Maybe the BEST birthDAY ever

Ethan would probably agree this was his best birth-DAY to date.  Every birthday is fun but somehow the universe intervened to make this one absolutely wonderful.

First up:  opening presents as soon as we're fed, dressed, and ready for school.  Like the wrapping job?  Yep, blankets and Christmas bags since they were the only ones big enough to throw things in easily, and no tissue paper.  But hey, that's how I roll 24 hours after having the flu and being 37 weeks pregnant.  Can I just say contractions and the stomach flu are pretty terrible together.  And being 37 weeks pregnant and being that dehydrated is not fun either.
Luckily the presents were already bought and luckily my 7 year old boy could care less about wrapping.

 A new scooter we promise not to leave out in the rain :)

And Star Wars... cause he's pretty obsessed with them (and even though Taylor makes fun of me for it, because Target had a FABULOUS sale on them... seriously all 3 for less than $30)
After presents it was off to school where no schoolwork was done because Ethan's whole school took a field trip to see Beauty and the Beast.  He got to ride the bus there and then walk back with his class.  And then they had recess.  Let's just say, a very happy boy.

And then even before they could go to lunch or do any work, dad swooped in to take Ethan to "take your kid to work day" since it just happened to magically fall on his birthday.  Look how cute and matchy-matchy they are.  Taylor would like to interject that when he used to go with his dad to work on take your kid to work day, he spent the whole time bored out of his mind in boring meetings.  Nowadays, you take your kid to the meetings and everyone let's their kid play on their smart phone or tablet the whole time.  And Ethan and the others with him were no exceptions.  Maybe not a good reflection of what work is for adults, but pretty fun to go to lunch one-on-one and get to go along and be treated special- especially on your birthday!

And as soon as "work" was done, it was off to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner and games since that was Ethan's choice.

Whacking moles somehow not as cool digitally but Isaac doesn't know the difference.

Grams and Ethan are on the far left.  Grams LOVES Chuck E. Cheese- mostly because she loves skeeball.

And Miles will play anything if there's a ball.

And of course- the best part at the end- tickets and cheesy prizes.

Ethan's day turned out to be so jam-packed with fun that he didn't even get to open the presents and play with them.  Luckily in Utah, Fridays are short days at school so after taking doughnuts in to share with his class, he got to spend all afternoon playing with his new toys.

And since many of the family members missed our Chuck E. Cheese outing, Sunday family dinner because Ethan's family birthday celebration.  Miles makes himself at home the second he gets next door.

And he loves playing along with Taylor while we get dinner ready.

I'm a little too pregnant to get talked into making a cute cake so Ethan picked pumpkin pie.  And since I'd seen cute, tiny pumpkin pies on pinterest I decided to copy.  Waste-of-time!!!  So much more work and okay they're cute but they still taste the same and a 7 year old isn't impressed with the extra effort.

Taylor LOVES doing this with the whipped cream.

And of course Grams and Grandpa gave Ethan more Star Wars and this time it was a huge lego ship which thankfully Grams was kind enough to help him put together- for 3 hours!!! It's now on display on his dresser and will NOT be touched by little brothers.

Seriously!  3 hours.  That's one good grandma!

Remodel 2012

When we got home from our crazy, long Christmas trip I was pretty determined to catch up on blogging, and I did mostly.  It helped that we had fun "pink" news to share.  So I got caught up and then shortly thereafter Taylor got his Christmas bonus and we finally felt good about investing a little more in our home.  The past 2 years we've only done the minimum to maintain our 1960's home (new main water line, fixed lighting that didn't work, etc.) and none of it really very fun to spend money on.  But since last year we finished up our outstanding debts we were excited to make some fun changes to our home and in the grand scheme of things make it more marketable in case something happened with Taylor's job and we needed to sell quickly.  

First on the list (and has been since we moved in) was new carpet.  We bought our home from Taylor's parents who had used it mostly as a guest house/storage unit/place for Taylor's grandpa to stay for the last few years when his health was deteriorating.  And let's just say that the carpet was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen- and I've been to A LOT of homes and nasty college apartments- so that's saying a lot.  So new carpet was needed.  But if we were going to get new carpet we figured we should paint the bare, white walls that hadn't been painted in at least the past 10 years.  And if you're going to paint walls, you might as well paint the ceilings and the trim and the doors to go with it.  Otherwise you just start to notice how old and dirty it all is.  

So one fun project (getting new carpet) turned into LOTS of projects- and all needing to be done in a very short time since the carpet was ordered and on it's way.

So we lived like this for a few weeks:  beds/dressers/etc all pushed into the middle of each of our 3 bedrooms and the toy room.  And we spackled, and patched, and taped, and edged, and painted, and painted, and painted.  Luckily we didn't care about the carpet getting spilled on so we made lots of messes and spent almost 2 months of Saturdays working together to get it all done.

Can I just say I'm now morally opposed to glow in the dark star stickers on ceilings.  You think they're so cute and fun but really they're the devil.  Spackling holes on walls is one thing- on ceilings it's just a nightmare.

Luckily I had Spider-Milo to help me.

He faithfully followed me around while I prepped each room and painted.  And he honestly never tired of climbing up and down the step ladder.

All 3 of our kids were little troopers- entertaining themselves while we did all the work and then going along for all the trips to furniture stores and IKEA once the job was done and rooms were ready to be filled again.

Of course with new furniture comes fabulous empty boxes to play in- so who can really argue with that?  So 4 rooms done in the house now (the living room/dining room did get done 2 years ago) and someday a major kitchen reno and basement redo.  Fun to plan, but I think I've had enough remodeling for a few years!  And since the work took almost 2 months I'm dedicating a blogpost to each of the 4 rooms- cause they deserve it!!!

Barb's Bridal Shower

In case you didn't notice I'm finally back posting the rest of the Christmas trip and January-April. What can I say? There's a bunch there now and I'll be adding more when I finally get projects done and get the pictures taken.

So for now, I'll try to update more consistently but who am I kidding. I'm due in 4 weeks so in 3 more months I'll probably be back posting again all of May-July :) Sorry.

So Taylor comes from a family of 3 boys and a girl. His 2nd brother got married 2 years ago which was it's own drama with lots of international travel adventures. Then last summer both his 3rd brother and his only sister got engages. His brother will be married this October back in Maryland (yeah for the excuse to visit DC!) and his sister is getting married here in Salt Lake in May.

She attended college in West Virginia and has been gone the last 5 years so she doesn't have that many close friends here. So I offered to help her mom throw a bridal shower for the neighborhood, her friends, and all the extended Woodbury family (which is a lot). If you know his sister you will understand our theme.

Barbara is about the least girly-girl you could meet. Seriously she is more of a boy than her brothers are. She played rugby in college and then afterwards in a semi-pro league making it to the National Championship. She was a river raft guide for 2 summers on a pretty intense stretch of river in Pennsylvania. And while she was a guide, she lived in a tent all summer down by the river. She hates dresses and LOVES fishing, hiking, playing sports, and generally anything adventurous.

So when I was searching pinterest I had to skip all the cute, flowery, ribbony parties. It took a while but then I stumbled upon the idea to use boardgames as a theme. And Barbara loves games so it was right up her alley. We had everyone write on Jenga blocks advice for how to keep your marriage fun. And for favors Taylor's mom got little keychain games.

We used a checkerboard tablecloth and added little checkers pieces for decorations.
We used scrabble pieces to spell out the different kinds of food choices.
And Taylor's mom even found playing card toothpicks for the fruits.
We used connect 4 and boggle to label the drink choices. Of course all the food choices were the kinds of food Barbara likes- nothing cutesy or deserty- just sub sandwiches, fruits, vegis, banana bread and brownie bites. Super Easy!

And here's cute Barb and her fiance Clint.
My favorite was using scrabble letters to make a banner.
Love my die-cut machine!
For invitations we created a "Barb and Clint" game of life complete with details and events from their lives. It turned out super cute although it took forever to do! All in all a cute party and I think Taylor's mom said it correctly when she said we'd thrown a completely "appropriate Barbara party".

Easter Ties

And what Easter would be complete with out new church outfits? Sadly I couldn't even bring myself to shop for boys clothes (they're just not that cute compared to all the cute girly spring dresses!!!) but I did find a tutorial on Pinterest for how to make 20 minute ties for little boys. So 1 hour later (sewing not shopping) and 1/4 yard of each kind of fabric later I had 3 cute, very excited boys.

Here they are post-Easter basket, coming down off their sugar highs, watching a little Veggie Tales Easter show while mom and dad get ready for church. I love that even with a monster couch to spread out on, they all end up next to each other. So adorable!

Apparently I don't put them in ties often enough because they were STOKED to have ties. They kept curling them up and down and Miles kept saying "I go da work with dad?". Apparently tie means work to him. And he's happy to take a picture as long as you let him collect random golf balls from grandpa's yard first.
Here's the ties. They cost about $1 each in fabric and a little elastic and were really 20 minutes apiece to make. So easy. Just print the pattern, add on some length for older boys, sew, iron, fold the top, add elastic, measure on each child and you're done! I will definitely be making more ties in the future!

Peep S'mores- Genius!

Here's another idea I got off Pinterest that we'll be doing EVERY year (as long as it's not snowing which it often is in Utah for Easter) because it was SUCH a hit.

Peep S'mores! Yep, you heard that right. We roasted peep marshmallows and made them into VERY yummy s'mores. Doesn't he look cute all fluffy and ready to be squished!

In the summer when we do smores my kids rarely eat more than one but these they could have gone all night with. Apparently that extra bit of colored sugar makes them amazing! Can you believe it's 80 degrees in Utah on Easter???

Miles was smart and stayed back from the fire.
That's right- let dad do the roasting and you do the eating!
Ethan found a branch that had fallen off a tree with 2 ends so he could roast them double time.

What we learned though is that you can't catch them on fire- it's actually almost impossible to do it. They turn into a creme brulee and the sugar browns all over the peeps before he even will actually catch fire. So less of a hit if you like the blackened crust marshmallows.
So yummy! Actually had to drag them in when the supplies were all gone. And they still wanted more! Next year peeps! We're buying more!

Here Comes the Easter Bunny

Again it was nice to stay home for a holiday because I felt like I had more time, energy, and even a little extra money to spend making it more memorable. And again I found my ideas on Pinterest (love it!) so if you want to copy just look in my Easter Board. Seriously can I just extol the virtues of Pinterest a little here? You get to save fabulous ideas somewhere they're easily organized and I don't have to print or do anything until I'm ready to actually do the project. It's genius! So some woman created this fabulous basket hunt and I just printed it off, cut out the feet and added my own clues. So easy!

The Easter bunny left paw prints taking you to the first clue.
We left out carrots and MAGICALLY they disappeared!
4 clues later the kids arrived downstairs at their baskets. So much fun! And yeah for afternoon church so they kids could enjoy a little candy and some toys and not be totally unfocused or hyper at church.

Dieing Eggs

Of course with Easter dinner the next day, we HAD to die eggs so they'd be beautiful for our deviled eggs. The previous year I'd found this box of "no mess" dieing things for 90% off so it's been waiting for us for a year and we finally decided to try it out. Waste of money! Glad it was only 30cents.

The kids enjoyed dropping the eggs into the color but getting them out was impossible and actually more messy than just using a cup and a spoon like normal.

Fun to shake around though.
And of course they're always impressed with the white crayon effect.
Since it was just us for Easter dinner we only colored a few (cause we can't eat more than that many deviled eggs!) but with 3 little boys, that was all their interest in dieing anyways so it was perfect.