Christmas fun!...

Now that I've complained to everyone about being alone for Christmas, I can talk about what a fun Christmas we had anyway! The kids received a surprise visit from Santa Claus on Christmas Eve (compliments of Grandma Nae & Debbie Arnold's family - and I can not say thank you enough!) - both kids ran to the front door looking for Santa's sleigh... we had to explain that sometimes, Santa leaves the sleigh home.

Christmas morning was fun chaos, as always! Santa brought the kids some fun toys, as well as new sleds & some new clothes. He also brought the family a Wii, which we are very excited to try out! The kids got to try out their sleds yesterday, with dad pulling them behind the tractor. It was really funny & I wish I had gotten a few pictures! Next time ... :)

Santa did a good job with the kids, but I have to say that I think my gift was the best! Todd has had a secret project that has been going on for quite a while, and the result is that he turned my least favorite room in the house to my most favorite!

I really wish I had a before picture, but if you can picture a 9 year old washer & dryer set (that sat about 8 inches away from the wall), no cabinets, no counter top, & no blinds (and a big mess)

you'd have my old laundry room. Todd finished & installed the cabinets and counter top, as well as picked out the washer & dryer set. The room looks so great, and he did an awesome job (as always). I wish I could have gotten a better angle for the picture, as there is an extra cabinet above the counter top that you can't see, but this gives you a pretty good idea. Thank you Toddie baby!

Quarantined for Christmas!...

You know, it's kinda funny how oblivious we can be to the things that aren't directly affecting us. Like, say, how there can be an illness floating around that you've never even heard of, and would have wandered through life in happy ignorant bliss without ever knowing about... until one of your kids brings it home from school in the form of a full body rash. Then, within a total time frame of about 5 minutes (thanks to the internet & calls to the doctor), you learn all sorts of interesting facts about this formerly unknown disease - such as the good news... once they have the bright pink face & the rash, they're no longer contagious (and you now know what to blame for that headache they had last week that put them to bed at 6pm) - as well as the bad news... the illness has an incubation period that can last anywhere from 5 days to over a month, and everyone in the house has been exposed. Technically speaking, it's really not too big of a deal - unless you have a family member that is pregnant (we do), and unless you have a family member with a compromised immune system (that's us too) - oh, and also if you have family members that don't want full body rashes and all of the other fun side effects like headaches, cold symptoms, and swollen painful joints in adults (yeah, that's pretty much everyone). Result? For the first time in our 9 years of marriage, we spent Christmas all by our very little lonesomes (it's also the first year either of us has spent without our families). So watch out - Fifth disease could be spreading it's nasty little way to spoil a family get together near you! (And when it happens to be Christmas... it stings just a little...)

p.s. - It's been brought to my attention that I should clarify that "family members" in this case applies to people outside of our little family of 4... the one that is expecting is not me :)

Christmas Tag

In light of the fact that I haven't posted in a while, I decided I'd better put something up here. I swiped this from my friend/neighbor Carrie's blog... I guess people are supposed to tag you with this, but I pretty much tagged myself - so if you are reading this and you like it, don't wait to be tagged - do what I did and just take it!

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Definitely hot chocolate - egg nog is blah!

2. Do you wrap presents or bag them? Depends on who, how many and how big! For me, hubby, and kids we definitely wrap.

3. Colored lights or White? I like them both, but we mostly did white this year.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? I used to, but I haven't looked for it in a while -

5. When do you decorate? I have the big wonderful notion that we decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving... however, I don't know that we actually hit those days very often... we actually started the week of Thanksgiving this year (but no Christmas music until AFTER Thanksgiving.

6. Favorite holiday dish? Loooove pie! (does that count?)

7. When and how did you learn about Santa? Learn what?...

8. How do you decorate your tree? We put the prettyish decorations & ribbon on first, then the kids do the cutsie ones after the breakable ones are up.

9. Snow...love it or dread it? I like snow on Christmas eve & Christmas day... and that's about it. Maybe long enough for one or two sledding trips & a snowman...

10. Can you ice skate? It's debatable... probably no...

11. Do you remember your favorite gift? As a child... the year we upgraded from our old PC to the one with the new fangled CD Rom (oooooooooooohhhhhh!)

12. What is the most important part of the holidays? Remembering the savior, and being with family.

13. Favorite holiday dessert? Still pie!

14. Favorite memory? When Kayla was still a baby, we all went to see the lights at temple square - we walked into the tabernacle & listened to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir practice... it was amazing.

15. Do you have a special ornament? I have a rocking horse ornament that my mom made for me - and I put it away so well that I can't find it this year.

16. What do you do on Christmas Eve? We have wassail & treats at Todd's parents' house, & Myrna reads a special Christmas story each year - then gives a copy of the book to each family. At my grandparents, we have Christmas dinner & open a present - sometimes Santa shows up!

17. If you could have anything for Christmas this year what would it be? I honestly don't know - a yard that has grass in it?... Really though, just to have everyone safe & healthy is enough!

18. What do you do for neighbors and friends for Christmas? I have been doing homemade marshmallows & hot chocolate the last 2 years... last year the hot chocolate was homemade too, but it was Stephen's for everyone this year!

Kitchen - Done!

All finished - and all in about a week... not too shabby! We're really happy with how everything turned out. Todd walked in tonight, looked the kitchen over and said "what next?" (Yike!)

(I changed some of the pictures out from the ones I posted originally - I took the originals when it was dark outside, so the lighting was pretty bad.)

Kitchen... Day four, kinda

Well, today we finished a few big jobs (again, please remember that I like to say we, but it mostly just covers the fact that I was present while the work was going on) ... for one, we moved the island into the house and set the counter top into place - two, Todd grouted all of the tile that's been installed over the last few days. If you've ever installed tile before, you can sympathize with the tedious clean up that comes after grouting... lots of clean water & lots of sponge wringing - and consequently, sore fingers! (Cue tiny violin... now!) Anyway, clean up is the part where I came in to the picture, so at least I felt like I contributed a little! (Yes, I realize that this isn't much compared to tiling, sanding, painting, sanding again, painting again, etc. but hey, I do try to help out where I won't screw things up... :)

Anyway, no pictures today - though the tile is grouted, I can't do the final sealing of the grout & tile until tomorrow and I want a picture of the finished product (the sealer does change the color just a little)... also, the caulk holding the counter top to the island is still setting up, so the island is currently buried under various heavy items piled on top to help press the counter down to get a good tight set (where are those clamps when you need em?) - which means no pictures of the island. Besides, I'd want to take another picture tomorrow of the completed job (and clean kitchen, which it is NOT right now... tools do not a good feature make) and how much fun would it be to have the same pictures both days, minus the scrubby tool type items? Anyway, it's late and I can see that I'm rambling, and I doubt it's possible that anyone is up to see that I'm posting anyway... so no one is likely to see my explanation until I already have the new pictures up... which means that this post was really just a good long bit of nonsense that I wrote to my pretend audience because I wasn't coherent enough to stop and consider the fact that I was blogging after midnight. crap.

Kitchen - Day Three...

We're getting close to being finished now! (Again, we being Todd... I just do my best to irritate him by pestering him the whole time he's working.) Todd painted the island today, and we will get the new top for it tomorrow. We will also grout the tile tomorrow, and then seal it the next day so.... we should have all of the major work done by tomorrow night, and have it completely finished by Wednesday. Yay!

Here are a few pictures of the island... Todd distressed it very lightly & it turned out great!

And here is the last of the tumbled marble installation. Just a little spot, but it was time consuming... lots of cuts!

Can't wait till tomorrow!

Kitchen, Day Two...

Well, it's not quite the end of day two, but I wanted to post a few pictures of what has been done so far.

So here's the valance above our sink before...

And here it is after...

I really like what Todd did with the pattern under the valance - he's pretty creative! Right now he is working on the last area we are tiling, which is right above the desk. He was going try to finish it tonight, but I think he'll wrap it up and get some rest! Here he is getting started, so consider this the before shot!