January

These girls were SO excited to go sledding with Grandpa on New Years day!  Look at those smiles.  I love Dan’s scavenged snow clothes from my parents’ closets, he’s such a good sport.  They all had a great time sledding over by the library.

 

We enjoyed some cousin time at the Chapmans, the girls all like to dance!  And they are all pretty good at it.  Elliott stopped by too, the kids all had a ball playing with the fun toys Nina has.

 

These kids really cracked me up with their tea party, surprisingly good etiquette for children so young. :)

   

Jonathan also came over to play some smash brothers with Dan, they are both so good at video games, it can be hard to find a worthy opponent. ;)  Jonathan is such a cute uncle to Elliott, she loves him! 

   

Great grandma Chapman came over that night to visit and she got her dream hat!  She asked for a musical, robotic  Christmas hat with lights last year and Nina delivered.  Isn’t she cute?  She’s a sweetheart who, despite us telling her to stop, insists on getting all of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren Christmas and birthday gifts each year!  She’s so thoughtful.

 

Can’t believe this was the first time we made a fort with our sectional!  The girls kept it up for a couple days.  Jacob liked the idea of it, saying, “howse, howse, go howse.”  But immediately wanted out after we got him in the fort since the girls insisted on keeping the “doors” (blankets) closed, it was dark.  I love these kids!

 

October visitors

We were privileged to have my parents and Dan’s family (except Ann) come out for visits in early October.  My parents came to finish the window flashing project, but the weather didn’t agree… It was FREEZING with a little bit of snow.  They could have dealt with the cold and maybe even the snow except that it has to be 40 degrees or above for the silicone to dry.  My dad managed to complete 1 window on his own before Dan got home form work on Friday in the “heat” (relatively) of the day.  Sophie helped.  

 

Then they were forced to relax and play a bit. :) My mom brought her Just Dance 4 game that my girls fell in love with at the family reunion, they played it as much as we allowed them to, which was a LOT.  They also treated us to lunch at McDonalds so the kids could play somewhere fun indoors.

 

How could you not love the cheesy grin springing up out of that flower?!?!

 

I made our usual pizza for pizza friday!  Which is always yelled for some reason, Dan taught the girls that, so they always look forward to pizza Friday! just like their dad.  I think his whole office knows about it too. :)  Jacob gets excited about dinner and often watches it cook in the oven, you wouldn’t know it by his waistline, but that boy loves to eat!

Then my dad figured out another way he could work, indoors!  He and Dan built me these wonderfully handy shelves on Saturday in my storage room!

Here’s how it was before, just stacks of boxes and stuff on the floor.

 

I guess I didn’t take good after shot, but if you can imagine… the shelves just cover that whole back wall.  They are now full of our junk storage items.  I love them!

 

Sophie and Jacob had to pull out their toy hammers to be like their dad and Grandpa.  Notice that Sophie has on her “work gloves” just like them too.

 

Funny story about that, during this trip whenever Jacob would startle at the sound of the saw or hammering I would tell him it was Grandpa working.  He learned quick so that at any loud sound he would nod his head and do the sign for grandpa, pretty funny.

That night while the guys went to the priesthood session of conference, we did a little bowling in the hallway.

    

My parents left Sunday morning and the Chapmans came late Sunday afternoon!  They just came for dinner, except Dan’s parents they spent the night.

  

The girls played pretty well, there was a time when Jacyee came crying up the stairs.  Tess said Sophie did it and when asked Sophie admitted, “I accidentally threw Jaycee, sorry.”  I don’t know how you accidentally throw someone…  oh that girl!  She had be quite a handful sometimes, then at others be an little angel and big help.

Waiting around for the lasagna to cook…

 

Grandma’s always seem to bring presents, this time it was some halloween books and necklaces.

 

Time for the cousin picture before they go!  And 1 with grandma and grandpa, while we’re at it.

 

Thanks for coming by for a visit everyone!  We sure love visitors, who’s next?

flashing the windows

I think I’ve posted about this a couple of times, but I don’t think I’ve ever explained it.  So here’s the story of why my dad came out… 5 times (Is that right mom?) in the last 6 months! 

 

Our home was not built entirely correctly.  Well, not the windows at least; when they put in the windows they didn’t put a waterproof barrier (called window flashing) between the wood of the house and the window.  They also put brick trim around our windows, which would be fine IF we had brick around the windows!  The only place we have brick is on the bottom of the front of the house.  Brick trim comes out further than the window edge.  Well, that’s my understanding anyway, if you’ve done construction you’re probably shaking your head at me and my ignorance, sorry.

So what Dan and my dad did was (1) remove the existing (and in many cases rotting) trim/any other bad wood, (2) cut the siding to make room for the flashing, (3) install the flashing, (4) paint/cut new trim pieces that wouldn’t come out as far as the window, allowing the water to drain out the bottom of the window and down the outside of the house rather than under the window trim, under the siding and down the wall, and (5) caulk all of the edges,  

 

Their shenanigans from this trip were some of their craziest! I teased Dan that I should have signed up for the bigger life insurance policy on him before he went up on this scaffolding they made.

  

This was the scariest window, our master bedroom.  The other 3rd floor windows they could do from the deck, so this was the highest up and the largest window.  I don’t feel that these photos capture how high it really was, it was HIGH!

 

It was a weekend full of jimmy-rigging at its finest!  Check out this handiwork!!

A view from below, shows how they extended the platform of work space with another ladder and a piece of plywood. YIKES!

  

Here’s some photos I took of their other “safety” precautions:  1) my dad wore Dan’s climbing harness with a rope tied to our bed when working on that awful high window, 2) my dad brought these strong plastic strips with holes in them (can’t remember what the proper name is) to use to wrap around the ladder and screw into the wall so the ladders couldn’t fall away from the house.

 

3) they tied rope to the bottom of the ladders to a stake in the ground so the bottom couldn’t slide out,

 

This side of the house was hard because it’s all gravel and at a steep incline, but they sorted that out! 4) pieces of wood under the ladder feet to level it out and other pieces staked in around them so they couldn’t slide out.

 

That’s all the safety I saw.  Thankfully no one was hurt and hour house is much more water tight in preparation for winter.  I can’t thank my Dad enough!  We certainly could not have done this without him.  Dan was a great assistant and learned quickly, but my dad was the mastermind.  It seemed that all of my extended family already knew about our window project because my dad had told them all about it!  When we were home over the summer I was asked my many how the windows were coming.  My dad was worried about those windows and would not rest until they were finished!  He’s such a great man and always takes good care of his children.

Oh and the girls worked pretty hard too… NOT!

 

We were too stressed at the possibility of becoming widows to do much else but sit around the house.  Actually, I was much more stressed than my mom, I guess she’s used to my dad defying death.