our attempt to take a christmas card picture

My lovely bestest friend Kassi was kind enough to take some Holiday photos for us to use with our Christmas card this year. My goodness, what a handful, trying to get two puppies to cooperate and get a decent photo!

In this one, the tree looks so nice, but Buster's face says "I hate you Christmas!"

Of course, in the majority of the pictures, the dogs wouldn't look at Kassi.

Looking opposite directions...

We used a handful of treats to try and get their attention- but there were pigeons and ducks everywhere at the park we were at. Everyone knows pigeons and ducks are more exciting than Christmas pictures.

We decided to take pictures on the other side of the waterfall. Buster didn't want to go.

So Nathan carried him. =)

This one wouldn't be bad if Nathan didn't have to have Buster in a death grip. Dave was pretty well behaved. He's usually content to just sit a lap though.

We finally put the puppies away so Nathan and I could take some nice pictures together. Like this one. Yep, this is the one for the Christmas cards for sure....

So cute!!

Not so cute!

This is Nathan doing his sexy model pose.

At the temple grounds.

One that Kassi took as we were discussing Nathan's keys.

This is one of my favorites.

I especially love the perfectly green grass and sunshine in DECEMBER!

And then we did some repeats of a few of our favorite wedding shots.

Yes, even that one!

So, which one will we be sending out on our cards this year? I guess you will just have to wait and see!

silly pup

I am not proud to say, that since Nathan and I have been working on this house, our eating habits have gotten really crappy. For example, the other morning I had some of Nathan's left over powdered "Donettes" for breakfast. I left the bag the floor that morning, leaving behind 2 or 3 of the mini donuts, and completely forgot about them. That evening when I came home with the pups, I had to take a quick trip to the ladies room- when I came out this is what I found:

Buster got his head stuck in the Donettes bag! And while it was stuck in there, he went ahead and gobbled up the 2 or 3 that were left in there.

This is his shameful powdered sugar face. Later on, Dave got his head stuck in the same bag and ran smack into the bookcase as he tried to run away down the hall. Silly puppies! What will they do next?!

Nathan's birthday & Black Friday

Ok, still playing catch up here on my post- so forgive me, but these two events have become one post- even though they really have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

On November 19, my fabulous husband turned the big 22! I wanted to spend the whole day doing fun, awesome things together- but my worker bee husband wanted to work on our house! So instead of taking a trip to Williams for pie- we went to Rock Springs which is only like an hour away. Then we hit up:

Nothing like some good ol' bad ass bbq! It was quite delicious. Sorry, I am a slacker and don't have many pictures of his special day.

That night we had my parents, his parents, and Marvin & Sarah over for dinner (since it is Marvin's birthday too.) I must admit, it was a pretty tasty spread. We had Mexican style flank steak, mashed potatoes, salad, and spanish rice with homemade ice cream for dessert. DELICIOUS!

Speaking of delicious...

Check out my breakfast of champions on Black Friday morning! Yup, an orange monster with blueberry donut holes. It doesn't get much better than that. That is the kind of fuel you need when you are waking up at 2:30 am to pick up your sis and hit the stores! There were all kinds of awesome deals going on this year! I only wish we had more money so I could have taken advantage of more of them. For example- the only thing I reeeeeeeeally want for Christmas is the Cricut Expression and WalMart had it on sale for less than $200! Usually it's like double that- and WalMart even had it in like 4 different colors! Unfortunately, I didn't have that much to spend.

My sister however, was able to get one of her bigger ticket items. Here she is holding her golden ticket to get one the limited quantity cameras at Best Buy. Best Buy is smart- they hand out these tickets to people who get there super early, and it guarantees the ticket holder the item they desire as long as they are back before noon to claim it. That way, you don't spend your entire morning waiting in long line, in the cold, for just one item.

Jessica rocked Black Friday. I'm pretty sure saved just as much if not more than she spent and knocked out a huge chunk of her holiday shopping all in one morning. It was totally fun! Here's where we went:

-picked up the ticket at Best Buy

-went to Kohl's to get Barbies for the girls

-over to WalMart, which was chaos, so we left

-back to Best Buy to get Jessica's camera

-Paradise Bakery for breakfast

-off to Target

-quick stop at Old Navy

-potty break at Mom & Dad's

-K-Mart

-Harbor Freight Tools

-then Big Lots!

- dropped Jessica off back at home so she could decorate with her family

-THEN the Kirkland Store

-Deseret Book

-AND a quick trip to the Dollar Tree.

Later that day I also went to Sams Club and Costco- but not for shopping- just to get some membership things squared away. It was a super busy day, and I did it all on about $100 and less than two hours of sleep. By the end of the day, I was totally pooped!!

Check out all the fun things I got though:

NICE! I can't wait til next year. I'll have to start saving up ASAP.

a long over due update!

Alright, well I don't know if I should call this an update or not, because this post will not bring you fully up to date. I mentioned in my last post our laptop died so I haven't been able to blog for quite a while. To make matters worse, last week our adorable little Dave puppy decided that it might be fun to chew up mommy's very nice touch screen phone which had a lot of house pictures on it. So these pictures are kind of spastic and don't tell the whole story, but it will catch you up a little bit on what I didn't get to post.


We ripped out all of the tile! The hideous mess of a floor is finally all gone. We start with just the hallway, which is what this is a picture of. Then we went out and bought some laminate wood flooring and got the hallway finished so that the carpet guys could come in get carpet in the bedrooms. Busting out the tile and scraping up the thin-set stuff underneath seemed to take forever! It might have even been worse than scraping popcorn ceilings.

A week or so later, we finally started to bust out the rest of the tile in the living room, dining area, and kitchen. Lucky for Nathan, when I left him doing that awful job to go run some errands, a neighbor from down the street knocked on the door; he came right on in with a few tools to make the job easier. Turns out, this neighbor does flooring as his profession- so he knew all the tricks. He helped Nathan out, and by the time I got back, the entire front of the house was almost completely done!

While we were busy ripping tile out of most of the house, the two bathrooms actually got new tile. When we went to the tile store, Nathan and I both reached for this tile at the same time- so we knew it was meant to be. This picture isn't fantastic, but in case you can't tell- it's a reddish toned tan 16" tile. WAY better than the 12" whitish junk that was throughout the house before.

We put the new tile in all by ourselves. We had to rent a tile saw and everything. I had taken a bunch of pictures and this was going to be its own glorious post, but alas, the tiling pics were on my now demolished cell phone. Dang it!

One weekend, Rod and Marvin came over and built some fantabulous shelving our closets. I absolutely love it! This is a picture of the shelves in the guest bedroom- our biggest closet. Later on down the line, I had the not so super fun task of painting all the shelves white. Ugh. That was a monotonous job! But I must admit that all the closets do look fantastic now!

Um...this is a picture of Nathan... I am not quite sure what he is doing because it has been so long since I took it. I think he might be putting the new handle on the toilet. We went ahead and bought new brushed nickle handles for the toilets since most everything else in the bathroom has a brushed nickle finish.

And then came painting; the job I was most excited to do at the start, that I now despise! Seriously- I was psyched to pick out paint colors and transform the inside of my new home with a roller and paint brush. That is why Kassi and I are smiling in these pictures.

These were taken on like day 3 of painting I think. Well, a few weeks later and I am still doing touch up and edging and I am sick of it! Once this house is done, I would be perfectly content to not pick up another painting implement for the next 3 to 5 years! But again, even though the job sucked- the finish product is pretty awesome. I love love love my paint colors!

Oh yeah, I had to paint these babies too- another huge pain! While I might be willing to paint some walls in 3-5 years, I never want to paint a door EVER again. We lined them all up around the walls in the front room and painted every one of them- with at least 3 coats! Blasted cold weather and smooth surfaces- making my painting life miserable. I don't think I did a very super job on them, but they look ok. I love the style too- I like it much better the traditional 6 panel look.

We got a fabulous new shower door put in- with the brushed nickle finish of course. It looks very nice. I am pleased; probably because it was installed for us and I didn't have to do anything. =p

I am not exactly sure why I took this picture either. I might have been trying to show the floor- or maybe the new vanity top, or even the awesome light fixture I picked out (which doesn't have the shades on it right now, due to the huge ball light bulb that are in it. We keep forgetting to bring the right bulbs from home.) Anyway, this is a picture of the hallway bathroom. Not quite finished, but getting there.

This is a picture of the back bedroom that will be an office/craft room when we move in. It was the one with the bugs bunny light switch plate. I am pretty sure I took this picture to show off our new carpet and the ceiling fan. Everything in the bedrooms are new now. They look really awesome. You would never know it was the same house.

And last, but not least on this home update- our fabulous new lighting fixture in the hallway! Ooooooooh! Aaaaaaaah!

This now completes the tour of my camera's memory card from the past few weeks. Please tune in next week when I can show you some finished rooms, new cabinet hardware, my wonderful wood floors, and more!!

uh-oh...

Our laptop is pretty much dead. That's why I haven't posted any blogs in a while. The house is coming along nicely, and I promise to post all the pictures of the progress as soon as we get this computer situation figured out. Until then, I am going to have to tell you all what Nathan tells me "You're just going to have to be patient!"

house update

Ok, so here's what been going on with us and the house. This past week we have taken like 4 trips to the dump. I even took a trip all by myself! We got that big pile of junk out the garage and all the little debris out of the house.

I had forgotten how stinky it was at the dump. By the end of our last trip on Saturday we were all smelly and gross. But at least now we can walk through the house and garage with tripping over a bunch of stuff. It's still a bit dusty, but it's coming along nicely.

We have made about half a dozen trips to Home Depot. I'm noy sick of it yet- it's still shopping. And it's shopping for stuff that is going to make my house awesome.

There was one thing that happened this week that I didn't get any pictures of, but I have to blog about anyway. I was cleaning up around the house, while Nathan was putting up the last of the drywall around the shower. All of a sudden, Nathan dashed down the hall and out the door. "Where are you going?!" I shouted to him. "I have to turn the water off!" He had put a drywall screw through one of the pipes in the hall bathroom and water was leaking out the wall. So, we had to have the plumbers come out again. It's all fixed now though- so, no worries.

We finally got a light put up out front. We do a lot of our work at night after Nathan gets off work, so it's nice to have a porch light now. It was just a spare fixture that Nathan's dad had, but coincidentally it was the same light fixture I had picked out online for the front of the house. How convenient!

While we were demo-ing out the house, Nathan made the discovery that the bottoms and some of the framing on the vanities in the bathroom, and the cabinets under the kitchen sink were all rotted out. They were water damaged from the drains not being connected correctly. So instead of buying all new vanities, Nathan decided that he was going to re-frame them.

It was like it just came naturally to him. He had them done in no time.

While Nathan was in the garage working on the vanities, the puppies played in the back of the truck. They had been in the backyard all day though...

...and they were tired. So they went inside the truck to lay down and relax for a little while. Aren't the cute?!

Here are the finished cabinets. They turned out awesome, and it was a lot cheaper to fix them than to buy new ones.

So now we are moving forward! Our new windows are going to be here on Thursday. We are getting ready to order our counter tops. The drywall guys a coming this week to finish up, and then comes my favorite part...

PAINTING! We are getting our colors picked out and before you know it, we'll be having a painting party. Woo-hoo!!

dave's emergency surgery

"Hey Nathan, Tarin- what happened to your dryer vent?"

Oh....That's what happened.

My dad came over to check out the progress on the house, and while we were in the laundry room, discussing our plans- Dave decided that he wanted to come in there too-- via the dryer vent!

He got his head stuck. I went around to the back yard to try and free his head, but it wouldn't come out, so I pushed his head all they way through the hole so it was around his neck. Meanwhile, Nathan was on the other side of the wall, pushing the vent out of the wall.

That's how Dave got that nifty square collar!

It was so funny- and weird- I had to go out to the car and get the camera!


Of course, we can't have a puppy running around with a dryer vent around his neck- so we did an emergency surgery to have it removed.


Luckily, my dad was there to hold Dave- while I took pictures to document the event.



It only took a few snips with the bolt cutter...

...and Nathan was able to snap it apart.

Free at last!!

The poor little guy's heart was racing so fast! Did he learn though? Of course not! We had to leave the dogs in the backyard while we ran some errands, and when we came home Dave was in the garage. He had climbed through the same hole.

Goodness! What will they do next?