Summer Leftovers: David's Phone

We had so many fun and exciting things this summer, so I thought the best way to hit the highlights was with a little summer leftover extravaganza. 

Shantel has wanted a near chair for a tech center for a LONG time. When we first moved in we had a chair that we got for free and Shantel reupholstered it with some pretty green fabric and new padding. It must have been two years ago that it just fell apart. Since then we have been sliding one of kitchen table chairs over to use that. Or if the kids are at the computer they slide two chairs over. But since we only have four chairs, then we have to slide them back over 20 minutes later when it is time for a meal. 

This may lead you to ask, Shantel really wanted a chair, why did it take so long. The problem really comes down to the pitfalls of a traditional computer chair. Most computer chairs (and by most, I mean basically all) have wheels. Every time we saw a good looking computer chair with wheels we just imagined our children rolling all around the kitchen to our dismay. So the rolling computer chairs were out. The other hold up was because we have a tech center that is higher than a traditional desk, which means a lot of chairs were too low to the ground. We wanted something higher, especially with little kids who need to be able to reach. Shantel was looking a long time, but anything she really liked was out of our budget ($250-$350). 

Initially we were looking for something like this, but maybe with armrests. A beautiful elegant chair. But again, it had to be in our price range and tall enough, which most were not. 

                                               

We finally started considering some rolling chairs, figuring that we could just take off the wheels. But they were still not exactly what we wanted. 

IKEA has some pretty good options and we were thinking about them. In fact, we pretty much decided to go back to IKEA and just pick the best one we could find, but decided to try two more places.

RC Willey had this chair that we really liked, except the price and the wheels. 

Then we went to At Home and found the perfect chair. We had not really seen anything good in the way of barstools, but they had a million bar stools that all were pretty good options. After over an hour testing and trying each chair, we finally picked this. I really love it. The only downside was the back was a little shorter than we wanted, but it turns out it does not bother me and is actually nice because the whole thing can slide under the tech center.

However, once we got to thinking, we realized that our kids (and us) like to be up at the tech center at the same time. We brought home one chair. Then decided to know if they would both fit we needed the other. So I went back and bought a second chair and they have been perfect. Shan and I can both sit by each other. The chair adjusts height so it is comfortable, it has nice padding and looks great. 

Our kids have loved them too. At Home bar stool for the win!

We had some great Caleb time/pictures.

I'm a lucky Dad (Father's Day Pictures)

Lydia learned to read. It was amazing, one day she pulled those books out and she opened it up and she just read the whole book. I helped her as she went through the process to sound things out, but she just did. I was amazed. She was so proud of herself. She went on and read 3 or 4 more of the little books and it was so fun.

We did some parades with the Rencher's. We love being able to meet up with them for Lehi parades. I admire them so much too because they are always so kind. They froze a bunch of gatorade bottles to make frozen gatorade treats and happily shared them with us and our kids.

Austin was so cute because he did not like loud sounds.

We did summer bike rides. Lydia learned to ride her bike without training wheels this summer. I'm not sure if we covered this earlier or not, but I'll recap. One day I got a message that Lydia wanted me to come home and take off her training wheels. It was probably (May or June), and before I even got home she convinced Shantel to take them off. Shantel helped her and by the time I was home Lydia was awesome. I was so amazed. For the next 2 to 3 weeks, but time was actually kind of hard because she could ride, but needed help to get started. Then finally one day I was out with her and she just got it. From that point on she could ride on her own. One of my favorite things from the summer was going on bike rides with her. We would ride up past the clubhouse to the top of the street where the frontage road is. However, there is construction so the road is closed. So we would go look at the progress and the construction trucks and then ride down the hill. It was so much fun. A few times we brought Austin along either on his bike or the bike trailer and did popsicles and the playground.

Trip Notes. These absolutely are the best. Shantel has always been so kind to write me notes and usually send me with treats every time I go on a work trip. Sometimes she will even have a note and a treat for every day. It makes me feel so loved. Lydia has seen her sneak these things into my backpack or luggage just before I head out the door and has joined in too. I love these notes from Shantel and Lydia. They always get me through the week, like these from my couple day trip to Denver for a government training.

We celebrated Pioneer Day and Shantel even dressed up for her Sharing time lesson. She would have made an incredible pioneer. She has the faith that she would have gone across the plains and followed the prophet.

One Saturday morning the kids wanted a special breakfast. So we did sprinkle oatmeal and toast. One of my favorite things is that our kids love oatmeal. I remember growing up we would eat oatmeal for breakfast all the time. I like oatmeal except when my Dad would put raisins in the oatmeal, yuck! But I love sitting down with my kids and eating oatmeal. Although, Shantel has gotten to them and now they do request brown sugar in it.

Lists.

This list is a great example of some of our summer shopping highlights. We have been looking for a new table. It is hard to have guests over with such a small table and so we have been looking for a new one. So far, we have found out that tables are expensive and that Shantel and I actually have somewhat different tastes when it comes to tables. That one is still an ongoing search. We did got to home depot to get a light switch with a timer. We basically leave our outside lights on all day because we forgot to turn them off in the morning. This means we go through a lot of light bulbs. In addition, Shantel has really been wanting a new light fixture for outside, a beautiful, large fixture. She finally order two. When she means business she means business. Also, thank you for great return policies. Unfortunately, when one of the lights got her, we found out it was a hanging plug in lamp. Like, you plug it in to the wall and then use a hook to hang it from the ceiling. Shantel was not to be deterred though. We cut off the plug in and Scott came down and helped us wire it into the porch using a can light converter. Shantel loves it. We also bought a timer that I worked on installing later that day. We got one that connects to your phone via bluetooth so you can set a schedule for the lights. Unfortunately we could not quite figure it out and my Dad came down one day to help us. Turns out we had the neutral wire in the wrong place. We fixed it and now between working on Scott on the porch light and my dad on the timer, I know a lot more about electrical.

We also got a new stair way fixture. It looks amazing. But somehow I am lacking pictures. Shantel and I tacked this one all on our own. Our ladder managed to make it that high and we were able to hang it with no problems.

The IKEA chair was covered above, found one At Home. Finally, a paper cutter, Shantel has wanted one for a long time for her business for cutting announcements etc. and we ordered one online.

New cabinets for my mom. 

My mom decided to do new kitchen cabinets and we helped her pick out the counter top to go with it. I have been pushing hard to convince Shantel that someday we should do quartz countertops. We agree on almost everything, except countertops. Shantel does not actually love the quartz, but I really do. I'm going to keep working on her, but it is an uphill battle, she much prefers marble. 

The treehouse at Grandma and Grandpa Peaden's house with cousins.

This one is so cute- kids riding around on the mop.

Home depot on the first Saturday of the month has a special building project for kids. We have not been able to go before, but we went and it was awesome. The kids loved building their Penske trucks. Shantel helped Austin while I helped Lydia and Caleb was content to watch from the stroller. The best part is that now anytime we see a Penske truck, Lydia is sure to point it out.

Sometimes as a parent you just have to get something done. One day I had yard work or some project and put on a show for the kids and gave them the whole bag of leftover parade candy. This is the result although a lot of wrappers ended up on the floor too. Lydia did share equally with Austin, but she moved onto something else while he was still going strong.

We reorganized the cold storage. Originally things had been put in, not haphazardly, but not nearly as well as they could be. In fact, there were more than 30 buckets of food that were not in cold storage that we managed to fit in, and we got everything that was in there before back in except a few emergency 72 kit bags.

Other summer fun.

One night Lydia decided to take all the stuff animals and put them in the side of her bed. So cute.

Love them. 

Car Shopping:

We spent most of the summer car shopping. In fact, this has actually been a long car shopping process. Last year we went shopping for a new car for me and ended up with a mini-van for Shantel. My Elantra was doing much better for almost a year and had stopped leaking anti-freeze, but we knew that time would come and then it started leaking oil and that got us back into shopping. I tried to be very thorough and do a lot of research on cars. 

In the end we did test drives of:

Hyundai Elantra, Nissan Sentra, Toyota Corolla, Ford Focus, Honda Civic, and Subaru Impreza. We did not test drive Chevy because they have annoying commercials and we did not test drive a Kia Forte because they place we went did not have a lot and insisted on us driving the Subaru instead. In the end we liked the Elantra and the Civic the best and did multiple test drives of each. The Elantra had the most features for the price, the Civic we liked the best and seemed to be built the best. You can see the full car buying storing in the introducing the Honda Civic post. 

Last day of summer popsicle party!

Goodbye Summer 2017!