In Progress...

We are working on finishing our basement and boy has it been work. Zane has been so awesome in this whole process. He wasn't to thrilled with my ambition because my ambition usually translates into work for him!! I'm so blessed to have such a handy man for a husband. As I type we are having the carpet installed, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! I've attached a bunch of pictures of the process and will post again when we've completed it. Ciara will be moving into the room we finished downstairs. I told her we could paint her room any color she wanted, any guesses as to what color she decided on??!!

This is where we put all of our stuff, it's a jungle in there!

Sheetrock phase

painting phase

Ready for Carpet!

Ciara was such a good helper! She had to mark her territory :)

Ciara's green room

P.S. I've posted a few things today so make sure you scroll down

Handsome little man

Dalin got a haircut the other day. After much debate as to how I should cut his hair my friend suggested that I just use the clippers and buzz him...so I did. Here is a good representation of before and after.

Before...

After...much better, don't you think!

Halloween Fun

We've had fun this last week getting ready for Halloween. Our ward hosted a Halloween Carnival that we took the kids to. Ciara invited her cousin Jasmine and Grandma Julie came along! She was a photographer for Halloween :) Jasmine was a pirate, Ciara...an elephant (what else!!) and Dalin was a cute little bat. I was asked to help out with the festivities so was obligated to dress up as well, I was a princess, along with my primary councelors. Last Monday we carved our pumpkins and had a lot of fun with everyone pulling out the guts and carving the perfect jaggety lantern! Here a few pics of our weekly adventures.

8 Things...

My friend Ashli tagged me, I don't usually do these but I thought, what the heck, here goes

8 Shows I like to watch
*Scrubs
*Biggest Loser
*What not to Wear
*Myth Busters
*Eli Stone
*America's next Top Model
*Friends
*Extreme Makeover Home edition
(that was hard, I'd rather read than watch TV)

8 Things that happened Yesterday
*Got the kids ready for church
*Fed the kids lunch
*made a pasta salad for the church potluck
*wrestled crazy kids in Primary
*Talked on Skype with my Family
*Watched Extreme Make over
*checked everyones blogs for updates
*stayed up way to late (regretting that this morning)

8 Favorite Places to Eat
*Cafe Rio
*Wingers
*Olive Garden
*My mom's house
*my mother-in-laws house
*Mackenzie River Pizza
*IHOP (after hockey games with the family)
*Applebees

8 Things I'm looking Forward to
*Having the basement done!!!
*Moving Dalin into his own room (again waiting on the basement finish)
*Going to UT for Thanksgiving
*Dalin's first birthday
*Picking out the perfect Christmas tree (one of my favorite parts of the season)
*Paying of School Loans (that'll be a while)
*Christmas (the kids are at such great ages for Christmas right now!)
*the house being clean (love the end result, hate the process to get it there)

8 Things on my Wish List (or Christmas List)
*Ipod or MP
*New robe (silk not the big fluffy ones)
*New Camera with higher MP
*New Crib for Dalin
*New Dresser for Ciara (I'm deciding if asking Zane to build one would get me killed or not he hates it when I ask him to build stuff 'cause it makes his garage messy)
*Church clothes
*warm slippers with rubber soles (the nice expensive ones)
*Lots of Scapbooking stuff
*gift card to Borders or Barns and Noble (spend way to much money in books!)
okay so that was nine but everyone always asks me what I want for Christmas and I never know what to say so there it is a whole list in writing and everything!

8 Things you might not know about me (I added this one, thought it would be fun)
*I have a very vivid imagination
*I was married at 18
*I was born in California
*I met Zane at a youth dance when I was 15
*I'm fasintated by egyptian and greek mythology
*I love to read urban fantasy books
*I would love to learn how to golf
*my mom is my hero and shining example-if only I could grow up to be like you mom!!

8 People I Tag
*Darci
*Jenise
*Karen
*Rikke
*Mom
*George (mom you'll have to ask George, i.e. beat the answers out of him ang post along with yours)
*Chantile (you can just email them or post it in the comments)
*Ronda (ditto, comments or email)

O Christmas Tree

This afternoon my mom and I were looking at some pictures of the trees she had taken last weekend after the snow storm. They made me think of a funny story about George and myself so I thought I'd tell you about it. A few years ago Mom, George, me, Zane, Matt (my bro), Chantile (my sister-in-law), and the kiddos got permits and drove out to Red Lodge to cut us down some Christmas trees. The snow in some places was knee deep. Matt and Chantile set off on a mission of their own to find the perfect tree and mom wanted to stay close to the car with the dog because the snow was to tall for him. Zane was on sled duty with the girls so it was up to me and George to find the perfect tree for us (this was back when we were staying with mom and George shortly after we moved back.) So we set off down the snow packed road looking for a good tree. Let me just preface this story. State law says you can't cut down a tree that is taller than 15 ft. Anyway, moving on, off the road about 50 feet we saw a beautiful tree but the bottom was a little sparse and it was a little tall. George and I guesstimated that is couldn't be more than 20-25 ft. so we decided to fudge on the rule and cut it down anyway. Well by the time we got to the tree we were both up to our thighs in snow...very very cold wet snow. George started sawing at the tree with our hand saw, that's right no power saw for us, we were going old school. After he got tired I took a turn. It was a little harder for me seeing as how George had started cutting it at a comfortable height for him the cut was a little high for me. Finally when the tree fell, after much hard work on both of our parts, we realized that the tree was probably closer to 35 or 40 feet tall, just from were we had cut it down at. Making the entire thing probably 40 or 50 feet... oops. Anyway, we cut the "tip" off of the tree thinking it was about 10-12 ft. When we lugged it back across the deep snow to the road and got it in the truck we headed home, wet socks and all. when we got home we ended up having to cut another 3 ft. off of our 15 foot tree. After the hassle it took to get it up the stairs and string all of the lights George ended up just chopping it up after Christmas, lights and all, and tossing it out the window. Mom just went out and bought new lights after the season when they were on sale. Needless to say, next time we do that we'll take a tape measure our someone with a better internal gauge of height with us.

From Summer Sun to Winter Wonderland

This pic was taken on Sept. 15th. The kids had so much fun playing in the water... fast forward to today...

That's Montana for you. Ciara had so much fun outside playing with Daddy. They built a snowman and made snow angels.

Free Advertising

My friend Jasey is very talented at all things craft related. I wanted to put up a plug for her online shop. I've seen these blocks that she is selling and they are so cute. I'm going to have her make me some for the kids' rooms. I've posted the link here and on my side bar. They are so cute, check them out!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6073865

The Beginning of the End

The other day I took this cute little video of Dalin. He's been quite the mover and shaker lately. He really likes to rearrange my kitchen chairs. Anything that will slide across the floor basically. I'm always having to move the chairs and his high chair back to the table when it's time to eat so I pulled out this old walker of Ciara's. He really likes it unto he runs into something, then he gets frustrated because he doesn't know how to turn it. So it's the beginning of the end as soon as this little boy starts to walk all I'm going to be doing all day is chasing after him...like I don't already do that!!