Home Projects

My mom came right away to help when Rory was born. Seriously, we were expecting to have to be induced that weekend, which was when my mom was scheduled to arrive, and so when Rory came the day before her due date my mom drove to Seattle, hopped on a plane, and was in my hospital room by 10:00 that night. I love that woman.

Rory was seriously a dream baby from the very start. Since she never really fussed and we were getting plenty of sleep, my mom found herself with nothing to do as far as helping me out. She had cleaned the house and done enough grocery shopping for a month all by day 2, so instead of sitting around and twiddling her thumbs she went out shopping! There are very few people in this world with shopping abilities comparable to that of my mother- she is in a league of her own. And now that she's old enough to qualify for senior discounts on Tuesdays (but still young and spry enough to fight off any old biddy that may get in her way) well forgot about it. The woman is unstoppable. 

She and I went out shopping Tuesday morning while Stephen stayed home with Rory (she was officially one week old!) I came back to feed Rory and decided to stay home and rest while my mom went out in search of some things we hadn't found that morning. That was at 1 or 2 in the afternoon. I kept expecting her to come home any minute, but the hours just kept marching on. Finally at 9:30 or so I get a text saying she's alive and well, she's going to get some food, and then head home. Oh, and also Stephen needs to find a truck. Finally at 10:30 she comes crashing through the door hands full of bags telling us about all the amazing deals she scored that day. We follow her out to the garage to find my Malibu stuffed to the BRIM with more bags. I hope I never forget that image- it was astonishing and hilarious. 

It turns out my mom had stopped in a Goodwill to see if they had any pieces that would be useful in our new home only to find out that she qualified for the Tuesday senior discount (which gave her like 15-20% off I can't remember which) and it turns out they DID have pieces that we could use in our house. And it just so happens that there are about six different Goodwill locations all within a 20 minute radius of my house. Throw in the Ross stores and her discount there as well and you can see what kept her so busy. The deals she found were pretty insane. Thus began our home DIY projects. 

We used Annie Sloan Chalk paint like it was going out of style. My mom did all the research and became our project manager. We turned on some Fixer Upper on the TV and painted until we couldn't paint any more. I should have remembered to take official before pictures, but instead I got mostly in the process pictures. Just know that all of these pieces went through some impressive changes. 

This toy box started out light blue and green with monkeys and palm trees on it. 

I can't get over how cute it turned out!

Our work space

Stephen earned the Husband of the Year Award with all the work he did on these pieces. I didn't even know I had married a handyman- best surprise ever. 

Dresser turned TV stand in progress 

Dresser/ Changing Table for the nursery

Taking a break to see how the Fixer Upper turned out. There were also Trader Joe Ice Cream Sandwich breaks involved. 

LOTS of Fixer Upper. Almost done with TV stand. 

Cute Hobby Lobby handles to finish the look!

Rory's dresser/ changing table. 

Dining chairs ready to be made over.  

Table in progress. 

 We got as many of the projects done as we could while my mom was in town, but unfortunately she couldn't stay forever and the dining room set was left unfinished. Stephen went back to work that next week and I had a baby to take care of, so all the projects were put on hold. A month or so later Stephen's parents came to visit and Lucina took on the dining room table and chairs. We got the table finished, all the chairs painted, stained, waxed, AND reupholstered all within a matter of days. It was incredible.

The moral of this story is I have the best mom and the best mother-in-law in the entire universe and now, thanks to them, my house has cute functional furniture!

Florence Marsh

Florence Marsh joined our family on October 4, 2016. 

After having no Braxton Hicks, or really any type of contraction, my entire pregnancy I woke up on October 4 the day before my due date at 3 am because my water had broke. I knew that I was supposed to go to the hospital if my water broke, but it was just a bunch of small gushes so I wasn't sure that really counted. I took a shower and told Stephen he should probably get ready to go. We finally left the house at 4:30ish because the contractions had started and they were already pretty close together. Stephen my wonderful super-genius of a husband stopped at McDonald's to buy some breakfast sandwiches on the way and we were off! Our new house was only about 10 minutes from the hospital I was delivering at Banner Gateway. 

We had to wait in triage for a little while because all the labor and delivery rooms were full. By the time we got to our room the contractions were getting really strong. I was standing beside my bed, hooked up to all the monitors and my IV, bouncing, deep breathing, crying and screaming things like, "I'm gonna throw up!" I had set a goal in my mind to make it to 7:00 without an epidural (who knows why?) so I kept watching the clock. Finally at 6:50 I broke down and asked for the drugs, which was lucky because they fit me in right before the C section they had scheduled at 7:30. Phew.

Once I had those drugs in me the world got a whole lot better really fast. They turned down the lights and Stephen and I rested. The epidural made me shake uncontrollably and that was a little bit creepy but other than that it was pure bliss. I just remember thinking, I can't wait to have another baby. (Let's all just imagine the cracked out druggie I would definitely be if I wasn't LDS.)

After two hours I was fully dilated and they called in my doctor, Doctor Thomas Bickley. Side note: as Stephen and I were waiting for me to be fully dilated he said, "So do you know how to push?" I thought about it for a second, laughed and said, "Nope!" Stephen said, "That seems like a pretty big oversight, shouldn't you have asked one of your sisters?" This is an excellent example of a condition all Earls suffer from called 'Over-Confidence'.

I was not a natural and I should have asked someone about pushing before hand, but luckily Stephen ended up being an awesome support and coached me through the whole thing. I pushed for about an hour and at 11;48 I saw my baby girl and she was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. You hear it, you see it in moves, you read about it, but nothing can really prepare you for how amazing that moment is. Stephen and I were just so in awe and so happy.

Florence Marsh

October 4

11:48 am

7 pounds 4 ounces

20 inches long

My mom was supposed to be coming later on that week, but as soon as she heard we were in the hospital she changed her flight and was there by 10:00 that night! My mom is the coolest like that. Rory was a really content little baby from the very beginning. Once she got the hang of it, she ate like a champ. The first night with her was a little terrifying, I ended up sleeping with my Boppy around my waist with her in my arms for most of the night. We stayed two nights at the hospital and Stephen dutifully slept on the couch and freaked out over every noise she made with me.

We brought Rory home on Thursday, October 6 and that's when the adventure really began! For so long you just feel like the doctors and nurses are going to show up at your door at any time saying, "Who said you could bring that baby here?? You haven't been trained! You don't know what you're doing!" but they never do (or is that just me?)

I was most nervous for that first night at home with Rory. We went to bed and my mom just said, "Good luck! Come and get me when you need me." I was so nervous I didn't think I would ever fall asleep. And then all the sudden I woke up at 4 in the morning because Rory had slept for six hours and then decided she was ready to eat again. Six hours!! So I fed her, put her back to bed, and she slept for another four. Dream baby, am I right? And she's been sleeping like a champ ever since.

So far, Rory has exceeded all my baby expectations. I tell her all day long she is the coolest baby in the whole world. She must get it from Stephen... I am so humbled and blessed by the fact that I get to be this awesome little girl's mom!

We bought a house!

The lease of our apartment was up on the 23 of September, and our baby's due date is October 5th, just a little less than two weeks later, so naturally we decided to tempt the real estate gods and started looking for houses in August. 

After seeing around 10-15 houses, we found one that we both just really liked- nice neighborhood, just enough space, garage (hallelujah), and a great backyard. We had an awesome real estate agent and a great mortgage broker that made the whole process feel so easy. 

We officially closed on September 20, 2016 and that's when the real fun began. We had until the 23 to move everything out of the apartment. Stephen still had to work all day, and I was (and am) very, very pregnant- so not too great at moving things. Enter John and Lucina to save the day. They came on Wednesday and worked non-stop from the moment they arrived to the moment they left. They packed up boxes, took carload after carload to the new house, and even cleaned the apartment! I don't know what we would have done without them, but I am SO SO thankful that they were there. I married into the best family!

On Friday night we had a couple friends and the missionaries in our ward come over and help us pack up our rented Uhaul with all of our big items. 

*Relevant side side story: Back in December my car was having all sorts of transmission issues, so I had to rent a car to get me to work while it was in the shop. The day before I was set to return the rental car I was two minutes away from our apartment when a rock hit the windshield and left a huge crack. We, of course, had not gotten any insurance on the car and it ended up being a little under $500 in damage (boo.) (There's a happy ending to this story though because after months of sending paperwork back and forth our credit card company ended up reimbursing us for the damage repairs! Yay!)

*Side Story: Stephen and I went to pick up the rented Uhaul together. He took the truck home while I went to run some errands. I was worried about him driving that huge thing all by myself so I told him to let me know when he made it back safely. He called after a few minutes and said, "You're not going to believe what happened," (never a good start to a conversation about driving a Uhaul). He continued, "I had been driving about two minutes when a rock hit the windshield and chipped it." I waited for the just kidding part, but it never came because that actually is what happened. We should not be allowed to rent things any more, or we should learn that sometimes just buying the stupid insurance is worth it (though I'm sure that if we had bought the insurance nothing would have happened because that's how life goes sometimes haha.) 

Of course I didn't think to take any pictures of our apartment when it was actually being lived in, but here are some of it after we cleaned it out. La Costa was good to us, but boy are we excited to not have to take those stairs every day!

front room/ kitchen

Master and bathroom

guest room

This pregnancy has really been so easy on me. I feel really really lucky. But during the move I saw the ugly side to pregnancy, and it came in the form of Shamu ankles. The only reason I don't have cankles is because my calves are already abnormally large.

This picture will forever make me grateful for my regular large man feet and ankles.  Assuming they ever go back to normal, that is.

We love our new house and we love our baby girl for being so obedient and waiting until after we had moved and dad had hit his year mark at work to come.But now that that's all over, any day now would be great...

A Week in Moses Lake

Sometimes when you live in Mesa and every day is over 100 degrees and you are seven months pregnant, you just have to get away. Plus we had an Earl Reunion coming up in Idaho that my husband couldn't make it to, so I decided to come up to Moses Lake early and bum a ride off my parents.

When I got home, preparations for Today's Generation's production of The Little Mermaid were in full swing. Kendall was the director, so while she focused on the actors Courtney and I took over props and backstage. Kendall did such a great job and the play ended up being so much fun for everyone.

Kristy made it for the last show on Saturday!

Courtney made Tritan's throne, and I made his Trident, so I guess you could say we're pretty big deals. 

In an effort to prove ourselves to be the best pregnant stage hands in the history of theater, Courtney derived a way for us to make the giant Ursula scene even cooler.

Those giant lifelike tentacles? Yeah, that's us. Totally nailed it.

Once the craziness with the play was over we had just a few days for some family activities. My mom and sisters threw me an awesome baby shower. We had delicious crepes and time to sit and chat. I can't get over how many cute things we got for our little girl!

The last gift I opened was from Qiana and it was one of my favorites.

the wrapping

homemade bundle of joy

With Kristy and Courtney both in town we had Declan and Dean with us, but we also had Kacey's boys with us so that she could relax and get ready to have her baby. It was a house full, but the boys were all so good and played so well together.

ready for church

That's me trying to keep Declan awake on the way to a dinner that a very nice family made for us. He is the smiliest guy. And it was the yummiest dinner.

Also, a lady came over and gave us facials. It was awesome. 

It was a great week and a half hanging out with family before we headed to the reunion, though it was WAY too long to be away from Stephen.

The absolute best part of the week though was when Kacey finally had her baby on July 30. IT'S A GIRL!!! Baby Ridley is just the cutest little thing in the world and I can't wait to meet her in person and for our girls to be best friends.

Earl Family Reunion 2016

We woke up at 3:00 am on Thursday to start our drive to Albion, ID for the Earl Family Reunion. We took two cars up: Dad, Kendall, Bryan and Kacey's boys in the Suburban and Courtney, Mom, Dean, and I in Kendall's car.

Dean slept on and off for the first few hours or so. When he wasn't sleeping, he would just kind of look around outside all super chill. When the sun came up, he decided he was fully awake and then the real fun began. Courtney- the Champion of all Sisters- took the first driving shift. Mom was in the front seat, and due to age is not as great at staying awake as she once was. I was in the back next to Dean which was extra fun for two reasons. 1) Turns out pregnancy also gives me motion sickness, a problem I usually never deal with and 2) I was the only person in the car Dean did NOT love at the time. Any time he needed something, like a snack or his blanket, I would try to grab it for him seeing as I was sitting beside him, and he would FLIP. This meant I got to spend this stretch of the drive handing things to Courtney or Mom so that they could then hand them back to Dean. When it came from one of them he accepted it gladly. I can't wait to make fun of him for this when he's older.

The second stretch of the drive Kendall switched to driving our car (becoming the new Champion of all Sisters), I moved up to the front putting Courtney in the back, and we got some much needed rest. Dean and I were both a lot happier with this arrangement.

Anyways, it was basically a long, terrible drive but we eventually made it!

It was so fun to see everyone and get to chat with my family members that I just don't get to see enough! My one regret from the weekend was that Stephen wasn't able to come and meet everyone. Guess we will just have to do one next year!

First Cousins

Whole Crew

David Earl Group

Our shirt graphic featuring Grandma!

On Friday night we did a tribute to Grandma, where every family came up with a little something to present. This is just a sampling of the amazing things people came up with, minus the Bates because I was too mesmerized by their comedy sketch to remember to record! Some I had to stop early because baby girl was kicking me too hard, so blame her. It was a night filled with laughter, tears, and plenty of warm hearts. We are so lucky to be the descendants of Florence Ludeen Earl.

Doug Earl Group

Tom Earl Group

David Earl Group

Pat Earl Group

Jeff Earl Group

Can you believe how good Britney is at being Grandma?! She had me in tears I was laughing so hard.

Grandma drove back with us from the reunion and I had to take a picture because I love car rides with Grandma. She kept herself busy for the 8 hour drive by giving herself a manicure (she always has her nail kit ready for road trips) and reading the scriptures. She napped every once in a while, too. As we reminisced about the reunion on the drive back it was amazing to me just how well she knows each one of us. She remembers every single persons name (all great grandkids included) AND  can tell you what is going on in their lives right now. This woman is amazing and I am so lucky to be an Earl. 

The Return of Elder Earl

 Bryan finished his mission to Torreon, Mexico on June 30, 2016. When Kendall got back from her mission she got to go to Hawaii for a week. When Bryan got home from the hot dessert of northern Mexico he got to go to Phoenix for a week! It's all in the timing, bud. When Bryan left on his mission I was about as single as a person can get. He gets home two years later and I am married and six months pregnant. Missions have got to feel similar to time warping.
 So the week after he got back my whole family met up in Arizona (lucky for us!). My parents got two condos at the World Mark in Phoenix where everyone stayed except for Stephen and I and Brad and Jules, since we already live there.

Monday:
On the fourth of July we spent a lot of time at the pool and hanging out at the condo. The one tricky part of the day was that there was nowhere to eat since everyone was closed because of the holiday. We drove around grumpy and hungry for a while in our giant caravan before we found a Chick Fil A that was open in Tempe, which made reason #1,365,234 why I believe Chick Fil A is truly the happiest place on earth.

Some of the group went in search of fireworks after dinner, but because Stephen and I don't have any fully cooked, air breathing kids yet we didn't have to stay up and fight crowds for fireworks we didn't really care about seeing. Gotta live it up while we can.

Tuesday:
We went to Wet 'N' Wild in Phoenix for the day. It was a cool park with tons of fun slides that pregnant people can't ride, which meant Kacey and I were on baby duty most of the time. They had a ton of little kid slides, a wave pool, and a lazy river. Owen loved every minute of it and was happy being in the water the whole time. Declan apparently hates water and even holding him while standing in water makes him cling on to you like a spider monkey. As long as Jude has his floaties on he is fearless and loves dunking his head under water. In the lazy river he liked warning whoever he was riding with about the perils (squirting/falling water) ahead. Asher felt completely encumbered by all water park rules. He did not want to stay in a tube in the lazy river and he was convinced he was tall enough to ride all the slides no matter what the signs said. He was hilarious to watch, but it's also a miracle we didn't lose him that day. He has no fears and just takes off to do whatever he wants all day long.

Wednesday: 

While the boys went golfing, we went to Arizona Mills Mall for the day, and yes you can spend an entire day at that mall. The kids went to the Lego activity center with Kristy and Kendall and it kept them busy for hours! I didn't pay for the tickets, but as a reaper of the benefits I'm gonna go ahead and say it was worth every penny. 

While the kids were busy destroying Legoland (I presume, I dunno I wasn't there watching them-woohooo!) My mom, Kacey, and I went baby clothes/ maternity clothes shopping. Its funny to go from trying on the biggest pieces of clothing you've ever seen (and having them fit -hangs head in shame) to picking out the tiniest little outfits in the world! I'll let you go ahead and guess which one of those things is more fun.

Side story: When I got home and showed Stephen my purchases he said, "Be honest; are you more excited for the baby? Or for the baby clothes?" I said, "I'm about to give up sleep for the rest of my life, let me have this."

Amidst our shopping we also made time for a snack or two, cuz babies gotsta eat ya know?

mmmm... cupcakes. 

We went back to the condo for naps and some swimming before returning to the mall so the kids could go to the aquarium and we could do a little more shopping before dinner. We went to Rainforest Cafe because they were having a kids eat for $2.99 deal and someone (ok... it was me) may have exclaimed that they loved Rainforest Cafe. I remembered it as the cool place with dinner and a show from my childhood. Now that I'm an adult I realized that it's really a place where you pay Cheesecake Factory prices for Applebees-level food. Plus all the kids were terrified of the rainforest affects and generally hated the entire dinner, so it was a lose lose for everybody!

Also it was unnerving to eat with this mascot frog hanging around. I really really hate mascots. 

Thursday: 

Wet 'N' Wild day two! Kacey and I got even better at our baby corraling duties. We took Declan on the lazy river and he kept his sadness to a light whimper, which was a pretty impressive change of pace from Tuesday. 

Drowning in handsome baby boys all day. 

Owen the water park champ

Bryan and Jude the love bug- seriously I dare you to not be obsessed with this kid

Declan's permanent "I hate being hot but I hate the water more" look. 

Two full days at the water park and nobody left looking like a lobster, I really think that may be an Earl family record. Oh! And the best news was that Dean and Courtney got to join us on Wednesday night. They originally weren't going to make it because Grenada is so dang far away, but Courtney being her pregnant self had to flee the island after a Zika outbreak. She will be here with my parents now until after she has the baby in December. So thanks Zika for some extra Courtney and Dean time. We sure missed Curtis though!

Friday:
My family went to find tennis courts to play on in the morning, while I conveniently stayed busy until they told me they were done playing and were headed to Kneaders for some brunch. Who in their right mind plays tennis in Phoenix in July? Nobody. They all admitted upon my arrival that it had been very hot, but swore they still had fun. Uh-huh, sure, likely story. When we got back to the condos we spent the afternoon hanging out and doing whatever we felt like. We played several rounds of Bananagrams and if I remember correctly I think I won every single round.... yep that sounds about right. My dad is the most interesting to play with because he calls 'peel' regardless of how his board is looking every time he gets bored- so about every thirty seconds. He also likes to use words that are either made up, or not allowed in the rules of the game.

The big activity for the day was the puzzle room contest we had planned for that evening. If you've never heard of a puzzle/ escape room, it's basically like living a Nancy Drew computer game. They give you a scenario and "lock" you inside a room (legally they can't actually lock you in so don't worry) that is full of clues with how to complete your mission and get out. You have one hour to do so. They are amazing.

We have a thing in my family where we talk about ACT scores, like a lot, and use them to gauge the intelligence of basically everything and everyone. (And if you ever try to confront us about it or call us out on it, we're just going to make fun of your score no matter what it was so be forewarned.) So anyways, we had to do the puzzle room in two groups because you can only have 8 people in at a time. Naturally that meant it had to be a competition, but how would we ever decide who goes in which group?? ACT scores. We came up with two teams based on our testing scores; the smart group and the dumb group.

Smart group: 

• Dad
• Trevor
• Kylie
• Stephen (he took the SAT, not the ACT so we are not actually sure that his scores qualified him to be in the smart team. An exception was made because he's the newest in law and my family is hoping to keep him around.) 
• Kendall
• Bryan
• Kacey 

*Dumb group:

• Mom
• Jon Wayne
• Courtney
• Kristy
• Brad
• Jules

*They insisted they be made the minority because they had more to prove. 

So the smart group went first. We made it out with 28 minutes left and were feeling pretty proud of ourselves. We kept our time a secret from the other team so they would have no upper hand going second. We got the kids from them and went back to the condo to wait to hear how they did. 

Smart Team 

We waited, waited, and waited. They finally got home from their nice kid-free Thai dinner they went to afterwards and informed us that they had finished with 29 minutes to spare. They showed us the picture and everything. The Smart Team's hopes and dreams of official bragging rights were dashed, until sweet, sweet Courtney opened up her beautiful mouth and said, "Actually we got out with like 22 minutes left. The lady at the place told us how long you guys took to finish so we changed our sign to look like we beat you." And just like that, VICTORY WAS OURS. Although we were the ones who had a quick dinner of hamburgers and then wrestled with kids all night so it's hard to say who the real winner was...

Saturday: 

With our newly found puzzle room addiction in full swing, we worked our entire day around when and where we would be able to do a puzzle room again (just the girls, the guys went golfing again-speaking of addiction...). We drove back to Brad and Jules so Trevor (not a golfer) could stay with the kids during nap time and we could go solve another puzzle room. The Nielsens left to go back to Las Vegas in the morning so Trevor just had Owen, Dean, and Declan. 

We went to solve DaVinci's secret or something like that, but we had two other people who had signed up to do the room with us. This was a bummer because A) we've got way too many type A personalities in this family already so sharing the work among the six of us was going to be difficult and B) we could not decipher the gender of one of the people joining us which made pronouns VERY difficult to use. A kind, considerate, understanding human being would have introduced themselves to this person and asked them their name in return. The six of us made awkward guesses when forced to address them specifically and then whispered about it to each other when they were out of earshot. 

Courtney first addressed this person as a "she", but I'm pretty sure it was a he. Then when inside the room, this person solved a difficult puzzle that we had been stumped on for a little while. My mom proudly called out, "Oh! He solved it! I mean she solved it!" We all then turned our full attention to the clue and tried to completely block out the awkwardness of what mom had just said. 

We made it out of the room, but it is safe to say we did not make any new friends. Also, it would be fun to watch video recordings of people trying to get out of puzzle rooms (at one point in the DaVinci room I may have screamed and dropped to the fetal position- I've checked and they don't actually record you in the room so the world may never know.) 

Our two add-ons opted not to be in the picture with us, otherwise I would put it to a vote right here right now. 

We came back to the house to check on Trevor- he was alive and the babies were all still sleeping- and then the rest of the boys got back from golfing in time for us to challenge them to another puzzle room, this time girls vs. boys. We made a rule that if you had to use a hint, it meant you got a four minute deduction from your time. 

This last puzzle room we did was my favorite of all three. There were so many cool challenges and tasks you had to complete. We made it out with 9 minutes to spare, but we had to use one hint, so our score was nothing to brag about. I honestly just felt impressed that we had made it out at all!

It was only mildly embarrassing coming back to this place an hour or so later. Why didn't we think to change our outfits or something? 

We met up with the boys and the kids for a delicious dinner at Oregano's. Then we took the kids back while the boys went to try to solve the Nuclear puzzle room. They said they made it out the very last minute and had to use two clues, making Kendall and I the official champions of puzzle rooms since we were the only ones on both the Smart and girls team. 

Sunday: 

After church we met up at Doug and Connie's in Gilbert for some delicious pancakes and one last hang out before everyone had to leave for the airport. It was an awesome week and now I can't wait for the Earl Reunion at the beginning of August!