Valentine's Day

Was lovely here. Taylor and I celebrated Saturday night; the stake had an adult dance which was really fun. We went to dinner first at Gumbo's and they had a live band and really yummy food. The dance at the stake center was SO fun! I love dancing, a lot. And there was a live band there as well that played great music. All old stuff really good for actual dancing, (as a opposed to standing in one spot and swaying around). We have a fun older couple in our ward (who Hannah calls "my gampa") and they taught us several dances. And we had lots of people from our ward there as well. It was a wonderful night!



On actual Valentine's Day the kids and I had a really fun day. Mostly just doing chores around the house, planted a peach tree, ran to the post office to pick up Hannah's birthday quilt (!), and the boys bought some new Legos with money they have been saving forever so they played for the next six hours. We had a yummy dinner when Taylor came home and then family home evening. It was a pretty near perfect day.

Broccoli! --Matthias

Dinner is complete, we're all sitting around the table eating a chocolate chip cookie and chatting.

Kristi: Hey guys, tomorrow I'm going grocery shopping. So if you need anything in the next two weeks I need to know now so I can put it on the list.

Matthias: Broccoli!

Away In A Manger

Hannah loves singing and picks up on the words to songs really well. She is such a mimic and a great speaker so her song repertoire is quickly rivaling the boys. This is a little late, but Christmas cheer is good all year round.

Boys' Room

The boys helped paint their room and were so excited to do it. We saved it until a time when they could help and we could finish it all. They lasted about 15 minutes and then gave up on me so I could finish alone. They helped pick out their colors. This is the room where Hannah started her refrain, "Don't paint on carpet, paint on wall." The good thing about painting a foreclosure, the kids can help and you don't even have to worry about anything.

Eventually we plan to get a chair rail up around that white strip in the wall. And the boys wanted a jungle room (hence the brown and green) so I got the jungle vinyl animals to stick on the walls. This room looked about the same as Hannah's: nasty carpet, stinky smell. Also the blinds here were gross and mini blinds unlike the rest of the house that has 2 inch faux wood so I replaced those as well.








(I thought about cleaning the Legos up for the picture and then figured this is how their room looks 98% of their waking hours; we clean it up right before bed and they pore it out the minute they wake up. So I left it).

Also, Taylor and I (mostly almost completely Taylor) created a built in closet for the boys as well. We drew the design one night deciding where we wanted clothes and toys. Then bought materials and started work the next day. We ended having to finish after the boys were in bed so they got to sleep in our room while we worked. The closet turned out really well and it is so nice to have a space for everything. And you can see in one of the pictures we put a shelf along the very top where we are storing the old baby clothes (only one bin is up there in the picture, but it's full now. And we designed a space for the hamper too. I'm so happy with this closet! Taylor did a great job.

Brrr

Woke up at 5:30 yesterday, rolled over and groaned because the window was glowing bright. That's so frustrating when the moon is shining on the snow.

.....

SNOW!!!?!!??!?!?!

What the?

Pretty sure we moved to Texas. Pretty sure it's only snowed in Austin about once in the last 10 years. Yup, it was 4 degrees colder here than in Denver yesterday.

Ahh! Cover my head with a pillow and go back to sleep.

A couple hours later little feet come racing in, "Snow!" "It snowed". Eyes are all aglow. And the 1/2 inch on the lawn is almost made okay. Hannah has no snow in her memory so she thought it was interesting and headed out to eat some. Cameron, Lesley, and Aubrey are here visiting (sadly trying to escape snow).

The boys had a blast and made a snowman (aka 'snowhead'). I stayed in and everyone was happy with the morning.

School was canceled for both Taylor and James...don't laugh, Austin can't deal with any snow even small amounts.

It was 65 and sunny today.

"My room pink!"

I hear this almost every day at least once. She runs in the room and exclaims (lest we may have forgotten) "pink! my room pink!" It's the only color she can identify and boy can she pick it out of a crowd.


The above picture is looking out into the hall, the boys room is directly across and the bathroom is off to the right. To the left is the entry way/front door. We really like the lay out of this house, it uses it's 1459 square feet really well. You can see a really good stain in the above picture, but the one below doesn't really do the carpet nastiness justice. Also, in the hall closet directly outside Hannah's room a little mouse had settled in for the winter...



The Transformation! I spent many hours deciding on that pink and the exact cream color to mesh well with it. Literally. And it turned out perfect! I want to get a cherry branch w/ butterflies wall decal at some point as well. And this room I began painting first, and technically too early. But that is a long agonizing story which led eventually to this.






I wanted hot pink, but had to keep the wall around the crib neutral for
Snuggle Bumper pictures, so this was a perfect solution (actually inspired by one of my customer's rooms). The temple picture is a central piece we refer to often. Also, the cradle in the corner is the one Hannah (and my grandmother) slept in. And of course that perfect kitchen I searched the world over for. And she still loves it and plays with it nearly every day.

James New School

James started at the local public school here by our new house on January 3 after taking the month of December off to stay home and play/be a kid/celebrate Christmas/see family/hang out with me/laugh/run. He was there a whole 3 days when I found my dream school. I have been looking for a half day Kindergarten program for about 3 years now (made all the harder by not knowing where I would live when James started school). And we finally found one! I overheard a friend talking to another friend at the park about a Star Charter.

Star Charter is K-12 and you can choose either a morning session 8-12 or the afternoon 12-4. It goes all the way through high school like that. We'll most likely only be around until James finishes 4th grade, Matthias 2nd, and Hannah Kindergarten. We love his teacher, Mrs. H and he likes the kids in his class (only 14 of them). He doesn't wake up crying because he has to go to school, but gets ready and runs out the door with Taylor who drops James off at school on the way to the bus stop.

Mrs. H brings her dog to school (because at charter schools you can do that). The dog is a little white poodle named Daisy and James says she just sits and doesn't make much noise. There is only one class per grade for each session. The school is rated really high on test scores so the kids are obviously learning something. James is doing well and loving it. We love having him home by lunch time and for the rest of the day. We like to stick together.

I'm so happy we found Star because I really tried to keep James home for learning, but just felt like it wasn't what was right/best for him. We did a couple stints of "homeschooling" meaning James was a little kid who is curious and learned on his own. I would never home school to recreate the setting/learning style of public school in my own home. Rather to let my kids learn what they want at their pace by 'playing' and interacting with the world. And I can direct and facilitate that.

Star is a perfect balance of both. Plenty of time to play at home. With some time to interact with peers outside the family and learn in a traditional learning style.