The Valentine’s Family Night

Tags

projects, Traditions, Valentine's Day

It’s tradition. On the family home evening before Valentine’s Day we pull out the paper, stickers, scissors, and glue and make each other homemade valentines. We also make Valentine’s treats. This year it was sugar cookies. I bought a pack of scrapbook paper from Walmart and for $5 it gave us tons of paper choices, stickers, and die cuts. Abby was drooling over it before we started. I also liked that it gave us colors other than pink and red. Boys like other choices- like green.

It does make quite the mess. We will wait until Valentine’s Day on Thursday to exchange them. I can’t wait to see who gets the masterpiece Mike is working on. If you want to see our Valentine’s mess from last year click here.

Kindergarten Project

Tags

projects, Sam, school

How involved should a parent get with a kid’s school project? We were asking ourselves this question this week while helping Sam with his project. The assignment was to make a community building such as a fire station, hosptial, house, store. It was suggested to use cereal boxes or other similar boxes to make their building. The kindergarten teacher wanted everyone to do different things so they would have a complete community. Sam told her he wanted to do the BYU-I Center because his Dad worked there. So here it is, Sam’s creation:

We had all sorts of ideas for this project, but Sam wasn’t interested in all our ideas. He wanted to show the inside of the auditorium. So he insisted on coloring the inside of the box black and included seating from the actual plans of the building. Mike brought home all the extra plans because it’s great big paper for the kids to color or paint on. He colored the seats red- because they are red.

We did add a BYU-Idaho sticker on the outside after we took this picture. The only reason Kaitlyn is in this picture was because she was jealous we weren’t taking a picture of her. Here is the real building for comparison:

I always thought it did look like a big cardboard box.

A Change of Color

Tags

House, projects

We did it! We finally painted the family room. Here are the before pictures:

And now the after:

The new color is called “Handmade Paper” and is a creamy color that has some yellow to it when the light hits it right. It is amazing how much brighter the room is. Even the carpet looks so much lighter. We have curtains and pictures to put up that will add some more color to the room. Already the room is so much more inviting. While we are on the subject of the family room, next time I will show you the playhouse in this room. Kaitlyn is standing next to the door in the above picture. It is a fun surprise that this house has.

And We’re Still Painting…

Tags

House, Mike, projects

Mike spent a lot of time priming. I thought for sure we would get the other half of the family room painted yesterday. But it didn’t happen. We worked on it all day (ok - well Mike worked on it all day), but there were too many distractions (kids) and so we just need one more coat of paint. Hopefully tomorrow we will have time to finish it off and move the furniture back in. It is really hard for us to live without that room. I can’t wait to see it done and decorated. The decorating may come a little more slowly though.

Painting

Tags

Abby, House, projects

We are finally painting our family room/playroom. Yesterday we got half of it done and it looks so much better! The whole room used to feel like a cave. The previous owners were going for a rustic look, which is popular here. The walls were brown, the ceiling was brown and the carpet is brown. Too much brown. I am completely over brown. Did I mention it looks so much better now? We painted the walls and the ceiling on the playroom side of the room. Next Saturday we are going to paint the family room side of the room and I will wait until then to show the before and after pictures.

Grandma Sews Tradition

Tags

Abby, Grandma & Grandpa, projects

Today Grandma and Grandpa Watts came to visit. Grandma came to sew Abby’s baptism dress. She doesn’t get baptized until after she turns 8 in October. In our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, children get baptized at 8 years old because they are old enough to understand the difference between right and wrong. Our family has a tradition of white dresses for baptism. My grandmother made a white dress for my oldest sister in 1965. It was worn by my other 2 sisters and myself for our baptisms. Then the dress was passed onto my nieces (3 of them) and finally was so worn out it could not be passed on.

We were happy that Grandma was willing to sew Abby a dress. We didn’t like the white dresses in the stores because they look like bridesmaid dresses and we wanted a simple white dress. We found this great white fabric and the dress is going to turn out cute. The dress won’t be finished today, but we should have plenty of time before she is baptized in early November.