House Updates

We made some big changes to our house over the past few months.

The first change was the kitchen cabinets. I have always disliked our yellowish knotty alder cabinets with our yellowish hickory floors. I didn't necessarily hate them separately, but I really disliked them together. 

I have really wanted white cabinets so we decided to go with it. I chose a bright white lacquer, which is much more durable than something like wall paint. I also had them add some trim to make the island less plain. The painters came on a Monday morning and took off all the cabinet doors and drawer fronts. Then they taped everything off, did a light sand and painted 3 coats on the cabinet shells. Here's what it looked like after day 1.

On Friday they returned and installed all our finished doors and drawers. They put 5 coats of lacquer on those since they get much more use and abuse then the cabinet shells. They also installed the hardware. We didn't have any hardware before. Anyone notice what else they changed? The pot rack hanging from the ceiling is gone. I told the painters they could have it if they took it down, patched and painted.

I am in love with the drawer pulls. I didn't think I would be picky about them but then, surprise, I was. Shocker. The ones the painter showed me were all shorter and they looked funny on the bigger drawers on our island.

Next up was refinishing the floors. The floors had water damage by the dishwasher when we bought the house. (We didn't notice it until the day after we moved in.) Anyway, we faithfully watched that warped area after moving in and it hadn't changed at all, so we were fairly confident the water was an old issue that had been remedied. When we had floor guys out to bid on the job they all confirmed that it was old damage that they could sand down flat so we didn't have to replace any flooring. We also found a ton of old water damage under the refrigerator when we moved it for the cabinet painters. Then the big question was the color. All along I thought I wanted to change the color and I strongly disliked the glossy finish we had. 

Every floor person I talked to begged me not to mess with the color of our natural hickory floors. Every single one of them told me natural hickory was their favorite wood floor. I had no idea we had high quality wood floors, but hickory is very durable and hard and expensive. I still wasn't convinced about the color and brought home a few samples. Here is a gray sample against our white cabinets. As I kept staring at the floors I decided I liked the floors a lot more now that the cabinets were white. I also feel like the beautiful variation in color stands out much more. The floor refinishers told me that by sanding all the floors down and putting a matte finish the yellowish tint would go away. 

Here is what they looked like after day 1 of sanding. 

And here is what they looked like after they were completely finished. To be honest the color I liked best was when they were all sanded down without any finish, but you can't leave wood floor without any protective coat. I am very happy with the decision to not stain them a new color. They are beautiful. 

The next big change we made was our front door. This front door has been struggling since before we bought the house. The outside of it had virtually no finish/stain left on it. It was basically raw wood. The door was starting to crack. 

Again, I hated the knotty alder color. I wanted a dark brown with some black/gray tones to it. The painters advised me to choose a slightly darker stain than I wanted because the outside will fade a lot. 

I didn't take a full before picture of the outside of the front door, but here it is after they had started to sand it down. 

And here it is after:

I absolutely panicked when I pulled up to the house that afternoon. It totally looked black to me and I hated it. As I have gotten used to it I love it more and more. When you are up close and can see all the wood grain it is beautiful. I wish you could see a little more of the wood grain from far away. I like it SO much better in the overall aesthetic of the outside of our house. If you look closely in that picture below you will see we won American Fork yard of the month. Most notable achievement of our lives. That's for sure. 

The last change we made was some furniture upgrades. I mentioned we sold our old table. Here is our new table and bench. Haven't purchased chairs yet. We are using folding chairs. Haha

And a new tv stand. We moved our older, smaller tv to the basement because we really don't go down there much. We had the same guy who made us the table make this tv stand. I love it. It is massive and makes our 60" tv look tiny. 

 I am so happy with all the storage inside. 

The last change I would really like to make is to this hideous stair railing/banister. We would like to stain the hand railing and posts to match the dark front door. And then replace all the iron balusters with wood and paint them white. 

Oh, plus add a backsplash in the kitchen. And change our whole fireplace. And all our outside light fixtures. Plus a few other things. 

It never ends, does it?

Up with Kids

Sadie took a theater class all year through a program called Up With Kids. The first 4 months were basic theater classes covering a variety of related topics. In January Sadie "auditioned" and was given a part in their program-wide play. It was a combination of Aladdin with the premise of Inside Out (running commentary from emotions inside the main character's brains).

Sadie worked very hard and could not wait to perform. She definitely gets nervous about performing but she really enjoys the attention. She had a dress rehearsal performance at a local elementary school on Millie's birthday. 

Enjoy some blurry photos of Sadie's parts. In the picture above she is one of Jasmine's princess contemporaries in purple on the far left. In the picture below she is a mini genie second from the left. 

Millie was super disruptive. Yay!

Elise was enthralled. She danced and sang her heart out during the performance. She begged me to do the class next year. We'll see. Elise likes the idea of performing but I don't trust her one bit to actually stand on a stage in front of people. 

The next night was the real performance. I didn't get to take any pictures because Millie commandeered my phone and then it died. Enjoy this video of Sadie's speaking part. She is on the far left.

 Sadie was thrilled to find out that all participants got a trophy. She told me that everyone got one, but she really was better than the other kids in her class. There's the good old Nielson competitiveness. 

Millie's 2nd Birthday

Millie is 2 years old!! 

Sadie had a play performance that morning and Daniel and I were going on a date that night so we had her blow out 2 candles stuck in a donut early that morning. We had to wake Camille up since she normally sleeps until about 9 AM. She was disoriented but excited about donuts. We got donuts again the other day and Millie insisted that I put candles in and sing happy birthday. 

Sadie and Elise graciously assisted Camille in her present opening. She got a few Melissa and Doug chunky puzzles and books. She was very excited about them all.

After school that afternoon we all went to the Puppy Barn, which is a dog store. Kids are not allowed to hold the dogs but the adults can hold them while the kids pet. You are allowed to spend some time in a fenced corner playing with puppies, so we did that for a bit. 

Here's the lowdown on Mills:

-55th percentile for weight and 80th percentile for height, which is a drop in height for her. I am really interested in how tall our kids will be. Mainly because there is such a wide range of possibility between me and Daniel's height. 

-extremely independent and much more physically coordinated than our older kids were at her age. She does everything at the park by herself. If she can't do it on the first try she keeps trying until she succeeds or I tell her to stop because she is going to hurt herself. Falling down/getting hurt doesn't slow her down much.

-loves to read in her room. Her books are usually strewn all over the floor. She has most of our books memorized. The other day the last 2 pages of a board book were stuck together so I skipped it. She was not going to have that. Also, she knows all her letters and most of her numbers. We have never explicitly taught them to her but we do have several alphabet books

-LOVES to make messes and just plain bother people. She pulls Elise's hair all the time because she likes to make her cry and scream. She gets into what we call menace mode and she runs around the house wreaking havoc and loving it. She is quick to say sorry and then immediately does it again.

-freezes in funny poses for a long time until one of us notices her and laughs.

-almost always sleeps with her legs/feet crossed. She also loves her pillow. I don't think our other kids slept with pillows until they were in regular beds. She takes 1 nap per day. She frequently talks to herself for an hour until she falls asleep. Then we have to wake her up at 5 so she can still go to sleep that night. When we put her down at night she still talks to herself for an hour before falling asleep, even if it is late. 

-hams it up for the camera. 

Other April Stuff

Sadie started a basketball class with Alli Bills and Stacy Jensen, 2 former assistant coaches at BYU. It has been really great for her to practice more. 

Our neighbor's tree fell over  into our yard

Millie continued her cute and menacing ways

The girls begged to leave this set-up out overnight.

Not sure why I took these, but I think all 3 of my kids were whining in the Wal-mart checkout line

Silly girls at lunch

The only picture I took during Daniel's team banquet. Millie and Dawson trying to escape. I didn't get to hear much of the banquet

Sadie and I read our books together for a couple hours one Saturday

Lou chose a great outfit for school. She was mad at me for taking a picture but then decided she wanted one with Millie

 The girls painted for an hour one Saturday. Millie loved it. 

Family Ties & Deep Roots

When we bought our house in American Fork my mom mentioned she had ancestors who had lived here. I think she even went and visited their graves when she was out here to help us move in. I hadn't thought about it much until I decided I wanted to learn more about AF. I love to know the history of a town so I decided it was time to find out more about where we live. I came across the names of the founders of American Fork, one of them being Stephen Chipman, who is my 4th great grandfather. Then I remembered what my mom had said and started to delve deeper into my ancestors' history here. We spent a family home evening night at the AF cemetery visiting the graves of our relatives.

 First up was Stephen Chipman, one of the co-founders of American Fork in 1852, which was originally known as Lake City. You can't see a lot of his grave here, but the side shown talks about how he is of Mayflower ancestry, was a Mormon pioneer and founded AF. Two of the other sides have plaques with his 2 wives and their children's names.  

His first wife, Amanda Washburn, my 4th great grandmother, divorced him after he married his second wife because she did not support polygamy. Amanda got remarried but her second husband was excommunicated and run out of town because he believed Joseph Smith's son should have been the next president of the Church. She stayed in AF alone because she couldn't bear to leave her children and grandchildren. I like to think that a lot of Stephen's success had to do with his strongwilled wife Amanda. Before they crossed the plains they were living in Missouri with lots of other Mormons. Three days after their son James was born Governor Boggs issued the extermination order that drove all the Mormons to flee. Amanda fled with a 3 day old!  

That 3 day old son was James Chipman, my 3rd great grandfather. He was the 5th of 6th kids to Stephen and Amanda (2 more children died in infancy). We had a hard time finding his grave because it wasn't close to his parent's and the maps were really confusing. This picture is terrible, but it is his grave. It has the names of his 3 wives on it- Sarah Green, Salena Huntsman, and Salena Pusey. 

James, like his father, was a polygamist for a short time. His first wife, Sarah Green, is my 3rd great grandmother. They were married in 1859 when she was only 14! He was 20. There isn't much known about her because she died at age 20 shortly after giving birth to her 4th child, Stephen L. Chipman. James' second wife Salena Hunstman raised 3 of Sarah's children, along with 12 children of her own in American Fork. Salena was pregnant with her first child when my grandmother died. She took on those 3 young kids- 1 being newborn Stephen L.- when she was 6 months pregnant with her first! Another awesome woman. James became a very successful entrepreneur. He founded Chipman Mercantile in 1892, which operated for 87 years on Main Street in American Fork until 1979. I was SO disappointed to find out the building was knocked down. James was also the director of several banks, insurance companies, and mining companies. He helped build a lot of American Fork. I just found out that this super cool old mill near us was built by him. When we first moved here it was an antique store and I always meant to stop in. It is currently being renovated into office space. James was Mayor of American Fork and helped open the first public schools in Utah, which were located in AF. In 1896 James became the first State Treasurer of Utah when Utah was finally admitted to the Union as a state.

 

James and Sarah's fourth child, Stephen L. Chipman, is my great great grandfather. He was raised by his father's second wife, Salena. He is buried by his grandfather Stephen Chipman. We had a picnic between their graves. Is it super weird to have a picnic at a cemetery with your ancestors' graves? There was a beautiful blossoming tree above us that provided some nice shade. 

Stephen L was married to Sina Nielsen. It is cool to me that we are Nielsons and I have Nielsen relatives who lived in AF, but the story gets even more interesting. When Sadie was born my grandfather asked if she was named after his great aunt Sadie, whose real name was Sarah. He doesn't remember his great aunt's last name, which is too bad because both Sina and Stephen L had sisters named Sarah. But potentially, he had a great aunt from American Fork, UT name Sadie Nielsen. We had no idea any relatives were named Sadie when we chose that name and we also had no idea we would eventually live in AF. Stephen L. managed the Chipman Mercantile and was director of the Bank of American Fork. He was in the Utah State Legislature and was the first stake president of the Alpine Stake when it was formed in 1901. It took in all the Utah County residents north of Provo and was headquartered in American Fork. In 1938 he was called to be president of the Salt Lake City temple. He was the first SLC temple president who was not a member of the Quorum of the 12. Chipman Hall at BYU is named after Stephen L. I didn't know that when I lived next door to it my freshman year at BYU. Stephen and Sina had 6 living children, one of which was my great-grandma, Karen Lorena Chipman Fletcher.

Karen Lorena Chipman Fletcher was known as Lorena. She is also buried in the AF cemetery, but I forgot to take a picture of her grave. In the photo above you have 4 Chipman generations: Lorena on the left, Stephen L Chipman in the center with James Chipman on the right. Lorena's oldest 2 kids Phyllis and Steve are the children.

 Lorena Chipman married Harvey Fletcher, from Provo, Utah in 1908. The first spouse in several generations not from American Fork. The choice of marrying outside of American Fork proved to be significant as Harvey went to graduate school in Chicago and then they raised their children in New York. The picture on the right is Harvey and Lorena on the right side of the photo with Sina Chipman holding their oldest, Phyllis. On Family Search the man standing behind Sina is labeled as William Chipman, who would have been Sina's brother. On Family Search the photo is labeled as having been taken in New York, so Sina and William traveled a long way for that. Harvey was a well-accomplished physicist who invented stereophonic sound and the hearing aid. I grew up hearing about how great he was, but never knew anything about Lorena. Harvey and Lorena had 7 kids, the 5th of which is my grandfather Robert Chipman Fletcher, who is celebrating his 95th birthday this month.

Bob Fletcher married Rosemary Bennett in 1945. They had 8 children and my mom Christine Fletcher John is the 4th. Rosemary died in 2009 and is buried in Salt Lake City, so the direct generations being buried in AF cemetery is over, but who knows? Maybe Daniel and I will live here long enough that we will choose to be buried there. 

Here I am with Bob Fletcher, affectionately known as Bobpa to his grandchildren, probably around 1986. Then you have my girls with Bobpa in 2015.