Tuesday, August 30, 2011

First day of school




So excited they wouldn't hold still. Both kids were (according to their teachers) the best kids in class. Eli couldn't have been more excited and Dora was pretty pumped too...


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Whit's Vacation

Whit just left yesterday for a week of CME to prepare him for this test he has to take. He's going to be in class 40 hours in 3.5 days... Eli calls it his vacation. Haha!

Daddy, we will miss you so much! Here's MT. Whitney right before he left.


Whit just left

Friday, August 26, 2011

Yet another epiphany...

So tonight I had another epiphany. I'm sure you guys are getting tired of my boring insights that are related to toddlers. Yet, here I am, recording it anyway...

I got online and ordered the kids some ride on water toys--a turtle, a dolphin and an orca. I thought when I bought three--one for each of my kids big enough to swim and an extra for guests. I knew when they showed up each of my kids would claim one for their own...

They got here today and sure enough, Dora immediately claimed the dolphin and Eli the turtle. Then they began negotiating. Emerald, Eli said, could have the orca when she was older. We could save it for her until then.

That made me think--there is no way that by the time Emerald is two (two summers from now) and old enough to ride on the orca, that it won't be torn up and replaced. After all, these cost less than $20. I know they will never last. To the kids though, how such things will be divided up and who they will belong to seems of the utmost importance. They are very concerned about what will happen tomorrow and next week and next month and next year. They want me to make a ruling on that now. They want their future and that of their posterity secured.

In a world that changes as much and as quickly as this one, how lucky we are to have a Heavenly Father who can see the big picture. We are busy squabbling and stressing over things that DO NOT MATTER. I have been thinking a lot lately--nay, stressing a lot lately--over things that I am sure will NOT MATTER. In a year or two, or ten at the most, they will be rendered totally useless, and yet here I sit, fretting and stressing and generally pestering the crap out of my Heavenly Father with my little worries and complaints. I wish I had some perspective--His perspective. I suppose that's what reading our scriptures and listening to the Spirit are for...

I suppose for now I will have to settle for trusting in a Heavenly Father who DOES have an eternal perspective to forgive me for my very short-sighted view, just as I think fondly of my poor kids, worrying over something that will never even become an issue.

Alice in wonderland


We Bought new sofas today. We get them in a week.




We picked these out. (me and Eli)




Then the furniture guy offered Eli a tiny little cup of juice. He drank it and look what happened...




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Thursday, August 25, 2011

Remodel: Kitchen

Okay so before we did anything to it, this kitchen was terrible. Really bad. They left the chairs to the built in table, which I like, but badly need to be recovered. I was going to wait to put up photos until I had recovered them and put up curtains, but I decided to go ahead and put some up now. We've made a lot of progress. I think this is tied for most improved room (with the kids' bath). What do you think?

Here it was before...

Dark paint, heinous wallpaper and acid wash cabinets... Ick.

BUSY BUSY

Here it is now--new cabinets and hardware, tile backsplash and all new appliances.





Man that's a lot of cabinets!!

Remodel: Pool Bath/Utility Room

Off the kitchen (and pool area) there's a laundry room and a full bath. They had cool red paint (not!) and swirly wall paper. That got repainted... and we redid the cabinets... and counters and hardware...

Here it was when we looked at it first...

Pretty cool acid wash cabinets, eh?

What a sad looking sink!!

Here it is with new paint, lights, counters, and cabinets. I love the square sink. You can see our water softener control panel too. SUCH hard water before we got that...





Game Room

So we don't have furniture (other than a table and chairs) in the entertainment room yet... but the kids like riding the train out there. Haha. And playing on the bouncy house.


Here's Whit's man cave. No pool table yet, but his loft is a "dark room" and he has a new sectional sofa for his huge TV that's on the wall. Haha.


Family Room

Here was the family room before... All it got was new paint...


New! And we are getting a rug (eventually) and maybe new sofas. We may move these out to the entertaining room...


Pool Fence

We got our pool fence up...




Kids Game Room

This room still needs to be painted. BUT here it was before...

And we got rid of the big grainy TV-and need to build a new shelving unit in the built in for the kids' TV... but my mom's recovered one of the seat cushions. She's also done some pillows.. more to come. And curtains. I love my mom.




Guest bedroom!

Here's the guest bath before we got here. (ICK!)

I didn't do anything to the guest bedroom, but we got a new QUEEN bed! Oooh, Ahhh.

Come visit!

Here's the guest bath now... Come visit and get your own bed and bathroom!


Reading Room

Again, we didn't remodel this room--just took down the awful curtains!

It's the kids' reading room... it has two big chairs and a bookcase or two with books and puzzles.


Here are Eli and Hayley playing in it when we looked at the house at first...

I think I need to take a better photo!!

I took this one to show we put up doors. This room is between the master and the office and it just had an open doorway! We put up these doors so we could have a master that wasn't open to the house!

Remodel: Master Bath

Okay so the master bath was already pretty nice. It's also my cautionary tale. I redid the cabinets in the kitchen under the direction of a family friend, Bishop Bassett. I decided to do my master bath cabinets myself (in one day.) Whoops. I messed up the glaze because I did it at like 7:30 without good light with the bottom of the glaze can. Now I have to repaint the cabinet fronts and reglaze and seal them. DOH! Anyhow, here's the before.
Whit hated the wallpaper--this first shot is from our room looking into the bathroom...

We still need to redo the shower and tub...


This is where Emmy's room is (our second closet was ENORMOUS, and had a window so we made it her room.) Incidentally, we watched harry potter the other day with Eli. He saw Harry had a room that was a closet under the stairs and he said, "He lives in a closet... like Emmy." HA!

Anyhow here it is now--new cabinets (sort of) and new paint.




Master Room

There are two shots we took when we looked at the house...

(Colin's head!) This one below is the sitting area off the master.

Here's the master with our bed in it...

And I made the sitting room my hobby area--I'm still getting stuff unpacked.