Snell Family

Christmas did happen at our house...

2012-01-21T13:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a crazy month for us with the holiday's and helping my parents with their basement. We should be done in a day or two and life will get back to normal.

This is a scanned picture from our ward Christmas Brunch.

We had Christmas Eve at our house and the turkey was the best I've ever had. No wonder this turkey recipe is the #1 recipe on food networks web-site, it's awesome. We had yummy food and great company. My uncle Glenn made Kaleb this frame with a sharks mouth and also a box with a skeleton from a mouse that he preserved/prepared himself. Kaleb loves stuff like this and thought it was pretty cool. (Not sure what my dad and Glenn are talking about in the background :)

I took a peek after Santa came to take a picture of the presents.

Santa left a note in our advent calendar for the boys that said he had left one more surprise for them downstairs by their tree.

Our church didn't start until 11am and so the boys had plenty of time to open their presents.

There were plenty of Lego's!

After presents we were off to church. My family came to our sacrament meeting since I was singing in the choir and then my sister spoke in her ward which is also in our building at 1pm so my parents and I went to her sacrament meeting too. The boys wouldn't have made it through 2 sacrament meetings so Matt volunteered to stay home with them. Then we were off to my aunt and uncles for dinner. This was the best picture I could get with the boys and I. Don't ask me what Ashton's hair is doing?

The boys wanted to take a picture of Matt and I and after many failed attempts Matt took one. We didn't really get presents for each other this year since there wasn't anything we needed and we love spoiling the boys more than ourselves but I guess it's a good thing because we ended up buying a new car shortly after Christmas. And not because we wanted to, it's a long story but we love our Chevy Traverse and we hope (cross fingers) that it will last longer than our last car!

December

2011-12-22T16:23:00.001-07:00

It's a busy time of year with all of the parties and family gatherings and it's all too much for Ashton!

I think being tired and eating too much is pretty accurate of how I feel through much of December. Ashton fell asleep eating a roll on the way home from Sunday dinner.

Matt is a trooper, he helped me make/dip 6 batches of Almond Toffee along with Peanut Butter Balls and Caramel Popcorn. Rather than spreading chocolate on top of the toffee I like to dip the pieces in chocolate and then crushed up almonds. If you've ever had toffee from Garden Gate Candy this is how they do their toffee and I love it. It's more work but I think it's worth it; after 6 batches I don't think Matt thought it was worth it.

Almond Toffee

1 lb. butter (4 sticks)

2 c. sugar

1/3 c. + 1 T. water

Almonds

(approx. 1 c. coarsely chopped for pan and 2-3 c.ground for coating)

Add everything to a saucepan and cook on high heat stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until it reaches 310 degrees. Spread coarsely chopped almonds on a silpat (on a sheet pan) and pour the toffee over the almonds. After it cools, break up the toffee and dip into chocolate and then finely ground up almonds and let set.

Last week we had our Scherzinger Christmas Party and since we were planning on playing Christmas Minute To Win It games on Christmas with the Jorgensen's we brought the games along to play at this party. I think the videos I have of people trying to get rudolph's red nose to stick to their nose was the best part. The games were really fun to play and even more fun to watch.

On Sunday Kaleb's primary class for sharing time put on a shadow puppet play of the nativity. Kaleb was a narrator and also held the angel and star. The kids sent out invitations to come and watch and since I teach the 12-13 yr. old's for Sunday School my whole class came to watch and my dad and sister came to. His teachers did a great job putting it together and it was a great way of teaching about Christ's birth. It was one of the highlights for this month for me.

Picture stolen from this blog, thanks Angie!

Christmas Eve dinner is at our house and I'm going to try to brine the turkey first. I've never done it before but I hear that it should stay more moist that way so we'll see. The boys are beyond excited at this point with only 3 DAYS LEFT before Christmas. Anytime Kaleb is mean to Ashton, Ashton reminds him he's on the naughty list and he's getting a big rock from Santa but of course Ashton is always on the nice list (in his mind anyways). With only 3 days left I better get busy, anyone want to come and wrap for me?

No More Long Locks...

2011-12-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

November was a busy month with another session of swimming lesson. Kaleb loves being able swim around with his goggles on. Ashton does really well in the water and is working on his coordination with the different swimming strokes.

The biggest thing to note is that Ashton has a short haircut now! I was making rolls on Thanksgiving Day and Matt was trimming Ashton's hair which I usually do. I went to check on things and the bangs were too short and the sides were also to short to do a shaggy, longer haircut like he had so I had no choice but to cut it. This picture was right after we finished cutting his hair. Everyone can't believe how different he looks but he looks more like Kaleb did at that age. I miss the longer hair but he does look like a stud when his hair is spiked.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we put up the Christmas decorations. The boys were so excited. They have their own tree in the basement that they put their ornaments that they collect on. They even built a train track to go around the tree downstairs. This is the tree in the living room. We have a skinnier tree and I have so many ornaments not all of them fit on the tree. The boys put most of the ornaments on the tree and surprisingly I only had to move a couple of them. Ashton thought the metal reindeer had to be with a friend but 2 to a branch was a little too heavy.

Whenever we go on a trip for our souvenir we try to find an ornament to match our tree. This white gold leaf is from Yellowstone.

We've collected a couple from Disneyland too. It's fun because every time we put up the tree we remember where each ornament came from and the trip's we've taken.

Over the last couple of years we've been collecting the Jim Shore figurines of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer but this year we added to the collection with some of the Disney figurines.

Matt bought me this nativity set a couple of years ago and the stable was made by someone in our ward. I love the rustic wood stable.

Matt put the lights up on Veteran's Day (we didn't turn them on) since he was off and it was still warm outside. The "trees" are tomato cages I picked up at Home Depot and wrapped lights around. Another Pinterest idea I had to try and I'm glad I did.

We had our ward Christmas party last Saturday and the festivities keep going with family parties and lots of baking to get done. I'm just glad we had our Christmas shopping done before December started, one less thing to worry about!

Cruise

2011-12-12T23:35:00.000-07:00

After uploading these pictures once they disappeared so I was finally able to get around to uploading them again.

We went on a 7 night Mexican Riviera Cruise with my sister and parents the last week in October and it was a blast. They told us about how cheap the prices were and so we decided to go to. We booked it in February and only paid $275/person plus taxes/fees We stopped in Victorville, CA (about an hour outside of LA) the day before and had a horrible experience with our hotel booking but it's a long story. The next day we drove to Anaheim and stopped at downtown Disney to see the Halloween decorations, do some pin trading and pick up some souvenirs. My parents and sister have been to Disneyland during the holiday's but we haven't so even though we didn't go inside it was still fun to walk around.

After walking around and shopping we drove another 30 minutes to the port at Long Beach. After getting on the boat they had a buffet lunch and then our rooms were ready by the time we were done eating. Since we had 4 people to our room we had the bunk beds pulled down. I've never been on a cruise but my family has and they said the room was spacious compared to older ships. This side looks cramped but it actually wasn't bad and had tons of storage. Plus, we didn't spend much time in our room other than to sleep.

Unfortunately Ashton was a couple inches short of being able to go on the big water slide but the boys both loved the splash pad area.

We enjoyed watching them from up above on the top deck in the sun. It was perfect weather.

This is as we were pulling into Cabo San Lucas.

This is Lands End where the famous arch is. This is the side called divorce beach because it's where 2 oceans meet so the current and waves are really strong. In fact, if you look at the wave in the left side of the picture my parents were standing right next to the edge of the rock on the far left and that's where the picture farther down where they were knocked over was taken.

Luckily we had done alot of research about what to pay for the boat rides out to Lover's Beach and around the arch so although they start at $25/person we paid $25 for all 7 of us and they took us on a tour, to lover's beach for a couple hours, over to the other calmer beach, and then back to the dock area. It's all about bargaining. Unfortunately the shopping wasn't as easy to bargain with, they were pretty stuck on their prices and they didn't care if you walked away.

Here we are just leaving the dock to go out to see the arch.

Most of the boats had a window on the bottom. The boats are small and the waves were rocking the boat so much that I couldn't get a better picture than this. I'm amazed I was able to get any in focus pictures while on the boat since we were moving so much but I got a couple good shots.

The water was a deep blue and the rocks were amazing. Cabo is a desert area so it's not green or tropical like other parts of Mexico.

You can see our boat in the distance.

This is divorce beach. The waves were huge and the current pulled you in if you were more than knee deep. There was one life guard and he told Kaleb not to get in the water on this side because it's so strong.

The wave you see behind us is the place where I pointed out in the picture earlier. One wave would barely come to your ankles and the next would just about knock you over.

As you can see this wave was pretty calm and barely came to their ankles.

The next wave knocked my mom over and she ended up being pushed up against the rocks to the left out of the picture. Luckily she wasn't pulled back in because 2 guys standing by watching grabbed her. After that we were done standing to close to the waves. My mom had quite a few cuts all over her from the rocks.

The boys enjoyed playing in the sand.

Then we headed over to Lover's beach where the dropped us off to wait for our boat to come pick us up.

It looks calm from the picture but getting on and off the boat was another experience. The guy in the left holding all the bags with a couple helpers would help you in and out of the boats. As much as we hated tipping them every time we had to get in or out of our boat you had to or you couldn't get in and out with the waves. I didn't take any other pictures but we went across the bay to the other side and swam in the water and did some snorkeling until it was time to get back to the boat. Kaleb loved snorkeling and he even saw a puffer fish. Matt, unfortunately, cut his foot on a sharp rock and spent awhile on the beach trying to stop the bleeding. Luckily after seeing the doctor on the boat he didn't need stitches and he was able to get some supplies to wrap it up.

Originally the 3 stops on the cruise were Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta but cruise lines haven't been going to Mazatlan almost this whole year due to security issues so instead we spent 2 days at Cabo San Lucas. But because you can't stay within so many miles of the port without abiding by their tax/gambling laws we had to sail out and back in the next day. This was the sunset in Cabo the first day.

The second day in Cabo we did all of our shopping. The boys picked out a couple of toys and each bought a shirt. I bought enough vanilla to last me for quite awhile and we enjoyed an easy day.

The next day we stopped in Puerto Vallarta which was completely different than Cabo. It was green and very populated and developed. Also, you pull right up to the shore unlike Cabo where you had to take a small tender boat to shore so it made it easier to come and go.

The water wasn't exactly clean enough for snorkeling so we enjoyed sight seeing. After doing research we learned it was cheaper to take the local bus to old town rather than a taxi. The taxi's wanted $5/person to $20/person to take you there and we took the bus ride for about $.70/person. Now I feel like I can relate to the contestants on The Amazing Race when they say they're going to die in the taxi rides in other countries. They drive CRAZY! I actually felt safer in a tall bus than I would have in a taxi though. Riding the local transportation was actually really fun though and I'm glad we did it.

There are statues and other structures along the beach by old town.

Luckily right after getting off the bus there was a tourist office where they speak English and help give you maps and directions without charging anything. Funny thing, the couple in the left side of the picture are from Canada and they got on and off the bus when we did and followed us in the tourist office. It was then we learned they were LDS members and they said they didn't know where to go so they followed us because we looked like we knew where we were going.

This was a really old church with an all girl school attached to it.

This is looking through a window in the church.

This looks small from the picture but it was actually huge and it was really high up in the tree.

We had to check out the local Wal-Mart which had a Sam's Club next door. They are spoiled with covered parking stalls. Unfortunately things weren't any cheaper than back home and toys were actually almost double the price. We did buy a couple of candy bars and although the Snicker's was the same as the U.S. the Reece's Peanut Butter Cups were really gross and had a totally different taste to them.

The boat itself, the Carnival Splendor, was really fun. It had movies on a big outdoor screen, miniature golf, comedy, shows, ping-pong, swimming, kids activities and much more. You never were bored. Ashton didn't like going to the kid area and I think it's because he was in a different age group than Kaleb so they weren't together. So being on a boat with people you don't know didn't mesh well with him. So every night Kaleb would go play at the kid camp and Ashton would go to the show's with us and fall asleep. Unfortunately this has led to Ashton having separation issues at home now with preschool and now primary but it's slowly improving. And the food, there was never a shortage of food. I guess that's one of the best parts of a cruise. We didn't get too adventurous with the weird foods but we did try frog legs (just like a small chicken leg). The chocolate melting cake we all fell in love with by the end of the cruise and we ordered it all the time.

This was the sunset in Puerto Vallarta as we played miniature golf.

The boys loved the towel animals and mints left every night. We really enjoyed the cruise and would go on one again and yes, even with kids. Although one without would be more relaxing. It was nice being away from any internet service and phone service where people weren't staring at their phones all the time. That was alot of pictures but that's only a small portion of the ones I took and I didn't even take out my camera as much as I should have because we were having too much fun!

2011-11-04T11:37:00.002-06:00

The second week in October all of the Snell Family came out to Utah along with Matt's aunt and uncle from San Diego. It's been so long since we've all been able to get together and we had a really fun time together. We went to Cabella's, Ikea and took family pictures at Wheeler Farm. We were going to go up to the mountains but it was the first really cold weekend and the weather didn't cooperate but we still had a blast.

Ashton insisted on being Bumblebee again this year, we even bought him a dragon costume for $6 at D.I. but he wouldn't wear it on Halloween. Kaleb was a ninja and from what his teacher said his dancing while playing musical chairs at the class party was not to be missed. She said she couldn't stop watching him dance. My cousin's Jeff and Christina brought their girls along and we went trick-or-treating in my parents neighborhood. After an hour they had so much candy they couldn't carry it anymore so we called it quits.

We also just returned on Sunday from our cruise to Mexico and we had such a great time. It was our first cruise and we loved it--and yes, we gained some weight with all the food but it was worth it! My grandma was in the hospital last weekend and so right after driving home we went to see her. Luckily she came home on Halloween and is doing much better.

Kaleb had parent/teacher conferences this week and he's doing awesome! His spelling is a 4th grade level and his reading is an end of third grade level. I don't feel like it's anything I've done he just has really great teachers and he works hard in school. Ashton has had a rough couple of weeks with being very shy and not wanting to leave me for preschool, swimming lessons, or just about anything and I'm not sure why. He's never been this way before but it's starting to improve. He's no longer crying when I take him to preschool but he still says it's too long and he misses me. Hopefully it's just a phase he's going through.

I'm excited for the holiday's and although I haven't started listening to Christmas music yet I can't stop playing it on the piano. I guess I'm just really excited for Christmas to come.

2011-10-06T11:03:00.004-06:00

Last weekend we took a quick trip up to Logan to go to the Heritage Center again. The slide and gourd launcher wasn't as impressive this time but the corn maze was fun.

I was able to paint the entertainment console and I love how it turned out. It looks better in the basement than in my living room but these are the only pictures I have. It's a really dark gray/brown called Fired Earth.

Lately Ashton has been sneaking into our bed while we're downstairs. When I look at this picture either Ashton looks huge or our queen size bed looks really small.

We're excited for a fun weekend with Matt's family and hopefully the rain doesn't keep going all weekend.

And if you want a recipe for really good pumpkin cookies or bread here they are. I make them all the time, all year long.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
(I always double this to use 1 15oz. can of pumpkin and I add a couple extra chocolate chips.)

1 c. brown sugar
1 c. canned pumpkin
1/2 c. vegetable oil
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. chocolate chips

Beat sugar, pumpkin, oil and vanilla. Add all other ingredients adding chocolate chips last.
Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes. Makes about 30 cookies.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

3 c. white sugar
1 (15oz) can pumpkin puree
1 c. vegetable oil
2/3 c. water
4 eggs
3 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 T. cinnamon
1 T. nutmeg
2 t. baking soda
1 1/2 t. salt
1 c. miniature semisweet chocolate chips (I use 2 c. of regular choc. chips)
1/2 c. chopped walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease four regular sized loaf pans. (You could also do 8 mini loaves-30 min. cooking time; muffins-27 min. cooking time)
2. In a large bowl combine sugar, pumpkin, oil, water, and eggs. Beat until smooth. Mix in flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts. Fill pans 1/2 to 3/4 full.
3. Bake for 45 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Cool on wire racks before removing from pans.

The Last Month

2011-09-30T16:00:00.002-06:00

The end of August we tagged along with the Gillespie's camping. We hadn't been all summer and so after work Matt and I packed in 1 hour and met them there. I'm surprised I only forgot to pack a couple of things after packing that fast.

Kaleb and Ashton wandered away and had an impromptu photo shoot and these are the pictures Kaleb took. He does pretty good with a camera and Ashton loves to pose!

The 2 pictures on the left are right after waking up Saturday morning. Actually, Matt and the boys had been up awhile but Matt started cooking breakfast and let me sleep in -- heaven.

We took a hike up to donut falls which isn't really that impressive but it's still a pretty easy hike with a groomed trail.

This was the weekend we had the crazy lightning/thunder storms in Salt Lake so the second night was horrible. It rained all night but that I can handle, it was the lightning and thunder that was unbelievable. Kaleb and Ashton had jumped on our air mattress earlier that day so we were sleeping on the ground with nothing but a sleeping bag (awesome) and the ground shook and the rumbling was so loud and long. The lightning was so bright you couldn't keep your eyes open. I was really scared. Ashton never woke-up, I don't know how he didn't and Kaleb would sit-up sometimes because it was so loud. I thought either a tree was going to fall on us or lightning would hit our tent. You could hear people getting into their cars and leaving and if our car wasn't a 20 minute walk away I probably would have done the same thing. I never want to experience that again.

The next week Ashton started preschool.

(I know his "bangs" are a little long, he had a haircut shortly after. And we almost cut it short but he was scared of the clippers so maybe next time he'll have a short haircut.)

He loves going to preschool and I think it helps for him to be around other kids and not just me all day.

Here is Kaleb's 2nd grade picture. His teacher is Ms. Jackson and although he's never had very good handwriting his cursive is awesome and he's loved learning it.

The boys just finished swimming lessons and we're going to do lessons again in November. Kaleb didn't know how to swim before (the last time he had lessons he was 3) and now he can swim a full lap down the big pool. Ashton is getting more and more comfortable in the water and that's what we want. I don't expect him to swim at 3. I didn't get good pictures during the lesson but this was right after the last lesson.

And you'll notice Kaleb's missing a tooth. He started getting a gap between his teeth a couple months ago and I figured it was making room for other teeth since most kids lose their first tooth by 6 and he was 7. I kept checking and sure enough the bottom one was loose about a week later and so Sunday the 18th after a couple days of working on it he let my dad pull it out. I had wanted to make a tooth fairy pillow to put the tooth in but my sewing machine is at the apartment and it was the weekend so I quickly made a pillow at my aunts house with a pocket for his tooth and he left it for the tooth fairy. The tooth fairy left him with a note and a silver dollar coin and he had asked to keep his tooth so the tooth fairy let him keep it since it was his first one.

I really think Kaleb would love to take a hip-hop dance class or something like it. He loves dancing. We have "dance parties" all the time and Kaleb really gets into it. The other day just before leaving (which is why he's in his swimming suit) he told me to take a movie of him dancing. The first shoot he was facing the glass so he could see his reflection but I told him I wanted to see him, not his back so this was take 2. He even counts and says the steps sometimes as if it's a whole routine he choreographed.

And I've leave you with my project for tonight, painting this old dresser I found at Thrift Town that will be our entertainment center. I saw it 3 weeks ago and told myself if it was still there when that color tag was on sale for 50% off I would buy it and sure enough it was. I loved it but didn't want to pay full price. Matt helped me drill new holes for new hardware and we took out the top middle drawer for the electronics. I loved the shape of it and it's really long, plus with the drawers off centered from each other it doesn't look as dresser-ish to me. It came with a big mirrored hutch but we left that at the store. I'll take after pictures when we're done.

End of Summer

2011-08-24T13:00:00.002-06:00

We tried to make the most of the last couple of weeks of summer. I'm sad to see summer end but I know Kaleb is loving school and Ashton's excited to start preschool.

The boys always look forward to the neighborhood picnic with the fire hose and water slide. There's always good food, homemade root beer and lots of ice cream sandwiches.

We've been having so much fun Ashton was worn out a couple weeks ago and fell asleep eating his snow cone.

Weeknights we like to go to Wheeler Farm and let the boys play on the new playground and just relax. We usually walk around to look at the animals and this particular time the boys were tormenting this turkey. Every time they would gobble it would gobble back.

Matt has wanted to go up to Timpanogos Cave all summer and so last Saturday we woke up at 6am (wanted to beat the heat) and grabbed breakfast and headed to the trail. We started hiking at 7:40 and it took an hour and 20 minutes to get to the top.

Here we are at the top waiting for the cave tour to begin.

The boys brought their headlamps and loved looking around at everything.

I think I was 12 the last time I had been in the cave's and maybe I didn't think it was impressive then and that's why I didn't remember anything about it but wow, there were some amazing formations and I'm glad we made the trip. The boys did awesome and hiked the 1.5 miles up the steep trail, through the caves, and 1.5 miles back down. I did give Ashton a piggy back ride for about 1/2 mile down since he was slowing down and being so steep it was hard for him to keep from running trying to keep up with us and you can't run on the trail. So if you're looking for something fun to do I would definitely recommend Timpanogos Cave.

As much fun as we had on Saturday, school still started on Monday but Kaleb was ready to go. The principal asked us if he could be in the 2nd/3rd split class and I gladly welcomed it because I think it will give him more of a challenge. He's already started learning cursive so we'll see how that goes.

And just because it's fun to look back here are all of Kaleb's back to school pictures so far. The first 2 are from preschool when we lived at the apartments.

And Ashton kept trying to get into all of the pictures so I told him after I was done I would take his picture. As soon as I told Kaleb he was done Ashton told me to take his picture and this is the pose he struck. This is his personality to a tee, that kid is trouble!

Tim McGraw

2011-08-09T22:42:00.002-06:00

Zion's Bank treated Matt's department each with 2 tickets to Tim McGraw and although we weren't in the VIP section (there weren't enough seats so they had to raffle off who got them) we still had awesome seats. They had a dinner before the concerts and ice cream between the first 2 opening acts. It was nice not having to spend any money but have an awesome date night!

Tim McGraw sang the first couple songs in the middle of the seated area and as he walked up to the stage he was only about 10 people away from us. Unfortunately this is the only bad picture I have of him walking past us.

The opening acts The Band Perry and Luke Bryan were fun to watch. Luke Bryan was entertaining and I really like his music. The only other time I've seen Tim McGraw in concert was in high school and Kenny Chesney was the opening act at the Delta Center. I didn't care too much about taking pictures during the concert, we just enjoyed it but here's one picture I took. Overall it was an awesome night other than the fact that it took us over an hour to get out of the parking lot.

July

2011-07-25T07:00:00.000-06:00

Saturday, July 9th we took the boys on a hike up Bell Canyon just off of Wasatch Blvd. and 10245 South in Sandy. You can hike to the waterfalls farther up but we only hiked to the reservoir which is about a 1/2 mile hike. Although short it was steep but the boys did great and loved it.

The boys loved looking through their binoculars. Kaleb would look at the Valley and pick out things he knew like the IMC hospital.

I finally sewed my first clothing item. I decided to try something other than bibs, blankets, etc. and tried this tutorial for an infant sleep sack with the cuffs that fold over. Hobby Lobby had long sleeved t-shirts on clearance for $2.50 so I bought an XL and out of one shirt I was able to cut out enough to make 2 sleep sacks. So it turned out to be a cheap project too. I used knit for the binding which is hard to work with and so my stitching isn't the greatest on the binding but I found another tutorial that will hopefully help me with the next one. But for being my first clothing item I was happy it turned out and I didn't have to unpick anything!

Another season of coach-pitch is over and Kaleb really improved this year. Not so much with the catching but with hitting he does awesome and has a strong swing. Here he is warming up getting ready to bat.

This is the only picture of him up to bat but he had fun and would practice at home with Matt after his games he loved it so much. Ashton enjoyed the otter-pops from the concessions but other than that he wasn't too interested in watching the game.

My Brother's Wedding

2011-07-22T23:34:00.002-06:00

On June 30th my brother Logan married Liz in the Salt Lake Temple. Her dress was beautiful and it was nice to be a part of their big day!

Lego Star Wars Party + RSL Soccer

2011-07-02T23:03:00.002-06:00

Kaleb's birthday party was a blast!

His favorite thing right now is Lego Star Wars so that was the theme. Here is the invitation we sent out.

The one thing I really wanted to try to do was to make Lego shaped gummies by making my own Lego mold. I was also going to make Lego shaped ice but we decided on Capri Suns so we didn't need any ice. I bought copyflex liquid silicone and used this tutorial and this video to make my mold and gummies. The mold was easy to make and although the gummies were time consuming it was worth it.

I bought pool noodles at the dollar store and we used black electrical tape and the shiny duct tape to make handles. The boys loved being able to beat each other up with them and they each took one home with them.

Once everyone arrived we had pizza and watermelon for lunch. We had set up a painting tarp with a kiddie pool full of Matt's lego's and this was a big hit with the boys. A couple of them didn't want to leave the area to eat or play.

The only structured game we played was pin the saber on Darth Vader. I almost put together Lego Star Wars Bingo but I'm glad I didn't because it was hard enough keeping their attention for this short game.

Next we had cupcakes and opened presents. With making the gummies I knew I wouldn't have time to make a cake so I found some awesome cupcake topper light sabers and storm tropper/Darth Vader rings. It was easy and the boys loved having the toppers to keep.

After presents we let the boys run around and they played with their light sabers and the Lego's until their parents came to pick them up.

We had goodie bags with a small Lego Star Wars ship set, a storm trooper wrist band and a bag full of Lego gummies. When I was first making the invitations my program I design them in kicked me out right as I was almost done and I lost everything so in a hurry I quickly remade them and printed them at Costco. Luckily before putting them in envelopes I realized in my rushing I forgot to re-put the date on the invites. So the first batch of invites I chopped off the top to make the top of the goodie-bag. So at least they weren't completely a waste of money.

Kaleb had fun and hopefully all of the boys did too.

Later that night Matt and I were invited to go to the Real Salt Lake soccer game with a couple of guys from his department. An attorney they work with bought a suite at the game and it wasn't just a box up top but it was in the patio area where you have a fancy buffet and they serve you drinks and desserts. It was by far the best way ever to watch a soccer game, or any sporting event for that matter. Awesome seats, food, parking and after that's where a couple of players sign autographs but we didn't stay for that.

The only downside was that One Republic was supposed to have a concert right after the game and 3 days before they cancelled and rescheduled for September. We would have had the best seats to watch it from. But even without the concert it was awesome and it was nice to have a date night with no kids!

We tried taking a picture with the mascot after but the guy holding our camera wasn't holding his hand still so this is the best shot of the 3 he took.

Happy 7th Kaleb!

2011-06-16T21:07:00.002-06:00

This guy turned 7 today...LOVE him!

Here's a clip from his dancing in SeaWorld.

Pictures!

2011-06-13T20:25:00.003-06:00

This is Kaleb after receiving his award at school from his teacher.

Last Thursday we had a wedding shower for Liz who will be marrying my brother the end of this month. There was plenty of yummy food!

CALIFORNIA
The day after arriving we went to the beach at Coronado. I applied sunscreen a little too late and we still ended up burning.

The next day was spent at Sea World. The boys loved all of the animals and I'll have to get a video from my dad of Kaleb dancing with one of the characters. That was the best part.

We went to the tide pools but it was high tide so we didn't get to see anything but we had fun walking around and exploring. This was the beginning of my swollen eye/face experience.

A couple of years ago they remodeled the Mormon Battalion. It was a huge improvement from what it was before. They take your picture, you watch a movie traveling through different rooms on the way, and at the end you can pan for gold, make bricks, and wash laundry.

Disneyland (all 6 days of it) was a blast! I'm not sure how it couldn't be. We all have so much fun together. The group picture is only part of our group. We had 26 of us in all.

2011-06-02T12:41:00.002-06:00

Blogging...I'm slacking in this department...hopefully I can get some pictures of our Disneyland trip up soon. Although maybe I'm not rushing to put them up because I had an awesome eye infection for a good portion of the trip and I would wake up everyday to my eye(s) swollen shut and my face was pretty puffy. But I didn't care and we still had a blast anyways. Ashton loved everything and he even braved the Matterhorn and liked it, except at night so I had to tell him the "monster" was sleeping and covered his eyes whenever we passed him. Kaleb loves everything except some of the big rides (Space Mountain, Tower of Terror) and they even managed to get me on the tea cups. (never again) We had such a great time!

Ashton is potty trained! I gave up on potty training him since we were close to our trip and didn't want to deal with that in Disneyland. Funny thing, we go on vacation and he doesn't want to use his diaper anymore, just the toilet. Maybe it was all the time in the car at the beginning, who knows. So after we returned from our trip I knew he could do it and I was almost out of diapers anyways so I put him in underwear only and after 3 days off "training" he's done awesome. It's only been a couple weeks but he's doing great, sometimes he doesn't want to go and the kid either has a big bladder or something because for example yesterday he went in the morning and all day kept saying he didn't have to go and finally 9 hours later we convinced him to go. But no accidents. And he's been dry at night for months now we don't use pull-ups or diapers at night and he hasn't had any accidents. No more diapers, wahoo!

Kaleb was selected by his teacher for a special award yesterday at the awards assembly so I was invited to come. Each teacher chose 5-6 kids from their class and Kaleb's award was for always being a good example to the class. He was so proud standing in front of the school on the stage. He's had such a great teacher and he's learned so much this year. Tomorrow is his last day of 1st grade...then it's 2ND GRADE! And Ashton's also excited to start preschool in the fall, he's requested a Diego backpack.

We've been trying to finish up the small odd/ends house projects the last couple weeks. Matt's parents were here for a couple days right before our trip and his dad helped trim down the closet doors for the basement and hung them. Now we have to put the handles on. We took down the old homemade basketball backboard and painted the existing pole and tonight we'll put up a new one. Last Saturday we changed out and/or capped all the sprinkler heads in the front yard, after 7 hours of digging 25 holes and a couple trenches I was worn out. But now we have 6 big sprinklers for the front instead of 25 and hopefully no brown patches that have to be hand watered unlike in the past. We still have some yard work for the backyard and more dejunking in the storage room but things are coming along.

June is a busy month with my brothers wedding, wedding showers and Kaleb's Lego Star Wars birthday party. I'm attempting to make these, I'll let you know how it goes. Until next time...which I promise won't be a month away!

1/2 Marathon & Fun Run

2011-05-03T11:21:00.005-06:00

I wasn't exactly excited when I woke-up on Saturday morning at 5:00am and it was snowing and we already had 10 inches on the ground. Not what I was expecting but Matt and I got ready and drove down to Thanksgiving Point where luckily there wasn't very much snow. The boys came later with Matt's parents since Kaleb's race wasn't until 9:30.

We stayed in the car until 6:50 to stay warm as long as possible. There were just over 1,000 people running the 1/2 marathon. Here I am waiting to cross the starting line.

I started the race keeping a good pace but unfortunately I wasn't prepared for all of the hills there were. My runs are usually pretty flat and because this wound through the golf course and grounds there were a TON of hills, and even the small hills were steep. For the first 6.5 miles I kept my pace running up the hills but it ended up draining my energy quicker than I expected. And even the downhill parts made my knees hurt sooner than they usually do. But even with having to walk here and there I made it through. This is what I should have looked at before I signed up for this 1/2 as my first race. Everyone said how this isn't a race to set a personal record on because it's challenging with the hills but at least I finished it even if I didn't run it as fast as I thought I would have. To give you something to compare it to this is the elevation chart for the Ogden Marathon I signed up for, which I'm hoping to run 1/2 of.

Here are a couple of pictures that the photographers from the race took. This was at mile 2.

This was mile 5 or 6ish.

And this was the very end of the race.

Here's a picture Matt took at the finish.

It was a difficult course and colder than I had expected (which is why you can see my birthmark on my forehead in most of the pictures) but I had fun and it's amazing to see how much you can do if you can push yourself mentally.

Kaleb ran in the 1-mile kids fun run. He was so excited for his race. I was on the last couple of miles of my race so I didn't get to see him race but Matt, my parents and Matt's parents were there to cheer him on.

He did really good and was just over 11 minutes and that was with stopping for a cup of powerade at the aid station. He though it was cool that they had a place to grab a drink on the way.

He wore his medal all day on Saturday.

Ashton had fun too even if he wasn't running in a race.

After I finished the boys played on some of the bounce house toys and slides and as we were leaving they called my name from the stage where they were doing awards so I ran back over to claim the prize I won. It was a gift basket with socks, water bottle, an iron man watch, gift certificate and more. What's funny is I forgot to buy a watch before the race and we had looked at Target and I really liked the iron man watches so the night before I made Matt run to Target at 10:30pm and then the next day I won one of them. But Kaleb is enjoying the watch since it's technically an iron kids one.

Kaleb and I had a great time and Matt's even thinking of running the 5K next year!

Easter

2011-04-29T12:56:00.002-06:00

We had a great Easter! The day before Easter our ward had a breakfast/Easter egg hunt and the boys had fun running around with the other kids. On Easter it was also my birthday and so we had everyone over for dinner at our house followed by an Easter egg hunt. The boys were spoiled and have more candy than after Halloween!

Tomorrow is my 1/2 marathon! Wish me luck, and hopefully no snow!

2011-04-06T14:32:00.000-06:00

I've only taken 1 picture and 1 video in the last month so there isn't much to blog about.

Ashton is at such a fun age and does the funniest things but also is at the terrible 3's and the destructive, trouble making stage. (In my experience 3 is worse than 2 so I call them the terrible 3's.) He loves to dance in the car, make funny faces and is constantly making us laugh. And his "karate" is funny to watch. But he also will color on ANYTHING in sight if he finds a crayon, pen, etc. and he is stubborn. For example, yesterday he wouldn't clean up some toys he dumped out and it took 4 hours of fits and crying before he cleaned it up because I wouldn't give him milk until he did. Kaleb was never this stubborn. But I was proud for not giving in, 4 hours almost broke me though.

The other morning he asked me to turn up the radio and I looked in the rear view mirror and he was wearing his safety goggles and dancing to the music. Would have made for a better video but I was driving so I snapped a quick picture.

This video was to explain why most of my pictures of Ashton are of funny faces and not of him smiling. As soon as I say I'm taking a picture or smile he starts with the funny faces.

What else...

We're excited for Disneyland/San Diego next month. So excited that I think that's my first bullet on every 'list' I make.
I'm running the Thanksgiving Point 1/2 Marathon at the end of April and Kaleb is running the 1 mile kids fun run. I signed up for the Odgen Full Marathon (back in Oct. after the 1/2 marathon sold out in 5 days) and between the crappy weather we've had on most Saturday's and the fact that our trip is right before I didn't really dedicate all of the time I needed to for a full marathon. But since I paid for it I'm going to go and run as far as I can even if it's just another 1/2. It's one of the top 10 marathons in the country and I'm sure the scenery will be worth is.
For the first time ever my birthday is on Easter this year. I don't understand how they determine when Easter is, sometimes it's in March, this year the end of April, I guess I should study up on it sometime.
Kaleb smashed his finger a couple weeks ago in a door and had to have it wrapped up for just over a week and then the next night had food poisoning, poor guy. But he recovered quick and is excited for his big race. He went running a couple of weeks ago with me and we went 2 miles to my parents and he did pretty good. He even wanted to hold my hand for part of it. It was sweet, especially since I know that won't last forever.
Have you ever had a Dole Pineapple Whip or Float at Disneyland by the Tiki Room? My cousin and I were talking about it and he told me you could buy the mix online from Dole and in doing a little research there are copy cat recipes but they usually call for some sort of milk product to make it creamy. But their product is a lactose free soft serve so I didn't even want to bother with trying a copy cat recipe. I bought the mix and have it at home waiting for me to try it out, hopefully this weekend. Again, can you tell we're a little excited for Disneyland and anything and everything Disney. And there's enough mix to make 75, 1/2 c. servings so I'm sure we'll be having alot of it this summer!

2011-03-09T11:39:00.005-07:00

I wasn't sure if I was going to post this or not but I guess it's a good warning to anyone else to not do what I did.

Monday after picking up Kaleb from school I needed to go to one of our side properties to deliver a notice to someone. In another unit the pilot light on the water heater was out and so I thought I might as well go light it for them so they don't have to wait until tomorrow. In the last 7 years I've probably lit 100+ pilot lights on furnaces and water heaters so it wasn't a big deal, or so I thought.

After getting the pilot to light it went out so I turned the dial back to pilot, held down the button and this time thought I would get close so I could watch the pilot and see if it went right out or stayed lit for a second. So with my face about 6 inches away from the opening I placed the lighter inside the water heater and pushed the button. All of a sudden there was a huge explosion of fire that burst in my face and around my head. I screamed and tried closing the door where the water heater was and used my arm to put out the fire in my hair. I was in shock and my face hurt really bad. So I'm crying and I don't know what to do. I ask the resident if I can use his phone but he didn't understand what I was saying. After a few phone calls I left the residents place and drove back to the apartments. The boys were in the car since I was only going to be 1 minute and Ashton was asleep so when I got in the car crying Kaleb didn't know what to think. I told him that fire had burned my hair and face and he said in the most sincere voice, "Mom, I'm glad you didn't die because I really like you." If I wasn't already crying I would have been after that. I called Matt when I got back to the office and Matt left work and I headed home to figure out what I needed to do.

For how scary it was and how much pain I was in I'm very blessed that as of today you wouldn't know I went through something like that. Overall I lost about 1/3 of my hair which was shocking to watch Matt pull the big sections of hair out. Although since it was kind of all over my head it's not really noticeable. (To someone else that is.) My eyebrows were burned off so it looks like I shaved them and they're growing back in, just short stubble. And my eyelashes have always been pretty short and now they're just really short. I'm very lucky my skin isn't burned as in blistering, etc. My eyelids are still tender and they were pretty swollen the first night and next day and there are a couple of tender spots of skin around my eyes but for what I went through I consider myself lucky and blessed.

Now for the warning: (I'm in no way an expert and this is just from my understanding and what I've been told and learned over the years.) I know most people won't know what I'm talking about so I'll try to not be confusing but when you light a pilot light on a furnace you hold down a button to let a little gas out so it will light and then when you turn it to 'on' if the pilot is lit more gas comes out to run the furnace. If the pilot goes out the thermocouple shuts off the gas supply if there isn't a flame. So typically if the pilot doesn't light the first time you try again because there might not have been enough gas, etc. On water heaters, this is the part I didn't know, if it's hot the thermocouple still lets gas out and doesn't shut off for 30 seconds to a minute after. So when I turned the knob from 'pilot', where a little gas was coming out, then to 'on' it let out a lot of gas even though the pilot had gone out. So then I turned it back to 'pilot' (little gas flow) to light it but I was unaware I had just filled up the whole chamber with gas and that's why there was the explosion when I lit the lighter. So if you ever light a water heater pilot light you need to wait 5+ minutes after each try so that any gas will vent out and make sure you don't smell ANY gas before trying again.

I don't think I'll be able to light a pilot on a water heater ever again and even thinking about water heaters at this point makes me anxious. I'll never forget the sight of fire all around my face and the feeling of the intense heat on my eyes but I'm grateful because it could have been much worse.

I know that was a depressing post so for something I found that I thought was pretty cool National Geographic made an Up! inspired house. Here's a LINK to the story.

February

2011-02-28T16:30:00.001-07:00

It's sad that this is my first post this month and today is the last day of February.

We had pictures taken of the boys for Ashton's 3rd birthday the beginning of this month. This was the first time Ashton has cooperated and would sit still so we had quite a few good pictures to choose from.

My brother Logan came home from his mission (Austria/Germany) on the 10th of February and we were all excited to see him. Eight missionaries were on the flight so it was a crowded airport that night. Kaleb painted this sign to hold up and Ashton warmed right up to Logan. He turned 1 right after Logan left so we made sure to talk about him and show him pictures while he was gone.

Here's everyone at the airport.

We've been trying to make sure we do fun stuff with the boys but everything seems to cost so much money and so I started signing up for the Build and Grow Clinics at Lowe's. The boys have LOVED doing this and it's free. They have them twice a month on Saturday's at 10am and you can register online. Also they have extra kits there first come first serve. This was a couple of weeks ago when they made music boxes and when the lid is opened the music plays. Last Saturday they built pull back race cars and we've already signed up for the 2 clinics in March. They get an apron, safety glasses and patch for each clinic that they can put on the apron. (Home Depot also has monthly clinics too.)

And that's a little of what we did in February.

Other random things:

* We're excited for a San Diego/Disneyland trip in May. Kaleb is excited to go to Sea World and Ashton wants to see all of the characters again.

* We took advantage of an upright freezer on sale at Costco because we also just received our yearly rebate check from them and so it was a really good deal and we've been debating for awhile now about getting one. I'm excited that now I can do more freezer cooking and make it easier when it comes to dinner during the week. Plus I love to save money and stock up on things when they're on sale and now freezer space isn't an issue.

* Running...love it [and sometimes hate it :)]. I wish I had more time to commit to running but between the lack of time and bad weather it's hard. I can't run very far on a treadmill (even with t.v. and music) because it feels like time passes so slow. But send me outside and I feel like I can run forever...not really forever but it was easier to run 8 miles outside than 3 miles on a treadmill. Weird, I know.

* I feel grateful to have the job I do with my kids being with me and how well they treat me but sheesh can people be mean sometimes. January and February have been hard months for me as far as work is concerned. It's hard not to take stuff personally just because people are mad about the situations they put themselves in. Especially when they take personal jabs directly at me...I'm sorry, I guess it is my fault you're 2 months behind in rent...not.

*I'll end it there now that I realize I'm just complaining and venting. I guess that's real life though and everyone goes through it. I'm excited spring is coming, at least that's what my tulips think so I hope it starts warming up. Until next time....

2011-01-26T17:05:00.003-07:00

This little boy....

(little compared to what he is now, he was never "little" for his age except for maybe the first 2 months of his life)

..had a birthday last week. His 3rd birthday!

He had a little bit of a cold over the weekend but he loved going out to dinner and ice cream and opening presents on his birthday (no pictures) and then on Sunday he had cake and cupcakes to celebrate. Where has the time gone...they just don't stop growing!

Christmas & New Year's

2011-01-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

We were gone for both Christmas and New Year's and so we're still recovering from the mess we brought home. We've been cleaning and getting rid of things we don't need and trying to get things organized and put away. It will be nice when it's done but right now it's pretty messy at our house.

The Monday before Christmas we celebrated with my side of the family with a dinner and exchanging gifts.

Tuesday night it was off to Colorado, we didn't leave until 7pm and then got lost in Spanish Fork for an hour due to the construction and exits being changed. We stayed the night in Fruita, CO and spent the next morning swimming heading to Matt's parents. John (Matt's brother) and Jamie and their kids Steve, Kendra and Joshua were able to come down too. We had alot of fun and everyone got along great.

The boys all had haircuts the next morning (Ashton was overdue) and Kaleb requested a mohawk after. There were crafts for the kids to make and Matt and I even made something too.

Ashton and Kendra are really close in age and were so much alike. They were milk buddies with their sippy's and they both love to help cook. They helped make the rolls for Christmas dinner.

Christmas Eve Joshua was blessed. It was nice to be able to be there since we usually can't make it for the cousin's blessings. We decided to take a family picture and pictures with the grandkids, which was hard since someone was always moving.

Usually about 4:30pm Ashton and Kendra would crash from all the fun. Ashton loved Ginger, John and Jamie's dog and loved running around with her.

And then there's Christmas morning. Cookies, milk and carrots were left for Santa and the reindeer and they were so excited to see what he left. The boys started sorting the presents into piles right away. It's so much fun to watch kids on Christmas morning.

Thursday of the next week we had our annual trip up to Sherwood Hill's Resort just outside of Logan. We look forward to this trip every year because it's our relaxation after the holidays. We spent alot of time at the pool and went bowling and saw Narnia.

It's been a busy, crazy couple of weeks but we've had so much fun with family and wouldn't have it any other way! We're excited for a new year with new adventures!

2010-12-21T10:50:00.002-07:00

I know Thanksgiving was a month ago but we had a great time with family. There was some pin the hat on the turkey....

and busy bee game playing.

Our ward party was the first weekend in December and Kaleb loved watching Santa do magic tricks. Ashton didn't want to leave Matt's side. He didn't want to sit on Santa's lap and tried to get off quickly but as soon as he was given a candy cane he was fine. Anything for candy.

We haven't taken a trip to temple square to see the lights since Kaleb was 2 so we decided while it wasn't too cold last Tuesday to go. The boys loved riding Trax for the first time (does anyone else think $4 for a round trip ticket is a little much) and we even stopped in to see where Matt works. Kaleb thought it was pretty cool that daddy works in a big, tall building. We enjoyed looking at all of the lights and then grabbed a treat before heading home on trax.

The boys have been spoiled already with all of the Christmas parties we've had. We're excited for Christmas this weekend and spending time with family.

Weekend Hangover

2010-11-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

Somebody was worn out today after a busy weekend!

2010-10-21T17:39:00.003-06:00

A couple of weeks ago Matt took the boys to Mulligan's to go miniature golfing. The boys loved it. Matt said that Ashton would grab his ball after hitting it and put it back at the beginning. He didn't quite get the concept. But they had a fun time together.

The other day I could hear Ashton in the kitchen and it sounded like something was scraping. As soon as I asked him what he was doing he said "I cooking" and I knew what he was into. I had the ingredients out on the counter to make pumpkin bread and he dumped the whole box of baking soda and the container of salt in the crockpot liner. So I wasn't able to make bread that night since I had no baking soda. I know most kids like to help cook but Ashton is obsessed with helping me cook and mixing things. He always mixes our eggs for breakfast and he'll get the salt and pepper out no matter what I'm cooking and try to add it to it. Love that boy!

I know it's not Halloween but Kaleb's been wearing this costume all year since we bought it on clearance last year and Ashton's really into bumblebee so we thought we would get him a matching costume. Any yellow car Ashton see's he calls it bumblebee. So I was worried since Wal-mart's small size is 4yr-6yr but Ashton being 2 (a couple months shy of 3
) fit perfectly in it. There's no way Kaleb (6) could fit into that costume.

Last Friday when How to Train Your Dragon came out Wal-mart had this display and the boys were so excited to get their picture taken. This is Kaleb trying to lift Ashton up so his head would show but he couldn't quite lift him up. I don't blame him, Ashton's only 10lbs. lighter than Kaleb. He's not a small boy by any means.

Well, 2 posts in October, that's double what I've been posting lately! We'll see if I can keep it up.

Where to start...

2010-10-08T16:48:00.002-06:00

Wheeler Farm has a small corn/hay maze and for $7 you can go through it and pick a pumpkin and take a wagon ride. We had fun although it gets dark so quick that we had to hurry through everything.

Matt didn't want to smile for the camera and kept making stupid faces.

The boys loved running around the maze.

The drywall is finished! (minus cleaning up all the dust) Here are some pictures:

This is the view if you're standing at the bottom of the stairs (stairs to the right). There's a storage closet (with washer/dryer hook-ups) and the door on the right will lead to an eventual bathroom. We have 2 sliding doors that lead to the bedroom on the left.

This is the bedroom at the bottom of the stairs.

There will be shelves on the right side of the closet.

Bedroom 2

The closet will have shelves in the bottom nook (we didn't want to waste the space) and the 2 cut outs above are the main water shut off valves so we'll have doors on the openings.

The hall leading to the family room. The cutout on the left is a kid area under the stairs.

Family Room

Probably not the most exciting thing but for us it is. We've put so much work into it and it's finally looking like a finished basement (sort of).

Also, we put a new screen door on the front and new shutters. The paint on the old shutters were peeling off and they were a dark brown/purple color which I wasn't too fond of. (The color of the gutter.)

We have a disc with the family pictures we had taken so here are some of them.

And last here's Kaleb's 1st grade school picture.

Well, there's my marathon post. I'm sure there will be another one in a couple weeks since I can't seem to keep up.

Family Pictures!

2010-09-24T11:57:00.003-06:00

Last weekend Tracy took some family pictures for us at Mueller Park. She has a preview of some of them on her blog and I love them. I was worried because Kaleb has a really fake smile most of the time and Ashton wanted to pick up sticks and rocks so he didn't like to stay in one place but she did an awesome job and was able to get some great pictures.

Tracy Layne Photography

And...the drywall is done! We finished hanging it last night after pulling 2 almost all-nighters. So although we're exhausted I'm excited it's almost done. We've done everything ourselves but we're paying someone to mud and tape since that's more of a learned skill and it would take us forever and still not look as good. And after all the hard work hanging the drywall we didn't want to ruin it with a bad mud job. Today is his 2nd day and he said it will take about 1 week. Then it's on to paint!

Other random happenings:

Matt started a new position with Zion's Bank about a month ago downtown and he's loving it. He takes trax to and from work and he loves the people he works with.
Kaleb loves 1st grade and is doing awesome at reading and spelling. I can't believe how well he reads. He just picks a book from his shelf and can read most of the words without any help.
Ashton has really started talking more lately, in sentences that you can understand. It's always nice when they start talking better so that you're not the only one that knows what they're saying.
I'm loving the cool mornings and evenings. I'm looking forward to having a little more time with the main part of our 9 month basement project done. Now I can start exercising regularly again and start losing the weight I've gained in the last 9 months...ugh! But first I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend!

Happy Friday!

1st Grade and Yellowstone

2010-08-23T13:30:00.002-06:00

Kaleb is at his first day of first grade today. Ashton doesn't know what to do without his buddy. Every couple of minutes it's "Where's bruh-bruh?" (brother) or "I need to get bruh-bruh" or "I miss bruh-bruh." Kaleb was most excited about eating lunch at school. We're trying the school lunch to see how he does with that. They give them 5 choices, one of them being peanut butter and jelly everyday so even if he isn't interested in other 4 options there's always PB&J.

We had a great time in Yellowstone although it was cold. We had to bundle up most of the time but every so often the sun would come out. It only rained one night but there was alot of rain so we did get water in our tent. I'm glad we were on air mattresses.

Kaleb and Ashton loved seeing all of the animals and geysers. We only did the lower loop of the park and maybe in a couple of years we'll go again to see the upper loop. Here are some (okay, alot) of pictures.

Kaleb really wanted binoculars and so the first day we bought him some. I didn't think he would be interested in them after the first day but he never took them off. He loved looking at everything through them.

Kaleb and Matt looking at the Teton's.

Hidden Falls above Jenny Lake in the Teton's.

The boat ride back to the other side of Jenny Lake.

Ashton and his hair twin on the Jackson Hole Tram ride. The boys loved the tram.

A wagon ride at the Bar J Wrangler's dinner.

The water was really blue.

We enjoyed the warm steam coming from the geyser's.

Waiting for Old Faithful.

We saw it 3 times and luckily the first time wasn't windy or extremely cold. The 2nd and 3rd time the wind blew the water into the crowds of people and so the steam blocked you from really seeing much of the geyser.

Although we didn't see any bears we saw just about everything else.

Yellowstone Falls

Volcano Pot

Yellowstone Lake
The lake is huge, I took this picture as we were in the car stopped for wildlife on the road.

The last night at our campground we walked down to the river so Kaleb and Ashton could throw rocks.

We even saw a deer crossing the river while we were there.

It was a fun trip with Matt's parents and we're glad we were able to go. This world is an amazing place and I loved looking at all of the amazing scenery.

2010-07-30T13:39:00.002-06:00

Random:

* Sunday we had a Pioneer Day musical program in sacrament meeting and when everyone stood to sing the The Star Spangled Banner Kaleb stood with his hand over his heart and sang the first verse 3 times in a row. (He doesn't know verse 2 & 3) It made my day.

*Kaleb enjoyed playing coach-pitch baseball this summer. I wish I would have taken a video of him running. He skips randomly when he runs and when you're trying to race to the next base without getting out it's funny and frustrating to watch. We're yelling "RUN..RUN..RUN" and he's running and skipping as if he's in no hurry. (Our neighbors probably think we're mean parents because we would practice hitting in the front yard and then we would make him run laps to get him to run without skipping. Coach-pitch is serious business! :) )

* Finally used a gift card I had to Market Street Grill for a date/temple night with Matt. It had been too long since we had done anything without the boys.

* Went to see Despicable Me on Pioneer Day. I thought it wasn't going to be very good but I was surprised. It was a really cute movie. I definitely recommend it.

* Ashton's starting to love trains. I remember when Kaleb loved anything train related. We've pulled out some of the Geotrax train's for Ashton to play with and he loves it.

* Drywall....ugh! I didn't realize how time consuming it is. And how frustrating it can be. I don't take very accurate measurements at 2AM. The family room part is getting there, it's about 2/3 of the way done. The ceiling was the hardest part and most time consuming so with that done hopefully this weekend we can finish and start mudding. (I say hopefully alot when referring to our basement project...I think it's because I've learned nothing is ever as "quick" and "easy" as I hope it will be.)

* I love the mountains. Silver Lake (up by Brighton) is one of our favorite places to walk around. It's not far for young kids to walk around and it's so pretty, especially in the fall.

* We're Looking forward to our Yellowstone/Jackson Hole camping trip in August. It will be nice to relax a little before the school year starts.

And that's what's been happening with us!

I finally did it!

2010-07-12T15:25:00.004-06:00

We had a great 4th of July weekend with a BBQ on the 3rd, 4th and 5th. It was easier to celebrate all 3 days instead of picking just 1. :) I didn't take very many pictures but went to the parade and watched the fireworks from my parents house.

Sunday the 4th I found Matt and the boys outside reenacting Star Wars. It was fun to watch.

Saturday we took the boys to the Kennecott Copper Mine. Other than being kicked out 15 minutes after getting there because they were going to explode some rocks and having to drive back up an hour later we had alot of fun. The boys thought the HUGE trucks we awesome.

Ashton was wearing a hat and the sides of his hair are so long he really looked like a girl. So after we got home I CUT HIS HAIR! I can't believe I finally did it but I'm so glad I did. I miss his hair but it was so nice to wash his hair and run my fingers through it.

I'm sure he loves not having all that hair around his face and on his neck in this hot weather!

2010-06-28T17:52:00.005-06:00

We had a busy but fun weekend. Saturday we had a BBQ to celebrate Matt's graduation. I didn't think to get the camera out until we were sitting around the fire and everyone was leaving. Thanks to everyone who came. We had tons of good food and desserts. After making s'mores we sat by the fire after everyone had left and relaxed. It was our first time using our fire pit but I'm glad Matt convinced me to buy it. I'm really enjoying it.

But I do have pictures of what the boys filled their day with while we cooked and cleaned. Matt picked up a slip-n-slide for them and they played in their pool.

Ashton would just run down the slide until he would slip and fall.

I was planning on making Kaleb a Mario Kart cake for his birthday that we celebrated on Sunday and I've never done elaborate fondant work (not that this is elaborate) and didn't realize how much time it would take. So squeezing this in after church but before dinner was a challenge. Needless to say I wasn't able to make everything I wanted or take my time. I was going as quick as I could. My kitchen looked like a tornado, it was a huge mess. Matt wasn't home to help but showed up about 10 minutes before I finished so I had him making banana's and putting eyes on everything.

I'll post recipes for everything on my food blog when I get a chance. It's not hard or expensive (I used cake mixes) just time consuming. But since it's been so long since I've done a fondant cake this cake made me excited to do some more. (And there was no time for cute, staged photos)

Kaleb was excited to put the candles on the cake.

The 4 1/2 hour of chaos were worth it to see his face! (even if it is blurry)
We were also celebrating my grandpa's 86th birthday!

Disneyland!

2010-06-18T14:15:00.004-06:00

We had the best time in Disneyland! (Thanks to my grandparents for taking all 24 of us!) We're already starting a Disneyland Fund so that we can go again in a couple of years. Since we were in the park almost from open to close everyday for 6 straight days it felt like we were there for weeks. I was worried it would be over too quick but we were able to see just about everything and the boys were in heaven. It's so different seeing Disneyland through your child's eyes than going as a child. It's so much fun to see how excited the boys were the whole time. Matt hadn't been to Disneyland since he was 7 or 8 and I hadn't been for about 8 years so there were alot of new rides.

Our last day was the opening of a new show in California Adventure called World of Color. They usually do 2 shows a night and we had reserved seating for the 2nd show through our dinner reservations (which was the only way to reserve a spot) and since it was right on the lake we saw part of the first show while we ate. You only can get one fast pass to see the show each day but since our tickets came with our reservations we used our passes to get tickets to see a 3rd show they decided to do due to demand. So we were lucky enough to see it twice on opening day. It was a fountain/water, light show with movies sprayed on the water (like fantasmic) but everything was in huge proportions and the way they were able to create things with water, lazers and fire was amazing. It's a must see. I recorded the whole thing but I don't think you want to watch 25 minutes from my point and shoot camera, it doesn't do it justice. Here's a clip about the show that Disney made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5CP7slwv64

Now for all the pictures. It's funny because although I took alot of pictures (as in 200+) I feel like I didn't take pictures of 75% of what we did. We did so much. But I wanted to enjoy our time and not worry about taking a picture every minute.

We left early Saturday morning (5th). When we drove through a canyon Ashton started putting his hands up and saying "Weee" down any hills we drove down. I guess he was preparing for the rides.

The first night we went to the pool but it was getting dark and cold so we took the boys over to downtown Disney to walk around and we watched the fireworks from the entrance.

The first day we went into the park Mickey was just coming out so we hurried over before a long line formed and took pictures. This happened to us with most of the characters we had pictures with. We weren't up for waiting in huge lines to see them. So only 5 minutes in the park and the boys were happy as could be.

I love this picture on our first ride, The Jungle Cruise because it sums up Ashton's reaction to everything in Disneyland.

Kaleb really wanted to go on Splash Mountain and he requested to be in the front. This is the one ride that I think I was scared on until I was 13 so I was a little worried about his reaction.

As you can see, he was terrified. He then became worried about going on all of the other big rides, Matterhorn etc. but eventually he tried and loved everything except Splash. He wouldn't go on Splash again but everything else he loved. The only ride he wasn't tall enough for was the roller coaster in California Adventure that has a loop. He wouldn't have gone even if he could have. Although he was about 1/2 inch short for Indiana Jones but I read a tip online about folding paper towels in shoes if they're just under the height requirement. Shhh! So we used napkins in his shoes to make him tall enough.

My dad asked if the boys could drive the Mark Twain boat and they were able to. Unfortunately the urge to go to the bathroom hit less than a minute of taking off and Kaleb couldn't hold it for the 15 minute ride. I felt so bad. Matt had to take him off the boat and they had to wait until we returned. He wasn't happy although I think it was more because Ashton took his place and so he was mad his brother was able to do it. Needless to say anytime anyone had a bathroom brake we made sure Kaleb went with just in case.

We kept catching Mickey at just the right moment when we entered the park.

This was funny. I thought I would let Ashton steer and I would hold the pedal down. When we started going he wasn't grabbing the wheel so I started driving. About 10 seconds later he says to me, "No mama, I drive now" and he grabbed the steering wheel. It sounded all too grown up. It was a bumpy ride hitting the guide rail back and forth from there.

Our first day in California Adventure.

Tower of Terror always makes me nervous for some reason. But I still love it. I love my sister's face, she has her hands up.

Ashton usually took a quick 45 minute nap right around lunch time in his stroller. Which by the way, we debated about strollers and with the walk to and from the park we ended up going with the Baby Trend Sit-n-Stand stroller.(on sale and I had a 10% coupon!) Best decision we've ever made. The storage basket was huge, we put jackets, blankets, snack food, everything in it and then on the footrest on the back we were able to put a soft sided cooler with water bottles, milk, and anything else we wanted to keep cool. It let Kaleb ride when he needed to but it's not a huge stroller, it folds down to a normal single sized stroller, even smaller than some of them.

This isn't a ride but it was awesome. This is a shopping cart at K-Mart. You should have seen how excited I was. It had a t.v. with Disney shows to choose from and there was another screen on top for the parent that let you switch shows, see a store directory, and a window to see in the car part. Maybe they're around here and I've just not seen them but I hope we get carts like this soon. Ashton didn't want to leave.

The day before we left we spent a little time at the beach. I wish we could have stayed longer but we drove down to San Diego to spend a couple hours with Matt's aunt and uncle. Ashton loved the sand and seashells and my dad taught Kaleb how to surf on a boogie board. Kaleb did pretty good and only swallowed a little sea water.

I know that's alot of pictures but I love looking back through my blog and remembering everything by looking at all the pictures. It was such a fun trip and it was nice to have so much family with us.

Happy 6th Birthday Kaleb!

2010-06-16T00:46:00.000-06:00

Disneyland - June 6, 2010

I just spent 2 hours looking at pictures from when Kaleb was born up until today. I can't believe how much he's grown in the last couple of years. He's made our lives full of love and happiness and he couldn't be a sweeter boy. Of course I had to post some a couple of pictures from previous years so here they are. And if you think there are alot of pictures here wait until my Disneyland post. :) (We didn't have a digital camera until Kaleb was 9 months old, I can only imagine how many more pictures I would have taken if I didn't have a film camera!)

June 16, 2004
It was amazing to hold you for the first time. The joy and love that I felt immediately was overwhelming.

June 17, 2004
1 day old

June 17, 2004
Your dad never wanted to put you down in the hospital. He loved staring at your little face.

First camping trip!
6 weeks old (what was I thinking?!?)

3 Months Old
You don't always sleep with that puppy still but right now you're in bed holding it tight.

You always have the biggest smile.
March 20, 2005 - 9 Months

First Birthday - June 16, 2005
You started taking a couple of steps for the first time right after digging into your cake.

August 11, 2005
You loved baths and still do! (especially if there are bubbles)

November 18, 2005 - 17 Months

September 17, 2006 - 2 yrs old
You are a daddy's boy for sure.

May 15, 2007 - almost 3 yrs. old
Just today you and Ashton both climbed in the dryer. I guess some things never change!

May 26, 2008 - almost 4 yrs. old
You still love airplanes, you even bought a new one in California last week. You could spot an airplane before we could.

June 21, 2008 - 4 yrs. old

February 21, 2009 - 4 1/2 yrs. old
Such a stud!

July 18, 2009 - 5 yrs. old
You and your dad hiked donut falls. You love anything outdoors.

Soccer and Cowboys

2010-05-21T13:21:00.003-06:00

Kaleb's last soccer game was last night. The boys were so excited to get their trophies after the game.

This morning was the kindergarten program. It was a western program and during each song groups of kids would dance or have their own part. Kaleb and another girl pulled a wagon around the stage during one song.

This is before the program started. His friends Jack and Thomas are sitting next to him.

Ashton was dancing with the music when he wasn't trying to take the camera from me.

After the program.

Here's Kaleb singing "A Cowboy Needs A Horse." As soon as I heard it I remembered the cartoon that we would always watch when I was a kid. It was a sing-a-long from Disney. (Kaleb is the middle row last red scarf on the left.)

Anyone else remember this cartoon?

2010-05-17T12:10:00.005-06:00

Matt turning 29

+ our 7th Anniversary

= an awesome weekend!

Life

2010-05-12T12:46:00.002-06:00

Life is speeding along....

Kaleb's first year in school is coming to an end and I can't believe how fast it has gone. And I can't believe how much he's learned in one year. He's awesome at reading and loves learning how to spell.
Matt's home today with food poisoning, nasty stuff! Another benefit to liking my steak well-done.
But, he only has one class left until he graduates! After 8 years of school he's ready to be done. It will be weird not worrying about him doing homework each week.
Ashton had his first trip to the dentist, no cavities! He was nervous and cried but overall did pretty good for having a stranger look in his mouth.
Soccer finishes up next week and I have to say I'm kind of excited. I love soccer and watching Kaleb play but I have so many boys on my team that have the attention span of a 2 year old. During a game they'll run off to the playground, or just off the field together to play. And grass, who knew grass fights could be so much fun. It's like they just discovered grass for the first time.
The basement needs a little more wiring and then it's on to drywall. We've spent the last couple of weekends working on projects in the yard. But we have 3 grow-boxes built for a garden (the plants are still in the kitchen since it's been too cold to plant them) and we planted 2 more fruit trees. We've also been digging up some of the stumps from all the bushes we took out last fall.
We're getting really excited for Disneyland! Kaleb's been counting down the days since around day 65.
I saw this article on another blog and loved it. Here's the link. This is my favorite part, "Life is not a race. The only person you are competing against is yourself." It's important to enjoy right now!

Lill-lill-a

2010-04-27T14:36:00.001-06:00

I love how Ashton tries to say Vanilla.

Easter

2010-04-07T14:02:00.002-06:00

I feel like the weeks and months are going by so quickly! We're keeping busy and as the warmer weather gets here I'm sure things will be even more crazy.

We saw How to Train Your Dragon on Monday and it was awesome! Kaleb and Ashton loved it and Ashton loves making dragon sounds.

We're so close to being done with the framing in our basement and Matt started wiring and insulating that half of the basement last night. Hopefully this weekend we can get some yard work done and build some boxes for a garden if the weather is nice.

Kaleb starts soccer in about a week and I'm coaching again. This time it's not coed and so wish me luck getting a team of 5-6 year old boys to listen to me. I'm excited to start being outdoors more and to start enjoying the sunshine.

We had a great Easter and the boys have more candy than they could ever eat.

Here's the Easter grass we planted 3 weeks before with the snow and tulips in the background. Every morning the boys would check to see how much the grass had grown.

As the boys found the eggs they lined them up so that they could count how many they had.

That afternoon we went to my aunt and uncles house for dinner and another Easter egg hunt. This time with 300 eggs and about 6 to kids to look for them. They're spoiled which is why we have so much candy!

Ashton has a LOVE for food and cooking. Not so much to eat the food (we kid he has an eating disorder because he spits most of his food in the garbage can) but he loves cooking and watching food be prepared. A couple of weeks ago I was gathering ingredients for dinner and when I went downstairs to grab something else Ashton had added the flour to the pot, unwrapped the butter and put it in and grabbed a whisk out of the drawer and was stirring everything together. When I came back up he looked at me and said "I cooking!" He then tried to turn on the stove which luckily he can't do and pulled the salt shaker out in case I needed it.

If ever anything is in the oven he grabs a hot pad out of the drawer and waits for the timer to go off. This was Easter morning and he sat there with his hot pad just waiting for me to take the casserole out of the oven.

Also, the 2 pictures above show my dilemma with Ashton's hair. You can see the horrible rats nest on his head in the first picture and that's usually what it looks like and it's a pain to brush out. But then when I do get it brushed out like in the second picture I see the curls and can't get myself to actually cut them off. But when straight it reaches his mid-back and even curled up it's starting to get a mullet effect. I know I just have to do it but I can't. I know it won't be curly like that and I can't picture him with any other haircut. I know it sounds silly but I can't convince myself to actually do it!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2010-03-17T14:25:00.002-06:00

The boys were happy to see a leprechaun left them treat bags this morning. Can't you tell by their faces!

(And yes, I know Ashton's "bangs" are too short, poor kid goes from not being able to see to this new style. I'm still not quite sure what to do.)

Kaleb saw me posting these pictures and wanted to take more silly face pictures. So here are the tongue-out pictures he loves so much.

Matt and I found the boys sneaking more strawberries right before bed the other night. They devour strawberries, although who wouldn't with a bowl of sugar to dip them into.

The basement is coming along...slowly. Saturday Matt and I (mostly Matt) replaced the main water lines in the house. The old galvanized stuff looked pretty gross inside. This weekend we'll finish the plumbing by changing out all of the drains. The main reason we decided to change the plumbing was because the shower drain isn't sloped at all. So because the pipe is probably all rough and gunked up inside it collects hair and clogs every couple of months and the last time it took us 3 days to unclog it. Plus, everything is exposed so now would be the time to do it and I'll feel alot better covering up new plumbing than 50 year old plumbing. Matt's been awesome at learning how to do everything. I think the library is out of any plumbing and home improvement books right now because we've had all of them for the last couple of months. He's also had good advice from contractors and plumbers to help.

This is what the boys and I did at Lowes a couple of weeks ago while Matt picked out all the plumbing supplies. After I took this Ashton wouldn't put it on his head anymore.

(And see, he really needed his bangs cut, just not as short as I cut them.)

How awesome is this open-the-window weather even if it won't last for long. I'm ready for spring!

2010-03-05T15:08:00.003-07:00

Last weekend we took a quick trip to Colorado for our niece's blessing. Saturday we went swimming at the Greeley Rec. Center and they have the coolest indoor swimming place ever. I didn't take any pictures but this picture from their website shows half of it.

It's called Adventure Island and they have an area just for little kids with slides and all sorts of water features. Ashton loved the freedom he had to run around in that area. They even had 2 tube slides for bigger kids and one of them looped outside of the building. And it was cheaper than any pool we've ever been to. I hope someone builds something like this out here. The only time I actually took my camera out was at the playground. Here's Kaleb and Ashton having fun.

After the demolition of the other 1/2 of our basement which took all weekend we were burned out so we haven't done much the last 2 weeks. I'm glad I have access to our apartment dumpsters because we filled 5 dumpsters with drywall, wood, carpet, etc. These pictures are horrible and it's a mess but this is what's done so far. The one picture (bottom) shows the family room end with everything ready for drywall and we had to put some furniture in there that wouldn't fit in our storage room while we work on the other half. The other side (top) is down to the concrete and the glued linoleum which was a surprise to us. We will start framing this weekend and there will be 2 bedrooms on this end and a bathroom that we won't be finishing right now. I uncovered one of the stairs and I love the white with the wood stained tops but they're so steep that I'm going to have to cover them with carpet again.

Our friends had their baby this week, Parker Ogden Quinney and he looks just like his sister, adorable. Here are some bibs and things I made for him. I had a struggle with my machine on one of the blankets but it was probably my lack of knowledge that attributed to most of it.

Random Updates

2010-02-11T12:15:00.002-07:00

We're finishing our basement. I have pictures on our computer at home but most likely tonight the computer will be packed away for a couple of weeks while we redo the finished part of the basement so I don't think I'll get to posting them. The unfinished part is framed, wired and insulated and we have to do the same for the other half. Hopefully at somepoint this weekend, or even Monday (Holiday!) we'll be putting up drywall. (It's going to be a romantic Valentine's weekend full of 2X4's and insulation!)
Matt only has 3 more classes until he's finished with his MBA. I can't wait until June and I'm sure he can't either.
Today I noticed 2 of our tulips are poking up out of the ground. I have been loving the warmer winter days.
Kaleb's excited to hand out his Valentine's tomorrow. We put them together last week and everyday he counts down the days until his party.
Ashton's getting attitude, I guess that comes with being 2. I tried taking the boys to the library, alone. I won't be doing that again. Kaleb does fine but Ashton thinks the aisles are for running up and down and then screams when you come after him.
I'm looking forward to a trip to Yellowstone this summer with Matt's family and we're looking into going to Disneyland too. I think Kaleb and Ashton would have a blast and Kaleb is tall enough to ride all of the rides so we figured it was a good year to go.
We had to buy a new fridge a couple of weeks ago and after lots of shopping we ended up buying a custom order that someone ended up not taking. Originally $1,499 and marked down to $851 and they gave it to us for $800. It's stainless steel but not the really shiny stuff that's hard to clean. Trust me, I rubbed my hands all over the front of it because I hate trying to get hand prints off of stainless steel (like our stove/oven). I really wanted white but the new white finish is glossy and looks like a car finish. I really hated it, too modern. So stainless it was.
They extended my call as nursery leader 6 more months and I'm glad they did. I love it in there and with all the new people we have in there I think it's good for kids to have some sort of consistency.

I guess that's enough rambling for one day. I'm a picture poster so it feels weird to post without pictures but that's what's going on with us lately.

Happy 2nd Birthday Ashton!

2010-01-21T13:10:00.002-07:00

Time keeps slipping away....Ashton is 2 today!

Birth Day

1st Birthday

2nd Birthday

We Love You!

Ashton's new cheese face looks like he's going to beat you up. He just started this on Sunday.
This morning he weighed 33 lbs. (although that was with coat, shoes, everthing) and I'm not sure on the height because I was trying to hold him still as he stood on my lap. The last month or so Ashton has become really clingy and he did NOT want to be at the doctors. He started putting on his coat to leave the second we went into a room. And his 2 year pictures last week were a joke. He sat on Matt's leg screaming and occasionally I would make him laugh.

The nice part is that he likes to cuddle more so I take advantage of that!

Sherwood Hills

2010-01-11T14:50:00.003-07:00

Every New Year's we go to Sherwood Hills Resort just outside of Logan. This year they had one of our rooms mixed up and they gave us the Presidential Suite to make up for it. With so many of us it was nice to have a big room to play games in. I love this trip each year because it's a relaxing trip (which usually vacations aren't) and after Christmas that's always what I need. We saw movies, enjoyed the pool and hot tub, played games, went bowling a couple of times and even a little sledding.

Kaleb had fun with the poppers and horns on New Year's Eve.

2009-12-28T16:33:00.003-07:00

I think I could title most of my posts catch-up posts since I don't blog as often and here's another one of those posts.

We have a new niece on the Snell side of the family and her name is Brea Kate. (I love the name) I was excited to make some girl bibs when we found out what they were having. I also made a simple blanket and appliqued onsies. They're really easy to make. (Pattern, Tutorial 1, Tutorial 2)

Kaleb had his singing program at school last Tuesday and it was cute to watch. Kaleb was so far away and they're all the same height so I didn't get a picture of him singing but this is him on his way in to sit down.

Christmas Eve was at our house and there was alot of food and family and fun. So much food we forgot to eat the Pomegranate Cheesecake for dessert. Don't worry, it made it's appearance on Christmas instead. I'll post the recipe along with other dishes we had on my food blog soon.

After all of the fun we had we cleaned up and Kaleb put out milk, cookies, and a carrot for the reindeer.

Christmas morning was a little different since my brother was calling from Germany at 9:00AM. So we knew we had to be leave for my parents by 8:30. I had made a breakfast casserole the night before so I set my alarm for 6:45 to put it in the oven. The kids were sound asleep so I went back to bed. Next thing I know it's 8:20 so it was a mad dash to wake up the kids and get over to my parents. Kaleb was so excited we heard paper and in about 30 seconds he had unwrapped 3 presents after we told him he had to wait. His response, "I can't help it, I'm just sooo excited!" We let Ashton open one present and then headed to my parents. It was great to be able to talk to my brother (over Skype even) and see how he was doing. We didn't end up getting back home to open our presents until 12:00PM. You can sum up Kaleb's Christmas with Transformers, Star Wars and Bionicle's. The three things he's obsessed with. Ashton's would be more generic like cars, trucks, and balls.

Here's some video of Ashton with his new ball. I guess it was so big he didn't know what to do with it so he starting rolling over it.

Christmas ended with a yummy dinner and our annual white elephant gift exchange. Let's just say I was glad to get my N'Sync doll after seeing the pink embroidered soft toilet seat. Although it would fit right in with our blue 60's bathroom.

And the most exciting part is that we finally have doors on our kitchen cabinets. It only took 8 months to get around to painting them. It's nice not looking at all of the stuff in my cupboards anymore. Now onto the basement!

Do you think Matt got carried away with the lights this year?

2009-12-14T19:21:00.003-07:00

The Ghost of Christmas Past...

2009-12-07T22:22:00.002-07:00

It's always fun (and sometimes embarrassing) to look back. Here's a look at the pictures we've used for past Christmas cards.

Christmas 2003

Christmas 2004

Christmas 2005

Christmas 2006

Christmas 2007

Christmas 2008

Which brings me to 2009. Saturday we decided to take pictures. We meaning us and our tripod (worked for 2007) and so we practiced and took 2 pictures in our living room. We noticed the camera battery was low so we started charging it but after about 10 minutes it was starting to snow. So we figured we could get enough pictures and headed off to Wheeler Farm across the street. It was freezing cold and windy and the camera lasted for only 4 shots. With 2 kids and nobody standing behind the camera to get Ashton to smile this was the best we had with only 4 photo's to choose from. (I know, poor planning with the battery.)

So looking at the 2 "practice" pictures we took in our living room before going to wheeler farm we decided to go with this picture. Every year I think I'll just pay someone to take our picture but they want $200+ for the copyright and I don't have that kind of money.

Christmas 2009

Backtracking....Thanksgiving I didn't take any pictures except for this picture of Kaleb and I in his bed after reading a story.

Did you know Santa even visit's Wal-Mart. The Saturday after Thanksgiving they had free pictures with Santa. Although I didn't want to wait the hour for the photo to print so I took my own. Kaleb was so excited, Ashton on the other hand...not so much. We're getting excited for Christmas! Hopefully I can finish the shopping I have left this week.

2009-11-24T23:59:00.002-07:00

The holiday season is in full swing and I love it! Matt put the Christmas lights up last Thursday and I love seeing the lights when we pull up to our house. I can't wait to put up the rest of the decorations this weekend!

The 15th was our wards primary program and Kaleb did a great job. I also experienced my singing my first (and hopefully last) solo. You're probably thinking "I didn't know you could sing?" and I don't. At least not solo sing. I was in choir but that was the "cool" thing to do when I was in high school. Our choir was huge. But overall I think I did a good job.

This last week has been stressful and I'm glad I have a long weekend ahead to spend with family and good food! These 2 pictures are from a couple of weeks ago; the boys loved the first snow storm (while I sat on the nice warm couch and took pictures) and then Ashton decided he wanted to wait in a laundry basket while we were getting ready for church one Sunday.

School Pictures & Halloween

2009-11-03T15:34:00.003-07:00

School pictures have improved since I was in school (other than I wish I could have fixed Kaleb's hair before they took the picture). They let you pick if you want close-up shots instead of just the standard from the chest up picture. Then they have a high resolution cd with the images on it (color, black/white, sepia) so that you can do whatever you want with them. Although I don't think I'll need anymore than what I have it's kind of cool to be able to save them to your computer. We always seem to cut Kaleb's hair right after getting his yearly pictures taken and then we let it grow out for a year and cut it again.

A couple days before Halloween Kaleb had his school parade and then I helped with the class party after.

Halloween morning we went with my mom and sister to the SLCC Halloween Party. We go every year because there are about 20 different stations that the kids can do things at and it's all free. They decorated pumpkins, cookies, played games and had lots of fun. My favorite is watching the donut on a string. Even Ashton tried joining in on it.

And the fun continues...

2009-10-27T15:40:00.003-06:00

Matt's branch won a contest and so we were able to go to a Real game. The boys had fun, Kaleb liked watching the game and Ashton just liked being outside and probably didn't care about the game. He did like meeting the mascot though. They were handing out chicken buckets to wear as hats and Kaleb thought he was so cool.

And last weekend was our annual Halloween Party. This year only the kids dressed up and they had fun jumping on the trampoline while we were getting dinner ready.

Fun on the Farm

2009-10-07T23:19:00.003-06:00

This is what alot of my pictures look like; either a) Ashton will have a cheesy smile or b) it's a picture of Ashton's hair because I'm obsessed with it.

This video shows how "cheesy" my boys are when they see the camera.

We had a great weekend in Logan, UT. It was a last minute trip with my dad's side of the family and we had a blast. Bowling, movies, swimming and the best part was this farm that had tons of activities. Corn mazes, pony rides, train rides, pumpkin launcher, HUGE slide and lots more. All for $6/person.

Kaleb loved jumping in the hay!

This is the slide. We didn't know at first you could use burlap sacks to ride down on to make it less bumpy. Ashton went down by himself after Kaleb before we could stop him. I wish I had video of when he was alone. He ended up flipping around and went head first down the slide. I think he was a little hesitant to go down alone after that.

Here are 2 videos of Ashton and then Kaleb. (Matt took the 2nd video and didn't realize you can't turn the camera when shooting video)

Next up was the sling-shot. There was a pumpkin target down the hill. We never did manage to hit it but came really close a couple of times.

Then came the corn maze. Shortly after this picture Ashton fell asleep in the stroller. He needed a quick nap so he had energy to see everything else.

Next was the pony ride. Ashton didn't want to leave the "mamimals" as he calls them.

Then the train.

Had to pet the goats.

After the goats we were going through some of the old farm houses and there were some kittys that had been abandoned there the day before. Someone had dropped them off. One of them sat in Kaleb's lap for 30+ minutes and Kaleb begged to let him keep him. He said how they didn't have a family and the kitty liked him. It was sad, and cute but not enough for me to bring a cat home to take care of. But it was cute to see Kaleb get attached so quickly. He's been begging for a pet lately but ever since our fish experience I haven't jumped at the idea. Meanwhile Ashton chased the ducks and turkeys.

And the boys loved swimming at the hotel. (It was really steamy so it was hard to get a good picture.)

Overall it was a great weekend and nice to get away and have some fun!

2009-09-14T22:51:00.011-06:00

Where to start.....

Soccer is going great. I can't believe how much our team has improved. Sounds silly when talking about 5 year olds but they are doing awesome. I have alot of fun coaching them. Oh, and I found out one of the kids on our team, his dad was my 11th grade Math teacher Mr. Bowen. Crazy to be coaching my high school math teacher's son.

I'm sad the warm summer nights are ending but I'm loving the cool crisp mornings. We've had so much fun spending our nights in the backyard. Eating dinner outside, playing on the slide, trampoline and bikes, I'm going to miss it when the snow comes. Although I won't miss the constant baths from the boys playing in the dirt. Ashton's always covered from head to toe.

The Saturday of Labor Day weekend we went to Hogle Zoo. There were alot of baby animals. I thought the baby giraffe was cute. I think the best part for Kaleb and Ashton was the train ride. The driver was going fast! I didn't know that little train could go that fast.

After the zoo we went to RCWilley and this is where the boys hung out. The adjustable bed that gave you a massage. Kaleb thought it was pretty cool.

About a month ago we had a ward party and they had a slip-n-slide down the hill for the kids. Later a fire truck came and the kids thought it was the coolest thing. I couldn't believe how far the water shot out. This isn't even half of the distance. The field was more like a lake when they left.

My friends Chris and Amber just had their baby boy Conner (he's so cute!) and I appliqued a couple of onsies for him. We were going to do it at her shower but didn't have time. In addition to the rocket and octopus I made a tie one but I didn't get a picture. I used the patterns from THI S blog. I've seen alot of people prefer the 'straight' stitch instead of the 'zig-zag' stitch so I tried it on the octopus. I'm NOT a fan of the straight stitch. I thought it was harder to sew and it doesn't look as finished to me.

Saturday (with the help of my parents) we took out all of the bushes in our backyard (except 1). I think there were somewhere around 25-30 bushes total. Oh, and 1 tree. The only tree we had was growing between our fence and the church's fence so it had to be taken down before it ruined the fence. We've planted a couple of fruit trees and we're going to get raspberry, blackberry and grape starts from my dad and plant them along the fence.

Kindergarten

2009-08-31T23:08:00.002-06:00

Kaleb loved his first day of Kindergarten! I knew he would, he loves being around other kids and has always loved preschool. He gave me a hug and then stood in his line waiting for the bell to ring. He has 2 friends from his soccer team in his class and one of them is also in his primary class. I hope the 3 of them don't cause too much trouble. Funny story, I was talking to Kaleb about being polite and having good manners before school and when I picked him up he said, "Guess what mom, I didn't fart in class!" Then he went on to explain how instead he went to the restroom and farted in there but that it was okay because there wasn't anyone else in there. Boys, gotta love 'em.

Ashton now sleeps in a big boy bed. He only fell off once (so far) but we have a crib mattress on the floor just in case he does. Kaleb loves to read a story to him at night. Ashton loves to kick his feet when he's laying down drinking milk. The room was dark other than a nightlight and they were so cute to watch.

Then when I was going to bed I checked in on them and this is how they were both sleeping. They're always all over the place. No wonder Ashton fell off.

Ashton's curls. When combed straight his hair goes about 5 inches down his back. I don't know how I'm ever going to be able to cut this.

Colorado Trip

2009-08-16T23:19:00.004-06:00

I'm finally posting pictures from Colorado from July. We've had friends staying with us the last couple of weeks and things are really busy with summer ending. Kaleb starts soccer this week and they asked if Matt or I would coach his team since nobody signed up. So I'm going to coach his team which should be fun. Kaleb is registered for Kindergarten and starts on August 31st. They start 1 week later than the 1st-6th graders.

The weekend started with a trip to an old mine. The boys liked the mine but I think Ashton enjoyed feeding and watching the chipmunks the most. After going through the museum part we went on a drive up the canyon to look at what was left of all of the old mining structures.

Here's Ashton waiting for lunch after the mine.

All of the boy cousins loved running in the sprinklers to cool off. Ashton on the other hand didn't like the cold water and preferred to cool off on the porch with some milk.

One of the days I went with Matt, his brother, and dad to a shooting range. This was the only picture I took because I was too busy shooting and loading clips. I was standing to the side and behind Matt while he was shooting, keeping my distance and all of a sudden I felt something hit my stomach. I thought maybe a shell hit me, even though it would have had to fly pretty far to hit me but it really hurt so I felt my stomach and there was a piece of metal stuck in my shirt. Part of the bullet had hit me and even though the metal piece didn't go through the 4 layers of fabric it hit hard enough to make me bleed and left a pretty good sized bruise the next day. So now I can tell everyone Matt shot me!

Even though they don't have Pioneer Day in Colorado it was the Ski Hi Stampede and so we were able to enjoy parades, a rodeo and carnival rides. Matt and I even went country dancing the last night we were there. We had a blast and we even remembered some of the steps we learned at BYU-Idaho. It was a fun filled weekend and a nice break from work.

Bibs and Burp Rags

2009-08-12T15:21:00.004-06:00

I haven't had time to go through our Colorado pictures yet but here are some bibs that I made for my friend's baby boy Conner that is due next month. I'm NOT a sewer and so if I can make them so can you. I also made a blanket out of flannel. (It sounds so crafty, "made" but really I attached two pieces of flannel together by sewing them, pretty simple)

(These were taken late at night in poor lighting so they don't look as good as in person)

I did alot of research and I used the bib template from Chick Pea Studio that you can find HERE. I used terry cloth for the back so that they're more absorbant and just any fabric I liked on the front. There are so many options and you can add whatever you want to the front of them. You first sew around the edges (wrong sides together) leaving a 2 inch opening at the bottom and then turn it right side out. Iron, and then sew along the edge again. (If you're adding things like the elephant to the front be sure to do all of that before you sew the bib together) I used snaps instead of velcro. I made matching burp rags and the blanket using the same steps.

Here are 2 other tutorials that were helpful to me: Homemade By Jill & Happy Things

Camping Trip July 17-19

2009-07-27T23:29:00.002-06:00

Camping was a blast! It was a much needed break from everything. We had good food, awesome smores (PB Cup, marshmallow and fudge striped cookies) and lots of chatting by the campfire. And the boys loved getting dirty. Almost every picture I took they have dirt on their face. (We did cut Ashton's "bangs" in Colorado the next week.)

There was a big rock in our campsite that Kaleb loved climbing.

While the girls cooked dinner Kaleb and Matt hiked to Donut Falls. I told Matt to be sure to take pictures and he didn't disappoint. I think he took about 130, I wasn't expecting that!

Hopefully this becomes an annual tradition!

Catch Up

2009-07-13T01:32:00.003-06:00

I know, this is my 3rd post tonight and I should go to bed but I don't seem to find time during the week to blog and we're going camping (Wahoo!) and to Colorado soon so the next couple of weeks are going to be crazy. (Oh, and all of our fish died from getting Ich, maybe we'll get lucky with #5!)

The 4th of July was fun. It started with the parade, we saw Ice Age 2 and then a BBQ and fireworks.

You'll notice Shawn Bradley from the NBA on the right (he's a regular around Murray) but that's not why I took the picture. See an advertisement here? (It was a LONG parade)

My mom was a good sport to make sure Kaleb and Ashton were in on the candy action.

And T-Ball is officially over. Kaleb had so much fun playing. We've already signed him up for soccer in the fall. By the end of the season they were doing coach pitch and most of the time he was able to hit the ball.

My $5 Chair

2009-07-13T00:42:00.003-06:00

Friday night I found this chair at D.I. for $5. I love the style and the rust color goes perfect with the colors in my living room. We had a couple of minutes before we had to leave for church so I took some pictures of the boys in the chair.

I know the next 2 pictures are almost identical but I wasn't sure which I liked better. Do you like the white fading on the bottom of the 2nd one or not?

Kaleb's 5 Year Pictures and Ashton's 18 Month Pictures

2009-07-13T00:05:00.005-06:00

We took Kaleb a couple of weeks ago for his 5 yr. pictures. Since my coupon had no sitting fee's we decided to do Ashton's 18 month pictures while we were there. (Even though he wasn't quite 18 months) We weren't planning on taking his pictures so Matt bought a white polo that would match better with Kaleb's outfit. These are scanned so not the best quality. Ashton still doesn't like going to the studio for pictures so he was a bit of a struggle but at least we had a couple of good poses.

Free is Good

2009-06-26T12:13:00.007-06:00

I went to THIS blog and found a promotion to get a free quart of paint. I just ordered mine in Clear Blue Sky. I think I'm going to paint an old desk I have that's bright yellow. Here's the LINK to get some free paint.

The BIG 5

2009-06-22T13:10:00.006-06:00

Kaleb turned 5 on the 16th and had a great birthday. There is something about being half-way to ten that really makes me realize how fast time goes. I can't believe how old Kaleb is.

Kaleb is lucky to have so many people that love him and my aunt and uncle had a dinosaur hunt in our backyard for Kaleb. I think there were 50 eggs to find and lots of dinosaurs. Then we had a bbq with lots of good food. (We almost caught the house on fire from the bbq but the hamburgers still tasted great and nothing burned down.)
I didn't have time to make a cake this year so instead I made Star War's cupcakes. I just put stickers on top of fondant circles I cut out. It was really quick and easy and Kaleb loved it. I made sure to pipe alot of frosting on the cupcakes. I love cream cheese frosting.

Here he is after blowing out his sparkler candles. I wasn't haveing a good picture taking night so most of my pictures came out blurry.

Don't mind my "Happy Holidays" wrapping paper. I didn't have any other kid wrapping paper. Kaleb was excited to get a bike, star wars video game, lots of bionicles, star wars, and dinosaurs. (Oh, and a fish bowl, story to follow...)

Here is Kaleb with his aunt Sherrie.

Making sure the training wheels are on right.

Ashton's sporting new leg casts. (aka Kaleb's sandals)

So Kaleb got a fish bowl for his birthday so Saturday we set out to buy some goldfish. Meet Count Dooku and Darth Vader. (Yes, we really do live, breathe and eat Star Wars) So Sunday morning Darth Vader had turned more of a gray color than the black he started out as and wasn't being his active self. When returning home from church Darth Vader had gone to fish heaven. In order to get your free replacement fish you have to take in the dead fish so Matt took the boys to Walmart (I wasn't keeping a dead fish in my house) and they came back with 2 more fish and a small tank hoping it would be a better environment for them.

So meet our new fish; Darth Vader II and General Grievous. Count Dooku is still going strong. This morning Darth Vader II wouldn't eat anything and he stays behind the filter most of the time. So I'm hoping he's alive when we return home today otherwise I'm not sure I'll be replacing him with a Darth Vader III. Black goldfish must not like us.

Melanie had a great idea from a blog to make double-sided capes. So we spent a couple of days and made them. They turned out really cute especially for the little bit of sewing experience we have. This is Kaleb's cape on the one side is Superman and the other side is batman. He loves wearing it everywhere. Go to THIS blog to find instructions on how to make your own.

T-Ball & 65th Wedding Anniversary

2009-06-15T12:53:00.003-06:00

We were able to have one t-ball game last week that wasn't rained out. Anyone that has been to a game with 4-5 year olds knows what I mean when I say it's hilarious to watch. They all go for the ball, they aren't sure where to run, they take the bat to 1st base with them, and they get bored really easy. We had a blast watching Kaleb. The first time up to bat he ran all the way to 3rd not realizing he was supposed to stop on 1st. The second time the girl on 2nd wouldn't go so he passed her and went on to 3rd base. When he played 1st base he would get the ball and instead of throwing it home he would run the ball and set it up on the tee for the next batter. It's a lot of fun to watch and he loves 'practicing' in our backyard whenever he can. (Which hasn't been much this week with all the rain!)
Saturday night we had a party for my Grandparent's 65th Wedding Anniversary. There were over 200 people there to celebrate with them. The best part was watching my grandma and grandpa dance.

I loved looking at their wedding picture and invitation.

Here is Ashton playing in the kitchen cupboards while we were setting up. (Thanks for the picture Liz)

I wish I would have taken more pictures during the event but I was too busy helping with food/punch bowls. It was a fun night and something I'll always remember.

2009-06-02T09:31:00.004-06:00

I'm not sure why in my last post you can't click on the pictures to make them bigger so I'm posting the collages from my last post again so that you can click on them and see them.

2009-06-01T16:30:00.011-06:00

My blog is my journal so here are the last 2 weeks of what we have been up to.

The boys love to read. Ashton is usually in his rocking chair reading and on this day they were both in his room reading. Kaleb loves blue candy, can you tell.

Here are some pictures from our zoo field trip/Matt's birthday. It was Ashton's first time at the zoo and he loved the monkeys.Here's Matt's awesome ice cream birthday cake that Kaleb picked out. Kaleb felt so bad that we didn't have a cake so Kaleb picked one out for him. Two weeks later we still haven't quite finished it. Kaleb and Ashton love taking a bath. Ashton loves when Kaleb spits water at him and when the water drains they stay in the tub and play slip n' slide because the tub is so slippery. They take turns laying on their stomache and pushing off with their feet. They love water!

Awesome picture, right? At Kaleb's end of year barbeque I took a picture of him and his teacher but the flash was on delaying the actual "taking" of the picture. So I moved the camera and this is what I got. Memorial Day was fun and relaxing. We spent the morning outside making a slip n' slide and Kaleb and Ashton loved it. Then we went to the movies, I took the boys to Night at the Museum 2 and Matt saw Terminator with the rest of the adults. I think that's the last time I take 2 kids by myself. Kaleb was really good and loved the movie but when Ashton was being loud I had to stand in the back until he fell asleep leaving Kaleb in his seat alone. I was only a few rows up but still, if I had to leave I would have had to drag Kaleb with me. (I didn't think Night at the Museum 2 was as funny as the first one) We signed Kaleb up for T-Ball and they had a baseball "camp" at the Bee's Field with all of the Bee's players on Saturday morning. Matt took Kaleb and he loved it. He had them sign his ball and glove after. My favorite pictures were of the kids stretching. (T-ball is some serious stuff!) Matt found some costumes (Star Wars Trooper, Knight, and Fireman) from a yard sale on Saturday and Kaleb had a fashion show. He made sure I took lots of pictures. Saturday we saw Up with my family. It's a really good movie and the boys really liked it. Squirrel! (You'll have to see the movie.) Ashton was smelling the flowers at Sunday dinner yesterday.

2009-05-19T09:36:00.004-06:00

The last couple of weeks have been busy! Last Friday was Matt's birthday and we both took the day off. Kaleb had his last fieldtrip at the zoo so we all went together and it was packed. There were so many schools there for fieldtrips it was crazy.

Saturday was our 6th wedding anniversary and we celebrated by doing yardwork for 10 hours straight (with a couple of stops to Home Depot throughout the day). We took out some rose bushes and made the flower beds smaller. We put in about 160 sq. ft. of sod and planted 2 trees since there are no trees on our property. We also put in a brick wall around the flower bed and some new flowers and small bushes. Now the front yard is done and the back yard is going to be alot more work. There are probably 30 bushes in the back yard. (I'll try to post some pictures later)

I finally have a stove/oven after 4 weeks of not having one. We bought a new one and then we had to rewire the electrical to match the 40 amps the oven took. Luckily we have a mostly unfinished basement so we were able to access the wire and it only cost $30 for the wire.

Yesterday the police were checking in on an older man in our apartment complex and he had passed away. What made me sad is that the mailman was the one who called the police and was worried about him. He has no family and it makes me sad that there is no one that would have even known he had passed or that something was wrong. It makes me grateful for the people that I have in my life that care about me. So it's been a crazy couple of weeks and I hope things start calming down. Kaleb finishes preschool this week and I know he's going to miss it. Hopefully I can think of fun things to do at the apartment this summer until kindergarten starts!

Pictures...cont.

2009-04-30T12:58:00.017-06:00

I'm slowly decorating. I knew I wanted the shelves in the dining area and so the last 3 months I've been looking for things from yard sales/second hand stores to put on them. I was worried how it would all come together but I really like the look of it.

Living Room: (The living room and Kaleb's room were the only 2 rooms WITHOUT wallpaper) We did take out half of the built-in. I didn't see myself using the shelves for anything and I think the room feels bigger without it. We haven't painted the doors for the divider yet, or the front door.
Here's Kaleb's room. This was the only room that had carpet over the wood floors. We took it out and refinished the floors. And yes, it's a mess, it usually is.

Pictures....and lots of them!

2009-04-28T13:08:00.027-06:00

There's still a lot to do but here are most of the rooms. (The living room and Kaleb's room I'll try to do tomorrow) Some of the pictures were taken at night and some during the day so the lighting and color are weird in some of them. I'm excited that now I can start decorating and putting things on the walls.

Here are the paint color's we used: (Valspar)

Woodlawn Lace:
Living Room & Kitchen
Cincinnatian Hotel Hannaford:
Hall, Master and 3/4 Bath
Bay Waves:
Kaleb's and Ashton's RoomKitchen: Took down wallpaper; added trim around windows, on walls, and on the boxes above cabinets; moved cabinet over to make room for stove/oven, took down upper cabinet; installed butcher block counter where stove top was; new paint; spray painted light fixtures and vents To Do: paint cabinet doors
(The old built-in oven was the really small size and I couldn't even fit a cookie sheet inside of it. I knew that wouldn't work for me so we went with a free standing oven and I gained a lot more counter space. I'm glad we did it.)

Master Bedroom: Took down wallpaper, new paint, window trim, blinds
(The sunburst mirror was a yard sale find last Saturday)

Ashton's Bedroom: Took down wallpaper, new paint, window trim, blinds, light fixture

Main Bathroom: Took down wallpaper, new paint, window trim, blinds, mirror

Hall: Took down wallpaper, new paint, hardware, light fixture

2009-04-27T13:54:00.002-06:00

So, I went to take pictures last night and the battery in the camera was dead. I did get one picture of Ashton's room before it died but that was it. The charger was at the apartment so I wasn't able to get pictures last night. So tomorrow I'll post the "after" pictures. But for now here's a link to the slideshow of "before" pictures. There's a lot of awesome wallpaper and yes, the blue tub and blue sink are still there.

SLIDESHOW

2009-04-21T14:34:00.002-06:00

We had a great Easter last week and Ashton learned quick how to get the candy out of the plastic eggs. I think we all ate too much candy on Easter. We did get moved in over Easter weekend. Matt and I moved almost everything throughout the week and then Friday and Saturday we had some help getting the big stuff. My motivation for painting is gone. I told myself I would post pictures next week so hopefully that will make me want to finish the rest of the painting. Matt has been a lot more motivated than me.

We love being in the house. It's hard being at the apartment during the day with the boys when I know they would rather be at the house playing in the backyard but you do what you have to do. Saturday when Matt went to get gas for the lawn mower he stopped by a yard sale in our neighborhood and hit the jackpot. So he stopped by and told me I had to help him go through all of the clothes. We bought Ashton 35 items of really nice clothing and 3 pairs of shoes for $15 and I'm sure I could have found more but there were so many clothes to sort through I didn't get through them all. I'm glad Matt has Saturday's off now so that we can have something fun to do on Saturday mornings. I know, we're weird, we love yard sales and second hand stores. I'm sure if you ask Matt he would probably say I'm addicted to them. (oh, and don't forget craigslist!)

So I think I'm done rambling now, that's what's going on with us. Monday -- I will post pictures of the house, with or without the cabinet doors in the kitchen!

Amazing!

2009-03-26T14:27:00.000-06:00

2009-03-26T11:55:00.005-06:00

Tomorrow we should be heading to Colorado for our niece's baptism. Unfortunately we won't be going due to this:A lot of the roads are closed and it's a very slow moving storm. They aren't discharging anyone from the local hospital because the weather is that bad. My mother-in-law is currently making the drive to Ft. Collins and she's going 10mph. Hopefully we'll get to see everyone in a couple months.

Matt and I both have tomorrow off so at least we'll be able to get a lot done on the house.

Yesterday I couldn't help but take pictures of Ashton's curly hair. I hope it never goes straight although Kaleb's did so his probably will too. Most of the time it's a frizzy mess but after he takes a bath they look so cute. It takes about 10 minutes to brush out his hair meanwhile I have to recruit Kaleb to entertain Ashton while he sits on my lap. I'm sure anyone who has a girl knows all about that.Ashton is pretty much a full-time walker now. He still likes crawling but for the most part his transportation of choice is walking. He thought it was funny to crash into the couch in the office and then into me.

Paint, Paint and more Paint!

2009-03-24T11:38:00.005-06:00

The house is coming along. Everything is done except the kitchen and one bathroom. We're hoping to move April 4th as long as we get most of the kitchen done. Kaleb and Ashton have been really good the last couple of months letting us drag them around trying to get the house ready. I think they've been to Lowes 20 times in the last couple of months. But they do love playing swords with the paint sticks there. Ashton fell asleep drinking his milk in the car Saturday.I'll try to post pictures of the house soon.

The boys were helping put the closet doors back on last night.

I tried to get a picture of both of them together but here's what happens. Ashton either won't look at me or he wants the camera.

The last owners left a lot of furniture and things that we were able to use. One of the things I love is the original light fixture that was in our bedroom.

Another Wedding Cake...

2009-03-10T10:49:00.005-06:00

Saturday was my second wedding cake and I love how it turned out. I did more research and finally listened to what everyone suggested about making your own fondant. The store bought stuff is expensive ($20/box and you need 4 boxes) and it tastes disgusting and it's dry and hard to work with. The homemade version looks the same but tastes good and is a lot easier to work with. It's more work to make your own but worth the money you save and the time. I didn't have the fondant rip or pleat at the bottom of the cakes.

Here's the cake after we stacked the layers and put the ribbon on.

Here I am piping on the design. I still need to work on my piping skills but that comes with practice I guess.

And the finished product! Hopefully it tasted good. Matt and I ate all of the scrap cake from leveling out the layers and we would put some raspberry filling and frosting on and it tasted pretty good. Thanks for the pictures Melanie, next time I'll make sure my camera battery is charged!

2009-02-23T11:23:00.007-07:00

26 c. flour + 25 sticks (8 1/4 lbs) butter + 52 eggs + 12 lbs. (48 c.) powdered sugar + 15 lbs. fondant + other ingredients = 1 wedding cakeI made my first wedding cake. It's a lot of work and a lot of ingredients but I had a lot of fun doing it. I had a lot of trouble getting the fondant to lay right on the cake without creasing or tearing. Come to find out I was rolling it too thin and it was a little too dry. Hopefully the next one will work better because I get to do this again next week. It's another 3 tiered round cake so it will look about like this one with different designs and color schemes.

My cousin Christina got married this weekend and Kaleb was the ring bearer and he looked so handsome in his tux. (I can't say cute because Kaleb says cute is only for girls)
Kaleb loved the Chicken Dance & The Boot Scoot N Boogie. Ashton danced from the comfort of the chair he was holding onto. He still isn't up for walking just yet.

I was going to post this about 3 weeks ago when it actually happened but of course that didn't happen. Kaleb had a field trip to the fire station. He loved trying on all of the gear. The fire fighter in the picture has tattoo's and Kaleb had one on his lower back so he went up and lifted up his shirt and said, "Look, I have a tattoo too!" He was so proud to show it off but I explained that the firefighters don't just wash off the way his does.

2009-02-06T16:31:00.002-07:00

Lately it feels like Kaleb is always on time-out. So today I was changing Ashton and Kaleb was doing something he shouldn't and I asked him if he wanted to go to time-out. His reply, "I'm already on time-out." I had just put him on time-out. I think I'm losing my mind!

2009-01-28T14:14:00.008-07:00

I can't wait until we're done with everything at the house. All of our nights and weekends are spent trying to get what we can done. It's slow going since we have Kaleb and Ashton that distract us and get into everything but they love helping out. We're hoping to start painting in a week or so and then hopefully move in by the end of February. Here are some updates:

1: Matt has graduated! He has his bachelors in Business Management and he's been interviewing the last couple of weeks for different positions. We're keeping our fingers crossed. He starts his MBA at the University of Phoenix in February and it takes 1 1/2 years and then hopefully we can say goodbye to school (at least for Matt).2: The Walking with Dinosaurs a couple of weeks ago was awesome. Kaleb loved it. We were on the 6th row and it was amazing how real they looked, walked and sounded.2: Ashton loved his birthday cake. Unlike Kaleb who didn't eat any of his 1st birthday cake Ashton ate the whole piece we gave him. I still can't get over that he's one already and will be walking soon.3: We had family pictures taken the morning before my brother left for his mission. They turned out pretty good. It's hard getting Ashton and Kaleb to smile at the same time which is why they're clapping in our picture. (Coming soon: Ashton's One Year Pictures-although he screamed and cried almost the whole time we did get some with him smiling)4: Life continues to be busy with YW, apartments and mostly the house but we're loving it!

Happy Birthday Ashton!

2009-01-21T09:39:00.008-07:00

I can't believe it's been a year already. We love you Ashton!

2009-01-15T09:42:00.020-07:00

I haven't posted in awhile so there are going to be lots of pictures. Yesterday Logan entered the MTC for his mission. We are really close and so it was hard to see him go but he's going to be a great missionary. (I was taking the picture and yes, Kaleb is flashing his "gang" signs as we call them)Before the MTC we went to breakfast and to JCPenney's to get family pictures. We had to put Ashton in his missionary shirt that Rue bought for him.

I had to take this picture. His head looks like I pasted it on. It reminds me of the characature pictures you have people draw with the big heads and little bodies.

Kaleb is really going to miss Logan. They're best buds and love to tease eachother.

Sunday after Logan's farewell Amber brought over one of the puppies. Ashton wasn't very gentle and kept hitting her on the head. Poor puppy would run away when Ashton came crawling up.

Every New Year's we go to Logan. This year we took a sleigh ride around the Elk Refuge. It was only 14 degree's that day and although we almost froze it was a beautiful day.

Kaleb making Elk tracks in the sand.

My mom, grandpa, and grandma.

My sister Amber, dad, and Ashton.

We always go bowling over New Year's and this year Matt and I were determinied to beat eachother. The first game we tied 120-120, the next game I won, and Matt won the third game.

Bowling's not as exciting when it's nap time. Ashton fell asleep.

2008-12-29T14:57:00.003-07:00

We had a great Christmas and instead of posting a bunch of pictures here's video of Kaleb and Ashton. Ashton didn't care too much to unwrap the presents but once he saw what was under the paper he would get excited.

The present at the house that was too big to fit under the tree was a trampoline. Even though it was freezing cold and starting to snow Kaleb had to try it out.

Thanks to everyone for all of the great gifts.

Why our Chrismas tree still isn't up....

2008-12-11T13:51:00.003-07:00

WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!

It was very unexpected and we weren't going to buy for a couple more years but we couldn't pass it up. We've never felt so prompted to do anything like we were to buy this house. The last 4 weeks have been crazy and I'm glad the home buying process is over. We've started taking down the wallpaper, which is in every room but 1 bedroom and the living room. We aren't going to move in for a couple of months so that we can get the house ready first. I'm still going to manage the apartments we currently live in for another 2 years until Matt is finished with his MBA. So during the week the boys and I will still spend some time at our current apartment, hopefully with a lot less stuff in it.

The house is located in Murray by Wheeler Farm. It's a 4 bed/2 bath brick rambler which is what we always wanted. They were the original owners and he was a handyman and so everything has been taken really good care of. We're hoping to finish the basement in the next year or two and we're excited to have a garden next year.

Christmas is coming...

2008-12-05T11:45:00.004-07:00

Yesterday we spent the evening with my aunt and uncle. Kaleb decorated the trees while Ashton pulled them over and we even saw Santa. Winder Dairy during the month of December has scones and hot chocolate for $.50 from 4:30-6:30 and Santa is there. It wasn't busy like last year so for anyone looking to see Santa without waiting in a huge line this is the place to go. And the scones are delish.

Ashton thought it was so funny to watch his brother wearing the antlers...

Ashton's latest obsession is the dishwasher. Usually I leave the racks in as I'm loading it or he unloads everything but yesterday he decided he would just climb into the dishwasher to get the silverware.

Thanksgiving in Colorado

2008-12-02T12:27:00.004-07:00

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend in Colorado. It was relaxing and nice to get away. We went to a shooting range and Kaleb had a blast. He's already asking to go again. Here's Ashton eating breakfast with frizzy hair. He loved the leftover sweet potatoes.
I finally was able to take a picture with both Kaleb and Ashton looking at the camera, but Kaleb can't ever just smile anymore. He's always making funny faces.

We played the Wii a couple of times when we were there. Here's Ashton "playing". I have a video of Kaleb boxing with his grandpa but it's really long so it won't load but boy did they get into it.