Good Bye Mr. Dishwasher!

When we were looking to buy a house we knew that there would probably be things that we would need to repair and replace. We knew we wouldn't find a "perfect" home, and we were ok with that. We have a savings account for "home" things. We have made a list of what we would like to repair and replace in our home. It is fun to talk about what improvements we would like to make on our home. And it is fun to save up for those things. We know that some things are fun things that would be nice to do and other things are really important and need to get done as soon as possible. Enter exhibit A...

Hate is a strong word, but not strong enough for how I feel about Mr. Dishwasher. I knew when we looked at the house that this guy was old and not the best, but oh man if I only knew. Devin and I have both lived in places with cheep dishwashers, dishwashers that have been used and used and used and that are on their last leg. This guy makes all of those dishwashers look great. My biggest gripe was that no matter how you loaded the dishwasher, no matter how you thought you had anchored stuff down, everything would get flipped over. Ok, not everything, but a lot. Not just plastic stuff either. We took a picture of a classic flip job.

See the orange cup completely filled with water. That is just one example. I learned that you need to unload the bottom rack first and then unload the top because so many things were filled with water that it was impossible to unload it without the water spilling on the bottom.
I won't go into all the other things we hated about Mr. Dishwasher. It did not take long to move "replace dishwasher" to the top of our "home improvement" list.
We have been looking around and finally made the big purchase last Saturday. Did you know a dishwasher would fit in the back of my Subaru? I didn't, but it did. Devin had fun ripping the old dishwasher out and putting the new one in. Anna of course had fun helping.

After .... a while, and some good instruction reading, we now have a new QUIET dishwasher that cleans dishes, and well...makes all my dishwasher dreams come true.
Thanks to Uncle Sam for the nice Tax Return and our new friend. We love him!

Cross It Off

My To Do List this week had "Catch Up on Blog" written down on it, and I'm going to cross that one off! Here are a bunch of little random things.
Pam gave us a whole bunch of tulip bulbs last fall. I got most of them planted. Picture if you will, 8 month very pregnant Julie out in the dark planing tulips. Laugh! I'm sure I looked funny. Needless to say I didn't get all of them planted. Devin gave me this cool tulip bulb jar several years ago. You can put bulbs in it and force them to grow. It was a fun way to cheer up the "we are so sick of winter" blues.

Here is our little cook in action. Making bread. I love how she puts her toast in the bread pans and then shows me how she made bread.

Legos + Trains= Hours of Fun. (And some pretty cute pictures of Anna too!)

Many times a day, things get really quiet. I wonder where Anna is and what is she up to. Most of the time I find here doing some "quiet time" reading a book. She really "reads" the stories. It is so cute. I need to get it on video, but I love listening to her so much I don't want to miss any of the story.

The highlight of the week for Anna is to go to Nursery. Last Sunday she was sick of waiting around for 1 o'clock church to start and so she went and put her shoes on and announced that she was ready to go to Nursery.

Nicholas is really figuring out how to use his hands. He loves to touch and feel things. He especially loves his little puppy.

Here is another cute picture of Anna's "funny fingers."

Nicholas HATES his car seat. He usually screams and cries anytime we put him in it. We have been trying different toys that might make him happy. We finally found that just plain chains make him pretty happy. He still cries at times, but I actually made it to my mom's house without any tears. Hallelujah!!

There you have it. Cross off Blog from the list.

Carl Bloch & BYU

On President's Day we took the kids down to BYU to see the Carl Bloch exhibit. I love art, I love going to museums, and we have been wanting to go see this exhibit for a long time. It was fun to take the kids. They did really well and the exhibit was just the right size for someone of Anna's attention span. Devin and I would really like to go back and spend lots of time looking at the pictures. We'll see if that happens before the exhibit is gone. I am glad that Anna enjoyed it. Hopefully there were be many more museum visits in the future.
Since we were down at BYU we thought it would be fun to go to the Wilk. for lunch. I showed Anna where I use to eat lunch with my friends.

Anna got her first taste of BYU Creamery chocolate milk.

Nicholas enjoyed some time on the floor.

Devin is so nice to endure my BYU memory gushing any time we go down there. I have so many fun memories of going to school there. I could care less about BYU sports (sorry world), but I love the school and my time there as a student. I love all the memories I have there as a kid. I remember going there with my Dad to get his hair cut and then going and getting donuts and chocolate milk. I remember my mom taking us down there so we could go nuts and run around campus and run up and down all the walkways that go over the streets. Good times. I remember being so excited that I could get a hamburger with just mayo at the old Wilk with the wood paneling, spiral stairs, and all the country flags. I remember climbing all over the white tree of life statue and playing in the fountain in front of the administration building. I remember going to the library there and playing with the microfiche machines in the Family History Center. I could go on and on. ....oh and the Bean Museum. The Creamery. The DT elevators. Oh I love it!!!! Yes I am a BYU cougar, I'm fully invested, just in a different part of BYU.

Mobile Moments February 2011

Before we get too far into March I thought I would post my Mobile Moment pictures for the month of February. Here is proof that even though February is a short month, you can still have a lot of fun.

Nicholas is starting to enjoy sitting in his Bumbo chair more. Devin says it hurts his manly pride because it is pink. But I think he'll get over it.

Anna loves to help me make bread. One day after we finished making bread, she decided that she wasn't quite done yet. She pulled out my little loaf pans and make more bread in her oven.

Sometimes when I look at Nicholas the only word that comes to mind is "jolly." He is one happy boy.

Devin's parents brought us one of Devin's old toys. They are these cool stacking ring things. Anna loves to play with them. She especially loves to put them on her fingers. She loves making "funny fingers."

My kids were never big hat wearers as babies. Perhaps it is because they had so much hair that I didn't want to cover it up. Needless to say, I have a box of baby hats. Anna discovered this box and we had a little hat party.

Devin's mom made the kids beautiful blankets for Christmas. These blankets come out every day for tummy time and indoor picnics.

Anna loves to perform. I wish I could have taken a video of her sining and rocking out with her flashlight.

I love IKEA's kid's plates. They are just the right size and they have helped Anna learn her colors. (Yes, I am a nerdy teacher at heart.) Lately we have discovered another reason to love the IKEA kid's plates, cups, and bowls. They are great for stacking and building.

We are big fans of Amazon.com at our house. We love it when the UPS man brings us Amazon boxes. So it would make sense that a little bit of heaven is sitting in an Amazon box reading a book. Thank you UPS man for hours of fun!

We are lucky enough to have a basketball court on the side of our house. Truth be told when we bought the house we decided that we would rip it out and put our garden in it's spot. We've had a slight change of heart because we had no idea that it was the neighborhood hang out spot. Anna LOVES playing with the kids there. It is a great spot to ride bikes, do sidewalk chalk, and many more things. I told the boys the other day that if they would like to come over at 5pm every day and entertain Anna by playing basket ball so I could make dinner that would be great. As you can see, she is GLUED!!! She loves watching "my guys."

What is better than licking one set of beaters while making cookies???? Licking TWO sets at the same time.

I love to cuddle with my kids!

Sometimes it is hard to wait for mom to be done with whatever she is doing. One day Anna was having a hard time waiting, so she just curled up in a ball in the chair and fell asleep. Don't worry, I moved her after I took the picture so she could breathe.

We have been potty training Anna. She loves getting a "giant chocolate chip" when she goes potty.

I knew it was time to cut Nicholas's hair when clips went in so easily. Yes, I think I offended him by putting in the clip.

This is how Nicholas plays with the blocks.

It is ALWAYS reading time at our house. We have plenty of books and blankets ready at all times.

Anna loves to be a giant orange worm, or burrito.

Anna knows what she likes. And one thing she really likes is chocolate chips. If you ask her what she wants for dessert she will usually answer, "chocolate chips!"

Anna is a train girl. She loves Thomas the Tank Engine and she loves playing with her legos and making trains. A day does not go by without hearing, "choo! choo!" at some point during the day.

Sisterly love. She was sharing her monkey with Nicholas. The crazy thing was that he was laughing and loving every minute. It is hard for a two-year old to understand that she can't smash her monkey into her brother's face when it only makes him laugh and giggle.

Anna loves puzzles. I wish we had more. She is getting pretty fast at all the puzzles we have at our house.

Broom hockey is one of Anna's favorite things to do. She enjoys trying to hit her little soccer ball around the house. The picture shows clearly why I don't encourage her to do this.

One day when I was sweeping the floor Anna made a bridge. It was even better when Mom started taking the chairs away and the bridge was breaking.

Learning how to work is really important. We have started to give Anna jobs. One of Anna's favorite jobs is to dust. She also likes to use her tool bench to reach up to dust the windowsills.

Devin and Anna are good about helping to restock my pantry. I will give them a list and then they will go down to our food storage room and get what we need. Anna likes to use her shopping cart so she can carry more.

I wish I could convince Anna that squishing Nicholas is not how we hug him.

It is starting to act like Spring around here. YEAH!!! Which means you need your sunglasses. Anna looks pretty cool riding in the car with her sunglasses on.

Story time at grandma's house is one of Anna's favorite things do do with her cousins.

Like most kids, Nicholas is one happy kid when he wakes up from his nap.

One day as I was making dinner Anna asked for a piece of bread. She then got her measuring cup, broke the bread up into small pieces and then while handing me the cup asked, "Do you want the sacrament mommy?" Too cute!

We have lots of snacks at our house. Usually snacks are not very exciting things, like corn flakes. But Anna found out that if you lick the corn flakes they will stick to your nose. Not so boring anymore.

I posted nice pictures of Nicholas's hair cut. But here is the picture of the hair I chopped off. I sent this picture to Devin to let him know that I finally bit the bullet and chopped the kid's hair off. Don't worry. I gathered up all the hair I cut off and put it in a little ziplock bag.

As you can see, it has been a busy fun month!