Scoots, Circus, Touring and Mink - what more could you want

SCOOTS
Here's cute McCoy scooting around our living room:

CIRCUS
Friday night Kayden and I went to the circus and Boston and Chad (with McCoy) went bowling. Kayden won tickets to the circus from a coloring contest and was so excited, so we decided it was the perfect opportunity to take the two kids on their own dates and we all had a blast. We had really great seats and just had a fun time!

MINK
Saturday was free state park day here in Utah. We decided to venture to the closest state park to us, Antelope Island. As we packed up the car for our adventure, Chad went to grab the baby backpack out of the garage while I buckle the kids in the car. Suddenly, I hear "Beth, you should come see this." I went back to see what looked like a black ferret in our garage hiding in the corner. We discussed calling animal control, but would have to wait for them to come and we were on our way out, so we propped the garage door open with a ball and hoped that he would find a new home while we were out. When we were returned, there was no sign of the creature and we talked to the boys (and ourselves) that we should always keep the door closed so we don't have the problem again.

Then in Sunday's paper, there was an article about how some activists secretly released 6,000 mink from a Kaysville farm and it had a picture of them and the description was basically a black ferret. We were thankful we've seen only one!! Here's the link to the story: http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_10581217

TOURING
So we did make it to Antelope Island State Park and saw buffalo, antelope, coyote, lizards and birds. We hiked up a hill for a nice view and the boys did not complain or asked to be carried!!

Our family
Boston followed his dad and ventured up some rocks

Keep Rolling Along

Enough house pictures for a bit, life keeps moving along besides house upgrades. Kayden loves school, but had a bit of a rough transition. Moving to a new house with new everything and then new school was just not a good mix, but he has come into his own at school and is doing very well. He is currently working on creating an animated film that he's so excited about. It's for an art competition at school and he has just run with it. When it comes to projects and big grand things, he gets so excited and focused.

Boston is just hilarious with preschool and acts like he's so big. He loves singing and comes home with all the songs memorized and just sings them as he wanders around during the day. It reminds me of my grandmother and her humming and whistling as she goes about things. He makes friends easy, but is very nonchalant about them and doesn't care to learn any of their names. He calls them 'The Tall Girl' or 'Blue shirt boy' to describe what he did that day. In terms of food, our little pig must be between growth spurts, because he now eats like Kayden used to - nearly nothing. He just says, "No, thank you" and just plays with his drink and picks at the food during dinnertime.

McCoy is scooting everywhere, so we are making sure the house is baby-proofed, especially from the boys little toys! His first tooth is popping through and he thinks everyone should know about it. He has been really uncomfortable lately and takes short naps just waking up crying and sad. He is happiest when I carry him around everywhere, but even that doesn't always help.

Sorry for not posting any pictures of our cuties. I'll try to get some up soon.

Before/After of Laundry Room

The laundry room was an overhaul. It is in the shape of an 'L' and had cement floors, beat up walls with large holes and a wonderful view of the heater and other machines that you got to enjoy on your way to the downstairs bathroom (door to bathroom is in picture below). So we updated with new paint, new flooring, new shelves, new curtain to hide the machines, a picture and our tiles from our travels. Now we have a nice to place for food storage, a comfortable place to do laundry, and an enjoyable walk to the bathroom.

Laundry Room View 1 Before and After:

Laundry Room View 2 Before and After:

New Chandelier

Look at it... look at it!!! This is probably the hardest things we've done in the house so far. Not hard in terms of know how, but oh my goodness we both about collapsed while holding it up as the wires were getting connected. Nothing was dropped or broken, but we couldn't feel our arms or legs for hours. So when you come and visit, we'll definitely show you the new chandelier!

BEFORE:
AFTER:

Before/After of Master Bedroom

We've completed 3 rooms so far: the kids rooms, the master bedroom and the laundry room. All the other rooms have one or more things we still want to do. So here's the pics of the master room and we'll try to get the other completed room pics up soon.

BEFORE: Green Master Bedroom while the previous owners lived here.
AFTER: We turned ours into a brown/tan room:

School is in Session

Kayden is now in Kindergarten and Boston in Preschool. They both started school last week and were so excited. They both really like their teachers and always have fun stories after their mornings away. Kayden is gone daily in the mornings and Boston just 3 days a week. They've been having a teddy bear theme in Kayden's class and yesterday had a teddy bear movie and then a picnic. Oh if school were always like Kindergarten - always fun and entertaining! They both go to school about a block away so it makes life for me very easy.

Designing our house to our style is coming along nicely. The kids room and master bedroom are complete (for now) with pictures finally on the wall and furniture in place. We have quite a few projects left to go, but we continue to take it one step at a time.