The Wall is Up!

Wow look at the hot guy with the jack hammer.

JD had a great time Saturday busting out the fireplace downstairs and drilling a hole in the cement floor for a new drain with that manly machine. The boys were equally thrilled to watch Daddy. Come to find out we woke up some of the neighbors that morning. Who knew a jack hammer could be so loud? Dawson said his primary teacher told him he fell out of bed when he heard it (funny guy)! It was almost 9am - what is anyone doing in bed at that hour anyway!

The boys helped haul bricks to the truck. But got bored or distracted or tired after awhile and then went back and finished later. It was a lot of bricks.

This is what the fireplace looks like now! Yippee!
JD's awesome cousin Geoff, who happens to be a plumber, came over all day Saturday and fixed the plumbing in the bathroom. We really appreciated him doing that and he even gave us the family discount. He was great. I was upstairs and I could hear Dawson asking him a bunch of questions and I could hear Geoff explaining to him what he was doing and what things were called. The boys are learning a lot from this construction business.

And finally here is the new WALL. Doesn't it look great? From this angle you can see the boys' new room on the right and the family room will be on the left.

Our neighbor Ceasar is helping JD with this part of the construction. He is great too. We really appreciate him. I love the wall. JD hopes to be sheetrocking this Saturday - it is all happening really fast.

BYU and Halloween

Halloween came at us quick. Even though we had been talking about it for weeks - Josh still wasn't sure what to be even the day before. But we found a King Peter costume from Narnia and he really liked that. Here he is at the school parade.

Dawson wanted to be Darth Vadar but settled on being a scary skeleton. His mask was pretty freaky.

And here goes the picture I didn't get of Tanner as the Red Power Ranger. The boys had an awesome time trick or treating. We have soooo much candy! And poor Marissa got a really high fever the day before Halloween and was pretty much miserable so we didn't even dress her up this year. She is finally feeling better - thank goodness.
Here is what Marissa would do whenever she saw Dawson in his scary suit! It was so funny!


It was fate as JD puts it. He was offered 2 tickets from 2 different people for the BYU/UNLV game a week ago. 4 free tickets - he couldn't resist. I didn't want to be left behind so we bought one ticket for me and we all got to watch BYU win. Turns out it was probably the best game to go to in terms of weather. It was a beautiful day, not too cold and not too hot. Perfect! And BYU did win even though we were worried for a bit! Here are a couple of pictures of the day. Marissa even fell asleep for 35 minutes in the middle of the game - amazing.

What is going on here?

It all started on conference weekend. As the family was sitting downstairs watching conference, JD was inspired to totally gut the basement! And things have taken off just as fast. My basement is trashed right now but JD is so excited about what he is doing he promises it won't take too long!


JD is loving this demolition stuff! He is having a great time tearing off all that stupid paneling and ripping off sheetrock!



We are changing things up a bit down there. The whole point of all this is to move Josh and Dawson down to their own room. So we are putting a wall in the middle. One side will be a bedroom the other will be the family room.

We are also changing the bathroom. The door and shower are changing places. It will be so nice when it gets done. But I'm not quite seeing the end in sight any time soon but JD does!

Viva Las Vegas

Auntie Alissa is home from her mission. She served in the Oakland California Temple Square Mission! (Her mission was where I grew up. She even had a zone conference in one of the Pleasanton buildings- I'm so jealous -I miss it a lot!) We are so glad she is home! Lissy met Rissy for the first time!

What is that? Some kind of Tanner fish monster? He had a great time swimming in the hot tub!

Yes Josh and Dawson did go off the slide into the freezing pool! They would go down the slide then swim as fast as they could to get to the warm hot tub. They loved it!

We don't usual venture to the strip because it is always a total mess to drive down there but we did this time. We wanted to go to the M&M world. We made it there with JD grumbling about traffic and me grumbling about how much I hate Las Vegas because of all the filth everywhere. "Boys look at me, boys look over here, boys let's just close our eyes for a while!"

We met Red the M&M who lost his M in Las Vegas. (It's a 10min 3D movie they show there). Tanner was pretty freaked out to see that walking M&M (personally I think he was faking his fear just so he could scream like a girl in the store). It was pretty funny though! Marissa didn't mind Red at all!

This was on our last night there. The boys zonked out in like 5 minutes! And if you know my kids, especially Josh, that is totally unprecedented. Here they are on grandma and grandpa's bed!

I Love Love Love Fall!

Tanner, Marissa and I ventured out today! I said to Tanner at lunchtime - let's go on a hike. So we ate and left.

The fall leaves were awesome and the brisk cool air was wonderful!

We went to the Bridal Veil Falls trail. I highly recommend this simple but beautiful walk!

Making a quick pile of leaves!

Loving the leaves all over the ground!

Best of buds - Tanner and Rissy!

The Best Birthday Present a girl could ask for!

So yesterday was my birthday and it was great. Heather came and visited me and brought me tickets to the BYU Spectacular, I talked to my good friend Natalie from Missouri for 45 minutes, my mom, dad, my sisters and JDs sisters all called and two of JD's classes sang Happy Birthday to me over the phone. The phone was busy yesterday but it was nice. Tanner had preschool so Marissa and I hung out at home. When I went to pick Tanner up his teacher came over to me and said how much she loves my son. What a great helper he is and what a good boy he is. Josh and Dawson had early out for parent teacher conferences so we headed over there with the whole bunch of us. We saw Dawson's teacher first and she had nothing but great things to say about him. He is doing great in school, he is respectful, he is kind and an all around great kid. Then we saw Josh's teacher and again nothing but wonderful things. Doing great in school, works well with anyone, kind. My heart was full. We usually hear good things at parent teacher conferences but yesterday it just really boosted me up. I am so thankful for such wonderful, awesome boys. So as we were leaving the school I told JD that I had just gotten the best birthday present. At home things aren't always ideal - I definitely don't have perfect kids but it was just nice to hear that at school they are so well behaved and respectful!

I also got exactly what I wanted from JD and the kids. A pink IPOD nano. It is the brand new one that just came out. It is sweet and I am having fun with it. This picture is not only funny looking of me but check out Dawson taking in a big breath and Tanner blowing from across the table with me - funny boys!

Oh No

Jagged old nasty fireplace and Marissa - need I say more!



This is where the picture of her falling head first into her basket of toys goes!