this week...

has been busy, but, hey what's new. :) And wow, blogger muddies up my photos. They all seem a little dull compared to what they really are. I went a longer than a week without posting pictures and that makes me feel behind. UGH!!

This week, and then a little of the week before...
D sat on the counter while I cooked dinner, we chatted, we snuggled, and we probably talked to Dawn on the phone.

D stole my hat and teased, "I took you haa-at" in his neener neener voice. And it made him very happy!

We took A to spend the night with her Grandma and Grandpa and cousin at a near by resort, and D was feeling awfully sad to have left his beloved A behind. This was taken in the car, on the way home without A.

D wouldn't leave A alone at all the next night when she returned home the next day.

I spent a very boring day on the computer finishing up project I had been working on.

D cried, probably over not being able to play with my itouch. LOL!

Mike and J worked on his pinewood derby car, which is a truck, which I actually cut out the shape of the car (other than the bed of the truck).

I continued to eat healthy and exercise...I lost about 4 lbs last week. :D

Made two trips to the dump, and it made me very happy.

spent Saturday morning at the pinewood derby race.

watched J's truck (the blue streak) do awesome in the pinewood derby race for the first little while, I think he placed around 4th or 5th out of 15 or so cars. He was a little disappointed as he placed first last year.
and cut dd-A's hair. I love it. :) I think she looks adorable.
She was supposed to let me take some photos before she changed out of her church dress, but she changed to quickly.

This week we have school conferences among planning or spring break, which will be fun for everyone. :D Looking forward to it all, and I will keep the pictures coming.

Monday through Thursday--photos

sorry, nothing too exciting this week.

day 67 {08 mar 2010}

nearly forgot today--

so I snapped a fast shot of my dear pal. Elmo, laying next to my computer, right before I hit the hay.

day 68 {09 mar 2010}

(no these are not cups of coffee.)

the cold weather returned!!! After I picked the kids up from school we went out and picked us (all of us) up some delicious steamed milk. Perfect for the cold wet day we had.

day 69 {10 mar 2010}

Turbo jam showed up today!

I have loved Kenpo from the p90x series, so I decided to get me some other kick boxing type stuff for the morning, then Mike and I do P90X at night. PHEW!

day 70 {11 mar 2010}

J was feeling a little sad at dinner tonight and D climbed up into his chair to give him kisses to make him feel better. It was very sweet. and as you can see by the smile on J's face, I think it worked.

weekend fun...

Spring is coming, :) and we can't be happier!

day 63 {04 mar 2010}

a quick spring walk...

I don't think I have ever seen the kids get their chores done this fast with a promise of a nice walk in the sunshine upon completion.

This was also the ONLY day this week (until Saturday) all the kiddos were at school and healthy. (By healthy I mean, the only day of the week someone wasn't throwing up!)

day 64 {05 mar 2010}

Just D eating a banana, being very happy!

He has claimed his spot on the counter next to me when I am cooking. He needs to sit on the counter in HIS spot, eat a banana, drink his milk, and have a few chocolate chips and reeses peanut butter chips. Then the boy is totally happy while I cook.

Although, it sort of messes up his appetite for dinner. :D

day 65 {06 mar 2010}

J cashing in on his carefully earned video game time, with Dad's new PSP, playing Battlefront Elite, thanks to Grandma Clegg for the game and Josh for the suggestion.

His amount of time reading has seriously increased. He read for FOUR hours last week. I am so so happy. I need to spend about 20 minutes a day with him reading out loud, though, I think that will also really help his reading improve more.

day 66 {07 mar 2010}

The itouch game of choice this week, Angry Birds. It used to be Doodle Jump (which we all still love), but we, as a family, have moved on. Even little D has amazing skills with the touch screen of the itouch; he can maneuver his way around with the best of us. Who knew my Christmas present would be such a huge huge hit. :)

I had sharing time this week, and really love being in the Primary. I still miss the Young Women, but I am feeling more and more at home with the kiddos of our ward. This month's theme is about prophets. As I was preparing this week I was obviously thinking about the theme and feel so blessed to have my knowledge of God's prophets...That God calls prophets today. That God speaks through his prophets, and has all through time. I know that as we listen to the prophets' words, study them, and apply their teachings in our lives our lives will be better and we will be blessed. I love the pure and sweet spirit that I feel when teaching the children. It is great!

Hope you all have a great week!

before and after photos...

some photos...

the kitchen before..
after... with the light airy Havana Cream (yeah, I am a little obsessed with the very cool names for the paints)

kitchen into dining room BEFORE:
and AFTER: the combo of Havana Cream, in the kitchen, then Rhythmic Blue in the dining room, with one wall of Dry Sea Grass...

Boring living room BEFORE:
warm, inviting living room, AFTER...

looking from the living room to the dining room...

the boys' room...AFTER

and the girls' room AFTER

Down the hallway (please ignore the lights. :) Mike had agreed to change them now that we have painted. :) YAY!!)

So there you have some shots! :)

catching up on my photos a day...

then I will probably get around to posting some before and after pics of the painting, even though we still need to put our pictures back up and get some window treatments. :)

day 58 {27 feb 2010}

My photos all this day were of the paint,

so here you have the Living Room post Dry Sea Grass painted walls. :)

LOVE iT!

day 59 {28 feb 2010}

Dad and 3 of the kids reading in MY bed. LOL!!

Funny thing, just a little before this all 4 kids were in there, and they were discussing how a while ago we would have Saturday morning snuggles in our bed and how we all fit. Clearly we DO NOT any more. S and I are not even in the bed and there is no room for us. I guess we need to get a king size bed. :)

day 59 {28 feb 2010}

Little S, sick again, she has had a rough month. (or two) I feel so badly for her. First, in Jan, she was sick and throwing up, then around Valentine's Day she had pink eye, and then she had this trowing up thing again. It only lasted about 2 days, but she was so sad and pathetic. This was her third nap this day.

(on a photographic note: this is a straight out of the camera shot.

I love the light and I just didn't want to do a thing to it to mess it up, so no photoshop editing.)

day 60 {01 mar 2010}

the beginning of two days full of changing out all the old yellowish outlets and light switches to new bright white ones. The new ones look so pretty! Yes, I did it myself, Mike just had to help me with one set of lights that I couldn't get the wires out of. We have a handful of lights that are controlled by two different switches (ie, the dining room has two switches, one on each side of the room by each doorway, but they control the same lights), well, those switches are just a stitch complicated, and it took me a while to figure the first set out because the old switches were VERY old and did not look like the new ones completely. I had to fiddle with the wires and then do a trial and error type on off on off with the lights to be sure they worked (both lights). This was when I decided that I was sick and tired of running back in and out of the garage to flip the breaker switch, test the lights, then back out to the garage to switch the breaker off, then change the next set of switches, etc. With that wise choice (or not so wise), I saved myself some time, but got myself jolted about 3 times. They didn't really hurt, mostly it was just funny. I did most of this while D was sleeping, so I didn't have to worry about him trying to "help" by sticking a screw driver in the outlet and getting himself jolted (which would have been dangerous). In fact when I did all the outlets I did have my breaker off, it was just when I was doing the lights. :) I am a genius, I know!! LOL!! I love my new light switches and outlets.

day 61 {02 mar 2010}

D has been sick this week, just with a nasty cold, sinuses thing. He has those red, sick eyes. He has been a bit out of sorts. Just second before this picture he was sobbing. Mid bawls, he blurts out, "I want to play wiss you itouch, Mommy." I calmly told him, mid snappping some pictures of his tantrum (poor thing), that crying and throwing fits are NOT the way to get to play with my itouch. So he quickly changed his approach... Smiling and talking all sweetly, here is, totally begging to play "wiss you itouch, pwease, mommy."

day 61 {02 mar 2010}

And because he is my baby, and is pretty spoiled, I totally gave in. The boy is sure happy!

day 62 {031 mar 2010}

S feeling a bit better.

And I can't believe she let me take her picture. She normally fights me and won't hold still.

I don't want to whine too much on here, or have a pity party for myself... but I will just say, there has been about 1 day in the last three weeks that I have all three of my school aged kids in school, the rest of the time, someone has been home and sick. Today, however, everyone was back at school. I can't wait for spring and for everyone to be healthy longer than a day or so!

a coupla of painting photos! :)

Although we are so not finished!! We are so so happy and only have one area we are still working on. Paint chip photos are snagged off the Behr site... keep in mind that colors vary just a bit from computer to computer, so what you see may not be what it really looks like.

Here are a few pre painting photos...

Here is our white living room corner.

our boring ol' living room, about to become the warm, inviting, rich, Dry Sea Grass...

The entry way, hall, and stairs are Winter Garden, and the Bathroom in Castle Stone.

(as shown above)

kitchen, where I tore down the wall paper about a year and a half ago, and left us with messy scratched up dry wall.

And the corner of the previously messy kitchen walls. Here it is all patched up, textured, and primed, ready for my happy, light, airy, Havana Cream (shown below).

Now, here are some mid way photos...

J and D's room partially painted, UT Jazz blue and Castle Stone.

(shown below, in reality it is a bit brighter on the walls.)

The girls' room partially done, with Water Sprout & Pixie Dust.

(shown below-with a look alike pinkie/purple)

our bookshelf (please don't mind the messy shelf--that is what happens when the kids have chores to clean the living room, I only get in there and straighten out the books once a month or so) in the corner, with our new living room paint.

(Better photos to come.)

Now everything has not quite gone perfectly...Our living room and dining room share a wall, so we just decided to paint both rooms completely Dry Sea grass, while we LOVE it in the living room, the lighting is just different enough in the dining room that it looks a touch mustardy and a bit too dark, which we don't really love so much. hahaa! So I have been choosing new colors for 3 walls in the dining room. They painted the first coat of the cool, light Ice Folly (shown below), which I chose today, and I wasn't quite happy with it--just not blue enough. So tomorrow, instead of painting the second coat of Ice Folly, they are going to paint the second coat with Rhythmic Blue. They are very kind to deal with my painting diva attitude. And I hope that leaves me happy and LOVING it. :)

Our painters have been AWESOME!! and we have been so lucky to have them do the job they are doing. They even sprayed all our ceilings and painted all our doors and frames, and floor boards that needed painting. They painted all of those a color called Swiss Coffee, it is and off white with a little warm hue to it. It looks so fabulous and they have done a great job!

My sweet A was sick most of this week with a fever, ear infection, swollen tonsils, sore throat, and head aches. She has inherited ONE of Mike's awful tonsils (the other one appears to be normal), so when she starts getting sick her tonsils are almost always the first to feel it, poor thing. Although I must admit having her home for a few days this week has REALLY helped me. She is always really great with D, so she has been a big help keeping him out of the paint and downstairs. She's been on antibiotics now for about 24 hours and is doing quite a bit better...I snapped a few shots of her today... I just love this girl!!

Sheesh!! Sorry for the LONG post. It has just been a crazy week. I even have a fun and sweet story about D's nursery class this last week... but that will have to save for another day. :)