Dangles

When we moved into this house, almost 3 years ago, I let the kids (girls especially) pick how they wanted to decorate their room.  They ended up with the room that they didn't want so I wanted to help them turn it into a space they really enjoyed.  Really, it was mostly for Sandra who felt the very upset about the whole thing.  We got the rooms painted and some of the projects done to put the rooms in order.  One of the projects that we found was to make these super cute dangle things (like a mobile for a crib).  We changed the idea up a bit and used the girls initials to hang the dangles from.  

One of the best parts about this project is that the girls took it over and did it on their own, with minimal help from me.  It was great to see them put together something like this with their own skills.  All 3 turned out very cute!

  

Bunny Hat

For home school this semester the kids had picked some elective classes to do at home.  Lorna and Clark are working on cooking while Mhari wanted to do some sewing.  Well, so really that just means that everyone wants to help with everything most of the time.  Bree gets to come do sewing with us so the kids love that too.  

This was a really fun project... bunny hats!  Bree brought some super soft material that she shared (the pink), but it was really fuzzy at the edges and shed everywhere.  Good thing once it was all sewn it stopped fuzzing :).  Some girls didn't want bunny ears, so we did different things.  Mhari got hedgehog ears and Sandra got owl ears (like a screech owl).  Now they can wear their super warm hats the rest of the winter!  

Island... or Continent?

We finally picked the top to our island and got it installed.  We had been wanting to make a nice wood top and after more thought ended up deciding on granite instead.  Then we had to agree on a granite... and of course pay for it.  It's amazing how much time and money has to go into these house projects!  I will say that after all of the time we spend I am always so happy with the end result.  Maybe it's because anything is better than a piece of plywood as my island top ;).  I took off the plywood so you just get the open island look for comparison, sorry. 

It is such a massive island... 12 long feet, it might as well be called a continent!  

Which makes the island top that much larger!  It is seemed down the middle, but it's not obvious.  We wanted something more neutral to not distract from the other counter top  I feel like this one even ties into the dark lines in the back splash... such coordination!  Really though we found a counter top that is a leather type texture, with polish spots ... It's so hard to explain, but it looks fabulous!

Look at all of that seating!  Enough room for 6 kids!

Fireplace ... Almost

We have been waiting on getting our gas fireplace since January! Well, after finally getting the gas lines hooked up we were able to get the gas fireplace in.  Unfortunately, we are still waiting to get gas up to the house :(.  Hopefully soon we will have our awesome new fireplace working!

Time for Littles!

Now that we have 4 kids gone to youth temple night that leaves me with our two littles!  I decided it would be fun to take them out to dinner and rent a movie.  We enjoyed our Cici's dinner and watching Christopher Robin together.  Before too long they will all be gone... gotta enjoy the time while we have it ;)

Senior Photos

The yearbook needed senior photos turned in so I dragged Talmage out for pictures ;).  We are in the process of trying to get him contacts so I think we will end up doing a new photo shoot in a few months :).  It is crazy that Talmage is graduating and moving onto college.  He will be working on an associates degree with the local community college.  It will be nice to work with him as he navigates along this new path.  I know he is ready to be in a classroom with teachers again!

Getting a feel for what life will be like in contacts ;)

MORP

A.K.A. Sadie Hawkins Dance, or girls choice date dance.  I feel like everyone likes to make up new words to things to make them sound more fun.  Oh well.  Anyway, Kendall asked Talmage to the MORP (which is also prom spelled backwards and how they came up with the name) dance.  Since it was kind of far away, Talmage didn't have his license yet, and they asked Jeff and I to help c:haperone we took Talmage up to meet Kendall at the dance.  Well, this dance didn't start until 8:30 so we arrived a half hour early.  We took Talmage and Kendall to McDonald's and grabbed a snack before the dance.  It was super cute to watch Talmage and Kendall play with the lights on the table.  

When we got to the dance, the lead chaperone guy asked us to hang out in one of the rooms.  That meant that we didn't get to watch Kendall and Talmage ... or even dance :(.  Kind of a bummer.  We did have a nice time hanging out talking so that was good.  We did go into the dance for the last 5 min.  Talmage and Kendall were dancing and being super cute.  It was fun to see them enjoying being together at the dance!  I secretly wished I had taken more pictures.  I was trying to not be that mom... it's hard though ;).  The only picture I got was after McDonald's and it was kind of smudgy :(.

Park Valentine's Day

We didn't have co-op on Valentine's Day so we did a park day!  We had several families come out to play!  Everyone had a great time.  Park days are almost as exhausting as a normal co-op day :)

Lorna tried the monkey bars, but didn't go too far.  

 The teens came up with some game to play ;)

  

 The Valentine's package from Grandma Whitmer.  I also gave out squishmallows to everyone for their present from Jeff and I.  

 Grant and his buddy Tyler

It was a beautiful windy day so Sandra brought some kites and even helped teach some friends how to fly kites. 

Painted

We had been wanting to do a brick feature wall in the kitchen.  We finally decided to just texture and paint the wall instead.  It's hard to keep spending money on the house projects, and bricking it was going to add some unneeded expense!  It is strange, but a good strange I guess to have the wall finished.  It is feeling more and more like we are almost done!  

Now to get the doors in!

Happy Birthday Fun!

Tiffany and I went out to celebrate her birthday.  I surprised her in the morning by going out for cinnamon rolls.  They were so good!  Then we went out to Mexican for lunch and picked up her free bunt cake too.  We ended our fun at a painting place.  We each painted dirty spoon holders for by the stove.  It was super fun and yet very practical!  I love getting to enjoy birthdays together!  

My little bird that needs to get fired.

Out with the old...

I feel like that title could work with so much of our house.  I love that I am referring to our front door!  It has been too long in coming.  We noticed how bad the door was when we moved in.  Seriously it couldn't latch, the owners did "fix" that right away.  The door has slowing been deteriorating since then... so much so that our door knob broke and we never replaced it because we were getting a new door ;).  Over a year later, it is time to bring in the new!  

Good-bye old blue door.  

This was from the inside.  If you look closely you can see there is no handle.

Wide open space... prepping for the new door!

The audience ;)

Hanging of the doors!

Those doors are so heavy!

Our first glimpse of our new entrance!

Jeff inspecting the progress

 Welcome to our home... and our new beautiful doors!

  From the inside

 At night ;)

Nap time

This year we have 9 am church.  It sure makes for a relaxing afternoon.  I love Sunday naps and I love getting to watch my kids nap.  Sleeping kids are so beautiful!

Blue and Gold

We attended the Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet.  It was Minion themed, which was super cute.  They had fun games after the dinner for the kids to go play.  Clark had fun playing with his friends and doing games.  The girls had fun too!  It was nice to have some friends for the adults to visit with too.  

Daddy and Bro Buer... bald buddies