Cabinets

Our cabinets have been installed!!! They aren't finished yet, some still need crown moulding, they don't have handles yet, and the hood will be finished after our HVAC people come and finish their job. But I am LOVING them!!!!!!!!!!! My brother-in-law, Justin, who works for Western Idaho Cabinets (checkout their website @ http://www.westernidahocabinets.com/ - I like to look at their photo gallery) designed everything for us and he did such a beautiful job!! I HIGHLY recommend him to anyone! Here are some pictures of them... This is in the master bathroom These are the cabinets are in the main bathroom Here is part of the kitchen. My baking center is where those cabinets are on the counter. I'm so excited for that!!! This is the island in the kitchen Here is another part of the kitchen showing only half of the hood completed This is the desk in the kitchen area These are the lockers in the laundry room. I LOVE this color and the way it works so well with the wall color and the tile! Yay!!

Justin has done such a great job and I am so happy with everthing. I'll post more as it gets done!

Floors & More

The hardwood floors have been filled and sealed, and I am so amazed at what a huge difference that makes!! I am so pleased with how they turned out!!! And our cabinets are here and are being installed today and tomorrow. Can I just tell you how exciting this is?!!! I am just so happy with everything. Here are pictures of what's been going on around here...

Our "polka dot" floors, as Brett called them

And here they are sealed. I LOVE the variation in color! Some of the pieces look so cool!!

Here come the cabinets

Ryan, Valerie, their kids, and Kathy and Larid came to help haul them in. Angel and I were the official inspectors and directors.

I'll post more pictures as soon as cabinets are finished tomorrow!!

Our Valentine's Day

This year's Valentine's Day was not your typical one. Unfortunately, I'm finding that when you are building a house and have deadlines, you stick with your goals and work, no matter if Valentine's Day or not. But what I have found is that when you spend time with family and having them show how much they love you by helping with such a huge project, it's hard to top that and it means so much to both Brett and me! This is how we spent our V-Day, as did Ryan (Brett's brother) and Valerie and their kids, and Larid (Brett's dad)...
I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited about our flooring!!!! A huge thanks goes to Ryan, Valerie, and Larid - the hardwood floor laying experts! It was a happy Valentine's Day indeed!!

Valentine Festivities

We've been super busy with all sorts of Valentine things going on! It all started Thursday morning when I remembered that I needed to make a Valentine treat for Aubree's teacher. So I got to work first thing in the morning making super cute brownies (check out my food blog for details on that!). Then most of that day, I spent working on planning Austin's kindergarten Valentine party that I volunteered to be in charge of. I found some fun, festive games to play, but took a bit of time prepping for them. Finally that night, I baked a batch of cupcakes for the cupcake walk I was planning for the kids. After those got put away, it was finally about 12:30 in the morning and I hit the sack.

Bright and early the next morning (this morning) I was up finishing up putting the games together while Brett frosted the cupcakes. We made it to the school just in time to explain the games to the other moms that came to help, and then we got started. The kids guessed how many Kisses were in a jar (first guesses were 500 and then 450 - there were 68; so I told them the number was under 100), then each child was given a half of a heart that I cut out, making specific designs. They had to go around the room and try to find their other half, comparing their heart half with all of the other kids'. Then we split into two groups and took turns playing Valentine Bingo and a blindfolded drawing game (that was very entertaining!). Finally we all got back together and did our cupcake walk.

I was supposed to take an hour, but took 1 1/2 instead. The teacher was totally fine with that and so were the kids. They had a lot of fun. Austin actually asked if we could do that same party at our house with his friends again. Unfortunately for him, I was so pooped, I told him it wasn't going to happen! But I was glad to hear that he enjoyed it that much!! Now I need to come up with some more ideas for tomorrow, the REAL Valentine's Day. Maybe we can count today as our fun, festive day. Yeah, that sounds good.

Paint is DONE!!

It's been almost a week ago that the paint has been finished and I'm finally getting around to posting pictures. Sorry! But here they are. Brett is almost finished laying the tile, then there's grouting and sealing, and then he is planning on starting on the hardwood (which arrived today!) Saturday. It is absolutly amazing how things are coming together and I am so pleased, and relieved that I'm so happy with my choices! Phew!! We'll see how the rest goes. Enjoy the pics!

Entryway, seeing the colors of both formal rooms

A sunny and warm dining room, no matter the weather

I am so excited with this green; it turned out to be my favorite color in the house!

Family Room into the Kitchen

The paint color works with the brick, YAY!!

Angel

Angel is loving it here! She goes out to feed the cows with Brett every night and she loves to tease them. It's so funny to watch so I'm posting a couple little videos so you can get an idea of what we get to see everyday.

All About Teeth

We've had a lot going on here lately having to do with teeth. Yesterday Brynnlee cut her first tooth - FINALLY!!! We've been suffering through this for months! Finally, it's here and her next one is just about up as well. We've been amazed that she hasn't cut one sooner. Austin got his first tooth at four months, Aubree at six months, but Brynn waited until 11 months. My mom assures me, however, that I was the only child out of nine who got teeth before 12 months (mine came at 6 months). So apparently, for my family, 11 months is still early.

Last night Austin finally yanked out his second tooth. It's been so wiggly and loose it's been almost gross to see. It's funny to see him with this huge gap in his teeth. But when looking into his mouth last night, I could see that his first adult tooth is coming through the gums. So I suppose that I have two kids teething! And once again, he was so excited to find another dollar bill under his pillow from the tooth fairy!!

And finally, me. It's been since before I got married that I went to the dentist last, so almost 9 years. We finally decided that it's probably time to go in and have my teeth checked, so I did and the dentist said that I have three cavities. Monday I went in to have two of them filled on the left side of my mouth. After that was done, I went home and took my babysitter home and started to think about what to make for dinner. Well, I was told that I wouldn't be able to chew anything until the numbing went away. So I waited and waited and waited. Around 10 o'clock that night the numbness started to fade and I could feel that I had a lot of pain in my mouth. I took some Tylenol and tried to sleep; I was unsuccessful. My mouth hurt so much! By the time I got up in the morning, I could hardly move my mouth, I couldn't smile, and I certainly couldn't chew anything! I kept telling myself that it's been so long since I have had any work done on my mouth that I just wasn't used to this and I had forgotten what it's like to get cavities filled.

After hours had passed and there had only been slight improvement, a friend of mine told me that this was NOT normal and to call the dentist. So I did and left a message. When the dental assistant called me back, she told me that I was the one in 10,000 that this happens to. She believes that the dentist hit a nerve when he was injecting the anesthesia and that this was a reaction to that. She said that eventually it will get better, but that I was just going to have to wait it out. I have another appointment scheduled for Monday to get the last cavity filled, but now I am really nervous about getting that done. I don't want it to hurt like it did and I HAVE to eat!! Maybe I'll just have to live off of Jamba juices for a while, which wouldn't be too bad! We'll have to see how things go! Wish me luck!!

Frost Bite

Yesterday morning school was canceled due to the fridgid temperatures. When Brett and I came in at 12:45 am (Monday night/Tuesday early morning) from working on the house, it was negative 22 degrees, not including wind chill. Well by 8:30 Tuesday morning it was still in the negative temperatures, but the wind had picked up, so was super cold. I went out to feed Angel and when I opened the kennel to give her a drink, she pushed right past me and took off. I was so concerned since she ran to the street and was running up and down the road then into my neighbor's property, into their fields, scaring their horses, and NOT listening to me one bit!!!

I was outside for about an hour before I finally caught her and was so happy to get back inside the house and warm up. Later yesterday I happened to look in the mirror and noticed that my cheeks were super red and had all these white bumps all over. I later found out, when Brett came home and was so suprised to see the condition of my skin, that I had gotten frost bite on my face!

It's looking much better today, but I've learned my lesson. If Angel gets out again, I'm leaving her out until she decides to come back home! We absolutely love her, but I do have to say, "DARN DOG!!!"

First Lost Tooth!!

Yesterday morning, while we were getting ready for church, Austin was wiggling his tooth and it fell right out!! He was so excited! We have been trying for so long to get him to pull it out and he's just been too scared. But when it came out yesterday, he realized that it wasn't so bad, especially when he woke up this morning to find some money under his pillow!!

House Update

I've had lots of people ask what's been going on with the house. So I'm doing a post with an update. Though it doesn't look like a whole lot has been happening, Brett's been working on lots of the detail things, mostly trim and moving electrical outlets. We've hired out the rest of the siding and the painting. There are people here today working on filling nail holes and caulking. YAY!! But siding won't get finished until our ordered siding comes in. So here are the most recent pictures that I took last night and this morning.

Entryway

Part of the Family Room

Another part of the Family Room

The kitchen

Formal Dining room (it's not quite done yet)

The Formal Living Room with a coffered ceiling (I am WAY excited about that! That's my favorite part of the house!!)

Into the Mudroom

Kids' bedrooms

Shelving in the kids' closets

Master bedroom trim done!

The little sitting room in the Master

Brett is working on the dresser and shelving in the Master closet. I am so excited to not have dressers in any of the bedrooms!!

Siding is almost done!

Just a little more to do!

The garage doors are up and we even parked the pickup in there last night. It was so great to be able to go out this morning and not have to scrape windows and the windshield! We just need to get garage door openers now.

What An Adventure

Everyday's an adventure here! Yesterday morning at about eight o'clock, our power went out, just as I had started to warm up Brynnlee's bottle. I asked my neighbor if they had power and they did. After checking all of the breakers, in our house, outside of the house, and in the new house, everything seemed fine. So I called the power company and they said they would come take a look at it.

I packed up Aubree and Brynn and took them to the church where I knew I could find warm water and a warm place to hang out. We stayed there until Brett called to tell us that the power was back on and we could go home. (By the way, thank you, Mom, for the cell phone! That was the only way I could call for help.)

Later last night, I was cooking dinner when, all of a sudden, it happens again! Dinner was ruined so we resorted to PB&J sandwiches and we even tried cooking hotdogs over our candle flames. Fun, but it didn't work. Bedtime rolled around and still, there was no power. So I bundled up the kids and put them to bed with 3 or 4 blankets on top of them. Finally, at nine o'clock the lights came back on and the heater went to work.

After about an hour, I noticed that the heater hadn't shut off. It was still blowing air, but it wasn't getting any warmer. By that time I was freezing! So I called Brett, who was outside working on the house, to have him fix the problem. He couldn't. Instead we rounded up as many space heaters as we could get a hold of and spread them throughout the house. Since space heaters are the number one cause of fires in mobile homes, I decided to sleep out on the couch to make sure everything would be alright.

Hours later, as I lay on the couch thinking every noise I heard was a spark or a crackle and not getting an ounce of sleep, I suddenly heard all of the heaters turn off. Once again, we were without power! So at two o'clock in the morning, I call the power company to tell them that we had no power again and that it was quickly getting cold. About thirty minutes later, some poor guy, who was woken up at 2 AM, came to fix the problem. And finally we had some heat.

This morning, we had four utility trucks and eight guys in front of our house to fix the problem. Apparently, the transformer box (I think that's what it's called) was too small to run power to our new house (which we have to constantly keep warm now) and our trailer where we're living. So they put in a new, bigger one. We also had someone come to fix our heater and found out that due to the power being turned off and back on, there was a power surge that blew the heating switch. But that was a much easier fix than a whole new transformer.

I'm sure glad to have things back to normal again. After an experience like this, it makes you wonder what each new day will bring.

Our New Addition

This is our newest addition. Angel is a six month old white german shepherd. My sister, Nicole, told me about her when someone brought her into the animal shelter/vet clinic that she works at. Well, we decided to adopt her and Nicole brought her over this last weekend.

It's so much fun to see her run around and move like a puppy, even though she is almost full grown. She's not too coordinated yet. But she loves to play with Austin. It's amazing the connection the two of them have. As soon as he gets home from school every day, he's right to her kennel to see her. He has a quick lunch then runs out to play with Angel.

We still need to get Aubree used to her, but Brynn LOVES Angel as well. Living in a new place with new things to see, she likes to go check everything out and not listen when we call her. So I'll be looking into dog training classes that we can take. Other than that, she is a super sweet and playful puppy. We already love her to pieces!!

Being all white, we thought it might be a good idea to put a jogging vest on her so she doesn't completely blend in with the snow.

Ice Skating

Quick Visit

My mom came late Sunday night to come visit us. She was able to stay for all of Monday and went back to Utah early this morning. We had such a great time with her just hanging out and enjoying her company. Though her visits are short, we will take any time with her that we can!!

Brynn & Mom working on a sewing project

Austin, Aubree, and Mom built their first snowman!! My kids LOVED it!

A Very Merry Christmas Indeed

I know, Christmas was almost a week ago and I'm just now posting about it. Sorry! We had such a great day. The kids couldn't wait to get up and check out what Santa brought them, so we had to set their alarm for 7 a.m. so that they wouldn't get up too early. So as soon as that alarm went off, they were dashing to check things out.

We were able to have our tradition and drink hot chocolate and eat the oranges and jerky (sounds strange, I know) while presents were opened and breakfast was baking. Then we just hung out and played with toys and got ready to go to the Lusk family brunch and then on to Brett's parent's house to open more presents.

It was just a very laid back, relaxing day that we got to spend together as a family - something that happens only on a rare occasion.