Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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!

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

• 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!

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

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.