House Progress

We've been putting in some late nights and long Saturdays on the house recently trying to get it painted. Here's a few shots of the paint job on the inside. First the kitchen/dining area:

This is the boys' room.

This is the Master Bedroom.

Not much has happened on the outside for awhile but this past week we got a driveway, steps, and a sidewalk. This coming week there should be a flury of work on the outside with the stucco and siding guys working while the framing crew frames the deck.


Love,
Brikki

Cole's 1st Birthday

Our little Cole is one year old. This meant two things for the little guy: a haircut and a party. Before the haircut we got this shot of him punked out in the tub.

For his birthday we had a Hawaiian luau party. Dad wouldn't let us dig a hole in the backyard to burry a pig, so we settled for shish kabobs on the grill. Nikki made an awesome sand castle cake. Hayden and I were the only guys secure enough in our manlihood to wear the grass skirts.

Love,

Brikki

Baby Animal Days

The American West Heritage center out in Wellsville has a Baby Animal Days in the spring with a bunch of activities and interactive displays for kids. Crystal and Tayla were in town so Mom took Nikki, Crystal and the kids out to the festivities. Hayden's favorite part was the baby turtles and he still remembers the name of the pony he rode: TinkerBell. You can see from the pictures that Hayden wanted to wear the tiger mask and the bike helmet, which I think would've looked awesome, but it didn't work out.

Love

Brikki

House Progress

We've been trying to take pictures of our house as it is being built. Right now we have all the rough plumbing, heating and air, and electrical done and waiting for the last few windows and doors to be delivered so they can be installed. It would be nice to have windows and doors soon so I don't have to shovel snow out of our kitchen anymore.

Love,

Brikki

Hayden's Birthday

Hayden had his 4th birthday a few weeks ago. We celebrated by going to eat pizza at Firehouse Pizza, which Hayden calls the "Hothouse". Here are some pictures of that.

Hayden also invited four of his friends over for a Pirate Birthday party. They decorated some treasure chests, played X marks the spot, had a treasure hunt and ate cake and ice cream. Here are some pictures of the Pirate Party.

Here are the boys showing off their pirate tatoos.

Love,

Brikki

Christmas Report

We haven't posted anything since before Christmas so there is plenty to cover here. We had a good holiday...got to see a lot of family. Nate, Crystal, and Tayla were here so that was fun. The day after Christmas we made a trip to Phoenix to see Nikki's family there. While we were in Phoenix we went to see the lights at night at the Mesa temple. Hayden tried to get a little too close to the reflection pool and accidentally jumped into knee-deep water. That caught him by surprise. We loved eating the oranges and grapefruit from Grandma B's backyard. The ride home was long, so long that when Cole offered to drive I had to take him up on it. I was too nervous to sleep though because he wouldn't keep his eyes on the road as you can see in the picture.

I've also got a picture here of Cole stretching...just getting the ham-strings loosened up for the day's activities.

We've had a few choice sound bytes from Hayden that are worthy of recording. The other day Nikki was combing Hayden's hair and he was arguing that he wanted it left messy. He said, "Mom, why can't you just leave me the way Heavenly Father made me?"

Here is a shot of Hayden ice skating for the first time.

Love,
Brikki

Christmas Shopping

The last few weeks Christmas shopping has been a frequent activity. Nikki and I even got up the day after Thanksgiving and battled fellow shoppers for the door-buster items. I think they should have a yearly reality-TV special covering Wal-Marts and Best-Buys around the country. It really is insane and everybody should see it at least once. Most people don't feel like getting up early on a day off and going out in the bitter cold (in our case) so that's why a TV special is in order. I mean that is what most reality TV is about, right? showing people in their worst form. For some reason, Black Friday brings out this competitive survival instinct. Yeah, everybody acts like your buddy when your standing in line. Some people are even forming alliances. "If you pick me up a GPS navigator I'll grab you a portable DVD player." But then the store opens and all respect and courtesy for other people is left at the door. At that point you are on your own...it's every man for himself. One year Nikki and I saw a lady with a walker go up to the front of the line just before the doors opened. It didn't bother the hundred people standing in line until the doors opened and she ditched the walker and ran for the sock bin. Surely, if that was caught on tape it would draw good TV ratings.

This week Nikki and Hayden were shopping for a gift for Grandpa. Nothing says "Merry Christmas Grandpa!" like some martial arts weapons. They went to the store to buy him a pair of Samurai swords. To Hayden's disappointment, all the swords were gone, but he didn't let it discourage him for long. "I guess we'll just have to get him a Karate suit." Grandpa in a Karate suit? Now that would get great TV ratings.

Love,
Brikki