Merry Christmas 2010

9 month catch up - better late than never, right?

In case you hadn't noticed I have been putting off this post for months and months and the longer I put it off the more daunting it became. Well, here it is:

April

Our most recent trip to California was so much fun. Reed loved every minute of it. We went to the beach and stopped at Marianne's, of course. We went to Bonfante Gardens which Reed loved, except when the rides stopped (as is pictured in my frustrated test picture post)

May

We all loved our garden this year. Each year we learn more and more, but it's always fun! This year: tomatoes, cucumber, butternut squash, crockneck squash, winter squash, swiss chard, onions, leeks, strawberries, asparagus, sugar snap peas, bell peppers, chili peppers, tomatillos, eggplant and lots and lots of herbs! We loved eating fresh veggies. I'm slowly learning how to can/bottle a few things so this year we will be able to enjoy more throughout the year - still learning...

We finished part of our basement and the man that did our framing brought this fun work bench with battery-operated tools over for Reed. Reed loved all the vibrating and banging and various noises that came with the construction. This man saw how much Reed loves tools and was happy to let Reed (with tools in hand) sit and watch him nail gun away or let him bang on boards with his little hammer. He has played with this bench for hours and hours.

We love our 85 year old home, but we've had issues with our 85 year old plumbing. Reed is very entertained by it (mostly the tools it entails), Brent and I not so much.

June

In June Brent went back to working at Fidelity. He is able to take the bus and I have a car again!

I also got bit by one of the mean dogs down the street while I was walking Reed. I'm so glad the dog didn't go after Reed. I'm still nervous to go in front of their house.

Silly boy

Reed loves to be read to, but will also just sit and look at a book. He's so good.


Reed went through a phase where all he wanted to do was find things to line up or stack. My favorite was the 3 foot tall leaning bus towers he would make.

Reed loves to help in the kitchen, especially when it involves making ice cream!

Little gardener. He has his own set of garneding tools and lawn mower to help us around the yard.

Basement progress! Standing in the guest room looking out to the playroom/family room.

July
Yum! Corn on the 24th of July

Tired Reed after running around in the sprinklers with cousins at a BBQ at Aunt Karens house

July was a crazy month with lots of time with our extended family and visitors.

It started with a week-long Barton family (all 36 of us!) reunion at Fish Lake in Utah. Brent had just started his new position at Fidelity so we couldn't go for the whole week but made it a long weekend. Reed loved playing in the dirt and throwing rocks. It's crazy that this was our fisrt camping trip in years because we love the outdoors so much and it used to be what we did together - almost every weekend we'd go on some sort of hike or excursion. Since we moved to Utah, nothing. Not that Utah doesn't have plenty to offer, Reed and house projects seem to take up a lot of free time and I just don't know where to go like I did in California. I got a Utah book and we have places we want to go...anyway, it was fun to finally make the time to enjoy the outdoors!

Cousin sandwich with the Stevens!

Another big deal was my grandpa coming out to Utah for a visit and a Larson family reunion. I was so glad that he decided to make the trip to see all of his brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews that are out here in Utah. My grandpa loves to do "knuckles" every time he sees Reed and Reed never lets him down!

My cousin Laura came out for a visit with a week at EFY in the middle.

My mom came out for a visit too but you'll just have to take my word for it. There are more pictures of the three of us (above, at Red Butte Garden) during her visit than ever before because she was great at volunteering to take pictures but not be in them. We'll get you eventually Mom! We had fun with her though and she was a huge help watching Reed while we put the finishing touches on our basement.

August

A low key month putting finishing touches on our basement, working in our yard and enjoying the summer.

IKEA Billy bookcases make to look built in. Please excuse what's on them. This is a picture I took to show my mom the progress, but I'd just stuck stuff on them to get it off the floor or out of storage. I haven't taken a picture of the after and in the interest of getting this post done it's as good a it gets. Maybe someday I'll get around to a before and after basement post.

Brent (and helper) potting curtains up in the guestroom/craft room.

With leftover trim from the basement we added coat hooks by the back door. Now that it's winter those hooks are loaded. Bead board coming soon...

With the basement mostly finished, we turned our attention to our yard. We did a lot of planting and put edging and a rock border around our flowerbeds to keep the dreaded quack grass at bay. We added flowerbeds between the grass and the sidewalk and did more contouring in the flowerbeds against the house, planted 22 plants (yay Home Depot 75% off sale!) and did a ton of pruning and removing. I'll do a before and after when it's all done.

September

This month could be a mammoth post all by itself, but here's the condensed version...


We went to Kauai, Hawaii as a family! My mom was nice enough to come with us so Brent and I could do things like snorkel and kayak. We decided to go for it this year while Reed was a free plane ticket and we only have one child to take care of. We probably won't get another chance to take a big trip like this until our kids are grown so we went for it. So glad we did. Great memories were made.

October

Reed turned 2. Unbelievable. We are so grateful to have this little boy in our lives. He is such a joy and pleasure to be around. We love every minute of being his parents and are trying to soak it all in before he's off to college. He's growing so fast! We love you so much Reed!

October 2010

October 2008

Reed and I also went to visit my friends in Houston, Texas. I had planned this trip before we decided to go to Hawaii, but I'm so glad we were able to go because it was our last hurrah before Reed turned into another plane ticket and we drive everywhere we vacation from now on! We had so much fun. We got to visit with the rapidly growing Hallie and John who I started to nanny for when they were 5 and 3 months! We went to the Houston Zoo and Paula and I went the Round Top Antiques Fair which is always a blast. I got a Salt Lake blue plate to add to my blue plate collection, two stained glass windows and some cool old canning jars and lids.

One of my new windows found a home over my kitchen sink.

I love how he holds double #1 fingers up for being 2. Here he is with his birthday loot. We gave him an IKEA train set to see if he was ready for a big wooden train set we bought him a long time ago (scored a deal on Craigslist!). He loves it so my dad made him a train/play table and my mom is painting scenes for the top. He's getting it for Christmas.

Birthday Mega Blocks from his Grandma and Grandpa. This boy loves his towers!

Another tower

Future architect?

Reed the bumble bee. This year he actually got to go trick-or-treating in his costume! We actually just went to a trunk or treat at a nearby grocery store and he thought it was the greatest thing ever once he caught on to how it all works. We couldn't get him to say "trick-or-treat" though, he was determined to demand "more candy" from each trunk we went to. At least he said "thank you" after - most the time. He's 2, it's to be expected I guess.

If you look closely in the Halloween picture you can see he's clutching a small skateboard. This is his favorite thing. He got it on his first (and so far only) trip to McDonald's and he loves it. There was a period of time he wouldn't sleep without it and worried about what might happen if we lost it (by the time we realized how much he liked it they'd switched the toy to Mr. Potato Head). Fortunatley he has since branched out and we never did lose it.

November

We are loving our basement. It was nice and cool this summer, so we weren't sure if we'd be able to enjoy it in the winter, but now it's toasty warm. Reed says "downstairs" almost every morning when he wakes up. He loves it. We all love it.

We had a huge snow storm before the leaves had fallen off one of our trees. It was too much for this old tree at the back of yard and it feel over right onto Reed's slide. The silly thing is we have a totally open lawn except for where his slide is (under the shade of this huge old tree) and had it fallen a foot or so to the left or right nothing would have happened. Amazingly, we disassembled it and popped all the dents out and now (with the exception of one little pucker) it's as good as new!

My parents came for Thanksgiving. It's fun to be able to spend a holiday with them and we're so glad they were able to make it. There was a HUGE snow storm the day before Thanksgiving and we were worried they'd be spending Thanksgiving in Elko.

They brought the train table with them and it's awesome! I'm in the process of staining and sealing it right now but he's going to love it! Somehow whenever my mom comes for a visit we never get through our list of things to do. Every time there are some art projects I'd like her to tackle (my mom is a very talented artist) but these are the things that we somehow never get to. Well, after Thanksgiving my mom stayed a few extra days and was able to do several projects with us. We're so grateful to her for sharing her talent.

Reed helping sand the table. Good thing my dad made it extra sturdy. Reed loves to sit in the trundle drawers!

December - all caught up!

This last Wednesday I put down Reed for his nap and a few minutes later I hear his little feet running into my room. With this huge smile on his face he exclaims "Mama, I awake". My life is over. Why? Because he can now get out of his crib any time he wants. This has meant we are back to sleeping like we have an infant because he comes pitter-pattering into our room at all hours pulling on our sheets saying "I awake Mama". Some days this has meant I'm awake at 5am, others he's back to bed at 12, then 2 then 4... At least he comes into our room and doesn't go downstairs and wreak havoc...yet!

test picture

This picture perfectly expresses my frustration with blogger these past few months. I have gone to post, but we're pretty boring and the post would be double boring without pictures. Anyway, I've gotten it fixed...I think. Will start posting more often....maybe.

We're doing great

****EDIT: We got the picture issue solved. I had been backing up all our pictures in my picasa albums. Blogger also uses my picasa storage to upload pictues to the blog. I had maxed out my storage without knowing it and so blogger wouldn't let me post any more pictures. I have since found an alternate way to back up our pictures. Problem solved.

So, several people that I didn't even know read my blog have contacted me to make sure we're okay since I hadn't posted for so long. We're doing great. Our computer has been slow or crashed several times when I've tried to post and I have been easily distracted by other things. Also, blogger says I have exceeded my photo upload quota and what fun is a post without pictures? Anyway, since my last post we have:



Had a few new windows put in. One of the the things we loved about our house when we bought it was the unique arched window design. Don't worry, while they are drafty and inefficent, we didn't take out any of those. We did get new basement windows which has helped our heat bill and giant, gross spider issue. We got a new bathroom window to replace the super drafty aluminum one upstairs and a new kitchen window that isn't painted shut! It's made a huge difference and we were able to take full advantage of the tax rebate!

I had surgery on my wrist in January and am finally back to doing all the things that hurt before. Things like wash dishes, vacuum and scrub. Yay! More importantly I can pick up Reed without cringing.

Reed now says "no", "uh-oh", "car", "all gone" (ga-gan) "shoe" and "eye". No "mama" or "daddy" :o( He is obsessed with cars, balls and airplanes. Also cheese; that boy loves cheese! He also loves walks and being outside. We're looking forward to warmer weather so we can get out and get back to the hiking that we love now that I'm not pregnant and Reed's old enough. Reed will bring me his shoes and sign "outside". When we got home from that walk he'll bring me a different pair of shoes (he can easily get them from a basket by our front door) and sign "outside" again. Some days we go for six walks! He also loves the bike he got for Christmas. It's really just a bike-shaped stroller (it has a push bar) at this stage but he loves it. I love it.



We gave ourselves a bed frame for Christmas (we have been sleeping on the metal one that came with the matress since we got married. I feel like a grown up now!

I cut my hair again and I HATE it. It's way too short and taking some getting used to. It wouldn't be so bad, but I feel like it's the easy, short mom haircut and I turned thirty last week so I'm just not feeling very sassy as of late.

We started finishing one side of our basement this week. We're putting a family room, small (8 1/2x11 1/2) bedroom and eventually a bathroom down there and leaving the other side for storage and a laundry room. No before and after shots though, I left my camera in CA on our last trip (Reed and I want out there last month) so I have to put up pictures later. The opportunity presented itself to have it done and Brent and I decided that in the long run we'll need the space for kids to play and hang out with friends when they get older, so why not do it now!?

All the stuff that was stored in the basement had to be moved out fo the basement and the house looks like it's been hit by a bomb so I should get back to attacking the piles. I would leave you with a cute picture of Reed, but can't post. I'll try to fix it - later.

Happy Spring!