10 Years of Happiness

Today is our 10th Anniversary. We got married June14th, 2002. Some interesting things that happened in 2002:

Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Olympics.

Hot in Herre by Nelly was the top billboard song for 6 weeks.

Michael Jackson made news for dangling Prince Michael III off a balcony of a hotel room.

Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets was released.

Apple introduced the second generation iPod, compatible with Windows and holding up to 4,000 songs!

That makes it feel like it's been more than a decade. We didn't have digital photography at our wedding. When we got married the best affordable(<$500 ) point and shoot digital cameras where only 4 Megapixels. So most professionals still stuck with film since the picture quality was better. Our cell phones could only make phone calls and send text messages, but no one did that. Why wouldn't you just call the person?

We met in an EMT class at the DATC. I was working as a CNA and working on some pre-req's for nursing. He was working construction and trying to get a fire fighting job. 10 years later: I am a Respiratory Therapist and he is working as a Chemist and will graduate in December with a BS in Chemistry. Not exactly what we had been initially planning on, but hey life happens. With the exception of maybe two semesters here or there one of us has been in school our entire marriage! It has been challenging but SO worth it! So 10 years, 2 kids, and soon to be 2 college degrees later, I love you babe here's to the next decade!

Can't wait for Summer!

We LOVE the spring and summer so much in our family we talk a lot about possibly moving to a warmer climate one day. So when it is nice here we like to spend a lot of time outside. The patio set that we have had seen better days. We really wanted a whole new set but the one's we like are pretty pricey so we had to figure out something else. The cushion from the love seat was ruined so we opted not to keep the love seat. I decided to try to re-cover the cushions from the chairs of our old patio set. The foam was still in great condition, but the fabric was super tattered.

This is how they looked before:
The cushion is actually flipped over since the top looked like this:

Yep, they were toast. So I looked into outdoor fabric and that can be expensive too! So I went in search of something to cover them in and I ended up finding an outdoor table cloth at Ross for $13.99. Here's the chair with the new cover:




Here's the final "set". I am really happy with it. We did splurge on a $180 wicker love seat from Home Depot. The green Adirondack chairs are a kit from home depot all ready to assemble $50 each. You simply paint or stain them and put them together. We went with a green tinted stain. I like how they came out. We also have our old coffee table and a new fire pit. For less than $300 we're good to go! Bring on the good weather!

Graden's 4th Birthday

It's hard to believe it's been 4 years since our little guy came into this world. He is so fun and funny. We are just so glad he is ours! We celebrated this year with his first friend party. We bought "him" a new trampoline for his birthday. The kids are loving it! I didn't take any pictures of it though... Then we had birthday dinners at both grandparents houses. He had fun and was SUPER excited this year!

Chandelier Re-do

From this:
To This:

Just a little of my favorite spray paint, twisted the lights upward (they are made to do that). Then new shades and done! The worst part is trying to keep all those shades level. Those little suckers like to move around.

Obsession

No not the perfume of the 90's, but my latest obsession. Rust-oleum Oil rubbed bronze paint!



My house was built in the year 2000. It doesn't seem that long ago, but it was a time when all hardware that was put into houses was brass/gold like this:

We have been slowly working on replacing it over the last 4.5 years. The first thing to go was the gold front door handle right after we moved in. The last 4 years it has driven me crazy because our front room has had an oil rubbed bronze door handle, a gold coat closet handle, a brushed nickel light by the front door and an antiqued brass ceiling fan. Yep 4 metals in one room. Am I obsessive compulsive? Isn't that just so wrong!?! So I painted the ceiling fan and light, and bought a new handle for the coat closet. Finally it's all cohesive and I am happy!
Next was the kitchen. I am terrible at before pictures so here's some stock photos of the lighting we had in there. This was over the sink:


And this noisy UGLY thing was in the kitchen: (we had wanted to replace it with recessed can lighting, but it's a vaulted ceiling and a huge pain so we never got around to it.)We settled on this instead and I am SO happy with the result:



We want to redo or paint our cabinets but aren't sure what to do yet, but in the meantime the hardware was antique brass so I used about $3 worth of oil rubbed bronze paint so I can live with it a little longer.
This is the last this that needs to be updated on this level of our house:
The chandelier over the kitchen table. It's brushed nickel so it's not too out of date, but it doesn't go with the other lighting in the kitchen now. I have not had any luck finding a reasonably priced chandelier that I like. So for not I think it will get a coat of my favorite new spray paint and see how that looks. I will post after pics when it is done:)

Bedroom Makeover

Hallie's wanted her room re-done for a while now. That was one thing she asked for for Christmas. So here's the before and afters.

Before: This is mid-room clearing out stage. Her walls were a medium tan, she had pink Hannah Montana bedding, although that's already out. We moved in when she was 4 so everything on her walls was PINK, PINK, and more PINK.



After: Hallie chose the paint colors and fabrics. I made the comforter cover. Jake's mom made the fabric wall hangings and pillows. Jake did all the finish work and paint.

I ordered the curtains online and they didn't match as well as I thought they would. Maybe I'll get some different ones later.

One of her requests was a chalk board wall. So Jake painted one for her. There is still some small trim that needs to go around it. (That old end table and chair are her desk for when she plays school which is everyday. I know they don't match.)

Here are close ups of Jake's fabulous finish work and paint stripes. That is a little shelf over her closet:)

Temple Square Lights

This year we went with Jake's family to temple square to go see the lights. This is definately not something we will do every year. It was nice to go and let the kids experience it though. We rode the frontrunner down and it was the most crowded I've ever seen it! People were standing in the isles on every car seriously! Downtown SLC was a mad house. We picked a bad day to go and it was SO SO SO cold. We did get some nice pics with our new camera and it was fun to spend time with family. Even though we are not religious ourselves you cannot deny the beauty of this building. It really is spectacular.

Christmas

First off. Hallie had a Christmas Program on Dec 21st. She played "Bustle" the Elf. We were in charge of her costume. I made her hat and skirt.

This year we missed out on some parts of Christmas due to stomach flu going around. My family had a family party on the 23rd, but since Hallie spend the whole night before it violently throwing up we stayed away so we wouldn't give it to anyone else. I was sad to miss it. I spend the whole day sanitizing my entire house from top to bottom to kill everything. I was NOT going to let the stomach flu ruin the rest of our Christmas. (Not to mention that I had to work Christmas night and the punishment at my work for calling in sick on a holiday is that next year you have to work that holiday plus the current years. Which for me would mean I'd spend this Christmas sick and next year I'd have to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas night. No THANK YOU!)

So after no one else had any symptoms and Hallie was all better, we went a head and had Jake's family come over to our house for Christmas Eve. We ate some yummy food that my wonderful chef of a husband made and played Just Dance 2 on the wii. We all brought a present like a white elephant, but a good present that you would actually want and competed by dancing the same two songs. Then we chose gifts in order of highest score to lowest. Jake's mom won! (She was on her high schools drill team. SO I guess she's still got it.)Dan came in second, I was third, and I can't remember after that. It was all really fun except one part when Ben was not very nice to Jake. I have a tradition of new PJ's that we all open on xmas eve. This year I got everyone super soft fuzzy robes instead. The kids got Wiggle Racer's from Santa. Hallie asked to have her room re-done so I made her a new duvet cover. Her Grandma Lewis made her pillows and wall hangings. I will do another post that shows her bedroom makeover. Grady got lots of super hero stuff.

This is everyone dancing to "Hey yeah" by OutKast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43dE6fiTTSU

Our family in our fuzzy robes!

Kids on their wiggle racers. Santa even knew their favorite colors!



P.S. Jake and I got this for each other for Christmas:

Loving it!

Apron Tutorial

I learned to sew when I was around 8 or 9-years-old. I always liked it. In Jr. high I took sewing class and we made aprons. This is the same basic idea as the one I made way back then, but I don't like to bother searching for or buying a pattern for something so simple. This is my apron tutorial for this apron this one is for a 4-year-old so it is sized accordingly.

I started by folding the fabric in half. Good sides in. Then I drew an apron shape that I liked and cut it out.

I wanted pockets on it, so I cut out two equal squares.

Then I folded and ironed the squares and stitched the top hem of each pocket.

Here are the pockets pinned onto the apron. I measured from the sides and bottom of the apron so that I made sure I put them on evenly.

Here they are all sewn on.

Next I used 1/2inch Bias Tape to put an edge on it.

The rounded corners are a bit tricky to get around without any fold, but you can do it.

Then sew the bias tape on to top hem and all around the bottom. Leave the "armpits" without for now.

Then you can use bias tape to make one long piece that will be the neck, armpit trim, and ties. Kind of like so.

I wanted a little more of the coordinating fabric so I used that and made my own trim instead. Pinned it an and sewed.

And there you have it! Just remember if a bunch of 7th graders can do it you can too!