Summer Ends on a High Note

Summer is over and school is back, which means I have a little more time to myself lately.  Summer was great and I loved having my kids around all the time.  We did some really fun things together.  I didn't take time to blog about the things that we did, so I think I'll do a quick catch up post. 

In July we had a big family reunion with all the Anderson side of the family.  Everyone came to Utah and we spent a week together.  We did lots of fun activities together.  Here is the family picture we took of all of us together.   

One highlight of the reunion was our 4th of July party.  We had a water party with my Mom's big blowup slide.  We played lots of volleyball, which was awesome!  We also played some minute to win it games and had lots of yummy food. And to end off the celebration we had fun with the fireworks.  Here are a couple of pictures we took with with sparkers. 

We also went to a lake and had fun paddling around in some canoes that Papa and Gram brought.  We had a fun time at the zoo together.  It was really fun to see all the family members who live out of state.  I thought the reunion was a lot of fun. 

Another highlight of the summer was our family vacation to Los Angeles.  We drove there and stayed with my cousins Stacy and Pierce Thiot.  They live only about 5 miles from the beach, which was perfect! We spent most of our time at the beach, which was so much fun.   

The water was cool but comfortable and the sand was soft and nice.  We did lots of boogie boarding and digging in the sand.  The kids loved finding baby crabs in the sand.  Dallin was really good at boogie boarding, I was impressed!
 Stacy is a photographer - Red Poppy Photos by Stacy Thiot - so we had her take some family pictures for us while we were there.   We ended up with so many great shots.  I am going to print up the collage of pictures above to hang over my fireplace.  And this one of me and the girls to hang in their room. 

Another favorite of the kids was playing trains with Pierce. He has some really cool lego trains that are powered by remote control - a perfect combination for Dallin and Cody. But even Shelby and Darcy got into it and had a blast. 

 We also went to the Santa Monica Pier, which was really fun. They had rides and lots of carnival games. We played lots of games and had a great time. 

Soccer season is going full force for Dallin.  He's playing with the Utah Rangers this year, which has been really good for him.  It is a competitive soccer league with really good coaches.  He has loved it so far.   Shelby decided not to play soccer this year and take piano lessons and dancing lessons instead.  She has been taking piano lessons all summer long and is really improving.  The past couple of weeks have been really good for her and she is excited about how much better she is playing. 

And now the kids are back in school.   Dallin is in 4th grade and Shelby is in 2nd grade.  Cody and Darcy are both in preschool.  Cody goes M,W,F and Darcy goes M,W.  So for a couple of hours on Monday and Wednesday I am alone.  It's kind of strange, but also good. 

 

Girls Bedroom Makeover

I'm so excited to share my girls bedroom makeover.  I should have taken a before picture, but I didn't.  They used to share a queen bed, but Shelby is a very active sleeper.  She would roll around so much in her sleep that almost every night Darcy would wake up crying because Shelby was on top of her or had kicked her.  I knew we needed to do something when one night Darcy was fussing before bed and said, "I don't want to go to bed.  I don't like Shelby's legs!"

So I decided we needed to put them in separate beds so Darcy and I could get some sleep at night.  

The only problem was that their bedroom is pretty small and there wasn't really room in there for two beds and two dressers.  So I decided to build new beds that combined the bed and dresser into one.

I looked online and found some pictures of captain's beds that I liked and decided to give it a shot.  James has been so busy at work lately that I figured I would just do what I could on my own. So I designed the beds and figured out all the measurements and cuts I'd need to make.  James double checked my work and made a couple of improvements and we were ready to go.  This is the first project I have fully designed on my own, so I was a little nervous that it might not come together like I hoped, but luckily it turned out great. 

I had so much fun building them.  I couldn't cut the full sheets of plywood by myself so I had James help me with those cuts, but other than that, I did almost all of it on my own.  It took me about 2 weeks of full time work to finish the beds.   It was so satisfying to see them take shape and turn out well.   The beds have been done for a couple of weeks now, but I had to wait until we got the new bedspreads to post the pictures.   

The girls were excited to be on their beds when I was taking pictures of them. 

 I told James that I wanted to go over to Papa and Grams house to use their scroll saw to cut out names for the girls.   Instead James came home with a scroll saw of our own... He couldn't pass up the chance to get a new tool.  So with our scroll saw I cut out these names for the girls.  They picked the color to paint them. 

  Here is a closer shot of the bookshelf headboard.  And below you can see the little flower table I made with the scraps that were leftover from the beds.  I didn't want all the wood to go to waste and clutter  up our garage. 

 The top of the table is shaped and painted like a flower

 I also built the little step stools out of the scraps I had leftover.  The beds ended up being so tall that I knew Darcy wouldn't be able to get in and out of them without something to step on.  She loves the little stairs as you can see.

 I think one of the favorite features for the kids is the fort I build along the back side of the bed.  The drawers only take up half of the bed, so I made doors so the kids could go under their beds or store things under them.  They play under there all the time with their little flashlights. 

 Here's a shot of Darcy standing next to the beds...you can see they are as tall as she is.  We put a swimming noodle under the sheets by the edge of the bed to help keep her from falling out of the bed.  So far it has worked really well. 

 It was a super fun project to design and build.  The girls love their new beds and have had so much fun putting things in their bookshelves and playing in their forts.  

Making Progress

I'm so excited to report that we are making progress on our basement!  Yesterday we had a framing party and Chris, Joe, Matt, Jared, and Papa show up to help us.  We worked for several hours together and had a great time.  This was my first experience framing, so it was fun for me to try something new.   Thankfully Chris is super experienced and told me exactly what to do.  Chris and I worked on laying out the chalk lines for the walls around the perimeter of the basement and then worked on building the furdowns around the AC/Heat Ducts.  Here's the furdown that I helped build.    

The rest of the guys were building the perimeter walls.  We still have a lot of work to do, but it is fun to be making progress on it. 

I thought I'd add some pictures from our fishing trip we did a couple of weeks ago. We went to a pond in Pleasant Grove and had a fun time catching lots of fish. Each of the kids caught at least a couple of them.  I thought it was cute when Darcy sat down next to Dallin while he was fishing.

Here is Dallin with a fish on.

And here is one of the fish we caught.  I know they are tiny fish, but they are still fun to catch.

 

Four little chickies...

We had our first casualty this week.  Our little black chickens fell prey to a neighborhood dog.    Rest in peace Thunderbolt. :( 

Five little chickies...

That's right, we have chicks at our house!  James' good friend Chris Thomsen ended up with a double shipment of chicks and needed to get rid of some of them.  So we took five of them off his hands.  We have had such a fun time playing with these little chicks.  I think we'll build a chicken coup in our back yard and harvest our own eggs.  It can be a job for the kids to learn responsibility, and maybe even earn a little money selling the eggs around the neighborhood.  Here are some pictures of the kids playing with the chicks.