Halloween

Here are some pictures from our Halloween happenings this year.  

First the ward Trunk or Treat- Brielle is the witch in the middle with her best friends Addie and Kylie.

 

Then we have Makenna and all the 5th and 6th grade girls in our ward who went as various "Things"

 And here is Emmitt waiting for his preschool ride and being goofy:

 And here is Emmitt in his preschool costume parade:

On Halloween night we joined some friends in the ward for this Haloween dinner and then we all went Trick or Treating together.  (Brayden was already off with the big boys)

Another successful Halloween!

Iphone photo drop

Here are some of the latest pictures from my phone and memories I want to keep...

The boys catching their first fish in Prosper at the pond just at the end of our street:


Kevin and I at our first Dallas Stars Hockey Game.  It was a good time and I accidentally dressed in the exact colors of the opposing team.  oops.

 

One night the kids were having a tea party on the kitchen floor.  Brielle made Emmitt dress "fancy" and it was cracking me up.

I took the girls and Emmitt to the American Girl doll store.  Makenna got McKenna's ears pierced and we had ice cream at the cafe.  It was quite an experience.  The girls were thrilled to eat with their dolls and they even gave the dolls a little cup and saucer to keep.

 And here we are enjoying our first Prosper Homecoming Parade.  The kids got lots of candy.  Emmitt even had a good time throwing the candy back at the floats.  What a character he can be. 

 One Saturday morning, Kevin jumped into the freezing cold pool in his pajamas and now its become a bit of Saturday morning tradition.  A nice cold swim in your clothes or p.j's to start the weekend.

 
Kevin took a few of the kids to a BYU soccer game.  They got a picture with one of the players and with Greg Wrubell. (who is the voice of the BYU Cougars). (of course you knew that ;)

A little house makeover

So I had our shutters painted dark brown.  I hated the orangish reddish cast the other color made our whole house seem.  Brielle on the other hand prefers it the other way and Kevin likes both.  I, however, love the new look.

Happy Birthday Brielle!

Brielle turned 7.  I love to see her get older and grow and learn and mature but at the same time I just wish she would stop growing up.  This particular birthday was momentous as she reminded us that she is now allowed to get her ears pierced.  So around here, turning 7 is a pretty big deal.

The day started with the opening of family presents and some birthday breakfast of toaster strudel and sausage.  Then daddy brought her chick fil a at school for lunch and then for dinner she chose the cheesecake factory.  See in the picture below you can even see all the waiters singing to her reflected on the mirror behind her.  That was pretty fun.

Then after dinner we were off to Claire's to get her ears pierced.  She started off brave but after the first hole she broke down a little bit and if we had given her a chance, she probably would've stopped after one.  But she got through it and now has some pretty pink jewels accenting her pretty face.  Isnt she lovely!

 

Then on Friday night we had a few of her friends over for the birthday party.  We made our own pizzas, painted pumpkins, made caramel apples, did the pinata thing and watched a movie.  The girls were crazy wild so I think it was a good time! 

Happy Birthday Brielle.  You've been a JOY to our family now for 7 GLORIOUS years and we love you sooooooooo much!

Under Construction

So, we've been doing some renovating.  First it was the painting- a slight inconvenience, then the banister staining, again another slight inconvenience but then came the floors- and well they were a huge ordeal.  I know I am complaining about this great blessing but let me tell you- living in a house under construction- its just not fun.  And the floors took 2 WHOLE WEEKS (I know and yes Id like some cheese with my whine ;)

But lest you think me only a whiner, I must say I LOVE MY NEW FLOORS!!!  Im so glad we did it.  We went with the real deal hardwood- 3 inch planks of red oak, hand scraped with the grain and a coffee brown stain and new baseboards to go with them.  Heres a glimpse into the process:

Demo Day- I mean DaySSSSS

 
After they completed the difficult and messy and very noisy job of getting that tile adhesive off, they laid the plywood subfloor.  That was much nicer to live on for a few days while it "dried out".

 Then after they laid the hardwood (which I dont have a picture of because luckily we were in Houston for that day), they scraped it.  First they sanded, then sprayed, then scraped.  It just gives the floor a more rustic texture which is great because now when my floors get scraped or dented or whatever, it wont be noticeable at all.

 And where were we amid it all? Well on the main floor we had the guest room (which was packed with all the furniture we could fit in there- but it still functioned as a space to watch tv.

 And we also spent a lot of time outside in the yard and in my room.  The kids even got to sleep in my room when they were staining and we had to be completely off the floors.  We lived out of my room like it was a hotel room because the master bedroom has a door to the backyard so we just came in and out that way.  fun fun fun!

But ta da... the day finally came- where they finished and we could live in our house again.  You just never know how much you love having a couch and kitchen table until those things are gone :)

So the color looks different in different lighting and different angles and different pictures but they are the same color throughout.

And here are a few before and afters.  I still have a lot of decorating to do so keep that in mind.  Things are bare but they will get better :)

                              BEFORE                                                                            AFTER

This last one doesnt have great comparison shots cause they are different angles but you get the idea somewhat:

Now next week, we are on to the kitchen and then the week after that I'll do the master bedroom and then well maybe I'll be putting something on those walls... So stay tuned- theres more "before and afters" to come...

Houston here we come

Well Makenna really wanted to spend time with the Thomases for her birthday so that weekend we made the short drive down to Houston to Party it up!  We had a great time.  We got so see Natalie do some cheerleading, we did some BYU football watching and some shopping  and then we went to our first ever drive in.  We saw "Dolphin Tale 2" which was a hit with the kids.

One of my favorite Emmitt quotes happened at the Drive in that night as I was laying on a blanket by Emmitt watching the movie, he put his hands on my face and said
 "mom you're cute, you're adorable, you have long nose like a dolphin"

Im still cracking up over that one.  What a sweet talker he is :)

Makenna enters double digits

Makenna turned 10.  We celebrated with Grandma and Grandpa a little before her birthday with a little shopping trip and then dinner at California Pizza Kitchen.

Then on her actual birthday we tried our best to celebrate in our normal ways despite the fact that our house was torn up at the beginning of our new flooring process.  We still had fun doing our birthday breakfast as a picnic on the cement and hopefully it just made it more of a memory.  Makenna was thrilled by her gifts and enjoyed her toaster strudels.

Then later in the week for her "party", she chose to go with her new best buddy here in Prosper, Emmy, to go get their nails done.  Then we went to eat and came home to swim (which actually is not the best idea after you just get your nails done ;)  But they had a blast together.  Sweet girls!

 

For dinner on her birthday,  she chose the Macaroni Grill.  She was even treated to a special birthday treat and song.  I just cant believe shes 10 and so beautiful inside and out!  Happy Birthday Makenna.  We love you more than words can say.

Back to School

Back to school was particularly momentous this year for a few reasons.  New schools for everyone and BOTH Brayden and Makenna are going to middle school and all three kids are going to different schools.  If you add Emmitts preschool into the mix then we have four kids at four different schools!  Kind of Crazy!  The kids were anxious and hopefully a little bit excited about their first day.

 

Brayden left for his first day bright and early at 6:15 for football.  He has since decided football isnt for him so now he goes to school at the much more reasonable time of 7:15.

The girls looked cute as can be in their new outfits. 

And then as always seems to happen, someone left behind is not to happy about it.  Emmitt wanted to be off to school like everyone else but his preschool didnt start for a couple more weeks.  I love the pictures above when he was trying his hardest to keep his sad face on but Makenna was able to squeak a little smile out of him and then she had to make it quite clear that she was also not to happy about this back to school day.  Adorable kids, they are!

We are a good month or so into school now and I can say that its been a big adjustment for everyone.  The whole middle school (locker /classes /independence) thing was a lot to take on for both Makenna and Brayden with all new friends and teachers, and some tough GT classes and basically new everything, its been a pretty big ordeal.  We had some rough days in the beginning but it gets better as each week goes by.  Even Brielle in her first grade class has had a couple of tearful weeks, adjusting to things just being different.  But its getting better and its even REALLY GOOD but I wont say its easy on kids to move because it just isn't.  Its really really tough.

Our first visitors

Well we havent yet been in our new place two months but we have been lucky enough to have lots of visitors already.  We love it.  Come one, come all.  Come to Texas!

First came the Fraleys (our Papillion neighbors)

 Then the Thomases- our best buddies...

 Then Grandma and Grandpa Matkin came for a good time...

 

Then Aunt Julie came for some girl time with mom.  This is the only picture I have from her visit which was taken by Emmitt with my iphone.  

The Big Move

So here it is October and I am way behind on blogging.  Moving and then trying to renovate a house has really put me behind (in so so many ways).  Luckily there are plenty of iphone photos to remind me of what we have been up to so I'll try to recap it all for your viewing pleasure.

 So Kevin was working in Dallas while I was living back in Omaha with the kids for about a month.  It was a lonely month.  Luckily my sweet mother in law stayed with us for a bit and I spent some of the time in Utah but overall it wasnt a fun time- living apart.  I made the very foolish mistake of thinking I would get Dallas' dew claws removed before I moved.  That was far more of an intense surgery and recovery than I expected which caused a lot of stress for me- but oh well- whats done is done.

 

This picture of Dallas in the cone reminds me of the good times I had sitting out on my driveway watching kids play and chatting with neighbors as they passed by.  We had a great neighborhood.  I miss it.  Im sure in time I will feel the same about our new neighborhood but it takes time...

Here we are at the airport- ready to embark on our new adventure.

 

And here the kids are enjoying the apartment pool.  We were only living in Kevins corporate housing for about 5 days or so.  It was enough.  Apartment living with four kids and a dog is not for me.  The pool though was quite nice.

And here is the pictures of our new house from the real estate listing.  Real estate pics tend to make everything look bigger than it actually is.  But here (for my own memories sake) are the listing pictures.

As far as packing and loading and moving and unpacking and unloading goes- well as expected it wasnt fun.  We were very blessed to have movers so the only real work was unpacking.

 Whats this a picture of you ask?  Well thats Dallas' tail under the bed.  The actual move was hardest on him than anybody else.  He developed a pretty bad case of stress colitis.  I'll spare you the details but that was awful.  He was pretty depressed for a couple days but then he came around and is now a happy Texan.

Here is Emmitt enjoying our pool.  As you can imagine, the pool was the highlight of the new house.  The kids love it and got constant use out of it before school started.

And here we are at our first Dallas Cowboys game (pre season).  Kevin got tickets at work so we took our new friends, the Schaaks who just live down the street for us and have been so good to us- feeding us many meals and welcoming our family to the neighborhood.  They are good people!

After we got (mostly) unpacked, the first thing on my list was painting.  I really couldnt bare the stark white with the dark purple accent walls.  So this sample painting was HOPEFULLY the only time Emmitt paints on the walls.  I went with the color that he is putting on the walls in this picture.  Its called smokey taupe and Im really happy with it- (though I did totally freak out part way through the painting job... but in the end its all good).

And then after the painting was done, I had the banister stained darker and then we tore out the tile and carpet and put in hardwood and next on the agenda is the kitchen.  Details to come...

Overall moving is TOUGH but its done and looking back it all went fairly smoothly.  Now we are settling into our new house and new life and all is well.  It will take time until life here feels normal but so far everything here is great and I look forward to my new normal life coming soon...