Time Out

ABC.. it's easy as 123!!!

Today was Hailey's first day of preschool. I cannot believe she's old enough for this. I've had a lot of mixed feelings about it, but the day came and she's SO excited. The first thing she asked for when she woke up was to go to preschool. Here are a little memories from her new adventure.
                       

This is her teacher, Miss Megan

(Hailey is writing her name in this picture)

SO excited for the train ride!!

Of course, for those of you who know her well, she HAD to ride in the 'cheetah car'

The day was finished up with playing on the playground for a little bit.

I love that us parents got to join her on her first day.. she started a pillowcase that we got to help her with. She wasn't quite sure what we were doing but LOVED the fact that we painted her feet and hands to print them on her new pillowcase canvas!

She is very excited to go back on Thursday.. she's been asking all day if she can go back to school.

SUCCESS!!

(although, i'm still a little reserved, only because I can hardly believe that we are at this point in life. She just grew up too fast.)

Good Times and Sad Goodbyes

What a CRAZY FUN weekend this has been. We had a weekend full of family, fun, games, food, swimming and waterslides..  Carmen and Ben are moving to the Phillipines and Uncle Adam came for the weekend as well. We celebrated both events with quite a bang! I don't have many pictures just because my mind was seriously absent due to the house project I blogged about on the previous post. But I did get some of the girls swimming and the farewell of Carmen, Ben and Adam.

(check out her muscley arms.. holy crap!)

(Hailey doing cannon balls that Uncle Ben taught her)

This summer, we have spent MANY hours in this pool. Thanks to my inlaws for providing such a fun summer activity for us. The girls favorite was Uncle Adam throwing them in the pool. On the day he left, he got Hailey so high that she was pushing off the floor of the deep end to pop back up out of the water. She LOVED it. She also has a new love of swimming UNDER water. Now when going off the slide, she goes with her head IN the water. Addy has gotten pretty good at swimming herself to the edge and getting out all by herself. Such a big girl these days.

I tried uploading a cute video of uncle Adam throwing them, but it wouldn't work, I'll post it later.

This was the middle of packing project. Stuff everywhere. I did get to reap some benefits of being the keeper of fun stuff for two years while they are gone. :-) Thanks guys!

Then, it was goodbye. Adam left first. The girls love Adam. In fact, the morning he left, we were at

home and Hailey says to me,

"mom, I love Adam. But don't tell him I said that"

Then, it was Carmen and Ben. Carmen and I have become pretty close over the years and i've really been trying to not think of them moving. It makes me really sad. Luckily, I had this house project to keep me busy and not thinking about it. But, the time came and I lost it. I was trying really hard to not cry, but I did. Then everyone else started crying. It sucked, I'm not gonna lie.

But i'll get over it, i'm sure. :-)

The good news is, Nate and I are seriously

considering a trip out to see them!!!

We love you guys and you will be missed. We're looking forward to Christmas when we get to see EVERYONE again!

Project Johnson Home

Last year it was the basement, and this year, it was the rest of the house. So, once we made the decision to go ahead and get new flooring, we started prepping the house. This meant, having a garage sale to get rid of as much stuff as we could, taking everything off the walls, moving furniture out of the way 5 million different times, buying necessary tools and paint to prepare the entire inside of our house for a makeover. This is what it looked like before:

It was BLUE! When we first moved in, EVERYTHING was blue. Even the door frames. For most people, it's not really noticeable, but for those of you who know me well, you KNOW about those door frames, the ceiling, the walls, the carpet, even the KITCHEN and dining room had blue carpet.

Who does that?

So next, it was off to painting. What a project that was. We had to paint door frames, chair rail, baseboards, etc. It was a lot of work. Nate and I would stay up past midnight painting, then I would get up at 5am or earlier to get as much done as I could before the monkeys woke up. No Bueno!

Then, the night before the kitchen flooring was laid, we had to rip out the carpet. This consisted of the following areas:

Kitchen, Dining Room, Laundry room, 3 bathrooms and the entry way to the basement.

check out the arms! Such a stud of a husband he is.

Then it was moving appliances into the livingroom.

This was just the beginning. We had a fridge, a stove, washer and dryer, toilet, diningroom table and chairs, living room furniture all in the livingroom. Poor Hailey and Addy, they had a small square of carpet to play on.

Once the kitchen floor was complete, we had to start moving all the furniture again to the diningroom to prepare for carpet. Once the furniture was moved to Hailey's room and to the diningroom, it was pull out time. Nate and Ben (our awesome brother in law) pulled out all the carpet and padding.

this is the livingroom with no flooring

this is standing in the livingroom, looking at the stairs and front door.

and this is Nate screwing down loose boards in the office entry

this is our bedroom with no floor. the girls were waiting to go to bed and had to wear shoes the whole time because of all the nail boards everywhere.

this is looking into Hailey's room where we put everything while they carpeted everywhere else

and this is the diningroom where we kept all the downstairs furniture

and this is our brother in law Ben. Such a trooper. He hung out with me ALL day waiting to help me move furniture around for the carpet guys. He got really bored.

and this is our bedroom after Ben and I moved it all in from Hailey's room

Yeah, most of this junk is all Nate's Ebay stuff. I was a little bitter at having to move it so much. It was a LOT of stuff.

and now for the finale!

Here are the after pictures!

this is the livingroom

our bedroom

my cute yellow laundry room

entry to the office

top of the stairs (and the new light sconces that I hung and wired myself)

nobody got electricuted and they work! :-)

Hailey's room (we didn't paint her room, it's still the original paint, but the carpet is new)

dining room

kitchen and Addy

and the last 'after' picture I have is of the entryway

D.O.N.E

I can't believe I don't have to get up at 5am to paint anymore. Instead, I can get up and go to the gym.. well, we'll see. :-)

What's Up? Not much...

Yeah, RIGHT! We have had a lot going on lately! Since Addy's birthday, we have just been going NON-STOP!  We made another trip to Vegas, Nate's been playing a lot of softball, as usual and a bazillion other things.  I've been planning baby showers, deep cleaning the house (don't let that fool you, it's still a mess), paying doctor bills, making several trips to the hospital to visit a friend who was in a bad accident, planning lessons for Young Women's, taking the kids swimming A LOT, having play dates, major yard work, getting ready for a garage sale (which went very well, by the way, thanks for asking) and washing walls.

PHEW! that's a lot of stuff. I can't remember the rest, it's all sort of a blurr. Hence the reason i'm not on the computer much anymore. I just don't have time.  Plus, I'd rather be playing outside in the awesome weather anyways!

Nate had a triple header the other night at softball. After a couple homeruns and a sweet slide into home-base, i've decided he's pretty much the best softball player ever. I'm not joking. He makes me proud. His team made it to the championship game!!! They took home a sweet 2nd place trophie and a lot of yucky sweat and dirt. But, 3 games people.. in ONE night. That's a lot of sweat and dirt from the wives and their kids as well. Thanks Valerie for keeping us company and helping with my kids. I always have a sigh of relief when my mother in law comes to things with us!

So, after a few weeks of craziness and fun, and a really hot day selling stuff, we decided to make life even more crazy by planning to paint the entire inside of our house. We are prepping for new flooring in a week or so. (so excited... insert a jump for joy (here))

But first, this is how we roll:

We drove the impala to church today. The girls loved every minute of it. I have to admit that I felt pretty cool too. Nothing like driving a convertible, that's for sure.

Hailey also offered to give a talk in Primary next week. Can't believe how big she's getting! CRAZY! I could go on and on about all the cool stuff she's learning, but it would be a painfully long post, so I won't. :-)

Addy is hillarious these days. She sings all. the. time. And again, learning all kinds of fun stuff like animals and shapes and words and numbers. So fun.

So, if you call me and ask "what's up?" and my response is "not much" just know that for me, that means, nothing traumatic has happened but a WHOLE lot of other stuff has! :-)

Just Love This

I couldn't help but post this picture.. it cracks me up every time I see it.

Happy Birthday Addy!!

I'm about a week late, but I wanted to wish my little Addy a Happy Birthday! We had such a great time. My parents came into town for the weekend and helped me plan a fun little party for her. We had lots of great food and treats. Thanks to all those who helped out to make it such a fun night. Although, I think I lucked out in having the most fun with the planning. :-)

First, I had to take a trip to the past and see my baby girl when she was born...

The true excitement from Daddy... love this picture...

Then, I had to remember how fun her birthday was last year... Addy, at 1.

Destroying her cake...

And now, such a grown up girl...

Addy at 2.

Happy 2 Years Addy!!!