidity and Wesley insisted it was too hot to be outside.

 Wesley took a liking to this hat and insisted on wearing it while carrying a belt so he could be "Cowboy Batman" Three year olds are the best.

 On Memorial day we did some yard work and played outside a lot, it was wonderful.

 Miles has been learning to ride his bike without training wheels. We took them off at the end of last summer and he almost had it down but then it got too cold and we put the bikes away. After a week or so he's now got it. Which is nice because he really hates the sight of blood and was pretty sad with every knee scrape!

We broke out the water balloons one night.

 The kids brought home their last book order of the year. The girls asked what they could do to earn $14.00 in one night to get some books they wanted and I laughed and said there was no way. Their awesome Aunt Cathrine sent the kids $20 to use for the book order so they were all pretty thrilled to pick something out!

 Nora crafting on the deck.

 We put in our garden! Here's hoping it will grow well. I'm not convinced it will get enough sun but our whole yard is shady so it seemed like the best place to put it. We shall see.

 I found Sophie off by herself making stick people out of flower petals, grass and twigs. It made me happy that she's not too old to do stuff like that.

 Me and my little buddy. I guess he's not so little anymore :)

 Scooter likes to be wherever Brian and I are after the kids are in bed.

 More Memorial Day:

 We have a parade two blocks from our house that we go to on Memorial Day. It was fun, but so hot just standing there. And the parade is way too long. We talked the kids in to leaving before it was over and we came home and had popsicles with some friends who had parked at our house. I locked our keys in the house (first time doing that here!) so Brian put the ladder up to the girls bedroom and the three older kids climbed up and in the girls bedroom, which they thought was pretty cool.

 Nora helping with some major trimming we did.

Fun with dad.

 I took the van through the car wash and Wesley thought it was awesome.

 Miles got a summer haircut. I'm still trying to convince Wes to let me do his. He really hates getting his haircut.

 What a great month May was. I'm looking forward to having the kids home in just 9 more days! We also get to have visitors in June and are going camping as well, so we are all pretty excited.

Girls Room.

The girls room looks so much better after taking out that closet! I'm calling this the "during" picture because there are still a few things I want to do before I can call it an "after" picture. 

1. Add more pictures to the walls behind their beds 

2. Get Nora's headboard up (it wouldn't fit so I'm going to saw off the legs and just screw it into the wall behind her bed) 

3. Get a rug or paint that floor (I really don't like that floor)

 4. Curtains (preferably room darkening ones!) 

5. Make their chandelier cuter 

6. Get a lamp for Nora's nightstand

7. Paint their dresser

8. Get a shelf of some kind for the shoes in their closet

When we were looking for houses I fell in love with every house we saw that had a 1/2 story. I think they are so charming and cute with the slanted ceilings.  Sometime before next winter we'll be doing the same thing to the boys room that is across from the girls' room. Wesley is still in a toddler bed so they have enough room still.

The derby, Nora and demolition

 Our ward had a Pinewood Derby and invited everyone to participate. Of course this thrilled Sophie to no end since she is always wanting to join the Cub Scouts. So we built this little beauty and entered it in the competition. Our little car wasn't quite as fast as we'd hoped, but we all had fun anyway!

 Nora takes holidays and any type of "theme" day very seriously. At school they had Color day and the 3rd graders were all assigned to wear....white. White? Isn't white the absence of color? And what parent in their right mind has a white wardrobe for their 3rd grader? Not me. And of course Nora couldn't be content with just wearing a white shirt. She had to go all out in typical Nora fashion. Since I wasn't going to go buy something just for this day we talked about bleaching some pants or something but she finally decided on this outfit. It is a swimsuit cover up. Later that day I looked back at the picture on my camera and spent about 10 minutes laughing because I sent my daughter to school in a swimsuit cover up and tights - in January no less. She didn't even have a shirt on underneath! What was I thinking? (Oh yes, I was thinking that she was happy and there was no drama or tears over not having the right thing to wear.) She also spent a lot of time making her white bracelet, earrings, headband and necklace to go with her outfit. She also made a white puff ball bunny and a little home for him that she took to school as well.  I love this girl. She is quirky and delightful.

The girls had fun demolishing this wall with a hammer. 

In my last post I mentioned how I wanted to take out a wall in the girls room (technically it was a closet.) Well, Brian did it for me on Saturday. He must really love me because on Wednesday of that week he stayed up at work all night long (without sleeping) working on a grant and then worked and taught 2 classes on Thursday and didn't come home until 6. Then Friday he stayed up until 2 grading papers and Saturday morning took 3 of the kids to a birthday party while I had a primary meeting. When he got home he started this project for me because he knew how much I wanted it done, but I needed his help to do it. Such a nice husband! So I've been working on finishing the girls room all week and can't wait to have it done.  Fun!

Home sick

I stayed home from church with a sick Wesley today. Luckily it's a cold and not puking since he's still a poor aim when it comes to puking. He has a fever, nasty cough, watery eyes and rosy cheeks. I also kept Miles home for 2 reasons: I didn't dare ask anyone else to keep an eye on him during Sacrament meeting and I needed him home to play with Wesley, because even though he is sick he still wants to play Legos and Rescue Bots. It was a quiet morning for me so I got my sewing area cleaned so I can go ahead and mess it up again. Yay!

I love this spot. I picked up this lovely piece on the curb in Michigan. Score! Yes, it's missing a few handles - but no biggie, I can still get them open. I also love my ancient sewing machine. My dad bought it for my mom as a wedding present and it still works like a charm. My mom has sewn a great many things on this machine; from my baby clothes to prom dresses (and plenty of lovely 80's wear in between) to Sophie's blessing dress (which was made from the train of my wedding dress). I'm not the seamstress my mom is, mostly sticking to blankets, skirts and other simple projects - but many doll clothes have been churned out of this spot in the past few years, maybe one day I will branch out and attempt bigger and more complicated things...as long as my sewing machine holds up :)

A before & after

Since June I've been meaning to post a few before & after pictures of our house so I can track our progress and all the work we've done on our cute old house. But June ended up being too busy.... and apparently so did July, August, September and October! :) But now that we officially have snow outside and it's too cold to be out much I am going to do some house before and afters! Up first is the most used and probably my most favorite room, which was not part of the original house, but added on sometime in the 80's. And thank goodness it was added on or we wouldn't fit in this house!

Here it is the week we moved in. It was all white paneling with brown wood trim (in this picture my mom had already primed the trim). It also had an extra door to the bathroom by the lamp in the above picture, which was really lame. Our awesome friends the Johnson's came for Thanksgiving last year and Timmy and Brian took out the door and filled it in. Hooray!

During Christmas break last year my mom and step dad John came and he and Brian tiled the dining portion of this room. This was spectacular because who wants to have white carpet underneath their dining room table? No one. Well, not anyone with kids anyway. Brian also changed the ceiling light in here after Sophie broke the one in the kitchen with a bouncy ball. We moved the one that was in here to the kitchen and got a chandelier for the dining room.

Brian put in this ceiling fan (we paid an electrician to run the wires to the location) and it definitely is a great addition to the room as well. I spray painted our stove in the corner black. It was a dark green and looked horrible so I found some high heat black spray paint and it's held up really well.

This is the newest addition to the family room (this is where the 2nd bathroom door was). It's just a giant piece of pegboard with some old wood I had framed around it (I also attached some 1x1 boards around the back of the pegboard to make it more sturdy... pegboard is pretty flimsy). This holds all the kids school paperwork and their clipboards hold any charts, homework, etc. that need to be done or signed. Wesley's is holding an empty potty chart, since he still has zero desire for potty training! It also has our Family Home Evening chart and the kids' weekly schedule. That white trunk holds our games (still looking for a cute/fun latch to add to the front) and that small box on the trunk holds the kids' math fact stuff like flash cards, dice, etc. that they all have to do after school. Having kids in school is so much work!

This is the "drop zone" where the coats, backpacks, shoes, etc. get put after school. And our current chore chart system (which we've now been using for over 2 years). Basically they each have a list of responsibilities and a chore to do and I mark off at the end of the day if they did their chore. They earn an allowance based on how many days they did their chore and how well they did their responsibilities. I circle the days if they didn't do it that day. I always thought giving kids an allowance wasn't a good idea. I figured they should expect to help without getting paid for it. But then I realized they also need to learn to use money wisely and pay their tithing, how can they do that without getting money? The kids (except Wesley) are really good about not asking for things at the store because they have a way to earn money and buy things themselves.

I had to show Miles' chart so I could save his cute handwriting that says "Miles is amazng" :)

We just had this new patio door installed last month, the one we had broke so although we didn't want to pay for a new one we just had to do it! It's a very nice door. That red dresser holds legos and puzzles in the drawers and our scriptures in the basket. We read scriptures here in the morning by the fireplace. We've found it's easier for us to do this in the morning rather than at night, the kids are too tired but do anything more than lay there :)

Next on our list of updates for this room will be new carpet and staining the kitchen table darker.

 

Of course this room is often littered with toys, has kids jumping on the furniture, coloring and game playing, doing homework, or having a snack at the table. And daily it has two superheroes wrestling, but that's when it's the funnest place to be!

A very, very, very fine house.

On June 4th we closed on our first house! We have been renting since we moved here and found out our landlord wasn't going to renew our contract because he wanted to be done with the house (it is now a bank owned property). We had planned on renting for another year but we didn't want to move and rent again, and when this house came on the market it was the perfect fit! It is very close to the house we were renting (as in we were carrying loads over through the backyard during our move) so we're still in the same school district and awesome neighborhood where everything is walkable. We love our little white house!

Finding a house is so hard! You have this huge list of wishes and you know you won't find a house that has them all. In the end you have to decide what your top must-haves are and what things don't matter as much. The two things we don't have in this house are: a two car attached garage and there is only one bathroom. We hope to put in a second bathroom in the next few years and since we've never had a two car, attached garage we will continue to not know what we are missing :) The main selling points for me were; the fenced in yard, the 1/2 story (love the upstairs bedrooms!), the central air - and the location of course!

 

Here we are on closing day in the morning right after we got our keys and right when the girls got home from school!

And here we are during moving week (which is turning in to moving month...)

I'm so glad my mom was here to help, although I wish we could have had her stay longer! More on my mama's visit in the next post.