Ashley's New Look

Ashley recently got glasses and picked out the cute frames herself. The picture is a little blurry because I had to take a candid photo. She's still pretty self-conscious about them. But doesn't she look great?? Her eyesight isn't very bad yet, but bad enough that she was struggling to see the chalk board at school and her piano books! Now maybe she can sit down like a normal person when she plays. It does make her look a little too old.

Some Before and After

Due to the lack of anything exciting happening in our lives, I haven't posted in a while. So here are a few of the things I've done around the house so far.

This is our upstairs hallway (and our realtor) before I got to it. Yes, it was sponge painted pink. No idea what they were thinking.

This is after. The carpet is still pink and it will be a while before that gets replaced, but believe me it is in the plan!! You can't tell in the pictures, but I removed all the popcorn texture from the ceiling and painted it as well.

The dining room before. There was wallpaper floor to ceiling and all the molding was dark green.

And after. Once again, popcorn texture removed from the ceiling and we hope to some day replace the carpet with wood flooring.

This is just a maple leaf Ashley wanted to show everyone. Trees really know how to grow out here!!

Temple Trip

We had the opportunity last weekend to go to the Washington D.C. temple with our very best friends, the Jorgensens. We went down Friday night and spent the night playing the Settlers of Catan. We let the Jorgensens win both games becuase that's the kind of friends we are. While the boys were in the temple, Melanie took me to Ikea for the first time. I think the kids had more fun there than we did! We checked them in to the play area and as they handed us pagers, the girls said it was just like being on the Disney cruise again. I was also able to see my brother and his wife atthe temple! They just happened to come the same day we did. That was a very fun surprise.

This is Rachel with her best friend, Lucy. The move has been hardest for her .

She's 10!!!

Ashley turned 10 years old yesterday. That makes us feel pretty old.

Here she is with her brand new guitar! She played until 11:00 that night and didn't even complain about sore fingers. My fingers were sore after only a few minutes! She is going to play just like both of her grandpas.
None of my kids care much for cake, so Ashleygot a chocolate cream pie this year. It was great!

Cute Pictures

Is that the cutest naked butterfly in the world? I need to post a movie of her flying. It's very funny.

My four fun girls. Melissa looks a little scared.

My New Lighting

The genius who owned this house before us installed new kitchen cabinets, not realizing that having them all the way up to the ceiling would interfere with the spotlights. You can see how this makes it difficult (if not impossible) to open the cabinet door.

So Jason and I decided that since we had already replaced one light fixture, why not seven more? How does it look now? We've only replaced one so far. I'll get to the others eventually.

Here's the first light fixture I have ever replaced. Too bad I didn't get a "before" shot. It was an ugly, broken flourescent fixture.

The Butterfly

Our butterfly bush (right behind Ashley) was covered in blossoms and butterflies last month. One of the most common ones was this Great Spangled Fritillary, a very friendly butterfly! It was a dream come true for Ashley to have one land on her.