I haven't been able to upload and write much lately, but I did want to share some of our photos we got taken a couple of months ago. We shot them at Moonstone Beach which is a great family spot here. It's good for kids and dogs. All of the photos are on the photographers website at www.kyanataillon.com/camper. She's got many of them in a separate sepia folder named www.kyanataillon.com/camper_sepia I think. Enjoy and hopefull I'll get some posted soon of our recent endeavors with home and life. The boys birthday party was a big success and I'm sure Christmas will be fun too!

Cold weather is here but we've been able to get out a bit. We had a short but beautiful night at Moonstone beach the other night with Amie and Acacia. The boys always love playing on the rocks.

I got a rare picture of them not moving and close together.
The sunset was gorgeous and this photo doesn't do it justice.

I had some extra fabric from the drapes I made for the boy's playroom in the new house and I made a big Cars pillow for the boys. They love to sit on it and jump on it. In this photo they're actually watching the movie Cars after we rented it (likely for the fourth time).

I had a couple of shots that didn't load up of the house last time. Here's more of the kitchen.
Here are the gutters on the outside.

Caleb is doing pretty well with the potty chair and really likes picking out his stickers.

Lights, Paint, Action!

We finally got to primer and paint. We broke down and bought a sprayer and Loren sprayed the house inside with primer and then two coats of paint.


Loren was covered in white paint after each painting session.

















The most difficult room to paint was the two story family room. We had to rent scaffolding for that room.


I did some faux painting in our bedroom and bathroom. It turned out pretty cool, but different than I imagined. It takes awhile to figure it out and by the time you do, you're done with the project. We also got our cabinets put in. They still have to put on the crown molding and toe kicks and glass in some doors, but they're mostly in. We got rustic maple in the laundry and upstairs and cherry in the kitchen and downstairs bath.
We also got most of the electrical fixtures put in. We'll probably have electrical hook up next week. Gas will get hooked up today. The heating guys and rough in plumbing should also be done this week. Although it'll be awhile until the fixture get in since we're doing that ourselves and we also need to get flooring and counters in first.












I painted the laundry room gray, but Loren says it's purple. The paint chip looked as grey as can be. I might paint it over. It's hard to see without any lights yet since there aren't any windows.














It was getting dark, but here are a couple of shots of the kitchen cabinets. This is just the wet bar and island. We're going to get a mini fridge and see if we can actually keep the wine rack stocked.

Caleb turns 2! Caleb turned 2 on November 16 and he got to have two parties in one day. It was his last day at daycare where he's been going for the last year and a half. He'll now be going to preschool two days a week with Nolan at ABC preschool in Arcata. I'm sure he'll miss his old friends, but it'll be fun and easier for us too. It'll be nice to have the boys together during the day.

Gabe, Julia and Quinlin helped him celebrate his last day and birthday at Karens house. He got a cupcake and presents

He also got to color which is his favorite thing to do. They made him some great cards and took these photos for me.


We also had a little present opening and cake at our house too. It was just stuff from Loren and I, Grammy and Darin and Elsa. We'll have a bigger party for the boys in December, but it was fun to just do something with us.

Caleb couldn't really open his present well yet, but Nolan was very willing to help him out.

Both of the boys were really into all of the Dora and Diego toys. Caleb was really into his toy piano book and light up toy from Disneyland. He also really liked a small basketball hoop we got him. He's got a pretty good arm!!

Mud, Mud, Mud...... There is mud everywhere right now, but there is a huge amount at our house. Between the tractor work for the tanks going in, the grading around the house and numerous ditches and disturbances, the bare soil is very wet and mucky around here right now. Our mudroom is just what it's called!



Although I haven't been enjoying all of the extra sweeping, vacuuming (when the stuff finally dries) and laundry. The boys and puppy couldn't be happier.



There is even mud inside our house as the sheetrock finally got put on and the drywallers put the drywall mud up. They were really fast and great workers and the hand-texture turned out nice. Our drywall guy actually had emergency heart surgery but his sons came up from the bay area and did the work for him. Hope our sons are that nice when we're old.


To prepare for some of the rain and mud we bought some rice straw (also from the bay area apparently) from the local ag store and mulched as much as we could around the house. Although our gutters finally went on yesterday, they were not on for awhile and the house was getting wet and muddy. Nolan took a break from wallowing in the mud to help us out.



The hay isn't only good for keeping the house clean and dry. Hopefully it'll keep Caleb a little more clean and dry as well.

Nolan also spent quite a bit of time helping dad dig over 200' of ditch for our water and gas line. It had to be hand dug because it's too wet to get a tractor in and no one would come. nolan also helped cover the ditches back up.

Crescent City and Birthdays!

We decided to take a quick trip up the Crescent city and see their new Home Depot on a whim. We stopped at the beach to play a couple of times. One things we'll have a lot of is beach pictures as the boys get older.



Sometimes we take toys, but the boys are generally happy to just play with sticks and rocks. I was a little nervous and sad because we were at Freshwater Lagoon where lots of young children have drowned due to large set waves that come up and catch people by surprise and the fast currents in the area.



I like to keep them far from the water here.



The dogs had fun and Loren always enjoys spending time with the boys at his favorite place.


Caleb has learned about hot chocolate now and was very happy to get some from Dutch Brothers Coffee on the way back home. He doesn't even stop to breath once he gets ahold of the straw!




We've had a lot of birthday parties to go to lately and it's been a lot of fun. We got to go to Acacia's birthday party last week.

Home Depot is one of those great stores with fun race car carts that keep the kids entertained for a little while at least.



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I'm not sure if they were kissing or biting, but they were having a lot of fun in the cart and we decided we'd have to take a photo for future embarassment.


A couple of weeks ago we had a surprisingly warm and muggy fall day and all the boys joined Carson and Cole in some birthday suit play. I had to get a couple of photos.



I added the happy faces to censor them down to a G rating.