Paint

Here's a little bit of advice.

Don't house shop 8 months pregnant.

I've done it twice....I should know...you have a since of urgency. You want  a roof over your head. Paint color and room sizes don't matter as much.

Here's a picture of the kitchen I cooked in, cleaned in and spent most of my waking hours in for the past 16 months.
 

This house just isn't big enough for that amount of color!

My parents took the kids last Saturday and Brandon and I prepped and painted for 12 hours.   I am more into boring neutral colors on the wall...and adding color through decorations and accessories.Here's the kitchen now:

I love to walk into my kitchen and not hear my walls screaming "PAINT ME please!"

THANK GOODNESS!!!

....now I need to work up the nerve to paint the rest of the house...not to mention decorations...

*on a totally unrelated note....will someone please pester me about blogging Cameron's birth story!? I had it all typed up LONG ago and then clicked the wrong key and lost it!*

“To whom do we look, in days of grief and disaster, for help and consolation?...They are men and women who have suffered, and out of their experience in suffering they bring forth the riches of their sympathy and condolences as a blessing to those now in need.  Could they do this had they not suffered themselves?”  ~Orson F. Whitney

I love this quote...the truth of it has had a profound impact on my life. My brother and sister in law shared it and I had to put in on my blog so that I'd know where to find it!

School starts for us in 2 1/2 weeks! What the!?

I don't like summers here in the Valley of the Sun.

I love summers to be a time spent outdoors! You can't do that here without a pool in your backyard....

 I find myself conflicted...

I want the summer to go by fast so the heat will be over with...

I want the summer to go by slow so that we can sleep in and enjoy the break and have fun together.

I don't know what it is going to take for me to love summer again. I miss being able to enjoy it.

We took a fun family trip to the Durango Mountain Resort the beginning of June. it is BEAUTY-full there! It was so nice to be in the cool mountain air and to just swim and play as a family. We took our first real hike as a family. It was a harder hike than we'd thought it would be...and we got eaten alive by bugs...but we saw water falls and streams and trees and flowers. We did something hard and lived to tell about it! (will include pictures later) We also went to see the Bar-D Wranglers again. We had a good road trip there and back. No major freak out sessions...so that was good. None of us wanted to come home.

But...we came home....and then we all spent the next week with the tummy flu. It was killer. I haven't been that sick in a LONG time. It totally drained me and being sick combined with coming home from a beautiful place to the dry desert heat left me feeling depressed. I went from being on a family vacation high right to a sick family low. Plus I had our ward YW Girls Camp to get ready for.

Camp went well. I had tons of fun with the girls and the leaders. I haven't laughed so hard or acted so goofy in a long time!

This past week we've had our niece Leah staying with us. We've been trying to do some school clothes shopping...which isn't easy when the only ones wanting to shop are me, Kaitlyn and Leah. Addie and the boys go to one store then they are DONE.

So, summer break is coming to an end. I am not sure what to do to make the next 2 1/2 weeks special or fun.

I'm praying for some rain so we can have a little bit of a break from it just being hot and dry.

I'll try to post pics later!