Making a house a home.

Next week will mark 6 years in our house and I can finally call it home. Nate has always be very much against putting ANY holes in the walls. Which means the three pictures I have had hanging on the wall till now have all been hung on existing nails. Not to mention the struggle it was just to get curtains rods up which require screws, not nails!

I'm happy to say I have finally worn him down. We hung three new frames this week (only two new nails). I can tell it hurt him a little to drive the nail, but I finally feel like this house is our home. Complete with silly family photo collages on the wall.


This is not the end. I printed over 100 pictures from the last year for these frames and had to whittle it down to just 34 favorites for these frames. I don't know if Nate realizes what he is in for.

Christmas Train

I wanted to get the boys into the Christmas Spirit today. So we picked up one of those gingerbread house/train kits at the store and brought it home. I expected the boys to eat most of the candy before I could get it together and to be constantly putting their fingers in it, but y were surprisingly reserved. Trey was absolutely delighted everytime a wall went up or new set of decoration went on. He also kept Smith back, barking "don't touch it, don't touch it" or "soft, it's wiggly" when Smith would go for it. They were even willingly posed for a picture when it was done. That never happens!


When I said "Okay, it's done" Trey got excited and said "We eat it now? It's just food!" Uh, no, it's not that kind of food. I held them off for tonight so we can show it to Daddy when he comes home, but I don't think it will last long after that.

It's definitely not meant to be eaten, the candies are pretty bad and the frosting has no sugar in it, tastes like glue. For all I know it could really be glue. But Smith will eat anything :)

Pictures.

Picture Day with the cousins. Aren't they adorable. I want to thank my sis-in-law Lisa for helping me get together. I couldn't have done it without her. I think it came out great, especially considering how uncooperative Trey was for the whole thing. We snapped these just before baby Bridgers blessing.


The camera loves you boys.
Smith loved it! He is kind of a camera hog.
This is one of the very few pictures of Trey actually smiling. What a cutie.
This was more typical. Trey didn't want his picture taken, or anyone else's for that matter :) This is actually one of my favorite pics because of the personality it shows.

I over did it again.

I do this all the time. I learn how to do something new and then I get all excited and go way over board. This year I learned to can. It started with peach syrup about a month ago and kind of took off from there. In total I have done over 180 bottles this year. My first year. I would love to continue, But I have run out of bottles.
Here's what I have made so far. Apple Sauce (23) Pears (18) Peaches (63) Peach syrup(11) Apple pie filling (20) Apple/Raspberry jam (6) Tomatoes (7) Jalapeno Pepper jelly (7) Jalapeno Apple jam (6) Raspberry Jam (11) Prunes (30). Yum.

Next year I want to try some more weird jams and jellies. Did you know you can make jelly from dandelions or rose petals? Crazy!

Portland Trip

After seeing Seattle, we headed down to Portland. I am terrible at taking pictures so you will just have to take my word on some of this.

I saw my long lost best friend Kimber. I have known Kimber since the beginning of time. She says since age 3, but I can't remember that far back so it might as well be the beginning of time. I miss her. I try to get her to move back to Utah everytime I see her. It never works. We went shopping and out of hot chocolate the night we left to come home.

We also saw Nate long lost college buddy Mark, and family. Love these guys too. We don't see enough of them, but when ever we do it's great. Nate and Mark run off to get in trouble and I get to relax and chat or take a walk with Heather. Always a treat.

Best of all we got to see my brother Mike. He and Cat moved up there a year or so ago. I would try to talk him into coming home, but they seem to really like it there.
We went to the zoo.
We fed the birds at the zoo. Kind of fun, and kind of scary. These birds are pretty aggressive and would steal the cup of nectar if you didn't hold on tight.
We went to Voodoo Donuts. We got a Memphis Mafia (banana chocolate and peanut butter fritter) Double Bubble (bubble gum flavored) Bacon Maple Bar (with real bacon on top) and the Voodoo Doll. The doll had a pretzel stick though it's heart and was filled with red jelly, so it looked like it was bleeding when you ate it. Delicious. If you are ever in Portland, you should go to Voodoo Donuts.

Mike and Cat also took us to a great local hamburger spot. And by local I mean then get all of there ingredients locally. It was delicious.

Seattle Trip

In February we took a roadtrip to the Northwest. We started in Seattle with Nate's family. I am more then a little embarrassed to say it, but this was the first time I have been back since our wedding. Nate has been back a few times, but something always came up and I couldn't go. Plus, the family reunions were usually somewhere other then Seattle. We had a great time.

Here are some of the highlights:

We took the ferry from Seattle to Port Angeles to see Nate's sister. Then went to some really cool tide pools and ran around on the beach.




Going snowboarding at Steven's Pass. I know you can't tell from the picture, but we left the kids with the in-laws and spent the day snowboarding. It was my only time out this season. We had so much fun together. Nate even taught me how to rail slide and do some jumps. So it was probably my best day snowboarding, ever.
We also went to a neat little reptile museum. There were a ton of cool snakes, including a lot of very venomous ones. They only let us hold the non-dangerous boas and pythons. Trey was a little to lovey with them and we had to put them away before he squeezed them to death.

Volcanoes

I have a lot of catching up to do. I haven't really blogged much this year. I am hoping to start up again and catch up on the year. So here is the first post of many.

The boys and i made volcanoes the other day. vinegar, baking soda and food coloring. They LOVED it. I can be a fun mom sometimes.
We did this because we went to Yellowstone the week before (I'll post about that later). They thought the geysers were volcanoes, and they are related so I didn't correct them. Plus volcano was easier for them to pronounce then geyser.