Happy Early Thanksgiving!

We had some happy events this week!

First was Bennett's third grade folk dancing performance, which was so cute. He asked if he could put gel in his hair and he looked very handsome :) He was all smiles while dancing around and he's just such a happy kid. After each dance they had family members come up and do the dance with them and Camden totally loved that. I ran from there to the end of one of my young women's plays and she was so cute.

Friday we loved pie night. Such a fun tradition where a bunch of friends get together and bring pies before everyone takes off for Thanksgiving. I had a baklava pie that was absolutely delicious, and a lemon pie came in a close second place. It's so fun to try so many.

Saturday we made fajitas for the Baileys and Allemans and Hutchins and watched the BYU game. SO fun. I love fall so much, weekends full of friends and football. I think it makes for such fun weekends, especially as our boys get into football. Westin had a fun basketball game that day too -- still undefeated!

Sunday we came home from church to a house full of cousins and a delicious turkey in our oven, not bad! Katie and her family were so nice to come up and celebrate Thanksgiving early with us before they had to work later that week. We're a good Thanksgiving team, she makes the best turkey I've ever had and I'm always down to make those delicious carb-filled sides. We totally feasted and they stayed over on Sunday night with us, which was so fun.

Our prettiest sourdough yet.
Usually Michael mixes it up, stretches and folds, and then I bake it during the day.

First wall of wallpaper done!

My arms were surprisingly sore with this project.

We're excited about this...
I thought it was time to get a gym membership or invest in our home gym,
because we've been working out together consistently for years now and stalling out on our weights.
I'm so glad we went this route -- I love mornings working out with Michael and being around when our boys wake up one by one.

He showed me right where he wanted me to put this cute magnet from school.

Such a sweet guy.

Bennett's Third Grade folk dancing night. 
He did a great job and he was so cute --
he asked if he could put gel in his hair for it.
He's such a sweetheart.

My week of installing curtain rods!
I bought a laser level so I could conquer these by myself,
and watch shows with Michael.
That sounds better than waiting to do these with Michael and then
watching no shows with Michael.

I sent this to my sweet friend Ami in Indiana because she gave me this 3T fleece when Westin was 18 months old. She told me to always leave a fleece in the car just in case you forget a jacket sometime. All four of my boys have worn this fleece from the time it was too big to the time it's too small,
and it's now officially much too small for all of them. It made sad to pass it on!
 I miss Ami, and I miss tiny boys.

The love I have for these passport photos.

Once I got in the curtain rod groove I raised all the curtain rods in my house
(except that darn piano room -- I'll get to it.)
This felt so good to do. It has bothered me since I moved in,
but who wants to spend a day moving curtain rods?
But once it's done, it's done!

That's better :)

This one too. Black instead of brown.

Moved our gym stuff back over,
and we're ready to roll in here!

Preschool Thanksgiving Feast.
He loved this.

Cousin day!

Cute little cousins ready for an early Thanksiving.

We were so glad Katie's family could come up for an early Thanksgiving! 
Michael was on call this weekend so we couldn't go far, and Katie works later in the week,
but we found a way to make it happen!

Coral & Controversy

I think it's time to turn down the controversy around here and look at my toilet. 

Let me clarify. This past week has been a little more emotionally draining than I anticipated after publicly throwing my opinion out into the wonderful world regarding women and the Priesthood in the LDS Church. And it has kind of left me tired and agreeing more than ever with the original post I linked to and this one, too. So, let's just take a break for a second and turn to a new controversy: our bathroom's recent late night makeover.

Coral and modern art. So many questions raised. Is it orange-y coral? Is it pink-y coral? What is that painting of? What did the artist want it to mean? Could Michael easily replicate the painting himself, as he declared when he first saw it? Does that mean it's not art? Should I have told Michael about any of these bathroom plans before they began? Before they ended? Would you be happier to use this bathroom now? Would you be too overwhelmed by color to use this bathroom now? Was starting the painting process at 9pm a mistake?

I don't know the answers to these questions. So many questions this week that I don't have answers to. And sometimes, that's ok. 

So without further ado, our toilet's new space:

It has significantly increased my happiness level when performing some of the more mundane tasks of life, such as cutting my bangs, curling my hair, putting on my make up while I'm half asleep, and...other stuff.

So, that was your tour of my half bathroom, which took all of eight seconds. Maybe I'll finally be finished decorating this little apartment of mine by the time our four years in it are over. 

Maybe.

P.S. Thanks to all of you who shared your opinion with me this week and helped form my own. I've had a lot of conversations, emails, texts (and ok yeah, that slightly obnoxious Facebook thread) and other messages that have been really enlightening and interesting. None of us have all the answers. But I do know one place that, while we may not get all our questions answered at this time, we WILL receive only truth. Straight up, inspired, from-God, truth. It's a much needed weekend.

Color

"Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, 

can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways."

-Oscar Wilde

Oh how I believe that. I am obsessed with color lately, and wanting as much of it in my life as possible. On my walls or on my plate, wearing them or just seeing them around me. And let me tell you, my apartment has plenty of opportunities to add color to it, considering it's mostly still a white-walled wonder. 

So even though I got a 16 on THIS TEST, I still moved forward with coral bathroom plans in full confidence. That's what happens when Michael has to stay at school from 7am to 11pm. I find ways to entertain myself - and color our apartment.

You should take the test. Leave your score in the comments - maybe it will help me feel better about mine.

(Which, on my slightly bitter retake, was 12.)

How to: DIY Painted Moroccan Wall

We have a tiny kitchen, and a tiny budget, but I still like pretty things. So, I found some inspiration and got to work on my very bleak and blank canvas that was our kitchen: a DIY Painted Moroccan Wall.

Disclaimer: I started this project in January (yes, January), before this pattern started showing up everywhere. On everything. So maybe I'm ahead of the times, maybe I'm super trendy... but mostly I just kind of feel like one of the slowest painting members of the masses. Dang it. 

But we love the wall and that's all that matters. So here's the breakdown of the painting experience:

I knew I wanted something busy that could be the focal point of the kitchen, because it's a large blank space with not a lot of furniture coverage. I considered stripes, but I'm trying to kick my addiction. Or at least cut back. So after finding the Moroccan pattern, I knew it would be just what I was looking for.

First I painted the wall with two layers of a satin finish light grey. Menard's did a great job matching my chosen paint sample to their cheapest brand of paint, making it $14 instead of the brand name $35. Apparently my natural taste in paint is expensive. (Also in boots. See my last post.) Sigh.

After giving the paint plenty of time to dry, I gathered my small set of supplies. All it took to make the Moroccan design was: the smallest size can of white paint with a gloss finish (I wanted contrast against the satin), a paintbrush that was the width of the line size I was going for, a pencil, a level, and this free printable stencil, traced onto cardboard. I already had everything but the paint, so the total cost of the design: $3. I had thought about doing wallpaper or even saving money by wallpapering with gift wrap, but I just couldn't refuse doing the whole project for just $3. (And soooo many man hours, but I have a lot more of those than dollars at this point in my life.)

Then, the stencil process started. At first I contemplated only doing five lines of shapes down the wall, about one third of the way in, so I started there in case I liked the look of it. I held the stencil in the middle of the wall vertically, then worked up and down from there - I checked horizontally and vertically with the level every time I traced the stencil shape. Then, once I had connected the shapes from ceiling to floor, I painted along the outside of the line using the width of the brush for consistency. After finishing just a few lines, I knew I wanted to paint the entire wall.

Each line had to be double coated for the right color, and it took me 45 minutes almost to the second for every vertical line. That's why it looked the way it does in the picture above for quite a while...half-finished. I took lots of breaks when it came to getting this wall done. My hours between getting off work and going to bed just somehow disappear? So I just took my sweet time with this :)

During the painting process, we found a new dining set and kitchen cabinet from Craigslist land. I loved the lighter wood but I felt like the wall started to overshadow all the other blank space in the kitchen. Plus, our old black curtains kind of sucked out the happiness that the cute busy wall brought in.

So, I found some floral material on clearance to make into smaller curtains, and just used $4 tension rods from Bed Bath & Beyond in the window frame, rather than the heavy hardware that used to be above the doors. I lined the middle shelf of the cabinet with the extra floral material to match, and lined the other shelves with a striped material for contrast. I love the mix of patterns with matching colors - it turned out better than I planned, because I never really had a plan :) That's the beauty of depending on Craigslist and a small, small budget!

Here's our kitchen, before and after. I can't believe how long we lived with that empty blank kitchen. Moving in is such a process. Or else I'm just really slow and indecisive when it comes to decorating...can't be helped.

From start to finish, painting this wall took almost exactly 24 of my life's hours. A whole day. I'm feeling totally ok with that - it has brightened up that kitchen every day since I [finally] finished it! The curtains were my first and hopefully last sewing project for this apartment. I have never learned how to sew very well, so it gives me anxiety. But lining the shelves with material, I can handle that! Considering no sewing is involved, and I used sticky tack in case I get sick of the material :) I know the way I like to change things around often, so I can't make things too permanent.

Except for the wall. That wall will be a Moroccan wall for the rest of its life, even if I have to pay the next tenants to let it live. Since the wall pattern cost a total of $3, I think I'm ok with that.

Real Time

Last night he...

Studied and studied and studied. And studied. This week, he studied and studied. And studied. And ate a lot of chocolate chip cookies and the last Easter bunny of the Easter stash. So that he could keep studying.

Last night I...

Studied and studied....a new skill? No, I didn't study. But I appreciated Michael's studying, and told him so, and worked hard on this new found [developing and not quite yet a] skill. It makes me feel very...mature? And kind of like I have ADD. And no, I'm not crocheting a Yamaka.  The beginning stages are just a little deceiving.

And tonight we...

Are off to see and hear good music. With good friends. Then we'll get home so Michael can study and study...

And study.

Can you even handle the excitement that is our lives this week? This weekend looks promising though.

Life Lessons

The things I learned (or re-learned) this weekend:

• Gluing popsicles and spray painting are learned skills, because we had a much better experience with both those things for table #2. Nothing like our past spray painting experiences.

• It's still not smart to spray paint at night though, no matter how excited you are to finish a project.

• BYU students still play some of the best pranks I've ever heard of.
• Church is so much more fun when we hang out with the Naylors and their cute kids there.
• Rock band could potentially entertain us for hours, if we let it.

• Eating pizza for two meals in one day is a good thing.
• Eating an entire loaf of dilly bread by ourselves with this dinner is also a good thing.

• Ending the weekend is easier when Monday starts out beautiful:

• It is so hard to win concert tickets on the radio.
• Family is more important than anything else.
• These are serious contenders for my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, which I am on a quest for.

• Grocery shopping without your wallet doesn't work.
• If you're filling your cart with the same grocery list you filled it with 30 minutes prior (with a wallet now), it will take less than half the time. 
• This is my new favorite skin care product - it has replaced both my face wash and face lotion for 5 days straight now. No lotion for 5 days...you may not understand what a miracle that is, so just trust me.

• I love bike rides.
• This cat sleeps anywhere in any way for any amount of time. Sometimes I am so jealous of her life. Except for the being a cat part.

• It is actually possible to feel sorry for Kobe Bryant...this one is huge.
• Playing frisbee in our apartment complex has a magnetic effect on all little boys between the ages of 6 and 9 within 500 feet.
• It seriously is so hard to win concert tickets on the radio. Two more weeks of trying.
• And finally, my husband is so sweet and works so hard. But I already knew this one.

Conference Weekend

We loved watching LDS General Conference this weekend. It started out on the highest note of all when they announced that my sweet home town, Cedar City, is getting its very own temple! I can't describe how happy that made my heart, instantly. Cedar has been hoping for a temple as long as I can remember (along with so many other places across the world), and my brother used to even say that he wouldn't get married until it was in the Cedar City temple. I'm sure that seven years of marriage and three kids later, he's glad he didn't stick to that goal. My parents drove by the temple site between conference sessions, and they said there were plenty of other people with the same idea. I am so excited to see what the Church does with their 23 new acres in the best city in America! (I'm not even biased.)

After a six-month break from our last Popsicle stick table experience, we went back to our conference activity of choice and started on number two. One Popsicle table is never enough, right? 

We're over halfway done, and I gave myself the same deadline I gave my kitchen wall. Spring has instilled a fresh determination in me to finish projects around here...(so I can start new ones). :) But to be honest, out of the things we built this weekend, that is not what I am most excited about...

THIS is a sneak peek at the new PANTRY we finally put together in our kitchen. We have had a cereal box/granola bar corner thing going on since we moved in, and it was almost starting to feel like that's a normal thing. But after checking Craigslist almost every.single.day since October-ish, we finally found the one. It was a big moment. Especially because it came moments before we were about to buy a pantry that was more expensive, poorer quality, and from not-nice people. It isn't fun to give money to not-nice people. So, stay tuned for pictures of a kitchen with clean corners, coming soon. I know you're on the edge of your seat.

p.s. THIS was my very favorite talk from Conference this weekend. You can read, watch, or listen to the talks online if you missed any. Or dozed off a little. No judging here...we have some definite Saturday afternoon catching up to do.

Good with the Bad

The good news is, little Chase is no longer afraid of us.

The bad news is, little Chase is no longer afraid of us. So he now follows me around constantly in his hyperactive state, and whines if he can't see one of us at all times. And he turned violent towards unsuspecting items of clothing.

Another laundry buddy. This one kills socks. vine.co/v/bTBWqW0wV96

— Maddie Daetwyler (@MaddieMDae) April 4, 2013

The good news is, I love my kitchen wall.

The bad news is, it's STILL not done. Really, Maddie? Don't worry, I've given myself a deadline. (Again.)

The good news is, we finally have some sunny days and bright commutes.

The bad news is, those sunny days stole our excuses for being a little lazy around here...and now we really do have to train.

The good news is, I am doing considerably well in my efforts to curb my love for shopping.

The bad news is, I STILL miss these shoes I left at the shoe store weeks ago. Sigh.

Life is good, and this time of year is so incredibly nice. It's like everything is waking up again, and warm weather plans fill everyone's mind. 

All in all, no complaints around here. 

I mean, except the shoes. I really am mourning those shoes.