Random pictures

 Last Friday Zoe fell asleep late in the afternoon. Her position is very strange and she's really not supporting her head.

 This is a close up where you can tell she has an over bite. I don't know how that can be comfortable.

For Valentine's Day we let the kids help dip strawberries in chocolate. They loved doing it and eating them after.

I love this picture! She is a complete nut! First off the bunny mouth is to a Mr. Potatoe Head and she's covering her ears because Dad was using the saw building the scaffolding.

 These kiddos love their dog although Lola looks kind of annoyed. I was shocked I got the kids looking at the camera at the same time on my first try.

Chase got new church clothes and he looks very handsome in them.

Maeley was so excited to bring some scriptures to church, these are now hers with her name inside. That made her one very happy little girl.

(our Primary puts a penny in a jar for everyone that brings their scriptures then when they have enough they buy a year subscription of the Friend for someone who does not get it)

 Maeley riding Zoe's toy. Maeley gets it, Zoe not so much.

 Zoe would ride this to the bottom of the driveway where I had to stop her or she would go into the middle of the street. She did this over and over again.

Chase posing for a picture. Its been nice that we are warming up and can spend more time outside.

Project In Progress

Since Melanie posted about my current shenanigans on her other blog, I figure I won't double her efforts, but simply redirect you over to there.  We will post before and afters when done.

-Derek (yea, sometimes I blog, but don't get used to it)

Playing video games

Maeley and Chase love their Leap Frog Explorers they got from Christmas. There are chores that have to be done before they can play and rules to obey.

 I think its funny the way Zoe is always sitting next to one of them watching every move.

Last week Chase had put his Explorer down and came down stairs where Derek and I were. Wondering where Zoe had gone Derek found her in her room with the door locked playing his video game. She really thinks she's as big as her brother and sister.

Decision made

Yesterday I took Chase and Zoe to get haircuts. Zoe ended up getting an all around trim. She just didn't have enough hair in the front and sides for a bob cut to work. So pig tails it is for awhile longer. I'm really hoping this hair cut will spark some growth. Thank you to all of those that had suggestions, I really appreciated it.

Zoe's hair

I do not know what to do with her hair.

 Her hair is stringy, super fine, and not growing in the front.

She most definitely has the baby mullet going on. Look how long her hair is in the back. I put her hair in pigtails every day. It's the only way to make her hair look decent.

When her hair first started growing in the back I trimmed it several times. Once I figured I could do pig tails I haven't trimmed it since. Her hair isn't long enough in the front/sides to do a cute bob haircut. I'm terrified that if I take her in to get a trim all around that she will look like a boy.

If any of you have any suggestions please let me know.

ZoZo

Zoe is at a great stage. She repeats almost everything you say. She is just so eager to learn new words. I just love listening to her. Her voice when she prayers is my absolute favorite, its just so sweet. Zoe does get into trouble often though. She wrote on the nightstand in the girls room and it will not come off. I need more spray paint to fix it.  Yesterday she was trying to get in the cabinet with all the books and broke one of the doors off and it cannot be fixed. We ended up just taking the other door off. I'm affraid that the books will be thrown on the floor even more than they were before. Zoe loves books. She enjoys sitting in front of the cabinet and looking through book after book. If I read to her she won't let me stop. She just gets another book and another after awhile it gets old but I'm glad she loves them.

Zoe loves Lola. She actually fell asleep in this position, Lola too.

One thing that she does often that always makes me laugh is, she will jump on the couch while singing "No more monkey's jumping on the bed" until I tell her to stop.

Chase

For Christmas Chase got a bucket of soldiers. FYI he only calls them army guys, not soldiers. He loves these little guys. He sometimes just carries them around in the bucket where ever he goes. A few weeks ago he was sad because Maeley wasn't being nice to him. I was doing my hair and makeup so I told him to set up his army guys in my bath tub. I helped him set them up around the sides and the bottom. He had so much fun doing that. Now he will set up all the army guys just about anywhere. This particular day I had been mopping the kitchen/dining room floor so I moved the benches out.

Maeley's creativity

Yesterday afternoon I I decided to draw out my ideas I have for the fireplace area.

You see the shelves are ginormous. No joke. To fill those shelves takes so much otherwise things just get lost in there. It was fine with our Christmas decor but not now. I hate them. Seriously! And the only place our TV fits is mounted on the wall above the fireplace. 

This is what I came up with. Note: I do not draw well but it gives Derek the ideas I was thinking of, which is pretty much the same as him.

 Maeley watched me do mine and decided to draw one herself. I think its funny because she drew a cactus next to the stereo. She thinks we should have one. I say "No thank you".  I love her details. I just drew rectangles for picture frames but she drew people in them.


 Then she proceeded to her bathroom. I'm not sure why the shower is in between the vanity and toilet but she again did a great job with detail. Except she added a Mickey face on the shower curtain which isn't there but we are planning on putting a couple Mickey Mouse decor in there. She really is picking up on interior design. I love it! Just a couple weeks ago she said, "Mom, I know you and Dad like to paint because it makes our house pretty. I like to be good for you while you paint." I just gave her a huge hug. She totally gets it.  Oh and last summer she actually drew a floor plan of the house we were living in. I was shocked. It looked great for a 4 year old. I'm thinking she must have seem me on the computer looking at houses and floor plans when we were house hunting. It will be interesting to see what she chooses to do when she grows up.

We are freezing!

This morning we woke up to -6 degrees once you factor in the wind chill its much much colder. Ouch. I've stayed in doors without stepping foot outside for a couple days now. The kids enjoyed some play in the snow Tuesday but not for long.

This was the only picture I got with the 3 of them. Chase came inside immediately after this picture was taken. Its funny because he's our child that can tolerate the cold weather the best however he doesn't seem to like snow.

Maeley came inside about 2 minutes after Chase. Zoe however did her little skip around the backyard a few times singing a little song enjoying herself. I think she might have stayed outside longer if someone was with her.

We ended up getting about 3 inches of snow. Not much but that's okay. I've enjoyed having the blinds open the last several days just enjoying the snow. It's so beautiful. And I was beginning to think winter was over. For awhile we were in the high 40's low 50's. When it's not windy its not too bad.

Dining room craft

While shopping at Target a few weeks ago I fell in love with some of their new home decor. I don't consider myself a blue person especially when decorating but this just jumped out and me.

I fell in love with the picture. The $50 price tag made me wonder if I could recreate it for a fraction of the cost. Plus I wanted something larger in our dining room.

At first I was thinking stencils but to get a nice stencil with the designs I was thinking of the price was too high for such a small craft. So I went to Joann Fabrics. Derek and I picked a couple out we liked but weren't really sure. About a week later I went back found exactly what I was looking for and it was 40% off. I think buying the fabric made me that much more excited to get the dining room painted which we did this weekend.

We already had 3 frames not being used and knew they would be perfect for this project.

We had a set of 4 but we already reused one of the frames for Chase's room. While these are nice they just aren't our style any more. We purchased them about 5 or 6 years ago at Kohl's.

 First we taped off the black wood trim in the inside and gave the mats a few coats of Heirloom white spray paint. We had leftovers from building our benches. We also gave the frames a new coat of black paint because they were more worn looking. Then we simply taped the fabric to the mat. 

 This is what we ended up with.

We absolutely love it! It's so perfect for the dining room. This project cost less then $13 for the fabric. Plus we have enough leftover fabric to make a couple pillows for the family room.

I'll post a picture of the complete dining room once its finished. I have a couple other projects I have in mind. I love our house. I think Derek is getting tired of me saying it. The more projects that get done the more I love our home.

Only our kids

Yesterday I over heard Maeley and Chase while they were playing. I just love listening in on their conversations. Now most kids when playing pretend typically play house maybe the grocery store. Well not Maeley and Chase they were playing Lowe's. More specifically the employees at the paint counter. They crake me up. I think we might go to Lowe's too often.

They got the apron from their cousin Devan when he was here in September.

Loft complete

Derek and I finally picked out the paint colors for the loft and family room areas. We decided it would be best to start with the loft.

 As you can tell this room is the playroom. The kids love and use everything in here.

By the way the blinds have got to go. The were ugly before but now they are hideous.

 The cabinets hold more toys and lots and lots of books.

 This was our old desk. It's an Ikea desk and I love that we were able to adjust the legs so its the perfect height for the kids. This table gets the most use from Maeley. She is always coloring, drawing, or doing her schoolwork here.

 This wall is painted a shade lighter than the other walls in the loft and is the color that will be downstairs.

 This is the view when walking up the stairs.

 Hallway to the bathroom and kids bedrooms.

 Here you can see the color difference.

Here is a before picture. This was taken the day we were moving in. The accent wall was not painted very well and really needed another coat. That same color is also on one wall downstairs and also done poorly. The rest is all the boring builder beige that is on the ceiling, trim and walls everywhere. Slowly but surely this entire house will be painted.

Rooms that still need to be painted.

-kids bathroom

-dining room

-kitchen

-family room

The kitchen and family room have high vaulted ceilings so we are still figuring out how we are going to do that. I'm thinking rent scaffolding from Home Depot. That means we would have to rent a truck as well to get it to and from which just adds to the cost. Needless to say those rooms will be done last.

Sugar cookies

Derek's work had a surprise baby shower for one of the employees. His wife is due in a few weeks and having a boy. Derek let me know that they were having a potluck lunch. I immediately asked if I could bake cookies. I love to bake but would rather give the cookies away then eat more than my share.

I stumbled upon a great blog. This girl is very talented when it comes to sugar cookies. She had a chocolate chip sugar cookie recipe and I had to try it out. They were good. If you decide to try this recipe I used way less chocolate chips then the recipe calls for. I doubled and recipe and only used 1 cup instead of 1 1/2 cups per batch. I really like chocolate and I didn't think it was missing any.

I completely forgot to take a picture before loading up into the car.

Now I am a complete amateur at this but its a lot of fun. I just need to get the right consistency on the icing.

The girls room

This weekend Derek and I finished the girls room. It's so cute I love it. More importantly Maeley and Zoe love it.

Before

After

 Maeley found her letters for her name and wanted them on the wall again. (They were hung in her nursery) We found Zoe's letters at Hobby Lobby for $2.99 each plus 50% off. We had the flower night light from when Maeley was a toddler, purchased at Ikea. The bedding we already had and wanted to work with it. I absolutely adore this tree. Its so fun and whimsical. Here's the link to the blog that I was inspired by.  All I saw was the little picture on the left side. I saw that several months ago but the image stuck with me. Then I had to find it again, it took awhile because blog hopping can lead you to so many places. Derek just printed out the picture and free handed it on the wall. He did a great job.


 The day bed we found on Craigslist for $60 with the mattress. We painted it white, it was a honey color wood. We already had a twin mattress so we put that in the trundle where it was before. This room can easily sleep 4, and 5 if two share the full size bed on bottom. It works out great when Derek's brother Phil and his family come to visit. Chase sleeps on the daybed when we have company. He likes it. We found the white picture frames at Michael's during the after Thanksgiving sales. They were 60% off with an additional 20% off coupon. Such a great deal. The night stand we already had but repainted. It used to have a bear painted on it. The lamp we had and also repainted it white and purchased the lamp shade. By the way, we want to put some kind of saying under the middle picture of the girls but not sure what yet.

 I still love that dresser. We purchased it at Potato Barn in Gilbert when I was pregnant with Maeley. The pink chair Maeley got for Christmas in 2006. It's really popular with the kids. The bow holders I made over a year ago. So easy and they hold a ton. The door leads to their closet. I love their closet its huge. The closet is where their play kitchen is. They enjoy playing in there.

For Christmas Derek's parents gave us the shutter for this room and the dining room. In my opinion there is no better window covering than a shutter. But then again I am biased.

We paid very little to decorate this room. I love working with what you've got. Now on to more projects. I have a great idea for the dining room.