Yard work

I've been trying to think of a way to make our coop area look more tidy. (I know, they're chickens) but if they want to live in my back yard they better keep it clean :)
Yesterday I just decided to try some thing and hope for the best. Noah has been the best helper and was teaching Levi how to stain. So awesome.

Do you know the muffin man?

I do, because he lives in my house! The truth is all my kids LOVE muffins just like their dad. They want them every morning, boxed, homemade, they don't care. So I will just have to make muffins 6-7 times a week to keep the peace :)

Sorry little mouse :(

We have tried for 5 days to free you, but you have fought hard. We have fed you and given you water, and caught you once, only to have you escape at the last possible moment. We have done all we can, and now with the help of handy Manny's tools we have set our last trap :( we are sad, the kids wanted to keep you and feed you honey roasted peanuts (your favorite) for the rest of your little mouse life. You should have cooperated with us.

Happy day!

Oh I am SO glad to be saying good bye to this horrible truck! It's not mine, and the other cars weren't ours either. But they sure did ruin our view! It's much better now. Poor Matt won't have a place to stay when he gets in trouble though ;) totally kidding.

Back yard chickens

My poor husband! He probably didn't know just how much I like animals when we got married. He knew I like them but didn't know I wanted to live on a farm ;) anyway, I finally talked him into me getting chickens. It took some time, lots of research, and me drawing up plans for the coop, and he said yes. So we got two chickens who lived in our kitchen for weeks. But it paid off and Sunny and Scrambled are super friendly. We have two others, thing one and two who did not live in our kitchen and are not so friendly! So here's hoping come September we have fresh eggs!!

Hello out there :)

We have been a bit busy, and I haven't been on here. It hasn't been that long;) but I need to be better. So what have we been doing?? Lots! Mostly playing and eating ice cream, those are two very important summer activities!! I'll try my best (mom) to blog more, for those of you (mom and Tiff) who keep asking me too ;)

Fire place mantle

I'm getting much better at convincing Matt to jump on board with my crazy long list of projects. This fire place has been on my list since we moved in. I do like it, it just needed something. Well the kids wanted the tree down stairs this year and after we set it up I had an idea, and Matt got a headache :)

It didn't take much work and we had a new mantle. I'm in love with it. I'm now trying to explain to Matt that when the Christmas decorations come down I need a trip to Tai Pan for new decorations :)

We let the kids write messages on the inside of the wood. They thought it was pretty fun :)

I had an empty space so I made a few wooden presents from some scraps.

I'm very thankful Matt was willing to help me on this project because once it was built it was really heavy. It would have been very crooked if I had to hang it alone!!

Scout

He's growing up too fast! No more blue shirts in our house for a few years!! On to boy scouts :)

Smile :)

This is the face I get when I ask Levi to smile. I love it :)

Free Toys = Happy Emma

It's here! Emma has saved special stickers from her littlest pet shop toys and sent them off and today is the day!! The free pet shop came!!! Oh the excitement in our house :o) it really was quite magical. I'm pretty sure she thought they had forgotten about her ;O)

Friends!!

Yep, we look a little uncomfortable. My Mom took this picture, and even though Jandi and I were kinda uncomfortable having our picture taken I'm glad she did!!! My mom knew we were going to be the best of friends!!! It's a little scary how alike we are! I am so thankful that somehow we have both found our selves in this crazy place! I am also super excited to have a craft buddy ;o) I kinda feel like I'm in high school again. So thank you Jandi for being amazing!!!!

Thankful tree.

We have a thankful tree every year. The first year I cut our leaves by hand. It wasn't to bad, but this year I had to cut over 120 of these and that's with Matt, Levi and I sharing. I am so glad for my silhouette!

The first year we did this we just taped the leaves to a string because we had no room. As our family has grown we have changed things up a bit and cut out a paper tree and stuck the leaves to it. This year we "made" a tree.

(Libbie jumped into the picture, so cute)

Our kids really love this tradition. They get so excited at dinner to fill out their leaves and tell the family what they're thankful for.

I was really surprised the other night when Emma said that she is really thankful for Ely. When I asked her what made her thankful for this little town she talked about our house and the mountains. About all the fun we have as a family. And the best, that we can ride our 4wheeler right out the back gate and into the mountains.

Sometimes I worry that moving here was not the best move, but this thanksgiving season I to am thankful for where we live and who I live with. I am so blessed to have the most amazing family ever!!!

So there it is. A Thanks Giving tradition I hope my kids will take with them to their families :o)

Happy Halloween :)

Oh the treats you can eat :)

Don't worry, they are totally healthy, we don't eat unhealthy things at our house ;) these sweet treats were Libbie's birthday treat for her class. I was pretty excited she just wanted mini cupcakes and didn't want me to build a unicorn out of cake or something crazy :)

Harvest :)

Yay more crafts :) if you hate crafts, sorry, I love them!
( A note to Katie, I just use regular wood stain, whatever color you want. I think mine is walnut. I just brush it on and wipe it off. If you put paper on you have to make sure that you mod podge the edge of the paper so the stain doesn't get on the paper and make it look nasty. And also make sure you don't get mod podge on the wood, if you do sand it off or the stain won't stain and it looks funny :) HAPPY FALL!!!!!

We remember

Last night our little family had the opportunity to set up flags for people around town in remembrance of 9-11. I am grateful we were able to do so. It was so cute to see the kids running around with Matt. What a blessing it is to live in this country! I always cry when I hear or sing the national anthem. I hope my children will always be proud of where we live! I am thankful for all those who have given their lives for our country.

Oh how I LOVE fall!!!

I love to decorate for fall!! It is my favorite season. Last trip to Salt Lake Matt let me go crazy in my favorite craft store. (thank you Lisa for telling me about it, Matt on the other hand, does not thank you ;o) I have lots of fall paper so I cut it all up.

Then I used mod podge to stick it to my pumpkin. It kinda took a while, but time goes by so fast while I'm in my craft room. The kids were all so good while I worked (that never happens :o)

I did one with some glitter, I think this is my girls favorite pumpkin! I stained the sides and back, just the way my awesome friend Lyndsey showed me :o) (I have great friends!!)

Here they are all done. Bring on the fall weather, yummy baking, and fun holidays. In a few weeks I'm planting 300 bulbs, wish me luck!!

New flooring

Well it's about time, but I've been busy :o) So here are some pictures of our kitchen/living room redo. This picture is where it all began. After a year of putting it off, and two guys who quoted us for carpet telling us we would not be able to remove the tile without replacing the sub-floor, it's done! We did not have to replace anything, but the removal of the tile did take 5 days. Well the tile was up in a few hours, but the plywood glued to our sub floor that took awhile!

We were feeling pretty good at this point. Things were going so fast, we were so excited to see the end of this yucky tile!

Then Matt went to see how the plywood was attached, and bad news. About 1,000,000 nails ;o) and lots and lots of glue. The kids were a big help (they helped the most when we said it was bed time. But Matt and I were so tired we didn't care how long they stayed up!)

We even got Levi working. Child labor, maybe, but he seemed to have fun!

I was feeling pretty bad that I had spent a year telling Matt that we needed to do this project and pretty much forcing him into it :o), so the kids and I removed the carpet in the living room. Man that was some sick stuff. There were piles of sand on the sub floor. Not just a little, A LOT!! Sick. Then we spent the next few hours picking staples out of the sub floor. Noah was a pro!

In the end it was all worth it. I can truly say, blood, sweat, and almost tears went into this project. I am so happy with the end result, and so is Matt! YAY he still loves me ;O)

Here is a picture before we got our carpet ( it was pretty funny to bring an 8x10 carpet back from salt lake with 2 months of groceries and school clothes and supplies) full car for sure!!!

Here is another before. Yuck, I am so glad that we never have to touch that horrible carpet again. And my feet are so glad that I don't have to stand on that sick tile!

Here is another before. Don't mind the breakfast still on the table. Or the ugly light in the kitchen. I'm glad that's gone too!

The end! We have lots more projects, but this was for sure the hardest one we had to do!! I am so glad we can move on to the easy stuff, like redoing the kids rooms :o)