Avilyn's Room!!!

 So I bought the paint like 3 weeks ago, but I finally got around to painting!  I actually like it, it's just getting started.  Avi picked the colors with a TINY bit of help from me, but I think it turned out adorable!  I can't wait until I get here room all put together. 

Avilyn wanted to help sooo bad, so she got to do a little bit.  She was so excited!



Jaime helped me tape, and bless his heart, he used the tape as a level and forgot to follow the line of the green paint. So, I still have a bit of touch up to do. But I was definitely grateful for the help and the company! Even if I did paint on both of his days off, he was such a good sport!

And here is the finished product!  Her room is soooo much brighter now!  I used a semi-gloss instead of satin.  There was flat paint in there before and it just sucked in all the light.  This paint reflects it and brightens it so much! 

Now for Ava's dugeon... it will be a lovely pale lavender with a

freakin' awesome rainbow on one wall!

Officer Stout...

Soooo, Jaime got his car-FINALLY!  How nice it will be to not have to pay for the gas to get him to work in SE ABQ, it's like 40 min away from our cozy little Rio Rancho home.  He's such a stud, but he won't really let me take any pics of his studly self.  If you look really closely, you can maybe see him in his cruiser.
Oh yeah, like the awful yucca in the front yard!??  It's going away soon...

First Day of First Grade!

August 20th my baby started First Grade! She's going to Stapleton Elementary and her teacher is Ms. McFall. It's supposed to be a good school, so we'll see! It's a huge change from our tiny Vista School in STG. She's doing good so far, I just hope she makes some good friends. When her mama isn't super outgoing, it's hard.

Ava is not a morning person!  She had quite the time waking up at 7 am!  I've since made that time a late 7:35 though.  She still fights me every morning! 

Ava picked out this outfit herself. Her Nana bought her this cute shirt in St. George along with a few other things. I had an outfit all picked out for her, but she chose a totally different one.  She definitely knows what she likes and wants.  It makes my job a bit more difficult, as we totally have different ideas of what is cute!

My little poser...

Trying to find her teacher's line in the chaos of the playground!  At least everyone else was completely lost too!

We finally found the place where she was supposed to be and I was having a very difficult time dragging her daddy away from the playground.  I think he was more nervous than she was!

St. George August

We spent a little time in St. George before Ava started school, it was really nice to see everyone and spend time with the family.  We stayed a couple of days at Taisha's while I worked, then went up to the ranch for the remainder.  We went to the fair to watch Papa sort, and the girls had a blast.  I wanted funnel cake soooo bad, and when I finally got one- what a disappointment, it was cold! 

At the ranch on Saturday Ron came up to visit but everyone was on a 4-wheeler ride (Mom, Mick, Z, Brett, Michelle, Papa...) So unfortunately he missed them mostly.  I was working, so Maryann came up about the time I did that evening.  It was nice to escape the heat of STG, and just relax and watch the girlies rock on the horses! I slept most of the day Sunday! How lame right?  Guess I was exhausted from the drive and working soooo hard, haha. Then on Monday the girls and I rode to the spring.  Avi rode with me and Ava rocked her own ride.  They're so dang cute and talented.

I screwed something up!

SO I screwed something up on the title's somehow, and I can't figure out how to fix it, so there you go!  That's what you get when you only know how to shop on the computer, and are illiterate otherwise

after waiting and waiting and waiting...

Ava  FINALLY got her ears pierced- again.  She had them pierced when she was maybe 4?  Anyways, she would NOT leave them in, and her holes grew in.  For Christmas this past year, Santa brought her some new earrings, he thought she was probably old enough to take care of them.  Well, it is now August and she just barely got them done!  Everytime she'd ask to get them done, we just couldn't afford it!  It was $50 to get them done at Claire's.  So, after asking and asking, she finally asked if she had enough money to get them done.  Talk about heartbreaking for a mom! She had $20, so I told her I'd split it with her, it was payday and I'd use some grocery money to pay the difference.  Well we went to Wal-Mart and she got them pierced and it was only $26!  I was so excited!  We still split the cost, she got $13 back.

On another note... in case anyone was wondering, I've found a remedy for non-working deodorant!  At least for the moment it's working-  put a few drops Melaleuca under the armpit and let it dry, the apply deodorant!  I use Jaime's degree right now, haha.  We'll see how long it lasts.

OH, and totally burned the crap out of my hand just after I wrote this! I grabbed a pan handle that had just been in the oven- so stupid!   Had to sleep with an ice pack.  At least now it's only tender to touch, but it hurt soooo bad all night!

K,  so now that I've figured out how to work this f'ing blog!  ;)  Here a few pics of our little homey...

Kind of a crooked picture, but when I make the yard beautiful I'll take a better one! 
Oh, AND when I paint the house.  I'm not digging the awesome orangy brown and forest green BLAH!

Here are a couple of our hazardous backyard.  It's basically rock, weeds, thorns, and the occasional deadly cactus randomly growing.  Not much fun for the girls currently!  I've got big plans though...

This is something I'm quite proud of!  We took down a lame fence in our backyard that pretty much cut it in half and made it half the size and reused the wood to make this flipping awesome gate! (it's my design of course)  Because of lack of funding however, we have yet to purchase a latch.  And because of lack of ambiton, we have yet to pull the weeds.

So, it's a cute little house and we have some great plans that will just take a little time and $$$.  Our neighborhood is super quiet, no kids that we know of.  Our neighbor across the street is super nice and we watch out for each other.  He gives the girls popscicles-  they like him ;)    We plan to do an addition, expanding the family room, creating a mudroom, and adding a bedroom (for a future family addition- no not yet).  We'll add about 700 sq ft to our little 1,200 sq ft abode.  When this will happen I can't say for sure...but like I said we have some great plans!    More to come later...