My brother-in-law (thanks Dan) gave us a scroll saw a few weeks ago. What could be better than free power tools? I'll tell you. Free power tools that work. And this one did. So we decided to see just how difficult a scroll saw project could be. Since it was close to Christmas, we settled on a "puzzle" nativity. How did it turn out, you ask? See for yourselves...

Believe it or not, this was just a plain 1 x 10 from Home Depot a few days ago.

Now we have to decide if I should quit my day job and open a boutique. (Not really, I haven't even started my new day job yet.)

We just finished painting the walls and refinishing the oak floor in our living room. Not bad for a couple of DIY rookies.

Before...

After...

*Tisk, tisk*

Before...

After...

This is what happens when Curtis stands up too quickly.

I spent a few minutes tearing out some overgrown Fitzers in front of our house last weekend. (It would have taken several hours if not for the saving graces I refer to as trucks and chains.) Sorry there's no "before" picture. It's sure nice being able to see out our front windows.
Anytime I'm working in the yard, I know I can get at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted progress by letting the kids "roam" the truck. There's just something about jumping on furniture...
And here's a picture of our new auto. Elise says it's too big (hard to park). I wonder if that's even possible. Can a truck be "too big?"

So, Curtis' old financial analyst job is over now. He's happy about it and is now a home inspector. He is certified and has done quite a bit of apprentice work with two different home inspectors, each with their own styles of inspection, and each very good at what they do.

If any of you know of someone that needs (or you yourself need) an inspection done (in Northern Utah, sorry to my Texas friends), let him know!

Random Pictures Again....

....even though my whole point in posting tonight was to show you our new truck. I went to put the picture on and found that we haven't taken one yet. :) So here's a picture of the inside.

No, that's not a doggy seat belt, it's Koda's harness (it helps us stop him from "pulling" better).

Next is the kids and I singing primary songs on Sunday morning (before I got ready for the day). Adelyn's great, although she sings everything in the same pitch.
Hadley loves corn on the cob. He gets mad and won't eat it if we cut it off first. His has to look just like ours.
I did a really cute braid on Adelyn (all the way around her head) ending in a messy bun with a cute flower barrette (this is a view from above) so I decided to take some pictures...

Hadley wanted in on the action (starting while I was doing Adelyn's hair -- he handed me a barrette and pointed to his head) and he even bent down so I could get a better view.

They're hilarious. How can you not smile when looking at these two?

Hadley had been playing in the cupboard and made a mess of the baking soda and Adelyn wanted to make sure we knew about it (and that it was Hadley, not her).

This is how Hadley rides our tricycles. He's too short to reach the pedals so he sits on the step on back and walks around on it. Since he can't steer that way, it often ends with him being upset about running into something and not being able to continue forward. Sometimes he remembers he can back up too, but not usually.
Again in that same cupboard. He thinks he's hilarious.
This is a new church outfit I made for Adelyn. There is fringe on the sleeves and bottom of the jacket that make it look like an Indian outfit. I'm not too impressed with the jacket (although it was the harder one to make), but I love the skirt.
My brother just got back from training with national guard back east. Adelyn, especially, is happy that he is back home. Look at the cool "welcome home" sign I made. (with the help of Wesley and his girlfriend and a tiny bit of help from Curtis) I got it up about an hour after he got home.
On our second trip to get wood this summer I got this great picture of Curtis after a long day of chopping down (and up) trees.

Hadley loves his baths. As soon as he hears the water running he comes running, ready to get in. If I'm not fast enough he gets in without my help... or any preparation.

That's all for now.

Our Poor Truck

Our truck was in an accident yesterday. Curtis was the only one in it at the time; he's fine, and the accident wasn't his fault at all.

This is going to make it hard to go camping this weekend.

Random Pictures

Even though I'm totally over it now, the last post was kind of depressing to look at, so I decided it was past time to get a new post to push that one down a little. Here's some pictures that have been taken recently.

We have a plum tree in the back yard that is dropping some of it's fruit extra early (it seems to be letting only one plum ripen at a time, then it drops it and goes on to the next one). Hadley loves to play in them.

Here's a cute hairdo that I did in Adelyn's hair. Even using spray gel to do it, it only lasted maybe 1/2 an hour. (it's a french twist going into a messy side bun) I need to find "sturdier" cute hairdos.

I colored my hair... again. I really started to miss the blonde, especially since the brown was fading (and going brassier) more and more every time we went camping.

Hadley KNOWS how to eat with silverware (well, actually, toddler plasticware) but he prefers this method:

Curtis decided to try his hand at chainsaw carving. He was curious to know if he could do something like those bears and moose you see up in Bear Lake and other places. So he started with something simpler, our house address. I'm sure I couldn't have done that. Good job, Curtis!

And since I didn't post a picture of Koda, I'll tell a little about him lately. We took him to some training classes recently. We thought that because we had trained him ourselves quite a bit, we could start him out in the intermediate class. But we were wrong, he can't handle being around other dogs and not being able to play with them. He's perfect in our backyard, but acts completely untrained around other people/dogs. So we had to start him in the beginners class (even though he already knew all the commands they taught) so that he could start to listen to us amid distractions. He's done with it now and while he is better than he was, he still sucks at it. So starting next saturday, he'll be retaking the beginners class. What a dorky dog. I can't wait 'till he grows up a little more and becomes less hyper.

And that's our current lives in a nutshell.

First Ultrasound... (that's my warning to any queasy men)

Well, I'm still glad I told the whole world so soon.

I went in for sort-of an emergency ultrasound yesterday. Earlier this week my nausea started to go away (at first I was excited, but then concerned - I was to the point where it should be getting as bad as it would ever get, not better). By Wednesday, I was spotting so I called the doctor and got in Thursday. (my actual first ultrasound would have been today - Friday, so not much earlier)

I got the ultrasound and the baby was not the size it was supposed to be and it didn't have a heartbeat anymore. It was determined that it had died a week or so ago and my body was just starting to figure things out. It hit me a lot harder than I thought it would to see that little bean inside of me, without a heartbeat (having seen two others at this same time - 9-10 weeks - and knowing what they should look like). The doctor looked for a lot longer than she needed to, hoping to see something good.

The "comforting" statistics: 2 out of every 5 pregnancies end in a miscarriage and there's nothing I could have done to prevent it and nothing I could have done to cause it (besides smoking over a pack of cigarettes a day).

I was given three choices: go home and wait it out, go home with some medicine to speed things up, or get a D & C (surgery). I'm not fond of the idea of any surgery and she said it could take my body 3-4 WEEKS to finish it on it's own (that's a long, heavy period) and I'd be left with some of my pregnancy symptoms for most of that time too, so I got the medicine (and some strong pain killers).

Within six (painful - I had to dialate to about a 4) hours of starting the medicine, it was all but over. I'll probably still spot a little for a few more days, but I'm grateful for it to be over so quickly. (a gross side note: the placenta [and everything with it] came out whole -- it was about the size of my whole palm)

It's very sad to not have the end in sight anymore (we plan on being done after three kids) and it's depressing to think the last 5 weeks I spent sick was all a waste. But I spent the evening (while it was all going on) at my mom's house (she had two miscarriages before she ever had any kids) and I feel a whole lot better now.

You guessed it.

I will be starting my 3rd month of my 3rd pregnancy next week. I know it's a bit early to tell the whole world, but I know how sick I get and I know how quickly I show. I'm also lucky to have never had a miscarriage, so I don't really expect one this time (and if I did have one, I'd want your support, not comments saying "what? you were pregnant?"). So I decided this time, I'd rather the whole world knew sooner rather than later. (It's always confusing to people when I go around acting so sick and it never goes away, but I say it's okay because it's not contagious.)

Alisha won for guessing the correct guess only 12 minutes after I posted the question. But then, she's got baby on her mind anyway. :)

Jess won for being the first to think of something different after having read the first comment. (Curtis WILL be getting a new job soon, his will have petered out and died by Thanksgiving, probably sooner.)

Josh won for the most interesting, out-there guess (I think raising pygmy goats sounds kinda fun). Cam gets second prize for that one, but really, Cam, Fiji?

Michelle won for guessing (based on how close she knew we wanted our kids to be) before I even put up the "guess what?" post. Sorry, I almost forgot about that one.

I'm due April 5th. But, since I've always gone 4-5 days early, I expect we'll have an April Fool's baby. Thanks for guessing!

Guess what?

No, really. Guess.

Camping in Richfield, Manti and Bear Lake (twice)

So, we've been lucky enough to go camping quite a few times this summer. First we went to Richfield with Curtis' family (all the siblings came too). It was really fun. I love seeing the nieces (Hadley's it for the boys so far) and catching up with their parents (Curtis' siblings). But when I went to post about it, I noticed that we didn't take any pictures at all of it. Oops.

The day we took down camp at Richfield we also set up camp in the mountains around Manti. That was with Curtis' grandparents and their siblings. That was really fun too. Here's our "Tubbsmahal" (it's kinda far away from the camera so it doesn't look as big as it is).

Koda loved not being tied up (he had to be the whole time we were in Richfield).

We accidentally left Hadley alone with the bag of Cheetos.

Adelyn loves to help.

Here's the load of wood we cut down and took home. Curtis tried to cut my leg off with the chainsaw but I forgot to take a picture of the wound until it didn't look very bad, so the picture of it I do have is lame enough that I won't post it.

Next we went to Bear Lake with a few families in our ward. That was really fun. We went through Minnetonka Caves (the kids didn't do so well). And we went to the beach. Here's the kids sharing a stool, eating their lunch on the beach.

Finally, we went to Bear Lake again with my family (minus one sister and her husband). We went to the beach and to another lake (but I can't remember the name of it right now) that was absolutely freezing cold, but fun to look at, hike to and skip rocks across. This is us in front of the freezing lake.

I tried to get more pictures of the last trip uploaded (because I actually had more), but it kept telling me that it was "a bad request", whatever that means. So I only got this one. I don't know why all the pictures are grainy this time, I didn't do anything different. Sorry!

No more court for us

After talking with a lawyer in our stake about our chances of winning a lawsuit against our past renter we found out we'd most likely lose no matter what we do.

-We can't sue for $900 because that was the deposit amount and that has already been decided upon.

-We can't sue for any of the costs over that because it is still connected to the deposit. If we had wanted that money, we had to have sent in a counter-claim to his original suing us.

So we've decided to just drop it and move on with our lives. We're so sick of it all anyway that it almost feels like a relief to just forget about it. Now we just have to figure out how to get $1,000 to pay him back. (he isn't allowing us to pay it off in installments like he paid it to us in the first place -- it seems he thinks we're rich and that anyone rich in the world owes him something -- well, he's wrong on both counts but he knows his way around the system well enough to get away with it)

*Update on last post

So, I was just corrected on some information that makes the judge sound like a better person, but I still feel like we lost on a stupid technicality.

We didn't lose because we didn't file a counter-claim. Whew, because nothing we ever read on any of the paperwork we got from the court system mentioned we had to do that if we thought we were innocent. I was ready to have a very long word with the court system.

We lost because we didn't send, officially, in writing, a detailed list of the repairs, etc. and their costs to our past renter -- officially explaining why he didn't get his deposit back -- within 30 days of receiving his new address.

We thought verbally telling him was enough (and verbally we did, lots and lots), and besides, the only time we were able to get his new address was on the summons papers for court. We figured it was a moot point sending it then.

Anyway, it doesn't sound quite as bad now, but we still lost the money (and I'm still just as mad). We're considering suing him for all the repairs, etc. we had/have to do. We figured it to be more than $3,000. Did you know, I had to scrub cat pee off the walls for over two hours (cats were strictly not allowed), and when I was done, the house still smelled.

AAAARGH!!!

That's just me very loudly venting my frustrations online. (I think I sound like Charlie Brown)

Today, Curtis went to court. Our previous tenant (we're renting out our old house) sued us because we didn't give back his deposit. For the record, he didn't deserve any of it back and, in fact, actually owed us money, but we figured we'd never get it out of him, so we didn't do anything about it.

Well, we talked to a few people, made sure we had plenty of evidence on film and everything documented from our dealings with this past renter. We figured we had a solid case and the judge would just look at him and ask, "So why are you suing him?"

We were told that if we wanted, we could counter-claim and see if we could get the money back that he still owed from damages done to the property. But, again we figured that even if we won, he'd never pay. So we decided to be the nice guys and wait until court to defend ourselves instead of going on the offensive.

Well we were wrong.

Curtis went to court. Our past renter explained his side of the case (very poorly, the judge had to keep pulling him back on track, and he ended up never actually presenting a case against us), and so did Curtis (with the evidence we collected). Then the judge pulled out the rule book and said that our renter won because we didn't file a counter-claim.

So that is that, we now owe over $1,000 (which we have spent repainting, cleaning, repairing and replacing things in the rental -- all due to him) because we didn't look closely enough at the "Rental Laws". The judge said it was a learning lesson for us, albeit an expensive one.

I'd just like to kick a few people today.

Humbleness

You frequently hear about little kids getting hit by or driven over by cars. It is so sad. Most of the time I think to myself that it could happen to anyone and we all need to try to be more careful with our kids.

But some days, probably after I've become complacent for too long, I am a little more self-righteous about it and think that it'll never happen to me because I watch my kids so well.

Then days like today come along. (luckily, my kids were not hurt so I could learn my lesson this time) Today was one of those days where I heard about a small kid getting hit by a car and I thought to myself that someone should have been watching them a little closer. My own kids were, at the time, "safely" playing in the fenced-in back yard. I make sure to check on them every couple of minutes or whenever the sounds coming from them go louder or softer than a certain level.

Well, today (like I said, I must have been complacent) I must have given them too much time between checks. Adelyn had opened up both gates that lead to the front yard -- something I didn't know she could do (but should have known she would learn soon enough). Even still, I should have caught them sooner. Hadley had crossed the road (along with Koda) and was playing in the cemetery. I even checked on them at this time and saw Adelyn riding on her tricycle, so I figured Hadley and Koda were nearby, since they almost always stick close together. I found out what was really happening when a couple of concerned drivers saw Hadley and Koda and one of them came, knocked on the door and asked me if they were mine.

Even worse was an hour or so later, when a cop knocked on the door and asked to check on them (one of the drivers was more concerned than I realized). I deserved it and I hope that this lesson was strong enough that I never need another one.

Long time, no post

Wow, so I could have been gone to Girls' Camp for a month and this blog wouldn't look any worse. In fact, it might look better, let me explain.

One night at Girls' Camp, I was texting with Curtis before I went to bed. I asked him how it was going and he said it was going really well. Then he said that he had even braided Adelyn's hair. I was shocked (I had been explaining to him how to do it for the past week or so, but I had never had time to actually show him) and asked if he had taken a picture of it. This was his answer: "Yes, and I blogged about it too, because that's what stay-at-home parents do"! Hilarious! I was so excited when I got home to see his post about the braid. I got online and found... nothing. I asked him where it was and he said he meant to, but never found the time to get around to uploading the picture and doing it. So I will.

He did a "lace" braid on the sides (a french braid except you only pull hair in from one side).

I swear he told me it was a french braid, so I was expecting something different, but I thought it was awesome anyway. He said it didn't last long.

I was right, the kids ate unusual things... J/K!

And they were completely happy without me.

In fact, when I came home, Curtis brought them out to welcome me home and both of them just looked at me like I'd only been gone 5 minutes. They seemed to be wondering what the big deal was all about. Koda missed me, though. Girls' camp was a blast, although it rained on us every day. It was really good to get to know the girls.

This is a hairdo I did on Adelyn for the 4th of July (although I didn't actually do it ON the 4th). The ponytails and braids make a star shape. I thought it was adorable. I got it from the "Girly Do's" site I have listed on my sidebar.

We went to the park for my sister's birthday on the 3rd of July.

They loved playing on this stump.

But Hadley fell off at one point and landed flat on his face. This picture does not do his bruises and scabs justice.

I decided last week that it would be fun for the kids to try fingerpainting. I used an ultra-simple recipe (that involved only flour, water, food coloring and no cooking), it sucked, next time I'll use a "harder", better one. It didn't smear like I wanted it to, and the kids got tired of putting it on the newspaper pretty quick. Although Hadley loved painting himself with it.

So we then let them run through the sprinklers.

Adelyn even showed Hadley how to stop the flow by stepping on it. They loved it. And it was a perfect day for it -- quite hot, so the cold water felt nice. Even Koda joined in.

Our "Ward Council" meeting for this month was a family BBQ at the Bishop's house. A few of the people there really got a kick out of Hadley's Russian goatee. (and Hadley loved making it out of chocolate)

I'll try to not let so much time pass before I post again. I just got done with Youth Conference too, so I should (this being the key word) be a lot less busy for the rest of the summer.