Photo Shoot

Aunt Amber

Amber and I have been friends since I lived in Ohio, the summers in College. She now lives 10 minutes away and we have adopted her as our Aunt. She is wonderful to us. She comes and does crafts and remembers everyone's birthday. We just cheered her on while she did her first triathlon. She did awesome! She recently came to spend time with us and give Brooke a bday present. We love Amber!!

Ice Cream and Football

Today we got some ice cream because they were so "good" at the store. I looked back and found the looks of utter enjoyment so I thought I'd hose them off when they finished enjoying themselves.

Daddy left us for 4 days to go on a trip with his buddies to Texas and watch BYU play UT among other things. They played paintball, soccer with 2 balls, (Greg has talked about amping the typical boring soccer game up with 2 balls for years and finally lived his dream) ate a lot of BBQ, and I'm sure talked for hours about what BYU should/could do to win that game. It was a sad loss, I even watched the game--on FF. It's nice to have him back there were a few times I needed a "time out" and no one was there to give me one, poor kids. Single parenthood is REALLY hard! We did have some fun though. We got a movie from the library, pizza, rootbeer (always with pizza) and ice cream one night and went to Layton Surf and Swim for that LAST outdoor swimming day of the summer!! They had to close early bc of lightning.

Master Bathroom

This is the bathroom downstairs with the porta-shower and sink in a room with carpet??
These were pics taken and sent to HGTV to apply for any and every show that might have pity and come do our bathroom on TV............Didn't happen so I did it myself, well I called a great company who came and did it. I did do the floor tile.
Here is the after. This space was unfinished and the toilet stayed in the same place in it's own room (I believe in total privacy for some things).
My idea from the start was to have the master downstairs. Greg did not like that idea until he talked to a friend and saw his master downstairs. Modern Family did a funny episode on that very subject.

Renovation

This is what our kitchen looked like when we bought it in 2007. We didn't really understand what we were in for! Greg has said a few times now that we should have bought a house that we didn't have to "work on". And a lot of work has been done!



This is a different angle of the kitchen after the "first reno". We took out all of the countertops, old appliances and changed the layout without taking out the cabinets.

Good thing our kids take random pics with our phones bc I didn't get very good before pics so I will resort to a fuzzy pic with Greg doing his fav passtime in the background. Notice the wall to the left and the terrible church ceiling with swamp cooler vent. The table was a cute nook bench that I made by screwing 2 long sides of 2 separate nook benches together and then having a top made that was twice the size of the original top and fit right on top of the table.
This is a fuzzy pic of the living room. When we bought it it was carpeted with white paneling. I love the paneling and thought of ways to keep it, but in the end we went with drywall with some beadboard.
This was the corner where the table was.....I ripped those babies out myself and tried to sell them, they were destroyed so I took them off KSL. I saved a couple hundy doing it myself!
The upstairs bathroom wasn't even a shower so we had to do some plumbing and we tiled walls and floor. Then for the second reno we had to do a lot of plumbing. We moved the toilet over to where the sink was and as I was demolishing the built in drawers I found a pipe! So Drew rerouted that dumb pipe and we were able to have a sink with counter space. Good thing I found a deal on KSL for a 42" sink, granite counter and cabinet for $100 NEW!


So here are the wonderful AFTER pics!






Darren was the construction GENIUS on this. If you notice the peak of the ceiling it gives the room such a large sense of space. Darren built each truss one by one while the roof to our old living room was still in place. The beam that was in between the kitchen and living room he raised it and made the transition seamless. He was amazing, he took such pride in his work I felt like he was working on his own house.

I'm thinking of adding a large clock, mirrors and art work.

Oh how I loved dreaming, planning and working on this space! Greg teases me and asks what I'm going to do now? I have more projects don't worry.............

Summer and School

Summer was WONDERFUL!

The girls started off the summer with their dance performances. They both love to be on stage!

We left school 1 week early and headed down south. We hung out with the Heizer's and they took us rock climbing. We had a blast with them! We kept traveling south until we hit Mimi's and stayed with her for a week.

Mimi came to spend a few weeks to play and help me get the house back together. She is a Davis marching band groupie, so she goes to every parade along the Wasatch front.


You gotta have shades!

Brooke insisted on riding the bull at Texas Roadhouse even though here bday was a month before. The waitress was so nice to oblige.

St George hangin with the cuzins.

Grease Lightnin'

Ahhh Summer!

The Cave at Bear Lake

Lincoln can go to sleep anywhere and his brother wants to wrestle!

Brooke's soccer coach

Linc doing a craft

Prince Eric and Ariel

Gpa with the mustache came to visit the last weekend of summer and was here for the first day of school. The night before we had a FHE about routines and goals for the year and Daddy gave each of us father's blessings. Brooke has decided to read the B of M before she gets baptized in July just like Hayley did. We read and have fam prayer before school.

First day of school.

I miss the girls! I love having no responsibilities and a whole day to plan what fun things we can all do together. We had a fun summer. We started off with leaving school a week early to head to Cali bc of renovation madness, much to hay and bro's teacher's dismay. I think M. Simon was very upset she didn't have proper closure with Hayley. She gets Brooke this year so maybe she'll understand this year when I take them out early again....the last week is just fluff anyway-let the summer begin already!! We then stayed at Gma Maxwell's house for a few weeks while renovations were still going on. The kids had fun at there "summer camps". Brooke realized she loved soccer, Hayley was the only girl in the bball camp and "schooled" them all each day (she actually one the semi finals which means she beat all the boys except for one. (who she could've "schooled" any other day) and Lincoln had a wonderful time doing crafts and playtime. We finally moved back into our incredibly disastrous house and set forth cleaning, painting and organizing. Mom came at just the right time and saved me from insanity. We worked hard! It is now the beautiful dream I have had in my mind for the past year or more.
Other activities this summer

• Bear lake twice. One with my fam the other with Greg's.
• Hay and Bro's summer camp. Hayley insisted to Mimi that while she was with us they were to do a summer camp. They each made $20 or so! I loved seeing them try to take control and telling the kids what to do (especially when they got frustrated when the kids didnt do what they were told.
• swimming, swimming, swimming
• school time and jobs in the morning. It went so smoothly, I loved the structure (AND having slaves clean the house for me, only to mess it up again later)
• Slip n slide and baby pool at the bottom of the playground slide in the back yard with all of the kids spraying and playing with each other even Seb. Now that's summer!!
• Walks to Dicks
• Cousins play
• Hay, Bro and I "ran" the pioneer pete 1k and had the pancake bfast. MMMM!
• Girl's camp was super awesome!
• St George with cousins and Mimi at an awesome house with a pool in the backyard. Saw Little Mermaid and Grease. The girls watched the movie Grease before and memorized all the songs. I often hear them singing still.

Now for the next vaca.......Thanksgiving in Park City with the whole fam damly!

School is great and the girls love all of it. Soccer has started and so let the chaos begin!!