House Update

This week has been an exiting week for work on our new house. The best part is.....WE HAVE LIGHTS!!! I know it seems like a little thing, but it makes it feel like a home when you can flip a switch and the lights come on. I have been frequenting Lowes to buy more lights. I have had to resort to going to multiple Lowes because I keep clearing them out of my favorite light fixtures.


We also have some tile laid. We are putting tile in the kitchen, laundry room, kitchenette and all the bathrooms. The rest of the tile (including the grout) will be done this upcoming week. And yes it is all different shades of tan.

They also started a little over a week ago on our cabinets. Most of the base cabinets are in, but due to some errors in ordering and some broken cabinets in shipping, we have to wait until October 6th to get the rest of our cabinets installed. Sigh! But what can you do.


Our banister has also been stained and is starting to look beautiful. They are still going to sand it a little and put more varnish on it, but I am very happy.

Pokemon Party

We had our 5th and final celebration of Logan's birthday. He wanted a Pokemon birthday this year. Of course you can't just go to the party store and buy stuff for a Pokemon party (they don't have any) so I had to get creative.

Ryan says that the party was really for me since I spent so much time on it and was so excited for it. But that's ok, I let Logan share some of the glory. If this explanation gets to Pokemonish for you, you can just skip the explanation.

First each kid got a folder with baseball card protection sheets in them. Each kid got a different color folder (one color for each type of pokemon - there are 8 Pokemon types in total).

For the psychic type - We played "guess how many candies are in the candy jar". For electric type - we played hot potato with a Pikachu pillow. For water type - we played a game where they were supposed to use water guns to squirt bubbles. For dark type - I tied black "Gastly" balloons to their legs and they had to pop the other kids balloons before their balloon was popped. For Steel type - we played hit the bulls eye with team rocket on it (I know this doesn't have anything to do with Metal but Team Rocket try to steel Pokemon so it worked for me).

For fire type - we played pin the tail on Charmander. For grass type - we played find the hidden grass pokemon in the backyard. And finally for fighting type - we played "Makey" says which is just Simon says pokemon-style.

If you have survived that long explanation, I applaud you. For each game they got Pokemon cards. Then for a treat we ate Pokeball cupcakes.

It was a really fun party and now I'm not sure what I will do with myself since I spent most nights this week getting ready. I have to thank my husband for helping me with a lot of the preparations. Thanks Ryan!!

We miss Grandma and Grandpa

My parents left last week to go on vacation. I took this cute video of Maren who misses them very much. She and sends her love and hellos.

Party Party Party!!

The month of September is full of birthday's for our family. I know I will forget somebody, but there is Ryan's mom (Lu) and step dad (Chris), his step sister (Kristi), Ryan, Logan, my brother (Jeff) and his wife (Kristy). Ryan's step brother John and cousin also have birthday's in September. So Happy Birthday September babies!!


We have been partying all week. Here are some pictures of the party we had with Ryan's family for all the September birthdays and from the small dinner party with my family.

Right now Ryan took the boys to go bowling since today is Logan's official birthday. Logan is going to have a friend birthday on Thursday. So we will just keep on partying!!

Zoom

At the September birthdays party with Ryan's family, his Grandma Georgia brought her new motorized scooter. Of course all the kids fought over riding it.

All coming together

Also this week we had our stair railing installed. Yeah!! We also had the cultured marble for our bathrooms installed. Of course there are some little issues that they have to come back to fix, but all in all it seems to be coming together. It is exciting to see the little things being installed that make the house start to look like a home.

Closet closeter

Well I use to think that having a big closet was totally unnecessary. I couldn't understand who would possibly need a big closet with drawers, shelves, and a special place for shoes. But I am now confessing that I am a closet closet-lover. I found some closet organizers online and designed my closet and my kids closets and I am in love! I can't wait to move my stuff in. We had them installed this week and I am excited. I don't have enough clothes to fill the closet, but some how I will get by. Here are some pictures of my closet and my kids closets. Very fun!!

My big kindergartener

We had the first day of kindergarten on Tuesday. It was a really big day for Ashton. He had been wearing his backpack everywhere for a week (to the store, around the block, to bed). He couldn't understand why Logan started school but he didn't. But he finally got to use his Diego backpack!!

If there was a contest on who was more scared for kindergarten (Ashton or myself), I would win. I wasn't sure if Ashton was ready and so I worried and prayed, and then prayed and worried. But as Ashton always does, he surprised me and had a really great day. In fact that was the first words out of the teacher's mouth as she walked the kids out to meet their parents. I guess I looked worried.

Ashton had over 40 kids in his kindergarten class due to some bad management decisions. The school decided to get rid of the other kindergarten teacher. But we just found out that they hired a new one, so they will be splitting their class next week. Yeah!! I volunteered once this week on Thursday and had 14 kids in my group to do an activity and I was ready to pull my hair out after an hour. I don't know how the teacher has done it all week with 40 five-year olds and just some mom help. Crazy!

Scooter

I had to post this cute video of Maren and her scooter. When we went to Cedar City to see the Shakespearean plays, the kids went to the day care center. At the day care they had one of these scooters that Maren fell in love with. So when we got home we found one online and got it for her. She just loves to ride it and would ride it in the house if Grandma Zobell would let her. But for the most part she will just ride it around the block. The best part is that she doesn't get tired of it mid-way around the block. And she is faaassssttt!!!