ABC Challenge

Here's the ABC Challenge started by Auntie Abby, but with a twist! I had way too much fun trying to outdo myself. We'll see if it's as fun as I think it was....

Ample Airplanes Bathrobe Boy Crazy about CarsDarling, Doting Daddy Eager Emma wants to Eat her Fun Food (we had a Happy St. Patty's Day) Green Girl and Gavin Handsome and Handy Hubby Interesting Ice cubes Jackhammering Jason Kute Kiddos in a Klean Kitchen

Luscious Lips Mopping Mommy (Jason's idea)Nice Noses Overcoming Overwhelming Obstacles Playgroup PalsQuiet Queen Red Rascal (Gavin is hiding from me and the camera because he really is a rascal!) Sweet Smiles in a Swing Tiny Teeth and Toothpaste on the Toothbrush Unnecessary Underwear (hopefully, he'll potty train soon; Jason said I should do Urchin for U, and I figure this still works since he's an Urchin for not being willing to potty train!) Versatile Vacuum (I wanted to take a picture of Barney the dinosaur and call it Violet Velociraptor, but Jason nixed it) Writing Words (and letters) Xtra Xylophone Yummy Yams Zipped Zipper (one of Gavin's "quirks," he must have his zipper zipped all the way up all the time) My darling kids helped by posing for the picts and Emma helped come up with some of the words--but most of it was me, so I was tempted to put in a picture of me and label it "Voracious Vocabulary." ;) This took a while to finally get loaded so I hope this works!

February

February turned out to be rather un-momentous in all aspects of life, but one--the one that has taken on an extremely prominent place in our lives over the last year. Actually, I guess you could say it has ever since we bought our first house on Emma's first birthday. If you hadn't guessed yet, it's construction--ever more major remodeling on our home. And once again, it wasn't really, fully on purpose--at least doing it in February wasn't. Due to the fact that the 50-year-old asbestos tile shingles were falling off of our house and with the construction last fall that provided us with two new walls and a new garage with no siding, we needed to get our house sided. Living in a Historic District meant that whatever we did, it needed to be approved by the Historic District Committee. We had already gone through the process to rebuild our garage and during that meeting they had told us that they would not allow vinyl siding and whole-heartedly supported HardieBoard. We knew we couldn't afford it because it runs twice as much as vinyl, so we emailed the Hardie company to get the info to show the Historic District that they were being unrealistic and they would have to allow us to do vinyl. The Hardie Rep of Utah sent two contractors to us to give us an estimate. The one that actually gave us a bid also told us he had a job in March, so could he start right away in mid-February? Well, the estimate seemed unreal because it was affordable--just slightly more than vinyl. But apparently they knew where to buy the stock for a 40 percent discount and were willing to do it for cheap because they needed some work during the off-season in a slow economy. So after calling references, doing drive-bys to see some of their work at others' houses, and getting a comparative bid that was almost $10,000 more--we decided to go with them.

That decision threw me into a frenzy of prep work: getting permits, making sure the Historic District would allow it without actually having to go in front of the committee, trying to get financing, ordering dumpsters, deciding on trim styles, should we get pre-colored or just primed, and what about the chimney? One of the ugliest things I have ever seen on the side of a person's house was this chimney. Besides, it was cracked so we couldn't use it and it had been blocked up by the previous owners because it was too expensive to fix. When we opened it, we found that it was on the brink of falling in. Also we have an old picture of the house from 1899 and discovered that the chimney had been built over the location of two old windows, which we wanted to have back again. So, we knew we wanted it down, but we had planned on being able to do it at our leisure (haha) and not when the temperatures were still going below freezing every night. But we had an offer that was too good to refuse, so Jason and I got to work and did as much as we could before they came, but they ended up having to do the majority of it--which was better and safer anyway because they had scaffolding to stand on while working. So here is the photographic journey of the demolition of our chimney.

Jason had always wanted to try his hand at jackhammering.

You can see the silhouette of where the old trim was and it was still, more or less, framed for the windows.

We had the guy who built the garage come and frame in the holes in preparation for windows.This a comparison of the old shingles with the really old wood that was underneath. We would have loved to just restore it, but there were places where it was in bad shape and where is was completely missing (including the garage).And thus began, yet another, major remodeling project! I will post more when it is finished later this week so that I can show the before and afters.

January

We had a very calm New Years Eve, all going to bed early and sleeping through the celebrations. On New Years Day, we all got hair cuts (well, I tried, but mine actually came later). I cut all of the kids and Jason's hair and had quite the pile when we were through. It's kind of fun to try and guess which hair came from which person (we saved Josiah, it being his first hair cut, so his isn't included).

Then a week later I got my hair cut for free because I donated it to Locks of Love. It was about time because I had been losing quite a bit from post-pregnancy and Josiah had learned how to grab ahold and not let go. It's really nice after having long hair for a while to go short--very freeing. We had an otherwise rather uneventful January. The kids enjoyed the time off school, but were ready to go back when the time came. We tried to potty train Gavin, but he would have nothing to do with it; he'd much rather just pee in his clothes or on the floor than in the potty. So we'll try again later. Jason had a nice birthday and is already 32! So old... We spent some time with my folks and they gave him some money with which he bought several new outfits at D.I.--we love D.I.! Otherwise, it was nice and rather quiet.

Christmas--if I can remember...

Christmas was splendid! Jason's sister Abby was getting married on Jan. 3 and was taking out her endowment on Dec. 23 so we took off early to go to Salt Lake. So the day before we had our own little Christmas at home in our new family room (if you look close you can see that the trim's not done). It was really cute and fun for the kids to have the presents spread out some. We left for Salt Lake for with just enough time to make it to Abby's 5 PM session. I dropped Jason off because Josiah couldn't go that long without his mom and headed to my folks where they told me that the Salt Lake temple doesn't have a 5 o'clock session. Confused, Jason called me a couple hours later to come get him and told me that my parents were right and that he hadn't seen Abby, but went through any way. We then found out that Abby did go through the 5 PM session, but it was in the Bountiful temple! Oops! At least she knew we tried!

We had a delightful Christmas Eve with my parents, reading scripture stories, singing hymns, and playing games. The kids opened their Christmas Eve presents to get new pajamas and slippers. Unfortunately, Emma's p.j.s were smalls in Juniors not kids, so they were giant on her. I ran to Wal-Mart to try to trade them in for her only to get there right as they were closing. So we rolled up the cuffs and rolled down the waist and she wore them anyway! (She got Dora full-bodied p.j.s later that just thrilled her, so it made up for the disappointment.) The kids are really at that magical age where Christmas is truly the best time of the year. Josiah was awake long enough to open stockings, but soon fell asleep again and missed all of the rest of the present opening--not that he knew the difference.

Two of the greatest presents the kids got were gorgeous, fun, comfy blankets from Grammy. She did a fabulous job and, frankly, I'm a little jealous. :) They love them! Gavin got a little overwhelmed and finally ended up curling up with his new blanket to watch his new Cars movie before we were done.

Emma's most anticipated present was the "Cupcake Maker." She told me that she had grand ideas of setting up a Cupcake Stand (instead of lemonade) and making money off of it. We made a cupcake later that took over an hour to make with all the washing and mixing and so on, which kind of dashed hopes of big money.

The most exciting of all gifts was the last one from "Santa" of a giant Thomas the Tank Engine train set. The kids spent most of the afternoon playing with this one, though a lot of that time was spent with mom trying to set the thing up!

Later on we went to my aunt Alyson's house and had some fun time with my extended family. It turned out to be a fabulous day with all the joy and fun that a Christmas day should have. We loved having the opportunity of spending Jesus' birthday spending so much time with family.

Abby was having a wedding reception on the 27th before going to back to Vermont to get married in the Boston Massachusetts temple. So we got to hang out with the folks and visit with friends and shovel lots of snow (there was a major snowstorm that dump several inches on Christmas night). The kids were able to put together some wooden models with their pro-model maker Papa and we had a generally grand time. I also enjoyed seeing my friend Jane's new house and cousin Julie's new residence. Now I just need to see Jane's new baby, Owen! Congrats!

Abby reception was beautiful and we had a lovely time meeting her new in-laws. We had really tried to be able to arrange a trip to Vermont to be there for her wedding, but we just couldn't afford it, the kids would have had to miss school, and Jason didn't have enough vacation time saved up. I was lucky enough to get to throw her a bridal shower back in November though which was tons of fun. Abby has a very diverse and enjoyable group of friends that got together at my mom's house (thanks Mom!). We played games and ate vegan treats (my first time making them, WAY tasty) and had a genuinely good time. (Abby's the cute one with the glasses.)

I'm BAAAAACK!

So after about two weeks we got our computer back. Excitedly, I opened it up and plugged it in and--voila!--it worked, the power plug was fixed! And they hadn't rebooted it, so we still had our pictures. Hurray! But then I discovered that the internet wasn't working--we have wireless and it didn't want to turn on and wouldn't search for a signal. Then I found that the USB ports weren't working and the volume dial wasn't doing anything. I called a friend over and he said that he thinks they didn't reinstall the drivers? or something like that. So I got to send it back. After almost two hours on the phone trying to get the right person to get a hold of and finally calling long distance, they admitted they needed to fix it and gave me the mailing info. We went and bought an external hard drive to back up the computer because the guy had told me that they would be re-installing everything and the hard drive would be cleared. But then discovered that because the USB ports only kind of worked, we couldn't use it. So we copied the picts onto DVDs and sent it back. We finally got the computer back a week ago and have been spending the time trying to reinstall all our programs and upload our picts and so on. So finally, I have the time to update the blog. Lucky me....

By the way, I also lost all the "favorites" websites that I had saved which included everyone's blogs. So if you don't mind--could you send me your web address so I can continue to read everyone's blogs?