Nesting...

I don't know whether if it's because I'm pregnant and "nesting" or if it's just my nature and dislike for clutter, but as of late I've been busy de-junking and organizing our lives, one room, closet and/or box at a time. It feels so good to purge- even if we haven't had to purge much.  My motto is "less is more" and for those things we've had boxed up for years or hidden away in a drawer or closet that we hardly ever use, well I'm sure you've heard the saying "Out of sight, out of mind...."--- my take on that saying compels me to toss a lot of stuff cause if we haven't used it in the past couple of months- let alone the past year, we probably have no real use for it.

Along with doing some spring cleaning: i.e. wiping boogers off of walls and doorknobs, because with 4 little boys you know there's a LOT of those on conspicuous surfaces through out the house; wiping down base boards, dusting, cleaning windows and shutters and organizing, I've also FINALLY mustered up the will to print and hang pictures through out the house...  we've owned and have been living in our home now for 9 months--- I figured it was about time to pull out my box of picture frames, print some new updated family pics (mostly of the boys) and hang them around the house so it actually looks like a family lives here and not just like a spec home.  I have to admit, I HATE hanging pictures... I'm too indecisive when it comes to trying to decide just where a picture will look best hung... now I have nail holes all over my walls I've patched up but still have yet to paint over, and we had to rearrange some of the furniture because it just didn't look right after I hung some things BUT now that I'm done, I LOVE THE FINISHED LOOK!

This is the picture wall I created near the front entrance to our house... 

it's not exactly what you'd see in a Pottery Barn magazine but it's not bad for a novice right??? 

I finally finished decorating Noah's Dr. Seuss bedroom- that's been a work in progress for months...  A HUGE thanks again to my mother in law, Linda, who sewed all of the pillowcases and the table runner for Noah's bookshelf.

Now I'm working on Cohen and Ian's superhero themed bedroom...  that might take some time as I still have yet to find exactly the right bedding I want in there... and the baby's room, well that will have to wait to get finished too.  Remember the brown baby crib I wanted to sand, prime and paint country white???  Yeah, well I still haven't started on that project and I'm not sure I'm going to at 35, nearly 36 weeks pregnant. While I have work to do on some of the bedrooms, I decided to makeover the boys bathroom in one afternoon on Dr. Seuss' birthday, March 2ND, to be precise.  The week before the 2ND I bought this REALLY cute Dr Seuss "One fish, two fish..." grommet shower curtain from Pottery Barn Kids.  (I heart PBK, if only I was rich enough to afford everything from their catalogs!!!) Originally the shower curtain was $49.99---  cute but DEFINITELY too expensive, so I've been waiting for it to come down in price now for the past year...  about a month ago I saw it listed for $30 and I had every intention of buying it then but forgot, so imagine how fortunate I felt when I looked it up again only a few weeks later and saw it listed on sale for just under $20!!!  This was certainly a deal I couldn't turn my back on and as it turns out, I also received FREE SHIPPING!!!  Who doesn't LOVE free shipping?!  The shower curtain arrived in the mail the day before Dr Seuss' birthday and since I forgot to buy ham at the store ahead of time, we had to forgo our traditional breakfast on Seuss' birthday of green eggs and ham, so I figured I could make it up to the boys by redecorating their bathroom Seuss style. 

I hung up the new shower curtain, spray painted the two wicker baskets we keep on their bathroom counter that contains their diapers, wipes and toiletries a bright red, I already owned the cute little polka dot fish laundry basket which I bought years ago from Ikea and the little red round bath rug as well as the red step stool.. I bought all new hand towels, wash cloths and bath towels in aqua from Ikea (they were super inexpensive and I needed new ones anyhow) and I framed two Dr Seuss flashcards in red picture frames to hang next to the toilet.  It's not the work of a professional, nor is it super fancy, but with little pops of color here and there, the bathroom is now Seussified!

Side note: I'm not completely happy with the two pictures hanging on the wall, so I've bought two little inexpensive 4x4 canvases I've already spray painted a bright yellow and I intend to either paint on or glue on a picture of Seuss' red fish and blue fish to match the theme of the bathroom. I also think I'll take down the bar that I've hung bath towels on and replace it with 5 nickel hooks to hang all the bath towels on- if the bathroom is going to be used daily by 5 boys- we'll need room to hang ALL of their towels and one day, perhaps on a day when I just happen to have enough pocket change (I'll need A LOT of it) I'll buy a new bathroom mirror, something a little nicer with trim... I hate the boring rectangular one we have in there right now.

Spring is just around the corner (thank goodness!)... for some reason windmills remind of Spring so one afternoon the boys and I made a few to decorate the house with.

This past Fall, my father in law, along with the help of Spencer and the boys, planted 200+ tulips and daffodils in the flower beds out in front and along the side of the house... those tulips and daffodils have started to grow and now most of them have shot up out through the soil seeking sunlight.  It will probably be another couple of weeks before they're all in bloom, but I'm getting SUPER excited hoping it's a sign that Spring and warmer weather is here to stay and the snow and the cold is a thing of the past (that being said, hopefully last night's snow storm was just a total freak side of Mother Nature and we won't get any more snow until next Winter).... two weeks ago this past Monday, with the help of all my boys, I spent 3 backbreaking hours outside weeding the flower beds...  yes, I did most of the weeding while the boys spent almost all of that time digging for worms and rollie pollies-YUCK!  It felt good to do some gardening, but my body ached in ways after that it's NEVER hurt before--- I suppose weeding a garden for 3 hours, squatting the entire time because I didn't want to get too dirty, wasn't the smartest thing I could have done at 34 weeks pregnant- OOPS!  The funny thing is, 4 days later I came home to find a truck from our friend's landscaping company parked in front of our house.  I laid the two babies down for naps and then went out to talk with the guys and discovered they were at the house to do a Spring Clean Up (i.e. pull weeds)...  imagine the embarrassment I suffered when I realized I did all that weeding in vain!  I missed a couple of weeds on Monday, so it only took the team of 4 guys, oh, 2 seconds to dig those up and off they went!  Next time I'd appreciate it if my husband warned me prior to me weeding the flower beds that he's already hired help.

Onto some really FABULOUS news- remember this picture?

That was our ugly backyard.  We cleared all of the hideous weeds last summer, which made it look a little more decent but it still wasn't a backyard worth boasting about----it slopes (A LOT) and rocks of all shapes and sizes cover the entire ground---(the boys have actually really had a grand time 4 wheeling around in the dirt with their John Deere truck Santa brought them)--- more noticeably, our backyard lacks grass!!!  Well folks, that's about to change- HALLELUJAH! We asked 3 different guys from various landscaping companies around Utah County to come out and give us a bid on what it will cost us to put up a brick retaining wall and bring in dirt (LOTS of it) to level out our backyard...  I'd like to insert here, who ever coined the phrase "dirt cheap" should be sucker punched; dirt is certainly NOT cheap, neither are bricks or rocks, BUT there is some good news here: the neighbors up the street from us have been paying a company to remove dirt (lots of it) out of their backyard so Spencer spoke with them and suggested that they give us their dirt and it will be a win/win situation for both of us-- they won't have to pay to have the dirt removed and we won't have to pay an arm and a leg for dirt.  Just over 2 weeks ago Spencer hired one of the contractors he spoke with and since then the man and his crew of guys have been here, out back with all sorts of machinery digging and moving truck loads of dirt around, leveling it, and slaving away building the new retaining wall brick by brick which once they're finished it will stand about 4 feet tall (nearly, I said nearly, my height!!!)... our boys have been stuck like squashed bugs to the windows watching every move the workers make--- they're FASCINATED by all of the machinery and equipment and if it weren't for locks on our doors and windows, they'd surely be outside, out back for that matter, to lend the workers a helping hand... they would so LOVE to help!

The following picture below was taken a day or two after the workers began work on the yard- 

it only shows half of the yard- 

what you can't see is where they're going to dig out the firepit and construct the seating around it.

The trampoline is going to be put in the ground over by the far fence 

and the basketball court will be built sort of near where the Bobcat in the picture is 

and just around the side corner of the house.

HOPEFULLY, my fingers are crossed, in the next week or two they'll be finished working out back (the weather had better cooperate!); by then we'll have a new retaining wall, gas fire pit with seating around it, a place dug out for an in ground trampoline and lots of dirt and top soil leveling out our backyard. The trampoline arrived in the mail yesterday and the boys already can't wait to help Spencer assemble it; the retaining wall is nearly done and the workers have moved so much new dirt into the backyard since Monday, it looks pretty well leveled... It's amazing how much BIGGER our backyard looks now that it's level--- we'll certainly need every bit of that space for the boys and a dog to run and play in (Just for the record: we don't have any plans as of yet to own a dog, but give it a couple of months, maybe a year at the most, and we'll probably have one... the boys are dying to have a dog as am I!!!  I'm all about owning a labrador- they make fantastic family dogs!) I'm really stoked to see what the fireplace and seating area will look like once it's finished being built- the boys are looking forward to roasting marshmallows over the pit every night during the summer and camp out in sleeping bags on the trampoline. We expect to wait a month or two until the end of May or first of June for the dirt and soil to settle before we install a fence, sprinklers and sod--- and maybe then, if our savings isn't completely sucked dry we'll even be able to build a new, larger deck off of the back of the house for entertaining and barbecues and hopefully a basketball court- (Reminder to self: We need to buy another barbecue since ours was stolen last year during our move from our old house to the house.  I'm STILL upset about that since the first one was a nice gift the boys and I bought for Spencer) since Spencer's a die hard Jazz fan (just do me a favor and don't bring up the Jazz's current rankings in the NBA if you talk to him, it will really upset him), he's set on building a basketball court in the backyard so he can shoot around hoops with the boys... He's already warned me I should probably kiss the idea of us going to San Diego during the summer goodbye- it was either the yard or a vacation, which of course I want the yard over the vacation, but I'm still determined to make it home to So. Cal with the boys somehow or other during the summer, even if it means we have to hitchhike.   I won't lie, I've been giddy, SUPER GIDDY the past month just knowing that we're getting this much closer to having our very OWN finished backyard for the boys to play in!!! I can only imagine how nice it must be to tell one or all of my children for that matter, to go out back and play with out the worry of having to be outside alongside them keeping watch so they don't wander off into the street.  Noah must be super excited too- last week while the boys were supposed to be napping, Spencer came home from work and went into Noah's bedroom to find Noah just gazing out the window... he asked Noah what he was looking at- to which Noah replied he was just looking at the backyard, trying to imagine what it will all look like once it's finished. He's hinted to us at least a dozen times too that he'd like a pool in the backyard as well- I LOVE his suggestion, but yeah- I'm pretty sure a pool won't fit in the budget- it's a shame- truly a shame that $$$money$$$ doesn't grow on trees, otherwise I'd plant an entire orchard of money trees in the backyard then once the money grew, I'd pick it and use it to build our family a pool! Only if...

So that's it... the projects around the house never seem to end- we have a list of "things to do" at least a mile long but I suppose it will always be that way.  Pretty soon, possibly even as soon as tomorrow if I can find the time, I'll be unpacking, washing, folding and putting away all of the infant clothes, bedding and blankets we own in preparation for our new little dude who's due to arrive soon.  BIG changes are in store for this family!