How we hang!

I just thought I'd give everyone a sneak peek into our lives. They are definitely not as exciting as some others(Jamie) but we still enjoy our days. Courtney's new favorite thing is to shower with me in the morning. She used to be terrified of the shower but now she loves it. I think it has something to do with being able to squeegee the glass because if I forget and do it myself she comes apart. After she gets out and gets wrapped up in a towel, she runs downstairs to get her blanket and to finish watching whatever show was on.

She has gotten really good about wanting to get dressed but it's a little frustrating at times because she has a definite opinion of what she thinks she should wear.

She loves to help me clean. Let me make my quick plug for one of the best inventions ever(Audra has also attested to this). If you do not own a Swiffer Vac, you have to get one. It is the greatest for hard surface flooring. I can't believe how great it works. It's so much better than sweeping, where you inevitably miss dirt and lint. The great added bonus is that Dave likes to use it and so does Courtney. She will vacum until the charge wears out and it really does get clean with just my two year old working it. Dave and Courtney love to be silly! If anyone has seen the movie, The Holiday, you will get what they are doing in these pictures. If not, you have to see it. Not just to get our wackiness but also because it's honestly one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. I loved it. Anyway, in the movie a father turns himself into "Mr. Napkinhead". Dave and Courtney think it's great. And I love it too and finally got it on camera.

When Courtney is finally in bed at night, and I'm not watching Alias(our favorite show that we rent), I find time to quilt. This is my latest quilt that I made for my new nephew, Kash. Strange name I know, but not a misprint. Anyway, I had to share it with everyone.

Family and Easter

We were blessed to have my whole family in town for the Easter weekend. It's been quite a long time since all of the family was together and it was a lot of fun to catch up. It almost felt just like old times(except for the nine kids running around. Where did they come from?) Courtney loves her cousins and never wants to go home when they are here. She was also really excited for Easter. To our amazement, she wasn't the least bit scared of the Easter Bunny. It is a huge relief to us because we are planning on taking her to Disneyland this summer. Now we know it probably is a good idea.


I don't think any kid was more excited to hunt for eggs than her. She could not wait for Easter day to get here. We had a great Easter and hope you all did too.

Moving and Quilting

We have finally moved into our new house. Yeah!! Since we signed papers last June, we are happy to finally be in. Getting settled is a whole other story. I had to take a picture of Dave putting Courtney's bed together because he asked me why I only put pictures of Courtney up on the blog. I think it's pretty obvious why I don't want pics of me but he can have all the ones he wants. We were lucky enough to sell both of our other houses before we had to close on the new house. The bad news was that we had a week in between when we had to move out the old one and into the new one. Lucky for us, we were able to live at my parent's house for that week. We had to load up a truck and upload it into two garages(thanks Mindy and Lee, and also mom and dad). Then we had to load up the truck another time and park the truck for a week(again, thanks mom and dad). We are so thrilled to be in our new home and hope not to move for a long time. I told Dave that the next move we make will have to be done by professionals. It's too much work, and when did we accumulate all this stuff.
I like to blame it on Courtney. Does one child need so much stuff to go with her? Half of our attic was filled with her baby stuff. Honestly, for a year, we needed that much stuff? Crazy. We are getting more settled everyday and it really does feel like home. Courtney had a very hard time living at the grandparents house. That is putting it mildly. I actually thought a demon had possessed my sweet little girl, but she is back to normal now. She tells us how much she loves her new house and how she wants everyone to come see it.
During our week without a home, I was able to finally finish Courtney's quilt. That was the one good thing about it. I had a lot of time on my hands, which is extremely unusual. I was able to bind the edges so she could put in on her bed when we moved in. Don't look too closely at it because it is not perfect. I had a great time doing it though and can't wait to start my next one.

My Funny Little Girl

Courtney is getting so old and seems so grown up. I had to finally get some shots of her with her underwear tucked into her shirt. She is so proud of herself when she gets dressed in the morning but she usually needs a little help. She is very independent and likes to do everything herself. I was so bummed out this weekend because we finally went and did something fun, and I forgot the camera. Courtney was so upset about the whole thing. We went to a place called Kangaroo Zoo. It's this great indoor play yard. It had all of those inflatable slides and stuff. She had such a good time and didn't want to leave, even after bumping heads with another little one while going down.
Courtney has been going to bed better lately but she doesn't fall asleep until she plays for awhile. I couldn't resist taking a picture of her dolls and animals after she fell asleep last week. I also had to take some video of her reading a book. Every sentence starts off with "One day" and it's so cute. Dave and I can't figure out how to get video on the blog, so if anyone knows how to do it, let us know.
We got Courtney some new shoes this weekend and she loves them. We're glad because she was pretty upset about getting rid of the old ones but she is so funny. As soon as she got out of the shower this morning, she wanted to put her shoes on. I convinced her to put undies on first but that was as far as she was willing to go. Dave will be so upset to see more naked pics of his daughter up here but it was too funny to me.

Painting, Baths, and Hair

Courtney is definitely ready to start preschool. Her favorite thing to do these days is water paint. She will usually make about 15 pictures each time she sits down to paint. She likes to make them, "for all the people." I'm not sure who all the people are but they are sure lucky. She uses each and every color and never mixes them together.
Bathtime has become a favorite part of the day for us all. I get a break while Dave watches her in the bath. She puts in all her toys and plays for nearly an hour. Lately she has been trying new things in the bath. We have been talking to her about swimming lessons this summer, so she now blows bubbles in the water and just recently started laying in the water with her ears under water. This is a big accomplishment for her. It used to scare her to death to have her ears under the water. Now she tells us she is ready for swimming lessons because, "I am big girl." Now we just have to work on her grammar.

I took this picture just so people would believe me when I say that Courtney has long hair. Although it springs up into tight curls and it looks as if it never gets longer, it does. It just gets curlier the longer it gets. In truth, her hair is pretty long.

I feel like I'm drowning

We had the very unfortunate experience of our basement flooding a week ago. Before I go on, I'll say that we are all fine and it could have been much worse. I am calling Courtney my miracle because she was sick last week and so we didn't go to church. Dave found the water seeping into our basement right after church started. Things would have gotten really ugly had we been at church for the next three hours.

As it was, we were able to get everything out of the basement before too much damage had taken place. Our window wells filled up with water and we had about two inches or so of water covering the entire basement. We had a specialist come out and suck up all the water. They also pulled up all the pad and then we had to have industrial fans on for four days. Now everything is nice and dry and waiting to be put back together. This is just one of those things that happen and cause plenty of inconvienence. At least it didn't happen when we had all those people staying here a few weeks ago. Soon it will be as good as new down there, maybe even better.

Idiosyncrasies

Ok, I finally get around to doing mine. I figure that if everyone else can let people know these strange things about themselves, I can too.

I have to get ready for the day and ready for bed in the exact same way every day. I cannot, say, brush my teeth before washing my face before bed.

I will not go anywhere without doing Courtney's hair.

I will not eat shredded meats at mexican restaurants.

I have to have a clean house. Like Jamie, everything may not be organized exactly right, but it has to have the appearance of being clean.

I love Costco. I could go everyday and never get tired of it.

I secretly love to bite my nails because Dave hates it.

I think I like playdates better than Courtney does.

Also like Jamie, I have to examine every piece of chicken I am preparing. Most of the time I end up throwing out more than I use. And along those same lines, I only buy the best beef. I can't stand having to drain meat.

I have to buy things if I think they are a good deal. I figure at some time in my life I will be able to use them.

I'm sure there are so much more, but I don't want to loose all my friends. Now I am officially tagging Darron(and Kristen) and Audra. Let's hear about what makes you guys tick.

Boys

I did a little better than Jamie, but not much. Dave took two pics actually snowboarding and two at dinner. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I'll explain. Every year Dave and some of his friends from high school take a snowboarding trip. It is a very good time for all of them(they get to come alone). No wives or children for this guys trip.


Of course they are always kind enough to invite Courtney and I out with them, but sometimes I think they're better left alone. I don't know who had a better time this trip, Courtney or the boys. Dave and I are thinking of locking her up until she's twenty. She thought Sean, Jason, and Gordon were the best things that have happened to her in quite awhile. She cried huge tears when they left the first day because she thought she could go snowboarding with them. She asked about them every hour and even drew pictures for them. She was sad to see them go.

We also had Dave's mom and brother and wife and baby staying with us this weekend. I didn't get any pics of them because Dave had the camera. After everyone had left on Sunday, we got this great pic of Courtney with all her things that Grandma got for her. Talk about spoiled. We had such a great weekend with everyone but I am definitely ready for a girls weekend!

Play, play, play

With the arrival of the new baby, Courtney has had the opportunity to play with her cousins more than usual. Here is her cousin, Brayden, who is about 2 months younger than her. They have so much fun playing together. It is amazing to me that children are so easily entertained. They spent much of their time together chasing one another around the tent and trying to scare each other. They also chase each other around with a stroller and crash into each other. They do it for hours and seem to love every minute of it. The good news for me is that it is actually easier for me to get things done when Courtney has a playmate over. She doesn't bother me at all, but the poor kids she plays with... well, you might imagine what she does to them. Also pictured here is her with her new favorite drink. It is grape Propel fitness water, but she refers to it as,"Daddy's drink." She is also doing her crazy eyes impression. For those of you who have not experienced it in person, it is kind of disturbing. Her dad, of course, loves for her to do it and got this rare picture of it. Next time you see her, ask her to do her crazy eyes.

Tyler Jay Johnson

Congratulations to Bryson and Shannon Johnson on the birth of their new baby boy!
Shannon, my sister-in-law, was scheduled to be induced on Monday. I got the great opportunity to watch their two kids, Brayden and Lauryn. Courtney had a blast playing all day with them. The baby, Tyler, ended up moving sideways and then into breach position, so they did an emergency C-section. Both mom and baby ended up being fine but the cord was wrapped around Tyler several times and there was a knot in the umbilical cord. We're so grateful that all is well! We ended up having to wait four hours for Tyler to get out of the nursery and into Shannon's room. Only a select few waited it out(obviously, including me). We also visited the next day, when Courtney got to hold him. She loves this little cousin of hers so much. She has been counting down the days with Shannon. Courtney says,"Don't worry, I'll hold the baby, and feed the baby, and burp the baby, mom." It's really cute. My grandmother, Nana to the great grandchildren, was able to stop by and hold her 31st great grandchild. Sorry to those of you who don't know my family members that I keep writing about. Let's be honest, how can you pass up looking at such a cute baby. If our life starts getting more interesting on it's own, we'll let you know.

My Trip to Denver

This past weekend I flew to Denver, more accurately, Castle Rock, Colorado to see my new niece Emma and be there for her blessing. It was a quick trip but a lot of fun. I flew in on Saturday just before noon and got home Sunday around 10pm. Of course, I made the most of my time there by holding Emma every chance I got. She is so adorable, as you can see, and a laid back baby. In case any of you are wondering, there was alot of snow. And in Castle Rock, the city does not plow roads that aren't considered main roads. Luckily we were all fine driving down the streets. It did seem weird that every store was sold out of snow shovels and ice melt though. Do the people there need to plan a little better? Yes!


She sleeps a lot but I got most of these pictures in on the rare occasion that she was awake. Besides seeing my brother, Darron, and his wife, Kristen, I also got to get more familiarized with the Alley clan. That is, Kristen's side of the family. They were so much fun to be with! We had a blast. We stayed up until 2am playing games on Saturday. It was a good thing Courtney wasn't there because I slept in.

Even though it was alot of fun to get to see my brother and his family(and to have time to myself), I did love coming home to a husband and child that missed me at home.

Christmas 2006

I can't seem to do anything on time these days. In my defense, I am the first to be posting any Christmas of our blogger friends. So, we'll say I'm right on time (it will make me feel better). We had a good time being in Las Vegas. We traveled down there in undesirable conditions but made it without any problems. Because we have been so blessed with many vacations this year, Dave didn't have any time off left for the holidays. We had to head back to Utah on Christmas day. We decided that Sunday would be our Christmas day. Unfortunately, Dave got very sick. He threw up all night and all day. This picture of him is the only one we have of him. He spent the day mostly in bed. The rest of us had a great time though. Of course, Courtney is spoiled beyond belief.



Everyone gets way too much for her. By the end of the present opening, she would hand me her presents and told me to open them. We were lucky to have the whole Bollard family together. Brian (Dave's youngest brother) got home from his mission a few months ago and we were happy to have him back with us. Plus, a new baby was added, Alison, so that was fun. Especially for Courtney. She kept rubbing noses with the baby and saying, "I love my baby Ali." She loves babies and especially her cousin.

When we got home, Courtney had Santa presents waiting for her. She got to open another stocking and more presents. Of course her favorite present was a dvd that she loves and someone (I won't name any names) gave it to her first. She was disinterested in opening anything else. All she wanted to do was watch the movie. We had a great Christmas and Happy New Year! We hope this new year finds all of our friends and family happy and healthy.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

We had what I would call our first big snowstorm of the year. It started snowing last night around 9pm. When we woke up it was still snowing. It snowed all day and has not stopped. Now don't get me wrong, it has been lighter at some times in the day, but nonetheless snowing nonstop for 24 hours.
Dave and Courtney decided they would go out early this morning and shovel the snow. Dave realized that he could have just waited until tomorrow morning, since the snow piled up as he shoveled. Him and Courtney had a good time anyway.
Courtney decided, after being hit with a few snowballs by her dad, that she would get him back. She kept going to spots with the least amount of snow to try to make snowballs. Not only that, she usually ended up throwing the snow at herself. She has yet to figure out how to move around with so much clothing on and especially her mittens. It is very pretty to look at but truth be told, I would rather be with the Youngs(our friends) in Arizona right now, soaking up 70 degree weather. At least Dave and Courtney had a good time.