Ava's 7th Birthday

My little Ava turned 7 on November 19th. She is such a sweetie with a tender heart. I can't believe she is 7 already! For her birthday, she wanted her party at a bowling alley. So that is what we did. She invited a neighbor friend and my mom, Jason and his family met for dinner and bowling. She was soooooo excited about this party. She talked about it for weeks. Luckly, it didn't dissapoint!

Here am I. For the first game, Ava beat everyone, even all the adults!

I attempted to make a bowling ball and pin by grouping the cupcakes together and frosting them. It satisfied Ava, and thats all that mattered!


Grandma Wharff

This is a pic of Ava coloring with the present from her Uncle Paul and Aunt Jackie. How we wished they lived closer!

David and Natalia. David had an app on his phone that made a person look fat, so he was taking pictures of everyone and showing them what they would look like fat. It was so funny!

The little girls used this thing where they just put the ball on it and pushed it down. Ninny really enjoyed bowling.

Payden. For some reason I don't have a pic of Michaela bowling, but she thought that Ava's win had something to do with the kiddie bowling thing, so she was using it too!

Ava getting ready to let go.

We ate pizza, and then Ava opened her presents in between bowling. It was loud and crazy, but she loved it. She got mainly art supplies, which she was over the moon for. Everyone knows that this kid loves to draw and paint!

She told me her favorite presents were the ream of printer paper and her La La Loopsy doll. She thanked me for that doll over and over.

I made her a dress for her 18" doll, which she hasn't looked at since. Oh, well!

Then it was time to blow out the candles and have cupcakes and ice cream sandwhiches. After that, the kids went to the arcade in the bowling alley to earn some tickets and get little prizes. It was a fantastic party, and I am so glad Ava had such a good time.

Happy Birthday, Ava!

My new place

Warning: there are a lot of pictures in this post, and a good number of them are sideways. I don't know whats going on with that. I went back to bloggers old set up, and I rotate the pics in their file, they rotate there, but when I upload them, blogger uploads them sideways.

Anyway, here is my new house I am renting. With any luck and much blessings from above, we will be here at least a year, preferably two or three. It is just the right size for us, in a great neighborhood, minutes from work, good schools, and an awesome ward. I did't take pics from the outside, but it is a rambler, brick and siding, one car garage. Huge backyard. We love it!

Here is my bedroom, my favorite room in the house. I painted it the same color as the last bedroom, and did it with lots of white furniture and accents. I loved my frame wall before, so I did that again. It is pretty tiny, and has a small closet, but I bought myself a dresser on KSL, and there is more storage just outside my room, so it works.

Here is the dresser I bought. It didn't have a top drawer, which I liked so I could put baskets there. I refinished it, and have found one basket to fit. I am looking for another one.

I absolutely love my bed. I found it on KSL too. It is an antique, with lots of neat distressing. I love how it has the original castors, and how the wood wraps around the mattress.

Here is the top. I think the painting on it is original, but I don't know.

Here is my kitchen. Very little counter space here. And no pantry. But, there is storage elsewhere, and I have adjusted. I love the color of the cabinets, and the wainscotting. It is also very bright.

Here is a pic from the living room.

Here is a pic from the front door. To the right is a nice big coat closet with hooks for backpacks.

Here is a pic from the front door, looking into the kitchen. I worried about this little peek through, cause everyone would see dirty dishes from the front door! But I put an antique pitcher stand thing there, my microwave is on it, and it kind of hides the sink. Unless you are way tall.

I had to put my huge table in the garage, no way would it fit. My mom gave us her little table, she had already finished it just like I like! I bought mismatched chairs, two at a time, on KSL, painted them white and recovered the cushions. I love it. It is a squeeze, but we all fit.

This is downstairs, kind of a wide hallway. It is my craft room, and I didn't even clean it up for you guys! As you can see, some of it is still unfinished. At the end, there is a big cold storage, to the left there is a big storage under the stairs, and to the right is the laundry room.

These pics are out of order! This is from the living room looking down the hall upstairs. To the right, that is a wall of big cabinets. That is where I have some pantry storage, linens, the little girls clothes and some of my clothes.

Here is the upstairs bathroom. I haven't had to share a bathroom with my kids ever. That is somewhat of an adjustment, but ok. The downstairs bathroom is the one the older girls use, and is nice like this one.

The little girls room, in all its dirty and as yet undecorated glory. It is a nice size, and eve with both their beds they have plenty of room to play. It is right next to my room.

Here is the large laundry room. To the right is floor to ceiling shelves, and more storage at the end. This house has lots of storage, it makes me happy!

Here is Michaela's room. Nice size, Paydens is similar in size and right next to hers. It wasn't clean when I was taking these, so its not recorded!

And here is our little family room. To the left is a nice size bookshelf. It was nice to get all my books out of boxes. It is small, but it serves its purpose.

So out of order! Sorry! This is the upstairs living room. I really like this room. All my furniture fit in it, it has hardwood floors, (all the upstairs does except for kitchen and bath), and is very bright. Please excuse the naked windows. I had my white and sheer panels up, but they got knocked off the wall (I hadn't installed them very well) so now they need to be rehung.

A view from the other side of the living room.

And a view of my defunct drapes!

Another view and a question, if you are still reading! What do you think of the two circle things? Too much circle? Or nice and balanced? And that awesome lamp on the table is my $2 yard sale lamp that is worth upwords of $200. Awesomeness. Also that poof on the floor I got for $5, worth $50. Have I ever said how much I love yard sales?

Also, all my fall stuff is out, so thats not usually there. I love this house, we all really like living here. Bountiful is beautiful. I am so glad I chose here, and chose this house. Here's to staying for a long time!

First snow 2011

We got our first snow yesterday, and it was a good one. We got at least 3 inches. I didn't even know it was supposed to snow, so it was a surprise. When I woke the girls up, I told them I had a surprise, covered their eyes, and led them to the window. After they got done wowing, they of course asked if they could go play! I made breakfast, went and got my produce basket, and stopped on the way home to buy Ava a winter coat because I hadn't yet! Finally, after locating all of our winter gear and sorting through it, they were able to go out!

I love seeing little girls in their snow stuff in the snow.

 Poor Ninny. Her hands are too little for gloves, so she is stuck with mittens. She wishes she could use her fingers!

 It was good packing snow.

 I love Ava's big snowball, and Ninny's little one!

 Ok, hard to see, but here is Ava's finished product. It was really quite cute. And she spent a long time on it. She told me that her  middle ball kept falling apart, at least three times. But she kept at it. She also put her new scarf that came with her coat on her snowman!

 The one thing I don't like about the first snow is the mess it makes. Especially because we have moved so much! All of our snow gear was out in the garage, in boxes. I had to haul them in, go through them, located everyones snow stuff, then find a place to put it. What a mess! I need a house cleaning fairy!

Halloween 2011

 We had a great Halloween! The weather coudn't have been better. It rained all night that night, but not until all the festivities were over.

Here I am getting ready to go to work. Yes, I went to work like that! We all dressed up, it was lots of fun. I lost the hat pretty quick, but I wore the card all day. I loved the looks I was getting in my car on the way! Ninny's day care was doing a fun halloween parade, so she dressed up like a princess.

Here are all the kiddos. Michaela was very excited about her costume this year, as was Payden. The little girls cracked me up. They had been talking about how they wanted to be ghosts, or witches, or something scary. They went with Jason to get their costumes, and I was so not surprised to see them come home with girly stuff! Ninny was a tooth fair, and Ava was a black angel or bird, she didn't care which.

 Like I said, the weather was gorgeous. They were so excited to go trick or treating!

 Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Their first house, a great neighbor friend.

 Michaeal went out with her friends this year. Payden was waiting at home, manning the door and hoping that her friend from Syracuse would show like she said she would. She never did, and I felt so bad for Payden. So she ended up going out by herself later. Luckily, we live in a safe neighborhood, so that was ok. I just told her to go around the block. They already had so much candy from Jason's office trick or treating that she really didn't need more!

 Another neighbor in the ward has an outdoor party every year. They had homemade rootbeer, and the dry ice was neat. They also had yummy food to eat, and of course, candy!

 They also had strobe lights and loud music playing. The base must have gotten to Ninny, cause you could tell she felt it in her bones! She put on a stank face, and stood there and just sloooooly rotating her hips. It was so funny.

 Then she started bouncing to the beat, and her wings would flap in time! This one is a dancer, I need to put her in a class! I wish I had my video camera, it was great.

A great halloween!

Pumkin fun and sweet treats

Carving pumpkins is always an activity everyone looks forward to. The older girls really enjoy finding unique ideas to carve into their pumpkins and like doing very intricate designs. Because I usually end up doing at least one of the little girls in addition to my own, I like to keep mine simple!

Ninny jumped right in, had no qualms about getting slimy. Picking out the seeds one. at. a. time.

Ava doesn't mind getting messy either. She did grab more than one seed at a time, and did a pretty good job of cleaning hers out this year. I only had to scrap the sides for her, she did the rest. She likes to create her own designs, and draws them on paper, then on the the pumpkin.

 Michaela had an original idea this year. She had a jack face, with a guitar going through his mouth with "rock on" above it. It was pretty neat.

 Payden was the "scream" for halloween this year, so she carved that into her pumkpin. Here is Ninny poking little holes in hers with a toothpick. I think it made her feel like she was carving it!

 Go Michaela!

 As I said, I keep mine simple. This year, I just got out my drill and drilled a bunch of holes all over it. It was fun and looked really neat!

 Afterward, we had chocolate pudding with cool whip on top. It was pretty good, but the little kids liked it best, I think.

 Another day this week, we wanted to do caramel apples, but always find them difficult to eat. So instead, I cut them up and we drizzled (or dumped, as the case may be) our caramel, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and nuts on top. It was very good. Fall rules.