Trees Trees Wonderful Trees!!

It's still not much to look at yet and pictures are kind of hard to see, but our backyard now has trees & shrubs. The playground also has the bark for the kids to play safely. The grow boxes are done and just need to have the rest of flagstone placed around the perimeter. We're supposed to get rain/snow starting this afternoon through tomorrow and we will start drying out on Friday. The first of next week, they'll add the concrete curbing, mulch, finish the sprinklers, and then hopefully by the end of the week, we'll be able to install our sod. Woo Hoo!! It's coming along. We are all so excited!!!

You're kidding.....Right?????

So this is what we woke up to this morning. SNOW!!!! We weren't totally shocked since we watched the weather last night, however, it was still a suprise to see that it really did snow and we WON'T be playing outside today. We're supposed to get a break tomorrow and then get a bigger storm in on Wed/Thurs. Then....according to the weather folks, we should be moving into more Spring-like weather. Can you believe it? The weather here in Utah is CRAZY!!!

Priceless

Build it yourself playground set - $1500
27 total man hours to build @ 10$/hr - $270
Crummy lunch for 2 at the new "Dooner's" restraunt - $15
Having Kaya say "Thanks for building the best playground ever!"

*****Priceless*****

Aaron, Heather, & Aaron's sister Wendy teamed up on Saturday to put together the playground we purchased for the backyard. The sales people told us it should take 2 people about 2 hours to build. The guy who delivered the set said that would probably take us about 4 hours. Um...yeah. It only took 3 of us approximately 9 hours to put the blasted thing up. The directions were about as clear as mud and we braved some cold and windy weather to get it done on our alotted day before the landscapers come back to work on the yard. The kids were absolutely thrilled with the end result and after all the cuss words and everything was said and done, we had the self satisfaction of doing it ourselves.

Here are some pictures:

We have PROGRESS!!!

We are finally getting our backyard landscaped!! It'll be 3 years in July since we moved in. We've had a long winter with lots of snow here in Utah and the kids are ANXIOUS to get outside and play. The front yard just doesn't offer enough safety and protection from the street and Logan likes to just "take off". He LOVES being outside as much as Kaya does and getting our backyard finished this year was a must. The sprinkler pipes are layed and they built the playground area yesterday. Our swingset gets delivered tomorrow and we'll work on putting that together this weekend. Today they are building our vegetable garden boxes and spreading top soil. We are going to build a sandbox for the kids on the side of the house. By the end of next week we should have trees, bushes, sod, concrete curbing, and a finished backyard. Woo Hoo!!!

Close-Up of the play ground area for the swing set. It will be filled in with weed barrier fabric and soft fall play bark.

View of the backyard looking East.

Kaya sitting in the tractor.

Logan in the tractor.

Happy Birthday Dad!!

Today is Heather's Dad's birthday. Dad has been a great example to his 4 kids teaching us the importance of hard work and providing for ourselves. Dad set the example by getting his 4 year degree from a university while working full time and helping raise 4 children. Since then, our mom has gotten her degree, Heather has a degree, Jason gets his degree next month, and Jeffrey will finish his up in the next year or so. Joshua is just getting started on his. We have a lot of good memories as a family taking vacations and going to Disneyland. Our Dad spent 5 years serving as a Bishop for our church and has since taken on the calling of Grandpa or "Papa" as the kids call him. He has 4 grandchildren with 3 more on the way. I've included a flashback picture of Dad's 24th birthday and a more current one from when Kaya (His first grandchild) was born. Happy Birthday Dad!!

Baby # 3 Ultrasound Update

We had our ultrasound today to check the baby's stats. (I'm about 21 weeks along) The ultrasound was a little rushed because my doctor was right in the middle of delivering a baby. The woman was still pushing when he finally came in late to do the ultrasound. He was hoping he could make it through without being paged otherwise he was going to have to excuse himself. (And here we were thinking we would get extra time since we were the last appointment before lunch).

The baby was in a difficult position which made it hard to check several things. Everything he did see looked great, however, he wants to do another ultrasound when I go back in 4 weeks to see if the baby has changed positions to make things more accessible. The baby was breach and facing my spine. We weren’t able to see the face or get any good profile pictures. I got a great view of the baby’s bum but not the genital area. There didn’t appear to be any boy parts but we really couldn’t tell. The doctor determined the baby’s sex as undetermined!! He said he can check again for us next time. By the time we wait another 4 weeks, we might as well just wait until the end!! Who knows, we may not even be able to see any better next time. At least baby appears to be healthy and everything seems to be right on schedule. Yeah!!

The New Family Addition

Well....we did it!! We have officially upgraded to the status of a Minivan Family. We purchased a 2002 Chevrolet Venture from a private party here in Utah. We got a great deal and ended up paying less than what we sold our Impala for. That was helpful when it came time to pay the sales tax and license fees. Our new ride has low miles, is extra clean, and happens to be the same color as the "G-Ride". We are REALLY happy with our purchase and glad it all happened to work out the way it did. Now we're ready to add that 3rd car seat in August!!