House Improvements

So we've done a few projects here in October on the house, so I wanted to document them.

First we printed a canvas of the Jordan River Temple where Steve and I were married.  Phill Monson was kind enough and let us use one of his awesome photos.  The colors are beautiful!  Thanks Phill!

 

Next we got our fence in.  We got the fence posts the last week of September right before I went back to work.  Then the following week in October they came and put in the panels and gates.  It's awesome!  We love having a little more privacy and of course for safety reasons, we know little kids can't get out of the backyard.  They asked Steve where he wanted the locks at on the gates, and he told them up high so littler kids can't reach it.  Good call honey!  Now we know when we send Nyles out to play in the backyard he is safe back there :)

Fence posts left side.

Fence posts right side.

Putting in the panels and gates now.

Right side done!

Left side done!

  The backside of the left side.

Nyles is so happy for the fence too!

I found this on Google.  It's still showing the "old" house and lanscape, before we moved in.

Notice how everything is pretty overgrown.

The fence on both sides. 

 

On Saturday, October 8th, after the boys had taken an afternoon nap, I went outside in our backyard and decided that we should pull out the weeds and shrubs up on our retaining wall.  We hadn't planned on doing it that afternoon, but it was such a beautiful day, and I just hate looking at the overgrown mess up there, I decided "Let's do it!"  So we got out the pruning sheers and our gloves and got to work.  Nyles even helped us take the weeds over to our pile.  There were piles of old leaves and pine needles that looked like they'd been there forever!  It felt soooo good to finally clear out the overgrown weeds and bushes up there.

Steve cutting some weeds out.  

The trees would shed "runners" all over the place too so we cut those out.

Nyles helping w/ his dump truck to move the weeds to our pile.

Carter taking it easy (chewing on his binky strap) while we work out in the yard.

This is the pile we made from all the weeds and bushes we took out.  It was a lot!

Yeah the weeds are gone!  At least for now :)

After taking out the weeds and overgrown bushes, I kept feeling like we needed to have our trees looked at again.  Steve had a couple people come in the Spring when we moved in, but I wasn't ready to cut them down yet.  Steve joked about wanting to cut them down so he wouldn't have to rake up all the leaves this Fall, and I wasn't going to cut down our trees just for that ;)  We've had some pretty good winds, and every time it blows I honestly worry "What if the trees fall down on the house?"  They are twice the size of the house and Nyles room is right in front of them.  Then when my parents were here about a month ago, we had some good size branches come down on the patio after some wind we had.  My dad looked at one and it was black on the inside and he said the tree must be dying.  And then the last couple weeks we've had even more branches fall down, in addition to the normal leaves.  

So I looked up people who were actually "Arborists" to come look at the trees.  I wanted someone who was hoping to save the trees, rather than just cut them down so they can make money.  After looking at the trees, all of them stated that the trees had hit the end of their lifespan and were dying essentially.  All of them said the same thing, "it's not a matter of if, but when the trees come down."  So after hearing it and really "feeling" we needed to cut them down, we hired a company to do so.  The guys we hired were a little cheaper than the others, and most importantly, they could do it in just a couple days, instead of a couple weeks.  I really felt the urgency that we needed to get them down, and quick!  Here are some pics.

We ended up cutting down 7 Cottonwood trees and 1 Pine Tree.

There goes the guy climbing up the first tree.

They actually took our pile of shrubs from the week before and put it through a wood chipper, since they were in the way.  We were planning to wait until the Sandy City cleanup day, which was this week, but they did it for us, so that was awesome!

Climbing higher.

Taking down the first tree after cutting off the branches.

Nyles was in heaven watching the tree guys work all day.

You'll notice the inside of the trees.  All of them looked like this.  They really were sick.  They all had slim flux, a bacterial disease, on the inside.  This was killing the trees as well, in addition to the fact that they don't have a long lifespan, only about 30 years.

All trees down but one.  They were tired after a long day, so they said they'd come back in a couple days to finish it.

Steve and Carter checking out the lonesome tree.

Steve then went and got poison and poisoned the stumps so it would kill the roots and stop further "runners" from growing.  There were a lot of leaves that came down, and we didn't have to clean up most of them.  That made Steve happy :)

The second set of guys who came to take down the last and biggest tree.  

They figured it was probably the original tree and the other 6 were "runners" from it.

 Taking down the branches and cutting the truck as he went.  The guy brings up a chainsaw w/ him the whole time.  Ya, they have to be pretty strong to do this job. :)

Nyles next to the biggest stump.

The stump removal guy came today.  Finally after almost 2 weeks we had the trees officially out!  We've had some winds again since they took down the first set of trees, and man are we glad they are gone!  It's a little strange not having the natural "barrier" between us and the neighbors, but we are getting lot of sun, which is awesome now that it's not as hot during the day.

He ended up cutting down the little pine tree as well, since it was going to get run over by his machine in order to grind the stumps anyway. We also had to remove a section of our fence between us and the Andersons behind us in order to bring the machine in.  Steve took it out and put the fence back up after he was done.  It worked out better this way instead of trying to climb over the retaining wall and breaking it further.

Taking out the big tree stump.  It took the longest by far!

Now moving on to the smaller stumps.

The stumps are officially gone!  Now we will have to figure out what we want to do up there, most likely in the Spring.  We're killing parts of the lawn as well since it's farmers grass.  We'll reseed it in the Spring as well.  Our yard actually feels bigger now w/out all the huge trees there.

We kept the wood from the bigger pine tree.  We can use it for firewood at the cabin or something.

The wood from the Cottonwood trees they couldn't sell it or reuse it though, since it had the bacteria in it---so sad.

We have lot of nice mulch now though.  We just need to figure out what to plant up there.

Taking out the trees definitely wasn't planned or expected, especially in our budget, but we're glad we did it.  I feel certain that we would have had more trouble from them down the road, and most likely would have cost even more.  I'm grateful for the impressions we get from the Holy Ghost to warn us and protect us.  It truly is a blessing.  The Lord really does love us and watches out for us.  :)

October

So here we are half way through October already.  I went back to work on Wednesday, September 28th.  Since I had Carter on a Wednesday, I went back to work on a Wednesday.  As you can imagine there was a lot to catch up after being off for 4 1/2 months.  I was trying to delete emails while I was out at home, about once a month, but I still had over 800 when I got in to work.  I thought I'd take the first couple days to delete emails and get caught up on trainings and whatnot, but it didn't happen that way.  Ironically the guy who was covering for me had appointments the day I returned but was unable to complete them since they took away his access.  I ended up doing 4 appointments on my first day back, so it was a pretty busy day.  I feel like I'm finally caught up now and starting to get ahead.  There were a lot of changes while I was out in our organization, so I have been trying to get caught up w/ those too.  Though there was many organizational changes, work is still work.  I know I've said this before, but I feel so blessed to have had that time to be home.  Family really is the most important thing in our lives!

Sometimes I can't believe we are now a family of 4!  Currently Nyles is 4 years old and Carter is 4 months old.  Carter weighed 14.7 lbs, was 25.2 inches long and his head was 16.3 inches at his 4 month appointment.  Carter is still growing, but it's slowed down compared to his first 2 months.  Ironically right before I went back to work Carter started waking up 2 times during the night, where he had been only waking up once before.  Then for the first week or 2 after going back to work he was really stubborn and didn't want to eat for Steve while I was at work, even though he had taken a bottle before.  He would essentially wait until I got home from work then want to eat all night of course.  It was a little tiring to say the least, but luckily he's about back to normal now, and only waking up once during the night.  He's eating and sleeping better for Steve too during the day.

Cute little Carter!  

He's figured out how to grab his binky and play w/ it, lay on his belly a little, reach his toes, hold his head up so strong, and just be such an easy lovable baby for the most part.  

We love him so much!

I also can't believe we've been in our house 6 months now!  We moved in during the April General Conference, and we just had the October General Conference.  It was the same weekend as the duck hunting opener of course, so Steve went up to Strawberry Lake Friday afternoon so he could be there for the opener the next morning.  He took Rob Daniels w/ him and his cousin's kid Christian Taylor (19 years old).  Zach Hannay and his fireman buddy Aaron Call also showed up.  They hunted that morning until about noon, then came home.  Luckily they each got a duck, so that made them happy.

Steve w/ some ducks he shot.

While Steve was gone, the boys and I watched General Conference at home on TV.

Nyles building a tower while "watching" General Conference.

Nyles and Carter during conference.

Then on Sunday we were able to watch General Conference together as a family.  It was a little tricky taking in all the messages at times in between feedings, naps, and trying to keep Nyles attention.  We tried different games and things to keep him interested.  He did pretty good.  Either way I'm glad we are able to listen to them again, and so quickly too.  It was only a few days and they had them uploaded to the LDS app.  I have been able to read them on my phone while riding on the train into work.  There are such great messages.  I hope we're all reading and rereading them.

Joann gave us a fun activity to do while listening to conference-use sugar cubes and frosting to build something.  Steve built a replica of the temple and Nyles built a tower.

Playing General Conference Bingo-always a hit!

That Sunday night we had our family dinner.  Stacie and Phill were in charge this time.  They had it at Phill's work building in Farmington.  We had a lot of fun!  The kids got to dress up in their Halloween costumes and we had Halloween themed food.  Carrie, Ryan and Lynsie even came down from Colorado for his brother's wedding, so they joined us a well.  It was great seeing everyone!

Carter playing w/ Aunt Carrie.

Nyles playing w/ the vampire teeth that were in the donuts.

Me, Melanie, Carrie and Carter.

The following Saturday, Steve went back up to Strawberry to go duck hunting w/ his dad and took two of his nephews, Ethan Lake (Melanie/Brandon's boy) and Isaac McGrath (Jeff/Kim's boy).  They wanted to try duck hunting and Steve gladly volunteered to take them.  Nyles of course went as well.  They left Saturday around noon, and spent all afternoon up there.  It was a little too warm and the weather was a little too nice, so they didn't get any, but they all had a great time together.

Hiking down to the gully.  Steve carrying a pontoon boat so they can get their ducks from the water.  Issac, Ethan and Nyles following him.

Assessing their situation.

Setting up the decoys.

Now just waiting.  Nyles, Dave, Isaac and Ethan.

Beautiful day, not too good for duck hunting though.

Cute Carter working on his tummy skills.

Nyles and Steve slept in the living room together for a "camp out."  They were going to do it out in the backyard this Summer and never did.  Nyles won't let Steve forget next Summer though ;)

Steve has been helping his parents move stuff around in their garage, house, and new shed.  They just started renovating their house this week.  

Grandma Joann and Carter enjoying the day.

Poor Nyles got a cold and gave it to Carter a couple weeks ago.  Carter got in the sun and sneezed out some major boogers.  Luckily he's feeling better now. 

Carter loves this cute puppy our neighbor Karolyn gave him.  

Steve took this picture of him, "you caught me dad!"

Nyles eating all the raspberries he and Grandma Joann just picked :)

Nyles pulling his wagon on his bike ;)

We got Nyles a scooter this past week.  It was supposed to be for Christmas, but we figured it would be better for him to enjoy it now before we get snow.  Ironically he's been doing really well holding his pee at nighttime, so we decided to give it to him as a way to say "good job" and "keep up the good work."  The next day he slept all night in his underwear w/out going potty (usually we've been putting him in a diaper just so we don't have to clean it up).  He's gone the whole week now in his underwear w/out going at nighttime!  He's loving his scooter too to say the least.

Nyles riding his scooter around Draper Park.  He's so happy!

We've had some more updates on our house as well, so I'll post that next.