Kitchen Cabinets

 In April, we decided to give the kitchen a face lift. It's been something I've been wanting to do for a long time, and we finally made it happen. The only down side to these pictures is that I didn't take them before we replaced the incredible original oven from when the house was built in 1965. It was a beauty, I tell you.

We used a Rustoleum's Cabinet Transformation Kit to resurface the cabinets and installed new hardware. And although it wasn't hard, it was incredibly time consuming. A lot of that was because Nick or all of us left several times for various reasons during the process. And I take it back, removing 45+ year-old hardware, especially hardware that was painted right over with the sealant, was incredibly difficult to remove. I did my best with my huge prego-ness to help, and there were a few times I wanted to call it quits. But we did it. Phew. I'm really glad that project is over with. I'm also incredibly grateful that our kiddos were so good about helping out and letting me work on things when we got the chance.

Before

Before

After!

After (including my new-to-me oven that I LOVE).

Salt Lake Trip (April 2012)

 We went to Salt Lake for the weekend to go play with the kids and to meet up with the Moore family. It was such a great weekend. Everyone had fun. Our trip was spoiled a little at first because we had planned on stopping at Trafalga, but they didn't open when we thought. Instead, we headed to the aquarium (one of my favorite stops, by the way). The girls had fun watching the penguins and otters swim, and we all enjoyed seeing so many different creatures. For one thing, I had never seen an octopus swim before. It was cool. We really enjoyed the experience.

Ash liked the penguins (sorry it's blurry).

This little pop-up was inside the otter exhibit. Emma thought it was really fun.

After that, we met up with the Moore family at the hotel. Everyone enjoyed playing in the hotel's incredible swimming pool. Dad especially liked the water slide and even talked Emma into going down once. Apparently Emma figured out pretty quickly how to make herself go very slowly. They wondered for a minute if she'd stopped mid-slide, but she eventually came out. Both girls loved swimming with Daddy.

The next morning was zoo time! We were there fairly early, so the weather was perfect, even for big-bellied Mom. We honestly had a perfect trip. The kids (and adults) loved being together. It brought back fond memories of our trip to Disneyland two years ago. 

Who doesn't love a baby elephant?

Rhino time!

And every trip must include a ride on the train. Here's the crew.

We were glad to get together with fun friends and enjoy some great activities in Salt Lake. We always enjoy spending time together as a family, especially when it means getting together with friends. Thanks Moores for a great trip.

Happy Birthday Ashlyn!

Ash turned the big 5 this year. It's crazy seeing my baby get so big. She's not so little any more. Her birthday was a lot of fun though. For starters, we made cupcakes for her preschool class the day before her birthday. She said she wanted butterflies, so with an idea that started on Pinterest, this is what we ended up with. I've decided that I am a fan of the compressed frosting. Talk about making my life easier.

Chocolate butterflies w/ red sprinkles.

Then, she was able to go on a field trip to our local nursery and plant a flower. She had a lot of fun and was super cute about the whole thing. She was even able to do the tour with her little friend. I think she quite enjoyed it.

That afternoon we had a birthday party. She was so sweet about the whole thing and loved her cake (note the red - definitely her favorite color - again here's another plug for prepared frosting) and was really cute about her party. She had chosen to decorate it with black and red. I was surprised. It seemed a bit sophisticated for a 5 year old.

Ash is really growing up. She loves being silly and still thoroughly enjoys singing and dancing. It's quite fun watching her. Ashy is still rather shy and prefers staying right close to mom most of the time. She is very self entertaining, but she loves it when someone will play princesses or Littlest Pet Shop with her. I'm amazed at what a good colorer she is and how much she enjoys looking and making other things look pretty. She's our little princess, and we love her.

Easter Weekend!

Easter weekend was quite the event. We had originally planned on staying home, but then Nick received a job offer in Cheyenne, WY that we needed to look into. It was bitter sweet for me personally. It wasn't that I was sad to be going, it just also happened that we ended up traveling on my birthday, and I'd really been looking forward to spending my birthday with my girls. I didn't even get to see them. :( Oh, well. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

We left the girls in Mt. View with Grandma and Grandpa and drove on to Cheyenne. The job offer was quite nice, but after driving around and looking at the city and looking at available housing and neighborhoods, neither of us felt like it was the best choice for family. It really didn't have anything to do against Cheyenne, necessarily. It just wasn't right for us for some reason.

The main highlight for the entire trip for me though was getting to stop and see Sarah B. in Laramie. I've missed her so much, and it was a wonderful, if too short, visit. Truthfully, when Nick got the job offer, being close to her was top on the list of reasons to move to Cheyenne. Not being close is also the main reason I was sad we turned it down. It's a good thing that friends can still be friends even over great distances. In Laramie, we did get to stop by the chocolate store downtown that our old landlords still own. I loved that place then, and well, I couldn't help but buy myself a bit of chocolates for a birthday treat. They were perfect on the way back to the valley.

Back in Mt. View, we enjoyed a fun Easter with Nick's family. Brady even tolerated letting the girls put little bows and barrettes in his hair. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. It was also fun to get a birthday/Easter package from my mom while we were there. She gave me a beautiful maternity statue and gave each of the girls cute Easter baskets with light-up bunnies. The bunnies ended up being a bit of an ordeal, because Emma's stopped working. It was rather traumatic for her, and she ended up writing the Easter Bunny a letter asking for a new one. It was a good thing that the Easter bunny was prepared for just such an emergency with an extra toy. Easter morning ended up being quite fun for everyone. Again, I don't have many pictures because everything is on video. If you're really interested, I guess you'll just have to come visit and look at our videos.

Brady all "dolled up:

Emma striking a pose - don't you love the WY Cowboys hat!

Cheesey Ashy in her UW hat.

Cousin Carson enjoying his loot.

One of the main Easter highlights though was our rather red-neck Easter egg hunt. I'm pretty sure that the guys had more fun setting up the hunt than the kids had doing it. They used drills to attach eggs to trees, tied them on the end of strings to make "trick" eggs, and hid them in places no kid could reach. Everyone had fun figuring out the hunt, and even the kids saw the humor in it once they got the trick eggs emptied. And of course, it's always fun to open eggs.

I'm always humbled by Easter. When I stop and ponder the real reason for the holiday, I can't help but truly be overwhelmed. My Savior did so much for me, and I am so grateful for his love for me and the rest of the world. It's such a personal feeling of love and appreciation.

It's a Boy! (Feb 8, 2012)

I have been really nervous this pregnancy. For those of you familiar with our story, you'll understand. But I was incredibly nervous the day of our ultrasound. Apparently I shared a good dose of adrenaline with the baby, too, because the tech could hardly get the pictures she needed. I LOVE those sneak peaks of my little people though. There are often times I've wished for a small window so I can just peak on my little one's progress. It's hard to be patient. I can't imagine what it was like to wait for the full 9 months to get even a tiny glimpse of the life growing inside you.

 Our tech was really good. She was a traveling tech who normally did the ultrasounds to double check for potential issues, so she spent a lot of time with us explaining in what ways our baby was growing healthy and normally. With all my nervousness, it was a tremendous blessing. The gist of it is that our little one is strong and healthy, with normal heart, spine, brain, and extremity development. And of course, we were very excited to see that we're getting a BOY! We love our girls, but unless something unexpected happens, this is our last pregnancy, and we really were hoping for a boy. It feels somewhat horrible to say we hoped for a boy, because of course we would have loved another girl, too, but everyone in this family is excited for a boy. Dad especially. I think he's looking forward to potentially a little less drama. Maybe. We'll see if that's what we get. We're certainly looking forward to our little one no matter what.

Treasure Hunt and a Twisted Ankle

Grandma and Grandpa Charles really like to spoil the kiddos whenever we go to Wyoming. This weekend Grandma had a volcano to set off and made a treasure hunt, and Grandpa flew kites and let the girls ride the horses. It's always fun in WY. It was rather sad though when Em twisted her ankle on the trampoline and wasn't able to join the treasure hunt. She did her best watching from the side lines. I wish blogger wasn't such a pain uploading videos. The videos of the volcano and digging up the treasure are really quite cute.

Ashy and cousin Carson reading their treasure maps.

Em tried to participate from the lawn chair. Poor kid.

Skiing and a Hockey Game

We bought Utah's Pass of All Passes last fall and have loved them. With them we got free ski days at Wolf Mountain and tickets to see the Grizzlies hockey team play in Salt Lake. When we went skiing this time, we couldn't get Ash in a class, but she did great on Wolf Mountain's Magic Carpet, so Dad took turns skiing with each kiddo while they alternated hanging out with me in the lodge. (I opted out of skiing due to my growing belly and did some editing in the lodge instead). Emma has become quite the pro on the lift, and for a while, she was just riding the lift and cruising down by herself while Dad helped Ashy.

Have I mentioned how fun it is to see your kids doing something you enjoy doing so much yourself? Nick and I LOVE skiing and have spent many fun days riding lifts and enjoying the much faster shoosh of the snow under skis. Watching our kids enjoy it so much makes us very excited for the upcoming winter. It's going to be fun.

 After skiing, we headed into Salt Lake for the Grizzlies game. I'd never watched a hockey game, so it was a blast watching the insanity. The girls really enjoyed it, too, especially since we were able to meet up with Grandma and Grandpa down there. It was a very fun trip.