Awesome Friends! Oh and furniture re-finishing :)

Our friends Jackie and Craig are masters at re-doing furniture, building their own furniture, creating anything beautiful and crafty! Their house is amazing and they seriously did it all themselves! So when I found a fun shaped table of solid wood for only $40, I just had to take advantage! I sent Jackie pics and asked her opinion and she said we could totally do it! She so kindly offered to help and I can not believe all her and Craig did for me! I sanded everything at my house and then they picked everything up during the week. We spent a couple hours trying to set everything up at her house since she has all the stuff and got a couple chairs painted. The whole time with kids running around, her feeding my kids, paint getting everywhere! And she acts like all the madness was just normal :) Then on Saturday she lets me come back ( I am sure it was a close call after the damage we created earlier in the week!).  We spent 9 hours at her house... playing for a couple hours while they ran down town and then doing the table, bench, and finishing the chairs... the work didn't take that long, but doing it with 6 kids age 6 and under was quite the task!

The kids created their own little movie theater. They seriously all played so well together! There was a little drama towards the end, but can't believe they lasted all day!

While Craig and Jackie were gone we played outside at the park in their cul-de-sac. The kids had fun riding bikes and running around. This was the best shot I could get of all the kids (baby Kash was sleeping).

Casen and Brinley both insisted on helping paint the bench... Brinley did pretty good but check out Casen's nice wavy line :)

This is what it looks like looking out their front door.... I know right!?!? Now just imagine it minus my car :) Seriously, how does this happen! I want a cul-de-sac all to my self with my own personal park, ramada with grills, and bike trail! Could not be happier for them and this awesome location they found!!

This is their little dog :) Marlee LOVED him and followed him everywhere, including into his little room under the stairs. He is even bigger then the picture shows, seriously a horse. And all Marlee wanted to do was hug him and lay on him. He was so nice and patient with her!

So here is what the table looked like when I bought it. Ryan was pretty reluctant... I think he was afraid it would sit in our garage like this forever. So if I ever wanted to be able to do something like this again I knew I had to do this project quick and well (Which NEVER would have happened with out such great friends!). And so Ryan left to San Fran for a couple days and when he came back....

BOOM! New table baby!  And Ryan loved it :) I was so glad because he let me decide on colors and I was a little nervous he wouldn't go for it, but he did! Yay! This is a pretty accurate picture to show the colors of the table... but the blue is more of an aqua color. The pic below is way off, it was so dark I had to try and adjust it...

Had to grab a shot with Jackie to always remember her sacrificing so much time, equipment, her house, all her food, etc!! She is amazing and I am so glad to have her back in Vegas! Just sad I will be leaving her!

Good-bye to Piper

One morning we woke up to find that Piper and Peter had dug their way under the gate and chicken wire! I thought they must be gone for good and then noticed Peter hiding in a corner on the side of the house. Sounds funny but my first thought was he looked scared. Him and Piper are always together so I just thought it was weird they weren't and wondered in maybe something had happened to Piper. We looked all up and down the street, but had to get Brinley ready for school. We set out apples in hopes they would draw her back in. Then we said a prayer together, and Brinley said it. She prayed that we would find Piper... I felt like there was a 99% chance we would never see her again but hoped that for Brinley's sake we would find her.

 I kept checking outside all day and hoped I would see her, but no luck. With a running bunny I thought she could be anywhere... off in the close by desert landscapes, in someone's back yard, run over.... but after school when I picked up Brinley I felt like we should give it a try and go search the neighborhood. We drove very slowly up and down every street with the kids yelling out the windows for Piper :) Finally on the street before ours we spotted her laying by a push near someones front porch! I seriously couldn't believe it! Brinley ran out and grabbed her! She was so excited and I was so happy hear prayer had been answered. Our own little miracle.

Brinley and Piper. When we found Piper I asked Brinley if it was really her cause she looked different. As I looked closer at her you could tell her left cheek was swollen. It was weird cause her fur wasn't messed up, not blood or anything, but the left side of her face was definitely bigger. You can see it poking out in this picture. Piper just laid in their hutch but didn't move. I could tell she was hurt, but we couldn't take her to the vet that night, so we were going to see how she was doing in the morning. In the morning I was nervous she could have died in the night so I went out and checked on her, and was so sad to find she had passed in the night. I made sure Brinley didn't go out there and rushed her off to school. I know it would be too hard for her having to go to school if she knew what had happened. Brinley was telling everyone she saw how we had found her bunny... broke my heart :( 

When she came home I had to tell her what had happened. Casen and I had made a nice little bed in a shoe box for Piper. I knew Brinley would want to see her one last time but didn't was her just laying in the hutch. She was so sad. I remember loosing my pets and having it be so hard as a child and so I really just felt for her. Ryan was so sweet and came home early from work to be there.

We decided to bury her right away and although we gave other suggestions, Brinley insisted on burying her in the back yard. We all worked together to dig the hole. Marlee just chilled in her panties the whole time :)

 We covered it up so well, can't even tell anything was buried there!

Brinley was supposed to go to dance that night but we decided going to Yogurtland as a family would be a better end to a hard day.

That night after the younger kids went to bed Brinley made this heart for Piper, she said blue was he favorite color :)

Another Month flown by!!

January flew by! Seriously can't believe how fast life goes sometime :) We have a LOT of random pics from January, so here goes!

Me and my girl, Ryan grabbed this pic after church one Sunday. This is where Marlee can be found a lot of the day! She loves snuggling on my shoulder with her blanket.

Ryan and I tried to nap on the couch one Sunday afternoon... don't know why we even try :) The kids quickly join us! First they covered us in a dozen blankets. I was a little fevered and feeling cold, so after Casen covered us in blankets he said " There, now you'll be warm as death!"

Marlee kisses :)

Love having this cute girl riding in the car before me. She is always so good in the car, ok most the time :)

Ryan's friend Shane stayed a night at our house and our kids loved him. He was born in China but lived in San Fran now. The kids had so much fun with him. Marlee especially liked him, and he totally ate it up :)  He showed the kids how to write Chinese symbols.

Casen had this giant red bump on his stomach and we have no clue where it came from.

Brinley had been coughing forever and I finally took her in... turns out she had an infection in her throat and build up in her lungs... these are the meds the poor girl was on! But they helped and I am glad she finally recovered.

Marlee and Casen snuggling while grocery shopping. Love it when they love eachother.

I think this is the best Casen had even written his name! He was practicing with Brinley.

Brinley hid behind one of our walls and threw this paper airplane at me :)

Marlee has learned how to ride Casen's scooter and looks so cute on it!

Marlee and Liberty, could they be any cuter??

Casen thought it would be pretty awesome to wear all his ties at the same time... and he was right :)

Marlee and Casen making the couchs at Home Goods look good!

Brinley and Piper, she loves this little bunny!

The kids had a ton of fun pushing eachother around on Marlee's little four-wheeler!

One week Marlee and Casen played this game every night and would take turns pushing eachother in her dolls stroller.

Dale and Quenalee came to visit us for a day on their way to AZ and we all LOVED seeing them!

They bought a Razor (side by side) Dale gave all the kids rides in it. Casen had so much fun and didn't want to stop! 

Brinley is making her own book with pictures, drawings, and little stories. She had me copy this pic from Dr. Suess... I was pretty proud of my picture :) I am certainly no artist! Then she colored it in and did the writing. It was a fun activity to do together.

Marlee and Berrett Blanchard coloring together :)

Disney on Ice and Ryan turns 33!

I bought tickets forever ago for Disney on Ice... and it turned out I had accidentally bought them to the show in Phoenix (I guess my location was set for PHX), and I didn't find out until 2 days before. I was so bummed! But I was able to sell the tickets and buy tickets for the show in Vegas. They were more expensive and not as good of seats... but Ryan was able to come! The kids all loved it! I am glad we were able to go as a family.

Marlee was so cute! She was in awe the first few minutes :)

They did 2 little shows, The Princess and the Frog, Cinderalla, and Tangled. They were all cute. There was an intermission in the middle and the kids got $12 popcorn, what a rip off! haha :) but they loved it :)

Marlee wanted to be big and sit on her own.

The lady behind us was nice enough to take a family picture... didn't turn out the best but it's all we got!

Tangled was pretty cool. They had the ice-skaters "fly" in the air which was pretty neat and I loved the lanterns.



A few years ago for Ryan's birthday we did some games with other couples, we decided we thought it would be fun to do something similar. Ryan likes to stick with small group of people that know eachother (most of you know I mix friends all the time!), so he just invited a few of the young couples from our ward. We had dinner at Olive Garden and then played games at the Whipples. It was a ton of fun, great group of people! :)

The paper bag game. I was impressed with how well the boys did! And Ryan did his "personal best" :)

We tied bananas around our waste and had to hit balls across the room, it was quite entertaining :) The Whipples went first and Jess did awesome!

                                                                     The Berretts

                                                                   The Jolleys

                                                 Ryan and I... I pretty much killed him :)

                                                                        The Merrills

The boys did the cocoa powder challenge, but I must not of given them enough because they all were able to swallow it! Except Derek :)

Us ladies did the Oreo challenge where you have to move it down from your forehead to your mouth without using any hands... the boys definitely had fun laughing at our crazy faces during the process.