We are Home

We are home. We have been since Sunday night. I am tired. I am trying to get my house organized from being away for a week and its taking me awhile. The great news is that we were able to attend all of our family events that were on our list while out in Utah. Here is a small Photo recap.Families are Forever for Andrew and Carly

All the Reeves siblings were there for it
(not an easy task)

We randomly saw the Taylor's while we were there
with Andrew and Carly!!
(from Iceland)

Ralph and Kathryn Reeves Family Reunion
everyone in attendance

Family Photo's for the Reeves

Melisa's Special Day
Henele, Melisa, Miriam and Hera
Daniel was also there :)
Tuimana Turned 9 and we were able to be there!

Oh and we were able to see ALL of the Reeves Family while there and then almost all of the Toutai Family (we were missing Willie, Maliana, Melanie and soon to be Eythor) It was a great time.

The only thing I would have changed would be having more time out there and definitely more energy. I was so tired from not being able to sleep that I was grumpy half the time. Wait that is I lie I would have also changed the fact that Daniel and I got pooped on twice by seagulls on two separate occasions!

I have WAY more photo's but I might just upload them to facebook.

Miriam

What would you do with these chairs?

I bought these two chairs at a garage sale a few weeks ago (I got covers with them too but I don't like the covers) It was a retirement type community and the nice older gentleman wanted $5 for both. UM SOLD. They are solid and older and I really liked them and I figured it would be an easy quick 2 hour tops project. Well its at least a month later and all i have done is sanded them down and removed the material. I bought these thinking I could use them for the kitchen table. Well they are pretty BIG chairs so I decided I wanted them in the living room as just two pretty sitting chairs. Here is the dilemma Daniel and I cannot agree on a paint color for them OR a material. They are just two simple chairs but neither of us will budge so I need help. I wanted to paint them White and use a nice patterned material on the chairs (A two colored pattern) He said NO to the white. Ok then I wanted Black. I like the classic black or white. He said NO too dark. Um what else is there? He wants a dark brown. Uh they are already dark brown!! I think I would be ok with dark brown if I could figure out a good material to put on the seats but what goes with dark brown and grey walls I don't know? So any ideas? I am all for ANY ideas because I want these to be done as soon as I get back from Utah. He teased with the idea of sanding them to the wood and staining them UM DO YOU SEE THOSE BEAUTIFUL YET COMPLICATED FRONT LEGS? yes that means NO to the sanding of those it would take me years.

They are pretty old chairs the stamps say Sheboygan Wisconsin and it also says Philadelphia so the shellac is very old dark and THICK meaning hard to sand all the way down. Anyway I need help on what to do here. Should l go with a completely different color? This should be easy but well it hasn't been.
Oh the one to the left has the original material, its falling apart. I am guessing it used to be beautiful colors but now its all brown with age, a flowery pattern, the one to theright is the fake leather yellow material I would guess 60's? It was the second layer. I love how you can see the age with the material layers.

3 DAYS

Only 3 days until we leave for Utah. What does this mean for us? Lots of cleaning and packing and freaking out. We are pretty excited to go to Utah because its a vacation and we get to see family. We aren't really going to have any free moments but we are still excited. Out schedule is jam packed. My only true wish is to go to IKEA once. Just once to get the stuff on my needs list. I am dreading the drive there because I am already huge and uncomfortable. I get really antsy lately sitting in the car too long and it will be too long. We drove back from our hike on memorial day and hit some traffic and drove for 2 hours and I was ready to rip my hair out because well I have a short temper pregnant so i am a little worried about the drive there. Maybe I will drive most of the way until it gets dark then I won't have to sit and fidget. I usually worry the kids will have tantrums on the drive but this time I am worried they will outlast me. Any pointers on driving for hours while pregnant and huge? I have flown many times pregnant and huge but thats a whole different ball game.

One of Daniel's favorite pasttimes

That's right taking a nap on Sunday afternoons. He loves snuggling with Eva and she actually fell asleep too. Yay for Me not so much for Bubba though

Evas B-day

I am going to post some pictures and a video of Eva's b-day. Hopefully it will all work on one post. We went swimming then ate dinner at Rudys and came home had Birthday cake (the kids have been looking forward to that all week long) and opened presents. I will try and post pictures and the video chronologically for the day.Bubba and Eva after swimming. Eva didn't swim too long, it was hot but windy so the wind made it seem colder.

Bubba on the way back from Rudy's BBQ. We went to Rudy's right after swimming he was so tired on the way home. Every time he dropped his Sprite or Cheetos he would wake up grab them and go back to sleep.

Eva took blowing out the candles on the Birthday Cake very seriously, after all she had been preparing for this moment all week.

Happy Birthday Eva

It's Eva's 2nd Birthday today! We are going swimming for the big day and later she will have a snickers cake. Pictures to come later.

The perfect Midnight snack

So its not really a midnight snack because I rarely stay up past midnight. Its more of a 10oclock movie snack instead of popcorn. I love living here because we get every kind of fruit fresh! My favorite fruits were all on sale nectarines, apricots and bing cherries. YUM!
Oh and don't forget your glass of ice water with a straw. I always crave fruits when pregnant. I LOVE fruit.

Where is it??

Daniel has been itching to install our sprinkler system in the back yard so it won't just be sand. He has called many people to see where D.R Horton actually put the blank (I don't remember what he called it) (Daniel edit: it is called the irrigation stub out) some kind of pump in the backyard that you need in order to put the system in. He was told a general area so he started digging. Nothing. So he calls again "Maybe you should dig a little more out, a little more down, a little more to the left and maybe to the right." Still nothing but a HUGE whole in the back yard. Anyway I took some photos of him digging.
This last time digging made me laugh because he was looking for the water with two thin sticks. People swear by it. I remember they used to do it in Australia looking for water. Its a very deep whole now. Luckily no one has fallen in.

Santa Fe

Our ward had an Elders Quorum activity on Saturday to take the RailRunner to Santa Fe and visit the farmers market. It was a great day for us! Alexander got to ride on the train for 2 whole hours that day (1 hour each way) and we saw the farmers market and a cathedral and ate a yummy carnita. I got sunburned because it was in the 100's that day. I sprayed sunscreen all over me and the kids and I forgot to rub some in so I have red with some white water marks LAME. Anyway we let Alexander take pictures with the camera of the sites he saw on the train ride home (minus the Pueblos because its a federal offence to take pictures on a pueblo!!) Here are the pictures from the day (not many on our part but 115 on Alexanders part I just chose a few to see)

Us walking from the train in Santa Fe
(you can see it in the background)
This is the Cathedral we saw (we just got pictures of the inside)
Not as large as a European Cathedral but impressive nonetheless.
On the way home we had our own table and everything.
The kids LOVED it as you can see
Alexander couldn't get enough and cried on the way home in the car
because we were no longer on the train

The rest of the photos are Alexander's. He was pretty quick with the push button. We are going to get him a kiddy digital camera next birthday (I know that seems early but he loves to take pictures and his own camera is a better choice than our expensive one.)

If you ever come to visit us we will take you to Santa Fe on the Rails (or drive either way) Its a fun little old city. They had a place downtown where all the jewelry artists showed and sold their work. SOOO many beautiful turquoise pieces and pottery! My goal is to get a gorgeous timeless turquoise necklace before we leave New Mexico.

The Loft Office Reveal

This is our loft office/ relaxing area. For the original buyer there was the option to make it a 4th bedroom or just an open loft area. They obviously opted for the open loft so we tried to utilize the space the best way possible. We made it an office and also a one guest area (the love seat is a fold away bed for one!!) I still need to get some pictures up!! I have 20 framed pictures but I just haven't gotten around to hanging them anywhere.

This is the view looking out from the master bedroom. The stairs are directly to the left

Here is the actual office area. We put the computer and printer in the book shelf and still need to get another smaller shelf to go on top so that is is more hidden.

and here is the view from the computer bookshelf (that hall leads to the other two bedrooms and main bath). At first I hated the light yellow color (I am not a big yellow person I actually wanted a more beige color in here) I chose but now I like it because it bounces so much light into the area.

This is our most relaxing room so far. Daniel and I stream out netflix onto the computer and just sit back and relax at night it is really lovely.

Trying to take photos of the children

I tried to take some photos of the children before church on Sunday Morning while they still looked fresh and this is all they would give me.

Master Bedroom Reveal

Here is our master bedroom all done.
The before pictures are here, we already had the carpet ripped up in the before pictures just know that they were nasty. Also Miriam has already painted the trim white, it was the same color as the wall.

The Main View

Here is the view from the Master Bathroom

We made a little work area for Daniel so he can go there and shut the door

View into the bathroom

We LOVE it Daniel calls it the sanctuary and its all done (although we need to put some pictures on the walls and one wall will hopefully have a chair to get the new baby at all hours of the night.)

This Morning

This morning I was awaken by my children banging frantically on the bedroom door. They were very excited and yelling "Balloon Balloon!" So I went to see what was going on and from their window they saw this

I love the summers here with balloons outside every morning!