My Super Cool Surprise! Room Makeover!!

My Super Cool Surprise! Room Makeover!!

When I got home from my Fab Family Trip to Disneyland I was welcomed by the best surprise ever! While I was out a little group of fairies (meaning my super cool, awesome, talented, creative, organized friend Nikki and her family) did an extreme makeover on my office / scrapbook room. WOOO HOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! This was not a minor makeover by any means it took her and her hubby and 2 kids a lot of man hours to pull this off. I am talking CUSTOM MADE desks and work bench... painted my ugly file cabinets, finished up my wall projects and hung them... and organized all my loads of scrapbook crap! She worked it out with Jesse ahead that he would give them the house keys and $$ for whatever they needed. She also totally pumped me for info about how I planned on doing the room. I was clueless... the whole time I thought she was getting ideas for HER craft room. LOL Yup I am gullible. But happy!!! hehehe

I can not even begin to tell you how awesome this is. I have never had such a nice surprise. Anything that I can possibly say to describe just how lucky I feel and how thankful I am will be an understatement. So without further adieu here are the pictures, with more details.

The Finished Product

So lets start with my fabulous new custom made desk. OK for those that don't know me I work from home. I take phone calls and since my kids are LOUD I work in the middle of the night. This is my quiet room where I work. Up until now my desk consisted of 2 plastic fold down tables and piles of junk. Joe (Nikki's hubby) made me this new desk to work on at night. I feel like a queen and can't believe how spoiled I am. He even used my file cabinets and incorporated them into the desk... painted in my favorite Black of course.

Are you dying yet??? Wait it gets better!

Notice the 12x12 frames on the wall? I had bought these a few months ago and like most of my great finds they found their way onto a shelf in the corner... Nikki in her genius ways found me the perfect ribbon and hung them for me. So now I have my red frames on the wall and need to make the pages to go in them. I am doing a page of each kid.

Now look at his PERFECT wall! Which by the way all walls were naked before this. My other darling friend Amy gave me these 3 stars and I haven't found the perfect spot for them yet. Looks like Nikki found the perfect spot huh? Though she did have to hunt the house looking for them with Amy on the phone giving direction. LOL

I also already had the iron decor that is above the fabulous magnet board that she bought and painted and hung for me. I told it gets better didn't I? Well guess what we aren't done yet... We have 2 more wall to go. I am sooooooo freaking spoiled! I do not deserve such a great friend and hubby!

Now for wall 3. This is the work bench that they made me. WOWSER! They painted the file cabinets, hooked them together.. then he built me platforms to lift them so the drawers would open easier... then took an old salvaged door that I had in the backyard and made me the counter top. Love the rounded corners and the antiquing that they did on it. Look at how nicely they organized my stuff on top too. And the drawers are all nicely organized and full as well. And just to add a touch of class she put up my vinyl saying for me that has been sitting here since I moved in.
Wall #4 she got rid of my worn out see through drawers and brought in my cubbies from the bonus room. Reinforced them and organized all my stuff into them. This had to be a long daunting task... her final decision was that I have to much stuff. HA HA HA who would have thought it? Oh I don't know probaby everybody. I know I am such a pack rat and scrapbook collector. She also hung my red paper holder and put ribbon on my baskets and then bought me new curtain rods and red and black curtains. DANG CUTE!

Jealous Much?

I am soooooooo amazed that they did this for me. I still can not believe it. And to top it all off she just started a new job last week right in the middle of doing this room for me. Now this was one amazing family service project. She will be rewarded in heaven for sure. And I just have to mention what a bargain shopper she is. Everything she bought she used a coupon for and her hubby used wood they had extra for my desk and the total cost for my new fabulous room?? You will die! $120 Yup like I said she is AMAZING!!

The Before

I searched everywhere for a picture of how bad this room was before... can't find one... that's cuz it was not a room that I wanted to take pictures of. It has been the catch all for a few months.. But in the back ground of these photos you can get a clue at the before.

In the back ground here you can see the cluttered table with my worn out see through drawers and the 6 salvaged file cabinets that I had all in a row that were like an ugly primer gray color. I got these from a cousin of mine that clears office equipment. There were in great condition just not that cute of a color. :)

The pile on top of the file cabinets... is frames, art, decorations for the house that I haven't used yet. Nice that Nikki has way more vision than I do. She did get lots of over the phone help from Amy the 2 together had some great ideas. Don't ya think?

Behind the crying child you will see my plastic fold up table, my old kitchen table chair and more stacks of scrapbook stuff. Now aren't you glad that it looks so much better in here now? I know I am. I was actually excited to come back to work yesterday just so that I could play in my new room.

I love love love my room. My kids told me that I can't just hide in here all the time. I say that they are wrong and that I can. :)

THANKS AGAIN NIKKI!!!!!!!!

YOU ARE THE BEST!

Tuesday Tell All - Random tellings from my warped mind and a Zap of a Flashback

Just a few randoms thoughts that I wanted to jot down:

I love dip. I am a total dip, and love to dip my foods. I could probably eat old shoes if I had the right kind of dip for them. My favorites are ranch, onion, honey mustard, spinach bacon, and since I am a born and bred Utah girl, of course I love the fry sauce, and one step further, Happy Valley so, oh baby bring my the white sauce for my fries. Ooooooohhhhh yeah that's what I'm talking about. hahahahaha Oh and for breakfast foods when not so many dips are around I will totally dip everything into my syrup. No, to be honest I bath everything in it. Especially the eggs. YU-UM-ME!

I am loving having the kids home for summer we are being totally lazy this year. No big adventures yet. Thursday I think we will go to the park. Tomorrow it Activity Days at my house that will be fun. But having the kids home is killing me in food. I stocked up on snacks and they are gone already. I need new summer snack ideas. They love the fruits and veggies but only when I have them all cut up and ready to go and of course, if I have the right kinds of dips on hand. But when they get hungry, instead of eating food they go for snacks.

My kids do not know the difference between a snack and a meal. If they are hungry the will eat and entire box of fruit snacks or crackers. Yes the whole box. UGH!! And their favorite snack of choice..... cold cereal what else? I swear I am going to buy stock in Malt O Meal. How many bags of cereal can 4 kids eat in one day?

Went shopping today to stock up on healthier snacks and lunches, $180 bucks later we still haven't got much for dinners. LOL Anyone else feel like the kitchen becomes a black hole when the kids are home for the summer? What is up with them turning into munch mouths? How do they ever survive at school on only one meal a day all winter long? sheesh.

We are looking for a new car. Hopefully one that is dual fuel and will save us some gas money. My husband commutes and gas is killing us. OUCH! This also means that I will get my van back and not be stranded at home everyday and that we can do a little more summer fun stuff. Hoping we find a good deal on a car. (fingers crossed)

I never do my hair anymore, seems that with the kids and the chaos and the fact that I work in the middle of the night and sleep in the middle of the day I just never really do my hair. I wash it and brush it and etc. but never really DO it, not even sure I know how anymore. Not even sure how I feel about that. But it's just a fact.

I think I am too hard on my kids and at the same time not hard enough. I can't seem to find the balance between setting expectations, teaching them to be responsible and yet also not hurting their self esteem, or pushing them to far. Sad thing is I don't even expect much but I want to see them become healthy, balanced, self assured, and confident, reliable adults. Is that too much?

I hate trying to find balance. I need to re-read "Confessions of an Unbalanced Women" it's a good book. I can already see self esteem issues with some of them and it hurts. I am sure they aren't blind to my own issues with confidence. How do you teach them to be more than you are?

Today while shopping Jesse looked a bug zappers. Looking at the box I could almost hear the sounds of my own childhood. sitting out back on the patio when our house was new and listening to the poor mosquito's snap, zap, pop before they could come and bite us. I was 5 when my mom and dad built their house. I can still remember how excited we were when the house was done and we got to move in. How happy I was knowing my grandma was just down the street. I can also remember how scared we were the 1st few nights with all 7 kids being upstairs and my mom and dad seemed so far away being downstairs. We all slept in one bedroom together until we finally decided this new house wasn't going to be so bad. Years later we would all be fighting to be the one that got a single room by themselves. I remember laying on the trampoline looking up at the stars and making silly little wishes as the bug zapper zapped away in the background.

I am going to buy a bug zapper so that some day my kids will stand in the store and be flooded with memories too. I hope they remember the excitement they had for their new house that is just across the street from where their grandparents live and only 3 - 7 miles from the other grandparents. I hope that one day they will be grateful for what they learned by having to share rooms with brothers and sister even if now they do have a single room by themselves. And I hope they will have lots of great memories looking up at the stars and making silly little wishes too. Because even the thought of the sound of a bug zapper can make you realize that childhood is but a flash, snap, pop, zap. . . and all you take are the memories.


By the way the mosquito's are out of control already and I really am buying a zapper, and because Samantha is allergic. I know a zapper is like pouring a thimble on a barn fire but it at least makes you feel like you are doing something to fight in the battle. LOL

Burnt, Melted, and Really wish I could sleep, but the Garden is in

Wow what a day! I am even more red now than I was Tuesday at the track meet. You would have thought I had learned my lesson but nope I am slower than that. My skin is so red. We spent the whole day getting the garden planted. Jesse went a little garden crazy this year. I can't believe how big of a garden he made. sheeesh! He planted 72 tomato plants. I have no idea what we need 72 tomato plants for but ok, what ever. I am on for the ride so here we go. We do bottle each year. I do stewed tomatoes and spaghetti sauce. last year we didn't do a garden because we thought we would be building the house last summer and didn't end up getting the permits until Oct. so I am thinking the one year lack of garden is the bug that has gotten into him this year and made him garden crazy.

We also planted about 70 other plants like, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, a variety of squash, and melons. I am looking forward to the fresh salsa that he makes every year. YUMMY!!! And even though I am burnt to a crisp and I am so stinking tired and have to still work until 2 am, I am glad we have the garden in. It has been lots of fun getting it ready. (now only to start on getting a yard in) The kids helped but mostly spent the day catching frogs and making swamp palaces in the yard for the frogs to play in. Yeah I am sure the poor little frogs love that. Rest assured that all the frogs were returned (escaped) to the wild before end of day. And at least the kids were entertained. Since playing in the mud is all they can do in the yard until we get some energy to actually get it ready for grass.

Oh how I am dreading all that work. It is going to be a huge huge job!! Long story short the reason it has taken so long for us to get our permits to build our house is because we have had water problems on our ground. The final solution to fix the problem was to haul in about 250 loads of rock and dirt. So that our house sits about 4 ft above ground level. So now we have to turn all the fill into a yard by sloping it and etc. And since we are doing that with the little tractor that we borrowed from my FIL we are not going very fast at it. Plus, then we still have to pay for even more dirt to be brought in for top soil. Yeah this is going to be a long summer full of sunburns. I am only beginning. I better invest in some better sunscreen for my almost albino skin. But it will be worth ever single second of it and I know we will even enjoy the process because that is how we are.

And TaDa here is the garden with all the tiny little starter plants in it. Now just to hope the weather will hold up since this has been a strange year for weather. (Please don't freeze and kill all my plants I will cry)

Officially Moving and the Tornado has struck again!

There has been a lot of chaos at our house the past few days. What is new right? LOL

Sunday the Activity Days girls sang in sacrament meeting the song we practiced and learned 2 weeks ago. They did a great job! This week for Activity Days we made friendship bracelets. Cute huh!? We did them by punching out fun foam circles using a hole punch and then running a needle with elastic through them. Each girl made 2. One to keep and one to give to a Friend. The cool thing is that my friend Nikki brought me all the stuff and the idea to use. Isn't that cool? So friendship brought together our lesson on friendship. And now I sent them on to Leslie for her girls and she will send it to another ward and so on. AWESOME! Anyway while the girls put together the bracelets we talked about friendship and how to be a friend.

Apparently it isn't helping my poor Samantha though. Not only did she leave her bracelets on the table at IHOP and the bus boy threw them away but this had been some of worst few weeks for her in the friend world at school. Man I am so glad that I only have 1 girl. This whole girls cat fights thing it just too much for me!!! Tonight after getting back from packing a taking things to the new house. Samantha came in my office and sat here and cried to me for over an hour about how "everyone is being mean" and "no one wants to be my friend" "not even one person will play with me now" etc.

Ya know those times when you just want to make it all better but you know you can't? Well that was us. I really didn't know what to tell her other than to just hang in there and try to be nice to everyone. It seems that her 2 favorite friends in the world have decided to be BFF's and that leaves no room for her. And even though she just keeps saying "I just don't know what I did." and "Why why are they doing this?" "Why does she have to tell everyone else not to play with me now?' and "I am not being rude to her I am only being nice" I know that there are things she is probably doing and saying that aren't very nice. She insists that she is sitting on the bench at recess friendless. (not sure about that one)

So when I try to explain that even though she may not think that these things hurt their feelings they might. Then she just cries harder and tells me that now I don't like her either and that I just want to get mad at her for trying to make friends. Poor kiddo how do I just listen and not lecture? It is so hard for me. So I decided that all she needed was a shoulder to cry on. So we cried together and tried to think of ways to make friends. The hard part is that the one friend that is mad at her is the "Queen Bee" and has told all the other girls not to play with her. And her other friend isn't being mean but won't play with her because queen bee says that she can't. So she is stuck between a rock and a hard spot and well....UGH GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS!!!

It's just so hard as a mom to see them with their broken little hearts thinking that their world is coming apart. So glad I only have one Drama Queen. I feel bad for my sister who has 5 girls to deal with. YIKES!!

And in other news....

We are OFFICIALLY MOVING!!! We passed the final inspection and have been moving stuff into the garage and tomorrow we sign on the final papers and get the keys! WOO HOO!!! MINE MINE MINE!! (well after 30 yrs of paying the bank but hey still MINE!!) LOL Tonight is the last night that I will sleep in the rental and tomorrow we are FINALLY after years going to be sleeping in our own home that we have waited for, planned, waited for, fought for, and pushed for, for such a long time. I know that my grandma would be so happy to see us finally living here. We dreamed of this for years and the day has finally come. It still doesn't seem real to me that I am going to be living on this ground that has been in our family for 150 yrs. and that I have dreamed of since I was a little girl. I just can't believe that it is finally here... And that is has really been worth all the red tape and bull crap but that we finally made it through. I can't wait for tomorrow. And how and I going to celebrate it??? I have no idea, probably by yelling at my kids to not touch anything in the new house and by ordering in food because I will be to busy moving to cook. LOL

Not very creative I know. But I am still very very excited!!

p.s. of course Will is sick when we are moving. Garyn was sick on Saturday and spend the night laying across the street on Grandmas Couch while we hauled boxes and Then last night I got off work and came into bed at around 3am and poor little Will woke up in his disoriented middle of the night FREAK OUT that he does. He sits in the bed and cries "bugs bugs bugs" or "spiders" and he is totally convinced that there are some and we have to turn on the lights and show him that there isn't any and then after a while he finally calms down and goes back to sleep. Who ever heard of a little BOY being so scared of bugs?? UGH!!! It started with him getting stung by a hornet last summer and was escalated by the big kids using it as a scare tactic to keep him out of places they don't want him to be. Saying things to him like "No Will don't go in my room there are spiders" and etc. OOOH I could just beat them!!! I get so mad at them for giving him this stupid fear. He is going to hate summer when the flies start to come out again. And living on a farm with cattle you can just imagine that yes we have flies.

Anyway he finally go back to sleep and I get about 20 min of sleep when I hear a not so lovely sound and look up and there is Will standing on the side of my bed puking on me. GREAT!!! So we spent a very sleepless night and a not so productive moving day taking care of pukey Will. Thank goodness for family!! My dad called and came over and took him around 1 and kept him so that I could pack. (funny thing is that by then he felt better and Grandpa said he didn't throw up even once) And my sister came to help me pack the kids (totally disgusting messy) rooms. This was very very nice of her. She is a Drama teacher and this is THE worst week of the year for her as she is in the middle of her musical production of "Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat" with a cast of over 150 kids in 7th, 8th, and 9th grade. And she took her only night that she doesn't have rehearsals or the play and came to help me move. And then my mom came over once she got off work and packed all my kitchen cupboards into boxes and took that over to the house. Yeah the ROCK!!! I was happy to have so much help and this is just the beginning. I have had so much help from family in the process of building this house. ENORMOUS blessings from Jesse's family and mine clear out to our cousins. I can't even believe how many people have helped in one way or another. In huge ways from helping us get a better interest rate, to out of the blue bringing us the fill dirt we needed, to even one of his cousins just happened to work at the electric company and helped us save thousands on the installation, and my uncle works at the phone and helping us paint, and well this list could go on all night. It has been absolutely jaw dropping. And the numerous offer to help us move be friends family and neighbors. Sorry this has been such a long entry but I feel very very blessed and I felt that I needed to have this written down. See ya in a few days when I am feeling more settled and am back to work. I took the rest of the week off. :)

Mantle is Finally In!

I have been waiting what seems like forever to get the mantle in. I picked it but then they said it wasn't going to have legs because there wasn't enough room and I said "No way! There is room and I want it with legs!" So I whined and cried and got my way. Then the tile underneath was installed wrong and we had to wait for that to get fixed and today it finally got put in! About and hour before the final inspection so it was really like the last thing to go in. LOL Anyway the house is pretty much done at this point. We have a few little things to get fixed so they can re-inspect it Thursday. So it looks like we will be moving next week. WOO HOO!!! and YIKES!! all at once. I am not really ready to move but I guess you can't really pack up everything until it is time. KWIM?

Here are a few pictures taken today after the clean up crew left. It will never be this clean again. I am cleaning challenged. But, I am getting very excited now.

Would someone just give me the go ahead on the move already? I am going nuts here! LOL PLEASE!!!

Man Vs. Wild, Adventures in House Land

The house is almost done, which means that I will soon be done blogging about it all the time. I am thankful to all my Friends that understand that this is what we are doing right now and that it has consequently become what I tend to blog about most. But I am trying to keep a record of the events and excitement for our family. This weekend we painted Jaden's and Samantha's rooms and today we got carpet. WOO HOO! Isn't that a sign that the end is near?

But mostly I have to tell about Jaden's experience as Man Vs. Wild

Today Jaden had quite the scary moment. We took the kids over to look at the new carpet. And I swear I told them a million times to say in the house because it is SOOOO MUDDY over there right now. We have had so much snow in Utah this winter and it is now melting. Our contractor dug a trench with a backhoe from the Well to the house to hook up our water. This is about a 3 foot deep trench I am talking about here. The melting snow and mud it all running toward the trench and it is completely full. We have been joking with our contractor that he is going to need scuba gear to put in the water line. This is a lot of water. Jesse just told Jaden when they were feeding the cows "DO NOT COME OUT HERE, there is a deep trench of water"

So like 20 min. later Jaden decides we wants a drink from the well and he puts on the mud boots to walk out to get a drink. Samantha and Garyn were following him too. From the surface it just looks like the entire yard is muddy and puddles. So he walks straight into the trench and falls in. YIKES! The kids start screaming and poor Jaden doesn't realize that he can just stand up. He said "All I could thing about was the episode of Man Vs. Wild where he was showing how to get out of a frozen lake." Bless his heart he had no idea how deep it was and he thought he had fallen into the well. (even though you can not fall into our well. It is only 9 inches wide pipe and it is sealed off) But he didn't know that. So he finally climbs out the side of the trench and then if freaking out because he thought he lost grandpas mud boots. So he retrieved the boot and comes to the house to tell us what happened. We are so mean and we couldn't stop laughing because he was so muddy. And yes of course I took a picture. He as very upset but we calmed him down and warmed him up. Poor Kid. I bet he won't be wandering around the yard for a while. And I bet I won't be letting them outside the house until that trench is drained and covered back up. I am lucky he didn't lead Garyn into it that would have been really deep for a 5 yr old.

The carpet came today, it is called "Whole Wheat" I love it of course.

My Camera batteries were dying to the pictures aren't very good.

Over the weekend we painted in the kids rooms. We had the painters do most the house and painted the bedrooms white and then we just went in and did accent paint. This is Jadens room we did Navy Blue bottom half with chair rail. Jesse did a great job especially for his first time putting up chair rail or molding. I love how it looks with the carpet.
Samantha's room is awesome!

Nikki came over and spent all day Saturday with me glazing the walls pink. Then Sunday we had my brothers Kenton and Thad come over and add another layer of pink and they helped finish the blue room. I was glad they were there to play power tools with Jesse. Aunt Heather (Thad's wife) and Samantha also got to help add more of the glazing. It is just enough pink and Little Miss Samantha Montana it THRILLED!!

She can't wait to add all her Hannah Montana Decor to it.

Just had to throw this picture in here. I thought is was so cute. I keep finding little notes written in the dust all over the house. In cupboards on the counter tops and this one on the stove top. Samantha is so excited about getting the house done. When the contractor comes across these little notes he tells me where they are so that I can get pictures. It is really cute of her. Yesterday while we were painting her Uncle Kenton told her that she should write a note and put it under the carpet so that whenever we pull the carpet up to change it she will have a note from her 9yr old self. Kinda like a time capsule. So she did it. It was so cute it says some of her favorite things like her favorite foods, color (pink duh), sports, shows, and etc. But the funny part was this:

"I am Samantha my room is the pink one, I am 9 because I was born in 1998 it is now 2008 February the 24th and it is 8:15 pm, so I better hurry and get this done because the carpet is coming tomorrow." She is a doll!! She colored a picture and put it all into a zip lock baggy and we went over and put it under the carpet pad in her closet. The carpet guys probably thought we were nuts, but my contractor was nice and said it was a cute idea. Thanks Uncle Kenton for the great idea. She was very excited about it! I wish I would have had time for them all to make one.
Man, this was a long one, but it has been a very long weekend. Not to mention a very Sh*#y one! Will, will not leave his diapers on and he has diarrhea and keeps leaving surprises on the floor. UGH! He did it at Grandmas last night while we were finishing the painting!!! UGH UGH UGH! SO Missy may be Pi$sed off but my Sh*#Y weekend beats her! LOL KIDS! I finally got to the point that I taped across the diaper straps but he still got if off so now he is wearing PJ's with the top of the zipper safety pinned shut. OK I am finally done thanks for reading about my Crazy life it is no wonder I feel like a tornado all the time!!

Water, Water, I Have Water!!!

I am so excited/relevied that the Well Drillers have finally hit a good supply of water. Ok so it is at 407 feet but we finally have water! When you live out of town this is one of the things that you have to have. You have to have your own water supply and your own septic system and did I ever mention that what is cost me to have my power brought in?

Yeah I still haven't healed from that one. YIKES! They had to bring in about 7 poles to reach our house. But in the end I will have lots of space and I will enjoy sitting on my big ol porch watching the birds. LOL Here are some of the pictures of what is going on at the house these days. Now that we have water we can quit holding our breath and actually start packing to move. Here are the pictures:

So close I can taste it!

I am so close to moving in that I can taste it! I am getting excited!!!!

Painting is done, yes I love it! The colors turned out great. the downstairs and upper hall is 2 tone, lulled beige with Ricks White trimming. I can't believe how great it turned out and for those wondering no it didn't end up looking like a that cave I thought it would. LOL Boy, does it smell great. I love the smell for new paint. The appliances arrived today. They aren't in yet but they are at the house now. Woo Hoo! And the countertops are done. LOVE LOVE LOVE them! I can't belives how much I love them. I picked up this little 2 inch sample and carried it around for months. Totally know thats what I wanted it as soon as I say it. It was love at 1st site, and now they are in I see that I was totally right! My mom wants the sample so that when she gets sick of hers she can copy. Cute huh?

Heres a picture of the paint, the countertops, and Dad with the boys, checking out the new appliances:

The well drillers are back and have been working away, drilling with a different, older style rig. Today they are at 400 ft. (yikes $44 a foot!) and have hit into water with gravel. Much better than the water with sand that we have been getting up the last 30 ft. So they think we are pretty much there and will be good to go. Please send your prayers this way. It really need this to be done and we really really need water for our house. I am kinda starting to stress out over this!!!

Yea, so here we are about a week from totally done and my view out the bay window is still that of the well rig! UGH!!!!!!!!! House with no water, just great!



Now, for the final look of the house. They finished up the outside today as well. Check out my totally cute shutters. I am also loving these. I am very excited to see that the stuff that I picked is really coming together for me and that I do like the finish look. :) Here is what you will see when you come to bring me cookies. ;) Minus the yellow dumpster I hope.

Little note: It keeps snowing and snowing and snowing which make pouring concrete impossible so we are also hoping praying that all will work out with this part as well. We wouldn't be building if we didn't have a few snags right?

Best of Both Worlds - Another Great Night for the Kids

Totally cool, waiting to get into the 3D Movie

Either Samantha is totally spoiled beyond all repair, or Disney is a corporation of evil geniuses, or I am a total sucker mom, or ..... OK fine all 3! Not only did this Little Miss Montana Wanna-be get to go to the concert but then I also shelled out $15 a seat to take her to the concert-movie. She totally is getting the best of, The Best of Both Worlds Tour. LOL Have to admit I would totally do it again. YES I am a sucker mom. Ya know, they are only going to be little once, And this time we got to take Jaden too. But, he was embarrassed because, he and his friend were like the only boys in the theater other than the poor dads. LOL

This was so much fun. We took Jaden, and his friend, Samantha and her cousins. (Since someone else bailed on us. Not mentioning any names NIKKI) They had such a ball! This was not like any other movie experience we have had. (good thing too at that price lol) the kids were actually all up dancing around the theater and having the time of their lives. For Samantha it was like reliving the concert only better because you could actually see it. LOL Yes we sat on the roof at the actuall concert. ;) At one point I walked down to see the dancing frenzy going on in the front of the theater. I counted at least 50 people up there dancing. Girls, Teens, moms and oh yes 2 of the cutest 11 year old boys you will ever see. ;) What a night. I wish my kids could always find this kind of family fun night to be so exciting.

Again totally cool we were the 1st ones in line,

so we got great seats and I got to take pictures before the theater filled up!

It almost killed me not being able to get a picture of all the people dancing in front of the screen. So after the show was over I had to snap one of the few stragglers left there chatting.

After movie excitment: It was totally snowy and I hated the drive home anyway, but with the kids being all excited and loud it was nuts! I took them on a school night and my kids did not have an easy time winding down afterward. I am sure it didn't help that we stopped by the house so see the new paint. LOL at 10:00 pm yeah we are crazy like that sometimes.

WOW! My cabinets are in!

I have to say that I have the best builders in the world! We started our house on Oct. 15th and we are almost done. They have been so great to work with and the are even pretty understanding that I am a basic simple person that is a little old fashioned and doesn't like all the frills. They have been so amazing about building my house to suit me! I had to run over to take pictures because the cabinets are now in. This is the same room that we had the party in on Sunday. I am so excited and I love how they have turned out.

1st party at the new house

Will turned 2 on Saturday and today we had our Grandma Grandpa Party for him. It was the 1st family shindig to be held at our new house. It was really fun. Since the kitchen flooring is down now. :) It was nice to be in a big empty space and have room to relax an talk. Too bad in only a matter of weeks it will be cluttered with my furnishings and my many many personal belongings. (I am in the process of doing some de-junking) No Amy you can't choose what of my things to throw away for me. ARG!



Will had a blast. He totally knew it was his day and was HYPER! He was running all over an being so cute. Yesterday we had a fun cousin party playing arcade games, so I am sure that warmed him up. Here are a few pictures of the parties. Tomarrow I will post a slide show of my favorite pictures of Will from the past 2 years. Only fair that if I did it for Garyn that Will gets one too. And I have to say even being the 4th child he is not lacking at all in the picture department. The scrapbook pages made department maybe but this kid gets lots of pictures taken of him. Good thing he is cute that is all that saved him these past 2 years. LOL

Forgot to mention that big sister dressed him for the party since I was cooking food. Don't you love the onsie ontop of the pants? CLASSIC!

It has been a full of funnies week so I will have to think about what I want to blog for tomorrow. I will sleep it over (my whole 3 hrs of sleep I am going to get) Hum... Will it be Jesse breaking the lights over the Wii? Jaden and his new mullet? A game of I spy the 2 yr old? Spoiled child and his nighttime rituals? Or Snowdays make good pictures and I love Marshmallow Kids? Stay tuned for more of my random ranting about my crazy yet go no where life.........

PS To all of you who take the time to read my pointless writing. THANKS FOR READING! Its a crazy life around here.

Will loves to vacuum!

Will loves to vacuum

Why can’t I have this much enthusiasm and joy to vacuum our … uhm… can you call that carpet? I can’t wait to get out of this house!!! But the new one is almost done! Here’s a picture of the outside. Most the siding is on. It is way browner than I had imagined it but I love it! Picked out all the lights today. That got me very excited. Good bye 1950's carpet! Hello plush and fluffy 2008! Can't wait to be vacuuming my new carpet in MY own house. :)

(I know it won't last. That's why I am teaching Will to vacuum LOL)

What a View

My house, that I have literally waited years to build, is finally getting built, and it is coming along nice and fast. This week they put on my brick and did Sheetrock on the inside. Wednesday, they will tape and drywall. And by the beginning of next week we will be onto finishing work. WOW I am amazed, and so excited! We drive by the house every day (at least once) and we find ourselves very often standing and looking out the windows at the amazing view of the surrounding fields, farms, and mountains. I am so thankful to be building a home to raise my family in that is in a place that is so beautiful to me. I took some pictures out of my windows while we were there today. What a great start to a new year!!! :) I am feeling very blessed today, Jesse let me sleep in, we got lots done around the house, even started packing, and the kids didn't make me pull out any hair today. I wish all days were like today.

Here are some pictures of my view. I figured I better get some now, who knows in another 30 yrs this may all be city and be filled with houses and businesses. And here a are a few of picts of Jesse and the kids looking out the windows, and the house with the brick on it. (The siding will be on soon too, and the door will be painted, then it will really look like a house:

Cold stinking day, but my windows arrived! & Pioneer Thankfulness!

The kids and a cousin IN the framed fireplace. I told them not to make a habit of hanging out in the fireplace or they might get burned up. LOL It was so stinking cold they probably wished there really was a fireplace already.
And we have a roof! Jesse can sleep in peace tonight and stop tearing his skin off his hands stressing out about the possibility of it snowing in the house. Sweet Dreams Baby!
They joy of my day, WINDOWS! Seeing as how most of the house is windows I was thrilled to see them arrive today. I did however think that the ones for the front of the house had grids in them.... hum, guess I better be checking that one out.

This was such a cold day today! I was way tired because I am a sucker and can never say "NO" so I ended up staying on late to work and didn't get to bed until 4 am. I love my job! I still can't believe I get to work at home and actually get paid to play online when it is dead. It's a cool gig! Anyway since I was tired and it was so cold (heaters are broken) I just wanted to stay in bed all day. But I didn't :) I got up and actually got some stuff done including 2 batches of laundry. WOO HOO for me. I drove by the house on my way to take Garyn to preschool and the framers were there putting on the rest of my roof. I wanted to drive back over later but it was just too cold. So instead I had a nap. Then when Jesse got home he honked in the drive way and put me in his warm car and drove me over to see how far they had gotten. I was excited to see the progress on the roof and bonus room, but can you imagine my surprise when I walked into the garage and saw this pile up of windows? It made trumping out into the cold with 4 kids worth every cold breath!

It has come to this , a good day is getting windows piled up in the garage. I look forward to all the days and years ahead looking out these windows and watching my kids and someday grand kids playing in the yard, watching my baby girl drive off on her 1st date, pacing the floor looking out these same windows waiting for them to come home from dates and eventually for family dinners and holidays, and all that life will bring both happy and sad. I will for the rest of my life be looking out these same windows at the spectacular view around me and marveling the blessings that I have all because more than 150 years ago my great great great great grandmother packed up everything she had into a wagon and walked thousands of miles to bring her family to a place this beautiful to raise her family where they could worship god in peace and then their families, and so on, and so forth, so that I can now raise my family 7 generations later in this very place! Thank you Caroline! and Grandma! and especially Mom too! Because of you, I finally have a place to call my home! I hope the Lord will give me the strength and help I need to raise my children with as much Faith as they.