Basement Update

It is amazing how fast this project is coming along. We are ready to paint. Here is a picture of the drywall (before mudding). We hope to be done soon.

Project - the Basement

This project started back in January with Ryan just going to Home Depot to grab a few 2x4s and planning to make a closet to enclose the water heater and heater to be a mechanical room. This was an effort to make the basement more safe for kids to play in. After feeling good about some little framing, Ryan decided to make a closet next to the mechanical room, and then even expanded his framing into the main part of the basement. Now - 3 months later, the whole basement is framed and has plumbing in a soon-to-be bathroom, heating vents and some electrical outlets and light fixtures. We still need to get the permit finalized to make this all official, but he has had some great help from neighbors who have finished their own basements and know a lot about what needs to be done. This has kept Ryan busy and has forced us to go through all of our junk in the basement. We are excited to watch the progress and hope to finish it most of the way by summer time.

It's a Girl!

Well, it's a little girl. This is a view of her hand waving "HI" and the profile of her head from our ultrasound. This little thing that has been growing inside me over the past few months has made life a little harder for me. I am finally feeling a lot better after a few months of nausia and tiredness. So far everything seems to be normal and we should have our new baby in July sometime.

We had a good Christmas and New Years, and survived a snowy January and February. The snow has now melted, finally and the grass is coming out of hibernation. I am always glad to start seeing the first signs of spring - buds on the trees, daffodils poking up out of the ground, yellowish/brown grass starting to turn green, and warmer days.

Early Thanksgiving with Bogues and Fifes

We got together in Idaho Falls with Chris and Gina (from Montana) and their kids at my parents house in early November. We celebrated Mom and Caleb's birthdays and had our thanksgiving with them. It was such a nice weekend. We all went out to breakfast on Saturday morning and had our big turkey dinner on Saturday evening. Caleb and Brian got a long pretty well. They both enjoyed playing with trucks and trains. Little Aubrey was sure cute, and we actually got a pretty good picture of her on her daddy's lap without her binky in her mouth. We had quite an adventure as Allison dropped her cell phone into one of the toilets. Chris took the toilet apart to try and find it, but it must have gone down trough the pipes and now is sitting in the septic tank below their house. She was pretty bummed. We did enjoy a couple of games with the group but mostly it was nice to just visit and catch up on how everyone is doing.

Time Out Nap

Time out turned into nap time. This was just one of those moments you had to catch on camera. It was an evening when Caleb didn't get a nap and was starting to get into trouble. Often when he starts getting out of control, we put him in "time out" on one of the steps leading to our family room. I guess he was getting out of control because he was just really tired and instead we should have just put him to bed. I don't think he was in time out for too long before he just decided to lay down and go to sleep.

Caleb's 4th Birthday

Caleb had a fun birthday in November. We went to the Children's Discovery Museum on his birthday (after the big kids got home from school) and had McDonalds for dinner. Those are two of his favorite places to be. We got home pretty late from our fun activities and had a quick bowl of ice cream with bananas. Caleb didn't seem too disapointed that we didn't have cake.

We spent the weekend before his birthday at Grandma and Grandpa Bogue's home in Idaho Falls. On the way back home to Utah, we stopped at Grandma and Grandpa Moores' home to celebrate Moore family birthdays and have dinner with them.

Caleb loves to ride bikes, but his old bike was a little different from this new one he got. This new bike has brakes (when you peddle back wards). His old bike didn't have brakes. If you peddle forward, you go forward, and if you peddle backwards, you go backwards. When he first got on his new bike, he tried to go backwards and it wouldn't go. So he was excited to get some new toy tools for his birthday. He spent hours the next day trying to fix his new bike with his new tools. Finally after a few hours of frustration, I made him take the bike outside and taught him how to ride his real bike with brakes. It may take him a while to get used to it. Maybe when he gets more comfortable he will even want to take the training wheels off. I hope not too soon.

Catching Up

It has been a while since I have added to our blog. We have been busy and I just barely find time to keep up with email while I am on the computer. If I spend too much time on the computer I start to feel bad that I am ignoring Caleb during the day and sometimes he gets anxious to play his PBS games. When the older kids get home, Megan wants to do her littlest pet shop game and Collin wants to play on the cartoon network site. When Ryan gets home he has been working on the computer - getting all of our recipes entered into allrecipes.com. Our computer has become a little too popular. By the end of the day I am too tired to do anything. So unless I get up really early before everyone wakes up, I don't get much done on recording our family blog. Lately I have really loved my sleep, so getting up early hasn't happened a lot. But I want to have our memories recorded so I will try to catch up as best as I can.

Well now it is the end of November and we just had Thanksgiving. We had a nice visit with Ryan's family at Jen and Jason's house. Our kids love playing with their cousins. Hailey kept them busy jumping on their neighbors' trampoline, coloring pictures of turkeys and pilgrims, and playing on their air hockey table. We even had some time to sit and look at all the adds for Black Friday.

Yesterday was Black Friday and I did make it out to the stores for a couple of hours before Ryan went to work. I didn't leave until 7 am so I missed the early rush. The store crowds were very manageable by the time I got there. I got just a couple of good deals, but for the most part everything I wanted was gone before I got there. I am glad I didn't try to fight the 5am crowds by myself.

I am going to try to get all of my Christmas shopping done early this year. Of course each year I say that, but I am always running out on Christmas eve doing the last minute stuff. I just try to get most of it done before December so that I can enjoy the season as much as possible.

I really appreciated President Monson's talk at General Conference where he advised us to enjoy the journey. That is hard to do sometimes. I feel that if we try to simplify life as much as possible, be grateful for what we do have and are blessed with, and focus on serving others, we can enjoy this jouney of life much more. I am grateful for my family and the fun memories we enjoy together.

Back in October, we went out to Jackson Hole, Wyoming with Ryan's family. We have made this an almost yearly tradition. We love to look for moose with Grandpa and love seeing all the fall leaves around the town and on the way up and back. Here are a couple of pictures from our trip this year.

We have had some warm days this fall. I have really enjoyed the mild temperatures. We had a fun time during fall break in the middle of October when the kids were out of school for a couple of days. We went to the Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point, the Scarecrow Masquerade at Wheeler Farms, and took some time to go out to the park and play. For Halloween, the kids even got to wear their costumes to school and at night without jackets to keep them warm. It is always a bummer to cover the costumes up with a jacket on those years when it is snowy and cold. Here are a few pictures.

For Halloween, Caleb was a cute little pirate and was so good at saying "Argh", Megan was Cinderella, and Collin was a ninja.