I still don't have a fantastic picture of the kitchen all painted and clean, but I snapped this picture to show how amazing it looks with the walls painted, ceiling painted, canned lights in, and appliances installed. It's so pretty. I love my kitchen very much!
This is perhaps my all time favorite CTR-4 art Pierscen has done. When I saw it, I very enthusiastically said, "Wow! Are these your feet? Did you learn about following in Jesus' footsteps?"
He replied, "Yes, but I stepped in dog poop."
How do you not bust up laughing at that?! I looked at his teacher and she said, "We tried to get him to change his story, but he was sticking to it." Bahahaha!
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this very BOY thing was actually a really great lesson in following our Savior. We all step in poop. Sometimes we don't look where we are going and we make mistakes and we step in poop. But the great thing about repentance is that poop washes off. The important thing is to keep following the Savior.
Although I think I could have legitimately matched the color for the office to do touch ups, upon closer examination, the whole room really needed to be redone. There were different colors peeking through all over the place. As someone who has done a lot of painting, I get wanting to cut corners. But it looks SO much better if you do two coats and take your time with the edges.
These are the before pictures. We didn't have a real desk, our desk top computer is dead, and the screen you see is my grandma's old tv.
Below on the left is the result of painting ceilings. The one on the right... well, I had just finished painting around the window in the office when Dodger decided he needed to see what has going on out there. I didn't notice until I looked down and saw paw prints. I couldn't figure out where he would have stepped in the paint, and then I noticed the matching paw prints in the fresh paint right by the windowsill. Thanks puppy! He was forthwith banned from the office.
And the end result: Ryan bought a real corner desk as well as a new computer. We switched locations mostly due to internet hook ups and such. We replaced the existing light with a really handsome oiled bronze one, though I'm just realizing you can't actually see much of it in that picture. Oh well. The color match was not exact, though close, so doing touch-ups wouldn't have worked well anyway. Now for some shelves and maybe a love seat or futon or something?
The picture below is proof that after years of wanting this... I finally purchased a few prints by Albert Koetsier. I stumbled on his stuff (colored x-rays of flowers, plants, and sea shells) and fell in love. But, as you know, I don't commit well to decor. But I finally did it! This is upstairs in the master bath. In the "after" picture I posted following the removal of the mustard paint, you can see a second print hanging above the towel rack. I love these pictures and I am very happy with my purchase!
Devry's "He didn't tell me a mud pie wasn't really pie" face:
A big group of gals from the ward got together to "hike" the Three Sister Volcanoes. I say hike with quotations because it is a pretty gradual walk. Nice and easy. It was really nice. I wish I would have gotten a big group picture. And yes, almost all of the pictures are of just Devry and me because Pierscen was off having a grand time with friends. :)
On top of one of the volcanoes:
The view:
Pierscen was invited to his first friend birthday party and had a really great time. They were playing pin the birthday hat on the Lego man and Pierscen got a little off track. It was really funny. After this, a lot of the kids starting trying to get theirs as far off as they could.
Ryan's employer had a work party at the zoo in the evening. It was so nice! The weather was perfect and there were no crowds to work through. The only down side is that they put the animals away fairly early, so by the time we finished eating and started walking around, many of them were already inside for the night.
This peacock was funny because Devry got really close to it, and I think it startled her how close she got and backed up. It wasn't until she backed away that the peacock jumped down and moved away.
One day I came home to find that Pierscen outside sitting in his lawn chair watching Dodger pace around in the pool. There is only one explanation for that. The boys bought a $.19 goldfish and let it go in the pool. Dodger loves to chase them. He's not terribly good at it and the fish is in no real danger, but it entertains Dodger for hours. Or in this case, a good solid week. The boys put in the boat so that it would have somewhere to hide. We still had a whole bottle of goldfish food from Nemo, our fish of one day, so I put some flakes in, especially in the boat knowing that's where Golby, as Pierscen named him, hid most of the time. He lived for a solid week before giving up the ghost. We buried him in the dirt near the grass where he could help the grass grow.
For Mother's Day, the boys surprised me with this gorgeous, homemade succulent box. I love it for many reasons. 1. They used fence pickets from the gate that Ryan took down. 2. It shows Ryan really listened to me whenever I mentioned how much I love succulents. 3. It was a total surprise that was heartfelt and perfect. I love it! Thank you boys! I have no idea when they made it and where they hid it until it was time to give it to me. Well done!
Ryan's best friend Tallon is a pilot. In May, Tallon had a flight that got in in the early afternoon and he didn't fly out until the early the next morning. We picked him up from his hotel and we went to visit the zoo. This little stage is near the chimps and Pierscen loves to put on shows here. This visit he made sure that Tallon got up to perform too. Haha. He was a good sport. After the zoo we headed home and had dinner, then Ryan took him back to the hotel. It wasn't a long visit, but it was fun to see him. I sent some pictures and the video to Karma Sue to make sure she didn't miss out on her hubby dancing with Pierscen either. :)
Here's a shot from Pierscen's window of the garden and the grass. The first month after we planted the grass we were worried about whether it would survive because it really didn't look too great. But we think it was mostly in shock because it did start to green up and spread little by little.
This picture summed up a good portion of this month. P had some serious attitude and was sent to time out during lunch. In the mean time, there was Devry, happy, laughing and enjoying her meal.
With the seasons changing and things getting really warm, the garage was getting really hot during the day. All of our food storage was still in there. It's temp sensitive, so I needed get everything inside. Unfortunately, we still were not sure where we were going to put it all, but we didn't have time to sort that out yet. Over the course of a couple days, with the help of a dolly (though I still had to load them all onto the dolly) I brought in every single box on my own. It was super hard, exhausting work. But I did it.
Proof that the grass was finally starting to grow, even just a little. (The holes are from the pitch fork.) I know it doesn't look like much, but this is how the grass spreads. It sends out shoots that put down anchors in the earth and slowly but surely it fills. in.
Another interesting thing we experienced this spring was that our Spanish Broom bush was infected with aphids, or something like them. To complete the food chain, our bush was also home to millions of lady bugs. I remember seeing a post of FB from one of my friends while we lived in Casper showing a young lady bug. I would have never guessed that's what the look like in their adolescent stage. But because I saw that, I knew exactly what it was and told the boys to let them be. You can see one crawling on Pierscen's hand below.
Ryan bought Pierscen a magnifying glass out of the blue. I think he must have been inspired because Pierscen had actually been talking about one for a few weeks, though Ryan never heard these discussions. He has loved using it! One of the main things he used it for in the beginning was finding weeds. Since we planted our grass, we had a lot more work to do with keeping weeds out of our nicely fertiziled soil. Every day part of Pierscen's jobs was to weed a few rows of grass. After that, every weed he picked was considered bonus and he earned a penny per weed.
After saving up, he earned enough to buy his own roll of Bubble Tape. He was shaking with excitement when he handed the cashier the gum and his bag of money. She counted it out and gave him the rest. We paid tithing and the rest went in his bank account. I am so proud of him for working so hard!
At the bank I actually had Pierscen pose in front of these plants to send to grandparents. This is a plant called a Red Hot Poker. They are pretty cool.
One of Devry's favorite words is "go." She loves to say "Ready, Set, Go" or just "Set, go!" She and Pierscen race around the staircase endlessly. It's great cheap entertainment and great exercise. This is a little clip of her yelling "go" and then racing.
Not long after the Golby incident, the boys went fishing again. When they returned, Pierscen was yelling something about there being a giant fish in our pool. This is what I found, plus a bunch of tadpoles:
Apparently Pierscen caught this mammoth cat fish. They caught him early on and continued fishing for quite a while. They thought he was dead, but when they got home (it's a thirty minute drive) they found that the fish was indeed still alive. (From experience, Ryan said cat fish are incredibly hard to kill. My dad confirmed this saying they can live for up to an hour outside of water.) Great. What on earth was I going to do with a cat fish?! It was later named Whiskers.
With a combination of two interested kids and a dog who loves to chase fish, we ended up putting some netting over the pool to keep the kids and dog out, and the fish in. Whiskers managed to jump out a few times (the last of which ended up being her demise). In the mean time, we tried to feed her. Cat fish eat anything, but she wouldn't eat. So we knew it was a mater of time. Yes, we had intended on eating her to begin with, but there was something about just pulling a perfectly healthy fish out of the water and killing it that seemed pretty sad. So we let her be.
In the mean time... piggies at church. I love them!
Some other big news was that Memorial Day meant the opening of the pool! Yay!!! I just have to say, at the beginning of this pool season, though Pierscen loves swimming, he doesn't love his head getting wet. He would not put his face in the water and definitely wouldn't put his head all the way under. I have never seen such an incredible transformation in one summer. More on that later.
As alluded to, Whiskers finally met her demise by jumping out of the pool (even those the netting was on and held down - we are still a little baffled by this.) She was still alive when Ryan found her, but she had already lost a good amount of coloring, so we knew the end was near. At the risk of sounding horrible, I was relieved. Sure, it was kind of cool to have a giant cat fish in our pool, but it was not a good long term solution. Pierscen posed for the picture, then he and Ryan skinned her and buried the rest by the tomatoes. Those tomatoes sky rocketed after that! So thanks for the dinner and fertilizer Whiskers!
It's never a dull moment around here. That's for sure!
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