Paint, Paint, Paint

It has begun. The painting that I have wanted to do on the inside of our house since we moved in is in progress. Our house is 12 years old, and has never been painted on the inside. For almost 5 years we have lived with icky, yucky white paint. Funny thing is, we did not know how truly icky, and yucky it was until we started painting. The painting of our house has been a topic of debate between Mark and I for almost a year: Mark wants to keep true to the white walls we already have, and I want color. We agreed that we would keep the family room/daycare room, and the downstairs bathroom/laundry room white, but for the rest of the house we would go with color. Our family room is done. The colors we used are Gobi Desert, and Liberty. Gobi Desert is your basic beige color, Liberty is a blue/gray, kind of on the dark side. We did have to hire a painter to help with the vaulted ceilings in our living room. Our ladder would not reach the top of the wall, and after climbing up as high as I could, I was scared to move. The painter we hired gave me a great tip on how to have straight lines, without having the paint bleed through the tape. He said, put up your tape, then put a thin line of caulking on the tape, smooth it out with your finger, paint, remove the tape within a few minutes and you will have perfect lines. We went that night to buy more paint, and we bought a tube of caulking, I tried his suggestion, and it worked perfectly. Thank you Jeremy, at The Holy Roller. Next I will be working on the kitchen, and the wall with the sliding door that leads to the backyard. The color for the kitchen is Provence Creme, which is a very, very, very, pale yellow. I am thinking about doing the window sill in the kitchen a brighter color of yellow, not a 100% sure on that, but I am thinking about it. For the wall leading to the backyard I am going to go with Gobi Desert. Most of our house is the beige color. The stairwell, and the landing at the top of the stairs is all Gobi Desert. The guest bedroom will also be Gobi Desert. I would like to do my sewing room in a different color, but it just depends on how much Gobi Desert we have left. We (I) have not decided what color we want in our bedroom. We are thinking that we might want a red accent wall, but just have not decided. Mark has not decided what color he wants in his office. I did see some NFL color paint and I thought it would be cool to do a 49er wall, but really, it is up to Mark. My dad is coming out to help us paint. He loves to paint, and is pretty bored at home. I can't wait to see him, and have him help us. Mark and I have been doing a lot of work fixing up our house. I can't wait to have some family in town to be able to check out our handy work.

Our Weekend

Mark and I had a pretty good weekend. On Friday night we were expecting to see Arianne, but that did not work out as planned. Since our night was now free, we decided to do something, we were thinking dinner and a movie. We went out for Chinese food, and then decided to go to the mall to return a shirt for Mark. While we were driving through the parking lot we both saw something that we thought could be a couple of foxes. We kept looking, and sure enough we saw two foxes running through the parking lot. We quickly turned so we could have a better view. We were able to watch them cross the entire parking lot. They looked so graceful. We have a lot of foxes near where we live and do see them on occasion, but we have never had as good of view as we did on Friday night.

On Saturday, it was bye bye Christmas. We were able to get all of our decorations down. This year I did not put up all that much, so taking everything down was quick and easy.

Now that Christmas is over it is time to paint. That's right, we are doing away with the white walls and putting up some color. Our house is 12 years old and has never been painted on the inside. I can't wait. I have the colors picked out, and am just waiting to start. My parents are sending me all of the painting supplies they have, which is great, because Mark and I really don't have any. I am so excited to begin the painting project. Hopefully I will figure out how to put pictures on my blog, and I will be able to share the before and after pics.

Christmas

I had such a fun Christmas this year. The week before Christmas and the week after are pretty easy for me with work. I have several kids who's parents are teachers, so they bring them later in the morning and usually pick them up a little earlier, and sometimes they don't bring them at all, those are the best days. My daycare parents were very generous this year with gift cards for me, and for Mark and I to use together. It was a wonderful two weeks of being able to sleep in a little bit.

On Christmas Eve Mark and I have some pretty set traditions. For dinner we have a deli tray, and homemade tamales. Both of those traditions are from Marks family. I never thought I would ever have to know how to make tamales, but since we no longer live near Marks mom, I have taken over the tamale making process. This is the first year that I was not nervous about making them. Mark says I only make them because I like them, but really, I make them for Mark (Mark's note: she LOVES them, and makes a dang "FRESH" tamale. It makes me happy to see Mark enjoying something that he can always remember having on Christmas Eve. After dinner, we go in the living room, and sing Christmas songs. After the singing we read the story of Jesus' birth. We always write down how we feel, and what has been going on for us that Christmas Season. We have an awesome little journal talking about every Christmas Eve the two of us have spent together. I love that part of Christmas best. After the reading, and journal entry, we open our traditional pair of Christmas Eve PJ's. After that we watch the Chronicles of Narnia, and a Christmas Carol, the one with the guy from Star Trek.

Since Arianne decided not to come over for Christmas this year Mark and I went back to our tradition of opening presents on Christmas Eve. This is something that Mark and I did our first year together and agreed that when we had kids we would wait until Christmas morning. We had a pretty good time opening presents. This year Mark bought most of his own gifts as he wants to get the best deal possible, and will surf the internet endlessly looking for the best deal. Mark suggested that I might need a new pair of boots; I had not given it any thought. At his suggestion I went to the mall one night to look, and try some boots on. Shopping at the mall for a pair of boots, UGG, who wants to do that?? I found the coolest pair of boots, I put them on hold for Mark to go pick up the next day. Since the roads were so bad, it did not make sense for Mark to drive back to the mall the next day when I was already there. So this year I did buy one of my own Christmas presents. I was so excited I could hardly wait for Christmas to open them. They are so soft, and they keep my feet toasty warm.

Christmas day was totally awesome. We had the Hughes' and the Elders from our ward over for dinner. The Sunday before Christmas I saw the dinner calendar being passed around, and nobody in our ward had signed up to have them over. We had a delicious dinner, and a fun evening of playing games. Mark and I really enjoy having Howard, Rachel, and the girls over, it is always so much fun.

I did mention earlier that Mark and I went back to opening presents on Christmas Eve. This year Arianne chose not to come home for Christmas. Due to some of the choices she has made in her life, it would have made it very difficult for her to spend a long period of time in our home. We truly tried to give her every option possible, but she chose to spend Christmas with her roommate, his mom, and the moms boyfriend. We did get to spend dinner and a few hours with her on January 2nd, where she got to open her gifts from a confused Santa.