Renovations #2

The living room. Under the carpet in most of this house is wood. A real nice wood floor. Back in the day, it was common to put carpet over the top of wood. That made things a little easier for us. We ripped out the carpet and then had the wood floors underneath refinished. That was the biggest change to the living room. We also took down the 30 year old curtain rods that were stretched across the 12 foot windows. So we completed the crown modeling above the window and added some nice dark curtains to accent the rest of the room. The last things we did was paint. We decided to add an accent wall as well. All in all, this was one of the easier rooms that we worked on, but one of the rooms that underwent the biggest changes.

You can see we used to have 2 sets of blinds to cover the window. The walls were a light tan color. We had to put our entertainment center up on the fireplace while we worked on the floors, we couldn't get it out of the room.



The finished version. You can see the curtains we added for the windows. We also added a nice area rug and this is a good view of the accent wall.



Good view of what we did with the entertainment center, I do have to give the credit to Jeff, it was his idea. I was ready to destroy it just to get it out of the room.



Finished version. You can see the contrast of the wall colors, we were pretty happy with how they turned out.





Check out our previous Renovations posts to see other rooms.

Ellie gets her hair cut!

So Ellie has had plenty of trims, but it was definitely time for a cut so before church yesterday I chopped off her crazy locks. She looks so much older!
Before:
After:

Also funny...after church we asked the kids to change out of their Sunday clothes so that we could go to grandma & grandpas, and this is how they came out....Josh in mis-matched camo and church socks, Ellie in camo capris that were way too small, and 2 crazy mis-matched shirts with flowered sandals, and Sam in one of Josh's shirts and khakis!

PRAY4US

This past October we went to St George to watch Matt's brother run the St George Marathon. (Way to go Scott!) After the race we saw this driving instructor's car and loved the personalized license plate! I wonder if these poor kids realize why all the folks in the cars around them are laughing all the time...

Renovations

So here it is, Friday again, and we haven’t posted this week! What slackers! Quick recap for the week...Josh celebrated the 100th day of school this year - only 80 more. Mom is so sad! We have gotten more and more snow...can’t think of a time when we have had to shovel everyday. Why does the winter wonderland have to come after Christmas? I am still muddling through these issues with my health. Thanks for the prayers, they are much appreciated. And thanks for all of the birthday cards and calls – they were very sweet.

On to the renovations… the house we live in has been in Matt’s family for close to 50 years. His mom grew up here. It is a great house full of functional things like a special vacuum closet, and lots of great drawers/cabinets. Last fall we decided to spruce up these plaster walls with a new coat of paint, and the project grew from there. When it got to the point where we couldn’t live here anymore we moved in with Matt’s wonderful parents. Weeks turned into months, and we painted every wall / piece of trim in the house, ripped out the carpet in the living room, hall, and master bedroom, re-tiled 2 bathrooms, and so much more. We have decided that we’ll post pictures and descriptions room by room, and tonight I’ll start with the hall bathroom.
This room was a huge challenge, and in my opinion was the biggest transformation.
We started by ripping out the floorboards, the tile, and then the hardwood flooring underneath that. (The toilets were out in the living room for 3 weeks because we did both bathrooms at the same time.) We also ripped out the counter top, medicine cabinet, and smashed out mirrors that lined 3 walls.









The orange tabs on the walls are the adhesive that once held the mirrors, 12 of them to be exact! (This bathroom was once the domain of 4 teenage girls...they each had a 'station'!)
We are so happy with this bathroom now. It has new tile, paint, counter top, & mirror. We also added higher baseboards, a cute little towel rack that i stained, and pretty new curtains.

Shouldn't a posting on a Friday afternoon have a joke in it?

There are a lot of people in my life, both past and present that I care about and think of often. Unfortunately, most adults and probably all moms understand that this does not always mean that we do as well as we’d like at keeping in touch! It seems that we get so caught up in the responsibilities of kids, work, church, home, etc., that we can’t seem to extend our attention to the many other important people in our lives. This is one of the reasons why I have really enjoyed our entry into the blogosphere. I love to go to your blog sites and see your photos and read about the thoughts and happenings in your lives. A blog entry certainly does not take the place of person to person contact, but it is nice to have a quick way to share a lot of information with a lot of people in a short amount of time! I really dig this blogging stuff!
So, with all that in mind, I will take the opportunity to pass along a few words…

First of all, HUGE congratulations to our friends and family who have either had babies this week, or announced upcoming babies! 4 babies in 5 days (all boys!) and a few announcements mixed in as well – what a week! I am truly happy for all of you….I am also truly happy that I can come hold your babies, share the love, and then come home to 3 kids who are all potty trained! (As well as boys can be potty trained – do they EVER start hitting the bowl consistently?)

Next, to those of you who have wondered why I seemed to drop off the face of the earth, I am soooo sorry. I have left some of you hanging… breaking plans, missing functions, being fairly unavailable, and I am terribly sorry. I know that no one is mad at me – you are all much better friends than that, but I feel badly nonetheless. There is a reason – I have been quite sick lately. I will spare you all the details, but it has been a rough few weeks for me. I know that we all have trials, and I guess this was/ is one for me. I also know that there is always much to be learned from our tribulations, and I am trying to looking for those things now! All I can say is that I know that Heavenly Father answers prayers. There is a quote that I have been thinking about a lot lately, so I will share it. I find that it resonates in my mind quite often!

“(Sometimes) the Lord…responds…to prayer by withholding an answer when the prayer is offered. Why would He do that?
He is our perfect Father. He loves us beyond our capacity to understand. He knows what is best for us. He sees the end from the beginning. He wants us to act to gain needed experience:
When He answers yes, it is to give us confidence.
When He answers no, it is to prevent error.
When He withholds an answer, it is to have us grow through faith in Him, obedience to His commandments, and a willingness to act on truth. We are expected to assume accountability by acting on a decision that is consistent with his teachings without prior confirmation. We are not to sit passively waiting or to murmur because the Lord has not spoken. We are to act.” - Richard G. Scott

On a lighter note, I finally took down the Christmas decorations...

Snow Day

More snow! This past Monday we got another big snow storm. We had about 8 new inches when it was all done. This is on top of the 6 inches we got last week. Since early December, we have probably had about 30 inches of snow fall at our house. I know, I know... you people that like to do it all at once got 22 inches (Ogden) and 16 inches (Sandy), but for Orem, this is a lot of snow and I don't live in either of those places. All I know is that my back hurts. I have shoveled more times this year than the last three years combined.

Ok, now I am on my soap box, please allow me to wax for a moment. I really do not like the snow. I get it, I live in Utah, if I hate the snow I should move. Let me explain before you extradite me from the state. I will keep them brief, if you really need me to explain, just ask me later.

• Driving or walking on my pavement before I get a chance to shovel
• Dirty piles of snow everywhere until July
• No golf
• Endless layers of salt on my car
• Slipping when I try to get out of my car. Come on, you have to give me this one, I am really 60, didn't you know.
• No golf
• Scraping, scratching, grinding, clawing... anything to get the ice of my windshield. No, I will not put plastic on my windshield every night. I am stubborn.
• No golf

Ok, I am done. This was really not supposed to be the theme of my post.

Back to snow day at our house. We really did have a great time. We went out into an untouched backyard, made a fort and buried the kids (in the snow... we let them out...). Josh and Ellie relaxed and let us dump snow on them. Ellie laughed the entire time.

Our fort is... still under construction. We used plastic storage containers and packed them with snow to make our bricks. We have plenty more snow for another layer, but we were a little ambitious and made a 10x8 fort. Hey, if I lay flat on my back, you can only see the top inch of my belly.




Sam shoveled and moved snow the entire time. He was usually over in the soft fluffy stuff that no one had touched yet just digging. I think he liked the snow.








Ellie was completely worn out. She was done! I believe that she would have slept there if we would have let her.









Overall, it was a fun day. I am really looking forward to the next storm... in three days! That's right, more storms on the way. The weathermen were actually laughing when they talked about it... nice. Friday and Monday will bring more snow so we can expect more of the white coat all week long (sorry, you have to be from Utah to appreciate that one).

Matt

Baby Names

So in the spirit of the new blog. I have decided to add my first post. So yes, this is Matt, or as my blogger friends call me, The Guitar Hero (I am really not that good. Have you seen the 5 and 8 year olds on youtube?).

Baby names. I have two sisters that are expecting right now. Both have now found out what they are having. So, of course, the next question is, "Do you have a name picked out?" I mean, come on, it has been 2 minutes since you told me you are having a baby boy, that's old news. What's the name going to be?

Of course the first suggestion from the loving uncle is, "You know, Matt is a good strong name. Everybody loves Matt." Everyone laughs. Alright, I laugh. But seriously, what is the name going to be?

For first time parents (good luck Carie and Robby) the experience is great. You go out and buy the book of 500,000 baby names. As you scan the book, all you see are names that you would never use. Process of elimination? Ouch!

Then the next step, you start paying attention to what other people are naming their children. Mountain, Apple, Tundra (isn't that the truck from World of Warcraft?), Seven, Pilot Inspektor (thanks Jason Lee), and all of the other celebrity baby names we have come to enjoy. Or you can take the route of a friend of mine, pick the name from the ingredient list of a shampoo bottle. Come on, are you serious? Can't we do better then that? "Hey, Yellow Dye #5, get over here" Really people!

Ok, so here is what you do. Ask another little kid. It's brilliant! We did it for our last child. We knew it was a girl, we had no options, and the time had come. So, turn to the boys. Alright kids, you are going to have a baby sister, what name do you want to be yelling when you are chasing her down. Sam was the first to speak, "Ellie", he shouted out. And there you go. We had our name.

So listen up Niki and Carie. Here are the names our kids came up with when we asked them a couple nights ago.

• Jake
• Sam
  
• Josh
  
• Mark
• Evie (Ellie gets a little confused)

Then we reminded them it had to be a good match with the last name. Here are the good ones, celebrities in the making. Absolutely no coaching, we just let them start talking. Sam came up with the best ones. Just yesterday he started calling Ellie Saquajawia all day and common names for Josh are Turbo and Frolipe.

• Clown (goes great with Brown)
• Optimus
• Jazz
• Bacon
• Broom

And the winner of the night, from Sam again.....
Lightning Mc'Brown (you're welcome Carie)

There you go. Naming a child, what a strange, strange experience.