I love our basement!!

We finally have our basement finished to how I like it, for Christmas the kids got a computer and a game table so I had to rearrange a little but LOVE it. This corner is the board game/computer/game table section.

This is our couch/wii section of the basement.

This is our main computer and my craft table(little but perfect.)

Of course Lucie has a "baby" corner of the basement!

For my Lucie!

I was at a rummage sale this summer when I came across an adorable little dollhouse that just needed love. I so wanted to give it to Lucie for Christmas and repaint it. I think I spent a good five hours painting it. I painted the outside purple because she is 100% girl. I used the leftover paint from painting the house so her dollhouse is a little like our house. I painted the main bedroom the same color of hers-green and pink, the kitchen yellow, etc. I am so happy so totally loves the dollhouse!

Homemade because I Love You!

I decided that for Josh for Christmas I would fix something he LOVED! About 13 years ago when he was on his mission his mom made him a quilt and sent it to him. He loved it so much that he tore a huge hole in the back and of course kept using it and continued to rip the back. It was fragile so we didn't wash it and it was just put on the shelf for the last five plus years. I secretly took it out of Grants room(he knew it was in the closet so I had to do it a little at a time and put it back just right so that if the closet was opened he wouldn't notice anything new about it.) I tore and cut the back off, cut all the yarn ties, put a new back on it and retied new yarn ties, I think it turned out nice and I wasn't quite sure if it was worth all the time I put into it, but just seeing how much he LOVES it-it was no waste of time, he will just lay in bed and hold it to his face, smell it(of course it has been washed) and smile.

CHRISTMAS!!

I love Christmas-I love the feel and the smells, the homemade gifts and the overall spirit and excitement in the air. Everything about it I LOVE!!

Two weeks before Christmas we made sugar cookies-which I only make because of the experience they are probably my LEAST favorite cookie-but the kids love it.




One of my family traditions is to have the "Brownies" came Christmas eve and leave pj's and we added a Christ gift to that tradition!


Christmas morning Grant woke up at 4:30(which isn't horrible since he usually wakes up at 5:15) he wanted so bad to wake up Lucie but we wouldn't let him, she woke up around 6:30. I don't have many pictures because we video taped everything but in the picture of them waiting on the bed if you look at Murphy-he totally doesn't want to open his eyes! The only pictures I really took were when they were opening the water park tickets and the "wii" game pack from Grandma and Grandpa Smith.






My mom, dad, Grandpa and sister Alana came over in the morning for breakfast and so my parents could give the kids their big present from them and the one picture I took is priceless of my dad and Grant playing- I love the look on my dads face-it is so childlike!! It is sweet!



What is a Christmas without a handmade outfit by grandma for Lucie and her baby!

First BIG snowstorm of 2010 winter!!

We got our first BIG snow of the 2010 snow season in the begining of December, which wasn't THAT much snow and it wouldn't have been bad BUT it started with rain. It down poured for about six hours and then it DROPPED quick to below freezing, which meant it was freezing-and when it turned to snow it just put a pretty layer of snow over the ice. The final result ended up closing church, power lines down(we were fortunate enough to keep our power on)and about TWO inches of ICE under TWELVE inches of snow!!! HMMMM, not so nice and we were on the border of the storm so two days later I went to work and it didn't even look like it had snowed at all!! In the one picture Josh is brushing/scraping off his car with a shovel, and about five minutes later the plow came and plowed him in the road-hahahaha-I guess even if you've lived here for five years you can still forget that no matter how hard you try to clear something-the plow is ALWAYS just around the corner waiting to strike!!

Lucie's baby sleeping bags

Lucie decided to make her babies sleeping bags so we tied all of them, then they got to open them and lay down in them. Lucie was soo cute when she did that-I got the whole thing on video, here are a couple of cute pictures!

Lucie's Nativity!!

I had Lucie draw a picture of the Nativity scene on some fabric and we bordered it and added loops to it for a super cute Christmas decoration!! I love homemade crafts-they are so super special!

Christmas Parade!

It was freezing cold on the day of the Grafton Christmas parade so everyone chickened out on going except me(and of course the kids.) I wouldn't have gone but Grafton is so my favorite place to see the parade, they have a bunch of marching bands and all kinds of floats and stuff. I am so glad we did it-the live walking nativity was awesome!! Very fun, and it wasn't even that cold, probably in teens and then a wind chill on top of it!!

Ouch!

Lucie was playing with dumbells one day and left them on the couch. A few days later she was bugging Grant and he pushed her down on the couch, very quickly we learned a lesson about putting things back where they belong-poor baby!!

Is it REALLY that bad?

We went up north with a friend and their family and it was a little bit of a drive so the kids were getting a little bored, we were about 10 minutes away from home when we here hmmmmmm, hmmmmm, hmmmmm coming from the backseat-so we turn around and this is what Grant was doing, hahahaha!!

School Projects!

Grant and Lucie both had an October school project due around the same time. Grant had to find one place in the community and make a model of it, since we live around the corner from an ice cream place we decided to do that-Mickey's. We took a picture and he had such a blast making his own little ice cream place, we then took a picture of the kids to be the workers-he got an A+ on it-Yeah. Lucie's project was to do a poster of herself-which she just LOVED. The first question I asked her was "What do you love?" Her first response was "BEEF", so of course we had to put it on her poster. Ha Ha Ha!! She is my beef and cheese princess!!

Smore's in September

A neighbor of ours gave us a fire pit and we have had so much fun this summer making hot dogs and s'mores on the fire pit. Grant can finally make his own s'mores, but does struggle just a bit putting the marshmallow on the rest!!

I Spy!

So we were driving in the car playing I spy and it was Grant's turn and he goes "I spy something green" after a few guesses I said "the tree" and he goes "which one" and this is the view I had at the time!!

Lucie's First Day of Kindergarten!!

Lucie has been prepping for this day for years. The day before kindergarten we picked out her outfit, and as we laid down to go to bed Grant fell asleep right away and Lucie on the other hand really struggled to fall asleep, I put them down at 7:45 and finally at 9:30 I cuddled with her and rubbed her back so she would go to sleep and she did right before 10. Then at 5:15 in the morning I hear "Mom, I am up for school" Umm no, that wasn't good. So we packed her lunch and she left her sandwich out because there wasn't room in her lunchbox for it, so we rearranged it. We went to school and she loved it. After school she was draggin' really bad while we walked home, the minute we got home she put on her pj's and was ready for bed!