Halloween!!!!

I love Halloween!!!
I have always loved the chance to use your imagination and dress up and put out creepy decorations. I am not into the super scary, blood-and-gore side of Halloween but I do like the semi-creepy old haunted mansion type stuff.
This Halloween will be extra special because it is the due date for our own little "spooklin" (as his Granny already calls him). I was super excited to decorate the house for our first Halloween here but I told myself to dial it down this year for his sake because, who knows, we could be in the hospital that day. So, neither of us have plans for costumes and we only have a little bit of candy on hand to give out to kids in the neighborhood.
 However, I could only hold back so much. : ) I decided that this year, any decorations I did, I would make and then after Halloween I could stock up on the stuff that is on clearance.

This first one is just some black roses I've got in my front room.

This  is a tulle wreath I made based on the tutorial from OurBestBites.com. A wonderful cooking website that happened to have a really easy, cheap, cute idea for a Halloween wreath. I already have plans to make a similar one for Christmas. : )

This was something my mom used to do for Halloween when I was a kid. We always had a scarecrow sitting outside our house in October. I remember one year, on Halloween night, my dad put on the same clothes as the scarecrow and sat by the door scaring kids when they came to get candy....who knows....maybe next year? For now, our silent sentry just guards the front door (and scares the bajeebees out of me every time I pull out of the garage).

These little guys are everywhere! Just Google "decoupage halloween lantern" or search pinterest and you'll find a billion of them. They were super easy to make, cost me $0, and turned out really cute. I am very proud. I think the mummy is my favorite. They all have their own personalities. I love it!

I hope this Halloween will be one we never forget!!!

Random Summer Stuff

These are just some updates into our summer and where our life is at right now.

In July we had an awesome family reunion up Idaho with Roy's family. I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I meant to (I need to get better at that) but we did get a few good ones.

This is Tank ready to drive all the way to Henry's Lake.

This is Roy...not quite as excited to drive all the way to Henry's Lake.

I love this picture! This is how they spent a large portion of the drive! :)

Aren't they just so cute!! Nap time in the tent!

(and for some reason, Picasa is dumb and won't turn this picture. whatever.)


I have been married to Roy for almost 2 years now and I am still always learning new things about him. This summer, I have learned that my husband does the following very well:
    1. Growing and maintaining a garden
    2. Putting in a fence (that the neighbor thought we should just pay someone to do)
    3. Rednecking several different solutions for a jump-happy dog
    4. Tear down and rebuild walls (exactly 3 this summer so far)
    5. Put up crown molding
    6. Build custom shelving
    7. Electrical work in a house (has replaced at least 6 outlets, one of which was in the bathroom)
    8. Can still find it in his heart to love and care for a crazy insane pregnant woman who is always demanding this or that and complaining about this pain and that pain and somehow is still willing to be around when she finally has the baby

And come to find out...he can also build furniture!! Oh, he is trouble now! We needed a nice little table that was extremely sturdy to get our aquatic turtle tank (a good 75 pounds) off the ground. We have a small side table that I love and so Roy decided he would duplicate the style in a size that would fit the tank. I was hesitant when he said he would build it but I've learned to just trust him when he says he can do something. He always delivers well past my expectations. This table turned out perfect!! Amazing workmanship, beautiful design, and the perfect size.
Buying a table for this (that may or may not have been able to hold the tank) would have cost us at least $150. When all was said and done, after lumber and stain, we calculated the cost this table at $40!!! Yay!!
Now that I know about this new found talent, I have big plans...I'm thinking matching dining room table.

It's perfect!!

Nursery is finished!!

We have finally finished the baby's room! Hurray!!!!
I cannot express how excited I was to just have it done with. And it turned out just the way I wanted it to. Remodeling this room turned out to be quite the adventure.
As I have explained before, we originally planned to just take off the paneling, sand down the textured paint and repaint the room....That plan failed as soon as the sander touched the wall. It took Roy 2 hours and a full sheet of sand paper to get that paint remotely smooth in a 2 ft square space. Not worth it!

So....plan B:  Put in new walls!

So we put up 2 new walls, filled in cracks in the paneling, painted the room and it looks like a completely different place. I love the bright blue color and Roy did an amazing job putting up brand new crown molding (my husband is the most patient man on earth). We also redid all of the shelving in the closet. The room is too small to really fit a dresser so we put a lot of shelves in the closet that we can use instead. I am really pleased with how it all turned out.

BEFORE:

(I actually cheated on the before because I forgot to take a picture before we'd taken down the paneling)

AFTER:

:) I am super excited. The next addition to this room is a changing table we found at DI for $15 that I am refinishing. I am so excited to show you all when I am done!!

Remodeling the baby's room has been our first full remodel in our new house...This room taught us a lot...
1. We may want to scale back our remodeling dreams a little bit
2. This is a super quarky house: BE PREPARED FOR ANYTHING!
3.  It can be done!

So stay tuned for more installments in the Shuldberg remodeling project. :)

Pioneer Day Camping Trip

We weren't actually camping the day of Pioneer Day but it was the same weekend so it counts. :) We found a great little secluded campsite way up American Fork Canyon that was really rough getting into. I should have taken pictures of the boulders we had to get the truck over! The baby was bouncing around like crazy and I felt like I had to pee all the way there and the whole way back : / It was a really great trip though. We spent time just relaxing and playing games and stopped at Silver Lake flats before we headed home on Saturday. The lake is so high this year! It had to be 2-3 times bigger than any other year I have seen. The feeding river was moving so fast it had washed out the road to the campsites in the area. The dogs loved the lake because they hadn't had a chance to really swim and get wet for a long time. Abigail was a real swimmer - she would have swam out to the middle of the lake with Roy if we had let her...we didn't.

 Oh Killer Bunnies....what a crazy game....

 Roy was a little over the weight limit for this raft and I was pretty sure he was gonna sink...but he made it to the middle of the lake and back without too much trouble...just some water down the back. It was funny to watch him in such a tiny boat.

My hubby is so cute :)

So...we brought Rhodes rolls to make scones for breakfast one morning...however, after sitting in the cooler all day, the rolls defrosted and began to rise.....

You can also see the beautiful bouquet of wildflowers that Roy picked for me in the background :) He's super sweet!!!!

While we were there, we saw Airmed (LifeFlight) fly in and they landed about 100 yards from our campsite. We walked down there and saw 6-7 Sheriff/Search and Rescue vehicles. We watched as they brought someone in a stretcher up the trail and into the helicopter. Our best guess is that there was a 4-wheeler accident and the road down was too rough to take her down by truck. There were a lot of 4-wheelers up there so it wasn't too surprising...but it was sad.

PS - Nursery Update! We decided to take a whole new route and just tear out 2 walls in the baby's room to put in new sheet rock. More pictures to come when the room is finished but here is a teaser for you. :)

It's a Boy!!!!

Hurray! We're going to have a mini Roy running around in the near future. Beware world....

These pictures aren't great but I was too lazy to actually scan in the ultrasound pictures. All you get are pictures of pictures. For the sake of the poor child's future, we'll keep the "It's definitely a boy!" pictures to ourselves. I will say though, our radiologist was having a lot of fun. She wrote boy!boy!boy!boy!boy!boy!boy!boy!boy!boy! all across the top of the picture (and printed the pic with her mouse pointing to...*cough*...ya) She commented on several of the ones I will post and I will include those under the pictures in italics.

Here are his legs....you can only see the left leg if you have mad skill like me ;) but the right one is pretty obvious.

 and his little hand waving at us....or telling us to buzz off and stop trying to get a peak at his private parts...one of the two...

BUFF! This is our little buff man flexing for us...this is Roy's favorite picture. :) Made the whole visit worth it for him (he doesn't like going to the doctor with me very much).

Hi mom!!! Admittedly, the skull picture is a little creepy, BUT this one is my favorite because if you look at it, he is actually smiling. We actually saw his facial expression change in the ultrasound. It was very cool and I felt my heart just swell with love for this little baby inside of me.


I finally started feeling him move around for real just last week. It's a little odd to realize that there is a person inside of me poking me from the inside...The best is when I'm in the middle of a sentence and he jabs me so good I pause. People look at me really weird...Can't feel it from the outside yet so Roy is convinced I'm making it up...oh well...he'll see soon enough.

My first belly picture! : / This is at 23 weeks pregnant (about 5 months). I can't believe I only have 4 months left! I feel like I haven't done a single thing to get ready for him...I have finished putting my registry together after way too much research (Walmart and BabiesRUs). But that's really it...My goal is to have the nursery ready for paint by the middle of next week...we'll see if it actually happens.

There was a really nice thunder storm that passed through here tonight and Roy got a couple of decent pictures I thought I would include.

What a crazy year it has been and will continue to be. I realized something the other day: within one year's time, from November 2010 to November 2011, I will have learned to teach and have taught 4 different subjects to various age groups; I will have bought a house and graduated from college with a Bachelor's degree; I will have had my mother pass away and a baby born. All of these things within 1 year's time...A lifetime of events and I got them all in a great big package this year. I am very grateful for every opportunity I have been given, I would even say that about my mother's passing. I have learned a lot about who I am and what I want from life. I know it doesn't get easier from here, but I do know that Roy and I love each other and we love God. We can handle anything that comes our way if we have those two things.

Tank likes birds...

Title Change

So...the list of occupants in the Shuldberg home is becoming so extensive...I decided it was time for a new title.

The Shuldberg Zoo!!!

Featuring:

Abigail the Wet Wonder

Tank the Trash Compactor

Archimedes the Scholar

Goldilocks, Red Riding Hood, and Little Red Hen

Wigs and McGuiver

Picasso the Terrible

And our newest addition:

Nefertiti the Queen of Egypt

And who can forget my wonderful husband:

Roy the Snake Charmer

(He actually really dislikes snakes...his kind heart won out on this one ;) )

And finally...

one more that is half done (eek!) cooking and will have pictures and more information available tomorrow :)

Now for a few projects....

First comes the nursery...Oh what a project! This little has turned into a nightmare. I didn't like the paneling that was on 2 fulls walls and half of the other two...so we tried to find a solution. We would take the paneling off the half walls and putty in the cracks on the full ones. Started out as a great plan...until we realized that the paneling was not only nailed to the drywall, it was glued as well, leaving a nasty resude on the wall when we pulled it off (the nasty brown squiggly lines in the pictures). Also the other half of the wall was painted with a really thick textured paint that we can't imitate (and don't want to) so comes our next solution: sanding, by hand, 2 full walls in this bedroom so we can paint it and make it look nice for the baby....*sigh*

These pictures are from the started process. We took off the paneling and we are currently working on the sanding...that will take forever...

And my latest project:

:) We made the chicken coup (which I still need to post completed pictures of) and decided the ducks needed something to so Roy built and I decorated this cute summer cottage for them. :) I am so proud. As I was working on it, I thought a lot about my mom. She was really good at stuff like this. I know she would appreciate (and laugh at) the work I put into this duck house.