**NEWS FLASH**

We have been given the okay to paint the bathroom! Give me a big whoopee! And we are getting new carpet in the bedrooms. Yes, these new additions may delay us a scosch but we are happy with the new plans.

House Pictures

1st-Bathroom 2nd-Front room and opening to piano room 3rd-Front of the house

Closet in the master bedroom-The kids call it the playroom. More interior pictures coming soon!

5 Things you may not know about Joshua!

Taking after my baby cousin Cade I have decided to make a post about 5 things you may not know about me.

1-When I wake up in the morning or at nap time I can guarantee you the one and only thing that I am thinking about is food. Let me tell you, if there is a delay in the food getting to my belly I begin a series of fits. I whine, scream, kick and hit until I get my food.

2-The word "snack" is my most favorite word in the whole world. I wake up and I say "snack," I go to a store and I ask for a snack. I would rather eat a snack then real food any day. Many of you may not know what the meaning of the word "snack" refers to. It means a fruit snack. If you even try to offer anything else like yogurt, apples, bananas, or practically anything healthy or of substance, I will immediately throw a fit. So don't even try it buster.

3- This one is a little embarrassing, but it is for me too. Somethings are to be done in private where a little man can express himself and have full control of his surroundings, and should under no circumstance be interrupted. Yes, I am talking about experiencing a bowel movement, I consider this to be a moment of privacy and wish to not be interrupted. I warn you that if you do try to move me or interrupt me, I will throw a fit and maintain my position. My mom, luckily, has learned to recognize when I am having a moment, and will reassure me that I am okay to finish my business and will not be interrupted. Wheeew!

4-I love to be outdoors. I have this particular trike at my great-grandmas that I love to ride. I am not quite tall enough to use the pedals so I ride after my sister using the tips of my toes. It is a lot of fun! Come to my new home and you can see what I am talking about!

5- This a secret I am only willing to share with my closest friends. Yes, it is a phase and I just like the color. My sister introduced me to this but I am telling you I just love the color! I dress up in my sister's blue princess dress. I call myself a prince but in essence I am wearing a princess dress. I will not display a picture of this event so that it can be left up to your imagination.

Well there you go, things you didn't know and may not have wanted to know about me, but here I am.

Update! Update! Update! Update! Update!

I just wanted to thank everyone, whether in deed or encouragement, for their help on our kitchen makeover. I keep forgetting to get pictures, but I thought I would let you know the update on what is going on. So here goes. . . . .visualize. We have put bead board in the front of the cabinet doors, and painted them (thanks mom), we have painted the kitchen walls and nook walls (thanks Stan-dad w.), we have moved practically everything from our storage unit to the garage (thanks to-Dad, Shawn, Shanell, Ryan & Tyson) We have cleaned the carpets in the front room areas (thanks Mom and Debbie-mom w.) The kids have successfully made a mess with packing peanuts in the master bedroom(thank Mckenna & Josh). Thanks do Dustin, Amy and Sally for the show of interest and ideas, it has been most helpful! If I have left someone out I am so sorry. I will get pictures soon and let me just say I think it is looking super-de-duper! Our next order of business is to paint the door frames and the cupboard frame, put up bead board and molding and move-in. Hopefully by the beginning of next month. We shall see! Also, thanks to Grandma for her kindness and the opportunity to enjoy her home. It is a great blessing to us.

He loves me. . . He loves me not! Valentines Day!

This year Dave and I decided to celebrate Valentines with a 5 dollar budget. I am glad that we did because it has been great! The opportunity to be creative, sneaky, and frugal while trying to work with a budget was quite fun. This morning I woke up to this masterpiece.

I know you can't see it very well but he made me oragami flowers and candy- bar flowers, which he attached with hanger wires that he bent at the stem to attach the Andes mint leaves. He also added some cilantro-but it died before I could see it fresh. It was very sweet. We gave the kids a box of yo-go's, a light-up pen and a card. They were very excited, especially with all the decorations.
For the evening we ate heart shaped pizza and watched the Disney show "Game Plan". We had lots of fun

Josh & Speech Therapy!

For 6 months now Josh has been getting help from a foundation called, kids on the move. For the first 5 months his speech therapist would come to our house and play with him while trying to get him to strengthen his mouth muscles and utilize his tongue. He has really come a long way and is better understood by more people. We now attend playgroup every week, where he gets to interact with other kids, sing songs, practice words/sounds, and eat yummy snacks. When his therapist comes over she brings fun toys that we have never seen, so instantly he is interested. She gives him a piece of the toy if he attempts to say the sound or word she is trying to produce.

She is working on first and middle sounds of b,m,t and putting them with ee, ei, o, u, a, etc. He is doing well and willing to repeat the sounds. She is also teaching me fun tricks to try with him throughout the month. We love being able to understand most of what he says! Go Josh!

My favorite song to sing to Mckenna!

Make sure your volume is up, I love to sing the chorus of this song to Mckenna. She can be a major worry-wort! Also, I added pictures to the end of my slideshow, be sure to check it out! (I would of added more, but it was late.) Nothing but smiles now!

A hard days work!. . . .and we're not done yet!

As we begin our journey into living on our own, again! We re-realize how stressful the move can be. For those who don't know, we have been blessed with the opportunity to be caretakers of Grandma-Great Wadley's home here in Pleasant Grove. She has also graciously allowed us the opportunity to do a little painting and fixing up. We have decided to do this work before we move in, so we only have to clean the dust up once. Here are the pictures of the house before we started stripping the wallpaper.

As you can see we are working on the cabinets and the walls in the kitchen and the breakfast nook. We had to peel 4 layer of wallpaper and wipe off the glue. The walls are plastar so we had to be careful not to scuff up the walls. This is what it looked like. As you can see the ceiling has some water damage. That made it a hard to get the paper off too. It only took us 14 hours (those are just my hours) to get the paper off! Even the ceiling was papered.

Thanks to all those who helped us in our first of many arduous tasks. We are now in the process of sanding the walls, filling holes, and sanding the cabinets getting ready for paint. We are going to put beadboard on the bottom of the nook walls and on the cabinets (in the middle-there is an indention). Any paint ideas would be great. I was thinking green tinted walls in the kitchen and cream antiqued cabinents, but what color should the nook be and the beadboard? We will keep you updated as we go along. We also started moving our stuff from our storage unit over into the garage. It was so cold today that we could only take one load. I have so much crap and to think I have been paying someone to store my crap! Sheesh. Any suggestions? Bring it on!

Tub doodee's. . . . . . . yuck!

So you are all lucky that I didn't get a picture of either of the three instances where Josh has had an accident in the tub. As we speak Mckenna is laughing at our title. What do you think do this gross you out or are you laughing? Each time this has happened to little Joshy, I have been in the other room and I hear Josh say "here mom, poo poo." Luckily they are solid, but there are little nuggets everywhere. Happily for me, Dave was home and I knivingly got him to clean it up. Thankgoodness! Any advice on how to get a 2-year old, non-potty-trained child not to poop in the tub?