February 2011 Highlights

My mom finished her mission in Salt Lake and stayed with us for a couple weeks before heading back to Alaska. Greg and I took advantage of her being here and went to St. George for 2 nights to celebrate our 9th Anniversary. We soaked in the hot tub and did some shopping and just enjoyed the quiet company of each other. It was wonderful!

The other exciting thing that happened in February is Greg bought me a new vacuum. It is a Shark bagless vacuum. It only cost $75 and it works a thousand times better than my old one that I had been using for 9 years. I vacuumed every day for a couple weeks because I was shocked at how much dirt it would pull out of the carpet. I was so amazed I took a picture:
I tried a new recipe and made these heart treats for Valentine's Day:
They were yummy, but I don't know what I did with the recipe!

Alexis' friend Damien was playing one day and Denali took this picture of them. Damien moved this summer and Alexis is going to miss walking home with him from school.
And that pretty much sums up February!

January Highlights

Alexis turned 7 and she had a "Baking" themed birthday party. Everyone decorated their own cupcakes and made a chef's hat. We got her a keyboard which she is so excited to learn how to play. It has a lot of songs that it plays and the kids are always dancing to it.

She is so grown up!

I am in an organization group with 3 other women. We take turns going to each other's homes and working on a project. Well I got super ambitious and decided to paint my cabinets. Huge project that 7 months later I still am not quite finished and still feel overwhelmed by. I am going to put knobs on. Here are pics:

Before

After
I have since distressed them some by sanding the edges and as I said, I need to add the knobs.

Christmas 2010

I have been putting off my catching up on blogging because I was waiting to find more Christmas pictures. They are on some random folder on the external hard drive. I can't write what is currently going on when I feel like I need to catch up, so here we go. Paxton loves cars and lined all of them up on Christmas morning. We spent Christmas Eve at Greg's parents house and Christmas evening was spent at the waterpark hotel in Salt Lake. The last two years we have spent two nights at this hotel for Christmas. The kids love it. We go to temple square, we swim, we play with our Christmas toys and just enjoy some family time. This other picture is us in the hotel room. My mom was able to spend a few days with us over Christmas because she was still on her mission at temple square.

On December 29, my good friend and business partner, Lisa, was found unconscious in her driveway. I had been to her house just minutes before, but actually didn't find out about it until the next morning. Her heart wasn't beating correctly which was making it difficult for blood and oxygen to get to her brain. Long story short, the doctors told her that she had a 1% chance of survival. If she did survive, she would likely have short term memory problems which she did experience for a couple of weeks. By God's grace she is living a fully normal life. I am grateful for her friendship and grateful for the knowledge of eternal families and for modern medicine.

Also over the break I cleaned up my office, painted my desk and painted and installed shelves over the desk. So much nicer!


We had made a family goal to pay off our 2nd mortgage loan in 2010. We went to the bank on December 30 to make our last payment and Alexis screamed "We're Debt Free!" What a great feeling! We had this list posted on our fridge and would fill it in throughout the year. I posted a little more about this HERE.


I don't remember what we did for New Year's so it must not have been too exciting:)