Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year.We carved pumpkins and dressed up. Being on a Sunday we only went to our ward trunk or treat. So I did not worry too much about costumes. When I pulled out our costume box Joshua wanted to put on his Tiger suit from last year. It still fit and he was all excited and wanted to wear it for Halloween. I said wonderful and that is what we did. Abigail was a sweet little pumpkin.

One Year Old!

Abigail is one! I can't believe how quickly it has gone. She is so funny and sweet. We all love her so much and can't imagine life with out her.

She had a great birthday. In the morning we let her open her presents from us. Joshua got her a soccer ball. He was sooooo excited to help her open it and play with it. :) We got her a ride on car just like Joshua's...except pink with dancing princesses on it. Then they can each ride one and there will be no more fighting.

She love the car and already sits on it and scoots all over the house.

In the evening we had dinner and cupcakes. She spit the cake out and wanted nothing to do with it, but she loved my raspberry sorbet. Which I am fine with, actually none of us like or eat cake so it is to be expected. We are all fruit or custard dessert people.

Then we opened grandma and granpa's presents. My parents got her a walker that looks like a stroller. She likes being able to walk around and stops to give the baby pats and kisses every once in a while. It is adorable. She is still not confident enough to walk on her own, although I think she could if she would just let go of my hand.

Caleb's parents got her Fancy Nancy and Angelina Ballerina books. They are adorable little stories and help balance out our collection of Mike Mulligan, Old Smokey, and Cars books. We love books and she is already picking them up and bringing them to me. She will sit on my lap and look at them and let me point things out to her. Although she has to be holding the book all by herself and has to turn the page by herself or she gets angry and drops the book. She is very determined, it is quite funny.

Working Hard!

I painted Joshua's room and have put it all back together. I love it and so does he. I hung these cute ABC's around the top. It is a total kids room...just not dizzyingly bright and ugly anymore.

Wit all the work we have been doing around the house Joshua has really gotten into fixing things. Here he is now fixing things in his sandbox with his "befixing" hat on.

And she is too cute to not throw a picture in.

Great Clip

More house

So people were complaining that I did not put good enough pictures on the blog of the house... so here are a few more.

I will start with the yard since that is were we have done the most work. I mean real heavy duty work. The are we live is known for their rocks. Make two new flower beds and turning some good soil into all the other beds gave us at least 20 five gallon buckets full of rocks! Not to mention the 1 - 2 foot boulders we were pulling out either. Besides the rocks we pulled out huge railway ties. They had them all over the yard. They were 6-8 feet long and pounded in with re-bar it was awful. Caleb did not want to deal with taking them out but I hated them so much that I just went out and pulled them all out by myself while he was at work and could not argue. Yeah I am nuts but I love my yard now so it was worth it.

So this is what it looked like before. I hate wood chips, especially by my back door where Joshua liked to dig and track them all over my kitchen. Also the railway tie dividing the wood chips from the porch was raised about five inches. So Joshua and Caleb and I tripped and hurt ourselves several times.

This is what it looks like now. I planted star jasmine to climb the fence and am going to palnt ground cover between all the stepping stones.

This is our kitchen garden, basically just herbs some tomatoes and peppers, which grow all year round here!

We added a peach, naval orange, meyer lemon, apricot, and liquid amber tree. I also have honey suckle, boston ivy, and morning glory climbing the fence. My goal is to not be able to see any fence in a year.

We have a nice lawn for the kids which we actually extended by shortening the porch a little and using the pavers to connect the back door to the porch. It is so much cleaner and greener. I love it.

Inside we have not done much besides decorate. I am going to start painting this week. This is our kitchen. The walls all over the house are going to be a light yellow and I am planning on painting the cupboards white as soon as possible. But I love the size an lay out it works great for us.

This is our staircase, entry, and living room. It has really high ceilings. The whole house has a very open light feeling. I love the floors. Again the walls will be yellow and all the wood white.

Joshua's room is scary! It is going to be painted Martha Stewart lemongrass and white trim. It is a really pretty green color. This is the first room to be painted.

This is our family room. Last week we finally got couches. I got black leather couches! Yeah I know not what most people would pick for me but I wanted the, to be stain proof and durable. We found them on craigslist for super cheap, and the next day I was walking through target and found a perfect picture table for the corner on clearance! I was so excited. But it was still not looking "me" enough so I decided it needed some black and white pillows to soften and warm them up so....

Before and...

After...

We have had some really cold weather...well cold for us 60 degrees and raining! Anyway we lit a fire in our fireplace. It works great and makes the family room so cozy, and warms the whole house.

And the ugly blue lazy boy in the picture above now looks like this. I have always wanted to recover and finally just went ahead and did it the other night. I am going to recover the lamp shade and make matching curtains for the window as well.

Last but not least this is my view out my bedroom window. We do live in a tract so we see other houses, but I also see some beautiful mountains and sunsets. Also in the neighborhood we have a private pool and park that we use regularly.

Well that is what I have been doing lately. We love living here and love our house. Even thought it has kept us very busy lately.

A day off

Caleb had a much needed day off. We needed a break from working on the house so decided to do the 20 minute drive to Oak Glen. It is a beautiful little canyon known for their apple picking, cider doughnuts, and cider. We had such a fun day hiking in the mountains, picnicking, and sampling all the apple...butters, ciders, doughnuts, syrups etc. They were good, but we have been spoiled by cold hollow cider and doughnuts. No one can beat them. Despite that we had a great time, and had a taste of fall in shorts and t-shirts :).

Fall

We have a lot of farms and groves and orchards around us, so the other day we went to one of the near by pumpkin patches.

They had a hay ride, a petting zoo and lots of different kinds of pumpkins. The kids loved it. Abigail loved the goats and was not scared of them. She wanted to be down on the ground petting them the whole time. Joshua of coarse liked the hayride.

11 Months!

Yes Abigail is turning one next week, so I thought I better post these before then.

She loves playing peek-a-boo with the blanket.

She has the funniest spunky personality. We just love playing with her. She is almost walking. I think she could walk if she would just let go of my hand.

Joshua loves preschool. I have parent teacher conferences today so I am excited to hear what she has to say. He also has school pictures next week. For going only twice a week for a few hours they really run it like a school. He is also learning to sound out his letters and has been practicing a lot.

These two love each other so much.