And The Sun Has Finally Returned...

Crazy Days

Doesn't the word "summer" usually go with the term "lazy days"? Cause we could really use some of those right now.
It all started two weeks ago. After our slew of birthday celebrations we decided to start on our home projects for the summer. Jeff spent a couple days re-painting our downstairs and adding an accent wall in our family room. The next project was putting wood flooring down in our dining area. We weren't sure when we were going to actually lay the wood because we were at the mercy of my dad's unpredictable work schedule. But on Tuesday the 16th my dad told us to pull up the carpet and get it ready. Then bright and early Wednesday morning he showed up to level the concrete pad. I took off with Emily so we wouldn't be "in the way." Well I guess I should have paid more attention to my dad's leveling plans. I came home to concrete dust all over the downstairs due to his sanding. I spent the rest of the afternoon/evening wiping everything down - three times. (And then another 4 hours cleaning the house again on Friday. Thanks again to my wonderful mother-in-law who volunteered to come and help me the whole time. Not to mention my great father-in-law who came and entertained Emily while we cleaned).

Jeff and my dad started laying the floor around 6:00pm Wednesday night. I finally went to bed around 10:00pm and Jeff didn't come up till after midnight. (I'm sure our neighbors loved the power saws and hammering that late at night). My dad came over the next day, along with Jeff's dad, and finished the floor in a couple of hours.

So here we are 10 days after installing the floor and Jeff has yet to officially finish our project. We still need a couple of trim pieces installed and our molding put back up. But since he went a full week with 6 hours or less of sleep each night and physically worked so hard on the house after being completely drained from work every day, I really don't feel like I can complain. Especially since a lot of the project time happened like this: Jeff scraping glued carpet pad from the floor while I sat on the couch reading and eating ice cream.

I can post a final picture of the floor once we get the trim & molding back up - however Jeff says it's not going to happen till August. Hopefully that's just wishful thinking on his part. As for my brown accent wall - I love it. I just have to figure out how I'm going to decorate the thing now. I'm definitely up for a change in the family room and would like to re-do a lot of the decoration in there. But due to the cost of it and my limited budget, it will be quite a while before that is done.

With having our house torn apart and living in a disaster zone for a week or so I told Jeff that when/if we buy a house that needs to be "fixed up" we're at least doing the kitchen before we move in. I don't know how you could live in a place and fix it up at the same time. Especially with kids.

Da Da Da, Happy Birthday!

Last Saturday was my nephew's birthday. We met my family for Jackson's swimming party and the kids all had a blast. My mom and I watched the babies - Cameron & Grace - while everyone else took the kids in the water. Emily LOVED the big water slide ... but only if Jeff would hold her up so she wouldn't go under the water.

While there Jeff gave Emily her first "swimming lesson"...

After swimming we all gathered for singing and cupcakes. Then the kids ran around chasing each other and climbed the rock wall.

Thanks for the fun party Nick & Stacy, and happy 3rd birthday Jackson!

Happy Father's Day...

...To All You Dad's!

1 Busy Week = 1 LONG Post

Between our two families, Jeff and I have 8 birthdays the month of June. Plus 2 more the last week of May. It's a crazy (and expensive) time of year. I decided to start off this post with a picture of us celebrating my brother-in-law's birthday on May 29th - mostly because I just love Sara's excitement. Saturday the 6th we had a primary activity to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. It was beautiful. I couldn't believe all the rock in that building. The entire recommend desk was made of it and it was of course all over the floor and walls too.

Our little primary

Emily was adorable. I again wished that I could have taken pictures inside the temple just to get one of Emily so you could see how enthralled she was with it. She walked through the whole thing with her little pamphlet open and looking back and forth trying to find the pictures that matched. Unfortunately with the two temple open houses in Utah being so close to each other Emily doesn't quite understand why she can't always go inside the temple.

Later that night we went to Jeff's uncle's house for his annual backyard concert. They went all out this year and had Peter Brienholt, Jon Schmidt, Nancy Hanson, and David Tolk. It's usually some combination of those four, but never all at the same time. It was a ton of fun. I love how casual the performers always are at this concert. They joke around and take requests. They also talked about growing up in the 80's and did some fun renditions of some very popular songs. And thank heavens the rain held until the end. You couldn't have asked for better weather.

Emily wrapping Niki up in the blanket & then sitting on her

Peter B called all the kids up front to dance at the end.

(Emily's in the pink jacket)

A little taste of what we heard

Monday we went up to Lisa's house for a picnic. Unfortunately as soon as we finished eating it started pouring and Emily wasn't able to play on the playground at all. However because of the rain we ended up camped out at Lisa's for a good chunk of the afternoon so Emily got to visit with one of her favorite aunts for a while. Thanks for the invite, Lis.

Monday night we had a BBQ with some good friends that used to live in our ward. Fred & Sara were in town from Alaska, so we all got together at Tyler & Marli's. The food was great and so was the company. The kids ran around the house screaming and laughing the whole time. We're sad to see the Pettigrew's leave town again, but look forward to next summer when they come back again.

Eldon, Ella, Hayden, & Emily

The view from Tyler & Marli's back porch

(Oquirrh Mountain Temple)

Then of course the biggest event this past week has been Jeff's birthday. I didn't go as elaborate as I did last year with the big surprise party, but I still hope he had fun. We celebrated with Jeff's family on Sunday (where we both lucked out and got steak for dinner. Yumm!)

Wednesday was his actual birthday. I spent the morning in the kitchen making cookies and chicken salad sandwiches. Then Emily and I joined Jeff at work where we had a picnic - with said sandwiches and cookies. Unfortunately we had to stay inside because of the rain but Emily still loved it. She told me that morning that she wished she could go to work with daddy everyday.

After Emily's dance class that night we had dinner at my parents. Then we had even more cake and ice cream and sang happy birthday to Jeff again. Unfortunately I didn't think to bring candles and my mom didn't have any, so yes, that is a match stuck in his cake.

Friday night Jeff and I went out to celebrate so Emily got to spend the night at Gma Newman's. I wasn't there (obviously) to take pictures but Gma let her stay up till 11:00 watching a movie and playing with her cousin Ally (who also spent the night). Emily got both mine and Jeff's genes and would never wake before noon unless she had to, however at 6:15am Saturday morning she woke my mom up. Once Ally was up they had breakfast and then jumped on the tramp - completely soaking their pj's. She was so excited to go to my parents that night and kept saying that she likes to have sleepovers and that she takes turns with Gma Newman and Gma Holbrook. She's so lucky to have such great grandparents.

Saturday was also my mom's birthday. So after the sleepover all the girls met downtown and had lunch at The Garden. While I was out having fun, Jeff - being the good husband that he is - was home painting. We're putting wood flooring down so we're practically painting the whole downstairs before it's installed (of course the painting is at my request). Thanks for sacrificing your whole day for me, Jeff!

And Happy Birthday, mom! You're beautiful!

Stacy (& Cameron), Lisa, Jessie, Emily, Me, Jenny, Ally

And then last, but surely not least, I want to congratulate all of you that had enough guts to comment on my last post. I know I left you hanging...but I just couldn't help it. As I was putting together that post I just kind of ended up including that last part...

So to answer all the inquiries. Yes, I am pregnant. Everything's going well and I haven't really been sick. I fortunately don't get morning sickness or anything. There are times when I might feel like I want to throw up, but I'm lucky enough to have my mother's genes and don't. I of course do visit the bathroom quite often as this kid seems to already be using my bladder as a trampoline. We are all very excited and can't wait for this little one to join us this Christmas. I had another appointment this past week and got to see the heartbeat again. I also saw the spine, head, and little arms waving around. It was so much fun.

Thanks again for the cute shirt, Heather!

A Year Ago Today...

I was here:

Doing this:Today I'm home, staring at this:

And feeling like I need to visit this:

And yet I'd rather be craving steak and strawberries than swimming with dolphins.