I'm going there someday!

Bryan and I were talking the other night, discussing childhood memories, and it was pointed out that some memories that we make as children stay with us for the rest of our lives. I want my children to remember important things. Not just sitting at home watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or chalking on the back porch. So, I've decided that in a few years (like 2 or 3) I'm going to plan a family road trip. We are going to make two stops. First, to the most important place, and a place that I have very vivid childhood memories of...

I want to take my family to Temple Square in Salt Lake. I remember going there when I was little, during the winter months. They had all the trees light up, there was snow on the ground, and it was SO beautiful! I remember walking with my mom and dad and being amazed at how gorgeous the temple was. I want Michelle and our new baby to have those same memories!

I also have pretty magical memories about this place...

When I was young we lived pretty close to Disneyland. We got to go there pretty often and, while I don't remember exactly how old I was, I do remember having a BLAST on the tea cups! And running to the Dumbo ride as soon as it came into sight. And, even though I think it's pretty annoying now, I remember LOVING It's a Small World. So I must have been young enough to be able to ride those rides without having to worry about "Am I too tall or too old for this ride?" I know the most recent time I went I was no longer allowed to ride Dumbo unless I was the adult escorting a child on the ride. Michelle is just the right age now that she is old enough to know who Pooh and Mickey are, and she loves them. Lol! She even gives them hugs while they are on the TV. If we lived closer we might schedule a trip sooner, just so she could go and experience those things now. But, we aren't close, and we have a baby on the way. Plus, Michelle will still be excited abut Disney things when she is 5 and at that point she might even be old enough to remember some of it!

So I'm thinking we'll schedule a road trip to go to both of these places sometime around 2015. That way Michelle will be old enough, but not too old, and her little sister/brother (we find out Tuesday!!!) will be just old enough to be excited about it too. Let the count down begin!

Supervised V.S. Not

The past few days, when it's not raining, have been really nice outside. SO Michelle and I usually spend the majority of our afternoons outside chalking, chasing Jack, "digging" the grass, and going on walks. Michelle has gotten into a little bit of a bossy mood lately and, instead of drawing things herself, she'll tell me what to draw, and in what color to do it. The results turn out looking something like this:

Right now she's obsessed with "party hats" and "birthday balloons" thus the girl with a pointy hat and the multi-colored balloons! She is also really good at her shapes (circle, square, triangle, diamond, heart, star, and she's still learning rectangle) and has known her colors for a while now (everything from red, blue, yellow, to purple, pink, gold, and silver).

These past few days, as well as being beautiful days, have also been pretty stressful for me. I'm giving a talk on Sunday and didn't have a whole lot of notice to prepare this talk. So, unfortunately, many or our mornings have consisted of me turning on Mickey Mouse, or a movie for Michelle while I sit at the computer and try to focus on things like general conference talks, personal stories, and scripture meanings. Don't get me wrong- I love reading and studying them, but I just wish I didn't feel so hurried to do it. I feel, very much, like a horrible mom for using the TV as a babysitter while I work. The other day I turned around to check on Michelle and found that she wasn't in the living room with me. I figured she must have gotten bored with TV and moved on to her room to play. When I went into her room this is what I found:

She loaded up her crib with every doll/stuffed animal she could find, and all of her books, and balls! I guess that's what I get for not supervising my little girl!

P.S.- Isn't she too cute?! I honestly couldn't be mad at her after seeing how funny she thought it was!

Simple Kitchen Wall

So I decided to tackle my kitchen wall. I had big plans for a big clock on that wall. Here's the idea of what the plan was...

I found this idea off of someone else's blog and pretty much loved it. But it's a really bold thing to do. And I'm not sure I'm ready to decorate like that. I wanted to replace the art work with family photos so it would be kinda like a picture wall. I might end up doing it at some point in the future. For now though...I think the idea is really neat. If anyone out there is brave enough to do it pleas post pics! I would LOVE to see how it turns out!

So I stuck with my usual type of decorating instead and kept it simple. Here's how it turned out:

Not nearly as cool, but it's functional and has the family photos that I wanted. And it's something that feels "safe" to me. Plus it was super easy to do! lol!

I still need to print out a "Menu" to go on the cork board. I'm also going to find some decorative things to hang on the coat hooks. Next month I would put some sort of Birthday-crafty-thing since it's Michelle's Birthday Month. Then for July I would go patriotic, August would be all about Summer and Swimming, and so on. I just haven't gotten quite that far yet.

So there is it! My super simple, but totally "my style" kitchen wall.

Michelle's Mind

Michelle was playing in her kitchen (making a hamburger) and watching jungle junction (a show about these animal cars who are trying to fix the road that they "zip" on) when she came running up to me and, in a very excited voice, said,

"Mommy, I like.. I like Happy Birthday's!"

Mommy replies, "Oh, yeah?"

Michelle continues, "YEAH! And I like.. Mommy, I like Party Hats!!" followed by clapping and "jumping".

Mommy also claps and says "I like that too!"

To which Michelle says, "Yeah. I need sucker. I have a purple one?"

Lol! I think she get's her thought process from her daddy. Sometimes I just can't follow her jumps from one topic to the next! lol!

Painting

Project time is back in swing! Remember this hallway?

Yep, my bowling ally/mental hospital, hallway...

Well, Bryan and I decided that this weekend was going to be a great weekend to start the "fix the hallway" or "put in some chair rail" or "hang a gallery wall" project. We have a few names for it ;)!

We decided to go ahead and bring the color that is already in the living room and kitchen and carry it through into the hall. So we took a sample of the paint into Lowe's and had them match it. It turns out the color is called Belgian Waffle. Lol! My walls are the color of a fluffy, buttery, breakfast food! But it was either continue with this color or repaint the whole house.... So Belgian Waffle it was!

Then we needed to find a good color to match it to go on the bottom 1/3 of the wall. I think it looks nicer to have two colors with the chair rail between them. We tried a few different variations of the Belgian Waffle color and pretty much hated them all. So we decided to go with something neutral that would go well with both the current color and the color I would have liked to paint if we didn't have to paint the whole house. (Did that make any sense?) Anyway, we decided to go with a brown color. We tried a few light browns and didn't like the way those looked with the current color. We ended up with Chocolate Turtle. Again, my wall is the color of a food! lol! At least this time it's a yummy desert type of food!

Allrighty, so we picked out our paints, got a few supplies (rollers, tape, nail hole filler, etc.) and went to work... kinda! We had A LOT of prep work to do. Saturday afternoon we measured, marked, and leveled a pencil line all the way down the hall and in all the nooks and crannies. This would mark where the chair rail would go. Then we had to take a break to go to Bryan's mom's house for a game night. I have to admit it was a welcome break from all the leveling and marking and then erasing and re-measuring and re-marking. Which, by the way, is not easy to do when you only have two pencils and no pencil sharpener! So that was our Saturday. Sunday came and was full of taping and Belgian Waffle paint. I'm not 100% sure why, maybe it had something to do with the weird teeny tiny corners,

Or maybe it was all the "fixtures" that needed to be covered or taken down,

or maybe it has something to do with the fact that our walls are forever long and a little over 10 feet high and I'm only 5'2"! But for whatever reason it took us all day to paint just the top half! We took a break around 5:30 to go to my mom and dad's for dinner and a visit. It was also a much needed break!

When we got home Bryan quickly gave Michelle a bath while I touched up a few spots that didn't get quite enough paint. Then we read scriptures, said prayers and said night-night to Michelle. While Michelle slept Bryan and I spent the rest of the night painting the bottom half of the hall. It took literally all night! I think, with clean up, it took up till about 11:45 or 12:00 to finish.

This is how it turned out...

What do you think? I'm pretty sure I'm the worst color picker EVER! lo! But it is what it is and we can always paint over it later. I really like the bottom color. I'm just not too crazy about the way it looks with the top color. Maybe once we get the actual chair rail (instead of just the white line), and some pictures hung I won't hate it as much. Hate is a strong word... maybe I won't dislike it as much. And the next time we paint (which will be to repaint the whole house and cover up the Belgian Waffle color) I'm probably going to bring Jess or Mom with me so they can pick the new color. lol!

I just realized that I kept saying I was finished painting. I'm not. After we took the tape down we noticed that the dark brown was really good at getting under the tape. So we have a lot of this (see below) to clean up still.
I think I'll stick to simple projects for a little while. The chair rail might have to wait a week or two.

Congrats Bryan!

Congratulations Babe! For the past few years Bryan has been juggling School, a Full Time Job, Daddy Duty, Husband Responsibilities- I mean Privileges, and more recently Home Ownership Projects and Maintenances. Needless to say, he's had a lot on his plate. I am so proud of him for getting his associates last year! He worked so hard for it and graduated with mostly A's and B's!

This past weekend we got the letter in the mail accepting Bryan to UNT!

I know it's been a long road babe, only taking two or three classes at a time, but I am SO proud of you! You are an amazing husband and an awesome daddy! I'm so excited for you to start these next two years towards your BA! And I'm even more excited that you are going to a school that has...

SPORTS!!!! I can't wait to go to a game and actually have a college school to root for!

Congratulations again! I'm so excited for you!

Names

I am SO glad I'm only 18 weeks along! Bryan and I still have so much to get done before this baby gets here! I have the room cleaned out and ready for new baby furniture, but no furniture to put into it! I also have all of Michelle's old clothes saved and stored so I can reuse them. However, I didn't organize them very well, so the clothes I'm going to need first are in the back and on the bottom of the boxes that we have stored. To be honest though I'm not really stressed about any of that stuff right now. I know I have a ton of time to get all of that ready. My main worry?? The name! Bryan and I had Michelle's name picked out and decided on within weeks of finding out we were having a baby. We knew a definite girls name (Michelle Lynne- obviously) and a definite boys name (we're still saving this name for our first boy). This time, however... *sigh* girls names are hard. lol! I REALLY want to keep the names as family names. And I would love it if one name came from my side and one name came from his side. I know a lot of people have told me that this is a silly way to pick a name and that I'm limiting myself too much, but I just really love the idea of having the name be 1/2 me and 1/2 Bryan, just like our baby will be! Bryan doesn't feel as strongly about this though... So the names we've cycled through and through again are:

Tina- My aunt who I love and can't wait to see again in heaven some day!

Jennifer- Bryan's cousin who we both adore!

Megan- Bryan swears he has a cousin named Megan somewhere... we were obviously getting desperate for options.

Rachel- Not family at all, but my two best friends growing up were both named Rachel.

Kaylen or Kahlen- A name we liked, but had no relation to other then the fact that the second spelling was the name of a character out of one of Bryan's books.

Alexis- ... just a name we liked... mainly so we could call her Alex.

Kristen- again, just a name we liked.

So we go back and forth through these names trying to add second names to them- which is a whole other issue! And then occasionally add a name or take one off the list. And by "occasionally" I mean at least once a day. The way we are going I honestly don't think we'll have a name picked out before she gets here! lol! OH, and that's the other thing. As of 12 weeks the sonographer said my baby looked like a girl, but we really don't even know for sure yet! If it turns out to be a boy then this whole name issue is instantly solved! "Yeah!" But it starts a whole new issue of- Everything we have is pink! lol! We'll just have to wait and see what our big issue is going to be! I find out for sure on May 31! I CAN NOT WAIT!

Working Together

One project down and only fifty-thousand more to go! lol! Well, we bought an official desk. We threw away our old apartment desk when we moved. For a long time were have been using a folding table as a desk, and quickly decided that we needed to upgrade! So Bryan and I did a little looking around, found a desk we liked about brought it home! Like a champ Bryan got started putting it together right away! And this time he had a little help:

After careful inspection Michelle was ready to jump in and help in any way she could!

Michelle went back and tightened all of the screws that daddy forgot to tighten!

She's such a hard worker!

She even helped read the instructions! If you look closely you'll see she is a very talented reader! She can read upside-down!

She was a great assistant! It took a few tries, but eventually she handed Bryan the tool he needed! ;)

After that it was pretty much just play time!

Gold Stars all around! Good work team!

Obama Speech

This is his speech, addressing America, about Osama bin Laden's death. A lot of people have been commenting on Obama's remarks here. I have read countless comments about Obama taking credit for Osama's death. Let me first be VERY clear- I'm not an Obama fan. He was definitely not my first choice as president. However, I'm having a hard time seeing what everyone is talking about. I didn't hear the part where he says "I did it! It was me! Yeah me!" lol! While he does use the word "I" a lot at the beginning, he is the commander in chief. He did do all the things he says he did. I don't think that was him trying to take undue credit, it was just the process that always happens. No matter who the president is. And, personally, I think he credits our military advisors and service men very well. Do I think this is an "Obama victory"? No, and he says, in this very speech, that it's more then that and even more then an American one. Maybe I'm way off base here... what do you think?