just kidding

Ok, so after all that hullabaloo about finding a yellow rug for Sara's room, I ended up getting one with only the tiniest bit of yellow in it. Silly me. You see, I realized that a mostly yellow rug wouldn't really work, because I was adding a yellow dresser to Sara's room, so a yellow rug and yellow dresser would be too much yellow. After that realization, I branched out to other rug colors and finally decided on this one.

I got it in the 5x8 after realizing that an 8x10 would be way too big for the room, and the smaller rug size came with a smaller price tag also, so that was a plus.

The rug is in her room new room now and I absolutely love it! The colors are perfect and I like that it is not too "little girl" feeling -- in fact, I got it from Pottery Barn Teen, so it is meant for someone much older than Sara. Hopefully we will still love the rug as much as we do now by the time she hits her teens and it can stay in her room longterm. Time will tell.

Oh, and by the way, did I mention that we moved? 'tis true. My aunt and uncle moved into my grandma's house in September, and they were kind enough to let us continue to stay there as long as we needed. We were able to take our time to find a great place, and now we're living in it! Our new place is a side-by-side duplex in the Sugarhouse area of Salt Lake, and we love it! There are some crazy quirks about the place, like really squeaky floor boards in the hallway, light switches in weird places, and tiny closets in the bedrooms, but overall it is really great. In addition to the two bedrooms upstairs, we have a full basement with a playroom for Sara, an office for Rob, a laundry room, and a storage room! Plus there is a decent sized backyard that will be really nice when the weather warms up. And we are within walking distance to parks, restaurants, and other shopping. It's a great location!  -- a big thanks to everyone who helped us move, especially to my uncle who let us use his truck and trailer, helped us load it, and then drove it to our new place to help unload it, and also to my mom who flew out here for a week to help with the move. Thank you!!

{p.s. - photos of Sara's room are forthcoming}

your challenge, should you choose to accept it...

...is to find me a rug for Sara's room that looks similar to this:

 or this:

but has a price tag that doesn't make me die of shock, as in less than $400 vs. the outrageously over priced rugs pictured above. These rugs, while beautiful and everything I want, are just way too expensive. We're talking thousands of dollars, people! For one little rug! Ok, so a big rug. I forgot to mention the main criteria: I want it to be about 8x10.

I did find this rug that I like quite a bit, and its price tag fits nicely under the $400 limit...

...but, as you can see, it's not yellow, and I was kinda hoping for yellow.

Here's a few others I found that are pretty much just what I'm looking for, except that they aren't. These are lacking in one or more criteria (8x10, yellow floral, cheap) but I like the overall look of them.


This one meets two of the three criteria, but isn't yellow as you can see.

another one, I like the flowers, but it's not yellow, and it's too pricey.

This one almost fits under budget, but is the wrong color. Maybe black and white would look okay?

Here's one with cute flowers, but wrong color and not quite the right price.

This one is really elegant, but again, not the right color.

So to sum up, the first person to find me a large area rug with yellow flowers and a non shock-inducing price tag wins. Ready........GO!

..................................................................


p.s. I was kind of hoping to do a pink and yellow color scheme in Sara's room, hence wanting to get a yellow rug. But am I limiting myself too much by only looking for yellow? Do I really need an 8x10 or would a 5x7 suffice? Do you think one of these options is good enough? If so, which one? It's pretty obvious that I could really use your help here.

Raking Leaves and Going on Adventures

Rob's parents have a really great forested backyard with a gully and small stream running through it. Today Sara and I went back there and played in the leaves and had adventures. Sara kept saying we had to go through all the passageways and find all the rivers. There is only just the one small stream, but in Sara's mind, there were lots of different rivers. She loved it! And it was great to get outside one last time before the cold weather is here to stay!

Giant pile-o-leaves.

backyard adventures.

Once again I only had my phone's camera on me, so sorry for the low quality photos.

How I spent my morning

We woke up to snow yesterday morning, and Sara knew just what we should do with it.

Can you tell who our snowmen are supposed to be?

We only got about a half-inch of snow, but it was perfect for rolling snowmen bodies, aka it was wet snow instead of powder so it stuck to itself easily.

 

Sara was about the same height as the larger two snow people.

But hers was a lot smaller. Quite the resemblance, don't you think?!

She was not cooperating for the photo above. But she sure was excited in the one below!

 Hooray for snow!

p.s. All the snow has since melted and only remains of our snowmen are left. The sun warmed up in the afternoon and Rob's snowman was the first to fall over. Mine leaned so far back that it looked like she was trying to do the limbo, and then eventually fell. The snow around the rocks for Sara's eyes melted so she now has a very droopy face, but her snowman is the only one still standing. For now anyway.

Neighborhood Trunk or Treat

Sara, Queen of the Fairies

 

A costume of things we already owned plus a shirt from the thrift store to complete the look. Can't beat that!

Our trunk at the Trunk or Treat:

We gave out apples from the apple trees in our yard, and candy too of course!

Rob noticed that the inside of our trunk had these cut-outs that looked like a face, so we put construction paper inside and voila! On the cheap trunk-or-treat decorations!

Sara chilling on top of the car while enjoying a hot dog, chips and drinks provided by the Neighborhood Watch.

My costume was "wear a black skirt and black sweater and Sara's witch hat from last year's costume." Done. 

I stayed by the car to pass out treats while Rob and Sara went around to all the other trunks.

 Sara enjoying her spoils.

Happy Halloween!

Zoo with cousins and a one-dollar hat

Apple Picking and Pig Tails

  

 

 

 

The Great Salt Lake

A few weeks ago we decided to take Sara to "the beach", aka the Great Salt Lake.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the Great Salt Lake, it's not exactly a swimming destination (although it used to be!) -- the water is super salty, hence how the lake got its name, and is really shallow in most parts. But Sara said she wanted to go to the beach, so we did!

Sara was really excited about going, and before we left our house she collected some leaves, sticks, and sunflowers to take with her to the beach.

The sand was really crunchy from all the salt.

Sara was really excited to see the Saltair building and kept calling it "my castle". She really wanted to go inside! We had to keep telling her it wasn't open, which almost broke her little heart.

Walking with Daddy to the water.

This is what Sara did with her flowers, sticks and leaves when we reached the lake: 

She threw the flowers in the water...

...and stuck the leaves and sticks into the mud.

Then we just walked around in the shallow water for a while until the sun set and it started to get cold. I was glad Sara was wearing her rain boots, because the mud was pretty slimy in parts. I know because I walked around barefoot in there.

It was a fun little adventure. Sara loved it! Too bad I only had my phone's camera with me--the quality of these photos is pretty bad. We'll have to go again one more time before the weather gets too cold.


p.s. It's too bad Saltair burned down so many times. The original structure looks amazing! (see below.) Plus, roller coasters, merry-go-rounds, ferris wheels, games, bicycle races, rodeos, bullfights, boat rides on the lake, fireworks displays, and hot-air balloons sounds like a lot of fun!

Saltair Pavilion, circa 1900