School's out for the SUMMER!! And we've been busy, busy, busy having lots of fun! We've decided that this is going to be our best summer yet and we've already kick-started it with a great first couple of weekends!

Right when school got out, Sebasthian got to go on a school-funded trip to Southern California to visit a college of Optometry, SCCO.  Although seeing the school was the point of the trip, they weren't going to waste all those miles by not seeing the other sights!

Like the FABULOUS Las Vegas.....

Sebasthian loved all of the sights and sounds of the city! He has been missing city life for so long and was happy to be back in the middle of it.  He got to eat at Hard Rock Cafe, and his favorite Casino was Ceasar's Palace, because it was HUUUGE.

He also was able to visit the Los Angeles Temple

...and he found the tree of life! (or at least, he thought it looked like it)

Living in the East Coast, Sebasthian had never been able to see a West Coast beach.  He loved it! It was so warm and clean and he had fun playing in the ocean and the warm sand.

The most important part of the trip, visiting the school, he didn't get any pictures of. However, we are so glad he went because he thought the school was great! He didn't want to apply to any Western schools, but after seeing this campus, he had a slight change of heart and will definitely be applying to The Southern California College of Optometry.

Benji and I also had a fun weekend while Sebasthian was away, because Benji's Aunt Melissa (Sebasthian's sister) got to stay with us.  It was really fun and we enjoyed spending the weekend together before she had to leave back to Connecticut for the summer.

The next weekend was fun, too! We went with some good friends to Yellowstone and it was the BEST! We saw so many cool things that I don't remember seeing in my visits when I was younger, and the weather was great for mid-April!

This one was my favorite! "Paint Pots" It's like a bubbling cauldron and it sounds awesome.  Benji also liked it as you can see :)

Waiting for Old Faithful...

There it goes!

This one is Incredible!  It's kind-of indescribable, but the entire side of this mountain is covered in terraces that are beautiful, natural, colorful waterfalls and there are many of these structures throughout the area.  It is definitely worth the drive to Mammoth Hot Springs.

Sebasthian closed his eyes, but I still like the picture!

Bison EVERYWHERE!!  They were right next to our car pretty much the entire time.

It was a long day, but a good one.  Benji was sooo good and happy all day, we are so lucky to have the best baby ever.  We did wear him out though, and he was a sleepy guy on the way home:

The next morning was EASTER!  We were so wiped out from the day before that we didn't dye eggs as we had planned.  Though I woke up early (more like, those tired, tired boys slept in!) and made sure to "check" that the Easter Bunny had come!

 We didn't realize how spoiled we would be this year! Between the Easter Bunny and Grandma, we felt pretty lucky!

 Benji wanted to play with everything at once!

We had fun with Benji's first "Easter egg hunt", which basically means they were all on the floor in plain sight and he tried to reach them.

 He fell over trying to get them, but seemed pretty pleased with himself.

Sebasthian didn't have it so easy! I made him his own Easter egg hunt and each egg had a little message inside for him.  I'm a pretty good egg hider, so he definitely had to work for them.  We had such a fun morning together! (Can you see the egg that he hadn't found yet??)

Although we did have fun with the Easter Bunny side of the holiday, we definitely can't forget truly why we celebrate this Easter Sabbath.  We are grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ, and his atonement which allows for us to return to live in our Heavenly Father's presence again.  I personally have seen His hand guiding my life and I know of a surety that He is there always, watching over each of us.  I feel great joy in the relationship that I have formed with my Savior and I feel His love daily.  

He lives! All glory to His name!

We look forward to the rest of this summer, the rest of our lives, and the rest of eternity sharing adventures together, because our Savior made this possible. 

Extreme makeover - Nursery Edition

I have a hard time controlling myself sometimes.  This may apply in more ways than one (see "water breaking" in my birth story. oops!), but this time it happened with decorating.  Actually, it happens all the time for me when decorating.  I get an idea and I can't think of anything else until it's done!  So, one day I walked into Benji's room, looked around, and project nursery was born.

You might be wondering why I wanted to re-do Benji's nursery when he was only four months old...well, I didn't get any real good pictures of his nursery before, but here's the idea:

Like I said, terrible picture.  Honestly, it wasn't bad looking and it was actually pretty cute.  Green crib with matching dresser, mosquito netting with a pennant banner, little shelves with books...all in very light, pastel baby colors.  Then he was born.  And I realized how femmy it looked.  Elysha, you gave birth to a BOY.  I don't know how I didn't catch onto that sooner.  Anyways, it had to be fixed because I'm just like that, so here's where I started:

Half the room was still taken up by our "grown-up furniture" that we didn't really use anyway

We sold these pretty quickly, and used the money for everything else in the nursery (I am pretty cheap, so I wasn't going to spend much!)

 To start out, a friend that is moving gave me her very old La-Z-Boy recliner.

It had LOTS of rips and stains from many, many years of use but hey, it was free! Sebasthian disliked it so much (it was pretty ugly, haha) that he was more than enthusiastic about my desire to recover it! YES!

 Basically, if you ever want to re-upholster something, you should probably go see a shrink first to make sure that you haven't gone mad.  If not, then no worries - you'll definitely get there during this project. It was a LOT of work.  And although some of it was fun, much of it was just plain tough grunt work.  I told Sebasthian that if I were to do it again, I would do it a little differently...by never starting!

 ^^This is when I knew I had made a mistake. But as you can see, I muscled through it and....

YAAAYYY! After about a week, it's finished.  Definitely an amateur job, but I don't pride myself in attention to detail, and at this point I would have been fine using a barstool in the nursery just to get it over with!

All of the parts work just fine (a miracle because we literally disassembled EVERYTHING), and it looks like Benji is right at home :)

Sheesh, LONGEST. POST. EVER. I'm only at the chair.  If you're bored, feel free to leave and look up random buzzfeed articles or something, 'cuz I've still got the rest of the nursery to do!  

Next I tackled the crib and dresser.  Painting these took a couple of days, but I think they look so much better and more like my little boy.  Gray may not be exciting, but I think it looks very nice and it matches well.

My mom helped me make this quilt and I love it.  It keeps him so warm and is very cute :) 

After that (though you can already see it in the above photo), I wanted to put his name above his bed.  I saw all of this cutesy Pinterest stuff with canvas and fabric and letters, 

but the cost of canvas +fabric+letters+paint=$$$$, and I didn't have $$$$!

So I tried to make-up my own design, and sure it's not as clean-cut, but it got the point across

Because we seem to have an abundance of diaper boxes around here, I just cut out the background in sizes that I wanted, and then cut out letters to go on top.  I sanded the sides of the letters to smooth it, and then painted them. Then I covered the backs in fabric and glued them on. 

Like I said, it may not be as classy and professional, but it says his name, and it only cost about $4.  Works for me.

Last I did a bit of sewing to make the pennant banners

and then I used scrap fabric to make a pillow for the chair.  I didn't want to buy a pillow, so I used a worn-out one of ours and cut it into a square and re-stuffed it with the stuffing so it would be fluffy again.  Because I didn't have any big fabric pieces left, I had to get creative with the way I made the cases and it doesn't match front/back.  But I don't really care, I think it looks kinda funky :)

Wahoo! The work of the nursery was complete! He has his clothes, bed, chair, and toys

Time for the grand-tour!

 (oh, I made the elephant picture a little while ago because I found this frame at DI  and wanted to put something in it.  It was actually kind-of my inspiration for the rest of the room)

I know this post is probably really overkill for such a simple room do-over, but I guess I'm just really proud of how it turned out.  I am grateful to have a wonderful home and that I have learned these skills from my family while growing up.  

I saved the most important part of this room for last:

Even at this early age, we try to teach Benji about his Savior, Jesus Christ.  This picture will make for the eighth one of Him in our little home, and we love the constant reminder that we are always being guided by His loving hands.  A little while ago I kept getting very afraid at night when I would get up with Benji.  My imagination started running wild and I often prayed for something to calm my fears.  Soon after, I put this picture of Christ on the wall of Benji's room and for some reason it made me feel so much better and safer.  I know it's just a picture, but it was such a wonderful reminder to me that we are protected and watched over every day.

Well, hope you enjoyed seeing my thrifty nursery project! Looking around, somehow I let the rest of my house become a disaster bio-hazard land, so I'm going to get back to that now. Thanks for reading!