Weekend at Uncle Bernie's? Anyone? Just kidding. Katherine with Aunt Rachel at 7 Peaks. Rachel shared her coupon with us and we all had quite a lot of fun.
Thanksgiving Point has an afforable petting zoo with a pony ride or buggy ride included in each $3.50 ticket. Katherine had an absolute blast. She loved feeding the animals, laughing and yanking her hand back when they tried to get the food. She wasn't so fond of the ducks peaking her.
She picked her first horse for the first ride. I walked with her. Earlier that day I mentioned we were going and whenever we walked out the front door that morning she asked if we were going to ride on the horsies. Good memory! Anyway, this was her first pony ride ever.
Next we went for a buggy ride. Katherine with Aaron. But then she wanted another horsie ride so she went again.:-)
So I'm doing dishes one morning (noticing a pattern?) and Katherine makes a little mess of milk on the floor. She insists on cleaning it up so I give her napkins. The next time I turn around her napkins are laid out with her juice and cereal placed on top. Next to her is her monkey sitting so nicely. Things got moved when I went to get the camera. When Katherine smiles for a camera she closes or squints her eyes. :-) Those pretty jammies are from the Hales. Thanks, Hales!

Katherine Pictures

I don't know if everyone saw this before. We had to throw her several times to get this shot and she loved it every single time.
Over the 4th of July Aaron's sister's husband invited us up to his family's cabin in a Montana State Park on a lake. This is a naked baby getting into the water with her grandpa Webb. Aunt Lily is supervising.
Me, Katherine and Kiana canoeing on said lake. Kiana figured it out quick enough and Katherine did a great job of not rocking the boat and following directions. SHe loved seeing the birds swimming and fish jumping.
We're so mean. She got stuck in this bucket and I made her wait to get out until I snapped this shot! hahahaha
Daddy and a naked baby "sleeping".

More House Photos

So this is the largest room in the house (this is where you and Nancy would be, Michael). I can't fit the whole thing in the picture. I like the color I picked, though it ended up being darker than I'd planned. My goal is to have the basement carpeted by the end of October - we'll see how it goes. There was a leak from outside coming in above one of the windows but i'm happy to say that after much trouble-shooting and trial-and-error, that appears to be solved. So now I'll patch that up.
This is the other finished room in the basement. That white spot will be a closet when I get doors on it. Aaron was going for "beetle green" so I did my best. I used a texturing roller for the green and completed this look with a yellow glaze. I think it's interesting but awful for reading/working, which is what this room happens to be intended for. Whatever. Aaron said he likes it, but it wasn't what he was envisioning. Oh well, I tried. This room will also be carpeted.
So, this stairway was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay scary to paint. I had to bring in a scary ladder and then climb up so my breakable body was hovering over all these stairs! But it's painted. It was destined to be pink (accidently grabbed my in-laws' old can of paint instead of the color I originally chose) but I mixed in some brown and not it's not too bad. The wall is actually much taller than I was able to fit in the photo.
Had to take a shot of our little garden. I haven't been much of a steward to those tomato plants but the turnips and zuchini and cucumbers have been used and enjoyed. The basil and pepper plants had a difficult time going right into the ground and the squash is just now producing it's first friut. But it's fun! :-)
ANd here's our Katherine. At some point this morning while I was doing the dishes she found, got hold of, carried past me and opened Settlers of Zarahemla and began to play. I hear she was winning when I noticed. :-) I let her play for a while before helping her pick it up. Guess who can sort colors..... :-)

Compare these bath photos, BABY!!

I really wanted both brick and diagonal pattern. After a lot of thought, I came up with a way to get both! Brick at top and bottom, diagonal in between. Cutting tile takes FOREVER and is more difficult to get accurate than one might think. So, thankfully, the wonderful color grout actually improves this overall look and makes the grout lines appear more uniformed. I did have to use two different kinds of grout on the walls since the gaps were of such varying sizes. :-)
Finding a medicine cabinet that fit was a small challenge. See that light fixture? I installed that myself in a tooo-small space with only one available stud to use. I even did the wiring (so hopefully there aren't any fires). See that gorgeous wall? Just last night it occurred to me that a towel bar should be on that wall of the shower. Forgot! See the white space next to that beautiful tile? Look closely, I BUILT shelves INTO the wall! I just need to cut the shelves to size and put 'em in there. How cool is that? (We really don't have a lot of storage space.
This slate tile was my first house purchase and now it's finally home (ahhhh). Earth-colored grout completes the picture. The paint usually looks like a darker shade of gray. Not all the tiles are alined but you really don't notice when looking at teh floor.

It's not done. The toilet and sink need to be added. The grout must be sealed and caulking will be added. Crown moulding and baseboards, selves and the rest of the door frame, the heating vent cover and the light covers. But this should give you a pretty good idea. I think it's dang pretty.

Nearly Gutted Bathroom

Sorry, this one needs to be rotated and I couldn't figure it out. Picture it rotated 45 degrees to the left.

Rotate this one too. Gotta love a toilet!

I'll be knocking down some more things, but it's a big enough mess to post photos! To change out the tub for a jetted one or not is the current question.

The Parents' Room

It's a bit of a dark color but when the sun hits it, the room lights up like fire and it's just like I was shooting for: RED ROCK.

The paint actually has sand in it so it's textured. The paint style is suppose to make it look like seude (sp?) but I was hoping it'd be like red rock, and it is. :-)

Katherine's room is painted!!!

closet door
Kiana stenciled all the letters - I had to correct some of the backwards ones.
inside the closet
Um, I also had to find another door that almost fit, cut it to size and hang a door by myself - looks darn good I think.
Isn't is just so cute?!?!?!

House Update #3

You will notice now (standing in the kitchen) that the wall is gone! Yay!! I'll probablly fill in teh gap with lower cabinets and a nice counter top. That's the plan anyway. That wood paneling also gone. I'm sure teh floors under there are beautiful but we'll be getting to them last on teh list.
So here is the view from the living room. We need to replace several windows and want to replace all of them.
Yeah, so this was a great surprise. I'd dreamed one night that we pulled back the carpet in teh living room to fine a huge hole in the floor and out from it came this strange man with his odd daughter who informed us that they lived in the basement and came with the house. So imagine my weirded-outness when I pulled up the carpet to find... a different type of floor! we're thinking that this portion was originally a porch. Even the outside brick on this part looks different. So we'll have to add some hardwood to this little area (18X5) to match the rest of the house. Fun.
The surprise whole in teh wall is never as be as I remember it to be. This room smells like pee. They didn't clean so when their dogs or child peed on the carpet it soaked through and this carpet padding was different and is stuck to the floor at parts. I air it out several times a week and Aaron's dad scraped some more off teh floor so it isn't has bad now.
Why did I include this photo? As a tribute to Aaron's father who spent an entire Saturday of his life reattaching this electic meter to the house. No small task but necessary since the city refused to turn the power back on before it was done. I'm glad he knows about wiring and stuff. I'm also glad the city didn't make a huge fuss about it not being up to code (it's at the wrong height). I don't think they cared about that part. Or I'm wrong about the code....

So it has been several weeks now (like almost 3) and I've been to the house several days a week to do stuff. Usually I head over there when Katherine goes down for a nap and stay for like 2.5 or 3 hours. Aaron has been wonderful about playing with her when she wakes up and not harrassing me about his more involved daddy role while I'm working there. Yesterday (May 10th) Katherine got to go hiking with Daddy, Grandpa and great-uncle Dane so I got to work on the house for 9 hours (Yay!!!). That was great. But the pictures are now a little outdated. Currently every ounce of carpet has been pulled up, all the tack stipping upstairs is gone (okay, like 95% of it), one wall is covered in joint compound and another is further into the sanding process (in an effort to be rid of the textured walls), the ceiling crack has been patched and I'm trying to blend it in with the rest of the ceiling, the toilet is gone, Aaron's dad took out the bathroom floor (which contained asbestos), I tore off most of the bathroom wall and knocked out parts, the ugly wood paneling is gone to reveal ugly green paint, a huge crack in the livingroom wall has been filled in with Great Stuff (love teh stuff), Aaron's dad fixed a leak, I made another leak, the contractor created the open floor plan by knocking out our wall b/t the kitchen and living area, I've cleaned up all the upstairs mold and began in the downstairs, Aaron and his mom picked up the yard, and other stuff.

But progress has felt slow at times since not everything can be seen. Like tack stipping? Takes FOREVER. And peeling wallpaper border off - awful.

what is this? VII now?

bedroom #2 - window to back yard and side yard.
Bedroom #1 (electrical on the outside of the walls) view of side yard and front (as seen below)
Mold problem #4. But it appears to be only on the curtains and not the walls or paint or window sill. Go figure.
view from back yard.
view from front/side.

fixer-upper VI

Absolute nastiness in the bathroom (sized 6X6 - hey it was built in 1948, that's how they did it back then!). I was saying I could just bleach the whole thing down but now that I'm looking at it, I think I will just buy a new toilet seat. gross....
more grossness. But I get to retile a bathroom! yay!!! :-) Yes, I've never done it before or I'm sure I wouldn't be so excited.
Mold #2 - bathroom ceiling. We'll have to add an exhaust fan.
stepping further back into bedroom #1 viewing the bathroom. Notice the door. :-)
Mold #3 is found in the sill of one of the basement windows. Sounds like we'lll need to dig down and add gravel to avoid this in the future. The lose piece of wood that was placed on top sure didn't help anything.

I took the time to make these pictures "large" to make sure you guys could appreciate all the nasty details. Not so you will think us fools for purchasing the place but so you will appreciate the change once we've done all the changes.

fixer-upper V

standing in kitchen looking into living room
standing in livingroom looking into kitchen and hallway/bedroom 2
ahh. Mold #1 You can see where we scratched at it to see if it was seeping in from the inner walls or the other way around. It appears to be superficial so getting rid of it shouldn't be a problem. Oh, it's in the livingroom closet (pictured below). Growing pot anyone?????
HUGE front window. Sure it's great, but you pay for an updated window in that space!!!!
The other big window. Looks out at the shed and basketball hoop which we apparently have (will have, we don't own it yet).