My amazing brother Steve is having an open house in Salt Lake City this Saturday. I wish I could be there but I live too far away. Sad, yes, story of my life... If any of you wish to see his this GORGEOUS house in Holladay, you can RSVP at tiekbuilthomes.com. I got to see the house when I came up to Utah this spring. It is soooo beautiful. I love all the custom work and original designs Steve came up with. You can see some of it on his webite and blog too. If you decide to go you HAVE to look at the before pictures of the house. You won't believe that it's actually a remodel.

after, before and after

I decided to redo this cabinet and mirror. I found them at an estate sale for $35. I thought about sanding down the whole thing and doing a watered down blue stain but after starting to sand realized there was only a layer of wood then laminate underneath. Plus the detail work would have been a royal pain to sand. So instead, I spray painted it. My camera doesn't do well with indoor lighting so you can't see the edges where I antiqued it. I think it turned out pretty good. I don't like having it right next to a different white (the door) but since we won't live in this rental forever I'm not too worried.


Here it is before...

and after.
Eventually I want to find a little sign about heading to the beach or something. Those are shells in those glass vases.

February

Disneyland in January

We went to Disneyland with the Owens in January. They flew down to see us and spend a vacation in California. The weather was so nice. Best weather for Disneyland we've had so far this year and it was in Jan.





Everyone was getting tired of walking by this point.

All of us on the Pirate's ride. Well, almost all...

We realized we needed to rearrange a few things if we wanted the stroller to stay upright even with Maya in it. Does this mean we brought too much to carry or that Maya needs to gain a few pounds. Both, I'm sure.

One of my new favorite bands is Plain White T's. It all started with "Hey There Delilah" and lately I love the song "body parts" but my all time favorite of theirs is "Rhythm of Love"

Anyway, thought I'd share.

There is so much that goes on everyday and I just don't seem to have a chance to download and upload pics and post on my blog. I will try to do some of that today.

We are loving California weather in the winter time. I think maybe eventually I'll miss snow but then again, maybe not.

Today we had a really great FHE on Families being together for eternity. We talked about heaven and seeing our family there and all the friends we make here on earth and how the end of this life is not the end of everything. It was one of those FHE where the kids were asking questions and participating and there was such a good feeling. (It might have helped that Reagan had to go to bed early) I love nights like these.

I miss all my friends that I've made and moved away from. But it was nice remembering that some day we'll be able to see each other anytime. That goes for family as well...

Christmas is come and gone...and it felt like spring here today. It was 70! 70 in January! I took a blanket in the backyard and just enjoyed the sun while listening to a conference talk on my ipod. Kurt joined me and fell asleep after 2 seconds. About an hour and a half later Natalie comes running outside telling us that there is smoke coming from the oven. Kurt had failed to mention that he had just put the last batch of cookies in before he zonked off. There was no real damage done other than the house smelling terrible for the rest of the day. Good thing we could open all the windows! I am only mentioning this because normally it would have been me that left the cookies so it was nice to see it can happen to anyone.

So, well I guess a blog post isn't a good one without pictures so I'll put some random ones on here:

For Maya's preschool class we took a field trip to see the dentist.




Kurt got to coach both the kid's soccer teams. The weather was great all fall and we had a lot of fun watching all the games. This is one of Lincoln's many goals. You can't tell he made the goal but you can see the ref giving the goal signal.

Maya's Preschool

Thanks to Kiana, one of the other moms in our preschool co-op, we have these really great shots of the kids. She is taking a photography class right now and asked if she could take the kids pictures. They turned out so cute. I love the first one with them all holding hands. Maya is especially good friends with the boy on the far right-JD, who is sadly moving this week. When I told her today she started crying because she knows full well what that means. What is it with her and boyfriends? They really are cute. Every time they see each other they run up to each other and hug--with a kiss on the cheek once in a while. The other day they were at McDonalds and after they hugged and kissed JD's mom said, "you don't want to do that Maya, boys have cooties" and Maya said, "No they don't" kissed his cheek again and said, "see?"