Tate Estate.

My parents new house here in Midway deserves a huge blog post all about it - it's a pretty cool house, but I will have to write about that later.   For now, I want to share some pictures from my iphone that have been piling up.  I have been so busy helping them finish the house, I have been at an average of 3 meetings a day for the past month.

First of all, their green house is AMAZING, we all have greenhouse envy!  My dad has been growing these tomato "trees" from seed.  The green house keeps a consistent temperature that you set yourself.  The windows will open automatically and the fans turn on and off automatically to control the temperature inside.  My mom and I already have plans to start our flower boxes from seen in January for summer flowers.

A while back I received this wall paper order at my house and today was installation day.  My parents have been the best "clients" ever.  They have pretty much said "yes" to any design ideas that I wanted to try in their house.

The Aspen wall paper was installed in the front 'entry' room on all four walls all the way to the ceiling.  It creates such an awesome dramatic and elegant entrance.  To tie it in we also had it installed on an accent wall in the Laundry room.

Pictures do not do it justice - it has a little bit of a sheen to it.

Their grand piano was delivered today.  The shop had it so they could clean it all up and switch out the old 1990's disclavir for new technology.  

It is so beautiful.

This is the fireplace in the master bedroom - my mom had seen an idea like this before so we made it come to life for her - the finish carpenter built it for us.

This is a picture of samples I sent my mom and dad while they were on one of their trips a while back - I had to finalize some of the master bathroom and kitchen details while they were gone.

One of the hardest tasks in the entire house was getting my mom the white kitchen she wanted.  I wasn't sure it would fit the look and feel that the rest of the house was taking on.  She really wanted a white kitchen so I worked really hard to get the right "white."  This white was a custom color that the cabinet maker named "Camille white" and I think it turned out perfect.

I am really glad my mom stuck to her guns on the white beams in the kitchen ceiling.  They are made out of alder and were installed with a beautiful warm stain.  My mom had a slight panic attack when she went to the house one day and saw them.  I think everyone agreed that the coffered ceiling was beautiful with the warm alder wood beams, but my mom stuck to her guns on wanting them white.  I think everyone cringed to see white primer be painted on them.  And then there was the task (my task) of figuring out what color of white to paint them...
In the end they turned out beautiful!  And I am glad my mom insisted on having them painted.

So their house is done, or at least done enough to move in and live, BUT my mom was to scared to stay there this week without my dad in town so she is staying with us all week and we love it.

I will do a more detailed post soon of all the cool design things we did in their new house.  For now, happy moving in!

Pool with dad.

Swimming with dad is always a treat.

I often try to convince Gregg to take a few hours during the day to meet us at the pool and then work later at night :)

Dutch Fields Party.

Our new neighborhood hosted a block party tonight catered by the famous Tarahumara and featuring Soda Pop the clown!  There was also a live band and a masseuse.

  The boys both asked to have their faces painted like Spiderman, a recent fascination.

  They convinced their friend Jake to get his face painted like Spiderman too!

 Bodie, Jake, Luke, Truman

It was such an enjoyable evening sitting in the grass talking with good friends and enjoying really good food!  Our summer has been great so far.

Life.

I sat down to nurse Pete and this happened...

Truman and Bodie grabbed a library book and asked me to read it to them which then distracted Pete who also wanted to hear the story.

Tball.

Our afternoon tball games have been a blast.

The kids ask almost everyday, "is today tball day?"

Bodie's hit.

Bodie on first base.

Our friends Kirk and Luci and their boys came to a game.

Truman's hit.

Run to first base.

And in to homeplate for a score!

I missed Bodie's run to home plate but got this cute picture after the fact.

Like father, like son.

Father's Day 2014.

Happy Father's Day 2014

The boys adore Gregg, he is the best most hands on helpful dad.

Truman drew this cute basketball and heart picture for Gregg.

And a Happy Father's Day to my dad who is the worlds best.

Tennis.

These crazy cousins went and played tennis together this afternoon.

I love these pictures that my sister-in-law Becka sent me.

I think Bodie is using his tennis racquet as a light saber.

Simons boys are know to be good tennis players!  Hopefully these boys will take after their uncles.

The dentist part II.

Bodie had to go back to the dentist this morning to have his four cavities filled.  We opted to not have him sedated, just numbed.  Bad idea.  It was horrible and I felt so bad for him.

Afterwards we found ourself at Wendy's for frosties.

These two are so cute.

Brain freeze!

Swim Lessons.

We just finished two great weeks of swim lessons.

Bodie learned how to jump in and float on this back.

 Last year he had such a hard time relaxing while on his back and his year he could float there all day long.

 Big jump in to Braden.

Somehow this is the only picture I have of Truman.  He learned how to swim the entire length of the pool all on his own.  He also learned a couple of different strokes and how to drive down to get things off the bottom of the pool.  I can not believe the huge improvement in two weeks over last year.

Here's to lots of warm, long days at the pool!