Crazy Busy

This week has been pretty dang busy for us, but it has been a lot of fun. We have had stuff going on almost every night and we have gotten to see a lot of cute kiddies which we love!

Sunday we went to West Jordan for the monthly family dinner at Dan’s parents house. It was a party as usual and we haven’t seen people for awhile so it was fun. We also watched the super bowl and pigged out!

Monday we had Julie, Wellyn and new baby Everett over for dinner and hanging out since Jon was in Chicago for business. We had a lot of fun and Dan and Wellyn love playing together! That kid is crazy and they are funny together. I love holding the sweet baby and I didn’t want to give him back to Julie!

Tuesday we had a break and just chilled! Woo hoo!

Wednesday we drove to West Jordan to see Dan’s cousin who just got home from his mission. The whole family was over for yummy dinner and once again I held Everett most of the time and had fun playing with my cute nieces and nephews.

Thursday we drove to Logan for Thad’s first birthday. It was fun to see our friends and their cute kids and the party was fun.

Friday we’re babysitting for Jon and Julie while they go to a neighborhood party. We love Wellyn and Everett!

Saturday Dan has to work but I’m going to baby site Addy (4) and Mia (9 months) for Ben and Becky while they see family in Layton. I love this sweet girls and can’t wait to talk princesses and fairies with Addy and check out her new gymnastics tricks. She loves the sick fairy room we have in our house that we haven’t painted yet from the previous owners. :) It should be a fun day!

Sunday we’re going to West Jordan again for Dan’s cousin’s homecoming!

Sheesh! It has been (and will be) quite a week but it has also been fun! We are still training for the Wasatch Back race and we have found time to still run this week, but Dan has a deep bruise on his heel that has been bothering him a lot. It has been good for us to train and I have enjoyed having a goal to work towards and it’s exciting to see my progress each week!

I wa nted to share a quick thought about something I have been trying to focus on the past few weeks that has made a big difference in my life. I have been really aware of how blessed I am to have such a great life and so many wonderful blessings. This is made even more clear to me when I watch the news and see so many people in the world who struggle. We are healthy, happy and have wonderful family and friends around us. We’re working and going to school and are so blessed to have these things in our lives. I have really been aware of that the past few weeks and I’ve been trying to be more aware of all that I have instead of focusing on the things that I don’t have or things that I want.

I think this change of attitude has made a huge difference in my life and hopefully made me think of others more and be less selfish. Even with little things like getting frustrated at someone while driving (which I do a lot), I have tried to think about the other person in the car and wonder what their lives are like and I’m reminded not to be angry or impatient, but just relax and enjoy life. That is something I want to try to do better and I hope that whoever reads this tries to do the same in your lives as well because it will help make you a happier and more grateful person.

Thaddy’s bday!

My best friend Shelley’s little guy is turning 1 and I can’t believe it! Shell is basically my 2nd sister and Thad is my nephew :) I love him and I can’t even believe it has been a whole year! Wow.

Anyway, Shelley asked me to make a birthday invite for him so we found one she liked online and I just re-created it for her! It turned out really cute and his darling face definitely helps! I blurred out the address so the creepies don’t find Heidi and Jason’s house :).

This is the invite we found online:

It’s pretty close to what I came up with right? Shelley wanted a number 1 instead of a cupcake so I did that instead. Shell & Brian are moving to Connecticut for a year this summer for Brian’s accounting internship and I’m really sad but really excited for them! I will have to come visit for sure and I know we’ll stay close!

Shell and I have stayed friends while….

1. she was in high school, and I was in jr. high
2. she was in Cedar City, and I was in West Jordan
3. we were roommates at USU (that says a lot)
4. I lived in the Netherlands
5. she lived in Russia
6. we both lived in Logan
7. I lived in Logan and she lived in West Jordan
8. and now while she lives in Logan and I live in West Point!

Whew! So I’m not too worried about adding another location to that list :) And plus I’m really happy for them! I have a lot of great pictures of this girl that I could embarrass her with, but I’ll be nice and just use this one of her at SUU! Hahaha I love you Shell!

I promise I will put up pics of our half bath so so soon! It has taken so much longer than I expected and I don’t want to put up pics of it halfway done! But I’m getting the last piece of the decor tonight then I will post the pics! But we really love it!

Coming soon…

Well I have been hard at work on the half bathroom and it looks great! I love it and I can’t wait until it’s totally finished! Shelley came and helped me paint and even though she whined most of the time, we still had fun :). I love the orange and Dan and I put up the crown molding and it looks SA-WEET! I also installed the cool hardware and now we just have to put up the molding around the mirror and I need to find a rug!

Finding the rug I want has been impossible and I’m so frustrated! I know what I want, but after looking at a billion stores and online, I don’t think I’m going to find it. So I may have to settle for something else! But I’m waiting to post pictures until it’s all completely done which should be by tomorrow or maybe Wednesday! So Mom, just hold on! :)

P.S. I already have big plans for the laundry room…I even made this collage for my inspiration!

Good Grief.

http://www.agoodgrief.com/blog.php?id=24

Go read it. I love it.

Weekend Plans!

I kind of like posting about the decorating/projects I have planned for the weekend, so that’s what I’m going to do again.

I finished the molding squares and I really love them! Dan is going snowshoeing with his brothers in Idaho this weekend and although I will miss him, I am excited to take my time and figure things out myself this weekend.

My plan is to paint our half bathroom. Here are a few crappy pics before we moved in. It’s a nice space right off the kitchen but the walls are a sick blue and one of the walls isn’t even painted and the mirror is ginormous with nothing around it. And there is an unnecessary towel bar, and cheap towel ring and t.p. holder. Anyway, I thought this would be a good (relatively) small project for this weekend.So my plan is to take down the towel bar, paint the walls, door, ceiling, baseboard and trim around door. I picked  Behr Chai Spice for the walls and I can’t wait to see it.                                   I’m also going to attempt to install crown molding. This is my inspiration:                   I’m going to do the corner blocks like she did because it is easier. I have been to Home Depot about a bajillion times and asked a bunch of questions so I think I have an idea of what to do. I’m going to borrow my brother-in-law’s nail gun so that should help.

I’m also going to put molding around the mirror to frame it. I’ve seen this done a lot on blogs and it looks sweet! I am going to stain the molding to hopefully match the cabinets, but I’m a little nervous about doing that because I don’t know if it will look weird if it doesn’t match exactly. So maybe I should just paint it white?? I don’t know!!              I also need to find a little rug and matching towel. I am going to be on the look out for something cheap and cute to put above the toilet as well. I will also keep looking for a new light fixture, but the one we have is fine for now.

I have been looking at toilet paper holders and towel rings at Home Depot & Lowes. They are around $15-$25 each for the lower end styles. So I checked out Amazon and found some nice Moen ones for less than $10 each with free shipping! Score!                                          So I’ll put those in as soon as I get them in the mail. Hopefully soon!

So those are my big plans and hopefully Shelley will come down and help me. :) And hopefully I can get it all done and make it look super great and not nail my finger to the wall or something…for some reason I have this big problem with thinking logically. Dan says I have book smarts but not street smarts and he’s definitely right. I did well in school and can figure out technical things, but when it comes to logic or “street smarts”, I fail miserably.

Stuff happens to me all the time where I can’t figure something logical out even when it’s totally and completely obvious. That’s where Dan comes in. He is very good at logical thinking and he’s pretty good at not laughing at me when I can’t figure something simple out.

Just a few stupid things I’ve done recently:

-Hit myself in the mouth with the back of the hammer while nailing something. Okay this is just stupid, it has nothing to do with thinking logically or not.

-Couldn’t figure out how to get a belt hanger around a screw I had put in the wall because the hanger loop-thing was too small to fit around the screw. I tried and tried to force it, then finally asked Dan and he laughed really hard while telling me to screw the screw in around the loop! Don’t know if that make sense to you but DUH.

-Tried to drain water from noodles by holding the noodles back with a fork but half the noodles ended up in the sink. Shelley (roommate at the time) kindly showed me I could use the lid with it because it had a hole to drain water.

There are many more but I’ll save myself the embarrassment. Oh well, that’s one of the reasons I married Dan! But we’ll see how this weekend goes and I’m sure I’ll survive. The bathroom may not….wish me luck!

Moulding Squares

All Done!

Well I found some decorative metal thingies (what would you call those anyway??) at Hobby Lobby for 50% off and I think they look great in the squares! I bought a few other things there and brought them home to decide which I liked best, then I returned the others! But I think these look pretty good. I still need to finish my other projects from last weekend but the back door drapes got me just a little frustrated so I’m going to wait and have my mother in law help me and just sew one piece instead of two because I have enough fabric! So that is on hold for now and I’m sure I will get around to hanging the picture wall and vinyl soon enough…but now I’m already on to my next project: painting and decorating the half bathroom!

Home Depot had Behr paint on sale for a few days for $5 off. That’s not a ton, but considering that paint doesn’t go on sale much, it was a good excuse to get a gallon for the half bath! I had to make a quick decision on paint color because I went to Home Depot and the sale ended that day instead of the next like I had thought! So I asked the paint girls for help and I picked out a burnt orange color. It’s called Chai Spice by Behr. I’m excited to get it on the walls and see how it looks! Dan is going snowshoeing this weekend with his brothers in Idaho so I will have the house (and the credit card) to myself! HAhahahaaahahhahahaa!!!!

Molding Squares

Well I didn’t get everything on my list done this weekend, but I didn’t really expect to so that’s okay! I did finish the molding squares and one of the 2 curtain panels (using hemming tape only-me and sewing don’t mix). The curtain panel is still a work in progress and I’m not sure how I feel about it but we’ll see when I’m all done!

So the molding squares turned out really good and I love them! Here are the before pics:

After:

I definitely learned a lot after doing this and luckily I had Dan’s help with the hammering! First I measured about a million times and then taped off the squares for painting. Then I cut all my molding with a miter saw and miter box. I painted the molding and the rosettes white. I had Dan help me hammer the rosettes and molding and then I realized that I had put the molding above the paint square instead of on top of it! If that makes sense…so I had 2.5 inches of dark paint below the molding! Ahhhhh dangit! I puttied up all the nail holes and the space in between the molding and the rosettes. It was really hard to hammer the nails so they’re totally flush or below the molding but I might get a little tool that will do it for us then go back and fix it, but for now it looks good enough for me! Below is before I sanded and re-painted. After I puttied and sanded all the holes and edges, I had to go through and touch up all the edges where I messed up the measurement of the squares and the dark paint was showing. That took awhile but it looks good now! I also re-painted the molding so now it looks really bright and pretty! You can still kind of see some of the nails but it’s not really noticeable. So now I just need to decide what to put in the middle….stencil? Vinyl swirly design? A metal rod-works type thing? I was going to do a stencil but now I’m not sure and if I did, I don’t know what color…any ideas or suggestions are welcome!