Our house in lego form

While Nathan builds with legos in his room Holly often builds houses along side him. Recently she made a really cool house (our house) so I wanted to share it with you.  She just made the first floor.  That big empty room on the left is the garage.  We tried to get her to build our cars but she said no.  Houses are her specialty not cars.

This is the front of  our house.  She tried to use the correct color when she could.

 Here is our front room.  Can you see the cute piano she made on the right.

This is the stairs and TV on the other side of the front room.

Here is our computer room off of the kitchen

The kitchen 

The bathroom off of the kitchen.  Can you see me in the mirror?

 The pantry/laundry room connecting the kitchen to the garage

 And here is the whole downstairs.  Holly did an awesome job.

Today I am thankful that:

*Emily's group science project is done and the video worked.  It was a frustrating project and her group was not very helpful.

*Scott fixed two of our van doors.  He ordered some parts and watched YouTube videos and he fixed them himself!

*For the past four school years I have gotten to spend several hours of alone time with my son Nathan.  In the fall he will be a first grader and will be at school with his sisters from 8-3.

We got new carpet!

For the past few years we have been wanting to replace the carpet in our house. We still had the original builders grade carpet and it had become very matted and dirty.   But because we knew it would cost a lot and be a headache to do we never took action.  Then recently we received an inheritance from my Grandma Moulton who died in December and we decided to use the money to help pay for new carpet.  Scott and I made about 5 trips to the carpet store before deciding on a carpet color.  Ironically the carpet we chose is almost exactly the same color as the carpet we were replacing but much softer of course.  Half of the carpet was replaced on a Thursday, the stairs on Friday and the other half of the carpet on Saturday.  So basically we moved furniture on Wed, Thurs, Fri, and Sat night.  It was a very tiring process and I have to admit I got burnt out and was a little grumpy.   I'm so glad I bought some super slider pads, they were a life saver.  We just slipped a pad under each leg of the furniture and slid the furniture around which was so much easier than carrying each piece.

This picture was taken on the first day of carpet installation.  Our family room and den furniture was in the kitchen.

                             

Here is what the old den carpet looked like.

 Here is the family room carpet.  You can see on outline of where our rug was.  Yes, that carpet was dirty.

 We replaced all the upstairs carpet too; 2 bedrooms the first day and 3 bedrooms the second day.  The bedrooms that weren't having their carpet replaced each day got filled with the other bedrooms furniture.  We had to empty out all the closets too.  Here is what some of the crowded bedrooms looked like.

 The garage held the rest of our downstairs furniture that wouldn't fit in the kitchen.

 First the carpet guys took out the old carpet revealing the beat up old pad beneath.

Then they took out the old pad and scraped the floor to remove all the staples and pad remnants. Next they swept up all the dust left behind from the pad deteriorating over the years.  There was a lot of dust and it was green.

 This paint mark was on the wood floor under the carpet in our den.

 It looks surprising similar to the fireplace surround.

Nathan enjoyed climbing on and rolling around on the new pad rolled up in the den.

Next the new pad was rolled out and stapled down.

And then finally the new carpet was installed.  Here is our den put back together with the new carpet. The carpet is so clean and soft.   There are a few seams that show more than we would like, we are still waiting to get some of our doors trimmed at the bottom so they will close (now that the carpet is higher) and we did break one twin bed frame in the move but other than that replacing the carpet was a success.

 Today I am thankful that
*We live close to family.  All 17 of the Moulton grand kids posed in this picture after the family dinner in April.  There are 9 granddaughters and 8 grandsons.  It has been fun to get to know them these past 8 years.  The oldest grandchild heads out on a mission this summer, right after my parents return from their mission.

 *The days are long again here in Washington (from 6am-8:30 pm the sun is up).  My kids have more time to play outside and I rarely have to drive in the dark.  I really don't like driving in the dark. :(

*Emily had a fun 15th birthday party and it was very low key so I didn't get stressed out.  Her birthday party was on the second day of our carpet installation.  I took Emily and 2 of her friends to the mall.  Then I took them to a park for some fun photos and finally out to eat at Chipolte.