My little treasure..

My husband is an awesome gift giver and never lets a birthday or christmas go past without a nice surprise. This year he got me some sweet sporty shoes and Pres Monson's Biography, great taste!!

But the real treat this Christmas came from my sister Tracy.:

I love love love it!! And did I mention that she made that frame all her self? She purchased the rope looking part but the rest was just raw wood that she worked her magic on and made into a beautiful frame. It goes with my decor and I look at it many times a day thinking, "I just love that." It's important to have things in your house that you look at and it just makes you happy.

Heres the old frame for comparison:
Here's a better view of the frame:

Thank You TRACY!!!

Look at that boy GO!

It is so fun when your kid learns to ride a bike! Jack picked it up in about 2 days (probably because we waited about a year too long to let him try!!) and now he is a biking machine!

Oh the cuteness!

The problem was taking Chase along...until I rigged up the trail-along bike and viola!

Poor Chase can barely reach the pedals so he really is just along for the ride but it is easier to maneuver than the trailer.

Now we're just a regular riding party and I love Arizona winter for this!

It is so fun to have my kids growing up. We went to the children's museum today and I saw several mothers nursing babies while trying to keep their toddlers in view. Sometimes chasing the toddler down while trying to hang on to the still nursing baby and dragging the stroller along. It looked exhausting! I remember it well...that was me, just about 3 years ago. How time flies.

My children are so much more manageable now.

Then it hit me...in 6 short months I'm going to be the nursing, stroller toting mom again...eek!

Good thing I won't have a toddler to chase around:)

Or more accurately:

Why I'm nausious, bloated, tired, grumpy etc.

Yep you guessed it:

I'm super excited that my little sister Laura and I are due the same day!!

June 30...only 6 long months away...ugh.

On a side note: My sister Julie and I were due the same day when I was pregnant with Jack, how cool is that?

Winter has come a calling...

Quite literally!

My brother made this man and then rang the door bell, he's so funny!

It has been snowing like crazy in Utah and it is beautiful! It has been so fun to sit in a cozy house, playing games iwth family and eating lots of good food while watching the snow fall outside. This is what Christmas vacation is all about!

Some of the highlights:

Making Gingerbread houses, yum!

Quinn's was particularly inventive:

Got some great gifts...

Can you say happy boys? or what?

When Chase opened his gift from grandma he said, "Its just what I wanted!!" He had never seen it before in his life. It's great when whatever you get is exactly what you wanted.

Played with all the big cousins:

And have a ball sleeping in the same bed every night, such sweeties!

For my friends in the snowy North.

I snapped these photos as we lounged outside yesterday

It's December and my boys aren't wearing any shirts

Which is fine because it isn't even cold here!

My toesies enjoyed the weather very much

And eating juicy strawberries helped us feel very posh

It was lovely to sit back, enjoy the feel of the mid70 degree air and watch my funny boys...

(Mark, he gets his ribs from you!)

This is Jack's "Spider Man" shot

Looks more like a "Crazy man" shot to me.

THIS is why people live in Arizona!

House transformations

My sisters were talking the other day and one of them mentioned my change to white picture frames and the other couldn't picture it. So she emailed and asked that I post a few pics of my recent projects and my house so she can picture it. Honestly ladies, you should just come see it in person!

Here's the coffee table before:

And after! Including new rug and throw pillows:

The old entertainment center

Picked up this treasure at an antique store in town

(are all of you Tuconians aware that there are great antique stores in Tucson? There are!)

Painted:

Antiqued:

I love how the antiquing makes all the details pop out!

And in the house, complete with "family" sign I also painted:

p.s. is it too early for Christmas decorations? I didn't think so, my house is all decked out!

The chairs have had a few transformations

Here is the first change in 2008:

Now in 2010, love these fabrics! And no, they are not practical but who cares?

They make me happy when I look at them:)

(also, pre treated the fabric with stain guard and they wipe off pretty well!)

My kitchen wall. This used to have one picture on it.

I painted all the frames, many of them I already had so it didn't cost much!

(My christmas things are in there so its not completely how it looks normally but you get the idea)

Another wall of pics.

I love the oval frames and the round framed mirror was a great find at Goodwill!

No before pic of this little gem but it was brown/ugly.

Now it is my adorable end table!

My favorite compliment from anyone thus far was my friend who said, "I saw that before you painted it and I honestly thought it was way ugly and it looks great now!" She didn't have the vision!

This wall is still under construction. Tracy is making me a fat white frame for my timp pic for Christmas, can't wait!! And I have a cool framed scripture to go where the Christmas sleds are now. The little thing on the right is my collection of antique finds at the local stores.

Oh, and my garage during the chaos.

I knew somehow I was going to organize it to fit our new van when it came.....

And here it is: the Swagger Wagon! The boys think it is so cool, even cooler than Daddys truck! Probably just because it is newer,

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

My painting ideas came from www.allthingsthrifty.com Check it out.

A Musical Meeting with Ellen

My cousin was on Ellen!! She is famous. I love Ali, she is such a fun loving person. Way to go Ali!

Mission San Xavier

We took a little morning trip to this mission that was build in 1783 by some friars from Spain. As we were there and learning about the history of it I realized 1783 was a really long time ago...who knew anyone but the Indians were here then?

It is totally in the middle of no where.

I love the white of the building against the deep blue sky.

The whole place was abandoned at one point and wild animals were living inside. They did major restoration on the whole thing.

They are just cute.

Deep in the labyrinth.

The Indians come to set up little eateries in the stalls on the mission grounds. There were about 7 or 8 stalls and all of them had the exact same menu. Fry bread, fry bread with sugar, fry bread with cinnamon, fry bread with meat, fry bread with honey. It was hard to choose who to buy from when they all look exactly the same and they are all eying you to see where you are going to spend your money. We chose the people who had two cute little kids:

I thought Jack and Chase looked cute playing under the table with these little Indian kids. Seeing them made me thankful that Quinn has a good job.

Have I mentioned...

That my awesome mom is coming in 2 weeks and that we have tickets to go see:

So You Think You Can Dance Live on Tour!!

I can't wait!

Halloween

We were the bat family for halloween. I wanted to do Batman and Robin for the boys but who wants to be robin?

Of course this pic is a little lame because you can't see Quinn's camo backed bat on his shirt and you cant see the boys awesome bat capes!

Chase particularly enjoyed the sugar feas!t

Carving pumpkins is really fun! Why did i not remember how fun it is?