Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!

I was looking through old pictures today and found this gem!




Baby Remy and I in front of the Brady Bunch house.

The floors

The floors were finally finished yesterday!! Now we just need to get the 2 inches of sawdust off of EVERYTHING and put it all back together! We love the floors though!

moving right along

Darrin got home on Friday night from work around 6:30 and immediately started ripping up carpet. He would rip up a section of carpet and then Tate, Remy and I would start pulling out the staples in the floor from the padding. We had a good little routine going. We worked until 9:00, then put the boys to bed.

I ran over to a friends house at 10:30 to watch over their sleeping kids while they took dad to the hospital (he had a SEVERE allergic reaction to something and had crazy hives all over his body). I got home around 2:00 am and Darrin had ripped out the carpet on the stairs and pulled out all the staples while I was gone.

We finally crashed and woke up on Saturday and Darrin finished ripping up the downstairs carpet while Remy and I took a load of carpet and tack strips to the dump. (It was our 'date'. Upon learning about what we were going to do on our date, Remy said, "we are going on a date to the dump??")

We only had one real injury when Remy stepped on a tack strip...ouch.

So, here are some pictures of our progress:


The hall



Our Bedroom



Our minimalist decor

Cha cha cha changes

When we moved into our home almost 4 years ago, everything was perfect, brand new and lovely. Including our low grade, standard carpet that cost us nothing extra. We knew that we had a 18 month old and a 4 year old and no matter what carpet we got it would be stained and gross after a few years, so why pay extra?

Well, 3 1/2 years and two growing boys later: it is disgusting.

We got enough money back from Uncle Sam to install some new flooring (it's called Nova Cherry....yum) YIPEE!!!!!

It's a big project and it includes painting some walls before we rip out the carpet so I don't get paint on the new floor (which I always do).

Here are some 'before' pictures....and yes, my house was clean yesterday. Too bad you missed it.


Our landing upstairs (see the preschool room door!)



Our stairs



Our Living Room



Our Kitchen (I spy a: cotton candy machine, painting supplies, dinner dishes, laundry)



Remy had this ***awesome*** idea (his words). He wanted to draw on the carpet since we were going to rip it up. Why not. Here is our family a la sharpie with a carpet canvas. I think it could be a big hit one day.

Tune in next week to see the finished project.....

Winter Vacation

Darrin took two weeks off of work in January and February, it was a much needed break. We didn't go anywhere special, we just did fun things here and there.



Darrin and I love to stay at the Anniversary Inn or other nice B&B's, we usually go every year. This year we went to Logan's Anniversary Inn and stayed in the 50's inspired room. I was in heaven. It was so cool.





We also stopped at Gossner Foods and Bluebird cafe while we were in Logan. We should have never stopped at Gossner. They have the best squeaky cheese and chocolate milk.


Here are the boys with their gossner 'milk boxes'




Darrin's mom worked at Bluebird before her mission....this one's for you Ruthie!


We had a lot of fun and ate some yummy food along the way.

Bear Lake

We were invited to Bear Lake to Aunt Cindy and Uncle Kyle's cabin. We had never been up there in the winter before and we had a blast! Thanks for the invitation K&C!!



There were literally a thousand deer on the east side of the lake. It took us forever to get to the cabin because a) we accidentally went the long way b) we had to drive 25 miles an hour to not hit the deer just standing in the middle of the road.



The boys *loved* the loft. They climbed up and down the ladder and played and slept up there. I had the privilege of sleeping up there too because they didn't want to sleep alone.




Two very tired boys.





Cute, cute cousins





Aunt Cindy lookin' hot after some oreos and hot chocolate.





The absolutely beautiful lake and ice that piles up on the shore. It was so fun to practice our karate moves with big sheets of ice.





Tate having a fun ride!





This is the only picture I have of Remy on the tube. The cool thing is that we made sure they had helmets on and it was a good thing because Remy took a spill off the tube and slid on his head across the ice. He thought it was the funnest thing ever!





Tate, Remy and I all ice skated for the first time. The boys did so much better than I did.





Meet Phoebe....she lives in the garage and I love her.





They had hundreds of ice skates there.


Thanks again to the Ballings!! When we buy a our cabana in the Caribbean we will bring you along with us.

I wanted to post about something that is really important to me, my neighbors. Yes you heard right folks. I have the most amazing neighbors, they are some of the happiest, most Christlike people I know. They have suffered a lot of tragedy, that could make those who have walked in the same shoes angry and bitter, however they have used those experiences to grow and become better people who are filled with compassion and love.

This past year they hosted 3 orphaned siblings from Ukraine. The children, 1 girl and 2 boys came and stayed with the Ceran family for 6 weeks at the end of the year in 2010. They are wanting to adopt these 3 beautiful children and were expecting to have 6-12 months to raise the funds necessary, but have recently found out that the children could be ready to come in March.

Their son Caleb has drawn an exquisite picture of President Thomas S. Monson and has been raising funds by selling prints of it. They are also having a huge garage sale on February 12 at the Rockwell Charter school in the Ranches to raise funds.

They have a website that tells about some of the Ceran families experiences and what brought them to the desire to adopt. They are such a wonderful family!

Very often we hear about things like this and we think to ourselves "I wish there was some way I could help." Turn your thoughts into action and you can help save these children and give them a home where they are loved and cared for and can have the opportunity for a bright and happy future.

Here is a link that will take you to their website, where you can get background information on the Ceran family, (they have been in the newspaper multiple times) find out about Christina, Sasha and Eddy, and find out how you can help.

www.ukrainianmiracle.com

(PS, thanks to my friend Ashley who actually wrote this beautiful post, she lives in a cool neighborhood like me!)