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)

Paint paint PAINT!!

We painted all of the inside of our house as soon as we moved in. The outside needed paint to, but after all the inside painting, we had NO desire to start another paint project. We would save it for next summer. Oh how I wish we had just done it ;o) We spent a good month looking at paint samples and ordering some online. FAIL!! The colors were way different than we had thought (not surprised) but disappointed. So we just picked one from the lumber store here. We are happy with it. I took a nice close up of how bad some spots were. Yuck. My mom and i scraped and sanded peeled and caulked. Wow, a few days of prep, and we were ready to paint. (we weren't really ready but the house was;o)

As I started to paint I was so happy that the nasty white and blue were finally disappearing. I was so excited that the paint was covering so well. I was worried for a while we would have to replace the siding :(

After I finished this part of the house i just sat on the lawn and looked at the house ignoring the fact that we had so much more to do. I just pretended that it was done :o) I started to think it still needed something. I decided to build some shutters. Matt and I were a little worried at first but I am so glad that I did, because I think it looks much better!

Here is the after with the shutters. So much better.

Here is a before shot of the front. Man, I am not a big fan of the white and blue.

And yet another shot

And here is out after!! I am so happy. One of our friends came to drop something off and drove right by. We aren't done with the front yet, we are going to paint the front door black and put a planter under the big bay window to bring some of the black over there. I'm also making an address sign.

It was a lot of work!!! Matt and I both got sick (way to much sun) I had to get up on the roof because the plan was to paint the front of the house to surprise Matt while he was away at scout camp. It's not the height of the roof that scares me its standing on the top step of the ladder and jumping up I hate. Thank heavens we found a better spot to get up there. Noah even came up with me :O)

Still more to do, barf, but at least the front of our house looks better. We were pretty tired after this, we had no idea how hard the next project would be :o)

I'll post about our floors soon!!