First Talk in Primary

Last Sunday when Madi brought me the sticker saying that she was to give a talk in primary I thought, “How is this going to work?”  Every time she’s had to get up in front of the crowd at church she has cried and not wanted to participate so I was thinking that there was no way that she was going to get a word out in front of the crowd in primary.  I decided that I would let her pick a picture out of the church photo’s that we had and we would talk about that.  We ended up with a photo of the Salt Lake Temple so I thought she could just recite the words to the song, “I Love to See the Temple”. 

I love to see the temple.
I’m going there someday
To feel the Holy Spirit,
To listen and to pray.
For the temple is a house of God,
A place of love and beauty.
I’ll prepare myself while I am young;
This is my sacred duty.

When they called for Madi to come up and share her talk she marched up there with Brett (no hesitation) and repeated everything that he whispered to her in a loud clear voice.  I was so proud that I nearly cried.  I heard all the girls in our class say, “Oh!!  That’s so cute!”  It really was!  I loved it.  She did such a great job and she was so brave.

Daddy, when you are at work…

Madi was holding a picture frame looking at the pictures of Brett and I then turns to Brett and says, “Daddy!  When you are at work I look at this and I think about all the wonderful things you buy me.” 

Quick Madi Funny!

Brett was watching TV with the girls and Phineas and Ferb came on.  It was the one where Buford looses his goldfish.  Madi immediately knew which one it was since she’s seen them all and she says, “I don’t want to watch this one, there’s too much crying.”  I don’t know it was just funny to us that she couldn’t stand to hear him crying so much.  She’s a funny one!

Planning the kitchen remodel

Our kitchen layout is weird.  Bless the hearts of the people that lived here before us, they really tried to do some good things.  The way the kitchen is now the range is stuck back in this little hallway and the cabinets are old and needing to be replaced.  I found on www.lowes.com that they have a virtual room planner and it’s so much fun to play with.  So even though we probably won’t get to do the kitchen remodel for awhile I don’t think it’s ever too soon to start dreaming about how we want it. 

  The empty space that has a wall in front of it is going to be our pantry.  Right now the range is there with cabinetry.  When we moved in the refrigerator that came with the house was where I have the range in my new plan.  To get that refrigerator out Brett pretty much had to pull the wall down.  I don’t know if they built the wall around it or what but it sure was stuck in there.  There was no way that we were going to get our refrigerator in that space it was 6 inches too narrow.  The dishwasher right now is where I’m putting the refrigerator in my new plan.  I think that the dishwasher needs to be next to the sink and near to the cabinets.  We are also hoping that we will be able to knock the wall down to open the room up.  Right now there is a doorway that comes in by the cabinets near the refrigerator and there is another doorway on the other side of the column by the island/peninsula.  So we want to open one doorway larger and close one off completely.  I can’t wait to do it but first comes the roof then we will hopefully get to this, but then there is our bedroom that needs to be done too.. Projects projects projects….  It is fun to dream it up and see how it will look someday.

Getting along

For the most part Madi and Kimber play together really nicely but they do have their fights.  Madi gets so frustrated with Kimber especially when Kimber throws Madi’s papers all over.  Just a few minutes ago Kimber grabbed Madi’s drawing papers and threw them in the air and then Kimber ran and jumped on the couch where Madi was sitting.  Madi comes over and says, “Ooohhhhh!!!!  She is the most DIFICULT girl!”  So sad that she is so bugged by what her little sister is doing but what she said was so cute.  Then a few minutes pass and they are back to being best buddies again.

Sleepover!

Moving to Peterson meant taking Madi away from her best friend Payton.  Where we lived in Le Mars we were about two minutes away from the Wrights so play dates were really easy to make.  Now that we are about 50 minutes away the play dates are a little harder to coordinate.   Then with family vacations and other scheduling interferences the girls hadn’t been able to get together for over a month.  Madi had been asking, begging to go play with Payton or to have Payton come to her house.  I felt bad that I had to tell her that she wasn’t home and she wasn’t even in Iowa but as soon as Payton got home I would set up a play date.  So Thursday afternoon Tifany and I made a plan to meet half way to make the kid exchange.  Payton came to our house and spent the night for two nights.  The girls had a great time.  Kimber even tagged along and they didn’t seem to mind.  They played shop, hunted for butterflies, watched the fireflies, played dress up and tons of other things. 

On Friday I thought maybe it would be fun to go to the pool.  Payton was worried that we didn’t have her suit but I assured her that she could wear one of Madi’s and it would work out just fine.  They had a great time and got all tired out.  They pretty much crashed when we got back to the house. I’m not sure how much sleep they got the two nights but they were still ready to play no matter what.  We took Payton home on Saturday on our way to Sioux City.  Madi was pretty sad that she wasn’t going to get to go play at Payton’s house.  It’s so cute that they like to be around each other so much.  I’m so glad that she has such a good friend.

Long past due

I was just looking at the few photo’s that I’ve taken in the past few months and feeling like a real big slacker.  I really need to pull my head out and keep on top of these things.  I used to be so good at taking a million pictures of my girls but not lately.  I don’t know if it’s been the stress of moving and whatever but I’m not keeping up my end of the deal.  So I’m going to give myself a real hard kick in the butt and I’m going to start taking more photo’s of my girls.

Here are a few of the photo’s that I have taken in the last few months.  I’ve also included a few of our new house since I haven’t put any of it on here.

Madi and Kimber love to explore out in our large backyard.  We have a really good hill that will make for great sledding when winter comes.  These photo’s were taken April 29th.  They love to pick the dandelions and any other kind of flower or weed.

We have a lot of room for the girls to roam.  We plan on building a fire pit so that we can have campouts right in our own backyard.  Madi keeps begging to have a campout and to go fishing.  We are hoping to get the Grandparent’s out here so that Grandpa Bud can take Madi fishing.

This isn’t the greatest photo of the front of the house but until it’s light outside it’s all I have.  Since I took this photo I painted the door red (which I might change to a different red) and we hung black shutters instead of the white ones with the PURPLE inset.  Why someone thought purple was the color to use I will never understand but that’s ok because we are fixing it.

Our house is a work in progress that we will probably be working on for as long as we are here but we love it.  We love the character and the potential that it has.

Here is Kimber posing for me on the stairs.  I pulled the old carpet up as soon as I had tools to work with.  I’m still trying to decide if I want to refinish the wood or put carpet on them again.  Brett says carpet and I’m slowly being convinced even though I love the look of the wood and how beautiful it will look once the trim is white.  Projects, projects projects.

Before (I really couldn’t wait to get this color covered up.. YUCK!!) After (well almost) I need to finish some painting in the laundry room and then it will be the first room that we have entirely redone.  I love how it’s turned out.

We are going to paint all of the other wood trim, doors and windows through the entire house.  Lots and lots of paint but I really love how it looks especially with the old hinges I think they really pop on the white.

I haven’t taken any pictures of the upstairs, the kitchen or our bedroom yet so that will be the next overload of photo’s. 

Well, I hope you have enjoyed this sneak peak into our home here in Peterson, Iowa.