pictures from Grandma Brown's camera

Ryan's mom just sent me some pictures of the family.

she came cross country skiing with us on MLK day, we like to keep our Grandma's young.
The kids spent the night at her house last Friday and they went sledding at a near by hill. 24 hours of heaven for me. I need a break every once in a while.

Back in December Cloe and Brody had a piano recital. They were feeling pretty crummy but went anyways. I didn't go because I was too sick. But I hear they played great.
Time Out for Woman in November. My mother in law took the girls. We stayed the night and had a lot of fun. It was a little stressful for me because Charlotte was recently diagnosed with diabetes and wasn't in my care, but she survived and I was spiritually uplifted.
this burrito was huge. She is pregnant and skinny and had no problem just about finishing it!

since I am decorating/design impaired.

Well I found some inspiration for the girls room re-do. I have always loved turquoise jewelry and actually don't own any, that's how much I apparently love it. I like that the style seems to be bold light blue and turquoise for decor but I'm not daring enough to give it a try. I thought I wanted to do pink and red in the girls room until I saw an image of this online


I was reminded that I have always loved light blues with red and pink. My friend gave Charlotte a baby blanket that was light blue with pink cherry blossoms and it is one of my favs. While flipping through Better Homes and Gardens (because the lady that used to live here hasn't put in a forwarding address at the post office, so annoying, but I got to look through her magazine) I saw a page with a wall painted "ocean breeze" by Benjamin Moore (pg 39 if you have the mag).


This website made it look pretty green, but I promise it's a blue :)

Now, this is where you come in. Here is their room now.


No furniture will be painted, fyi.
do you think solid colored comforters? design? wall decor? I know I have talented friends that can do this better than me. and window coverings for sure, plain windows in a painted room don't work for me. I guess the proper word is textiles, I learned that from ikea. Or should I not paint the wall blue, paint it a white or neutral color and incorporate ocean breeze, red and pink with the decor?



Now I need help with another spot in the house, the shoes. It isn't working where it's at and I could use some help.

this is walking in from the garage, the way we always come in the house


this is the area inside the garage door


and then you go up these stairs. The rugs are there to prevent stuff being tract in because shoes are still on.

and turn left to this


I know we could go without some of these shoes in the basket, but that isn't the point, this is blocking a hallway. It needs to be moved but I don't know if I want the basket.

I wish I could convince Ryan to build me something like this but smaller of course

thanks friends, I knew I could count on you :)

procrastination

It's reared it's ugly head around here long enough. So I will post about our new home, I finally put up our Valentine decorations. Okay that might not seem like something that was procrastinated but considering I usually take out my Valentine decorations as I am putting my Christmas stuff away, I procrastinated. And last but not least, my holiday weight gain. I almost posted a bunch of pictures of our house with all pride put aside with boxes and stuff still lying around. I decided against that because if I show you a bunch of pictures of my house, you still won't get the layout anyways. When we first moved in I was not happy because they did not leave it very clean. They did surface cleaning so that it appeared clean but there was so much deep cleaning to be done before we could really unpack, hence the long wait for pictures. But thanks to some friends and especially my mom who made the load lighter by coming over and helping out!! But now....it feels like home and I really enjoy the home. So much room. Here a few of the highlights.
The house. On the north side is the 3 car garage (the house faces east) and we are the second to last house on a dead end street. Don't you just love the Christmas lights, wagon wheels and water well decor left behind. As the snow is melting I found 2 plastic skeletons poking out from under the snow, into the trash can they went. I was also left with two bales of hay but I'll save those for the chickens. My favorite leftover decor wasn't the 2 American flags stuck in the ground but the grapevine twisty thing that framed the door with Autumn leaves tied in. Now to take out the hideous nails used to support the grape vines.

Are we having a 5th child? You betcha, with this tub! Can you imagine soaking in something like this in the last trimester and at the beginning of labor!! I have always wanted a big tub for pregnancy and that is pretty much it. Not much of a bather. It is Ryan's dream come true to come home after basketball and soak with a good book. Actually, I'm sure I will get a lot of use out of it when I start training more and my legs are dead tired.

(think of Oprah announcing this with her Oprah/Opera voice) "a toy rooooom!" It was all put together until it was played in and all I have to do is shut the door.

working on a little reading corner.

and the kitchen. So much space. The counter tops feel huge, I had minimal counter space at out other house. Plenty of storage but I do have one complaint, the sink is so shallow and the garbage disposal sink is tiny. It is an older house but I can cope.

This picture also shows some of the valentine stuff. I really wanted it to look like Valentine's had thrown up in my house because I just love Vday decorations but considering we have tripled our house size, my decor only filled the kitchen. Seeing the colors makes me happy, so I guess that means I should decorate with red more. Pink is a little much as a "house color" but red can work. I am redoing the girls room for their birthday which is in February because their walls are dark blue. Maybe I should do a pink red theme in there. But I don't want to get sick of it....But I think I'll love it....suggestions?
I feel like this house is a "blank canvas" and I have a bunch of ideas but don't know how to start them. One thing I really want to do is a picture wall and also photos of Italy throughout. Don't ask me why we have never had photos of Italy hanging in our home. But I am totally open to suggestions. Maybe we can take this room by room, so eventually i will post some pictures throughout the house.


I finally took my kids cross country skiing. Charlotte had the privilege of taking a nap at aunt Corine's.

We went with Grandma Brown and had a good time. Cloe said she didn't like it because she fell a lot but later admitted that she actually did enjoy herself. I kind of think that as the oldest she likes to be the first, the fastest and she wasn't. But she was trying and falling and getting frustrated. I think I'll take them again Saturday, I know she'll have the hang of it and redeem herself.

Oh did you want me to make mention of the holiday weight? Well I put on 4-5 pounds and I am running a half marathon in April so I wanted to drop the weight before I started training. I found a super easy diet, the slow-carb diet, and it has totally been working. Now I need to find the motivation to start running again, actually working out again.

good hair day

Must be because I had a nice Sunday nap.

ending the year and starting a new one

Hooray for a healthy family on a holiday!!! We spent NYE hanging out as a family. We did some returns in SLC and then went to lunch as a family. The restaurant was empty and it was so nice because it took away the stress of trying to keep the kids quite and corralled. After lunch we headed to Ryan's parents house to relax. At least I relaxed, Ryan cleared the driveway that accumulated 4 inches of snow a few hours after his dad had already cleared it. It's just good practice for our new house, we've been spoiled having an HOA that clears the snow. So anyways, we hung out and played games with family. And pretended that 10 pm was midnight so we could get home and go to bed.

On New Years Day I was tired and just wanted a nap but the kids were stir crazy so I told them to get their snow clothes together and get ready to go up the mountains. We just drove up our local canyon and the city has trails and rentals available for snowshoeing and XC skiing so we rented some shoes and hiked around on a GORGEOUS day. I'd say we started the new year out right. I don't think I will take Charlotte with us next time, she was Hev-ee! And when she dozed off she was a dead weight big time.







Brody, Me, Charlie, Abbey, Cloe and my mom. This whole group cost $11, much cheaper than the movie I took them to over break!


and last year I made a goal to post a picture a day and I did it. It's only been 2 days but I kind of miss it.

can you think of the worst time of year to be sick?

How about on Christmas eve AND Christmas day. Yep, that was me and half my kids, kind of makes for an anti climatic holiday.

Ryan, Brody and Charlotte went up to the his parents house Christmas eve to celebrate with the Brown's and Cloe, Abbey and I stayed home sick. We laid in my bed and watched t.v. I did make a run to Wendy's to grab some food. I felt guilty making them work on Christmas eve but clearly not guilty enough to make PBJ sandwiches.

We were feeling pretty good Christmas day but I was still sick enough that it didn't quite feel like Christmas. No group shot in their new Christmas jammies, but it was still a fun day spent with family.

yay! I got a new camera!
First shot taken on said camera and the lovely mess of Christmas morning.
On Sunday we went to my moms house for Christmas. The kids loved playing Christmas BINGO.

"Santa! Santa Clause is coming!"

Isn't that what Buddy the Elf yells?

Well he did come to our house, 3 days before Christmas during our little Christmas party. (actually the Christmas party was a cover up for Santa showing up unexpectedly. Otherwise, the kids would've considered it a pretty lame party). First the kids all wrote letter to Santa and then they played some game that they kind of made up where they hid a stocking and then each other had to find it. I really had nothing planned except write a letter and then Santa so we had to kill time in between.

They were all pretty surprised when he showed up, he said "hello" and then had them all sit down for a story. Such a good book and I tried to find it but it is now out of print! $35 on amazon! They each got to sit on his lap, Charlotte was the first to hop up there and he gave them each a candy cane and a bell from his sleigh. Then it was time for him to get back to work.