Priceless

When we bought our house 3 years ago, there was a mural of monster trucks in what is now David's bedroom.  As a 3-year-old, he thought it was pretty nifty, and we left it up.  About 15 months later, he started mentioning on occasion that he didn't want the trucks on his wall anymore; he wanted dinosaurs.  He has gradually increased the frequency of his request over the past couple years, but it hasn't been high on the home-improvement-priorities list.  More like rock bottom.

Last night David emerged an hour post-bedtime with a very urgent request to get rid of the trucks.  Wanting to start instilling financial awareness in him, I told him, "Sweetie, we just don't have money for that right now."  Today he retrieved $0.85 from his piggy bank and said, "Here Mom, you can use this to pay for the paint."

More Paint & Carpet pictures

Fireplace with its accoutrements.  :)  This painting completely influenced our choice of green paint.  It had to work with the mat.

We had the painter repaint the built-in cabinets, too, so they matched the rest of the trim.  Before they were kind of grayish-white and started to look rather green with the green walls.

Nathan's cousin Ben and family were on Spring Break from OSU and stayed the night on their way home from Myrtle Beach (we had so much fun!!).  The kids quickly discovered our stairs were a fantastic perch from which to watch the carpet installation without being in the way.

Dining room with new paint and new carpet.  I'm still debating if I like this new orientation of the table, though.  To its credit, it saves our walls from all the dinks of kids knocking chairs backwards. :)  Now to figure out what to hang in here...

Since I couldn't get a picture of the "during painting" process for the dining room, and since many have said they can't see a difference, here's a picture of the old and new paint cans.  Can you see how the old paint (left) looks faded, or even pink, compared to the new paint?

David showcasing the new living room!  He really likes the new recliners.  So do I, hehe.  I'm still trying to decide how I want to dress the windows.  I don't want anything too frou-frou, but I do want to soften them up.  Maybe just some sheer swags?  Eventually I'd love to replace the mini-blinds with faux wood ones.  Or perhaps kill two birds with one stone and do roman shades, except then I couldn't control light and privacy as easily.  Ponder, ponder, ponder.  With limitless funds, I'd replace the windows with those fancy Pella windows that have blinds built in between the panes ($$$!!!).  Riiiiight...

Old vs. new carpet.  We liked the basic shade of the old, obviously, minus the stains we inherited.  Old carpet (top left) is short looped pile, new (bottom right) is softer, deeper frieze (sp?) pile, plus you can see that it's speckled in order to better hide dirt and stains.

Next on the agenda: replace ivory switches and outlets with white ones, and replace brass light fixtures with brushed nickel.  Hoping that will help update the home. My sister-in-law informed me that in their recent house hunt, she observed all the new homes have oil-rubbed bronze fixtures now.  A great tip. I think that would be very pretty with what I've got, but it's too pricey for my dwindling reno budget.  I guess my "update" will just have to be passé from the start. :)

Pictures of Paint Job!

Here are the pictures of our recent paint job. Please pardon the clutter. We were in a state of chaos relocating stuff during the paint process, and will remain so until the paint cures over the next few days and carpet installation is completed on Thursday (wahoo!).

living room before:

living room during:

dining room before:

dining & living rooms after:

(yes, both red, but a more potent one.  The old paint looked pink as he was applying the new paint)

kitchen before:

kitchen after:

computer nook before:

computer nook after:  

(notice how the different colors work with the vinyl.  The blue has bugged me since we moved in)

family room before:

family room after:

I know you didn't get a great look at the living room or the family room.  When I get pictures etc. back up and clutter put away, I'll post better pics.

Troglodyte

I figured it was time I peeked out of my cave to update everyone on our doings. Or perhaps I’m flattering myself to think many of you are wondering why I haven’t posted any news in two months. Regardless, here I am, ready to report.

With the new year came a new church calling for me: Sunbeams. Yep. And not just two or three. Fifteen. Our ward primary rivals any you’d find in Utah Valley. David’s CTR 5 class has 12 kids, and the Sunbeam class has 15 very active-in-every-sense-of-the-word 3 year-olds. It was a daunting calling for me at first, but now that we’ve gotten in the swing of things, it’s not as horrifying as I thought. I have to stop here and explain my word choice. The kids are great; it’s just a hard age for me personally to work with. But, I feel strengthened by prayers, blessings, and hands of angels each week.


Thus explains my disappearance to the locals at church. My disappearance in the blogosphere, however, is due to something very different. Inspired by a friend of mine, I decided get a grip on my love handles (har har… okay, bad pun), joined a local gym, and started strength training with a personal trainer. I now spend a couple hours each weekday morning exercising, and I love it. After six weeks I have lost 9 pounds, and more importantly to me, I’ve gained muscle tone. Today was even more of a joyful workout for me because I could see marked improvement in my skills. Woohoo!!

Working out has been a different challenge as far as time management. As I said, I spend a couple hours at the gym, and it pretty much eats up my whole morning. After a shower and maybe one or two errands, it’s time for lunch and naps, maybe another errand, dinner, kids in bed, and there’s my day. For the first two weeks I couldn’t figure out when to even grocery shop. However, I have often said you make time for what is important to you. Before, I did other things but didn’t get exercise in; now I exercise and some other things don’t get done. It’s a tradeoff, but so far I feel it’s been worthwhile.

I also ended up needing a root canal the first week of February. I'd had an old filling replaced back in November, but it still bothered me, and in the process of trying to fix that the dentist basically made a root canal necessary. After babying a sore tooth since before Thanksgiving, it's nice to finally be pain free.

Daniel's first snow!  

After his initial venture I decided I needed to bundle him up more. 

Then he just looked like the kid from A Christmas Story.

David enjoyed the snow too!

The last week of January, David started at The Little Gym again. He missed going last semester and is very happy to be back. This time he’s one of the oldest kids in his class, and seems to also be more advanced. His teacher does a great job tackling each child’s individual skill level, however, so I know he’s getting a great experience.

David is also enjoying preschool, is a champion with the alphabet (in ASL, too!), and is showing reading readiness. I’m not sure I’m ready to teach that, but hopefully some trips to the library will aid both of us. He astounds us daily with his jigsaw puzzle skills. What a pro!



Daniel started Nursery last week. Can my baby really be that old?! Nathan said Daniel cried the first two minutes after he dropped him off and then he was fine. I was surprised that he even cried that much, because he’s happy to go play at the childcare center at my gym. He’s pretty easy going, for which I am very grateful.

Daniel on his first day of Nursery

He’s starting to show interest in learning letters, too. Dad Nash bought some cute letters for Daniel’s name when he was in France, and we put them on Daniel’s bedroom door. Every time we go into his room, we stop and spell his name out, pointing to each letter, then point to him and say “Daniel!” Now whenever he sees letters he starts chanting “E, E, E, E, Ay-yay!” which is how he says his name at the moment. He’s also very taken with Alea and says “kitty kitty” every time he sees her, or if we even mention her.

Daniel enjoyed the frosting on his Valentine cupcake.

Nathan has brought me somewhat into the video gaming world through Rock Band 2 and the Wii. I have to confess, I always have loved percussive music and wanted to be in percussion when I joined band back in middle school. That didn’t happen, so I’m living out my dream as a drummer in our virtual Rock Band. It’s pretty fun! Playing on the Wii has been fun, too, I must admit. David and I exercise together some afternoons on the Wii Fit. He thinks it’s pretty neat.

Some other exciting changes for our household: we’ve started turning some wheels toward making this house our own. ‘Bout time after 18 months, eh? It came with very colorful walls, which have been sufficient, but we’re now ready to replace the carpet and tweak the colors to our own tastes. I had an epiphany on color choices Sunday while I was home from church nursing a bad cold. Here’s a preview:

Kitchen and Family Room: (currently light grayish blue)

Dining/Computer Room: (currently a brighter red)

Living Room: (currently brown)

Flecked carpet to hide any dirt and stains better:

I may choose a slightly different shade after I get these bad boys:

Two of the world's comfiest recliners to allow for versatile conversation seating:

These get delivered Thursday.  We can't wait!!

 I'm super excited to make it all happen! I'll post before/after pictures when we're done.