Please pardon my lack of blogging lately- we've been VERY busy. Can I just say my mother is a saint? She gives and gives and serves and serves and never stops. Originally she was only in charge of planning a reunion this summer for her siblings and the 100+ kids and grandkids. Only that. Nothing much.
Then she was asked to coordinate all the food for her stake's girl's camp this year- that included figuring out how much food was needed, buying it all, getting it all there, cooking it all, serving it all, and cleaning up after it all. And of course she did that without hesitation.
Back in October when Miles was born she came out to help and was truly appalled by the overwhelming amount of
navy blue in my house. Whoever was here before must have REALLY loved that exact blue color. 2 walls in the office were blue, ALL the walls in the kitchen, ALL the walls in the dining room, and even the front door was blue. Oh, and the kitchen counter is the same blue but in tiles :). Lots and lots of blue. Now I like blue as well as the next person, but come on, can we have some variety please???
So when my mom was here with baby Miles we picked out some paint and then decided he was too young (like 3 days old) so maybe we shouldn't expose him to all the paint fumes. So the paint sat lonely in the basement until this past week when my mom came to help teach me how to paint and ended up doing most of it herself since my 3 boys are very busy and needy right now.
Say goodbye to the blue.
And more blue. Ignore the spots- that was just my camera.
And hello to golden-yellow!
Ethan and Isaac were fascinated with what we were doing so my mom was nice enough to let them help (after first making sure the drop cloth was securely in place).
Isaac giggled the whole time she let him hold the roller.
And they spent most of 2 days in this exact position watching us.
Miles was a little more sneaky and found a way through the blockade. Of course he picked this very inopportune time to decide to start crawling. Can you see the look of sheer joy on his face that he's gotten himself into such an amazing place! If you notice, the paint changed from the room above. That's because THEY GAVE US THE WRONG COLOR- TWICE!!! Apparently at Home Depot, they can only print their brochures using 4 colors (a red hue being the one missing) so when you hand them their own brochure and point to the perfect color you have spent hours choosing, they cannot match it exactly (even though they tell you they can) and it will in fact contain TONS MORE RED than you want!!!
So I picked out a color called peanut butter which was a yellowy brown gold and instead it was PEACH! Full on peach! Two trips to Home Depot and another full paint job later we finally got a color I like. So just to pass on the wisdom I gained, they can match the swatches and the squares that peel out of their brochures because those are actually spray painted on and then glued in. Just don't trust anything that doesn't peel out.
Everyone was a little worn out after all the painting.
But of course, my saintly mother wasn't about to quit yet. Just to make her summer extra crazy my youngest brother got engaged the last week of June and they're getting married August 21st. Not too much work for the mother of the groom you would assume, but then they asked her to cook all the food for the reception- and they're sending out 400 invitations alone to her family and friends from her hometown where the reception is. Who knows how many will come, but my mom got started while she was here and thankfully we were able to track down a few family members with open freezer space for the next month.
400 pecan tassies. Check!
These are a classic in our home and even though they're a lot of work, they look great...
and taste even better! See what I'm talking about with all the blue, blue, blue.
But happily now the blue tiles are surrounded in the dining room by brown and taupe.
And brown in the whole kitchen.
Of course there are about a million touch-ups to finish and just other things that still need to be changed (notice the burn marks on the wood above the gas stove. Someone very brilliant built that it a little too close for my comfort.)
A view of the office all put back together.
And a painted living room. Ignore the blue tape- Taylor is convinced we need to paint in between the crown moldings. I agree it would look nice to do that- but I'm a little painted out. At least for now.
So a big thank you to my saintly mother who painted, cleaned, cooked, and loved on my little boys for the past week and a half. Our house finally looks like a house and not some ode to Cookie Monster or the Blue Man Group (which incidentally, we looked like for several days after all the sanding of blue walls).
The other thing Ethan has been begging for is more playmats. We found some micro machine army men, tanks, planes, and helicopters at a yard sale recently and he has wanted a mat to play with them on. So here's the finished product. One desert mat and one airport complete with airplane hangers, runways, and helicopter pads.
These things have been played with non-stop for the past 2 days. Looks like it was worth my time.
And since I was already making more mats, I decided to make one for the dinosaurs and the zoo animals that we already have. 
All 4 mats have zippers on the back to keep all the little toys in. Can't wait to use them on the airplanes next week!
