March Weekends

We had a couple of really nice weekends in March. One weekend we decided to bust out our new fire pit that my parents gave us for Christmas. It was fun! We just built a little fire in it and roasted hot dogs for dinner. It was nice to spend some time outside.

Another weekend, Josh and I built a window well! Parts of our house were left unfinished. The window wells were one part. Instead of the traditional window wells, we were given the advice to build rock window wells because they let in more light. So we got some rock and built one of the wells. It turned out really nice and was easier than we thought for sure! We still have 3 more to do though!

Rocks!

Last Friday, Isaac had a day off from school so we took the kids to the Timpanogas Gem and Mineral Show here in town. Isaac wants to be a Geologist when he grows up, so we really wanted him to have a chance to see all the rocks and gemstones. Josh's sister Melissa and her kids and boyfriend also came. It was really neat! Every rock you could imagine they had displayed or for sale. So many different beautiful rocks! They even had a dinosaur walking around:

He tried to eat Chris!

Bryce had fun, although most of the time he tried to find ways

to get out of his stroller and take off. LOL

Parker & Isaac by one of the displays:

The dinosaur came back and started munching on Parker & Bryce:

This was Bryce's favorite display. He loved the ball shaped rocks.

He kept saying, "Kick ball! Kick ball!" (He calls anything spherical a kick ball lately):

They even had some glow-in-the-dark rocks:

One of the displays:

It was a fun experience. The kids came home with bags of rocks and little rocks they won in a game of chance. After the rock show, we went up to Provo. Isaac had won a gift certificate to Brick Oven for doing so well in school. So we took him there for lunch. We had a really fun family day!

St. Patrick's Day!

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day by making a GREEN dinner! We actually made the same thing last year, and it was really yummy, so we decided to make it into a tradition and do it again! :) We made Fettucine Carbonara with green spinach noodles and green Caesar salad on the side.

For dessert we made some rainbow cupcakes! These were so fun to make! You just layer different colors of cake batter into the cupcake papers. We topped them with whipped cream (so it looks like a rainbow with a cloud). It was a fun night!

PS - Our camera has been really bad lately - hence the not so great pictures. We actually ended up getting a new one a day or two after this, so hopefully no more bad pics!

I love this picture. Bryce was so happy about his cupcake!

Our New House

I've already posted these pictures on facebook, but I thought I'd post them on here as well for those that are not on facebook. We finally moved into our new house about a month ago! It's been so nice. We still have a lot of work to do, but it's just nice to finally be here. The painting was left unfinished, so we need to go through and paint the edging on all of the walls and do touch ups. Because of time and money we had to choose one color for the whole house. We also still need to seal our grout, grout the fireplace, make a mantle, stain the banister on the stairs, window wells, a back porch, and a few other things. We'll get there!

Right now we've been super excited about our new yard and getting everything planned and ready to work on that once the snow is gone for good. We're working on getting topsoil and compost in so that we can plant a lawn and a garden. We are also going to build a chicken coop and have already ordered our baby chicks and garden seeds. Lots of fun stuff! Josh and I have been wanting chickens ever since we first got married, but have never had a good place to keep them until now. We're excited!

Here are some pictures of the new house (taken right before we moved in). I think the only things I didn't get pictures of were the kids bedrooms, the office and the pantry.

Kitchen/dining area:

Family room:

Living room/entryway:

Stairs from the front entryway:

Looking upstairs from the living room:

Master Bdrm:

Upstairs bathroom:

One view of the master bathroom:

Another view of the master bathroom:

Linen closet in the master bath:

Part of the master bdrm closet:

Another part of our walk in closet:

Downstairs bathroom:

Christmas Eve and Christmas 2009

The kids in their new Christmas pajamas

For Christmas Eve we were expecting to be in our new house, but it hadn't happened, so we made the best of it! All of our decorations were packed away, so we just used our little tree and luckily, a friend of Josh's had made us some stockings so we had some to use since ours were packed away. Everything turned out just right! :) On Christmas Eve morning Josh had to go help at the new house, so the kids and I made some cookies together for Santa. This year we made some caramel filled chocolate cookies with chocolate on top and Christmas sprinkles. They turned out really yummy! That afternoon we met Josh's sister Melissa, her kids and her boyfriend Chris at the theater and saw the movie "The Princess and the Frog". It was a cute movie! Afterward we went and got some frozen yogurt. We headed home to do our Christmas Eve activities. For our Christmas Eve dinner we made a tradition out of last years dinner and had a cheese, fruit, and cracker tray with lots of exotic type cheeses. It was lots of fun and really yummy! After dinner we sat down together and read the Christmas story from the bible. We didn't have our nativity, unfortunately, but we did have a picture of the nativity that we were able to use to illustrate the story. Afterward, we each opened a Christmas Eve gift (pajamas). We set out cookies and milk for Santa and the kids went to bed! We had a really fun day!

Our Christmas tree with presents on Christmas eve.

We had a fun Christmas this year! It was fun to just spend the whole day at home together as a family - house or no house. Christmas morning we woke up and saw that Santa had come!

We had fun exchanging gifts. It was fun to see the kids get so excited about exchanging gifts with each other. They loved picking out their gifts this year. This year the family got a Wii from Santa! Everyone was excited about that. Santa also brought a play kitchen set for the kids. Isaac got a Star Wars Lego set, Star Wars figures, Operation, a microscope and some other things. Parker got a Geotrax Airport, a microphone, some toy tractors, Mousetrap, and some other things. Bryce got a Little People train, some Mickey Mouse books and a Mickey stuffed animal, Memory, and more! Josh got some massage therapy/disability books that he had been wanting, a massage gift certificate, a Geogami set, and some hot sauces from around the world. I got some curlformers, a pocket knife, a deep-fryer/steamer. We got lots of games and movies this year. It was fun!

After presents we had our traditional breakfast casserole. The kids were having so much fun I could hardly get them to eat anything. For Christmas dinner we had beer-battered coconut shrimp (YUM!), my Grandma's seafood pasta salad, and a green greek type salad.

Christmas Dinner

All the gifts set out by the tree.

Happy 7th Birthday Isaac!

On December 22, Isaac turned 7! Wow! I felt SO bad because a few days before his birthday we LOST our camera! So we had to use Josh's phone to take birthday pictures, and they just didn't turn out very good. A few days after Christmas we finally found it, so I took a couple of pictures of Isaac with his gifts. Anyway, on his birthday, we woke up and he opened his gifts! He got a bike with a helmet, a bakugan, and a light up sword. A couple days before his birthday he got some gifts from Grandma & Grandpa Bell. They gave him a Star Wars Legos set & some Star Wars books. Aunt Cammie gave him a Star Wars Guess Who game. Also, a while after his birthday he got a cooking set and a journal from Grandma & Grandpa Chappell.

After school we had Isaac's birthday dinner. Traditionally I make the kids a dinner of their choice for their birthday. This year Isaac picked......... a Hot 'n' Ready from L

ittle Caesars! LOL. So I didn't cook anything for him this year. It was funny how excited he was to have the pizza though. His cake this year..... ugh. Josh's parents had

moved out a week before and we had been living in their empty house with our few things and just a few kitchen things that they left behind for us to use. Bare necessities. So his cake didn't turn out the greatest. :( He was happy with it though. It ended up being a simple cake with some Star Wars figures on top.

We planned on having a birthday party for Isaac this year, but since we were still not in our house, we decided to wait until we were to have his party. He was fine with that. All in all I think he had a fun day!