A Little Bit of Fun

So now that we are "done" with the living/dining room, we have moved onto the girls room.  See we only have 2 bedrooms upstairs (a choice I will never make again) and so to get James into his own room we had to do a little re-arranging.  Richard and I are moving downstairs, the girls are moving into our old room, and James will get the girls old room.  We already painted the girls room blue when we moved in (lucky choice on our part) so it works perfect for James.  Our room on the other hand was green, a dark, dark green, so it needed a little face lift :).  I can't wait to get it all done (James "NEEDS" his own room).  Luckily there aren't any huge changes being made, and it is mostly just cosmetic.  I did tear out the wasted space above the closet to make a decorative shelf (unbeknown to Richard, who then had to tag along -- hey that is the only way I get exactly what I want).  The room has 3 closets -- well technically two; one big enough walk in closet it could be a bathroom, and one closet that looks like two from the outside, but actually connects inside.  We are going to rip out the wall and door covering the big walk in closet and make it a part of the room.  So again not to many big changes.  Richard wants to build a cool play house for the girls inside the walk in closet space and then as they get older we can take it out and it can be an area for their "homework desks".  I'm so excited about decorating the girls room and have all the colors picked out.  The base wall color will be a really light tan.  Then I will accent with a dark pink, light pink, and dark brown.  I got so excited that I finally came up with an idea for the girls dresser, which has needed to be refinished.  The dresser got me thinking up all sorts of cool ideas for decor and I can't wait to get started , so I didn't!!

I just love it!!!

Reading

Makayla is doing so good in school and I am so excited for all the new things she is learning.  They have started doing some home reading and it is fun to watch her.

Of course, Emma wants to do whatever her big sister does so she is "learning to read" too

"Inside" Our Life

The kids love to play inside anything they can fit into. . .

James just chillin in his "bed" prepared by Makayla

These Muck Tubs were one of the best purchases ever.  The kids will play for hours in them.

Makayla is always making up "beds".  This was just her latest, but it was so cute!!!

Growing Boy

James is growing so fast and doing so many firsts so quickly -- he is 5 months old already!!  We are sure enjoying his happy spirit in our home.

His first solid food.  He took to it right away and loves it.

Sitting in his highchair.  He doesn't look like he is enjoying himself at all ;)



He is now sitting up (not to sturdy, but up there just the same)



He is now also giving kisses -- so too cute!!!

We're Finished (mostly)

Well, we finally finished up what we had planned to do in the living and dining room.  I LOVE it!!!  We still have flooring to put in (when we can afford it), and a few other touch ups, but it is DONE for now :)

My beautiful accent wall -- My favorite piece in the whole room.  This wall gave me fits.  I think I painted it about 4 times.  I finally tried something that I would never usually try and woolied a really dark espresso brown over the top of the base color -- of course I think it turned out perfect.  The vinyl accent I found on ebay and loved it, so my husband suprised me with it for my birthday!!

Close up on the vinyl accent.  There is a computer desk that Richard build and did the countertop for on the right now.

 

Looking at the dining room and entry way from the Living Room



When we first painted the walls, the flu hit me halfway through.  My wonderful husband finished up the base color and did all the cutting in (I love him so much!!).  When I finally got well enough to get out of bed and went to look at the room, I almost cried.  The color was terrible -- it was ORANGE :(  Richard kept telling me that it would look better as it dried and when we got the plastic off the windows (it really was making it dark in that room).  I just couldn't live with orange walls so I took an almost white color and Woolied over the whole wall.  The finished product was perfect for me -- again I LOVED it.

This is one of my favorite changes.  We added a small wall in front of the hallway so that you couldn't see straight into the bathroom from the front door.  It will be such a fun place to decorate.  My mom gave me a small curio cabinet that fit perfect and I just love the angles in the room now.

It feels so nice to walk into my house now and know that these two rooms have our touch to them now :)  My family went in on blinds for the windows for my birthday and it is so cozy to just sit and enjoy time with my family in my new living and dining room.

Kayla's 1st Day of Kindergarten

Makayla did so great her first day of Kindergarten -- I was so proud of her.  Of course I cried, even though I thought I was ready for this.  I can't believe my little girl has grown up so fast.

1st day of school outfit (of course this little one had to pose for all her shots)

 

Picking her up after her first day



In front of the school sign

Camping Kimberly

We love to go camping and finally got to go this year.  One of our favorite places to camp is up on Kimberly; just above Richfield and the Fremont Indian Museum.

 James had a blast playing with this flower.  He made the funniest face when his daddy tickled him with it.

 I may be a mean mom, but I happened to have the camera when she fell and just couldn't resist snapping this picture for blackmail in the future ;)

 We put Emma to bed below Makayla and then she ended up on the floor pretty early on in the night.  Then every time I got up with James she would be farther up the trailer.  This is where I found her in the morning (up as far as she could go or she probably would have been farther)



 Then there was James -- he is supposed to be sleeping at the time this picture was taken.

 Makayla has her own pink bow and she loves to shoot it

 And of course Emma has to shoot it too

 The little stream by our campsite was so much fun for the girls and Mommy too -- we wrote their names with rocks in the stream.  Here is Kayla's

 And Emma's (it was harder to see)

 Makayla loves to pose.

 We hiked up to this old mine

 Emma was so tired - she slept really good the second night (no floor for her this night)



This "Little Grand Canyon" was pretty cool to see.  There was a large fire up on the mountain a year ago and you can drive up higher than where we camped and see where the fire destroyed the mountain.  They have had some flash floods and lots of errosion because of the fire.

"Beauty and the Beast"  Even though the fire destroyed alot of the mountain side it was neat to see it was starting to come back already.