Today's Nap

Jameson and Zachary took their afternoon nap together today. Zachary is such a cuddle bug and sure does love his brother. So precious :)

Ranch house updates

My sister Kristy reminded me to take some pictures of the progress of our up and coming home on the ranch. Here are some pictures to show you that it is still a mess and has a long way to go before we can move in.... though we are already paying rent as of March 1st. This transition is tricky to do with 3 small children, but we are getting there.

The outside of the new room addition and our pile of construction garbage.

Inside addition- office/ guest room. Walls painted, floors and trim waiting

Laundry room painted. Trim and shelving needed (so excited for this room!)

Main room & Kitchen. Opened! Needs more paint.

Bathroom. Fresh tile (thank you Martin) needs lots more love.

Little bedroom #1. Almost painted

Master bedroom. Haven't touched it yet but bought my first rug! Not sure where it will go

 The boys room. Still needs more paint and a new light.

Kitchen. A mess. Need to repaint cabinets!

 

Lots of work. There's the update :)

 

JamBerry Nails

For Christmas, I bought my sister Tracy a couple sheets of fun JamBerry nail shields. I thought they were pretty awesome so I bought a sheet for myself too :)
I applied them a month ago on my toe nails and they are still going strong and look just as good as day one! I get compliments every Sunday and pretty much everywhere else I go in my flip flops.

I just might be hooked!

The ranch house

We are still working away trying to get the ranch house move in ready. It's slow progress because Billy is working full time and then spending any free time and days off over there working on it. Not really fun for either one of us really. We are getting pretty excited to make the move though. Here is a sneak peek at the house (that needs SO much TLC) and THE VIEW!!!

Billy turns 30

Our family celebrated Billy's 30th birthday on the last day of January. The original plan was to go to Disney Land on his birthday as a family.... but he was in class all week at Vandenburg air force base. So we will be finding a different day to go. Because he was getting home a little later than normal each evening, there wasn't a lot of evening time for a night out, but hopefully I can plan a date for us soon too.
Pretty much it was a regular evening at home + cake and ice cream. The boys and I drove over to the golf coarse back here, Rancho San Marcos, and bought Daddy a round of golf. Then we went into town and picked up a dozen helium balloons to decorate the house. We had BBQ chicken and french bread and I made Billy a funfetti cake for the 10th year in a row! Can't believe I've been making his birthday cake for 10 years already. I also made homemade chocolate banana ice cream which is something I made him the first year I made his birthday cake but I haven't been as consistent with.
The boys each made him a homemade card and really enjoyed his balloons too.

All in all it was a nice night as a family. Happy Birthday Billy. Welcome to your 30's! :)

Bunco Finale

I hosted Bunco on Friday night for the last time in our beautiful double wide.... it was a happy/ sad night. Lots of girls came- 16 to be exact. It was a good time. I even came out with the most bunco rolls, 3, and won half the pot! Always a bonus :)
I made a huge pot of sweet potato & black bean turkey chili and it turned out dreamy. The food spread was impressive with all the contributions from the neighbors and everyone was well fed. I also made a batch of Deett's famous punch. It has frozen OJ, pineapple juice, apple cider and 7up. It was a hit as well.
I gave away 2 door prizes since there were so many people that came... I made a small messenger bag that turned out darn good. (of course I forgot to get a picture of it!) I also gave away some JamBerry nails. The girl that won the bag was a girl that showed up that hadn't been in years... didn't really know her, and I couldn't tell if she really appreciated the bag like I know my neighbors would have. Oh well. Whatever. I had invited Rosie Wright, who now lives on west camino, to join us for the night and she left with the jamberry door prize! I was happy about that.
My boys are still recovering from being kicked out of the house until 10pm... we had to get up the next morning to clean the church at 8am on Saturday. Not a very good combination. And then of course another early morning out to church today. We all still need more sleep after this weekend. Sorry boys.

Now I need to get serious about boxing stuff up. It's nice that we aren't moving very far away... I'm really hoping that it will be pretty smooth over all. More of a gradual thing rather than one big move day.

Life

Apparently blogging/ journal writing is not a top goal for me in 2013 ;) Over Christmas, my family all got really sick and Jameson was teething up a storm. However we still made the drive from Santa Barbara to Utah to spend Christmas with my family and then drove over to Truckee to see Billy's family after that. We made it home on new years eve and were all in bed by 10pm. Happy New Year. We both decided that we are staying put next year for the holidays. I had a good time in Utah despite not feeling the best and the rest of my family down for the count. I loved spending time at my parents house with all my sisters, parents and in laws. It was awesome to watch the cousins all run around together and have tons of fun. William was SO excited to play with Grant! It was nice to take a new family picture and awesome to take some new sister pictures. I wish we could have gotten a picture of all the cousins together... one day i guess. I got a short Christmas run in, the snow froze my feet and the air was very cold but it was refreshing to be outside. I started some art on canvas with my sisters one night. I don't know how long it will take me to finish mine- probably a while. Not sure why I chose to do something so challenging, but it should be cool if I ever finish it :)
I got a fancy camera for Christmas. I haven't used it much so far, but I did take a few pictures of the boys the other day out on the playground. They were being really cute. I am looking forward to learning all about what this camera can do!

Billy and I made it to the temple last weekend. Camie said she would hang out with the boys while we went! Now that she lives in Redondo Beach, only 15 miles from the temple, we can do a two for one deal :) Go to the temple and visit friends! Billy and I are still new to it all. We got there thinking the sessions were on the hour only to have just missed the start of one on the half hour. Whoops. Then of course the next session happened to be the American sign language session :) It was pretty neat though. After we made it back to Redondo and the kids, who had a blast and were great for Camie & Ryan, Camie and I went out for an evening run. Ahh how I miss running with Camie. We ran up & down hills, to the beach and on the sand and back home again for 8 miles. I was able to keep up with her, even on the hills coming back, and felt great. I guess after sitting in the car and then in the temple my body was ready to move :)
Now I am starting to get into move mode. Looking around the house at what I can get rid of and what I might be able to box up. It's so overwhelming. I am not doing to much right now because I am hosting all the ladies over in a week for Bunco. No need to box up the house before a party. I will get down to business once Bunco is over.
I want to sew another messanger bag. I made one for my sister for Christmas and loved the way it turned out. I want to make one for me and maybe make one for the door prize for Bunco night.
I think that about catches me up to current life.