Do you decorate a basement?

We have a great TV/playroom in our basement. It has always just been a hodge-podge of miss matched furniture, hand me downs, and any toys that won't fit in the bedrooms upstairs. I finally decided to try to make it somewhat cohesive without buying new furniture (we love the hand me down couch from my parents and the chair from Nora & James). About 6 months ago I painted, here are some pillows I made for the green couch (in hopes I might have a red couch someday), and I also put up some pictures in the play area on the back wall. I think it will add a little something, although I think the best addition was the heater we bought for this winter. Now instead of freezing our toes off the basement is nice and warm and cozy which might be more important than the fabric I picked out for the pillows.

Happy Easter!

For Easter we all took our Easter basket's and headed to the annual Noel family Easter egg hunt. Every year Dave's parents host a hunt for the little ones. They have a really big yard and they hide everything from eggs to toys and this year many books were to be found. Grandma Noel is great about finding yummy snacks for the kids to find and the kids love the loot they get to take home. Ian and Miles both came home with a basket full of granola bars, peanuts, crackers with cheese, little boxes of cereal (these are a favorite), dyed eggs, and a whole bunch of Curious George books. Miles just sat in the grass and watched everyone run around. Max was sweet enough to find him a few things and daddy put the doggie's football in his basket thinking it would be a great toy for him-we found out it was the dog's after Miles had chewed on it and covered it in his own slobber. It was a fun time and we can't wait for the next one!

A day of green, a little rain, and a good nights rest

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone. Ian informed me he needed a new shirt so he wouldn't be pinched at pre-school. So here he is the day after St. Patrick's (due to an accident in the bathroom with the shirt).
More cute shots in green. (Maybe I need to have Ian practice his picture face-he looks like Miles does when he is filling his pants.)
We had a few rainy days this week. Here are some fun activities we thought up to fill the time.

Ian made a line of all of his cars. Wow, do we have a lot of cars!

The line continued under the piano bench and clear into our kitchen.

In the afternoon we made a cake-mmmm..... Miles took a few licks of the spatula. What color is this kid's hair? Red? Blond? Brown? I think it changes every day. I'm secretly hoping it matches mine, but I think that is a bit of a stretch. Most of the time it looks like my sister Mindy's.

Hey Mom-Look I can feed myself! He grabbed the popsicle from me and I was just waiting for him to drop it, mush it, rub it in his hair, but no he is a big boy he can feed himself! He even looks proud-Good job Miles!

Funny face! Yes, that is a black eye. Miles has been incredibly clumsy lately-head bonks and falling over happen hourly.

Thanks for all the sympathy on the last post. I think it was cathartic-I have slept pretty well (for a mom) the last few nights. I guess I'll just have to start working out all my issues online. :)

Ramblings of an Insomniac

Okay-so I don't sleep at night. I sleep until about 2 or 3 and at about 5-6 I feel that melatonin release from my brain and finally make my body relax and the mental chatter go away so I can get another hour of rest before the kids get up. No this is not fun-I get headaches mid afternoon and long for a nap every day. I'm trying to get rid of the nap so I can make it through the night. I've also tried a little Benedryl, Unisom, Melatonin, log hot baths, not eating after 7, earplugs, fan in the room-any other ideas? I think regular trips to the gym would help. Anyway, for those of you that sleep at night I thought I might tell you what you are missing out on-here is what I have learned from late/middle of the night TV.

*Some greasy haired guy is convinced that we are all carrying around about 25 pounds of extra weight in our bowels. Apparently the daily dose of Raisin Bran is not enough and we all need to buy this stuff to "clean us all out." Well if he could guarantee the 25 pound weight loss I might jump aboard.

*Mineral make-up is the new thing. Laura Ingalls - oh wait that was Melissa Gilbert uses it and she has great skin. It doesn't clog your pores and it's suppose to make you glow.

*The Bullet is not only a blender, but a food processor as well. You can make nachos, alfredo sauce, quesadillas, muffins, and smoothies all in this little tiny bullet shaped blender. The nachos always look really good at 3 AM.

*There are all kinds of ways out there to lose weight and get fit. There are hip hop dance videos, this new ballet workout that even comes with a dance bar, but the best is this one where you supposedly don't have to do anything but breathe a certain way and contract your muscles-I can't remember the name of it, but it looked a lot easier the the last weight lifting class I went to.

*Late night PBS is the best. Last night I hit the jackpot. There was a documentary on about the Hairstyling Olympics, a documentary about ferret lovers (very "Best in Show" without the sarcasm), and a documentary on the Santa Clara Synchronized Swimmers.

Here's a link if you want to learn more www.ket.org/pressroom/2007/25/WTPE.html I guess this documentary line up was not just for the middle of the night.

So if you can't sleep go straight for PBS. Between the clogged pores, weight to loose, bowels that are blocked and blenders that are too slow the infomercials will only contribute to night time mental chatter.

A little curiousity and play-

Here are some cute shots I've got of the kids recently. Miles loves to plaster his face to the sliding glass door and try to look outside. He is so tiny I'm pretty sure all he can see is the deck and the legs of the grill, but he keeps checking things out. On Friday we ventured out to Skye Park. It was pretty cold and we only stayed for a little while. The kids didn't seem to mind the cold even though I was ready to leave after 5 minutes. Ian managed to play on everything and run a few laps around the basketball court. Miles was pretty oblivious to the toys, but he thought running away from me was the most fun he had had all day. I hope my kids will always be curious and love to play.

Living the Glamorous Life

This past Wednesday I ditched the kids for a couple of hours and headed to the slopes for a taste of the glamours life. My friend Nora's sister Donna works at Deer Valley and thanks to her we were able to ski for free (otherwise Deer Valley might not have been an option). I was able to find a generous neighbor to watch my kids on short notice and with rental skis in the back of the Volvo I was off to the slopes. I am a once a year skier and usually we go to Beaver Mountain in Cache Valley. Beaver is great-small resort, but with lots of variety-small lodge with picnic tables to eat at-no mid mountain eateries-and lifts that pinch your calves and knock you on your butt if you aren't careful. When people ski Beaver they ski their guts out-it's down the hill as fast (not as gracefully) as you can-get as many runs in as you can so at 4:00 you can't even walk to the car. When Nora and I took the first lift up at Deer Valley I thought I was in a skier's Disneyland-there were lifts everywhere, there where at least 3 lifties at each lift, each lift was roped of nicely for lines to form (there were no lines), people were swishing gently and gracefully down the hill in coats that matched their pants, and Nora even pointed out the real fur around 6 people's hoods. We skied all morning-Donna showed us around and treated us to the best lemon bars I have ever tasted. It was such a fun day and a much needed break. Thanks Donna and Nora.

**Oh, I forgot-every lift was a high speed detachable quad or triple, and there were tissues at each lift!

Catching up

I haven't posted for awhile-so here is what we have been up to in February.

This is the day after the huge snow storm. Dave had to get up twice and shovel in the middle of the night and I shoveled once the next day. It made me feel like I was living in Jackson again. Can I just say I love the all wheel drive Volvo that Dave got me last year! I have not fears of getting stuck. Here are Ian and Ben playing in the big piles of snow by the driveway. Heaving the snow up and over the huge piles that were already there was the hard part.

Some of our time in February was spent eating snow. Mmmmm...according to Ian-although he did tell me to stay away from anything that wasn't white.

We made snow angels in the front yard with Ben. He was such a pro at making the perfect angel-of course he is an angel so nothing less would be expected! Thanks for the fun time Ben!

Valentine's Day

Who knew-or who had forgotten how much fun it is to make a Valentine's Day box. Ian's was of course not pink, but green and turtle covered.

Ninja Ian proud of his completed project. Did all you parents out there know that Valentine's Day is now almost the equivalent of Halloween! Ian came home with a box full of treats-enough to rival his Halloween collection.

Here is Mr. Happy in the tub. He has been his usual pleasant, happy going self lately. He did get pink eye a few weeks ago-poor kid-he was Mr. Grouchy for awhile.

Peek-a-Boo!

Dave also took some time of work this past week. He has a whole bunch of vacation time saved up, but our budget doesn't allow us to go somewhere exotic every time he takes time off -so we just hunkered down at the house and had fun spending time with daddy. Here is Ian playing "Spiderman & Dr. Oc" with Dave. Here Dr. Oc (Dave) is tying up Spiderman(Ian of course) with his own web!

Ian getting a free ride around the house.

We were able to go a few places over Dave's vacation. On Saturday my cousin Lindsey was married in the Manti Temple. We met my parents in Spanish Fork at my Grandpa Lee's and rode down to Manti with them. I had never been to Manti before and it was a fun trip. The temple was beautiful and after they had their wedding luncheon at the Ephraim Social Hall. A whole day without the kids! Thanks Uncle Mike and Aunt Kate for babysitting.

On President's Day we went skiing at Little Beaver up Logan Canyon. I love skiing at Beaver because I don't feel like skiing wanna-be. There are a lot of great intermediate runs and I can even ski some of the black runs (but only at Beaver) so I can feel like a hot shot on the slopes for at least one day. It was the perfect ski day-for me anyway. Sunny skies and lots of groomed runs. I really need to learn to ski powder, but when you only go once a year that doesn't happen. After about 3 runs my legs were rubber, but we skied right up until closing time.