Jan 2013

What a crazy time in our family's lives! January kept us busy. To start, I kept myself immersed in putting together our 2012 family book. I probably put 30 hours of work into it and stayed up ALL night (till about 4AM) twice trying to get it done to be apart of the promo mixbook was having. I eventually got it done and was thrilled! My kids love looking through the book and remembering all the fun things we'd done the year previous. I was much more happy this year, buying a 12x12 rather than last years 8.5x8.5. It costs more, but for all the effort I put into keeping the blog up to date with stories and pictures, I'd prefer a picture larger than a thumbnail to see. I love Mixbook's very simple software and all the embellishments they provide as well.

I put in all the blog text and pictures. I think there are close to 2000 pictures in here!

These pictures don't do the book justice.

We went through a chocolate pudding phase... William loved it! I didn't so much. 

 We also went through a scream-bloody-murder phase when changing Williams diaper (actually still not over that phase). If I gave him something, he'd be fine, but he strongly dislikes laying still with nothing to do. One day, as I went to change Willy, the closest thing to me was a chocolate pudding cup. He went to town, but I paid for it in the end! What a mess, silly boy! 

Just a couple weeks prior to this picture, we went to the theater as a family to see the Jack Frost movie (what is that called again?). When we woke up one morning Tristen declared that Jack Frost had come!

Tristen gets time-outs a lot... still. Kalvin happened to capture it on of the times. Tristen was not too happy about that idea (though you can't tell).

We took the advice of one of the general authorities and tried doing our family scripture reading with the kids helping. I would hold up a certain number and the kids knew which phrase to chime in with: "and it came to pass" and so forth. Kalvin documented one night of our reading as he played with the camera. We have found that it is easiest to read at the dinner table (got that idea from my Mamma!-Thanks!).

Sunday's are special in that it's the day that I put on makeup. If I don't ever get to it throughout the week, I at least make the effort on Sunday's. My hair usually gets curled somehow too. Well, this one particular Sunday, I wanted some pictures with William (just on my phone...). He wasn't having it. The one day he's not giggly... Stone cold stares.

 So, when we took apart our kitchen, we also took out our oven range. So, from early December till the beginning of February, we used a toaster oven for our baking needs. Luckily, I have smaller dishes that could fit. Pie pans were used frequently for different dishes as well.

Phineas and Ferb! A must throughout the week.

 For about 3 weeks, I deep cleaned my house. I really thought it would never end! Really, I did not see end in sight! EVER! But now it's February and it is gone. My house can't get nearly as messy if there's so much packed away, right? It's been very nice! I came across this picture of my sister, April and I. I don't know how I've inherited it, but it was fun to see and reminisce on. Also, not really sure how the picture got creased in the middle (that happened many years ago).

 Our basement can be pretty dusty. And the cement ground is not the best. I don't like William crawling on it. I have to take all his clothes off every time he does get down there. Where better to put him (if he must be down there) than the dryer to play in. He loved it! We had fun playing peek a boo!

 William's discovered olives for fingertips!

 I had to show Tristen this suction cup he was sucking on. Too funny.

 Just 5 days after Williams first Birthday, he took his first steps! I kind of tricked him into it, but he got excited and played along for a few minutes taking a few steps at a time. I knew it wouldn't last. He's just content with crawling. Now, a month later, he's still not interested in walking.

 While William was showing off his walking abilities, Tristen wanted to show himself walking as well. After we played "walking" with William, Tristen and I danced around the living room for a few minutes, so as not to feel left out.

 Tristen (and all the boys for that matter), LOVE Duane! I thought it was so cute that one evening Tristen wanted up on Duane's lap, just to watch him surf his tablet.

Self portrait inside his tent.

William's first try of cotton candy!

 Angry birds! This game is ridiculous! I think the box says ages 5+, but it's hard for even adults to set up. Would not recommend (and Kal used his own money to put buy it... bummer)!

 Kalvin was recognized on week. He loved it! You can't really tell, but this is a big poster size.

 It had been weeks since I got out of the house to do anything besides, run to Lowes or grocery shopping or church. My friend invited a bunch of us mommies to play at a kids playground. The sad thing is, I felt guilty going since my house was such a disaster; organizing is a messy job! Plus, I was repainting the rooms in the house (repainted the entire play room, the ALL the baseboards throughout the main level, the green wall in the boys room, the purple wall in the office, the blue lower half in the dining room, the window trims in each room, as well as all the patched holes in the walls and all the radiator box benches. It was a HUGE undertaking!). My friend gave us a couples days notice, so I planned my house work to make the play date work. I loaded up my car to the brink full of things I needed to drop off at various places on my way to the kids playground, the homeless shelter for our toys, a box of things to a needy family in the branch, an ice cream maker to a friend, a dresser to another friend.... think I counted 5 stops that morning before our morning play date. It's sad, but I felt that without all the stops before hand, I was not justified in going to the playdate. Multi-tasking had become essential. The boys had fun getting out for a few hours!

 You can see how bad the radiator box benches really were. I should have done this ages ago (guess I was busy putting my efforts else where on the house)! It was so easy and look so much better now!

 Before:

After:

 Repainted all these windows as well.

 And these... you can see where the old metal blinds hit the window trim repeatedly.

 Smoothies! Duane and I have been pretty good at not buying ice cream for the last few months and this plus being caught up in last minute house projects has helped me forget to eat and in turn helped to slim me up some (FINALLY!). It's been great to look decent again. BTW, when I get back to AZ, I plan to get our families into racing! I'd love to do some of the fun 5k's around the valley or other fun obstacle courses. I need to ask Aurda about the one they do near Flagstaff, I think.
Anyway, Duane makes great smoothies :-) Tristen likes them too.

So, my parents in AZ have been in the process of trying to buy a particular house for over a year now! It's been wild, but just days after Christmas and one business day before they were to sign the papers to make the house their own, there was a freeze that came through the valley and the pipes burst causing tens of thousands of dollars in damages from the attic to the basement. I found it ironic that the day after they had a pipe burst in their (almost) house, our neighbors home that has been vacant ever since we've lived here, had a pipe burst. It was spraying water everywhere!

They had tons of peeps there working to get it back in order and after digging up the ground quite a bit with big tractors, it was fixed.

 The streets after snow are beautiful!

Here's our street: 

 And Manning Blvd:

 William likes eating the snow!

 Another project in January, the kitchen window trim... About a week after we moved into this house, we took the trim off (stupid!) because there was so much air coming in from the outside, it took 3 years for me to get sick enough of it to actually take care of it, but the window looks fantastic now (if you don't look too close)! In future homes that we own, I am going to use a professional to do the work... I don't like looking at it when it's not finished, but the way I finish it is NOT the most beautiful work. I just do it to get it done, not necessarily to do it the right way, sadly, and Duane doesn't get very excited about this.

 This little guy likes to be a stinker and stand up in his high chair.

 We don't usually do this (actually this is the only time), but they both thought this was so cool!

 With Mommy painting everything, the boys were feeling left out. I let them paint their own little projects for a bit. William loved it! I love that William knows to smile for the camera too.

I let Tristen help a couple minutes with the painting. He get paint on the floor (as seen below) several times in the few minutes, so we let him be done painting soon after.

So, one night, I showed Kalvin how our pupils get bigger when it's dark and quickly get smaller when it's bright. He thought this was so cool!

 My friend, Naomi, got married! She asked that I and Kalvin be there. I laugh because she was talking to me on the phone one night before the ceremony at the church and she told me that her daughter, Danyeill, wanted Kalvin to be the ring bearer. I made sure to have Kalvin come. When we got there and met everyone upstairs, everyone was laughing (Naomi, her hubby, Danyeill, their godmother, and the Branch President and his wife) and I heard Naomi telling everyone that Kalvin begged to be the ring bearer. She said that we were on the phone and Kalvin was in the background begging on his knees to please be the ring bearer. I didn't say much to this. Weird, but funny that she felt she had to tell everyone that...

Found this little stinker out of his seat! 

 Another project was to put doors and trim around the 4 tunnels upstairs. Again, they were not even close to perfect, but they are done!

Duane's put a lot of effort into this shower. 

 And I made these cookies for him while he worked.

 Baseboards! You can see the paint color before and then after. They look fantastically better now!

 Made pizza one night (in the toaster oven). I was cutting up olives and Tristen wanted to help, but I wouldn't let him since our knives are super share still (just got them for Christmas). He decided to use a better (butter) knife.

 Tristen is obsessed with rockets, airplanes and anything that can fly in the sky. He is constantly asking for me to help him build a rocket that he can fly in (a real one, not one that is pretend). I just don't know how to help him accomplish that (and neither does Duane). He settles by making his own rocket boards with screws and extra board pieces we have laying around. One day he had his best friend, Lucas, over. They went to town putting screws all over in boards to build some kind of plane that was going to fly Lucas back to his house.

I think this drill weighs close to what Lucas does! So he had a hard time getting anything in there.

Tristen understands that with rockets, you must have a fuse to ignite it so he made due with a rope that melted. You can see where he steers the rocket skateboard (or so Tristen calls it).

Our piro! It's so hard to keep him from playing in the flames. And the box of matches are HIS (according to him).

He was disappointed when it didn't shoot him off. 

 To make it fun Duane grabbed a fuze so it would sound and look like it would shoot him off. Once the fuze ended, Duane rocketed Tristen around the house. That was not really fun for Tristen though because he wants to REALLY fly in a rocket. I told him we are not aloud to have fires outside the fireplace (to let the fuze melt all the way to the rocket) and I would not let him fly the rocket in the house so he told me to stand by the front door and open it as soon as he shot off.

I don't know how we're going to solve this one...

Literally obsessed... Here he is another day.

One night, just after putting the kids to bed, Duane asked if I wanted to go on a walk. I was happy for this idea of a get away for just the two of us. It had just snowed an inch or two of a powdery dust. It was   degree's outside.

When Larry and Karri cam in November they brought a ton of finger lights the kids have had a blast with them ever since and we still have more in our treasure box (for when the boys do something extraordinary or if I need the to be occupied with something). We got some of the used one out one night.

This little cutie gets into everything! But he is too darn darling to get upset with.

Glow in the dark bowling! Duane was on call and the house projects were getting to me so we splurged a little and went glow golfing. It's an indoor goofy golf place.

We've had dinner with our friends, the Ettekals, several times recently and one night they brought this awesome chocolate pudding cake! Chocolate cake, chocolate pudding to separate each layer, and cake crumbs to surround it. So delicious!

What happens when you get stressed? I get cold sores. (Selling this house is taking is toll on me... 

Pro's: I don't have time to eat so I've lost the rest of my baby weight, and my house looks amazingly clean a lot of the time. I'm happy to be working hard on something that is rewarding.

Con's: I'm stressed. I got a cold sore and most recently the flu from too much worrying, I'm sure.

So, a friend in the branch wanted headshots for his acting career (hobby-more like because he finished law school last year and is a practicing attorney or something in law.... lol).

Kalvin has always had fun helping me get ready for shoots. We got to play with the lighting some before Nathan came over for his session. 

(and I did change my clothes before he showed up too...lol) I think.

I love the many faces of Kalvin! You can see we were playing with different colored backgrounds.

Another rocket ship in the making with Tristen.

Tristen has tried so hard to convince me that he is big enough to handle and use this rip saw on his own. Not even close, buddy!

I let him use this smaller saw instead though he was not happy at first, he saw it was his only option.

Love my Lowes helpers!

One morning Kalvin took longer than usual to come out of his room in the morning, but when he did he was still wearing his PJ's. I asked about his PJ's and he smiled as he unzipped them to reveal he had tricked me with putting his clothes on underneath!  What a fun kiddo he is!

We got some plants to make the rooms look a little nicer. Tristen was more than happy to help me plant them in the pots!

So excited to be invited to paint!

Kalvin and Tristen talked me into letting them sleep in the living room one night. In the early morning (or maybe late at night) I found Loki snuggled up on Kalvin's leg. When the boys are sleeping, Loki usually uses this as his revenge time to lick, paw at, or just snuggle in with the boys. They seem to love it. When the boys wake up, Loki is out of there!