February 2012

Another month has slipped by. Here are a few pictures of things we have been up to:

My mom and I went into town with the purpose of going to Sam's Club to buy spinach and cheese. That seems pretty harmless, right? After we finished at Sam's (and only buying a little candy) I said to my mom "So there is an hour before the kids will be in bed. Where are we going now"? I wasn't really serious. But she was. So we went to TJ Maxx and found these super cute chickens. I had to bring them home. Aren't they so cute? :)

Brynn made this picture in art class. They were talking about Native Americans.

Claire loves the days we watch Cohen. They play together really well. This day they played prince and princess. Cohen was a reluctant prince. He tried to rip his princely vest off when it got in the way of his crawling around. We sure love this little boy!

Shawn made us all pink heart pancakes for Valentine's Day. They were a hit!  I can never get pancakes to look like anything but misshapen snowmen so I was impressed with this. He also bought flowers for all four of us girls. Good job Daddy!

I have wanted to make a log cabin quilt for years. This year I used some of my birthday money to buy fabric and get started on that quilt. It involved lots of cutting fabric into strips. I purchased some pre-cut strips (the rolls in the back) and decided that is really the way to do these things. Aren't they pretty all wrapped up together?

We have not had much snow this winter. So whenever we get any snow the girls are really excited to play in it. This day it snowed enough that the girls made a little fort in the back yard and this little chickie. It cracks me up that my girls made snow-chickies.

Last month one of our chickens, Peck, died suddenly. We were all very sad. These birds are definitely beloved pets. So this month when the baby chicks came in to the local IFA we decided to get two more. These are our new babies, Buffy and Penny. Bonus points for anyone who can tell me what TV shows we got their names from. Buffy is a Buff Orpington. She will be a beautiful yellow-gold bird when she is full grown. I  wanted a Buff Orp solely because how pretty the adult birds are. Penny is a Amerucana like CeeCee. We are hoping she will lay green eggs. They have taken up residence in an old cooler in the corner of our dining room. It is fun to have them inside and watch them do their chicken thing all day long. They are surprisingly noisy. We can hear them from our bedroom at night. I am wondering how long they will last inside before Shawn starts to protest. :)

This month I participated in my first triathlon. It was a blast! It was a indoor triathlon held at USU. I did it with a bunch of my buddies from CrossFit. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE CrossFit?

We started out with a 400 Meter swim. Yes I know I look creepy in my tinted googles. That may be a purchase I need to rethink.

After the swim we hopped out, threw on some shorts (and I pulllllllllllllllllllled my knee brace on...I need to work on transitions for sure) and headed over to the fieldhouse where they had stationary spinning bikes set up. We did 6 miles on the bikes. This was actually really fun because we just turned the resistance clear down and pedaled the crap out of those bikes. At one point I hit 30 MPH. Too bad this is not what road biking is like. It was also really fun that Shawn could come up and chat with me while I did this part. I was so glad he was there cheering me on. Thanks baby!

After the bike we did a 4K run on the indoor track. That translated into 20 laps. And as you can tell from the picture I was feeling it by the end. (PS-I hate pics of myself running, I always look like I am in pain...which I guess is usually true).

The whole event was fantastic and I can't wait to try a sprint triathlon this summer. I was ridiculously proud of my arm and calf tats that I was able to sport for a couple of days. Silly, I know, but so cool!

The girls asked me why I had mooo written on my arm.

And here is the calf shot. I know you wanted to see. This event was totally the highlight of my month!  Oh and the fact that later that night we got Indian food and ate it in front of the TV. Good times!

The next day we had Mom and Dad, Jake, Shanna, and Cohen over to eat scones. They were super greasy and buttery and gooey and yummy! We haven't had scones in a really long time. When we were kids Jake and Mike used to make scones all the time on Sundays but they were never patient enough to let the dough rise so it was like eating hockey pucks. Funny I know, but I really was nervous to start frying them until Jake got there to tell me what to do.

Oh, and this is my new haircut that I got just today. What do you think? :)

I hope you all had a great February. Time to bring on Spring!

January 2012

Well, I figured it was time for an update. I have been super bad about posting. I am trying to take more pictures of our everyday living this year so along with that I am going to try to post at least once a month. This is a really good journaling tool, and I think that at least Bart and Katie would still read our blog. :) So here we go, a recap of January:

 Claire and I hang out a lot. I realized just how much when I was looking back over these pictures and the majority of them have her in them. We are always together! It is really fun to have a little buddy.

 Cohen came for a visit one night while Jake and Shanna went bowling with some friends. It is really fun to have a baby in the house....for a little while. Cohen is getting so big! It was fun to have him sit at the table with us during dinner.

 Claire loves olives. What little kid doesn't?

 This day at CrossFit we did 100 pull-ups. My hands were pretty trashed after wards. I didn't notice I was bleeding until I was almost done. It was probably better that way. My hands had to be wrapped up like this for a couple of days. It was great for sympathy. :)

 Claire loves Hello Kitty. She got these cute slippers for Christmas.

 There has not been much snow this winter but on the 18th we got enough that the girls could sled down the hill in the front yard. They had lots of fun.

 The next day it started to rain, turning all the snow into giant puddles everywhere. So we made boats out of milk cartons and Syd and her BFF, Jessie, took Lego Harry and Hermione for a ride in the puddle. 

 There was a little scare for a minute when Harry's plastic hair came off and got lost in the water, but we found it.

 Claire came in all wet and wanted help getting out of her boots. I wanted to take her picture instead. She was mad and wouldn't look at the camera. Mad, but still cute!

 Mom and Dad came over the night of my birthday for cake. We have been doing this diet for our gym competition so we don't get much sugar. We were like a pack of wolves going in for the kill when the cake was served up. It was super yummy!

I got a new gnome for my birthday! Thank you Julie!!

 Claire loves to dress up. This day she found an eye mask and wore it around much of the day. It accessorizes well with the beach ball, don't you think?

 This day (the 30th) started out as a cowgirl day. I actually really like this hat on her. Yee haw!

 Later that same day it became cowgirl/swimsuit day. You know, it January, time for swimming, right? I especially like her hair pretty, don't you?

 Bobbie did not get left out of the action. We tried to have a cat rodeo with her.She refused to moved and just looked really pissed off.  Maybe she was waiting for the Barbies so we could do it properly.

On the 31st,  I went to change my clothes and told Claire to keep an eye on Cohen for a couple of minutes. This is what I came back to. She did keep an eye on him. He was super-proud of himself for chewing a hole in the plastic bag. I guess you get what you pay for with a 3-year-old babysitter.

Sometimes I watch Bobbi and her level of activity (laziness) and think it would not be a bad gig to be a house cat for a day or two.

Shawn is fantastic

Shawn was fetured on our gym blog this weekend. You should go read about how cool he is here.

Cluck Clucks

Today the girls came running into the house yelling "An egg! An egg! One of the chickens laid and egg!"...then they promptly dropped it on the floor. Sigh.

On that note: here is an update on all the ladies:

Delilah is our Easter Egger. That egg might have been from her. Delilah is quite a character. She come running whenever we com into the yard. Her biggest motivator is food. If she thinks you have a treat for her she is all over you. She is my kind of girl.

CeeCee is our Ameraucana. She was a surprise. We thought she was going to be a Barred Rock. I love her tufts of feathers on her cheeks, or her beard. She is a very pretty bird, and also quite mellow.

Peck is probably our odd duck. She has a birth defect that resulted in deformed feet. I'll have to take a picture some time. She does not like to be held and will actively run away from you if you try. She is definitely the most shy and stand-offish of our birds. She is sweet and quiet. She was the first bird to show an interest in roosting...on our 8-foot fence. Silly thing.

That egg probably came from Stretch. She is our Barred Rock. I think she is a couple of weeks older than the other birds and she has been nesting lately. I guess we will see with time. Stretch seems to think she is a dog. She spends lots of time on our back deck pecking at the glass door, like she wants to come in. She will run to us when we come in the yard and she loves to be held. She will jump up on my shoulder and hang out there when I am working in the yard. She is a super-fun bird. She is also the boss, at the top of the pecking order.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring a new egg...one that doesn't end up on the floor.

Home Remodel

I have terribly neglectful of our blog this summer. I guess I have been busy doing other things. We have been doing a giant home remodel and it is nearing completion. I also need to post about the other things we did this summer: Brynn's baptism and birthday, the races I participated in, some new haircuts for the girls, and a few other fun things. I will start with the remodel. It has been all-consuming for months now and I can't believe we are almost done.  So here is a huge picture rundown of what we have been up to:

Kitchen before. Notice dark cabinets, wall by stairs, and ugly lamp over stairs. Soon they will be gone.

Living room before. Notice entryway with it's special posts, the stairway that is not up to code (plastic latticework) and the decorative railing behind the couch.

Living room/kitchen before.

Cabinets coming down. I did this by myself in an afternoon. I must say it gave me a bug to destroy everything. Demolition is so much fun! The girls sat on the deck and watched me. They were my cheering section. "Hit is again, Mom!"

 

Cabinets gone. We should have done this years ago. I have not missed the cabinets for two seconds. They were so narrow you could not even fit a dinner plate into them.

This banister is up to code, right?

 Shawn and Dad discussing the important things in life: How do we rip this railing out of here?

 

Shawn working on taking the fireplace out. We had to cut the wall out to get to the stovepipe. We had to cut through the stovepipe, which was three layers thick.

Fireplace gone. We were left with a super creepy hole in the wall. The stovepipe was left hanging there. We thought it would be fine. Shawn tarred around it up on the chimney to close a water leak and everything looked good. We came home from church to find the stovepipe had fallen through the chimney and was sitting on the floor in the wall. There is now a 14-inch hole in our chimney where the stovepipe used to be. We just left the stovepipe in the wall and sheet-rocked over it.

We took out a little wall here by the stairs. My new can lights are in place and we have started painting.

This is the sheet rock repair job where the fireplace used to be. It was so nice to not have a giant hole in the wall anymore. The cat had been crawling around in the hole the hour before we closed it up. We made sure we knew where she was at before we closed the hole.

Stair banister gone. I tore this out by myself one morning. Again, I think I like demolition a little too much. Claire is practicing safe stair-climbing technique in the picture. Do you all want to send your kids over to play at my house. I promise it is super-safe.

This is the wall where the fireplace used to be, patched and painted. You would never guess there used to be a fireplace there.

One of my new light fixtures. I LOVE them!

Just a happy kid. Our kids have been so patient with this whole thing. Such good girls.

This is what we found underneath the floor when we tore it up. I think this we the original linoleum in the house. Isn't it pretty? Claire was calling it our treasure floor. The girls loved it and wanted to keep it. It is still down there, so I guess we kind of did.

 Old kitchen floor gone. Kind of.

New laminate going down. This was an exciting day. I love this floor and the new feel it gave to this space.

New floor just about done!

Old carpet coming up. My parent and Jake came over and helped us pull staples for hours. Then as payment I gave Jake the old carpet. It is headed for his garage. Heehee.

Old sink on it's way out. Countertops gone.

New countertenors. They are so pretty! And I love the way they make the cabinets pop. It is finally starting to come together!

New sink. I have wanted a stainless sink for years. I am so excited

New carpet. We finally can start putting the house back together. The carpet looks great! The girls spent all afternoon rolling around on it.

New ceiling fan. We have had no ceiling lighting in the living room up to this point. I am so excited about this lamp, and anyone who know me know I am hot all the time so the fan will be great!

We cased all the windows and put up new molding. This was a huge job, but so worth it. It all looks great and really finishes everything off.

That is about it. I will post some more pics when we get the furniture back in. The bookcase will probably go in around November. Shawn has worked so hard. Thank you baby!! Also thank you to my parents who helped so much. THey would call every day and ask what I got done and what I was going to do. I think they were worried that they would get stuck with the work so they were highly motivated for me to work hard. Seriously they helped a ton. We can never repay them.

So now for the next month I am going to sit on my couch and look at my pretty new house. Come over and you can sit next to me and we can stare together.