Wednesday, September 30, 2015

These Things Make Me Happy

The gift of a fairy door! How fun & whimsical is that?!

This dog. Old and blind but the best snuggle dog around.

Whimsical photo sessions and fun frames!

Waking up to coffee.

Pallet projects for our camping adventures.

Cousins sending us pictures to color! And rainbow glitter Darth Vader.

Abby simply being motivated by the fear of being ordinary.

Playing games with this boy.

Dressing up fancy...

To meet Robin Preiss Glasser...the illustrator of Fancy Nancy books!

Brothers.

American Heritage Girls meetings about hiking safety.

Abby's love of playing Barbies!

AHG service projects!

Teaching AJ's friends how to play Settlers. And getting my trash kicked by third graders.

A lunch out with these two!

So much to be thankful for!

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Mountain Weekend

After the big floor project, we needed a break.

We were gifted with a weekend in the mountains!

It was so fun and refreshing to just escape for a couple days!

We went hiking...

And exploring...

We put together puzzles and played card games...

We went ice skating...

Which is always hilarious...

We attended a cooking demonstration, and Abby got to help!

And we ended with a trip to the Vail Farmers Market and bike ride.

It was a refreshing weekend!

More Back To School

Back To School Night happened.

I found AJ's Me Collage in the hallway.

I love it. So totally AJ. I hope my kids always have strong self-concepts and stay confident to stand up for their values.

I love watching Abby come to the car loop on my pick up days.
So much personality that one.
Usually she's careening down the sidewalk...taking people out with her massive cat backpack...in her own little Abby world...
Love her big personality...

Except for when she decides to break new pencils in half to prove to the boys in her class how strong she is...and has to flip her card.

Brody Bear started school! He loves it.

 

Hardest DIY Ever In The History of Ever

The white carpet in our house that has never stayed white has been the bane of my existence since...always.

It was gross. It had to go. We thought how hard can this be?! Andy put new floors in Mary Flair and there is You Tube. We got this.

We.had.no.idea.how.hard.it.would.be.

Because...you see we are not carpenters. We are optimistic DIYers.

But this. This was huge.

We started moving furniture out, taking out the floorboards and carpet and carpet padding on a Friday night after volunteering at the school Back To School Bash for 3 hours. Meaning we finally started at 9PM.

We lasted till about 1AM and were stilling cleaning up the nail strips and dust when we got up a few hours later.

By mid day Saturday I was tired and discouraged with our lack of progress when an angel came by...our neighbor bringing survival snacks. Seriously these snacks are the only reason I was able to push through this project.

I put down foam while Andy worked in the hallway.

This felt like a victory. I was ready to live with foam flooring.

Once we finally got the first long row in we were in business snapping flooring in. That first row was a bear. Because our hallway has all theses cut outs...with rounded corners. Which translates into DIY pain in the ass.

While Andy continued cutting and installing flooring I took out all the nails from the floorboards, cleaned each one with a friend on the driveway, and painted all of them. Seriously my floorboards never looked so good.

By Sunday night we had almost all the flooring in except a couple final tricky pieces. But the weekend was over and nana and papa were bringing the kids back. Meaning work pretty much halted.

My curious little helper was not so helpful Monday morning...

But we were getting close...so close.

So after Andy came home from work Monday I decided to take the kids to the pavilion to ride bikes so Andy could pound out the last of this hellacious project kid free.

We were at the pavilion for 15 minutes when Brody rides his bike at full speed into the rock wall and comes up screaming, blood gushing down his face. At this point I grab him and go running down the street to a neighbor's house, yelling for help. Another neighbor go get Abby and AJ that I left behind in my frantic departure. After we wipe the blood away it is pretty clear Brody needs stitches.
So off to urgent care we go, and the floors wait.
2 stitches later we make it home at bedtime.
Thank God for incredible neighbors.
Later that week Brody and I venture to Home Depot to buy a replacement floorboard piece for one of our "oops".

About a week after the start of this epic DIY project we have floors with brightly painted floorboards back up...only transition pieces to finish...

And the great hunt for a new area rug begins.

6 stores later we have a rug and we feel accomplished.

Chance: 8 blisters

Brody: 2 stitches and another awesome scar on his face

Andy: a killer backache

New floors: priceless

 

Sunday, September 6, 2015

Insta-Catch Up

I'm super behind in blog land. Life has been busy yo.

Andy has been going to the gym in the evenings. So I watch romance movies and eat junk food and paint in peace...kinda the opposite of going to the gym but super awesome.

I was super excited to start Ab's Halloween costume since school started. School starting means fall to me. And fall means Halloween is coming!

This is how far I got. Hence why I start thinking about costumes in August. Always interrupted or distracted by more immediate tasks or needs. Hoping to get back to it next week.

Andy and I were gifted with a magical kidfree evening out at a jazz concert at Red Rocks with college buddies! Oh.my.goodness! It was soooo good to see them! Like the good for the soul kind of good! Some people are just super awesome and only get more awesome with time. They are those kind of people.

Abby has been riding her bike to school with neighbors this year! She LOVES it! I love it! My neighbor is amazing. She rides with the kiddos so they get this experience. Strong and sweet and so loving and kind and giving. A gift and an inspiration that one. So blessed to have her in our lives!

Mums mean FALL IS COMING!!!
Nuff said.

Falls means FALL BAKING AND PUMPKIN EVERYTHING!!!

Bed time stories are the best. For the kids and for me. Love getting lost in a book with them!

This girl. 8 days. She made it 8 days into the school year before I got my first crazy Abby email. I had been checking my email every day holding my breath, waiting for it to come, bracing myself. When 7 school days passed I thought I was in the clear. Nope. It came on day 8 and the subject was: Scissors.

And I'm not gonna lie...my first thought was "oh shit".

I was pretty sure someone else's child had sustained bodily harm as a result of my child. Thank you sweet baby Jesus she only cut her own hair. Now it was a good 6 inches off the front...2 days before school pictures. But the relief that rushed over me when it wasn't someone else's hair...that was a glorious feeling.

Due to the impending school pictures we had to deal with missing chunk of hair right up front by her face.

It was either cut it into a bob just below her ears...or taper it A LOT around her face...so here she is with her new country western 1990's LeAnn Rimes hair style.

That child.

I went with a Minecraft theme for my cake walk donations for the Back To School bash. AJ approved. Abby not so much.

We caught a frog in our front yard! Which may not seem like much. But we live in suburbia. I didn't see squirrels for the first three years I lived here. A frog! In our yard! It felt like the country folks! I was ready to don some overalls and let Andy buy a tractor!

Love my roses. I'm not an amazing gardener. I'm a ok-ish, ADD gardener. But my roses never disappoint.

I couldn't 't resist. This vanilla pumpkin marshmallow baby made an appearance on my mantle in August. When it was still 90 degrees outside, but I could turn the A/C on full blast inside and pretend it was fall outside.

The epic DIY project of my lifetime is coming soon...stay tuned. But don't hold your breath. Who knows when I'll get back to this dusty 'ol blog. But it's coming. And by epic I mean my princess hands just now recovered weeks later from my 8 blisters. But it was so worth it.