Dinner Guests and Gardens

A couple of weeks ago we had a pleasant surprise of hosting Rinar's cousin Ranel, Kathy, and their daughter Ananda for Sunday dinner. It was nice to have them come over. Ranel had a lot of stories about Rinar's dad Lynn. He remembered Lynn from when he was a little kid and when Lynn was a bit of a wild child. It was fun to hear stories about him. Ranel was full of stories and it was nice to remember. 

He also had us test out a new game he has created called Treasures of Freedom. It helps you to memorize important documents in American history. We played the Gettysburg Address version and it seemed like the kids really enjoyed it. Kathy even took a little video and put it on their website. 

After dinner with them, the week just got crazy busy. I don't even know what happened. It is kind of a blur. I guess this is what happens when I enter my project mode. I kind of get tunnel vision a bit. But first, this is a cute picture I took of Noelle at the library with her dirty, booger nose.

Mother's Day was really nice. On the Saturday before, Rinar was playing with the kids and they composed a percussion piece for me. It was pretty darn hilarious. They were all pounding on their different kitchen "instruments" and having a great time.

All of my kids made me a card that listed all of the reasons why they love me so much. I think some version of food made it onto all of their lists. Haha! They love food as much as me. 

We also had my brother and sister and their families over for dinner and were able to Facetime our mom for Mother's Day. It was an enjoyable conversation with her and Dad.

Then on Monday I had to take the boys down to Provo to do year-end testing. Since they are doing a charter school homeschool, it was a requirement. It was actually a good thing for them to take an official test. They have never done that before in their lives. It was a two day test so Monday and Tuesday were pretty booked for that. I had to find things for the little kids to do while we waited for them to finish. On Monday I took them kicking and screaming to Bridal Veil Falls. None of them were very happy about going on a walk, but Harry was especially not happy. This picture was at the exact spot where we turned around and went back.

On Tuesday we hung out with Catye and Paul at the park.  It was an enjoyable visit and the weather was magnificent. I was also able to see Catye's cute apartment. She has done a fabulous job decorating.

Now I did mention the whole project-mode thing. Yep, we put in a large garden in our backyard. There used to be a playground there. It came with the house. I decided to sacrifice it and sell it on KSL. Luckily, we live exceptionally close to a city park and our neighbors across the street have a playground, sandpit, and trampoline that the kids can play on and believe me, they do. The nice thing is that I can see them from the kitchen window. I was never able to see the kids in my own backyard. I think this is really working out a lot better.

It was a whole lot of work to get the garden ready for planting. I had to move all of the ground cover. Then I got humus at Home Depot and Rinar picked up a truck load of compost from a neighbor. Once it was all laid out, I started to turn all of the soil. I didn't have a darn tiller. But at least I was burning a lot of calories.

Fortunately, Ryan and Lindsey M. have a tiller and he let me borrow it since I still had about 40% left to turn. I had the garden plot ready by Wednesday and then planted it. I am using the square-foot gardening method. We also planted three fruit trees and some strawberry plants. When I planted the garden I had all of the kids come out and plant something. They have been really interested in it and have been watching every day for the seeds to sprout up. I sure hope I start to see something soon. I know that they will be really excited.

It is interesting to be able to actually have a garden. I am really excited about it. And as I have been laboring over this for the past two weeks, I can't help but draw parallels to child-rearing. Just like these plants are now so tender, so are my children. It takes lots of care and nurturing to get them to grow strong roots and to be fruitful. But I am really enjoying the journey.

Crates

Now that I am not pregnant anymore, it is time to get back into project mode. You know how much I love my projects. This one was born out of absolute necessity. My kids had nowhere to put shoes, hats, gloves, and coats. Therefore, their solution was to litter every corner of my living room, dining room, foyer, etc. with their winter essentials.  Grrr....  It was really starting to annoy me. In all fairness to them, the little ones had no chance of hanging up the coats anywhere because it was woefully out of reach.

Hence, I purchased some crates to solve the problem.  Michael's and Joann's sell these beauties, but they are pretty darn expensive for wooden boxes. I was going to have to buy one every week with a coupon until I had six.  This was going to be a big pain but I was willing to do it to save 40%. Fortunately, when I went to Walmart for some other supplies, they were selling them also.  And guess what?  They were at about the coupon price...just a little bit more. I was stoked.  Project time could commence at full speed.

I bought some red craft paint and used some teal I have had for-evah! Then I did a rough, quick paint job. I didn't want it to look polished.

Once everything was roughly painted, I made up a glaze with leftover colors I had lying around.  I wanted brown and luckily, brown is about the easiest color to mix up.  My kids do it all the time!

I painted it on and then rubbed off any excess.

Then after a poly finish, my wonderful husband went to work and hung them in the laundry room. We then added coat hooks to each box, on the side.  This is what we had to do to make it fit in this space. There are a lot of places you could put a hook.  Now all I have to do is find their shoes and coats and gloves and hats.  Wish me luck!

My Love Seat

I have decided that I am just a whole lot of crazy.  After our camping trip, I decided to tackle my $25 Goodwill couch and give it a bit of a face lift. Unfortunately, I didn't take a before picture.  But, it was a sad looking piece of drabness.  

Rinar took a couple of kids to St. George for a quick golfing excursion and I got out my massacring tools: a chisel and needle nose pliers.  And then I went to work dissecting this couch.  There were staples everywhere.  My carpet was coated in them.

When Rinar got home and saw the destruction, he was speechless for some reason.

I found some beautiful fabric at Home Fabrics, for a great price. Since I paid for the fabric it was too late to go back.

The couch was really worn down, so I added a back cushion to it, to fluff it up again.  But then I was worried that it would slip down, so I decided to tuft the back.

At each step, I would get stumped as to what I should do. So I would take a break for a day or two and think about possible solutions. When I could think of something that would work, I would go back to the couch and try again.  

The seat cushions were probably the hardest part of the whole process, but I figured out something I could live with and just finished the darn thing.

Ta-da! 

This is definitely the hardest project I have ever completed.  It was a beast, but I did it.  I don't think I would ever do it again.

Repurposed Dresser

Like I promised, here is another repurposing project I finished a couple of weeks ago.

I found this beauty on the side of the road in front of our condo in St. George. I made my poor husband put it in the garage. It is pretty darn heavy. It may look like junk to the regular guy, but I could see its inner beauty. It was missing one drawer and the top had pretty much peeled off.

Here was my solution...

I found the blue hexagon tile at the Habitat for Humanity Restore, and since I didn't have enough, I found the extra small glass tiles at Home Depot.  Then Rinar and I frantically got to work laying it all out before the cement dried. It was a whole lot of little cuts with the tile saw.

Rinar added on extra molding at the top to give it a border and then I added on moldings on the sides and on the drawers to give it some architectural interest. Now it is a chic toy cabinet in my family room. Sorry, I was lazy and took the picture before the toys were picked up. You get the idea.

Repurposing Frenzy

I have been on a repurposing rampage.  We just moved into our new rental house and I have wanted to get some furniture redone and looking good.  

I have had this bookshelf forever and finally stained and polyed it.  It now officially does not look ghetto anymore.

This was the find of the century. I needed a dresser for Julia's room. I went to the Goodwill Bargain Bin and found this beauty for $7. It is solid wood and very heavy.  It was already primed and just needed a good coat of paint and some cool hardware.  

I think it took me 90 minutes to finish it.  It got a cream coat of paint and a brown glaze.  The new hardware is from Home Depot.

A few weeks ago I went to a yard sale and saw this. It was a kids dresser, with a heavy coat of minty green paint.

Unfortunately, with the picture they look the same color, but they are not. 

Before I started painting, Rinar added a beautiful trim to the top and bottom of the cabinet and on the edges of the two shelves.  This is an easy way to really change the look of a piece and make it look expensive.

I painted the entire cabinet in a teal color, then did a green apple acrylic wash. This was an extra step, but it was totally worth it. Plus, it is really easy. I just got a small bottle of acrylic paint from Walmart, in the craft section.  I put the paint in a bowl and added some water and mixed it up. Then I wiped down the cabinet in the green apple water. I finished off the paint treatment with a dark brown glaze.  And I just love the look.

Here is a close up of the top drawer. I got these cute pulls at Hobby Lobby when I was in Salt Lake City.

Inside the cabinet. I lined it with some cute fabric.

I also redid these two dresser a very light tealish blue, for my boys rooms.  They go so perfectly with everything else in there. Once I get the room cleaned up and totally done I will post the finished product.  But it is looking totally rad.

I have several other projects I am hoping to complete in the next few weeks. I want my garage cleared out so that I can park there.  Repurposing is such a fun thing to do.  I get excited just thinking about it.  Take something trashy and ghetto and making it wow.  Stay tuned for my next round of stuff.  

Back To Life

It has been a busy week readjusting to normal life around here. I still have a lot of unpacking to do and projects, projects, projects. But I have been quickly slaying to "project" dragon.  I have been painting tons of stuff and loading it up into rooms.  Raef and Zach's room is looking totally awesome. I can't wait to put it on the blog. It is almost done.  Julia's room is coming together as well, and Harry and Eli now have a colorful and happy place to call home.  Thank you Goodwill and Home Depot.

We are going to Lazy 5 Park today up in Spanish Springs. I thought I would take a few pictures of the little ones to capture the moment. These guys love posing for the camera.

This is Julia's pose.  Supermodel in the making. Don't you love the hand action on the cheek?

No More Popcorn!

Thanks to the amazing and fearless Christopher W., we eradicated the popcorn ceiling in my living room.  It only took 3 days and about 5 floor moppings to get it done, but say sayonara to popcorn!

Christopher is going on a mission to Berlin, Germany in March and so he gets to work for me for the next month doing this and that around my house.  Tomorrow he is going to paint my banister and expunge the popcorn from my bedroom ceiling. And since he will be working on the ceiling, he is going to go ahead and paint my bedroom as well.