Family, Fun, and a Farewell

We had a fun filled weekend the past couple of days. My brother and his family came into town from Washington so we headed down and spent the weekend at my mom's house. First up was a yummy dinner at Texas Roadhouse-just adults (I guess we can count Ky, my nephew as an adult now).




We spent Saturday hanging out, playing games, shopping, and just letting the cousins play together.









Sunday was Ky's farewell. He will be reporting to the MTC on April 6th to go to St. Petersburg, Russia. He did a wonderful job on his talk and will be such a great missionary. Crazy to think he is that old-which means I am getting older too! He will be missed but I've already got some care package ideas planned for him. I Love you Ky!

It was wonderful to have a change of scenery for a couple of days.

Feeling Lucky?

I am feeling lucky today since there are currently 2 leprechaun traps upstairs! We're bound to catch on and get his pot of gold! (I promise to share if we do.) ;)

Bailey's sign on the side says: "Gold Up Ahead" just to make sure the leprechaun doesn't give up climbing the marshmallow ladder!

Catch Up!

Well we have been keeping busy with random projects around the house and so I haven't been blogging but here is a brief catchup of some things going on lately.
The girls have been busy playing out in the snow almost everyday after school. They love our new HUGE backyard. I thought these were two cute snowmen, pretty inventive since I could not find our "real" snowman stuff.

Erin lost her first tooth the beginning of February. She was so excited and is diligently wiggling another tooth so she can get more money! :) She had to leave her bedroom door open that night so the tooth fairy could get in easier.

Our 2nd Annual Non Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Dinner! Last year I think we did it in March but we did a super yummy Thanksgiving dinner with our friends the Jasper's again this year. It has become a fun tradition, but really, who needs an excuse for pumpkin pie?!

Our Ward did a talent show. The girls heard it announced at church and told me they wanted to participate. Erin told me that her talent is that she is a good "drawer" so she put together a couple of art pieces to show. I made little titles for each one that also stated what medium she used to make her picture. The one on the far right is a collage of trash that she found in the basement trashcan one day. Mostly it is electrical wires and pieces of that nature.
Bailey wanted to sing a song in Dutch that she knows. Josh's dad has taught her how to sing Baa, Baa Black Sheep and she does it so well. She did practice a few times over the phone with Papa before just to make sure she still had the words right. The girls were the youngest to participate by far and I was so proud of them. They did such a great job!

Before/After House pics

Well, I finally got around to taking some after pics of our new house. Here are a few pictures of the before and after of all the work we did over the last couple of months. New laminate flooring put in (about 1300 square feet), Granite countertops, new carpet in the basement, 24 gallons of paint, 2 gallons of polyurethane, 3 gallons of stain, new light fixtures (and other electrical work), and the list goes on and on. It looks great. We still have a few little things that are still needing to be done but that list will always be added to. Now that the weather is starting to turn nice we've started planning our yard/gardens which will be fun.

Living room off of the kitchen, could be used as a dining room but we aren't dining room kind of people so it has Josh's armor, the harp, computer, etc. It is hard to tell in the picture but it was a bright purple (weird color for a dining room if you ask me).

Primed and painted all the banisters in the house, which there are LOTS. At first I was counting them as I went but when I hit 35 I just got depressed so I stopped counting. The black matches our cabinets and looks great!

Front Room, looks so much better without carpet and tile at the front door.

The countertops were in horrible shape so we had granite put in. I took a lot of before pics of the kitchen but I put this one in to show the colors, etc. Doesn't it look so much better with new lights, paint, floors, etc.? Very modern I think.

We built our own closet systems in our closet and both girls closet. All that was there was these wire shelves that couldn't hold much weight and we had this huge closet with no storage space in it. It took a long time to plan, stain, paint, and put together but it was worth it. They look great!

(hard to get good pictures of our walk in closet, but these will have to do)

Well there is a sample of our house and a sample of all the hard work we put into it. It all worked out nicely and looks like a completely different house. We love our new Ward, neighborhood and home (although we do miss our old place as well). Later to come: The Yard! :)