lately at our house...

This is kind of a few posts in one, I'm playing blog catch up! We've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly over the past few weeks in our little family.

Today my sister Julie had her little baby girl and I can't wait to meet her! :) Unfortunately me, Brad, June, and Lyla have been sick all weekend so I don't know when I'll be able to go hold little baby girl. I've decided being sick is one of the hardest parts about being a mom- even if you feel terrible you just have to keep taking care of babies and missing out on sleep, who takes care of mommy? I'm such a youngest child/mama's girl.  And I feel so bad for the babies because they feel terrible and probably have no clue why, they just wonder why I'm relentlessly suctioning out their sad little noses.


We still managed to have a nice weekend up in Midway, a delicious lunch at La Jolla Groves, and a little trip to Bountiful just to watch the BYU game. I risked contaminating the ward and went to young womens because it was my last week. I'm going to teach in relief society now, I'll miss young womens, but change is always good and this calling isn't so demanding.

A couple weeks ago I wet up big cottonwood with my mom to check out the old cabin at Solitude, (they want to sell it, anyone want a cabin?) it was BEAUTIFUL up there and we had a yummy lunch at Silverfork.

Conference weekend was nice, but far from relaxing. We had family pictures taken at our house, which meant all in one day I had to have the house clean, outfits for everyone, and I probably needed to shower and maybe even blow-dry my hair. 

We also reached a climax of craziness with our new tenant, who is out of her mind. She's been living in our apartment for over a month now and her and the sketchy guys that stay with her have been smoking from day one and seem to enjoy being a general pain in the rear-end.  I've tried to talk reasonably with her about how it's violating the contract and I don't want my babies exposed to any more second hand smoke, but she just lies to our faces and I keep finding cigarettes outside and smelling smoke. Over conference weekend her parents came and said they were going to move her out because she couldn't pay rent and was in jail. We changed the locks, but then she made bail and came  back with fury and the police came to our house during priesthood session and all craziness broke loose. We are now in the process of evicting her which seems to be what she wanted all along (she won't pay rent and the court system can take months to work out) It is crazy how few rights landlords have... I pretty much break out in anger hives just thinking about our tenant. Once she's gone I think my landlord days may be over. I guess we'll have to open up the studio apartment into an amazing master bedroom. It could be worse, sigh. ;)   We'll see about the whole master bedroom thing, Brad's still dead set on not re-doing more of our icky bathroom...

Back to a big positive- a few weeks ago Zinch (Brad, Mick, and Sid's company) sold to Chegg- so exciting!  It's pretty amazing that something that was just an idea grew into a profitable international company that did exactly what Brad always dreamed it would! I'm happy for Brad. Being an entrepreneur is a crazy thing, you have to risk so much. Brad put a lot of his time and money into this idea, hoping it would work, fighting past the speed bumps- I wasn't around for all of it, but I know the story and what it means to Brad. I love hearing all the radom business ideas he comes up with every couple days. He has a room of whiteboards in our house where he writes stuff out, it's like a beautiful mind. I seriously think he should be an idea man for a huge company just like that Norman character from the hudsucker proxy.  The sale was kinda a big deal, so I decided to use a groupon thingy we had for la caille and made a reservation. Brad was in the mood to see a movie so instead we celebrated by watching a hot, skinny girl kill everyone. (Columbiana)  Brad really seemed like he just wanted to celebrate with his Zinch peeps, but it's not MY fault I wasn't around from the beginning of it!

 With the big sale, Brad's current job, BYU football, and side projects he's been a busy man. I've sorta been unnerved as of late. I feel like I'm turning into one of those frazzled loose cannon type moms. Times are getting wild. The girls are my favorite, it's awesome they're doing so much and so curious about the world...BUT it's getting hard with all the mobility.  For example, on separate days they've both gotten stuck under their cribs, they find and eat very random things (like post-it notes) if they're out of my view for a split-second. They get way jealous of each other and are mad if they aren't the one being held or fed.  They also play together more and amaze me daily that they keep getting cuter & more fun!

Oh, and I worked-out for the first time in like a year and a half, it was pretty fun! I was intimidated heading to a new place to try out a zumba class- I was happy to discover after so long I blended right it and it wasn't the embarrassing situation I'd imagined.

a place for babies

I have been working on a lot of last minute projects before the babies come. Just to name a few- my mom came and helped me clean and organize the kitchen last week (it was a big job), then finish painting the kitchen earlier this week. Yesterday I painted stripes on our nursery wall. (my mother-in-law had no clue what she was getting herself into when she offered to help out at the house :)) Brad has been busy, but has managed to help me with some random jobs we never got around to finishing.
Our house is pretty much clean and ready now- it feels so good! I seriously can't believe it, 2 weeks ago I thought it was hopeless. You'd think doing all kinds of house projects (climbing up on ladders etc) 9 months pregnant might lead to labor, but I'm pretty sure these babies would stay inside me until they were full-sized adults if they weren't scheduled to arrive in a few days...
The nursery is pretty much done now, so I thought I'd show it off. I've been thinking about the nursery for months, but it remained our "closet" for a long time.

Before:

After:

A month or 2 ago we finally took out all our clothes and painted the walls. I painted some frames from the DI and filled them with images that I liked.  I found cribs on ksl and had them painted to my liking.

Before:

After:

(I still want to add their names to the wall, I'm not sure if we'll get around to that.)

 Brad's parents gave us an armoire that we had painted and we got a dresser on ksl that I painted:

(We'll hang something on that wall at some point...)

We got a killer deal on this comfy new rocker from downeast home just because it didn't have a cover that fit. That meant I had to make one of those (ugh), it was a little tricky without a pattern...it's not perfect, but I was proud of myself and it works.

 The crib bedding was actually fun to make (not so hard!)

Basically each one of these projects could be done in a day (painting the dresser, painting the tree, painting stripes, making crib bedding, making a rocker cover..) it just took several days/weeks between each to work up the mental energy to move on to the next project. Ever since it started coming together I've liked to go sit in the rocker and just be in that room. Brad has come by before and asked what I'm doing. I can't quite answer that question, but I can tell you this- I like the nursery. :)

We just need 2 little girls to put in here now!

sneak peak

So I finally dared to painted a tree in the nursery, I've been planning to do it for a while. I didn't really want to tell Brad I was doing it the other night because he is very skeptical when I begin things and has a hard time envisioning them. I kinda like that he always wants to be involved in everything, but it comes hand in hand with strong opinions that tend not to align w/ mine...

Half way through the project I made the mistake of asking for his opinion. First, he was surprised I was painting on the wall (I don't blame him there). He could only see a dead branch and thought I should have had him tape things and make stencils ("see how this leaf is bigger than all the others, that will always bug me")  I tried to explain that it was a hand-painted tree... I was going for a more organic look and a project I could complete on my own in a couple of hours. (if I wanted a "perfect" tree I could just buy an expensive wall decal) I became less confident that the tree would turn out good and that he (and I) would like it. I still went back to doing it my way and luckily it turned out just how I wanted it!
In the end, he liked it too, but now that he knows we're painting on the nursery walls he wants to get his own wall to paint on. I guess it's only fair, but I'm still not sure how I feel about it because I have been thinking about the nursery and planning it for months... I kinda want to just do it all my way. I told him if he comes up w/ a good enough idea we'll do it- but I have the right to veto anything I think is weird. Fair enough, right?

P.S. I'm about to start the crib bedding so the cribs won't be so naked...

trim the tree

A week or two ago we went to our favorite little tree lot and picked out a tree. Last year was our first Christmas together and we were a little frivolous when picking out the tree...this year we agreed we would go a little more charlie brown style. However, we got an awesome deal on a tall if not somewhat sparse wild (as opposed to perfect-shaped farmed) tree. Once I filled in the blanks w/ decorations it was actually quite lovely:

I love colored lights, I know all white is more elegant and adult-like, but I grew up w/ a beautiful, festive tree every year filled with colors- and I want our tree to be just as magical.

I love to pick out ornaments when I'm on vacation somewhere, they bring back fun memories when I see them. Although less sentimental, also enjoy finding cute ones on sale after Christmas, but my favorite way to get ornaments is inheriting them from my mom's surplus decor.
These are a couple of my favorites:
My great aunt Vilo's snowflakes that she crocheted or tatted or something very special and labor intensive like that:



My mom gave me this ornament of my Grandma Burt's, I will probably worry about breaking it every year:

I got this little treat after Christmas last year, it's beauty and significance to me is self-evident:

This is a Russian ornament that I got in Alaska while visiting my parents on their mission. I can't quite explain why I love it. Maybe the bell. Maybe the painting. Maybe how it's reminiscent of an Alaskan winter wonderland and a fun, mission-y time in my life:

I made this little baby Jesus in young women's, I was probably 13. For some reason I just love getting it out every year and sitting it on a quaint little branch:

One more nice addition this year is stockings with our real names on them. I still bought them cheapy, they just happened to have our names on them at the store! (thanks to my sister Melinda for finding them) I'll probably have to unpick them and embroider mommy and daddy for next Christmas, but I'll worry about that next year.

I just love Christmas- the goodies, the decorations, the music- I always have big plans, but this Christmas will be a success if I at least make a few fabulous treats and remember to keep myself and this tree hydrated.

Nesting, phase 1

So, there are about a million things I want to do in our house to make it more livable/comfortable/happy before the twins come. (move our TV room upstairs once we finish painting up there, fix water damage and paint in the family room once we fix the roof, get some new furniture for the family room once we pull up the carpet and redo the hardwood floor, get a fireplace, retile the bathroom with a normal bath/shower, knock down the wall between the family room and kitchen so it's more like a great room, paint/furnish/decorate the nursery, possibly get plantation shutters in several of these rooms...a bit much, but it all seems important, right?) It makes me tired every time the wheels start turning in my head, but we finally finished our bedroom yesterday! 1 room down, 4 more to go.

Let's see, now we've got the kitchen, 1/2 of the bathroom, and the bedroom finished (minus new window coverings), that only took us a year so we should be able to do everthing else in a few months...easily....
I'll just focus on what we've done, it started out w/ yucky floors and plain walls:

More views, including shots of our floor (our pride and joy), and the stained glass that I adore.

Brad got me this large Ikea closet for my birthday gift and it was quite the accomplishment that he built it, turned out to be pretty complicated. We had to get this so we can slowly transition our closet (which is actually another bedroom) into a nursery.

I think this will be a nice place to rest on occasion when babies are sleeping...

                            

Sweet Dreams!

i love spring!

You'd think I'd messed with the colors on this pic, but spring is just actually that beautiful! (on temple square)  It makes me so happy. Since we have a yard it's actually been kinda fun trying to figure out how to take care of it. Brad and I are both kinda clueless, and our house has given us a good challenge: The only flowers we had were irises, our lawn is lumpy and pathetic, the guy I hired to mow our lawn chucked a giant snake over the fence into our neighbors yard (I sure hope they didn't see that, I thought he was joking or I wouldn't have said it was a good idea...), 1/2 of our fall leaves were still stuck to the clay dirt that I was afraid to try and plant anything in.

Then my sweet mom came to our house with a truck load of compost and her roto-tiller to till the earth and prepare it for planting. We got rid of tons of leaves, weeds, and branches. The clean, dark brown dirt looked beautiful. I then felt confident to plant some flowers. I don't know that I have an eye for it, I just tried to pick out some perennials and some flowers I love and plant them wherever the garden looked particularly brown. We've still got a long way to go.   See how we have no privacy from our neighbors on that side? What would be a good shrub to cover them up? I love lilac bushes, maybe that would do the trick. It might rock Brad's allergies though. I also planted a little herb garden with some tomatoes and peppers:

Since our yard doesn't really look that awesome enjoy these pics of our visit to temple square, I love going there in the spring!

the bedroom floor: a mini-saga

We wanted to paint our bedroom last weekend. So we took a trip to Kwall house, bought some lovely lavender paint, brushes, etc. and got home. As I arranged things in the room I began sweeping the floor. Sweeping and focusing on all the stains, scratches, unfinished surfaces, and future splinters waiting to happen.

My mom had mentioned before it’s better to sand before you paint, so to the dismay of my husband, I switched up the agenda. We went to home depot, bough sandpaper, lacquer, stain, and rented a ginormous sander. Don’t get me wrong, just because we rented a big fancy sander, doesn’t mean the job was easy. Talk about sweat equity, Brad is a wonderful man. Soon, we had a beautiful smooth floor, so pretty.

Out came the Provincial stain (supposedly one of the lightest home depot has to offer). We tested a corner, it seemed a little dark…”oh well” we thought, it will lighten up and maybe we’re supposed to spread it thinner. Half a room later I stood back and looked at our floor, it was black, and orange. A Halloween floor. After all that work and basically forcing brad to go along with my crazy scheme I wanted to cry. All that work. That money. Black and orange. (This picture doesn't even do it justice, it was hideous.)

Chaos ensued at our household. What to do? We had already returned the sander, and we were burnt out. But the thought of leaving it uglier than it was before, after all that work, confused my soul. Back to home depot, a very nice man allowed me to take the sander again at no cost, and even hooked us up with some free floor finishings. (You might think the following picture is candid, what with the monkey-arm and all, but I actually set this up, then Brad called and I forgot about the timer. Home depot gave me an awesome attachment to a broom handle to make finishing the floor easier.)

In order to lighten the heavy load I had placed on Brad with this project, my mother enlisted as a volunteer to help with the cause. After the experience with “provincial” I became skeptical of stains, and decided to let the natural beauty of the pine speak for itself with a polyurethane finish. A few hours later I was a happy woman. I love our floor. And soon, I will love the whole bedroom. We just have to paint now, hang a few things, and decorate a bit. Thank you to Brad, mom, and Home Depot for making my floor dreams come true!