Lucky to be me!

Before the month of March completely passes by I thought I'd post these (very late) pictures! I forgot all about these St. Patrick's Day photos! But thought I might as well post them since I haven't posted in a few days!

This was our tasty and green-alishious breakfast on St. Patrick's Day! We had green milk, green pancakes (shaped like four leaf clovers), and green eggs! It didn't look appealing, but it tasted the pretty good!

Ty thought it was a lot of fun! He kept asking "How did you get green milk?" I said "I found a green cow and milked her!" Then he said "How did you make green eggs?" I said "I found a green chicken and gathered her eggs!" Then he looked over and saw my green food coloring sitting on the counter and said "Oh Mom! That's how you really did it!"

A few things that make me feel lucky:
Lucky to have one handsome helpful husband who comes home each night
Lucky to have 3 beautiful happy healthy children
Lucky my husband has a job

Lucky to have the gospel that gives us guidance and direction
Lucky to live close to family
Lucky to have wonderful friends
Lucky to have freedom
Lucky to own a home
Lucky to stay at home with my kids

Maybe luck doesn't have anything to do with after all!

I guess I'm just blessed!

The Lone Ranger!!

The past two weeks (that's right 14 days!!) I have been a "Lone Ranger"...

Not this kind of Lone Ranger (although he is pretty dang adorable!)

But a single mom--without a husband--trying to keep my sanity while Nate is off basking in the sun in Phoenix Arizona! J/K--Nate was in Phoenix but not exactly basking in the sun! He had training for work and usually we would go with him but it was for TWO weeks which was rather too long to take Ty out of school! So we stayed home...but trust you me, I did not sit around and have a pitty-party waiting for my handsome husband to return! Nope! Instead my mom came down and we had a painting party!!

I found that the busier I was the less time I had to feel sorry for myself that Nate was gone! I was one determined chick to get lots done in two weeks.

Project #1
I stared with my 3 hallway closets!
I've been working on these closets for a while now: organizing, cleaning out, taking off nasty-flower-heart-dirty-contact paper! But it wasn't enough, they needed a new paint job! So our first project my mom and I worked on was painting the closets.

I'm very embarrassed to show these next couple pictures because I didn't realize how bad my closets were until I looked back on the nasty pictures that were taken.

Just for the record: this is not me! I hate being disorganized and having such a mess! BUT when we moved in I wasn't sure where I wanted everything and I was in such a hurry to unpack boxes I threw things on the shelf and closed the door! I've also been so busy doing other projects that I let the closets slip!!

Before:
Looking at this makes me want to throw-up!

The coat/game/puzzle closet! Wow--glad that was the before shots! What the before shots don't show is the pencil sharpener mounted on the wall and years of pencil marks all over the closet walls.

After:
Much- MUCH better!! Nate says I'm turning our whole house into plastic! I'm just keeping rubber-main in business!

Painting closets sure isn't my favorite thing to do! BUT they sure look so much better when they are clean and sparkly--and organized! I like everything in my house to have a place to go!

Project #2
THE WALL

This is the famous wall in our house which is the least favorite of all the walls! It is textured funny, old, (compared to the surrounding walls of the addition) and disliked by many (mostly Nate!) I thought painting it would help-but the semi gloss we used made Nate hate it more! I told him that he was welcome to repaint the wall and do anything he wanted to it--but I was NOT going to touch it! Well I guess I was wrong--I did touch it! My mom and I sanded it down, smoothed it out and repainted it with a satin paint. It looks much better--I just hope Nate thinks so! Then I hung up our family pictures and wala!! It's done!

Project #3
Mara's Room
I couldn't take it any more! The blue had finally gotten the best of me!
Before:
It was time to say 'good-bye' to the blue room!!

If you ask Mara what color room she wanted she would have said "pink, purple, and yellow!" Wow--that it a little too much for me! Let's do yellow and pink instead!

After:
The yellow is the same as our hallway so it flows into her room! I love the unity throughout the house!

Nate wanted to get rid of the bead-board but I thought it gave the room a nice 'girly' touch! After a little (or a lot) of spackle, sanding, and paint it looks brand new and I love it!

All it needs now is a few pink decorations on the walls. If only Price had a Hobby Lobby or Micheal's I would be done!

My cute mother helped me make these darling curtains for Mara's room. The picture doesn't do justice, you'll just have to see them in person! The best part about doing Mara's room was hearing her say "Wow mom! My room looks so nice!" I'm glad she is pleased--now let's hope Nate is!!

Project #4
Caleb's Room
This little buddy's room was a cave! So dark, so ugly! It had to be changed!
Before:

After:

The tan color is the same as my room, but I wanted it to have a little boy feel to it so I painted an "Aggie Blue" stripe around the top and the accent color---when I can find a few things to hang up--will be red!

If you know Caleb you know his favorite thing in the entire world (next to papa that is) is BALLS! He is our sports hero! This little kid is the next Jimmer! So we had to go with the sports theme and he will soon have some sports decorations hanging on his wall!

I don't have a before shot of Caleb's closet, but it was nasty and while we had the paint out we might as well paint it and make it look new and nice!

So I did it! I accomplished all that I set out to do AND more! I survived my TWO weeks of being a Lone Ranger! I couldn't have done it without the help and support of my awesome mother! Thanks again Mimi! I'm sorry I was such a slave-driver, but thanks for helping me on the projects and with the kiddos! We pulled some late nighters to get our work done! But so grateful it is finished!

I also couldn't have done it without the love and help from these three cute kiddos! They are the perfect children! They sure missed their daddy, but they were troopers.

Now let's hope 'The Boss' likes what I've done! Nate has no clue that I've worked so hard on any of the above projects! I can hardly wait to see his reaction! This might just teach him a lesson: Never leave me again for TWO weeks...you never know what I might do!!

Sleep Solution!

My little Caleb boy (who is proving he isn't so little) learned a new trick a couple weeks ago: How to climb out of his crib! NOOOO!! Come on Caleb---for the love of Pete!!! So we had to figure out a different sleeping arrangement than him climbing out of his crib all night long. Not only would he get out of his crib, but his bedroom door would not close tightly and he would not stay in his room! He would either come in our room hoping to climb in bed with us or roam around the house!

My friends suggested a crib tent--no thanks, they are $$$70! What I want is for him to just learn to sleep through the night in his own bed! Is that too much to ask?! But WHY isn't he sleeping through the night? Is he cold? Is he scared? Is he lonely? Does he wet himself? Does he have pain or discomfort?! I just don't know! And it's not like I can just ASK Caleb and he will tell me! So I had to come up with a new sleep solution!

First I took of the railing of his crib and turned his crib into a toddler bed. At least now he's more safe and won't hurt himself jumping out of his crib! Next I tried fixing the door --that's why we have husbands! Nate fixed the door so it closes TIGHT and he can't roam the house. Then I talked to my friend who suggested kid's melatonin, an all natural sleep relaxer for kids!
And finally:

I make him PLAY so hard all day that he is exhausted when it's time for bed!!! One day I took him for a run around the block, after dinner Nate took him again for another run! With the beautiful sunny spring weather we have been playing outside and going to parks as often as we possibly can!!

Climb Caleb! Climb!! Get tired!

The special thing about playing at the park on this day was having our daddy with us! He took off work early so he could spend more time with his family. (He left for Phoenix on Sunday and won't be home for TWO whole weeks! We miss you Nate! Hurry home!)

Two good little climbers having a race to the top!

Mara's new favorite trick: spinning circles upside down on the bar!

Ty chillin' upside down!

This is one of our favorite parks--it has the tallest slides we've ever seen!

Mara enjoying the ride all the way to the bottom!!

Ty's the king of the slide!

What a handsome kid! How can he be so big?!

Are you tired yet Caleb?! Keep playing!

Is that not the sweetest picture of a good big brother helping his little sister on the monkey bars?! So cute!

This daddy just loves his kids! Can you tell?! He loves to kiss them and tickle them, and throw them in the air, and wrestle them!! And the kids LOVE their daddy so much!!

A fun, fun day at the park!

See! He's happier already with the new sleep solution! (Ok, he's faking it! I tucked Caleb in bed and went to see if he was sleeping. I told him to close his eyes and go to sleep and he just started smiling and laughing!!) Oh silly Cay-ub!!
Caleb's actually done better the past few nights. All the exercise and playing has seemed to help him at night! Occasionally I hear a 'knock-knock-knock' on his bedroom door! But he goes right back to bed!!
Keep it up Caleb--we all know this mama needs her beauty rest!!

Flight to Moab

Our friend and neighbor, Chris is a mechanic/pilot here at the Price Airport! Bet you didn't know Price had an airport! HA! It's a small one, but Chris has invited us several times to fly down to Moab and we've never been able to take him up on his offers....until Wednesday Morning!!

It was going to be the whole family, but it turned out only the small plane was available so Chris was only able to take three people! Nate, Ty, and Mara woke up really early Wednesday morning and flew with Chris down to Moab and then drove Chris's car back to Price. It was a very big adventure for these kiddos!

While they were flying Caleb and I were snoozing! Boy did it feel good to sleep in and not have to rush to get Ty off to school and Nate off to work!

Nate said as soon as they landed in Moab he was itching to go hiking and camping! But they didn't stay in Moab long, just had to drop off the plane.

Here is the flight crew!

Ty and Mara had a blast! They thought it was so cool to be able to fly in a small airplane!

Ty was trying to tell me about wearing the headphones. He said the motor was loud and so it helped shut out the noise. He also said they were able to talk to each other in the microphone.

And this little sweetie was so excited, she couldn't stop talking about it all day long! She even called Mimi and told her she had been on an airplane ride that day---Mimi had a hard time believing that one! But it was true! A little airplane ride is a great way to start any day!

Art Night!!

Once a year at Ty's school they have an Art Night for the children and their families. It is a free night of arts/crafts and popcorn & drinks! It's a lot of fun, we went last year and were amazed at what the PTA can do! So we wouldn't miss a fabulous night of fun!

Caleb was really into painting his crafts this year! (Last year he only came for the popcorn) He really went to town on his snake!

They had 9 different art projects. You could do all 9 activities if you wanted to! I think we did half of them! Besides painting, they had sand bracelets, bug catchers, bunnies, piggy banks, and chia-heads.

By the end, I don't know if Caleb had more paint on his snake or on his face and shirt! But he had a good time and wore old clothes that could get messy!

Ty was very detail oriented in painting his snake! He made sure he painted every other coil black and green.

Mara painting her wind-chime, very nice!

And of course the night wouldn't be complete without the popcorn! Caleb enjoyed painting, but it didn't last too long and then he just focused on eating popcorn!

Dress up?!

Just when I thought Caleb couldn't get any funnier he does something like this.....

That's right, he is wearing a Little Mermaid dress up costume!

Oh dear! Should I be concerned?! Not really! What do you expect when Mara has two little friends over and they are all playing dress up and going to the 'Ball'! He just didn't want to be left out! The funniest part was when he was trying to get on his truck and ride away, he couldn't figure out why he couldn't straddle his machine! He then decided the dress just wasn't for him!!

Seriously! This kid cracks me up!
A little bit more manly---still just as funny!!

Oh Cay-ub! I love you to pieces! Thanks for making my days so much fun! You are one hilarious little character and I love you to the moon and back!!
Love, Mom!!

Home Improvement/Repair

When will the home improvement projects end?!! NEVER! There is always something to repair or improve when you buy a home. And when you are a perfectionist and you marry a perfectionist it seems that sometimes you keep redoing the same projects over and over until they are perfect!!

Take our kitchen for example...

We painted this wall several times until we thought we had the perfect color!

It wasn't quite perfect yet....so we tried a few different colors!

We mixed and mixed different shades until we finally finally found the right shade!

Done & Done! I don't know how we ended up finding the perfect color, but somehow we mixed the right colors together and took it in to the paint store and they color matched it for us!

This is the before picture:

This is the after picture:

Nate did an awesome job on the tile! I'm so glad he has that skill and enjoys doing it! The pictures really don't do justice, it looks even better in person! We love how the back-splash ties all the kitchen together.


Next we have the family room....
We went with the same approach in finding a color as we did with the kitchen! We borrowed a few colors and starting mixing and painting color samples on our wall!

Here is our paint supplies! It's actually kind of fun to mix colors and paint them randomly on the wall!

Every color was so different and although they seemed like a good color most of them just weren't what we were going for! It was nothing short of a miracle that we found the perfect tan color.

Here is the before:

Here is the after....

It actually looks quite similar to the previous color, but it's a lot lighter, less red, and the perfect tan!

Before:

After:

Last is the front room....

The color of the front room was a 'smokey taupe' color! Not bad, but I hated it! It needed something fresh and new! So went with the same colors as the family room/kitchen to give the house a feeling of unity and to help make it flow...plus we loved the colors we previously used and were tired of trying to pick out the perfect colors!

Before:

After:

This room isn't quite done yet! One of our next projects is to redo the fireplace with stacked rocks. We also want to replace the carpet, and find a new light fixture!!! .....it never ends!

The other project that I've been working on in the hallway/front room is the crown molding! What a pain! The previous owners put up the crown molding but did a terrible job and did not finish it! So I spent many hours filling in the gaps with spackle and sanding the seems. It was not easy--but I must admit it looks amazing now that it's done!

Before:

After:

When people come to our house, they often ask if the crown molding is new! Once it was done right and painted it stands out more and gives it brand new look!

Oh the joys! Really I do enjoy fixing things up and making them look better. It's amazing with a little work how much better something can be! I have to give credit to my folks for helping me out! My dad came down and helped me repair some big holes in the walls and taught me how to do the crown molding. And my mom came down and helped me with all the painting! I'd probably still be working on these projects had they not come down and helped! Thanks Mimi & Papa for your help and support!