September Shenanigans

Most of September was just a bunch of random happenings. We have months like that, and it's perfectly okay with me.

{...FASHION SENSE...}

Eric's mom was at Costco one day before we had gone school shopping and saw a cute outfit that she just had to get Ailey. So when I actually had Ailey wear it I had to take a picture. This outfit also came with a grey jacket thing with yellow flowers on it, but it was way too hot this day to put it on as well.

{...JUST DANCE...}

We were watching one of Ailey's best friends while his mom was at the dr. These two decided to play Just Dance and it was hilarious to watch. The song they chose has got to be one of the most difficult dances on the game, but it's also one of the most fun ones. (Sorry for Shaylyn's chatter during the video - she must not have realized I was recording)

{...REPLACEMENT...}

I happened to notice one day that the freezer wasn't freezing things anymore. I mentioned it to Eric as it had happened before and he was able to fix it. When he got home from work he went about trying to fix it the same way, but decided it was a lost cause. 

We took a trip to Best Buy as that was the best payment plan we could find and took a look at what they had. We made our choice, but it was goint to take a week and half to be delivered. That was a crazy long time to go without refrigeration, but we managed using coolers and a lot of boxed and canned foods.

It was almost like Christmas Day for me when my new fridge arrived.

{...Out with the old...}

{...In with the new...}

{...LITTLE DANCING FEET...}

I finally got around to getting Ailey into a dance class. I chose to go with a tumbling, tap and ballet combo class as she's never had any dance before. I thought for sure she'd be all eager to go, but she wasn't nearly as thrilled as she'd led me to believe she'd be whenever she talked about dancing before. Either way, we got her to go and she actually did enjoy herself.

{...CUTE KIDS...}

Jace loves being outside and when he figured out he could play in the backyard, he spent a lot of time there. One day I decided to go sit out there while he played. Ailey joined in a little later and these two just looked so cute that I started taking some pictures. I was super happy with some moments I just happened across.

{...He was giving kisses...}

{...MAKE ROOM DADDY...}

For the most part, Jace and Ailey get along really well. However, they are also both prone to jealousy when mom or dad is holding one and not the other. This almost happened one night with Daddy, but thankfully Daddy has long arms and long legs. The perfect amount of space for 2 little bodies.

{...SILLY DOG...}

There are moments as owners of dogs that make you laugh out loud. This was one such sight. I don't know why our dogs are so attached to soft things...

(...JUST CHILLIN'...}

My older sister sent my little sister and I a text one day with a photo of her daughter in the dryer and with the caption, "I have to get this one out of the dryer." 

My little sister responded with a photo of her 2 year old literally hanging on the bar in the car like a monkey while waiting to get his sister from Kindergarten. She replied with "Haha! Do you need us to buy some towels so you don't have to dry her? Then we have monkey boy over here..."

I quickly snapped this photo of Jace and said, "Don't know why you two are having issues, mine is being an angel."

{...2 YEAR OLD TWINS...}

So I was watching my friends boys again while she had a dr. appt. Jace and her kid are only 4 months apart or so and it gives me a pretty good idea of what having 2 year old twin boys would be like. I'm grateful the Lord never blessed me with twins. I might really be crazy. These two monkeys were having the funnest time peeking through the blinds at absolutely nothing...They are fun, but a lot of work.

What Happens Next...

Teach 'em Young

There are jobs in the world that no one really wants to do and so it doesn't get done for awhile. Pooper scoopin' would be one of those jobs.

Enter Spring Break with a bored child who wanted to be outside. And perhaps a father mentioning that the kids needed to do the pooper scooping. Maybe Shaylyn just got sick of it, I don't know - but she started doing it and because Jace loves being outside he was out there as well.

Before too long I saw this sight out the window:

Jace thought he would be a big kid and help clean up the yard. He's such a helpful little guy. Let's hope he stays that way. 

What Happens Next...

New Floors!

When we bought our house, we had linoleum floors put in for the kitchen, bathrooms and front entry way. It was okay, but it definitely showed every mess on the floor and after so long it started to have a few issues.

One of the main issues was a part of it was literally starting to tear up and pull away from the floor. It became a safety issue and we decided that what we needed to do with part (or most of) our tax refund was fix the flooring.

We definitely didn't want ot do linoleum again, and we both love the look of wood floors. As soon as we had thought about redoing the floor (even before the tear became a huge issue), we had gone and got some samples from The Home Depot. We had both decided we liked a darker wood look and it contrasted well with our light wood cabinets.

Well when it came time to look at getting the floor installed, Lowe's was doing an installation sale, so we looked into Lowe's. They didn't have the exact floor we had loved at The Home Depot but they had a floor we almost liked even better, so we got the process started.

Holy cow, working with Lowe's was a freaking joke. Almost like the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing. It started out all right and the guy got us all set up for a guy to come out later in the week to do measurements. That guy came and did his job and we figured we'd hear back from Lowe's the next day. We never heard a word. So Eric calls the next day and there is no one in flooring - so Eric gets transferred (or asks) to a manager. The manager gets a hold of someone in flooring, but they don't have a clue whats going on. They had to wait for someone else to get off lunch or something to get the info. Eventually we get told we just need to come into the store to sign off on the install and we could get going.

So we head to the store when we're in the vicinity and sign and get a date for the install. Eric gets called the next day and gets told we needed to buy the supplies and have them in the house for 3 days before we can get it installed. Why in the heck didn't the sales guy tell us the day before? So we're back to Lowe's buying all the supplies.

The install happens without complaint. The guy who does it is a nice guy and really works fairly fast and we absolutely end up loving our floors. But we soon discover that when Lowe's originally billed us for the work, they added like a $200 cost for pulling carpets. The guy who did our floors didn't have to pull any carpet. Eric went about seeing about a refund for that cost and thankfully they DID give it to us.

Moral of the story - Lowe's needs to get their act together, but my floors are awesome!

BEFORE:
(Wish I would've thought to take a picture of the part of the floor that was tearing up)

AFTER:

What Happens Next...

The Tables Have Turned

I think we can all agree that between Eric and I, I am the more crafty and slightly more creative one than he is. Well, the tables have finally turned on us. I've been feeling super UNCRAFTY lately, or maybe it's just lazy - whichever. But he found a project and I was afraid it'd be left unfinished for a long time, but he surprised me...

When we first bought this house about 7 years ago, Eric told me that he wanted a pool table someday. I kind of laughed it off and asked him where he was going to put it and he figured the basement was a good place. I didn't necessarily agree and had my own plans. Let's just say it's a good thing pool tables are so expensive. I hadn't really given it more thought, and Eric would only bring it up occasionally.

Then a few months ago, his good friend, Anthony bought a pool table for his basement and Eric's been over there quite a bit shooting some pool. It's something he's always enjoyed, we just never had the funds for it and if we did, there were other things that needed our attention first.

Well this tax return Eric decided enough was enough and he was going to get his own pool table. I wasn't thrilled with the idea, but this house is every much Eric's as it is mine and as of now that basement is serving no real purpose other than storing junk.

Eric was going back and forth on buying a cheap table from somewhere like Walmart or looking at pool tables for sale on KSL. One day he found a listing for an 8 foot, slate pool table for only $100. He was anxious and went to look at it that day. He decided that he was going to buy it. The couple selling it had moved into a house and the previous owners had just left it. The current owners wanted nothing to do with it and wanted it out of their basement, thus the great price.

Eric's plan was going to be to go on the Saturday after he looked at it, but then because he was so anxious and the weather was supposed to be crappy on Saturday, he went and got it on a Wednesday night. He brought it home in pieces and I was afraid it would sit in pieces for months.

Eric was super anxious to have his table though and did the bits and pieces that he could when he could. He did build the frame back up the night he bought it, but the following Saturday he went to the hardware store and bought some supplies. He redid the ball return system using rain gutters. Seriously, brilliant idea. He then had to wait for his corners, corner tops, and felt.

...Corners it came with. Plastic and Eric said they were cracking...

They all came within a day of each other and Eric wasted no time getting busy.  He did have to wait sometimes for a bit of extra man power, but I think he's completed this table within 3 weeks. He did run into a problem where his top corners, weren't the same size as the previous corners, so he then had to get creative again and figure out that issue.

...Eric's new corners and sides...

...The problem: Eric's new tops weren't quite as wide as the originals...

His solution was to put leather underneath it and I wasn't so sure how that would work out. We went to a leather store kind of thinking you could buy it by the yard, like fabric, but were super surprised to find out you buy the whole roll kind of thing. The leather we were looking at at that time, $220! We found the cheaper leather, probably deer, and bought that roll for $40. Eric then figured he could dye the leather and he'd get the look he was hoping for. It worked out pretty well, although the gloss cover made it a little more red than anticipated, but it's not bad.

...Dying the leather with some helpers...

...The finished corners...

Last night he finally completed everything and I am not sad to have a pool table in the house. I need to work on my form and shot, but it'll be a fun thing to have around. And I am super proud of my hubby for using his creative side and putting something like this back together, mostly by himself. He does have one thing left to do and that's to replace the pockets, but that's and easy and quick fix. He's just got to order the parts and do the waiting game again.

And just so you all know, Eric did end up sparking that creative flair in me again and because the leather store was close to a wood craft store, I got me a few little projects I'll be working on in the upcoming weeks. YAY!!!

What Happens Next...

Don't You Wish Your Neighbors Were Cool Like Mine?

Eric leaves fairly early in the morning. Most of the time when he leaves he's only been awake for about 30 minutes. So yeah, he pretty much misses anything except for the car. Okay, it's also like pitch black when he leaves.

The kids were out of school, so no one went outside for quite sometime. Then about noonish time someone finally goes outside. They come running in almost screaming for me to look outside, so I look at see this:

We were vandalized in the best possible way. Still not sure who the culprits are, but I was thrilled. I am absolutely in love with the lollipops. The kids were thrilled with the candy cane wreath on the door. The snowflakes were another addition along with the angel garland that you can barely see in front of the window. (Ignore the ladder that someone ::cough, cough:: Eric ::cough,cough:: forgot to put away)

I'm so thankful for these people and don't even know who they are. Plus the fact that they did this in the night, during December...Wow...Love it!

What Happens Next...

Deck The Halls, Fa La La La La

With Thanksgiving coming earlier in the year this year we didn't decorate the day after Thanksgiving, or that weekend. It seemed too early to me and besides I wasn't even home! But as the end of November was drawing near I decided we needed some Christmas spirit!

So we decided we'd do it on this Saturday. Well, Eric's cousin had called him the night before and kind of needed to DO SOMETHING, so they went shooting Saturday morning/afternoon. That left me alone with the kids to do the tree. (Eric did put up the tree and house lights before he left)

The first thing I had to do was cut the old lights out of the tree (remember how I said they didn't work and we needed to find new ones). I figured it would take an hour at the most. It took more like 3!!! They really puts those pre-lit tree lights in there to stay!

Eric was surprised when he got home and I was still working on the stupid lights. He asked if I'd like to go to dinner (he knows me all too well) and so I left the decorating up to the kids. I think they lasted all of 10 minutes...

Anyway, here's our decorators and the final product.

...She was so excited that she helped decorate the tree...

What Happens Next...

DUMP FIRE!!!

On June 21st, we start seeing smoke up in them, thar mountains...Turns out there was a MAJOR wildfire going on on the other side of the mountain. Apparently target shooters were shooting lead bullets and sparked a fire that ended up going for, I think at least 5 days.

Something I didn't know: fires are named after the closest landmark or whatever to the fire. Ours was close to a dump...Thus it was called the Dump Fire. BORING!

These are some of the pictures I got that first day and night.

... Backyard - slightly zoomed ...

... Back Yard, no zoom ...

... Backyard, zoomed in ...

... Front Yard, slightly zoomed ...

... Front yard, no zoom ...

... Back yard, slight zoom ...

Thursday I started getting kind of worried because the fire was on our side of the mountain, but it seemed to be still far enough away that we weren't in danger. On Friday they had evacuated people on the other side of the mountains because the wind had shifted so much that it became a danger. I was waiting on pins and needles wondering if we'd be forced out too. And if the wind shifted at all, we would've been.

I contemplated packing up and leaving before we were told to EVACUATE, but after Eric came home from work early, I relaxed. We were lucky and never had to evacuate, but it sure made me realize that I am currently in NO POSITION to evacuate in a matter of minutes.

I realized I really need to organize the important things in my life, so that if it happens again - I am totally ready to pack up and leave. And living so close to these mountains, I realize now just how much of a reality it could be.

Lex was frustrated because we worried that his baptism (taking place Saturday) would have to be rescheduled. Eric was livid because he had plans to go shooting that weekend as well. He's also upset because he's now worried about the restrictions that will be placed on all target shooters because a few idiots keep starting fires...

What Happens Next...