Maeley's finally 8

When Maeley was nearly 3 she went to her cousin Kourtney's baptism. Ever since then she has been so excited to be baptized. Now its finally going to happen in a few weeks.

Maeley has changed so much in the past year, maybe even just within the past 6 months.

Maeley wants to help out often.

She loves to read! In addition to her own reading each night (often 1-1.5 hours) she reads to Chase and Zoe almost daily.

She and Zoe are great friends and have a blast together. Sometimes she gets upset with Zoe because she tends to be more messy but the conversations they have in the evenings are enjoyable to listen to.

She has a great heart and thinks about how others feel. Last week they had an awards assembly at their school for the first quarter. Maeley got 3 awards out of the possible 4. Chase didn't get any and Maeley sure was sad for him and let him know how she felt about him.

She has so much confidence in herself. It amazes me.

She's quick to finish her work at school so she gets to teach other kids. She enjoys it and says its sometimes challenging coming up with new examples.

She loves to laugh. Seriously right before showers in the evenings the girls go wild and laugh like crazy.

She's already getting to old for playing with the kids. She'd rather hang around the adults.

Maeley sure is turning into such a sweet and helpful girl. We love her!

Happy Birthday Maeley!



Zoe is 5

Its unbelievable that my baby is now 5. Its mostly great but at times I miss those simple days with all the kids little and at home.

Zoe is a wonderful caboose to our family. We love her very much. Some of her best qualities are:

She is very optimistic and sees the good in everyone.

She makes up the best songs with such a cute tune to them.

She loves her family and tells us daily.

She is silly, sweet and enjoyable to be around.

She does not like getting in trouble and when she does she will tell you she loves you so you will say it back just so she knows you still love her.

Happy Birthday Zoe!

Cabins

This past weekend we went up to Heber for a nice weekend with my sisters family. The kids were on fall break, I wasn't working and surprisingly Derek ended up getting Friday off last minute. We arrived there about 1:30 in the afternoon Friday along with Laurel, Zach and the boys.

Love this picture! It may be out of focus however Chase and Zoe are cracking me up!

This is the only picture we ended up with Zach in it.

 

Derek and Laurel trying to teach Maeley how to throw the ball correctly.

Devan got a sling shot and Chase loved using it!

Can he get any cuter?

Zoe was tired of walking so Derek picked her up. As he did that Chase got hurt.

Now Chase gets to be carried. He tripped on a cattle guard and bruised his shins and cut his lip and chin.

 

These pictures were taken at Bison Ranch.

Loving the fall colors!

By the way these aren't "outhouses" they are for trash.

"My Place"

Back in May Zoe was screened because we thought she had a speech delay. She was then rescreened the end of August. Then she was finally placed into an articulation class. Sadly its only once a week for 45 minutes. Its better than nothing but it goes by too fast.

This was her first day going to her class.

Which she calls "my place".  I think its funny.

I wanted to add a picture of her wearing her zebra shoes. She loves them. She is definitely going through a stage of zebra obsession. She's a nut!

3 Amigos

Don't be fooled by this picture. Maeley really isn't that much taller than Chase, she's wearing 2" wedges.

 

These kids are the best! They are each so different from one another as a whole but have some similarities in their personalities. Everyone kept telling us that having an odd number of kids would mean one is always left out. I do not find that statement to do true.  The play together very well. Its not always picture perfect. There are times when someone is being mean to another. But generally speaking they really are each others best friends. They look out for each other. I couldn't have asked for better kids. I feel blessed to be their mom.

Our house - kids rooms and their bath

 

Chase's room we did paint. It was the original beige flat paint before.

 

Chase's room is pretty simple but for him the most important thing is his desk. He lives for Lego's and spends the majority of his free time playing in his room with them. I'd like to add some other artwork but for now its great.

The kids bathroom isn't very large but it works for us.

The kids bathroom projects:

-We already painted and hung hooks after taking down the towel rod.  So we aren't doing anything else for awhile. But I have ideas for later on. 

- Replace countertop

-possibly a new vanity (I hate the big cabinet, some drawers would be helpful)

-bead board ceiling!!! like this

-if we remove the vanity then retile the bathroom

-smaller mirror or frame out large one

 

The hallway towards the girls room to the right and master bedroom to the left.

I'd like to repaint the bookself. (The entry to the girls room is right where the picture is cropped.)

The girls room is complete. Wahoo for us! One room done. I thought I had taken more pictures before and posted them (same goes for Chase) but apparently not. I forgot to take pictures of the other side of the room.

FHE

A few weeks ago Chase and Maeley wanted to be in charge of Family Home Evening. I'm not sure why we haven't had them do that before. It was great and best of all they loved it. After the lesson they chose the Headband game for the activity. They love that game.

Our house - master bedroom

Before pictures were actually taken in this room. Because I was so darn anxious to get into this house I didn't take the time to take pictures of each room before moving in. However we held off on doing anything in this space while we figured out what we wanted. In the meantime it drove us crazy with our temporary bedding and painted walls that didn't match. Or rather clashed. In July I bit the bullet and bought some bedding then we got to painting the room.

Here are some before pictures:

The walls were a mint green. And the white squares above were the original flat paint. We had to sand down the edges of the squares so they wouldn't show up after we painted the wall. We wet back to a queen bed when we moved in here. We needed a new king size mattress however we were going to get rid of Chase's queen bed. It made the most sense to just use the queen bed and save ourselves some money.

 

 

After:

 

I found this bed on Craigslist for $200 and the bedding is from Pottery Barn.  The lamps I found on clearance at TJMaxx for $15 each. Can't beat that price.

 

We have 2 master closets. We definitely don't have enough clothes to fill both so we use the large closet which is off the master bathroom. The other closet is used for storage. We have many pictures waiting to be hung and it desperately needs to be reorganized.

 

Projects:

-paint trim and doors in the entire house white!

-  hang curtains

- hand artwork/pictures

- paint bathroom

- paint dresser and nightstands

- build a better more useful closet system

 

This house is lovely just the way it is. It has and will be fun to put our touch on it to make it feel more us and more like our home. With all of these list of projects we want to do we really aren't in a hurry and we will take our time. Taking our time will let us get a feel for exactly what we want. But I can't help but daydream up ideas for what I want.

 

Our house - the loft and laundry room

Continuing up the stairs this is what you see.

Our Ikea desk that Derek got from his parents our first Christmas married fits perfectly in this space. Literally less than 2" to spare! It so weird even the configuration of the L is perfect for this off space.

I thought for sure we'd be getting rid of this but decided to take the chance and see if it fit. So glad I did. This table gets more action than anything else upstairs.

I think the loft looks nice without having bought anything new for the space.

The diamonds much like the green walls in the office is getting to me. I'd love to repaint up here  sooner rather than later. (After the green walls though.)

Down the hall is a linen closet not shown, Chase's room is the door to the right. Before you reach Chase's room is a laundry room. And you see the kids bathroom.

We bought white magnetic boards from Ikea so they can put up whatever they feel like. Its constantly changing. Above each of their boards are the charactures they had done at Disneyland. 

The not so exciting laundry room. I can't complain, I love having a window in here and cabinets instead of just a shelf. But I have big plans for in here.

 

Upcoming projects for the loft:

-paint

-paint the dresser and bookself

-curtains?

-fun rug?

 

Laundry room projects:

-paint walls

-paint cabinets and add larger crown molding to the cabinets

-add a countertop over the washer/dryer

-recover ironing board

-wall behind door do come sort of wall treatment, possibly board and batten with many hooks. It would be a great place to hang swim suits and towels during the long summer months

-add some artwork