How to upgrade a bedroom:

A couple of months ago, my boys came to me and told me that they were tired of the decor in their bedroom. I decorated it when Kyle was 3 and I was expecting Josh. Now they are almost 8 and 4, and they are tired of "Baby cars and dump trucks". They wanted something much cooler that they wouldn't be embarrassed to show their friends.

I thought that cleaning an rearranging the room would appease them - and it did for a little while, but now they are REALLY ready for a change. This is what the room looked like in March when we rearranged it:
On Monday morning, Joe left for North Carolina and McKayla left for a week-long camp at Clear Creek. I decided that with just me and the boys home, it would be a perfect time to "upgrade" the room. This is what it looked like Monday morning before we started - what a pig pen!

We unloaded all of the stuff out of the room, tore off the red duct tape (an unfortunate decorating idea I used during a time of creative poverty - it was also still during the "Trading Spaces" phase of my life). We also scrubbed the walls and vacuumed the room.

Next, we went shopping. We went to Walmart and found sheets, blankets, and boy-approved posters for the walls.

Then we went to Home Depot and bought some paint and supplies. I also decided to put a casing around the window, and a real chair-rail to replace the duct tape, so we bought some molding, too.

I borrowed my neighbor's nail gun, and pulled out Joe's miter saw and built the chair-rail and window casing. This picture was taken Monday night after it was all caulked and spackled and sanded:

I really liked the blue paint color while we had it - and it matched all of the old bedding, but this time I wanted to go more neutral for the colors. I decided to go with kind of a warm green-gray-tan color called Garden Wall for the bottom of the wall and the trim, and a lighter version of the same color for the top. This is the top half painted the new color: (What is the difference between the old color and the new color, you ask? Not much - it was really hard to see what I was painting, but once it dried it is a little darker, and not as rosy as the last color)

The biggest difference is the room was when I painted the bottom and got rid of the blue. I have to say that I really love the way it turned out -especially since I kind of randomly picked the colors on Monday morning.

Another shot of the room:

While we were upgrading - I thought it was time to get rid of the toddler bed (Josh is almost 5, after all). I found these bunkbeds at Shopko last week on sale, and Tuesday night the boys and I assembled them. This shot was taken about 11:30 p.m. when we finally got it put together.

Kyle chose Bakugan sheets (yeah, I don't know what that is either - some kind of Pokemon-type thing) and Josh picked Transformer sheets and blanket.

Today we loaded the dresser and bookshelves back into the room and put up the cool posters on the wall. I think the room ended up looking great - and the boys LOVE it. They don't have to be embarrased of their baby room anymore!

Tomorrow I need to do a little bit of touch-up on the paint, fix the slat on the blinds, and put up some coat hooks for backpacks and things (under the Star Wars poster), and then I think I am done! I'm exhausted, but it's really great to be almost finished!

By the way, I now have all kinds of really cute "baby car and dump truck" items including: bumper pads, quilt, curtains, crib sheets, twin sheets, twin comforter, and two pictures. If you are interested, or know anyone who is, I would love to give them to a good home. I also have a toddler bed up for grabs - come and get it!

Scroll down to see some more things that our family has been up to since my last post!

Other Interesting Things in our Lives

Here are some of the things we have been up to in the last several weeks.

We went to Idaho last weekend and stayed with Lou and Senia. Bryce, Trudy, and their family was visiting from Missouri. It was great to see them and catch up!


Kyle got a new haircut for the summer:
This is Everett and Dot Crook (Joe's Grandma Parker's sister). They celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary last weekend:

Josh's favorite book:

McKayla got a library card and has been reading a lot of books (Yeah! This makes me happy!):

We have only had a couple of nice days all summer, but Josh was so excited to go out on the porch and watch this snail:

Joe found this garter snake in the garden and gave it to Kyle. Our neighbors gave us a big terrarium, and we are using our old hermit crab cage for Kyle's lizard. We also had some goldfish (which we were going to feed to the snake) but we can't keep them alive.

This is McKayla at the Dance Festival during the last week of school. Her grade did an Arabian dance and Kyle's grade did a western dance to "Life is a Highway". So cute!

We went to Tooele over Memorial Day weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Bell. This is the headstone of Wilford Heath Hudson who was in the Mormon Battalion and discovered gold at Sutter's Mill.

Camping at our land on Memorial Day. I don't know what was so funny, but it must have been good!

Kyle earned his orange belt in jujitsu!

Nine Mile Canyon

This weekend we went with Grandma and Grandpa Bell and a group from the Whiterocks Branch to Nine Mile Canyon to look at the amazing petroglyphs and Indian ruins that are all over the canyon walls. We couldn't believe how much cool stuff there was to see -and we only saw 1/1000th of what is there! This is the most famous panel in the canyon called "The Great Hunt".

Some of the art is "pictographs" which are painted on the wall. There are several colors: reds, yellows, and white. Early white settlers also left names and dates, usually in black.

Jim Brown was our tour guide. He lives in Roosevelt, but he lived and ranched in this canyon for 25 years. He knows where to find many of the sites. He pointed out cliff dwellings and ancient granaries that we would have never been able to find on our own.

Most of what we saw were "petroglyphs" which are carved or chipped out of the rock. Lots of it is right at ground level, and some of it is up higher on the cliffs where you wonder how they got up there to carve the pictures.


Some of us climbed a little ways up the mountain to see these (and many other) petroglyphs.



Most of the scenes are of human figures or animals. Some are more abstract designs, probably types of maps, or calandars.

This is one of my favorite carvings called the "Pregnant Buffalo". Next to it is some "historic grafitti" from 1869.

This is one of the more ancient designs. The carvings have taken on the dark patina of the stone around them. Just a few feet from this one were some newer carvings done by Utes - you can tell because there were pictures of horses. The more ancient people (the Fremont culture) never carved horses.

The kids had a great time, because it is very hands-on. Lots of hiking and looking.

Mr. Brown said he wanted to dig up this rock and put it in his front yard before it was protected, but it didn't work out.

Three Great Kids

Camping

Last weekend we took our camper up to our land on Strawberry Mountain. It was a little cool and rainy, but we had a good time. Worked really hard to get it ready to go again this year. He even replaced the carpet! See the rainbow?

Joe brought our chainsaw and cut up some of the dead wood laying on the side of the road and we burned lots of it. The boys helped him stack the better pieces into a nice woodpile.

McKayla brought her friend Melanie with us this time. They had fun playing games, reading, and breaking branches off dead trees.

Saturday afternoon, Joe was putting a big branch on the fire, and a lizard jumped off and scampered out of the firepit. Joe caught it and gave it to Kyle, so we now have a pet lizard. We think it's a girl, so her name is Suzie, or Gloria, or Sandy, or Firejumper (It changes often!). Oh, Kyle says her name is Rosie - today.

The land is fun! You are all welcome to come join us anytime!

A Birdseye View

Last week I took the kids down to the Legacy Center for the Lehi City "Information Fair" which sounds really boring, but ended up being a lot of fun! Joe and his team brought their vehicles to show what they are capable of. This is him in front of his amazing UCS van.

Lots of other organizations were there, too, like the Fire Department, the Lehi Police, UDOT, and the power company. The older kids got to ride in the bucket of the power truck. They thought it was really cool and "a little creepy"! Josh wanted absolutely nothing to do with getting in the bucket and going that high. We also checked out the huge earthmover/bulldozer(???) that UDOT was displaying. The kids also all got to drive remote control bulldozers across the parking lot. We also had popcorn and hot dogs and drinks FOR FREE! (you have to say that in an Adam Sandler voice - rent "Bedtime Stories" if you don't know what I'm talking about!) Overall, a nice activity for a chilly Spring evening!

Love Story meets Viva La Vida

I had the opportunity to go to a Piano Teacher Seminar by Jon Schmidt this morning. He is one of my favorite composers and it was a great experience to learn a new method of teaching note recognition to beginner students. This is Jon's newest release - the album will be out at the end of May (I think). Turn up your speakers and enjoy - he is really amazing!