Painting 101

We decided that the day after we moved in we would paint the entire house. So excitedly I ran to Home Depot and bought 10 gallons of paint. Both of us had painted our previous homes and figured it would be an easy and fairly quick task to accomplish. We even got a little help from the small folk...well, with the exception of Levi who had fallen sound asleep before we could even begin.


After getting 2 walls in the family room done and painting the kitchen that same green as pictured above, we didn't like how it looked in the kitchen, it clashed with the granite. SO I painted the kitchen a brown and it worked much better. Then we came to the living room where we encountered a little problem. HOW were we going to paint an 18' wall? Well, it just so happens that I noticed our neighbors house being painted and told James to go and ask the contractor if we could just pay him to paint the 2 large walls. He came back with Rick, who generously loaned us a tall ladder, paint sprayer (we were actually headed to home depot to rent one when James just ran over there), drop cloths, and all the supplies needed to tape off the walls and windows and gave us instructions on how to do this!! PLUS he gave us his account number to get paint for half the price (and considering we decided to change the color in the family room altogether this was helpful). So we have learned to paint "correctly". I did all of the "prep" work and James did the painting.....

I volunteered to go up on the ladder and tape and paint but when I got halfway up chickened out. So James got up there and did it. That's my boy, and in his shiny green shorts too! Which is close to the color we ended up painting over.

Nothing says I Love You like paint and plastic.

All in all we LOVE the colors and the way it all turned out. Now we just have the kids, guest and bathrooms to do. I think I'll be contacting Rick....and offer to pay him.

The Wheels On The Bus...

I drove the kids to and from school for the first week of school. But for the rest of the year they will take the bus. While Brooklyn and Kalysta are highly experienced in the bus riding department, and have lost the excitement, Levi and Walker were pretty excited. The girls are great about sitting with their little brothers and take good care of them! The boys think the bus is so cool. Wonder how long that will last?

Meet The Teacher...

I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with the kids teachers this year! We have gotten glowing recommendations from previous student's parents on all the teachers. Canyon Ridge is a new concept school...basically meaning that the class sizes are smaller and they are more technology based. My only complaint is that I wish Brooklyn had more kids in her class. There's 2. While I am grateful for the opportunity she has to be in GATE, I still would like to see more kids in her classroom, but oh well. At least there's a boy in the 5th grade gate class from our old ward, he was in her primary class and they seemed to get along really well. They get to spend time with the th grade class every Monday and Friday so I'm thankful for that. Here are some more pics of the first day of school. Man I miss those little Rat Rugs!Walker and Levi read the kissing hand the first day of school and so since then Walker insists that when he leaves he blows me a kiss, I have to catch it and put my hand on my cheek to "feel the love". He blows me kisses every morning. On the second day of school I was standing outside the fence watching he and Levi playing. He saw me watching and just kept waving and yelling "I Love You Mom!!" over and over. I went and sat in my car and cried. Sigh...I don't look forward to the days when they stop shouting I love you mommy. Ok I'm depressing myself, gotta go.

School Daze

School has officially started...well ok so this is the second week, but I'm just barely starting to get somewhat back to normal after our move. It was a bittersweet day. On the one hand the boys were starting kindergarten and so for me that meant FREEDOM...or does it? I thought that I would be so excited for them to take this next big step AND for me to have so much free time. But in all honesty when I got home the house just felt so empty. I thought back to when my kids were just babies, and then toddlers and then young children. I cried as I realized that my "baby" had grown and that nothing would be the same. Even though Brooklyn has been in school for sometime now I missed that cute, very talkative little girl and wondered as so many before me..."Where did the time go?" Wasn't I just changing diapers a few days ago? Watching them learn to walk and talk and potty training. Convincing them there really are NO monsters under the bed, (although I still have to do that now and then :-) ) Rocking them to sleep, holding their little hands, playing patty cake?? Although I wasn't there for all of those milestones with Levi and Kalysta I know their Dad and their mom must feel the same. So yes, while I am excited for this new "freedom" I think I would trade it in a second to have just a few more weeks or months or years....
Here are all of our wonderful children on their first day of school. (Sniffle, Sniffle)

Scattergories Tag

I was tagged by Christine, so here goes!

SCATTERGORIES...it's harder than it looks! Erase my answers, enter yours, and post it.

*Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following...
*They have to be real places, names,things...nothing made up!
*Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial.
*You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

*WHAT IS YOUR NAME: Aimee

4 LETTER WORD: Arch

*VEHICLE: Astin Martin

*CITY: Anchorage

*BOY NAME: Aaron

*GIRL NAME: Ashlee

*OCCUPATION: Architect

*SOMETHING YOU WEAR: Aldo!!

*FOOD: Apple

*SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: Aerosol

*REASON FOR BEING LATE: Accident

*SOMETHING YOU SHOUT: Uh, well it's a word one shouldn't shout, but when someone cuts me off.....

I tag: Anyone caught reading this blog...I know who you are. So get to it!