THE Kitchen

Finally..... here are a couple of pictures of our new kitchen! It is amazing and exactly what I wanted. With so much added space our table now fits easily (with the leaf in even), I have a ton of counter space, room to buy a buffet and so many half full and even empty cupboards! It is heavenly! The counter top is a white quartz~ there is actually depth to it. You can look down into the pieces that have been cut. It is beautiful. If you are in the area, you are always welcomed to come by and take a look. I can't guarantee that it will always be this clean, but you are still welcomed!

Shocking.... I know!

After about 3 months I am actually back to blogging. Wow! I wonder how many people have given up on me....... Anyway, things have been CRAZY in so many different ways that I am not going to count them all. And I don't even have any pictures to post because as I went to download pictures the other day (after finally finding my camera cords) I discovered a formatting issue that made my 1,002 pictures unrecoverable!!!! I am not quite sure what to do with that, but at least I don't have to do 10 posts in a row with a million pictures (or more correctly, a thousand pictures). So, here is a verbal recap of our lives...

Shayden~ started the year in the ALPS program at the same school she went to last year, but about 2 weeks ago we switched her back to our school. She loves being back with so many of her friends, riding her scooter to school and especially loves not having even a 10th of the homework she had before. After taking the summer off, she is back into piano lessons and is already practicing her song for their Christmas program. She is also in a musical program called "Up with Kids." With the addition on our house done, she now has her "own" room and she is absolutely LOVING it! There is also a new bathroom downstairs right next to her room that we have had to explain that even though her stuff is in it, that doesn't make it "her" bathroom. She loves reading, singing, playing with friends and helping in the kitchen.

Tanner~ started kindergarten!!!!! It is still hard for me to believe that my little boy is old enough to be at school 5 days a week. The year started out a little rocky for him. For about the first week every day when I picked him up I would ask enthusiastically how school was. He would get a mopey look on his face and say "so boring, all we had to do all day was sit in our seats." Luckily, he has made some great friends and now LOVES going to school. He is learning to read and it is so fun to watch him discover that there are words all around us and that he can actually know what some of them are. Another big step for him is not taking naps anymore. Yup, Shayden napped until she went to kindergarten, so we told Tanner the same thing. There have been a couple of times where he could have seriously used some extra sleep, but he is determined to never take a nap again. Ohhh.... how I wish someone would make me take a nap!

Jackson~ our little guy has started preschool! Yikes! I am doing Joy School with him (the same program I did with Tanner). Where a group of moms get together and alternate weeks teaching. He absolutely loves going! It is 5 girls and only 2 boys (and both boys are the very youngest of the group). But that doesn't bother him one bit. He thinks he is so grown up and loves having a backpack just like Tanner. We are in the midst of potty training and having issues with #2. I'm on my third~ you think I would have figured it out by now. We'll see how it goes....

House stuff~ well, they finished the house the end of September, about a month later than they thought (but we were expecting that). They had it written out in the contract that they are not a cleaning crew and would not be cleaning our house when they were done. So, I knew not to expect a homecoming like on Extreme Home Makeover where they hand over the keys to a pristine, clean, organized, decorated house. But it was still very anticlimactic and depressing when all of the sudden one day they stopped coming and I was left with a garage full of boxes to unpack, a backyard in shambles, and a completely filthy, dirty house in chaos. There are still some projects that we are doing on our own and a LOT of unpacking and organizing to do. But it is slowly coming all together.

Part of the reason for the addition on the house was that my parents have now moved in with us. They have both found jobs up here, which is amazing and everything is going well. It is nice to have 2 more sets of hands keeping kids quiet at church, cleaning bathrooms, making dinner, etc. It is working out great and we hope they stay for quite a while.

On to me... Well, the end of August I found out that I was expecting (don't get too excited) and was overly tired and sick. Everyday life was hard enough, on top of all the house stuff I had to do. I went for my first appointment the beginning of October to discover that I had a "molar pregnancy." I had a d&c about a week later and am still dealing with some of the issues that come with this type of pregnancy. It has been so long since my life has felt normal, that I think I am beginning to forget what it is like. I haven't given up hope though.... one of these days I will get everything under control again. One of these days.....

In the meantime, this weekend I am going to dress my kids up in their Halloween costumes and take pictures again (since I can't get the first ones). So, hopefully I will have some pictures to post next time.

Progress...

For the past week and a half we have been staying at Korby's mom's house and this is why:

Here is what has become of our master bedroom. Not pictured is the non existent wall that now opens up directly into the hallway and directly into the bathroom (minus the sink that is now currently residing in our bedroom).

Here is our combination laundry room and storage room with no access to the dryer. Notice the hanging blue light switch~ my kids think that is the coolest thing in the world! Oh.... to be 5 years old again and impressed by a light switch!!!

You might think we didn't really need to go through all the hassle of moving out for just that. No master bedroom, that's okay we still have 2 other bedrooms not being touched. No washer and dryer, that's okay too. I hang dry most of our clothes anyway. But here is what is left of our kitchen..... not much but a lose sink pipe that is so old and rusted that it doesn't shut off all the way. The solution~ shut off the water to the house until the new sink is in. As it turns our running water is something that is very inconvenient to live without these days!

Out the doors you can see the framing for the new outside kitchen walls!

Here is what it looks like from the outside right now~ a compound! I promise that we are putting in lots of beautiful windows and new French doors.

What do you get when you are "living" in Lehi (about 20 minutes away from our house) but have swimming lessons, karate lessons, singing lessons, art classes, gym classes, baseball games, doctor appointments, swimming, soccer games, dentist appointments all in Sandy?

Three completely exhausted kids and one equally exhausted mom!

I hope your summer has NOT been as crazy as ours :)

Start Framing

Today they started the framing. You can see where the bedroom window is going to go along the new back wall.

Yesterday they came and back filled the dirt around the foundation. As the bobcat started pushing the dirt in I thought the kids would be as excited as they were when the dirt was being dug out. However, this was Tanner's response....

"Ahhhhhhh (with a sigh and a shoulder slump). There goes Mt. Everest."

They also took out the wall between the laundry room and storage room downstairs.

Let there be Light

I don't know if I will be able to explain this correctly (I have already typed/deleted/retyped this a couple of times and I don't even understand what I am talking about) so good luck!

With our downstairs addition we had the existing foundation walls to deal with. Since concrete is so heavy it is very expensive to break up and haul away. So, instead of dealing with all of that, our contractor cut out the area of the existing foundation wall that would be the door ways to the new rooms and pushed it outside. They are then going to pour the foundation flooring on top of the slab (essentially burying the slab under the new foundation). I don't know if that made sense, but here are a couple of pictures that hopefully help......

There is the slab of existing foundation wall laying flat in the ground with a big piece of plywood covering up the hole in our house.

Here is the view when you walk into my laundry room now. Since they only needed to take out the concrete part, the top half of wall is still in tact.


It sure does let it a LOT more light! I am afraid that it is also going to let in a lot more bugs, dirt and let out a lot more children and cats! So, thank goodness they put up the plywood to cover the hole. It is going to stay like that for at least 2 more weeks I think.

Foundation Walls

We now have the foundation walls! They came this morning at 6:30!!!!!! Sorry to anyone within the sound of all the hammering, sawing, nailing~ not to mention the cement truck with its diesel engine. Korby had the day off and was going to take the kids to let me sleep in. So much for that plan......
I just have to keep telling myself it will all be worth it in the end~ that is going to be my new mantra!

Day 2 of Construction

I don't think that anything will be able to top Monday's excitement for my kids! Tuesday we dealt with power issues and they got it ready to pour the footings.

Here is what is left of our deck~ a pile of rubble.

I had no idea that rebarb (sp?) was so colorful!

We'll see what tomorrow brings.....

Let it Begin

We started bright and early Monday morning! Jackson wouldn't even let me finish getting him dressed he was too excited about watching the tractors :) I think they were more excited about this then they were about Christmas!!!


Our kitchen proved to be a perfect spot to watch the whole show. It began by excavating our backyard for the addition. Notice the soggy bowl of cereal on the counter~ they were too excited to even eat breakfast!
By the end of the day we no longer had a covered deck. The kids got such a kick out of watching the workers cut, rip, pound, and tear up the deck piece by piece.

Here is our yard at the end of day 1. A giant hole, mounds of dirt, hammers, nails, ladders, wood scattered randomly around~ a backyard that is no longer kid friendly!

Let the fun begin!!!!!! We are really excited to be doing this. We know it will be a long and frustrating process at times, but the end product will be so worth it!!!! We are just about doubling the size of our kitchen and we are adding another bedroom and full bathroom down stairs.

A New Beginning

For the last couple of months we have been meeting with architects, talking with general contractors, getting bids, going to Parade of Homes, checking out Lowes and Home Depot more frequently as we finally made the decision to add on to our house!!!!!!

How did your day start?

As I was taking Shayden to school and Jackson to my friends house, and trying to hurry back so I could get ready for 6 kids to come over for preschool, from the very back of the car I hear the small voice of Tanner......

"Mom, I threw up."

I hope your day started better than mine :)

I'm Baaaaaaaack!

Okay, so I took a little computer break for almost a month! It was actually really nice, but I am excited to get back into blogging! I have a lot of pictures from the last month, but instead of posting 40 pictures and boring everyone out of their minds I am just going to do a quick recap and move forward from here...

For Shayden's spring break the kids and I went down to California for about 5 days, then we spent Easter weekend in Cedar City with Korby and his dad and then we went to St George with Korby for a conference he had down there for a couple of days. It was a lot of traveling, but it was also a lot of fun!

For Tanner's 5th Birthday we took advantage of Disney's gracious gift of a free ticket on your birthday and the kids and I went to Disneyland with my mom, dad and sister Holly. It was insanely busy, but the kids still had a great time!
Here's my family waiting for our tour of the Brigham Young house in St George. Notice Tanner's "smile."

So the pictures aren't in order, but here is Jackson giving me a kiss at the beach in Carlsbad. It was a beautiful day to walk on the beach and there was a tractor moving sand so my boys were in Heaven!

In between Cedar City and St George is Zions National Park where we spent a day hiking and riding the tram around the park. Is it just me, or does Shayden look too grown up in this picture?

I took this the night before we came home~ kind of like the end of our travels. It was a really fun trip and really looong. It seems like the longer the vacation the longer it takes to get over it.

Tanner Does it Again

Well, Tanner has done it again! He never ceases to come up with new things to say that just crack me up! We are leaving today to visit my parents in California and my mom's awesome neighbor scored us free tickets to Disneyland!!!! So, we are going to celebrate Tanner's 5th birthday :) We told Tanner about it last night and as I was putting him to bed last night I asked him if he was excited and this was his reply~ "I'm so excited I can't control my mind!"

I LOVE THIS KID!!!!

My New Best Friend

For anyone who has not tried this product~ it is AMAZING!!!!! I don't know the secret, but it really is magical. Mr Clean~ I love you!

Snow Day

We haven't seen snow for quite a while now, but in the last couple of days it has started to come back. And since I haven't really had anything to blog about lately I decided to take out my camera and actually take some pictures!

One of our cherry trees in the back yard.

This is looking out on the west side of the valley.

Korby and the kids built a snowman tonight. Shayden came in after about 10 minutes, but the boys were lovin it! Tanner loves playing in the snow, and smiling for the camera!

Jackson stood there holding that snowball for about 3 minutes. He didn't really have anything to do with it, but he was excited to have it!

We are very anxious for spring to come, but I guess we will make the most the winter that is still here. Hopefully we will have some more interesting things to blog about in the next couple of weeks :)

I can't belive I'm doing this.....

For any of you who haven't been sucked into the world of Facebook~ this tag has been going around for a while. For the longest time I decided I wasn't going to do it just because every one else was. But when my sister's all started to do it for each other, I didn't want to let them down.

Since I haven't had much to blog about lately, I decided to post the tag on here just to cover all my bases. So, for what it's worth, here is a list of 25 Random Things About Me.....

1. I have not eaten red meat in almost 6 months. (Big for me because my favorite meal forever has been steak and potatoes).
2. I really want a stamp in my passport~ I was very disappointed that we didn't get any while on our cruise :(
3. I hang dry almost all of my laundry (I only machine dry sheets/towels/socks/undies).
4. I want to take a photography class.
5. I really like to be warm, but I don't like wearing a lot of layers~ right now I am wearing shorts and have bare feet with my space heater on... good thing Korby doesn't read this :)
6. I LOVE math!
7. I don't like English and history.
8. I would like to start gardening.
9. I love my reusable shopping bags~ I use them for so many different things.
10. I want to get involved in a humanitarian non-profit organization.
11. I have become very particular about my kitchen sink (I wipe it down at least 5-6 times a day).
12. I think the beach is the most beautiful and peaceful place in the world, but I HATE the ocean!
13. It makes me sick to watch my blood being drawn, but I still donate blood every 8-10 weeks (I just have to look away the whole time).
14. I would love to be a massage therapist.
15. I can't decide if I like being brunette or blond?
16. I have started learning a little bit about natural medicine and want to get much more into it.
17. I love cleaning my house, but I hate cleaning my room.
18. Favorite chore: floors (sweep, mop and vac) Least favorite: oven, shower
19. My mom is my best friend.
20. I bought a book at CostCo this weekend out of pity~ the author was there with a giant stack of books to sign and no one was buying any (so far it is actually pretty good).
21. I absolutely LOVE to work out~ pilates, spin, power pump, step aerobics, yoga, zumba, kick boxing, racquetball, running~ some days I wish I could work out for 4 or 5 hours!
22. One day I want to go back to school and get my MBA.
23. I am really excited that I have started working on our food storage.
24. I handle all of our finances, budgeting and taxes.
25. Next year I am going to run a marathon (Korby is training for 1/2 iron man and climbing Mt. Rainer this year, so next year it is my turn to train for something).

Diet Coke and Heaven

So, Tanner continues to crack me up on just about a daily basis! Korby and Shayden were both out of town this past weekend, so it was just me, Tanner and Jackson hanging out. Well, one thing that I did to help get me through the weekend was buy some diet Coke (which I honestly don't drink very often). So, on Sunday as the boys were eating lunch before going to church I poured a large glass of it (to get me through the next three hours)! Jackson started asking for some and I had to explain to him that it was a drink for grown ups and not for kids. This is how the rest of the conversation went:

Tanner: Well, I've tried diet Coke before mom.

Me: That's okay Tanner. Kids just shouldn't drink it very much.

T: Well..... actually...... when I was up in heaven that is what Heavenly Father and Jesus like to drink.

Me: Oh really?!

T: Yea, that is their favorite drink. When it is snack time in heaven that is what Heavenly Father and Jesus drink and that's what they give the kids to drink too.

Me: Laughter...... more laughter....... started calling my mom to tell her that she didn't have to feel guilty for drinking diet Coke anymore since (according to Tanner) it is the beverage of choice up in heaven!

Cleaning House

The last couple of months I have been working on going through and cleaning out our house. And coming to the realization that we have WAY too much stuff! So far I have cleaned out the kids clothes, toys, books (just the really messed up ones~ I don't think my kids could have enough books) and stuffed animals and part of our storage room. I still have a lot that I want to go through but cleaning out also means cleaning up/organizing what's left, so we'll see what I get done this month. I'm thankful that we have a thrift store close to our house that will accept our donations and hopefully it will help someone else out.

This picture was taken a couple of months ago (notice the leaves on the tree in the background). Since then I have taken two more loads.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

January was not the best of months for me~ some small medical issues got a little crazy. But I am on the mend and I am hopeful that February will be a much better start to the year. One highlight of January was being able to go to the Draper Temple Open House. It was wonderful to be able to go with my kids. Shayden was pretty quiet but thought that everything was amazingly beautiful. Jackson was great just being held and was quite.

I walked through the entire time with Tanner! It was wonderful!!!!! As we were walking down a hallway (nothing really special about it)~ Tanner told me "I can feel the spirit here." What a sweetheart! A little later we were walking by the bridal room and there was a door partially opened. Tanner went over, opened it, walked in and said (in a not so quite voice) "Look mom! I found the Lord's bathroom!" The LDS temple's are called the House of the Lord. So in my little 4 year's old logic~ if this is the Lord's house, then that would be His bathroom!!!! What a funny little kid! At the end of the tour and as we walked out of the temple doors Tanner squeezed my hand and said "Mom, I felt the Holy Ghost the whole time." I knelt down to talk to him about how special the temple is, why they are so important and why he was able to feel the spirit there. I thought it was a very beautiful/special/journal worthy moment. His response "Yea, so can I have my fruit snacks now?" I LOVE this kid!!!!!

Draper Temple

New Look for the New Year

So, to start off the new year I decided to go with a new look. Here is a before picture just in case. Korby thought I was a stranger when I walked in the door and Jackson said my hair looks like chocolate. It will take a little getting used to, but I was ready for something different.

Mission accomplished!

Blue Light Special

Two things I wanted to work on in 2009 were building my food storage and saving money. My cousin introduced me to a grocery coupon program called Grocery Smarts and yesterday was my first shopping trip to Albertson's using coupons. I will preface it by saying it took me about 2 hours to prepare, but in the end it was well worth it.

Here is a list of what I got (my receipt was 5 feet long!):

*21 boxes of cereal
*4 bags of cereal
*24 boxes of Rice-a-Roni
*1 box of pancake mix
*1 box of muffin mix
*2 bottles of Pantene shampoo
*2 bottles of Pantene conditioner
*4 cans of Barbasol shaving cream
*2 Crest toothbrushes
*2 tubes of Crest toothpaste
*2 Loreal mascara
*1 Cover girl lip gloss
*1 Cover girl nail polish
*2 bottles of Vitamin E
*1 pineapple
*6 pounds of boneless/skinless chicken breasts (not pictured)
*8 cans of Progresso soup
*6 boxes of Puffs tissue
*2 bottles of liquid Tide
*6 boxes of Betty Crocker brownies
*6 boxes of Betty Crocker cake mix
*10 boxes of Betty Crocker potatoes

That is $400 worth of groceries~ I paid $178 and got $75 gift card to Albertson's. So, basically I bought 110 items worth $400 for $100!!!!!! Needless to say, I think I am off to a good start on my New Year's resolutions!!!! And for obvious reasons, I am pretty confident I will keep this one up! Now, if only I could be this successful with my journal writing.....

Christmas Recap

We had a lot of fun over Christmas. We loved spending time with friends and family. Here are just a couple of things we did:

We spent Christmas Eve with our kids walking around Temple Square looking that the nativities they had set up and admiring the beauty of the temple. We then went home and read the Christmas story before bed. It was a great way to spend the evening~ helping our kids focus on the importance of the meaning of Christmas.

Something I have discovered about my husband~ he REALLY likes to make gingerbread houses. He and the kids (mostly he) spent about 3 hours making this.

Tanner's Joy School group went to a nursing home and they acted out the Nativity story. He got to be a wise man and really liked that he got to hold a present.

Of course, we opened a lot of presents. But our present opening began on Nov 26th and didn't end until Dec 29th. It helped to have it spread out, so the kids didn't get overwhelmed at any one time. They were also able to enjoy their presents a couple at a time!


Jackson got some walkie talkies that he calls "hawkie tawkies." He doesn't have a clue how they work~ but he sure thinks they are cool.

Tanner is in love with Lego's these days and was soooo... excited to get this new set. *Side note~ the kids were getting ready to go swimming when they were opening these presents which is why they are in their bathing suits!

Shayden is in heaven with her i-pod that Santa brought her. It is fun that she still has the complete belief in Santa and was very impressed that Santa had already loaded all of her favorite songs on there, even though she hadn't told him what songs she liked!

The best part of Christmas~ being with my family and seeing my smiling kids! They truly are the best present I could ever ask for!