Friday, November 26, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving. This year we spent the holiday with my family at my parent's home.

That morning, I decided to cut Little Princess's hair. It was getting pretty long (which wasn't a problem), but it's so uneven, and the ends were so thin. So I decided to even it up. I cut the boys hair all the time, but this is a bit different. She's very wiggly and has a short attention span so we had to work fast. Also, I didn't want the boys watching, so I had to wait until they were distracted. I can just see them trying it on her sometime without my help. I ended up taking off about an inch and a half. I didn't get any before pics, and the after pics don't show how cute it ended up. She's cute no matter what, but she looks all grown up.


After our Thanksgiving dinner we stayed at my parents and played games and visited. It was a great afternoon.

This year we didn't have much Black Friday shopping to do. Jeff went out to a few places, but for the most part we've just relaxed and hung out around the house today. I even read a book and took a nap. It's not often that we have a peaceful, relaxing day.

I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday. I have much to be thankful for. My family, my home, my health, my job, and so much more. I'm grateful for this time of year to reflect on all that I have been given.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Loving the Snow

We woke up yesterday to a foot or more or snow. It was crazy. We spent the morning clearing the walks, making a sledding hill on our rock pile, and building a snowman. I say 'we', but it was mostly Jeff and the boys. He's such a good dad and has such a fun time with his boys. Little Princess joined in the fun for a while, but got too cold and retired inside to watch Lala (Dora). I had to drag the boys in to eat lunch and get ready for church. This was one of the (only) days I was thankful for 1:00 church. After church a lot of the snow had melted. The snowman didn't survive-much to the boys disappointment.
Here's to a long, cold winter. Already looking forward to spring :)

Friday, November 19, 2010

A little early?

I usually wait until Thanksgiving to put up my tree, but tonight I decided to go for it. Jeff is at a young men campout, so me and the kids had a good time getting out the Christmas stuff. Little Princess is at such a fun age where everything is exciting and fun for her. It started with Halloween, and tonight she had fun putting ornaments on the tree. I had to rearrange most of them, but she tried. With every decoration she'd find, or every ornament she'd put on, she'd say "Happy Halloween". Every time I'd say, no Merry Christmas. Pretty soon, she'd say 'Happy Halloween, NO, Merry Christmas. It was funny. It's going to be a fun holiday.
The good news is, I usually take my tree down the day after Christmas, so it won't be up for too long. Hopefully it will stay decorated this year and the ornaments won't be rearranged.
I also took a picture of the nursery/toy room. Even with half of the toys out of there, I still can't keep it clean. If you look close there are tons of toys in the crib. It's the new play place. There's more work to do, but it's fun to have it started. It's a good thing we're having a girl because I got rid of all my boy bedding after Little Man. It just didn't quite make it.

Future Blackmail...

I always know when it's too quiet at my house that something is up. Big Man LOVES to dress up. This day he just happened to dress up as a girl. Awww, what cute little girls.

It's no wonder I can't keep up with the laundry at my house. They're always changing clothes.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

All the Single Ladies...

My boys love this song and sing it all the time. This week I have been a single parent while Jeff was hunting in Colorado. I definitely have a respect for single parents. I don't know how they do it all the time. A week was LONG ENOUGH for me.

Jeff got his deer Thursday morning and ended up coming home Friday night. I was excited because originally they were coming home on Sunday. The kids were so excited to see him. All they could do is hug him over and over. It was cute. Little Man has not left his side since he came home. He's definitely a daddy's boy.

I've had so many projects I've been working on this week and some of those created more messes (like the mailbox-read my other post if you don't know what I'm talking about). Jeff was kind enough to work on a few things for me today. I know he hates honey-do lists, but sometimes it's gotta happen. Jeff's never done brick work before, so he called his dad to come and help him. I'm happy to say that I have (what looks like) a brand-new mailbox. It actually looks better than it did before since it was falling apart and crumbly. It took them a while, but it looks great. I know that was not what he wanted to work on today, but I am very thankful.

The other big project I took on this week was painting our toy room. All four of our bedrooms are on the upper level. We've been using one of them as the toy room, but that will be the baby's room. Before it had blue on the bottom of the wall, and yellow on the top. Definitely not girl colors. To get it painted all the toys had to be rearranged. So while this project was underway, my upstairs looked like a disaster-toys were everywhere. I thought it would take two days, but it ended up taking four. I did taupe on the bottom of the wall, and a Plum color on top. Sounds simple, right? Well I sponged the top part of the wall. I'd never sponged anything before so I didn't realize how time consuming it would be. It looks really good. Once the painting was done, it took two days to organize toys and put things back. I boxed up some of the toys to go downstairs and moved the baby furniture up. Yes, I'm four months early, but it was fun to get it all set up. Besides the kids love playing in the crib. I'll post some pics later.

It's been a long week and I'm hoping this next week will be a little more relaxing. I've still got a few things on my to-do list, but no major projects.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Little Man's a Nut

Little Princess was trying to get a toy to work. She handed it to me and I told her it was out of batteries. Next thing I hear is Little Man telling her 'batteries are not included'. I burst out laughing and asked where he had heard that (knowing full well that he's seen too many commercials). He responded by saying 'Nick Jr. High'. I love that little dude.

Exped Mirror Strikes Again

We've had our Ford Expedition for about three years now, and we've had FOUR separate incidents with the mirror. The first one was my fault. I was backing out of the garage and got it too close. It bent back (which it's supposed to do), and broke several parts inside the mirror casing. Repair cost $85. Let me just mention that I got a bunch of crap about this little accident.

The second incident was when I was in labor with Little Princess. This time Jeff backed up a little too close to the edge of the garage. I don't remember what the repair cost was on this one. It was just nice that it was not my fault. It does make for a fun story though that while in labor leaving for the hospital at 3 a.m. Jeff hits the mirror.

The third incident was up in Boise. Jeff took the car through a car wash. I don't remember exactly what happened, but the car wash was at fault and ended up paying for it.

The final incident actually didn't ruin or hurt the mirror in any way, but there was damage. I always drive up to our mailbox which is at the far end of the driveway, get the mail, and then back up to go into the driveway. Well, as I was backing up, the mirror caught the edge of the mailbox. Instead of bending the mirror back (like it should-right) it moved the mailbox and took out the whole side of bricks surrounding it. I was a bit in shock, but the kids went crazy. They couldn't believe mom had 'destroyed' the mailbox.

So all I have to say to the Exped mirror is-let's be done!

Saturday, November 6, 2010

What a weekend...

Jeff is out of town this weekend deer hunting. It is his last deer hunt of the year-finally. I'm not quite sure why I'm more productive while he's gone, but this weekend has been busy and crazy.

Yesterday we bought a new kitchen table.
I've been looking on KSL for weeks and several really good deals have fallen through. So yesterday while I was in the middle of a small painting project, my mom called and told me about this one. It was up in Bountiful. I've found that for the really good deals, you have to act fast. So I stopped my project, grabbed my dad and his trailer and headed to Bountiful. I listed my old table on KSL last night and had a call about an hour later. A couple from Spanish Fork came up this morning and bought it. What a relief to get rid of it so fast.

So, after I sold my table I spent the morning cleaning the inside of my house. Because I had worked outside yesterday, the inside was destroyed. I even got the kids to cooperate and help clean up. It was great. I went to a friend's baby shower around lunchtime. It was a nice quiet break and yummy food.

After the shower, I had lots I wanted to do. The first thing on my list was to restain my deck. I've been wanting to do this for weeks and just haven't got around to it. This may sound like a big project, but it was really just touch up. Summer before last I spent endless hours staining the deck. It was all the tedious work of the railings, posts, etc. that took forever. Today I just went over the top boards that the stain had worn off. It took a while, but not too bad-and it looks great. Next I mowed the lawn and cleaned up leaves. I love fall, but I don't love leaves all over my lawn and in my gardens. I even swept out the gutter in front of my house. Yes, I'm obsessive, but it looks great.

You can see the deck and my nice lawn in this picture.
I fed the kids a quick dinner and then cleaned out the car that was destroyed during our trip to Bountiful yesterday. I'm always amazed at how quickly three little people can make such a big mess. The final two projects of the night were to clean up the toy room, and to clean my couch cushions. I got the kids to help with the toy room. Big Man was quite the little helper and organizer. It was fun to watch him.

My couches are microfiber and every couple of months they look pretty gross, so I use my green machine on them. In between all these projects I also sprayed the house for spiders and did the laundry. Needless to say, I'm exhausted.

I just wanted to document all of my hard work, because it doesn't happen very often. In fact I think I made up for three months of having no energy in one weekend. Good thing tomorrow is a day of rest because I'm sure I'll need it. Oh and I switched all the clocks tonight for tomorrow's time change. Can I just say I hate the time change. I used to love it before I had kids-an extra hour of sleep, right? Now the time change means a week of trying to get on a new schedule. I kept the kids up an extra hour hoping that tomorrow morning will go well. We'll see.