New family member

It only took me 9 1/2 years to convince Brady we need a pet... so a week and a half ago Brady and I went down to the shelter and pick out this cutie that needed a home.  He has fit right in with our family and the boys love him.  He is a really good kitty, he comes when we call him and he likes playing with the boys, and he uses the litter box and we haven't had an "accident"... yet. These are just a few pictures we have that I used my cell phone to take... I need to get a better phone camera because it seems to be the one I always use.
I made him this cat tree out of scrap wood I had and a friend and a carpet scrap she let me use... I need to get a little more carpet for the bottom piece but he likes the top the best anyway.

He likes to cuddle with me after the boys go to bed, yes I love it.

He already thinks he is king of this house...

Family Pictures 2012

 My mom did a wonderful job taking our family pictures and my dad was back up support!  They did a great job and I wanted to share them here!

 She also caught this crazy kid doing his thing....

 This is Grandpa and the boys hanging in the back yard!

SUmMeR TiME

 Owen's birthday was in June and we had lots of fun playing together and then broke out the tent and slept out in the back yard with the boys!

 We've gone to the beach for the 3 times in the last 3 weeks... These pictures are from the first trip to Lake Tahoe at Kings Beach.  We had so much fun!  It was a great place and it didn't get too busy...

 I'm trying to let Brady take more pictures of me when we do things... I don't want to be sad when I look back at pictures and I'm not in them no matter how much I don't care for it right now...

We are having so much fun while Brady is only teaching 1 summer class, we love having him around.  I've misplaced the camera but would have loved to taken some pictures today.  We took a trip up to Frenchman Lake, it was great for swimming the water was perfect and it got real deep at the edge we were at so the boys swam around in their life jackets, Brady and I got to swim too... it was just really nice water.  Very unlike Tahoe, Tahoe is very cold and we just play on the beach mostly when we go there.  Owen enjoyed our little raft, we tied it to our chair on the beach and let him just float at the edge and he thought it was great.  I can't believe the boys go back to school in just 2 short weeks (we have year round school). Wyatt is starting kindergarten and I can hardly stand it!!!!

Projects continue...

We are always doing at our house, I know Brady wishes we'd do less but I just get so excited about my our projects... We painted the boys bedrooms... don't get too excited, just a neutral that I've fallen in love with, vast desert.  The plan is now to put some color in the room by painting the dresser and getting some shelves and decor up... maybe even building a triple bunk bed like this one...

Oh the possibilities!
Carson's room started off totally light blue, everything, the walls the ceiling the baseboards... then they had airplane stickers on the walls and an airplane fan on the ceiling... it was a cute idea but not my taste, so down it all came.  Carson really liked the airplanes so we kept 2 to mount on boards so we can hang them as pictures. 
Wyatt and Owen's room was red and tan with a wallpaper boarder of safari animals driving a jeep between the 2 colors.  I like the colors actually but there were the same smoke stains on the wall as the rest of the house so it just had to be painted.
Here are some pictures of our progress on the rooms...

 Brady painted the ceilings in the boys rooms first...
Carson's room

 The fan is hanging low in this room and we need to fix that but can't find a shorter down rod...

Excuse the mess...
We hadn't clean up yet but I was itching to take pictures
The painted rectangles on the doors were from the previous owners and
we don't hate it, it's kind of fun so we've left them for now.

(we've left the inside of the closet light blue too... another project is putting in some shelves and it will get painted when we do that)

 

Wyatt and Owen's room...
We've didn't get  a shot of the wallpaper boarder, sorry you missed it,
it was right where the white stripe is.

 

 Spent 2 hours cleaning up this room... they have the "toy closet" in their room so don't tell them but I threw out the crappy toys and broken things that they couldn't let go of...
(They haven't missed them yet... shhh...)

Still want to paint dressers and decorate... so bring on Pinterest!

Next few projects are outdoors... we've got our garden all set up just waiting for the warm weather to kick in so we can plant!

 And here are a few pictures of my boys... love them... we all miss Carson while he is at school all day...

 Brady's parents came to visit for a week while Brady and Carson were on spring break.  We had lots of fun and took our first trip to Lake Tahoe.  It was beautiful, as you can see from the pictures!  

 This is Sand Harbor, we were the only ones there for most of the time.  It was just so beautiful and the boys loved throwing rocks in the water and exploring.

 After searching around on pinterest I got the itch to paint my front door black (just the inside).  I had the black paint so it was a quick and easy project and I love how it turned out!

 BEFORE

 AFTER

 The boys staged their castle guys... I love watching these boys play...

 Our little Dax taking a bath, can't believe he is 8 months already... where did the time go!

 Love those puppy dog eyes

Carson turned 7 this March!  He is an amazing kid.  And we love having him in our family!

The cakes never come out like I envision, but the boys are always thrilled...
Brady said it looked like a monster truck??
O-well it tasted good!

We spent today and last tuesday putting rock in some of the flower beds around our house... I love the beds but there were just so many I knew there would be no way I could keep up with them.  My MIL helped me get all the weeds out of these beds while she was here... they were totally full of weeds when we moved in.... Then I found some really nice guy off craigs list that just let us have the rocks for free and a amazing friend from our ward let us borrow their truck.  Needless to day Brady and I are pretty sore tonight.... but also very happy to have this done.  It was a beautiful day and I really enjoyed the being outside.  I always love yard work... I'm sure I'll tire of it soon but this is our very first yard of our own and right now it's fun and rather rewarding to work in it.

Don't mind the big weed looking thing to the left of the picture... I removed some rose bushes that were really over grown and full of garbage that the wind had blown into them... I have scratches all over my legs and arm from those beasts!

Well there is a little snip-it of our whats going on for us... just loving life and being happy!