Stuff that Happened in Spring (I Think)

I am really sad about it, but I haven't been blogging.  I haven't even been making notes to myself about things that need to be blogged, so now I'm way behind and I don't know where to start.  I love having a record of all of the things happening in our family, but as you can see from our blog, we live in constant chaos and I'm just trying to keep my head above water,  I don't have time to turn on my computer.  I usually do this kind of thing in the evening after the kids are in bed, but I'm so tired, I just want to crash, or get other things done, so bloggy has been neglected.  Because I'm so far behind, this post is going to be a mess, not chronological, and just random.  Hang on to your butts (we DID watch Jurassic Park for the first time with the kids.  They liked it, Jack especially liked that line.)

One day in April, our kids found that a stray cat had been living (or at least hiding from a hoard of kids) in the gutter in front of our house.  He was "white" and very friendly, but had very long, matted, dirty fur.  After hanging around our house for a few days, and the kids attaching themselves to him, we adopted him.  I took him to get his shots, neutered, and cleaned up.  They found that he was an already neutered male, which was a surprise, because we'd been thinking he was female and we'd named him "Snowy".  They shaved his fur and he came home looking like a white lion, it was fantastic.  He's a crazy, pirate cat.  He had a really deep wound on his back, which healed nicely, and his lip has a scar that makes it pull up into an angry sneer.

It was so sad, because when he first came into the house, he seemed so happy to be there, but also very uncomfortable.   For the first week or so, he wouldn't lay down at all.  He'd shiver (he's naked!) and sit up, but fall asleep so his little head would just slowly drop until it hit the floor and he'd sit upright again.  He was like an old man in church.

The other big surprise about him, was that after a week or so we realized that he's deaf.  It's a common genetic defect for white cats with blue eyes.  This makes him even more skittish.  He will now cuddle every once in awhile, but is generally a loner.  He gets spooked easily; a few days ago he jumped straight up about 5 feet in the air, he doesn't usually sleep on soft surfaces, and likes to be outside most often.

We got another new pet, Dotty the Leopard Gecko.  I got sick of our stupid fish.  They take a lot of work and NO ONE liked them.  Fish are actually the worst possible pet, they give you nothing.  Dotty takes work, mostly in keeping her crickets well stocked, although in summer the kids are responsible for catching grasshoppers for her.  She's pretty fun, because she's slow and the kids love to hold her.

Jared also loves her, here she is in her little beard cave.

For Christmas I bought myself a sausage maker.  It's something that I've wanted for a long time, because I love sausage.  I made sausages one day in March, and I was super excited about it, but the kids had been passing around some kind of stomach flu and it finally hit me on that day.  As I made the sausages I got sicker and sicker, and finally threw up after I ate the first one.  Because of this, I haven't made sausages again since, and ended up throwing away the ones that I did make.

I still am a fan of sausage though, so when Jared's birthday came up, I threw him a "Sausage Fest"  birthday party!  It was fun, I invited lots of friends and our house was completely full.  We had tons of different types of sausages and a table full of condiments and fix ins.

I even made a sausage cake.  It was a good time.

I planted an early spring garden again this year.  The lettuce, kale, and spinach were successful but the broccoli, brussel sprouts,  carrots and asparagus were not so much.  We only got a little bit of broccoli but it was delicious and the brightest green you've ever seen.

We did a lot of other small fun things, it's been so long now, I barely remember them (which is why I need to blog, dang me!)  There is a hike in Payson canyon which has become super popular, called "The Grotto".  It is a super fun, short hike which ends in a really neat waterfall that's enclosed in rock walls.  It's fantastic for little kids, because the hike has log bridges to cross and the waterfall at the end is so fun.

We went one day after a rain storm so we had the added fun of mud and worms.

Annie would hike and pick up as many worms as she could.  When her little hands were full, she'd deposit a giant pile of worms and start over, it was adorably disgusting.

Here is a picture of a hike up Slate Canyon with the cousins.

These two pictures crack me up.  Jack and Annie are champion posers.  Note Jack's face of pure disgust from Annie touching him, until he realized that I was taking a picture.

Easter was fun.

Someday I will get a good Easter picture.  I think it needs to happen before the candy comes out next year.

Here are Annie and Cate at the Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival.

This picture is here because it needs to be recorded for our posterity.  My parent's are loons.  Outside this window was a hollow tree stump, and my dad got to spend a season watching drama unfolding of different species of birds fighting for the nest in the hole.  There is a bird that likes to tap on this window, because it is reflective.  My dad has tried several things to stop it, including nailing a rubber snake to the house.  In another window he has a picture of a cat jumping so that the birds will not fly into it.

I had this little Ikea dresser.  It was boring, so I bought a bunch of vintage yardsticks from an antiques fair and covered it.  I added some newer yard sticks and paint stir sticks, stained them, aged them, or painted them.  I love the way it turned out.  It's hilarious how long it took me to finish it.  I would work on it for an hour every month or two, so it was insane.

I also made this nifty little bench for the back porch.  I wanted to hide our electrical panel and other junk.  It was really fun and the kids were really impressed, as was I.

I love this crazy little family!

Junie-baby is 2!

Junie-baby turned 2.  She's a little ball of fire!  Here she is looking cute, seconds after freaking out and seconds before another freak-out.

She has a blanket named "Silky".  At bedtime we play a little game where we walk around saying "Wheeeeere's Silky?"  She absolutely can not go to sleep without it and needs it periodically throughout the day.  Here she is while Silky is in the washing machine, she was NOT happy.

Here is a good picture of her little, red mohawk.  It lays down now that it's gotten longer, but it still will stand up after she wakes up.  In general, it cracks me up how much attention she gets for her hair.  Everyone loves it.

She and Annie have a complicated relationship.  Sometimes they are so cute and love each other, but most times Annie pesters her and she screams.

She loves to swing more than anything.  She sees it and says "fing!  fing!".  She could spend hours on it and actually will swing pretty high, considering how little she is.

 She also loves balloons, of course.

Here she is, running around in the backyard one day when she had a bad diaper rash.  She has the same squishy, round buns that all of my kids have gotten from somewhere.  They're the best.

Here she is in a garbage can.  Nothing to explain, just that I put my kids in garbage cans.

I for some reason didn't get a picture of June and her birthday cake, I feel bad, I think I only got video.  Here she is opening a present.

Right now her vocabulary is limited but growing quickly.  She had been saying "yes" and "no", but somehow she forgot "yes" and now only says "no" to everything, all the time.  She's usually grumpy and just yells "No!"  all day, at everyone and everything.  She didn't answer any of these questions, but here is her birthday survey:

What's your favorite color?  She know some colors,  they're not usually correct, but she does say "yellow" in a really adorable way.
Favorite animal?   She says "Chickies!", she likes the cats and says "Snow" (our new cat is named snowy, more on that later)  in a funny way where she breathes out her nose and says "HHhhnoe!" She also identifies and yells out "Horsie!" and "Cow!".
Favorite TV Show?  She seems to like Paw Patrol.
Favorite Movie?  She knows "Elsa" and has an Elsa dress that she LOVES.
Favorite Music?  She does an adorable wiggle dance when we play "Everything Is Awesome" from The Lego Movie.
Favorite Food?  Frozen GoGurts.  She can't get enough.
Favorite Hobby?  Swinging.  Swinging and swinging all day long.
Favorite Dessert?  Popsicles.
What do you want to be when you grow up?  Someone who gets to run around chasing Lily, Jack and Annie all day?

Two Room Redo and a Hot Tub

This winter we finally pulled the trigger on fixing up the rooms upstairs. It started after we finally got the attic and Lily's room finished, and before we moved June's stuff into the room.  I said to Jared, "Hey, how about before we move June's crib out of our closet, we fix the room up, it will be a quick, one-weekend job."  Of course, it turned into a much bigger job.

It started by stripping the fly fishing wallpaper.  As Jared pulled it off, a lot of the plaster was crumbing and there were big cracks, so he needed to do a lot of repair and re-texture the walls and ceiling.  He also spent a lot of time stripping and sanding the window, which was painted dark, dark green and was really lumpy from the many different layers of semi-peeled paint.  It really brought the details back out of the woodwork.  He did a lot of repair on the closet drywall and wood trim because the closet had only been roughed-in and he put in a new chair rail.  We also put in a pretty light.

After he was done with the walls and ceiling, I painted the unfinished bead board with milk paint, which gave it a cool, old-timey feel and finished it with a wax.

I painted the slide bed (which we'd bought at a yard sale about a year ago) with chalk paint.  The whole time we worked we both listened to a World War 1 podcast series and I became completely obsessed with it.  It was a fun time and I love the way it turned out (the room, not WWI).

We moved Annie's stuff in but she doesn't want to sleep in there yet.  She likes sleeping with Lily, and I think June will have a hard time sleeping with her in there, so for now, she can sleep wherever she wants.

After we were done with that, we loved how it turned out so much, we decided to just move right on into our bedroom.  It didn't seem right for our kids to have great bedrooms while we still sleep in a dark, hole of misery and peeling wallpaper which was our bedroom.

It was a struggle.  Here it is half way through.

We ran into the same issues that we did in the other room, but in one big section the plaster was pulling away from the lath, which caused some problems.  Jared had to drill a gazillion holes and fill them with adhesive.

We went with a really light off-white paint.  It feels so much brighter, cleaner and bigger.  We also did our closet at the same time.

We got a chandelier, it's beautiful and fancy.

Jared really focused on the window, with days of stripping paint and sanding.  It is really beautiful.

I recovered the headboard, sewed pillows, and re-upholstered a bench.  We bought new bedding which is the softest in the whole world.

We have a cozy little nest, and it's probably my favorite house project so far.  It's not like it's all that special, but it just makes me significantly happier, or I guess, it doesn't make me sad anymore.

In the winter our house is ridiculously cold.  Seriously, it's frigid.  I'm cold all winter and I hate it.  In February I was angry about it and also very sore from starting to run again.  Jared's been proposing a hot tub for years and I finally gave in when we found a good deal on a used one.  Here is everyone getting the pad ready.

We were in it every night for the first couple months.  The kids like it, too, although it's too hot for Junie.

Jared made a pretty brick pathway to it and we did some landscaping.

While writing this post, I scrolled through the old pictures (including the house listing) looking for good "before's".  It's so interesting how much it's changed. Every time we change something I feel a responsibility to the people who've owned it before and especially to whoever will come after us. It feels like it's been here forever, but at the same time it's always changing. It's fun having an old house.

Annie Turns 4!

Annie is just about as adorable as any human could be.  Every thing that comes out of her mouth and every facial expression is hilarious.  Even when she has a temper tantrum we can't help but laugh because it's so over the top and cute.  Here are some examples of her hilarity:

Annie has always liked to eat dirt.  Since she was tiny she sucked on any shoe she could get her paws on.  One day we had talked about how she used to do that and now she's a big girl she doesn't (she totally does, I was trying some tricky parenting) and then later, I caught her licking the windowsill.  I was grossed out and she said in her little voice "I still like eating dirt."

She loves to dress up in her Elsa outfit, here she is with some really fancy face paint from a Frozen birthday party (This is her serious, "I'm actually a magical princess" pose).

Whilst driving to go on a hike with the family we drove through a rain storm and we saw a rainbow.  Lily and Jack were discussing what type of treasure is at the end of the rainbow, Jack thought silver, Lily said a pot of gold.  Annie excitedly said "Maybe it's Peeps at the end of the rainbow!"
This is a picture she drew on my phone titled "A Hedgehog in the Wind."

This is her posing after wading out into the river and getting her tights muddy.  She dresses herself in the craziest outfits, but man, she is unbelievably beautiful.

Annie gives the best hugs in the whole world.  Other people have even commented on how great they are.  One lady at church bore her testimony about how little Annie Burrough gave her an amazing hug.  She squeezes so hard she shakes.  She has also figured out how to hold her breath and make her face turn all crazy and red.  She did it the other day and I pointed out how her neck veins were popping out  (the same veins that pop out all crazy when she's having a hilarious temper tantrum).  She held her neck and said "Oh no!  My head will come off!"

The other day we were going to make Muddy Buddies (the Chex treats) and I said "OK, lets get the mud for the Muddy Buddies."  I happened to have a bowl of mud because I had harvested a bunch of kale with the roots on and soaked them in water so they wouldn't wilt.  I picked up the bowl and started to act normal, like we were going to put the Chex in the mud.    Her face was the sweetest, saddest thing I've ever seen, I soooo wish that I had it on video.  She was horrified and devastated.  I laughed and told her the truth, she didn't really think it was funny.

For her birthday we had a rainbow party, which I feel suits her personality so well.

 I made this super, awesome punch piñata.  You punch the tissue paper color circles and behind it is a prize!

 She requested a fancy rainbow pony tail.

 We made an awesome birthday shirt.

 She had some great little friends come.  We did a fun treasure hunt and made rainbow wind socks with paper plates and streamers.

I made an amazing cake.  Annie and I painted the rainbow with her name and the #4 (just like her shirt!) with food paints, it had rainbow sprinkles, rainbow candles, a cool texture in the frosting.

 And it was rainbow inside!!!!  It was also really delicious.  It might be my favorite cake ever.

Here is her birthday survey:
What's your favorite color?  Rainbows
Favorite animal?  Snakes
Favorite TV Show?  Paw Patrol
Favorite Movie? Strawberry Shortcake
Favorite Music?  Let it Go (Frozen)
Favorite Food?  Pizza
Favorite Hobby?  Riding my scooter
Favorite Dessert?   Banana Swirl
What do you want to be when you grow up?  A Mommy