On the Wall

Here is Miss Rylee and her artwork that was featured at the Curtis Art Museum. She was one of two from her grade to represent her school. What an artist!

Inspired by my SIL's Christmas card, here is my wreath. It's on the wall inside while it patiently waits for the 'new' door. A cream (and not so big) H will grace it then.

Oh the simple joys of decorating - I love it.

Don't Worry, It's Still Being Used

Just not so much by me.
(okay. not at all by me).

Just Give Me An Hour

I have been in complete project mode. I've learned now that I am the kind of person that needs instant satisfaction, so if the project takes longer than about an hour, I fade and lose interest. Luckily, I've found things that have taken about an hour and have been very inexpensive.

I found a dresser at Goodwill for $20. I already had the paint at home and found the knobs at target for only $4.28. A quick sanding and we were good to go.

Before (top drawer out, already painted)

After


Next, I busted out the serger the other day and whipped these out for Angela and I.


I don't think I've ever made burp cloths as I've inherited a lot, but they're all pink so we certainly needed some blue. Very simple and quick.


This next project was done in two steps. The first was done a while back where I took pictures of the kids and mod podged them onto canvas. The didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, but I still enjoy looking at them - they hang across from our bed. The vinyl lettering was added just last week. I still need to figure out Rylee's picture. I've done her picture several times now and actually have two that I go back and forth on. One's too dark, the other too light and not as close-up of her as I would like to match the others. Some day though.

(sorry the lighting isn't great in most of these photos, but you get the idea)

I'm anxiously awaiting my next project - prepping and painting our new front door. I still need to buy the paint (Black!) and have Ryan drill the holes for the new lock set (that we've had for about 2 years now), but the weather has been so nice I really need to get cracking!

I've also had a wreath idea floating around in my head for the past week that I'm anxious to get to as well. I haven't decided yet though to put it up on a wall, or put it on the door...or maybe I'll put it up on the wall and wait until the door is finished.

Either way, stay tuned.

Is this My Life?

Does it ever just hit you, is this my life? am I really doing this?

It happens to me every so often where I am just amazed with my life. I'm a Mom. I'm the Mom. I have 5 little people (and one bigger person) that I'm in charge of. That I have the opportunity to care for. They depend on me and Ryan for everything. We own a home, we have bills to pay and it's all OUR responsibility. Since when did we grow up??

Anyways, here are some happenings of the last few days that have reminded me that this is my life. And it's a good one. No. A great one.


* Wednesday Olivia's arm is casted (see below)
* That evening, about 20 mins after Ryan has gone to go play volleyball, I get a text that says "I think I just busted my ankle." My exact words back "are you kidding me?" No lie. I meet up with him and he heads over to a couple of (closed) urgents cares and then to the hospital. No break, just torn up. Painful and swollen.
* Thursday morning, the doorbell rings and there is Mr. FedEx with an envelope - one I have to sign for. Yay, it's my passport! So speedy. It only took just over 2 weeks. Awesome.
* Thursday evening the doorbell rings again. Sahweet! New maternity jeans. What a great day for mail.
* Friday morning, we find out we're having a BOY! (again, see below). So excited.
*Friday afternoon, I go to RSVP for my SIL's baby shower (so excited, it's their first baby) only to realize the shower was the night before! NNNNOOOOO!! Are you serious? I missed the shower?? who does that? Only idiots. I called Ryan about crying. Then called Angela. I could still cry over it.
* Saturday, I wake up at 6am and can't go back to sleep. What the? It's Saturday! I head over to Target - yeah it doesn't open at 7am. Come back home and get the mail from the night before. What's this? Could it be? My GREEN CARD! Yay, only after a year of never finding my other one, I'm LEGAL again. Yay.
* Saturday we navigate Denver to find donuts and see Aaron and Angela to drop off gifts (gifts that would have been at the shower if I'd only RSVP'd earlier in the week when I'd thought of it...ugh.)
*Sunday after church, as a ward missionary with the Ward Mission Leader (as my companion :) ) we have our correlation meeting. Kaycee who was brought to me about 10 mins before church ended was not feeling well. Well, in the middle of the meeting she sits up and (me) looking at her face, I catch (in my hands) most of the vomit. Luckily to the speedy brethren in the room, they retrieve a trash can for the rest. Poor Kaycee. I'm sure the pre-mish ward missionaries, and full-time missionaries enjoyed that one. Once we got her home though and got some food into her, she was just fine. Thank goodness.
* Later Sunday afternoon, Clay complains that his ear hurts. Great. I'm sure the congestion has moved to his ears.
*Sunday night Clay is in pain again.
*Monday morning (yesterday) we visit the doctor. Double ear infection with a rattly chest. Fill perscriptions for Ammox and breathing treatments. Haven't had to use the nebulizer yet. Seems just fine.
*Hmm. what will today bring? Or the rest of the week?

I love my life. I really do.

The Year of the Boys

It's a . . .

(this isn't actually our photo, but we have one just like it and it saved me from scanning ours)

While it felt like forever to finally get to the part where we find out the gender, everything looks really good. He's measuring right on - even in the 75th percentile at 12 oz. Oh boy! We have several shots of him from his open hand with all 5 fingers extended to a 3D picture of him cuddled right in there with his hand up by his chin. awww.

We're pretty excited to even out the playing field just a tad more here. And we'd run out of girl names. Just so happens we've been hanging on to a boy name for couple years and now it looks like we may just get to use it.

So bring on the year of the boys! Our little guy will have two boy cousins just about 4 mos older and one will be here in Denver.
Perfect.

Still cute - even with this. . .Poor thing.

Poor Olivia fell down the stairs yesterday. I didn't see it or hear it. Kaycee brought her to me and Lucy told me what happened. (She stepped off the top step - instead of going backwards like she usually does - and toppled all the way down.) She favored her arm in the evening and fell right to sleep when I could (finally!)give her some ibuprofen. She slept pretty well and seemed to feel good in the morning.

At noon today when we went for Kaycee's parent teacher conference, Olivia was toddling around while we were waiting for the teacher to come from dismissing the other students. She got going too fast and fell right on her arm. Ouch. (And, for any of you that are familiar with how I broke both my arms growing up, it didn't take long to get her over to the ped's office :)

The doctor sent us over to The Children's Hospital (luckily right across the street) to get her arm x-rayed. When the tech checked to make sure she got good enough shots, I couldn't see anything that would indicate a fracture. However, when we got back over to the ped's office, he invited us in to see the pics. Yikes! Magnified, a long crack through one bone in one view, and a nice dent/crack from the other view. My poor baby!

They casted her right there and she was incredible. She sat there on my lap and let the nurse and dr do their thing. Her cast is tiny. Once she 'posed' for these pictures at home, she looked at me holding up her cast as if to say 'get this thing off of me.' The doctor warned that when the casts are this small, kids can fairly easily pull them off. Hmmm.. we'll see how it goes.