First Cats, Then Other Things

Oh, all right, fine! A non-blurry picture of the cats. But then we're moving on to cool stuff...

Remus in the blue, Pearl in the yellow. They mostly hide under our shed.

I finished the changing table yesterday!! Huzzah!! It was a giant pain in the butt too, by the way. If I'd have known how much of a pain it was going to be, I just would have sold it on KSL and used the money to buy wood to build a new one. But now it's done. Here are the "before", "in the middle", and "after" shots.

The whole time I was staining it gray I was pretty sure I hated it, and that the gray was the wrong gray. But getting it out of the garage and into the boys' room made a huge difference. I like it now. It looks good in the room. And I think we will stain the bunk bed the same gray color.

Now I just need to figure out how to organize all "the things" that need to go on it. I've been looking on Pinterest and am kind of loving "nursery peg boards", but I can't decide if that would distract too much from what's already going on in the room. Sometimes I have a tendency to over-do it, and I'm trying really really hard not to let that side of me run wild. I want to keep a peaceful happy feeling in this room. But on the other hand, there is a big blank space on the wall above the changing table so...

The Foxgloves have just about run their course for this season in my front flower bed. :( But the good news is my Day Lilies are going strong, and the Zinnias that I planted from seed are just starting to bloom! I tried to do that on purpose -- plant the flowerbed in such a way that there was always something blooming from Spring to Fall. So far so good.

The lighter Day Lilies, some of the flowers are also that pink color.

Zinnias, I sort of bought the seed packet for these on a whim. They are turning out to be a really cool looking flower.

Here are a few swim pictures I haven't gotten around to getting up yet.

Lincoln and Ivan during some down time at the Springville Meet.

Ivan backstroking at the Riverside Meet.

My cute little Ollie Frog, waiting for his swimming lesson to start.

I'm grateful that we've had so much swimming this year. I feel like without it our summer would be completely empty and boring. Besides the hour we spend at swimming every morning, we have pretty much stayed home all summer. I'm too hot to venture out. And it's exhausting to get a toddler, a three year old, and three older kids in and out of the car, and supervise them all while we're out somewhere in the heat. We're going to have to plan some killer field trips for fall after Cal gets here, to make up for our extremely mediocre summer. I want to be up in Bear Lake so bad I can taste it. I literally dream about it every night. Sitting on the beach watching the kids play in the sand and the water, eating good food and talking with family sounds so heavenly. Hiking, camping, s'mores. The mountains. The ocean. As I sit here trapped in my house day after day, I just want them all! But my back aches, my belly is big, and my hands and ankles are starting to swell. So instead of going out, I just find things to do around here. Trying to keep myself busy. Trying to keep myself occupied. Trying to pass the time without wasting it. Maybe today I'll work on something for Ollie and Cal's room. Or maybe it's some produce from the garden that catches my attention. Or maybe I'll buy a Norwex cloth and go crazy cleaning every inch of my house. But I've gotta keep moving, keep doing, keep my hands busy. Work hard at what I can, daydream about the great outdoors...this baby will get here. But it's taking forever.