Halloween.

This year for Halloween we were going to have two 'army men' but when it came right down to it {a.k.a. this morning} Bodie wanted to be a skeleton.  Mother's intuition.  I knew this would be the case so I was prepared with army get-up and skeleton pj's for both boys.

{The reason Truman is holding a pepperoni stick is because they were both so excited for Halloween and school that they wanted nothing to do with their breakfast - so when they wanted to walk down to Grandma Quinn's house before school to trick-or-treat at her house I made a sneaky phone call to her and asked if she would please give them something other then candy to start the day - she had made really cute special candies for them that she gave them later}.

My cute little skeleton.

Truman the army man and Miss. Lisa the cat.

He got to take a small toy for everyone in his class.

His cute class all ready for a Halloween party.

The letter "g" Truman's goofy ghost {his footprint upside down}.

Bodie the skeleton and Miss. Mignonne the nice witch.

Bodie also got to take a small treat to share with his class.

Here are a few of the girls in his class.

Bodie's candy-corn picture.  He told me how he had one candy-corn to look at and not eat so he could glue the colors in the right place.  He was pretty proud of himself for not eating the candy-corn.

Gregg and I both kind of felt like bad parents when we strapped our kids into the car with Grandma Quinn and shipped them off to Herriman to trick-or-treat with their cousins.  I was planning on taking them down myself and spending the afternoon/evening enjoying all the fun Halloween festivities, but there is SO much that needs to be done on the house.  We both decided to stay home and work on the new house until late - me cleaning and Gregg doing electrical stuff.  We turned off all the front lights so we wouldn't get trick-or-treaters but we still had tons!  I felt bad we didn't have any candy ... I just told them, 'we don't live here yet, we are just working late ... sorry ... come back next year'.  And then Gregg would yell out the front door "we will have something really good next year"

Happy Halloween 2013.

House update.

I found these pictures of when the front steps were being poured a couple of weeks ago.  I am going to throw them in here.  Nice wide front steps!  Just they way I wanted it!

 This was the first section of the driveway that was poured - we had to make sure we got the slope right for the water run off.

 All our counter tops showed up a few days ago.  So exciting.  We selected this quartzite almost 9 months ago.  It was starting to come out of the quarry more and more gray so we hurried and snagged three slabs of it that we really liked.

Little counter top area between the fridge and freezer - microwave goes below.

These installers were so nice.  That stuff is heavy and they are setting it down on the cabinets like its no big deal!  They waited to 'cut out' the space for my stove until they installed the quartzite because it is one large slab and it could easily break.  I was just happy I won't have any seams in my counter tops {or on my island which I don't have a picture of}.

Bathroom.

 My vanity.

This picture was taken standing at the front door looking down toward the kitchen, the great room is on the other side of the fireplace.

 My refrigerator and freezer sitting in the middle of the piano room.

Great room fireplace all prepped and ready for rock.

We have pretty much been running the fireplace for the last month trying to keep the house warm enough for paint.

The fireplace goes all the way up to the second floor and is double sided.

 The beams in the ceiling which were Gregg's idea and I love 100%

Master bedroom which also has a dark beam running down the center of the vault.

Master bathroom

 The office all covered and ready for paint.

And here is what the outside is looking like these days except the grass is all laid now.

{iphone photo}

Sunday.

Sunday afternoons are for napping after all, right?!

Quinn's House.

No only am I crazy busy/stressed trying to do my own house - but I am also helping my parents with their new home.  I finally sat down and did this colored drawing so they could start to see the exterior colors of their house.

Kneaders date with Bodie.

I have been trying to do a little more one-on-one bonding {parenting} with Bodie.  He feels the stress that we are under {house, pregnancy} and it sometimes is manifest in his behavior/attitude.

On Wednesdays we have one hour together between the time I pick him up from school and the time I pick up Truman from school.

A week ago we went to Kneaders for a treat, he picked out this pumpkin cookie.

I posted this picture on Instagram with the hashtag #kneaderspumpkin and we won a $25 gift certificate!  More dates at Kneaders for me and Bodie.

Landscaping.

This truck showed up today!  Hurrah, grass.

To tell you the truth it has been a little over-the-top stressful to also be trying to figure out landscaping while building.  Many times I have wanted to call it quits on the landscaping and deal with it in the spring, but the reality is I will be very grateful next summer when my kids have a yard to play in.

I took this picture for my brother McKay who is on a mission, it was taken from my dinning room {McKay wanted to see the snow already on Timp}.

Trees.

And more trees.

It happens to be the best time of year to buy trees.  It's the end of the season so everyone has them on sale and the trees actually do really well being transplanted this time of year.  Good new for us - it actually means I bought more trees then originally budgeted.

And more trees!!!

The only bummer was that the fruit tree selection was sparse.  I picked up a few very small fruit trees for cheap so we will see if I can baby them along.

This is why subs don't get along!

The facia and sofit guys want the exterior to themselves - those are all their ladders - and our landscapers want the grounds to themselves.  Instead they are learning to work around each other.

Although the trees were actually a really good size they look kind of small against the house - I literally walked around and "placed" each tree where I wanted it then went in the house to see from inside how it looked.  We only had to move two or three to get it just right {Gregg and I both feel like the landscaping should be an extension of the architecture and house}.

This is the back of our property, we wanted to line it with trees so that eventually it will feel more private.  There will be bark where the white fabric is although I made the executive decision to wait until spring to get the bark - so until it snows it will be white fabric!

The sandbox {which is not getting sand until spring}.  I saw a poured concrete sandbox a few months ago and fell in love with the idea.

The back left corner of our property has quite a big slope - we decided to build it up with a big rock retaining wall {which you can't really see in this picture} and then we added some rock steps down to our raised bed gardens.  I have 5 boxes in all, I am going to really have to work on my gardening skills :)

And off the right of our property we did this outdoor fire pit.  You can see the cantilevered red rocks that will be places to sit or tables for food, then there are three larger red rocks that are long and narrow for seating in front of the fire pit.  The steps off to the right lead up to the house {although the house you see pictured is our neighbors}.

Primary Program.

Yesterday I went and watched the Primary kids practice for the Primary program.  Our ward is huge and we are usually sitting in the very back so I wanted to attend the practice so I could see and hear the kids.  

Truman got to sit front and center!  The program is darling, as usual - my mom also came to watch the practice with me so she could see Truman.

So today I did stand in the back and sneak a picture with my iphone of all the kids sitting up there.