Happy Halloween!

Bright pink blouse: $4 from the D.I. (thrift store)
Floral pleated skirt: $4 from the D.I.
Black flats: $6 from the D.I.
Pantyhose: Borrowed from Holly
Jewelry and hair accessories: Borrowed from Holly

Spending the day as Davina: Priceless




I hope you all get as good of a laugh out of this picture as I have this morning! Dave got the brilliant idea yesterday with his Assistant Principal to dress up as ladies for Halloween so we rushed to the D.I. last night and purchased his attire. I bet his high school students will have a hard time taking him serious today, but I'm sure there will be lots of laughter!

Carving a pumpkin

This is my pumpkin creation for 2007. I'm not very creative so I have to "steal" patterns of pumpkin faces off of the internet to use as patterns...pretty pathetic, huh? Last year I made Dave clean the pumpkin out because I didn't want to deal with the nastiness, but this year I was a big girl and carved it entirely myself while Dave worked on putting the baseboards back up in the kitchen. Not to brag or anything, but I have to say that it is pretty darn cute. I bought a flameless tealight candle to put inside so it lights up and everything. Lots of fun!

SNOW!!!

This is what we woke up to Sunday morning! Snow! This is the first accumulation of snow on the ground this season. We've had a couple of storms where snow fell, but nothing that stuck to the ground. It is hard to believe that it is that time of year again. Dave and I both absolutely LOVE snow though so we are excited to see the new season fast approaching although I would like to enjoy a few more days of fall if possible. Our Pomeranian (Missy) absolutely loves snow and the cold weather too. I guess with all of that hair she gets hot pretty easy. The Cock-A-Poo (Buddy) is a big wimp though and would rather be inside where it is warm and dry.

Christmas?

As you can see in the picture, our Christmas cactus is almost in full bloom. We have a million blossoms ready to open on the crazy cactus. I'm starting to think that it has joined forces with the commercial world by celebrating two months early!! This just goes to show how cold we have been in Provo, UT this fall...plus, we've tried to hold off on turning the furnace on as long as we can. We've had to periodically turn it on for the night, but then it goes right back off the next day. Our plant has been fooled, but I'm excited it is in bloom! We bought this plant after Christmas last year on clearance and it bloomed until Easter and even a little after. I had no clue when it would start blooming this fall.

Kitchen tile

Dave's fall break was successfully filled entirely with our kitchen tile project. We had hoped to add in a few fun things during his fall break like going up to Sundance (ski resort) and riding the ski lift up the mountain to enjoy the beautiful fall colors and possibly even camping, but we ran out of time and didn't do any of those extras. We have a beautiful new kitchen floor though! We still have the "finishing touches" to do like put the baseboards back up and do some touch up painting, but the majority of the project is complete! We did notice (after the tile was set and the grout had dried...of course) that one of our tiles broke (as you can see in the picture). We need to chisel out that tile and replace it as well. Hopefully we can get those finishing touches done fairly soon. We are then finished with home improvement projects for awhile. I think we are ready to have our house be in a normal state until we get ancy and want another project!

Demolition

Installing the Hardibacker

Painting the kitchen

Progress!!

Working hard

Tough piece to cut!

Dave & Chet

Working on the grout

Almost done

Broken tile

Isn't it pretty?

October is busy!

As I was at work this morning I was thinking about what today's date is and realized it is Oct. 10th and that means that today is my Grandpa Housholder's birthday! My brain then started thinking about how many "events" there are in our family in October (tons!). I thought I would be fair and mention all of those events on our blog and say happy birthday and happy anniversary to all those who get to celebrate in October....we love you guys!

Joseph (Holly's nephew) - B-day on Oct. 2nd
Grandpa Housholder - B-day on Oct. 10th
Damian (Holly's friend's kiddo) - B-day on Oct. 12th
Daniel (one of Dave's older brothers) - B-day on Oct. 15th
Andy & Johanna (Holly's brother and sister-in-law) - Anniversary on Oct. 17th
Randal (Holly's dad) - B-day on Oct. 21st
George (Holly's uncle) - B-day on Oct. 24th
Harrison (Dave's nephew...Daniel's kiddo) - B-day on Oct. 26th

I hope I didn't forget anyone! As you can tell Oct. is busy for our family! We wish you all special days and want you to know we are thinking about each and every one of you!

Preview

Here is a preview of our next project...hopefully to begin this week while Dave is on fall break from the 11th through the 15th. I placed one piece of the tile up along the laminate flooring and baseboard to get a feel for what it will look like and got VERY excited. I think we picked a good color (I'm glad it worked out so perfect because it is clearance tile and was very affordable!). Yea! I can't wait...

Finished Project!

Everything is done with our laminate flooring project and we couldn't be happier! We got the walls repainted, the baseboards repainted and the baseboards put back up. Our poor dogs were really having a hard time walking around and jumping on furniture because the lack of traction and the lack of experience. We bought them a rug (well, it was for us too) to help with the traction problem. In the process of shopping for that we found a nice chandelier for our dining room that was 50% off. We couldn't resist...especially since we've been looking for something to put in there since we moved in about a year ago. We really enjoy being homeowners and having the opportunity to work on projects such as this. It was our first attempt ever at laminate flooring and are pretty proud of the end result. We couldn't have done it without friends and family talking us through the process though and we do appreciate their help! Now it is on to the next project...tiling the kitchen!!

Laminate flooring (finishing touches)

The baseboards had to be lowered so we had to repaint the bottom portion of the walls

Holly repainting the baseboards

New chandelier for the dinning room

The finished floor!

Laminate flooring (before and during)

Bare floor (carpet had been pulled up)

Dave working

Holly working

Almost done!

The bathroom floor finished

Welcome To Our Blog!

Hello everyone! I'm finally posting my first blog entry. I've only been working on getting this up and running for about a month...gee! I hope that you all enjoy the updates on our lives and feel like there isn't so many miles between us...that is the purpose at least. I'm new to the blogging world so we'll see how this goes. I plan to post our first update shortly to show you the project we've been working on lately and finally finished! We are so excited! Well, we love you all and look forward to being in touch in this new way!