1/2 Marathon in SLC-Thurm and his brother. Thurm is shirtless because his nipples bleed and make for a really gross looking shirt. They moved the finish line locations this year and it took us 20 minutes to walk there. We missed Thurm crossing the finish line by ONE MINUTE!!! I was so mad.  

Tuckered out after a day at daddy's half marathon and a few hours at the children's museum.  

Grandma came to visit for a night--they love stories. 

My blue eyed, popcicle faced boy. 

Thurm getting ready for a run. 

Boys on their bikes. 

This little car was the best yard sale purchase ever.  I just hope it lasts through all of our kids. Its super fast so they always fight over it. 

Spring Break 2012

I made pillows for my bed. It only cost me $3 a pillow : ) I want to find another yellow fabric to do  one more. 

Now I just need a headboard. I think I'm going to make one out of an old door and some crown molding. I saw one on pinterest that was really cute. 

We had a great spring break.  We got alot done around the house as well as played.  Monday we went to the Children's museum in SLC and decided to get a year membership. The boys could hardly take it all in.  They had so much fun!

I think I have this exact picture of my niece and nephews who are now teenagers : ( 

Wild boy Jens took a dive on his car and scraped up his nose. 

Making and eating Easter cookies.  

Easter morning.  I normally wouldn't buy a bunch of toys for Easter baskets, but I kept finding stuff they would love over the past month and needed an excuse to give it to them.  Jens loved the bubbles the most.  He had the most surprised, delighted reaction every time.  

Hunting for Easter eggs.  We did our baskets and egg hunt on Saturday. It was perfect, I'll definitely do that every year.  

Jens watching his second favorite toy a wind up, hopping bunny.  It'll be a sad day when items from the dollar store no longer satisfy them. 

Tie-dying Easter eggs.  

The loot!

Chocolate fondue--might have to be an Easter tradition. Yum. Though, I was doubtful and am now against mango's defiled by chocolate.  Mangos are higher on the food chain than chocolate and not many things are.  Its like putting cheese sauce on asparagus. Why ruin a good thing? 

Mango filled mouths on Easter Sunday. 

Just a few things so I don't forget. Jens has started talking a ton lately.  He'll basically repeat anything we want him to say and has a big vocabulary.  But some of the cute things he says are "ohnoame"  Which means "open sesame."  Quinn says this when he wants the car window to open and Jens has learned the protocol. He also says "eh-ya-go"  which means "there you go."  He say that when something is done for him.  Like he gets the window opened for him and he says "eh-ya-go."
While we were in Idaho I told him to say "night, night grandma"  and he said "nigh, nigh Jump." He continued to call grandma "Jump" for the next couple days.  Then my dad came home from a trip and at bedtime I said "Say night, night grandpa."  "nigh, nigh Bump."  I continued to call them by the right names of grandma and grandpa and he continued to say Jump and Bump.  My dad left for another trip one morning and Jens was sad to see him go and kept crying "bump! bump!"  It was adorable.

We are on day two of spring break and its been fun so far.  Monday we got memberships to the Gateway Children's Museum. We were there for two hours, but could have spent all day, so I'm glad we got the year pass.  We also ate at Rodizio Grill. Yum, yum. I am not a huge meat person, but it was delicious. And surprisingly the boys ate a TON. My biggest regret in life now might be not getting enough grilled pineapple.  CANDY!!!

Then today we had a picnic at Liberty park with our sister-in-law, Rachel and her kids. Also our friend Amy and Thurm's brother, Ben.  We spent four hours playing on the toys, feeding ducks, laying in the sun, playing bocce.  I am burnt to a crisp.  I haven't even thought about sun screen yet this year, but its obviously time to pull it out.  I've heard you can get more burnt while pregnant, so maybe thats the problem, but I'm RED.

The last two days I also painted a fresh coat on our living room walls, and white in the guest bedroom.  We painted 3 years ago when we bought the house, but they looked horrible.  Someone needs to come visit and see our house looking so fresh and clean.

March

Our latest project-refinishing the floors. I feel bad because going into this project, I was thinking I'd be able to mostly help Thurm do this.  I didn't realize how strong the polyeurithane and stripper were.  So Thurm basically did this project by himself.  I feel so bad because it was me pushing to get the project done. But he never complained and worked alone for four days after work, while the kids and I went to Idaho.  What a great husband : ) The floors had so many spots that were worn down to the wood. It was staining the wood and looked really bad.  We of course, ran into many problems.  We had to first pull up all the tiles in the kitchen and the glue underneath was really sticky and hard to remove. We finally got an adhesive stripper that worked.  The second problem was as we were sanding the living room floors, the edges of the room were less worn and had more build up of stain and varnish.  It gummed up the sandpaper in a matter of minutes.  And the drum sandpaper was $9 a sheet, which made this project alot more expensive than it needed to be.  We should have stopped sanding and stripped the edges, but the sander was rented, the kids were being babysat,  and I couldn't be around the chemicals because I'm pregnant. The third problem was the old wood had warped over time and the boards were rounded so the sand didn't reach into the grooves. So I finally decided to go the opposite of the grain and that removed the stain from the grooves. But it caused some huge areas of scratches that can still be seen.  The fourth problem was the heat baseboards that perimeter every room in our house.  There was no sander we could rent or buy that would fit underneath them.  So Thurm had to put on stripper, scrape, and then hand sand underneath all of it.  That alone took him a night and the next morning to do : (   The last problem was the staining in the kitchen.  There is black in the grain of the wood that wouldn't strip or sand out.  It gives it an antique feel, but doesn't match the rest of the wood.  Its fine except around the edges where we couldn't get an electric sander too.  The hand sander just was aggressive enough.  BUT Thurm did a great job. He worked his guts out and it was a pretty huge job especially for someone who had never done anything like it before.  We are learning lots of skillzzz on this house.  

My best friend made these quilt tops for me in exchange for pictures.  She was in the middle of a move to CA so she gave me the tops and I just had to tie and bind them to finish.  It took me 6 months to work up the courage and energy to do it, but they turned out really cute. I have a set for Jens and Quinn.  

Jens learned how to climb out of his crib and has decided to sit by the door till he falls asleep. We have to move him to his crib every night. We put a mattress on the floor right by the door, but he still chooses the floor. Funny boy.  

The start of our project.  

Took the boys to Wheeler farm, our favorite park in SLC.  They built a new toy for the kids and its awesome!  They could have played there all day.  

Jens and his cousin. Deklan is 6 months younger, but is the same height and weighs more.  He loved his Aunt Natalie. He would come to me all the time and even gave me a kiss : ) 

COUSINS!!! I hope they grow up with close friendships with their cousins. I never did and feel like I missed out.  

March so far...

Today is gorgeous and has me thinking about spring cleaning, gardening, yard clean-up, vacations!!! January and February always seem endless, but then March hits and before I know it summer is over and Thurm is going back to school.  January I was exhausted from growing a baby and didn't do a thing but nap and watch movies.  February I felt better, but its February, what do you do in Feb other than hibernate?  March is going great so far!  I finally painted our stairwell that needed to be finished.  I had it all painted except for ONE CORNER! Ridiculous!  As I was finally painting it I tried to think of when I originally started... I think I was pregnant with Jens.  What is it about being pregnant that makes me want to paint?  My best friend made me some quilt tops 6 months ago and all I had to do was find backs, tie them, and bind them. And I finally got those done! Woohoo!

Thurm and I have been talking about the many projects we would like to do on our house this spring/summer:
1. Refinish our wood floors
2. Re-do our bathroom
3. Plant grass in the backyard
4. Build shelves in 3 different spots.
5. Make an adorable nursery for our new baby.
6. Move the boys into the same room, paint, buy bunkbeds, etc.

My mom has said she will take the boys for spring break so we can work on some of these. We have limited funds, so we'll probably only get to do a couple of these, but I can't decided which ones. Our bathroom is the worst and needs it the most, but its a huge undertaking and we have limited skills. And when I say limited, I mean that we have none. We can't do it. We are stupid when it comes to home improvement. I can paint, sloppily. Thurm can hammer, but the nails end up crooked. We can saw, but the board ends up 6 inches short. We are the type of people who should rent, so someone else takes care of the problems.

Thurm has been running again- so far in 2012 he has run a 5k, 10k, 15k, and is training for a 25k in two weeks. And then in April he has the SLC 1/2 marathon.  Historically, he quits running after the 1/2 marathon and doesn't start again till January of the next year.  He's hoping to break tradition this year and keep running.  I have been doing an exercise class four mornings a week. I started in January and am hoping to keep it up through June. Maybe I won't gain the 60 pounds I have gained with my last two babies.

Quinn and Jens have been fighting non-stop the last month over ownership of toys.  One always wants the toy the other has.  They break down into tears. Jens screams like he just broke his arm.  Its pretty exhausting.  I'm getting really good at ignoring my children.  Jens learned how to get out of his crib last month, so now he gets rocked to sleep at nap time.  Spoiled little guy.  But 15 mins of rocking is alot easier than an hour and a half of putting him back in his crib.  Quinn has been into computer games. He can now turn on the computer, launch the internet, and click the bookmark for fisher-price games for toddlers.  He is three and I'm already scared about how well he can use the computer.

First time sledding! They both loved it. Quinn would climb up the hill and go down all by himself.  

Eating icicles.

This is our bunny we got for Christmas.  He lives out in the shed, but daddy brought him in for a few minutes one day.  Jens LOVES the bunny and screams and laughs whenever he sees him.  He doesn't really have a name, but one day Thurm asked Quinn what his name was and Quinn responded "Garden Boy."  Thurm thought it was so hilarious that he keeps calling him that.  

Quinn slept on his bed with waffle crumbs for two nights. He gets up in the middle of the night and scavenges the kitchen for food and brings it to his bed to eat. It makes me so mad that I just left the crumbs and he slept on them.  I'm obviously not raising a "princess and the pea." I could not handle crumbs in my bed. I would rather sleep on the floor.  

Valentines flowers from my thoughtful, sweet husband : ) 

Fruit!  I love eating fruit when I'm pregnant. They are extra flavorful and delicious!  

We gave Quinn an old school MP3 player we had stashed in a drawer. I filled it with 3-year old appropriate music  today and he's been listening non-stop.  I decided it was time to start his musical education, so it has some Beetles, Bob Marly's "Jammin", some Beethoven, Ella Fitzgerald, James Taylor, etc. I wanted to make it well rounded.  He loves music!  

Rumply clothes, but I got a few pictures today to document.  Quinn with his new MP3 player because he loves music. Jens with some stuffed animals because he is CRAZY for stuffed animals right now.  

Brothers- Quinn is 3 1/2 and Jens is 19 1/2 months.  This is going to be a fun summer for us. Quinn turns 4, Jens turns 2 and we will have a new sibling!