More Painting

This year for my birthday, Karin gave me service. She said she would help me paint stripes in Hyrum's room. All I had to do was choose the colors and she would take care of the rest of it. Today we were finally able to do it. She came over after she took the boys to school and stopped to buy the paint at Lowes. Then we taped it and started painting. It was pretty fun. It took us about 41/2 hours to do it all. And it was perfect weather for it. Nice and cool, but sunny so we could have the window open for ventilation. After she left I put up the wall decals I had gotten when we first moved here. I had used some of the surf boards on Hyrums fan almost a year ago.



Above his door I put "Hawaii" and a surf board. Tomorrow when the paint is totally dry, I will put his surfboard clock back up right in the middle of those stripes to the left of the door and I have a hibiscus flower table runner I found at Target (love that store) that I had in the middle of the wall on the right side of the door.
Here, above his closet door, I put a palm tree and two surf boards. That wall on the right side is the same one in the picture above that the clock goes on (for orientation purposes).
There is a window on the left from this picture that will have curtains made from red and yellow hawaiian print fabric, courtesy of Aunt Nae. It is still one piece, but I am going to cut it in half and put a backing on it to help keep the light out when they are closed.




And above his bed I put "Surf's Up" and the smaller palm trees and surf board decals. This wall is opposite his closet. Some day I will get some cute fabric that matches the surf motif to make him some sheets for his bed and maybe find a cute lamp that goes along.
I think it all turned out so awesome. Thank you so much Karin, I love it! It wouldn't have gotten done for a long time if you hadn't given me this thoughtful gift. And now I am excited to do Josi's when some of my other projects are finished. Maybe for her birthday when it has cooled off again.

Niagra Falls

I finally figured out how to get the pictures off of my phone. Here are the few I took when we went to Niagra Falls (I forgot the battery for my camera).

Us right before the ferry ride, waiting to board. We were pretty soaked afterward.


The falls as we approached.

Here we are in the middle of the horseshoe. The rainbows were amazing.

Future engineer?

Here is our clever little Josi Sunday morning while we watched conference. Those are little boardbooks that are only 3/4 inch thick. She figured out that she just needed to fan each one out a little so that they would stack. She added a few more after the picture was taken. Can you tell she has engineer Grandpas on both sides of the family? She kept telling us it was the temple. Then Hyrum would run over and knock it down. He is such a brother! But, she was a patient big sister and would just stack them up again.

It figures, you buy them legos for Christmas and they stack books :)

The Day with Grandpa

My Dad came to visit us yesterday and today while he was on a trip to Tuscon. Last night we went to dinner at Takamatsu Korean BBQ and Sushi. My Dad served his mission in South Korea; we let him choose the dishes. We had some really yummy bul goki, tong su yuk, and chop chey.My favorite was the tong su yuk, which was kind of a sweet and sour beef with apples and cucumber and some kind of mushroom among other veggies. Then the bul goki, then the chop chey; but they were all pretty tasty.

Josi chose to have a california roll, which was also yummy. She insisted on using her chopsticks.


Today we drove up South Mountain to Dobbins Lookout. We climbed around the look-out a little, but there were a lot of other people there. And there weren't any Saguaros around so we found a trail to hike down to find some. Josi had to pause along the way for a photo-op and Hyrum joined her, but was more interested in everything around him, than smiling for the camera.

Hyrum was fearless and wanted to walk by himself like Josi was, but he had to hold someone's hand if I put him down and he chose Grandpa's. He probably thought that he would be able to sweet talk Grandpa into letting him go, but Grandpa is an old pro.


We found a flatish rock to sit on that overlooked a little gorge. We sat there for maybe 20 or 30 minutes and just watched the wild life. We saw lots of little lizards, and a few chipmunks. We saw one lizard that was probably close to a foot long from it's nose to the end of it's tail.(I think it is called a chuckwalla from some pictures on the internet)

We also saw a few birds, some butterflies and I caught a quick view of a little cotton-tail.
I tried to take a picture of one bird that had a pretty blue throat, but it blends into the mountain too much, so this is really just a picture of the view of downtown Phoenix from where we were sitting.

Interview with my child Josi, age 4

I didn't get tagged and I usually don't do them even when I do, but I really wanted to hear Josi's answers. So, here they are:
1. What is something mom always says to you? Do the truth
2. What makes mom happy? If you give you a hug and give you a kiss
3. What makes mom sad? It makes you be naughty
4. How does your mom make you laugh? If you said a funny word
5. What was your mom like as a child? You were a baby
6. How old is your mom? I don't know (with a duh/confussed look on her face)
7. How tall is your mom? Big
8. What is her favorite thing to do? Clean up my (Josi's) room
9. What does your mom do when you're not around? If your hiding, somewhere else... When...I...I don't know.
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? If your big
11. What is your mom really good at? at playing games
12. What is your mom not good at? At baseball if you falled
13. What does your mom do for a job? to make your bed
14. What is your mom's favorite food? chicken and the corn
15. What makes you proud of your mom? if we love each other
16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? A sweetheart (?)
17. What do you and your mom do together? We make our beds together
18. How are you and your mom the same? girls
19. How are you and your mom different? It's a really hard one
20. How do you know your mom loves you? If you tell me I did a good job to clean your room
21. What does your mom like most about your dad? doing his work
22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? maybe if you're a sweetheart to go to the zoo

By the way, I'm not tagging anybody:)
*Can you tell she had to clean her room today?

Progress

I got the diamonds done today. I will do the second coat of the main color and any touch-ups on monday probably. I ran out of tape and had to reuse some to get the middle diamond painted. I really love it! Now I just hope our cream colored furniture looks good with it.

I have this burgandy/plum colored fabric with gold dragonflies (they match the paint perfectly) picked out for the curtains and maybe some pillows. I hope that the store still has it when I can finally get some. I haven't seen it anywhere else.

More Projects and Updates

I started painting the front room today. I got the main color mostly finished. I still have to do a few touchups though. I also have to finish the wall on the left. I am painting a slightly darker color in a diamond design over the main color. I saw it in a model home once and totally loved it. I just hope I can do it right. Then I have to do a second coat of the main color on that wall too.

I really like the color I chose. I think it will end up looking so nice. It is really hard to tell how even the paint is in this room because of the way the sun shines in and reflects.

I also sort of finished Josi's french memo board finally. I gave up on finding a dark enough brown ribbon for it and went with pink and white. I also sewed on 3 little butterfly buttons. Initially I was going to use just the 3 butterflies and use something else on the rest of it, but I think the butterflies are so cute, I will get more of them to finish it.
I am not sure it I will keep her letters hanging from it. I really like it except that they don't sit on the wall flush, so they twist a little bit. I just used some pink pins from my sewing stuff to hold them on the board. I also need to print some pictures of her to put on the board. I am so pleased with how it turned out.

My garden is also growing. Most of the corn has come up and I saw a couple of tomatoes too. Just waiting for peppers, the watermelon, cucumbers and cantelope. I am going to plant zucchini too, but I haven't decided where yet.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!

Okay, Naners, if you are reading this before mom comes to see you, then you really should stop. Or you can read on and spoil the sorta surprise. Everyone else can read on, if you choose to. I recently took on the project of making crib bedding for my little sister, Janae, who is due to have her first child in April. A little boy they will name Collan. They are doing his room in earth tones and a jungle theme. I finally finished today and tried it out on Hyrum's crib. He doesn't sleep in it anymore, but we really don't have anywhere to put it until we put some shelves in the garage, so we have just left it up in his room.
The first two pictures were really dark and I lightened them, so the colors seem a little off now.

This is more like the real colors, depending on the light. Sometimes the polka dots are brown and sometimes they look more green.

Here is a close-up of the cute little jungle animals.


At times they were a real pain in the bootie to make, but that was just because of the serger I was using for the first time. Mostly it was fun. I am afraid the colors won't be right, but it was the best I could find and it was just so cute. I hope she likes them!

Big Words

Josi is so slow getting out of the car and she insists on doing it without help, so I let her, but she has to close the car door herself too, which she is happy to do. On Friday, we had gone out to have lunch with Papi and run a few errands. When we got home, I helped Hyrum out and we headed inside while Josi took her time. When she came in I saw that she had left the car door open, so I told her she forgot to close it. She went back out, but Hyrum had to see. He peeked into the garage and got this look on his face (I can't really explain it, but it is so Hyrum) and said, "I can't eleeb it".
I can't believe how much he talks and that he makes sense. He repeats everything and does a pretty good job most of the time. They grow up too fast!

Dining Room Updates

Here are the recent updates to our Dining room. We put the clock up the end of January. We got the bar stools yesterday. I actually got 4 of them and they all fit, but the whole room looked too crowded. Fortunately, one of them had a ding in the side of it. I ordered them online, so I was able to return it because of the ding and not have to pay the return shipping. They aren't an exact match, but Ben didn't even notice the differences, so I won't worry about it. They are very subtle.

The kids were so excited to sit on them to eat dinner last night. We don't all fit, obviously, but I made BLTs and they started eating before they were all done, so it worked out. We will just have to use them for breakfast and lunch when Ben isn't home and when we have company and need extra seating. They make the room look a little more complete.

My next project will be to paint the front room, before we get our furniture, which we had to special order to get the color we wanted. They still won't be ready for 4-6 weeks, which actually works out great so I have time to paint.