One fish, two fish...

So it all began a few months ago when my mother in law Kathy went for a morning walk in our neighborhood. She happened upon a great garage sale with tons of cool kids stuff, which I then went to check out. While I was there the lady was throwing away a perfectly functional ten gallon fish tank with all the accessories. I thought that would be fun for Joshua, and would be an easy pet. Within the first few weeks we went through something like 15 fish (thank goodness for Petco's 30 day fish guarantee) and lots of teaching about the plan of salvation in fish terms. We finally learned enough to get five fish to successfully survive our fish tank for about 2 months. The kids were loving their five little fish, I was starting to feel comfortable with how to care for them and it was not too bad...after those initial few weeks of trauma. Then one day Caleb says "I think it would be fun to get more fish" and shows me some of the huge tanks at petco. At first I said no way, but eventually we compromised on a more "reasonable" size and the thought to keep an eye on craigslist in case something popped up in the next few months. A few days later I send him out to pick up a playhouse from a guy off craigslist for Christmas (ssshhhh - the kids don't know yet). Caleb calls me up a few minutes later and says "by the way, I am at this guy's house and he has a great deal on a forty gallon fish tank with everything included...

It's huge!!

Luckily his parents built us a great practical stand for it.

Anyway our five fish have turned into 30 fish plus three huge snails. Although It has become way more than I originally planned for when I pulled a ten gallon fish tank out of the dumpster, the kids really do love it and will sit mesmerized looking at the fish. Caleb and I find ourselves sitting their dazed sometimes too (maybe that's just the fatigue, though?)

I took some pictures here of Joshua's favorites. He likes the kitty cat fish, and the big ball polka dot fish. He has kind of unoriginal names for them: polka dot, ball fish, kitty fish, mean fish, nice fish, striped fish...They change daily.

Christmas Tree

Snapped some pictures in front of the Christmas tree after church.

Simple fun

We have been having 80 degree weather lately so we have been spending our days outside. At Costco Joshua found this cardboard and dragged it home. I noticed that it looked a lot like Buzz lightyears wings...so we decorated them and he spent the afternoon flying around the yard.

Of coarse Abigail had to try them out, but she did not really get the flying around the yard part.

Abigail loves spaghetti so I had to snap some cute pictures of her eating it, a she usually gets really messy. She loves it.

We also played peek- a - boo in their little tent for a while. I love being able to play outside all year, my kids are so much happier.

Happiness is...

70 degrees and sunny. In December.

Spending less than $30 for a day at the amusement park.

Caleb having a full day off for the first time in 4 weeks (not counting after overnight shifts) so that we could have some family time.

Thanksgiving and A tree

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of it yet. My camera was out of batteries and I forgot to get the pictures from Caleb's dad before he left...I will post some soon. Anyway Caleb's family came for Thanksgiving. It was so fun to have them all. It was our first Thanksgiving in four years with family. Usually we are all by ourselves buried in snow in Vermont. We had a great dinner, played games, and hung out together. The kids especially loved having them here, although I think Joshua wore out Caleb's brothers :). I love living close enough to spend Holiday's with family again.

Of coarse after they left and I got the house back in order I rushed out to get our Christmas tree! I am so excited I love Christmas. With Joshua's help and only three broken bulbs... we got the tree decorated and everything else in the house decorated too. We are just waiting for Caleb to have a day off to do our outside lights. We will see I may have to do those myself too if I want them up before Christmas :).

The Daily Grind

Everyday I go for a run or a walk with the kids in the double jogger. It is our routine and my sanity. Today was a blessed day both of them slept! Abigail sleeping like a dainty little girl, Joshua snoring and sleeping mouth wide open :)... actually Abigail can snore pretty loud too. Besides having to push the 70 some pounds around on a run I love our routine, and most of all I love these two sweet angels...who will now be more like angels for the rest of the day after a good nap.

Worst School Picture ever

I just had to post Joshua's preschool picture. For all of you who know Joshua and his little independent personality you can see it shine through. I fixed his hair in the morning...but apparently he fixed his bed head all by himself when he got to school. When we saw the picture we started laughing and asked him if he smiled. He said "yeah I smiled just like this" and made his exact funny face that he had in the picture. So there you have it the funny half smile and hair sticking out all over. For the sickly coloring you will have to ask the photographer what he did. I will not frame this picture but I will forever cherish it in his scrap book of the perfect representation of my little independent son. He is actually so cute, although the photo is deceiving.

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year.We carved pumpkins and dressed up. Being on a Sunday we only went to our ward trunk or treat. So I did not worry too much about costumes. When I pulled out our costume box Joshua wanted to put on his Tiger suit from last year. It still fit and he was all excited and wanted to wear it for Halloween. I said wonderful and that is what we did. Abigail was a sweet little pumpkin.

One Year Old!

Abigail is one! I can't believe how quickly it has gone. She is so funny and sweet. We all love her so much and can't imagine life with out her.

She had a great birthday. In the morning we let her open her presents from us. Joshua got her a soccer ball. He was sooooo excited to help her open it and play with it. :) We got her a ride on car just like Joshua's...except pink with dancing princesses on it. Then they can each ride one and there will be no more fighting.

She love the car and already sits on it and scoots all over the house.

In the evening we had dinner and cupcakes. She spit the cake out and wanted nothing to do with it, but she loved my raspberry sorbet. Which I am fine with, actually none of us like or eat cake so it is to be expected. We are all fruit or custard dessert people.

Then we opened grandma and granpa's presents. My parents got her a walker that looks like a stroller. She likes being able to walk around and stops to give the baby pats and kisses every once in a while. It is adorable. She is still not confident enough to walk on her own, although I think she could if she would just let go of my hand.

Caleb's parents got her Fancy Nancy and Angelina Ballerina books. They are adorable little stories and help balance out our collection of Mike Mulligan, Old Smokey, and Cars books. We love books and she is already picking them up and bringing them to me. She will sit on my lap and look at them and let me point things out to her. Although she has to be holding the book all by herself and has to turn the page by herself or she gets angry and drops the book. She is very determined, it is quite funny.

Working Hard!

I painted Joshua's room and have put it all back together. I love it and so does he. I hung these cute ABC's around the top. It is a total kids room...just not dizzyingly bright and ugly anymore.

Wit all the work we have been doing around the house Joshua has really gotten into fixing things. Here he is now fixing things in his sandbox with his "befixing" hat on.

And she is too cute to not throw a picture in.

Great Clip

More house

So people were complaining that I did not put good enough pictures on the blog of the house... so here are a few more.

I will start with the yard since that is were we have done the most work. I mean real heavy duty work. The are we live is known for their rocks. Make two new flower beds and turning some good soil into all the other beds gave us at least 20 five gallon buckets full of rocks! Not to mention the 1 - 2 foot boulders we were pulling out either. Besides the rocks we pulled out huge railway ties. They had them all over the yard. They were 6-8 feet long and pounded in with re-bar it was awful. Caleb did not want to deal with taking them out but I hated them so much that I just went out and pulled them all out by myself while he was at work and could not argue. Yeah I am nuts but I love my yard now so it was worth it.

So this is what it looked like before. I hate wood chips, especially by my back door where Joshua liked to dig and track them all over my kitchen. Also the railway tie dividing the wood chips from the porch was raised about five inches. So Joshua and Caleb and I tripped and hurt ourselves several times.

This is what it looks like now. I planted star jasmine to climb the fence and am going to palnt ground cover between all the stepping stones.

This is our kitchen garden, basically just herbs some tomatoes and peppers, which grow all year round here!

We added a peach, naval orange, meyer lemon, apricot, and liquid amber tree. I also have honey suckle, boston ivy, and morning glory climbing the fence. My goal is to not be able to see any fence in a year.

We have a nice lawn for the kids which we actually extended by shortening the porch a little and using the pavers to connect the back door to the porch. It is so much cleaner and greener. I love it.

Inside we have not done much besides decorate. I am going to start painting this week. This is our kitchen. The walls all over the house are going to be a light yellow and I am planning on painting the cupboards white as soon as possible. But I love the size an lay out it works great for us.

This is our staircase, entry, and living room. It has really high ceilings. The whole house has a very open light feeling. I love the floors. Again the walls will be yellow and all the wood white.

Joshua's room is scary! It is going to be painted Martha Stewart lemongrass and white trim. It is a really pretty green color. This is the first room to be painted.

This is our family room. Last week we finally got couches. I got black leather couches! Yeah I know not what most people would pick for me but I wanted the, to be stain proof and durable. We found them on craigslist for super cheap, and the next day I was walking through target and found a perfect picture table for the corner on clearance! I was so excited. But it was still not looking "me" enough so I decided it needed some black and white pillows to soften and warm them up so....

Before and...

After...

We have had some really cold weather...well cold for us 60 degrees and raining! Anyway we lit a fire in our fireplace. It works great and makes the family room so cozy, and warms the whole house.

And the ugly blue lazy boy in the picture above now looks like this. I have always wanted to recover and finally just went ahead and did it the other night. I am going to recover the lamp shade and make matching curtains for the window as well.

Last but not least this is my view out my bedroom window. We do live in a tract so we see other houses, but I also see some beautiful mountains and sunsets. Also in the neighborhood we have a private pool and park that we use regularly.

Well that is what I have been doing lately. We love living here and love our house. Even thought it has kept us very busy lately.