Catching up

My friend Crystal is an amazing digital scrapbook artist. She inspires me to want to scrapbook (digitally, that is). She did this layout of Gaby from her daughter's birthday party this fall. I just love it. (sorry about the feet/toes Christy)

Other blogworthy happenings:

Gaby and Owen both had double ear infections, but have completed a round of antibiotics and seem better now.

Lydia kept me up all night Monday with Puke Fest 2008, nothing like starting off the year with that. Thankfully, no one else got it and that in and of itself is a mighty miracle.

I have living room furniture. I love it. We still need tables and things for the walls, but we love it so far. I wish I had a before and after shot. When we bought the house 4 years ago (can you believe that?) we had no furniture for the dining room or living room. We loved the space - mostly the kids and Max loved "their open space." Lots of running and wrestling and tackling, etc.

The first summer we lived here the kids and I went to PA for Bird's HS graduation leaving Daddy and Max behind to fend for themselves. Max was still a puppy, not quite One. He had never been a chewer like most Labs are ("Cooper NO!"), but one day while unattended he ate a hole in the blue carpet. I've tried to encourage him to eat more so I can get new floors. Good Boy, Max.



The "window treatments" were original to the cc 1982 house - off white/dirty gray sheers behind heavy duty tweed like fabric with a broken pulls to open and shut them. About 2 years ago, Gaby and Lydi were playing in "their space" and I heard a loud crash and discovered that they pulled the rod apparatus out of the wall on both sides. It weighed a ton and luckily no one was hurt. So a few weeks later when it was time to leave for vacation, Jerry realized as we were packed and walking out the door that we had nothing covering the 4 huge windows in the front of the house. Solution - nail up old nasty tweed curtains for a quick fix that turned into a long term fix. Lovely.

Last spring I got my antique dining room set off Craig's List and this year my living room furniture. I'm not Candice Olsen (Divine Design), but this all looks way better than two big rooms of blue carpet.

Since our house was built in the 80's the spindles on the banisters are not to code and spaced just far apart enough for a small child or even a large toddler like Owen to fit through. The previous owners attached Plexiglas pieces with zip ties. It was hardly aesthetically pleasing, but functional in keeping my toddlers from plummeting 20 feet to their deaths. The one on the landing of the stairs was cracked and broken and pieces of it were hanging by a zip tie. So, the day the furniture arrived, I cut that one down. And Owen proceeded to squeeze himself through the spindles and almost fall. It would have only been a 5 foot drop, easily survivable. The other ones are staying in place until Owen can no longer squeeze himself through the bars.

View from top of staircase (non-childproof banister)

From upstairs hallway.

Cozy club chair, which will break the fall from the death-trap banister.

Two nearly-fully furnished rooms.

Notice lamps on the floor - we still need tables. Bush's economic stimulus package will help us purchase the tables, which of course will have been made in China, so in essence we'll help stimulate China's economy, right?

All the pics were for Deb, who helped me test out every leather couch and chair in CR last November. And if you ever shop for leather furniture, we don't suggest doing it while wearing polyester pants. That was a really long post about furniture. We did just do a FHE about the Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life and Jerry commented that he was pretty sure that there was lots of leather furniture in the great and spacious building.