Belated...

I am privileged to be married to the sweetest and sexiest man on the planet. (To be fair I made him pose like this.) He was out of town for his birthday, working late and being tired and miserable. I save all the sappy embarrassing stuff for his ears only (you're welcome, readers of the blog) but just wanted to alert you to the fact that he is now 36 years old! Somehow 36 is so much closer to 40 than 35 was. Now he's not in his "early- to mid-thirties." No, now he is in his "mid- to late-thirties." Happy Belated Birthday, JP!

Kindergarten! And 4th Grade

That fat little baby with whom I was on bedrest 6 years ago started Kindergarten this year.

Here he is, ready to ride to his first day of school in style:


And here he is starting to get anxious that mommy was going to leave him:


And here he is about to start the terrified clinging and not letting go of my leg for 10 minutes:


But let go he did, and leave I did, only to pick him up from school 3 hours later happy to be a monkey in Mrs. Smiley's Kindergarten class:


Whew!

S began his public school adventures this year. He still tells me sometimes that he likes Reagan Academy better for certain reasons, but I wouldn't give up his teacher this year for anything. She is amazing and he is doing so well!

August

So in reviewing the posts of this blog I realized that J has been doing all the posting lately and I have been on hiatus. Here is August in a nutshell:



In no particular order,
--We tried the candy 'Warheads' for the first (and last) time
--O got a pet dog that looks remarkably like his little brother at the end of a leash
--We finally threw away our 8 1/2 year old stroller. It's the only single stroller we've ever owned and served us well through 3 kids. Farewell, Peg Perego. Rest in peace.
--O learned how to ride his bike without training wheels
--J and I sat on the swing and took funny self-portraits
--H found that riding on the rear pegs of S's bike is a great way to travel around 'the Island of Sodor' (the block) after receiving his assignment from "Sir Toppins-hat" (mom) to do so
--O created a play-doh mock-up of Arches National Park


My mom celebrated her 65th birthday with us in Orem and had 2 cakes. What a lucky lady. I made the "Brown Derby" (and if you don't know what that is, shame on you -- you need to go back East, walk into a bakery, and order one) and we bought another kind of cake from Gloria's in Provo. The boys made picture frames for her and helped her start her 66th year of life off with a bang!

The first of three...

After remodeling two homes I was a little burnt out with the 'fixer uppers'. So when Esther said, "It is time for our home to look nice. You can choose, the kitchen or the three bathrooms." I naturally took the bathroom option thinking that they would just be weekend projects with minimal cost.

...HA HA.

I should know now that remodel projects are never what they appear to be on the outside, especially with the homes that we buy.

Bathroom #1. ( time estimate = 4 days, actual time = 3 months. )

In my defense all was going very well until we ran into the plumbing issue that required rerouting large drain pipes, and then the many weeks of out of town travel for business. Oh yeah, and since the bathroom floor was so uneven right where the pedestal sink was to stand, we ended up redoing the floor. ...which also was connected to the laundry room ...which then expanded the bathroom remodel into and including the laundry room. ...and so it goes like every project we start.

Before:

Looks quick and easy. ...I know, that's what we thought. It is always what you can't see in the beginning that smiles its evil smile later on.







After:

I figured I would add a little twist to the accent wall and see what would happen.

Spoiling my Lovely Wife

This last week a friend of ours got married in Washington D.C. and we flew out to for the wedding. I thought that this would be a good time to spoil my wonderful wife. So I booked two first class tickets and a nice suite at the Mayflower Renaissance hotel.

Here is my wife in the entry way of our place.



And our living room for a few days.



And the bedroom down the hall.



We had a day or so to just run around D.C. and see some cool stuff.





Man painting the famous Rembrandt self portrait.



Esther getting lost in Mark Rothko.














One of Esther's favorites.



A lot of fuss over this Hope diamond.

Boating trip with friends

In the afternoon of September 11th we went boating with friends out on Utah lake. Here are a few pictures of my awesome wife wakeboarding for the first time ever and the kids riding the tube.











And this is what Dad looked like ;)



Hmmm H. what do you think you are doing?



Our fearless captain.



...and a few more random pictures of the day