Birds and Mice, oh my!

Lately I've been contemplating if having a garden is really worth it. Worth all the visitors, I mean.

When we first tilled up the soil, we had many a pretty bird come visit to dig up the freshly lifted worms. They were oh so pretty and we thought about how they might eat some of our garden with how many appeared, so we read a bit online and people suggested that getting a bird feeder would draw them there instead of your garden.

So we hung a bird feeder and feed they did! They got so restless feeding that quite a bit of the seeds dropped all over the ground. All of them enjoyed the bird food, except the robins.

Our strawberries were just barely starting to come on when I realized that they were all suddenly gone and even the leaves were sorely damaged. I had remembered seeing the robins back there quite a bit, but thought they were just digging for worms since that spot of our garden seems to get a lot of water. I was wrong!

Well, netting may eventually appear over the strawberries, but for now I took some online advise and spread some toy snakes and also some shining snakes around the strawberries. I have not seen any robins in the 2 days they've been there, but I think I need to move the snakes around or something in case the birds get too smart.

As for the bird seed that fell all over the ground, it has attracked a family of mice! No joke! I see them scurrying from under the fence (must live at the neighbor's, whew!) and to the bird seed at least 20 times a day and that is when I have time to watch.

I bought some normal mousetraps and within 10 minutes, caught one by the tail. It escaped after about 3 minutes (which is really quite long), but I could have killed it with a shovel if I hadn't been squeeling and disgusted and not knowing what to do.

If anyone has some great advise AND a heads up for other fabulous animals I may encounter with a garden, it would be appreciated.

Spring Blossoms and Bud Confusion

Spring has sprung here and brought some nice weather and beautiful blossoms. Being that I've killed every indoor plant in the last almost 8 years of marriage (including a cactus that was a Mother's Day present), I just had to show off some of the bulbs that I planted in the fall.

Along the very front of our house is just barely started to blossom, so maybe those pics will have to come later. However, our backyard blossoms will never be seen by anyone anymore. They were looking so pretty and then Saturday at dinner, Boston confesses, "Since you don't like the buds, I used my light saber (a.k.a stick) and chopped them all for you." WHAT!!?? Who said I didn't like the buds? I felt the sadness and rage emerging and then was wrestling between how to let him know this was a really bad thing, but also show him that I was glad he told me the truth. I tried to help him remember how he helped me plant all these last fall and he didn't remember. I'm not exactly sure what was accomplished (punishment, truth is good, or both), but he does know now that I do indeed like buds.

Spring Break

So we did it. We managed to get back to Southern California during Spring Break and had such a good time. We started off with a stop for the night in St. George and then headed to my sister, Leah's home in Santa Monica.

Saturday night, the boys and I went for a walk to the beach while Chad went to Priesthood Session of General Conference and Kayden and Boston kept getting more and more wet. By the time they were done, they had basically been rolled in the waves with all their clothes on. They were all smiles until we started walking back.

BURBANK VISIT
On Sunday, we went and visited a few people in Burbank. Here's Kayden and Boston with their friends Lucie and Will. We were neighbors when we first moved to Burbank and then they moved out of the complex, but we still kept up playdates and Kayden and Lucy have become the best pen pals.
We also visited the always welcoming Smith family, Ben & Kerrie Flinders and kids, and our dear friend who we celebrated a few Christmas' with and had a garden in her backyard, Mary Bench.

BEACH and TIME with LEAH & THOMAS

Sunday night we ate another one of Leah's yummy meals and had a fun visit with her and Thomas. Monday we spent at the beach with them and then had a great dinner at his Pizza shop, Abbots Pizza Co. So good!!Makes you want a slice, huh!!

CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE
Monday night we headed to Anaheim where we met up with Chad's sister Mindy and her husband, Jason. We spent Tuesday at California Adventure.
AQUARIUM
Wednesday at the Aquarium of the Pacific and swimming in the hotel pools.


DISNEYLAND
Thursday was at Disneyland. It was the busiest we've ever seen it, but we were able to do everything we wanted to. The highlight of the day was the Jedi Training.

Both of the boys were picked to learn to be Jedi's. When they met up with Darth Vader, their personalities really came out. Boston just whipped the light saber around with no fear. Kayden was very methodical. He wanted to do the exact move he was taught earlier and thought through the whole thing, a bit slowly. It was so fun to watch them both.

Kayden got to fight Darth Vader and use the force to 'push' the Storm Troopers away.

Boston was way into fighting Darth Vader. Look how little he is compared to him!!

This was us in on Small World, but the camera kept running out of batteries, so you actually can't tell where we are.

Jason, Chad, McCoy, Boston, Kayden coming out of the Winnie the Pooh ride, while Mindy, Leah and I had just come from Splash Mountain.

Friday we headed back for the gathering of Chad's family for his brother, Shaun's wedding on Saturday.

Bright, Inviting Office

I love my new office! The final touches have been done and I am calling the office complete. Chad may think that I rarely call things complete and he may be right about little touches here and there, but for right now, the office is done.

The natural light in this room is something everyone needs in an office. It has a huge window that opens right up to our backyard where I can spy the boys digging, jumping, playing, exploring, imagining, and yes, fighting. I wanted a color that really played on this natural light and with the help of my husband, we found the right hue to go in our now cheerful office.

When looking at your house now or when house hunting, look beyond the dull and dark and horrible wallpaper. For me the draw to this room was the window. Find what you do like and then run with it. Some may not like my choice of color, but just come visit me on a sunny afternoon and you'll feel just as drawn to be in my office as I do - and that's hard to do in an workspace.

BEFORE: There were three different wallpapers. - textured on top and plaid on the bottom with a hunting border in between the two. Maybe they were trying to play on the dark green carpet. And oh the sad place for the desk - blocking the window!?

AFTER: We removed the wallpaper and replaced the carpet. The baby blue countertops that were replaced in the kitchen were primed and repainted white and steel legs were added. Now there's room for kid's art/drawing and both computers and the room still feels, well... roomy.

The built in dresser was painted as it had a medium-toned stain and we put new hardware on. We even managed to find a nice space for Chad to paint. Now he just needs more time and for people to unlearn the fact that he designs and edits.

Spring! Uh, nevermind.

Last week was so gorgeous! We spent nearly everyday outside either at parks or letting the boys get dirty in the backyard. On Saturday, we woke up discussing what to do and just decided to take advantage of the springtime weather (it was the official first day of Spring!) and went on a hike. The hike was to a waterfall and we were very excited to see it. However, we managed to get to some water and had our picnic and then looking at the dragging feet of the boys, decided that we didn't want to lug an extra 50 pounds each (Chad was already packing McCoy), so we enjoyed ourselves at the water and promised to try again another time to make it to the waterfall.

Today is Monday, two days after it being nearly 70 degrees and we've got snow. Not sticking, but it's still snowing. So here I type, still with anticipation of a TRUE spring - to stay.

Leprechaun Visit

St. Patrick's was celebrated for two days at our home. We had our corned beef and cabbage meal on Monday and delivered cookies to a neighbor and then LEM the Leprechaun came to visit on the morning of St. Patties (Tuesday). Kayden setup 3 traps for him and nearly caught him with plastic wrap, but he managed to get away and left his footprints through the flour that he split. Could've used that pot-o-gold, but we'll try again next year!

Here's our cookies that Chad made the yummy dough for and then I made the spiral designs. We have to admit that the end result was pretty fantastic and gone quickly.

Lem's footprints through the flour.

Kayden doesn't look like he's in too much of a hurry to clean up after the Leprechaun, but just enjoying the chocolate 'gold' that was left behind.

Family Room... check!! (whew!)

Our family room has been completed for some time now, but I've finally got all the pictures together to show off our work. This was a many, many, many step process, but we are very happy with the results and very happy that it is all done!

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Here's what the family room looked like when we were touring the house before buying it. The wood panelling had pictures of pheasants and deer etched into it. Some may like this, but this was not for us.

We took off the wood (messy, but the boys had fun) and discovered this beautiful green-striped wallpaper underneath.

After many a hour steaming off the 70's wallpaper, our walls were finally white, but the wall was damaged from it being on there for 30 years. The drywall paper had ripped of in strips.

The first attempt of trimming the ripped up drywall paper, plastering and then priming and painting ended with a bubbling wall. Not so beautiful. We sanded and started again by purchasing a special sealer and putting that on all of the rips. That sealed the paper so it wouldn't be effected by the water-based paint.

Because the wall was so badly damaged, we decided to add texture to it, so all of the imperfections wouldn't stand out nearly as bad. We sponged on the texture little by little.

Our plan was to put on wainscotting around the bottom of the wall, so we taped off where it would go and painted above it.
Here's what our furniture looked like for a few weeks. The plastic saw so much dust from sanding and also plaster and paint that we were grateful for the cover!

Kayden and Boston always insisted helping when painting time came around.

I didn't get any pictures of the MULTIPLE pieces of wainscotting that are put together to make the beautiful end result (it is NOT all one piece) or how it looked before we puttied the nails and painted the wainscotting, but here is the FINISHED RESULT.

It is a movie-themed room, thanks to Chad's work at a major movie studio for four years, my grandparents old camcorders and equipment and Chad's love of film.