Summer Project

Each year I get a 7-week summer break from my byuI teaching gig. It goes by so fast! Last year I had so many great plans of what I would do during my break, but after two family reunions and a dealing with hundreds of pears from our giant pear tree, I felt like I accomplished nothing. So this year was going to be different. I was planning to use the break to get a major project done - fixing up our 2 upstairs bedrooms.

The initial plan was to take down the super-ugly, super-outdated, asbestos-covered popcorn ceilings in both rooms. Which meant that we would obviously retexture and paint the new ceilings and we figured while we were at it we should paint the walls as well. So ceiling and walls were it. No biggie, right? (Well, for us any house project is big . . . ) I finished grading my finals on a Friday night and we started the project the next day.

First lesson learned - the prep work is just about as time consuming as the actual project. I watched hours of youtube videos (remember, we're clueless) and made way too many trips to the hardware store (only to find out I would at least double the amount of trips I had already made).

My plan for the first day :

• drop the kids off at Nana's (bless her) 
• remove the furniture from the bedrooms
• scrape off the popcorn ceiling
• re-texture both ceilings
• and maybe if we were lucky we would get a primer coat of paint up

Oh how foolish I was! We did manage to scrape off all the popcorn ceiling (that part really wasn't too bad - just really messy). But youtube failed me in the method we chose to retexture so we ended up back at the hardware store buying what we needed to actually make it work. In case you've never textured a ceiling before, it takes FOREVER.

Below are 2 "before" pictures of Savannah's room (literally taken moments before the popcorn started coming down). Notice the sparkles in the ceiling? We were so lucky that our popcorn ceiling had GLITTER painted onto it. They were in the shapes of little stars and squares. The 70's really were awesome.

Her walls were white-ish (more white/yellowish). The green is a reflection
of the trees outside the window.

 The below 2 pictures are the sort-of before. I don't know what the previous owners were hanging on the wall, but they did a horrible job patching the holes, so this was my attempt to make the wall look better. This was all part of the prep-work leading up to the popcorn removal day.

I'm not sure you can call the purple an "accent" wall, but I guess that's what it is. It did not complement the light blue in any way. Sometimes I wonder if they ran out of blue paint and this was all they had left? And the gold trim around the closet doors is priceless.

Removing the popcorn meant moving out ALL furniture. This is what my front room looked like (we organized it better later that night, but pretty sure the king sized bed was in my front room for a solid week - along with a lot of other stuff that didn't belong).

More prep-work leading up to the popcorn removal. We had to tape the plastic to the walls so it would catch all the nasties.

 Husband spraying water on the popcorn. You let it soak for 15-ish minutes and then it scrapes right off. Magic!

Our game-faces (that you can't see because of the masks). Fingers crossed that the masks actually worked and we don't die of asbestos-caused cancer. Also, if you're not laughing yet that Dan had to tape his mask to his face, you may laugh now. Apparently it was fogging up his glasses without it and he's out of contacts or something.

I had every intention of taking more pictures throughout the entire process, but things got busy and that didn't happen. The below picture shows the ceiling without the popcorn (hooray!) and the upper right corner shows some of the texturing.

As the project continued we kept looking at the NASTY carpet and finally decided if we were going to all the trouble to repaint everything we should really just replace the carpet while we were at it. Which meant in the middle of working on this huge project I had to pick new carpet and get the installation and everything setup.

As carpet day drew nearer we kept looking at the UGLY baseboards and finally convinced ourselves that if we were repainting everything AND getting new carpet we should really replace the baseboards as well. A good friend took a couple hours out of his Saturday to teach Dan how to install new baseboards (bless him) and after pushing the carpet guys back a couple more days we were finally ready!

Oh wait - I almost forgot the night Dan spent driving screws into the squeaky floor boards so they wouldn't squak so much. He only had time for Savannah's room and it actually helped!

The kids rolled around on the new carpet before I even had a chance to vacuum
(or take off their shoes!). They loved it. Notice the classy baseboard as well.

The pile of home depot receipts. This picture doesn't do it justice.

The After picture! The walls are officially "Cobalt Blue" but it's kind of a sea green/blueish color. I LOVE it.

 Oh, we also installed a ceiling fan in each room. The actual ceiling fan wasn't a huge deal, but getting the correct support box installed was quite the ordeal.  Someday I will be brave to put holes in the wall and hang up pictures. But for now I'm enjoying the beautiful paint. And carpet. And baseboards. And ceiling. AND updated outlets/light switches (they were the old yellow-ish ugly kind. I only shocked myself twice replacing them.)

Our room is Repose Gray. We like it so much that we might just end up using it in our kitchen too (if I can get up the nerve to start another project!)

No more accent wall! Hoorah! I still need to repaint the closet doors and we're planning to fix up the bedroom doors so they look new and improved as well. Ran out of time.

Ending the post with cute pics of the munchkins. We have a million pears again so of course we made pear pie. In true Ditto fashion, Owen begged for pie for breakfast and proceeded to eat with his hands because a fork took too long.

Batman jammies courtesy of cuzin Erika! This is one of the last of Lydia's outfits that Savannah fits in. Sigh. Aunt Linz would be proud of the batman!

Found this dress at a yard sale. Can someone make it in my size? She made it through church without a stain - it's a Christmas miracle!

1st Grade

I stopped for a minute this morning to think about all the students heading to a new year of school and immediately thought of Lydia. She would have been my little first grader this year. Growing up and going to school all day. I imagined what our morning would have been like: her excitement waking her up super early, a new outfit that had been spread out the night before, and her favorite breakfast (maybe pancakes?) Owen and Savannah would have been watching on with wide eyes and I'm positive Owen would be sad for his best bud to be gone all day. I imagine fresh-baked cookies out of the oven to welcome her home and her talking non-stop about her fun day.

Instead, our day is really not any different from yesterday, or the day before that. Without children in school there isn't much fanfare at this time of year. But that's ok. We are all healthy and happy and have so much to be grateful for.

Speaking of Lydia, we celebrated her 6th birthday in July. On her first birthday, when it was just Dan and I in St. Louis we ordered one of those butterfly kits where they send you some caterpillars and you get to watch them go from caterpillar to butterfly. We knew we wanted to do it again but wanted to wait until the kids would be old enough to appreciate it. So this year we started a new tradition. A couple of weeks before her birthday I ordered the caterpillars. It was super fun for the kids to watch them move around and turn into cocoons and eventually butterflies. I tried to time it right so we could release the butterflies on her birthday, but we were a few days early.

Also, each year we do some type of service project on her birthday. This year we decided to drop off a bunch of treats at the NICU for the NICU parents. Dropping everything off was a quiet affair as I just left everything in the lounge, but it was definitely crazy to be back. Crazy as in, the sights and sounds and smells may have set off some hidden PTSD and I had to take a couple of deep breaths. Let's just say that I would be perfectly fine if I never had to step foot in the NICU again.

After the NICU drop-off, we headed down to Thanksgiving Point and took the kids to the Curiosity Museum. We've heard amazing things about that place and we thought Lydia would more than approve of using her birthday as an excuse to do something special with the kids. They LOVED it and it made me wish we lived closer so we could get a pass and go all the time.

We ended the day by blowing out some candles on some cupcakes we bought (I didn't want to make an entire batch of cupcakes for the 4 of us, so store-bought for the win!) It was a fun day and it's nice that Owen is getting old enough now to understand at least a little of what we tell him about Lydia. Sure do love that girl!

The nasty caterpillars. Of the 6 they sent us only 3 made it to butterfly state.

Owen (and Buzz) about to release the butterflies. Savannah
was happy but her face didn't show it.

One of the notes I left in the NICU lounge

A cool treat for the NICU parents

The coolest "museum" ever

She's sitting in a water table. Can someone build me one of these for my house?

Our little engineer.

It was way too hot to play on the cool museum playground. Good thing she likes rocks!

We even had a chance to meet up with my old roommate from
college. Jaime the gymnast!

Owen's boot. Owen's shoe. Favorite tutu. Doll. She is awesome.

A Really Long Post

The last few months in no particular order . . . 

The Jordan River Temple was renovated so we were excited to take the kids and Owen was stoked that he would be able to "go inside" the temple. It was a random super hot spring day, and we waited TWO hours in line before finally making it inside. Have you ever waited for anything for TWO hours with young kids? Not.fun. We had tickets and we'd heard the line moved fast so I didn't even come prepared with my diaper bag (food & toys). It was bad and in hind sight we should have just left. But I wanted the kids to see the temple so we persevered. I found a random package of peanuts in my purse which was my saving grace. As we neared the entrance we were in those big white tents you see behind us. This got us out of the sun, which was great, but it also made it tricky for a 3-year-old to recognize the point where we left the tents and entered the temple, so in his mind he never even went inside the temple. He was so crazy by the time we made it in (and starving - did I mention it was past their dinner time?) that we saw everything at a speed walk. And Owen may or may not have run under the "do not cross" line into the women's dressing room, which meant I got separated from Dan & Savannah when I went chasing after him so we didn't even get to see the temple together. Chalk it up for a good story!

"WE MADE IT THROUGH ALIVE!"

The power was out for several hours which meant I couldn't make dinner. This is Owen's first happy meal (poor, deprived Owen). He couldn't believe he got a toy along with the food. Score!

 Owen attended a little music class each week last year. They put on a little program which was HIGHLY entertaining watching these 2-4 year olds sing in front of their parents. Good times.

Smiling with her eyes. :) 

A friend hooked us up with her kids old Halloween costumes so Owen wore this around for a couple of days. Too cute! Also, he looks a ton like his Grandma LuAnn in this picture (at least I think so).

Savannah the shy one. When she gets around someone she doesn't know (or doesn't want to know) she shrugs one shoulder and looks down. One time she even went and stood in a corner to get away from someone who was trying to talk to her. I don't know where she gets it from! ;)

My 3 year old still takes 2-3 hour naps every day. It is heaven for everyone!

Dan's angel grandma passed away at her home in Las Vegas just shy of 98-years-old. We headed down a day early for the funeral and had some fun. It was so great to look over the congregation at her funeral and see her large posterity. She was a woman of incredible faith who managed to find joy in life even after losing 2 young children. We already miss her!

Of course we managed to find a Chocolate factory (or "chocrate" if Owen is pronouncing it).

We're getting in as much time as possible with Uncle Josh because he's heading out on a mission to Mexico in a few months!

We found a cool aquarium in one of the hotels (not on the strip - I didn't dare get even close to the strip with the kids). Savannah could have watched the fish all day.

We got Owen some headphones before the trip and they were a huge win. He looks like a mini teenager watching a show with his headphones on.

Savannah won't keep headbands on anymore and she doesn't have enough hair for a bow, so she is in an awkward stage right now. Bless her heart. This was one of those rare moments where she left the headband on for a few minutes so I had to document it.

Yes, she still climbs everything. All.the.time.

We LOVED our little trip up to This is the Place park - animals, trains, cannons - a boys dream come true!

To "celebrate" 10 years of Lindsey leaving me, we headed up the mountain for a hike and dipping dogs (roasting hot dogs). It was fun but super depressing all at the same time. 10 years is way too long and I don't even want to think about how many more  years we still have. Sigh. Savannah was in HEAVEN up there. We need to get this girl camping asap!

Linz loved wearing bandannas, so we made sure the grandkids had them on for the picture.

This was my breakfast-in-bed crew on Mother's day. Too cute!

Savannah watched Owen ride this once and 5 minutes later had it figured out. She's too little to be riding a scooter! But if you're going to ride a scooter, may as well do it in a tutu!

Celebrating the end of joy school with a little party. Nothing says "hello summer" like wet kids on a trampoline. Also, I kind of love this picture.

Memorial day meant another family reunion down at Zion National Park. Savannah loved (you guessed it) climbing the stairs and Owen was too busy playing with cousins to pause for a picture.

 Have you heard of 9 square? If you haven't, go play it. Right now. We played for hours and only stopped because it was too dark to see the ball. So.fun.

Owen's first swim lesson. Keeping Savannah out of the water during those 30 minute lessons was a huge accomplishment!

Nursery day for Savannah was not nearly as exciting as it was for Owen. He went into nursery like a champ. Saw all the toys and didn't look back once. But shy Savannah of course was NOT ok without mom. Owen is still in nursery (crazy that I have two kids in nursery!) and even he couldn't make her smile. BUT she actually did better than I thought she would and each week we make more progress, so I'll take it. At least she's super cute!

Dan took a day off work so we could all go to the zoo. We don't have any "big" vacations this summer, so we're doing lots of smaller things around home. Here's the classic drinking fountain picture from Hogle Zoo.

Savannah making a mess. I know this doesn't look too bad, but those are wet wipes, not toilet paper. The little stinker.

The only picture I snagged on Father's day was after church and naps. I promise Owen's hair was combed at one point.

I don't know why, but I love this picture. Owen still sitting at the table trying to get him to finish his meal while Savannah reads a book close by. Classic every-day stuff at our house.

This is what your kid looks like when she gets a SUPER bad case of hand foot and mouth disease. Poor thing. This was day 1 before the rash. We had Dan's work Lagoon day the next day (along with a whole bunch of fun stuff that weekend that we had to cancel). Aunt Mary was the best and took care of Savannah for a few hours while the rest of us rode roller coasters at Lagoon. But since Owen came down with it 2 days later I'm pretty sure we infected the entire amusement park. Oops!

Owen was a champ and rode all the rides he was tall enough for.

When your super nice neighbor who owns Dairy Queen hears that your kids have the dreaded disease and opens it on a Sunday to bring them nice cool treats. Pretty sure it was the only thing both kids ate that day. We have the best neighbors!

Here is Savannah, 7 days later and the rash is still going strong. Her legs were MUCH improved by this day, but obviously we still couldn't take the kids anywhere. Did I mention this was the 4th? Yep, no parades or barbecues or anything. I've spent TEN days stuck in my house now. I deserve a trip to Hawaii.