Recent and Random

This post is mostly just a picture dump, but it is the best I can do for an update on our life lately.

Tad and I changed the hook shelf in the entry up for St. Patrick's Day.

I am finally making good on my promise to share a picture of the finished fireplace now that it is decorated.  I love this simple look.

Here is a closer (if blurry) look at the decor.  I looked high and low for those candlesticks and was so happy when I found them at HomeGoods.  I still smile every time I look at them.  I realize the picture is a little fallish.  I am working on some things to hang up there during the other seasons.

The vases with the branches are HUGE!  Since this fireplace is sooooo tall, it really needed something with some height, so these fit the bill.

Just so you can have a frame of reference for how tall they are, I stood Tad next to one of them.  Tad is six years old, and they are taller than he is!

We surprised Drake with a new bike.  His old one was way too little, so he was excited to get this.  He is loving riding to and from school every day, and just going out and taking a little ride around the neighborhood every now and then.

Tad and I decorated the hook shelf for Easter.  I took down the Easter egg bunting after Easter, but the rest of it is still the same for now.  I figure it is appropriate for Spring.

I also treated myself to these pretty Easter tulips.  I love Spring flowers, and these were such a cheery addition to my dining room.

Just a candid shot of the boys opening up their Easter eggs.

Finally a picture of my two oldest in their track uniforms.  I snapped this picture really quickly at the meet last week, so it isn't the best.  Hopefully I will get a better one at the next home track meet.
Dallin gets a striped uniform because his wins last year helped the Jr. High track team take the Championship.

That is it for now.  It has been busy but fun around here!

Boys' Bathroom

I know it is truly amazing, but I am making good on my promise to share my boys bathroom sooner rather than later.  It helps that the pictures were already taken, so I just had to take a little time to put them on the blog.  I apologize in advance for the picture overload, of a bathroom of all things.  I guess it is just really important to me that you all know how this bathroom looks from every angle.(haha).  Honestly though, this bathroom is long and skinny, with no natural light, so it is hard to photograph.  Hopefully these photos will give you somewhat of an idea of what the room is like.

This bathroom is shared by the four youngest boys.  Dallin has his own that I will share another time.

This is what the bathroom looks like from the door.  See - - long and skinny.

This is a view from the door of the opposite wall.  I didn't want this bathroom to be really "theme-y", so the first thing I did to get some decor in this room was make these signs with the initials of the four boys that use it.

I fell in love with these vanities online and was a little nervous that I wouldn't love them as much when they arrived, but they are great!  One of these days I will get around to showing you how I organize the drawers.  For now, there is not much in them, but I know in a few years the boys will need space for deodorant, razors, shaving cream, hair product, etc.  It is nice to have room to grow - - so different from our previous house.  I liked the shelves on the bottom of these vanities.  I pictured some baskets under there, or possibly neatly folded towels, but I haven't gotten around to any of that.  For now, one of them just holds a basket of tub toys for my littlest guy, and the other is empty.

This is the picture of the wall sconces I picked for this room.  I love them, and think they go really well with the mirror frame.

I also made this boys locker room sign.  I thought it was appropriate since we have four boys sharing this little space.

Since this bathroom is so skinny, I couldn't get a full picture of the tub/shower, so I took it in two pieces.  This is the front.  I realize that the hand-shower is a different finish from the other faucets in this bathroom, but I had it on hand when money was running low at the end of construction, and I really wanted a hand-shower in here.  It made helping my little boys wash their hair so much easier, and now that they don't need as much help with that, it makes cleaning the tub and shower surround much easier.  I wouldn't be without it.

This is the back of the shower. After living with cheap plastic tubs and surrounds (all one piece) at our previous house and rental, I knew I wanted something better for this house.  I am so happy with my Americast tub.  It hardly has any texture on the bottom, so it is easy to clean and it is nice and heavy.  I also love the tile surround.  I found this basic square white tile and when Jeremy installed it I had him put an accent band of the blue glass tile around the shower. I love how it turned out and it is holding up great so far.  I don't love the shower curtain in this room.  I used it in the bathroom at our previous house and it worked really well there, but it isn't exactly the look I want for this room.  The colors look ok though, and I like to keep it open all the time anyway to show off the tile in the shower.

I found this little piece of art at Marshall's to put over the toilet.  I think the colors work well in this bathroom, and it is fun while I still have a couple of little boys left.

Here is another look at the wall opposite the shower.  Towel bars don't really work for us, so I have installed hooks for the towels in our house.  I find that towels are about a million times more likely to be hung up if my kids (and husband) can just put them over a hook really quickly.

For this room, I put different fabric loops on the boys towels so they can easily keep them straight.
Jack loves these hooks because they look like the letter J.

Now onto these shelves.  I am sharing this picture so you can see that they are situated behind the door in the room. 

Here are the top shelves.  The white basket on top holds first aid supplies. The next basket down is obviously empty. (Yeah!  Room to grow!)  The next shelf down holds extra hand soap, and a basket of extra TP.  And, as you can see the next shelf down holds extra towels.

From there you can see that we have a basket with extra soap, and extra hand towels.  The white basket on the bottom shelf holds washcloths and extra shampoo.  Finally, you can see that our little blue stool is tucked away neatly under the shelves, but it is easy for the little boys to get out when they need to brush their teeth, or wash up.

One more look at the bathroom shelves.

This is a look at the front of the bathroom from the shower area.

This is a look at the faucets that I chose for this bathroom.  I put them same ones in my master bathroom. They are all metal with a high neck and so nice.  I love them.

I also love the cross handles.  They were something I knew I wanted and I was so happy when I found these.

For the sake of full disclosure, I have to include a picture of the laundry basket is in this room.  I removed it for pictures, because it was getting in the way, but we need it in here, since this is where the boys change 90% of the time.  Now if I can just get them to always get their clothes in the basket and not just in the general vicinity.

One last look at this cute bathroom space. 

Well that was fun.  If you made it all the way through this post you are a real trooper.  Hopefully next time I will take less than a year to get pictures of another room up here on the blog. 

Catching Up

It has been awhile since my last post, so I am throwing a few pictures up on the blog to give a little update on what we have been doing the past two months.

Jack turned ten!  Ten!!!

Thomas turned 12!  That was a pretty exciting birthday for him.  I miss having him in Primary though.  When I was called as Primary President all five of my boys were in Primary.  Now I am left with only three!!

Jack finally won a show award in the Pinewood Derby.  He has tried every year, but his cars were always too fast and took speed awards, so they wouldn't let him win for show.  He was glad to finally win a show award his last year.

This was Drake's first Pinewood Derby year and he took the top prize - - first place in speed. His car was simple.  Last year, we tried to get Jack to use an Ipod sticker we had to make an Ipod car, but he wouldn't, so Drake told us to save it for him.  We did and that flat little car was super fast!  This was the 10th car that Jeremy has helped the boys build.  Only five more to go!

I snapped this picture of the boys putting together their Valentines.

And speaking of Valentines, I snapped a few pics of our Valentines decor.  I just used the same stuff from last year and it took about ten minutes to put it up.  Plus - it was a good excuse to dust off my hook shelf.  I am telling you, Arizona is, by far, the dustiest place I have ever lived.

We also hung up the banner that Tad and I made last year.  I still need to show you this fireplace in its entirety now that I have finished decorating it.  I will try to get to that soon.

Finally, Jeremy brought these pretty flowers to me on Valentines day.  He knows I love having fresh flowers in my house.  I am still enjoying these.  They still look great, thanks to what we learned from Thomas's  science fair project.  We tried a bunch of the popular methods for keeping your flowers looking fresh longer, and the clear winner was to add some citrus soda (like 7-up or Sprite) to the water. We couldn't believe how much longer those flowers lasted over the other things he tried.  His science fair project was one of the winners at his school, but I couldn't get there that day to take a picture.  Maybe I will set the board up one of these days and take a picture to share.  It was a good project and he did a good job.

I came home from Dallin's basketball game the other night to find this on my couch.  I love how close my boys are.  Everyone loves to comment on how I must be crazy to have had my kids so fast, but moments like this make me realize that there are definite advantages to having my boys close in age.

One of my goals for this year, was to get more pictures of the house up on the blog, for anyone who might be interested in seeing it, but lives too far away to visit.  As you can see, I am failing miserably at that goal.  But, I did manage to take some pictures of my boys bathroom the other day, so hopefully I will get them up on the blog before too long.

Christmas Fun

A few pics to help us remember some of the fun we had during the Christmas season this year.

Early in December the boys decorated our windows with Snowflakes.

And some others with snowmen.  I love them!  These will probably stay up all winter.

And, as is tradition, they made some new ornaments for the Christmas tree.

We also put some lights up on the house.  My photography skills are pretty dismal, especially at night, and our yard looks pretty ratty here (it is still a work in progress), but I am trying to preserve memories, so it is what it is.

So, of course I have to include a couple more pictures.

Last one of the house, I promise.

The kids all had their Christmas programs.  I only got these pictures of Tad and Drake, but they all did great!!

We also made our traditional sugar cone Christmas trees.  The boys look forward to this every year.

I also took some pictures of some of our decor inside, but realized that it is really similar to last year, so I deleted them.

We have had a good holiday season so far.  Merry Christmas!

A few reasons I love having little kids

I seriously love having little kids. Yes, teenagers and big kids are fun too - just a different kind of fun.  As I was going through some of my recent pictures today, I ran onto a few that reminded me of how much fun little kids are.

Only my little kids can entertain themselves for hours with their toys, and then, of course, ask me to take a picture every now and then.

Only my little kids wear fun little hats home that they made in kindergarten.

Only my little kids will decorate the tree up with their angry birds when they are tired of waiting for me to pull out the ornaments.  I kind of like this.  Maybe we should have left it this way.

Only my little kids will leave cute notes for the tooth fairy after she has forgotten to stop by for three nights.

Of course, my little kids do way more than this that makes me smile every day, but I don't have pictures of everything.

I'm seriously going to miss this stage when it is over.