A Mini-Makeover

I love my kitchen. 

I designed it to be white, light, and airy.

But there was one thing in my kitchen/living area that didn't go with the decor:

My 12-year-old kitchen table.

It went perfectly with the decor in my last house--dark, black, gold-ish.

I've been saving some money and decided Mother's Day was the perfect excuse to finally splurge.

I went to Four Chairs Furniture.  I've never been there before, but I will be a customer for life.

I got to completely design my entire table.

 I picked a "Riverwash" table top and ivory table legs.

For the side-chairs, I picked the design and the paint color.  It's hard to tell in the picture but it's a super subtle gray/green/turquoise/ivory.  The official name was "Silver Sage."

The table came with two leaves and I'm able to seat up to ten people.

For the end chairs I picked a formal shape but very casual burlap slipcover--trying to go for the "Shabby-Chic" look.

 So much better with my kitchen, don't you think?

And perfect with my family room and the aqua accent wall.

The only bad thing about custom designing furniture is the WAIT.

I am NOT a patient person and that two weeks was interminable!

Totally worth it, though.

 There's something about getting something new for my house, however small, that motivates me to clean, clean, clean.  I've spent the last few days cleaning out drawers, organizing cupboards, and *gasp* mopping the floor.

Now THAT hasn't happened in awhile.

Remember those job charts I was going to make for my kids?

Yeah, well, that turned into me giving them a random, verbal list each morning according to how tired I was/am and how much of the mess there was/is.

It's working, though, so, whatever....

It's A......

 It's a BOY!!!!!

But WAIT, WAIT, WAIT!

(Read on, please.)

15 weeks

I SWEAR IF I GET ONE MORE SYMPATHY COMMENT ABOUT HAVING ANOTHER BOY I AM GOING TO SCREAM!!!

I am THRILLED to have another perfect, healthy life growing inside of me--boy OR girl.

I thought we were DEFINITELY done after having Sam due to some health problems, and I was a little sad.  To be given this chance to do this one more time is such a blessing and I am so happy.

A baby!  I get to have another baby!  

Did you know....

This baby will be nearly 5 years younger than Sam?

I have the cutest name picked out?  Sorry...not telling.
I come from a family of 5 sisters (and 1 brother) and between the 5 of us girls there are (or will be soon) 9 boys and only 1 girl?
Two of my sisters, Steph and Stacey, are pregnant with boys, too!?!!!

That awful, heinous, ovarian cyst that nearly caused me to bleed internally to death (in Disneyland!) had been growing for over a year and was the cause of ALL my health problems?

So basically, if you think about it, Disneyland saved my health and my life.  ;) hehe.

One of the bumpy rides caused that blasted cyst to finally burst.

I feel better now, (nausea, fatigue, backache and all) than I have the last 18 months.  

I'm in a perpetual state of euphoria and I'm FINALLY enjoying a pregnancy.

Last the best, right?

I cannot wait to meet my sweet little boy.  I already love him so much.

Sam will have a little buddy to pick on, and I will have another darling, handsome boy, and I know Lucy will mother this poor boy to death, and surely he will idolize his older brothers, Josh and Jake, and Jeff, what can I say?  

He pretty much only has Y chromosomes.  :)

I will admit that Lucy was pretty disappointed.

She wanted a sister--mainly so she could have a bunkbed.  

I promised her that if it was another brother then we would both go get our ears pierced AND take a trip to NYC--girls only!!!

Now it's time to get planning and shopping for boy stuff.

I am basically starting over. (Hey! Anybody wanna throw me a shower?  Totally kidding.)

I threw out EVERYTHING.

No stroller, no crib, no bedding, no carseat, no clothes.  Nothing.

Better get cracking'


P.S.  Started feeling the baby move this last week--so miraculous!!!
I am in love!

Summer Vacation Part 1

We kicked off our Summer with the Beech Adams Family Reunion.

We spent a day in Park City eating at our favorite restaurant, Baja Cantina...

...and riding the Alpine Slide and Coaster.

The next day we all met up at my Grandpa's cabin up in Layton.

We chartered a luxury bus and went on the Beech Adams Reality Bus Tour.

It was actually a lot of fun--minus the major stint of morning/bus-sickness.  

This isn't the best picture but that's my gramps up at the front doing all the commentary of where he grew up, houses he lived in, etc.

(P.S. My uncle gave me an ice-cold root beer in one of those dark brown glass bottles.  It was delicious and cured my nausea.)

A big thanks to Uncle Chris for carrying, throwing, and spinning Sam everywhere we went.

It just so happened to be our 17th wedding anniversary that day.

Aren't we cute?  Still in love....:)

We ended the day at the cabin where we played baseball, flew kites, rode horses, and ate a delicious catered dinner from Costa Vida.

Project Yard-Renovation Complete!

A huge shout out to my dad who helped bring my landscaping vision to fruition!

We could not have done it without him.

We worked so hard all through April and May to get this all done.

I love the way it looks but I am so over weeding and planting and making decisions.  I tried shoveling dirt one evening (it's so hard when I want to dig in and get the work done but I can't and all I can do is nag people to do it for me), and Jeff walked out, saw me shoveling dirt, and scolded me.  I said I was fine, but I couldn't walk the next day.  I strained some ligaments in my abdomen (where I no longer have usable stomach muscles--blah!)  Jeff was right.  I hate when he's right.

This is where the fire pit was to be relocated.

This was a HUGE job.  My dad had to take a sledgehammer to the old fire pit.  Then Jeff and my boys had to carry the heavy stones over 2 or 3 at a time.  We had to rip out a bunch of curbing, dig up sod, re-plant a tree, haul in loads of sand, level it out and re-lay the stones.

This is where the fire pit used to be.  We had to take it all out because one corner of it completely settled about 10 inches.  We decided to move it to another corner of the yard and put the new swing set in this area.  Once again, this was a HUGE project.  My dad had the genius idea of stacking these redwood logs to make a giant play area.

This is what the front of my house looked like for a good two months.  

Bless my patient and tolerant neighbors!

Voila!

The finished design.

The new fire pit from the view of my patio.

(Don't you love the firefly lights I hung around my umbrella?)

We invited my dad over for the first tinfoil dinners and S'mores of the year.

Another view

Party at the Droubays!

 Yay!  The new swing set.

 The kids LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it.  They spend hours out there everyday.

The vegetable garden, and by vegetables I mean peas and tomatoes.

I know it's small but it's enough for us and pretty much all we can manage right now.

We planted several new trees, shrubs, and flowers.

This is along the back of the house.

Down one side.

My dad fixed the water feature and the landscape lighting. We also put some bushes and step stones in.

And I finally got a dang hose-roll-up-thinger. (What are they called?)  No more hose laying all around the yard.

Flowers

(Love Sam in this picture)

More flowers

A few new trees

(Sam again)

View from my porch

Even better view from my porch of my cute Lucy and her new beach cruiser that she got for her birthday.

Month in iPhotos--Crazy May

We started the month with our 7th and 8th round of Strep in the family.  It has only passed back and forth between Lucy and Jake but they have each had it four times in 3 months!!!

The doctor said if they each get it two more time in the next 3-4 months then they will need their tonsils out.

I'm so glad school is out so maybe we can get a break from the germs and antibiotics for awhile.

Dance auditions at our dance studio.

Six hours long.   Phew!

I am craving Original Tart frozen yogurt big time.  

We've made a few trips to Orange Leaf.

Sam in his favorite outfit ready to go run errands with me.

Lucy absolutely loves gymnastics.  She will NOT miss a class--even if it falls on her birthday.

We brought treats for all the girls that day.

So random, I know.

This is on dress rehearsal day at the high school.  When I arrived the whole parking lot was completely paved.  Then we got a message to move our cars from the south parking lot.  This is what I came out to find.

So nice of them to leave my car intact....barely.

Warm up in the hall before the show.

I was a nervous wreck the day of the recital.

Dress rehearsal did NOT go well.  We ran into several technical difficulties and the logistics of getting 200 girls on and off the stage, in intervals, in a 90 second time-frame for the Grande Finale just wasn't working.  

We had a to schedule an extra rehearsal the morning of the show.  We've never had to do this before.

I did not sleep all night.  We worked out the kinks--but we never had a full run-through from beginning to end.  

I was up helping the tech crew with music for the show and the adrenaline/nerves kicked in so hard that my heart literally raced and palpitated until I thought I was going into cardiac arrest.

But...

....The entire ballet turned out absolutely perfect and gorgeous!!!!

I was so thrilled and relieved that I was crying.  

The girls were beautiful!

All that hard work and stress paid off--and this year was definitely the most difficult year-to-date at my studio.

First, only a month into choreography and rehearsals I had emergency surgery (while out of state on vacation!!!) and missed almost a month of dance.  Then right after, I discovered I was pregnant and taught all through April and May with extreme fatigue and nausea.  There were days where I didn't know how I would get off the couch and make it to the studio, much less teach, rehearse, and clean the dances.  Some days I just sat on the floor with my crackers and ginger ale and barked out instructions to the girls.

Little Lulu in her ballet costume.

End of the second and final show--best feeling ever!!!

The very next day we had Lucy's baptism.

We had 40+ people at our house afterwards and I knew I would be exhausted.  I ordered Olive Garden for lunch and I hired cleaners to clean my house from top to bottom.

It definitely made things easier and I was able to relax and enjoy the day with our families.

I love my sweet little Lucy and her decision to be baptized a member of our church.

This last week of May was truly the "week of Lucy."

She had her birthday on Tuesday shopping and lunch with Grandpa Holland, a recital on Friday, a baptism on Saturday, and another birthday celebration on Sunday at Nana's house.

(I promised her a birthday with friends this week--not sure if that is still going to happen.)

Uncle Dave is always making up fun and crazy games with the kids.  Here they had to all lay on their stomachs while he launched tennis balls high in the air and tried to hit them in the back.  

Three kids ended up crying.

But then they got their revenge and the adults had to lie down while the kids directed hits.

Meanwhile, Summer has begun.  I am so excited.  I'm working on job charts and organizing a few rooms.  I've also changed up some decor and the landscaping projects are all done--all future posts.

But don't you just love these pictures of my boys vacuuming?

Nothing wrong with teaching yours boys (and girls) to do housework.  My future daughters-n-law will thank me someday.