Time Flies!!

Wow does time fly. I swear it has not been a month and a half since I blogged.....seriously! I have so much to catch up on. And if the reason I had not blogged was because I had nothing to say, well I would not have much of an excuse. But believe me, so so so much has been going on. I don't know where to start.
I guess I will start with the cliff hanger I left on. First, thank you all for your advise on my paint colors. To end the suspense (I know you all have been waiting for ha, ha, ha!) I didn't pick any of those colors! Gregg and I decided I am completely color challenged. I can not pick out paint colors for the life of me. Take a look at my hideous bedroom for proof! So anyway, we started to paint only after Gregg went back to home depot and got 3 more samples......needless to say two of them were perfect. The third not so much. And I only think he chose that third one was because I asked him to pick three!
The dinning room.....ah so beautiful. It looks even better completely finished with stuff on the walls, but please give me a little break. I have a little to catch up on so those will have to be at some other time. The boys loved to help too. Kaden got to put primer on the walls and Zeke had his own little paintless paint tray.....um no it didn't really work (we had a lot of trauma from Zeke). And Jaxon was well typical Jaxon 'huh you need help?'....I wonder where he gets that from?
One of the biggest challenges for us was to paint the ceilings. OIE!!! We painted when we moved in. And let me tell you, we (meaning mostly Gregg I was pregnant at the time) had to paint, tile and do the wood floors in two weeks! It sucked. Poor Gregg, our paint job was the least of his worries at the time. So we hurried through it and have wanted to repaint and fix things up ever since. The ceilings were one of the things that we wanted to paint white for quite a while. It was such a job! Gregg painted great and I did the little fixes and got on the very high and very scary ladder (Gregg is so clumbsy I was terrified he would fall and get hurt! And I promise I am not being mean, he will admit it!).
The color in the dinning room is sort of an olive color (river bed). Gregg did a great job on the crown molding and base molding (another upgrade we have wanted for quite a while). The color in the front room was mochachino. It is a camelean color. I swear it was not even from the green color pallet yet it looks very soft green, just the color I wanted. It is beautiful! I am sure the green is reflected off the dinning room and gives off the green color to the family room and that is why but I really love it. That 18 foot peak at the top was so so scary! See that little measly old ladder in front of you? Well that flattens out and probably only reaches 14 feet or so. So yes, I had to reach and the rungs on the ladder are only maybe 3 inches wide! It was not fun! The whole project we started 5 days before easter thinking oh ya, for sure we can be done by Easter took us about 1 week and a half! The lovely mess you see in the pictures was what we had to deal with for that long. I swear baseball and soccer really suck when I have stuff I want to do! :)

Advice?

So I finally got Gregg to agree to paint! But we are still up in arms over color. We got some samples:

Color is really hard for me. So hard infact that when we first moved into our house Gregg painted our bedroom which is not really small a green color. I/We didn't like it so we repainted the whole thing again (before we moved in). This in the middle of tiling and doing the wood floors!?! So needless to say we were not very happy that we had bought 10 gallons of a paint we now no longer liked and needed to buy more. But anyway that is a whole other story. Since then we have repainted and now we are attempting to paint the dinning room and the front room (working our way around the entire house - that so badly needs new paint!). Anyway, your opinion is greatly appreciated. I know you can't see very well the colors (from my wonderful camera) but I will try to explain the colors and color schemes I have in mind:

TOP: Soft Earth - it is a bit green (Gregg thinks it is grey), I found it in a Ralph Lauren book I really liked. I would do the dining room in that and the front room in a lighter shade on the same pallet (because our ceilings are like 18 ft tall and I don't want it too dark)

Middle: Distant Tan - it is not that much different from what we have. I found this one in the pottery barn cataloge.

Bottom: River Rock- this one is a greyish blue. I really liked this one in the pottery barn cataloge too. I would plan to decorate with white and orange, black and rusty red.

I just want your opinions.....

Still waiting on the house to be fixed

As some of you may remember in one of my earlier posts I mentioned how we have a small leak in our basement. Well, it is still not fixed. I am the eternal optimist and believe with all my heart the builder who said they will repair it will! I am hoping they are as honest as I hope they are and will come out and tear down the entire back of our house and fix the leaking stucco- whatever the problem is (I try to not remember that is for Gregg to worry about what the exact problem is). But with the spring Snow and rain this is how wonderful it looks!
What the contractor said is happening is that the water/snow is coming from the rain gutters and running behind the stucco. There was apparently a bad piece of rain gutter ends (whatever they are called) or something like that. Anyway the moisture is running down behind the stucco and exiting anywhere there is a place for it to (like here in our window cracks around the window). Almost all of our windows look like this on the back of our house.
Then if it doesn't come out the window cracks it comes out of the bottom of the house and exits to the finished basement or out like this.....
Isn't that lovely. Here is hoping they will really do what they said they would!

one of my less proud moments!!!

So I really like making birthday cakes for my boys for their birthday's but sometimes, I just have no idea what to do. This year Kaden asked me to make him a cake with Anakin and Obi-Won fighting (like they do in Star Wars III - Kaden has not seen number III which is why I think he has a fascination with it. Gregg and I both think it is just too evil and scary for the boys, maybe when they are older). So all I could think to do is make it like they are fighting on the volcano.....um okay...whatever! This is what we came up with.

As you can see it is well, not so good. Anyway, after I was finished I don't think Kaden was too impressed either. He told me after this was finished he wanted me to make Anakin and Obi-Won out of the frosting!? I don't know what artist he is thinking I am but I guess I am flattered!
Oh well....another one bites the dust! :(

Kadens Birthday

Happy Birthday Kaden. I love you so much. You turned 6 on the 26th!! My how the time flies! So in wishing you happy birthday here are 6 reasons we are so glad you are in our family!

1. I love how you are so happy in the morning. Although it ticks others we won't mention off (who are no so happy) your happy face and giggling in the morning makes my day!

2. I love your tenderness and heartfelt love for your brothers! You are always the one to say, "well that is okay" if you see one of them want something really bad that you have. You always help Zeke out and love to teach him new things! (like what is 2 + 2 - even if he really doesn't know....it is still really cute!)

3. I love your laugh...not the fake one you think is so funny. Your real belly laugh makes me laugh!

4. I have to say you have the cutest little butt I have ever seen....I won't go on with that one!

5. I love how excited you got for your birthday, if I am not mistaken, the count down started the day after Christmas!

6. I love your hugs and snuggles. There is nothing better than when you climb into bed with me in the middle of the night to just get a little snuggle for a minute. You are so sweet!

St. Patricks Day

I love the holiday's! Even the little ones! We have been lucky enough to have the Leprechauns visit us every year and leave a small bit of their stash for the boys. The leprechauns are not smart enough to know when the come they leave a trail of clovers all over the house that the boys can find in the morning to search for their stash that was left. This year the leprechauns did not leave the trail very well and the boys thought they forgot. Well they didn't! When the boys thought they had forgotten they made this little home for the leprechauns, just in case they might stop by that night. The little home was made with a green bed, green snacks, and a green something to play with! Jaxon even wrote a note for them to let them know it was harmless and he wouldn't take a picture of them or anything if they would just stay one night so they could see them!

Spring Break!

Wow the time flies! After a crazy year we needed to get away! So we took off to the ever so warm St. George! It was a perfect weekend! We wanted to get away the last weekend we could before soccer and baseball start up. I love the outdoors so Gregg made me happy and we took off to Zions! The boys have not been there and I love it there. It is so beautiful and humbling to realize just how insignificant our lives are and how big the world is! The cliffs are just amazing. We were telling the boys about Angels Landing and they couldn't wait to hike it! NOT SO FAST! I had horrible visions of taking Zeke up there and him running away and plummeting down! YIKES. So I said when they were older. I have never been to Zions when there was so much water. We hiked Emerald pools (and forgot the camera!) and it was beautiful. But Gregg actually took my advice and we went the way I thought would be best with Zeke and the jogger....um no! So needless to say I had to carry Zeke the rest of the way while Gregg hiked the opposite way to pick the jogger back up. He missed the beautiful falls and pools. It was actually hot there (upper 70's or 80's) and the boys enjoyed getting wet on the falls and pools! Jaxon wouldn't listen to me when I said not to take off his shoes and socks and get in the upper pools. Needless to say 8 year olds know so much more than moms! He did and after the first step he slipped and fell on his butt! He was drenched! Weeping Rock was really flowing too! Again the boys got drenched. But we all had a blast! So beautiful!