At the Corner of Fourth and Home

I really can't let today pass without mentioning that it was four years ago today that we moved into this house. It has taken almost the entire four years, but I can finally wholeheartedly say that it finally feels like home.  I love  driving down our street into our neighborhood.  I love my house.  I love our friends and our neighbors. I love our sunsets.  I even love living by those noisy cows.

I think I may have failed to mention that, just in time for our fourth anniversary here,  we finally have a livable basement family room.  Carpet, furniture, it's the real deal down there.  But notice that I did not say it was finished.  I only said it was livable.  We have a ton of odds and ends to finish up, including but not limited to:

-a fireplace insert
-blinds on the windows
-a cold air return cove
-trim around the door way
-paint in the hallway
-trim around  the baseboards on the tile
-tile window sills
-door knob
-book shelves
-cabinets and some kind of counter area
-tv and sound system

All things considered, it is a miracle that we have been able to get as far along as we have on the home improvement track.  In four years, we have finished a bathroom, cleaned up a flood, put up a fence, painted, and finished a family room.  Hopefully, in the next four years, we can add a deck, replace some appliances, and remodel the kitchen.

One more year and Olivia will be the same age that Audrey was when we moved. She will also have lived here half her life by then. I would have to live here another 38 years before I could say the same thing.  It's all relative, ain't it?

Meanwhile, other than home improvement, we have been up to some other stuff too.

Audrey's bird has decided to be social.  We used to have two birds, and neither of them liked any of us very much at all. But then a few months back, one bird died.  Then Chance (the surviving bird) decided he better make a new friend, and he chose Audrey.   If you think that birds don't bond to people or have their own personalities, you are sadly mistaken.  This bird will come out of cage and go straight to Audrey.  He nibbles her ears and eyebrows and climbs all over her. If she leaves the room, he flies right behind her.  The rest of us he mostly ignores.  But he does love him some Audrey.

Tuesday night was Will's solo in orchestra.  So we all went to watch him play, and of course he nailed it.   I'm so proud of him for sticking it out with orchestra.  After the concert, of course we hit McDonalds for some grease and caffeine and goofy pictures.

 Olivia may not look too upset in this picture, but she was quite sad that we went to McDonalds.  We didn't  get a chance to eat before the concert, and it went much later than we thought it would, so on the way home, we decided at the last minute to get something fast for dinner.   All Olivia wanted to do was go home and eat the leftover spaghetti that she had been looking forward to all day.  It was such a let down for her to have to get fast food.  Funny, sweet girl.   And never fear.- She got that spaghetti for dinner the next night. 

Debunked

Ten p.m. on a Friday night, and we are hanging around waiting for Dominos to deliver.  Why are we eating so late, you may ask?  Oh, only because we have been busy hauling in TWO FULL TRUCKLOADS of new-to-us furniture into our house!  I love KSL.com.

It all started when we decided to sell the bunkbeds that we have had for the past 17 or so years.  They were used off and on through the years, and have been taking up space in our storage for most of our years in Syracuse.  We hauled them up and put them in Olivia's room a few months ago, and she loved having them, but they were really just too big for her room.  And Olivia and Will both need new mattresses, so we listed the bunkbeds on KSL.  In the process of listing them, I just happened to be browsing through the couch section, and had a brilliant idea to find something affordable to put downstairs for the kids to live on.

Enter fate.

We found a couch, a chair and an ottoman that we were really interested in.  So we went to look, and knew right away we wanted to buy it. The people selling that set also just happened to mention  a sectional they were selling, so we took a peek at that before we left.  It turned out to be only  the most perfect and beautiful sectional in Utah! And an absolute exact fit for our upstairs room.   It was such a good buy I could not pass it up.  Funny how we have spent the past four years looking all over for just the perfect piece, and even wound up buying one that was less than perfect, just because we were so tired of looking. And then, when we aren't even looking, the very thing we were searching for just fell into our laps.  Well, not exactly fell.  It did require quite a bit of heavy lifting, angling, maneuvering, cursing, etc. to get everything into place, but now all of our adopted furniture is home, and we have two cozy, comfy family rooms to enjoy.

As a side note, Olivia is losing no sleep over her new bedless status.   You have never seen a kid more excited to sleep on a mattress on the floor. She is begging for us NOT to get her a new bed.  It is a new adventure in roughing it.
 

Off

Today was one of those weird days where nothing falls into place.  The kids were off school for President's Day, and we had tossed around some ideas of what to do, but hadn't really come up with anything.  Then, everybody slept in til 10:00 this morning.  When we finally got up, all of us got up feeling....weird.  Dead tired, dizzy, and kind of sore all over.  I don't know if it was a virus or what, but it took everybody until about noon to feel much like moving.  I had a bunch of stuff I should have gotten done today, and did none of it, which is going to make for a long rest of the week.  Me and Mitch had a tentative lunch date set up, but he wound up spending hours and hours at the gym, so that never happened.  Will and Audrey  tried to make some plans with friends, but nothing ever materialized out of that either.  We finally decided to go see the second Hobbit movie, after a bunch of  hemming and hawing around, and debating other options.  Olivia was off at  a friend's house for the day though, so we decided to seize the moment and go.

It was a great movie.  So much better than the first one.  I would highly recommend it.

Then, since I hadn't made it to the grocery store, we hit up Chick-Fil-A for dinner, and Mitch met us there. He was also more than happy to accompany us to the frozen yogurt place, which was our family celebration for finishing the Book of Mormon last week.  We were supposed to finish by New Year's, but you know, better late than never.

Wow, this is a really depressing post.  Let me try that again.

Today the kids were off school, and we had no pressing plans, so we got to spend the whole day together, hanging out and being lazy!  We saw an awesome movie, made possible by Olivia's all day playdate at the neighbors!  And then, since we didn't go grocery shopping today, we got to go out to dinner! And Mitch came!  And then we went for frozen yogurt to celebrate our success in family scripture study!  It was a GREAT day off!!

Yep, that's better.

Charting Her Changes

Two happysad milestones today:

I stayed up really late last night, so at nine o'clock this morning, I was laying in bed, just waking up and thinking about how nice it was to just lay there and not have to move for a while.  Then I heard Olivia's door open, and I began to mentally prepare myself for her to come in to my room, like she does almost every morning that she is up before me.   I started to rev myself up to move,  and interact, and get her some breakfast.   I waited for my bedroom door to open and for her come busting in.  And I waited, and waited some more.  And she never came in.  I heard her go out to the family room and start playing with her new Little Ponies she got the night before.

She NEVER came to get me up.  It's probably  not the first time it has happened, but it's the first time I really noticed it.   Nobody got me out of bed this morning. Do you realize what this means? This is life changing.  It's been 24 years since I could stay in bed on the weekends without having to get up and take care of somebody.  It's a little sad.  But mostly amazing and wonderful.

Second, we were cleaning up her room today, and she decided, on her own, to sort through her toys and get rid of some.  She picked up a Barbie, declared it "creepy", and tossed it in to the discard pile.  She did the same thing with all the other Barbies, Barbie clothes, Kens, mermaids, all of it.  Barbie has been removed from her life.

I put all the Barbie paraphernalia  in it's own box and stuck them downstairs.  I'm saving them for my someday granddaughter.  I couldn't bring myself to get rid of them altogether.   This milestone is a little bit sadder for me than the first one.  She is growing up too fast.  However, I am reassured and comforted by the fact that even though she is done with Barbies, the toy she has moved on to is My Little Pony.  There is still lots of little girl left in her, at least for a few more years.

True Loves

This Valentine's Day, I am happy to announce that I have a new man in my life, and I think it might be true love.


  It's My Tax Man!! 

 In special honor of Valentines Day, we had a date with him tonight.  Dan was not too happy about having to spend Valentines Day with me and another guy.  But Dan is not the one that has, in years past, spent endless, painful hours sitting in front of the computer and sweating over depreciation schedules and such.  So he did not get a vote.

  I am just so happy to be able to say that I have a tax man.  I guess he is technically an accountant or something like that, but I just like to call him my tax man.  Yep, I finally broke down and decided to pay a professional to do that income tax thing for me, and while it will go down in family history as one of the priciest Valentine's  Days we ever spent,  I personally feel like a new woman.  I just don't know what I will do with all the free time I will have on my hands for the next month, not having to worry about getting them done. Best Valentines Day EVER!

Since I am NOT doing my taxes this year, I now have time to download all these candid shots of my favorite people from my cell phone.  I have some pretty funny Valentines, wouldn't you say?

We had a bonnet modeling session last summer at the Church History Museum.  I think Will looks especially handsome in yellow.

And Grandpa did have a birthday this year, but we celebrated on a much smaller scale than last year.

 My handsome men at our family outing to Temple Square at Christmas time.

An Erwann Sandwich

This may be the only picture of our Christmas Crepe Fest, 2013

Moments before Alisa left us at Christmas to fly back to California.  Haven't seen her since:(

Found these lovely shots that I had forgotten about.  Beauties, ain't we?

My January Men, at a joint birthday celebration this year.  Looks like they got one candle each.

 

And now that Valentine's Day is all wrapped up, we can start thinking about spring, and daffodils and bunnies, oh, and another trip to California that I have in the works!!

Adventures in Art, Culinary and Otherwise

Today was a first.  I went to a cooking class. I'm not much of a foodie, but my friend has a friend who puts on cooking classes, and she was doing a Valentine's dinner, and my friend wanted me to go with her, and it was a good excuse to take a half day off work, and the class included eating, so I figured what the heck.  I learned how to make chicken Oscar, how to sugar walnuts, and how to make a Hollandaise sauce in the blender that you don't really have to cook. Will I ever actually make chicken Oscar on my own time?  Who knows?

  THIS:

is what most of MY gourmet cooking looks like.  Chicken Crockpot.  With mashed potatoes (real) and gravy made out of a powder I buy at Sams.  And yeah, it was delicious.  I don't usually take pictures of dinner.  But I happened to snap this one  the other night, just because I was raving to the kids about how great it looked, and they started harassing me about turning into one of those annoying people who post food pictures on Facebook, which I am NOT turning into, but just to scare them a little, I took a picture anyway.

In other adventures, Olivia and I spent the night making her Valentines for school tomorrow.

My other friend at work and I came up with this idea on our own.  We had the cards printed and put them in little baggies with the tootsie rolls.  This is as creative as I ever have been for Valentines.  Most years we hit up Walmart the night before for cartoon valentines and conversation hearts.

Also tonight, Olivia was working on memorizing her seven times tables.  At first, she was mostly just complaining about memorizing them, and whining about how terrible she was at math because she couldn't remember any of them.  Then  I promised her I would buy her a pony if she gets them all memorized by tomorrow night.  Not a real pony.  Just a little one. She suddenly turned into a math genius, and had them memorized in a matter of minutes.

Pushing the right buttons.  It's how I roll.

Marvelous Monday

Ah Monday, how I love thee.

Monday is maligned by most, but these days, I wish every day was Monday.

Monday is the day I get to see Will and Audrey off to school from the comfort of my pajamas.

 Monday is the day I get to drive Olivia to school, generally also in the comfort of my pajamas, park at the curb and watch as she and her friends climb out of the car and make a dash for the playground.  Dan calls me a helicopter parent for sitting there and watching her until she disappears into the throng of kids, coats and backpacks, but he is wrong.  I'm not watching her because I'm worried about her.  I'm just watching her because I can.  And because before too long, she won't be in third grade anymore.

Monday is planning day.  Meals, bills, budgets, appointments.

Monday is the day Duncan and I go to Sam's for lunch before we do the grocery shopping.  He loads the heavy stuff into the cart, and then into the car for me.

Monday is the day Alisa will call, and I have time to talk to her. 

On Monday I get to be home when everybody comes home from school.  We cook dinner, do homework, finish up laundry, run errands, go to the library, the doctor,  and all those other things that there is never time for during the other four week days.

And then, the next day, when I start my work week, it's already Tuesday, which is late start day for Will, which means an extra half hour of sleep, and really, by the time you get to Tuesday, you can almost say it's the weekend again!

Except for tomorrow, when Will is going to a Morningside ( yes, morningside. like fireside, only in the morning, duh.) at seven in the A.M. and needs a ride from me. No late start for this Tuesday.  I better go to bed!