Remodel

This week we ripped out our bar, mom had a jewelry expo, me and dad went to the dump to drop off some stuff (a.k.a. old dishwasher, counter, etc.) and we painted the cabinets white.

This awesome linoleum was under the bar along with a board with 2 names and a date on it.  The linoleum reminded me of Great Grandma Tolman's house.

This is where the old bar used to be.  We moved this cabinet from the other side to here so we could fit our new fridge in and it's waiting to be painted and for a new countertop.  Dad's going to fill in the tile this next week, but we have to scrape the old stuff off the cement first. 

               this is the cabinet color before...

this is the cabinets after (waiting for trim on top). 

 Sunday movie day

Me and Jon attempted to have max and Levi go and sleep outside on the trampoline with us lastnight. Jon went inside first, then Levi went in, then Max went in. I was the only person to stay outside while all the others went inside to sleep in their beds.  Oh well, I guess they missed out. 

It's starting to get hot here and I made jiffy cookies for the first time today. They turned out really good.

We are getting excited for Grandma and Mel and Dan to come visit.    

That's all for us for now.  

Written by: Taylor (TAC)

What the...

I am so confused by this March! I always dread the crazy busy of May but March? I don't remember ever having a March this crazy. Ken and I were just laughing today about the fact that at the end of every week this month I have said, "whew. Glad that week's over this next week should be bett...oh wait." I can't think of maybe more than two week nights I've been home right after work. And then on Friday I started to get miserable sick. That has a way of making you slow down! :) So I have already called a sub for tomorrow and I am planning on moping for one day and then jumping back in to this final crazy week. And I am SO excited for the end of this week. We are going to Mom's for a few days and then returning on Monday to a full week of Spring Cleaning and/or yard work topped off with General Conference.
So--with the kids, let's see...
Emmy insists on growing up. She's leaving us the first week of May for the authentic college adventure. I sure hate the whole growing up bit, but really happy for her. She's going to love it and it's such a better deal than last time.
Daph's boyfriend left and we LOVE having this girl back. I had forgotten a little bit how cute and bubbly and fun she is!
Caleb is loving having a truck and spends every second he can get away with in it.
Bronwyn is a crazy genealogy machine. She and Daph have taken family names in for baptisms a few times and now she's into indexing. She's thrilled with Corey's request for the family reunion.
Asher is still loving piano. He was Mowgli in the school play and loved that too. So...he thinks sports are sweaty and boring and loves the arts. Looks like someone did get some DNA from me, after all! :)
Lily also loves piano. I was really sad when our last piano teacher quit but this new one is so cute. She's a grandma and always writes them little encouraging notes in their notebook and seems to really love teaching them.
Sam is so excited he can hardly stand it...Soccer season!

                                       The full cast of Jungle Book.

 Last Sunday the kids ran in and said"Mom it's windy!" Took me a second to realize why that was so exciting! We had kites waiting for just such a day. I'm loving the nicer days and the fact that my kids spend every waking moment they can being active outside!

                              Mowgli, Winifred, and Mike.

                                                                 The big kids in the audience at Jungle Book.

ONE Year Old Already?!

I tried to post a little earlier, but kept dozing off, so I went and took a nap J  

Ryder is ONE!  Has it really been a whole year already?! We had a small family party on his Birthday (the 15^th) and our neighbor-lady came over and joined us for the celebration.  Ryder was a pro at opening his gifts and really, really, really, enjoyed his cupcake and ice-cream. He is walking all over the place now and is enjoying eating lots of big people food.     

 A while ago our dishwasher started making weird noises and wasn’t really getting our dishes clean so we figured it was probably time for a new one.  Long story short- we went dishwasher shopping and ended up buying all new appliances and a couple new kitchen cabinets!  Tyler spent his whole Spring Break (except Tuesday and Wednesday) working on the kitchen. Sounds fun, huh?  It’s finally all put back together except for the painting which I am going to tackle this week.  We are sooooo excited for our new appliances and the quietness of them J

Helping Daddy in the kitchen :) 

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Phoenix for Ryder’s eye procedure.  It went really well and we are so glad to have an eye-goop free baby boy!!! Finally!  He has to keep the tube in for 3 months and then it’s back to Phoenix to have it removed.   I don’t think Tyler and I realized how hard it was going to be to let him go away with the nurse.  It only took about 30 minutes and then they called me back when he started waking up from the anesthesia.  That part was really hard.  He was very combative and didn’t settle down until we were almost back to the hotel.  He cried and cried and cried- so sad!!  He probably had no idea what was going on.  It must have been very strange and scary for him. Poor little guy.  

Waiting to go back to surgery.

Back at the Hotel after surgery.
Finally calmed down and back to himself!

While in Phoenix we found an Olive Garden to eat dinner at (Yum!) and a Target to shop at.  We aren't really the theater-going kind of people (too expensive with 5 kids!) so we bought Frozen for the kids to watch on the way home.  Tyler and I tried to watch it Friday night and then again on Saturday night, but we fell asleep both times.  It's on again right now and I think we've both managed to finally stay awake for the whole thing! Love it! 

Bath Time

Eye Goop-Free Baby!!  Yay!!

Well, I think that’s about it for us for now. We hope everyone is doing good!

Lucy's Birthday

         Our spring break started on Wednesday for my mom, Lucy and Tate, and on Friday for me, Grace, and Cole. On Thursday night, I went and saw Divergent with some of my friends. I've read the books and I still thought the movie was really good, but my other friend thats obsessed with the books said she hated it. Grace and Cole saw it on Friday and they both liked it.
        Saturday was Lucy's 10th birthday. I'll just let the pictures explain the rest.

Love you all! -The Durst's

A crazy March for Petersons!

Here are some random pics from March. Tommy drew a picture of  the Holy Ghost. Pretty good for his first drawing. And, no, I didn't tell him to do the "cute face", he just uses it all the time now. It is a pretty good weapon. I had just started wondering if Disney, Millie's chicken that she caught at the barnyard races at Pony Express Days, was maybe a rooster since we hadn't ever gotten an egg from her, in fact I was still looking at her trying to decide when I turned to the nesting boxes and there was this white egg! Millie has ALWAYS asked us to get a chicken that lays white eggs so she was OVERJOYED that we got a white egg and that it was from HER chicken! This picture of Millie with the big eyes is what she did to me when we were talking about how big the characters eyes were on Frozen and Tangled. She said "like this" and pulled out her glasses that made her eyes huge. I thought it was hilarious. And for this years play The Jungle Book, Maizy's character was Hathi who is the leader elephant. Luckily we had an elephant costume from Halloween so that made it easy! Unfortunately I was in Washington DC during the play but I did get to see the dress rehearsal and it was adorable! Millie and Thomas play so cute together! I let them take late naps most days because I love to hear them playing together.

 DC! So much fun! Some Lewisville 1st ward girls suggested a trip out to see Suzanne and surprise her and there were nine of us able to make it! Tara Nield, Becky Blackburn, Megan Bramwell, Kesta Drake Lisa Young, Janeil Nield, Celia Erickson and last but not least my very own Mother! To be honest I almost bailed a couple of days before because I got all sad about leaving my little family but  these girls are so much like family I am So so glad I went and saw sweet Suz! There was a miracle while we were in DC for Suzanne. We had to get off the Metro and onto a bus because the tracks were getting repaired. Well on that half a mile bus ride we were stopped at the light and some girls start waving. Suzanne sees them and realizes they are her cousins! They texted back and forth until they caught up to us at the Natural History Museum. The little one just hugged and hugged her and cried and cried. It was SO sweet! Julianne loved me and asked why I lived in Idaho because she wanted me to live by them. Oh her kids are cute!

We had so much fun surprising her! She looked so good and it was just full of laughter and happiness the whole time! Kurt took these. We were surprised when she said she wanted to come eat with us that night and the next day when we went to visit she said she wanted to come into DC with us! It made it just perfect! Cousin Heather made all these shirts for us. I texted her about a week before we left and asked if she did tek shirts because Tara and I wanted to be nerdy and have matching Idaho shirts for our run. Then I thought it would be really fun to get Suzanne one too. So I asked around and everyone wanted one and I think it made it really fun to surprise her in our matching Lewisville shirts! Heather was awesome and gave us a good price and had to hurry to get them done for us.

 

Tara and I had great plans for a fun run around the capitol. We started at the Natural History Museum and ran around the whole mall stopping at all major monumets for selfies and a jaunt out to the white house and then ended at the Lincoln Memorial. Probably the best 6 mile run of my life! It was so awesome to see the sun setting over all the historical monuments. We changed and Mom was nice enough to carry my bag and jacket so we could do it. Meanwhile the rest of them continued site seeing until we met back up.

 Yes that is my cute mother and me in front of the white house! It was so much fun to have her there with us too. I think the "adults"or "leaders" as we kept referring to them were crazier than we were in their hotel room!

 We just lost Mom for less than a week before getting her again for Moab. It was a quick trip but it was fun to show her some of our favorite sites. We owe her a whole lot for leaving her in the hotel room with Miles and forgetting to give him his medicine! Eek! We didn't realize it until we were up at the start line! Especially since her diverticulitis acted up and she was miserable the night before.

 Joel and I were kicking ourselves for the biggest rooky mistake EVER! You always, always take the last bus up to the start. Instead we went on one of the first buses and had to wait for over two hours in the freezing freezing cold up the canyon. I got hot chocolate just so I could hold it and warm my hands. This bottom picture Joel took literally seconds after we crossed the finish line. You can see it in the background. I forgot about our bib numbers until Joel was pulling them out the night before. He saw mine and thought it was my log-in or something until he pulled out his. It asked what name you want on the bib when you register. I registered first and put "menmyho" so when I registered him I put "iamtheho". He thought it was pretty clever. Probably my favorite bib numbers so far.

Hi family!!  It's been some months since posting, so I will just sum up with some pictures:)  

Isaac had his last pinewood derby. Hmmmm…did I already post that?  who cares, anyway, here's his car and his brother and mom:) 

 Wind socks we made at story time.  Time needs to slow down, my littles are getting too grown up too fast.  What will I ever do without my little friends?

 This crazy loco climbs anywhere.  She doesn't answer when you holler for her either.  I couldn't find her the other day, so when I finally did..she was startled.  Then she decided to scare me back with this growl.

 Isaac had his last Blue and Gold Banquet and earned his Webelos and Arrow of Light.

 Neither of these pictures are candid, she is posing quite purposely in them.  She's a nut.

 Took Clara on a date to see the Dallas Temple.  The spire is out front, unattached from the building:)

 Ready for a family run one Saturday.  The 8 person selfie turned out pretty good

                         tricks on the scooter

 Clara at a skating birthday party at the Galleria Mall.  Josh, this post is for you.  You know the mall, right?

spent her hard earned chore money on this flamingo shirt.  So so proud of it!

 Mom shared a lot of what we did while she was here.  We loved having her here SO much.  The zoo was super fun, most of these pictures are from there.

 Admiring the two baby elephants.

 So happy together

 And these 2 also:)

 A sweet moment with Grandma.

 Meg, our beans turned out FABULOUS!

 This was at the mall on our little hotel trip.  These little rides fit the bill pretty well when legoland was out.  Grandma wins first prize for making the ride go with quarters!!!!
We went out to eat pizza before going to the hotel and as we sat there I just was so overwhelmed with gratitude that she was with us.  Two other families around us had grandparents with them and I seem to notice it all the time and feel so sad that we don't get to.  This is the longest we've ever gone without seeing Grandma and we don't plan to let it be that long ever again!  Love you Faylene!Thanks for coming, and Megan and Joel, thank you for altering your plans to make it happen.  We're so grateful!

 The last day of spring break we planned to go on a hike, but it started to downpour, so we pulled out the umbrellas and went anyway.  The trailhead was closed, so we found a paved path around a lake and walked in the rain.  It was super fun.  Love these crazies!