painting and making it our own

 soon after moving in, I got to work painting. I started with lily's room, then the master bedroom, then the patio set the previous owners left behind.

This is Lily's room before I made it over. (sorry it's blurry. I was trying to be sneaky and take a picture while the girl who owned the house was turned around.)

 This is Lily's room after I painted it.

I found a cute idea online to use a round mirror and paint a flower around it. This is my own take on that project. I like the 'hidden' sunburst.

 

Alyssa hanging out with me while I unpacked and loaded up the new kitchen

 Hanging out eating popsicles on our covered patio after church one day.

 The owners before us asked if we would like their old patio set. it wasn't in the greatest condition, but since we didn't have a set we said yes.

Before:

 during: (primed)

  After: painted

I stenciled the top to add some personality

I bought some cute cushions. It was a crazy process to finally get some at a reasonable price. These were my fourth choice. But they grew on me.

  and finally, the finished product. It only took 11 hours and three coats of paint. but I think it was well worth it.

Don't you love it?! I think it adds some brightness to a somewhat brown, gray and dark space.

Zoo and FIreworks

 I went to the zoo with Dan and Amber and their girls as well as Ben. We had a great time, but I didn't take many pictures.

 They weren't too excited to take a picture in the eagles nest.

 For the fourth of July, we didn't do much of anything. When I asked Lily how she wanted her hair done for the fourth of July she said "I want it like a firework!" So I did this...

 

I know, it's hideous right?!

 

When I finished, I asked her if I could please take it out and start over. She said she wanted to see it first and took off running to look at it in the mirror. She came back grinning from ear to ear touting that she had the "best firework hair ever!" Oh well at least SHE liked it.

 

The kids asked me if I would paint their faces so I agreed. Lily wanted a flag heart with "yellow."

 

Jake wanted a "mask" so I painted this:

 

He didn't like that it didn't cover both the top and bottom of his eyes, so I finished it up like this:

 

He liked it much better, but I didn't like it much. oh well. They let me paint their faces, so I shouldn't complain.

 We hung-out at home and then we decided to go to the firework show in North Salt Lake.  We parked up above where the fireworks are shot off. It was a little bit uncomfortable sitting on the sidewalk, but the kids loved it.

 Chilling before hand

 Lily kept saying "ooooh a SPARKLY one!" after each firework. and also said things like "It's SO magical!" The young couple sitting behind us were laughing at our kids and the things they were saying. We ate lots of candy and had a fun (albeit a little short) time.

Happy Fourth of July!

zoo fun

Randy's work provided a fun zoo day for our family. Northrop Grumman gave us vouchers for free food and snacks too. It was really fun for us. 

They had a "Sun Day" and the zoo was giving away free sunscreen and hats for the kids to wear. The kids loved them of course.

 The zoo has some Lego displays up right now as well. we enjoyed looking at their creative exhibits.

 Jake and Randy hanging out by the elephants.

 

Lunch time!

 

 After the zoo, we got some Slurpees and headed to my grandmother's house. Of course we always have a good time at grandma great's house!

I love fun family days.

Baseball

 The boys' baseball seasons weren't quite over when we moved out, so we decided to drive the 45 minutes and take them to their remaining games. Tyler was done in early June, but Jake's season ended near the end of June. I took some pictures of him and his team after the last game.

 Randy was the coach and he did a fantastic job.

 Jake and his good friend Toby. we were so glad to have him on our team with us this year!

Jacob wasn't too into baseball this year though. He complained and complained about going to games and there were a few games where he sat on the bench because Randy told him that if he didn't want to play then he could just sit on the bench and watch. Unfortunately, this reverse psychology didn't work so well. He was more than happy to sit and watch all his friends having fun playing. oh well. Randy had fun coaching and getting to know the boys. 

It was fun to go to the store and have random little boys shout out "Hey coach Randy!"

I'm not sure if we will play next year or not. I guess we will wait and see.

Moving Day!

We closed on our house in Bountiful on May 31st! For the next week I went and worked on painting some rooms and prepared the house for our move in. 

We actually moved half of our stuff to the new house on June 7th (our 11th wedding anniversary). Sounds like a great way to celebrate don't you think?

I was able to get the whole kitchen unpacked before we moved in everything else on Saturday the 8th. That was incredibly helpful for me. 

On Saturday we were lucky enough to have a primary activity scheduled in the morning. It was a drive in movie and all the kids were supposed to make their own cars to take. Ours turned out pretty cute. It came in handy to have so many boxes lying around the house for the kids to choose from.

So I dropped off the kids at the church and headed back to the house.

We were fortunate enough to have some ward members help us load the moving truck.  We had about 8 or ten people there helping us out. We had ordered a 26 foot truck but we were told when we went to pick up the truck that there was only a 20 foot truck available! they offered us a small trailer to go with the 20 foot truck, but we were pretty upset about it. We asked for a discount, but they refused, saying that a 20 foot truck costs more than a 26 foot truck so we were already getting a discount.

We loaded up the truck and trailer and soon realized that not everything was going to fit! 

I picked up the kids at the church at noon and bought pizza and drinks for everyone who had helped us at the house. After lunch, Randy took the truck/trailer and I took the kids in the van to Bountiful for the second half of the move.

When we arrived in Bountiful, my Dad was there waiting and soon after our arrival, a few men from our new ward showed up to assist us. I left the house after the van was unloaded and dropped the kids off at my moms. She and my sister Ali were awesome and offered to help me with the kids. My mom asked if I would like her to come over and help, but I told her when I had left that there was plenty of people already. 

When I got back to the new house, I noticed that the truck was empty but the garage was still full. Randy said to me that he and my dad were going to head back to Tooele to retrieve the rest of our stuff. He then dismissed all of our new found helpers. I found myself alone in the new house with a garage full of boxes that needed to go into the house. All the furniture was strewn haphazardly in each room. (I had wanted to help direct where I wanted things). I began to feel extremely overwhelmed and my foot was throbbing (did I mention I had a broken toe and strained ligaments and was wearing a boot?). I nearly burst into tears. I started working in the master bedroom. It took me nearly 15 minutes to move our dresser all by myself from one side of the room to the other. I knew I couldn't do it by myself, so I called my mom and asked her to come by and help. I also called my brother-in-law Spencer to help too. Spencer and my Mother showed up and they helped get some beds put together, but we were a silly sight. Me, with my booted foot, my mom with her hurt back and Spencer with his broken arm. We somehow managed even with our ailments to get five beds and a couch put together. I was so glad to have the help. 

Anyway, my Dad and Randy finally got the last of our stuff and brought it to Bountiful. My mom fed us dinner that night, and the kids were so so excited to sleep in their new rooms.

I was so  busy with everything that I really didn't take any photos but I got a few shots of everything we were unable to get into the truck the first round.