Elder Downs

My little brother Taylor got his mission call yesterday. He got called to the Oklahoma Oklahoma City mission. He leaves on December 2, 2009. As a family, we all decided to do a poll as to where he was going. As you can tell we were scattered all across the world. Branson (3 yrs old I might add) was the winner. He really did guess Oklahoma, so way to go Branson!
This was Taylor opening up his call. He was delaying reading it as much as possible, as to probably give my mom a heart attack. Of course he read it to himself first before he read it out loud and just started laughing. We all were yelling "TELL US!" And Taylor being the jokester that he is, kept delaying as long as possible.

I think my mom was about ready to jump over all of us and strangle him but she was really good and patient until he read it to us.

Tay, we are so excited for you and so proud of you making the decision to go on a mission! We know you will do great no matter where you go, but think you will be AWESOME in Oklahoma. Just remember the advice Jedd gave you, bring a BYU shirt with you!

WE LOVE YOU BRO!

Paint Nails

If you are one of the very select few that knows me really well, you know that I can't stand feet....they are just disgusting....everything about them is. So this is totally out of character for me to post about feet...mainly toes, but I thought it was too cute to not post.

My cute niece Hailey is a total girly girl. And to put it in terms of my dad....she is 3 going on 18. She loves to talk on the phone, play with make-up and drive already. I think it is totally adorable, and some of these stories my sister tells us are HILARIOUS (I can laugh because she is my niece but sometimes I feel bad for my sister already, ha ha)! But one thing she loves is having her toenails painted, what she calls "paint nails". About 95% of the time she asks all us girls if we have paint nails on (meaning do we have our toenails painted). So recently, my sister and I have decided to paint our nails when either we are down at their house or they come up here to my mom's. It makes for quite a girly 15 minutes and Hailey is in heaven. My mother has been quite sick this past week and Hailey was almost positive that having her toenails painted would make her feel better (see what I mean?) so yesterday while we were all at my mom's we decided to do paint nails. My sister was brave enough to let Hailey paint her nails, I'm still not that brave yet. Here are just a few pictures of the adventure. Sorry for the "2 feet" picture. This is Hailey's and my toes, they are matching purple nail polish, I put this one on just for Hailey Bailey.

Who could say no to this smile? The only hard part is making Hailey stay still enough to let the paint dry. Once they are, she is off showing everyone her toes and fingers.

Thanks Hailey for the paint nails. I love my purple toes!

One Year Older

(I know....it's not a house update!!)

Jedd had his birthday on Sunday. To celebrate on Saturday, I decided to take Jedd to Maddox for his birthday and then we went mini golfing at Toad's in Ogden. It was so much fun; we realized we had never been mini golfing together before so what a great idea! (sorry for the nerdy picture, but it's all I was able to snag during the day of both of us!) I am quite the talented mini golfer (ok totally being sarcastic) and picked up 3 hole-in-ones. But after 36 holes, that meant nothing because Jedd beat me 92 to 102. Ya, how that worked out I'll never know! Jedd picked up one hole-in-one as well. (Notice the new shoes and pants that he got for his birthday. Looking good honey!) And it wouldn't be a birthday unless I made one of my chocolate desserts for my husband as a birthday surprise. He is addicted to anything chocolate so I usually try to find the most chocolaty thing possible to make him. To me, it's pretty disgusting, I can usually have a few bites but can't finish it. So this was my newest recipe. And I have to be honest, for a chocolate mousse pie, it was delicious. I had a piece, but won't eat another, too much for me. Jedd even commented that it was just as good as the fancy hotel desserts that he loves to eat. WOW! What a compliment right? I've decided to make this a birthday tradition for my hubby. It's a good thing I have another year to out-do this year's recipe! (Click here for the recipe. It was so easy.)

Happy Birthday Honey! I love you!

Our First House Project

A few more things have been done to the house. The outside is completely done, besides the final cement to put up on our foundation. Here's the picture. AND we have all flooring in. This is the only picture I took, and it isn't that great. We went out later last night after the sun was down and the clouds didn't allow the sun to let light in. The colors go really well (even though they might not match in the picture). WE LOVE IT! We also have lights up and our microwave hung. It's coming along! Just a few more weeks. And this was our first house project. It cost us double the amount we were planning and about triple the time to do it. We had to dig a trench to go under our driveway so we can run sprinkler lines under the driveway. Well Jedd and I went out there at about 8:00 Saturday morning thinking we were going to dig about a foot down and put about an inch diameter PVC pipe. We dug the trench, went went to Lowe's and called my dad only to realize we needed a 4" diameter pipe to go about 2 feet under ground. WHAT A PROJECT! We bought a pick to use, because the ground out there is pure clay. It took us another 2 hours to dig the trench, then we were so tired that we came back that night to dig some more, put the pipe down and cover it up.

Here's the hubby using our brand new pick. The fun-ness of using a new tool that we just bought wore off pretty quickly...REALLY QUICK! Taking a quick break. Jedd was so good. He made the dirt loose and I went behind him and shoveled it out. Sad to say that I was pretty sore yesterday....and I have blisters.

It was fun to do a project on our house, it seems more like "ours" now, but I don't want to dig a 2 foot hole into our ground for a LONG LONG time.

Update....#2

Since most my family doesn't get to see the house in person, I try and update pictures as much as possible. So here are a few more. Since our last visit last week, Jedd and I decided to drive out on Saturday just to see the colors again. To our surprise much, MUCH more was done! Our siding is getting put up. And not only that, all of our cabinets are all up, along with our counter tops being 90% done. (Our island counter top is laying on the floor in our living room. It should be done this week for sure.) This is a view from our dining room.

This is a view from our hallway. And this is just a close up picture of our counter tops. I love them! It is probably my most favorite choice I made! This is our master bathroom cabinet with counter top.

We are getting so EXCITED! And yes, we are still on schedule. End of September, beginning of October is what we are shooting for. We are definitely less than 30 days now. We are going to talk to our loan officer today to get started on paper work.

It's a.....REAL HOUSE!

Sorry for not posting pictures lately about the house. It seems that our stucco had to dry....FOREVER...... before they could paint it and they have been painting inside our house the last few times we went out there to snap pictures. So last night we drove out there and finally were able to take a few pictures. Here is the outside....I'm kind of partial but I ABSOLUTELY LOVE LOVE LOVE IT! It is exactly what we were going for. The stucco trim color wasn't exactly what we picked, but actually, we like it better than what we picked out so it worked out for the best! (Garage up)

(Garage down...my favorite picture I have taken!! I LOVE IT!!! Can you tell we are just a little bit excited??)

This is our inside stair railing. It is pretty much the only thing done inside besides the painted walls and you can see those in these pictures as well. I didn't take pictures of the rooms only because our doors are drying right in the middle of the floor so you wouldn't be able to see anything anyway.

This last picture is looking down our hallway towards our kitchen and family room. Reality is now hitting that it is actually our house. AHHHH! I think we are still on schedule for moving day. We are thinking the very end of September/very beginning of October. YIPEE!!

Random Donuts

I haven't had a whole lot to post about, but I was looking through my camera yesterday and found these pictures that I never posted on here and I thought they were too cute to not put on. Back when Jedd was playing softball this summer, my sister and her family and my mom and dad came to watch a game. (Luckily this is the week they came because they lost and were out of the tournament that night!) Before we went to the game, we decided to take everyone to our VERY FAVORITE sandwich place....Tasty's.....for dinner. If you haven't been there for a sandwich (turkey is the best!) you are totally missing out. Not only with your combo meal do you get fries and a drink, you get a donut too! (I have no control when it comes to donuts...they will haunt me forever. Mmmm....apple fritters......and recently chocolate cake donuts with chocolate frosting thanks to Jedd) ANYWAY, this specific day, Zach and Hailey both got a glazed donut and they both were in a donut eating frenzy so I had to grab a few pictures of them. Hailey was as messy as they come after she was done, but it was so darn cute and hilarious watching her eat her donut.

Too cute!

First day of School

Everybody keeps posting about their kids' first day of school....So why shouldn't I post about my first day of school, right? (Even my picture on the first day is included!) Happy to say that my first day of school went well. We had all 8 classes; 45 minutes each, which was just enough time to go through the "fun" disclosures, talk a little bit about myself and even assign a first day worksheet! (I know, mean huh??) All in all, it was a good first day. (I've had much worse) I'm excited to start the new year, that just means that moving into our house is around the corner, and the holidays are coming up. And yes if you are wondering, I couldn't sleep at all the night before. I tossed and turned and worried all night...just like a kid.

Dry-Wall...Check

Yes, this means our house is all dry-walled! Instead of taking pictures, I decided to post a little video that I took. (Sorry for the shaky hands. This is the first video I have actually used on my camera! I sure hope it works!!) We are so excited....One more step closer!! This video is taken from our back door. It is showing our kitchen on the far right, living room on the left and our entry way from the front. This is one great big room, I absolutely love having everything so open.

Also, just another picture of the outside. It is just about ready to have stucco put up. (No my house is not black...that is the stuff they put up before they stucco.) I'm a little anxious because I really can't remember the colors I picked...I sure hope they look ok! You can't really tell in this picture, but our brick is up too. I absolutely love it. It wasn't what I remembered it to look like, but I love it more than when I picked it out. YIPPEE!

Good Times, Good Friends

This last week I was able to get together with my girl friends to eat dinner and catch up on life. Sarah, Karen, Ashlee and I all went to the same singles ward a few years back and were all instant friends. It didn't take long for all of us to start hanging out and doing things together pretty much every single night, especially one summer in particular. Good times! Even though we are all heading in different directions and are on different paths, it is still so fun to get together and talk about the hilarious times we had. Thanks girls for such a fun night!!