Post Spring Break Update

We've been busy traveling around lately! We drove to nothern New York to visit my parents the weekend of April 5th for part of the kids' Spring Break. We got to see my parents and my grandmother. Unfortunately, my grandmother wasn't up for much visiting while we were there. It turns out that my mom's 'hypoallergenic' dog caused problems for Ariel. Her eyes started to puff up and swell shut the first night there. Thankfully there is one room that the dog doesn't get to go into, and Ariel stayed there most of the time. When she wasn't there (or eating with the rest of us), she was in the pool! Yes, the kids got to go swimming over Spring Break! My father installed an above ground pool in the 2nd stall of his garage. It's insulated and heated, so the kids had a BLAST! We all enjoyed being able to have a pool available for Spring Break...especially since it barely got up to 50 degrees the whole time we were there!
We got to see old friends from NY (where I grew up), and attended General Conference at the Church building. It just so happened that the organist for Music & the Spoken Word Sunday morning was an old friend of mine! He also assisted with the organ during that 1st Sunday session. The whole Branch there in NY felt excitement as he's a 'native', having been our Ward organist at age 14. We came home and enjoyed a couple of days of quiet and cleaning up before Don and I drove to Chicago to get his mom from the airport for her 2 week visit to see our new nephews (twin boys, not quite 2 months old). These next two weeks will be full of household clean ups and visiting with family.
All is well with the kids, and they all enjoyed lots of fun and free time over vacation. Now, back to the grindstone for 6 more weeks!

Project complete!

Well, I can update on the household projects today. Last night Don and I (ok, mostly Don this time) put up crown molding in the dining room/living room areas! It hides some imperfections in the painting at the top of the walls, and it looks just GREAT! I have yet to fill in the nail holes and 'gaps', and then I'll paint it the same white as the ceiling (it's just a little bit off). I'm SO thrilled with how it looks! I also purchased a couple of things to make the shelf on top of the large mirror look wonderful! I'm SO proud of this work! Now, just to finish the floors! I can't wait 'til next week as I will be starting in on the main bathroom until Don's office is fully moved upstairs. Once he's done moving, I'll help Tori paint her 'new' bedroom (she wants pastel pink and purple...with pastel sort-of-lime-green somewhere). Once her room is complete, the main bathroom will be finished with a very cute paint job to accentuate my dolphin theme in there.

I know, I know, this sounds more like a list of household chores and projects than a family blog, but this is what our life is about right this minute. I'm going to try to post some pictures from the kids during the school year, etc. tonight.

April Fool's Day 2008

Ok, it got cold again around here. Wish Spring would 'spring' already! Last night Don and I fixed up and hung a mirror in our newly painted dining room. Our living room 'turned blue' last July (at Lowe's, it's called 'Peek-A-Boo Blue'), and we LOVED adding the color to our house! Everyone seems to enjoy the change of pace who sees it. In March, I added 'Heirloom Red' to the dining room. Again, we LOVE it! We have a beautiful mirror on one wall to break it up a bit, but this color will carry over into our kitchen as well (top half only, above counter tops) and I can keep my apple theme in there. We are using white accents and silver is the only other color (metal stuff, like the light and picture frames). For the living room, we redid an old dresser that had GREAT lines on it, and painted it glossy white to put under our picture window with the blue in the living room. I can't believe how much I truly enjoy the colors in our house! The entry way and hallway are one, and we're pretty sure it will be a beautiful shade of yellow. This will match a gorgeous painting we have on the living room wall (which is actually the dining room wall as well and one you see as soon as you walk in the front door), so it all ties together really well! My entry and hallway will have all of my wrought iron candle holders and only black picture frames for the walls. We already replaced this awful 1960's globe type hanging light over the stairs and just inside the front door with black accented lights and there's a HUGE clock/wall decoration on the wall above the stairs to tie it all together.
Home improvements are a HUGE part of our life right now as we're hosting the 1st ever 'Hoyt Family Reunion' this summer! We've put off doing much to the house due to moving and moving back again, and not having the money for most of it. Well, since I can do 90% of the work myself (I've gotten kind of confident since doing all of the improvements when Don was in Alabama and I had to have the house ready to sell), we save a bunch of money that way too!
The kids are all doing just great. I still have to figure out how to properly post a picture on our blog so that y'all can check them out (they grow up SO fast!). Ariel made high honor roll again this trimester as a Freshman, Tori's doing REALLY well in her art class and wants to continue with art in 8th grade. DJ's doing extremely well in 1st grade (one of the top readers in abilities, and he was selected to be tested toward a 'pre-gifted & talented' program for K-3rd grade. The gifted & talented classes start in 3rd grade 'for real'.), and Jr is sounding out words and trying to spell them outloud to me when ever we're in the car! My current weight lose total ('cuz I've been working on this since January 5th...my 1st 'official' weigh in day) is now 35.5lbs (and NO, I'm not about to say 'April Fools' to you!). I'm pretty excited as I'm down one pant size and these are getting baggy already! Don's lost about 17lbs himself, though he isn't being as careful with his eating as I am (I'm ok with that, men lose weight faster, and I'd just as soon he not be skinnier than I am!).

In the beginning...

And so, here we are...The Wilson 6. Our first ever blog! Thanks to the Williams (in particular, Jessica) for giving us the idea to keep up to date this way! With any luck, I'll keep this up and figure out how to use it fairly quickly. Don came up with our 'name', thought it rather appropriate after spending some time living in (and leaving part of our hearts in) Alabama last year.
A brief overview of our family:
Don: father, husband, applications engineer and golfer (and STILL missing AL very much!)
Tracy: mother, wife, research engineer in the fields of child development and home economics (ok, I'm a stay-at-home-mom!), and I like golf too!
Ariel: 14, brilliant, dramatic, and the fastest 'text-er' in the house
Tori: 13, sensative, creative and loving
Donavan: 6, tenderhearted, smart and adventurous (as long as mom or dad is right there!)
Jordyn: 5, growing up way too fast, smart, and trying to keep up with DJ

We have pets, so I can't forget them. Savvy (Ariel's hamster), Bear (Tori's hamster), Spidey (DJ's hamster), Fluffy (Jr's hamster), 4 fish (their names change every time the kids count them I think), and Shelly (the snail). Then there's Phea Fee (our cockateil, she's been with us for about 3 years now, I think), and Ariel's parakeet, Serenity as well.

We are going to attempt our first garden this year, wish us luck. All I want is a salad in the backyard and fruit to eat (I'm NOT into canning!).