House Pictures

We are in to building up to our ears now! It seems like everyday I'm making some sort of call or email about the house and we go up to see it at least twice a week. They have framed the entire house, put in plumbing, electrical wiring, windows, and the roof.  Doors and insulation and dry wall will come in the next week or two. We have picked out all of our house options and are just watching this place go up faster than we can keep up with it! Here are some of the recent pictures we've taken. I'll try to make sense of them as we go:

This is from the top floor but it is our entry way stairs. You walk in the front door and these stairs are right there. They are open to the second floor.

 This is a view from the Family Room, looking into the Dining Nook and Kitchen. It'll be easier to visualize when the dry wall  is in.

 This is the most recent picture of our house.  (We just went up today to walk through) The roof shingles are done, they've installed all the windows, most of the electrical, and the plumbing.

 This is from the back corner of the lot looking on the back side of the house

 This is an older picture of the house (before the roof and windows), but a good full front shot.

 This is the view from our house into the back yard. There's another house going up back there at the same time. I told our builder that they should race to see who could finish first and he said that we're going to smoke them :).  We have a beautiful view of the Wasatch mountains and all the lots behind our house are for sale. (so, family, come on and join us!!) We do have neighbors right next to us, just not behind. Wide open spaces!

 This is a view of our family room. Cami and I are standing next the where the fireplace is located. They actually have it there behind the box.

 This is the formal dining room. They are putting the arch to separate the living room from the dining room.

 This is the office. When you walk through the front door the office is located on the left. We're putting in double doors there with the intention of installing glass french doors later. (too expensive right now)

 This is the view from our front yard. (minus the porto-potty. A lot of them are called Honey Buckets out here in UT and I HATE that.) It's a beautiful view too. The Great Salt Lake is only a few miles away. We are close to the bird refuge and Farmington Bay of the Salt Lake. All of the lots across from us are sold, but no houses yet.

 Here's Cami all bundled up and happy about her new house. (Kim, I really do bring a coat and hat for her! :)

 I'm not quite sure which room this is, but I think we're in one of the bedrooms looking into the Bonus room (which is really just a larger bedroom, but will be a great play space for kids) This is also before the roof so it wasn't dried out from the snow. It's all dried out now luckily!

We'll send more pictures as it progresses. They started in Mid December and here we are a month later with a fully framed house. We think we'll be in it more around the middle of March or first of April. Hopefully sooner! We are so excited/nervous/anxious to get into it!

My Buddy and Me!

Can I just say that this kid has me totally wrapped around her little finger? I don't know what we did before without Cami. She has been so fun lately and it just seems like her personality is shining out more and more each day!

Here are just a few of the quirks and things I love about this kid:
-The way she crawls as fast as she can to me when I come to get her out of the crib each morning.
-How fast a grab she has now when we're opening blinds in the morning. She loves to hold onto one of the strings on the blinds and I will pull it up and she pulls it down. It's become a morning ritual
-She leans her head to the side (like in the pic above) while she's eating. She just started doing this randomly this week!
-How she fake laughs now just to get a reaction or to get us to laugh with her.
-How she stops when I say no to her and pats the object I just told her not to touch...just to make sure I will still say no.
-When she crawls over to the stair and practices getting up on her knees and somewhat onto her feet and then looks over with such a cute smile. She's so proud of herself and wants us to see her accomplishment!
-How she furrows her brow whenever she's taking a drink out of her sippy cup. Very serious stuff.
-How she nuzzles her face into her blanket and even licks it (I have no clue why) right before we put her to bed.
-I've become "home base" for all the activities we do during the day. She'll crawl and crawl around playing but will come back and climb on mom periodically just to check in and give me some hugs.
-How she lights up whenever we watch "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" and how she loves the "hotdog song" at the end of the show.
-She self-feeds now  and has a ball picking up the diced foods we give her. She also likes to stash a lot of food in her seat and usually will either stash her sippy cup beside her or throw it on the ground.
-How she crawls around in the tub and even dips down to take a drink from the water whenever she's thirsty :).
-Her great excitement for life. We spend a lot of our day clapping, waving, and putting our hands way above our heads.

Most of all, I just love having my buddy with me all day! Life has become much more simplified for me, but in a very good way. I've learned to appreciate the little things in life. And the littlest thing in my life has become my greatest joy! How I love my Cami!

You Know You're Married to a Lawyer when...

You answer your hair dresser's question, "How long do you want your bangs?" with "Oh, I'll probably have them for a few months."

Attention to detail and phrasing is very important. She should have asked "what length" I want my bangs to get the right answer, not "how long". Thanks, Bryan, for helping me be more precise in my answers!

New Years Day Sledding Adventure!

We decided we want to start making some family traditions of our own on holidays--like ice skating on Christmas eve and sledding on New Year's Day. Well, we at least did the sledding one yesterday. We bought 2 $5.00 saucers from Lowe's and went to the front of our neighborhood to a soccer field that has a hill surrounding the edge. It's just the perfect size for pint-size sledders! Kelsie and Cami each went down about 2 times with their dads before the fun was over. (the video shows it all. It was more like torture from the sound of it.) Cami did alright actually! ...and mom wants to try it again this week!

This is Chad and Kelsie going down.

...She's not too sure how she liked it

I only got video of Cami coming down. No pictures but this one! (She reminds me of the little kid on "Christmas story" the way we have her bundled up! Poor kid! That's what she gets for being the first child...and living in cold Utah!)

Happy New Year!

And so it begins....

We're building a house in Farmington (Utah, not NM. Sorry dad!:) on the Lot that Bryan bought before we were married. We went up in mid December to see if anything was going on and here is what we found:

It's a big, muddy mess right now! (but it's OUR big, muddy mess :) So many choices still to make! We are excited to build a home and to settle down into a good community and neighborhood. (It should be good--our next door neighbor has a basketball court all ready to use!) These are just the footings. I think they've put down the foundation too. They'll start framing some time in the next week or so.

The builder is Building Dynamics based out of Sandy, UT. They've been in business for just over 30 years now. We decided on a 2 story plan (with no basement due to the high water table in the area), kind of a "farmhouse" style with a big front porch. It'll be fun to see how everything progresses over the next few months. We're scheduled to be in there at the beginning of March. We'll see how that goes with how wet this winter has already been!!

They say if you can survive building a house together that your marriage can survive anything.... :). We're excited for this opportunity. Happy 2011!

Christmas at the Bryners'

We spent the Christmas Holiday with Christian and Liz Bryner (Bry's oldest brother) and their six children. Anna is 13, Paul is 11, James is 9, the Twins--Garrett and Pierce are 6, and Alexandra is 3. It was so much fun being with a young family during Christmas. I feel like the majority of the fun of Christmas comes from the excitement of young children. We had a blast at their house!

Christmas Eve we did a family dinner with the Bryner side family. The Hoyts were there, along with Jeremy and Julie Montgomery, and Grandma and Grandpa Bryner. We did a big, delicious dinner and then did a Nativity (with Cami starring as baby Jesus sitting up in the manger and sucking on the wisemens' gifts), and a White Elephant gift exchange. Here are some pics of Christmas Eve:

Christmas Day--I heard the pitter patter of little feet at 6 a.m. in the morning running up and down the hall. I looked out to see Pierce and Garrett had discovered that Santa did, in fact, come and leave them some great gifts! Their family has a lot more discipline than ours because the other kids promptly told them to go back downstairs for another hour. (We used to get up at 4 am and sleep by the tree after Santa came until the parents got up).  These kids were GOOOOOD this year!! Just look at this tree! (reminds me of having 6 kids together like we used to in GA and the piles of presents under the tree!)

 Santa even came for our little Bryner family!!

 Cami's first Christmas!! She got a new bike/walker. She's pumped about it! Mostly she played with the wrapping paper that morning and watched all her cousins tear into their presents!

It was a great first Christmas for Cami and a great first Christmas with Christian and Liz's family! Merry Christmas to you all! We wish we could've been with all our family for Christmas!