A little bit of bragging... On Zane's behalf

I just have to brag on my amazing husband. He's been building a car in his spare time, yes you read that right, building a car. Not a kit car or a rebuild of a standing car. He's building a car from the ground up. While I'm not especially pleased that I usually find my car out in the snow and the cold in the mornings I am very proud of his ingenuity! He constantly amazes me at his ability to teach himself what he needs to know to accomplish a task once he sets his mind to it. He comes home at night, has dinner, helps me clean up, plays with the kids, and helps me put them to bed. He spends time with me and then sets out to the garage till one or two in the morning and then gets up and does it all over again the next day. I've posted some pictures of the progress so far. It's not as far along as he would like. He was feeling a little bad that he was making me a garage widow so we read the 3rd book in the Inheritance Cycle together and just recently finished it... so he's back to the garage, where he is now, even as I type. Anyway, here are the pics of his "baby".

The Donor Car


The work Table (which he built himself)

The "heart" of the beast

Drawing up the specs on the wood model

Machining a part on the CNC he built

the cheesy seat is just for sizing till he builds the one he wants

Where it is so far... I'll keep you posted as it takes shape

Totally Bored...with my look, haha

So, I'm totally bored with my look so I was messing around on the Internet and found a few sites that let you download an image and do a makeover... so which do you like? Dark or light, bangs up front or to the side. The first one let you change your makeup as well so that's why my face looks different. Hehehe, I had fun messing around with these.

My Bumpin' Ride

Hey all, this is Dalin here. I've been so excited about my cool new ride Santa got me for Christmas. Can you believe I got a car for Christmas and I'm only one!!! Anyway, I realized something was missing...so I had this bumpin' stereo installed to complete the package. Now non of the ladies will be able to resist me and my hot new ride!

My HOLY CRAP moment

I CAN'T BELIEVE MY EYES. My aunt happened to be looking at my blog and saw that I really wanted the Willow Tree Nativity set and thought to herself, "I have that set but I don't have anywhere to put it" So what did she do??? She sent it to me... and what did I say when I opened it... HOLY CRAP! I am so excited I can't even express it in words. Thank you, thank you, thank you to my Aunt Vickie, you are awesome, I'm forever in your debt. Every year when I set it up I'll smile and think about how wonderful you are! As promised here are the pictures of me opening it and it set up. Some are a little blurry but you can see my excitement I hope.

Merry Christmas!!!

Dear Santa, Let me explain...

Christmas was soooo fun this year!! Zane's family came to visit us over the holiday and my only regret is that they weren't able to stay longer. The presents were overflowing and, of course, they were mostly for the kids. It was so fun to watch each of the kids open their presents. I think I had drilled it into Dalin's head that he wasn't allowed to touch the presents a little too well because I ended up opening most of his presents for him. He kept looking at me like, " are you crazy, I'm not supposed to touch those" He got a cozy coupe car from santa and has had more fun with it than I could have imagined! Ciara got quite a few elephants and several of the Barbie's and toys from the Diamond Castle movie and has loved playing with ALL of her toys. Dalin enjoys playing with Ciara's toys too but I think he's only doing it because it drives Ciara crazy, hehehe. Mom, George, Chantile, and Jasmine came over that evening and we had a great dinner and family home evening. It was great fun. We sang caroles and had a great lesson from Travis about the first vision. Here are some pictures from the crazyness.

New Blog

I've made it my New Year's Resolution to keep the family fitness journal blog up to date. We'll se how I do, try to keep me on top of it k? Anyway, if you want to check it out here's the link. I hope it helps and motivates you!
http://familyfitnessjournal.blogspot.com

Dalin's Big Day

I can't believe my little man is a year old. Here are some pictures of his big day. We had fun celebrating. Dalin had fun with the cake!! He was a little confused about the presents. I've been telling him NO any time he gets close the the Christmas presents so he couldn't figure out why I was letting him open some. He was quite hesitant so sister and I helped him. Enjoy the pics!

My Little Budding Artist

When we finished the basement we put our old kitchen table in the living room for Ciara to use as a "craft table". She has a lot of fun drawing and coloring and creating. I decided it would be fun to put all of her artwork on the wall above the table. I pulled all of her pictures that I've been keeping in a binder and we stuck them up on the wall. There ended up being a few more than I thought! Since taking the picture we have added to the wall. The art almost stretches all the way the the edge of BOTH walls.

Tis the season

It's been forever since I've blogged, it seems like I just updated it. So this is another catch up session. Thanksgiving was wonderful. We had so much fun in UT with all of our family. We did miss everyone that was here in MT. Ciara had more fun playing with her cousins that I thought possible. She wanted to go out everyday and jump on the trampoline, even if it was freezing out. Darci has some cute pics of the kids playing together. I tried to copy them to my blog but since they are in a slide show format it wouldn't let me. You can click on my link to their site if you want to see them though. We all, of course, ate too much and I even went shopping on "Black Friday" I didn't get up at O'dark thirty though, I'm not that committed.
When we got home we had a huge birthday bash for everyone. Matt's birthday was in November but we weren't able to get together. Zane and Jasmine's is the first, Griffin's is the fourth, and Dalin's is the tenth

Ciara addressed the card herself

Can you believe I'm married to a 30 year old?!

All the party goers

I can't believe my little man is going to be a year old in less than a week. This year has just flown by. At this time last year I was cursing the doctors for not inducing me...Actually my due date was a year ago today. Yes, he was late, just like his sister. But worth the wait.

Look at the toothy grin!

So, I'm gearing up for the holiday season, as I'm sure most of you are. I've been shopping and racking my brain for gift ideas for everyone on my list. The girls on the list are always easy, it's the guys that take forever. I never know what to get any of them. I've also been searching high and low for a nice nativity set that's not to pricey. I think I've ruined it though because I REALLY want the Willow Tree set so every other set is just not going to be good enough. The willow tree set is so expensive I can't bring myself to buy it. I need to just start with Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus, but I'm kind of an all or nothing kind of girl so it'll just bug me to not have the whole set.

This isn't the whole set but it's would be complete enough. The entire set is like $280.00, I just can't rationalize spending that kind of money on something I only have out for 30 days out of the year. Anyway, I've got a pile of presents to wrap and it's late so I better get on it.

Catching Up

This post is going to be long and varied but we haven't had the internet for a few days because we were moving it to the basement so I haven't had a chance to post. So make sure you scoll all the way down for all of the goodies.

Fist things first...Zane's gum, this was gross but funny so I'll do it first and get it out of the way. Zane decided to shove, 28, yes, 28 pieces of bubble gum from Ciara's Halloween bag into his mouth and here are the results. I laughed so hard. Zane figures if Grady can post a picture of poop on his blog I can post a picture of ABC gum, lol.

The evidence...

The chewing process...

The joy of victory...

The end result...absolutely disgusting!

Travis, I think this rivals the Starburst ball, what do you think?

The Blue Twins
Dalin and Ciara both enjoy suckers, can you guess which flavor they both like???

Dalin was so sticky I almost had to cut him out of his shirt to get him into the tub!

Peek-a-boo

The other day I laid Dalin down for a nap and it was quiet when I left the room, he didn't make a peep. I waited for about 5 minutes then had to go into the room to put some clothes on the bed. I quietly opened the door to toss the clothes in when I heard little giggles and cooing. I peeked around the dresser to see the following...

Peek-a-boo

I see you!

My New Treasure

So the other day I'm at Montana Rescue Mission (kinda like goodwill) looking for cheap halloween costume accessories for the Ward Carnival and they are playing old piano music over the speakers, or so I think. As I drift closer to the furniture section the sound gets louder until suddenly I come around a corner and there is the cutest old lady sitting at an old piano playing. I see the sticker on the piano and it says $199.00 so I asked her if she was going to buy it. She said no and I had instant dreams of having it in my house. I left the store wishing I could get it but thought where would I put it. I was planning on buying a chair to go upstairs after we moved the TV and desk to the basement. Then it dawned on me, why buy a chair when you can buy a piano. So I called Zane and asked him and he said if you really want I guess it's okay. So I promptly turned the car around and went back. I remembered what someone had once told Ronda about never paying retail, especially at a store like that so I offered the manager $115 and he agreed, I was so excited. When we went up to the register he said, just make if for an even $100. So for $100 and a lot of elbow grease on behalf of Zane, George, Curt, Duane, and LJ (my personal piano movers) I have this lovely piano in the living room. It needs a few cosmetic touch ups but it plays beautifully.

new living room layout

Ciara's bed...Finally done
I finally painted and sealed Ciara's bed. I still need to hang all of her artwork but other than that her "green room" is done and she is loving it.

The bed side table used to be stained a dark walnut so I painted it to match the room

Tender Mercy of the Lord, Saved the best for last.

Today Zane laid Dalin down for a nap. After listening to him scream for a minute or two Zane went into check on him only to find he had gotten his knee stuck between the bars of his crib. poor thing. I scooped him up from Daddy's arms, it's a mother's right to do that :) and I gave him a bottle Zane had made for him. After that he laid against my chest for quite a while. He isn't really a snuggler so I was feeling pretty lucky. Then all of a sudden I hear Zane at the piano playing his mission song that I LOVE! It was such a tender moment and I was reminded of a confrence talk in which we were told that motherhood comes in moments and I was flooded with the sweet understanding of that statement more than ever. Tears flowed freely from my eyes, and are starting to now as I think on it. I felt such joy at this little moment of comforting my baby while we listened to such beautiful music played by daddy. I'm grateful for all that I have. I'm not ashamed to be a stay-at-home mom, I'm proud of it, I feel it a privelage. I'm not ashamed that I am a member of the only true church on the earth, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I struggle though the hard times and live for the moments, because the moments by far outway the struggles.

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