Church Bells

Sorry we've been MIA this past couple of weeks....

• We have now been homeowners for 9 days. Woo hoo!
• You can hear church bells chime from our house. They're so pretty!
  
• We're 90% done with the painting. So far we've painted the dining room, living room, most the hallway and the 3 bedrooms.
• Why yes, I AM tired...
  
• My fingernails will never ever ever be paint free again, my skin looks and feels like sandpaper from paint exposure, being scrubbed clean & more paint exposure. You'd think I'd learn to wear gloves or something....
  
• Did you know that Home Depot carries Martha Stewart paint? I didn't want to love it. I really didn't. But oh that Martha! Every color was perfection!
  
• I had Ella take a bunch of pictures of our finished painting, but then I left the camera hanging in the coat closet. You know, cause I'm awesome like that...
• Colby pulled up the carpet in the 3 bedrooms and the floor is BEAUTIFUL!!! I don't think it's ever been exposed. I'm giddy, I'm so excited. I think we just need to maybe put a coat of something on it. SO AWESOME.
  
• WE HAVE A NEW WASHER AND DRIER!!!! We got it at the Pre-Black-Friday sale. It stacks. It chimes. It washes clothes without leaving lint behind (curses apartment laundromat! I scorn you!)
• We bought a fridge off craigs list, so hopefully this week we'll also HAVE A NEW FRIDGE WITH AN ICEMAKER! HOORAY! (I never believe in a craigslist purchase until I actually have the item in my hands. But still, kind of excited!)
• We also have a new baby niece! Lucy Marie is awesome and tiny and we hope she starts to sleep more so that Auntie Amber can remember what more than 3 hours of sleep at a time is like.
• Gretchen likes to "pet the baby".
• Cousin Kate doesn't want you to hold the baby if you're her mom. She started crying, broken hearted while her mom held Lucy, "I TRUSTED YOU!!!" (Meghan, she trusted you!)

I think that's about it for now. My head has been spinning with all the things to do, get done, work projects coming up, Christmas, Ack. But it's all good. All good, my friends. And I'm going to bed at 8:30 tonight.

In the spirit of the season...

I love Halloween. Seriously love it. Gretchen is right there with me (she says she likes "scary things". You know, unless they're too scary.) And like every year, we've not got a ridiculously thorough collection of pumpkins and have been to the pumpkin patch more than our fair share. So for our Family Night last Monday we went again.

Gretchen amidst the pumpkins.





While we were at the 'patch, we saw some friends and I had them take a picture of me & Colby. I think, not counting our wedding pictures, we now have about five pictures of just the two of us...






We love visiting the piggies. But we knew better than to attempt the corn maze.


Want to know what's awesome about Reno? I mean besides the fact that we can go almost anywhere in town and see friends there (Home Depot, Target, Pumpkin Patch, etc.) NEVADA DAY!!!! Nevada Day is when we celebrate the awesomeness that is our state (Remember, only in Nevada can you do your grocery shopping AND your gambling in one location!) and we celebrate Nevada Day by closing the schools and work. If you're lucky, your friends will have a birthday party and you'll get to go bowling for the first time. And if you're really lucky, they'll have toddle sized bowling shoes. OMG TODDLER SIZED BOWLING SHOES! SWOON!!!






Since we're hopefully closing on the new house in 3 weeks, I'm trying to get a jump on everything Christmas. So this afternoon we had our annual Christmas Ornament Photo Shoot. It started off with a bang.

EVIL EYE. Big sisters. Humph.

But, like all our photo shoots, if you take enough pictures, maybe ONE will turn out great. I think this one's it:

I'll photoshop out the background so you can't tell it was taken in front of our tv "backdrop". (Last year I had to explain to my friends at the Costco Photo Center that I didn't have a photo release for the portraits because they were TAKEN IN FRONT OF THE TV. They didn't believe me.)

Ok, I know this is a long post this week, but I'm almost done. 2 thing to tell you:

1. We won the class pumpkin contest! R2D2 beat out the impressive Angry Birds display (which really, I feel a little bit guilty about. I secretly think theirs was better... But theirs didn't have the sound effects...)

2. We helped clean the church yesterday morning. Gretchen & Ella were with a lovely older child who was helping them clean all the chalkboards. They finished that & then played in the nursery. Just as I finished up the bathroom, I found a surprise. The shredded paper had been emptied from the church clerk's office, and it filled a whole garbage can. Gretchen discovered it first and decided to "decorate for a party". There was shredded paper DOWN THE WHOLE HALLWAY. And a giant pile in the nursery. Where she'd dumped it and then thrown handfuls in the air. And danced in it. It was everywhere, even her hair. But luckily it vacuumed up pretty quick (Though there were some tears. She didn't understand why we couldn't just leave her party decorations there....)

Have a wonderful Halloween!!!
And we love you Grandpa Conrad! Ella's been carrying around the little teddy bear he gave her since Friday.

Whoa.

Sooner than any of us expected, sooner than I thought possible, so soon that I'm freaking out. FREAKING. OUT....we will be moving from this view.....


(don't be jealous... graffiti compliments of the Window Crayons I got on sale at Target)


....to this view:



Yes my friends, that there is our own backyard. Our own swath of grass, watered with our own set of real sprinklers. Welcome to what hopefully will be our new home in approx. 4 weeks. Unless I freak out about it again and Colby calls the whole thing off.

(Mom, you may not want to look at these pictures. It might just stress you out. We'll just show you all the "after" ones....)

As you walk in the front door, you'll see the beautiful foyer.
THINGS THAT WILL STAY: Awesome light fixture. Awesome tile. Awesome door.
THINGS THAT WILL CHANGE: Fort Knox style iron work over all doors and windows, green carpet, amber glass in door. (Hey Angela & Amber, want to help me replace that glass with something lovely? Any ideas?)


Here's the first room we'll welcome you in to. Take a seat in our BRAND NEW LIVING ROOM!!!
THINGS THAT WILL STAY: Fabulous speakers (to compliment our ridiculously huge tv, white walls
THINGS THAT WILL GO: Wood paneling (it's kind of thin and cheap, otherwise I would totally keep it), carpet (wood floors under there, people!!!) and possibly the white fireplace color. Any ideas? Any suggestions?


Come in! Come in! Here's another view of the living room.
(I'm seriously considering keeping the window treatment. Cause that is fantastic.)



Wait, does your dining room have a WINDOW SEAT???? Yes, yes it does.


Here's the girls room. I love the wallpaper, but I think we're going to repaint. I'll keep the cute shutter window covering, but take out the other one. I really like that light fixture. I think I'll keep it too. The floors will hopefully be restored to the hardwood that lies in wait under the carpet. (Ella is fighting to keep the teal carpet. Anyone on her side?)


And her is (dum Dum DUM) MY OFFICE!!!! For the first time EVER EVER EVER I will have my own space to work in! No more bedroom/livingroom/office for me! Woo hoo!!!! And yes, I WILL be keeping that flocked wallpaper, decorative eagle over the closet and the shelves thankyouverymuch. I'm afraid the amber window covering is falling apart, so it will have to go. (sniff). Carpet will also be removed to make way for wood floors here too.


Here's the kitchen.... Can you guess what year it was remodeled? Go ahead, guess...


And here's the piece de resistance.... OUR ONLY SLIGHTLY CREEPY BASEMENT!!!! It doesn't have any windows, but who needs windows when you have a FULL SIZE FIREPLACE!!!! At the brilliant suggestion of Angela & Lismarie, I think we're going to install a sola tube through the kitchen down to the basement to get some natural light in the space. Off the basement is an additional storage room. That's where YOU'LL be sleeping when you come visit. You're welcome. Perfect for all your makeout-party needs (right Adrianne?)



So yeah. Freak out, so excited, cutest house on cutest street, in such good condition, adorable and wonderful, loveitloveitloveit, wait, what are we doing? This is all happening so fast! AHHHHHHHH. (And repeat.)

Ok, now we're going to stop that fun little thought train and show you these OMG SO CUTE cakes that we made for the Harvest Fest Cake Walk. Fabulous Julie gave me a huge bag of leftover supplies to decorate them with. SO FUN, right? (That's a spider, by the way. What, you can't tell?)



We also carved an R2D2 pumkin with Ella's class. You can't tell in this picture, but it has lights in it and a Star Wars soundtrack playing behind it.



The Harvest Fest was SO FUN. There were lamas, people. LAMAS.


It was very exciting.

That's what we're up to. (insert another random freakout here.) What are your plans for the week?

Newish Things

Turns out if you dare Ella to take a crazy picture showing her snaggle tooth, she'll oblige. But only if she can also do the patented Ella-Crazy-Eyes. And guess what. SNAGGLE TOOTH IS GONE! Peace out, snaggle tooth.



FASHION ALERT!!!
Gretchen has bangs! I think I forgot to tell you that. She wanted me to cut her hair "short like a boy", but I just. couldn't. do it. So bangs were our compromise. (Amy Smith, oldest friend, dear friend, I remember an angsty teenage conversation that we should never cut our daughter's hair like a boy. I remember!) For weeks before the bang conversion, she was in a super tom-boy phase. But now she's busting out the white princess dress and pink heart glasses. On a THURSDAY! So life is sparkles and makeup again! (Colby had to confiscate the Hello Kitty glitter lip gloss from her bed this week. Yeah, we don't know what it's like to live in moderation. We're either demanding to be called "Buddy" and dressing in all camo, or sleeping in jewelry and putting on our "bedtime lip gloss".)

Gretchen wants what Gretchen wants. Come on, you should know that by NOW.



We got to see Grandma Anita & Grandpa Dennis on Friday, along with GGpa and GAunt Belva. We had a pizza party to celebrate. Awesome times, my friends. And no matter how much complaining you hear, you should ALWAYS make a BBQ Chicken Pizza. Cause dude, that is good.

So what are you up to?

You Don't Know Everything!

"You don't know everything..... (pause)....only Jesus does."

That's what Gretchen's new favorite saying is. So far she's told that to (as far as I know), me, her Dad, her beloved Auntie Meghan, the primary presidency and her preschool teacher. That I know of. For all I know, there's more victims. That's my girl, spreading the good news of the Gospel one little attitude at a time.

Here's a picture of our Sweet Little Missionary posing in the cape we made for her friend's birthday. It was a Super Hero Party, and his mom said he didn't have a cape. So we were happy to oblige....



TA DA!!!! (Note the awesome bed head, Belle Princess pj's and double fisted pickles. The word you're looking for is "CLASSY".)



Happy Birthday to our wonderful, sweet, darling Ella! You'll notice that she's not showing her teeth in any pictures this week. Yes, the tooth drama continues. I've tried in vain to get a shot of her snaggle tooth, hanging SIDEWAYS in the front of her mouth, but she's too fast. The other teeth are already coming in behind it, so it's making it especially hard to wiggle now. I told her that if she doesn't get it out in the next 20 minutes, we're pulling it out. I've HAD IT!

But Tuesday (Birthday Day) I was a lot nicer. We celebrated her birthday by going to Red Robin (her request). It was pretty low key because the Saturday before we'd hosted a Tie Dye Birthday Extravaganza for her and 14 of her closest friends. Did you hear that? We did tie-dye with about 16 small children. Oh, and yes, I AM crazy. But it was mostly super fun, and everything we dyed turned out so so pretty! Just in case you were wondering, we also...
-Played "Pick Pocket Tag" (google it, I'm too lazy to explain it...)
-Had a "Freeze Dance Off" (everyone won)
-Had a Dress-Up-Relay-Race (Every kid pulled a costume or accessory out of a bag and had to do a loop around the yard with it. My favorite were the Mohawk wigs and the high heels)
-Busted open our home-made pinata of a happy yellow star and....
-Took NO PICTURES OR VIDEO because I was too busy being crazy party hostess the whole time. SO SAD NOW!!!

But at least I got this little gem before Tuesday Birthday Hamburgers. Awwww...



And this one too.... AaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwWWWWW!


And I don't have any more cute pics of Ella on her birthday because she thinks it's funny to make faces like this. Awww, come on! (I'm not sure if you can see the mocking in her eyes. "Take of picture of me with my face like this. Come on mom!!!")


She really is sweet though. Instead of saying "What? That's it?" when she ripped through her 3 presents in 5 seconds, instead she said, "Wow! That didn't take me long! I'm really good at opening presents fast!" And instead of saying, "What? You got me checkers and a DSI MATH GAME? For real?" She said, "Wow! I can use this to practice for Game Club!" and "Can I play the math game now? Or is it time for bed?" Oh sweet girl!

So what's up with you?

Awesome Boots and Shelter Cats

Since school has started, Gretchen and I have been having a lot of morning adventures. One sunny Monday Gretchen dressed herself in an awesome patriotic outfit and we went to see the sad, sad cats at the Humane Society.



These boots were made for walking through the geriatric cat room. Yeah, it smells funky! So what?

We visited the dogs too. They were loud. It made it easier to leave them at the Humane Society. (If even your crazy loud three year old is overwhelmed by a dog's volume, that is one LOUD DOG.)


ROCKY! BE QUIET!

Here, lets quit yelling at Loud Rocky the Chihuahu and hang like monkeys from this random bar. Ok!



But not every morning is free now. Gretchen had her first week of preschool. It's at Mrs. G's house and it is SO FUN! They have a circle rug and cubbies for their backpacks and tables with their seats labeled. It's very official. Gretchen approves. To celebrate, she wore her "Linus Hates Reno" t-shirt. (She likes to keep you guessing. Wait, does she like me? Does she not like me? Is she going to leave a mark?)



Then we met our friend at the Coconut Bowl. A whole cheese pizza to ourselves and a 3-story play area to play hide & seek in? Yes please!



On Friday, after Girl Scouts, we drove up to our friend's campsite at Donner Lake to have a barbeque and campfire. It was everything good about camping without having to, you know, actually camp. It is ah-mazing how dirty four children can get in less than 20 minutes. But so pretty. Look at these little angels.





CRAFTING NEWS: I had a sewing day with my friend Shawna & we made lovely pennant banners. I am so in love with them. I hung them in the girls room. LOVE. Ella is not quite as impressed. She just wants to chill on her bed and read her book (she is SO my daughter!)



So Ella's tooth has been hanging. HANGING. for the past three weeks. She won't let us near it. Remember last time? Yeah, this child does not like change. Or wiggling her teeth. Finally tonight we got her to work on it a little. I told her that if she doesn't yank it out by tomorrow night, that's what we'll be doing for our Family Home Evening Activity. "Tonight we're going to learn about PLIERS! Yay!" I'll update you next week on our progress...

You'll Be Sad!!!

I have three things to share today...

1. This week Gretchen got really mad at me. I think I made her sit still so I could brush her hair, or some unforgivable like that. She was furious as only a 3 year old can be. She thought of the worst, most hateful thing she could say to me to convey her emotions.

Gretchen: When I grow up I'm going to move out and get MY OWN HOUSE and MY OWN CAR, and I won't live with you AND YOU WILL BE SAD!!!

Me: (Not quite overcome by horror as she expected) That's right, sweetie. That's what happens when you grow up. You move into your own house and get your own car. You can get married and have your own family.

Gretchen: And Ella can have her out house and her own family too?

Me: Yes!

Gretchen: And you can come over and visit me at my house?

Me: Sure, that would be so fun!

(Anger forgotten. Hair brushed. Drama over.)


2. When we went to the $1 store, I let Gretchen pick out anything she wanted from the whole store. Anything. What did she pick out? Wound tattoos. Fake tattoos of scabs, stitches, pencils through your thigh, nails piercing your flesh, etc. When we got home I gave her a wet washcloth and she happily applied horrific flesh wounds to her entire body. "I want this one on my neck!" (I stopped the face tattoo. But she did have a huge hickey on her neck all week...) Later that day I asked if she'd like to wear tattoos like that for Halloween. She said, "Yes! I can be a zombie princess!!!" I was super excited about that idea! But then she decided to be Jesse from Toy Story. So instead of this:



We'll have this:



Se la vie. (I'm kind of sad about it. I was really excited about making a zombie princess costume. Come on, how awesome would that be? Sigh...)

3. Ella and Gretchen both swam without floaties this week! It took a lot of peer pressure (mostly seeing a little kid 1/2 their size doing it. Then they realized that having your feet off the bottom of the pool does NOT result in immediate death.) Hooray for the girls!!!

Ella was home the last 1/2 of the week with an ear infection. Let's just say that I'm REALLY HAPPY she's feeling better, and that I am so so SO thankful for a school with nice teachers that make learning fun. Because dude, I do not make learning fun. Colby had to step in at one point when we were working on her packet of missed work. "You're driving your mom crazy right now, so I'm going to help you now..."

That's what happened this week. What about you?

The Art Show and Summer's Close

The girls entered their first art show in July. It was part of Art Town's festival, hosted by their awesome dance studio. It's all about presentation. To make it like a real gallery show, we included descriptions on their info cards.

“My Favorite Pet; Invisible Friend at Dusk”
By Elisabeth
Age 6
Created during the artist’s Purple Period, “Invisible Friend at Dusk” is an homage to Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”. The purple color adds a somber and thoughtful background, contrasting with the whimsical “Invisible Friend”. The image strikes a delicate balance between dark and light, anchored at the top by an impenetrable layer of clouds. The crescent moon is a common theme in many children’s paintings, and serves as a strong focal point. When asked why she choose this particular subject matter, the artist responded, “Because I like it.” We look forward to seeing more of Miss Stott’s work.



“My Favorite Pet Frolics Under the Sun”
By Gretchen
Age 3
When interviewed about this work, the artist declared, “It’s a reflection of doggies.” When asked to clarify, she added, “It’s the girl. It’s right there {artist indicates towards lower right corner}. She’s walking. That’s her heart on her stomach. Because that’s her eye and her nose and her mouth and her dog. We have noses too.” Yes indeed, we do have noses. And if we were to walk under a yellow dripping sun, surrounded by primal red handprints, perhaps we too would show our hearts on our stomachs.



Ella with the Winner's Circle.


It worked. Ella and Gretchen BOTH WON PRIZES. To be fair, every kid who entered won. But Ella's painting was on the morning news! Which I did not wake up at 5am to watch because I was exhausted! But I thought about it!
*Unfortunately Gretchen was sick & unable to make it to the event. She got to stay at home with Daddy.
**Please note Ella's awesome Art Show outfit. Black beret bought special just for the event.
***Just in case you didn't notice, the theme was "My Favorite Pet"...

Then school started ridiculously early. Gretchen peers longingly through those doors, kindergarten is a magical land still TWO YEARS AWAY.


Yes. Two years.


Because I am crazy, I picked Ella up from school last week and drove up to Lake Tahoe. It was our first trip to Sand Harbor of the summer (which is just a tragic shame!) and she'd already started school. But there was so much snow in the mountains that the beaches are tiny! The lake's water level is so high! So we beat the crowds and had a late afternoon dinner picnic.




Auntie Adrianne sent us the most amazing package. It was full of Sample Sale treats. And since then, Gretchen and Ella have been very well accessorized. At our trip to Costco last week, some guy said, "Wow, that baby doesn't need a bib!" You know, because she was wearing that ginormous rhinestone necklace...


PS - We love Uncle Ian.


So how is your summer ending?