The Johnsons: Uncut

You may remember the triple bunk we decided to build for the kids' room. We saw this picture online
And thought it shouldn't be too hard to build ourselves for much less.

The last time you saw pictures of our work, it looked like this

Here is the finished product. It serves as a jungle gym for the kids also, so the beds are never made. Oh well.
We painted it white since I'm a fan of white rather than wood (especially cheap pine lumber). I think it looks better white than the original wood we saw it as.
We guessed at the dimensions and such, and we did pretty darn good, except that we forgot to take out the thickness of each 4"x4" footboard and headboard when measuring, so each bed is 8 inches too long for the mattresses. By the time we assembled it in the house and noticed our error, we had no desire to fix it, so it's staying that way...for a while.

I know what you're thinking. I bet you wish you too had an enormous upright freezer in YOUR living room, humming away all day so as to make sure there was never a moment of absolute quiet.

Or maybe a hand-carved myrtle wood sculpture appearing to be the only thing holding your ceiling up.

You're jealous. Admit it.

Marlee (David and Meghan's baby) and Rocky (Teresa and Darin's baby) both turned 1-year-old a month after Paisli did. We got a group of college kids together to share the gas and headed down to Utah for the celebration. Marlee, being 1/4 Indian (feather, not dot), was dressed as an Indian, and Rocky was a Cowboy.

The babies looked really cute with their baby cakes.


This gathering gave us a chance to get an updated picture of the siblings with babies born in early 2009. (left to right) Teresa & Rocky, David & Marlee, Tana & Omar, Hyrum & Paisli.
 
Here is the last group picture we took when the babies were all 5-6 months old.

Hyatt, hearing that the theme of the party was Cowboys and Indians, was completely distraught when he learned that I hadn't brought his Cowboy gear. I didn't know there was a theme beforehand, otherwise I WOULD have brought his stuff! He was, however, consoled by the fact that I could make Tilly and him into Indians.


Kiersa and Paisli were less culturally festive.


It's always fun to have a chance to get the little ones together to play with toys.

Determined not to be left out of the fun, Hyrum, and his only brother, David, played with their big boy toy.
Have I mentioned how nice it is to be close to the Johnson family now? They're always getting together!

"I'm bored" is practically a swear word in our house. I can't stand those two awful words! No one has any excuse to be bored, in my opinion. There is always something one can do. ALWAYS!

So when we had a moment the other day where someone might be tempted to say "I'm bored," we took some pictures. Here are the silly results. At least we weren't bored!
First, I tried to take a group shot. Not an easy task with 5 people and only me and my short arm to take the picture!
Then Kiersa and I were curly-headed monsters together.

Paisli was less frightening.

Then Talea found a lady bug and the mayhem began! We thought it could be humorous torture, and we were right!
Paisli was completely baffled as to why we thought this was fun, and wasn't looking forward to her turn of facial tickling.

But she was tough!
I even let the kids subject me to it since they all did it. It really tickles!

Now these are some serious curls! Kiersa will tell you they say, "boing-boing!"

For a school project, Talea had to gather leaves and make a placemat. Gather leaves in March? In Idaho? All there was to find in the snow were a few scraggly dead ones.
It actually looked pretty horrible. And Tilly used too much white glue, so it leaked out everywhere and it glued my laminating machine's rollers, so I had to figure out how to dismantle the whole thing, and lucky managed to rescue it from certain death.

We decided we could make better ones, so we started with Paisli and Kiersa since they're the messiest eaters.

Hearts for Kiersa, since her birthday is Valentine's Day.

Paisley for Paisli, since...well, if you can't figure out why, you may need professional help.

All you need is cardstock of whatever color you want, then either use construction paper for decorating, or just a pen. Then laminate it! It's as simple as that!

From trial and error, I did discover that you CAN'T use two layers of cardstock for more stability, because then it won't laminate properly (at least with my at-home laminator). Hyatt's cammo placemat was done that way, and looks really cruddy now. You also SHOULDN'T use construction paper as the main paper, because it's a bit flimsy, so it wrinkles when you wash it down or when the kids bend it. Lastly, DO NOT cut on it! It perforates the lamination and the paper gets wet when you wash it.

They're handy to have around though! And super easy to make.

Not that space worthy, but a fun project anyway.

My little astronauts:

Today, Grams, Gramps, Nana, and Aunt Tammy came up to visit so we could all go look at a place to have the Lloyd Beal reunion in Island Park. It's so great that we have our 15 passenger van (we bought the last missing 4-person bench for the back), because we can always haul visitors around with us instead of using separate cars.

I snapped a picture of the kids as we were heading out,

but then I completely forgot about taking any other pictures the entire time!!! I know. Stupid. The place looks great though, and we're sure the reunion in August will be a blast!

The old towel rack in the kids' bathroom had seen better days,

so I took it down, and painted and hoped to put up a different one someday.

Then I got some inspiration from a friend's house and decided to put up some beadboard we had lying around. Hy helped me with the crown.

Now I can put up four hooks (for 8 towels if necessary), though I only had 2 on hand. I'll buy the other two...someday.

I think it looks better than a shabby chrome rod that's falling off the wall.

Maybe it's just me though.

When we moved in, we ripped out a cabinet between the living room and the dining room to make more room for our dining table.

This is what was there before (a bookcase/telephone place thingy). It's the thing on the left that sticks into the room. (Actually, we ripped out the cabinets you see on the right also.)

Here it is from the other side (on the right in the foreground).

Since then, we've had an 18" gap in the sheetrock. It's been almost 4 months and I finally got some scrap pieces of sheetrock to patch it with (courtesy of a woman in my ward who was remodeling her bathroom and had remnants). I'm pretty proud of the job I did considering I did it absolutely by myself. I even had to cut holes for the plug and phone cord and move them to the bottom of the wall rather than the middle of the wall where they were. I even taped the seams! Now it's time for the torturous part of mudding and sanding. I also cut a piece of crown to fit, but don't look too close because I didn't do that great, but it'll do for me! It just needs paint.
Taking it out really opened the room and gave us room for our table. I just wish it would mud/sand itself. Such a nasty project.

Final pictures to come when I'm done.

With Hyrum going around speaking in Anat-and-physese, it's no surprise that we're all picking up a little bit of it. While I'm painting walls, I'll find myself thinking "mental foramen" over and over a hundred times, and I don't even have the slightest clue what mental foramen is! Hyrum must be talking in his sleep again and I'm absorbing it!
When he was studying bones, he taught the kids how to sing "Head, shoulders, knees and toes", but in bone language. Then weeks later, Talea started singing it again and remembered it all! We were blown away! Her memory has always baffled me. She can remember the strangest things, like this song, yet can't remember names or simple words I teach her how to read. I don't get it.

Anyway, Hyrum caught Talea on camera for all to see, making her dad proud.


Then, of course, Kiersa had to join in.


And Hyatt.

If you have rounded corners on your walls, and you've tried to paint two different colors on each wall, you've probably been frustrated with the results. You're left with a jagged line that looks a bit shabby, right? Like this:

Here's a paining tip to save the day. Following these steps will transform that jagged mess into a crisp line that makes your wall look finished, like this:

This also works for when you want to paint crisp stripes on a wall, or diamonds, or some other pattern that requires a sharp, finished line in the end.

First, paint your base color. In my example here, I have beige meeting up with red. I painted the beige farther than I wanted it to go onto the red side, so it would be my base. Or if you're doing, say...matte and glossy stripes of the same color on a wall, paint your matte color on the entire wall.

When your base paint is dry, put some painters tape on the wall where you want the line to be. You have to put it on perfectly straight because it will create your straight line. Draw a light line with a pencil (using a level) if you don't trust the steadiness of your hand, and put the tape on that line. **hint: If you don't want to see that light pencil line afterward, put your tape on one edge of the pencil line so that when you paint your next coat, it will cover the pencil.

Next, and this is VERY IMPORTANT! Do not skip this step! Paint your base color on the edge of the tape that you will be painting your next color on. This way your base color seeps under any microscopic gaps between the tape and the wall, creating a barrier so your next color won't seep under the tape. Skip this step, and your line will be jagged still rather than perfectly crisp. So, in my example, I painted beige on the edge of the tape since beige was my base color. Or if you're doing glossy/matte stripes, put some matte paint on the edge if your base is matte.

Once that paint is dry, paint your second color up to (and a little bit on) the tape. You may need to do a couple of coats, depending on the color you choose. In my example, I painted the red up onto the tape. It took 3 coats since it was deep red over beige. If you were doing glossy/matte on a wall, you'd be painting the glossy now.

Last, and this is important!!! Strip the tape off right after your last coat of paint, when the paint is still wet! You may have a little bit of your base paint come off with the tape (like in this picture below) and have to do a tiny bit of touch-up, but I found that if I take the tape off when the paint is wet, I have far less touch-up to do.

You should have a perfectly straight line now.

Yeah, it's a little time consuming (painting always is), but if you can understand my directions, it's really simple and it makes the job look professional and finished. No more obnoxious jagged lines! Ever!