Progress

Power and order has been restored to the demolition sight so I got a fresh new batch of pictures tonight. For those who know what the house looked like before maybe these will blow your mind like it continues to do to mine.

The foreman

my pretty purple bathroom meets the kitchen

That's where the chimney used to be...that's what they found in it's place

Chimney patch job, not bad!

heard the house was a lil drafty, now I know why

I am happy to report that the boys did take the day off. It was a little torturous with all the things John wants to get done, instead he tended to the sick and afflicted...his poor Dad and his ailing back. The report being after John was done with him he was feeling 25 years old again.

Demolition & Dinosaurs

Talking to John it sounds like the boys are having a great time, nothing but destruction and fast food. What more could a guy ask for? There are a couple of kids from the ward who come and help each day just because he's "learning a lot and likes doing it." I was very impressed and have to say my opinion of teenage boys went up. The main floor is now down to the wood, with the exception of the island holding the kitchen sink. I've heard about some of the things they have been finding in the walls and ceiling and am relieved to find that rats wasn't listed. They found an old Nalley's Chili bottle, which solidified John's belief that this house was destined for him. Pry the most interesting thing they found in the ceiling was an old English Text book from 1928. Craziness!

Living Room by Entry

Wallpaper under the nice paint job in the spare bedroom.

Spare bedroom-stairwell leading into the "scary basement"
John bought the appliances yesterday and found a great deal on a granite countertop. :) Today they started tearing down the chimney which is a lil nerve racking to me. We'll just hope it doesn't rain until they get the roof all patched up. Overall John was very pleased with the progress and how well things were "working out." He mentioned a few coincidence's that kind of struck him as very convenient. The biggest being that the places where the support walls are going to be just happen to have support beams in the right places in the basement. The 2nd is quite funny to me, but we have a couch John was planning on putting on the curb to give away. (It's actually one he took from someone who was throwing it away a few years ago.) Anyway he brought a saw in and set it next to the couch and what do you know, he found it to be the exact height level making it a great support and buying that ugly old couch a little more time before it's tossed out. For more than one reason I do believe someone is watching out for him.

As for the girls and I we are having a great time. The girls for the most part are getting along really quite well. This evening Maddie and McKenna played very cooperatively and nonviolently for a good 20 minutes I was both impressed and very proud. McKenna spent most of that time as Maddie's pet dog, or as Maddie's patient, but hey it works!

Earlier Today we ventured up to Ogden with Gregg, Shelly and their girls to the Dinosaur park. If it hadn't been for Susan's postings about her little boy and his love of dinosaurs I wouldn't have even remembered there were 3 different periods, not to mention ALL the Different Dinosaurs. There are a lot of different dinosaurs that look just like the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Brontosaurus that are very different and found in different places in the world. As you can tell I learned a lot and wished I could've spent the time reading about them all but I was mostly chasing after kids. I was really excited to see the Dinosaur Bones, something nostalgic about Dinosaur Museums, although I remembered the skeletons being a lot taller. (I know I was a lot smaller back then) We walked in and McKenna looked up and immediately declared it "too scary". Tyler required me to carry her through the museum...not an easy task while pushing a 4 yr old in a stroller, but as soon as we got outside she was off and running. Towards the dinosaurs growling, roaring and holding her hands out in front of her in the Offensive position. She'd do it every time she saw a dinosaur I'd start laughing. I think the highlight was the park they had with Dinosaur slides and small statues to climb onto. For my girls they still ran to the swings and spent a good 5 minutes on those, always a favorite anytime, anywhere. Thanks for inviting us to go along Shelly and great idea Gregg!

This might be the last update with demo pictures for a while since I was told they cut wires that carried power to most of the house. Pictures on the rest will come...just need to figure out how to Download them.

Payne D-Day 8.27.08-House Renovations

I forgot I hadn't really mentioned the house projects we have going on and so in response to the many inquiries(Is that even the right word or spelling?)...It seems everytime I get pregnant reality sets in and we realize what we've been living in and my husband gets busy with house projects. My house really isn't that bad but with the idea of adding another child the space in our house is getting smaller and smaller. Or maybe that is because my other 2 are getting bigger and so are their toys. Regardless house projects become bigger as we try to provide a better way of living for each kid.

After we finished our front porch John decided to tackle the residing of our home. He's got about 1/2 of it done and it's looking really nice. It wasn't his choice of the type of siding but I think it looks pretty good, now all we need to do is pick a color for the house. When we first moved into the house 4-1/2 years ago we had grand plans of remodeling and getting things done in a year or two. Well one of the last things on our list is our main floor. Kitchen, main room, guest bedroom it all needs to be done. This last week when my Parents came out my Mom stayed with me a few extra days as we tried to quickly pack up my kitchen, all the toys and everything on the main floor so that demolition can begin. Once the furniture disappeared the kids were thrilled with the wide open space and had a ball with the scooter and running around. The TV on the floor was also a big hit. We got the almost the last of it boxed yesterday afternoon and then my Mom, the kids and I headed off to the airport to escape the impending disaster.

According to McKenna we didn't get to the airport fast enough, all day she would ask if it was time to go to the airport, she even asked to take her nap early in hopes of making the day go by faster. When the plane took off and up in the air she cheered at the top of her lungs with a lot of "woo-hoo's" for about 2-3 minutes. It was hilarious!

Here I am in Kaysville Utah for the next 2-4 weeks. The girls have gotten along with their cousins beautifully, although they are ages 3-4 so there are a few squabbles but today was a fun day full of lots of love. As soon as everyone woke up there were hugs for everyone. I talked to John today and heard a few of the teenage boys from the Young Men's were over for demolition. There was one injury when one of the boys jumped to kick a door in, he hit his head on the low ceiling...go figure. John's Dad is flying in late this evening to spend a week with John trying to get things done. Here's a few pictures from Today.
I do have the task of designing or figureing out where my drawers and stuff go on my island so if anyone has any suggestions, pictures, websites please let me know!

Birthday Cake

It's a few days late, but it's really never too late for ice cream and cake. Tonight we broke out McKenna's birthday cake. Thanks Lori for loaning me the pan and giving me the idea for our giant cupcake ice cream cake. I think I assembled it too soon as the cake was a lil frozen and hard to cut through, but it was still yummy, especially on this hot evening.

We always take advantage of visitors :) and with the boys in town James and my Dad helped us move our furniture out to prepare for demolition next week. My Dad also helped put up siding on Thursday...so things are moving right along.

Happy Birthday McKenna

Most parents says it every year and like them I can't believe 4 years has gone by. Even the last year has seem to fly by in a whirlwind...well most days anyway. :) Thursday, August 24th was McKenna's 4th birthday and what a fun day it was! Looking at her pictures as a baby I can't believe how much she has grown and how far she has come. Her vocabulary continues to grow, her understanding and ability to understand things such as rules and concepts has gotten better over the summer. She's even eating peaches, something different from her usual foods. She's really a sweet girl and such a good sister and mother to Tyler. She's very excited about her new baby boy that is growing in Mommy's tummy, and continues to point to her own tummy when she is playing the "Mommy" Role. McKenna is a sweet girl who knows what she wants, when she wants it and isn't going to settle for anything less, something we think will serve her well as she gets older.

I tried to start out with a birthday song that morning, but was quickly hushed by McKenna with a "no singing," despite her excitement the day before of her upcoming special day. I think it may have something to do with my singing voice or maybe she doesn't know how to "deal" with directed attention. We continued on with our usual morning routine but you could see she was excited and she understood this year what a birthday was, something to do with presents, cake and ice cream. :) The day was a lot of fun for her as her Grandma & Grandpa Harris surprised her that morning bringing with them balloons. As the day continued she randomly got a present here and there and special "birthday" girl privileges.

Birthday outfit

We decided to give her 'big' present to her at lunch as she had been asking for it all week-a Princess Scooter. The look on her face was priceless! She knew it was coming but to actually get it...her reaction is why as parents we spend the $$ for the gifts. Good girl!

That evening we had a very small but exciting evening at Chuck-E-Cheese, which I have decided is just a Casino for kids, so many lights and loud noises. Tyler even had a ball going down the slide too many times to count and remember. After playing games for a while we had pizza and then opened gifts. Her face lit up when she opened gifts that contained a pair of red shoes in one and a dress in another. Her grandmother's have her pegged. She was insistent that she put those on right away and wore them over her clothes for the remainder of the evening. (I'll post pictures later after I get them from my Mom).

I'm pretty sure the day was a happy one for Mckenna, that night as I checked on her after she'd fallen asleep, she looked up at me with sleep still in her eyes and asked "where's the mouse?" and something a bout cheese and then declared she wasn't scared.

We Love you McKenna and we're so happy to have you in our Family!

The girls are cracking me up! As I sit and write they are sitting at their lil table eating "noodles & cheese" in their plastic pretend tea party dishes and saying "ahhh" as they open their mouths and show each other what's in their mouths. Maybe a little disgusting but the fact that they get such a kick out of it and they aren't screaming at each other makes it a fun moment. I love the little peaceful and happy moments like this.

On the adverse side Tyler has decided when she is bored the funnest thing to do is disrupt McKenna by taking something she has and running across the room as fast as she can with a big smile on her face while McKenna screams, "NO" at the top of her lungs. Should pry teach me to quit neglecting but at some pt I'd like for them to learn how to play by themselves a little bit.

Now they are standing at the window and McKenna is telling Tyler a story about Diego and something about something being scared. Ahhh...

Ok I forgot to post this next part a little over a week ago, but my friend Lori had her lil girl Regan on the 7th of August. Her big brothers Mitch and Jack got to come play with Tyler and McKenna the next day which was a lot of fun for us. Just take a look at some of the things we got to do.

Playing in the Water

Building Sandcast

Lunch, then Dress up

Happy lil Gardner

Blocks have become a family past time here at the Payne's...check it out, both big records for the girls in height! They even built them all by themselves!

This last Saturday Jack & Mitch had their birthday party. What a fun day playing in the sprinklers and pools, eating birthday cake and ice cream and getting to meet cute little baby
Regan who is a spitting image of her older brother Jack. McKenna was in HEAVEN and so sweet! She just held her and sang to her "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and a song she made up with both the ABC & Twinkle Twinkle little star.

Busy, Busy Bees

It's been a fun week at our house as (I think) the summer is winding down. We are trying to get in all those things we want to do at the last minute.


Tuesdays our ward does a Mommy & Me playgroup. We haven't always been very diligent at attending since Tyler is still taking a morning nap and the time is a conflict. One of my favorite places they go every year is Mudd Mountain, which is up towards Mt. Raineer. It's a great place with a toddler pool ( a big circle with a mushroom looking fountain in the middle), and it has 2 parks. There is a toddler park that is across the parking lot with lots of plastic little house walls, slides, swings and plastic dinosaurs to climb on. The 2nd park is a lot bigger with more slides, swings and several 'big toys.' The girls had a great time, especially in the cold toddler pool.


It's funny how you watch your kids and can almost see them "growing up". As I was watching McKenna on Tuesday I saw her bravely go up to kids who were about 2-3 yrs older than her and try to laugh and talk with them. Then in all her 3 yr old glory and almost social awkwardness start splashing them, after all it is a pool :) The funny thing is most of the 1st grade boys were doing the same thing with the girls. Tyler was a bit more hesitant to get in & stay in the pool, due to the cold temperature of the water, but she loved jumping in and then jumping right back out. My friend Leslie let me play with her camera for a bit. It's a fancy real photography camera and I found myself coveting it a bit. Don't know how the pictures turned out, but it was fun pretending. Towards the end of our pool fun I found McKenna sitting next to a boy who was around 6-7 yrs old. He was a quiet kid who didn't know quite what to do with this little girl who was following and mimicking his every move, so in attempt to save him I decided it was time to leave.

It was a lot of fun getting together with the girls and their kids, especially outside of church.

6 months and counting...

Make-Over Mama

I chopped my hair. It was way too long and has been driving me crazy so I went with my sister-in-law Ashley to see a friend who cuts hair and we both got a lil make-over. John was working on the house so I found myself a new little babysitter and she did a fantastic job! I was impressed how she didn't wait for me to leave to start playing with the kids and for once when leaving them they didn't scream and cry uncontrollably. It was awesome!

I have to admit that it's a little shorter than I was planning but it always is and the good news is I'm not panicking yet. Heidi Klum is on the cover of Redbook in July and I was going for her look,

obviously I need to curl my hair but we'll get there. Ashley suggested I do a before (curling) and after so we'll do that.

Girls Day Out!

Mommy Daughter Day/More Summer Fun

Yesterday was a busy yet very fun day, especially for McKenna and I.

McKenna needed some new levi's so I decided to take her "Back to School" Shopping. She was so cute we walked into Old Navy and I showed her a few pairs of jeans and she knew exactly which pair she wanted. Then she picked out a shirt and a matching pair of socks. She did spot a hat that we had looked at online to get for her and since it was on sale and I didn't have to pay S&H why not? She was so excited and giddy as we paid for her new lil outfit. We then headed to Target where she got a little distracted in the toy section claiming her "need" for many princess outfits and dolls. I managed to pull her out (she was holding onto my leg) and into the baby section to get a pack'n play I'm contemplating on taking back already (need vs want issue runs in the family). When I told her we were going to look for new shoes McKenna was ecstatic. I showed her boots, dress shoes, sandals and then she found "the pair." A pair of black shoes semi-dressy with silver and a few fake diamonds on them. One thing I can definitely say for McKenna that makes me proud. She's not a greedy girl, she didn't ask or beg for more than one shirt, pants or pair of shoes. She was so cute strutting her stuff for her Dad when we got home and got her dressed.

I had a Dr's appointment yesterday and since traffic wasn't looking good so I decided to take McKenna with me & utelize the HOV lane. :) She was very excited to go hear the Baby Boy's heartbeat and decided to take her baby too. She fell asleep on the way there, I can't believe some of the positions kids can sleep in. She was very considerate of making sure the baby was in a seatbelt and covered by a blanket before drifting off.

McKenna decided she didn't want to accompany me to the bathroom, who can blame her. The Staff was very nice and allowed McKenna to make herself right at home. When I came out I found her behind the desk sitting in her own chair writing on the calendar. It was quite comical.

"I Spy" a lizzard who moved in

John was a good sport and didn't even complain when he was left to care for and watch Tyler. She slept pretty much the whole time I was gone in the morning and all but an hour in the afternoon but I know he's feeling quite stressed with all the house projects he has to do. I told him there pry wasn't much he'd have to do in the afternoons she just loves to splash in the pool and then would go down for a nap. I was impressed to hear he'd taken her to feed the goats, check out the figs and had even sat by the pool while she played, apparently she doesn't play so well by herself :) and wanted constant supervision.

Last but not least as an update the last few days have been a lil warm and so the girls and I have spent quite a bit of time by the pool. It's been fun splashing around and eating ice cream and McKenna's been playing the puppy role a lot. (Pictures aren't bad considering they came from my phone aye?)

Puppy McKenna & Tyler discovered the magic of "pockets" and was smuggling Scrabble Letters.