Friday, September 24, 2010

Projects

The Fall season has begun and that means it's time to start up house projects again! I haven't really done any projects or decorating since Spring. It was nice to take several months off and just enjoy family time in the Summer, but I'm happy to get going on the house again. Since we found out that we're having another girl we decided to move everyone in to different rooms. That means months of decorating for me....YAY!

Here are a couple of things we've been working on these last two weeks.

I'll start with the worst. This is the girls' room. It's going to be blue/grey and white with some touches of green. I want it to have a very french influence with lots of cute little birds. We started last night by taking down 2 layers of ugly border. By we, I mean my mom. Thanks Mom! The color is not quite correct in the picture but the original wall color is a brown squashy color. We're painting all the trim white because it's so mismatched and pieced together.
The new wall color is a really really light blue. Almost white, actually. I just painted the one wall so far. I want some light brown and white tree silhouettes painted on the biggest wall and it dawned on me last night that I should take advantage of Loyal being here, so I hurriedly put two coats on so he could paint the trees before he leaves. He is a professional artist and travels all over the country with an art company that does insanely huge murals and sculptures for mega churches. Pretty neat stuff. I'm really excited that he can paint the trees for me because I cannot draw a tree to save my life! I'll post pics of the trees tomorrow.


Here's the inspiration for the trees

The steps. Still very much a work in progress. I stripped the tops of the steps of two layers of paint and we've stained a couple. The wall obviously still needs to be sanded and painted and it's a big project but it's coming along. I just sanded the fronts of the steps last week, painted them white and added the numbers.


Our bedroom: Almost done! Repainted everything including the floor. My good friend Leia is coming sometime soon to help me paint the floor with a diamond pattern. It will be greyish blue and white. I cannot wait to see how it turns out!!! As you can see, I also still need to get knobs for a couple of the dresser drawers.

It's been a busy couple of weekends for weddings.

This first bouquet was for Jacob and Becca's wedding, a couple from our church.

And this one was for Andy and Sarah Kate, some friends from "way back when." How lucky for me that I got to do TWO hydrangea weddings in a row! I just love hydrangeas!



Wednesday, September 22, 2010

First day of Fall at the zoo

What do you do on a beautiful Fall day? Go to the zoo! We try not to go too often during the Summer because it's just too hot and crowded. Seems like as soon as September hits the crowds leave and the weather is just perfect. As an added bonus, Loyal is visiting us this week and he hadn't been to the zoo in like 5 years, so it was a great time to go!

Can you believe they are ALL looking at the camera!?!


Trying to reach pennies, I think. :)




Lemurs at the Madagascar Exhibit. Grant was pretty fascinated.

Elle admiring a tortoise after she got over her initial fear of such a scary creature.




Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Happy birthday to our sweeties!

Last night we had a double birthday party for Elle and Grant. It was such a beautiful week so we decided to take advantage of the gorgeous Fall weather and have the party at the lake. Grandma and Grandpa, Michelle, Wyatt and Chase came, along with the Mike and Leia, and The Mackeys. Aunt Marilyn stopped in too!

Michelle made adorable little cakes for Elle and Grant




Our theme was ice cream!

Elle was not too sure how she felt about everyone singing to her.





Elle and Isabel - the Frenemies. Playing together very nicely, actually! They had a blast running around and playing in the sand.

Rylan and our big One Year Old!

Monday, August 23, 2010

Family Vacation 2010

Our annual camping trip to the Iowa State Fair.

Day 1
We arrived at Yellow Banks Park just in time to set up our campsite before it got dark. It was a pretty muggy night, and when we got there we discovered that our air mattress was not in usable condition. Bummer. All in all though, everyone slept well!

Day 2
We tried out a new place for breakfast - 5&Diner. It was a cute 50's cafe with pretty unique food. I had a Mediterranean Skillet with artichoke hearts and feta cheese. Yummy!

Grant just couldn't decide between the waffles and the pancakes.


After breakfast we stopped at Target to buy a couple of things we forgot, and a new air mattress. I know, I'm a wimp.

More yummy food. Gigantic fried mushrooms - a tradition at the Farmhouse Cafe, where we had lunch on Saturday before going to Living History Farms. Our good friends Adam and Erin along with their boys Asher and Wesley met us there. After lunch we all headed to Living History Farms for the day.

Grant, trying out the vintage rocking horse

Shelling corn at the 1900's farm

Geese!

At the blackmith's shop. It was....warm in there.

Watching an antique printing press in action

The best we could do for a family pic

The Sleepers came back to the campground with us that evening and set up camp. Erin made delicious cheesy burgers for everyone.



Ready to roast some marshmallows!

It was perfect camping weather. Sunny days, and beautiful mild evenings!



Day 3
State Fair. What a great day! Mike and Leia Brown drove up to join us for the day. We walked around for 7 1/2 hours, and saw as much stuff as you can with 4 kids in tow. We took camel rides, checked out the petting zoo, admired art at the Culture building, did some wine tasting, sampled some Iowa food, and skipped the insanely long line to view the butter cow.

Aaron and Elle watching a sand sculpture in progress at the Arts building

No fair would be complete without a smoked turkey leg to gnaw on.

....and cotton candy, of course. (I feel like I've talked about food a lot in this post)



Prize winning pumpkin

The girls dragging Leia around

It was really special this year to have such wonderful friends join us all weekend. We are so blessed!

A Summery Summary

Here are a few highlights from our busy and super fun summer!

A visit from cousins Caity and Jackson all the way from Oregon! We spent some time downtown at Spaghetti Works and checked out the sights.

SOTO Festival! Two days of extreme fun at an outreach festival Candlewood put on. Lots of people showed up and got to hear the gospel(YAY), testimonies, and some great music from the worship teams. The kids had a wonderful time. Two bounce houses...need I say more?

The police showed up....

We visited the Hot Shops open house. The kids watched a really cool demonstration on some type of water/oil marbleizing. Really beautiful stuff.

Trever and Aubrie's Wedding!
We headed to Kansas to help Trever and Aubrie celebrate their big day. Aaron sang in the wedding, I accompanied him on the piano, and the kids were ring bearer and flower girl. They took their jobs very seriously :) It was a beautiful wedding and a perfect day.
Here are the proud ring bearer and flower girl. They both did marvelously!

Bree & Cousin Calvin, the other ringbearer

Aunt Karrie!

Aaron and I with the beautiful bride and handsome groom.

Aaron did a little work on the front of the house. We got a little landscaping and a new boardwalk put in!

Our water bill was a little high this summer....I think the hose was out almost every day.

We spent some time at the Lake on various occasions.

Elle at the lake, enjoying either cookies or dirt....

Grant with his homie Naldo

Rylan and Uncle Cole

The lake was really high this year, so no sandy beach :( We had to settle for mud.

Summer showers and winter boots

You know Summer is drawing to a close when the school supplies are on sale!
Here are the kids with their new pencil boxes and crayons.

Tried to get a picture of all four at Becca Whitney's grad party last a few weeks ago. No such luck.